Today's Max Kellerman show began with a nod to March Madness followed by a quick departure to other matters. The show actually started with an intriguing discussion as to why Max hates Cinderella - to paraphrase poorly - she shows up on the scene for a short time and then disappears at midnight. Robin Lundberg groused about Cinderella as well since she appeared to have impacted on his tourney picks, although the posted leaders for the 1050 sheet of integrity tournament still give him a decent chance to win the 1050 personalities bracket contest.
In a way, Max Kellerman was right, in that we remember the Cinderellas that advance to the Sweet 16 or even the Elite 8 of the Tourney but they end up largely irrelevant. Growing up, I remember Cleveland State and more recently, Gonzaga and George Mason. But other than giving us good theatre or one liners (SI had a memorable line about some major college "looking fairly ridiculous in barely beating Fairleigh Dickinson") the clock strikes midnight quickly and the ultimate winner is a major college program.
The discussion then went over to why Clete the Board Op is an idiot. Having never met Clete in person, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Some of the personalities on the show get unfairly picked on whether or not its their fault (i.e. Louie Gold). I don't know if Clete falls into that category as the radio audience does not get to see what is on Max and Brian Kenny's screen. I will say that if Clete was the one responsible for selecting music cuts for the Rock N Roll tourney, then maybe Max is right on this one. After all, Bruce Springsteen lost last week without them even having played War, Born to Run or Born in the USA. If you select his weaker songs and match them up with Bon Jovi megahits, of course Bruce loses.
The show then went into a discussion about selecting the best fantasy team made up of only Mets and Yankees and the order of priority in selection. Surprisingly, Max Kellerman put Johan Santana first (over A-Rod) despite the fact that he is a Yankee fan. I chalk this up more to Max being a sabremetric scholar then anything else.
Interestingly, during the discussion the rules of selection and priority were changed on numerous occasions to deal with points raised by various hosts and callers about the players' potential, whether they were building a complete team and how to best utilize skills. In so doing, Max and Brian had Derek Jeter as an outfielder, because it would allow Wright to play third and A-Rod to occupy his natural position of shortstop.
As usual, in directing the flow of the show Max Kellerman intuitively relied on the fundamentals of Jewish religion - that sometimes rules need to be adapted to avoid hurting another person when a situation arises that needs to be delicately addressed. By example, there is a Talmudic story told about R' Shimon ben Shetach who purchased an animal. When he arrived home, he realized that the animal had a precious stone around its neck. Although according to Jewish law R' Shimon was not required to return the stone, he did so anyway because he understood that the end result would be more positive than keeping the stone. As a result the non-Jewish merchant wound up praising Hashem saying "Praise be to Hashem the G-d of Shimon Ben Shetach."
This can also be seen in Max's placement of certain players such as Jeter in the outfield. Although according to the lineups, you would pick one shortstop, Max realized that he could not slight a player of Derek Jeter's talent and moral background by leaving him off the team. Still, he had already placed a superior player (A-Rod) at shortstop. Given these parameters, Max did what any good Talmudic scholar would do and adapted the rules to allow them to place Jeter in the outfield to avoid hurting the Captain's feeling while still benefiting the "fantasy team."
In a way, Max Kellerman was right, in that we remember the Cinderellas that advance to the Sweet 16 or even the Elite 8 of the Tourney but they end up largely irrelevant. Growing up, I remember Cleveland State and more recently, Gonzaga and George Mason. But other than giving us good theatre or one liners (SI had a memorable line about some major college "looking fairly ridiculous in barely beating Fairleigh Dickinson") the clock strikes midnight quickly and the ultimate winner is a major college program.
The discussion then went over to why Clete the Board Op is an idiot. Having never met Clete in person, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Some of the personalities on the show get unfairly picked on whether or not its their fault (i.e. Louie Gold). I don't know if Clete falls into that category as the radio audience does not get to see what is on Max and Brian Kenny's screen. I will say that if Clete was the one responsible for selecting music cuts for the Rock N Roll tourney, then maybe Max is right on this one. After all, Bruce Springsteen lost last week without them even having played War, Born to Run or Born in the USA. If you select his weaker songs and match them up with Bon Jovi megahits, of course Bruce loses.
The show then went into a discussion about selecting the best fantasy team made up of only Mets and Yankees and the order of priority in selection. Surprisingly, Max Kellerman put Johan Santana first (over A-Rod) despite the fact that he is a Yankee fan. I chalk this up more to Max being a sabremetric scholar then anything else.
Interestingly, during the discussion the rules of selection and priority were changed on numerous occasions to deal with points raised by various hosts and callers about the players' potential, whether they were building a complete team and how to best utilize skills. In so doing, Max and Brian had Derek Jeter as an outfielder, because it would allow Wright to play third and A-Rod to occupy his natural position of shortstop.
As usual, in directing the flow of the show Max Kellerman intuitively relied on the fundamentals of Jewish religion - that sometimes rules need to be adapted to avoid hurting another person when a situation arises that needs to be delicately addressed. By example, there is a Talmudic story told about R' Shimon ben Shetach who purchased an animal. When he arrived home, he realized that the animal had a precious stone around its neck. Although according to Jewish law R' Shimon was not required to return the stone, he did so anyway because he understood that the end result would be more positive than keeping the stone. As a result the non-Jewish merchant wound up praising Hashem saying "Praise be to Hashem the G-d of Shimon Ben Shetach."
This can also be seen in Max's placement of certain players such as Jeter in the outfield. Although according to the lineups, you would pick one shortstop, Max realized that he could not slight a player of Derek Jeter's talent and moral background by leaving him off the team. Still, he had already placed a superior player (A-Rod) at shortstop. Given these parameters, Max did what any good Talmudic scholar would do and adapted the rules to allow them to place Jeter in the outfield to avoid hurting the Captain's feeling while still benefiting the "fantasy team."
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