Keyshawn Johnson is Burning?

Well let him.

So Keyshawn was doing a little guest host gig today for Jim Rome on that abomination of a show that Rome has. On the bright side, there was no noticeable drop off from the usual. Unfortunately, that's a bad thing.

So Keyshawn or whoever writes for the show referenced a study that found that Derek Jeter is THE worst fielding starting short stop (presumably with a minimum sample size) in the majors. This is sort of something that sabremetricians have been hinting at for a while, so it was quite exciting to hear it mentioned on ESPN. The study evidently goes on to say that the Yankees made a mistake by moving A-Rod to third and keeping Jeter at SS. Again, I totally agree. In all likelihood A-Rod would be a much better fielder if he were playing his natural position, and he would do a better job than Jeter.

Then Keyshawn says that the study is wrong because it fails to account for how "clutch" Jeter is and that Jeter should just laugh it off. Fine, I guess he should laugh it off, because he is making millions of dollars and probably doesn't care. However Keyshawn attempting to say that the study is actually wrong, by citing some voodoo "clutch" argument and Gold Gloves, is downright appalling. First of all, we all know that 99% of why people think Jeter is clutch is because he made that heads up play to flip to Posada in the ALCS years and years ago and nail a sluggish, roided up Giambi. The only sort of honorific that is affected MORE by some small sample size, pretty memories than the Gold Glove, would have to be the moniker "clutch". Neither one of them is an achievement in and of itself, they are both popularity contests that are loosely linked to some isolated achievements and not actual quality of play.

FJR or GOD DAMNIT HE DID IT AGAIN

Jim Rome has described the Tribe's collapse in the ALCS this past week as devasting, on par with when "Craig Ehlo got posterized by Number 45 [sic!]" or The Drive (by John Elway). He then proceeded to chalk it up to part of Cleveland's nature, as though there was something about the city of Cleveland that caused all of these events. Of course, that makes sense! It had nothing to do with Jordan being almost certainly the best basketball player ever to touch a ball, or with John Elway and the rest of the Broncos being really good, or with "coincidence". The implication being that slightly-above-average Craig Ehlo should have stuffed that shot right back in the face of the best ever, and only failed to because Cleveland must always lose. (Never mind that they made it to the Finals this very year)

More importantly, what the fuck is this "Number 45" bullshit. Clearly, Jordan hadn't even worn #23 when he was kicking Ehlo's ass in the 1989 playoffs. When they met again in the 96 finals, with Ehlo as a benchwarmer, Jordan was again #23. The only reason he ever wore #45 was that he was so amazingly good that his number was retired almost instantly. Is Jim Rome such a prick that he has to come up with a second-grader-esque nickname to tease Michael Jordan? Honest to God, I know I should be dead to it by now, but I am SHOCKED that anyone could be on television without exhibiting more maturity. I guess he's trying to make fun of Jordan for retiring? Maybe? Never mind the fact that Jordan retired to challenge himself, and attributed his decision to his father's tragic death. Jim Rome is nothing if not classy.

To be fair, perhaps Jim Rome doesn't really understand the social institution of family. He later blasted Steinbrenner's kid for referring to Big Stein as "my dad", rather than "the boss" or "Steinbrenner". Clearly it had nothing to do with the fact that "my dad" is a bazillion times less ambiguous than both of the asinine suggestions and less robotic and insulting to our intelligence than saying "George Steinbrenner" 30 times. that Jim Rome spent his time preparing. Nor did it have anything to do with the fact that "my dad" is the most natural way to refer to his father, and was a habit he's had for 40-years or so.

Rome is Burning

Well, let him.

Jim Rome did an entire segment of his show on Tony Romo, having "It". No word on if this is the same "It" possessed by David Eckstein, used car salesmen, and comedians. Anyway, this was before his 5 interception, 6 turnover performance. Fine, everyone makes mistakes. Today, he clarified:

Most of the time, when someone turns it over six times, people lose respect for him, Rom explains.

GOOD. I totally agree. BRAVO! What, you have more to say? Please, continue. I'm sure you're probably going to say that it was just a bad game, and that Romo will probably recover in the future, although the media's fellatio of him was clearly premature.

At this point, Rome explains that he is still convinced Romo has "It". He goes so far as to say (approximately, and double-negatively), "not only have I not lost respect for Romo, I would say that this only adds to the legend. That he can give the game away like that and still win."

What...the...fuck? You respect him MORE because he sucked but won? Kyle Orton played 14 real games (excluding the week 17 dive the Bears took to the Vikings) in 2005. The Bears won 10. Behold the legend that is Kyle Orton.

So Romo won the game. It couldn't possibly be that the Cowboys won because of their other players, you know, the ones who DIDN'T turn the ball over six times. Nor could be that Bills are really, really bad, and scored NO OFFENSIVE TOUCHDOWNS.


Let me also attach some props to Trey Wingo. Although, I'm not sure this was him and not bad closed captioning, since I was working out to Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" at the time, apparently Brett Favre's birthday is "already a National holiday in Wisconsin." I always knew Wisconsin was a strange state.

Similarly, Gator Sorority Girls have a "National" holiday in Rex Grossman's honor.