A Roadmap for Rose

Over at NBC, I talk with a crisis manager about Pete Rose … and how he might pave his way to the Hall Of Fame.

I also put up a blog post over at Hardball Talk about Buck O'Neil … I can't believe it was seven years ago today that he found out he was not elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Time moves.

A few other pieces that might be coming:

-- A look at Silver Linings Playbook

-- A story about RBIs

-- A father and son playing catch

-- The man who changed the way we watch games.

-- How swimming has changed a young girls life.

-- Thirty years of backup quarterbacks.

-- The best pitcher in baseball history

-- A report from the Sloan Conference

-- A report from the SABR Analytics Conference

-- Learning to play tennis again

Youk As Yank

I wrote my first post for Hardball Talk on how it just seems weird -- weirder, even, than normal -- for Kevin Youkilis to be on the Yankees.

Wreck-It Ralph Was Better Than Brave

I am a recovered Oscarholic. For years and years, I used to obsess over the Academy Awards. I memorized every winner of the three major categories -- picture, actress and actor -- and I knew most of the supporting actor and director and writers too.* I saw every single Oscar-winning movie between Casablanca (1944) and Chicago (2003). Leading into the Oscars, every year, I would be sure to see every nominated movie (back when there were five) and most of the nominated performances.

*I've lost much of this knowledge, fortunately, but even now I find that if someone brings up an actor's name, say Jack Lemmon, my mind will immediately think: "Save The Tiger, 1974" -- his only Best Actor victory. Then I will also remember that he won a supporting actor award for Mister Roberts in, I think, 1956 (yep). And then I will think about his performance in Glengarry Glen Ross, which had Al Pacino (Best Actor for "Scent of Woman") and Kevin Spacey (Best Actor for "American Beauty" and best supporting for "Usual Suspects") and Ed Harris (no Oscars, but should have won for "Truman Show" in 1999 over James Coburn) and Alan Arkin (who I know won more recently for "Little Miss Sunshine," but I don't remember the year). In other words, I can't get quite get it out of my head.

Safe Danger and Dangerous Safety

Several people have asked if there will be an RSS feed and writer page for me at NBC Sports. I am told that there will be and they are working on it. Will let you know when I hear more.

In the meantime, I'll try to link all of my NBC pieces here.

Today at NBC Sports, I write about how we want our sports to be dangerous and we want our sports to be safe … the clash of emotions at Daytona. 

A new look … and a look at sports cities

I apologize for the absence … it has been a fairly hectic last few weeks. I am now the national columnist for NBC Sports. The move involved a lot of mixed emotions, of course. I love the people at Sports On Earth, I think they do amazing work, and I believe deeply in their vision. And the NBC Sports opportunity is absolutely amazing with great people and a chance to do the work I love doing.

Throughout, I kept thinking about the line in Amadeus when Mozart was trying on wigs and found two he particularly loved: "Oh, they're both so beautiful, I can't decide. Why don't I have two heads?"

I officially started a NBC on Friday with two pieces.

-- The Rise and Fall of Alex Rodriguez.

-- Danica Patrick through the eyes of my 8-year-old daughter.

I don't know how much you care about any of this, but the plan is for me to write for NBC Sports three times a week -- Monday, Wednesday, Friday -- with the Friday column being a deeper dive into a sports topic. Beyond that, I will be contributing to the NBC Sports blogs, particularly Hardball Talk. And I'll continue to write here under a new design, especially non-sports and oddball stuff. We'll see how it works out. I'll try to link to stuff here wherever they happen to appear.

And, to start, I have written a follow up post to one written by my new NBC Sports and Hardball Talk colleague Craig Calcaterra. Last week, you probably know, he looked at each Major League town and tried to guess what is the No. 1 sport in that town.

I had to jump in on that one.

Red Klotz and the Hall of Fame

The Basketball Hall of Fame is largely a mystery to me. I am a bit obsessive about Halls of Fame, as you might have heard, but when it comes to basketball I have absolutely no idea who is in the Hall and who is not. Hint: If you think someone is in it, he or she probably is in it. There are, best I can tell, quite a few more than 325 people in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame … so many that I probably could not put together two plausible sentences about at least half of them.

I say "quite a few more" than 325, by the way, because that number includes several teams that were inducted whole. These are: The 1960 and 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball teams; the Original Celtics; the All-American Red Heads (a woman's team that played against men beginning in the 1930s); the first class of "incorrigibles" that James Naismith taught to play basketball; the New York Rens; the Buffalo Germans, a dominant amateur team started in the late 19th century and the Texas Western team that beat Kentucky in the NCAA Final.

More to our point here, the Harlem Globetrotters were also inducted as a team. In addition to this, Globetrotters Goose Tatum, Meadowlark Lemon and Marques Haynes were inducted individually as were other former Globetrotters enshrined for their greater body of work like Wilt Chamberlain, Connie Hawkins and Lynette Woodard (Baseball Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Fergie Jenkins were also Globetrotters).

Feb 12 birthday: Abraham Lincoln (redux)

I certainly don't want to turn this blog into a reprint station … but in tracking down the post I did on Rulon Gardner and the stew, I ran across this post I forgot all about, one I did on the writing of Abraham Lincoln. I figured since today's his birthday, hey, why not rerun it?

Also, thank you to the many people who have written asking about my new gig with NBC Sports. I will have plenty more details (and some new writing) in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, here is this little Lincoln thing I wrote back in 2007.

I Really Didn't Need That Stew Redux

News breaks that the IOC will be dropping wrestling at the Olympics in 2020?

OF COURSE I had to reprint this from May, 2008.

Feb. 11 birthday: Negro National League

The Negro National League was formed on Feb. 11, 1920 at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City. Well, anyway, that is the day that I have written in my notes … I see in other places it listed at February 13, 1920. I see no reason at all why we shouldn't just make it a three-day celebration.

And to celebrate, I'm putting up a poll … based on a question from brilliant reader Patrick who writes a cool baseball blog. His question: If you could go back and see any one player from the Negro Leagues -- that is, the leagues BEFORE Jackie Robinson broke through the color barrier in 1947* -- who would it be?

*As you probably know, the Negro Leagues lasted more than a decade after Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. In fact, numerous great players -- Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks and others -- played in the Negro Leagues after Jackie Robinson crossed the line. But we're going to focus on the years before 1946.

I've listed off 10 players who I would have loved to see. There are many, many others of course -- Ray Dandridge, Willie Wells, Torriente, Smokey Joe Williams, Leon Day on and on -- but let's focus on these 10. I think I know who will win the polling, but let's see what you have to say. Remember, the question is not "Who was the best player?" but rather, "Who would you love most to go back and see?"

Feb. 7 birthdays: Quiz and Katie

First, a special birthday mention today to Robert Smigel, who created the all-time Saturday Night Live classic, "Da Bears" with the great Joe Mantegna.

Bill: Now let me shift gears here for a moment. What is God's role in dis? Obviously he's rooting for Da Bears.

Pat: Udderwise he wouldn't have put 'em in Chicago.

Carl: That's right.

Bill: Da question is: Now did God create Da Bears and make dem superior to all udder teams. Or is he simply a huge fan, and Ditka made dem superior to all udder teams."

Pat: It's a tough one.

Feb. 6 Birthday: Babe Ruth

Today is a great celebrity birthday day -- Babe Ruth, Ronald Reagan and Bob Marley were all born on February 6. Also Zsa Zsa Gabor and Axl Rose and Tom Brokaw. America and the world would be a poorer place without them.

There are numerous great little facts about Babe Ruth -- one being that his birthday is one day after Henry Aaron. I love little quirks of timing like that.

But probably my favorite little fact is that Ruth is, quite easily, the best hitter AND the best pitcher born on February 6. The second-best hitter is Smoky Burgess or Richie Zisk, and while they were both good hitters they were obviously a million miles from Ruth. But the second best pitcher is probably Bob Wickman, who did save 267 games. But -- and I find this amazing -- he threw FEWER INNINGS than Ruth, who was only a pitcher early in his career but still went 94-46 with a 2.28 ERA and was pretty close to unhittable in his three World Series starts.

Feb. 5 Birthday: Henry Aaron

It is wonderful to know that Henry Aaron and the legendary hockey commentator Don Cherry were born on the same day in 1934. I always love it when two famous people who have absolutely nothing to do with each other are connected by a birthday. The most famous of these, I think, are Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, both born February 12, 1809.

Henry Aaron still has the record for most total bases in a career -- he doesn't just have the record, he has 700 more total bases than Stan Musial, who is second, and 1,000-plus more total bases than Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb or Pete Rose. This is the record, I think, that defines Henry Aaron. He has an almost unbelievable 6,856 total bases. Last year, Miguel Cabrera led baseball with 377 total bases -- this in his Triple Crown year. He'd have to repeat that 18 times to match Aaron.

Well, this is what happens when you have TWENTY CONSECUTIVE awesome seasons.

Feb. 4 birthday: Lawrence Taylor

Rosa Parks was born 100 years ago today. So that probably trumps all other American birthdays.

Lawrence Taylor was actually the second pick in the 1981 NFL Draft -- behind Heisman Trophy running back George Rogers. Apparently, Bum Phillips -- who was coaching and basically running the Saints -- did not want Taylor, for whatever reasons. It should be said that the Saints did not exactly miss with that first pick. Rogers led the NFL with 1,674 rushing yards his rookie year, and he would have four 1,000-yard seasons in New Orleans and Washington. He was a big and bruising runner with speed, so he certainly was no bust.

It's just that Taylor was a revolutionary player. Right away, he dominated -- he was defensive rookie of the year AND defensive player of the year in 1981. There have been only a handful of players in sports who literally changed the way a game is played. I'd actually be curious who you think have been those players in various sports … but I would say most people agree that Taylor changed the game. He wasn't the first linebacker to be used as a blitzing weapon, but it's probably true that no linebacker had ever blitzed so often and that he disrupted quarterbacks passing more than any linebacker before him.

Two Minor Super Bowl Thoughts

There were two minor moments at the end of the weirdest Super Bowl ever that probably don't deserve extensive analysis … but hey, it's the Super Bowl, right? We're getting a billion words on Ray Lewis (who, honestly, seemed to be pretty dreadful all game long), the Harbaugh brothers, the officiating, the Coca Cola race (showgirls!), the blackout, the announcing, the redemption of Flacco, the brilliant future of Kaepernick, the comments of Chris Culliver (who, honestly, was even worse in the game than Ray Lewis), the stupefying play-calling at the goal line by the 49ers, the performance of Willem Defoe as the devil in the Mercedes commercial and so on and so on, and so on ...

We might as well take a couple of minutes to look at those two minor moments.

Feb. 3 Birthday: John Jefferson

John Jefferson
Sports: Football
Position: Wide receiver
Played from 1978 to 1985
Four-time Pro Bowlers
Age: 57

Two Hall of Fame quarterbacks -- Bob Griese and Fran Tarkenton -- along with the phenom Fred Lynn have birthdays today, but we celebrate John Jefferson, J.J., who wore these spacey goggles and for three years made some of the most improbable and wonderful catches in the NFL.

Feb. 1 birthday: Paul Blair

Paul Blair
Sport: Baseball
Position: Centerfield
Played from 1964 to 1980
Winner of eight gold gloves
Age: 69

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They called Paul Blair "Motormouth" because he loved to talk. One teammate would say that they had to put him in centerfield just to get him away from everybody. But, of course, the real reason they put him in centerfield is because no one ever played the position better. Blair would play shallow -- absurdly shallow, really, close enough to pass notes to the second baseman -- and this meant he could steal more bloops and low line drives than just about anybody in the game.

It also meant that he had to often do one of the hardest things for an outfielder -- that is, go back and chase down balls hit over his head. Blair was a genius at this. Earl Weaver used to say he never once saw Paul Blair's first step -- Blair seemed to make it before the ball was even hit.

He played centerfield almost every day for the Baltimore Orioles from 1965 to 1976, and in those 12 years, the Orioles won 95-plus games six times, won four pennants, won two World Series, and people always said it was because of pitching and the three-run homer. Sure. But Blair's defense was a big part of that pitching. And Blair, though he wasn't much of a hitter, did bang 16 of those three run homers and scored on many more of them.

I should expand on that part about Blair not being much of a hitter -- he was a very good hitter in 1967 and 1969, and still a good hitter in 1970. But in 1970, he was hit in the face with a pitch by Ken Tatum -- and there's a very clear before/after story. From 1966 to 1969, Blair hit .270/.321/.423 which was very good for that era -- good enough for a 115 OPS+.

From 1971 to 1975, Blair hit .252/.297.378 with a 94 OPS+. It's hard to say what effect the beaning and subsequent facial surgery had on his hitting psyche and confidence. Defensively he was still a marvel.

In 1977, he was traded to the New York Yankees, and he was never again an everyday player, but his quote about the Yankees is still memorable: "We're loved and hated, but always in larger doses."