However, the suspension’s being overturned had nothing to do with the original conclusion of Braun’s test or subsequent sample that he provided immediately after he learned that he had tested for “insanely high” testosterone levels. Via ESPN:

According to one of the sources, the collector, after getting Braun’s sample, was supposed to take the sample to a FedEx office for shipping.

But sources said the collector thought the FedEx office was closed because it was late on a Saturday and felt the sample wouldn’t get shipped until Monday.

 As has occurred in some other instances, the collector took the sample home and kept it in a cool place, in his basement at his residence in Wisconsin, according to multiple sources.

Policy states the sample is supposed to get to FedEx as soon as possible.

So Braun won his hearing because proper protocol was not followed. Aaron Rodgers chimed in on Twitter:

@AaronRodgers12: #Exonerated*

@AaronRodgers12: MLB and cable sports tried to sully the reputation of an innocent man. Picked the wrong guy to mess with. Truth will set u free #exonerated

@AaronRodgers12: When its guilty until proven innocent, all u need are the facts.#howsthecrowmlb #exonerated

As you probably know, I love, love, LOVE ARodg. His loyalty for Braun throughout this process has been admirable–if misguided–and backing others (he’s been a friend behind James Jones and Jermichael Finley’s backs as they’ve struggled with drops) is part of what makes him such a great leader for the Packers. But allow me to retort. There is a difference between not being proven guilty and being proven innocent. Braun’s appeal victory is the case of the former and NOT a cause for outright #exoneration in the court of public opinion. More on this in a bit.

MLB did not take its arbitration defeat gracefully. Also via ESPN:

“It has always been Major League Baseball’s position that no matter who tests positive, we will exhaust all avenues in pursuit of the appropriate discipline. We have been true to that position in every instance, because baseball fans deserve nothing less,” MLB executive vice president Rob Manfred said. “As a part of our drug testing program, the commissioner’s office and the players’ association agreed to a neutral third party review for instances that are under dispute. While we have always respected that process, Major League Baseball vehemently disagrees with the decision rendered today by arbitrator Shyam Das.”

Taking this bit by bit, MLB’s drug policy is a strict liability which means that ignorance is not an excuse for a failed test. This was the case with Phillies pitcher JC Romero in 2009, who (allegedly…) took an over-the-counter supplement purchased from GNC which triggered a positive test. Upon arbitration, Romero’s ignorance was ruled to be “negligence” and the 50-game suspension was upheld.

It is probably for the best that the MLB has such a strict drug policy with no wiggle room for “honest mistakes”. If ignorance was allowed to stand as a reasonable defense for any crime, our nation’s legal system would be (even more) hopelessly jumbled. These players are paid millions of dollars and it is their outright responsibility to be acutely aware of the contents of everything they put in their bodies.

Rumors were going around that Braun tested for such high levels of testosterone due to STD medication. Like Romero, this excuse would not have #exonerated Braun in the arbitration process, even if it was true. (A debate for a whole other column is whether it would be better to have the Scarlet Letter ‘S’ for Steroids or STDs. Neither is ideal and it probably comes down to personal preference.)

However, because MLB has such a strict drug testing policy, it must follow its own protocol to the letter of its law. It failed to do so. “Vehement” disagreement  with Das’ decision is no different than if Braun had vehemently disagreed with the results of the positive test if it had been triggered by non-performance enhancing substances. There are transparent rules and they have to be followed to their letters. The tester had also previously failed to follow proper protocol on other tests and this improper behavior should have been recognized and corrected before he had a chance to mess up Braun’s testing process.

MLB players should be ecstatic that their union had enough backbone to negotiate this fair arbitration process. When former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor was suspended for five games upon NFL entry due to transgressions which violated NCAA rules but no actual laws, his appeal was heard personally by Roger Goodell. How could players possibly hope for impartiality when their appeals are heard by the same office that dictates their punishments? If Braun’s situation happened identically in the NFL, the just outcome almost certainly would not have been realized upon appeal.

The MLB comes off as bitter and petty in Manfred’s statement when it should be accepting responsibility for its mistakes and seeking to ensure that they never leave themselves exposed as incompetent and negligent in this manner again. If proper protocol is impossible to follow, drug tests should not be administered on Saturday nights. Because of this, while Braun might not be #exonerated, he was not proven guilty. Ultimately, the collectively bargained system worked. As Americans, we would expect this in our own trials and the arbitrator ruled correctly for Braun’s suspension to be overturned.

*The # denotes a hashtag, which is a form of language used on Twitter. When you type # followed by a word or phrase (with no spaces or numbers), Twitter hyperlinks it and allows you to search for other users with the same hashtag. If enough people use the same hashtag, it becomes a trending topic. As an aside, most hashtag trending topics are either about how much sex other people are having or petty, but universal, grievances with the opposite sex. I’m not going to look it up right now but it’s a fair bet that #exonerated was a trending topic in Wisconsin last night.

Follow me on Twitter.

Deep Routes

- NYTimes’ Keith Bradsher profiles Jeremy Lin’s grandmother in Taiwan. The extent to which his grandparents need to go to avoid the paparazzi is unreal. (via Richard Deitsch)

- Erik Malinowski with an excellent piece on Deadspin about the 20-year anniversary of the classic Simpsons episode Homer at the Bat. The Simpsons backlash referenced in the article is pretty amusing considering that kids now watch Jersey Shore and its other heinous equivalents. Even if it was crass, at least the Simpsons (at that point in time) was well-written, smart, and good.

- NYTimes food critic Pete Wells details Shake Shack’s struggles with consistency. His complaints notwithstanding, we are going to see continued exponential growth from that chain over the next few years (via BobbyBigWheel).

- If you’re into that sort of thing, Jesse Hicks writes on The Verge about the rise and fall of Research in Motion, the company that makes Blackberries.

Quick Reads

- What the US highway system looks like as a subway-style map. This is why the Internet is awesome.

- A University of Michigan student has created a pretty interesting business model: a walk-of-shame taxi service. I think her services are worth more than $5 a ride but maybe she’s trying to build up her volume before she goes for margins.

- SI’s Michael Rosenberg eviscerates Maryland’s head football coach Randy Edsall’s handling of transferring quarterback Danny O’Brien: It starts, “My media colleagues seem to be split in their opinions of Maryland football coach Randy Edsall. One camp thinks Edsall is a self-serving, hypocritical turd. The other camp thinks he is a shameless, ruthless disgrace to his profession.” On second thought, eviscerates might be putting it kindly.

- Every Day Should Be Saturday with an unreal takedown of Darren Rovell, parodying how he would have tweeted historic events of the past century.

- Fascinating weekly segment on Deadspin called Bristolmetrics, in which they break down what % of the 11 PM SportsCenter is devoted to various athletes, teams, and sports. Spoiler alert: Jeremy Lin dominated this week.

- Yahoo’s Kevin Iole details more of the back-and-forth negotiations between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Paquaio. It does as good of a job as possible at making Paqman seem like a sympathetic figure in turning down a $40 million offer. With all the hype for how Allen Iverson possibly could have lost all of his $200 million career earnings, that will seem like nothing in 10-15 years when people try to calculate how in the world Floyd Mayweather could be broke.

Other stuff I wrote this week

- My ‘outrageous food vehicles’ slideshow got aggregated onto the main pages of Today.com and Yahoo. I would estimate that it got 10x as many page views as Sports Rapport has COMBINED in its eight months in existence.

- No other new stuff right now but I have a couple good things coming out in the next few days which will make this space SHINE next week.

Food porn

Gonna go straight beef brisket in anticipation of eating at Smoke Shack in Milwaukee for the first time this coming Saturday.

First: Sliced Beef Brisket platter @ Smoque w/ corn bread, mac and cheese, and brisket chili. Grape soda is always delicious with BBQ. That’s science.

Beef Brisket @ Pork Shoppe w/ baked mac & cheese and fresh cut potato fries. Went with Diet Coke because I’m trying to watch my figure.

The Wire clip of the week

If you’ve watched The Wire, this clip of the 100 greatest quotes from the series is 10 minutes that just has to be spent. If you haven’t watched it yet, there’s nothing I can say at this point. Get on it.

90′s clip of the week

It’s time for One Headlight and Say it Ain’t So to take over for Don’t Stop Believing and Livin’ on a Prayer as the songs that bar DJs play EVERY time we’re out and sometimes twice.

Tim Wakefield retired on Friday as the third winningest pitcher in Red Sox history after 17 years with the team. Wakefield won’t be remembered as the greatest pitcher in team history (that honor belongs to Pedro Martinez), but for nearly two decades he’s been the greatest point of continuity for the team as it emerged from the dark days of the late 90′s and early aughts to become a perennial championship contender. For the average fan he will perhaps be best remembered for giving up a series-ending home run to Aaron Boone in the 2003 ALCS. Red Sox die-hards, however, will recall Wakefield forgoing a Game 4 start by volunteering for mop-up duty in a Game 3 blowout loss to the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. That effort, along with Wake’s three-inning appearance in Game 5, were critical to the Red Sox preserving their pitching staff to complete the greatest comeback in sports history. For that we’ll always be thankful.

Having also written A Prayer for the City, a book about Rendell’s mayorality, Bissinger is acutely familiar with the politics at work in this bid. He describes the powerful group that Rendell has assembled:

The consortium Mr. Rendell has gathered includes Edward M. Snider, a legendary sports magnate in the city. It includes Lewis R. Katz, who made a fortune in the parking business and makes generous campaign contributions and expects something back. (I know because once, while covering Mr. Rendell for my book, I overheard Mr. Katz on a speakerphone complaining to the then-mayor that a law firm he had fancied had not gotten bond work.) And it includes George E. Norcross III, a Democratic kingpin who has basically owned South Jersey politics for years and yet is so thin-skinned that he has complained to reporters who called him a politico.

Bissinger describes the city’s daily newspapers as the public’s foremost defense against self-interested politicians and concludes:

These men want the papers because they crave power and will always crave power. They like to win and they have always liked to win. They can erect the biggest firewall they want between themselves and the papers. It won’t matter. As the owners of The Inquirer and The Daily News and the Web site Philly.com, they will have successfully toppled the last enemy. The newspapers will become their personal Gutenberg press, which effectively means that the one city in the country that needs a newspaper the most will not have one.

It almost reads like Season 5 of The Wire, although not even David Simon conceived of a group led by Tommy Carcetti’s buying out The Baltimore Sun. But the story ended when Carcetti became governor.However, the prospect of a massive institutional cover-up, conspired upon between government officials and the city’s media, did play out when it was found out that Jimmy McNulty had fabricated the existence of a homeless serial killer. The truth would topple the institutions and was buried in an almost prophetic similarity to what would come out in the Penn State scandal– the same state in which Rendell is seeking to consolidate power.

That being said, the idea that city print newspapers are the only available watchdog for corrupt government is as outdated as city print newspapers. As web content marginalizes print media, investigative journalism has not vanished.

In Chicago, where I live, Chicago News Coop, a non-profit, non-partisan site founded in 2009 by James O’Shea, the former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and editor of the Los Angeles Times, replicates the functions of a daily newspaper and provides primary content investigating city politics.

Chicagoist, meanwhile, posts dozens of times a day on city politics, sports, bars, restaurants, events, and random diversions. While some of its content is primary, many of its stories are aggregated from a variety of sources–both print and web–and combined to produce pieces that investigate city graft. Last week, Chicagoist aggregated Chicago News Coop content that showed that former city aldermen magically wind up with lucrative offers in the private sector, without much of the stress that normally comes from job-seeking in a tough economy:

The perks of occupying the Chicago City Council never seem to end for present and past members. Former 36th Ward Ald. John Rice apparently got pretty lucky in today’s tough economy, scoring a new $84,420 a year job the same day he applied for it. The Chicago News Cooperative obtained state records that showed the position was never open and Rice filed his application the same day he began work, though Rice said he applied online. Little more than a month after Rice left City Council, the Illinois Department of Transportation began the process to fill the brand new position of Deputy Director of Traffic Safety, Rice’s current title.

I am not sure whether sites like like Chicagoist and Chicago News Coop do or don’t exist for Philadelphia (based on Bissinger’s disdain for the monopolization of city papers it’s fair to assume that they do not) but nothing is stopping Buzz Bissinger from creating one himself. He has the cache, knowledge, and local readership to get a project funded where he is editor-in-chief of a web page that reports and opinionizes and aggregates on all things Philadelphia.

To generate traffic for his op/ed, Bissinger tweeted, “We go crazy over Jeremy Lin. Let’s go crazy over something important.” If he truly feels that to be the case, he should be using his time and writing talents to fill the void he feels is being created by the monopolization of the government machine and city media instead of writing twice about Jeremy Lin. If he won’t, who will?

Deep Routes

- Steve Hehn writes about the biggest risks of Facebook’s impending IPO for NPR. What happens to the company’s culture when Facebook’s most talented employees–many of whom are in their 20s–are set for life? If I were in their position, I’d probably bounce.

- Grantland unearths David Remnick’s classic New Yorker piece on Michael Jordan’s first basketball comeback. Note to self: learn how to write this beautifully.

- Poor Jim Yardley probably spent weeks researching and crafting this NYTimes piece on the declining popularity of the NBA in China only to see Jeremy Lin emerge from out of nowhere. There has been some debate as to whether the Chinese will embrace Lin, who is of Taiwanese descent, and from having been there I am almost certain that they will. You would not believe how many basketball courts there are in China–even in rural areas–or the extent to which the Chinese people wear NBA jerseys. Still an interesting read, though.

- Clare O’Connor profiles 5-Hour Energy founder Manoj Bhargava for Forbes. Two quick points. 1) He looks absolutely terrifying in his portrait picture. 2) I will be shocked if we DON’T find out later that 5HE and other energy drinks cause about 15 types of cancer. There’s just no way these things are good for our bodies in the long run.

- John Cook writes a fascinating profile of The Montauk Grifter Dan Kaufman for Gawker. I always read these stories and my initial impression is to laugh at people who were dumb enough to be conned. But, then again, how am I so sure that I would never fall prey?

- Andy Moore profiles Duke alumnus and Season on the Brink author John Feinstein for The Chronicle. The coolest part? Feinstein’s receiving advice from fellow Dukie Bob Woodward and COMPLETELY disregarding it:

Now, this young reporter, John Feinstein, wanted to become a full-time sports writer. The celebrated journalist, Bob Woodward, was stunned. Woodward actively encouraged Feinstein to not go into such a silly thing as sports journalism.

“You have a chance to do something in this business,” Woodward warned. “You’ll never be heard from again.”

“And he said, ‘Fuck you. This is what I want to do, this is what I am,’” recounts Woodward, laughing.

 Quick Reads

- Tyler Dunne compares 2011 Aaron Rodgers vs 1996 Brett Favre. I’d take Rodgers’ season by a hair but when it’s all laid out it’s a much closer argument than many would realize.

- This is a little bit dated at this point but Drew Magary’s fictional KSK character, Tommy from Quinzee, is always hilarious. Tommy is a caricature of the typical Boston sports fan, probably about 30% based on Bill Simmons and 70% on unsavory Massholes. Here’s Tommy griping that the Patriots ahhhhhhhhh hawnted.

- Derek Thompson captures the dynamics of Adulthood, Delayed for The Atlantic. Obviously, this piece hits close to home. What it fails to mention, though, is that many of my Generation Y counterparts who do have “adult” jobs feel like a dog in its cage when they are trapped in cubicles. I would be shocked if people still travel to work in offices in 20 years as the derivatives of GMail, GChat, Facetime, GoToMeeting, etc. increasingly marginalize the efficiency of paying for office space and spending time in commutes.

- Is it bad that my first reaction upon reading this story where a guy had a heart attack while eating the Triple Bypass Burger at Heart Attack Grill was, “Man, I could really go for that burger!”? OK, of course it’s bad. But, how bad?

The Best Jeremy Lin Stories

- SB Nation’s Andrew Sharp with an outstanding column entitled “Jeremy Lin And The Genius Of Right Now.” How do we explain this to people who are just not quite so obsessive about sports and are trying to catch up on the story? It’s better than fiction, Sharp writes:

People try to explain it by saying, “It’s like a movie in real life.” But even that doesn’t work. If Hollywood ever turned this into a movie, it’d be terrible. Producers wouldn’t be able to resist painting Jeremy Lin as the orphan the NBA forgot, who got by on sheer courage, and taught the whole world that you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it.

- Bruce Arthur with a great metaphor for Jeremy Lin in the National Post following last night’s buzzer beater:

Somewhere in the vast and sudden storm that has gathered around Jeremy Lin — an electrical hurricane that whipped out of a clear blue sky, so powerful that at this point nearly everybody has heard about the incredible weather out East — there is a human story, a story about luck, a story about faith, and above all, basketball. Used to be, Jeremy Lin was a footnote to just about everybody. Now, he contains multitudes.

- Grantland’s Jay Caspian Kang with a great piece on the broader implications on the Lin story. The best part is buried as Kang writes a retro diary of his and fellow Grantland staffer Rembert Browne’s experience at MSG when Lin dropped 38 on Kobe and the Lakers.

- Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky goes OFF on MSG and Time Warner for their role in withholding Linsanity from NYC customers:

Maybe the dickwaving contest between MSG and Time Warner Cable seems merely theoretical to you: something that’s only happening in a far-off land. Nope. Shit is real. Mine is one of more than a million households where the MSG Network, home to the Knicks, Rangers, Devils, and Sabres, is completely and totally blacked out. Unless a game is on national TV, the only way to see this Jeremy Lin kid I hear everyone talking about is to find a shitty illegal stream online, or go a bar and pray that bar doesn’t also have Time Warner.

Stuff I wrote for other places this week

- Piece for The Awl on the expected return of a $2 lottery ticket. Spoiler alert: It’s not good.

- Chicagoist column on why the Bulls’ biggest goal should be to get into the playoffs healthy. Includes response to asinine Sam Smith assertion that Derrick Rose should be playing lots of minutes because he owes it to the paying fans of other teams.

- Daily Meal slideshow on vehicles that have been re-modeled to look like food.

- Review of a night at Kingston Mines for Regular Guys.

Food Porn

Chipwich at DMK Burger Bar:

2X4 Burger + curly fries at Rocks Lincoln Park: Two 4oz burger patties stuffed with pepperjack cheese and bacon, topped with jalapeno mayo and bacon bits. I enjoyed this.

Words of wisdom from the great philosopher Karl Welzein

On pulling power moves on his wife Ann’s divorce lawyer:

Dadboner: If you want a babe to crave you carnally, you gotta shut down whoever she has in her hero position. Shows you’re the dominant predator.

90′s Clip of the Week

This isn’t technically from the 90′s but during that decade I spent more time than I care to admit listening to Mike and the Mad Dog. They’re as responsible as anyone for how I think about sports. Because I’ve been lucky enough never to have to experience a divorce in the family, their break-up after 20 years together on WFAN has been the hardest in my life to take. Mad Dog stepped in for a 15-minute cameo during Super Bowl week and their chemistry was as if Dog never left. Here’s their reunion:

The Wire clip of the week

The introduction to the series sets the tone. This is America.

Linsanity has taken hold here in my light-less bog cave. Even though I’m a huge Celtics fan and long-time Knicks hater, I have to admit that I’m rooting for Jeremy Lin’s continued success. The honest truth is, I can’t think of another time that a player has come out of as much obscurity as Lin to post these types of numbers. Since being inserted into the Knicks’ starting lineup, Lin has filled up the stat sheet, he’s averaging 22.7 pts, 3.8 rebounds, and 6.8 assists in just over 30 minutes per game in February. And while the competition hasn’t exactly been the strongest out there (last 5 opponents: Minnesota, LA Lakers, Washington, Utah, New Jersey), he’s done this without the help of Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire and there’s some reason to believe that this performance is sustainable (more on that later). One of the things that surprises me most about the Lin phenomenon is that I haven’t seen a rash of columns comparing Lin to Tim Tebow. You know it’s going to happen — sportswriters LOVE writing about Tim Tebow — so I figured I’d get out ahead of this and break down why Jeremy Lin is much easier to root for than Tim Tebow (leaving aside the respective popularity of their sports).

Personal Back Stories: Tim Tebow is the culture war personified and he makes no bones about it. His parents are fundamentalist missioaries and Tebow has appeared in a Super Bowl ad put together by James Dobson. While a lot of people view Tebow’s religious views as a quirk, and Christians tend to view them as inspiring, non-Christians (practitioners of other religions and atheists like your’s truly) tend to be uncomfortable with such aggressive Jesus-talk. Sportswriter laziness interprets this as people begrudging Tebow his religion, and fundamentalists view it as Christian hate, mostly because they like to get butthurt at any perceived slight. That’s not the case, I personally don’t mind the fact that Tebow’s a Christian. I just find it hard to personally root for a guy who believes I’m going to hell because I don’t subscribe to his religious worldview, and no amount of niceness on Tebow’s part is going to change that. Perhaps it’s an insecurity on my part, but while I won’t hate on Tebow for his successes, I won’t openly root for him to succeed either. In the end, I don’t care that much, and Tebow leading fourth quarter comebacks isn’t going to change my worldview any more than a fundamentalist would be swayed by this post. I’m just laying it out.

With Lin, there’s no such problem. He’s an Asian kid from the Bay Area, and while he’s been open about his Christianity, he doesn’t have to be viewed through the lens of the culture war. If you don’t see the nuance, let’s just leave it at the fact that Lin has never appeared in an anti-abortion advertisement with a guy who once said same sex marriage would lead  to men marrying farm animals. There’s been some talk of Linsanity being driven by race, but I really don’t see it. Most of my friends who love Lin are white, and while I realize that’s hardly a representative sample, I haven’t seen any evidence that Lin’s popularity is race-driven. Honestly, there simply aren’t enough Asians-Americans to create a buzz this big on their own. The fact is, Lin is just a good story, a guy who played in the D-league last year, and was cut by a number of teams before landing in a seemingly perfect situation in New York. He’s much less of a controversial figure than Tebow and as such he has appeal to a much wider audience.

The Unlikeliness Factor: On some level, Tim Tebow’s success has been unlikely, but hardly so much as people have made it out to be. Tebow played at one of the best college football programs in the nation at Florida, in the perfect system for his skill set. He had a large section of the press corps cheering for him to be drafted in the first round — Drew Magary made an art of mocking Peter King’s “draft Tebow and pop the bubbly” line — the Broncos traded up to draft him. Since he was drafted Broncos fans have been clamoring for him to be the team’s starting quarterback, even buying billboard space to express their desires. Sure, at the beginning of this season John Fox and John Elway clearly didn’t have much faith in Tebow, but they might have been the only people in Denver who felt that way.

Lin, on the other hand, came out of nowhere. Harvard grads are successful in a number of walks of life, professional basketball it not one of them. Lin was undrafted and bounced around the league before landing on the Knicks’ bench. It’s a bit unfair to compare fan reaction for Lin to Tebow, mostly because no one knew who Lin was, or what type of player he could be. That said, in terms of unlikeliness, it’s really no contest, there have been people expecting success from Tebow for a while, no one ever expected anything from Jeremy Lin except Lin himself.

Sustainability: At least on the surface, Lin doesn’t have a fatal flaw like Tebow’s inaccuracy. At 6’3” Lin isn’t undersized for an NBA point guard, he clearly has the footspeed and athleticism to get to the rim, he’s shown quite a few basketball moves, he’s shown some range, and he’s done a good job of facilitating for a sub-par supporting cast. I know that Derek Fisher is about 10,000 years old (ballpark estimate) but Lin absolutely abused him on Friday night, and Fisher has long been considered a solid defender at the point. Furthermore, Lin is in a system that works for him, which increases the likelihood that he’ll continue to be an effective player. The Broncos really simplified their playbook for Tebow, but at some point they’re going to have to throw the ball to win games and then Tebow becomes a real liability. Lin, on the other hand, can run the pick and roll all day long once Amar’e returns, just like Stoudemire and Steve Nash did for so many seasons in Phoenix. It’s not hard to envision Carmelo Anthony adjusting his game a bit to become a kind of super-Shawn Marion, and the Knicks becoming one of the most entertaining teams in the league. Even if he comes back down to Earth, which is likely, Lin should continue to be a productive player for New York.

I hate the Knicks, but I’ll be rooting for Jeremy Lin from here on out. Tim Tebow? Meh.

Like a Republican presidential candidate rocketing to the top of the polls, New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin has come out of absolutely nowhere to captivate the national consciousness this past week. Lin–the son of Taiwanese immigrants and a 2010 Harvard graduate–went undrafted, played in just 29 games and 285 minutes last season for the Golden State Warriors, was released twice before the start of this season–by the Warriors and, later, the Houston Rockets–and emerged only due to a string of Knicks injuries.

He has more than capitalized on his opportunity. Last Saturday, Lin came off the bench in a game against the Jazz to log almost 36 minutes, scoring 25 points and dishing out seven assists. He’s started the Knicks’ last four games–against the Jazz, Wizards, Lakers, and Timberwolves–scoring a total of 109 points while doling out 33 assists. After starting out 8-15, the Knicks have won five in a row since Lin’s emergence and have wiggled their way into the 8th and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. If you play off him, he can hit the jump shot. Play him too close and he’s quick enough to scurry by and drive to the hoop.

It’s a tremendous story, but is the success sustainable or not? In a word, yes.

How could this have happened?

More than athletes in any other American team sport, basketball players can can be evaluated on the basis of the “eye test.” Because basketball is played almost naked in sneakers, a pair of shorts, and a tank top, there is a much more scientific process in discerning who will thrive and who will struggle at the next level. Where Victor Cruz and Wes Welker can be undrafted free agents and wind up as the best receivers on their respective Super Bowl teams and Albert Pujols can be drafted in the 13th round–402nd overall–and wind up on the short list of the greatest hitters of all-time, Lin’s streak is almost unheard of in basketball.

Friday Night Lights author and Daily Beast Columnist Buzz Bissinger pointed out that John Starks and Ben Wallace had successful NBA careers as undrafted free agents but neither had a rise quite as meteoric as Lin’s. In 50 years of watching the sport, my dad has never seen a basketball player emerge this swiftly and hasn’t been this excited to watch a single player since Pete Maravich.

Prior to the Knicks’ game against the Lakers on Friday night, Kobe Bryant feigned ignorance (at least I think he was faking it) about Lin’s run:

“What? I have no idea, I mean I know who he is, but I don’t really know what’s going on too much with that,” Bryant said when asked about Lin and what he’s done in the past week.

“I don’t even know what he’s done, like I have no idea what you guys are talking about,” Kobe insisted. “I’ll take a look at it tonight, though.”

Lin dropped 38 points and added seven assists that night in a 92-85 Knicks win so it’s a fair guess that Kobe will not be caught unaware again.

Because it is so fascinating, I had to go out to a bar on Saturday night to watch Lin and the Knicks play Ricky Rubio, an exciting rookie point guard from Spain, and the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night. Without sound. After some annoying persistence, I was able to get a friend to watch with me but I would have gone alone. I didn’t have a choice.

While he’s had a magical run, Lin showed some signs of decline late in the Timberwolves game. His legs started to bear the burden of his newly found minutes and when Minnesota forced him to dribble to his left in the second half, he struggled mightily.

As opponents get more tape on Lin, they are going to key in on his weaknesses. How he counters to these adjustments and how much energy he can sustain will go a long way in determining whether he will ultimately be a strong starting point guard in this league. How he adapts his game when Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony return–Amar’e from the death of his brother, Carmelo from injury–will factor into whether the Knicks are viable playoff contenders. More on that in a bit but there’s something we need to get out of the way…

Is Lin Basketball’s Tim Tebow?

We’ve gotten and are going to get this a lot because it’s an easy comparison because of Christian faith, persevering through obstacles, and insufferable hype. That being said, it’s a lazy one that is unsound for a number of reasons.

Yes, Tebow has had to overcome a mountain of doubt from the haters. But he was the starting quarterback at Florida–one of the premiere programs in college football–where he won two national titles and a Heisman trophy. He was drafted in the first round by the Denver Broncos. It fits a narrative to call him the little engine that could but the fact of the matter is that his moderate level of success was far more likely and predictable than Lin’s.

Also, in an admittedly small sample size, Lin has played much better than Tebow. The Broncos had a stalwart defense and strong running game, staying in games in spite of Tebow’s inaccuracy for long enough for Tebow to win them with late-game heroics. Lin, meanwhile, has been the catalyst to the Knicks’ success. I would bet a dollar that Lin will ultimately be an above average NBA starting point guard several times before I would make the same bet on Tebow’s becoming a league average starting quarterback.

In the aforementioned Daily Beast Column, Buzz Bissinger provides a much more apt comparison for Jeremy Lin–for now:

For signs of Lin’s fate, let’s roll the tape of a fellow athlete from Harvard named Ryan Fitzpatrick. As the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills last season, Fitzpatrick, in his seventh year, threw for nine touchdowns in the first three games. He led Buffalo to a 3–0 record, and there was serious talk of making the playoffs. He got a $54 million, six-year contract extension with $24 million guaranteed. In the next 13 games he threw for a total of 15 touchdowns as the Bills went 3–10. His quarterback rating went from 100 after those first three games to a season average of 79.

For the record, I am rooting for Lin’s run to be more sustainable than Fitzpatrick’s has been.

Where do the Knicks go from here?

As previously mentioned, Knicks’ stars Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire will be returning relatively soon. Stoudemire, who thrived in head coach Mike D’antoni’s pick-and-roll system with the Phoenix Suns and star point guard Steve Nash, is well-suited to be a corner piece in Lin’s puzzle. His return will make these Knicks even better.

However, even more than the extent to which Lin can sustain his great play, the biggest variable in the Knicks’ quest for contention will be how Anthony adapts to Lin. This could go any number of ways but in order for the Knicks to perform optimally, Anthony will have to accept a role where he controls the ball less. If he returns to his ball-hogging ways, we are going to see a series of Knicks losses, Anthony’s minutes decline at a rate that will be embarrassing to him, and any number of caricatures on the back pages of the NY Post and Daily News.

Simply put, the next few months will be a defining period in Carmelo Anthony’s legacy. Last season, the Nuggets went 32-25 before trading Melo to the Knicks (he had played in 50 of those games) and 18-7 after the trade. The Knicks went 28-26 before he arrived and 14-14 after. Both teams lost in the first round of the playoffs. His subtraction arguably improved the Nuggets (in addition to their comparatively better record, they performed much better on the aforementioned “eye test”) while his addition failed to improve the Knicks.

Bill Simmons calls this phenomenon in which teams play better without their superstar the “Ewing Theory,” named for former Knicks star Patrick Ewing. Depending on how these next few months go, he may need to consider re-naming it the “Carmelo Theory.”

For the Knicks to keep Linning winning, make it into the playoffs, and perhaps win a round or two, Melo is going to have to learn to contribute more with the ball in his hands less. One would hope that Lin’s success with him gone and the blame that he will take if his presence messes this all up would be enough to motivate him to adapt.

To win a round in the playoffs, the Knicks probably need to climb up to at least the 6th seed–as things stand now, they would have to play the Bulls or Heat if they finished any worse than that. While the Knicks would probably be a tough out in those series, it’s hard to see them winning outright.

Back to Lin

I am hopeful that the Jeremy Lin saga is just getting started. While the exposure Lin is receiving all over the national media (including here!) is already approaching Tim Tebow levels of insufferability, it is a wonderful American story almost befitting of fiction. To reiterate, we simply don’t see players come out of nowhere like this to thrive in professional basketball. Football, yes. Baseball, all the time. Basketball, never. But, right now, this is happening.

If Lin were 6-foot-3, African American, and playing in a small market, this story would be fascinating. That he’s an Asian American Harvard grad playing in the basketball-starved New York market is truly remarkable. However this all ends, we may never see anything quite like it again.

In case you’ve been on vacation in Algeria for the last week, here is the video of Gronkowski dancing (poorly, though I’m not one to judge…) on Sunday night:

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, former Patriot and current NBC studio analyst Rodney Harrison, who hadn’t seen the video but accurately discerned what had happened, was not pleased:

“When we lost the Super Bowl, any of my Super Bowl losses, I was so devastated the last thing I ever wanted to do was party, let alone dance or take off your shirt,” he added. “It’s just immaturity. It’s not right. He made a mistake and I’m sure he feels absolutely stupid about it at this point. There’s a time and place for everything.”

“The leadership has to step up and someone has to pull [Gronkowski] to the side and say, ‘Look young man, this is inappropriate, this is not the time nor the place. You need to grow up,’” Harrison said. “And that’s what it comes down to. I like this kid. I think he’s a good kid, works hard, is unselfish. But he made a mistake …

 ”There’s a certain way of representing yourself and your family and that’s not the right way.”

Deadspin’s Drew Magary responds to Harrison:

There’s no wrong way for a football player to act after a season-ending loss. Some guys go home and sulk. Some guys head right to the gym. Some guys accept that they did their best and go out and celebrate the fact that they came so far. I hate that people like Harrison, who tolerates no variation of any sort, represent the completely dated and pathetic viewpoints of the NFL media. Fuck him. I hope Gronk and Light spend the next month stripping for drag queens.

As I mentioned in the introduction, it’s very odd that I agree with Harrison and disagree with Magary–99% of the time that they are at odds, I will be with Drew. But this is the 1%.

There is a lot that is just too much to ask of professional athletes. It’s too much to ask for them to be role models–they are flawed men with preternatural talents in running and jumping, not beacons of society. It’s too much to ask them to remain loyal to their team when free agency comes around–management treats them like commodities so it would be disingenuous to expect them not to capitalize on their fair market value.

The one thing that is not too much to ask is that they care. That they want to win and hate to lose.

I don’t doubt that Gronkowski did everything he could to prepare for the Super Bowl on a high ankle sprain. If I suffered that injury, I probably wouldn’t be walking without crutches two weeks later, let alone running and cutting on a football field while opponents take physical shots at me every chance they get. But in dancing around gleefully just hours after losing a game that was soul-crushing for the Patriots fan base and (hopefully) his teammates, Gronkowski demonstrated that losing the Super Bowl was not something bad enough to ruin his night.

Former Patriots assistant and current ESPN analyst Eric Mangini also disagreed with Harrison:

“I don’t think he was celebrating the loss. What they were celebrating was the accomplishment of getting there,” Mangini said on “SportsCenter.” “It’s the last time they’re going to be together. There’s going to be so much change with free agency and the draft. This is the last time this group of men are going to be together, and they have their families. Did he take it too far, was there alcohol? I don’t know any of those things. But I don’t think it was a celebration or him not caring about the fact they lost. It was more the event of being together in that moment.”

Let’s take this a little bit at a time. OF COURSE Gronkowski took it too far with alcohol. You don’t dance like that on a sprained ankle unless you’ve been taking shots all night. That’s science.

If the teammates wanted to drink their sorrows away and savor their last moments together until next season, or, in some cases, forever, Light, Gronkowski, and the rest of the Patriots who wanted to imbibe should have done it in privacy or should have held their alcohol better in public. There’s a difference between drinking to suppress pain and drinking to have a good time and this was assuredly the latter. Rob Gronkowski can go almost anywhere on any night, get hammered, and end up in bed with a pretty girl. After a playoff loss and especially after a Super Bowl loss is the one night a year where I would begrudge him for that.

Whether or not we should care so much about the outcomes of football games (we probably shouldn’t) isn’t the point. We do. If we didn’t, Gronkowski would be working at a bar, in construction, or at a gym. Given that he looks like a Greek God, he still probably wouldn’t have too much of a problem getting laid but it wouldn’t be quite as easy.

Because we do care, there are tens of thousands of people who paid $65-250 for the right to wear a shirt with Gronkowski’s name and number on it. And they were all devastated while Gronkowski was drinking, dancing around, and trying to get laid. On Sunday night, he owed his Patriots teammates and fans better than that.

Deep Routes 

Gabriel Sherman’s NY Mag cover piece – The Emasculation of Wall Street – gives a very detailed account of where Wall Street compensation is at, how the glory days aren’t returning anytime soon, and analogizes investment banks to big box retailers like Wal-mart, a comparison that would have been unthinkable just a few years back. There’s the usual tone-deaf quotes from bankers and traders but by and large this piece is well-written, informative, and fair and Sherman got some great access for it.

My friend Dana passed along an George M. Taber’s interesting piece in Time – republished from Knowledge@Wharton – on the economics of wine. Wines ranging from two buck chuck to Screaming Eagle, of which a six-liter bottle was recently sold for $500,000, are discussed. Guess which one I think is a better value. The answer may not surprise you.

My buddy Teller sent over Michael Lewis’ 2004 NY Times profile of Eli Manning, a fascinating read in retrospect as he has gone on to win two Super Bowl titles. Lewis wrote three of the most important books of the last decade – Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big Short – but I bet he wishes he had written this piece with a different tone. I imagine that this passage is particularly fun in retrospect for Giants fans:

And so, on Nov. 21, 2004, against the Atlanta Falcons, the fans are expecting, if not the full answer, then at least the beginning of a response to a big question: is Eli Manning worth it? To get Eli, who was actually drafted by the San Diego Chargers, the Giants handed him a contract worth as much as $54 million and gave the Chargers two future draft picks. (Peyton Manning received a $48 million contract when he signed with the Colts.) Giants fans are understandably worried that the kid might be overpaid. But because Eli Manning is the son of one legendary quarterback and the brother of another, the question they want to ask is more personal than usual. Yeah, he had a great college career, but did this kid get here on his own merits, or is he the N.F.L.’s first legacy admission? Did Ernie Accorsi — who was sitting up there in his glass box at Giants Stadium, tense as a snare drum, not wanting to speak to anyone — see something others missed? Or did he just commit the biggest blunder in the history of the N.F.L. draft?

Quick Reads

I didn’t watch any pregame studio coverage on Sunday – I find it nauseating during the regular season and plague-inducing during the Playoffs and Super Bowl – but apparently Aaron Rodgers did a great job as an analyst. If I had been watching, he could’ve been silent the whole time and I still would have been enamored by his strikingly beautiful eyes. Apparently, though, he doesn’t have his sights set on the booth when he retires. “As much fun as it was to be in that setting. … I really would like to use my talents for other things when I’m done playing,” said Rodgers on his ESPN Milwaukee radio show. “That’s still the plan.”

The regularly excellent Dan Wetzel wrote a poignant Tom Brady profile on Yahoo! in the immediate aftermath of the Super Bowl loss. The whole piece is beautifully written but this passage is especially brilliant:

Brady began to pull at his shoulder pads. Guerrero helped slide them off. He stood again and began glancing around the mostly empty locker room. He focused on nothing in particular. His eyes were red.

He’s supposedly too cool, or that’s what rival fans say. He’s supposedly too much of a pretty boy, or that’s what they mock. Not here. The guy with everything looked empty.

This was a football player, a true football player, in among the worst moments the game can provide.

Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky asks: Did the Giants put 12 men on the field on purpose for Brady’s first hail mary? If so, that’s brilliant strategy.

Foodporn

Home baked bacon mac & cheese:

Bayou chicken and sausage gumbo in a sourdough bread bowl @ Soupbox

‘The Wire’ clip of the week

I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It’s all in the game though, right?

90′s clip of the week

It’s I hope we never part! Now get it right or pay the price! Budnick’s mullet is priceless. Also, it’s weird seeing clips of this show and seeing a) how young they are (they were like five years older than I was when I watched it) and b) how bad the acting is. Some things from childhood, like Heavyweights and Mighty Ducks for example, hold up shockingly well. Others, like Salute your Shorts are TERRIBLE.

I have a Camp Anawanna t-shirt and whenever I wear it I get mad compliments. I bought the shirt at Hot Topic. Before you laugh, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation–I was in Hot Topic was TO buy this shirt. I saw some guy wearing it at a concert, thought it was AWESOME, asked him where he bought it, and consciously COPIED his style. And I say that with no remorse. I tried to do the same thing in Madison last weekend; some guy was wearing an amazing red hoodie with a black Bucky silhouette and he thought I was coming on to him.

This column will take more shape in the coming weeks and months but I hope to make it collaborative. Thanks for reading!

Part II – Super Bowl Party gluttony here.

Quick takeaways:

• In close football games, there are usually two or three plays that make the difference in the game. Pretty obviously, the Welker drop and the Manningham catch stand out as a study in contrasts. If Welker catches the ball he dropped, the outcome of the game is almost certainly reversed. Brady could have made a better throw but that was a ball that absolutely needs to be caught by a receiver of Welker’s caliber. He’ll be seeing it in his sleep for months if not years.

• The fumble luck inherent in the Giants’ recovering Hakeem Nicks and Ahmad Bradshaw cough-ups also played a major role in the final outcome. This does not mean that the Giants were lucky to win but these were lucky breaks on plays that could have had disastrous ramifications if the ball bounced just a little bit differently.

• The biggest deciding broad factor in the game was the difference between the two teams’ pass rushes. With the three-headed monster of Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora (is it a good or bad thing that I can spell that right without looking it up?), and Jason Pierre-Paul, the Giants can get pressure on the quarterback without having to blitz linebackers or defensive backs. This means an extra man or two drops back in coverage while the quarterback has to simultaneously adjust his internal clock and get rid of the ball quickly. The pass rush threat even impacts plays where the quarterback has time; against most teams, Brady takes an extra split second to set his feet and make a better throw than the one Welker dropped. Eli Manning consistently had significantly more time to throw than Tom Brady and this especially determined the fourth quarter.

• The second biggest broad factor was the Gronkowski injury. There’s no way he gets beaten on a jump ball by a defensive lineman (or is covered deep by one) if he is anywhere NEAR 100%. A huge competitive advantage that the Patriots had all season with Gronkowski is that he is too fast to be covered by linebackers and too big to be covered by defensive backs. At full strength, you really need two guys to stop him and this would have been a neutralizing factor to the Giants’ pass rush as their extra man in coverage would usually have had to be on him. When Gronkowski’s speed is taken away, though, you can cover him with just size.

• The Patriots are going to be kicking themselves all winter and beyond. They had the ball with 17-12 and 17-15 leads in the fourth quarter and failed to add points. Give the Giants all the credit in the world for taking this game but, like the Packers and 49ers, the Patriots and their fans will forever be consumed with what could have happened if the team had showed up in optimal form in Super Bowl XLVI. As I’m still haunted by memories of the Giants-Packers NFC Championship Game in early 2008 despite the Packers’ having won a Super Bowl, the pain from this game will hurt the Patriots forever. Especially when compounded with their brutal loss the last time they played the Giants in the Super Bowl. Ouch.

• It’s truly shocking that a team that looked as bad as the Giants did in two losses against the Redskins (who went 3-11 against everyone else this season) and a home embarrassment to the Seahawks can play as well as the Giants have in the last five weeks and win a Super Bowl. Quite head-scratching and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand how their intra-season variance could have been so high.

• Eli Manning’s got to be considered an elite quarterback now. I’d rank him just a smidgen behind Brady and Rodgers, on par with Drew Brees, and slightly ahead of Ben Roethlisberger in the top-5 hierarchy. His poise, leadership, and precision in the fourth quarters of these games are now trends, not anomalies. He’s even improved his body language a lot bit. I’d still hold off on saying he should be considered for the Hall of Fame but his upside potential on any given Sunday can now firmly be categorized as terrifying.

• Already can’t wait till next football season. I don’t exactly want to wish the next seven months of my life away but I probably wouldn’t mind if they went as fast and smoothly as the past seven months have gone.