Idiots Write About Sports

Long-time readers of the weblog — Jason and my wife — know that I have little use for the managerial talents of Lawrence Robert Bowa. In fact, the only thing stopping me from declaring Bowa to be the worst manager in all of baseball is the fact that he’s currently unemployed in that capacity. (Clint Hurdle, you may pick up the Worst Manager crown at the front desk.) I simply believe that Bowa is too much of a hothead to be an effective manager. And while his defenders may claim that no one wants to win as badly as Larry Bowa, I would counter that a guy who refuses to change his style and behavior when it clearly isn’t motivating players may not want to win that badly, after all.

So when I logged onto ESPN today and saw a link for an ESPN Motion video entitled “Bowa’s breakdown,” I figured an ESPN camera crew captured Bowa screaming at someone for hitting into a double play or at the paper boy for failing to hit the porch.

Not so — it’s Larry Bowa breaking down Game 1 of the World Series. And his analysis is sharp, incisive and well-reasoned. Plus, he doesn’t once scream at Steve Levy for splitting infinitives or poor subject-verb agreement.

I still think he’s a lousy manager, but I wouldn’t mind hearing more from Bowa in an analysis gig.

Hack Alert: Next celebrity in line is Ben Affleck.

In Jayson Stark's usually entertaining "Useless Info Dept.", he made a small error. See if you can find it:

"One more example of how tough it is to commit eight errors in two games and still win them: In the last 25 years, only three teams even committed eight errors in the whole World Series and won the Series -- the 1997 Marlins, 1982 Brewers and 1981 Dodgers."

Amazing that in a column in which Stark routinely tosses out endless little-known facts like these, he would somehow blow the winner of the 1982 World Series.

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