8/6: Griggsy’s Gripes

Double dose of Griggsy’s lovin’ on AtC. First we got an unreal write-up about the Pirates and now some more gripin’.

Griggsy, roll that beautiful bean footage.

 

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As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m bad at writing intros. Because of that, let’s get right into things. This is what I’m griping about this

week:

 

->2011 Pittsburgh Pirates, we hardly knew ye. When you lose seven games in a row, nine of your last ten, and fall two games under .500, the dream has probably ended. It was a fun ride, and I will still be in front of the television for most of the games the rest of the season, but contending for a playoff spot appears to be beyond theBuccos’ reach for 2011. I’m not writing an epitaph on the team’s year yet, nor am I here to celebrate achievements. Instead, allow me to focus on the rest of the season.

 

The Pirates now have a fine line to walk. They need to make decisions about players going into next season, but they also need to keep 81 wins for this season as a possibility (or likelihood, to be honest). Is it going to be tough to do both? Based on the current 40 man roster, and in no particular order, here’s my (uneducated) analysis:

 

Sure To Return- K. Correia, J. Hanrahan, P. Alvarez, A. McCutchen, J. McDonald, N. Walker, J. Tabata, T. Watson, C. d’Arnaud, A. Presley, J. Jaramillo, J. Harrison, D. Moskos, B. Lincoln

 

Likely To Return- R. Ohlendorf, M. Diaz, R. Cedeno, J. Karstens, E. Meek, C. Morton, C. Resop, X. Paul, D. McCutchen, M. McKenry, C. Leroux, P. Ciriaco, E. Fryer, T. Wood

 

Unsure About Returning- R. Ludwick, P. Maholm, R. Doumit, J. Veras, G. Jones, S. Pearce, B. Wood, K. Hart

 

Unlikely To Return- C. Snyder, J. Beimel, J. Grilli

 

Will Not Return- D. Lee

 

Looking at that list, I don’t think it’s going to be that tough to analyze players while chasing after the elusive .500 record at the end of the season. The Pirates pretty much know what they are getting out of everyone listed, with the exception of Kevin Hart, who has been injured for a majority of his time with the organization. In past years, the latter part of the Pirates’ schedule was exclusively for the purpose of identifying who is worth keeping for the next season. This season, that won’t be the case. So, all that will matter will be finding a way to win 81+ games…

 

->Another big question about the Pirates going into 2012 involves the manager. Is Clint Hurdle the right man for this job? No question, he

is a master motivator, getting the maximum effort out of his charges on every gameday. But is he the right guy to have in there strategically? He makes fans and analysts tear their hair out with all of his bunting, his questionable lineup choices, and as Thursday night against the Cubs reminded us, his mismanagement of the bullpen is borderline criminal. Does this make him worse than a lot of managers in the league? The scary thing is that he probably isn’t any better or worse than most of them. Hurdle’s motivating makes him worth keeping around, but some type of adjustment needs made. The best way of doing this, in my opinion, is to get a strong-willed bench coach for Hurdle. Ideally, he will have no fear to tell Hurdle he’s making a potentially horrible decision. But I would take someone who would at least make Hurdle re-think his decisions…

 

->So, I hear football’s back. Both pro and college football training camps are underway. At some point, someday, I’ll get to my college football rant (and it’s a long one). But for my sanity, and yours, let’s keep the focus on the NFL for now. The labor strife in the NFL is over, teams are gearing up for the preseason, and fans are going crazy. Me, not so much. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still love football, and I’m glad it’s back. But I hate the lunacy that shows up around this time of year. I can’t speak to whether this is common around the country, but in the Pittsburgh area, crazy behavior reigns supreme from mid-July on. It started a little later this year, due to the extended lockout, but it’s shown up in full force now that the Steelers are back at St. Vincent College in Latrobe. Too many fans that are only willing to talk about the Steelers, to the point that they will argue about the 7th wide receiver on the team, or the 3rd string left guard, etc. Some guys and gals will go into major rants about guys that will be bagging groceries by September 1. And while I appreciate attention to detail, I don’t need to know about the yards per carry average of the undrafted free agent fullback who won’t even get on the field in preseason.

 

The scary thing, though, is that it’s not just the fans that are insane this time of year. Media members are just as bad.

 

I get that the local NFL team needs to be covered by the local media. It makes sense that sports writers and TV sports guys need to be all over Latrobe this month. They need to make their 3 minute reports regarding who looks good, who looks bad, and who got hurt. But what we don’t need are four or five writers from the same newspaper, or worst of all, serious news reporters for local TV stations doing daily reports from training camp. This drives me insane. I turn on the news at 5 or 6PM to see the major news stories of the day. I don’t turn it on so that ten minutes in (or sooner), that news guy is going to talk about the Steelers’ day on the practice field. It makes the station look like a joke organization, and takes away lots of credibility for the reporter and the news team. I love sports more than you can imagine, but when I turn on the news, I want news. If I want all the football you can fit in one hour, I have channels for that. A handful of them, actually. Leave it to them!

 

Deep breath…

 

->To be fair, though, I am very excited to see the guys back on the field. There has been a bad taste in my mouth since February. Coming so close to another ring, and falling short in such tough fashion, it stays with players and fans for a long time. For that reason, games can’t come fast enough. I’m not making any predictions yet (there are a couple of weeks left for that, stay tuned), but I like the Steelers’ chances for a good season. Lots of players are returning, and with that comes experience. In some years, a worry may be the age of the players, but not this season with special circumstances. Any team with lots of new players and/or new coaches will struggle early, because the lockout set their learning (or teaching) curve way back. Teams like the Steelers have a big advantage in that regard, and they could well ride that advantage to a very successful 2011 campaign…

 

->This just in: The weather still sucks…

 

->Because of the above fact, it makes me very happy that hockey is less than 2 months away. I love football and love baseball, but hockey will always hold the highest regard in my heart. I’m starting to get antsy, like a drug addict going through withdrawl. I have watched some replays of games on the NHL Network, but that really hasn’t helped. I am probably going to turn to my “Penguins 10 Greatest Games” DVD set soon, but I know that will be a temporary fix. Hopefully, though, it will hold me over until training camp. Don’t worry, I’m not a hypocrite. I won’t start talking about Wilkes-Barre’s 3rd and 4th lines or the plus-minus stat for the Pens’ 5th round pick in 2010 (or whatever). But I can’t wait to start thinking about lines, D-pairs, and matchups against the rest of the NHL. Let’s hope I can make it until then…

 

->The following statement may make you think less of me. I accept that.

 

I love the Harry Potter movies.

 

There, I said it. Judge me if you will. I’m not sure why I’m telling you this. I guess it’s because I am a man who loves movies nearly as much as I love sports. I watch a ton of them. So, when my girlfriend (thanks, honey) pushed me towards watching the set of movies, it took up a lot of my viewing time.

 

Now, to go back, let me say that I never watched a single minute of the movies prior to the last few weeks. This is not to say that I actively avoided them. I just never sought them out. I’ve done this with movies before (notably, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I never saw in theaters, but fell in love with via the extended edition DVDs). I am sure I will do this again with movies I should watch. Again, though, I finally was convinced to try the first movie and go from there (thanks again, dear). I was skeptical, naturally. Wizards and such, not my usual cup of tea.

 

But I was hooked very quickly. It was a fun series of movies, with many emotional moments that got to me. I’m an emotional guy to begin with, so the movies were able to latch on to me pretty easily. I am just so impressed that a compelling story could be told, both for the entire series and for each individual movie.

 

The gripe is with movie makers and movie crowds today. I fear we’re never going to get a steady stream of good movies with substance anymore. The three most popular types of movies (both in number of them made and number of hits from the genres) are the mindless slasher, the gross-out comedy, and the no-depth action movie. With rare exceptions, these are the movies that get the most attention, and the most box office action. It depresses me that too many people are willing to turn out for those movie types listed above, while ignoring the movies that have something substantial to them. Will this ever turn around? I sure hope so, but I fear I shouldn’t hold my breath…