Kansas

Last year, I was able to begin the college basketball season with my preseason top 25 (national title pick - Carolina) and my player of the year pick (Blake Griffin).  This year, all I can do is this:

I'll take Kansas.  Rock Chalk Whatnot. 

The other thing to report is a new feature here at the Blog of Revelation - a Sunday (I think, I've had this idea all of 2 hours) look at my Top 10 of Everything (I'm workshopping a title.  Aggregate something.  Deca something.  Dunno.  ).  The premise is a weekly countdown of the ten best things of the week.  Some sports, some politics, some pop culture, some foods I ate.  There aren't  really parameters; I like making lists, I like obsessively recording my behavior; I like to compare incomparable things; I like putting artificial structures on all areas of my life.  I've already started compiling contenders from the past two days (I think the rating period will be Sun-Sat, that allows me to write it on Sun) and that's also fun to do. 

Maybe it'll be worth reading, maybe not.  That's not a "under promise, over deliver" tactic, that's a "I don't have the slightest idea what it will wind up being" thought. 

But I'm looking forward to doing it.  Gotta do something now that the college picks have nosedived.  Nosedove?  Is it nosedove?

Match of the Decade: The 50 Best Professional Wrestling Matches of the 1st Decade of the Millennium

This isn't in order (I mean it is, it's in chronological order, which is, contrary to popular opinion, an order) but not in qualitative order, which is implied by it being an end of decade list.

It is the end of the decade, incidentally.

Stephen Jay Gould wrote about this ten years ago, although not in the context of professional wrestling, curiously enough, that the cultural context in which we record time is more important than the actual math.  Meaning - the decade started in 2000 and ends this year; our ability to discuss time (for example, if I talk about the Sixties, that discussion includes 1960 and doesn't include 1970) supercedes the year zero never existing.  For whatever reason, a debate existed ten years ago regarding when it was we should celebrate the turn of the millennium.  I was foresquarely on the 2000 side and for that reason.  The talking about time is more important than the actual recording thereof.

Anyway, I haven't ranked these 19 matches (beyond separating them from the rest of the matches of the decade) I have no good reason for that, other than time doesn't permit the rewatch.  This is because, as I've often said, regardless of how we talk about time, try to control it, try to contextualize it (this reminds me, I'm meaning to write about a footnote from Chuck Klosterman's book about time travel) time has a mathematical existence that is beyond our ability to harness. How we think about a thing doesn't fundamentally alter what it is. It's silly to think otherwise.

See what I did there?  I go both ways!

Wait.

Anyway - in chronological order (which is very real, no matter what I say) are the 19 best wrestling matches of the decade (which ends in 2 months, no matter what you say). Following this are the 31 remaining to fill out the top 50 (subject to change, I have six months left of 2009 to watch)

2000
Kenta Kobashi v. Jun Akiyama (December - NOAH)

2001
Mitsuharu Misawa v. Jun Akiyama (July - NOAH)

2002
Bryan Danielson v. Low Ki (March - ROH Round Robin Challenge)

2003
Chris Benoit  v. Kurt Angle (Jan - WWF Royal Rumble)
Mitsuharu Misawa v. Kenta Kobashi (March - NOAH)
Kenta/Naomichi Marufuji v. Jushin Liger/Takehiro Murahama (July - NOAH)
Kenta Kobashi v. Yuji Nagata (Sept - NOAH)

2004
Kenta Kobashi v. Jun Akiyama (July - NOAH)
Kenta Kobashi v. Akira Taue (Sept - NOAH)
CIMA v. Susumu Yokosuka (Sept - Dragon's Gate)

2005
Kenta Kobashi v. Kensuke Sasaki (July - NOAH)

2006
Kenta v. Bryan Danielson (Sept - ROH Glory By Honor V)

2007
Kotaro Suzuki/Ricky Marvin v. Taiji Ishimori/Rocky Romero (Feb - NOAH)
Briscoes v. Roderick Strong/PAC (May - PWG)
Bryan Danielson v. Nigel McGuinness (Sept - ROH Driven)
Taka Michinoku/Dick Togo v. Kota Ibushi/Madoka (Dec - KDojo)

2008
Masato Tanaka/Shinjiro Otani v. Yuji Nagata/Manabu Nakanishi (May - Zero 1)

2009
Kenta v. Katsuhiko Nakajima (Feb - NOAH)
Kenta v. Jun Akiyama (May - NOAH)

That's the top 19; the 19 best matches of the decade. Here are the 31 remaining to round out the top 50(without months or full names, that time thing again)

2000
Kobashi v. Takayama (NOAH)

2001
Bryan Danielson v. Low Ki (ECWA)
Kobashi v. Akiyama (NOAH)

2002
Kobashi/Shiga v. Akiyama/Saito (NOAH)

2003

CM Punk v. Chris Hero (IWA-MS)
Kenta/Marufuji v. Kanemaru/Hashii (NOAH)
Kenta/Kotaro v. Ibushi/Mikami (NOAH)
Yuji v. Nakanishi (New Japan)

2004
Kenta/Marufuji v. Misawa/Ogawa (NOAH)
Kobashi v. Takayama (NOAH)

2005

AJ Styles v. Samoa Joe v. Chris Daniels (TNA)
Low Ki v. Kenta (ROH)
Taka v. Kaz Hayashi (All Japan)

2006
Briscoes v. Aries/Strong (ROH)
Kenta v. Marufuji (NOAH)
Kenta v. Marufuji (NOAH)

2007
Marufuji/Briscoes v. Marvin/Sydal/Aoki (ROH)
Briscoes v. Generico/Steen (ROH)
Yuji v. Tanahashi (NJ)
Marvin/Kotaro v. Iwasa/Arai (NOAH)
Kenta/Ishimori v. Marufuji/Ibushi (NOAH)
Yoshino/Doi v. Yokosuka/Saito (DGate)


2008
Aries v. Nigel (ROH)
CIMA/Dragon Kid/Saito v. Yoshino/Doi/Horiguchi (ROH)
Marufuji/Nakajima v. Kenta/Ibushi (ROH)
Kenta/Ishimori v. Kotaro/Kanemaru (NOAH)

2009
Kotaro v. Nakajima (NOAH)
Kenta/Go v. Nakajima/Kensuke (NOAH)
Davey Richards v. Shingo (DGUSA)
AJ v. Joe v. Daniels (TNA)
Yuko Miyamoto v. Masashi Takeda (Big Japan)

The Weekly Ten - Week 10 College Football Picks

Overall: 57-32-1
Locks: 8-1

Iowa -16 Northwestern (loss)
Pitt -20.5 Syracuse (win)
Rice v. SMU under 57 (loss)
FIU v. Mid Tenn St. under 54 (loss)
Houston -1.5 Tulsa (loss)
Houston v. Tulsa under 67.5 (loss)
Minnesota -7 Illinois (loss)
Air Force -16.5 Army (win)
Alabama -7 LSU (win)
Lock: San Jose St. +14 Nevada (loss)

3-7.  Wow.
60-39-1
Locks 8-2

For those of you who invested with me over the course of the season, you're welcome.  You're free to go.  Everything ends.

I Pick Every NFL Game - Week 9

57-58-1

My long, slow march to losing the vig continues. 

Jags -6.5 Chiefs (argh - look, I would have told you a week ago that Jags +3 Titans was my favorite NFL line of the year, and that went against me by 4 scores, so laying this much wood seems like error, but there you go) (loss)
Ravens -3 Bengals (loss)
Indy -9 Tex (loss)
Redskins +10 Falcons (loss)
GBay -10 TB (loss)
Arizona +3 Bears (win)
NE -10 Miami (push)
Saints -13.5 Panthers (loss)
Seattle -10 Lions (I'm leaning toward taking Seattle in the two suicide pools I'm in; yes, I'm aware.)(win)
Niners -4 Tennessee (loss)
San Diego +4.5 NYG (win)
Philly -3 Dallas (loss)
Denver +3 Pittsburgh (this is the line I like this week; do with that what you will) (loss - that's what you should have done with it)

3-9-1
60-67-2

AFraud - The Choking Dog/Why Boo Brett?

Alex Rodriguez you may have read somewhere is the 27th greatest regular season performer in the history of major league baseball.

Probably, you've also spent years reading about how he suffered from some fatal spasm of self doubt during pressure situations that made him not as valuable a post season performer as the guy who plays next to him (the guy that carves the gravestones was more right than not - and Larry did kill that swan).

After last night, here is Alex Rodriguez's career postseason batting line: .295/.402/.560. 

Derek Jeter's is .311/.383/.479. 

It's not that he unburdened himself by admitting his steroid use (because, after all, virtually no one thinks he told the entire truth).  And it's not that Kate Hudson has somehow refocused him (if Goldie's girl's ladyparts were magic, wouldn't the Black Crowes have sold a helluva lot more records?)- it's this:

Alex Rodriguez is a better postseason hitter than Derek Jeter.  Not just this second, for the totality of their careers. 

And of course, at .305/.390/.576 to .317/.388/.459 - ARod's a better regular season hitter than Derek Jeter.   

Not to mention that while ARod is still 7 runs above position with the glove for his career, despite giving back value now as a slightly below average third baseman - Jeter is 181 runs below position at shortstop, his lack of range making him an all-time bad glove, costing the Yankees games virtually every season of his career. 

(listen to the guy who carves the gravestones - he is very, very wise).

They're both going to the Hall of Fame and perfectly reasonably so - but this idea, birthed by the mainstream media and embedded in our collective sports consciousness, that Jeter is Captain Clutch while ARod (until the ninth inning last night) somehow got the yips in the big moments, just isn't borne out by the facts. 

Unrelated, save for their iconographic status, the Favre booing was interesting to me yesterday.  I had an inexact, but reasonably close parallel in my own sports fandom - my quarterback was Joe Montana, and after a very public squabble with the 49ers, despite his past heroics he was pushed aside for a younger model.  I very distinctly recall my reaction when the Niners - the team of my boyhood, who remain, along with the baseball Giants, the biggest allegiances to any institution I have in my life (no school, church, country or employer is even in the same conversation) went to Kansas City in 1994 to play Joe's Chiefs. 

I rooted for Joe. 

And it wasn't that hard; Joe was my guy; he had won me 4 Super Bowls.  There would be a whole lifetime left of Niner football (unless we move to LA; I've been saying this all decade, until there is a new stadium built you really can't feel confident that team isn't going to skip town) but Joe Montana had a very specific expiration date.  And I didn't make a utilitarian calculation - I did what sports fans do and I operated from my gut (which is why you think Jeter's clutch and ARod chokes; why you think Jeter's a good fielder - it just feels that way to you - but you're wrong) I wanted Joe to win.  And I was mad at my team for sending him away.

Over the years, some of that feeling (most of it) has softened - at the time, I thought the organization was making a mistake - Steve Young ran too much, not waiting for plays to develop - and the team didn't have confidence in him and, even in his state of decline, Joe was still more likely to win us titles. 

Yeah, that was wrong.  Steve Young's the 7th greatest regular season quarterback in NFL history; and no, he wasn't Montana - but in 1994, he was the better player.  Young wasn't the bad guy; the organization wasn't the bad guy; there was no bad guy - two objects can't be in the same place at the same time; and the 49ers had two Hall of Famers at quarterback, one of them had to leave.

But 15 years later, despite that, I'm still glad Joe won that game, and still glad I was on the right side that day.

Sure, the Chiefs aren't the Vikings - had Joe gone to Dallas, perhaps to replace an injured Troy Aikman - it would have been incredibly painful; and I get that Favre's "will he or won't he" shtick may have worn some Packer faithful down (I wrote this in the summer of 2008). 

But the booing...I am unsure I get that.  I get not making my choice and instead rooting for your team over your guy.  I do.  Reasonable minds can differ.  I get feeling a little betrayed.  I get wishing he would just go away and certainly get hoping he doesn't win a Super Bowl in a uniform that isn't yours.

But I have to say, I legitimately do not get the booing.