The Great New Jersey Earthquake of 2011 - Where Were You?

So ... should we like do something or just stand here
 and pretend like something important just happened?

So we had an Earthquake yesterday.  Yeah, a real live earthquake.  5.8 on the Richter scale.  In freakin New Jersey.  It was so ... shaky.  The good news is we're now officially as cool as California but without all the flaky douchebags.  The bad news is that it's obviously heralding the end of the world.  You win some, you lose some.  At least it added some excitement to an otherwise boring Tuesday afternoon.  Or did it?  Judging by the following text message exchange we had yesterday afternoon with someone within range of the earth moving, it didn't exactly grab every one's attention:

Us:  Did you guys fell the earthquake?


Them:  Nope.


Us:  5.8 in n.j.  Very weird.


Them:  [silence]


Apparently, it registered approximately a 0.0 on their "Give a Fuck Scale."  We informed someone that there was an actual earthquake in their home state and it was met with utter indifference.  We didn't get an "OMG", an "Are you serious?" or even a "huh?"  It seemed weird to us at first, but now with 24 hours of reflection, we've come to the conclusion that such a response is wholly appropriate.  Despite all the talk, all the news coverage and everyone;s overzealous reactions, it might be the least interesting thing to happen all week.  Nobody has a good story of where they were or what they were doing when it happened.

Need proof?  Check out New Jersey's flagship website and its story of how twitter was simply aflutter with excitement after the quake.  Check out some of these exciting and newsworthy first person accounts  (all tweets were @njdotcom, names removed to protect the innocent/dumb):

No text or calling ability from Verizon - wondering if my son felt quake in Syracuse?

When he takes a break some getting a mediocre education and rooting for a fruit, we're quite sure his heart will be warmed knowing his mommy or daddy cared juuust enough to take time to tweet instead of trying harder to get in touch with him.  Follow him/her on twitter @noteveryoneshouldhavekids

usually its fireworks during the board of education meeting....but an earthquake before? is that a hint of whats going to happen tonight?

No.

That wasn't an earthquake. It was Chuck Norris tap-dancing.

Chuck Norris don't tap dance fool!!

- Mr. T

we felt it here in princeton. half of office building is without power. some r nauseaous, light headed, but all seem fine.

Nauseous and light headed?  Sounds like code for "if my boss is dumb enough to believe tho shit, I'm going to leverage a natural disaster into a half-day off from work."

Still bracing myself. I'm paranoid bc my building is from 1938. Plz tweet any pics you get, I'm curious

Earthquake Picture

INTENSE!!!!!!!!!

Maybe just congestion? Texting between AT&T and Verizon phones is working fine

It may seem silly to be concerned with your data plan during a time of such crisis, but @bfavre4 thought the world was ending and had some really important last minute pictures to send.


my wife was on beach in Ocean City NJ. Earth shook for 30 seconds. I was in the ocean and didn't feel anything.

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!!!!


Ok. So i wasn't the only one. That was something I thought the walls were going to cave in. That was my first experience.


... in your entire life?


Office building was shaking in Union. The water in my water bottle was moving back and forth.

Are you sure it wasn't the T-Rex?

I was in the attic when it happened. things up there shook more violently than the rest of the house. nothing fell. all good.


We're all relieved to know the collection of 1988 Topps Mel Hall cards and "vintage" hot wheels avoided any serious damage.

Ceiling in office in Trenton was shaking. Thought hurricane, then rowdy coworkers,...but then remembered no offices above me.


"And then I remembered there aren't any office above me because I don't have a job. Fuck you Obama."


I thought I was just dizzy and customer asked if the building always shakes when busses pass. Hardly felt on a 1st floor in Newark.

Thanks for sharing that absolute non-experience with everyone.  It serves as an excellent bookend to your earlier tweet about how you managed to stay dry during the Midwest floods.  

Last time there was an earthquake this close to NYC, it was Godzilla. Just saying.


Take it easy champ. Maybe you should stop talking for awhile.

Walls swaying and skylight made crackling noises in Florham Park! skeerrrd!


Yeah, we were all a bit skeerrrd. Very skeerry in deed.

And that's the best nj.com could do.  The most exciting "experiences" people had involved not actually having anything happen.  But that doesn't matter.  The fun comes from telling people about how you didn't actually feel the earthquake and about how it didn't effect your day at all.  Since we're all looking for something, anything to break the monotony of our otherwise meaningless lives, talking about how something kind of historic happened but t didn't effect us at all is way better than simply having nothing happen at all.  WE WERE ON THE FRONTLINE BUT WE BARELY NOTICED!!

We even got caught up in it a little bit, posting on Facebook (continuing our odd California theme):


80 degrees.  Sunny.  And an earthquake.  Suck it California.


Yeah, we suck just as much as everyone else and to prove it, we'd like to provide our first-hand account, with no harrowing detail to be spared.




Wow.  Give us a second to catch our breath.  Just talking about something so intense, really takes us back to that moment in time.  Reminds us how lucky we are to be alive.

So, we've had our say, where were YOU when the world almost came to a crashing halt?  Share your story below (Yes we know nobody will but we're keeping up the illusion of readership anyway)

Baseball - Jim Thome, HOF?

Is Jim Thome a hall of famer?

SPOILER ALERT!!

Yes.  Of course he is.  Thanks for reading.

We're not going make you read some long discussion and pretend that the answer isn't obvious.  With 600 home runs, Thome will be able to put "HOF" after his signature.  And it will likely only take him one ballot.  But just because the reality is obvious doesn't mean the question isn't interesting.

Due in part to the recency bias, our memories of Thome aren't particularly impressive.  In the past several years, he'd become a part-time player and one trick pony, occasionally rising from the bench and, since we only see him in Sportscenter highlights, always hitting home runs.  That notwithstanding, his most recent stats made him look like a classic "all or nothing" player, stuck in our minds as a .250 hitter.

Of course, that determination ignores one small detail - he played for 20 friggin years.  And in his prime (from his first full season with the Indians in 1994 until his 2007 season with the White Sox), Thome was an offensive force.  He hit more than 40 home runs 6 time and more than 30 a whopping 11 times, with a career high of 52.  Despite all that power, his career batting average is almost .280 having hit over .300 three times and never below .266 in a full season.  He got on base as much as anyone, finishing in the Top 10 in OPS 10 times (and Top 5 seven times), including leading the league once and walked a ton (8th most all time)  He scored 100+ runs 8 times and had over 2,000 hits.  Even the more enlightened statistics support his cause as he finished in the Top 10 for various Wins Above Replacement metrics 5 to 6 times.  To top it off, he apparently fought Chipper Jones in the minors (that's enough for us!!)  The numbers are Cooperstownian.  So what's the problem?

Well, in the days after any major milestone like this, the sportstalkosphere (a thing we just made up that we are part of) debates the merits of the players HOF candidacy using amorphous and imprecise standards like "feels like a hall of famer" and "I know one when I see one."  This is, of course, slightly ironic given that baseball, more than any other sport, is almost completely numbers driven.  No other sport has magic numbers like 3,000, 300 or 500 that are serve as automatic rights of entry.  Still, the debate is valid, particularly with Thome.  Despite all the numbers, what persists is that at no time during his career did he profile as one of the best players in the sport.  He was an All-Star only 5 times.  While his first base contemporaries were a strong group (Frank Thomas, Mo Vaughn, Mark McGwire, Tino Martinez, Jason Giambi, Carlos Delgado, Albert Pujols, Todd Helton, Paul Konerko and David Ortiz, etc.), they weren't exactly Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg competing for spots in the '30's.  He never won an MVP and despite finishing in the Top 10 4 times, never finished higher than 4th.  And, for a player defined by his power, only lead the league once.  Now, steroids may have played some part in his lack of superlatives.  In his best years, 2 of the MVP's were presumed clean (Griffey and Ichiro) while 2 others weren't (Bonds and A-Rod).  Maybe he would have finished higher if it weren't for guys like Brett Boone, Juan Gonzalez, and Jason Giambi.  Even his best argument for induction - 600 home runs - makes him seem out of place: 

Sammy Sosa - 7-time All Star, 1 MVP.  Steroid aided.

Alex Rodriguez - 14-time All Star, 3 MVPs, Steroid aided

Ken Griffey, Jr. - 13-time All Star, 1 MVP

Willie Mays - 24-time All Star, 2 MVPs

Babe Ruth - Babe Ruth

Hank Aaron - 25-time All Star, 1 MVP

Barry Bonds - 14-time All Star, 7 MVPs.  Um...yeah

  

And that brings us to our bigger point - Thome being a lock for the HOF is less about him and more about the guys he played against. 

Because Thome looks like a really nice guy.  Because he smiles.  And because he's just a big-ass country looking dude who doesn't look like he needs any performance enhancement.  We want to believe his accomplishments were clean.  We'll give him the benefit of the doubt like we did with McGwire and not with Bonds ignoring the absurd proportions of one and judging by the head size of another.  And because we think he's clean, we'll make excuses for why he doesn't seem like a HOF player and why he never seemed to lead the league in anything that important.  We'll blame all the bad guys he played against - McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Gonzalez, Rodriguez - for depriving him of his rightful place in history.  And then we'll make up stories about where he'd rank all-time in these categories if it weren't for steroids.  Make him only the 5th member of the 600 club.  Give him a few fictional home run titles and maybe even a revisionist MVP.  We'll do this because we like him.  Because we think he was pure.  Or at least because we don't have any publicly discussed evidence to the contrary.  And the lack of evidence, rather than the proof of innocence will be enough because in baseball, numbers still matter.  And, if by embracing Jim Thome and his good-but-not-great numbers we can restore the connection of today's game to Aaron, Ruth and Mays, that makes it all ok.  Even though he wasn't one of the best players of his generation, we'll convince ourselves he was.  Instead of a really good player who played a long time and compiled a bunch of great stats, we'll make him into Harmon Killebrew (league leader in home runs 6 times, 11 time All-Star, 1 MVP).  His career will serve as one of the few remaining links in the chain from Ripken to Pujols, freeing Griffey from having to do it all by himself.  And we'll do it to Frank Thomas too, he'll become a great player instead of a guy with a short peak and a bunch of lesser seasons. 

The problem is, no matter how we elevate and celebrate Thome in the name of stamping out those nasty cheaters, it won't work.  Memories may fade but they still last.  And a lack of memorable moments can't be overcome.  For all the bad bad things they did, McGwire and Sosa and Bonds and everyone else gave us moments that Jim Thome, for all his goodness, didn't.  No derby bombs over Fenway.  No crow hops and dual chases to 61.  Not even a cold, calculated assault on everything sacred about the game.  And thankfully no a weird Bronson Arroyo glove slap and purple lips.  For better of worse, those things stick with us and are what we'll remember when we look back on this era, while Jim Thome was just a nice guy.

Baseball - Indignity Thy Name is Eric Chavez

"Hey guys, why exactly am I posing like this? ...
Yes, I know I'm a catcher but ... "

Getting old sucks.  It sucks in real life but even more so if you're a professional athlete.  In real life, standing on the doorstep of 40 subjects you to some incredibly original "over the hill" jokes and a cubicle covered with signs like "If age is wisdom, I must be a genius" or "Does Somebody Smell Mothballs?" or a box of depends and a reminder to get your prostate checked.  In the grand scheme of things, it's not all that bad.  You still have decades of work ahead of you.

39 year old athletes on the other hand are fucking done.  The thing they've done better than 99% of the world for their entire life, the thing that defined everything about them as a person, is gone.  And there's not a damn thing they can do about it.  Think about it that way and you understand why some (cough, Favre, couch) find it so difficult to walk away and embrace the next 40 (or if your a football player 15) years of their lives.  It's like getting our of prison, except you're wildly rich ("Brett was here").  Translate that to real life and you'd be incontinent and unable to hold a pen by the time you hit 40.  It's ugly stuff.  

By 39, basketball players and football players have already gotten the old yeller treatment so we don't have to watch them decay, but baseball players can hang around.  Sometimes it works out ok, particularly if you embraced the joys of HGH, but more often it looks a lot like Jorge Posada.

One day he's a 4-time champion and 5-time All-Star, 2 years removed from a 20 home run season and 4 from a .338/.907/20/90, silver slugger and 6th place MVP year, and one of the "Core Four" of baseball's modern dynasty.  And the next day you're benched in favor of Eric Chavez?

Yes, that Eric Chavez.  The last time he was good former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was busy asking Parliament to amend the constitution to provide for multi-candidate presidential elections.  We were in the midst of the Tulip Revolution in Krgystan?  Women weren't allowed to vote in Kuwait?  The pope wasn't a creepy German?  That's 2005 for anyone who don't follow Middle Eastern or papal politics as closely as they should.  Anyway, the point is, it was a long time ago and after 4 lost seasons, Chavez isn't exactly a big-time player.  Before spring training was fully ready to call it quits.  Now, he's making Jorge wish he had.

Jorge, or as he's called Georgie in our constant battle to anglicize everything, is known as a prideful guy.  He's the type with a competitive streak so intense that being hit 9th in the order almost caused him to walk away and be branded a "quitter" by people who can't relate with his mentality.  So, being benched and essentially having his career ended behind a guy who was almost out of baseball has to hurt.

That's not to say the Yankees are wrong.  Chavez had been productive in limited at-bats.  And Posada is done, even if he doesn't know it yet.  But, when decommissioning a legend, the should have at least done it right.  Instead of Chavez, they should have promoted the presumed "next great Yankee hitter" Jesus Montero and seen what he could do.  It's still not easy, but great players want to be replaced by someone who's also, or at least supposed to be, great.  Not just some guy.

In all the excitement of Jeter's 3000th hit, Jorge's struggles have been somewhat overshadowed.  After the season when he (mercifully) retires, it will probably pass through the collective sports consciousness without much fanfare, swallowed up by the NFL deathstar and the NBA lockout.  He likely won't end up in the hall of fame or with his number in monument park.  And he doesn't have a seat at the all-time Yankee table.  But Jorge Posada was a very good player, for a very long time.  And because of that, it's a shame he suffered the indignity of Eric Chavez.    

Golfish: Steve Williams Becomes First Caddy to Win PGA Tournament, Reports ESPN

With the crowd as deafening as it could be during a meaningless late summer golf tournament, the chants of "Stev-ie Will-iams ... Stev-ie Will-iams", with presumably five claps in between, couldn't help but make Steve Williams smile as he strode triumphantly up the 18th fairway on Sunday.  He had worked too long and hard not to enjoy this moment.  Carried too many clubs, opened too many bottles of water, smacked too many photo-seeking fans, and made too much money off the backs of other people's efforts.  


Williams, who described himself as a "good front-runner when I'm caddying" then stood calmly as the man he controlled so deftly all week, Adam Scott, sunk the final putt to seal, if ESPN's coverage is too be believed, the first PGA victory attributable solely to the efforts of a caddy.


Williams, a former supporting character who has done everything possible to make himself the story, apparently missed the ESPN memo and reflected on his long history of dominance: "I've caddied for 33 years -- 145 wins now -- and that's the best win I've ever had" Williams stated, apparently delusional from a weekend in the Florida sun.  "It was way, way better than those 13 majors I won for Tiger, especially the 2001 Masters when he won what I like to call the "Stevie Slam" said Williams disingenuously "and you can tell him I said that.  Not that I care what he thinks or anything.  I'm totally over him.  Really.  I'm having the time of my life.  I changed my hair color, got a tattoo I'll soon regret.  I feel like a new person."


Scott, the golfer who actually hit the shots and made the putts, described the weekend in uncomfortable terms:  "Steve was simply a maestro this week with the way he was on my bag.  I felt like he was inside me, like we were one.  I was his golf slave.  It was amazing."  After that response, the press conference ended as the collective media was too confused to continue.


But no golf story would be complete without a discussion of Tiger Woods.  After 4 months of inactivity, Tiger returned with an unacceptably uneven performance, finishing an embarrassing one over par and ahead of only 32 other players like recent major winners Charl Schwartzel, Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke and everyone's favorite overweight Lance Berkman look-a-like Phil Mickleson, none of whom just returned from severe injury.  The collective golf world chuckled as Woods, the greatest golfer most of them had ever seen, audaciously contended he would actually try to win tournaments and not just settle for "moral victories."  If Tiger has proven anything, he is not about morals.


The bigger story, though, was the ballad of Tiger and Stevie.  They totally broke up.  OMG!!!  The Persnickety Project has the sordid details ... 


It was he said, she said, as the former partners aired their grievances publicly this week after avoiding each other since their break-up became public weeks ago.  Did Stevie cheat on Tiger in an ironic reversal of fortune?


Tiger says they were only "on a break" when Williams decided to hook up with Adam Scott.  Stevie says they were broken up.  "I was told on the phone that we need to take a break, and in caddie lingo, that means you're fired, simple as that" said Williams, apparently never having seen that episode of "Friends."

To Stevie's claims that the news was delivered over the phone, Tiger went on the offensive ... through his agent, of course:

"Tiger flew from Florida to Philly to visit ATT National and also for the express purpose of PERSONALLY and officially telling Steve that they would no longer be working together," Steinberg said in the email. "Tiger felt strongly about meeting face to face. Any assertions to the contrary are simply false."

Oh it's personal all right.  Only time will tell what happens for these former lovebirds.  Will they get back together in the much anticipated series finale?  No one knows.  But we'll speculate anyway and say no.  Rest assured though that The Persnickety Project will be there with all the unnecessary details on this scandal.

In related news, we won a BCS Championship with Rutgers on PS3 and J-Lo and Ben just might be getting back together.  Maybe.  Probably not.  But still, maybe.

When Did Philly Become Good At Life?

Jason Babin - 2010 Pro-Bowler


Ronnie Brown - Former #2 overall pick, 2008 Pro-Bowler

Cullen Jenkins - 7 sacks in 11 games for the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers

Nnamdi Asomugha - At worst 2nd best CB in football, 3-time Pro-Bowler, 2-time 1st Team All-Pro


Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie - 2009 Pro-Bowler

Vince Young - 2-time Pro-Bowler, 30-17 career win/loss records


Hunter Pence - 2-time All Star

All newly acquired by Philadelphia in the past 2 weeks. 


What the hell is going on around here?

Most times your sports allegiance are determined by things beyond your control like who your dad rooted for or where you grew up or who was winning and on tv the most when you growing up.  Most times you don't really have a choice.  But since our Dad wasn't a big sports fan (it was more about The Beatles for him) and the town we grew up in was essentially equidistant (yeah, we did) from New York and Philadelphia, we did.  Instead of one CBS, one NBC, one Fox and one channel airing sports, we had two.  With the the Eagles and Giants on every football Sunday and the Mets and Phillies on WPIX and Philly57 all summer long, both cities had the chance to gain our loyalty.  Of course, in the late 80's/early 90's, we may have had options but it wasn't really a choice.  It was New York all the way.   


The Mets were coming off a World Series and, at that point, still gave off an aura of hope (instead of the current stench of helplessness) while the Phillies were in the midst of a 12-year stretch of losing seasons, broken up by a an unexpected and steroid-infused World Series run in 1993 (at least the Mets did coke!!).    Von Hayes, Dickie Thon, Juan Samuel's mustache, and a bunch of pitchers their families don't even remember didn't exactly capture our imagination.  It was mostly the same with the Eagles.  Despite some success under Buddy Ryan, they were predictably disappointing through the Kotite/Rhodes era, while the Giants were busy winning a pair of Super Bowls.  We worshipped L.T. and Parcells while wondering how any franchise could the Eagles ended up with seasons where their leading passers were Rodney Peete, Ty and Koy Detmers and Bobby Hoying (ignoring, of course, the Giants three-headed debacle of Dave Brown, Danny Kanell and Kent Graham).  And we certainly weren't going to root for a city that forced all-time greats like Reggie White, Curt Shilling and Charles Barkley to leave in order to contend for titles.   Even the uninspiring Shea and Giants stadiums looked like the Taj Mahal in comparison to The Vet, a stadium known for its ugliness and evil career-ending turf.  New York had an iconic skyline.  Philly had a busted-ass bell.


With all our perceived advantages, we developed a certain arrogance.  A dismissal of our counterparts down the Turnpike.  Even if our teams weren't better that season, they were still better.  And so were we.  We weren't anything like those savages who boo Santa and cheer paralysis.  We held the moral high ground.  


But it would be inaccurate to say that it was a rivalry.  Rivalries require parties of equal footing and, for as long as we could remember, our teams won big and Philly never did.  New York was the big brother and Philly was the impossibly awkward younger brother.  They were a nuisance more than a rival.  And it was good.


But then something awful happened.  Slowly but surely, the Philly teams started to win.  And then they started to do it consistently.  The once awkward little brother was no longer awkward or little.  The Phillies won a World Series and went to another, while the Mets struggled to overcome memories of a third strike looking and endured consecutive September collapses.  The Eagles became a fixture in the playoffs.  Things had changed,  after years of us looking down on Philly, suddenly they were looking us right eye.  Our veneer of arrogance was stripped away and we were left with nothing to do but hate them.    


Now, after the last few weeks, even the most arrogant of New York fans can no longer deny that the city who's most famous dish involves heavy doses of Cheez Whiz had become the home to two of the best, most respected franchises in the sports world while the Mets and Giants have become Cooper Manning.  Philly's inferiority complex has been replaced by a superiority complex.  Can you blame them?

The Phillies Acquire Hunter Pence

For something like 5 hours on December 16, 2009, the Phillies had a pitching staff that featured Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels until they traded Lee to Seattle to "restock the farm system."  It was a total Philly move and exactly what their fans expected.  Instead of doing everything they could to lock up the baseball's best rotation, they left their fans wanting.  Why be great when you can be good?


364 days later they came out of nowhere to steal Cliff Lee away from the Yankees.  It was the most surprising move of the offseason and officially marked their entrance into The Arms Race.


How do they follow that up?  By acquiring probably the most long-term desirable player on this year's trade market - Hunter Pence.  Say what you want about Pence, he's an awkward, ugly player (Johnny Damon with more power and a less uncomfortable throwing motion) and probably won't ever be a superstar but, he's exactly what the PhilliesDomonic Brown and Vance Worley two players who figure to take on even more prominent roles next season and provide a youth infusion, and they control Pence for the next 3 seasons.  Sure, they gave up their two best prospects but those guys are prospects (as opposed to established players) for a reason.  It was a stunningly intelligent and effective move and puts them squarely in position to get to another World Series.  

The Eagles Sign All the Good Players

We're fascinated by the relationship between Eagle fans and the organization.  In their championship blood-lust, the fans seem to overlook the incredible consistency of their team and focus on things they don't have like a Lombardi Trophy and an open checkbook.  Well, they can't complain about the latter any longer.  


After years of borderline antagonistic moves (their free-agent forays for guys like Kearse, T.O. and Asante Samuel always seemed to be coupled with a rage-inducing veteran cut), the Eagles have gone all-in this season, signing a handful of the best players on the market, including one of the best players in the league, Nnamdi Asomugha.  They took a weak defense and, seemingly overnight, filled it with Pro-Bowlers (including 3 Pro-Bowl corners).  And they didn't do it just by throwing around huge Redskin-contracts, they did it because players want to play there.  The Eagles, next to the Pats and Steelers, are one of the most respected teams in the NFL.  Yeah, that really happened. 


As much as their rise is a product of first class facilities, excellent treatment of players and a respected coach, the latest moves come down to one thing - guys want to play with Mike Vick.  We doubt the Eagles were smart enough to envisioned this when they signed The Dogkiller in 2009, but Vick, as much or more so than more established guys like Brady and Manning, is a draw.  Players see his singular talents as their ticket to the promised land.  Whether you agree with that assessment or not (we tend to disagree) his mystique is unmistakable.  

It's nearly impossible to predict how new players will adapt to new schemes and new teammates, particularly in a contacted offseason.  But the Eagles have officially won the offseason and are inarguably better than they were last year.  We'll see if this collection of talent, a "Dream Team" if you will, can finally bring home a title.  But the organization has proven, once and for all, they're going to contender in a real way for a long time.


Even a New York fan can't disagree with that assessment.


(God that was painful.  This reverse jinx better work.)