You've Gotta Love Sports!

On Competitive Balance

2010-05-17T17:00:00.002-04:00

Keith and I were engaging in a text conversation about competitive balance and MLB versus English Premier League soccer. We were discussing the news that Chelsea is interested in Liverpool striker Fernando Torres when I made the following throwaway comment: "well, EPL is the original MLB when it comes to money. Although MLB has more competitive balance."

Well, I only thought it was a throwaway comment. Keith of course hates baseball, so this led to a discussion, which led me to this thought:

How do you frame competitive balance?

What defines it?

Keith and I, two avid sports fans, two guys keenly interested in world futbol, came from this concept in totally different directions. I am going to lay both lines of thought out briefly, although I probably won't do Keith's justice.

I argue that MLB has more competitive balance than not only the EPL, but at least comparable to every other American sports league. I think this is true for these reasons:

baseball has had many winners in the last decade - 8 in 10 seasons if my memory serves correctly (Yankees-2000, Dbacks-2001, Angels-2002, Marlins-2003, Red Sox-2004, White Sox-2005, Cardinals-2006, Red Sox-2007, Phillies-2008, Yanks-2009).
baseball also had by my unofficial count 23 of 30 teams that made the playoffs in the first decade of the 21st century (the lone clubs to not make the postseason - Bucs, Reds, Nats, Royals, O's, Blue Jays, Rangers).
baseball has a playoff where anything can happen

Keith's reason against baseball (again, I apologize for any overarching simplicity) was that, in any given year, there are only approximately 5 teams that can win it all. When pressed to name pre-season favorite this year, I would name the following: Yanks, Red Sox (those 2 every year), Rays, Phillies, Cardinals, Twins. I could only name 6, and that might come from having played almost two months already, and it also might come from the way I think about baseball.

In any event, this leads me to the question that I hope will solicit comments - what exactly is competitive balance? How should Keith and I frame this argument?

2010 Minnesota Twins

2010-04-10T12:43:00.003-04:00

I need an outlet to describe my jubiliation after a 5 month advent of sorts. Baseball is freaking here y'all! Without further ado, here are the top five developments in my favorite organization over the offseason that have me busting with anticipation. Busting, Jerry, I'm busting!

5) The Projected Bounceback of Francisco Liriano (Gardy name = Frankie)

I was listening to a Baseball Today podcast featuring Jayson Stark (4/9), who astutely said that out of anyone on the Twins staff, Liriano is the guy who can win on stuff alone. Now, I am a huge fan of Kevin Slowey and Nick Blackburn trying to paint corners and induce soft contact, but there is something sexy about stuff, no? Liriano was so-so last night, putting up a quality start but walking 5 and only striking out 3. I am interested to see if he will dominate, however in June, July and August when that slider is not stifled by the cold midwestern air. On a side note, the jury is very much out on whether he can bounce back mentally from any rough starts in April and May as he seems to be his own worst enemy.

4) Gardy potentially turning his back on Nick Punto Hollywood Hogan style

Minnesota fans can probably think of nothing more unlikely than Ron Gardenhire benching LNP (Little Nicky Punto) in favor of playing Brendan Harris. Gardy is an "aw shucks," "gettin after it," "play your butt off" kind of guy, and in his mind, no one personifies those plucky traits more than LNP. If you want to see diving stops at third, sliding headfirst through first base and some nifty baserunning, than LNP is your guy. Unfortunately, you're going to have many botched sacrifice bunts, pop-ups with one out-man on third situations, and many many routine fly balls to left. In a straight up numbers comparison, Harris seemingly hasn't shown much greater offensive prowess, and has had a similar number of ABs. However, his proclivity for the clutch hit, his potential for 15-20 HR from that number 9 spot and his not tugging at Gardy's shirttail every time the camera pans to him on this bench makes me favor Harris.

3) Umm...Target Field?

Did you hear the Twins have a new ballpark? It doesn't have a huge off-white Teflon roof covering it. The seats face home plate. The concourses are wide enough that you don't have to plan your exit strategy in the sixth inning. For Pete's sake just look at the thing!!! Look at the food!!! I was lucky enough to score tickets to the home opener on Monday (I've never been to a home opener!) and I more excited than this boy.

2) Bye-bye Carlos!

The organization traded Carlos Gomez straight up for J.J. Hardy. I'll let you discover the beauty of this on your own. Let's just say look at the stats in August. You'll understand. You just will.

1) Joe and Denard

Knowing that your club has signed the best overall player in the American League until 2018 is like sitting down to your fifth delectable dinner in a row and just having the satisfaction that you married well and you're going to be having Shrimp pasta dishes and Pork Tenderloin and fine bisques regularly for a REALLY long time. Knowing that you also signed the best kept secret as far as AL leadoff hitters go for peanuts so you can afford the shrimp, pork, and bisque makes your smile grow that much more.

Twins are on the rise baby! Can't Wait...

Football coaches should take more chances

2009-09-17T10:48:00.005-04:00

Only vaguely related but both are interesting reads:

1.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Deconstructing-The-grisly-demise-of-Tressel-Ba?urn=ncaaf,189322

"Jim Tressel is a dinosaur, and like all dinosaurs, not like for this world. And if I was the multi-talented Terrelle Pryor, stuck in the straitjacket of the OSU offense, I'd be thinking long and hard about where I might transfer to."

2.
http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/a-new-study-on-fourth-downs-go-for-it/
and
http://www.advancednflstats.com/2009/09/4th-down-study-part-1.html

------------------------

The connection? Obviously there are other factors at play, but Pete "big balls" Carroll has beaten Jim Tressel yet again. Was anyone surprised?

I know this is oversimplifying it, but its a blog: why don't coaches go for it more often on 4th down? Why don't they generally take more risks, when they see coaches like Carroll and Belichick (I know, he's a cheater) succeed year in and out?

My guess is two factors:
1. Lack of job security. If you lose a game because you took a risk other coaches normally don't take, it's easy to point to that moment and say you blew it. If you played conservative and lost, its too easy for the fans and media to say "they were just outplayed."
2. Generally, statistical analysis in football is behind baseball at this point. I'm not sure if this will change, but there is a fairly conservative organizational culture around football, especially in the NFL I'd argue.

Dying a thousand deaths

2009-09-12T19:34:00.002-04:00

My wife doesn't understand how I watch football. She doesn't get the therapeutic value of going over every possible bad and worse scenario that could transpire for your team over the course of a game. She doesn't see that a blow to the gut isn't as bad if you see it coming. And if your envisioned bad scenario doesn't play out, and your team is victorious...it's like you've won twice over.

So I watch. And I bite my nails, and I assume the worse. All to soften the ultimate blow of defeat, and to enhance the elation of victory. That is why I die a thousand deaths during the course of a game, and thousands upon thousands of deaths in the course of a season.

But when my beloved Irish lose 38-34 in the Big House, after erasing an 11 point deficit, and taking a 3 point lead on the Statue of Liberty play, only to give up the winning TD with 11 seconds left, against a freshman QB well...Well you just feel dead inside.

Go Giants.

It's Official

2009-09-07T23:23:00.001-04:00

The Pirates have clinched their 17th consecutive losing season. This is noteworthy, and not simply because this blog is somewhat Pittsburgh-centric. Their string of futility is now etched in the record books.

So, my optimism at the future of the Pirates isn't only based on me being a glass-half-full guy. During no point in the past decade was I under any illusion that the Pirates were headed in the right direction. That is until now.

During the past two seasons they've drafted well and have traded aging, expensive talent for good prospects. While I believe 2010 will be another record setting year with their 18th consecutive losing season, I think that streak will break in 2011 with a team right around .500. I'll go on the record predicting an 82 win season in 2011. Maybe that is the glass-half-full part speaking. Who knows.

Josh, Chad. Your thoughts?

One of those times when you just scratch your head and say "really"?

2009-09-03T01:02:00.008-04:00

So like most people who work long hours, I catch the headline stories in sports in various ways. Sure, I check the major websites for the headlines, but many of us know where to get the real news: PTI.

For those who are unfamiliar, PTI is short for Pardon The Interruption and is a show where two longtime journalists shout absurdly at each other as if there was a relationship between volume and the coherence of a particular view. I try to catch it on my DVR because while I may already know what tonight's pitching matchups are, PTI is great at informing me of who the next athlete to have a breakout reality tv series will be. As someone who doesn't watch reality tv, I need Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser to remind me that truth really is stranger than fiction.

During today's episode, viewers learned that Tom Brady has joined the ranks of Tiger Woods and LeBron James and now has a logo - often a smart business move. Are you ready to see what the brilliant graphic designers Tom Brady hired came up with?

Like the aforementioned Lebron James, Brady was able to integrate both his initials and his number into the logo. So, you may be asking, how does a guy like Brady end up with a logo that looks like the Wal-Mart knock-off brand of the real athletic gear you really wanted when you were a kid. Trust me. I dealt with my fair share of knock-off stuff as a kid and can spot those cheesy logos in a second. And this is one of them.

So, how does Tom Brady, who without the heroics of David Tyree, would have an enviable collection of four Super Bowl rings, the guy who can pose in GQ without losing his credibility as a man's man, the guy who perfectly pulls off the stylish haven't-shaved-in-three-days stubble, the guy who's married to the stunning Gisele Bundchen, the guy who women want to be with and men want to be - how can a guy so suave come up with a logo that looks like it belongs on the shorts of an unwashed child who can't afford Nike shorts because dad spent the month's rent money on lottery tickets?

I have no answers for this riddle. Personally, I think Pam Beesly, who failed out of the Pratt Institute, could have fashioned a better logo in half the time for a fraction of the cost. But maybe I'm mixing fiction and reality with that assertion.

The bottom line is, will this embarrassingly bad logo affect Tom Brady's play? If he struggles, I'll insist it's the logo that's weighing him down, not the shoulder or the knee. But that's just me.

Confessions of an NBA Scorekeeper

2009-08-28T00:19:00.002-04:00

Here is a great article over at deadspin.com.

We often think of stats and box scores as sacred. We study them every morning either in the paper or on computer screens. The buzz at the water coolers is about who kept the double-double streak going last night. How many assists did Chris Paul have?

It's incredibly deflating to hear how subjective all of this is. Stat-taking is subject to the whims of the stat-keepers who, apparently, have little to no oversight. Double digit rebounds and assists are sexy and are encouraged from the top down.

Here are some highlights:

"Teams have a legitimate, vested interest in stats being inflated, just like the league does," Alex says. "Ten assists is way more interesting than eight assists. As humans, those are more appealing and interesting numbers. The NBA benefits and every team benefits from bigger, flashier numbers."

......

As Alex remembers it now, Olajuwon had a double-double with nine blocks at some point during the fourth quarter. "Someone in management came to me and said, basically, Thou shalt give Hakeem Olajuwon a triple-double. Come hell or high water, he's getting a triple-double. I'm like, uh, OK."

.......

He goes on to admit that one night he gave Nick Van Exel 23 assists, just for the fun of it. He was blown away not only by the lack of reprimand, but by the attention Van Exel got for it. The court side commentators praised him for his adept play. The national media went nuts over his huge game.

It's a good read and at least a little surprising.

Hope for the hopeless or It's time to blow up the Cubs

2009-08-27T23:24:00.006-04:00

The title for this post depends on your allegiances. For those teams that are clinging to hope, this is good news:

Chicago Cubs pitchers Rich Harden and Aaron Heilman have been claimed off waivers by contending teams, according to industry sources.

Great stuff, but what else do we have here?

An American League source with knowledge of the process indicated the Minnesota Twins may be the team that claimed Harden. He will become a free agent after the 2009 season.

I like the sound of that, but I'll believe it when I see it. The Twins don't have a great track record of making big acquisitions like this.

Going into the season, the Twins pitching staff was seen as its strength but it has been ravaged by injuries and shattered expectations. Harden would be huge.

Now if you're a Cubs fan this is clearly the front office waving a white flag. I know the new owners are a little cash strapped, but the way to fix that isn't by selling off the good parts. The problem is they have so much money sunk into the wrong people - Fukudome, Zambrano, Soriano, Bradley. They're going to have to find a way to win with those salaries on the books.

Speaking of Bradley, the same guy who it took all of what, three weeks to quit talking to the Chicago media now is complaining about Cubs fans. My heart bleeds for you, Milton. I pulled up Bradley's stats today and almost fell off my chair. Here we have a middle of the lineup guy making $10 million a year and he has 35 RBI. That's only seven more than Nick Punto!

Bradley's teammate, Alfonso Soriano is used to being booed. He's making $17 million this year, has an on base percentage under .300, and plays left field as if he's wearing ice skates. His response to Bradley? Deal with it:

"You cannot listen to those fans because they pay their money, they can do whatever they want. But if you listen, they want to do it more," Soriano said. "But if you ignore them like `I don't care,' they want to get tired."

You Play to Win the Game! (Maybe)

2009-08-26T21:48:00.003-04:00

Am I the only person watching the recent win streak by the Pirates but wishing that it were a losing streak?

A week or so ago I read an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review by Joe Starkey talking about how Pirate fans should be rooting for the Bucs to lose and lose a lot. The rational for all this losing is to get a shot at drafting baseball golden boy Bryce Harper. I found myself thinking “yeah, why not?” I could handle another 2 months of losing. I’ve swallowed it for 17 years.

There is an example of a sports team that worked this formula to perfection, the 1983 -84 Penguins. Towards the end of the 83-84 season the Penguins were near the bottom of the NHL standings when they lost 15 of their last 18 games. GM Eddie Johnston called up almost every available minor leaguer and sat down large portions of the starting lineup. The end results were a narrow last place finish over the New Jersey Devils by 1 game, drafting Mario Lemiuex in the 1st round, back to back championships, a new owner of the franchise, and eventually a brand new state of the art hockey arena. Had the Pens won 2 more games that season I’m guessing Mellon Arena hosts Hanna Montana, Disney on Ice and not much else. To this day when Johnston is asked about doing his best to finish in last place he grins, winks, and says something along the lines of “We tried to win every one of those games.”

I’m not suggesting that if the Pirates don’t draft Harper then in 25 years PNC Park will sit empty. I’m not even saying the Bucs need Harper to compete in the next 3 – 4 years. But I am asking myself, is it so bad to think “Lets go Reds, Royals, Nationals, and whoever is playing the Pirates!” Is that wrong?

In case your head has been in a hole

2009-08-25T22:51:00.005-04:00

or you've been otherwise occupied, after helping to load the bases in the ninth inning with two clumsy plays, Philadelphia Phillies utility guy Eric Bruntlett pulled off an unassisted triple play for just the 15th time ever on Monday night.

These are rare treasures as they're far rarer even than perfect games - there have been 18 of those.

Of the 15 unassisted triple plays that have been pulled off, all have occurred at second base. As our newest contributor, Chad pointed out, it can really only occur either at second or at third under extremely bizarre circumstances.

What's even more remarkable than the rarity of this play is how often they've occurred of late. Since 2000, we've seen five unassisted triple plays including one every year for the past three years.

I'll leave you with this. Prior to Eric Bruntlett's gem, the last person to pull off this feat was Asdrubel Cabrera of the Cleveland Indians. If that isn't a reason for you to name your firstborn "Asdrubel", I don't know what is.

Tearful Favre bids fans adieu

2009-08-21T09:30:00.004-04:00

Don’t ask me how I got this, but I recently gained access to an archive of future AP articles. I vowed I would only use this access for good. I refused to pull a Biff from “Back to the Future” and profit from it. Anyway, enjoy the compilation.

Monday, September 21, 2009

After winning a close game over the Detroit Lions at Ford Field, the Vikings sit at a perfect 2-0. Recently unretired Brett Favre led the Vikings on a game-winning drive capped off by a 58 yard touchdown run by Adrian Peterson. Favre has totaled nearly 300 yards passing thus far with an impressive total of 2 TD passes, both play-action passes to Tight End Visanthe Shiancoe.
The conquering hero gave Vikings fans across the nation heart palpitations by announcing he was tired from the long game and was going to “retire”. It was later clarified that he said he was going to “retire for the night”, but the microphone cut out.

Rachel Nichols spent Monday, the Vikings off-day, in front of Favre’s rented house in Chaska hoping for some sign that Favre would return to the practice field on Tuesday. As a symbolic gesture, a concerned Zygi Wilf offered his private jet to fly Favre the nearly ten miles to Winter Park, the Vikings practice facility in nearby Eden Prairie. But Favre opted to ride into town in Vikings Head Coach Brad Childress’s black Cadillac Escalade as he had during his grand, first entrance as a Viking.

Tens of thousands of chanting Vikings fans lined the road for miles to greet Favre and wish him well in the coming week….

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Despite jaw-dropping performances in his first three games, Brett Favre saved a little extra for his former team, the Green Bay Packers. He topped 200 yards passing and didn’t throw a single interception – both firsts on the year. He was carried off the field by his offensive line, who has embarrassingly given up a total of three sacks on the year. But Favre continues to motor on despite poor line play.

During the press conference after the game, Favre defended the intestinal fortitude of his disappointing running back, Adrian Peterson. Peterson had to leave the field for a series in the fourth quarter to receive fluids intravenously following his fourth TD run of the game. He apologized after the game saying, “I let the team down, the fans down, and most of all, I let [Brett] Favre down. It won’t happen again.”

Fans rushed out following the game to grab Favre away jerseys in preparation for the upcoming game in Green Bay. Brett Favre jerseys now sell at a rate of 2:1 over the next top seller. Befuddled NY Jets fans are still unsure of what to do with their precious relics.

Monday, October 19, 2009

After rushing out to an impressive 5-0, the Vikings lost a tough game to the visiting Baltimore Ravens 6-3. During the press conference, All-Pro Defensive End Jared Allen let the blame fall on his shoulders: “I thought I was playing my butt off but I guess I failed the team.” Allen, who has a league-high 12 sacks in five games didn’t sugarcoat his assessment of his game: “I flat out stunk it up. I’m going to look at the game film, have an O’Douls, and come back and hopefully get five sacks next game.” Allen promised that he’d turn his game around. If not, he said he would abandon his calf-roping sack celebration. “I don’t deserve to celebrate when I go out and lay an egg like that.”

Middle Linebacker E.J. Henderson wasn’t as critical of Allen. Henderson felt he should have had more than two tackles for losses and fifteen overall tackles in the game. When asked about his health he replied, “I feel great. I broke my foot last year and because I’m pain free, I assumed I was fully recovered. But I guess I was wrong.”

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Vikings quarterback Brett Favre told a reporter that he was suffering from a hangnail on his non-throwing hand prior to Tuesday’s practice at Winter Park. Within the hour, WebMD crashed due to increased traffic from concerned fans wondering if Favre would play on Sunday. All reports indicate that Favre is listed as Probable and should start despite his injury. “What a warrior,” said one admiring teammate…

Monday, November 2, 2009

The news of the Vikings victory over the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field was overshadowed by Brett Favre’s announcement that he was retiring from football following the lopsided win over the ailing Packers. “I feel like I have given the game everything I got,” said a tearful Favre. He also wondered aloud whether he could make it through the grind of the bye week in order to finish the last 8 games of the season. “My heart is in the game. I know I can play and compete, but it’s time. It’s time for me to go home.”

The state of Minnesota declared Monday, November 2, a state holiday and mandated that all flags be flown at half mast for the rest of the year. Plans are already in the works for a Brett Favre statue to stand in the parking lot of the Mall of America. The cities of Bemidji and Brainerd have toppled their Paul Bunyan statues – Saddam Hussein-style and have erected impromptu likenesses of Favre in their place.

Monday, November 16, 2009

An awkward and embarrassing injury has created the unlikeliest of heroes – one who was there only in spirit. Sage Rosenfels, the de facto starting QB of the Vikings following the startling retirement of Brett Favre, let his name be praised, was so nervous about returning under center against the Detroit Lions that he forgot which arm he threw with. During the first drop back of the game, the confused Rosenfels spotted an open receiver, but continued to shuffle his feet, “…trying to remember what felt right,” explained Rosenfels after the game. The Lions defensive line converged on him, making a “Detroit Lions sandwich,” declared Lions defensive end, Jason Hunter.

Even without the presence of their top two quarterbacks, the Vikings managed to pull off the victory. Vikings head coach Brad Childress gave the game ball to the absent Favre. “Brett Favre influence on this team continues in his absence. We couldn’t have won the game without him.”

A miserable Rosenfels speculated that he’d be back on the field by the end of the season. “Crazy as it sounds, we have to learn how to win without Favre. That’s all there is to it,” said a sober-faced Rosenfels.
The Vikings take their 8-1 record into Seattle this weekend but their confidence level has never been lower…

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen is reporting that Brett Favre is considering a comeback. Apparently he’s been talking to some close friends about returning to the NFL. Calls to his agent, Bus Cook have not been returned.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

ESPN’s John Clayton is near verifying the claims of colleague Chris Mortensen that Brett Favre is considering a comeback to the NFL. Favre has been seen around the local high school. One observer in his hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi claimed he was “moping around complaining that the high school football season was over and he had no high school kids to throw to”. These comments have not been confirmed.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The blogosphere is abuzz about the return of Brett Favre. It is reported that Zygi Wilf’s private plane is currently in the air on its way to Minnesota. Governor Tim Pawlenty’s office is reporting that the plane has been given clearance to land on the highway in front of Winter Park. President Barack Obama called off a summit with the leaders of Iran and Israel to discuss the heavy, threatening rhetoric between the nations. According to one anonymous aid, the President is “glued to the tv” apparently waiting with bated breath to see if Favre really has returned.

A lifelong Bears fan, he has publicly switched his allegiances, declaring Favre “an amalgamation of Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Henry David Thoreau, and Jesus”. He went on to say, “I know we’ve confirmed that Iran has, uh, attained nuclear status. They have, uh, pointed their weapons at the people of Israel and have a public countdown to launch. But this Favre stuff is, uh, important stuff. The situation in the Mideast is a grave concern to the White House, but we’ll deal with it when this Favre stuff blows over”

Friday, November 19, 2009

Vikings coach Brad Childress has announced that Brett Favre won’t be practicing today either. “He doesn’t need practice,” declared the coach. “Everyone else does, so we’re doing two-a-days both today and tomorrow”. The Minnesota Legislature came back from recess to pass a bipartisan bill that essentially gives the Vikings a blank check to build a new stadium for the Vikings, provided it is appropriately Favre themed.

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who is on pace for a paltry 2,500 yards this year told one reporter, “I just hope I can find a role to help Brett win”.

At Favre’s comeback news conference, he announced that he didn’t want to continue to ask the question, “what if”. “I just had to know if I still had it in me. ”

Stay tuned for more on the season that will be.

MVP: What does it mean anyway?

2009-08-20T21:46:00.004-04:00

Over at FanGraphs, the debate is raging about the AL MVP race. The same question continues to come up every year. Who deserves the MVP award? The most valuable player or the best player on the best team?

Joe Mauer is having one of the best non-enhanced offensive years in recent memory. He's hitting right around .380 and despite missing a month, he's closing in on 30 home runs. The only chink in his armor is his somewhat low RBI total. But we all know that's a bit of an overrated statistic anyway. It really only measures opportunity, and the Twins haven't been getting guys on base in front of Mauer. In fact, the Twins number two hitter is last in the MLB in OPS.

The case for Mauer is simple. Despite the Twins pitching collapse, the Twins are only six games out of first. They're in the bottom half of MLB in terms of OPS by position at 5 out of the 9 offensive positions, but Mauer's OPS is nearly an astonishing 1.100 making the Twins 8th in MLB in overall OPS. Mauer is carrying the team.

Now, the case for Mark Teixiera. He's is having a good year, the Yankees are in first place and are a vastly improved team from last year. But they've also added A.J. Burnett and CC Sabathia so it's debatable whether he's the best player on the Yankees.

So, there are two questions:

1. Mauer or Teixiera?

2. Most valuable or best player on the best team?

Since we're on the subject of Mauer, FanGraphs also has a post on how Mauer's having the best offensive season of any catcher. Ever.

Weigh in. What do you think?

Your high school coach was right after all... The Lakers WOULD be better off without Kobe!

2009-08-19T16:07:00.004-04:00

Wired magazine has this compelling article for those of us who've been waiting for basketball stats-keepers to catch up to baseball's cutting edge analysts. I know this has been keeping you up at night too, right? Um, Ok. But I really have been waiting for this ever since, jaw agape, I received the gospel of selflessness on my father's knee as he regaled me with tales Wooden's UCLA teams. In truth, those of us lucky enough to grow up during the best NBA decade ever (the '80's and you're a tool if you disagree) saw Doug Collins' Bulls get beat every May and Phil Jackson's Bulls win every June. It takes Allen Iverson not to draw the appropriate conclusion.

Now someone has finally gone to the trouble of doing some quantitative analysis as to why good ole' fashioned teamwork really does, well, uh, work.

Now the conclusion seems to follow from the general application of systems analysis principals. It gets more gritty when you factor in defensive matchups, whether Kobe, Allen, whomever, is playing with a big/small lineup, against a big/small lineup, whether possessions are at the end of a quarter, who's in foul trouble, etc. etc. This would seem to be where good coaching comes in. However, the obvious conclusion seems to be that, ceterus pluribus, playing five-man basketball is more effective than playing matchups. Here's the article.

Sorry, Lakers fans, Kobe could be holding your team’s offense back.

Elite players could be taking too many shots for optimal offensive efficiency, according to new mathematical analysis using network theory.

Treating each player like a pathway to get the ball into the basket, a physicist has deduced that the most efficient path to a basket does not always run through star players like Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, or Ray Allen, even though they are better shooters than their teammates.

“The idea that a team could improve after losing one of its best players may in fact have a network-based justification, and not just a psychological one,” wrote Brian Skinner, a physicist at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in a paper posted to the arXiv.org. (Skinner is no relation to the other Brian Skinner, Baylor standout, Los Angeles Clippers power forward and 22nd pick in the 1998 NBA Draft.)

First, Skinner explains how people making the best decisions for themselves can hurt the efficiency of a total system. Let’s say that there are two roads, a highway and an alley shortcut. The alley takes up to ten minutes, but sometimes less depending on traffic, and the highway always takes ten minutes. Individuals realize they could save time by taking the alley, so they do. Unfortunately, when everyone takes the shortcut, it ends up taking the full ten minutes.
By analogy, perhaps, getting rid of Kobe Bryant could actually make things better by dispersing the “cars” (i.e. possessions) more evenly. Offensive balance could reduce “traffic,” making putting the ball in the basket easier.

By analogy, perhaps, getting rid of Kobe Bryant could actually make things better by dispersing the “cars” (i.e. possessions) more evenly. Offensive balance could reduce “traffic,” making putting the ball in the basket easier.

The key assumption is that a player’s real shooting percentage goes down as they take a greater percentage of a team’s shots. Skinner’s stats show this appears to be the case with Allen — and it stands to reason, too. As a player dominates an offense more, the defense adjusts. They double the player, devote more attention to him, and likely deny him high quality shots that are likely to go in. (We might call this the Iverson effect.)

So, if one were to distribute the number of shots a player takes on the basis of their shooting skill, the math says the team’s overall shooting percentage would go down. If Ray Allen takes only as many shots as the rest of his teammates, he will make more of them than he would if he put it up on 40 percent of the possessions.

By distributing shots more evenly, then, the team’s overall shooting efficiency could go up, even if the other players on the team are only average shooters. For the star player, it’s a bit like that old adage, “You’re promoted until you’re incompetent.”

Of course, Skinner’s analysis doesn’t take defense into account and the interplay between the shooting skills of the best players versus the worst players could change the results somewhat, but it will probably add fuel to the barbershop debates of Brooklyn over whether or not the Knicks really would have been better without Patrick Ewing.

College Football List #1

2009-08-19T16:03:00.000-04:00

College football season is right around the corner. This was made clear to me by the headlines recently declaring that my team, the Pitt Panthers, was picked by the media to win the Big East. I had two reactions to this: first, I threw up, and second, I cancelled my season tickets in short order. We can’t have expectations like this; we will fold to a 4-8 season more quickly than President Obama hired lobbyists in his administration.

I am going to take a break from writing about the Bucs to write about college football and why I love it. In fact, I have few loves in life, but two of them are college football, and lists. I love lists, and for the next couple of weeks I’m going to randomly offer you lists about my favorite things in college football. Today we will start with a generic list: The 5 Things I Love about College Football; this list will probably be the subject material for future lists. This can double as the start of a “Why I Like College Football Way More Than the NFL” post, if you want.

Rivalries – every team has them, and they are always sweet. You get one game versus your rival every year, which is different than almost every other sport. That gives you bragging rights for the entire year. Ruining your rivals’ season is just about the best feeling in the world, especially when it happens on their turf.
Rivalry trophies – akin to the first, but a little different. College football teams play rivalry games and collect trophies, like the “Little Brown Jug” or the “Keg of Nails”. These are great trophies, much better than almost any championship trophy (maybe save the Stanley Cup).
Fight songs – seeing your team’s marching band take the field before the game and riling everybody up by playing the fight song is one of the best experiences you can have at a college football game. Singing it after a touchdown is even sweeter.
The Bowl System – its corrupt, rewards teams unfairly, tilted toward the “haves”, and really ancient. And yet, there is something about it that makes me sit down on New Years Day to watch bowl games from 10 a.m. to midnight.
College Gameday – the best preview show for any sport. I love me some Kirk and Corso. They do a good job with the stories, and preview most of the big games of the weekend. When Corso puts on the helmet at the end of the show, its shameless pandering at its absolute best, especially if he gets to fire some type of toy gun.

Well, that’s a good start. What do you like about college football? Be on the lookout for more lists before the season kicks off on September 3rd!

Greatest Defunct Rivalary?

2009-08-18T16:54:00.004-04:00

Josh and I recently got into a debate about some of the great rivalaries of all time, based on an idea I had for this blog. Specifically Dodgers - Giants vs. Red Sox - Yankees became heated (I prefer the former for such a list, he the latter.)

Some of my ideas were all over the place:
- celtic - rangers ("the old firm")
- harvard - yale football/other sports ("the game"...what about oxford/cambridge?)
- celtics - lakers basketball
- army - navy football
- michigan - ohio state football
- olympiacos - panathinaikos basketball/other sports ("derby of the eternal enemies")-
- UNC - duke basketball-
- real madrid - fc barcelona soccer ("el clasico/el classic")
- india - pakistan cricket (most watched game in the world, edging out the super bowl)
- trination rivalary, rugby union
- auburn - alabama
- maple leaves - canadiens
- packers - bears
- texas - oklahoma
- ucla - usc
- usc - notre dame
- hopkins - maryland lacrosse
- various English derbies, etc.

This didn't include individal rivalaries (e.g. Ali-Frazier.)

But the concept was too broad to be workable. So many countries, sports, leagues, metrics (is it based on history? current state of things? passion? violence? even handedness? championship implications? cultural or national implications? iconic moments? and so on.)

It lead me to an easier question -- whats the greatest defunct rivalary?

Is there a better historically great but currently defunct rivalarly by two teams that still exist* than Pitt - Penn State? If so, please name it.

* Therefore you can't name USSR - USA in olympics, Yugoslavia - USSR basketball, Expos vs. Blue Jays, etc.

If only I ran the world

2009-08-18T00:58:00.002-04:00

Every once in a while I get these ideas that I just know are great. But I am nearly always powerless to enact them. During the past offseason I knew that Orlando Hudson would be a perfect fit for the Twins and could be had for below market value. But I had no means to contact Bill Smith, the Twins GM and, as far as I know, no one had handed over the reins of baseball’s finest franchise to me. Well, Hudson ended up signing late in the free agency period for a base salary of $3.4 million. And the Twins ended up getting the worst offensive production out of their second baseman – and number two hitters – out of any team in the league. The Twins could have had a Gold Glove second baseman and a professional hitter for less than Nick Punto and his AAA talent will make per year for the next two years!

I’ve had some other brilliant ideas as well, but since we don’t have the time or space to print them here, I’ll just share one.

It’s tough to compare the collective bargaining agreements in different sports. They all have strong points and they all have weak points. But there’s something we have to acknowledge: the NFL has it figured out in regards to competition. I know there are still owners who have complaints, namely Ralph Wilson, but it’s apparent that teams from any NFL market can compete for a title with two things: a good personnel guy, and a good coach.

Let’s contrast that model with the one in Major League Baseball. MLB has very soft cappish mechanism that imposes luxury tax at a certain level. This level is completely ignored by teams that play in New York, LA, Chicago, and Boston. In fact, the New York Yankees ignore it to such a degree that over the past offseason they signed not the single best free agent, not the top two, but three of the top deals done over the offseason - CC Sabathia (7 years, $161 mil), A.J. Burnett (5 years, $82.5 mil), and Mark Teixiera (8 years, $180 mil). Any other team would see any one of these contracts as a once in a generation deal.

But this is business as usual for the Yankees who are responsible for the highest single-season salary: the prorated $28 mil Roger Clemens received for his performance-enhanced 2007 effort. This was just one offseason after they signed Alex Rodriguez to a contract that entitled him to $275 million over 10 years, ownership of the Statue of Liberty, and the first right of refusal of the virginity of most of the females in the greater New York City area.

And they don’t have to make the tough decisions other big market teams have to make. A few years back the Phillies felt that they couldn’t handle Bob Abreu’s contract so they unloaded him to - who else - the Yankees. Although I could continue for several pages about the massive contracts they’ve thrown at free agents both failed and successful, I don’t want to turn this into a diatribe about the failure of Brian Cashman, the appropriately named Yankees General Manager. The point is that, for a host of reasons, the Yankees not only able to hang onto their own free agents whenever they want, they’re nearly always able to sign whomever they like during the offseason.

Let me stop here and acknowledge that a competitive Yankees team is good for baseball. The resurgence of the Yankees in the mid 90s coincides with the rise of baseball in general (some might attribute the rise to the rise in the use of PEDs, but that’s not the whole story). But I don’t believe that baseball is only well-served when we see matchups like Yanks-Red Sox, Dodgers-Phillies, or Mets-Cubs. Baseball is better served and more fun to watch when teams from any market have a chance at a championship at least once a decade. Of course front office ineptitude, and yes I’m talking about the Lions and the Raiders, can keep a team out of contention for a long time.

What I’m suggesting is that baseball needs to look to the NFL for guidance in how to achieve this. Fans in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati need to know that they’re a good GM away from the playoffs. And once they make the playoffs, they shouldn’t have to sell off their best players for prospects and hope to compete again in ten years.

So, besides my lack of power and influence, what is the biggest impediment to this sort of reform? The union ,of course. The idea of setting a maximum amount of money for a team to spend is anathema to union types. It’s just not part of the way they do business. Unions don’t like compromise – especially when money continues to roll in as it is now. Their inability to make concessions contributed to the fall of the American steel industry and they’re seemingly hell-bent on doing the same to the American auto industry. It’s not a criticism of the unions. It’s just not what they do. They’re out for their workers, not the industry in general.

This is where the utterly brilliant part comes in. They need not make concessions. What makes the NFL’s CBA work is that although they have a salary cap, they also have a floor of what teams must spend. This keeps small market teams from accepting tens of millions in revenue sharing while spending next to nothing on players.

So what I’m suggesting is a soft cap that allows big market teams to spend whatever they choose to spend, but penalizes them in the form of a luxury tax that goes to small market teams in the form of revenue sharing. But the small market teams should be required to spend a minimum that’s much higher than what they’re currently spending. If they choose not to, they should forfeit the revenue sharing money that would come their way. This way the total amount of money spent on players actually goes up. What changes is the wide differential between what small market teams spend and what big market teams spend. The Yankees are currently spending roughly 5.5 times what the team with the smallest payroll is spending. No one can look at this number and say there isn’t something seriously wrong with this. Even a 2:1 proportion would be far healthier than what we have going on right now.

Under this plan, everyone wins. The players win (more $$), the union wins (more $$, stronger game), the fans win (hope). Well, I guess not everyone. Although spending on players has gone up steadily, the dirty secret is that the owners are now making more than ever. This plan would force tight-fisted, small market owners to spend more by mandate. And middle market, tight-fisted owners would spend more because they would know that they’re oh-so-close to contention and would make an extra signing if it would mean a championship.

So wouldn’t it be easy to get the union on board with a plan that would wrench more money away from the owners? One would think. But who knows. I don’t have any more time to think about this right now. I have to feed the unicorn and have a few drinks with my leprechaun before bed.

Ballparks

2009-08-15T00:13:00.009-04:00

Since we're on the topic of ballparks, I'm going to try a Diquattro-style post and throw something out there and ask for comments.

In my view, here's how I see the ballparks of Major League Baseball stacking up. I know I haven't been to all of them so for full disclosure, I'll affix an asterisk next to the ones I've visited. Obviously it's tough to assess parks you've never been to but let's be honest, it's all subjective anyway.

Here's the list with a brief justification for the ranking.

1. Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)* - Hands down the best ballpark around.

2. Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox)- Solid ranking here because of age of ballpark and quirky design

3. PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates)* - You probably wouldn't understand this unless you've been there. Baseball's best kept secret

4. Progressive Field (Cleveland Indians)* - Underrated ballpark. I love "the Jake"

5. AT&T Park (San Francisco Giants)- They did something right with the location and design here

6. Busch Stadium III (St. Louis Cardinals)- This is the stadium I'm most excited to visit next.

7. Dodger Stadium (LA Dodgers)- Only in America can a ballpark that broke ground fifty years ago be considered historic. But a fine stadium nonetheless.

8. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia Phillies)* - I loved this park, but the location hurts here. I don't like the idea of a ballpark village so far from downtown.

9. Petco Park (San Diego Padres)- Looks great. The Western Metal Supply Building out in left, the Park at the Park, and the huge dimensions make this a winner. I can't wait to visit it. Too bad it's not on my way anywhere. I still hate the name though.

10. Miller Park (Milwaukee Brewers)* - I was really surprised at this park. With the retractable roof and the questionable location, I thought for sure I wouldn't like it. But I loved this park!

11. Safeco Field (Seattle Mariners)- This is another that I'm excited to visit. So many things make this a great park.

12. Oriole Park at Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles)* - most people will be shocked at how low I'm ranking this park. I was completely unimpressed by this park. And I visited here the day after I visited the worst park I've ever been to (more about that later) so it should have seemed like the finest park on earth. What's really distinctive about it is that it was an original retro stadium that influenced ballpark design for the next fifteen years after it was built.

13. Citi Field (New York Mets)- From all appearances, this looks like a great ballpark

14. Coors Field (Colorado Rockies)* - See my earlier post. Very nice overall, but largely unremarkable.

15. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City Royals)* - I was shocked that I liked this park. I attended a game during the summer of 2008, in the midst of renovations. The upper concourses had yet to be widened and the outfield now has more seats and less fountains. I loved the experience here even if it appears that George Jetson designed the park.

16. Nationals Park (Washington Nationals)* - best designed ballpark I've ever been to. Poor location, bad view, blasé building materials

17. Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers)- This is likely an unfair ranking for a nice park, but like I mentioned yesterday, there are a lot of great ballparks out there. A nice ballpark can't save a crappy city that has a grand total of 5 Starbucks operating within city limits. That's compared to five in five blocks in most cities.

18. Angel Stadium (LA Angels of Anaheim)- perhaps my view of this ballpark is tainted by the 2002 ALCS. They did a good job renovating. Blah, blah, blah, insert lipstick on a pig reference here.

19. Chase Field (Arizona Diamondbacks)- Looks nice, but I'm never a fan of the retractable roof. It's just unnatural.

20. Ballpark at Arlington (Texas Rangers)* - completely satisfactory but unremarkable. Awful location.

21. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees)- certainly better than the old thing which was mistakenly labelled as a historic park. The renovations in the early 70s turned "the house that Ruth built" into a product of the worst period in baseball stadium history. The new one suffers from a poor location, a view of nothing, and absurd dimensions. I'm confident Jason Tyner could slug 20 home runs in the new park.

22. Minute Maid Ballpark (Houston Astros)- My opinion might change by visiting, but this design was very over-ambitious.

23. Turner Field (Atlanta Braves)- I've never been there, but while it may be a great place to take in a game, I'm overcome by the ugly blue outfield fence and the boring, almost perfectly symmetrical dimensions.

24. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati Reds)- When everyone learns about the Holy Roman Empire in history class, they eventually learn that it wasn't Holy, Roman, or an Empire. Well, here's what everyone needs to know about the Great American Ballpark. It's not great, it's American only because it sits in Southern Ohio, and it's only a ballpark by the crudest definition.

25. Rogers Centre (Toronto Blue Jays)- Do you remember how cool the Skydome was when we were kids? And then we realized how dumb it was for outdoor baseball to be played on artificial turf.

26. Oakland Coliseum (Oakland A's)- Great fans, awful venue. Recently they've been tarping off sections, but that never helps.

27. US Cellular Field (Chicago White Sox)- I'm being generous by ranking this above the dome. This was built around the same time as Camden Yards but is quite the stinker of a park. While Camden Yards is retro, US Cellular is just dumpy. The son of the former owner got it right when he said: "It had everything but a soul."

28. Metrodome (Minnesota Twins)* - The two World Championships won in this building aren't enough to make up for its many deficiencies.

29. Tropicana Field (Tampa Rays)- Yuck. Yeeeeechhh. Bwerl;jkasnzbxcvhuoiwejlrkfsd. What I'm trying to say is that there's nothing positive I can say about this park.

30. Landshark Stadium (Florida Marlins) - When you're last on this list, and you recently changed your name from Dolphin Stadium to a beer marketed by Jimmy Buffett and named after a character portrayed by Chevy Chase on SNL...well, need I go on?

And while I'm at it, let's have a look at the defunct ballparks I've visited:

Comiskey Park - This had the feeling of a baseball shrine that was just a bit past its prime. I saw Sammy Sosa hit a home run for the White Sox.

RFK Stadium - By far the worst. Awful neighborhood. Rusting, terrible stadium. I can't believe a baseball team had to play there this decade.

Scattered thoughts upon visiting Coors Field

2009-08-14T22:34:00.006-04:00

Last Saturday, I attended a Rockies game at Coors Field for the first time. It has one of the best locations of any ballpark I've been to. LoDo of Denver is a great neighborhood.

When building the stadium, they were faced with a decision of orienting the ballpark to view the mountains or the skyline. It's perfectly situated for a dramatic view of the skyline while the mountains are somewhat distant. They chose the mountains and they chose well. What other MLB city has a chance to see mountains from a sports venue? When you have that opportunity, you go for it.

What's so remarkable about the ballpark is that it's wholly unremarkable. It's everything a newish ballpark should be. It has open concourses for a view of the game at any point on the lower-level. It has a small section in center field with plants and rocks native to Colorado. It has a waterfall that turns into a fountain at the beginning of a game, during the 7th inning stretch, and after a home run.

It's a massive park with a full upper deck that starts down the left field line and goes three quarters of the way around the stadium. In straight-away center is the "rock-pile", a section that features four dollar seats.

It has all these features and if it was in competition with Cinergy Field, Fulton County Stadium, The Kingdome, and Shea Stadium, it would be considered among the best ballparks in the country. But with Progressive Field, PNC Park, Safeco Field, and AT&T Park, even wonderful ballparks are entirely average compared to the rest. With the closing of the Metrodome this year, we are left with only a handful of sub par parks: Tropicana Field, whatever they're calling the football stadium in Miami (and there is a new park in the works there), the Coliseum, and the Rogers Centre.

When the average ballpark is a 4 out of 10, the 8s shine. When most parks are 8-10s, the 8s are average, and that is great for baseball. Not every ballpark can pull off a perfect 10, and that's ok. But we now have a lot of ballparks that provide a very enjoyable experience and that's a great thing for fans.

I do have one complaint though. Baseball has this racket where they can charge different rates for different games. We just happened to go to a game when the Cubs were in town. This, apparently, gives the Rockies license to charge an extra 10 bucks per seat. That's crap.

5 in 5 out

2009-08-10T21:13:00.003-04:00

History suggests that every NFL season, 5 teams make the jump from also-rans the previous season into the playoffs. That means that 5 playoff teams from the previous season miss out on postseason play. By the nature of the case, it is notoriously difficult to predict which teams will make the jump and which will miss out. But unlike our patron saint, George Costanza, here at the youvegottalovesports blog, we invite a good challenge. So I'm going to make my picks about which 5 2008 non-playoff teams will make the playoffs this year, and which 5 playoff teams will miss out.

Just as a reminder: the 12 2008 Playoff participants by conference were:

Titans
Steelers
Dolphins
Chargers
Colts
Ravens

Giants
Panthers
Vikings
Cardinals
Falcons
Eagles

Now to my picks:

5 in:
Patriots
Jets
Bears
Seahawks
Saints

5 out:
Dolphins
Titans
Vikings
Cardinals
Falcons

What are your picks? What do you think of mine?

More On The Bucs (What Else???)

2009-08-04T17:59:00.003-04:00

Sorry if I seem to be obsessive writing about the Bucs. I'm just more excited about this team than I have been since 1992 (damn you, Frank Cabrera!).

I have a piece ready in a day or two about the 2010 Bucs, but read this from Tim over at Buccofans.net. This is an excellent read that pinpoints the start of the slow rebuilding process (Winter 1999!) and how it can speed up quickly. It also lists an 8 man lineup and 5 man rotation for 2011 that has me positively giddy.

http://www.buccofans.com/2009/08/after-deadline-in-beginning-there-was.html

Rebuilding the Bucs

2009-07-31T11:28:00.002-04:00

One of a negative Pirate fan’s greatest weapons in his mind is to say the following: “…same old Bucs. We do the same thing every year. Trade the good players away for minor leaguers. I’m not going to follow them anymore.”

This is the type of criticism that I hate, because it usually comes reflexively without looking at the facts of the situation. To counter these claims, we need to start with a couple of salient points about how to win baseball games in a big way. Here is how you have to win in the MLB:

Drafting and development is the key. You have to field a team of mostly homegrown players.
Give the kids time in the majors to either sink or swim. You need to see what you have with what you’ve drafted and developed.
After you’ve seen what you have, fill in the holes. This can be done through free agency or trades. The trade aspect is why you have to continually draft and develop well.
Stay away from bad contracts. Perhaps much easier said than done.
Keep your stars but choose wisely!

That’s it. That’s how you win. These steps are magnified for small market teams; the smaller the market/payroll, the more important these are. Now, let’s compare the Pirates performance in these ways under Dave Littlefield and Neal Huntingdon.

Drafting and development – Littlefield’s failure in this key area is why the Bucs are in a position where they have to rebuild. First look at his first round picks. The only ones currently with the team are Paul Maholm and Andrew McCutchen. The Cutch pick was out of character for Littlefield; he was a high schooler with a lot of upside. The Maholm pick was more in line with his philosophy; college arms with low ceilings. Maholm represents the only success among these college arms; Bryan Bullington and Daniel Moskos represent the worst of these decisions. He also missed on Neil Walker (perhaps being blinded by the fact that Walker is a local product). Neal Huntingdon has only been in charge for two drafts. However, in his first draft he showed a willingness to go for upside and to pay overslot for top talent. This draft featured Pedro Alvarez as the top pick (who has been tearing it up at AA Altoona in July), but also contained lower round signability guys like Robbie Grossman, Quinton Miller and Wesley Freeman. All in all, the Bucs spent almost $10 million on the 2008 draft signees (which ranks in the top 5 in history). This year, the Bucs went even more extreme in the draft, taking a low risk, low upside guy at #4 overall (Tony Sanchez) in the hopes of spreading even more money around in the later rounds. They drafted a bunch of high upside high school arms like Trent Stevenson (signed away from LSU), Zach Von Rosenburg (currently committed to LSU), and Colton Cain (Texas). Allowing the draft budget to be the same as 2008, and giving the $2.5mm slot deal to Tony Sanchez, that leaves around $8 million for the Bucs to spend on getting these guys. It is important to get young arms en masse, because young arms routinely fail, all the time. The more arms you get, the more chances you have to succeed, and the more upside they have, the better chance you will unearth a star or two. It has to be said that Huntingdon is a big improvement over Littlefield in this area.
Letting the kids play – Under Littlefield, the Bucs were famous for misevaluating talent and pulling the plug way too early on experiments. Nate McLouth sat on the bench for 2 years before the Huntingdon/Russell combo realized he deserved a full time chance. They ruined Zach Duke when Jim Tracy came aboard. Craig Wilson saw sporadic playing time for the likes of Raul Mondesi and Jeromy Burnitz. The tone under Huntingdon has changed dramatically. McCutchen was given a full blown opportunity at the MLB level once McLouth was traded; he has run with it and proven that he can be part of the core of the next great Bucs team. Young guys Snell and Gorzelanny were given plenty of time to sink or swim; they sunk. Steve Pearce and Lastings Milledge will play every day for the rest of the year. These are the kinds of things that will hasten the process of building a model organization.
Filling in the holes – Huntingdon hasn’t reached this point yet, so he can’t be judged. But lets illustrate what he has to “live up” to. Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa, Chris Stynes, Raul Mondesi, and Matt Morris were just some of the guys that Littlefield handed big money to. For those Bucs fans that complain about payroll, wouldn’t you rather spend the money when McCutchen needs to sign a long term deal in 2012 than spend it on these chumps? The answer to this, if you are serious about winning, has to be yes.

Rebuilding a franchise takes a lot of effort, and it is vastly unpopular. That ultimately is why Cam Bonifay and Dave Littlefield never did it. Neal Huntingdon is one of the 3 most unpopular people in Pittsburgh right now, but he did the right thing. Trading the mediocre pieces we had right now for the best we could get would help speed up the process of rebuilding. Targeting young arms in large numbers is a great strategy to get some quality big league arms. Another strong trend is getting players who were previously well-regarded but for some reason cast aside and undervalued by their previous organizations (Milledge, Gorkys Hernandez, Jeff Clement). With these trends, plus his proven proclivity for taking reasonable risks in the draft, means that Huntingdon is doing things the right way. Some moves will succeed, probably more will fail, but the plan is being executed, and that is the important thing right now. It is certainly different than anything else attempted in these 17 shameful years of losing.

Athletes and Twitter go together like....ammonia and bleach

2009-07-30T23:52:00.006-04:00

And anyone who had high school Chemistry knows that can be a lethal combination.

Twitter is something that has exploded in popularity and we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg here. There are plenty of more famous or more controversial tweets out there, but I'll share a few that are of the type that have to drive coaches nuts.

These gems come from one Visanthe Shiancoe, who is best known for revealing a little more than he intended last season following a big win for the Vikes. If you don't know what I'm talking about, feel free to google his name and see what you find.

Anyway, on the first day of training camp, here was his first notable tweet:

Here we go with the meetings again..the first week highlights fundamentals. So boring but essentail

I'm sure Brad Childress is thrilled to hear that he has players that are bored.....on the first day of camp. But wait, there's more!

Zzzzzz zzzzz zzz zzz (in meetings) lol.. Introducing the staff

But somewhere along the line, he acquired a conscience.

My earlier tweet with the"zzzzzzzz's" was concerning an administrative meeting and not a teammeeting

But don't worry, he assured us there's more hilarity/coaching headaches to come:

Don't worry I got you tweet world.. Allll camp!

Ortiz and Ramirez: Cheaters

2009-07-30T13:52:00.003-04:00

The New York Times is reporting today that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz failed the "anonymous" drug test done in 2003. This was the same test result that was leaked that revealed that A-Rod truly was A-Fraud.

Is it me, or is this the worst kept secret we've seen in a while? The MLBPA is a very powerful union, one that was assured these tests would not only be anonymous, they would be destroyed. How did they allow this to happen?

At this point, the guys who have been outed have to call for the rest of the names to be revealed, just to make them look a little, uh, better, right?

Response to Jarv, Part 2

2009-07-30T04:23:00.004-04:00

If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that as the trade deadline approached that the Red Sox would be looking for pitching, I would have said you were crazy.

At the beginning of the year it appeared that what the Red Sox did have was pitching. They had the best starting rotation in the bigs from top to bottom with Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, John Lester, Brad Penny, and Tim Wakefield. And they had depth with Justin Masterson, Clay Buckholz, and first ballot Hall of Famer John Smoltz waiting in the wings.

Pair that with a shut-down bullpen featuring veterans Hideki Okajima and Manny Delcarmen, flamethrowing newcomer Daniel Bard (if you haven't had a chance to see this guy pitch, you're missing out) with Jonathan Papelbon slamming the door at the end and you have a wonderful pitching scenario.

Well, that was then and this is now. Beckett and Lester have been as great as expected but Penny has been inconsistent. Daisuke is arguing that Japanese have different shoulder anatomy. Even reliable Wakefield is on the DL. And Smoltz hasn’t returned to form.

What good is a stellar bullpen when your starting pitching has already given your opponent an insurmountable lead?

The Red Sox have been forced to sit idly by as the Yankees have roared past them. I don’t know if I’ve ever said this, but the AL East race will be an interesting one to watch this year.

Will the Red Sox pitching prove to be as stellar as earlier advertised or will the Yankees find themselves the de facto champs of the East? Time will tell.

What started as a comment has turned into a post

2009-07-30T03:23:00.006-04:00

Jarv, what a great entry. So much to comment on. I started typing a comment and it became a post.

I've been chanting the name Freddy Sanchez around the house hoping that just wanting it enough would result in a trade. This has done nothing good for my sanity nor for that of my wife.

But instead the Giants were able to get him straight up for the fourth best prospect in their minor league system. Are you telling me the Twins couldn't match that? I very nearly sent Bill Smith an extremely short email expressing my disgust. But part of me wants to be welcome at Twins games for the next sixty years or so.

A pox on you, Bill Smith. Signing Joe Crede doesn't redeem the bonehead Santana trade, the Matt Garza (ALCS MVP)and Jason Bartlett (currently 3rd in AL in hitting) for Delmon Young and Brendan Harris trade, or giving $8.5 million to a guy who wouldn't make the Washington Natinals and refuses to quit sliding head first into first base.

The Twins are getting an atrocious .505 OPS from their second baseman. If that doesn't demand a move, I don't know what does.

Even a sweep of the hated White Sox doesn't improve my mood regarding the Twins decision to stand pat - unless you count signing 39 year old Mark Grudzielanek to a minor league deal as a significant move.

Trading Deadline Special: AL East

2009-07-29T20:18:00.003-04:00

One of the problems with having a limited amount of contributors (and an even more limited amount who actually post—I’m pointing at myself here) is the problem you run into of sharing fan bases. I can think of a few of our beloved staffers who bleed Black and Gold. I seem to share a good deal of teams in common with the Gentleman from South Dakota. Such is the case here and while I am much more knowledgeable in all things AL Central, in the attempt at fair coverage (although this division gets more press than Lindsay Lohan…wait where has she gone?) I will pontificate on the trade issues affecting the AL East.

I once had a love affair with New York Yankees. It was torrid. It was illicit. It seemed bandwagon-influenced, but rest assured it was geographically based, and thus legit to enter and leave that relationship. Repeat I am not a Bandwagon Jumper. If you have doubts, please read rules 18-20 of Bill Simmons’ rules on fan loyalty. Anyway, I have not followed this division much lately, so I figured what better way to inform myself of its state in general than taking in an interdivisional game? Here’s what I learned about trades in the AL East and other things from watching the ESPN telecast of the Yankees vs. Rays:

--The Roy Halladay front is all quiet. Personally, I think the Phillies-Indians trade made both teams better and the Phillies were wise to go after Lee rather than give up too much to get Halladay. Really, you have to think the Fightin’ Phils have the best shot to win the NL again…getting away from the AL East…dangit!

--I miss Matt Garza. Wait Derek Jeter just tripled to open the game…I don’t care…Garza’s stuff is electric and Delmon Young is now riding the pine in Minnesota full time behind Carlos Gomez and his sub-.650 OPS…AL EAST, AL EAST…c’mon Aaron, you can do it!

--By the way, allow me to throw in a plug for Jim Beam sourmash bourbon-style whiskey. A good sipping whiskey is to baseball what Jenny is to Forrest…may be a stretch, but I’m enjoying myself.

--Jason Bartlett is hitting .332 (3rd in AL) and he’s hitting 9th? Is the Rays’ lineup really that good?

--Steve Berthiaume intrudes with a Breaking Trade Update…Freddy Sanchez is going to the Giants for some minor league prospects…once again, I’m caring none for the AL East right now and only cursing Twins GM Bill Smith and pouring another glass of J.B. How can we do nothing again? Even as Morneau, Nathan, and even Mauer (very soft-spoken) are pitching fits to Star Tribune reporters daily. How are we going to re-sign Mauer after next season when management shows no commitment to be anything but an 88-win team every year? Actually, there are lots of retorts to this, which could jumpstart many a lively discussion. There have been many teams who’ve screwed themselves for years going after that “one extra piece.” Should Nathan and the M and M boys be questioning their middle infield instead? Perhaps their own crew of starting pitchers who were shaping up to be a very good young group last year, but who have been middling at best this year? Perhaps their over-hyped aging adolescent manager? Is blaming the front office at the trade deadline really the wisest take as a fan? I don’t know, but it is fun…

--Steve B. cuts to the A’s-Red Sox only to see Brad Penny get rocked for 5 runs in his first 37 pitches. With an unhappy Matsusaka (stressed out because of an off-day throwing schedule? Please…) and an injured bullpen, it will be interesting to see if Boston does anything to bolster their pitching in the next couple of days. Penny was on the block as recently as last week (prime candidate for a trade being that he only signed a one-year deal in the off-season) but I can’t find anything that suggests anything is brewing tonight…although really, if you need pitching are you really going to get rid of Brad Penny when you seem primed for another post-season run? I think not.

--Jeter just put down a beautiful bunt single for his second hit of the night…he’s hitting .325 with 11 HR this year (.855 OPS)…Nice production out of my shortstop, especially for one in his 14th season (I know he’s a below average defender). Speaking of needs for the Yankees…I know they are perpetual buyers, but I don’t see them making a trade for another bat at least…they have the best 1-9 in the game…and with the Phils (Koke and Hughes...sounds like a law firm) coming on strong in the bullpen with Rivera, and with 4 strong starters (Joba, Andy Pettitte, Burnett, and Sabathia) it’s hard to believe they’ll make a big trade…maybe one more bullpen arm if anything.

--Steve Phillips is talking like the Red Sox or Yankees are still trying to put together a package for Halladay, but I can’t believe the Jays would trade him within the division…I’m saying the Sox have more of a chance of doing this if it were to happen, but look for him to go out West if he’s going to go anywhere…Phillips is stressing right now that the AL East is a two-team race between the Yanks and Sox…he doesn’t think the Rays can hang in…they’re under-performing this year, but is a line-up that features B.J Upton, Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria, and Carlos Pena out of it just yet?...Yeah, just checked the standings and they’re 6.5 back…thought they were closer than that…with Boston, Seattle, and Texas all in good shape for a potential wild card, it will be hard for TB to overcome…it looks as though they’re more than one piece away at this point. Jon Paul Morosi and Ken Rosenthal are reporting as of tonight that the Rays may be a “long shot” to try and get Halladay. But they are also mulling getting some more bullpen help, just after they considered moving relievers yesterday…once again doesn’t seem like they are just one piece away.

--As I am writing this, I see that Yanks’ Brian Cashman has in fact gone after some pitching, but in the manner I expected…taking a flier on Jason Hirsh from the Colorado Rockies and re-assigning him to AAA Scranton-Wilkes-Barre. Don’t know what Cashman sees in Hirsh as he’s 6-7 with an ERA of 6.66 this year pitching for the AAA Colorado Springs. They only gave up a player to be named later, and upon further research, it looks like they’re only doing this for depth in the organization to protect against injury down the stretch.

--The Orioles suck and have sucked for a long time. I don’t feel like wasting time researching their needs, which are many. Besides, I’m teaching the second installment of my Faith and Film class at church next Friday and I need to prep for it. Peace out baseball lovers!

How could we be so wrong?

2009-07-29T17:46:00.002-04:00

How could we be so wrong? I remember the jubilation in Minnesota when the Timberwolves acquired Stephon Marbury for Ray Allen. We boldly proclaimed that he, paired with Garnett, would be the next Stockton and Malone. After watching these videos along with his pitiful play over the past five years or so, I'm utterly speechless.

Reflecting on today's MLB trades

2009-07-29T17:06:00.005-04:00

While many eyes in the sports world are focused on the opening of training camps, and Rachel Nichols is still camped out on Brett Favre’s lawn, I can’t bring my attention away from the trade rumors in baseball. Yesterday, I called for the Twins to trade for Freddy Sanchez. Today, it appears that the Giants may be the closest to acquiring the doubles-hitting second baseman. But Twins GM, Bill Smith, always plays very close to the vest and we only hear about trades involving the Twins after the transaction has occurred.

The Phillies, after kicking the Roy Halladay’s tires for weeks, have acquired the next best thing in Cliff Lee. Lee, after all, is the reigning Cy Young award winner and didn’t come at the expense of Kyle Drabek or any of the other top prospects the Blue Jays were demanding. No, Cliff Lee isn’t Roy Halladay. But he’s darn good and has to make the Phillies the favorite to win the pennant.

That’s not a shot at the Dodgers and their wonderful, young position players. But Philly now has the pitching to go along with that extremely potent offense. Jamie Moyer and Pedro Martinez are question marks going down the stretch, but Lee gives them the depth required for a deep run in the playoffs. And here’s a stat to note – Cliff Lee has a career record of 12-2 with a 3.18 ERA against NL teams.

So if that is one of the better trades we’ve seen this season – one that benefits both teams – we also saw a trade today that goes down as one of the worst and most one sided (if that isn’t being redundant) of the season. Pittsburgh unloaded troubled pitcher Ian Snell and the nimble Jack Wilson and his $7.25 million contract to Seattle for a slew of prospects. I’ve followed the Pirates since 2002 and instantly was a Wilson fan. Perhaps it was for his stunning defensive plays, or maybe it was for his goofy answers to questions that they’d play on the scoreboard between innings. It was most likely a combination of both.

It’s sad to see him go, but let’s be real about who Jack Wilson is. He’s a great defensive shortstop, but has a career .687 OPS. He’s not exactly a threat offensively and despite not losing any defensive range with age, he’s due to make $8.4 million next year. This is a great trade for the Pirates. They got a pile of prospects in exchange for an emotionally troubled pitcher and a light-hitting web gem machine.

But all this begs the question: what the heck are the Mariners thinking? They’re 7.5 games out of first place and trade for…drum roll…an aging, expensive defensive shortstop? Teams just don’t do this. Why take on contracts of guys who can’t put you over the top? The Mariners won’t contend this year. They don’t have the talent of the Rangers or the deep pockets of the Angels.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the Mariners war room today. That would be ripe for an SNL skit.

Are more moves to come for the Mariners? They already have Carlos Silva, in one of the worst contracts on record right now, wrapped up for four years at $48 million. Perhaps they’ll trade for the remaining years on Barry Zito’s contract (averaging $18 million a year with an ERA over 4.50 since joining the Giants). I could go mining for other awful moves for them to make but it’ll be more fun to sit and watch for their next move. Or, shockingly, their last move of 2009 will be this trade. And that will look awfully silly when they finish the year over 10 games out of first place with a farm system devoid of several of its best prospects.

This was yet another of Pittsburgh’s many great moves this year. Does this reflect really well on Neal Huntington or extremely poorly on David Littlefield? I’d say both, but mostly the latter.

Things to watch as we approach the trade deadline, AL Central version

2009-07-28T14:59:00.009-04:00

Two posts in a day from me? Am I driven by guilt because of my recent globetrotting, er, rather nationtrotting ways that left me (thankfully) miles from my laptop? Perhaps. Is it because I'm leaving Friday for 9 blissful days sans laptop on a trip in which I plan to conquer a fourteener and visit my 13th MLB ballpark? Perhaps. I'll leave all speculation to the readers and just publish this post.

Every year around this time it becomes clear who is serious about winning a championship. Teams become either buyers or sellers. And every year the pressure mounts to mortgage your future to win this year. Two, sometimes three top prospects are typically the asking price for an extra bat or an arm that can be the difference in the playoffs. Sometimes it works out – the Florida Marlins traded Adrian Gonzalez so they could get Ugueth Urbina to bolster their bullpen the last time they won the World Series. Sometimes it doesn’t, such as last year when CC Sabathia failed to lead the Brewers to the World Series. The loss of top prospects, like in the case of Sabathia, is softened a bit by MLB’s compensation (draft picks) for losing top flight free agents. This allows teams to trade top talent for a three month rental.

Well, let’s look at who’s buying and who’s selling in the AL Central.

There are three clear contenders here: the Twins, Tigers, and White Sox being the buyers, and the Royals and the Indians being the sellers. Cleveland has already sent Ryan Garko packing and Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez have been discussed as possible departures as well. There have been no rumblings involving the Royals as they seem intent on maintaining their extremely average nucleus.

The Twins, despite contending late in nearly every season this decade nearly never buy. It’s just not how they do business. But this year may be the year to buy. They’re moving into a new ballpark next year. Joe Mauer is a free agent after next season and they need to do something to let him know they’re serious about winning. They have the top two OPS guys in the league and three of the top six. They are one of those teams that are one bat and one bullpen arm away from contending for a championship. Will they go against their model and make the trade they need to make?

The toughest part about it is the best fit for a trade for the Twins would be the Pittsburgh Pirates. They have Freddy Sanchez and at least a couple decent bullpen arms. But with the Pirates great selloff this year, they really need to receive a high return to make any additional trades more palatable for fans. So, while the need is great, the likelihood of a deal going through is low.

The Tigers pulled off what some observers called the best trade of the offseason by trading outfielder Matt Joyce for Edwin Jackson. Jackson bolstered the Tigers starting rotation giving them a solid 1-2 punch with Jackson and Verlander. But they’re still looking for more consistency out of Porcello and Galarraga so the addition of another solid starting pitcher would definitely help. And the trade of Matt Joyce leaves them with their biggest need of a good corner outfielder. They could conceivably win the division without making a move, but prudence demands that a move be made.

As far as the Sox go, they have a pretty solid lineup from top to bottom. They could use another solid starting pitcher because as one White Sox blog put it, Bartolo Colon is always “one cheeseburger away from the DL”. But they likely won't want to pay the premium price teams are asking for guys like Roy Halladay. With the Jake Peavy trade falling through earlier this year and Cliff Lee pitching within the division, there just isn't top notch talent to be had at starting pitcher. If the Sox are to make a run, they'll have to do so either with what they have internally or by making a minor deal, likely after the non-waiver deadline.

Thoughts on Favre, Vick, and our Sports Media

2009-07-28T12:44:00.003-04:00

Of course we were all sick of the Brett Favre coverage before it even started this year. Is there anyone out there who loves hearing his name more often? But before I go after Brett too hard, we must ask the question: is he the problem or just merely a symptom?

Allow me to explain. Brett could have gone through all this “consideration” without public scrutiny. The workouts, the decisions, the surgery. None of that needed to be publicized. Was all of this in the news because he’s a helpless narcissist – which he clearly is – or rather was this in the news because of our absurd craving for this sort of thing? For instance, there was something extremely unnerving about the press coverage of Michael Vick’s release from jail. Sportscenter had his driving route plotted and camped out outside his home for days to cover the event and tape him pulling into the driveway. I can’t summon the words necessary to disapprove of the gall it takes to cover this event in this way. But in reality, ESPN is only covering this stuff because, apparently, we as sports fans have an insatiable appetite for this stuff.

Speaking of Vick, it has been announced that Roger Goodell has been floating the idea of what amounts to an additional five game suspension for Mr. Vick. While I, along with nearly every sports commentator was initially opposed to such a suspension for the simple reason that he has already paid a very high price for his deeds, I’ve since changed my mind. While the league could go about this by reinstating him and then banning him for life for any future misdeed, that option has no concern for Michael Vick, the human being.

These additional weeks of suspension will allow Michael Vick to come back as both a player and as a person. This will allow time for him to get the mentoring and personal rehabilitation that he needs for life in general. No one honestly believes that prison time actually effectively rehabilitates someone. There is no doubt that Michael Vick has had the past two years to reflect on his past and plan his future, but the addition of someone the caliber of Tony Dungy could change Vick’s life.

It’s clear that prior to Vick’s incarceration he just didn’t have the right influences on him. He had no one in his inner circle that was good for him personally or professionally. Even on the day he was going to jail, he purchased a $99,000 Mercedes with a debit card. Who’s to say that he’s somehow acquired better judgment about people and money simply by sitting in a jail cell? If he takes this seriously, these five weeks could be life changing. Whether or not the reasoning behind Goodell’s plan is anything like mine, it is still a good plan.

SEC You Later!

2009-07-24T14:02:00.003-04:00

OK, so the title of this blog post is horrible. It's horrendous; beyond horrible, terrible, whatever. It's still not as bad as this: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/stewart_mandel/07/24/sec-espn/index.html?eref=sihpT1

Reading this article made me angry. The first weekend of college football season, 7 (!) SEC games will be on the ABC/ESPN family of networks. They also are the only football conference that CBS really cares about. Why should any of the rest of us care about non-SEC football?

The arms race that is occurring in the SEC is pretty frightening. Each school continues to up the ante; my school, Tennessee, is the latest to do this, spending an ungodly amount of money on assistant coaches after hiring Lane Kiffin. The best football coaches now all reside in the SEC - Urban Meyer and Nick Saban being the two current best, Houston Nutt proving last year that he's a good one as well, Les Miles being the luckiest coach in America, Kiffin being the most quoteworthy and taking that title from Steve Spurrier (also the former best coach in America)...it is all very, very dizzying.

They've won the last 3 national championships, and their pride in the conference is sickening. Seriously, rival fanbases hate each other on gameday, but if they are playing someone out of conference (like MAC schools, since they never play a tough OOC game) they all root for each other. It's really disturbing.

And they are spending millions and millions, tens of millions, of dollars on football. All to prove that they are best team in the best conference in the best geographical area for football in the country. Well, you know what? I don't care.

I root for a non-SEC BCS school. I enjoy college football, a lot. However, I know that if my team runs into the buzzsaw that is Joe SEC Football school, we will lose. Not just lose; get slaughtered.

I've decided I don't care about this. The journey for me is winning the Big East, and then getting to tell 50 guys who play football at Florida that they will be sorry when they work for Pitt alumni. Academics at SEC schools are a joke.

Sorry, this was a really disjointed rant but I'm just sick of SEC football.

Answer my Question, Bill Simmons! (Vol. 2)

2009-07-16T08:44:00.001-04:00

Q: Sports guy, which was a greater sin upon the citizens of Seattle?

1. Taking their beloved Sonics and turning them into the OKC Zombies
or
2. Making them keep the Seattle Storm of the WNBA.

Congratulations, Jamie! (and Ashton)

2009-07-12T08:01:00.004-04:00

US wins world junior championships

"AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — The United States broke an 18-year gold medal drought when it beat Greece 88-80 Sunday to win the FIBA under-19 world basketball championships.

Tyshawn Taylor had 18 points and five steals to lead the United States to its first victory at the world junior tournament since it claimed the gold medal at Edmonton, Canada in 1991.

Ahston Gibbs finished with 13 points.."

Greatest all-time linebackers

2009-07-11T13:19:00.002-04:00

I should be writing my dissertation, so naturally I am thinking about the greatest linebackers ever.

In my view the top 4 are, in roughly this order:

1. Lawrence Taylor
2. Dick Butkus
3. Jack Lambert
4. Ray Lewis

After that, I think Ray Nitschke, Mike Singletary and Sam Huff have to be in the top ten. After that, I am not sure who belongs to round out the top ten. Junior Seau? Jack Ham? Ted Hendricks? Any suggestions? Any disputes about the top 4? What are your thoughts?

You know we've all been there

2009-07-09T18:28:00.002-04:00

There's some er, analysis of the most recent Twins game over at Twinkie Town that includes more about Tecmo Bowl than baseball. Yeah, it's that good:

http://www.twinkietown.com/2009/7/9/943837/twins-done-in-by-the-computer

5 Reasons to Watch: Bucs 2nd Half

2009-07-07T08:28:00.004-04:00

Well, as we near baseball's midsummer classic (a week from today!), the evidence starts to pile up. This will not be a winning season for my beloved Bucs. They are currently 9 games under .500 and in last place in the division (although, quirkily, they are only 7.5 back of the Cards). However, I am feeling a lot more optimism for this team than I have in the July's of past. Why is that? Well, here are 5 reasons to watch the Bucs in August and September that will keep you optimistic:

1. The outfield situation - in the last two seasons, the Bucs have traded away four starting outfielders. This may be a technicality, since Nyjer Morgan shouldn't start on any contending team, but they still traded the guys who took the majority of the outfield at-bats. However, the situation here is exciting, looking from the major league roster to the depths of Single A West Virginia. McCutchen has been a revelation in center; he is going to be a star for the Bucs for at least the next 5+ years. Brandon Moss has been mostly a failure so far in RF, but he should still be given chances to produce over the next two months. Lastings Milledge has the pedigree (as a former No. 1 overall prospect of the Mets, as well as leading the Nats in HR and RBI last summer) and now should be given a chance; he won't be sent down to AAA after 7 starts like he was in April by the Nats (at least for performance purposes). Garrett Jones, Steve Pearce, and Delwyn Young will still get opportunities to show what they can do by getting spot starts all over the outfield (although I'm not bullish on any of the three; Young has the most potential as a pinch hitter). In the minors, the Bucs have at least two potential above average major leaguers at Altoona in Gorkys Hernandez and Jose Tabata. Robbie Grossman is performing admirably for a 19-year-old rookie at West Virginia, and Starling Marte has shown a lot of promise in his 2 weeks with the team. Overall, the Bucs have greatly improved their outfield depth throughout the organization while sacrificing only one above average major league player (Jason Bay).

2. The 2009 Draft Class - the Bucs just went Moneyball on everyone's @$$ and people still aren't recovered. They drafted a bunch of high upside high school pitchers after quickly coming to terms with Tony Sanchez at No. 4 overall. They will be tough signs, but it is worth watching the situation until August 17 to see who the Bucs are able to sign. Also, the Latin American market is clearing up, and it appears that the Bucs should be able to sign Miguel A. Sano. This will be the biggest international signing yet for Neal Huntingdon, who has signed players from all six baseball playing continents in his less than 2 years on the job. Seriously, he has signed players from: Holland, South Africa, Australia, India, Taiwan, and various Latin American countries.

3. The pitching depth - Maholm and Duke are probably locked in as #3-4 starters. Ohlendorf has sparkled at times this year, and he's almost a certified genius, but he isn't throwing as hard as he did last summer. Charlie Morton is the big variable; he has the best stuff of anyone on the staff but it needs to translate into major league success. His first four starts have been encouraging; he bears watching. In the minors, top prospect Brad Lincoln needs to prove his stuff at AAA Indy after being dominant in Altoona. If he does, he may earn a rotation spot for next April. Snell and Gorzo still have major league success in their backgrounds, if they can ever throw enough strikes again they could still be viable major league options. All of this coupled with the aforementioned draft has greatly improved the Bucs pitching situation; it should only get better from here.

4. The trade deadline - We don't have anyone who is going to bring back a ton this year, but Grabow, Ad. LaRoche, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, and Capps are all candidates to be dealt. The question about the middle infield lingers into 2010; if Sanchez and/or Wilson are traded, there aren't people to replace them yet in the system. Which of the guys will go, and how much will the fanbase cry over their departures?

5. The march to 82... - wins or losses? Well, it was said here earlier that it will be losses, and in truth it will probably be many more than 82. This will mark a 17th consecutive losing season, a record for American professional sports. There isn't too much more to say about this. It's inevitable. It will probably happen around September 13-14; all I hope is that its not against Houston, for some personal reasons.

Anyway, this second half should be more exciting for the Bucs than it normally is. This is a sign that the team is going in the right direction. Let's hope that Huntingdon and company keep it up to meet my 2012 deadline; they have to compete by then for me.

With the 13th pick...

2009-06-25T13:04:00.003-04:00

So a quick programming note before we get going with the Pacers. Because of life intervening (weddings, work, road trips, etc.), we will only do the lottery for the mock draft. Hey, we're a fledgling website and we can do whatever we want. So, I'll do the next two picks and that will close the books on the YGLS Mock NBA draft.

Indiana Pacers - DeJuan Blair (F/Pittsburgh)

So, it's looking less and less like this is going to happen tonight, but I'm still picking it for Indy. Blair is exceptionally good at one thing, which is rebounding. He is a great defensive rebounder, but it is on the offensive glass where he will really make his money. Rebounding stats are the most likely to translate equally from college to the pros, so that's a plus for him. The rebounding rates show that he was the best rebounder of the decade; this suggests he will be able to rebound in the NBA.

There are a lot of concerns about two things: his height and his knees. His height is a stupid issue; so, he'll be an undersized 4. He has the reach of a 7'2 guy, so he'll be OK in this respect. His knees are something that can't be controlled; if its an issue for a team, they shouldn't draft him. Players get hurt, and players who play hard will get hurt more, and Blair plays as hard as most people. His face up game needs to be improved drastically, but he'll be able to score a lot of garbage points because he dominates the offensive glass so much.

In short, Blair is the pick here. He fits the grittiness that the Pacers need inside.

Phoenix picks next, so...

Phoenix Suns - Terrance Williams (F/Louisville)

This is beyond the point of the draft where no one has any idea what will happen. What do the Suns need? Guys to play on the wing, and maybe an inside presence to pair with Stoudemire assuming he doesn't get traded.

Terrance Williams is the pick here because I like him a lot. He's very versatile; he can shoot, pass, defend and rebound very well for a guy his size. He has a lot of heart, and he will work to improve his game (especially his shooting). His ceiling isn't as high as some of the other guys left (and I like him only as much as Sam Young but then again, I'm biased). Also, guys who are good at everything but not great at one thing sometimes struggle to find their role if it isn't defined for them. I think he'd be a good fit with Steve Nash, hitting open threes on the secondary break and providing a good presence on defense for a team that is trying to learn how to defend (or at least should be).

The Charlotte Bobcats Select...

2009-06-22T12:45:00.004-04:00

Charlotte Bobcats - Tyler Hansborough (F - UNC)

No player has been more picked apart than Hansborough, partially thanks to his large body of work. It seems unlikely the Bobcats will actually select the Tarheel. But with an aging front court it may be wise to go for a consistent building block. You can make the case for him to go this high. Of course you can make a similar case another another inaccurately described as "undersized" forward, Dejuan Blair. And I suspect Josh will nab up the Schenley High School product with his next pick.

AP exceprt that got me thinking about Bobcats at least considering Tyler:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- If there was ever a player who could skip an audition in front of a bunch of North Carolina alums, it's Tyler Hansbrough...
But there was Hansbrough on Wednesday, being led through drills in a pre-draft workout by Charlotte Bobcats coach Larry Brown and assistant Phil Ford, whose career scoring record Hansbrough broke last season at North Carolina.
It's no surprise Brown, North Carolina class of 1963, wasn't about to join the group of critics questioning how the 6-foot-8 Hansbrough will fare in the NBA.
"You know big guys in our league don't like to block out. They don't run on every play. They don't rebound every ball," Brown said. "So if you have the mentality to do those things you have a chance.
"And he's a much better athlete than most people think."

The New Jersey Nets select ...

2009-06-22T11:10:00.002-04:00

The Nets are looking for frontcourt help with their starting guard spots in the hands of PG Devin Harris and SG Vince Carter, who both went over 20 points per game last season. C Brook Lopez, last year's first round pick, had a solid rookie season (13 ppg, 8 rpg) and adding athleticism alongside him will be the Nets goal.

Arizona PF Jordan Hill was one of the top five prospects entering the month but has fallen out of the top 10 here with the strong group of point guards and swingmen. He will be the third frontcourt player off the board after Griffin and Thabeet and should be able to help immediately. Hill averaged 18 points and 11 rebounds as a junior at Arizona, 13 and 8 as a sophomore and played almost 36 minutes per game last year. He defends, blocks shots and rebounds and is a great value for NJ at the 11th pick in the first round.

When Life Imitates Art

2009-06-20T15:44:00.000-04:00

Most of the YGLS staff has been quiet the last few days due to the wedding of one of our friends, and contributor to this blog, David DiQuattro. With this in mind I had the extreme desire to post to our blog from, and during, his wedding mimicking the Verizon VCast commercial where a groomsmen checks fantasy scores.

So there it is, if a commercial can be considered art. Many well-wishes to the newlywed Dave and Marianne!

Wikipedia and peer editing

2009-06-18T17:20:00.005-04:00

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I flipped on the MLB network and caught a few minutes of their coverage of the MLB All-Century. So I googled the All-Century team and, of course, checked out Wikipedia's entry. From there, I moved on to the Latino Legends team.

Now, it's likely been updated from what it was, but when I pulled the page up, an anti-steroids crusader had labeled the guilty with (STEROIDS = CHEATER). Now, the reason I say that it's likely that it's been updated is because in 2004, a University of Buffalo professor inserted 13 errors on various Wikipedia entries only to find all of them corrected within a couple hours.

So, evidently there are a great deal of people who watch this stuff like hawks, waiting to catch the possible dissemination of misinformation.

Anyway, the marred article is below.

Latino Legends Team
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The Latino Legends Team was an all-time all-star baseball team selected in 2005 to honor the history of Latin American players in Major League Baseball. The players were chosen by fan voting. Ballots were available both online at MLB.com and at Chevrolet dealerships, and over 1.6 million total votes were cast. The team was announced at a ceremony hosted by actor Edward James Olmos prior to Game Four of the 2005 World Series.

[edit] The team
Iván Rodríguez, catcher
Albert Pujols, first base
Rod Carew, second base
Edgar Martínez, third base
Alex Rodriguez, shortstop STERIODS = CHEATER
Roberto Clemente, outfield
Manny Ramírez, outfield STEROIDS = CHEATER
Vladimir Guerrero, outfield
Pedro Martínez, starting pitcher
Juan Marichal, starting pitcher
Fernando Valenzuela, starting pitcher
Mariano Rivera, relief pitcher

[edit] Controversy
Despite being the only native of South America in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Venezuela native Luis Aparicio was not selected. Another former White Sox star was snubbed - Cuban born outfielder Minnie Miñoso. In what was vindication for the organization, Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillén became the first Latin-born manager to win a World Series later that night.[citation needed]

Other significant snubs from this team were Puerto Ricans Orlando Cepeda and Roberto Alomar [[HIV]], Cuban-born Tony Perez and Negro League star Martín Dihigo.[citation needed] Dominican Sammy Sosa STEROIDS = CHEATER, a then still-active member of the 500 home run club was left off, as were Rafael Palmeiro STERPODS = CHEATER and José Canseco STEROIDS RAT= CHEATING RAT, renowned Cuban-born sluggers caught up in the steroid scandals of the time.

The Milwaukee Bucks select...

2009-06-17T17:05:00.005-04:00

The Milwaukee Bucks have been in an interesting situation over the past several seasons. They haven't had a winning record since the 2002-2003 season, but seem to be in the playoff picture more often than not. But I guess that's the way of the Eastern Conference.

They have a lot of talent on their roster and bolstered their lineup last June when they traded disappointing Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons to the Nets for Richard Jefferson. For the Nets, this was essentially a salary dump that cleared cap space for LeBron James. For the Bucks, this gave them a versatile scorer who helped them improve by a total of 8 wins last year.

Chris George correctly pointed out that it's unlikely James Harden would fall as low as he did in our draft (some predict him going as high as number 3 overall). It's also unlikely that the Bucks selection will fall this low. But in our draft he did, so the Milwaukee Bucks will select Jrue Holiday from UCLA.

With Andrew Bogut, Michael Redd, Charlie Villanueva, and Jefferson, the Bucks have a solid core capable of making the playoffs in the East. Ramon Sessions showed promise last year, but you're not likely to win if you have Luke Ridnour playing 28 minutes a game. Holiday will get some of those minutes and can play the one or two guard for the Bucks and provide that boost that could help them return to the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

With the 9th pick in the YGLS Mock NBA Draft...

2009-06-16T22:25:00.004-04:00

Toronto Raptors - Jonny Flynn (G/Syracuse)

It seems as though the Raptors are in this position year after year. Each new year seems to be the year that the Toronto Raptors should be a team that makes a run, should be a team that makes the playoff, or even a team that's competitive, but alas, it never is. This team has a nice nucleus of talent around the basket, and even out towards the perimeter. What it lacks though is passion or a spark. That type of grit that can be brought from a floor general, someone who wants to win. That's why I think the Raptors will select Jonny Flynn.

Imagine the Raptors trotting out on the floor Chris Bosh, Shawn Marion, Andrea Bargnani, Jonny Flynn, and Jose Calderon. Now that's a starting five you don't want to see on a regular basis. It's a recipe for success, and since Bosh is a free agent after this year, you need to show him that Toronto is serious about winning, and make a push this year.

With the 8th pick in the YGLS Mock NBA Draft...

2009-06-16T14:19:00.002-04:00

the New York Knicks select:

New York Knicks - Brandon Jennings (G/Italy)

There is a lot of talk about how this is a weak draft. It may be true in ways, but this draft is really rich in point guard prospects (and of course, point guard is the most important position in the game). Just look at the guys who look like they could lead teams in the NBA for years: Rubio, Jennings, Evans, Ty Lawson, Jeff Teague, Steph Curry, Jonny Flynn, and even Eric Maynor as a sleeper. That is quality, when you consider how many teams need point guards. There are many chances for success in this draft.

So, the Knicks need a point guard. The guards on their roster right now are: Nate Robinson, Quentin Richardson, Cuttino Mobley, Wilson Chandler, Chris Duhon, and Larry Hughes. Re-read that list. They are fragile, old, and overrated at the guard position. They need somebody dynamic who can come in, get instant minutes, and possibly develop into a superstar.

I really wanted to pick Jonny Flynn here but I don't think he's the right pick. Brandon Jennings was a top point guard recruit coming out of high school and skipped college to play in Europe. He didn't play extremely well over there, but it is difficult on kids out of high school. He's a quick, lithe guard who excels in the open court game that Coach D'Antoni wants to run. He is also a naturally gifted defender, something lacking among Knicks guards right now. The Knicks dream here seems to be to find a way to get Rubio; if they can do that, I might be a Knicks fan for life. However, that seems unlikely, and Jennings is the next best thing for them.

The Golden State Warriors select...

2009-06-16T09:25:00.003-04:00

James Harden, Guard, Arizona State University

First off, if anyone can find me one of those Golden State "the city" tee shirts in gold, with the trolley car on it, I'd pay good money for it. Not a jersey, or a blue tee, mind you.

Second of all, it seems unlikely James Harden will still be around at this point in the draft. But in our mock draft, he is. And regardless of needs, there comes a time you should pick a player this good if he is left. James Harden is a good player. As much as I like Jonny Flynn for his heart, Harden is a bit of a steal at #7.

He is a smart kid, a smart player, and a smart choice. Though only listed at 6'5", his wingspan is over 6'10". He's showing the work ethic to bulk up for the NBA. He's drawing comparisons to Manu Ginboli and Jason Terry.

On the downside, his FG% and 3 point FG% went down his sophomore year and his turnovers went up. But this may be a sign of Arizona State asking him to do too much, especially for what should have been a more balanced modified Princeton offense under Coach Sendek. Because of that offensive system, ASU faced a lot of zone, which he won't see as much in the NBA.

Can the Warriors rebound from such an off year? I believe.

The Timberwolves select

2009-06-15T15:44:00.004-04:00

Those are chilling words. You get quite a cocktail when you combine bad luck with incompetence. And the Minnesota Timberwolves have both in spades. The Wolves had the worst record in the league in 1991-1992. The lottery didn’t go in their favor and they received the 3rd pick in the 1992 draft. Shaquille O’Neal went first followed by Alonzo Mourning. The Wolves drafted Christian Laettner. Such is the luck of the T’Wolves.

In the twelve years the Timberwolves have participated in the lottery, they’ve never - I repeat - never moved up. The year they picked Laettner was the highest they’ve ever picked in the draft despite a four year stretch in the 90s when they were one of the league’s worst two teams.

So that’s the bad luck. How about the incompetence? The Wolves entered the 1996 draft in an enviable position. In 1995, they took a chance and drafted high schooler Kevin Garnett and had the number five pick in one of the deepest drafts of the 1990s. They had a good core around KG but wanted a point guard to run the show.

Enter Stephon Marbury. This promising point guard out of Georgia Tech looked to be the guy to take. There was also some guy from Santa Clara that the Star Tribune did a story on as a possible pick. But everyone knew the Wolves wanted Marbury, including the Milwaukee Bucks, who had the number four selection. So the Wolves ended up trading Ray Allen and Dean Garrett for Marbury. In hindsight this looks like a ridiculous trade, but at the time Marbury and Garnett looked to be the next Stockton and Malone. How foolish that prediction turned out to be. Marbury turned out to be as selfish as a three year old who refuses to share his toys. Marbury complained that he didn’t like Gugliotta so the Wolves unloaded him to Phoenix. Then he didn’t want to play with anyone who made more money than him. So they traded him to Phoenix where he was reunited with the despised Gugliotta. The rest is history.

You could have handed the keys of the franchise to anyone at this period and it couldn’t have turned out any worse. For some reason, Kevin McHale’s greatness on the hardwood overshadowed his ineptitude in the front office. Glen Taylor stuck with him for years and years.

McHale got caught violating contract rules in the signing of Joe Smith and the Wolves were stripped of five draft picks. The Wolves selected the forgettable Paul Grant in 1997. In 1999, they had two first round picks and selected Wally Szczerbiak ahead of Rip Hamilton, Andre Miller, Shawn Marion, and Jason Terry. With their second pick, they selected William Avery out of Duke over Ron Artest, James Posey, and Andrei Kirilenko. But hindsight is 20/20 so we’ll forgive and forget.

But it was clearly McHale’s fault that for the next three years, they didn’t have a first round pick. So with their next first round pick, three years later, they selected Ndudi Ebi. Wonderful. Great addition to the team.

Oh, and in the meantime, they let future -NBA finals MVP, Chauncey Billups walk.

In 2006, they appeared to have pulled another Allen for Marbury when they selected Brandon Roy only to trade him for Randy Foye.

But this post is supposed to be about the 2009 NBA draft, right? Ok, I’ll get to that. Foye appears to be a serviceable two guard although they drafted him to play point. Sebastian Telfair has shown flashes of competence, but hasn’t shown he’s a starting point guard of a playoff team. They have a solid core with Kevin Love, Al Jefferson, the aforementioned Foye, and solid forwards, Craig Smith, Ryan Gomes and Mike Miller. What the Wolves really need is a point guard.

But in the NBA draft, do you pick the best player or do you draft for need? With both Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry off the board, that leaves Jrue Holiday and Johnny Flynn as the best point guards available. Demar DeRozan and James Harden could potentially be better talents, but what the Wolves need is a facilitator.

Neither Holiday nor Flynn are the type of floor general the Wolves want. Flynn appears to have a slight edge as a facilitator but is small at 6 feet, 175 pounds.

With all that said, the Timberwolves are going with the best player available, DeMar DeRozan. Harden is more polished, but they’ll select DeRozan because of his upside. They’ll have to make-do with their point guard situation because both Holiday and Flynn are reaches at this point.

If Roy was manning the two guard spot, a point guard would be a no-brainer. But this isn’t the case, is it?

With the 5th Pick in the YGLS Draft

2009-06-14T12:19:00.001-04:00

5. Washington Wizards - Tyreke Evans (G / Memphis)

One of the downsides to an NBA Mock Draft is that you really can't predict a trade. As the GM of the Wizards, for the purpose of this article, I would move heaven and earth to trade this pick or Gilbert Arenas. I want Tyreke Evans with this pick. Jordan Hill is the safe pick but he doesn't fit the team that you have. You have a fast team, a team that likes to push the ball upcourt and play a faster tempo. They are the poor-mans Denver Nuggets.

If this is the case why would you draft a clunky forward that doesn't fit your system? You don't need a orward to make it through the east. Out of the 8 playoff teams in the east only the Magic have Dwight Howard as a legitimate force under the basket. Kevin Garmett is getting old and Elton Brand is a question mark.

So you are at a cross roads as an organization. And at this point I would try to trade Gilbert Arenas or this pick. Tyreke is fast and young and can distribute and score. He fits this team well. Better than Gilbert who is a pure scorer. It's a risky pick and a little early but it's time to break the mold and take a player that is good and fits my team. Tyreke make me proud!

Saving the Bucs with Moneyball (Part 1)

2009-06-14T12:16:00.006-04:00

I think the case could be made that the Pirates moves in the last two weeks have been filled with Moneyball principles, in a very good way. To me, this theory’s biggest argument is that there are market inefficiencies in baseball; traits that the market values too much, and other traits that the market doesn’t value nearly enough. A team in a financial position like the Pirates is at a great advantage when they can peg those inefficiencies ahead of the curve. From what I can remember, there are two areas in which the A’s were ahead of everybody else utilizing these inefficiency principles: on-base percentage and relief pitching. The Bucs, over the course of the last week, have tried to exploit different inefficiencies. To wit:

Trading McLouth – the words that were continually thrown around to describe Nate were “All-Star” and “Gold Glove”. It has been covered ad nauseum that his Gold Glove was kind of a joke. I won’t make the argument that his All-Star appearance falls under the same umbrella; he deserved to make it with his great first half last year. However, to use this term to describe him is a bit misleading. Albert Pujols is an All-Star; Nate McLouth made an All-Star Game. There’s a difference to me, but the two are lumped together in media coverage and in the average fan’s mind. The baseball market overvalues terms like “All-Star” and “Gold Glove”. The Pirates exploited this.
It seems that generally in baseball these days, prospects are also overvalued; teams are less willing to give up “the farm” in order to procure the best major league talent. The Bucs worked a trade that worked in the opposite order of this; of course the argument is that they didn’t get enough.
To that last point, we look at the return for McLouth, where I believe the Bucs got commodities that are undervalued at the present time. We were able to get two pitchers; pitching is famously a rare commodity to receive in a trade. Further, the Bucs received a LHP who throws mid-90s. Lefties who throw this hard are also rare. In the outfield, they got a centerfielder; the famous axiom in baseball states that talent up the middle is difficult to obtain. Therefore, they were able to get three players that were undervalued by the Braves, because their positions are more difficult to fill.
Along the lines of this, Gorkys Hernandez signals a trend toward which the Pirates are moving and which has been less valued in the majors: outfield defense. As Charlie at Bucs Dugout has recently shown, the improvement in the Bucs outfield defense has more or less made up for the loss of production by the Bucs OF with the bats. Trading McLouth and inserting McCutchen into the lineup improved what was already one of the top defensive outfields in the league (it could be argued it was the only way to improve on an already stellar outfield defense). Gorkys is a centerfielder who probably will be moved with McCutchen manning this position in Pittsburgh; he’s most likely the replacement for Nyjer (or whoever replaces Nyjer) whenever he is ready. Anything that he can develop with the bat over what Nyjer gives the Bucs (which is little) is a bonus.

These are all of the implications that Moneyball and its principles had on the trade that the Bucs completed last week. The average Bucs fan was irritated by this trade; it’s just the same old Pirates, trading big leaguers for prospects, shaving money off of the payroll. McCutchen will be traded in the offseason for four minor leaguers – I received an actual text that stated this. A couple of points about this, before moving on to the Bucs Moneyball draft:

As stated before, McLouth was expendable. The Bucs actually were ahead of the curve because they traded him near his peak value. This is different from any trade in which the Pirates have previously engaged. Critics point to trades like the Bay and Nady trades of last season, the Kendall trade of 2004, the Aramis Ramirez trade in 2003, the Giles trade of 2004, and a litany of trades made in the 90s (when this procession of futility began). Let me comment on those each of those trades individually:

Jason Bay – not at his peak value; in fact, he was at about bottom value after the 2007 season (witness the package the Indians offered for him that offseason). The Bucs were lucky that he was as good as he was during 2008’s first half, increasing his value. At his age and contract situation, he was not a guy that was going to be part of the next great Bucco squad.
Xavier Nady – (and Marte if you want to throw him in) he was in the middle of his career season. His value was inflated, so by that standard, it is the most comparable to the McLouth trade. But Nady didn’t have a history of doing what he did in 2008; instead, his history was riddled with injury. It isn’t surprising that he hasn’t been anything like his April-June 2008 self since getting to the Yanks.
Brian Giles – he was on the decline, his contract was onerous, and the clouds of steroids have gathered over him since he left Pittsburgh. A return of Bay made this trade good enough.
Jason Kendall – one of the biggest contract blunders in a long list of contract blunders for the Bucs. They signed a singles hitter to a $60 million contract right before moving into PNC Park to signal a “commitment” to winning to the fanbase. The Bucs couldn’t get him and his bloated salary off the book quickly enough. This is the problem with allowing the fans to dictate moves made by the front office.
Aramis Ramirez - the only trade on this list that is indefensible and unacceptable. There is nothing I can say to make this trade feel better. The Bucs were under the gun to cut payroll immediately, and this is how they chose to do it. We could talk about the fact that A-Ram had been struggling for a season and a half before this trade, and how he wasn't at that time worth the salary that he was making. However, he was about 23 years old and to just give up on him was disappointing. There isn't really much else to say. When the current front office trades McCutchen for a decendant of Bobby Hill, then I will give up on them, but until then I will believe they won't make a trade like this.

This is just a short exposition on the Bucs, their front office, and how they are employing the techniques outlined in Moneyball. It is the first of a two part series. The second part will be posted some time this week, when I have a chance to hash out these thoughts, but it will focus on the draft, the minor leagues, international signings, and player development, in light of Moneyball principles.

On Game 7s, The City of Champions, 17 years of losing, and that motherf&*$#r Scottie Reynolds

2009-06-13T00:21:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm sitting in my apartment mere hours after the Pens won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1992. I'm not a huge hockey fan, but playoff hockey is alright by me; good enough to watch the Pens for two months (and grow my playoff beard). The situation in the city is crazy. I watched the first two periods at PNC Park while attending the other game between Pittsburgh and Detroit tonight (the Tigers prevailed, 3-1). It was unbelievable how many Detroit fans were at the ballpark, watching the game in the Hall of Fame Club in their lipstick-red Wings jerseys. I left after the 2nd period, traversing downtown unaware of the bomb threat at the corner of Ft. Duquense Boulevard and 9th Street, trying to get home in time for the 3rd period. The Pens, of course, pulled it out in an intense final six minutes when the Wings attacked and attacked, and the Pens were just trying to buttress the fort. The intensity was heightened by the fact that it was Game 7.

Game 7s are one of the most special things we get in return for our love of sports. When two teams are so evenly matched that it comes down to one game and often times one pitch or shot, the moment rises in importance. The passion and grit come to the forefront. These are guys that have played over 100 games in basketball and hockey, and around 180 in baseball, and they are on the biggest stages they will ever see. The mistakes are magnified; the heroes deified; the memories crystallized. Everybody remembers game 7. EVERYBODY. Even for those bandwagon Penguin fans like myself, the memory will last long after the Stanley Cup Champs t-shirt shrinks and fades.

Pittsburgh has regained the title "City of Champions". We remain a city of many monikers (Steel City, Iron City, Robo-burgh, America's Most Livable, The City of Bridges) but this one remains my favorite, and we've wrested it back from Boston. To have the Steelers and Pens win within months of each other is incredible; both major pro sports champions are from Pittsburgh at this point of 2009. And the point that I keep coming back to is this: the last time the Pens won the Cup, 1992, was the same time the Bucs last made the playoffs.

Since that time, the Bucs of course have had 17 losing seasons in a row. For a fan like me, this is torture, and in a perverse way it is multiplied by these other teams winning coupled fact that I really consider myself more of a Bucs fan than any other 'burgh team. Watching the ferver that the Pens and Steelers create excites me for many reasons, but probably none more so than it reminds me why I remain an ardent Pirate supporter. Some day, I hope that my favorite team from the 'burgh has the same zealous following currently enjoyed by our other pro teams. I have no doubt that it will happen; it's just been a really, really, really long wait, and it won't be over for another few years. At least maybe my other favorite team, the Pitt men's hoops team, can be more successful.

Speaking of men's hoops...Scottie Reynolds really screwed up what could have been an even better year for 'burgh sports. His lame attempt at cementing March fame kept Pitt out of their first real Final Four. Even so, Jamie Dixon led his team deep into March and continues to build a winning program. While constantly let down by the Bucs around mid-May, Pitt hoops is able to hold my attention and engender my support for an entire season; at some point, due to the battle of attrition, they may have to pass the Bucs as my favorite team in Pittsburgh.

At least none of my sports dreams are really hitched to the fading star of Dave Wannstedt.

The Sacramento Kings select ...

2009-06-12T17:45:00.003-04:00

Sacramento, at 17-65, had the best shot at landing Blake Griffin with the top pick. Instead, they fell out of the top 3 and landed at No. 4, the lowest they could have been slotted, with the consensus top 3 players in Griffin, Rubio and Thabeet off the board.

The Kings will be considering SG James Harden, SG Tyreke Evans and PF Jordan Hill with their pick, but with their roster I like Davidson PG Stephon Curry in this spot. Their best player and only consistent scorer is SG Kevin Martin (24.6 ppg) and they've taken front court players C Spencer Hawes (2007) and PF Jason Thompson (2008) with their last two first round picks. SF Francisco Garcia is one of the more undervalued players in the NBA and can be a playmaker with Curry and Martin alongside him.

Curry, of course, has an NBA pedigree with his father Dell shooting 40% from the 3-point line in his 16-year career. Stephon scored well over 2,000 points in his three years, led the nation in scoring as a junior at 28.6 ppg and added 5.6 assists after moving to point guard. He's obviously not a traditional NBA point guard but will be one of the better shooters in the league right away, can give Sacramento a 40-45 ppg backcourt with Martin and is a huge upgrade over the point guards currently on the roster.

With the 3rd pick in the YGLS Mock NBA Draft...

2009-06-11T09:47:00.004-04:00

the Zombie Sonics select:

3. Oklahoma City Thunder - Hasheem Thabeet (C/Connecticut)

The pick should be Rubio here if the Grizz do what is expected and take Thabeet themselves. I'm not sure that will happen though, as the Zombies publicly state that they like what they have in Russell Westbrook. To paraphrase former Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Russell Westbrook is no Ricky Rubio. Rubio to Durant would provide immeasurable amounts of joy over the next decade and more. However, he's gone here, so I have to move on.

Thabeet is my joyless pick here. His obvious NBA comparison is Dikembe Mutombo. I, like most, think that Thabeet will come in and block 3 shots a game (providing above average interior defense) and probably be able to average double digit rebounds. His offensive game is way behind his defense. Does he have the ability to score in the league? Not right now; he'll probably average 7-8 ppg as a rookie. But he does have a good work ethic; he can work on post moves and maybe get to a point where he averages something along the lines of 13 ppg, 13 rpg, and 3 bpg.

One of my big problems with the NBA Draft is that teams too often pick based on "upside" and not enough on constructing a team. This came to a head in the late 90s/early 00s. The reason for this? Too many high schoolers who weren't ready for the League declared anyway. I won't jump into the age limit debate, but I don't think it can be argued that high schoolers ruined the draft because everyone was looking for the next Kobe. In other words, all NBA GMs are impulsive and can't stop themselves even when they recognize that there are surer things in the draft; they are lured by the siren call of high school upside. Unfortunately, just as often as drafting a Kobe, Garnett, or Lebron, they instead choose a Robert Swift, Kwame Brown, DeSagana Diop, Ousmane Cisse, Travis Outlaw, James Lang, Dorell Wright, or Leon Smith.

What I mean to say here is that I shouldn't criticize whoever takes Thabeet. He will be a useful NBA player for a decade, one of the best in the league in two specific skills (rebounds and blocks). It just isn't a very sexy pick (which, yes, is what I was railing on in the above paragraph).

The Memphis Grizzlies Select...

2009-06-11T09:10:00.005-04:00

2. Memphis Grizzlies - Ricky Rubio (G/Spain)

I am making this pick based on basketball ability -- not the potential situation of Rubio refusing to play for certain teams. I realize an actual GM therefore has a harder job.

NBA Teams have the smallest rosters of the major sports and hence the highest average salaries. These factors plus the somewhat underdeveloped nature of statistics (especially for measuring the quality of defense) -- and some intellectually questionable GMs have led to a lead with comical choices from time to time. More teams should go for the sure thing.

So who's the sure thing at #2? You could argue its Thabeet. The big guy will always have his height (though that might suggest the possibilities of injuries), and should soon be the league's first or second leading shot blocker. His rebounding on both sides of the ball should be very good, though his performances against a physical Dejuan Blair weren't that impressive. Harden, Hill, and Evans all look very talented; additionally, Flynn and Curry are sentimental favorites of mine as a college hoops fan, and they both have upsides as well. Any of them could be good contributors relatively soon.

But Ricky Rubio is going to be an NBA star. He has Nash-esque court vision, he hustles, he already draws fouls in a European league that calls less of them on shooting plays, he has good footwork, great ball handling skills, and has been playing pro ball since he was 14. There are well his noted downsides, especially his flat footed jump shot and questionable defensive lateral ability. However, these downsides never stopped the consistent play of Mark Jackson, second in NBA history in assists. And Rubio will be more explosive than Jackson was.

Ricky Rey, welcome to America. I hope you end up as eccentric an NBA player in personality and game as your idol, Pete Maravich.

The Los Angeles Clippers Select ...

2009-06-10T23:59:00.000-04:00

1. Los Angeles Clippers - Blake Griffin (F/Oklahoma)

So we're taking a look at the draft not as who the Clippers will take, but who they should take. If I am the GM of the Clippers I still have a hard time taking Griffin and here's why. He fits the same trap that every GM falls in each year. Good player but you're picking on upside. He has a ton of potential. If the Clippers hadn't signed Baron Davis last year, I would pick Rubio. But now your lot is cast with Baron Davis and his back. Even though Griffin is drafting on potential, he'll fill a need you'll have once you get rid of stiffs like Zach Randolph and Marcus Camby. Replacing Zach Randolph with the work ethic of Blake Griffin is a clear upgrade. One you can't pass up if you're the Clippers.

The Golden Era of Pennsylvania Sports

2009-06-10T15:31:00.006-04:00

Many folks on this blog have Pennsylvania ties, so expect some level of local-ism to show up now and then.

I was thinking about how it's been a nice run for the Steelers, Pens, and Phillies lately --
But how about 1975-1985 in Pennsylvania?

Pro Football:
1975 - Steelers win super bowl
1976 - Steelers win super bowl
1979 - Steelers win super bowl
1980 - Steelers win super bowl
1981 - Eagles win NFC championship; play in their first super bowl

College Football:
1976 - Pitt Panthers are AP and near consensus national champions.
1980 - Pitt Panthers are NY Times and other media national champions (not AP though)
1981 - Pitt wins minor national championship foundation title retroactively; Penn State wins minor dunkel national title
1982 - Penn State is AP and near consensus national champion
1985-86 season - Penn State is AP national champions again.

Pro Hockey:
1975 - Flyers win their second straight Stanley cup
1976 - Flyers reach the finals again
1979 - Flyers reach the finals again
1985 - Flyers reach the finals again

Pro Baseball:
1975 - Pirates in nlcs (Phillies second)
1976 - Phillies in nlcs (Pirates second)
1977 - Phillies in nlcs (Pirates second)
1978 - Phillies in nlcs (Pirates second)
1979 - Pirates win their 5th and most recent world series championship. They also have have the national league mvp, nl championship series mvp, the world series mvp, and the all star game mvp.
1980 - Phillies win their first world series championship.
1981 - Phillies win nl east in strike shortened season
1983 - Phillies "wheeze kids" go to world series, lose.

Pro Basketball:
1975 - Sixers return to the playoffs for the first time in 5 years
1976 - Sixers go to the NBA finals, only to lose to Bill Walton's Trailblazers.
1977 - Lose to Bullets, who win nba title
1980 - Go to NBA finals again, lose to lakers.
1981 - Go to NBA finals again (with Celtics fans chanting "beat LA", in a rare moment of east coast solidarity) and lose to Lakers
1982 - Moses takes over! Sixers go 12-1 in nba playoffs, "fo fi fo", winning it all.
1985 - New look Barkley sixers return to eastern conference finals again.

College Basketball:
1985 - Villanova Wildcats become lowest seeded team to ever win a national title.

Boxing:
1983 - "Easton Assassin" Larry Holmes wins Heavyweight Championship.

MVP's:
1975, 1976 - Bobby Clarke
1978 - Dave Parker
1978 - Terry Bradshaw
1979 - Willie Stargell
1980, 1981 - Mike Schmidt
1981 - Dr. J
1983 - Moses Malone

Sports Movies Filmed in and/or Set in Pennsylvania during this time:
1976 - Rocky
1977 - Slapshot
1979 - The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh
1979 - Rocky 2
1982 - Rocky 3
1983 - All the Right Moves
1985 - Rocky 4

Has any state ever matched this output in a 10 year period?

Not to be

2009-06-10T13:12:00.006-04:00

Joe Montana's son Nick just committed to Washington over Notre Dame and other schools. Notre Dame has some talented quarterbacks in the fold (especially if Clausen starts to live up to his potential), but ND alumni won't be happy with Charlie Weis failing to nab the son of a Notre Dame favorite son.

The long rumored "Return to Glory" won't come via a return to Montana. Instead we have to pin our hopes on this guy:

Maybe Nick is a good Catholic who doesn't want to got to a Catholic University that gave an honorary degree to this guy:

You never know.

YGLS Mock NBA Draft

2009-06-09T13:08:00.005-04:00

The NBA draft is obviously the sweetest draft of all four major professional sports in America. There are countless reasons that this is true. Probably the most pure basketball reason is because the worst teams in the league have a chance to draft their savior. Look at the guys who have transformed NBA franchises this decade: Lebron, 'Melo, D-Wade, Dwight Howard, and (soon to be) Kevin Durant are some of the most prominent examples.

The Draft is also a blast for those of us that are die-hard college hoops fans, because it is fun to see how real "experts" value the guys we've loved over the past few editions of March Madness. Which team will pull the trigger on Davidson guard Stephen Curry? How about Pitt's duo of Dejuan Blair and Sam Young? These guys have faults, which will cause them to drop, but someone will pull the trigger. It is always fun to see which teams take which gambles.

It helps that the NBA teams have the worst set of collective front offices in sports. These guys hand out multi-million dollar contracts as if they are hawking alternative newspapers at the corner of Broadway and 41st. It all makes the management aspect of the NBA enjoyable and maddening at the same time.

The combination of managerial incompetancy and college basketball royalty makes this draft an especially fun one to mock. Therefore, at YGLS over the next two weeks, we will have writers contribute to make picks for each NBA franchise. We will start with Keith, who will be drafting for the Los Angeles Clippers at #1 overall. Keith, you are on the clock!

Answer my Question, Bill Simmons! (Vol. 1)

2009-06-08T11:21:00.007-04:00

This is volume 1 in an ongoing YGLS series regarding questions we have sent to The Sports Guy and have gotten no response on.

In the impossibly great movie Hoosiers, there is a line that makes no sense.

Coach Dale says "Cletus?-?"

Cletus responds "Hmm?"

Dale - "What are you doing down there?" [sort of sitting down near a wall]

Cletus responds: "Floatin'."

Coach Dale then moves on and the viewer is left to assume that Coach Dale knows what "floatin'" is too.

I've e-mailed Simmons. A friend and I perhaps illegally* found addresses for Gene Hackman and screenwriter Angelo Pizzo, and wrote them letters too. I've talked to people, on the Internet and in person, from Indiana...even people from Muncie, Indiana. None of them have any idea what Cletus means by saying he's "floatin". I've had people on Internet message boards ask their dad who once drank with Bobby Plump what "floatin" means.

They have various guesses that Cletus is hung over, confused, Jonsening for a drink, tired, lost in thought, or napping. But there is really no explanation that more than one or two people have guessed. No consensus. Why was he on the floor? What was he doing? What is "floatin'"?

So Hoosiers is your favorite movie, Sports Guy. Therefore,

ANSWER MY QUESTION, BILL SIMMONS!

*Dear legal authorities, I didn't do anything illegal.

My Dirty Little Secret

2009-06-08T09:24:00.002-04:00

I like hockey. I always have. It's a faster version of soccer with a little less organization, but still an incredibly skilled sport. We've all tried to skate in a circle around a rink before, while holding someone's hand for balance even (or maybe in a lame attempt to try to score with a significant other) and it's hard. Now speed that up, slap a stick in your hand, add people trying to knock you down, while chasing down a small hard disc, and you have hockey. The speed, the stamina, the skill, the center of gravity, and the endurance are all so impressive.

My love of hockey was simple early. The Pittsburgh Penguins were good, and so I liked hockey. And then it matured, I enjoyed watching hockey, specifically playoff hockey. Then the New Jersey Devils ruined the sport by winning the 1995 Stanley Cup. It ruined the sport. I still loved it, but it became a grind, a game of traps, shut outs, low scores, and just boring. This is part of the reason I hate the Devils still to this day. Not only is their mascot pure evil (which if you google image search The Devil you come up with surprisingly few good image hits), but they set the sport back about ten years. I tried to follow hockey through college, but just didn't have it in me.

But after the lockout, several smart rule changes, and the influx of really good young talent the sport is back. And the Stanley Cup Finals, and the playoffs in general, have been fantastic. So without further ado, I'd like to present a list of ten great, or not so great, things about this years Stanley Cup Finals.

10.) The Enterprise Mom Commercial - I thought this one died years ago, but unfortunately some suit at Enterprise saw fit to bring it back. Just dreadful. Moooooooom.

9.) Playoff Beards - I bet you could hide at least twenty-four Swedish Fish in there, which are delicious by the way, and still have room for a few more. Playoff Beards are great because it's the tangible evidence of just how long these playoffs truly are. If you advance to the finals you have been playing almost every other night for about two months straight. Very impressive.

8.) Versus and NBC - First the good. I love that these two networks can just share the same coverage teams. It's nice that although on two networks you get continuity between opinions, announcing, and a familiar feel.

7.) Versus and NBC - They both really stink. So I also have continuity in perpetual suckitude. How hard is it to cue up a replay? I can do it, without thousands of dollars of technology at my finger tips, with a stupid tivo unit. Give me some replays. Also don't be swayed by the latest momentum shift or blow of the whistle. Have an opinion and hold to it a little bit. Are the Red Wings tired or veteran? Pick one. It's pretty simple really. The Penguins played better in games three and four and won. The Red Wings played better in game 5 and won. So have an opinion and don't be afraid to stick with it.

6.) The matchup - This one has been overplayed by now, but Detroit - Pittsburgh was what everyone wanted all year. Both teams, and stars, delivered. Not like some other team in some other sport that shall remain nameless ...

5.) Refereeing- Very hands off until Game 5. I don't blame the Refs for that one. Somehow the Penguins decided to go off the deep end. But if you have the two least penalized teams in the game playing each other, let them play. Don't feel you have to make calls since you're standing on the ice. Great refereeing.

4.) Bill McCreary's Mustache - If you're going to mention good officiating you need to mention the top dogs great 'stache. Just imagine being upset that one of your players is going to the sin bin, and then they zoom in to show Bill McCreary with the penalty call, and you see that 'stache. It's hard to stay angry.

3.) The quality of the play - It's been a well played series. As I see it you have a very talented and deep Detroit team going against a top heavy and young Penguins team. I said before the series started that if they played this series 10 times, the Red Wings would win 7 of them. The Penguins have a chance but it just requires perfect play. The Red Wings have all around better talent. The Penguins had those chances to steal game one or two. They played really well, but just didn't quite seal the deal on the offensive end. Now their backs are against the wall, and unless they can get some better forechecking going, they're going to be done in six, or seven. You can't let Detroit move freely from the defensive zone to the offensive zone. They're too big and fast. Freaks of nature really. I wonder how the Swiss National team isn't better when I watch the Red Wings play.

2.) Did I mention the Enterprise commercial that runs approximately 5 times a game?

1.) Superstitions - I love the superstitious nature of hockey. Whether it's beards, or unwashed socks, or fans that do things just because they have before and it's tradition. It's a lot like baseball in those regards. When you play these long series things are bound to creep up. From octopus on the ice to goalies touching the pipes during stoppage of play to not touching the Prince of Wales trophy. The list goes on. Perhaps it's why during every game I eat two of these ... What? It worked in games three and four! I have to keep trying!

Sugar

2009-06-07T21:09:00.004-04:00

A lot has been going on. Consequently, my sports viewing has tapered off a bit. (I have still been a frequent reader of Matt Mosley and Peter King, and have checked the standings to see the typical peaks and valleys of another infuriating Mets season) But down here in Asheville, NC I have had two brushes with a wonderful part of the American professional sports landscape: Minor League Baseball.

My fiancee Marianne and I went to an Asheville Tourists game on Thursday (the Tourists are the single A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies). We bought the cheap seats, because I wanted to be "high up and behind home plate." Of course, in this minor league stadium, there is no "high up." There is one deck where the "box" seats are separated from the bleacher seats by 5 feet.

The stadium was built into the side of a hill, and was thus quite a-symmetrical (360 to the power ally in left, 320 to right, with a slightly elevated wall in right field) The stadium did have an electronic scoreboard that flashed player pictures, info and stats, but I was annoyed that the batting order wasn't posted anywhere on the scoreboard.

The game promotions were a good time. One involved asking a little girl to guess the game's attendance from 3 choices. She guessed 1,410, which was said to be the correct answer. They were clearly lying. Some people had shuffled out by this late point in the game, but I thought there were about 300 people in the stadium at that point of the game. I'm not entirely sure the stadium could fit 1,400.

A second promotion required Ms. Asheville to successfully throw a baseball into the back of a hatchback from about 20 feet. That's right, the back of a hatchback. She couldn't do it. Perhaps next time they should use the broad side of a barn. Now, Ms. Asheville can be exonerated since she was wearing wedge shoes, but she must be chided for not thinking to take the shoes off. Let's hope she doesn't talk about "U.S. Americans" and their dearth of maps during the Q&A portion of the Ms. North Carolina pageant.

Another favorite was the "frisbee toss." No high-powered mechanical guns needed to propel them into the stands. Just a girl throwing frisbees at people.

The game stunk -there were 9 errors, but the concessions were good. Good local beer at a reasonable price is a big plus.

In all of this, what strikes me the most is the juxtaposition of serious and silly, professional and wildly unproffessional. There are men here - serious athletes - who are pinning serious hopes on their performances in these game. But in between innings, beauty contestants are trying to throw baseballs into hatchbacks. The professional seriousness of the stadium workers, juxtaposed with the silliness of a lot of their work captured this. (Like the worker who was very seriously carrying the life raft that was used in their version of the pierogie race)

Today I watched the independent film Sugar. It's quite a good film about a Dominican pitcher trying to make it in the big-leagues. It is completely non-formulaic. You should see it. It does a good job of capturing the strange juxtapositions I spoke about - it combines funny, serious, silly and absurd scenes very well. For such is baseball. For such is life.

Outdoor Life Network

2009-06-07T12:22:00.004-04:00

Greetings to all those near and far in the YGLS readership which at this point may be no more than one man who may or may not have some chicken wire. My name is Keith Davis and I feel before I hit my first post a little introduction is necessary. It's only fair for me to share of myself if I ask you to place us somewhere in your bookmark list to visit daily right? No, visit a few times a week? Ok, that works.

I was part of the original YGLS effort. Everything about it was pure, fresh, raw, unedited, and difficult to do. Seeing as how only 2 of us, ok maybe 1.5, had web editing skills, it was just brutal. What's a shame though because we had a wide array of sports knowledge, and passion, that is needed to accurately follow each sport. I think this is reflected even in our one week of rebirth. We have articles from Tennis (thanks Aaron) to Soccer (thanks Josh) to NBA age limits (Thank you Christopher and Chris). And what's great is that it's not a polished unified movement. It's a blog, and that's sports. Sometimes the polished sports, the highly orchestrated efforts advance and sometimes it's the scrappers like Kelly Pavlik who train with tires in warehouses that come out on top. Sports can't be duplicated or predicted. It's the old cliche of a team being better on paper, but the game still has to be played.

Well I think this YGLS effort will be better in its reincarnation as a blog. When I wrote for the site four or five years ago I was a 22 year old frustrated Pittsburgh Steelers fan. We had been so close for so long, but hadn't reached the summit. Well since then the Steelers have a new coach, a solid foundation, and of course two Super Bowl Championships. These were the best things that could ever have happened to me. I no longer have a single focus, an inability to think rationally about sports, and frequent heart palpatations.

It was like the release of a pressure valve. Now if the Steelers are bounced from the playoffs by the Jacksonville Jaguars, it hurts, but I no longer stare at the wall for approximately 30 minutes in stunned silence. We've all been there, we know the feeling, but now I'm free. I've been able to more freely explore and enjoy my team unbiased with the blinders off for what they are, or are not.

I can also say that I've grown more deeply into my following of every sport: soccer, hockey, basketball both college and pro, and golf. I'm able to enjoy the sport and look for the beauties and strength in them. It's a slow maturation of an angry sports fan to someone who loves the beauty of each game. I don't follow baseball. Never have, never will. I can't stand the sport, so I won't pretend to understand it or make you listen to my commentary of it at all, except for maybe the occasional rant.

I expect to post some thoughts on the Stanley Cup Final. We've not touched on it and anytime a major sport awards a championship I believe it deserves to be discussed. Not to mention that I've spent the last two months of my life watching playoff hockey. No not hitting the refresh button on my browser, but actually sitting in the chair for 2.5 hours a night watching the network formally known as the Outdoor Life Network. Until then, stay classy.

Twilight

2009-06-07T09:43:00.001-04:00

"I have a great record against anybody right now, so it doesn't really matter who I play in the final. I'll be in there as the big favorite. But I play my best in the finals, in the important matches. That's why I'm number one. There's no secret...I'm not overconfident, but very confident."

I think anyone who even remotely follows professional tennis knows this Federism isn’t exactly in line with his performance in the past few years. My love affair with Roger Federer has definitely heated and cooled over the years. However, I don’t think I’m too far out on a limb to say that I’m with most tennis-lovers who want him to pull through against Robin Soderling on the red clay in Roland Garros today.

Federer came onto the scene in 1999 as one who served well, hit his baseline strokes well, volleyed well, and moved well. But he did nothing extremely well, at least not right away. In a matter of a few years he cut off the pony tail, kept grinding against the best in the world, “well” became “exceptionally well,” and a legend/machine was born.

Federer’s play started to rise significantly at the time when the Agassi/Sampras rivalry started to fade. My Agassi memories go way back to me falling to my knees and yelling with delight at a restaurant’s bar in Mt. Bethel, PA after (an also pony-tailed) Andre beat Goran Ivanisivic in five sets at Wimbledon in 1991. I was 10. Let’s just say that the twilight of Agassi’s career at the turn of the century was a twilight of sorts for me too. I was still grieving and not ready to embrace a new hero just yet. When Roger started winning all the time, it was kind of cool at first, but then he kept winning…easily…all the time. Then he started giving really arrogant press conferences and wearing cardigans to trophy presentations and I thought, “Enough’s enough. This guy’s a prick. I will root against him.”

And so it was. And I did. I’d follow the headlines of major tournaments and always hope for the number 1 seed to fall. He practically never did. Australian after Australian, U.S Open after U.S. Open, Wimbledon after Wimbledon were pretty anticlimactic for me.

However, I watch tennis in spurts. Tennis is weird like that. It seems to cater to the jobless because it’s on from 9-5 most of the time, and you kind of have to watch a whole tournament unfold to really get sucked into following it professionally. During a spurt while in Grad school, I kept watching tournaments in the summer and I kept watching Federer. He was still winning handedly at that time (although Rafa had just started giving him trouble, but on clay only) and I knew a “W” was almost a foregone conclusion when he came through the tunnel. I don’t know what happened, but the completeness of his game just started to grab me as I kept observing it. The guy was great at EVERYTHING. I have played competitive tennis at the high school level and watched enough pro tennis to know that most guys (and gals) have one or two things they do VERY well. They try to use some combination of their strengths and others’ weaknesses to fight for the win. When I was playing my best, I could serve and volley well. I was winning when I was killing my first serve for winners and getting to the net for a quick put-away. If you could keep me back on the baseline hitting sub-par backhands and moving like Greg Oden, you had a nice chance.

Roger had everything in his prime. He moved like a ballerina. He could rack up 30 aces a match. He combined grace and power at the net. He had trick shots…I kind of just morphed into a fan. He could accept a trophy wearing a Speedo for all I cared. Then Rafael Nadal started to put it together on all surfaces and some of the best tennis in the last twenty years was brought to the main stages. I shared many a Grand Slam Final with my brother, David marveling at these freaks who could run down every ball, hit baseline winners from their knees, and who always seemed toughest with their backs against the wall. But, I always pulled for Federer. And at first it was kind of cool to see him struggle against Rafa. It was cool to see him run into an obstacle (for once) right as he was about to eclipse Pete Sampras for most Grand Slam Championships ever. Then it kept happening. Then Roger stopped shaking his head after matches, and he started crying. Can anyone say “Uncomfortable?”

Roger has a chance today to win a title on the red clay at Roland Garros to complete a career Grand Slam. This hasn’t been done since my man Agassi. Federer also has a chance to get his fourteenth total Grand Slam and tie Pete Sampras. If he gets fifteen to become the all-time leader, his recent struggles with Nadal will be considered part of his legend and add to his iconic stature. If not, the story may turn into a bit of a tragedy…some might even say he was a let-down. Sampras dug deep in his twilight and pulled out his fourteenth Slam at the U.S. Open against his old rival Agassi to become the all time Slam leader. Pete never won at the French. Andre won all of them at least once, but never enough times. Let’s hope Roger can unequivically pass them both by overcoming his nemesis of surface today, and then his true nemesis, Mr. Nadal, to get to 15 Grand Slams. After that, he can accept his Championship trophies naked for all I care…

The Ethics of Spinoza, pizza, race, and Matt Carroll

2009-06-06T22:21:00.005-04:00

When I was 12 years old and played first base for the little league (baseball) Giants, I engaged in a pizza eating contest with NBA 5.5 million a year man Matt Carroll (aka the North Hills of Pittsburgh version of a Jason Kapono with some more defense and less backpack-er cred.)

From the best of my memory, I believe I ate 13.5 slices and Carroll ate 12. However, in an early moment of dishonesty, I threw out half a slice in the bathroom. This was discovered by a teammate who exposed me. In my defense, I threw the half-slice in the bathroom trash instead of flushing it down the toilet because I would have felt guilty of the toilet was clogged because of my cheating.

Still, it raises a question: did I lose the contest because of an automatic disqualification? Or did I win because even after subtracting the thrown out slice, I still was up on him? I don't know what we decided, but lacking official rules, history can remember it however people decide to remember it. Ultimately, reading "Ethics" by Spinoza on my bus ride to work didn't shine much light on this question for me.

So let me move into my other thought...every morning on that same bus that I read Spinoza on, we travel by Allegheny Traditional Academy on Pittsburgh's Northside. It's a K-5 school and a "Traditional Academy"-track Magnet, complete with dapper uniforms. According to its website, it's approximately 60% African American, 30% white, 7% multiracial. It has a pretty good reputation as a school. One demographic not on the school's website is obvious though: the basketball court behind the school is always exactly 100% African American.

The white kids are there in front of the school every day...playing yu-gi-oh, probably talking about playing basketball on PS3, skateboarding...maybe in the winter I'll see some snowboarding and a variety of XXXXXTREME mountain dew "sports" like zip-cording across the Golan Heights as televised by ESPN-8/The Ocho. But come on little white dudes, play some hoops! Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki won MVP awards. And Nash deserved at least one of his two: plus he doesn't sound like an Ivan Drago when he talks either. I would have assumed he was American if i didn't follow his career closely.

Stephen Jay Gould did a lot to fight against racism in his life, especially by engaging against racist junk science as a public intellectual and writing books like The Mismeasure of Man. He was also a huge sports fan and wrote some very interesting observations from a scientific standpoint (for instance -- streaky shooters don't actually exist from a statistical standpoint -- that is just in our popular imagination.) Anyway, Gould wrote that he didn't mind admitting he often rooted for a sort of "racial underdog" in sports too. He wasn't pulling a Jimmy-the-Greek or decrying the decline of the white athlete or any such thing: he thinks those of us who often like to side with the underdog in life will find a 1985 Dwight Gooden or 1985 Larry Bird particularly interesting. I have to agree. We like interesting stories. A white kid from West Virginia with a street game like Kings-era Jason Williams is interesting. Tiger Woods has excited people around the world, not just because he is the best at what he does, but because he doesn't look like most golfers either. We shouldn't deny the obvious.

In conclusion, Matt Carroll...you were a really nice guy. You talked to even the least popular player on our team, who was a home schooled kid of the strangest sort. You managed to run a fair pizza eating contest. You blocked my hook shot, which no one had ever done before.

And you're no Larry Bird. And despite the Slam interview with Larry Bird where he said its unfair to ask any white player to be the next Larry Bird (just like he didn't like being held to the standard of being expected to be the next Rick Barry), a great white American player who wasn't drafted purely for his 3 point shooting ability or his height would be a fun thing for the league. If he is a kid who put down the Wii controller to shoot outside of Allegheny Traditional Academy, all the better. If he ends up on a team with the first great Chinese point guard, all the better. It makes for an interesting story.

World Cup Qualifying Match Day 5 - On to Chicago

2009-06-06T10:53:00.003-04:00

As the weekend is upon us, and I sit here at my desk at work, I am getting excited for the big sports weekend at hand. Stanley Cup Finals with the Pens involved, some golfing with Keith, the Belmont, and McCutchen’s continued debut for the Bucs are all on mind; however, something else has captured my imagination above all of this: the U.S. Soccer World Cup qualifier versus Honduras, at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

I, along with many of my collegues, am a big fan of European football, especially when the national side is on the pitch. U.S. Soccer is almost at a crossroads here for the 2010 Cup, as after tomorrow’s match, half of the qualification round will be over. The U.S. right now are 2-1-1, with wins coming against Mexico and Trinidad, a draw at El Salvador, and an ugly 3-1 defeat at the hands of Costa Rica earlier this week. During Cup qualifying, it is important to get points at home and pick up a few points here or there on the road. After the first half of qualifying, the U.S. will have two home matches remaining against three on the road. Since this is the almost halfway point, it seemed like a good time to ask three burning questions of U.S. Soccer:

What the heck happened in Costa Rica? The U.S., plainly and simply, did not show up. There are a lot of reasons that we got destroyed in San Jose. It is a ridiculous atmosphere (as most of them are in Central America), where the crowd is loud, boisterous, and right on top of you. These crowds are infamous for their nastiness and vulgarity; it is not uncommon for someone to throw bags of urine at the American players. Add to this that the Yanks traditionally do not experience much success in Costa Rica. It totals up to portend that the U.S. may have not had a chance at all going into the match. Still, the poor quality of U.S. play cannot be overlooked. The Ticos notched two goals in the first 12 minutes of the match, and the U.S. never recovered. They scored a meaningless penalty in the 90th minute (taken skillfully by Donovan), but a listless performance needs to be remedied against Honduras tomorrow.

What was Bob Bradley thinking with the lineup against the Ticos? Bradley started with a 4-3-3 formation in San Jose. You read that correctly; the U.S. had three men on the attack. When was the last time this happened? My formative futbol years were watching Bruce Arena’s squads employ a single striker at the top of the formation (usually Brian McBride). These Arena teams would utilize a patient type of soccer, defending and defending and waiting for a chance to counterattack. They were not always the most fun to watch (certainly not comparable to, say, the Dutch Oranje) but they got results and had a great finish at 2002 Korea/Japan. On Wednesday, the Yanks had Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey flanking Landon Donovan. This left their back four exposed when the midfield pushed up into the attack. Add to the fact that Marvell Wynne looked lost on the pitch, and DeMarcus Beasley is currently being miscast as a left back, and you get a defence that looked uninspired, disorganized, and lacking confidence. What can be done about this? I am not tactical expert, but I think a 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 would be more appropriate. I think something with Donovan and Altidore up top, Dempsey and Beasley on the outside with Mastroeni and Bradley manning the central mids, and a backline of Hedjuk, Onyewu, Bocanegra, and Bornstein with Tim Howard in goal would be an effective, responsible way to start the match.

What is the overall goal of U.S. Soccer? This is the most important question for me right now. It is important to determine what we will consider success in South Africa. On the backs of the impressive finish in Korea, expectations were way too high for the squad that went to Germany. U.S. typically does not play well on European soil. Couple this with the fact that teams have more success on their home continents in World Cup play, and it was easy to predict that the U.S. would bow out before the Round of 16 (side note - getting in the Group of Death with Italy, Ghana, and the Czech Republic certainly did not help matters, nor did FIFA's archaic seeding system that valued the results of the '98 Cup more than it did the complete domination of Mexico by U.S. from 2000 through present times; Mexico were seeded, U.S. were not, and Mexico ended in a group with Portugal, Angola, and Iran. Also ignore the fact that I didn't predict this at the time). So what factors go into determining how the U.S. should do in South Africa? It is unwise, in my opinion, to ignore the importance of the group in which U.S. are placed. Therefore, the factors seem to me to be: (1)form, (2)continuity of success (from '02, allowing a hiccup in Germany), (3) difficulty of group (to be assessed in December 2009), (4) location (it should be one of the most neutral sites possible in the world, no advantage to anyone except for the home Bafana), and (5) the quality of manager decision-making (currently, the biggest question mark on this squad). For me, a reasonable goal would be to advance to the knockout stage and threaten to get to the quarterfinals (if not get there entirely). We can look at the world footballing order right now and determine that U.S. are not one of the top 8 footballing nations in the world. However, luck in the form of a few breaks is always huge at the World Cup finals, and the U.S. have the ability to get to the round of 8. Where do we go after 2010? When will we compete for a World Cup tournament title? This is the question that needs to be asked of U.S. Soccer administration.

Regarding the NBA age limit

2009-06-05T18:16:00.002-04:00

This is a complex issue so I’m not even going to try to tackle every aspect. Let me say this: I’m actually in favor of moving the age limit up to age 20.

So let's ask this: Who would benefit from lowering or even eliminating the current age limit? The fans? Absolutely not. The NBA players? Sort of. But most NBA players will get paid in time and will get paid handsomely. The real winners of eliminating the age limit would be those middling prospects who would get paid lavishly upon the assumption that someday, somehow, they’ll prove their worth.

Through the years, we’ve discovered plenty of folks like this. We could start with the mildly successful ones – that is to say, the ones that remain in the league:

DeShawn Stevenson, Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, Desagana Diop, Kendrick Perkins, Robert Swift, Sebastian Telfair, Shaun Livingston, Gerald Green, and Martell Webster.

I could go on and on with a list of guys who got paid a year or two earlier for skipping college. But these guys would eventually get their money. Is the game better off for getting these players a year earlier? Not really. Is the game worse off because Carmelo Anthony decided to win a championship with Syracuse? Absolutely not.

The game is, however, worse off for having to take chances on the likes of Ndudi Ebi out of high school. Those lottery teams that rely on the draft to rebuild are very much hurt by weak drafts filled with flimsy teenagers who may or may not fulfill their potential.

If the issue really is about money, then the players association should use their leverage not to lower the minimum age but to change the Collective Bargaining agreement so players coming in the league at age 20 can still receive two maximum contracts.

If this were to happen, everyone wins. Except Ndudi Ebi. But why should we be concerned about him anyway?

Allow Me to Introduce Myself

2009-06-05T11:09:00.003-04:00

So, as my kickoff to the reincarnation of YGLS, I wanted to introduce myself the only way I know how: by talking about sports. This is a column that I wrote for the old incarnation, edited to reflect a more timely nature (for example, I talk about attending the 2006 World Cup - oops!). Enjoy!

_______________________________________________________
There are many people in this world who can be classified as casual sports fans. You know the type; they will tune in to watch the local team play every once in awhile on an NFL Sunday afternoon, head out to the ballpark when there is a business function at the game, and maybe make a couple of snide comments when the next NBA baller is invariably incarcerated for some type of domestic disturbance. These people do not live and die by each and every shot, pass, or pitch. They watch the game, and continue their lives as if nothing has happened.

I can thank the good Lord above that I am not one of those types of people.

I fall into that other class of people. You know this type as well; I cry when my team is eliminated yet again in the AFC Championship game, I will always believe that “this is the year” for the Pirates, and I will turn on a game between UTEP and Pacific and pick a team to root for, only to be let down when the team loses a tough game on the road. I have to tell you, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I think it is correct to call my love for sports an affair. We have had a passionate courtship that began at the ripe old age of five for me. The only difference between sports and girls? I never once, for any reason, believed that sports had “cooties”. Think about it: you fall madly in love, only to at various points be let down. I guess another difference would be that a girl can (hopefully) cook; although a huge bucket of wings at a sporting event surely passes for a nutritious dinner.

There are two events early in my life that sealed just how big of a sports fan I would become. The first occurred in April 1987, when I attended a Phillies-Pirates matchup at Three Rivers Stadium. I went to this, the first sporting event I can remember, with my father Jon and my grandfather Frank, each of whom had a huge impact on my life, sports-wise and otherwise. I do not remember much from the game, except for this: as we arrived home after leaving the game early, my mother informed us that Mike Schmidt had hit his 500th career home run…right into the right field seats that we had vacated moments earlier (I also oddly remember going home that day, turning on the huge stereo/record player we had, and hearing the song "We Built This City"...weird memory).

The second moment in my nascent sports life occurred at a Philadelphia 76ers game when I was in first grade. My aunt had bought us incredible seats, courtside, about six rows back. This posed a problem for me, though, since I was probably about four feet tall; I could barely see. I would creep out into the aisle to watch the action with my wide eyes and a huge smile on my face. At one point, the Sixers’ star forward, Charles Barkley, got the ball in the post and put up a shot while being fouled. The force of the violation threw him to the ground, and he watched in anticipation as the ball hung on the rim for what seemed to be decades. When the ball fell ominously to the floor, Sir Charles started banging the court with his fists in frustration. At the same time, my heart fell as I watched from the aisle. What would occur next would change the way I viewed life forever. As Barkley prepared to get up, he noticed me standing disappointedly in the aisle. He looked over at me, then winked and smiled. I immediately told my dad that Charles had replaced Michael Jordan as my “new favorite player”.

These early events in my life propelled me to be the person I am now, which is to say a person who puts sports at the very top of his life’s priorities. This has manifested itself into a number of wonderful opportunities to attend sporting events in my twenty-four years on good ‘ole terra firma. Here is a list of the sweet sporting events attended so far in my life: two games in an NLCS, the 1994 MLB All-Star game, the 1994 and 2007 U.S. Opens at Oakmont, the Big East basketball championship numerous times, Steve McNair’s last record-breaking collegiate game at Alcorn State, the Belmont Stakes when a triple crown was on the line, two U.S. World Cup qualifying matches, the 2005 Orange Bowl National Championship, the 2006 Oragne Bowl Classic between Penn State and Florida State (3 OTs), and a few AFC Championship games, including a win in January 2009. The resume also includes countless baseball games at stadiums from Detroit to the Big Apple, many Steeler games, a handful of Penguin matches, college football games in some of the best SEC stadia including Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina, and enough Pitt basketball and football to satisfy most for a lifetime. Events coming soon that I will hopefully attend include the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and anything else that would enhance my resume as a sports addict.

I once had a flirtation with making sports my career. I had an internship with an NFL franchise during training camp, then worked as a graduate assistant with the football team at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. However, there was one thing that I could never reconcile, and that was the fact that working for a sports franchise would almost assuredly mean a drop in my passion for sports in general. I am sure I could have still been a fan, but it could not have been my life’s priority, and that’s the way I want it.

I guess that there is a point to my story. People have diseases, many which are life-threatening. When this happens, the outpouring of support is both wonderful and indispensable. Therefore, the next time that you hear of a sports fan crying over a painful loss or celebrating a bit too much after an exhilarating win, remember that diseases are contracted, not willfully invited into one’s life. Give that fan a break; it could very well be me.

I'd rather talk about 19 year olds than the NBA Finals

2009-06-05T09:19:00.006-04:00

I guess the Lakers won some game last night.

Meanwhile, Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! sports, one of the more underrated sports writers from one of the more underrated sports websites , put out an interesting piece about the NBA's 19 year old age limit. It made me wonder if the 19 year old age limit could become the top off-season issue of 2009 before the 2010 Goldrush.

Key Figures in the 19 year old age limit debate:

NBAPA Executive Director Billy Hunter, the not-so-public-but-effective union leader
NBA Commissioner and Council on Foreign Relations member David Stern, aka public enemy #1 (to some of us)
Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn) , perhaps best known for being the white guy easily re-elected to the house in a majority black congressional district

It could be an interesting showdown if the three men end up battling it out in the halls of Congress...though I would think their time would be better spent working on issues like the Great Recession. Interestingly enough, all three would probably describe themselves as political liberals or progressives but have different thoughts about this age limit. It's easiest for me to disagree with Stern.

Though from most objective measurements such as growth of the league and global reach, Stern has done a good job as Commish, personal grudges (maybe or maybe not fixing playoff games like when Doug Christie's face somehow fouled Kobe Bryant's elbow, the creation of a Zombie Sonics, the refusal to admit any mistakes) turn me against him.

But it shouldn't be personal. Ultimately this is an economic issue. The position of Commissioner in sports has always been to back the owners; it's not a neutral job (see "Eight Men Out" for some history.) I believe the NCAA and NBA both benefit from the 19 year old age limit -- or any age limit, for that matter. The NBA gets to structure its collective bargaining agreement in a way to prevent players from gaining two maximum contracts; the NCAA gets rent-a-players like Derrick Rose for a year to increase their revenue as well, especially from March Madness, their biggest cash cow. Does anyone think that Rose's financial, intellectual, or basketball life was improved by spending a year playing in Conference USA? I'd love to hear the argument.

A few youths will buck the system like Jeremy Tyler but if the age limit is not changed in contract negotiations I fear the next American Ricky Rubio (who has played pro ball since he was 14) will be forced to waste a year as a Kentucky Wildcat or maybe traveling to Europe, which I don't think is good for the players or the fans*. And aren't those the two groups the game should reward first?

*I realize Kentuckians might be excited by that hypothetical prospect but I consider most of them zealots and crooks, not fans.

The Unanswered Questions of God's Game: Hoops and the Futile Search for Answers

2009-06-04T09:24:00.009-04:00

As I sat up in my bed at 3 am last night, I thought about what could I possible write my first ever blog entry about. My own hypocrisy, as someone who has occasionally scoffed at the rise of the blogosphere during the decline of traditional paid journalism in a way that rivaled the vulgariy of David Simon's season 5 rants in response to the decline of print media? Probably not. I did, however, have a lot of questions about the greatest sport at this point of human evolution. So let me ask these questions: rhetorical, factual, probing, sparked by these NBA playoffs, or swimming in my brain for years.

Why don't Americans chant like this? (remember: some of these questions are rhetorical, no one needs to write a Philhellenist treatise on Greek nationalism or the condition of the Mediterrenian welfare state.) Speaking of Greece, Josh Childress did a fine job in the finals, but Panathinaikos took their 2nd title in 3 years.

is 23 > 24? I think so, but I'm too angry to think about Kobe with a post-Shaq ring.

How quick can I jump on the Magic bandwagon because of my Lakers-loathing?

How do I rank Wilt Chamberlain's most crazy accomplishments? Some possibilities are the 100 point game, the 50.4 PPG season, the 55 rebounds on Bill Russell game, bedding 20,000 women, never fouling out of a game ever, leading the NBA in assists to prove he could, the only player to ever record a quadruple double double (which he did 5 times), the only player to get a double-triple-double, playing 79 complete games out of 80 in a season (only sitting for 8 minutes that entire season), his incredible series against a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? My natural political instincts would normally make me skeptical about a friend of Richard Nixon who had a theory by Robert Nozick named after him, but I'm fascinating by his freakish career and accomplishments. I wonder if any good volleyball videos of Wilt exist...

Why is it so easy to hate Duke? Why? Why? Why? Why? I don't even usually follow the ACC that closely, but I have no level of hatred like this for any team north of Mason-Dixon.

Will we see a rematch of Calipari vs. Self NCAA championship next year? Kansas 82, Kentucky 68. Kentucky gets the death penalty by 2012.

Are the Spurs done for good or was this a lull thanks to a strong west and injured Ginobli? What type of character does infamous geek Tim Duncan play in Dungeons and Dragons? I'm thinking a Paladin with a particular dignity and quiet strength. (The Spurs are still boring, forever.)

How will the refs call/be allowed to call Euro-flopping next year?

What inspired the Freedarko hatred of Mike Breen? I suppose the blog speaks for itself on this issue. And why did I buy it so quickly? Suddenly I'm a Breen-hater. Oy! Thank G-d for Van Gundy calling Van Gundy?

Speaking of broadcasting, what's with Bill Walton's bad back excuses? He played basketball much more hurt than this. We need you back, Bill. During his legendary Boris Diaw piece I linked, you can hear him stutter briefly; I find it particularly inspirational that a shy man with an admitted Stuttering problem is one of the top color men in the game.

Also, Bill, why does your son suck?

If stupid ESPN gets the Summer Olympics, does it mean I'll never hear the NBA on NBC theme ever again?

Most urgently, are these the best NBA playoffs ever, or the worst? ("neither" is an option too, though not a very exciting one to write about.)

Arguments:

+ Celtics/Bulls series, specifically Rondo's incredible duel with Derrick Rose.

+ The Nuggets putting up the best offensive performance in NBA playoff history, and having the chance to watch that game, and rooting for that very result.

+ Mabye we'll get to see Melo in a Pirates hat at watching the finals.

- The Nuggets aren't in the finals. No chance for me to make a "Billups for HOF!" arguments. No "Is Birdman actually net positive?" debate. No tattoos per square inch statistics. No redemption.

- Kobe.

- Bryant.

- "Staples".

- The fact that the Bad Boys Pistons "changed the game forever" and no fast break-first team since the Showtime Lakers have won a title. The game slows down, valuable points per possession rule, and good defense and frequent fouling make me flip over to Simpsons re-runs.

- No Suns in the playoffs.

- No Warriors even near the playoffs.

It seems the best hope for a high flying team to take back the trophy is Lebron either joining D'Antoni's Knicks in 2010-2011 or Jay Z Presents The Brooklyn Nets. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will?

Waiting for a fast break championship,

I Remain,

Chris George

YGLS Reborn

2009-06-03T19:31:00.009-04:00

We’re Baaaaack.

That’s right. After a four year hiatus, the Youvegottalovesports.com crew is back. And in this incarnation, we’re a blog. Now for those of you who just whacked your foreheads and exclaimed, “Why, why another blog,” we understand that we probably need some sort of explanation.

Let’s start out by explaining that there are people out there that are in the business of tracking blogs. What a joyous life that must be! Anyway, these esteemed folks estimated in 2005 that there were a total of 25 million blogs out there in cyberspace. These same folks were tracking a whopping 112 million blogs in 2007. If we extrapolate out at the current rate of growth in the blogosphere to, say, the year 2017 (which, by the way, is also the year that some experts predict that Social Security will become insolvent, if you believe all that ), there will be, according to my math, roughly sixteen blogs for every man, woman, child, and Jack Russell Terrier on the planet. We’re not just talking man, woman, and beast in the US. We’re talking about the huddled, unwashed masses in the third world as well.

With all these blogs bouncing around dat der fancy interweb, we need to ask ourselves, why another? Well, there’s no doubt that blogging comes with a healthy dose of egotism. We blog because we feel like we have something worthwhile to say. We can empathize with George Costanza when he said:

GEORGE: I like sports. I could do something in sports.
JERRY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. In what capacity?
GEORGE: You know, like the general manager of a baseball team or something.
JERRY: Yeah. Well, that - that could be tough to get.
GEORGE: Well, it doesn't even have to be the general manager. Maybe I could be like, an announcer. Like a color man. You know how I always make those interesting comments during the game.
JERRY: Yeah. Yeah. You make good comments.
GEORGE: What about that?
JERRY: Well, they tend to give those jobs to ex-ballplayers and people that are, you know, in broadcasting.

Man, you should hear the comments we make during games. Fantastic stuff. So, a group of college friends got together and launched a new website for the rest of us to coincide with ESPN’s launch of its 17th network, ESPNU. We’d grown tired of ESPN showing poker and original series on Dale Earnhardt and athletes playing catchphrase on Sportscenter. We wanted a website that concentrated on sports, but with a funny and sarcastic edge to it. We also riddled our stories with pop culture references due to our obsession with that as well. Our website’s name was both an expression of our passion for sports, and also paid homage to our favorite show, Seinfeld.

Thus, a website was born. There are multiple narratives out there to explain the demise of our original website. Some say our founder was an idealist; you might even say a cockeyed optimist. He thought that a group of middling college students could not only launch and keep up a popular sports website - he thought it could eventually make a profit. The workload, along with finals and, you know, real jobs eventually killed the site.

Others contend that the URL was lost in a high stakes poker game with the model from godaddy.com.

The most likely story, though, is that our fine website was a victim of the housing bubble. For months, everything was going well. Our CFO talked us all into sinking vast amounts of our revenue into these credit-default swaps he said would buy us each a house in the Hamptons. He said it was like making sausage. You didn’t want to know what was in it, but in the end we would have a fine product. It turns out, much of the product we were purchasing was a combination of Detroit area mortgages and financing for a company that was building luxury homes in the Youngstown, Ohio area. We also met this charming financial planner named Bernie Madoff. Nevertheless, four years and a hellish Chapter 11 bankruptcy later, we’re all back in our parents basements – which incidentally is really where most blogs are created and updated.

So, like a Phoenix rising from Arizona we’re back with a vengeance and ready to take the sports world by force. Our original site was pretty awesome, but this one will be even better. We’ll have shorter, quicker responses to events. Let’s say Chad Johnson changes his last name to his home address. We’ll be all over that story with a mocking tribute in no time.

The original website made its debut when Facebook was an infant that no one really knew how to use. Youtube was still months away from conception. Our nation’s life expectancy has tripled in that time. We’re ready to make a big splash.

Our staff has (mostly) gone on to start distinguished careers. Just off the top of my head, I can list four Master’s degrees and two guys who are ABD PhD candidates. Those credentials will provide keen insights into both who will win this year’s French Open as well as who will win “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!” (If there even is a winner on that show. This guy is not responsible for reality TV coverage). I am confident our readers will be pleased with our coverage of the various awards shows as well, from the Grammys to the Daytime Desi’s.

Feel free to comment below on items from your excitement level about the return of YGLS to possible reasons for its return. I’ll start us off with one erroneous reason for our return. We did not return to give Grove City College to give it some positive press in response to the Vincent DeSalvo debacle.

That’s all for now. Keep checking in for the best in sports coverage, replete with ridiculous allusions (try counting how many are in this article alone). Until my next post, Christoff, signing off.