5-at-10: Ozzie Smith is overrated, is Biden presidential, changes in sports and Mike hates me

Greeson thumbnail for lead photo only
Greeson thumbnail for lead photo only

Let's handle our BID-ness.

Rushmore of best movies with a child (under 12) as the lead

"Home Alone," "E.T.," "Harry Potter," "Stand by Me." (I can understand the support for "Sixth Sense," but I concur with Fat Vader that Bruce Willis is the lead there. And he's also the lead in Disney's "The Kid," which makes it dusty in whatever room I'm in whenever it comes on somehow.)

Rushmore of sports mustaches

Rollie Fingers is far left. But wow, this was way harder to pick than I realized. First, I think for iconic reasons, Mark Spitz has a spot. And to be fair, Chas rightly noted that the old-school baseball dudes were a class unto themselves in so many ways.

So in the final two spots, with all apologies to Andy Reid's very Coppinger-esque state and Aaron Rodgers' attempt to get into the adult entertainment industry, the final two spots are hard-fought. I'm going Hulk Hogan for reasons mentioned earlier this week, and with apologies to the Mad Hungarian, the final spot goes to Mike Ditka, just in case Mike Ditka reads the 5-at-10, because who wants Mike Ditka mad at them? (Side question: Adam Morrison at Gonzaga was arguably the worst stache in sports history, right?)

Rushmore of shortstops

OK, we're going to start with a controversial take. Ozzie Smith is the most overrated MLB Hall of Famer of my lifetime. (Well, before they let Ted Simmons and Harold Baines in with this farce of a Veterans Committee 2.0 that is turning Cooperstown into the Hall of Really Dang Good.)

Fact: He hit .262, which is among the lowest averages of any non-Dead Ball era HoF'er.

Fact: Ozzie is regarded as a Wizard with the glove. In fact, our memories are more based on backflips and highlights than facts. Ozzie is 24th all-time among shortstops in field percentage at .9782, which trails all-time leader Omar Vizquel - a much better defensive shortstop than Ozzie ever was - and some guys that may surprise you. Troy Tulowitzki (second at .9846), Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa (ninth and 10th at .9811 and .9810 respectively), Andrelton Simmons (.9804), Larry Bowa (.9797) and Cal Ripken (.9793).

Compare these resumes: Tony Fernandez played shortstop for 17 years had four gold gloves, hit .288 with 94 homers and 246 steals with 2,276 hits with a .9795 fielding percentage; Ozzie played 19 years, won 13 gold gloves when it was voted on by fans, hit .262 with 28 homers and 580 steals with 2,460 career hits. Compare.

Fact: He had one big league season in which he hit over .300 and finished in the top 15 of the MVP voting (both happened in 1987, when he hit .303 and finished second in the MVP race behind Andre Dawson of the last-place Cubs).

Fact: He was traded straight up for Garry Templeton, and most every baseball voice at the time thought the Padres got the better player.

Opinion: Smith was no better than the fifth or sixth most important Cardinals player during their dominant run of the 1980s, behind Coleman, McGee, Herr, Clark, Andujar and possibly a few others. So, needless to say, Ozzie does not make it. This is not open for debate, and certainly not open for debate with the new generation of shortstops. Ripken is a no-brainer. And so is A-Rod and Honus Wagner. (Yes A-Rod played a lot of other positions, but he did that by choice - he was the better shortstop in his time in NYC.)

The last spot is a dog fight, and there were some old-school dudes with impressive claims - guys like Army Vaughn, who played in the '30s and '40s and kicked back ales with Spy from time to time, Lou Boudreau and some others. But if we have covered Smith - who may not crack my top 10 or 15 at the position, friends - and I don't think Jeter makes it because he's a bit overrated too because of his defensive shortcomings and his overblown, God-like status in the media capital of the world.

Who's left? Robin Yount was better than you remember. So was Barry Larkin. And a couple of the active dudes above like Correa could get there. Last spot goes to Ernie Banks. So there's that, and yes, this may be the longest Rushmore discussion in a long, Long, LONG while.

Rushmore of players who deserve their numbers retired by two different franchises

Kareem with the Bucks and the Lakers. Greg Maddux, with the Cubs and Braves, Reggie White with the Eagles and the Packers, and Jackie Robinson, across all of MLB.

You know the rules. Here's Paschall on UT's opener and Hargis on a Baylor coach with longstanding connections with some of the area's best to ever blow a whistle.


From Chas

Query for Friday's bag: Do you think Uncle Joe was presidential in his response this afternoon to the Kabul airport bombing?

Chas -

Personal? Yes, but Joe has always been likable.

Proportionally compassionate? Absolutely. That said, uh Joe, we know you lost your son to brain cancer, and that he served. My heart aches for any parent that has to bury a child. But, let's see how long we can go without bringing Beau back up. I know what the purpose was there - trying to form a connection to the loved ones of the at least 12 U.S. military folks killed in the airport attack - but they do not care about your loss or a connection. They are grieving too much.

As for being presidential, well, that's a good question and a fair one considering my criticism of Joe last week.

My answer is more than last week's debacle, but still no. He - and every leader facing crisis - lose points with me by not taking questions. That tells me you do not have answers. You have statements you want to make.

Also, while I am compassionate for the Afghan people left in this mess, a large swath of them reportedly are unwilling to fight the Taliban. That is not our problem - then or now or in the future.

But in that regard - even though Biden offered a ham-handed mea culpa about the withdrawal - that Joe and his staff mismanaged the original departure so poorly that we have not been able to protect American military personnel to redo the mistakes of the original withdrawal is firmly on Joe and his staff, in my opinion.

Joe looked more consoler in chief rather than commander in chief, in my opinion, and that is way more vice presidential than presidential to me.


From Mike

I thought you were going to have college football talk leading up to the season? But all we get is politics and ESPN bashing and your ... COVID opinions. You were much more fun when you wrote about sports, sir. No wonder ESPN fired you.

Mike -

Have a nice weekend my friend. And know this, as long as you patronize our advertisers, there are more than a few online destinations if this one does not meet your standards.

Enjoy the day my man.

From Larry

I am new to your work - I love your morning blog.

You wrote about the baseball tech changes and umps. I was wondering if you could change one rule in each of the major sports, what would it be.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Larry -

Welcome to the show and feel free to stay a while.

We have discussed this before, but it feels like it's been a while.

My baseball change would be the automated strike zone. And it would happen before the end of the week. It's past time.

My football change would be similar. It makes my head hurt that for all the technology we have watching, analyzing and dissecting the sport of football, that we still have old, mostly white, dudes gauging the position of the ball being moved by freaks of nature with unreal size and speed combinations that end in large masses of humanity by eye. And those random and guesstimate measurements are then gauged against another assumed and guessed upon starting point from which a team must move 10 yards, and that progress is measured against two more old dues holding sticks that are actually connected with a chain. Read that sentence again, and it sounds as if we're describing a game played between the settlers and the Natives before the first Thanksgiving.

Chip the ball. Computer grid the field. Know precisely the forward progress made and whether the ball breaks the goal line. And as an added bonus, think of the time we save for challenges of the spot of the ball and the automatic booth review of TDs.

For basketball, there's a bunch of them, honestly because the game doesn't resemble the sport I grew up loving the most. The easiest answer in terms of helping the product at the highest levels is expanding the court to allow these bigger, strong, faster dudes more space to operate. But I think I would make the college basketball draft incorporate the MLB draft rules. You can be drafted out of high school. You can go to junior college (or in this case, the G-League) and be drafted after any season, but if you go to a four-year school, you have to stay three years. That's how the MLB draft works. And being able to reconnect with the players on your favorite team and have them be part of the program for a couple of years rather than a couple of months would help so many things.

As for hockey and soccer, well, this may be an unpopular opinion for the folks who live and die in those games, but as just an occasional watcher, do away with offsides. If a dude or a team strategically wants to snowbird, then let them, but exploit them on the other end.

Thoughts?



From Brian

Jay, have you thought of doing a betting show? I would watch it.

You're hilarious.

Brian -

Thanks. I try.

We are going to incorporate more betting into the show starting with football season and the legalized betting options in Tennessee, and all over the country.

I know we have regulars from all over the U.S. now, and feel free to play along with the silliness.

We are going to discuss betting options, fantasy plays and more throughout the football season and beyond.

Speaking of that, I currently am looking for a new fantasy league. Sadly, my back-to-back title runs with Weston Wamp's super fun The Pitch league ended because of conflicts with the Zoom draft last night.

But stay tuned Brian, there's going to be a bunch of gambling talk in the days and weeks to come.

You can bet on that. (See what I did there, Ern.)

Have a good weekend friends.

photo Jay Greeson

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