SB Nation User Blog: Jonny Pops

Steve McNair Reported Killed

Jonny Pops — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:38:01 -0000

Former Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans QB Steve McNair has reportedly been shot and killed in what looks to be a double homicide in downtown Nashville, TN. Nashville police currently have no suspects in the crime but are questioning several people at police headquarters there. This story is currently breaking and details may emerge or change as we find out more about what went down.

Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams released a statement saying:

We are saddened and shocked to hear the news of Steve McNair’s passing today. He was one of the finest players to play for our organization and one of the most beloved players by our fans. He played with unquestioned heart and leadership and led us to places that we had never reached, including our only Super Bowl. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family as they deal with his untimely passing.

McNair was only 36 years old at the time of his murder. This is extremely sad news for all football fans. My heart goes out to Steve McNair's family during this difficult time.

Diamond Dave's Lousy Lineup

Jonny Pops — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:23:07 -0000

On a day when we're all steaming about Dave Trembley's affinity for small ball and the hit and run, I'd like to point out another glaring weakness in our team's management this season: the lineup. First let's take a look at the starting lineups over the past week to get a legit picture of where we're at:

06/03/09 versus LHP Jason Vargas

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Jones -CF
3. Markakis - RF
4. Huff - 1B
5. Mora - 3B
6. Scott - DH
7. Wieters - C
8. Reimold - LF
9. Izturis - SS

06/02/09 versus LHP Erik Bedard

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Jones -CF
3. Markakis - RF
4. Huff - DH
5. Mora - 3B
6. Wigginton - DH
7. Wieters - C
8. Reimold - LF
9. Izturis - SS

06/01/09 versus LHP Jarrod Washburn

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Jones -CF
3. Markakis - RF
4. Huff - 1B
5. Mora - 3B
6. Scott - DH
7. Wieters - C
8. Reimold - LF
9. Izturis - SS

05/31/09 versus RHP Edwin Jackson

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Jones -CF
3. Markakis - RF
4. Huff - 1B
5. Wigginton - 3B
6. Scott - LF
7. Wieters - DH
8. Zaun - C
9. Andino - SS

05/30/09 versus RHP Justin Verlander

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Jones -CF
3. Markakis - RF
4. Huff - 1B
5. Mora - 3B
6. Scott - DH
7. Wieters - C
8. Reimold - LF
9. Izturis - SS

05/29/09 versus LHP Dontrelle Willis

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Jones -CF
3. Markakis - RF
4. Huff - 1B
5. Mora - 3B
6. Scott - DH
7. Wieters - C
8. Reimold - LF
9. Izturis - SS

05/28/09 versus RHP Armando Galarraga

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Jones -CF
3. Markakis - RF
4. Huff - 1B
5. Mora - 3B
6. Scott - DH
7. Reimold - LF
8. Zaun - C
9. Izturis - SS

So our basic lineup versus either LHP or RHP, when we're not giving starters rest or benchriders playing time is:

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Jones -CF
3. Markakis - RF
4. Huff - 1B
5. Mora - 3B
6. Scott - DH
7. Wieters - C
8. Reimold - LF
9. Izturis - SS

We've had this lineup in 4 of the last 7 games and in last Thursday's game, before Wieters came up, it was a nearly this except with Reimold batting 7th and Zaun 8th. On first look at this mess, one notices a distinct, glaring, inexcusable problem:

1. What the hell is Melvin Mora doing batting 5th?

Melvin Mora is currently sporting a .677 OPS. He's "slugging" a meager .343 and has a grand total of 2 home runs and 4 doubles this year. This is our number 5 hitter? In a power slot? Is our manager fucking crazy?

2. Instead of 2. Jones 3. Markakis, how about 2. Markakis 3. Jones?

Nick Markakis' OPS currently stands at .833, with a .474 SLG, 7 HR and 16 2B. Respectable numbers sure, but nothing special. Particularly when you see what else we have cooking next door.

Adam Jones has a nifty 1.002 OPS with a .603 SLG, 11 HR and 14 Two Baggers.

It's time for a switcheroo. Now some Camden Chatters, who apparently believe in magic or voodoo or Santa Claus or something were making the case to me in the gamethread last night that Jones had reached these superstar numbers as a result of hitting behing Robers and in front of Markakis. I don't buy it. One thing is that AJ obviously has much more power than Nick. This is reason enough to move him down a notch, simply to knock more runs in off of Dongs. Secondly, Markakis is beloved around here and all, and a fine player no doubt, but to think he's striking fear in the hearts of pitchers around the league with his demonstrated 20 homer per year prowess is exaggerating his abilities in my opinion. Lastly we have hitters, lefty hitters, to protect Jones further down the lineup. Including recent hot streaker...

3. Luke Scott for Cleanup!

Sure he's streaky, but boy this current streak sure is running hot, hot, hot!!!! But honestly either Huff or Luke hitting 4th or 5th, interchangeably is ample protection for Adam Jones. Just no more fucking Melvin Mora in the 5 spot. Jesus H. Christ.

4. Wieters Needs to Earn It.

Matt Wieters should be batting 8th until he starts hitting. At this point, Nolan Reimold has proven more than Matt Wieters in the Bigs and should hit further up than him, and Mora for that matter. Now hopefully that will all change soon, but until then Matt the Bat should take a step down the ladder.

5. A Suggested Replacement:

1. Roberts - 2B
2. Markakis - RF
3. Jones - CF
4. Scott - DH
5. Huff - 1B
6. Reimold - LF
7. Mora - 3B
8. Wieters - C
9. Izturis - SS

There's plenty of room for debate on this to be sure. So let's get it going!

OT: Will Lil Wayne's Career Have Legs?

Jonny Pops — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:40:10 -0000

Lil Wayne has enjoyed one of the most successful careers in popular music over the course of the past year and earlier. His recent album Tha Carter III has produced numerous hit singles and all the while he has appeared as a guest vocalist on numerous other artists' tracks both inside and outside the realm of hip hop and R&B. He'll even be releasing be releasing a Rock album in June (he claims one of his favorite bands from his youth was Nirvana).

Although I like a lot of Lil Wayne's music I've often dismissed him as being so styilzed - particularly with his signature, and much copied, use of a vocoder on his vocals - that he will not be able to extend his shelf life as an artist too far into the future, becoming too emblematic (as many hip hop and R&B artists do) of a particular point in time that will soon come to pass. But now I'm not so sure. There seem to be so many hits and good tracks that come out of this guy that perhaps his career will have legs after all.

So I want to get the community reaction, particularly form those of you into music, and specificaly hip hop and R&B. Will Lil Wayne become an Andre 3000 or is he simply a passing fad? Have at it in the poll and comments....

Poll

Will Lil Wayne's career have legs?

Yes

141 votes

No

56 votes

Who's Lil Wayne?

39 votes

236 votes | Poll has closed

OT Poll: Chiapparelli's v. Sabatino's

Jonny Pops — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:01:23 -0000

There's an old debate in Baltimore as to which of two Little Italy Italian restaurant rivals is better; Chiapparelli's or Sabatino's? The two stand across Fawn Street from one another. Both are unquestionably from another era, serving the hearty red sauce fare of Italians of my grandmother's generation. Both take pride in their house salads which both feature a thick creamy house Italian dressing.

Chiapparelli's advantage is that Jimmy Carter ate there while President in the late 70's - they still have a photo of it up on the wall of their lobby.

Sabatino's advantage is they're open late.

So pipe in Baltimoreans and vote for the one you prefer. But remember, this is about Chiapparelli's and Sabatino's only. If you prefer Vellegia's or Da Mimmo or Aldo or La Scala or La Tavola over these two old heavyweights, that's fine. But that's not what we're after here.

Poll

Which of these two classic restaurants in Baltimore's Little Italy do you prefer?

Chiapparelli's

23 votes

Sabatino's

35 votes

58 votes | Poll has closed

OT Poll: The Clash: Overrated?

Jonny Pops — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:57:50 -0000

For years whenever I've had a conversation with a certain type of music fan I've lived a lie. That type is a die hard fan of The Clash, and when they would wax poetic about this band and how they were one of greatest, most influential music acts of all time, I would nod and agree because it seemed like the right thing to do. After all, many music journalists have had a stiffy for The Clash for decades now. London Calling makes it on Top Whatever album lists like clockwork. Plus they were punk rock, and they all seemed cool enough so why disagree? Joe Strummer was so cool he lived with his Mum and was still adored for fuck's sake!

Well no more. I can't go to my grave, or even into middle age keeping up this charade. I like The Clash. London Calling is a good album and so is The Clash. But honestly...to me....they're just not that good. They're not even that influential. They're actually very influenced to be honest. Influenced by reggae bands from which they derived their white reggae-light sounding material which really diminishes them as a band, for me at least.

So anyhow, here's the poll...

Poll

Are The Clash...

Overrated?

22 votes

Justifiably praised?

21 votes

Underrated?

4 votes

What the fuck is The Clash?

1 votes

48 votes | Poll has closed

What could we get for...Matt Wieters?

Jonny Pops — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:48:52 -0000

Perhaps, it's the unthinkable. But it occurs to me that the Orioles have evolved into the familiar position of having crappy pitching and the unfamiliar position of having a decent offense that looks to only get better over the next several years. Such an imbalance would seem to be the perfect time for a trade. But that brings up another unfamiliar situation the Orioles find themselves, we now hold the contract for arguably the most valuable prospect in the entirety of baseball, young Mr. Matt Wieters.

The numbers speak for themselves, and we've all seen them a hundred times, but here they are again anyways.

2008 Matt Wieters Minor League Stats

Frederick Keys .345/.448/.576 15 HR 229 AB

Bowie Baysox .365/.460/.625 12 HR 208 AB

The thing is though, I cannot see how this player is ever going to look more valuable than he does right now. These numbers have young superstar written all over them, with the enormous added bonuses attached of Six Full Years of contractual control on a healthy player who looks like he will step in and knock the shit out of the ball from Day One.

So what can we get for him? We need pitching. We need it bad and we've needed it for a long time. Given Wieters promise the haul could be enormous off of a potential trade. Should we do it? Damfino. But it's nice to have options...

Joe Buck Admits He Rarely Watches Sports, Has No Time for Baseball

Jonny Pops — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:31:01 -0000

Joe Buck admitted this morning on Colin Cowherd's show on ESPN Radio that he rarely watches sports on television and that he feels baseball is too big of a time commitment for people to be able to follow. Buck noted that The Bachelorette is part of his television viewing repertoire however.

I've never liked this fucking guy. I've never liked FOX's coverage of the sport. But to hear that this spoiled little shit doesn't even fucking watch sports and then has the audacity to make lame ass excuses about it, pisses me off to no end. Can some of the lawyers around here tell me if it's possible for the government, or any other semi-functional entity, to take control of the broadcasting rights away from FOX on grounds of the incompetence they put in their announcing booth?

You can hear the offending clip here.

OT: Great Web Content

Jonny Pops — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:31:55 -0000

I love finding new, interesting websites. It goes without saying that the Internets are an unbelievable resource, that over time just continue to grow and in many ways improve. Trouble is, there's just so damn much out there, sometimes it's hard to get your bearings and without a little guidance or a tip. So I thought since we do a lot of OT stuff on music, movies and even tv shows on here, it might be time to steer a discussion back to the medium we're all taking part in.

Just as a starter, what I'm asking is for you to name five or so great websites. Can be any topic (sans porn or other sexy-time sites, please), any format - blog, database, search engine, plain & simple html. Try to think of something a little off the beaten path though. We all know The Google is good for searching for stuff and Photobucket is a good place to store image files. The idea should be to try to turn people on to something new, a good resource, a great way to find stuff, a music blog with opinions you value etc. etc. You get the picture.

The Crow Must Go...Now More Than Ever

Jonny Pops — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:38:51 -0000

What on God's Green Earth is it going to take to convince the Orioles front office that Terry Crowley should have packed his bags and stopped pretending to be a Hitting Coach years ago? How about these numbers:

O'S TEAM STAT RANKING AMONGST MLB CLUBS

AVG .246 27th

OBP .317 25th

SLG .392 20th

RUNS 227 25th

2B 87 25th

The outlier amongst the offensive stats is HRs where we're 12th in MLB and, astonishingly, 4th in the AL. Although what this tells me with our crappy OBP and Runs stats is that we've got a bunch of jackasses, with (surprise, surprise) no plate discipline, swinging for the fences and hitting solo dongs since nobody can bother to get their ass on base on this team.

So what the fuck is it going to take? We've known for years now that The Crow's "philosophy" about hitting is basically a mixture of "do whatever the fuck you want" and "be aggressive". The man has been much more comfortable with a cheerleader pom-pom in his hand than a bat for years on end now. Can someone in the FO please wake up about this jackass before he fucks up Adam Jones' future in the Major Leagues?

"O"ly Planet: Chicago

Jonny Pops — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:28:42 -0000

In following up on a conversation I had at the NYC is Birdland meetup last night, I'm posting the first in what could be an ongoing, off-topic, but Oriolecentric CC Travel series: "O"ly Planet. The first edition will be Chicago, Illinois - The Windy City, for no other reason than that I'm visiting there next week on bid-ness.

Unlike, Lonely Planet, "O"ly Planet should only be comprised of advice and recommendations from people who have actually been to the destination in question and preferably have a decent knowledge thereof. So if you've been to, or, even better, lived in Chicago feel free to give your recs on good food, neighborhoods, bars, activities etc. in the Windy City.

via www.chicagoaerialtours.com