Sometimes What You Are Looking for is the Rule that is Right Under Your Exception to the Nose; Also Peter King's Opinions About Not Football Must Stop

I don't know what that means. But what I was conveying clearly, I think, was that I found a reliever-turned starter who has had success after being mercilessly converted with little prior experience.

His name is Dustin Hermanson and he is apparently the front runner to assume the closer role for the Reds. He qualifies in that he had never even started in the minors (dating back to 1994) before the Montreal Expos converted him in 1997 to a pretty darn successful starter (successful for the first two years, at least).

Dustin Hermanson (switched to full-time starter age 24 in 1997)
-before: 7.35 ERA, 1.74 WHIP (in 32 games)
-after: 4.10 ERA, 1.35 WHIP (in over 300 games)

So clearly there's a pretty small sample size with the before #'s, but I think it works. However, I am going to go ahead with some irresponsible analysis and pick out from among the myriad of variables that no doubt contributed to his success the fact that he was fairly young (24) when converted. Which may be why his arm/mentality/capacity for adaptation/magic-pitching-dust wasn't permanently compromised as seems the case for the other examples. Except I just looked it up and Kim was also 24 when he was converted, so, y'know, shit. At least Kim is arguably the second-most successful conversion.



And just because I'm tired of semi-serious analysis, I wanted to berate Peter King (as I find myself wanting to do every Monday morning for some reason- and I know I'm not alone) for continually forgetting that his lofty status as SI's #2 NFL guru does not give him license to pretend that he's intelligent- or that his readers give a flying fuck about what he thunks he thonk - about things that aren't football.

I've seen better examples of the above (especially when he tries to talk about baseball) in the past, but this week there are at least a few inane comments:

Just discovering the iPod, one of the great inventions of all time, and my one recent find was Norah Jones. What an incredible voice. Shows what a music dolt I am that I barely knew her.

One of the best discoveries of midlife: St. Patrick's Day. Never thought I'd love Guinness, but it's pretty close to the perfect beer.

Goddammit, Peter. Nobody gives a shit about how pop-musically out-of-the-loop you are. And saying Guinness is "pretty close to the perfect beer" is like beer-connoisseur and journalist Ephram Monarchyson declaring in his weekly column "Tidbits I Ponder that I Ponder" that Steve McNair is pretty close to the perfect quarterback. It's just plain ignorant.

And furthermore, in these two statements, Mr. In-Truth-Only-a-Pretty-Good-NFL-Writer feels qualified enough to declare that a) the iPod is "one of the great inventions of all time," b) Norah Jones has an "incredible voice," and, again, c) Guinness is "pretty close to the perfect beer."

Please, Master Peter- I am lost without your insight! - enlighten me with your knowledge of the best Tex-Mex restaurant (of all time) in Indianapolis!

Also- Really? Really?! The mp3 player is one of the great inventions of all time? Does it really rank up there with the, er, wheel? The printing press? The world-wide-web? Antibiotics? Steel? The microcircuit? The aeroplane? The internal combustion engine? The bow-and-fucking-arrow? Gunpowder? Duct tape? A Google search of "great inventions of all time" gave me chicken broth, how about that? Light bulb? Steam engine? Kirk Saaarlooos's arm? Cotton gin? The number "0"? Gary Majewski's hairstyle? Ryan Freel? Here's another gem from Google: the potluck dinner party? More Google results: Bic pens, "my new Bissell steam vacuum," plywood, spreadable butter, or dental floss? Any of those as great as the mp3 player? I do hope he writes about those next week.

I should stop. I have a sarcasm clog in my toilet, and that shit is thick.