According to Bill James, Adrian Beltre is going to have 17 home runs, 68 RBIs. Is that a satisfactory season?

That probably wouldn’t be, but you are probably reading from the Bill James Handbook, which he doesn’t have anything to do with. They just slap his name on it.

Really?

Those projections are not his actual projections. He likes to read them to see what they are when they come out. We actually have — Bill is involved and [we] have others on staff who do more detailed projections that mean something but don’t mean everything to us.

There you go — according to Epstein, Bill James doesn’t even make projections in his own damn handbook! He saves the good stuff for the Red Sox and leaves his staff to appease the public. That makes sense because the Red Sox would be losing their edge if James shared his work with his competition but the whole thing does seem a little backwards to me. Thanks to LBS contributor Alan for passing along the insightful Epstein interview. By the way, I have a better projection for the Bill James crew: what are the odds Adrian Beltre wears a cup this season?

First, ESPN should have addressed the wardrobe of Hannah Storm a long time ago (her pictured outfit is from last year). Short skirts and long boots have no place on TV where a professional appearance is emphasized. All the male anchors wear suits and ties; the females should be similarly dressed (Erin Andrews should take note). Secondly, ESPN is sending the wrong message to its employees by discouraging them from commenting on their coworkers. They’re so large as an entity that they should be challenging each other. While this should be limited to discussing opinions and reports for the most part, I don’t see where Kornheiser was wrong to discuss Storm’s poor choice of dress considering it’s a reflection on his company.

There should have been two outcomes of Kornheiser’s comments and a suspension is not one of them. Tony should have apologized to Hannah for invoking her age (whether Storm is young or old has nothing to do with the inappropriateness of her outfit). Tony has already done that. Next, ESPN should have realized they need to tell Storm to dress more professionally. I just want TK back on PTI!

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Even though I’m not a big Brad Childress fan and think he’s proven himself to be deceitful on numerous occasions, I loved what he did to FOX prior to the NFC Championship game. After Saints coach Sean Payton answered a question from Pam Oliver, things got tossed over to Chris Myers who asked Brad Childress a few basic questions. Childress was standoffish the first question or two but played it straight. The last question asked by Myers had to do with Minnesota’s offensive game plan on the opening drive. Childress said the offensive play calling would be balanced in terms of rushing and passing.

Next thing you knew the game had started and the Vikings threw it four times to open up the game. Troy Aikman and Joe Buck were commenting throughout the opening drive that the team was doing the exact opposite of what Childress said they would, even going so far as to call Childress is a liar. I’m quite pleased that Childress didn’t divulge the team’s true intentions to Myers. Yeah — that’s exactly what a coach wants to do prior to a huge game with only 40 million people watching — let them all know what they planned to do. I hope FOX realizes that Childress made jerks out of them, not the other way around. Maybe they get the clue that asking a coach for his plan on camera right before a game starts is completely inappropriate and invasive. Give me a break.

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As someone who broadcasts on the radio, I am quite familiar with slip-ups and screw-ups. I make them all the time and I know exactly what it’s like to jumble words. Even knowing that, I still don’t understand how such a polished sportscaster like Mike Greenberg made that mistake unless he had that derogatory term in his head to begin with. I think it’s wrong that ESPN hasn’t done more to address this “slipup.” If one doesn’t understand the significance of this mistake, maybe you should swap the “M” in Mike’s name for a “K” and then let me know how you feel. I guess Greenberg has built up so much credibility as a respectful, considerate guy that people give him the benefit of the doubt. I normally would but I can’t because I think this is too inexplicable of a mistake to overlook.

I don’t have the exact quote so I’m paraphrasing, but Billick reminded fans that there’s a difference between thinking a guy’s a great player who’s a winner that everyone wants on his team, and having enough confidence in the player to draft him in the first round and build around him. Billick reminded fans that if you want Tebow, you’ll have to draft him in the first round, and if he doesn’t work out, then you wind up calling bowl games on TV the next year. Billick was clearly speaking about his experience with the Ravens, implying that he got fired because Kyle Boller was a bust with the Ravens.

The Ravens took Boller in the first round, gave him the starting job, and he proceeded to play four mediocre seasons for Baltimore under Billick, throwing 36 touchdowns and 34 interceptions, never averaging more than 200 yards passing a game in a season. The Ravens were 30-34 under Billick with Boller as the team’s leading passer and 13-3 in their one season with McNair as the starter. The point? Bad quarterbacks get you fired in the NFL. Like Billick cautioned, you better understand that if you draft Tim Tebow to play quarterback and he doesn’t work out, you’ll likely end up fired. All those fans who wanted you to draft Tebow will forget what they said once Tebow starts playing poorly — that’s how it always works. I’m not condemning Tebow at the next level, just passing on some interesting commentary from the Sugar Bowl.

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Did FOX come back on air prior to the afternoon games for Terry to eat his words? Hope so because he and many other media members have doubted the legitimacy of the Bengals thus far. After this win, there’s no doubting how stout that defense is. Much like Carson Palmer said after the game, they’re not a Super Bowl team yet, but this is a good step. Heck, as crappy as the Bengals have been the past 20 years, winning the division is the Super Bowl.

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Putting aside that the league is so image conscious that Roger Goodell enforces strict penalties for players who get into trouble with the law, this is just a stupid thing to say all the way around. I’m guessing that the last thing Chris Johnson, who to the best of my knowledge has never had any legal issues, wanted was to have the announcers compare his football run to that of someone escaping the police. Gus owes Chris an apology and should know better than that. Furthermore, the argument that it’s OK because it’s a black announcer saying it about another black person is ludicrous; such an analogy should never be invoked if it has no factual basis, which in Chris’ case, it doesn’t. If that was meant to be funny, I don’t see the humor in it.

Video courtesy of Awful Announcing, of course

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The Phillies were up 3-0 early and cruising until the controversy in the 4th. After a Johnny Damon flyout and a walk to Teixeira, A-Rod sliced a ball down the right field line, just inside the foul pole. In a Jeffrey Maier moment, the ball hit a FOX TV camera that was poking out over the fence (you can see it in the image above). The umpires later ruled the ball was on its way out so they awarded Alex Rodriguez with a two-run home run to make it 3-2 Phillies. The TV camera and the subsequent ruling seemed to have cost the Phillies a run. Even if the ball were heading out, there’s no reason why a camera should be sticking out over the fence onto the field. Sure it’s a million-to-one shot, but it happened, and FOX looks bad because of it. Maybe they realize now that it’s not about how many cameras you have (and at the least, to make sure they’re not interfering with the play), but about not screwing up the action. That home run by A-Rod snapped his slump and sparked the Yankees offense. They can thank FOX and the umpires for it.

UPDATE: The hit was ruled a home run because the ground rules had been agreed upon prior to the game and they said if a ball hit a camera it would be a homer.

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The Game 2 start time for the Dodgers/Phillies on Friday (as pointed out by my buddy Luis) is 1:07pm PT. I realize that the recession has a higher portion of the state unemployed but come on! How can you start a freaking NLCS game during lunch time when most Dodger fans are at work? Are you serious? How about this for a change — have both games start at 7:07pm local time meaning the Angels/Yankees begins at 7pm ET and the Dodgers/Phillies begins at 10pm ET. The only people really getting hurt are Phillies fans since they have to stay up late to watch the game but it’s a Friday night. This still would work out well for TBS and FOX because they would get more of the NY and LA markets in prime time.

The exact same scenario happens on Monday hurting Angel fans on the West Coast that want to watch the game. They’ll likely be working during the 4:13pm ET start time. Someone please explain to me the logic in starting a League Championship Series game at 1pm for the local fans? Honestly, who decides these things?

Last year we had nothing but Frank TV spots jammed down our throats to the point where it was impossible not to hate the guy. It’s nothing personal against Caliendo because he’s a talented, humorous comedian, but the bosses at TBS need to understand that enough’s enough — feeling like one of those whack-a-moles at the arcade sucks. Last year they ruined Frank Caliendo for me and now they’re doing the same thing by wearing out George Lopez.

It’s only been two days of the playoffs and I’m already sick of the guy. How many times are the people going to crusade to his house demanding he start his show? And if you decide you’re going to hammer home these promos, could you at least have the decency to film a variety of them so we get to feel like we’re watching a different one each time? Also, a little advice for the TBS execs: if you’re going to hype up the show then you have to begin airing the show during the baseball playoffs while you have the audience. What’s the point of pumping us up constantly only to wait until November when your audience is watching the World Series on FOX, and being reminded to watch House instead (is that a FOX show?)? I used to think George Lopez was El Mas Chingon. Not anymore. Too bad.

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