For those just stumbling upon this for the first time, we did the first quarter and second quarter yesterday, with the fourth quarter still to come later today.

Anyway, on to the ads!

Fiat: Seduction

I know that I've said in the past that I'm not crazy about car ads that don't really feature the car, but this one worked for me. The metaphor works here with the tagline - "you'll never forget the first time you see one", while the man is subjected to a full range of emotions after seeing the woman - and the car. Importantly though, you still get to see the car in action, and it makes you want to see more. Well done, especially for a company without an established U.S. market.

Acura: Transactions

Yahoo shows the extended version of this commercial (almost two minutes) which I think is too much; the 60 second commercial worked ideally because it was quicker-paced (like a "Seinfeld" episode), while the 30 second version (which came on later, in the fourth quarter I believe) cut too much. Bonus points if you're a fan of Jerry Seinfeld (I am), and double bonus meta points for the Jay Leno cameo at the end, even if the meta wasn't intentional (I think it was.)

Toyota: Camry

Bah, Toyota. Three seconds of the product they're selling (the newly designed Camry), and at the beginning. By the time the commercial is over, you've forgotten what the car looked like in the first place. Then again, it's a Camry - people will just buy it anyway because it's a Camry. Worse was that the funny part wasn't actually funny. A baby that's a time machine? How is that an improvement?

NFL.com: Evolution

It's not really fair. NFL Films doing a commercial is like Kobe Bryant deciding to play in my kids' Upward Basketball league. The transitions, the music, the use of the yard markers as decades, the footage quality subtly changing as they get more current - it's just done so well. Honestly, I forgot what the message of the commercial was all about (player safety, which is a whole other rant), but when you're watching football to begin with and see something like this that embraces the history of the game, all up to footage from the game you're currently watching, it's hard not to love it.

Century 21: Celebrities

Decent commercial. Showcases the product while still using a sense of humor. Nothing outstanding or laugh-out-loud funny, but doesn't drop the ball either. Side note: is Apolo Ohno the most successful American Winter Olympics athlete in terms of mainstream exposure? I don't count Shaun White because his popularity was pretty much already established in X-Games before the '06 Olympics. I always feel bad for Olympic athletes who get this huge brush with fame for a few weeks and then seemingly disappear because their sports aren't major professional sports. Ohno, to his credit, has parlayed speed skating into being a mainstream celebrity.

Coca-Cola: Arghh

HEY LOOK ITS THOSE BEARS AGAIN. It's cute at Christmas, it's cute when you're trying to save them (which again - third polar bear commercial, not one mention of Coke's polar bear conservation efforts or info for people to find out more about what they can do). It seems like a waste - if you're going to make it a reoccurring commercial during the Super Bowl, give us the dreary sad one at the end that makes us want to save these adorable animated creatures who just sit around on their butts and watch football.

Dannon: John Stamos

Oh, I get it. Jesse Katsopolis, er, John Stamos is Greek, it's Greek yogurt - I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE. People who like complaining about things apparently think the commercial promotes domestic violence, where I only think it promotes violence to people who are dicks about sharing their food, which I'll allow. Seriously though - the "violence" is meant to be "cartoonish" and over-the-top (watch the shoe go flying up), and while I could see a little more controversy if Stamos had head-butted his female companion, it's meant to be silly. PS - Greek yogurt is good, but expensive. It needs to get over itself.

Pepsi MAX: Regis

Commercials that have sequels or reoccurring characters can work if they're beloved or at least popular. We get it - the Coke driver likes the Pepsi. It's the same commercial it was last year and however many other times it's been rehashed. Also seems like a waste of Regis here - what, five seconds?

Smash: Preview

JUST SHOW THE DAMN SHOW ALREADY.

GE: Appliance Park

Done well - tells of the company's history, implies that it's helping to bring jobs to Americans, and puts an overall positive spin on the brand. Doesn't sell much more than the brand, but that's what they're going for here. Then again, I keep thinking about Sean McNally's tweet in the second quarter about the last GE commercial (see second spot in the second quarter wrapup.)

Budweiser: Eternal Optimism

Now, I'm no Bud fan, but this does a good job. Establishes the history of the brand and connects it with good times being had over that span. It really could be done with any product that existed during that timeframe, but Bud does it well here with smooth transitions and uptempo music. Nice meta shoutout to Al Michaels and his 1980 USA hockey call and who was also calling this year's Super Bowl game.

Time Warner Cable: Master

Considering that Time Warner Cable only services a little over half the country, I was surprised to see them running a national Super Bowl ad. Ricky Gervais was funny, and it was interesting to see marijuana pop up in a Super Bowl ad (even if it was just a reference to the Showtime show "Weeds").

Bridgestone: Basketball

I think this one worked a lot better than the football commercial Bridgestone pulled in the first quarter. Again, not sure why the pro players were needed (as they didn't really add anything), but the lack of sound from the "basketball" showcasing the noise-reducing tires Bridgestone was trying to sell worked.

WINNER: NFL.com: Evolution (non-NFL Films category: Acura: Transactions)

LOSER: Toyota: Camry

So let's get on with it, shall we?

The Lorax: Big Game Spot

The key push right off the bat is that it's "from the creators of 'Despicable Me'", which is probably a good thing considering the subject matter. The trailer paints "Lorax" as being a upbeat "boy does anything for girl" animated comedy, despite the book being one of Dr. Seuss' most depressing tales of pollution and man's destruction of wildlife. It makes me want to see it and not want to see it at the same time. I don't know how one scores that.

GE: Turbines

I made a tweet about how during the Super Bowl, even GE commercials turn into beer commercials. But Sean McNally beat me:

My dad used to make turbines in Schenectady for GE. He was laid off in 1987 with just about everyone else. #FalseAdvertising

Awkward.

Hulu.com: Huluboratory (Extra Mushy Edition)

Will Arnett stepping in and doing basically the same commercial Alec Baldwin did years ago just didn't do anything for me, especially when the only different thing they introduce, Hulu Plus (on your favorite devices!) generally doesn't offer all the things they advertise on those devices, just on your computer. Bah.

The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: Madonna

Screw it - I'm watching Arsenio; he's got MC Hammer on this week. Seriously, Leno now seems 100 miles more out of touch than Carson did when Leno/Letterman were pushing for his spot.

The Voice: Vocal Kombat

I'm assuming that these aren't in exact order, but that's five NBC-affiliated commercials right there. The commercial was cute (and the kids seemed to like it) but it seemed like a little too much effort to plug the show that's coming up right after the game.

Star Wars Episode 1 3D: Big Game Spot

Putting my issues with re-releasing Episode 1 in theaters in 3D aside, the big issue I have with this commercial is that half of the footage is of Star War movies that aren't Episode 1! Hey look - it's Luke, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Han Solo... and you won't see any of them in this film! Well, you get Vader, just not as Vader, but as a kid. And lots of Jar Jar Binks. False advertise much?

America's Got Talent: Howard Stern

Back to the NBC products. So now we've got Stern, Leno, Madonna - NBC is about two steps removed from being a major network VH1 and fully embracing 1993.

Chrysler: Halftime in America

Was Clint Eastwood's voice always so high? Well done speech, good metaphor, good person to use (even if his voice is bordering on Judge Doom's after he gets run over with the steamroller. Makes you want to spend money on a Chrysler, which is kind of what commercials are supposed to do.

Volkswagen: The Dog Strikes Back

VW pulls the swerve, and it ends up working. When VW used a Star Wars-themed commercial last year that pretty much "won the Internet", they promised a sequel recently with a spot that had dogs barking Darth Vader's Imperial March. Yet even with the name ("The Dog Strikes Back"), the commercial had nothing to do with "Star Wars", with the exception of a little bonus scene at the end. Stand-alone (without any "Star Wars" anything), it was a very well done commercial - very memorable, and kept the product noticable.

Doritos: Sling Baby

Missed this one originally, for reasons I won't get into. OK in concept, I guess, but not really that funny. Hey, if you're going to endanger the life of the baby, why does the snotty kid not have anything happen to him?

'The Avengers' Trailer

Missed this one too. My Twitter feed didn't help much, since any upcoming super hero movie trailer generally gets the OMG SO AAAWESOMEMM!!1!1 treatment. Good trailer for 30 seconds - you see all the characters, you see action, but doesn't give anything away. Makes you want to see more, which is what good trailers are supposed to do.

'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' Trailer

I heard a lot about the first G.I. Joe movie, which I never ended up seeing, mainly because I loved G.I. Joe growing up and I was sure it was going to disappoint me. This trailer, while short too, also was put together well like the Avengers trailer. A lot of two new actors (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Bruce Willis), action from the characters that worked in the first movie (Snake Eyes & Storm Shadow), and what looks to be a fix of a major flaw the first movie had (that Cobra Commander just didn't look like Cobra Commander). Does all it could do.

E*TRADE: Fatherhood

The E*TRADE baby kind of jumped the shark what seems like ages ago, so this is going to keep getting beaten into the ground until the company can think of something better or it goes out of business, whichever comes first. Yawn.

Teleflora: Adriana Lima

Teleflora reminds us that by buying a not-so-cheap assortment of flowers, on Valentine's Day (when you're supposed to), your female-type companion will give you something [WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE], because that's what works on supermodels. This commercial will work great on the GoDaddy audience and lose everyone else.

Cars.com: Confident You

There's always some advertiser that thinks "disturbing" sells. This year, it's Cars.com. Would have been fine if done several other ways (voice in his head, tiny guy on his shoulder, etc.) but protruding tentacle probably was not the best option. This isn't Japan.

Skechers: Mr. Quigley

Cute dog + tiny versions of things + sped-up motion + outsider defeating snooty establishment = winner. Superfluous use of Mark Cuban at the end, but still amusing.

Coca-Cola: Catch

More polar bears. Cuter than the earlier polar bear one, but really - did we need two?

Chevy: Anthem

Somewhat interesting, but didn't tell me a whole hell of a lot about the car, or even really give me a good look at it. At least I know now what to buy if I'm going to drop my car out of a plane. Fails on execution.

H&M Bodywear: David Beckham

Take it away, @ElwoodJBlues:

Poor David Beckham. Still has his name sewn into his underwear.

I assume this was every man's punishment for having the Teleflora and GoDaddy commercials.

'John Carter' Trailer

Another movie trailer, which unlike Avengers and G.I. Joe isn't a sequel, so it's just got to sell itself on new material. Disney-backed (proudly, I might add) and with a decent amount of action, it's still a movie trailer.

Chevy: Happy Grad

I don't know - I have an issue I guess with car companies not necessarily selling the car. This one comes closest, showing the excitement of someone receiving a Camaro (albeit falsely), and kind of funny, but yeah. Looks short, too.

Doritos: Man's Best Friend

This one was a popular one online. I could see it being a little funny, but then again, I'm a cat person, so being bought off by a dollar bag of Doritos just seems a little sad.

Budweiser: Return of the King

Good use of history and aligning your product with it. While I made a comment online:

...and then they drank it. And it was bad.

I don't deny that people probably would have gone nuts to see any kind of beer after 13 years, even Bud. You know, if speakeasies hadn't existed. Which I'm sure they didn't.

TaxACT: The Free

Peeing in pools is always fun, and the kid's facial expressions were on point, but it's kind of a stretch for me to equate "free" with "peeing in your own pool". Having watched it now again, I still don't really see the connection. The freedom of your bladder, I guess?

WINNER: Volkswagen: The Dog Strikes Back (with the Clint Eastwood Chrysler ad just behind)

LOSER: Teleflora: Adriana Lima

Celebrity Apprentice: Attack

Never been a fan of the Apprentice, nor the b, c, and d-list celebrities that normally end up on those things. HINT: your appearance on a reality show should not give you "celebrity" credentials to appear on another reality show. I could have let it slide, but seeing Debbie Deborah Gibson in enough makeup to frighten a circus clown depressed the hell out of me. Alyssa Milano doesn't look like that, Debs. Just dab on a little Electric Youth and all will be well again.

Lexus: 2013 GS

Simple, yet dramatic. Not an ad everyone will talk about the next day, but enough to get good buzz around the car. Good looking vehicle, presented well, and not long enough to drone on and on about features. Makes you want to learn more.

Battleship: Big Game Spot

I remember when I first heard that "Battleship" was being made into a movie and assumed it was an Onion headline. It became a punchline for everyone (myself included) but I think the studio has done a good job with seemingly making it nothing resembling the board game which makes you ask - why name it after the board game in the first place?

Oh, because it's being made by "Hasbro Studios", a subsidiary of the toy company.

Best part of the ad: in the intro, "FROM HASBRO THE COMPANY THAT BROUGHT YOU TRANSFORMERS". Oh, not the movie, guys. The toys. They had nothing to do with the movie. They didn't even come up with the toys - they just made a deal with the Japanese company Takara to license their toys in the US. But that's a geek road to go down another day.

PS: if you're bored, check out the cast of "Battleship". It's fascinating.

GoDaddy.com: Body Painting

GoDaddy is interesting from a marketing/PR standpoint because it's a company that despite regularly shooting itself in the foot and doing whatever it can to piss off people - both customers and non-customers - they seem to still be a successful business. More of the usual GoDaddy stuff here again - whoring out two female celebrities who could be seen as female role models, yet instead lose a ton of credibility by acting like tee-hee eye candy, painting a "naked" woman. The UNCENSORED portion of the commercial is on their website! You know, implying that if you go to GoDaddy, a Cinemax late-night flick is going to break out. Here's the thing - it's not even like you're teasing Danica Patrick is going to "get naked" anymore. It's awkward, it's airing in the first quarter (when the kids are still awake), and it's not shocking because you do it every year. It'd be awesome if they tried something original for a change - even played off of their usual stuff. But no - of course not.

M&M's: Just My Shell

The first memorable (for a good reason) spot of the night. Vanessa Williams as the voice of the brown M&M candy worked well (sophisticated, elegant, intellegent) and the red M&M gets a chuckle. Good for kids and adults (thought I hate the "Sexy And I Know It" song - well, I hate my grade school and younger kids signing it.)

Coca-Cola: Superstition

Cute - not funny necessarily, but no harm either. I liked what Coca-Cola has been doing with the polar bear conservation, and I would have liked a little message at least in this, but I guess that could come off a little preachy. Maybe a link.

Bridgestone: Football

Another one with wasted celebrities. Nice that you got Troy Aikman and Deion Sanders in it, but Aikman was unnecessary, and possibly even took away from the impact of the commercial. If an ordinary person throws the weird football "gripping the turns", it shows that the Bridgestone technology can help us everyday drivers. Keep Deion in it to get pissed off, especially if the everyday guy is throwing the football.

Chevy: 2012

A commercial that will be remembered more for its knock on Ford than for anything else. Cute Twinkies reference but takes a second viewing to see what they were going for (with all the disasters - the robot, the UFO, the meteor, etc.) and if you have to watch it more than once to "get it", you lose points.

Best Buy: Innovators

Funny how a company that is almost soundly hated by geeks puts together a very geek-friendly commercial. Shoutouts to lots of people who wouldn't otherwise get recognized with a little meta thrown in (the "Words With Friends" guys getting scolded on the plane, referencing the Alec Baldwin incident) leads to a fun commercial. Best Buy also offering a simple, non-swarmy service without making promises it can't keep (although "unbiased advice"? Are you sure about that?) makes it a good spot.

Bud Light Platinum: Work

Beer commercial. Nothing memorable (except are those cobalt bottles?) about the product or how it's necessarily supposed to be different or "new". In reality, Bud Light Platinum is an interesting concept that I think Bud is marketing wrong, but here it just looks like another Bud Light product, which really it's not. A waste.

Hyundai: Cheetah

Goofy take on stereotypical car commercials. Gets good car time, along with a laugh. Decent overall.

Smash: Beautiful

Thankful they aired this during the Super Bowl because it's not like I've seen this advertised EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE LAST TWO MONTHS OR SO. Cripes - I think I've seen Katherine McPhee more often in Smash commercials than I did her entire run on American Idol. I hear critics (and common folk) like the show, but it's nearing Titanic Paradox levels for me despite not yet debuting.

Audi: Vampire

Tied for the funniest commercial of the quarter with the M&Ms commercial. No sparkle to piss off the Twilight lovers (although I would have loved to see that), but the last one hiding behind the log was the kicker.

Pepsi: Elton John

So we have Elton John, Flava Flav, Jacob Ben-Israel from Glee, possibly Halle Berry (focused on twice, but I could be seeing things), but the star is... um... who is that? Turns out she's the chick who won "X-Factor", a show that was so successful 2/3 of the cast was dumped for the second season. It's nice to give the winner the spotlight in a Super Bowl commercial, but to assume the entire Super Bowl watching public is going to know who the hell she is might be a little short-sighted. Coke's not rushing out to make a Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr. commercial, you know?

Bud Light Platinum: Factory

Better commercial than their first one, focusing on the product (noting the different alcohol content), but still not adding much info. It's an interesting product that they're selling - a beer that has more alcohol than a traditional lager, yet less calories. Yet no mention of the calorie content in the ad. Guess they're leaving it to you to figure out.

Pizza Hut: Turntable Red Room

Contest winner ends up on a Super Bowl commercial - always a cool story. Song was done well. Not much product push or anything, but the commercial is more of an end result of a bigger ad campaign done earlier. If Pizza Hut doesn't have anything new to sell (and they don't) but they want something during the Super Bowl, why not a contest winner?

Hyundai: All For One

Rocky theme always gives me chills. Good spot, although the irony isn't lost on me that an icon so often viewed as "American" (although he didn't really start fighting "for America" until Rocky IV - he just beat up black people) is being used for a Korean car company. U-S-A! U-S-A!

'The Dictator' Trailer

Hey, look! It's Sasha Baron Cohen doing Sasha Baron Cohen things! Admittedly, the track & field event scene made me laugh, but I don't think you're going to break new ground in viewership. If anything, I wasn't sure if it was an Adam Sandler movie at first, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

WINNER: M&M's: Just My Shell, Audi: Vampire (tie)

LOSER: GoDaddy.com: Body Painting

Danny Graves (P)

Teams: Cleveland Indians (1996-1997, 2006), Cincinnati Reds (1997-2005), New York Mets (2005)
Best Season: 2000 (10-5, 2.56 ERA, 30 saves)
All-Star Appearences: 2 (2000, 2004)
Claim To Fame: Best player in major league history born in South Vietnam. Also, the only one.

Graves was a decent prospect in the Cleveland system (as much as a reliever can be a prospect), but was dealt to the Reds at the '97 trade deadline. The Reds used him as a closer for four seasons, first as a co-closer with Scott Williamson, then handing the job completely over to him. He started four games late in the 2002 season, then was used as a starter for the 2003 season, which didn't go so well (4-15, 5.33 ERA). Graves would return to the closer role in 2004 and make another All-Star team, but 2005 would be his worst season, seeing him released by both Cincinnati and later the Mets, who picked him up a few weeks after the Reds released him. He had one more season in the majors with the Indians, then continued playing in the minors and independent leagues, but would never see a major league roster again.

Paradox time: Graves was awarded the 2002 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award, which is given each year to a major league player who "best exemplifies the spirit and character of... Lou Gehrig, both on and off the field". Two and a half years later, Graves would be designated for assignment the day after flipping off a fan after a bad outing.

Matt Lawton (OF)

Teams: Minnesota Twins (1995–2001), New York Mets (2001), Cleveland Indians (2002–2004), Pittsburgh Pirates (2005), Chicago Cubs (2005), New York Yankees (2005), Seattle Mariners (2006)
Best Season: 1998 (.278/.387/.478, 21 HR, 16 SB)
All-Star Appearences: 2 (2000, 2004)
Claim To Fame: Once traded for Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar

Lawton spent the first part of his career as the starting right fielder for the bad late 90s Minnesota Twins teams. Lawton was one of the best hitters on those teams, using a strong eye (he managed a .379 OBP during his time with the Twins), speed, and occasional power to put him near the top of various Twins statistical categories. The Twins dealt him at the 2001 trade deadline to the Mets for Rick Reed, then the Mets dealt him that offseason to Cleveland in a multiple-player deal to acquire Roberto Alomar. Lawton struggled in New York and his first few seasons with Cleveland, but turned it around somewhat in the 2004 season, earning himself another trip to the All-Star Game. Despite that good season, the Indians dealt him to Pittsburgh the following offseason for Arthur Rhodes. This time, Lawton continued to put up decent numbers after the trade, but the Pirates dealt him at the 2005 trade deadline to the Chicago Cubs, where he struggled. The Cubs then shipped him off to the Yankees a little less than a month later, where he struggled even more and was left off the playoff roster.

In November of 2005, MLB announced that Lawton had tested positive for steroids and would need to serve a 10 game suspension at the beginning of the 2006 season. Lawton signed with Seattle despite the suspension, although he would only play in 11 games for them before his release, ending his career.

Jose Lima (P)

Teams: Detroit Tigers (1994–1996), Houston Astros (1997–2001), Detroit Tigers (2001–2002), Kansas City Royals (2003), Los Angeles Dodgers (2004), Kansas City Royals (2005), New York Mets (2006)
Best Season: 1999 (21-10, 3.58 ERA, 4th in NL Cy Young balloting)
All-Star Appearences: 1 (1999)
Claim To Fame: His wife, in THAT picture.

To bastardize the old expression, when Jose Lima was good, he was very very good, but when he was bad, he was horrid. To give you an idea, Lima's two best seasons - 1998 and 1999 with the Astros - netted him a total pitching WAR (wins over replacement) of 7.8, which is pretty good. For the rest of his career, he was -4.6. Lima began his career with the Tigers but was shipped out in one of the hundred or so deals the Tigers and Astros would make that would always involve Doug Brocail and Brad Ausmus for some reason. After another bad Lima-like season, something clicked, and Lima put up two very good seasons for the Astros, then crashed and burned again in 2000 and 2001, leading to a trade back to his original team, the Tigers. He pitched OK for the Tigers, then crashed again the following year, and found himself out of baseball. This would be like the rest of Lima's career - flashes of brilliance, then hard doses of reality.

Outside of that, Lima was a flashy, animated player who was popular with teammates and fans (at least, when he was pitching well). He said he wanted to have a singing career after his career ended, and once sang the national anthem before the start of a Dodgers game, which gave us the picture of his then-wife that is referenced above.

Sadly, Lima passed away at the age of 37 from a massive heart attack.

So on we roll...

Carl Everett (OF)

Teams: Florida Marlins (1993-1994), New York Mets (1995-1997), Houston Astros (1998-1999), Boston Red Sox (2000-2001), Texas Rangers (2002-2003), Chicago White Sox (2003, 2004-2005), Montreal Expos (2004), Seattle Mariners (2006)
Best Season: 1999 (.325/.398/.571, 25 HR, 108 RBI, 27 SB, 17th in NL MVP balloting)
All-Star Appearences: 2 (2000 [starter], 2003)
Claim To Fame: Not a big fan of dinosaurs, homosexuals, umpires, managers, the Apollo Moon Landing, etc.

"Jurassic Carl", as Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy called him, was a highly-touted prospect who didn't really hit his groove until he was 27, then put together a nice little six year run that earned him a 14-year career in the bigs (OK, 12 with two cups of coffee.) Despite his talent and potential, Carl seemed to rub people the wrong way, as evidenced by his frequent team movement. The Yankees, despite Everett being one of the top prospects in their system, left him unprotected in the 1992 MLB Expansion Draft. The Marlins selected him, then traded him three years later to the Mets, who then traded him two years later to the Astros. Despite two breakthrough seasons with Houston, he was dealt to the Red Sox, who held onto him for - you guessed it - two more seasons, then sent him to Texas. Everett would keep bouncing around for the rest his career - even winning a World Series with the 2005 White Sox (the only team to have him back) - before finding himself out of MLB midway through the 2006 season.

Yet Carl will likely be forever remembered for his controversial comments towards the media, mainly during his tenure with the Red Sox. Everett was quoted as saying he didn't believe that dinosaurs ever existed, that dinosaur fossils were man-made and fake, and that he questioned the validity of the Apollo Moon Landing.

Jeff Fassero (P)

Teams: Montreal Expos (1991–1996), Seattle Mariners (1997–1999), Texas Rangers (1999), Boston Red Sox (2000), Chicago Cubs (2001–2002), St. Louis Cardinals (2002–2003), Colorado Rockies (2004), Arizona Diamondbacks (2004), San Francisco Giants (2005–2006)
Best Season: 1996 (15-11, 3.30 ERA, 222 K, 9th in NL Cy Young balloting)
All-Star Appearences: 0
Claim To Fame: Once dealt in a "blockbuster" offseason deal involving Chris Widger.

Fassero's career path is an odd one. Not really an overpowering pitcher, Fassero bounced around the St. Louis, Chicago, and Cleveland systems before signing a minor league deal with Montreal, fixing something, and finding himself with the big league club as part of their closer committee. Fassero would later move into the rotation, where he'd continue to find success with the Expos, posting a 3.20 ERA in six seasons with the team. A trade to the Mariners after the 1996 season yielded two more good (but not great) seasons with Seattle, but after saw his career start to decline. Seattle dumped him off to Texas, then the Red Sox gave him his last shot as a regular starter in 2000 to mixed results. Back in a reliever role, he managed to hang on six more seasons, all in the NL, generally as a long relief/spot starter/innings eater role. One could say that the late start to his major league career counted against him, but Fassero's minor league numbers never impressed anyone enough to believe he was more than an organizational roster filler until he went to Montreal.

@MrWorkrate @aarongleeman Prince Fielder - 1yr/$40M. hehe

It was an interesting thought - something you do in a video game like OOTP and not in real life, because players want guaranteed money and an extended payday - especially Scott Boras clients - so the thought of signing Fielder to a one-year deal was unlikely. Plus, on the flipside of that, paying $40 million for one season of baseball would be - by far - the largest salary for one season of professional baseball in history, a little less than $12 million more than Roger Clemens' "play when you like" contract he signed with the Yankees in 2007.

But let's say he does get offered that deal. If you're Scott Boras, do you recommend that Prince signs it?

Prince ended up signing a nine-year deal for $214 million (reportedly) with the Tigers, which was lauded as great in the short term for the Tigers but a trainwreck in the long term since Miguel Cabrera, the current Tigers first baseman, is signed through 2015 at over $20 million a season and Martinez, who Fielder replaced, will come back in 2013 and 2014 making an average of $12.5 million a season. For those keeping score at home, that's $57.5 million invested - per season - on three players who can play one position. Sure, Cabrera's played third before and is offering to play it again, but this is generally considered a very bad idea. Martinez was a catcher before he signed with the Tigers, but Detroit already has an all-star catcher in Alex Avila - one who put up a better offensive WAR than Martinez last year and isn't coming off major knee surgery. So, basically, come 2013, the Tigers have three first basemen/designated hitters, and the only way they'll be able to play them all is to put together an infield whose defensive highlights would be rated PG-13.

Obviously, it's more of a benefit for the Tigers to sign Fielder to a short-term deal than a long one, but $40 million? Fielder's good, but he's not that good, is he? For that kind of money you could get Ryan Howard AND Derek Lowe! Wait - bad example.

The Tigers could justify it though. They're already paying Fielder $23.77777777777777777777777 million for this season anyway, so we're talking a $16.22222222222222222222222222222 investment extra for this season, which in reality is a $16 million buyout of the rest of his contract. Keep in mind that there's likely some kind of insurance for V-Mart's contract, so the Tigers would potentially be getting back a chunk of the $13 million he's owed this season, which could make up nicely for the extra $16 million they'd have to spend. Would you buy out Prince's contract after one year? Well, if you're the Tigers, do you think you'd sign Prince to an eight-year, $190 million contract with V-Mart coming back? Yeah, probably not.

So the Tigers would offer it, but would Prince Boras take it?

It's a gamble, sure. Prince could have a crap season or worse yet, get injured. If he gets a career-ending injury, he's screwed, unless he can manage to sign some kind of insurance policy that would protect his potential payday if he did get a career-ending injury during the 2012 season (and I'm sure they're out there). But assuming he just plays OK - something like his 2008 or 2010 seasons. The extra $16 million he would have received in 2012 means Prince would have to sign an eight-year, $174 million contract during the 2012-13 offseason to match the contract he ended up signing with the Tigers, which would be less than what Mark Teixeira signed for during the 2008-09 offseason. Could he do that going into his age 29 season? Figure the market would be a little better with the Dodgers hopefully sold and with money flowing back into the organization again, and more media contracts expiring and being renewed for more cash to spend. Also imagine a market where Fielder, not Albert Pujols, is the #1 name.

I think he could do that with an average season, and imagine what he could get with an MVP-caliber one.

Whether this could have happened is moot, since Fielder is a Tiger now, and come next season Detroit will (I assume) start shopping V-Mart around (since he's on the hook for the least amount of money) and keep Cabrera and Prince around, but I'm really curious if - had the Tigers not made the nine-year offer that they did - the $40 million one-shot could have happened.

["Mini-Prince in Zubaz" courtesy of @si_vault (Andy Gray) via Twitter. He posted it yesterday. Go follow him and get gold like that every day.]

I say "ideal field goal range" because those aren't always guaranteed shots. Billy Cundiff and Baltimore Ravens fans know this first-hand, as Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal - one yard longer than Tynes' kick - that would have tied their game with the New England Patriots and almost certainly put the AFC Championship game into overtime. Cundiff doesn't use Twitter (to our knowledge) so he at least doesn't get to see the threats from people who talk without fear of repercussion, hiding behind an alias behind a computer keyboard or smartphone.

Or worse, maybe they're not showing false bravado. Maybe they would physically attack Williams or Cundiff because of those plays. "Fan" is short for "fanatic" for a reason.

Both mistakes are excusable - Cundiff's kick was rushed despite the Ravens having a time out to allow the kicker to set up. Cundiff and the kicking team were running onto the field as seconds ticked away, and the ball was snapped with barely a second left on the play clock.. Williams had the ball stripped from him, carrying the ball during a rainstorm. This wasn't a muffed punt or his running and dropping the ball; Williams was hit, and a slick football popped out as a result. Had it happened midway through the third quarter, it gets forgotten. Since it happened at the end of the game, it suddenly becomes THE PLAY that ended the season for the 49ers, when in reality it's not; it's just the last play of the game for the 49ers offense.

Think Williams and Cundiff feel like crap? Of course they do. Think their teammates are blaming them for losing the game? Probably not, and if they are, they're wrong.

A story: back in ancient times when I was maybe 11 or 12 years old, I was a pretty good bowler. I was on a very good bowling team, and we would win league trophies and all that kind of thing. I started bowling when I was eight, partly because it looked like fun, and partly because the bowling alley was the only thing that resembled an arcade within 15 miles of my house.

One year, while we were putting together a pretty good bowling season, my teammate's mom signed us up for some bigger tournaments. We would do this every so often - bowl at a nicer alley with gobs of other people, eat lunch at the Ground Round, and see what kind of video games the other alleys (and the Ground Round for that matter) had. But this season she signed us up for a team event, and we did pretty good. In fact, before we left, we were told that we had the best score in the tournament. This was a major score for us - it meant a trip upstate and staying in a hotel and all that kind of stuff that seems really cool when you're 12.

Later on we learned that another team had tied our score, and that we would have to travel back to the same alley we had bowled at before (no trip upstate, no hotel) to have a tiebreaker. From there, the magic disappeared, and we had our butts handed to us. No trip, no hotel - just a cheesy plaque that read "co-champions" that may or may not be in my mom's attic.

My point is that after we lost, I thought about the tie and how close we were to going upstate. We were five-person teams, so you're talking about five people, three games a piece, 150 frames of bowling.

One pin.

Have you ever been bowling? Have you ever thrown a perfect ball and had one pin just not go down, or come this || close to picking up a spare, or slip a little bit and miss the 7 or 10 pin? Of course. That's bowling. Crap like that happens every game (except the perfect ones).

But there we were, the five of us, thinking of not how we should have made a bunch more strikes, but how we should have gotten an eight instead of a seven in the sixth frame in the second game.

Because if we got that eight instead of a seven, or if we had picked up at least one of the pins in the 4-10 split in the second frame in the third game, or any other random stuff like that, we'd be going upstate, and we never would have seen a tiebreaker.

But the thing is, we didn't turn on each other, despite the fact that I'm sure every one of us could have pointed out errors the other four of us made. No one bowled a 300 game, so we all missed something. Instead, we sat there and picked apart the most minute details of those three games, something I'm sure the Ravens and 49ers are doing right now. One play where they could have played better, where if they hadn't done some mistake or made some minor misstep, something else might have happened and the Ravens wouldn't have had to turn to Cundiff to tie the game, or the 49ers wouldn't have been in overtime in the first place. Football is great for the butterfly effect; one play - one denied first down, or an extra five years, changes the approach to the game and causes different things to happen. If a defensive player makes a better tackle, the team doesn't get closer to making a first down. Someone gets called for a holding penalty and allows a drive to continue which doesn't directly result in a score, but causes a punt that puts the other team deeper into their own territory.

Yet it will be Billy Cundiff and Kyle Williams that will forever be linked to the Raven and 49er losses, just as I might have if I had thrown a gutter ball in the last frame of the final game. Well, and if millions of people had a fanatical interest in preteen regional team bowling.

It's not fair to Cundiff or Williams or Scott Norwood or Gary Anderson or Earnest Byner or countless others, but it's part of being a professional athlete, a part that isn't often thought of when discussing giant salaries and other luxuries that are part of a pro athlete's life.

[photo courtesy BayArea.com]

So my wife didn't make it through the thing (she doesn't stay awake through too many movies in general, and "Moneyball" was over two hours), but I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really well done to stay decently close to the book while still make a marketable and accessible film. The characters were likable, and while I wasn't crazy to see Paul DePodesta turned into "composite character" Peter Brand, I understand how doing something like that made the film easier to make more entertaining. In reality, DePodesta isn't nearly as "geeky" or awkward as Brand is, but Jonah Hill's portrayal of Brand loosened up a movie that could have easily gotten too dry. In terms of whether or not a non-baseball fan could enjoy it, I think just as long as you don't hate baseball you can watch without much of an issue.

THAT SAID, my nitpicks (and things you might be wondering about):

• A's GM Billy Beane (Pitt) rolls into Cleveland to have a face-to-face with Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro (and his posse, which includes stats nerd Peter Brand (Hill)), which goes nowhere thanks to Brand whispering in Shapiro's ear. Beane finds Brand in his cubicle, talks to him in the parting lot about his ideas, then he hops on a plane back to Oakland - later calling Brand to tell him that he just bought him from the Cleveland Indians and Shapiro.

Paul DePodesta (who the Brand character is based off of) had already been in the Oakland system as a scout for a few years before rising to the position Brand had in the film. He had previously worked for the Indians, however. More silly was Beane traveling to Cleveland for trade negotiations. Beane, especially on an A's budget that would see him charge for sodas in the clubhouse (which also didn't happen), would never be allowed to fly halfway across the country just for trade discussion. Even if he did have the budget - why would he? Telephone seems to work just fine for trade talks (as shown later in the film). But Beane needed a way for him to end up in Cleveland and meet Brand, so hence the in-person trade talks.

• Scott Hatteberg, one of the main players the movie focuses on, seems to be this misfit who was picked up, placed on the end of the bench, and only called upon when Beane trades away every first base option surly manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has.

First off, seeing Hoffman as Howe was really interesting. Hoffman, who is 44 as of the time I write this, portrayed a very convincing 55-year old Howe. It was interesting to watch. Anyway - in reality, Hatteberg started 129 games (out of a possible 162) during the 2002 season, including 22 of 26 of the A's games in the first month of the season. He just started them as the team's DH, not their first baseman. This made sense because Carlos Pena, whom Howe was starting at first base, was a better defensive first baseman. As the season progressed, Pena was sent down to the minors (due to performance - he had four hits in 37 at-bats in the month of May), and after a brief flirtation with Olmedo Saenz at first, Hatteberg became the starting first baseman in June and was the predominant starter there for the rest of the season. The little moment during "Game 20" where Hatteberg gets called and does the kind of "who me?" look when Howe calls for him to pinch hit? Hatteberg had started 17 of the previous 19 games. He was just getting a day off.

• Beane, frustrated with Jeremy Giambi's unprofessional attitude, deals him to the Phillies to the first person Phillies GM Ed Wade mentions.

Probably not too far off from the truth. Giambi was putting up decent numbers for the A's (at this point - he'd be closer to the "only all-star on the team" than Carlos Pena was, at least from an offensive standpoint) but was abruptly dealt to Philadelphia for John Mabry, who had a grand total of 23 plate appearances for the Phillies that season and wasn't likely to be on the roster much longer. Giambi, who was known for his trips to night clubs and who had been arrested for pot possession that prior offseason, likely wore out his welcome. Giambi would play well for the Phillies for the remainder of the season, then get dealt to Boston the following offseason, where he'd flop in one season with the Red Sox, then never made another major league roster. He admitted to using steroids in 2005.

• The A's start winning games, including a 20-game winning streak, capped in win #20 by a game that saw the A's take an 11-run lead, lose it, only to have Hatteberg hit the game-winning home run in the bottom of the 9th to win.

On August 12th, 2002, the A's lost to the Toronto Blue Jays 2-1, their second straight loss. They would not lose again until a 6-0 shutout against the Minnesota Twins on September 6th. In-between, the A's won 20 straight games, an American league record that still stands. As for the blown 11 run lead and Hatteberg's dramatic home run in the bottom of the 9th to win #20?  That happened too.

• Carlos Pena, the first baseman that the A's had to start the season, was shown not to be a Beane favorite and gets traded just to get him the hell out of the A's dugout so that Hatteberg would get to play first base every day.

In reality, as mentioned above, Pena was sent down in mid-May because he wasn't hitting after a fast start. Pena was actually an ideal "Moneyball"-type player (patient, high OBP), and Beane had just acquired him that prior offseason  (after Jason Giambi had signed with the Yankees) in a trade with the intent of him being their first baseman of the future. After Pena's poor May and subsequent demotion to the minors and later Hatteberg's success at first, Pena was expendable, and the A's traded him in a three-way deal with the Yankees and Tigers in July - some two months after he was sent down. This is actually something that the book goes into great detail about as Jeremy Bonderman, an example of a player whom Beane and his scouting team clashed on, was dealt from Oakland to Detroit in the deal as well, with the A's picking up some top prospects (who didn't work out) and pitcher Ted Lilly (who worked out later on after he left the A's). I would have liked to see how a three-team deal like this gets worked out, but I'm probably in a small minority there, so we have what we have.

• As we're winding down, Brand calls in Beane to take a look at some minor league footage to show him Jeremy Brown, a fat, unathletic, goofy-looking player who makes a horrid swing, runs towards first base, trips over first, then has to crawl back to first - only to be told he hit a home run.

Jeremy Brown is one of the main "characters" of the "Moneyball" book - a player whom the A's drafted in 2002 using their statistics-based approach. Scouts who had seen Brown couldn't stand him - he was a guy who could obviously hit but was built more for beer-league softball than major league baseball. Beane, however, loved his approach to hitting, and he was cited as an example of how the old way of scouting (looking for typical prototype athletes) was missing out on good players. Brown would go on to mixed results in the Oakland farm system and despite a cup of coffee in 2006 with the major league club and a solid season in AAA in 2007, retired in 2008. It's believed that the pressure of being "that Moneyball guy" led to him walking away from baseball.

As for the home run story? That's true, though the player portrayed in the movie was a lot larger (in height and weight) than Brown, who was listed at 5'10", 226lbs (although he was likely two inches shorter according to observers).

Any kind of film "based on a true story" will take strides to make reality more "movie-friendly", and you can nitpick this just the same as you could any other reality-based film. But "Moneyball" still manages to keep it pretty realistic while still making it tolerable to a non-baseball fan. Highly recommended.

(Did I just use the term "stinker"?)

I said sure and I was sent the screener. I watched, noted the good (not much) and the bad (most), and while I could have easily ripped the show because it wasn't funny, I ended up dissecting it and identifying what it really was - a show that wouldn't succeed as it stood, but had the potential to be something if the writers played their cards right. I wrote up the preview if you'd like to take a look at it here.

The thing that you have to remember about television is that you can't judge a show by one or two episodes, especially early episodes in the first season. "Seinfeld" is an excellent example of this. I really enjoyed "Seinfeld" (like a whole lot of people) and can watch episodes that repeat on TBS with no reservations and not have to worry about them being "dated" - while it does seem somewhat old in specific details, it's not about that - it's about the rapid-fire pace of how an episode rolls out, using the established characters whose personalities that you already know and your anticipation of what those characters are going to do because you know them - you've seen how they've acted in similar situations and want to see how this one turns out.

Now watch an episode from the first season. SLOWEST. PACING. EVARRR. Casual conversations with a slowness of pace so you get to know who these people are, and why they do what they do. Same with "The Simpsons" - the first season, although still classic, is nowhere near as polished as the nine seasons that followed (let's not talk about "The Simpsons" after season 10, OK?) The first season, or at least the first half, is kind of like a beta test - you think it's ready, but you'll never know what people will think until you expose it to the public. From there, you can make changes and adjustments. Too many and it's not worth it, but there are few shows that can't be fixed at least somewhat with some tweaks.

I'm not saying that Napoleon Dynamite is going to be the second coming of "The Simpsons", but to write it off after just two episodes is being incredibly short-sighted. The characters are there and already established, allowing the show to hit the ground running instead of having that half-season introduction to the characters. That said, even in half-hour form, the show seems to be a bit slow (not unlike the movie it was based off of) and doesn't seem to take that leap into biting satire (like "The Simpsons") or shock (like "Family Guy"). If the show sticks too close to the original movie, people are going to get bored. The way to succeed may be for original writers and directors Jared and Jerusha Hess to back away and let their baby be turned into a more accessible show. Cult status is one thing, but cult TV shows have a way of not sticking around for too long.

Regardless, the opportunity to write that bit for the News & Observer was awesome, and I look forward to working with them again in the future. Brooke seemed to be happy with the end product, so maybe some more can come out of this.

Here's hoping.

THE BIG BANG THEORY - I was reminded by my lovely wife that BBT has had different writers recently, which explains why the show has gone from "must see" to "typical sitcom with geek references" in recent years. This week's episode was a funny one, mainly thanks to Mayim Bialik giving me one of the first LOL moments I've had with BBT in recent memory after Amy receives her gift from Sheldon. But the part that irked me the most was a throwaway moment early on in the episode: Sheldon comes out of the bathroom and mentions his annoyance at the rest of the gang's antics have taken away from his enjoyment of his Batman comic while in the bathroom.

Two things.

1. Sheldon, previously written as the poster child for Asperger's and OCD and at heart a comic nerd who appreciates them as someone would their children, would NEVER take a comic into the bathroom. Seriously - the bathroom? I'm surprised that Sheldon actually has bowel movements at times, but there's no way he's bringing a comic into the bathroom where a stray spray from the toilet could damage one of the top three mainstream titles currently in comics.
2. Even if we look past #1, Sheldon comes out of the bathroom holding the comic with the pages folded back. Really? He's willing to bend the crease of one of his cherished comics (and harming it's value) for the convenience of one-handed holding? Comic and tech geeks like Sheldon and his group would buy comics digitally if they needed something convenient to read one-handed in the bathroom, while keeping their physical copies bagged, boarded, and tucked away in a long box in a closet somewhere. And please don't tell me they're not collectors; look at that apartment.

Think I'm crazy? The Onion's A.V. Club noticed it too.

BONES - First things first - I loved the episode. I haven't grown tired of Brennan and Booth as a couple yet, surprisingly, and guest star Andrew Leeds was great as a potential Big Bad. No 44-minute-resolution, but I'm OK with that every once in a while.

My issue, as it often is with Bones, had to do with the technology. I've learned to deal with the fact that Angela Montenegro, the artist with a minor in computer science, is possibly the greatest computer expert in the world, creating the magic Angelatron with her vast computer knowledge. But Angela's magic computer gets a magic virus worm which causes mass havoc, setting the lovely glowing Dell servers ON FIRE due to its effects. We learn that the fire was caused due to the worm changing the settings on the servers so that their cooling fans didn't trigger until it was much too late.

OK. In theory, a logical explanation. But that doesn't happen, and I'm willing to let slide the magical way that the worm got into the Angelatron in the first place (trying to keep this as spoiler-free as possible). Worms (and malware in general) exploit an operating system, with worms specifically using the operating system to send itself to other machines on the network (hence it being a "worm", and not a "virus", as we are corrected in the episode). But, despite it being government-funded, I can safely assume that the Angelatron isn't running Windows XP, or 7 for that matter. Since it's a homegrown magic computer, one would have to assume that it's Linux-based, and it's MUCH harder (although not impossible) to infect a Linux machine.

Assuming that this is an uber-l33t piece of Linux malware that manages to infect one of the most advanced computers in the universe, it still needs to do something rarer - infect the BIOS. Computer cooling fans are attached to motherboards, which are not controlled by an operating system but by hard-coded instructions in the motherboard itself, called the BIOS. It's incredibly rare to come across a piece of malware that can infect the BIOS on an easily exploitable OS like Windows, so you can imagine how unlikely it would be to do it on something much more secure like Linux. If a BIOS exploit in Windows is like Horton hearing a Who, one in Linux is like him figuring out that JoJo the Who is the single Who who isn't shouting "WE ARE HERE!" as the Whos are trying not to get boiled in beezelnut oil.

Assuming THAT somehow happens and the nearly impossible malware infects the magic computer and spreads itself to the pretty glowing Dell servers, there's one other thing. Overheated servers (and computers in general) don't catch fire when they overheat.

They turn off.

As a safety measure, there is a function in the BIOS (usually hard-coded by manufacturers) that causes a computer - once it hits a certain temperature - to turn off. This isn't something that's in there to make your computer run better; this is a "feature" that prevents the device from getting to a temperature too hot that would cause damage (and yes, possibly fire). There is no reason for a manufacturer to make this setting accessible, since it protects them from liability if/when that 16-year-old who overclocks his laptop to get the edge in World of Warcraft does run it too hot, it won't damage the computer/house/user and cause the manufacturer to get sued by the precious snowflake's parents.

So we're talking about a piece of malware that gets into the Smithsonian by [SPOILER REDACTED], infects the greatest computer ever running an almost impossible to infect operating system, then infecting the almost impossible to infect BIOS via the almost impossible to infect operating system, that spreads itself to other almost impossible to infect operating systems, causing them all to change two nearly impossible to change settings. I guess it's possible. But it's a HELL of a stretch.

Now that I've shown you the full extent of my geekdom, I'll go back to my mother's basement and overanalyze baseball stats for a future post to complete the trifecta.