Derek Bodner’s Blog

Excluding the 1981 split season, the Mets became the first team in major league history to hold 3 1/2 -game division leads in consecutive Septembers and fail to make the postseason both times, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

If baseball games ended after 6 innings:
Teams W-L GB
Mets 84-52 –
Phillies 71-62 11½

If baseball games ended after 8 innings:
Teams W-L GB
Mets 83-59 –
Phillies 75-64 6½

(Real standings):
Teams W-L GB
Phillies 89 68 –
Mets 86 70 2½

And, also:
The last three grand slams by pitchers have all been hit at Shea. Felix Hernandez of Seattle, Dontrelle Willis of Florida and Marquis tonight.

It absolutely amazes me how short of a memory politicians expect the general public to have.

The phrase is quite common. In fact, both candidates have used the line before. When asked about Clinton’s health care reform vs the 1993 attempt, McCain used the line, saying “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig”.

So, McCain can use it when he’s talking about a woman’s platform, but when Obama uses it to discuss McCain, it’s disrespectful and offensive?

Ok.

Obama didn’t even bring up Palin (whereas McCain directly brought up Clinton).

“John McCain says he’s about change too, and so I guess his whole angle is, ‘Watch out George Bush — except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics — we’re really going to shake things up in Washington. That’s not change. That’s just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You know you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”

Yeah, John. Nice try.

I hate what US political campaigning has become. You haven’t heard talk about actual issues in months, and certainly nothing since the conventions.

A while back I had the opportunity to interview Sixers President and General Manager Ed Stefanski. Recently Michael Preston of the Sixers PR staff reached out to me and gave the opportunity to be on a conference call with Ed, which I gladly accepted. I was in the middle of a vacation, and was actually scheduled to drive back that day, but when the opportunity to interview the guy running the Sixers comes up, you fit it into your schedule.

The story has been very well covered by Depressed Fan, SixerSoul, TrueHoop, Passion and Pride, Recliner GM, and The 700 Level, so I won’t spend too much time on the details (even sixers.com put a piece up on it). I mainly was involved to get some quotes for a piece I’ll be doing for RealGM, and I’ll post some of my highlights, as well as the transcript which you can check out by clicking the read more link.

My main point of the post was to say how well the Sixers are doing. No, I’m not talking in terms of how good of an offseason they’re having, which to this point has been a success in every facet. That’s a given. But the media relations for the Sixers, of which Ed is certainly doing his fair share, is tremendous.

This is a town where you have Andy Reid refusing to give any insight to card carrying members of the media, much less holding a 30 minute conference call with wanna-be’s, bloggers and straight up fans. Where the Phillies regard the media as being constantly against them, and even have their manager challenging a member of the media to a fight (not that I necessarily disagree with Charlie’s desire to punch Howard Eskin). For the vast majority of the time, it seems the aggravation from front office personal is a detraction.

With the Sixers and Ed Stefanski, it’s the complete opposite.

Not once during the call did either Ed Stefanski or Michael Preston act like they were talking to the junior varsity team. They were both open throughout. Very few organizations give such guys the time of day.

I don’t necessarily expect the front office to be fully honest, in fact some times I think it behooves them to not be. So when Andy Reid purposefully gives the media nothing, it doesn’t bother me. Being open and forthright to the media (or, in this case, Joe Citizen) isn’t going to win the Sixers any games, and it doesn’t cover up for any mistakes made.

It doesn’t alter the destination, which ultimately is what we’re in it for. But it does make the ride a heck of a lot more fun and enjoyable. And, for that, I thank Ed Stefanski and the Sixers PR staff.

As for what I found most interesting:

• Ed thinks Louis Williams is a “hell of a basketball player”. Pretty strong endoresement. Here’s to hoping Ed’s right.
• When describing Thaddeus Young and his work this offseason: “His handle has gotten better, we’ll only know when the season starts if it’s gotten good enough to play the bulk of the minutes at the 3.”
• “We wouldn’t have gone that route [signing Theo Ratliff] if Jason Smith [had not gotten hurt].”
• On Marreese Speights summer league performance: “He did everything we asked of him, but it’s only summer league. But, on the flip side, if he had sucked in the summer league, we all would have been upset, and all of the guys on this call with me would have said “oh my god”…If the kid has it and wants it, the skills are there, so as I said we’re happy he had a good summer as opposed to not having a good summer.”
• On the Andre Miller contract negotiation: “He does not have any representation right now, so we’re in limbo in that respect. So once he gets representation we’ll sit down and see where their side is”.
• On Andre Miller’s age: “That’s all the things you take into consideration [his age, and whether he'll fit in when the team peaks]. Where Andre is in his career, what type of team we have. They’re all the things that once we discuss, Andre, myself and his agent, they’re all the things you have to discuss and see where his head is. There’s no doubt all those things come into play. ”
• On the last question of the press conference, he stated there are no moves currently in the works, and expects to have the team he has right now.
• Ended the conference with: “Guys, the one thing I just want to say it, be very fortunate that it worked. Because you never know, when you put a plan together, whether it’s going to be executed. Luck is involved in all of this, and it came out pretty good.”

And, of course, the humorous part of the interview:

Blogger: Ed it’s Brian from Depressed Fan.
Ed: Depressed who, from what?
Blogger: Depressed Fan.
Ed: C’mon! Get a little more excited.
[laughs]
Blogger: It’s mostly the Yankees these days.
[laughs]

Click “Read More” for a full transcript of the interview.

Read more

I can’t recall an election where the Vice Presidential nominations made less sense to me.

You have Joe Biden saying “I think he [Obama] can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on the job training.” Then 4 years ago you have Biden campaigning that John McCain should be John Kerry’s running mate. I think Biden has some merit to being a vice presidential candidate, and will at least provide is with good sound bites during the campaign, but it seems politicians expect us to have short memories. The amount of rhetoric and spin now to back track from those comments will be inevitable.

And Palin? Where to begin. Ok, the lack of experience is obvious.

I mean, 20 months ago she was the mayor of Wasilla. Never heard of it? Most haven’t. Population is in the 7000 range. 19 months as the Governor of Alaska doesn’t exactly qualify you.

And the scandals make you wonder whether there was any vetting process at all (which, if you believe reports that McCain only went to her a few days before the announcement after he was prevented from getting his top choices, is plausible). Not that her teenage daughter getting pregnant is her fault, but it does shed a bad light.

And wait until her husband and her own involvement with the Alaskan Independence Party starts getting more attention (who’s main objective is secession from the US).

I understand the thought of going for female voters/Hillary supporters not yet ready to accept Obama, but I don’t think a pro-life woman with that kind of rumored scandals behind her is going to do that. And the hypocrisy of criticizing Obama’s lack of experience, then saying the VP is someone who needs to be able to step in in a heartbeat, then hiring someone with no experience, is crazy.

Definitely interesting. I’m not sure in the end it has that much of an effect on the election results, but both of them were surprising to me.