NCAA College Football Pyramid: 1999-2000

Don't you love it when the DCV starts a feature ... gets it 10-80% finished ... only never to re-visit it again?  Dolberry does.  And as a result I'm starting another one ... the NCAA college football pyramid.

Everyone hates the BCS, right?  Basically, only a handful of teams every year have a chance to win the "national championship" (i.e., 4-5 SEC teams, 2-3 Big 12 teams, USC, and Ohio St.).  What Dolberry is proposing is for the BCS to acknowledge the limited nature of their competition by establishing a Premier League w/ the top 20 football programs.  Below that league there would be lower levels of 24 teams each, w/ as many sublevels (Level 2, Level 3, etc.) as there are schools w/ programs.

Wait, you say.  That would be unfair.  Only 20 teams would have a chance at the top prize.  Well, I don't think the BCS really cares, but in order to not entirely disenfranchise the programs outside the Top 20 the ... the teams outside the Top 20 would have an opportunity to be promoted into a higher league, including the Premier League, by finishing in the top 3 at their current level.  Conversely, the bottom three teams in each league would be demoted (or relegated) to a lower level.

This is, of course, patterned after the English football league system (at least at the rudimentary level at which Dolberry understands it).  Somewhat ironic that the English football structure is substantially more "American" (in that it allows for universal upward mobility) than the current gentry-like BCS system.

Anyway, using the Sagarin rankings as a guide and 1998 as my starting point for league assignments, here's how the 1999 and 2000 seasons would have ended up in Dolberry's football pyramid.

So, in the inaugural year, 1999 ... the Seminoles are crowned the Premier League champions, while UCLA, Missouri, and Tulane (?) are booted out of the top league.  Chad Pennington led Marshall to a Level 3 title.  Sparty and the Illini won Levels 2 and 4, respectively.  Louisville finished 8th in Level 3.

In 2000, newly promoted Miami (FL) is crowned the Premier League champs.  Arkansas, Bama, and the Nittany Lions get the boot from the PL.  Louisville again finishes 8th in Level 3.  Kentucky gets booted from Level 2 and will have to face the Cardinals in Level 3 in 2001 ... which I'll post tomorrow night.

Or maybe this'll be the last we ever see of the pyramid ... who knows?

New Feature: Factcheckertron 5000

DCV staff are always wracking our brains to improve our service and provide the very best blog experience for our readers. One thing that Dolberry actually LIKED about the most recent election season was the proliferation of newspaper blurbs attempting to verify the various wild claims made by all the candidates and their supporters (or more often than not, their opponents' detractors) prior to the vote. You probably saw them, but here's an example.

Claim: Candidate A says Candidate B thinks American Idol should be canceled and replaced by Al-Qaida Idol. Further, Candidate A claims Candidate B ate a sandwich in 4th grade prepared by a lunch worker who later formed the Green Panther Creationist Party of Mordor. Candidate A (surrounded by smiling kids holding American flags) asks "Are these the kind of values we want representing us in Washington?"

Truth: Candidate B did attend 4th grade. (Then depending upon the editorial slant of the paper ... they would summarize either ...) This claim is almost entirely false. (or) This claim is partially true.

Anyway, the DCV is now going to do the same thing on non-political commercials. Enjoy! We have a few choice selections for this week's entry.

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Claim #1: Bud Light claims their beer is better than other light beers because it has "superior drinkability". The commercials go onto ask if drinking water from a hose is the same as drinking water from a glass.

Truth: This commercial is ridiculous. First, if the highest claim you can make about your beverage is that it is actually potable then you have a crappy product my friend. I can think of hundreds of other liquids that are drinkable (definition ... something that can be drunk). This includes, but is not limited to: lighter fluid, Charlie Weis' sweat, & the bloody entrails of a roadkilled skunk. I would not drink these things however, no matter how easy they went down. Second, no one drinks Bud Light from a hose so that's just a red herring. Third, there's no way to prove your claim which belies its inherent meaninglessness. The claim in this commercial cannot be proven. The fact that whoever owns Anheuser-Busch now has set their marketing claims so low and nebulous probably means you should avoid this product.

Claim #2: Embarq claims you must be made of gold not to want free TV. One of the characters in the ad is purported to actually be made of gold. An irritating musical trio closes the ad w/ "they don't call her Queen Tut for nothing."

Truth: Where to start? First, people cannot be made of gold. And if a person WAS made of gold do you think they'd sit around coffee shops talking about which high-speed internet service they prefer? Of course not, they would likely be doing whatever they could to enslave the world. Or they'd be selling their fingernail clippings for cash and living on easy street. This commercial is ridiculous and it makes me mad. I went to Embarq's web site and I don't see the free TV anywhere. I do see that if you pay them $88 bucks a month you will get phone service & internet service & the DISH network. 88 is not equal to zero.

Claim #3: Sharp Aquos is running an ad w/ the tagline "Change your TV. Change your life". The clear implication is that buying a (bigger, more expensive) Aquos TV will change your life for the better.

Truth: It pains Dolberry to break this to those who can't see through this despicable mendacity but getting a better TV will not improve your life. In fact, it's pretty easy to make the argument that anything that causes you to watch more TV will make your life worse. If you want to change your life for the better ... don't buy a TV ... then turn off the TV you have ... read a book ... call a friend ... do something nice for someone ... pet your dog ... love someone ... allow someone to love you ... pray for someone that needs it ... put on some good music ... see an argument through someone else's eyes ... go for a walk ... forgive someone who's wronged you ... apologize to someone who you've wronged. Generally, live life, don't watch it. (Above paragraph does not apply to "The Office". That one you should watch. But you don't really need a fancy Aquos TV to do so.)

Labels and blog topics

One of the upgrades to the DCV made in our makeover from a few weeks ago was to start adding labels to blog posts. That way, you, the reader, can go straight to the topics of your interest when checking out the archive for some salient piece of Dolberry wisdom (see the "blog topics" on the left side of the page). A lot of lesser blogs don't offer this convenience.

Anyway, one of my favorite labels is "genius ideas" and I've got two more of them tonight.

1) When a network promotes a new show incessantly during an event your interested in (e.g., TBS' full blast assault w/ Frank TV during the baseball playoffs) and the show is awful and gets ratings that are surpassed by Ginzu knive infomercials, they are not allowed to take it off the air until it has aired at least as many times as thousands of commercials, guest appearances in the booth, or seemingly impromptu mentions by the broadcasters. (How's that for a sentence. Diagram that one.) For example, say there were 14,856 commercials for Temptation Island during a two-week promotional blitz, plus there were 234 mentions of the show by Joe Buck for a total just over 15,000. Thus, Fox would be required by law (Dolberry's Law) to show at least 15 episodes and take the ratings hit. I think this would curtail the every-90-seconds reminders the networks think we need.


2) In the same vein, if a developer clears out a whole bunch of trees to build a shopping center in which more than half the stores remain unoccupied (or have gone out of business) one year later ... that developer is required to clear out all his concrete and asphalt and replant the trees. OK, well, new trees. There needs to be some penalty for so badly misgauging the consumer economy w/ a useless building at the expense of useful trees. We could call it Dolberry's Law.

Tonights labels: genius ideas and ginzu knives.

Dolberry's Law

The order of the world is established through a system of laws. Without the controlling influence of laws, it is easy to speculate that humanity would rapidly disintegrate into a chaotic mess. Laws can originate from many sources. The first ones were divine, they've been embedded in our psyches for generations. ("Love your God. Love your neighbor.") Some come through a legislative or deliberative process and their wisdom is borne out over decades. ("Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.") Some laws might be needed for a time, but circumstances eventually relegate it to obsolescence. According to dumblaws.com, in the State of Kentucky one may not dye a duckling blue and offer it for sale unless more than six are for sale at once.

Dolberry has always liked that category of "laws" that naturally spring from human observation and persist because of their truth. The most famous of these types of laws is the rather pessimistic Murphy's Law. Another famous one is Moore's Law. I've spent the last month ruminating over another law that I think could radically reshape the way sports fans watch and communicate about their passion. In typical Dolberry modesty, I propose it be called Dolberry's Law.

Dolberry's Law reads as follows: "As a sports fan, you may only claim credit for championships that were won during your lifetime and during a period in which you actively rooted for that team."

As we move into the Final Four and Opening Day of baseball season, it is perhaps fitting that we now gently admonish the two groups that I think will be most affected by Dolberry's Law, i.e., New York Yankees fans and U of K basketball fans.

When we were in Sarasota watching the Reds spank the Yankees, I overheard the following snippet from a conversation between a group of grumpy (& prolifically profane) 20-something Yankees fans ... "talk to me when you've won 26 World Series instead of four." (Actually, the Reds have won five, but I wasn't going to interject.) According to Dolberry's Law these guys are actually only entitled to take credit for four WS wins (96, 98, 99, 00). As a 41-yr old Reds fan, I'm entitled to gloat about 3 WS wins (75, 76, 90). Four vs. three is not a huge advantage, certainly not one worth boasting about.

The biggest category of fans misleadingly padding their championship stats are Wildcat basketball fans who continuously trumpet their seven titles. Unless you were born before 1950, you are not eligible to take credit for the titles in 48, 49, 51, & 58. So UK fans of my age can legitimately take credit for only three. (U of L has two over the same period.) So the next time you run across a UK fan, watch out for them drooling chewing tobacco on your shoes and admonish them with Dolberry's Law if they try to take credit for championships won when a whole race of Americans weren't even allowed to participate in the sport.

And just so Dolberry is not accused of making the law for his own use, please realize that I'm losing credit for Saint Louis University's all-time leading 10 soccer titles between 1959 and 1973. Using the "actively rooted" section of Dolberry's Law, I would only be eligible for any titles that the glorious Billikens won that one Saturday night I rode a bus out to some crazily far away western St. Louis suburb to watch a 0-0 tie. (Actually, Dolberry was probably only eligible for maybe 10 minutes of the 90 minutes of gameplay.)

C-A-R-D-S!

Another genius idea from Dolberry

There's been a lot of speculation about where A-Rod will end up for the 2008 baseball season, especially since the biggest money teams (NYY and BOS) have said they're uninterested. Given that Scott Boras (A-Rod's agent) has apparently indicated that it'll take $350 million just to get him to the negotiating table, the focus has settled on the next tier of big-spending MLB clubs (2007 salaries shown below):

New York Yankees $ 189,639,045
Boston Red Sox $ 143,026,214
New York Mets $ 115,231,663
Los Angeles Angels $ 109,251,333
Chicago White Sox $ 108,671,833
Los Angeles Dodgers $ 108,454,524
Seattle Mariners $ 106,460,833
Chicago Cubs $ 99,670,332
Detroit Tigers $ 95,180,369
Baltimore Orioles $ 93,554,808

The Mets would have to rearrange their infield w/ Wright & Reyes. The White Sox are probably spending as much as Reinsdorf wants to spend. The Cubs are probably hamstrung while trying to sell the club. Doubt Seattle wants A-Rod, Part II. So, it'll probably be one of the L.A. teams or Detroit/Baltimore (or maybe the Giants).

But ... Dolberry encourages some of the smaller-market and traditionally-hapless clubs to think outside the box. They too, can get in on this sweepstakes w/ a little creativity.

The Reds, Royals, Pirates, Devil Rays, Marlins, and Nationals need to band together to sign an A-Rod timeshare. For only ~$60 mil (over 12 years, just 5 mil per year), they can secure the rights to A-Rod for one of the 6 months of the MLB season. ESPN could televise the drawing whereby each team found out what month they were getting that year.

This is in Michael Scott terms a "win win win". These lower teams secure access to a ballplayer they would normally have no chance of getting & the presumably higher attendance / revenue from "A-Rod" home dates (obviously, would require specialty pricing). A-Rod gets the salary he's looking for. And for fans of the Royals, for example, would you rather have Tony Pena and his .284 OBP in your lineup or a 3-time MVP?

There'd need to be some considerations obviously. With the increased travel this would put on A-Rod, we'd probably need to set aside the 1st & last days of each month as personal days. Who gets him in the playoffs shouldn't be an issue because the odds of two of the above six teams making the playoffs are pretty high even w/ a month of A-Rod.

Maybe even more imporantly ... I think this sets up a more realistic framework for how baseball contracts will work in the future. Everything will be a la carte. Everyone is a free agent until the rosters are announced for that days game (e.g., 4 hrs in advance). Say the Yankees have a big series coming up w/ Seattle. It's Labor Day and their 2 games back. They could get Josh Beckett's agent on the phone and work out a deal for a Beckett start (say maybe 8 mil ... 'cause they need this win). Beckett might only have to work 6-7 games a year & still be able to pull down 15-20 million. Players will be independent contractors like pro golfers. Each team will have to have a stable of "everyday'ers" (rookies, lower-salary guys that need the money & will play a Tuesday night game in PNC Park in mid-April) to be ready to fill in when teams don't feel like coughing up the cash (e.g., out of the race, small market, etc.). But even "everyday'ers" would be eligible for free agency after a year or two.

Traditionalists will howl. Dolberry himself will miss the old days, but what-the-hey, it'll still be better than soccer.