A Question of Balance

Was there ever a better World Series? Well, yes. The Rangers were very quiet. All those bats did nothing. That wasn’t Yankee pitching out there on the hill. Those were the best pitchers in the National League. And it showed. Whiff, whiff, whiff went the Rangers. Tim Lincecum beat the great Cliff Lee twice. Matt Cain won Game 2 and would have won more had the Series been extended. The very young Madison Bumgarner was lights out too. Only Jonathan Sanchez was touched up for some runs.

While the Rangers were mostly striking out, the Giants did just enough to win at the plate and sometimes did more than that. They were really very good at the plate, certainly better than they had been all season, starting with the World Series MVP, Edgar Renteria. He’d been hurt most of the season. The real stalwarts in the batting order all season had been Aubrey Huff and Juan Uribe. Andres Torres had also shown himself to be a real pain in the neck to opposing pitchers and catchers both. Otherwise, that team just didn’t hit at all.

There was no Cody Ross, no Pat Burrell.. ….just guys like the Panda, Pablo Sandoval, who had a horrible year. Freddy Sanchez didn’t do much either. In the Series, they all decided to be world beaters. Go figure, not that they had to do much in this Series. The Rangers, who had looked so awesome versus Tampa Bay and New York, couldn’t touch the Giants pitching most games.

But at least the Series managers let their teams play. They didn’t impose their wills on the game beyond what was needed. The Giants won because they pitched better, they batted better and they fielded better. Nobody pitched on 3 days rest. There were no outrageous decisions. The managers seemed happy to fade into the woodwork, or the dugout as the case may be. While Bruce Bochy got credit for making all the right moves, his choices weren’t made to call attention to himself.

Contrast that to some or almost all of these NFL coaches. Bonehead of the week went hands down to Mike Shanahan, who took out his fine starting quarterback, Donovan McNabb, in the final two minutes, only to insert one Rex Grossman, formerly of Bears fame and mostly notable for bad throws. Rex was hit and immediately fumbled, thus ensuring defeat in a game that had only seconds ago been winnable.

Shortly thereafter, Brad Childress, already somewhat infamous for being a boob, at least in this column, waived the incomparable Randy Moss, who committed the unpardonable sin of all time by questioning one of Brad’s brain farts that didn’t work in their loss to Moss’s former team, the New England Patriots.

Now don’t get me wrong. Randy Moss is an idiot. But he did make the Vikings a better team, no matter that the Vikings hadn’t been able to parlay his receiving skills into wins. But the Vikings still have a chance to turn their season around. It’s not likely that cutting Randy will prove to be any help in that regard. If nothing else, Moss’s presence completely opened the field for the dangerous Percy Harvin.

Cutting himself would have been a much better idea. Everybody knows it’s Favre’s team anyway. Childress has no football instincts whatsoever. Until and unless Sidney Rice returns to the Vikings lineup, the Vikings will have no deep threat on the field, nobody to keep the opposition off Harvin. And I don’t think we can count Bernard Berrian, or Greg Lewis or Camarillo. Oh yeah, there’s Hank Baskett too.

Childress cut Moss because he could. It’s as simple as that. (As this is written, Moss’s name still isn’t on the list so maybe it’s not so simple after all). Even given Moss’s rather huge indiscretions in the locker room, a warning or other disciplinary action would have been more appropriate at this time, especially if Childress were really interested in what’s best for the Vikings. Childress’s insecurities notwithstanding (and he certainly has ample reason for those), the timing of Moss’s release was poor.

Mike Shanahan is a different kind of case. He removed McNabb from the game totally for the sake of his own ego. He couldn’t stand the thought of the Skins winning another game and having McNabb get the credit for it. Again. But if Grossman could have achieved the same result, then the credit would have reverted to Shanahan. The only other possibility is that the Skins winning too many games in Shanahan’s first contract year is not part of his 5-year plan.

Either way, Shanahan’s taking McNabb out of the game was despicable. That his bonehead move was so spectacularly unsuccessful just proves that there is a God….in case you were wondering.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Jets coaching staff once again proved its free and easy coaching style sometimes doesn’t work. The Jets punter, totally of his own volition, faked a punt from the shadows of his own goal posts. Of course he didn’t make the first down. But he surely did surprise both head coach Rex Ryan and the special teams coach, Mike Westhoff. Did he really have a green light? The punter, Steve Weatherford, seemed to think so.

All I know is that these things don’t happen to Bill Belichick. And these Jets seem to be playing their season as if they’re still doing a reality show.

In Dallas, Wade Phillips, in response to a question as to whether he had lost control of his team, responded that he certainly hoped not. What the hell kind of an answer is that? He could have ripped his secondary new butt-holes. He could have picked on guys like Miles Austin and other receivers who either tipped catchable balls or simply weren’t looking.

Phillips is the other extreme of the NFL coaching continuum, a total wuss. With all those candidates out there, can’t these teams find a balanced guy?

You can’t make this stuff up.