E.K. NATION

We can pick the winner of American Idol during the audition shows, but of the four teams remaining in the Stanley Cup playoffs, we had precisely zero of them included in our The-16-Teams-That-Will-Make-The-Playoffs prediction?

This shouldn't really be considered a sports blog anymore. Supposin' this became a karaoke blog instead?

National League "Best"?: Remember last year, when the N.L. West teams all sucked and the Padres had a chance to win the division with a sub-.500 record? Well, every team in the N.L. West is now above .500.

We think there might be a meteor causing this.

We have been Giants fans since 1978, when we were six years old and we asked our dad what his favorite team was. When he said the Giants, we instantly became Giants fans ourselves.

And since that time, no Giant has thrown a no-hitter.

The last time a Giant threw a no-hitter was September 29, 1976, when John "The Count" Montefusco beat the Braves. We had just turned five years old and had no idea what baseball even was. Since then, the Giants have been no-hit seven times, including every no-hitter in MLB history pitched by guys named Kevin (Brown, Greene, Millwood).

We remember William Van Landingham going at least six no-hit innings against the Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball in 1996. And we recall mention on other Giants blogs of Scott Garrelts taking one into the ninth inning one time, although we don't remember that actual game well enough to speak of it. Other than that, it hasn't really been close, has it?

Enough waiting! No more!

It is time for an E.K. Nation Imploration™:

Hey, Giants! Somebody, anybody who plays for the Giants: Pitch a no-hitter, will ya already???!!! Sheesh!!!

That oughta do it.

Looks like Jason Schmidt is up next, Friday night at Willie Mays Field against the Rockies. You're on notice, Jason! Let's do this!

Taylor Hicks will be the next American Idol.

Let's write that one down. Oh wait I just did.

Now, last night's big finale was not really the showstopper one might expect. Taylor and Katharine performed three songs each, two of which they had already done on prior shows, and one of which is to become their debut singles. And both of their debut singles are pretty much cookie-cutter pop songs that suck. Katharine went through the motions on her single, but Taylor performed his gamely and as soulfully as possible, and that is the icing on the cake.

We here at E.K. Nation suck at predicting sports, but we'd like to share an e-mail we wrote to a friend the day after Taylor's audition aired. We feel that this is one of E.K. Nation's greatest triumphs, for which we will be awarded, well, nothing really. But it's still cool nonetheless:

Thu, 2 Feb 2006 14:03:46 -0800 (PST)
From: "E.K."
Subject: American Idol
To: "Smooth"

Taylor Hicks will be the next American Idol.

Let's write that one down. Oh wait I just did.

Barry Bonds may have gotten plunked, but Astros fans, you just got punked. By yourselves.

See, surely you were cheering the insane antics of your idiot pitcher Russ Springer, who threw one pitch behind Barry, the next pitch at his feet, the next two up and in on the hands, and then the fifth one right off his right shoulder blade. Nice work, punkass. Three plate appearances by Barry against him, and they go like this:

Home run

Hit by pitch

Hit by pitch

Nice work, punkass.

And Astros fans, you stood and cheered after all this. Because you think Barry deserves it because he's a cheater and he is a terrible role model.

But Astros fans, what does that say about you, that you cheered on your headhunting pitcher after he hit the greatest hitter ever on purpose?

How's that for being a role model? Cheering a potential injury. Nice work, punkasses.

American Idol-ing: It was a nice ride for Elliott Yamin, who, we are glad to say, got the props and the votes he richly deserved. When he was on his game, there was no one better. His renditions of "Moody's Mood For Love" and "A Song For You" were one-of-a-kind (okay, that's actually two-of-a-kind, I guess). And I have to say, when his first album comes out, I will be getting it.

So now we're left with the hot hot hot Katharine McPhee, and our audition-rounds pick to win it all, Taylor Hicks, who will indeed win. We suck at predicting sports, but this one we had all the way, except for those weeks when Ace was the favorite, and then when Paris was being touted as the one to beat, and then when Chris suddenly became the front-runner...

On Major League Baseball's decision not to celebrate Barry Bonds' eclipsing of Babe Ruth's mark of 714 home runs: Bud Selig says MLB doesn't celebrate second place.

Bullshit!

Major League Baseball rewards second-place teams with playoff spots!!!

Don't try to pull this crap on E.K. Nation, Bud. We're on to you.

(Actually, we don't care whether MLB breaks out the pinatas on the occasion of Barry's 715th home run. But we just like to keep Mr. Selig in check.)

Oh, and also!! Also, also!!...

Remember that sign Phillies fans put up in the bleachers to taunt Barry? Something to the effect of, "Babe Ruth did it on beer and hot dogs!" Remember that?

Beer was illegal during most of Babe Ruth's career.

Come on!!!!

(Thanks to Joe Morgan, of all people, for bringing that very good point up during Sunday night's Giants-Phillies game on ESPN.)

Part of me wishes I had never read "Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds And The Making Of An Anti-Hero". That's the part that prides myself on not getting too involved with the off-field exploits of athletes and other celebrities whose only job it is to entertain and perform on the field. Do I care whether Brad and Angelina get married and have a baby? Hell, no. Does it matter if Damon Stoudamire smokes pot? Not really. Is Tom Cruise a fruitbat? Maybe, maybe not, but either way I will still see his movies if they have a chance to entertain me.

Now that I have read the book, by Jeff Pearlman (Harper & Collins, $25.95), I know approximately 100 times more about Barry Bonds than I did when I started. Up until a couple of years ago, I might hear the occasional story about how much of a dickhead Barry Bonds is. You know, I knew a guy who encountered him once and said he was a total asshole; others have said things to the effect of, yeah, he wouldn't sign a ball for my kid, he's a serious prick, etc. And I would say, well, if you were a Giants fan, you'd like him 'cause all you cared about would be whether he helped the Giants win games. But now we have the stories of hundreds of people, literally -- over 500, actually -- and it has been confirmed in my mind, without a shadow of a doubt, that Barry Bonds can be a seriously massive fucking prick asshole dickhead, and it must be stressed that Barry Bonds is the third baseball hero I have ever had (behind prior Giants greats Willie McCovey and Will Clark), but he is my current hero on the field only.

The book is 345 brisk pages detailing Bonds' buffoonery, hijinks and tomfoolery, with equal helpings of his harshness, brazenness, sheer audacity, and other stuff that someone the likes of The Godfather would have put a stop to on a warm summer night in a tiny Italian cafe with a crisp bullet to the head, if only Bonds were named Bonzone. (Dropping a loyal, kind, trustworthy agent while accusing him of destroying his career comes to mind, as does the incident where an opponent's clubhouse employee asked Bonds if he could autograph some items for a fundraiser for a former teammate's ill child and Bonds allegedly replied simply, "Fuck you.") But now and then we also get a glimpse of the good side of Bonds -- showing up on a snowy day in West Virginia to meet with some kids, donating appearance fees to help a school's athletic department.

There are suggestions that Bonds is the way he is because of the childhood he had: the son of another under-appreciated superstar, Bobby Bonds, who might have made the Hall of Fame had he not given himself the aura of an unwanted player due to his penchant for drinking and his (mentally, if not physically) abusive nature. And there are the tales of hotshot Barry arriving in a fancy car for his stint at Arizona State University, dripping with talent and merely a figurative big head, and learning what it means to be coddled and not be coddled. His father's lessons surely began to stick to him: Don't get too close to those who care about you because eventually, surely, they won't give you what you want, probably serving as a pre-cursor to Bonds' handling of the media, which essentially are made up of people who are not interested whatsoever in giving any celebrity what he wants.

But the book is not long on psycho-analysis, and it must be said that is no fault of the author, nor must it be assumed that was the intent; people who shared clubhouse space with Bonds couldn't even get a read on him. (Pearlman relays a story from Mark Carreon, who remembered being in a fight with Bonds only to have Bonds apologize afterwards, telling Carreon he was one of his closest friends on the team. Says Carreon, "I didn't even like Barry, and he thought we were good friends. Man, is he bizarre.") Love Me, Hate Me is a litany of things Barry does right and things he does wrong, and there is no in-between: Those things are lovable or they are hateable. No wonder Barry once said, "Love me, hate me, I don't care" -- those are the only two options he gives you, and sometimes both in the same weekend. Whether he buys you dinner Friday night and then on Saturday afternoon ices you with a cold stare as though you were a Jehovah's Witness waking up a bear in the middle of winter, or whether he takes steroids in 2000 and then hits home runs you admire in 2001, that's all you can offer him.

As the book enters its later stages, the questions of steroid use inevitably arise, and Pearlman makes no bones about his take: Bonds did use steroids. But it's almost an after-thought; the epilogue is really the only place where Bonds' career is put into perspective with a steroids backdrop, with questions such as, if it wasn't illegal, was it cheating? and, Surely he was a Hall of Famer before the accusations, no? Good questions, all. If Bonds had been covered throughout his career in the detail that Pearlman gives us here, however, Bonds wouldn't have had to wait until later in his career to be thoroughly reviled by baseball fans. He'd have been hated right out of the box. And loved by some, to be sure.

Readers of Love Me, Hate Me who hate Bonds will hate him even more. Readers who love Bonds might or might not change their minds, depending on how much exposure to these exploits they've had throughout Bonds' career and whether or not they care about off-the-field shenanigans. The book has very little direct input from Barry himself to negate (or confirm) most of the stories, and who could blame him for not participating? The author's previous subjects include the 1986 Mets and John Rocker, not exactly choirboys (if Pearlman ever approached me for a biography, I'd ask him first if he had photos of me eating the Lindbergh baby). But the book is ripe with information that is presented in a way that the reader really can't doubt any of its veracity; nobody really thinks Barry is the game's greatest ambassador to begin with. We can believe every tale told. And if Pearlman hates Bonds, he's done a good job of keeping the hate in check and being as objective about it as possible.

LMHM doesn't leave any base unturned; there's so much out there on the field for the reader to ingest (and possibly puke back up). Even the casual fan will be entertained enough with the stories inside to say, "What the fuck??? Bonds is a nut ball!", and then he will eagerly turn the page, ready for another anecdote to share with his friends at the bar tonight, as another home run sails into McCovey Cove.

Barry Bonds hit his 713th home run last night, a mammoth shot that hit the facade of the third deck at Name Of A Certain Bank Stadium in Philadelphia.

After the game, he was asked at a press conference if he would sign the ball that he hit for 713, and he said no. Which leads us to say that within the next day or so we will have a review of the book "Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds And The Making Of An Anti-Hero" by Jeff Pearlman. This review will contain the second time we have ever said the following statement: "Barry Bonds can be a seriously massive fucking prick asshole dickhead." The first time we said that was in the previous sentence, but next time it will actually have some context. And Christ, do we have some context.

Continuing to back up our claim that we provide little, and in some cases, no useful information ever on this blog, we bring you this couple of golden nuggets...

• We fully expect something magical to happen tonight at Minute Maid Park as the Astros take on the Cardinals. Why? Because a couple of months ago we were planning on being in Texas at this very moment and we were going to go to this game. We have a ticket to it. It's sitting in the upstairs TV room by the computer. And it will go unused. This is why we expect something great to happen. Will Albert Pujols hit three, or maybe four, home runs? We expect it. If not that, maybe a no-hitter. Let's check who's pitching tonight...Chris Carpenter and Andy Pettitte? Oh, well, in that case then, it's a no-brainer. There will be a no-hitter tonight at the Juice Stand.

• As much as we love Katharine McPhee, and as stoked as we are to see that our predicted winner from a few months back during the audition shows, Taylor Hicks, is also in the final four, the truth is that the best singer in American Idol this year is Elliott Yamin. There have been really only two memorably outstanding performances this season, and Elliott has had both of them. Sadly, Elliott is probably on his way out next week. But he deserves to win as much as any of the others.