1st and Ten: The Weekly Tendown: April 4-10 2010

Dear Internet:

This is how they get me. 

Among the matters I mentioned Last Week, in Tendown 21 (the great Russell takedown of Boston Rob; Domino's 6 fingered pizza box; the retirement of Shawn Michaels; and a terrific website on television tropes) I noted my plan not to purchase the MLB Extra Innings package this year.  This is an extreme, extreme rarity for me; I left the San Francisco Bay Area when I was 11 and, except for a few years in my 20s, I've been an ex-pat ever since.  In the fall of 1994, I began my third year of law school (law school's three years) on the first day of a class in Corporations, we were assigned campus email addresses.  I know for many the internet was a rolled out enterprise; you - yes, you - may have had Prodigy message board access prior to '94 - but for me, it was not just like one day in 1947 Dad came home with a DuMont RA 102 and I finally got to watch Kukla, Fran and Ollie - it was like I was heretofore unaware that such magical images flew through the air.  The experience of being alive transformed for me in a way I had never anticipated.

My very first search was for all matters San Francisco sports (wrestling was second, Elisabeth Shue, third) - and as the media technology advanced; my desire to live as if I was still within driving distance of Candlestick Park increased (My broadcast.com subscription is part of the reason for Mark Cuban making a billion dollars - and I'm still a member of the KNBR fan club).

What that has meant this century is the MLB Extra Innings package, for the past several years through digital cable.  I've seen more Giants games in the past decade than the rest of my life combined, and by a significant factor.  This year, however, I am planning on moving by the All-Star Break, and perhaps switching cable companies - therefore, I made a strategic decision not to purchase the package, giving up Krukow and Kuiper and the Comcast Bay Area commercials - and just utilize the range of my other technological options to follow the progress of my ballclub. 

And then this week happened.  And it's the best thing from the past 7 days.

First:  Everytime I Think I'm Out - They Pull Me Back In.

At the time of this writing, the Giants are 4-1 and have the best record in the National League.

Here's what those opium pushers at the cable company do - they offer that first week for free; just a little taste - a little taste of baseball; my Giants, on for free, everyday.  

Monday - Lincecum whips the Astros
Tuesday - Zito shuts out the Astros
Wednesday - We get 19 hits.  I would have gone under on 19 hits as our total for the whole series had I made such a prediction.
Friday - A Bottom of the 9th comeback and a 4 hour 13 inning win.  I decide to name my first born son Renteria.  If he were to hit that same homer in October, I'll make it my first born daughter. 
Saturday - Okay, this didn't go that well.  We're only going to play .800 ball this year. 

How do you quit that?  How? 

I mean, I know it's just one week - and later on today, the 10th anniversary of Pac Bell Park (Barry returns!  Bar-ry!  Bar-ry!) the rest of the sports world will be watching Tiger - me, I'll be charting Lincecum's curveballs - later on today, my guess is we lose - and then by April's end we're .500 on our way to my predicted 81-81 finish, and, as I've said before, we will never win a Series in my lifetime, and I'm just setting myself up for another season (or half a season, until I move) of devastating late inning losses that I watch at 5 in the morning on my DVR before heading off to my demoralizing work schedule.

But - I mean - come on!  Come on!  I've seen every game this year and we're 4-1 - if I stop watching the games and we start losing - WHOSE FAULT IS THAT? WHOSE?  WHOSE? 

Exactly. 

Hey, I said I didn't believe there was some sort of omnipotent monotheistic divine figure - I never said I didn't believe in the Baseball Gods - I've seen Bull Durham - you have to respect the streak.  Respect the Streak! 

So, thanks, 4-1 San Francisco Giants.  It's your fault I'm out 180 bucks and a couple hours every day between now and the All-Star Break.  Thanks.  Thanks a lot.

4-1!  Madness.  After the jump - the rest of the Tendown.

1st and Ten - The Weekly Tendown: March 28-April 3 2010

Dear Internet:

Hi.  It's my Politics-Free issue of Tendown 21 - and I'm bursting, just bursting to tell you what's First this week - like I'm taking Tendown hot out of the oven and delivering a greasy slice to your waiting fingers, Last Week,  we discussed Barthes, David Frum, the health care bill, and Russell beginning his move against Boston Rob on Survivor - a move he completed this week, in what was just a tremendously booked angle.  If you watch graps but not Survivor, it's just error, as you got a chance to see some clean, old school booking this season.  The end of that feud, with Rob getting taken out this week, is the best thing from the past seven days.

First: RIP: Boston Rob

Boston Rob is a legendary heel; he has as deep a heel resume as is possible on reality television, having done two previous shots of Survivor, and Amazing Race, and his own series where he took up professional poker - in each incarnation, he was young, punky upstart scoundrel heel.  He ran the first All-Star season back in '04, including a terrific maneuver where he doublecrossed Lex by using their "real life" friendship to request that Lex protect Amber (the heretofore innocent ingenue who wound up, as Rob's valet, winning All-Stars and then marrying Rob, in what was reality tvs best booked relationship to that date).  Rob's doublecross of Lex should be studied (and probably is) by academics who analyze the unofficial structural boundaries set up in reality competition shows.  Rob's argument was "I lied - I'm Rob, that's what I do.  It's a game." But Lex's argument was that by invoking their "outside the game" relationship - that Rob had violated an unwritten rule, sort of like bunting to break up a no-hitter.  It is a debate so clearly burned in my mind that although I have not seen the clip even one additional time since its original airing 6 years ago, I can easily recall internalizing at the time that Rob and Lex were defining the parameters of reality competition - is there a line between the show and the real world?  That Rob would then marry his partner Amber (thereby making the jury decision between them meaningless, as they were the final 2 in that initial All-Stars season; Rob was enough of a heel at that point that the speculation that he had worked his way into a marriage with Amber just for the money was not entirely a joke) would further blur the lines, perhaps destroy the line, between show and life would be an amplification of that theme.  The element of the scripted reality show, as best understood by the Hills, that most interests me is not that "it's fake", that's almost as silly a criticism as calling wrestling fake - it's that real life, in a near Truman Show way, is being scripted.  Rob and Amber weren't told to align, weren't prompted to marry - but the conditions into which they were placed, the incentives that they were given (they got married on television) moved them to places their real lives otherwise would not have gone - and then when Spencer and Heidi get married years later as part of a storyline - sure, it's scripted - there's LC leaving as Kristin arrives - it's a storyline - but it was a wedding; Spencer and Heidi are actually married - their real lives and their lives on a script have no distinction, to the point that Heidi's crazy multiple plastic surgeries can be viewed as her attempt to always be in makeup.  Human Giant did a sketch where Paul Scheer was an actor on a Star Trek-like television series; he was an alien and had to go through hours of makeup each day - so he decided to have plastic surgery to always be in costume (the joke coming when the show was then quickly canceled so he was stuck in that face trying to get additional jobs).  That's Heidi Montag; she's more plastic than person now and her show is going off the air. 

Rob and Amber then became probably the most aggressively heel team to that date in the Amazing Race; a game which had different unofficial rules than Survivor, was seen by its players as more noble, less cutthroat - but they formed and broke alliances, and memorably stood apart from the rest of the competitors in not stopping to aid Greg and Brian upon seeing their traffic accident.  Rob here again was saying "everything is part of the game" in his definition of the parameters of competition - but the rest of the race teams disagreed, that a car accident was beyond the game and shouldn't be a determining factor.  There's probably a book somewhere about unofficial rules (The Unofficial Rulebook...or the Official/Unofficial Rulebook or the Official Book of Unofficial Rules) they really only come to the public consciousness whenever there's a baseball dispute or a golfer calls a penalty against himself, and sports talk radio gets a few days of apoplexy that such ideas exist - a caller will scream that "only the offiical rules should apply" as he's driving 50 mph in a 45 mph zone, certain (and correctly so) that he won't get pulled over, because, despite his breaking the letter of the law - he knows that unofficially, that's not how the law is really enforced.  The caller will not make the connection between those two concepts. 

But a few years have passed since the Amazing Race and Rob's subsequent attempt to be a poker playing heel; on this all star Survivor season he was paired against a new school heel, Russell, a man who poured out the water from camp - coined the phrase "dumbass girl alliance" and even, in this All Star season, took the dastardly step of attempting to hide Rob's Red Sox cap (sort of the equivalent of taking a luchadore's mask) and a very clear generational difference was set up this season that served to turn Rob babyface.  Whereas the newer players were inclined to jake the "survival" portion of the game in favor of strategizing, Rob was the pillar of camp; Rob was the leader at challenges; Rob carried the tribe on his back - all the while being drawn closer to a confrontation with Russell. 

Last week, as I wrote about in Tendown 20; Russell deftly outmaneuvered Rob, protecting his ally Parvati (I can't see a scenario where she'd ever get a jury vote after having won the Fans v. Favorites season, but if Parvati Shallow, who joins the Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in the "come on, that's not a real name; these are professional wrestling names like Jack Swagger or Jay Lethal" club wins again - she steps into the reality competition Pantheon with Evil Dr. Will) at the expense of Rob's ally Tyson - and this week, Russell leveraged the "loyalty" demonstrated by his move to get another old school heel Jeri Manthey (and there could be another discussion about the Jeri/Parvati dynamic as a shadow of the Rob/Russell dynamic, except with sex as the additional element; and Colby/James may have been booked to complete the old school/new school triology had James not blown out his knee) to flip, joining Russell's alliance and sending Rob home.

It was a supersmart episode in what has been a really good season of Survivor; in a week of well booked wrestling angles (to be discussed later in the Tendown) the best of them featured no wrestling at all.

After the jump, the rest of the Tendown.

2010 Major League Baseball Predictions (oh - and my Final Four picks)

(Final Four - my smart bracket had the Duke/WVA matchup before the tournament - and both my smart and fun bracket had Duke going to the finals, so I'll stick with Duke.  I didn't have a bracket with either Butler or Michigan St anywhere near the final four - I'll take Butler.  I like either Duke or West Virginia to beat either Butler or Michigan St. - so I won't need to do an additional pick before Monday; there's not really any value play looking at the Vegas number.  However, there was an article in Slate before the tournament suggesting you pick Duke to win the whole thing if you were predicting the tournament like a hedge fund manager, as while Kansas had the best season, and therefore, the best chance to win the tournament - they weren't as strong as the overwhelming way the public, me included, picked them to win.  Conversely, Duke had an excellent season, as good a candidate as any to be called the second best season when you look at the advanced metrics - which is why I picked them to go to the finals - but, and here's the key, they were not valued that way by the public; I talk about this sort of thing all the time whenever I suggest investing - where can you find value - and the value in a bracket contest was taking Duke, which had the second best chance to win the whole thing but wasn't seen that way by the public.)

Projected win totals are in parentheses, where there's a real discrepancy between this and the Vegas win total, I'll note it.  For shorthand and because I spend a little bit of every week putting star ratings on wrestling matches, I've got every player rated on a scale of 1-5 based on a 2010 projection.  Time won't permit me to put it in an uploadable form, but I'll make comments where applicable and note the 5 star players.  Some players get more than 5 stars; I create rules and then I break them.  I have the power supreme.

NL East
1. Philadelphia (90)
-Halladay's a five star player, Utley's a six star player; Rollins and Werth are both 4 stars.  Bullpen's the only weakness.   Jamie Moyer will turn 48 at the end of the 2010 season. He was on the '86 Cubs with Davey Lopes.  Davey Lopes was on the '72 Dodgers with Hoyt Wilhelm. Wilhelm was on the '57 Indians with Early Wynn. Wynn was on the '41 Senators with Buddy Myer. Myer was on the '24 Senators with Walter Johnson.  Johnson was on the '07 Senators with Lave Cross.  Lave Cross was born in 1866.

There are 6 steps between the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies and the Civil War.  You're welcome.

2. Atlanta (86 WC)
-McCann's the only five star player, but Escobar, Chipper, and Jurrjens are 4 star guys; it's Bobby Cox's last season.  Billy Wagner is closing for the Braves - if he can stay healthy for a few years he's going to be a HOF candidate.

3. Florida (81)
-Ramirez is a six star player; they don't have even another 4 star player - Johnson's fatigue factor pushes him down to 3 1/2. 

4. NYM (77) (under 81) - your first value opportunity; the Mets were thought of as a contender the past few years and they underperformed - that 81 win total is reflecting some value from past years that isn't there anymore when you look at the pitching staff.  Santana's still a 4 star pitcher (Reyes and Beltran are 4 star players both starting the year on the DL; Wright's a six star player) but they don't have another arm on the entire staff above 2 1/2. 

5. Washington (74) - Zimmerman's a 4 1/2 star player; Livan Hernandez is in this rotation. 

Here's what Livan Hernandez did in the 2002 World Series, pitching for my Giants.

0 wins.  2 losses.  ERA of 14.29.  5.2 IP 9 walks, 9 hits.  9 earned runs.  Thanks, Livan.


NL Central
1. St. Louis (87) - Albert Pujols is a 7 on a five star scale.  Hey, look - Brad Penny.
2. Milwaukee (80) - Braun and Fielder are both 6 star guys.  Trevor Hoffman's going to the HOF - Jim Edmonds, one of the more underrated players of recent vintage is backing up in the OF. 
3. Chicago (79) (under 83.5) - Same value bet as the Mets; the Cubs have been an underperforming favorite in the past couple of years; but their stars are all in decline - Soriano - decline, Zambrano - decline, DLee - decline.  They do not have even a 3 1/2 star player and I do not see a scenario where they win 84 games.
4. Cincinnati (78) - Phillips and Votto are 3 1/2 star players; there's some mainstream dark horse talk about the Reds; they could finish as high as second (with the caveat that the Cards are entirely dependent on Pujols's health) but aren't a WC contender. 
5. Houston (77) - Berkman (on the DL) and Pence are 4 star players; this is probably the top end of Houston's possible projection. Pedro Feliz is here now; he has a career OPS+ of 83 (means he's 17% below the bat of an average major leaguer).  His career OBP is .293.  Look - I know he can glove - but a third baseman with 4,000 plate appearances of a career sub .300 OBP is a terrible baseball player. 
6. Pittsburgh (70) - McCutcheon's the only 3 star player here.  I just feel badly for Pirate fans. 

NL West
1. Colorado (85) - Tulowitzki's a five star player; this division could really come out any of 4 ways, but there's less obvious weakness with the Rox than the other contenders in the West.
2. Los Angeles (84) - Kemp and Ethier are both 5 star players, who would have thought that HOF bound Manny Ramirez would be the 3rd best OF on his team in 2010.  The pitching staff doesn't have a lot behind Kershaw/Billingsley/Broxton.  I'm looking forward to the knuckleballer Haeger.
3. Arizona (83) - I've got a Dan Haren man crush; he got my Cy Young vote last year, even above my guy, Lincecum - and he's on both my NL and Mixed fantasy team this year (perhaps the phrase mixed fantasy team so proximate to the phrase man crush is a poor choice).  Arizona's got a ton of guys - Upton/Reynolds/Young/Drew/Montero - who, if they perform at the top of their projection, would mean a division title for the Snakes. 
4. SFG (81) Your 2010 San Francisco Giants:

CF Rowand - 2 star
SS Renteria - 1 1/2 star
3B Sandoval - 4 star (thank you Panda.)
1B Huff - 1 star (Aubrey Huff is our cleanup hitter - can we not ask "why not pick the Giants to win" please)
LF DeRosa - 2 stars
C Molina - 2 stars (Buster Posey is ready now, we could have taken Huff's money and Molina's money and bought a better bat - but Sabean loves him some low OBP guys whose names he's heard of)
2B Uribe - 1 star (Sanchez will presumably be returning from the DL to claim the spot, he's 1 star also - we not only traded Tim Alderson to get him, but then we re-signed him.  We could have taken Sanchez's money, Huff's money, and Molina's money and bought a much better bat.  This is not second guessing, this was readily identifiable at the time.  Much like signing Renteria was clearly a mistake at the time.  Much like paying what we paid for Rowand was clearly a mistake at the time.  The most progressive, forward thinking city in the US has one of the dumbest, most backwoods baseball organizations.  We not only make bad decisions we are philosophically behind the times. That's the frustrating part of being a Giants fan - we are not a smart organization.)
RF Schierholtz - 1 star

Bench (Whiteside, Ishikawa, Downs, Velez, Torres)

Rotation
1. Lincecum - 5 stars (the best pitcher in baseball)
2. Cain - 4 stars
3. Sanchez - 2.5 stars
4. Zito - 2 stars
5. Wellemeyer - 1 star

Bullpen
Closer - Wilson
Set Up - Romo, Affeldt
Middle - Mota, Medders, Runzler
Long - Pucetas

The staff is really strong; good pen, good bottom end of the rotation (Zito is obviously the most overpaid pitcher in baseball, but as a 4th starter he's fine; Wellemeyer won the job in the spring over Bumgardner, who looked like a potential ace when he was 18, but his velocity is slipping - you just never know how a pitching prospect will develop.  Sanchez is an uncertainty; he may be a 3 star pitcher and we need him to be a legitimate 2nd/3rd starter if we're going to contend this year; I'm a Cain fan - he has some dangerous peripheral numbers that show regression, but the guy I see is the best number two starter in the NL - better than Hamels, better than Billingsley, better than Hanson or Oswalt or Nolasco. 

5. San Diego (73) - Gonzalez is a six star player; if they move him at the deadline to one of those teams in the AL East it changes the race.  Former Giant Kevin Correia does a nice job as a 2 star mid rotation guy. Part of the projection is the idea that they might move guys at the deadline - if they don't, they might win 78 games. 

The Phillies look solidly like the best team.  The Cards have the biggest distance between them and second place, so they're the best bet to make the postseason.  I wouldn't pick anyone else to go to the Series; if you had to, it would be Atlanta. 

AL East
1. Boston (95) - Pedroia's their only 5 star player - but both Beckett and Lester are 4 stars and they have a half dozen 3-3 1/2 star guys.  A deal for Gonzalez makes a ton of sense if Ortiz is done by the deadline.
2. Tampa (92 WC) (over 89) - I guess the 89 win total is a reflection of how difficult the division is - but the Rays are loaded - Longoria's 5 stars, Zobrist is 4 - Crawford, Upton, Shields, Garza are all 3 1/2.  They've got front end talent, depth and more prospects.  I'd like to see the Rays make the Gonzalez deal - maybe geting Heath Bell too - and win the whole thing. 
3. New York (92) - if the Yankees won a hundred games and back to back titles that wouldn't surprise me either; these are the 3 best teams, without question, in the American League. Tex is 5 stars; ARod's 4 1/2 stars still, as is Sabathia; I'm picking them to miss the playoffs because there's a greater chance that things don't work than with the Sox or Rays - Posada's old (and has no glove at all), there's age on Jeter and ARod and Pettitte and Rivera - Gardner is now a full time starting OF and that might be too big for him; Nick Johnson will get hurt, he gets hurt every year.  The range of possibilities could take them to "only" 90 wins and I'll say they get left behind in the musical chairs.  
4. Baltimore (77) (over 74.5) - The Orioles have some bats; they're gonna thump the ball a little bit, but the division's too tough and even 77 might be optimistic. 
5. Toronto (72) - The Jays aren't terrible; Hill's a 4 star player and they have some talent in the rotation - but it's not nearly enough in this division where they're gonna lose every night.

AL Central
1. Minnesota (82) - I don't know who is gonna win this division now that Nathan's gone for the season; Mauer's a six star player; they've got 5 3+ star guys. 
2. Detroit (80) - Cabrera's a 4 1/2 star guy; Verlander's 4 stars - I have Scherzer on both my AL and my Mixed teams; the Damon signing was super smart for the money and I like Detroit a little this year.
3. CWS (78) (under 84) - If everything breaks right for the Sox they hit that 84 projection - but that's what it would take - a rebound for Peavy and Jenks; Pierre and Konerko to hold their value; Ramirez and Beckham to grow at the top of their curve.  Just seems like too much to me; they might go .500 and snake the division, but I don't see them as an 85 win team, and that's what it takes to beat you if you invest in the under. 
4. Cleveland (77) - Sizemore should rebound to be a 5 star player again; Choo and Cabrera are 3 star guys; if Brantley and LaPorta hit they could win a couple more than this - the guy who is coming is Victor Martinez 2.0, Carlos Santana - who they stole for Blake from the Dodgers; by 2011 he's thumping in the midde of the lineup.  There's not enough pitching here to win the division.
5. KCity (74) - Greinke's 5 stars; Soria's 4; DeJesus is 3 - there's nothing else here.  Look away.

AL West
1. Texas (84) - 4 stars for Kinsler; the storyline going into the season for the entire league really are stolen bases - the White Sox and Rangers are just going to run other teams to death - batteries which struggle with the run game may cost their teams a couple of wins this year. 
2. Seattle (82) - Cliff Lee's health situation might be the difference between 84 wins and a division title and 80 wins and finishing below the A's.  King Felix is a 4 1/2 star arm, and a healthy Lee is 4 stars making this the best 1-2 in the AL.  I even like Bedard once he comes off the DL, and have stashed him on my AL fantasy roster.  Guttierrez is 3 1/2 stars; 3 stars each for Figgins and Ichiro.  There's a lot of uncertainty right now with Lee.
3. Oakland (81) - The A's are gonna run all the time too - with Davis and Crisp batting 1-2 - it's a little bit of madness this 2010 season.  I love the rotation - all five guys are gonna give the A's a chance to win every day.  If you took the A's organizational philosophy with the Giants payroll over the past decade or so we would have won a title. 
4. LAA (79) (under 84) And 79 wins might be optimistic - it assumes bouncebacks from Santana and Saunders; this is not a good baseball team - only Napoli (on both my AL and Mixed teams) and Weaver/Kazmir are 3 star guys.  Like my thoughts about the Mets and Cubs - you're getting 2009 prices for the 2010 versions of these teams - you should consider investing.

Let's say Red Sox/Phillies in the Series.  If it was Rays or Yanks instead that shouldn't surprise you; I don't see a scenario where anyone else makes it from the AL.

TBOR March 2010 Athlete of the Month - Plus 1992 Recap

Maya Moore.

Runners-up: LeBron James, Kalana Greene, Omar Samhan.

She joins Drew Brees and Peyton Manning in the race for TBOR  Athlete of the Year. 

This is an award for which my records go back to 1990, each month I'm posting the archives, I'm up to 1992 - the AP Winner for that year was Michael Jordan, my winner was Mario Lemieux.

January - Mark Rypien (Mario Bailey, Cornelius Bennett, John McEnroe)
February - Alberto Tomba (Magic Johnson, Kristi Yamaguchi, David Robinson)
March - Christian Laettner (Wayne Gretzky, Larry Bird, Fred Couples)
April - Fred Couples (Christian Laettner, Deion Sanders, Roberto Alomar)
May - Mario Lemieux (Mark McGwire, Terry Norris, Jaromir Jagr)
June - Michael Jordan (Monica Seles, Tom Kite, John McEnroe)
July - Steffi Graf (Kevin Brown, Nick Faldo, Tom Glavine)
August - Vitaly Scherbo (Carl Lewis, Terry Pendleton, James Toney)
Sept - Dennis Eckersley (Dan O'Brien, Robin Yount, Barry Bonds)
Oct - Pat Borders (Steve Young, Art Monk, Jerry Rice)
Nov - Riddick Bowe (Emmitt Smith, Shaquille O Neal, Chris Jackson)
Dec - Charles Barkley (Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, Joe Montana)

Baseball picks/final four picks tomorrow. 

1st and Ten: The Weekly Tendown, March 21-27 2010

Dear Internet:

Today is Wrestlemania 26.  And this is the 20th Issue of the mighty Tendown.  Had I started a month and a half earlier, that would have been a helluva sweetass coincidence (another coincidence: earlier this week was the 99th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, which someone should have pitched as a stip to Russo when he was still booking TNA by himself - a Triangle Shirtwaist Fire match; they lock the doors of the Impact Zone, put some underage factory workers on a pole, that would have drawn a big quarter hour number) Did you read Last Week?  You really should've; I did a Cake v. Pie tournament that turned out well, I think.  It was an extra productive week for me in addition to that - my Wrestlemania preview is here, and my two fantasy baseball draft boards are here and here.  I'll put up my picks for the upcoming MLB season at mid-week, which is when you'll also get the March Athlete of the Month and Counterfactual Wrestlemania Silver at the the other place.

Extra busy!  Let's get to it.

First: Hey, look - It's a Book Tournament -  2009 books battling it out for literary supremacy, here's the final four:

Let the Great World Spin: A Novel v. The Lacuna LP: A Novel

Wolf Hall (a Om) v. The Book of Night Women. 

I'd say I can't speak about this as informatively as could I the hoops tournament - but given the condition of my brackets, you should probably move to someone else for your basketball thoughts (the smart bracket, however, got the Duke/WVA half of the final four right). 

But I am a good source for wrestling questions, and despite my general disapproval of most matters WWE (for you non wrestling fans who only associate professional wrestling with WWE - think of it like music or movies or whatever is the form of the culture in which you're most invested - WWE is the big corporate product, the most dumbed down, homogenized version of the craft - it's the 300 million dollar summer blockbuster; it's that Nickelback album that charted a half dozen different singles.  You wouldn't define it as the whole of the art form.  But you probably listen to the songs at the top of the chart and watch the films that make a lot of money; and sometimes, the machine produces something that fits your taste - or a director whose smaller movies you liked makes a giant studio film that has enough of who he used to be that it really works.  That's what it's like) Wrestlemania 26 is tonight, and that means that, as I did with the ten Best Picture nominees for the Academy Awards, I'd like to structure the Tendown loosely around the 9 matches scheduled for tonight's show.  I won't, I'll segregate my graps talk as best I can, keep it in a wrestling ghetto to avoid frustrating my readers who are disinclined to partake.  I'm good like that.

I watched the Hurt Locker this week, incidentally.  It wasn't any better than Black Hawk Down, both have that bang-bang vibe with a war setting, and, of war movies of recent vintage, I preferred Three Kings (and none of them are close to the documentary Why We Fight, which I'll take over Taxi to the Dark Side and the Errol Morris movie about Abu Ghraib).  I also saw Spread (better premise than execution, and after a promising first 40 minutes it lapses into a pretty conventional story) and The Proposal (bad, but not as bad as rom-coms are these days; in the past handful of years, romantic comedies have moved from formulaic to godawful; I blame Gerard Butler, who is as untalented as Megan Fox without her level of photo friendliness - you know who is a good looking dude though is Ryan Reynolds; I know he's in superhero shape for whatever comic book movie he's shooting - but he and soon to be single Sandra Bullock get naked in a slapsticky scene and that guy is put together.  Look how fat I am - I think as I watch the Proposal.  How will I ever keep my lady friend happy being this fat while men like Ryan Reynolds make movies that aren't as bad as the movies Gerard Butler makes?  These are the important questions for consideration.)

My encyclopedic understanding of Wrestlemania probably doesn't serve as a romantic point in my favor, but I do take a somewhat exaggerated pleasure in being of an age where I've watched every Mania; either on PPV or within a matter of months via video, dvd, or today, more rapid, technologically sophisticated means.  I had tickets to VIII; memory eludes me as to why I was unable to attend.  Men, as you are aware, can use sports as means to communicate (I've previously coined the term wrestleationship) I started watching wrestling with my brothers when I was about eleven and they were 3 and 4 years old - we were, for the first couple of years, barred from watching by our parents, a rule which, like most which have been imposed on me, I completely ignored - we'd pile into my room, keeping the sound low, and spend Saturday and Sunday mornings watching WWF.  I went away to college in the fall of '88, but came home to watch Mania with them for a couple of years before the family moved across the country when I was a junior.  I started law school in '92 and hadn't seen my brothers for a few years when I visited in January of '95 - they had stopped watching wrestling, but when I showed my brother Joe Wrestlemania X, which featured what are still the two best matches in Mania history, he was back on board.  A few years later I moved near my family, and the combination of Japanese tape trading and the internet providing access to information made us both more sophisticated fans; we were able, for about a decade, to see each other once a week for a multiple hour viewing of current matches - I have a terrible, just painful time relating to other human beings, I've located it recently as Aspberger's (like Peter Krause's kid on Parenthood, which, as of yet, is watchable largely because of the likeability of a few of the actors as opposed to any interest in the storylines; I'd watch Lauren Graham read the phonebook and so far, it's not a lot more interesting than that) and whether that's clinically true or not - the level of panic in my head whenever in any social situation is difficult to express (I skipped my own 21st birthday party; I had a girlfriend once throw a costume party for Halloween and not invite me) and one of my very, very, very few occasions where I've looked forward to being in the same room with another person is when I get to watch wrestling with my brother.  In most situations, when I'm in a room with someone else I feel like I can't be me, that I need to crawl as deeply inside my head as possible - but when I watch wrestling with my brother -- Barthes wrote a dissection of professional wrestling a half century ago, he said:

In wrestling, as on the stage in antiquity, one is not ashamed of one's suffering, one knows how to cry, one has a liking for tears

Wrestling facilitates, as opposed to suppresses, expression - it draws me outside of my head.  Most of my passions are solitary; on my table right now are stacks of papers preparing for the baseball season, for the NFL Draft, filled with numbers only I will ever see; my brain runs on a fast but circular track, endless churning to arrive at only familiar stops.  I'm Groundhog Day.

But not so much today.  Today is Wrestlemania 26.  It's the best thing about this week.

After the jump - the rest of the Tendown