FDH Lounge Show #75: September 30, 2009

By Rick Morris

Tonight’s “diamond anniversary” 75th edition of THE FDH LOUNGE on SportsTalkNetwork.com (Wednesdays, 7-10 PM EDT) will feature more of the variety that has become our trademark.

After The Opening Statements of The Dignitaries of The FDH Lounge and a look at This Week in The FDH Lounge, we welcome in one of our few in-studio guests in the show’s history: Cavs New Media Sales Director Mike Maleski. In addition to his work with the Cavs’ standard Internet apparatus, he is also involved with one of the only team-owned social media outlets in sports, CavFanatic.com. Team owner Dan Gilbert has positioned the franchise as one of the cutting-edge organizations in all of pro sports when it comes to embracing technology and Mike will be here to break it all down for us. Then, we stay on the Cavs, but with a different slant: Kris Belman, director of the documentary about the early days of Lebron James, More Than a Game, will come on to discuss the debut of the movie, which is about 48 hours away.

Because of the circumstances of tonight’s show, we need to bump the traditional format of Hour Three up one hour: first with THE GOON SQUAD and our comprehensive 2009-2010 NHL season preview, which will partially involve drawing upon FANTASY HOCKEY DRAFTOLOGY 2009. We are joined by 100 Rangers Greats co-author Russ Cohen, also of Sportsology and Card Corner Club. Then, on THE FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER, we preview NFL Week 4, the first of the bye weeks, before comparing notes towards the end with KFFL Senior Editor Cory J. Bonini. Of course, our weekly football thoughts on this show only serve as a preview for each weekly Fantasy Drafthelp newsletter at the Fantasy Drafthelp blog.

Hour Three will be very special for the diamond anniversary show: an extended look at the MLB season that was, and more importantly, a look ahead to October. FDH baseball analysts Tim Foust and Ken Detwiler will be with us for all of the baseball hot topics.

It’s going to be a great program and we hope you can be a part of our audience. As always, we urge you to watch the show live (or listen if you’re on dial-up), but if you can’t catch this as it’s happening, you can always catch the FDH archives 24-7 right here or catch us now on iTunes!

NFL Week Four power rankings

By Rick Morris

NOTE: Preseason rankings in brackets.

TOP TIER
1 NY Giants [2]
2 New Orleans [15]
3 Indianapolis [7]
4 Minnesota [12]
5 Baltimore [8]
6 NY Jets [13]
7 New England [1]
8 Philadelphia [4]
9 Atlanta [16]
10 San Diego [5]

SECOND TIER
11 Pittsburgh [3]
12 Dallas [10]
13 San Francisco [25]
14 Green Bay [11]
15 Chicago [19]
16 Cincinnati [27]
17 Denver [23]
18 Arizona [6]

THIRD TIER
19 Seattle [24]
20 Buffalo [21]
21 Miami [17]
22 Houston [14]
23 Tennessee [9]
24 Jacksonville [22]
25 Detroit [30]
26 Washington [20]
27 Carolina [18]

FOURTH TIER
28 Tampa Bay [31]
29 Oakland [32]
30 St. Louis [26]
31 Kansas City [29]
32 Cleveland [28]

BIGGEST RISERS: New Orleans (13 spots), San Francisco (12 spots), Cincinnati (11 spots), Minnesota (8 spots)
BIGGEST FALLERS: Tennessee (14 spots), Arizona (12 spots), Carolina (9 spots), Houston (8 spots)

NFL picks Week Three

By Rick Morris

In addition to posting my weekly picks, I will post those from other members of The FDH Lounge Dignitaries' Football Challenge Contest. Each week, we will single out our three strongest plays.

RICK MORRIS (2-1 last week, 1-0 with my best pick, 4-2 overall, 2-0 on best picks)
Houston -3 1/2 over Jacksonville (my 1,000-Star, Gold-Plated Lock of the Millenium for this week)
NY Giants -6 1/2 over Tampa Bay
Detroit +6 1/2 over Washington

RYAN ISLEY (1-2 last week, 4-2 overall)
NY Jets -2 1/2 over Tennessee
Atlanta +4 1/2 over New England
New Orleans -6 over Buffalo

SEAN TRENCH (2-1 last week, 4-2 overall)
San Francisco +7 over Minnesota
Cincinnati +3 1/2 over Pittsburgh
Atlanta +4 1/2 over New England

DAVE ADAMS (2-1 last week, 3-3 overall)
Detroit +6 1/2 over Washington
Houston -3 1/2 over Jacksonville
Green Bay -6 1/2 over St. Louis

STEVE CIRVELLO (1-2 last week, 2-4 overall)
Philadelphia -7 1/2 over Kansas City
Jacksonville +3 1/2 over Houston
New Orleans -6 over Buffalo

My remaining picks (9-7 last week including loss on Pittsburgh/Chicago game that I forgot to post, 16-16 overall):
Green Bay -6 1/2 over St. Louis
Cincinnati +3 1/2 over Pittsburgh
Minnesota -7 over San Francisco
New England -4 1/2 over Atlanta
Philadelphia -7 1/2 over Kansas City
Buffalo +6 over New Orleans
Tennessee +2 1/2 over NY Jets
Cleveland +13 1/2 over Baltimore
Seattle +2 1/2 over Chicago
Miami +5 1/2 over San Diego
Denver -1 1/2 over Oakland
Arizona -2 1/2 over Indianapolis
Carolina +8 1/2 over Dallas

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume II, Issue XXXVIII

By Rick Morris

For the most part, we keep our fantasy content on our fantasy website and fantasy blog and keep this site for content on all subjects. It allows our readers to find specific content more easily that way. However, it has come to our attention that because our new fantasy sports newsletter is published on the older Blogger platform that our readers may be limited in their ability to subscribe to it. There does not appear to be a way to have content on the FantasyDrafthelp.com blog forwarded to an aggregate news reader -- however, we know that we have that ability here. So we will link to that newsletter each week right here when it is published. Here is this week's newsletter.

NCAA football picks Week Four

By Rick Morris

Last week 3-2, 7-13 on the season. Inching upwards!

This week:

Ohio State -14 over Illinois
Ohio +23 1/2 over Tennessee
Virginia Tech +3 over Miami
Purdue +6 1/2 over Notre Dame
Iowa +9 1/2 over Penn State

The Liberals' Pathetic Attack on Glenn Beck

By Tony Mazur

It has taken a number of years, but Glenn Beck is a media superstar. I have personally been a fan of Beck since his radio show went national, though my local news talk station WTAM dropped him in favor of Jerry Springer back in 2005 (Beck has since returned to WTAM). As a loyal Beck fan, I am apparently one of a few people that understand his humor.

On his September 23rd program on the Fox News Channel, Beck discussed his recent remarks about his disdain for Senator John McCain. He used an analogy about boiling a frog in a pot of water to explain the difference between a McCain and a Barack Obama presidency, and he used a scalding hot pot of water and live frogs. Sounds crazy, right? Where's PETA?

Here is one snippet of the segment.



You'll notice that the frog that he has in his hand jumps out as he takes his hand out of the cage. And I'm not sure if he even threw anything into the water. Funny, the video "mysteriously" cuts off just as Beck says the frog demonstration was fake.

Don't believe me? Here's is the full context of the segment.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/23/video-glenn-beck-explains-mccain-comment-boils-fake-frog/

The liberals and the mainstream media are out to get Beck, just as they have attacked Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, and Ann Coulter over the years. With the Democrats in full possession of Congress, why are the liberals attacking right-wing commentators?

Because they are terrified.

They have attacked these people to the point where they will spread vicious rumors about them. There is a website that calls for an investigation into a rape and murder covered up by Beck from 1990. For those who are scratching your heads, this is a tasteless spin on a joke made by Gilbert Gottfried during The Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, which had absolutely nothing to do with Beck. However, so imbeciles are actively trying to discredit Beck by indoctrinating ignorant and, frankly, stupid people on the internet.

Funny. I thought that the liberals are the nice folks, and those big, bad conservatives are hate-mongers. That doesn't seem like a nice thing to do.

If you've watched a minute or two of Beck's FNC show, you'll notice how Beck attempts to expose corruption in the government on both sides of the aisle. Gee, I thought Obama was the one person who was going to destroy racial and political divides?

Rather than focusing on the health care situation like other FNC hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, Beck has exposed Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, Mark Lloyd, and others who are attempting to bring down America through organizations such as ACORN, the Apollo Alliance, and the Tides Foundation. Beck is not trying to bring down America. He is trying to get people informed about what is really going on under this corrupt administration.

The liberals attack Beck because they are afraid of him. They are afraid because of his large audience. They are afraid because he speaks the truth. In their eyes, they have no choice but to take him down a few pegs by spreading lies.

By the way, Beck's show airs at 5 PM ET/2 PM PT on Fox News, and re-airs at 2 AM ET/11 PM PT. That is a tough timeslot, but has pulled in roughly 3 million viewers. plus, his radio show is the third most listened-to program in the country.

When will liberal bloggers grow up? I can't speak for all, but the majority of right-wingers do not stood to these low levels. The right brought down Van Jones because he is a radical communist and racist. The left wants to bring down Beck because he exposed a radical communist and racist.

Whether or not you agree with Beck, he is doing the right thing for the country. He is a whistle-blower. We need more people like this on both sides to expose corruption, no matter who is president.

I just thought I'd end this post with a video I found on YouTube. Back in the '80s, Beck co-hosted one of those zany morning zoo radio shows. I'm glad Glenn got out of wacky trash like this. His career sure benefited.

FDH Lounge Show #74: September 23, 2009

By Rick Morris

Our next edition of THE FDH LOUNGE (now back at its traditional time of 7-10 PM EDT on Wednesday nights on SportsTalkNetwork.com) features its trademark blend of variety – and, like last week’s program, it will be liveblogged throughout the show on Googling Atlee Hammaker.

By resuming the old format, the traditional “anything goes” portion of The Lounge from 7-9 now furnishes the first two hours of programming. We lead once again with The Opening Statements of The FDH Lounge Dignitaries and a look at This Week in The FDH Lounge before we bring in Dave Karger from Entertainment Weekly’s Oscar Watch. An expert on the Academy Awards, Dave will speak to us with some early insights into the 2010 voting as well as helping us recap the Emmy awards.

In the second half of the first hour, we bring to you our recurring FDH Lounge Pigskin Report, examining the September developments thus far from the pro and college gridirons.

At the top of Hour Two, our good friend and fellow member of the 21st Century Media Alliance New York lawyer Steve Kallas, proprietor of Sports Plus/Kallas Remarks, joins us for a look at the 20th anniversary of the Pete Rose banishment from baseball. Later, we start THE FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER a bit early with a visit from KFFL Senior Editor Cory J. Bonini to review early-season fantasy football developments. THE INSIDER then continues as we preview NFL Week 3, the first of the bye weeks this season and we take a look at the standings in The FDH Lounge Dignitaries NFL Pick Contest. We conclude with THE GOON SQUAD as we take a brief look at FANTASY HOCKEY DRAFTOLOGY 2009 and continue to get you ready for your hockey pools before completing the NHL Western Conference preview we started last week and moving onto the Eastern Conference. We’ll also remind you that next Monday, September 28, is the publication date for our good pal Russ Cohen’s 100 RANGER GREATS.

It’s going to be a great program and we hope you can be a part of our audience. As always, we urge you to watch the show live (or listen if you’re on dial-up), but if you can’t catch this as it’s happening, you can always catch the FDH archives 24-7 right here or catch us now on iTunes!

Tremendous Week: Parks & Recreation Season 1 DVD review

By Rick Morris

We conclude Tremendous Week in The 21st Century Media Alliance with a look at the new Parks & Recreation Season 1 DVD release. Other elements of this week, of course, included the Fire Joe Morgan reunion on Deadspin, The Office Season 5 DVD review and The Office Season 6 Premiere liveblog right here on this site and the Parks & Recreation Season 2 Premiere liveblog on Googling Atlee Hammaker. All in all, it’s been a pretty fun week taking a whirl through elements of pop culture that we really enjoy.

So that brings us to Parks & Recreation, the highly-anticipated project that hit the airwaves last April. With obvious strong ties to The Office – both in terms of the creative team and the mockumentary format – intrigue was intense even while few knew exactly what to expect.

Well, that’s not entirely true, we knew the outlines going in. Leslie Knope (portrayed by the always-funny Amy Poehler), deputy director of Parks & Recreation in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, takes on the challenge of converting an abandoned construction pit into a fully-functioning city park. Along the way, she befriends local nurse Ann Perkins (portrayed by the smokin’ Rashida Jones in another Office connection), whose ne’er-do-well boyfriend Andy fell into the pit and broke both his legs. Intern April, smarmy co-worker Tom Haverford, shallow city planner (and would-be love interest) Mark Brendanawicz and her militant libertarian boss Ron Swanson make up the rest of her professional inner circle. We knew that Pawnee was probably supposed to be about the same size as Scranton, PA, home of The Office. We also knew that Leslie’s character would have some of the same obliviousness as Office honcho Michael Scott.

But what would be the feel of the ensemble? How would this non-spinoff-with-obvious-Office-overtones fare?

Pretty well, as a rewatch of the episodes in Season 1 demonstrated yet again. When I first viewed the episodes last spring, I enjoyed the dry humor evident with most of the characters, but I admit to worrying at the time that there might not be many others who felt the same way. After all, I’m one of the statistically-insignificant people who loves Mad Men, which will have a long leash because it does great numbers for AMC – but expectations for a Thursday night show on NBC are far higher, and probably unrealistic in terms of the ratings that night used to tally in the days when cable was far less of a threat.

In light of that thought, I waited to post a review until I had seen the first episode of Season 2, just as a point of comparison. It was by far my favorite show yet in the series, proving that they are really going to hit their stride in Season 2. As I noted in the liveblog on GAH, any show that can have me laughing my nards off when my own point of view (opposition to gay marriage) is being satirized is really hitting all the right comedic notes.

So this DVD set is probably going to go down in a historical sense as being similar to, not surprisingly, The Office’s first mini-season of its own. The Office started out in the shadow of the BBC version and really took few if any steps to carve out its own identity in that time. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t great, because it was, and “The Alliance” and “Diversity Day” had some of the best scenes in the history of the show – but it wasn’t yet separate in the public’s mind from the overseas version. In Season 2, the program branched out and reached untold creative heights as they forged their own identity. With Parks and Recreation, we can see a bit of the same process, as Season 1 was devoted to the deliberate process of fleshing out the characters and creating the dynamic for the pit project to unwittingly become a magnet for controversy. If the show endures – and I believe that it will – the Season 1 DVD will probably be viewed as the steady first step for the rest of the series in the same way that the first offering from The Office is seen.

But that’s not to indicate that the DVD is merely for completist fans of the show like me. There are a lot of laughs here, plenty of entertainment and wit. The ensemble is superb, another point in common with The Office. The skewering of municipal government is dead-on and the mishaps that ensue – from a town hall meeting less friendly than one President Obama might see these days to Andy’s eventual failure to keep Ann under his thumb by dint of obligation – are outrageous in their execution.

And Leslie Knope, the main character, anchors the show in fine fashion. While there are obvious points of comparison to Michael Scott, her defining feature is not a wish to be worshipped as a great guy and world-class entertainer like The Office’s honcho; rather, she has a vision of being a trailblazing female politician with an eventual stop in the White House. She believes, humorously and touchingly, that every one of her small triumphs in life is a step in that ultimate destination. Like Michael, though, she causes much eye-rolling in her inner circle with her antics, so the comparison is one that works in the show’s favor.

All in all, I’m a big fan of what this show is trying to do. As The Office demonstrates so ably, some of the funniest moments in life are mined from the trivialities of day-to-day life and Parks and Recreation searches for those moments in the form of local government follies. I recommend this DVD strongly and if you buy it now, you’ll be able to lord it over your friends later on when everyone is posturing to act like they were a fan from the very beginning.

MLB power rankings for mid-September

By Rick Morris

NOTE: Previous rankings are listed in parentheses, preseason rankings in brackets.

TOP TIER
1 New York Yankees (1) [2]

SECOND TIER
2 Los Angeles Angels (2) [7]
3 Boston (6) [1]
4 Los Angeles Dodgers (4) [10]
5 Philadelphia (5) [5]
6 St Louis (3) [9]

THIRD TIER
7 Colorado (9) [24]
8 San Francisco (10) [23]
9 Detroit (11) [18]
10 Texas (7) [20]
11 Florida (12) [14]
12 Atlanta (13) [22]
13 Tampa Bay (8) [3]
14 Seattle (14) [28]
15 Minnesota (16) [11]

FOURTH TIER
16 Chicago Cubs (15) [4]
17 Chicago White Sox (17) [15]
18 Milwaukee (18) [17]
19 Houston (19) [21]
20 Cincinnati (20) [19]
21 Oakland (22) [12]

FIFTH TIER
22 Arizona (21) [8]
23 New York Mets (23) [6]
24 San Diego (26) [30]
25 Toronto (25) [26]

SIXTH TIER
26 Cleveland (24) [13]
27 Baltimore (27) [25]
28 Kansas City (29) [16]

SEVENTH TIER
29 Pittsburgh (28) [27]

EIGHTH TIER
30 Washington (30) [29]

BIGGEST RISER: Boston (3 spots)
BIGGEST FALLERS: Tampa Bay (5 spots), St. Louis and Texas (3 spots)

NFL picks Week Two

By Rick Morris

In addition to posting my weekly picks, I will post those from other members of The FDH Lounge Dignitaries' Football Challenge Contest. Each week, we will single out our three strongest plays.

RYAN ISLEY (3-0 last week)
New England -3 1/2 over NY Jets
Atlanta -6 over Carolina
Pittsburgh -3 over Chicago

RICK MORRIS (2-1 last week, 1-0 with best pick)
Buffalo -4 over Tampa Bay (my 1,000-Star, Gold-Plated Lock of the Millenium for this week)
New Orleans -1 1/2 over Philadelphia
New England -3 1/2 over NY Jets

SEAN TRENCH (2-1 last week)
San Diego -3 over Baltimore
NY Jets +3 1/2 over New England
Houston +7 over Tennessee

DAVE ADAMS (1-2 last week)
New Orleans -1 1/2 over Philadelphia
Cleveland +3 over Denver
Baltimore +3 over San Diego

STEVE CIRVELLO (1-2 last week)
Minnesota -10 over Detroit
Green Bay -9 over Cincinnati
New England -3 1/2 over NY Jets

My remaining picks (7-9 on my total picks last week):
Kansas City -3 over Oakland
Houston +7 over Tennessee
Green Bay -9 over Cincinnati
Minnesota -10 over Detroit
Atlanta -6 over Carolina
Washington -9 1/2 over St. Louis
Arizona +3 over Jacksonville
Seattle +1 over San Francisco
Denver -3 over Cleveland
Baltimore +3 over San Diego
Dallas -3 over NY Giants
Indianapolis -3 over Miami

FANTASY HOCKEY DRAFTOLOGY 2009 now online!

By Rick Morris

The annual fantasy -- and non-fantasy -- hockey guide from your pals at FDH is now online! FANTASY HOCKEY DRAFTLOGY 2009 is chock full of all of the goodies you could possibly want. Here is the Table of Contents:

Page 1: Draft Philosophy Overview, Draft Board Decoder, Top 60 Overall
Page 2: Goalie Rankings, Lessons of Our Ultimate Quantitative Baseline Stat
Page 3: Center Rankings
Page 4: Left Wing Rankings, 2009 Overvalued and Undervalued Players
Page 5: Right Wing Rankings
Page 6: Defensemen Rankings, 2009 Fantasy Overview, 2009 Fantasy Sleepers
Page 7: Defensemen Rankings, Don’t Be That Guy, Suggested League Guidelines
Page 8: FDH Hockey Mock Draft and Analysis
Page 9: FDH NHL 2009-10 Season Predictions, 100 Ranger Greats
Pages 10-11: FDH Proposal to Restructure The NHL For The Better
Page 12: NHL2K10 Review
Page 13: NHL 10 Review, Multimedia Draft Podcast Link
Page 14: Nine Notes From the 2009 NHL Entry Draft
Page 15: Upper Deck’s Preparation For Hockey Card Collecting in 2009-10
Page 16: Prospects Highlight Winter Classic Jersey Unveiling

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume II, Issue XXXVII

By Rick Morris

For the most part, we keep our fantasy content on our fantasy website and fantasy blog and keep this site for content on all subjects. It allows our readers to find specific content more easily that way. However, it has come to our attention that because our new fantasy sports newsletter is published on the older Blogger platform that our readers may be limited in their ability to subscribe to it. There does not appear to be a way to have content on the FantasyDrafthelp.com blog forwarded to an aggregate news reader -- however, we know that we have that ability here. So we will link to that newsletter each week right here when it is published. Here is this week's newsletter.