Book Log 2011 #3: The First Emperor by Steve Berry

Cotton Malone moves his landmark-destroying antics eastward in this latest novel in the series. The conflict this time comes with a secret society of eunuchs, who are trying to influence the selection of China's next leader by manipulating the two most likely candidates. Part of this involves proving that petroleum is created abiogenically, as ensuring China's energy resources would give a leg up to whatever person could claim it.

Unlike the other books in the series, this one starts off well into the adventure and then tells the story (mostly) in flashback, which is a nice change. I did think the story was better here than in the last book, and we've thankfully lost the two younger characters from that book who looked poised to become regulars. I still think the overall quality of the series has dipped from the beginning, but there's hope in this entry that things are rebounding.

(I also discovered on Berry's website that there's an original ebook that follows Cassiopeia Vitt as she tries to find the tomb of a Thracian king but stumbles across some sort of shadowy Russian mining interest. It's supposed to be a prequel to The First Emperor, and I'm just enough of a sucker to seek it out - though not enough of one to buy it.)

A post on Baseball-Reference.com's website about Hall of Famers and All Stars sharing birthdays, and gave some expected averages for how many you'd find for a given day (for me, no Hall of Famers and six All Stars appearing in 17 games, which is above average). But the question that framed the post - the formation of a team of players all born on Valentine's Day - got me to thinking who would be on the team of players born on my birthday?

The lineup:

Catcher - Ron Karkovice

First Base - Jocko Milligan

Second Base - Cupid Childs

Third Base - Mike Ivie

Shortstop - Cecil Travis

Outfield - Al Woods, Jose Cruz, Frank Howard

Starting Pitcher - Toad Ramsey

Relief Pitcher - Ken Raffensberger

Ivie at third is a bit of a cheat - he played fewer than 100 games at third over an 11 year career - but my next best option was a guy named Vern Morgan, who put together 17 games at third over two seasons with the Cubs in the 1950s (the highlight of a career that saw him play in the minors for 15 seasons, mostly at the A and AA level).

I wound up employing a similar cheat for relief pitcher. Raffensberger is actually the winningest pitcher on my list, six ahead of Ramsey. But he also has the third-most saves with 16 (the leader has a whopping 29), and his ERA and WHIP are much better than the two guys with more saves. So I'm going with him.

Book Log 2011 #2: The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson and Martin Dugard

This is billed as a "non-fiction thriller," though you'd not know if from the content, which is blissfully free of citations, source material, or pretty much anything suggestive of the research Patterson says was put into writing this thing.

The book is told in three story lines: one set in Egypt before, during and after Tut's reign, one that follows Howard Carter as he looks for an undisturbed burial site in the Valley of the Kings, and one that follows Patterson himself as he works on solving the murder of Tut.

I suppose Patterson's story line is truly non-fiction, although it pretty much winds up being him playing golf, thinking in his study, and calling Dugard to work on details. The Tut story is pretty much all fiction, as there is blessed little historical account of his reign, and the Carter story line, verifiable as it may be by contemporary accounts, adds nothing to solving the "mystery."

Patterson also gets overtaken by events a bit, as there's recent evidence from CT imaging that the hole in Tut's skull was created during mummifcation rather than during Tut's life (Patterson imagines an accidental head injury that is the original - but unused - method plotters used to kill Tut). Recent DNA studies also undermine the narrative details around Tut's wife, whose mummy was found in another tomb. Patterson has her body fed to crocodiles.

The vibe I get from reading this is that Patterson noticed that Tut's successors were court figures rather than family, and determined that they killed Tut to seize power. How this speculation leads to a "non-fiction thriller" is beyond me.

I can't say I'm a fan of Patterson's style, as it appears he never met three paragraphs he couldn't make into a chapter. I know there's a convention in thrillers to use short paragraphs to build tension and keep people reading, but the way its used here is almost a parody.

Give this one a miss.

With the looming NFL work stoppage, there's been a prevailing attitude that there will be no football next fall. As I was reminded on Facebook (h/t Yostal), as long as Roger Goodell doesn't control the NCAA there will be some football, just not at the (officially) professional level.

Which got me to thinking - what if the NFL replaced each of its teams with the "best" college team that shares its nickname? Here's how I think it'd go:

AFC EAST

University of Colorado Buffaloes for the Buffalo Bills - there are no teams in the NCAA with Bills as a nickname, but as they have a buffalo on their helmet I opted to go with Colorado. Which, really, is trading on sub-.500 team for another.

Jacksonville University for the Miami Dolphins - JU, a FCS team, was nationally-ranked at the end of the season but did not make the playoffs. Which is better than the NFL team, which was out of playoff contention well before the season ended.

University of the Cumberlands for the New England Patriots - OK, I'm kind of breaking the rules here, as the U of C Patriots play in the NAIA. But most of the schools that use Patriots as a nickname don't play football, which seems un-American. George Mason plays club football, otherwise they'd be a shoo-in.

SUNY-Cortland for the New York Jets - only one school uses Jets as a nickname - Newman University - but they don't play football. We could then use its original nickname, Titans, but Tennessee gets to claim that (for what it's worth). The original owners wanted to buy the Chicago Cardinals, but obviously Arizona gets first crack. And as I'm getting sick of this, I went with SUNY-Cortland, which is where the Jets have summer camp. It's actually kind of fitting, as they are also a team with New York in their name that plays in New Jersey (well, in New Jersey Athletic Conference, which is good enough).

AFC NORTH

Benedictine College for the Baltimore Ravens - again, not a common nickname, and the best I could do is this NAIA school from Kansas. There is a NCAA school I could use - Anderson University - but Benedictine seems to have a better team based on their history of conference titles and playoff appearances.

Idaho State University for the Cincinnati Bengals - I was sorely tempted to use the University of Maine at Fort Kent here, but they don't have football (their men's sports: basketball, soccer and nordic skiing). They still may be better than Idaho State, who went 1-10 last season and haven't had a winning season since 2003.

Brown University for the Cleveland Browns - The closest thing to a school using Browns as a nickname is Lehigh University having an alternate nickname of the Brown and White. It's still used to refer to historic teams, but it's not really in current use, so I'm going with the next best option. Which, based on on-field performance, is probably the next worst option when compare to Lehigh. Cleveland gets screwed again.

East Carolina University for the Pittsburgh Steelers - Shockingly, there are no colleges using the Steelers nickname, so as the NFL team originally played as the Pirates, we'll go back to that. And really, that's not such a bad deal compared to the rest of the division.

AFC SOUTH

Tarleton State University for the Houston Texans - one school uses the Texans nickname, and while the school is much closer to Dallas than Houston I'm sure they'll make do. They had a down year this year, but until the NFL's Texans the TSU version has made the playoffs. They even won a game, too.

University of Dayton for the Indianapolis Colts - OK, the Colts pose a problem. There are no schools using Colts as a nickname (which surprised me), and moving to their previous nickname we get... Texans. And it doesn't as we go deeper. The best I can do is Tigers, which a long-ago precursor to the Colts used for one season before merging with the Boston Yanks. So my solution is that as the team can trace itself back to the Dayton Triangles, let's go with the school that's there (as, shockingly, there are no schools using Triangles as a nickname).

Southern University for the Jacksonville Jaguars - I really wanted to go with IUPUI here, but they don't offer football. And if nothing else, they've got a kick ass band.

Illinois Wesleyan University for the Tennessee Titans - there are a handful of schools using Titans as a nickname, but many don't play football. This is the best of the bunch, and all things considered they may even be competitive in this division.

AFC WEST

Boise State for the Denver Broncos - This may be the most perfect fit of all, between the nickname, uniform colors, and familiarity with playing at altitude (Boise being the Half Mile High City). I should be happy about the serendipity, but as I loathe the Denver Broncos I'm not.

Haskell Indian Nations University for the Kansas City Chiefs - no colleges use Chiefs as a nickname (which should prepare you for some sort of wackiness when we get to the Washington Redskins), and I tried to use Ursuline College in Ohio as they're the Arrows (playing off of Arrowhead Stadium). They don't play football. So I figured if you have a team that trades on Native American culture, why not have them represented by actual Native Americans?

Colgate University for the Oakland Raiders - Fitting, as I think Al Davis and William Colgate were frat brothers.

University of New Haven for the San Diego Chargers - The best of a middling bunch, though New Haven was a D2 power briefly in the 1990s when coached by current Dolphins head man Tony Sparano.

NFC EAST

Oklahoma State for the Dallas Cowboys - Once again, a team I despise gets a good NCAA replacement. I'll just have to enjoy the discomfort folks in the Metroplex will experience by being represented by a team from Oklahoma.

Millikin University for the New York Giants - Only one school uses Giants as a nickname - Keystone College - and they don't play football. Thankfully, Milliken uses Big Blue for a nickname, and as that's a common unofficial nickname for the Giants I'm going with it. It also turns out that they play in the same conference as Illinois Wesleyan, which is something I suppose.

Boston College for the Philadelphia Eagles - You can imagine how much I didn't want to make this substitution, but my only other real option was Eastern Michigan, and they've just not played in enough third-tier bowls to justify selection.

Carthage College for the Washington Redskins - Holy crap, there's still a school using Red Men as a nickname? OK, it seems that they've gone from Redmen (using a feather in their athletic logo) to Red Men, a reference to the all-red uniforms of early Carthage teams (they also replaced that pesky feather with a torch). I have a hard time believing the NCAA bought this, but I guess it's just stupid enough to work.

NFC NORTH

Baylor University for the Chicago Bears - They did make a bowl game this year, which I suppose gives them a leg up on Central Arkansas and Coast Guard. Even if in most seasons, games between Baylor and those two schools would likely have been competitive.

University of North Alabama for the Detroit Lions - I badly wanted to go with Columbia here. Both teams are the Lions, both have blue as a main color, and both are very, very familiar with gridiron futility. But I did say I'd go with the "best" team, and I have no doubt that if North Alabama played Columbia, the final score would be 57-0, and not in the Ivy's favor.

Tulane University for the Green Bay Packers - Green Bay presents the opposite problem from the Colts. There are no colleges using Packers as a nickname, and there's no wiggle room to use an historic nickname. The Packers have always been the Packers, no mergers, no moves, nothing. So rather than play around with coaches or whatever, I went with the best team whose nickname started with 'green.' Of course, the perfect substitution for the Packers are the Edmonton Eskimos.

Augustana College for the Minnesota Vikings - I was all set to hand this over to Western Washington, but they've apparently dropped football. I assume Jon Kitna is to blame. I was surprised that this Augustana - located in South Dakota - wasn't the one I was thinking of. That Augustana, in Illinois, won four D3 titles in a row in the 1980s. Still, this Augustana is better than my next option, Portland State, who have won 11 games over the last four seasons. Neil Lomax hangs his head in shame.

NFC SOUTH

Air Force for the Atlanta Falcons - This may be the only time in NFL history where a team can run the triple option and get away with it.

Pittsburgh for the Carolina Panthers - I think if you made this offer to Panthers fans they'd take it, even if there were no lockout.

St. Lawrence University for the New Orleans Saints - Not surprisingly, most of the schools with the Saints nickname are Catholic and not particularly large. It's fair to say that those schools that offer football don't exactly command a lot of media attention. So I went with the school I knew the best, even if it is for hockey. Gary Bettman would approve.

Beloit College for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - I had already typed East Tennessee State in here, but then checked and saw that they don't play football. As an aside, their website touts that the world's oldest person is an alum, as if they had something to do with it. Anyway, I was then going to go with Charleston Southern, except they appear to stink. So it's Beloit, who may be D3 but can at least break even.

NFC WEST

Louisville for the Arizona Cardinals - Like Detroit, there is a team that better fits Arizona's history, and that's Ball State. Both teams enjoyed one recent season of surprising success before returning to their traditional sucking.

Colorado State for the St. Louis Rams - CSU has had some lean years of late, but I'm fairly sure they're still better than Fordham or URI. Perhaps we could schedule a round-robin just to make sure.

Gustavus Adolphus for the San Francisco 49ers - Two schools use the 49ers nickname - Long Beach State and UNC-Charlotte - and neither play football. So I tried to work off the Gold Rush angle, and the one school that actually uses Gold Rush as a nickname - Xavier University in New Orleans - also doesn't play football. So I figured I'd go with the school that had the oddest gold-inspired nickname, and thus wound up with the Golden Gusties of GAU.

Wagner College for the Seattle Seahawks - Because UNC-Wilmington doesn't offer football and Salve Regina's team is somewhat less successful than Wagner's.

Man, I should have broken this up by conference. I was going to try to predict playoffs, but I'm just going to leave well enough alone.