Beer Leaguers: Gumballhead, Brian Bannister, and Pat Neshek

Last night, The Common Man finished his dinner, put The Boy to bed, and came downstairs to find The Evil Dog had peed on the kitchen floor, despite having been walked not one hour before. Here was a situation that clearly called for a beer.

And so, The Common Man popped the top off of a Gumballhead, a wheat beer made by Three Floyds Brew Pub, in Munster, Indiana. The psychedelic foil label features a yellow creature (Google tells TCM it's a cat who may or may not also be the star of his own web comic) of some sort smoking a cigarette and sporting what appears to be a black eye. Written up the side of the bottle are the words, "It's not normal."

Since the retirement of world-class crazy man Turk Wendell, The Common Man can only think of two ball players who really resonate with this slogan as baseball's true odd ducks. Brian Bannister, the starter for the Kansas City Royals, is the son of former Major League pitcher Floyd Bannister (who won 134 games from 1977-1992), which could lead one to believe that the younger Bannister is old school and conservative, status quo loving legacy. Banny is a fan of sabermatricians around the blogosphere; he is a strong believer in Defense Independent Pitching stats, and is thoughtful in how he dissects his own performance. He has a Bachelors in Fine Arts degree from USC, is a photography enthusiast and supports artists working in the Scottsdale area. Just his mere presence makes the Royals almost watchable in non-Greinke outings. Bannister always has something interesting to say, such that it's no wonder that Banny has made a disciple out of no less a writer than Joe Posnanski.

Likewise, Twins reliever Pat Neshek has made tremendous fans online for being one of the first active players to really blog about his experiences in the minor and major leagues. His insight and his enthusiasm are both greatly appreciated by his readers, as Neshek serves as a proxy for their broken dreams of never having a chance to make the big leagues. Indeed, while you and The Common Man may never have even played high school ball, we always felt we knew and respected the game far more than those who played it. Neshek's baseball card and autograph collections, his openess in talking about both, and his genuine awe at being a Major Leaguer, is refreshing for fans like The Common Man, who feel like they finally have one of their own to root for. Neshek's delivery, the jerky, whip-like, side arm action that fools righty and lefty batters alike also is a reminder of just how different Neshek is from your average major leaguer.

There is, however, one central difference between Brian Bannister and Pat Neshek. Neshek has thrown 120 innings at the big league level, and is coming off of a major injury (Tommy John Surgery). By no means is his full recovery assured, no matter how much The Common Man wishes it so. Still, in those 120 innings, The Freakshow has struck out 142 batters, and walked just 37 (in a row?). He is overpowering, and has an incredibly filthy slider. It's no exaggeration to say that, if he's healthy, Pat Neshek is absolutely nasty. Brian Bannister, on the other hand, The Common Man is sad to say is just not a good major league pitcher. After an exceptionally positive start to his career (14-10, 3.95, low HR/9 and BB/9 rates from 2006-2007, very low BABIP), the American League (or Lady Luck) seems to have caught up to him. In 2008, his HR/9 jumped (as did his K/BB ratio, however), and his BABIP also rose by 60 points (to .316). It held relatively steady in 2009. In the last two years, Banny has gone just 16-28 with a 5.29 ERA. It's clear that Bannister simply isn't a serviceable starter on a competitive franchise, and that he's not part of the long term solution for the Royals. Though he'll probably make a hell of a pitching coach some day.

And so, The Common Man is forced to make Brian Bannister the official Gumballhead of Major League Baseball. For one thing, he's got a lot of knowledge in that head of his, and some gumballs are awfully big. But more importantly, just like Bannister is not a good pitcher (no matter how much we want him to be), Gumballhead is not a good beer. Now, in the interest of fairness, TCM is generally not a wheat beer fan anyway, but this brew seems particularly egregious. It's exceedingly light, to the point where you can't really taste the beer. Rather, you get a splash of water across the bow, before a sharp hoppiness washes over the whole of your mouth. That's followed almost immediately by the most lemony aftertaste that The Common Man can remember having from a beer. And that aftertaste doesn't dissipate either. It sticks with you. It haunts you. It keeps coming back, and just gets more strident and insistent sip after sip, like Yankees in their second at bats against young Banny. Eventually, the aftertaste starts teeing off on your taste buds, and you run for a palette cleanser. And this might be The Common Man's imagination, but there might be the faintest smell of stale urine. Frankly, life's too short to drink this beer, unless you've got no other choice on hand. Fortunately for Bannister, the Royals don't.

The Committee Votes "Aye"

Joe Nathan’s injury created significant questions for the Twins as they sorted out their bullpen options for 2010. Thankfully, when faced with a choice, the team did not panic, and indeed did something sensible. Gardenhire told reporters on Sunday, "we're going to start out and we're going to look at a lot of different people and we'll see what happens. We've got about three or four different guys we can go to."

So, the Twins announced plans to go with what’s being called a “closer by committee” approach at the end of games, but which really amounts to riding the hot hand in the short term and letting the competition play itself out organically. The Common Man is fairly pleased by this. After all, as he pointed out earlier this month, there is really no perfect internal solution for the loss of an elite reliever like Joe Nathan. Rather, the Twins are faced with a number of inexperienced choices who don’t necessarily profile well as shut-down closers in the new sense we’re talking about here. Yet, all of the relievers in question are quality pitchers, and are likely to be average to above-average at the end of the game. There’s no need to give up some of the team’s elite young talent for another largely fungible reliever.

Instead, the team has made value moves. The signing of Ron Mahay indicated, at first, that the Twins were interested in moving Jose Mijares into the role. However, Mahay’s minor league contract could also be taken as a sign that Francisco Liriano has won the 5th starter spot and that Brian Duensing would spend at least part of this season in Rochester, where he’ll be a starter. Either way, if he makes the team Mahay figures to allow Mijares the freedom to enter games in higher leverage situations in the 8th or 9th inning, rather than serving as the team’s de facto LOOGY. Indeed, what the Twins are doing will allow them to pick the matchups that are, in theory, the most effective, bringing in Mijares against Sizemore and Hafner, while using Rauch or Guerrier against Magglio and Cabrera.

As Rob Neyer tweeted tonight, Gardy’s exclusion of Pat Neshek from his list of end of game options is somewhat disappointing. Neshek is incredibly popular with the fans and is generally an excellent relief option against both righties and lefties. His demeanor suggests an ability to work past difficult outings, and his stuff, if he’s healthy, is absolutely filthy. Alas, the Twins seem to have decided to baby Neshek a little bit at the start of the year, easing him back into an expanded role with the club. And The Common Man can respect that, even if he’s eager to see his favorite side-armer get some saves. In fact, one added benefit for the Twins (but not for Neshek) is that a lower save total will result in a lower salary once Pat becomes eligible for arbitration next season.

Again, The Common Man continues to expect Jon Rauch to get the majority of the opportunities at the end of the game. Despite their reasoned approach here, the Twins have always been a relatively conventional team, and Rauch has the look and at least a little bit of experience with the role. Rauch will not be as effective as Joe Nathan, and it will be interesting to see just how the Twins react to this. Indeed, if the team senses weakness, there’s an excellent chance they could pull the trigger on an even more panicky deal than the ones they’ve rejected thusfar. But if they can stay patient and flexible, allowing the most effective relievers to rise to the top of the bullpen ladder, the team is likely to find itself in relatively good shape this year.

This experience can also serve as a strong lesson on building a bullpen going forward, reminding Bill Smith that closers are mostly made, not born, and not to overextend the club for replaceable talent.

Note: The Common Man is sorry for a awfully short post today (by TCM's standards). He's got a lot coming up this week, including a new Beer Leaguers tomorrow, his first post as a part of the Its About the Money Stupid team tomorrow or Wednesday (The Common Man will be posting there once or twice a week from here on out), his regular guest spot at The Daily Something, and a ridiculously entertaining (and long) interview with former Expo and Blue Jay Balor Moore. Check back often, it's going to be busy.

Why and When to Walk Away

It’s easy to make jokes about the Kansas City Royals (TCM has made more than a few in the last 24 hours), and how they’ve lost one of their better pitching prospects, Danny Duffy, who yesterday left the team to “reassess his life priorities.” It’s sad for the Royals and their fans, not only to lose a talented pitcher (Doyle has been called the most advanced of KC’s pitching prospects, and is #8 on Baseball America’s list of its Top Prospects), but it’s especially hard to again feel like the laughing stock of the American League. Especially when that status is so well deserved.

Most of us will look at Danny Duffy’s decision and wonder why in the hell a player with his kind of talent would walk away from baseball. After all, The Common Man would give up his left arm (he’s right handed) to pitch in the big leagues. It is the dream of hundreds of thousands of little boys in the United States right now. To be so relatively close to this magical goal, and potential winning lottery ticket, would be unfathomable to so many Americans.

But while the major leagues are a golden land of milk and honey, it’s easy for us to forget that, frankly, the minor leagues (particularly the low minors) kind of suck for the players. Many are away from their homes, families, and friends for six months at a time (Duffy, for instance, is from California, but played the last two years in Burlington, Iowa ("the backhoe capital of the world!"); and Wilmington, Delaware (where violence was so prevalent in the '90s that the entire downtown is now under camera surveillance). Despite the noise and cramped-ness of a clubhouse, it’s easy to feel isolated if you don’t somehow connect to your teammates. The atmosphere is very insular.

You get paid next to nothing as a salary, and you get $20 (now finally bumped up to$25) per day to eat on the road. You stay in crappy motels, and your living conditions can vary wildly depending on where you’re playing and who you’re staying with. Entertainment is tough to come by (particularly in Burlington, Iowa, or Wilmington, Delaware). For some players, particularly those with young families, it is impossible to make ends meet and continue to play ball. Road trips last 7-10 days, and you spend a dozen hours or more at a time on a cramped bus with 35-40 other people that you may or may not be able to stand.

For as much fun as it can be to play the game, the rest of the grind can really suck. And if, for some reason, your lottery numbers don’t end up a winner, you’re often stuck going back to school at 24, 25, or 26, or starting a career with almost no job history, no practical experience. For some, that risk is not worth taking.

Danny Duffy is still a very young man. At 21, he’s got a lifetime ahead of him. This was undoubtedly not an easy decision for him, to give up the thing he has been working toward for much of his life. Whether injury, loneliness, falling out of love with the game, or never loving it in the first place was the primary motivator, it’s important to note that there are a number of contributing stressors that are pressing on minor leaguers today. If there is anything for the Royals to take away from Duffy’s decision, it’s that they need to examine the support networks they have in place throughout their minor league system to make sure they don’t lose any more players. Duffy may be an isolated case, and may have chosen to walk away regardless, but periodic introspection and analysis is a good thing, particularly for a moribund franchise like Kansas City. Playing for the big league Royals is depressing enough; they should make the minors as welcoming and fun as possible.

Great Thanks and a Preview of Upcoming Events

Thanks again to Rob Neyer for including The Common Man in his Wednesday Wangdoodles. Rob's the best and has been terrifically supportive of late. And thanks to Baseball Think Factory and Baseball Musings for highlighting TCM's work. Thanks to anybody The Common Man missed who linked here today. And thanks to all of you for checking in and making today the highest traffic day in The Common Man's history. TCM hopes you'll come back again...often.

Today, The Common Man is guestblogging over at The Daily Something, but will be back here tomorrow. You can always follow TCM on Twitter. Also, on tap for next week, TCM will present an interview with Balor Moore, subject of a recent Random Thursday and the 1st ever draft pick by the Montreal Expos.

Fisking Howard Megdal and the Greenberg Conspiracy of '38

Sometimes smart people get ahold of statistics and do dumb things. Yesterday, at the New York Times, on Jack Marshall’s Ethics Alarm, and on NBCSports.com, Howard Megdal, author of The Baseball Talmud, explored the long-discussed theory that Hank Greenberg was pitched around in 1938, and therefore denied a shot at the home run record, because he was Jewish. In the comments of HardballTalk, Megdal writes that the central question is, “Was Hank Greenberg treated differently than others sluggers chasing Ruth’s record. And the answer, thanks to the historical record, is yes.” It’s a line Megdal repeats on the New York Times, when he writes, “the statistical record stands as evidence that Greenberg’s religion might have been an additional barrier.” Here’s the problem: the statistical record says no such thing.

Megdal comes to this conclusion because Retrosheet and BaseballReference.com have now provided access to game results and box scores for all of 1938, and indeed for most of Greenberg’s career. His central argument is that Greenberg’s walk rate was 20.4 percent in September of 1938, while Megdal’s math has him at 15.9 percent of plate appearances at the end of August. In addition, Greenberg was walked three times in a game three times during September of 1938, after having just two three-walk games over the course of the rest of the season. Just to be clear, Megdal is talking about a 4.5 percent change in walk rate over a full month and three games in particular in September as evidence of an Anti-Semitic desire to keep Greenberg from breaking Ruth’s record.

Now, a couple of points. First, Hank Greenberg undeniably faced a great deal of prejudice as he chased this mark: he received hate mail and death threats. This was definitely a serious consideration and one that may have played a role in Greenberg falling short if he was distracted or stressed in the season’s final weeks. Second, it is absolutely true that Greenberg’s walk rate in September of 1938 (20.4) is higher than his career rate (13.9).

However, there are significant problems with Megdal’s analysis. The first is that, according to The Common Man’s math, Greenberg didn’t walk in 15.9 percent of his plate appearances through the end of August in 1938. According to BaseballReference.com, Greenberg walked 91 times in 544 plate appearances from April through August. That works out to a walk rate of 16.7 percent. How this slipped past Megdal and the New York Times fact checkers is beyond The Common Man. Really, then, we’re talking about a difference of 3.7 percent between Greenberg’s non-September and September walk rates. Given the same number of plate appearances in September and October, we are talking about an actual difference of five walks between Greenberg’s September rate and the rest of his season. Five walks. That’s what Megdal’s argument comes down to. Five walks spread across 32 games. Statistical blip doesn’t even come close to describing how flimsy this data is.

What’s more, thanks to the work done by two intrepid bloggers at MLB Expert Analysis Blog back in February (which Megdal apparently never saw), it’s clear that, while Greenberg’s walk rate did rise in September, it had been even higher in April and May. Indeed, September and October represent the third highest BB% for Greenberg in 1938. Did pitchers presciently begin pitching around Greenberg in April and May because they knew he would break the mark? Of course not. Again, what you’re seeing is a statistical blip.

This article is also important since it points out that, going into September, Greenberg had 46 homers, and would need 14 to tie the Babe, 15 to break the record. Greenberg’s high for homers in a month in 1938 was 15 in July, which suggests that Greenberg was always a long shot to break the record, until he got hot again in September (and hit 12). Why is this important? Because two of the three three-walk games that Megdal identifies as so important occur on September 3 and 5, when Greenberg was still sitting on 46 homers.

Now, let’s look deeper into those three games that play such a pivotal role in Megdal’s argument. On September 3, Greenberg came to the plate 5 times against the White Sox. Jack Knott, on the mound for the Sox, was about a league average pitcher. He walked Greenberg twice in seven innings (in which he gave up 11 hits and 8 runs, but no other walks). Harry Boyles, who pitched 29 innings that year, with a 5.22 ERA and 7.7 BB/9 (8.5 career mark). Boyles also walked Hank once.

On September 5, the Tigers were playing the Browns in a double-header. In the first game, Greenberg walked three times against Lefty Mills in four plate appearances. Mills was finishing up his only season as a full-time starter, and walked 116 batters in 210 innings. He had a 5.31 ERA and a 5.0 walk rate. However, this was the lowest rate of his career, as he finished above 7.0 in every other season in which he pitched. His career BB/9 was 6.2. In addition to Greenberg (who batted cleanup), Mills walked Dixie Walker (2nd), Charlie Gehringer (3rd) and Rudy York (5th). To accept the notion that Mills was intentionally putting multiple runners on base in a tie game (the score was 2-2 going into the bottom of the 8th, when the Browns pushed across the lead run. Given that he was skating on thin ice as a major league starter, TCM has a hard time believing that Mills would jeopardize his personal ambitions to stop Greenberg from achieving a record he had little chance, at that point, in breaking. In the second game of the double-header, which the Tigers won, Greenberg went hitless in four appearances with just one walk. Aparently starter Bobo Newsom didn’t get a team-wide memo.

The final three-walk game of 1938 for Greenberg happened on September 27, in another double-header against the Browns. Again, in game one, Greenberg was passed three times in four trips, this time by the stellar team of Jim Walkup and Fred Johnson. In his other at bat, Greenberg singled and had an RBI. Walkup was aptly named. Aside from 8 games in 1939, he was mercifully on his last legs as a major leaguer. Jim Walkup was given a shot as a swingman in 1935 and posted a 6.25 ERA with 104 walks in 181 innings. In 1937, he bested that with a 7.36 ERA and 83 walks in 150 innings. He settled down some in 1938, dropping his ERA all the way to 6.80 with 53 walks in 94 innings (and a 1-12 record). Walkup’s career ERA was 6.74 and his BB/9 was 5.1. In that game, Walkup would dole out 5 walks to the Tigers. Not that Johnson was any better. At the tender age of 44, Fred Johnson got his first extended shot with the Browns in 1938. He would pitch 69 innings with a 5.61 ERA. In his one inning of work, Johnson let an unearned run score, and got hung with the loss, thanks to the two walks he allowed. Given that Charlie Gehringer (who immediately preceded Greenberg) also walked twice, it’s again hard to believe the Browns were deliberately putting multiple runners on base. In Game 2, against Bill Cox and Ed Cole, Greenberg was not walked, and in fact hit two homers in four at bats, giving him 58 for the season. The Browns lost 10-2. Honestly, if there was ever a time to walk Greenberg, surely it was in this game, where the Browns were handily getting slaughtered, had nothing to play for, and Greenberg was destroying them.

The facts are that, aside from Jack Knott, Greenberg faced terrible, even historically bad, pitching in these games. Many of these pitchers had control problems anyway. Without actual play-by-play data, we cannot know exactly the situations in which Greenberg was hitting, but it’s clear he was coming to the plate with men on base on many occasions, a dangerous time to put additional runners on. While we cannot definitively know what’s in mens’ hearts, it seems likely that these pitchers did not intentionally walk Greenberg to keep him from the record (especially as most of them were fighting to hold on to their careers), and that there was no organizational policy against him (particularly against the Browns).

The play by play data that Megdal looks at is compelling only if you pick and choose what you want to make your argument and if you (TCM assumes) incorrectly state the player in question’s walk rate through the season’s first 5 months. In actuality, all Megdal’s argument comes down to is five walks in September. Five walks in 32 games. A blip. A nothing. And for him to suggest otherwise is to ignore context and to misuse the data he has available.

Hank Greenberg did face racism in 1938, and what was said about him and sent to him was shameful. It’s an embarrassment to the country he fought to protect several years later in WWII. And that racism may have played a role in the way he famously, as he put it, “ran out of gas.” But you cannot make a credible case that American League pitchers were in on any kind of effort to deny Greenberg the title, Howard. You can’t make these statistics say whatever you want them to.

The Twins Spending $184 Million Completes a Surreal Weekend

Yesterday, the Joe Mauer contract put a fitting cap on what was a surreal weekend for The Common Man. Were those TCM’s Twins shelling out $184 million after all those year’s in baseball’s small market wasteland? Indeed it was. In general, The Common Man is pleased this morning by the contract the Twins gave to Mauer, and looking forward to having him with the club for the foreseeable future. Twins bloggers and national media types are weighing in on this deal, but here are the salient points as TCM sees them:

1) $184 Million over eight years represents a huge risk by the generally risk-averse Twins, and could seriously hamper the club’s ability to compete on the back end of this deal.

2) However, in order to enjoy the benefits (drastically improved odds of making the playoffs every year, and happy fans) of having an otherworldly talent like Joe Mauer in the short term, you have to live with the long term risks.

3) The Twins smartly tacked this contract onto the end of Mauer’s existing contract, giving the club more financial flexibility in this down economy, it only becomes more expensive, presumably, when the economy recovers and revenues are at their normal levels.

4) The No Trade Clause is somewhat troubling, but seems to be the price of doing business. TCM doesn’t want to trade The Golden Boy anytime soon anyway, so that’s fine. If the clause becomes an issue, it will likely be because either the Twins are not competing and need to rebuild, or Mauer’s production has declined to the point that he’s no longer starting. In both cases, there are mitigating factors that might motivate Joe to actually enthusiastically accept a trade that would net him a better chance to win or more playing time.
There is no doubt that this deal represents a fair market value for Joe Mauer’s talents. It is just a shade higher than the 8-year, $180 million deal Mark Texeira signed, and a catcher of Mauer’s ability figures to be more valuable than a 1B of Tex’s.

5) While Joe probably wanted to stay all along, he and his agent really had the Twins over a barrel in these negotiations. The Twins, from a PR perspective, simply did not have the option of letting Joe walk away a year after opening a new tax-payer funded stadium, and a year removed from a well-deserved AL MVP award. He is one of the most popular players in franchise history, and nothing would have killed attendance in Year 2 of Target Field like a Mauer-less Opening Day lineup.

In retrospect, The Common Man thinks it’s clear that the Denard Span and Nick Blackburn deals were done to send a message to Mauer that the Twins intended to be competitive in the long-term, and were not going to let Joe wallow in mediocrity like the Twins did with Kirby Puckett in ’93-95.

Other surrealness that happened this weekend to The Common Man:

When The Boy gets a new interest, it’s not just an interest. It quickly becomes an obsession. This weekend, The Boy decided that he was no longer a small human child, but a whale. He would only eat food with krill in them (krill sandwiches, krill chili, krill breakfast burritos, etc.). On Sunday, this obsession culminated in a trip to the book store, where The Uncommon Wife fueled this fire with some extra gasoline, buying two books on whales, a book on sharks, and one on the ocean. The Boy returned from the store, and announced that he was a sperm whale, “because sperm whales have teeth.” The problem with three-year old, land-locked sperm whales, however, is that they want you to pretend to be an octopus or orca, and then use those teeth. Ow.
Throwing dry brush, jet fuel, and treasured keepsakes from the attic on the fire, The Uncommon Wife suggested, and TCM accepted her proposal for, a family vacation to Los Angeles in April to do some whale watching, among other things. This will also allow The Common Man to take in games in Arizona, Anaheim, and possibly San Diego. So everybody wins!

The Boy was also decidedly high-energy all weekend. By 9:00 last night, as he called his mother up to sing him a song before bed, The Uncommon Wife decided she had had enough. “Ice cream,” she told The Common Man as she met him at the stairs. “That’s not a question or request.” Intimidated by the wild look in her eye, TCM asked meekly, “Do you know what kind you want?” “Something chocolate,” she glowered. “Don’t get what you usually get.”
So, The Common Man ran to the grocery store. TCM pulled into his parking spot directly opposite another beleaguered-looking guy who was just getting out of his truck. TCM then followed him into the store, and both headed directly for the ice cream. As they stood, intently examining frozen case after frozen case of ice cream, TCM looked over and said, “So you got sent out for ice cream too?”
“Yep. And they’re never specific about what they want, are they?”
“Mine just said something about chocolate,” said TCM. “So at least I have a genre to work in.”
“I heard her say chocolate and caramel,” said TCM’s new friend. A bond was forged.
After both heading through the self-checkout, the brothers-in-arms stared at each other briefly before exchanging “Good luck”s, and drove away.

Much of this weekend was spent finally finishing the sink and vanity in TCM’s new bathroom. Alas, The Common Man was called into the sink and vanity project relatively late in the game. The Uncommon Wife had started it three weeks ago, but events conspired to keep it from completion. By the time TCM got to the sink, there were parts missing and no way to tell what had been done from the instructions, and what still needed doing. So The Common Man began taking things apart and starting from scratch. Alas, TCM kept needing more and more things, and ultimately made seven trips to hardware stores (because there are only so many times you can go to one hardware store before you are too ashamed) over the course of Saturday, buying new, flexible pipes for the water, more plumber’s tape, a rubber washer, an extension for the drain pipe, a second extension for the drain pipe when it turned out the first extension was the wrong diameter, and a new drain to replace the one The Common Man broke. TCM is ashamed and feels like much less of a man. On the other hand, he does now know how to not screw up when taking apart and putting together a new sink, because he’s already made all the errors a person can make.

Or did he?

Thank Yous

The Common Man has been extremely pleased this week by the response he has gotten to his work, particularly from friend of the blog, Craig Calcaterra, of NBCSports.com's HardballTalk and also the incomparable Rob Neyer, of ESPN.com's Sweetspot. The Common Man greatly appreciates the support, and thanks them and each of you for stopping by this week. This has, by far, been the most successful week ever at The Common Man, and TCM is both proud and humbled (because The Common Man is also a complex man).

To celebrate this week's awesomeness, The Common Man entreats you to enjoy the following absolutely horrible live rendition of a Godawful song. If you can’t take the first two-and-a-half minutes of ear-bleeding terribleness, at least fast forward and watch the last minute of the performance. The whole thing is amateurish and awkward, but the addition of a ceremonial Native American headdress at the end is a good reminder that a) the feelings of Native Americans are still as marginalized today, as are their traditions fetishized, b) there is no limit of idiocy that people will applaud for, and c) that apparently terrible taste in music extends to fashion. Also, it’s a good reminder that the logo of the Cleveland Indians and the name of the Washington football team remain offensive black eyes on professional sports. Man, if you can’t trust someone with a dollar sign in their name to be respectful of the symbols of other cultures, who can you trust?



And if you're unwilling to familiarize yourself with the symbol for all that is wrong with music today, Ke$ha, enjoy an old The Common Man favorite, a Stupid Man Trick:



If only we could combine these two clips somehow.