The Head Ball Coach Quit On His Team

Here in South Carolina, the state deemed too small to be a nation and too large to be an insane asylum, we're finally over the cop killing of an unarmed black man, the mass murder of nine parishioners in their church and historic flooding that closed more than 500 roads from Columbia to Charleston.

Those stories ended yesterday when the head ball coach suddenly retired. The University of South Carolina, like a lot of southern colleges, is a football team with a university attached. The main purpose of its alumni is to buy tickets to football games.

Now that Steve Spurrier has stepped down without warning, everyone connected with the state, and with SEC football, has spent the past two days lionizing him and his 10-year tenure at the helm of the Gamecocks.

Undoubtedly, Spurrier has lifted the 'Cocks to new heights, including three straight 11-2 seasons in the brutal SEC, wins over arch-rival Clemson and prestigious bowl victories. He has recruited half a dozen of the 10 best players the team has ever produced,. including Jadeveon Clowney, Connor Shaw and Marcus Lattimore. And he retires with the most coaching wins at what locals sadly call "USC." He put the program on the college football map.

What no one seems to have noticed is that the head ball coach has quit on his team. He said it himself: he's leaving because he was frustrated by the 7-6 showing last year and thought the team would be better than the league cellar-dwellers it appears to be this year. He doesn't like the losing and so he has quit.

Just like that. Middle of the season. No heir apparent. Facing a string of tough SEC games.

Imagine if a player decided to quit on the team because it stunk. What would the sports media, the people of South Carolina and Gamecock nation be saying? He lacks character. He's a quitter. He's immature. I'm pretty sure Steve Spurrier would have had some cutting remarks for a juvenile outburst like that.

Is the inventor of Fun 'n' Gun allowed to act like a crybaby just because he's got a legacy? If the 'Cocks, already dealing with the upheaval on the field and in the classroom, go winless in the conference this year, what does that do to recruiting?

The local newspaper is selling Spurrier's departure as selfless, allowing the anonymous assistant coach who succeeds him (without any chance of succeeding) an opportunity to turn the club around. It's plump with speculation about the next big name coach, proposing that South Carolina could lure Bob Stoops from Oklahoma or Mark D'Antoni from Michigan State. They assert that the 11-2 records that Spurrier engineered three-to-five years ago have set the bar higher and will draw a bigger name.

Only someone who has never been to Columbia, SC and is not paying attention to the current state of the team could make such a lame suggestion, and yet residents of that squalid town are the only ones doing it.

No, Spurrier has dropped the team on its head in the middle of the season. He took his ball and went home. He has left South Carolina football high and dry, even after 18 inches of rain. It's as if everyone is wearing a visor -- and has it pulled down over their eyes.

My All-Star Roster

The composition following this statement is a study in trivia. Nothing you are about to read amounts to a hill of beans. Which is saying something for a blog called "braindrizzling" in which the topic is baseball. So you've been warned.

The aforementioned is so mentioned because this is about the All-Star squad, which matters almost entirely in the sense that a dozen of the 64 participants get bonuses for having their names selected. Beyond that, it's the fans game and they vote for the guys they want.

Here's the really surprising part: the masses do a great job. They are far more rational than the players and managers, who seem to select the guys with the best reputations and whom they like the best, respectively.

It doesn't matter, in part because no one has ever defined what constitutes an All-Star-worthy performance. Is it half a season of accomplishment? Is it the best 162 games, from last ASG to this one? Is it just about being the best player? The one fans want to see?  Or is it some combination of these?

Everyone seems to have their own, sometimes variable, formula. Here's mine, and it's no more defined than any other: I vote for the best players having the best seasons. How's that for vague? Albert Pujols is the NL first baseman unless he's hitting .230 with six home runs. Jerry Hairston, Jr. and his .695 lifetime OPS doesn't make my starting roster batting .400 with 20 dingers unless David Wright falls down a flight of stairs and takes Scott Rolen, Chipper Jones, Placido Polanco, Mark Reynolds and the Kung Fu Panda with him.

I take into consideration when a player has only played half of half the season, but I pay no mind whatsoever to whether a player is currently hurt. If he deserves the nod, I bestow it. Let the manager replace him.

That said, here are my votes for the Mid-Summer Classic.

NL

1B Albert Pujols

2B Chase Utley

3B David Wright

SS Hanley Ramirez

C Brian McCan

OF Ryan Braun

OF Andre Ethier

OF Matt Holliday

AL

1B Miguel Cabrera

2B Robinson Cano

3B Adrian Beltre

SS Derek Jeter

C Joe Mauer

OF Josh Hamilton

OF Ichiro Suzuki

OF Vernon Wells

DH Vlad Guerrero

You'll notice that there aren't any rookies or surprise names on this ballot. Jose Bautista is going to have to go all Mark McGwire on AL pitching for more than 260 at-bats before I get ramped up about him. Moreover, not everyone here is having a great year. Jeter's batting .286 with middling power and speed. McCann's at .259 and he's missed some games. They are still clearly the best in their league at their position. (It helps that no NL catcher or AL shortstop is lighting it up.)

There are plenty of tough calls here. Prince Albert sets a lofty standard, but Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzalez, Adam Dunn and Joey Votto all have OPS above .900. At least one of them will watch the game from a bar. ("Adam, your turn to buy a round!) The same in the AL, where Justin Morneau makes every bit the case Cabrera does, and Paul Konerko and Kevin Youklis are both having great years.

Chase Utley is by far the best second baseman in the senior circuit, so the fact that four other keystoners are putting up the same numbers in bigger ballparks doesn't excite me. David Wright and Scott Rolen are both great candidates, but Rolen has a history of fragility and Wright plays in a cavern. I gave the AL third sacker job to a raking Beltre, but Evan Longoria, ARod and Michael Young all make cases.

In the outfields, Josh Hamilton and Andre Ethier are the in-shooiest. I'm not so sure about Ichiro; you could have reasonably picked Alex Rios, Carl Crawford, Shin Soo Choo, Torii Hunter or Nick Swisher. Brett Gardner, a College of Charleston product, needs to show me more before I elect him to stardom. The same for Colby Rasmus in the NL, who's hitting up a storm, but we've yet to determine whether that front will blow through. Likewise, I eschewed Jayson Werth's ballpark-aided results, and Alfonso Soriano's inconsistency. Andrew McCutcheon is a stud in the Steel City, but he's a lock for the game as the Bucs' sole representative, so I gave Holliday the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I've employed woefully weak reasoning to break what amounts to a tie. It's no worse than penalty kicks.

Kudos to the fans: most of the names listed above are on the their wish list. In the AL, they've got Morneau at first, Longoria at third and Crawford in the outfield, all legitimate alternatives, though with Nelson Cruz's overblown Texas stats too close for comfort behind Crawford. They totter a bit on the NL squad, with Polanco wrongly leading Wright and Yadier Molina leading McCann. Jason Heyward is their worst selection, but who can blame them for irrational exuberance about a well-mannered 20-year-old stud?

I know, it's all drivel, and we'll forget who went to Anaheim by year's end when the real All-Star team (aka the New York Yankees) collects another championship trophy (yawn.) I can promise you this: it won't be nearly as exciting as the NCAA championship won yesterday by my home state Gamecocks, the pride of South Carolina, who defeated UCLA 2-1 in 11 innings. "No one can lick our 'Cocks."

See, drivel is suddenly looking good.

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