Here's a video of Big Baby Davis watching "Dunks of the Week". Click the Big Baby Davis tag below to see some more BBD awesomeness. I love this guy.



Via Simmons

In a recent mailbag, Bill Simmons had occasion to name comedy MVPs for every year since 1975. The criteria:

You have to nail at least one of these questions to qualify for that given year: Were you in the hottest comedy of the year or, even better, in the middle of a run of hot comedies? Were you carrying SNL? Did you have an iconic stand-up special, cable TV show, late-night show or comedy series? Did you routinely crush any late-night appearance or SNL hosting gig? Did you have a huge approval rating with little to no backlash? Do we associate that year with you to some degree? I need resonance beyond just cult affection, which unfortunately rules out the great Bill Hicks (who has a strong case for 1990).

It's a pretty good list. Eddie Murphy's 3 year run from 82-84 is set up as the run all comedians should aspire to, which I agree with. There are some lean years, as well, which leads to a few underwhelming selections like Billy Crystal in 1990 and Gary Shandling in 1997. Without having other names to suggest, I think I have the most problems with the last 8 years or so. I love Larry David, but it's hard for me to see him on the list twice when his show hasn't really gotten beyond cult status. Ricky Gervais probably deserves a spot somewhere, and maybe the Lonely Island guys for Lazy Sunday. Also notably absent Stephen Colbert (2006 or 2007) and Conan O'Brien. This list, though, is at least a good place to start the argument. There is only one woman on the list, and a winner for 2010 has not yet been declared. Has there been a breakout comedy for this year, yet? My bet is on Steve Carell, Zach Galifianiakis, Jonah Hill or Russel Brand could be a dark horse, as well as anyone staring in a comedy coming out between now and December. Actually, you know who wins for 2010? Betty White.

Here is the list:
1975: Richard Pryor
1976: Chevy Chase
1977-78: John Belushi
1979: Robin Williams, Steve Martin (tie)
1980: Rodney Dangerfield
1981: Bill Murray
1982-84: Eddie Murphy (1984 Honorable Mention to Sam Kinison)
1985-86: David Letterman
1987: Jay Leno, Howard Stern (tie)
1988: Eddie Murphy
1989: Dana Carvey
1990: Billy Crystal
1991: Jerry Seinfeld
1992: Jerry Seinfeld, Mike Myers (tie)
1993: Mike Myers
1994: Jim Carrey
1995: Chris Farley
1996: Chris Rock
1997: Garry Shandling
1998: Adam Sandler
1999: Mike Myers, Chris Rock (tie)
2000: Will Ferrell
2001: Matt Stone and Trey Parker (tie)
2002: Larry David
2003: Dave Chappelle
2004: Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart (tie)
2005: Steve Carell
2006: Sacha Baron Cohen
2007: Larry David
2008: Tina Fey
2009: Zach Galifianiakis
2010: ????????

In this article about the Red Sox' recent moves, Alex Speier touches on their trade of Casey Kotchman for Mariners' utility man Bill Hall. It's been said this offseason that the Sox are especially concerned about the luxury tax and are doing everything in their power to remain under the $170 million salary threshold. This threshold is determined based on the average annual value of a contract, Bill hall's 4 years at $24 million for instance would be a cost of $6 million against the luxury tax threshold. However, since his contract was structured differently, and since the Brewers were paying the Mariners almost the full amount of the contract, Bill Hall's expiring contract is actually worth around -$1.5 million against the threshold.

Expiring contracts have a significant trade value in the NBA, but I've never heard of any baseball trades being made for this reason. Bill Simmons goes so far as to suffix Expiring Contract onto the end of any player in the last year of a contract, so at the very least, we should refer to Bill Hall as Bill Hall's Expiring Contract for this season, right?

Hall is in the last guaranteed year of a four-year, $24 million deal that will pay him $8.4 million next season. The Mariners, according to a major-league source, will pay $7.5-8 million of his salary — essentially sending the Sox the same money that was given to Seattle by the Brewers when the M’s acquired Hall last summer.

Hall’s contract is evaluated for luxury tax purposes as being worth $6 million in 2010, based on its AAV. But the full amount of the cash transfer — call it $7.5 million — will be deducted from the Sox’ payroll as determined for luxury tax purposes. That being the case, Hall will actually reduce the Sox’ payroll in calculating the competitive balance tax by roughly $1.5 million dollars. Overall, then, the Sox were able to sign Beltre and add Hall and a player to be named at a cost (for CBT purposes) of roughly $2 million in 2010.

Via Dave.

I love trick football plays. Always have.


Via DK.

This week, Bill Simmons takes on the Tiger Woods saga in a 2 part Tiger Zoo mailbag. One interesting section at the end is an extended look at the Tiger Woods/Don Draper similarities (they're both the best and have beautiful wives, etc, etc). This list of 6 tips on how Tiger can rehabilitate his image, from PR pro turned filmmaker Dan Klores, also caught my eye. Especially #6:

1. If you can't tell your wife the truth from the get-go, recognize immediately that you shouldn't marry again, and that the grass isn't always greener from the other side.
2. Hit the links, start giving huge bucks to African-American charities, show up at church, double your dose of Viagra and use it for your wife, understand "it's never going to be the same," see a shrink two to three times per week minimum, do Larry King, then a few weeks later do Leno.
3. Demand your money back from The Enquirer, and demand your money back from any of the girlfriends.
4. Ignore every so-called "crisis communication" expert who sought a headline by claiming you didn't get out in front of the story, because they have obviously never been caught cheating on their wives.
5. Attend the NBA All-Star Weekend's slam dunk contest.
6. Tell the world that Sarah Palin is an idiot so at least 52.9 percent of Americans will agree with you.

A couple weeks ago, Jeff Jarvis picked up on a bit of the Howard Stern show where Stern mused about what could come next for him:

Tomorrow I could go on the internet and start my own channel with my own subscribers. You’d be able to click and watch us on TV, watch us in the studio live, streaming. You’d be able to listen to us streaming. You’d be able to get us on your iPhone. You’d be able to do everything right at the click of the internet. I wouldn’t even need to work for a company. I’d be my own company… So true it’s ridiculous

Jarvis then went on to say:

Entertainers (radio, music, comedy, books, columnists, even filmmakers) will have direct relationships with their audiences. Like Stern, they won’t have to work for companies or go through them for distribution. That’s already happening, of course, on the web for creation, distribution, and monetization...It returns to the age of patronage, only now the kings don’t fund the artists, the public does and less money is wasted on middlemen.

I think he's exactly right about this and I think I've talked about this before. Another entertainer I figured might be heading towards this model is Bill Simmons, and 10 minutes after I read the Jarvis piece on Stern, I read this Huffington Post interview of the Sports Guy. Simmons and ESPN had a dust up a couple years ago when he had the opportunity to interview Obama during the primaries, only to have it nixed by ESPN. This lead to less frequent posting and a general 'work to rule' feel to his columns for a bit. Just last week, Simmons was told to stay off Twitter for two weeks after an impolitic comment about one of ESPN's partners. These wrist slaps, combined with his enthusiasm for and embrace of new media in the form of podcasts and (after some initial derision) Twitter, combined with the release and success of his new book combined with the below quotation lead me to think Bill Simmons is done with ESPN.

Part of me can't shake the temptation of being the underdog again -- like, launching my own sports site, hiring some talented writers and designers and trying to compete with the big guns. Like what Frank Deford did with the National. All right, the National lost $100 million. Bad example.

But I could see doing something crazy like that. I like taking chances, I am not afraid to fail, and beyond that, I am not afraid to fail violently and miserably. So anything is possible. A really good prediction would be, "Simmons is going to fail violently and miserably with a super-ambitious idea within the next five years." Lock it down.

He's either going to walk or make ESPN bend pretty hard to keep him. With the podcasts he's created another platform for himself, and Twitter allows a channel of communication to his fans independent of ESPN. He'll continue to grow his brand with or without ESPN.

Earlier this year, Adam Carolla's insanely popular morning show ended when the station he was changed formats. He decided to start a daily podcast, and because his contract ran until the end of this year, there were no ads or sponsors. It quickly became one of the top podcasts on iTunes, and he continued to attract guests that had appeared on his radio program.

Aside from Bill Simmons and Adam Carolla bringing podcasts mainstream, which is another post, they've also presented a pretty clear model for their future. Couldn't Stern, Simmons, and Carolla start an entertainment website next year with streaming shows, podcasts, sports columns, etc and charge users $2 a month for access? They couldn't get 500K - 1 million subscribers? New media, baby!

Bill Simmons' new book, The Book of Basketball, came out this week. ESPN celebrated by posting 5 excerpts from the book. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

I love when there's a stats question in Bill Simmons' mailbag. This one is as good as the 3 point shooting percentage stat from a couple months ago.

Q: As long as I have watched sports, the term "games over .500" has perplexed me. A 61-21 team is regarded as 40 games over .500, when in reality, it's only 20! Is there someone I can complain to that will fix this and prevent everyone from continuing to make this error and bothering me again?
--Mike U., Norwood, Mass.

SG: I get this e-mail all the time, and it never ceases being dumb. The 61-21 team is considered "40 games over 500" because it would need to lose 40 straight games to drop back down to .500. Also, I'm doing the Dikembe Finger Wag at you.

Following up on Kottke's list of culturally relevant movies that came out in 1984, and Fimoculous' list of culturally relevant albums that came out in 1984, I thought I'd find the culturally relevant list of books that came out in 1984. Using the best selling books as a barometer, you get the following list. Which seems kind of meh, no?

Fiction
1. The Talisman, Stephen King & Peter Straub
2. The Aquitaine Progression, Robert Ludlum
3. The Sicilian, Mario Puzo
5. The Butter Battle Book, Dr. Seuss
8. Full Circle, Danielle Steel
9. Life & Hard Times of Heidi Abromowitz, Joan Rivers
10. Lincoln: A Novel, Gore Vidal
Non-Fiction
1. Iacocca: An Autobiography, Lee Iacocca
4. Pieces of My Mind, Andy Rooney
5. Weight Watchers Fast and Fabulous Cookbook
6. What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School..., Mark H. McCormack
7. Women Coming of Age, J. Fonda & M. McCarthy
10. Weight Watchers Quick Start Program Cookbook

But you may also be interested in the NY TimesEditor's Choice: Best books of 1984. Interestingly, neither of these lists have "Bright Lights, Big City", "The Hunt for Red October", or "Neuromancer".

And then I fell completely into the rabbit hole of determining 1984's status of one of the more culturally relevant years ever. On the stage, David Mamet won a Pulitzer for Glengarry Glen Ross, and Jeremy Irons, Tom Stoppard, and Glen Close all won Tony Awards. Doug Flutie won the Heisman, Desmond Tutu won a Nobel Peace Prize, and Michael Jordan, Charles Barkely, and John Stockton were drafted.

Of course, don't take my word for it, Bill Simmons has 84 reasons 1984 was a good year including his covering of:
Television

27. NBC's Thursday night lineup: "Cosby," "Family Ties," "Cheers," "Night Court"...and "Hill Street Blues." Just a murderer's row...
28. "Miami Vice," Season One...
29. "Growing Pains" and "Charles in Charge" both launched. So did the underrated sitcom "It's Your Move" with Jason Bateman, who should have been one of the five biggest stars of that decade...
35. During the 25th anniversary Motown show in February, Michael Jackson performed "Billie Jean" and unveiled the moonwalk...

Music

42. Also, MTV launched the Video Music Awards that fall -- and if you don't remember Madonna rolling around in a wedding dress at Radio City Music Hall, you obviously weren't a horny teenager in '84.
44. If that wasn't enough, '80s college music took off -- that Cure-Smiths-REM-Depeche Mode-New Order sound that holds up to this day...
48. Come on, tell me you didn't like these songs: "99 Luftballoons"..."Darling Nikki"..."Cruel Summer"..."Yah Mo Be There"..."Sister Christian"..."Sunglasses at Night"..."Relax"..."Head over Heels"..."Pride (In the Name of Love)"..."Caribbean Queen"..."Panama"..."Billie Jean"..."Hot for Teacher"..."Somebody's Watching Me"..."Boys of Summer"..."Jungle Love"..."Missing You."...(Note: Chuck Klosterman is having a heart attack right now.)
49. Run DMC became the first rap act to produce a gold record. It's true.
51. That's right, this was the holiday season when Band Aid came out with "Do They Know It's Christmas".

Movies

58. "Splash" and "Bachelor Party" -- Tom Hanks makes The Leap.
(And speaking of leaps, how 'bout Larry B. Scott appearing as the gay frat brother in "Revenge of the Nerds," then the only black member of Cobra Kai in the same year!.)
65. Not only did the porn industry shift completely to video, but Traci Lords, Christy Canyon AND Ginger Lynn made their X-rated debuts in '84....

Pop Culture and Other Stuff

72. ...this was the year of "What's my beef?" -- both the Wendy's commercial and Leno's bit on Letterman's show.
75. The Supreme Court made it legal to tape shows with a VCR.
82. By the way, the final list of "People and things in their absolute primes in '84": Bird, Bernard, Montana, McEnroe, Gretzky, Sam Malone, Hulk Hogan, Letterman, Sonny Crockett, Jason Bateman, Springsteen, Prince, U2, Murphy, Schwarzenegger, Michael Jackson, Morrissey, Robert Smith, Kathleen Turner, Shannon Tweed, Billy Zabka, Traci Lords, Ginger Lynn, Christy Canyon, Ronald Reagan, Heather Thomas, Heather Locklear, Paulina Porizkova, the Cold War.
83. Rolling Stone was offered the chance to buy MTV, and Sports Illustrated was offered the chance to buy ESPN. Both magazines decided against it.

So there you have it. What year compares?

Art Howe didn't come out of 'Moneyball' looking that awesome, so he was hoping for redemption from the recently axed 'Moneyball' movie. In this article, he claimed Michael Lewis never talked to him. Only thing is, Lewis did. "Accusations of journalistic bias are the last refuge of the scoundrel", says Lewis, replacing patriotism with accusations of journalistic bias in Samuel Johnson's famous quotation.