- 01:00 PM
- 05/22/13
PIT in 6
NYR in 7
DET in 7
SJ in 6
posted by holden at 09:39 AM on May 14
Hey, man, I know. I came of age in central Michigan on late 80s to early 90s Wings. But I am more at peace with the travails of the past now. Age and 4 Cups, I suppose.
posted by holden at 01:46 AM on May 04
holden, that was a nice trip down memory lane. Can you dig up clips of the Wings losing to San Jose in 94, too? Oh, and fuck you, by the way... =D
What has come since has been worth it, no? I was at Game 6 of the 1994 Wings-Sharks series in Detroit. 7-1!!! No way they lose Game 7, right? Oh, Chris Osgood (at least he eventually redeemed himself).
posted by holden at 07:58 PM on May 03
grum -- maybe this will make you feel better.
Only time I think I have ever seen Nicklas Lidstrom (who was 23 at the time) exhibit poor defensive technique. I recall a number of commentators suggesting at the time that he was too "soft "(i.e., European) to be an effective NHL defenseman.
posted by holden at 05:22 PM on May 03
self-consciously liberal democrats they don't always college is really all that.
...
nephew setting up after doing a lot of real estate so right toward the kuwaiti
posted by holden at 12:09 PM on May 03
Wish I could make some insightful observation about the consequences of ratcheting up levels of competition and anger in America (and I'm sure some will), but suffice it to say that this is an awful thing to have done and something that could greatly alter the course of this kid's life (and the ref's as well, obviously).
By the way, article says the player is 17, not 14.
posted by holden at 09:15 AM on May 01
Pittsburgh in 5
Montreal in 6
NY Rangers in 7
Boston in 6
Chicago in 5
Detroit in 7
Vancouver in 7
Los Angeles in 6
posted by holden at 10:25 AM on April 30
If you want your faith in humanity to be undermined, take a look at the comments threads accompanying this story at Yahoo!, ESPN, and other outlets.
posted by holden at 04:59 PM on April 29
Sources are reporting that Russell Westbrook is potentially going to be out for the remainder of the playoffs after suffering a knee injury (requiring surgery) in Game 2 of the Rockets-Thunder series. Without Harden around to pick up the scoring load, seems like this opens up the West considerably, making a Heat-Thunder rematch more unlikely.
posted by holden at 01:08 PM on April 26
LI -- I think the coverage in large part is due to slow sports news cycle but also that the injured player is a former CYA winner and was the biggest free agent pitching prize in the last offseason. It is not a small-team/big-team bias, but a small-player/big-player bias. If the Rockies or the Padres had a pitcher of Greinke's stature, I bet it gets similar press. Or if it happened in a Rockies-Padres game and Troy Tulowitzki was the guy who got busted up in a scrum that probably did not have to happen.
Also, somewhat slow sports news cycle this time of year.
posted by holden at 05:27 PM on April 12
Considering the relative abundance of good to great birria joints in town, I would hope the rest of the goat was put to good use.
posted by holden at 05:22 PM on April 12
Welker is, in part, a product of the system he played in (as are many skill-position players). I would imagine the thinking is that Amendola is a younger version that can just be plugged into the Pats' offensive system and put up comparable numbers. The health thing is massive, however.
I would not be surprised if, assuming even number of games played, Amendola puts up superior statistics to Welker this coming season (although part of that is due to the fact that the Pats have little else to work with in the receiving corps and Manning has Thomas and Decker to feed, in addition to Welker).
posted by holden at 12:58 PM on March 14
The baseball in Nevada thing is really the only thing that I found surprising/odd.
posted by holden at 10:35 PM on February 22
@owlhouse: Great map but I couldn't find the country where archery is the most popular sport, could you?
Bhutan
posted by holden at 12:00 PM on February 22
yerfatma -- if even Leo Messi could not hack it on a wet Tuesday in Stoke, how would I even have a chance? Now, the English Leo Messi, Joe Cole -- that's another story.
owlhouse -- the goal line official on the Celtic end of the first leg tie against Juve missed a goal -- Matri scored but the official did nothing. It just so happened that Marchisio hammered home the clearance, so it was a non-issue.
posted by holden at 09:25 PM on February 20
But won't the fabric of the game be torn asunder if there is something done at the World Cup that cannot be done at a Sunday league game on the village green?
posted by holden at 09:05 PM on February 19
Yeah, it's like someone from the '70s invented time travel. How could you think this was a good idea?
Agreed. But a quick perusal of the comments here suggests this is not a universally-held view.
posted by holden at 12:26 PM on February 12
One of the better peaks ever, but not the best from a career value perspective.
posted by holden at 11:24 PM on January 29
And if Bradford City win, they will get a Europa League spot for next year.
posted by holden at 04:53 PM on January 22
A whole murder of crows.
I would rather that they ate a parliament of rooks or perhaps an unkindness of ravens.
posted by holden at 03:04 PM on January 16
I, for one (as a Chicagoan), welcome our secretly Canadian overlords.
By the way, how out of the blue was the Eagles getting Chip Kelly to sign on as coach? I thought that he was clearly out of the picture for any NFL team and (allowing for the fact that I may just have not been paying attention too well lately) did not see any whisperings of this at all after he returned to Eugene.
posted by holden at 12:55 PM on January 16
I think the whole "he missed the kick" thing is a bit overblown, as if it was one of those situations where the timeout was called at the very last minute but no one on the field knows it. Both of the lines were standing up and disengaged when the kick went off, and I think Bryant knew it as well. Seemed more akin to a guard shooting a three after the ref blows the whistle for a foul away from the ball. Yes, he missed it, but seemed very much a practice kick to my eyes at least.
posted by holden at 11:01 PM on January 13
1. Denver
2. Green Bay
3. Atlanta
4. New England
5. Brady
6. Lynch
7. Bryant
8. Denver
posted by holden at 01:37 PM on January 12
I think the playoff cannot come fast enough, but do think that post-season college football will always be a bit skewed as long as there is a month-long break (and potentially longer) between the last competitive game and the postseason/bowl games. I understand that college sports need to work around the academic calendar, but the long layoff (and what that means with respect to loss of rhythm/flow, extra time to prepare/game plan, etc.) means that the postseason results will potentially deviate even more from what regular season dominance/strength/trends than, say, the NFL playoffs. As noted above, this favors detail-oriented, strategic thinking coaches that can create a comprehensive game plan and have the personnel to pull it off (and more power to them -- it's not like this is unfairly tilting the playing field due to some arbitrary factor). I do, however, think that any advantage that an Alabama or other well-coached team has due to this scheduling dynamic will be mitigated somewhat by a four-team playoff -- because while a team can prepare a month or so for the semifinal game, there is only so much planning a team can do for a potential championship game against an unknown opponent (although it will obviously be one of two teams) until that week before the championship game (and then it is just a week of prep time).
Can the plus-one playoffs pit two SEC teams against each other in the final game?
Yes. As we saw last year, so can the BCS.
posted by holden at 12:00 PM on January 08
I know an undefeated ND team could simply not be excluded from the BCS title game, but if this is not an advertisement for some sort of playoff, not sure what is. ND is simply outclassed here -- and while Bama is a good team, they did not exactly dominate the SEC this year (loss to A&M and very close calls against LSU and UGA), and this is arguably the weakest of Bama's recent (last three) national championship teams.
If this game has shown me anything, it is that Saban is a borderline unstoppable force when given over a month to prepare for a national championship game. As an LSU fan, I thought it was the biggest advantage over LSU (and Les Miles) last year, but this certainly confirms it.
posted by holden at 10:49 PM on January 07
While the hit is incredible, I was also amazed that he recovered the fumble with one hand.
posted by holden at 06:03 PM on January 02
The Lovie Smith one confuses me. Didn't see that coming at all. They were 10-6. If the tiebreaker goes the other way would Lovie be a beater coach?
I was not aware Lovie was in any danger of losing his job, and I live in Chicago. Of course, I've been out of town for the better part of the last week and I don't listen to talk radio or otherwise consume much local media. I just did not get the sense that this was a playoffs-or-bust type of ultimatum season.
I do think this is less about the Bears not making the playoffs but how they missed the playoffs. Flip the 7-1 start and the 3-5 finish and perhaps Lovie is still coach of the Bears. Clearly, though, the more macro-focus, long-term, major factor here is that Lovie was never able to sustain any sort of balance between offense and defense -- the defenses were consistently good, while the offenses were always in the bottom quartile or worse (even post-Cutler). I think the other major factor in his firing is that the Bears have lost six in a row against Green Bay and eight of their last nine.
posted by holden at 03:33 PM on December 31
Yeah, they suck in every phase except for their stud WR, but the D has given up massive points all season long. The debacle vs. Arizona last week was ridiculous.
The Cardinals had 196 net yards of offense in that game. Stafford threw two pick-sixes and had another INT returned inside the Lions' 5-yard line (leading to a TD), and the two other Cardinals TDs also resulted from Lions turnovers. Would not pin that debacle on the D.
posted by holden at 08:49 PM on December 23
What the Limeys think of your Bowl names.
Pretty sure the author of that piece is an American (I could tell from the style of his writing and words/phrases used before looking him up). But still a good list.
posted by holden at 11:08 AM on December 21
That is at least a year and $40M+ more than I expected him to get. I thought he would max out around 4/$80M if he was lucky.
A number of commentators have touched on this during the offseason, but there is a coming wave of salary inflation (actually, it has already started) due to the massive TV deals clubs are signing and likely will sign. The two LA teams are clearly examples of this; the Rangers were thought to be spending more in reliance on the new TV deal they have that kicks in sometime in the next couple of years, but the LA teams seem to be in a different stratosphere. While luxury taxes are going to get steeper in years to come, if [(gates/stadium revenue + local TV revenue + MLB merchandising and national TV rev share + other revenue) - (payroll + other expenses) > luxury tax] and the owners really don't care about just how much of a profit they turn, then we may see a whole different era of haves and have nots where the spend/resource disparity between the top and the bottom only widens.
posted by holden at 06:11 PM on December 13
If there was any justice in the world, New Orleans would have gotten the Jazz name back.
posted by holden at 09:06 PM on December 04
I think it is the 3-way tie that messes things up. Each of Denver, Baltimore and NE are currently 9-3.
Under "Other Tie-Breaking Procedures," no. 3 states: "To determine home-field priority among division-titlists, apply Wild Card tie-breakers." This would apply here to a situation in which 3 division titlists have the same record.
The Wild-Card Tie Breakers are as follow (with commentary, and truncated once the applicable condition is met):
Three or More Clubs
(Note: If two clubs remain tied after third or other clubs are eliminated, tie breaker reverts to step 1 of applicable two-club format.)
1. Apply division tie breaker to eliminate all but the highest ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to step [Not applicable, as all three teams are from different divisions.]
2. The original seeding within a division upon application of the division tie breaker remains the same for all subsequent applications of the procedure that are necessary to identify the two Wild-Card participants. [Not applicable.]
3. Head-to-head sweep. (Applicable only if one club has defeated each of the others or if one club has lost to each of the others.) [Not applicable, but could be if Ravens beat Denver and all three end up with same record at 12-4 or worse.]
4. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference. [Patriots prevail here based on 8-1 conference record, compared to 8-2 for Ravens and 6-2 for Broncos.]
Still plenty of time and remaining games for the three-way tie to become a non-issue over the coming weeks (Baltimore and Denver play each other and New England has some difficult games on its schedule), but stranger things have happened.
posted by holden at 02:40 PM on December 03
Pretty good take-down of Stern (and his seemingly having it in for the Spurs) by Adrian Wojnarowski here.
Seems I may be in the minority here, but I believe what the Spurs did was well within their rights and, considering the success of (and near-universal acclaim for) the organization, am willing to believe they know best and that it was likely a smart decision.
posted by holden at 04:24 PM on November 30
I think this write-up about the situation by Henry Abbott makes some good points and is well worth a read.
posted by holden at 03:49 PM on November 30
Discussion in the sports media in these parts is that a very small nucleus of owners, not surprisingly from the wealthiest teams, are telling the rest of the owners to toe the line and keep their opinions to themselves. This is the same group of owners who complain loudest about the rising cost of salaries, sign the highest paid free agents each year driving the league economics, and also strongly oppose any form of revenue sharing with the other 80 percent of owners they are stifling. Worse yet, the league commissioner is in full agreement with this minority.
While this is about a month old now, this article seems to suggest it is (was?) largely owners of medium to small value/revenue teams that are (were?) the hardliners.
posted by holden at 11:40 AM on November 30
Question -- what does it mean to anchor in this context? That the butt of the putter handle is simply snug up against the golfer's body? Or is there some sort of anchoring object involved?
posted by holden at 11:26 AM on November 30
Question for anyone who might know: are coach buy-outs contingent on anything, particularly on whether the coach gets work somewhere else? Like, if some MAC team snaps up Derek Dooley, does he still get all $5 million from Tennessee, or would they prorate it based on how long he's out of work or how much less he gets paid or whatever?
It can vary by contract, but the general approach is that a coach gets paid what he is owed on his contract for each year remaining on the contract less whatever he makes in a new position. If he takes a new job during the term of the original (terminated) contract, for the years affected he will get the difference between the annual salary owed from his old job (if higher) and the annual salary at the new job. If the new job has a higher salary (unlikely for someone fired from his most recent job), no amounts are owed for overlapping years. Sometimes coaches/agents will, at the time of termination, negotiate a one-time, lump sum buyout at some discount of the amount owed for the remainder of the contract, which the coach will retain irrespective of whether he takes a new job and for how much.
posted by holden at 12:16 PM on November 29
This would be good for Arsene Wenger, as it would only take 7th to "win a trophy."
posted by holden at 01:36 PM on November 28
I'm sure it gets more media coverage being New York and all, but between this guy and the Yankees bleachers guy, I think we have the only two instances of fans receiving significant media coverage (and SpoFi FPPs) over their decisions to "retire." It all seems a bit much to me.
posted by holden at 11:38 AM on November 27
If trust is a question for anyone I'm fine with rcade (for instance) being the cash recipient
I know a guy, you might know him too -- lives at 227 W. Vatican Parkway, wears a funny hat to parties sometimes -- anyhow, he might have a slightly different opinion of rcade's integrity and trustworthiness.
Kidding aside, I would be interested in donating once you figure out the best way to collect.
posted by holden at 09:48 PM on November 12
So . . . it's D'Antoni for the Lakers coaching vacancy.
Have to admit I am a bit surprised at that. I figured Jackson was a shoo-in. Apparently Jackson is surprised as well.
posted by holden at 10:51 AM on November 12
Is there history of Trindon's letting go of the football being ruled a fumble upon booth review? I mean on obvious touchdowns, where the player stupidly lets go of the ball to show off.
Must be something they are coached to do at LSU. Tyrann Mathieu did the same thing against your Bulldogs on a punt return in last year's SEC Championship Game. Similarly went uncalled.
posted by holden at 10:29 AM on November 12
I think it was easy to look at the Texas Tech situation as Leach getting jobbed and being taken down by a Craig James-led junta, but Leach is beginning to look a bit more unsympathetic to me.
posted by holden at 10:27 AM on November 12
I think K State-Oregon would be a good game. With the exception of the Oklahoma game, I have not been particularly impressed by Notre Dame. Close calls against teams good but not great (Stanford), mediocre (Michigan), and just bad (Purdue, Pitt).
As for the SEC, even as a fan of an SEC school, I think it's good for college football for a non-SEC National Championship Game (and I'm not just saying that because my preferred team, LSU, is out of the running). Not sure it will always come out in a four-team playoff (at least 8 would be better), but the SEC will have a chance to prove its one-loss champion (or maybe even a two-loss champion) is better than 3 no loss teams from other conferences in the very near future.
As to Georgia specifically, no offense jmd82, but the Bulldogs have had a very favorable conference schedule (especially compared to SC and Florida) -- no LSU, no Bama, no A&M. Of course, you can only play the conference schedule you're given. Would love to see them give Bama a tough game in the SEC Championship.
posted by holden at 10:41 AM on November 11
Not sure which franchise should go, but as a nod to the royal family, the coach should be someone with a thematically appropriate name.
Maybe we could send them the Kansas City Royals and see how long it takes them to realize it is not a football team.
posted by holden at 03:13 PM on November 02
We may have discussed this before, but I think one line of reasoning is that intent does not matter -- if there is a history of racism associated with a particular gesture, style of make-up/impersonation, etc., engaging in the same reflects racism and you should not go there. Under this line of thought, you could even hold the belief that while the "guilty" individual may not himself or herself be racist, the gesture/appearance that he or she is making may well be racist.
I personally tend to think that the school of thought that espouses that any time a white person gets a make-over to appear as a person of color is per se racist or should be equated with blackface (which is a very particular type of caricature with a very ugly history) is somewhat knee-jerk and too categorical in its approach. But I also know that I personally (and even more so if I was any sort of public figure or celebrity) would never even get remotely close to anything in this category.
posted by holden at 05:34 PM on November 01
Is Thursday night where they dump the crappy matchups so they don't pollute Sunday? Has there been a good game on Thursday this year?
I believe that in launching a full season of Thursday night games, the NFL made the point that doing so ensured that every team would get a prime time game this season. The Chargers have actually already had three (Monday night of opening week against the Raiders, a Sunday nighter against the Saints, and a Monday nighter against the Broncos). Considering that ESPN and NBC get actual choices on what teams to showcase in their prime time match-ups (with NBC even even more flexibility through use of "flex" scheduling, while ESPN is stuck with the choices it makes at the time the NFL season schedule is set), it only makes sense that Thursday night games will be more likely to feature at least one crap team.
To the question of whether there has been a good game on Thursday this year, there was Bears-Packers in Week 2 (good on paper, crappy game) and Seahawks-Niners a few weeks ago (decent match-up, but fairly one-sided affair). Looking forward, Saint-Falcons on Nov. 29th looked good on paper before the season started (and the Saints were proven to be pretty awful) as arguably did Broncos-Raisers on Dec. 6. Otherwise, you see a bunch of games featuring teams that were probably not getting exposure to prime time otherwise (Jags, Panthers, Bucs, Costs, Bills, Dolphins, Browns, Rams, Titans, Chiefs), albeit sometimes against a decent enough team on the other side.
posted by holden at 04:51 PM on November 01
Poker may not be a sport, but there has been a legal movement to have it qualified as a game of skill, and not of luck (and therefore exempt from some anti-gambling laws).
A federal judge in a recent case in New York ruled that poker was not a game of chance prohibited by certain federal gambling statutes (from which casino games are exempt). That decision, however, was based on an interpretation of federal law and the poker game organizer being prosecuted in that case may still be found to have violated New York state law.
posted by holden at 09:55 AM on October 31
Anything interesting happen in the League Cup matches today?
posted by holden at 06:39 PM on October 30
Since money is being made on them, shouldn't these kids be paid?
I would have to venture that most of them are getting free room and board from their parents. If you think that basic rent plus meals (without even getting into clothing and other necessities and luxuries) would, at a minimum, be approximately $500 per month for 18 years, we are looking at fully loaded value to these kids of at least $108,000, and that is without adjusting for inflation. Therefore these kids are clearly already getting paid.
posted by holden at 06:39 PM on October 30
I took the time-honored approach of building a big lead and holding on for dear life. As I mentioned in the World Series clincher thread, fun postseason (if a bit devoid of drama at the end).
posted by holden at 01:18 PM on October 30
I assume NBC is going to use the same audio feed as Fox Soccer (I believe it is IMG/Premier League Productions), rather than try to build a stable of commentators (as trying to go it alone presumably would be much more costly). I would hope they could line up a good team for pre- and post-game punditry and half-time analysis, but that seems like a crapshoot -- with a lot depending on the balance of U.S. and British voices and whether truly talented talent is available.
With a World Cup looming that ESPN has the rights to (and presumably contractual commitments), I assume this means Ian Darke will not be doing any matches for NBC until at least 2014. So the concept of having a dedicated team doing a match of the week a la what McManaman and Darke are doing for ESPN now (which I believe is just a sublicense of Fox's rights) is probably not happening, unless NBC wants to find and hire available talent.
posted by holden at 05:51 PM on October 29
Comcast here in Chicago just finally added an HD channel for Fox Soccer (or at least I finally just found it on the dial, so to speak). With the move of the EPL to NBC Sports, though, I will probably drop the sports package next summer (although I just found BeIN this weekend as well, but it seems to be in Spanish only). I think the move to NBC will be good for fans and good for growing the popularity of the sport/league here in the U.S.
posted by holden at 02:13 PM on October 29
When asked about his touchdown celebration mimicking the Buckingham Palace guards, Rob Gronkowski explained what/who he was imitating with this little gem:
"That little Nutcracker dude that's guarding the house."
posted by holden at 10:25 AM on October 29
Wish the end had a bit more drama (and a Tigers win, just for sentimental reasons), but what a crazy postseason that was. The infield fly call in the Atlanta-Cards WC game, all 4 LDS series going to 5 games (including that Cardinals comeback from 6 runs down in Game 5 against the Nats), all of the Yankee drama, San Francisco winning 3 straight elimination games in 2 straight series (and then sweeping the next), the Tigers sweeping a series and then being swept -- it was just crazy.
Congrats to the Giants and some great performances from surprising sources such as Vogelsong and Zito.
posted by holden at 10:13 AM on October 29
Detroit in 6
Verlander
6 IBB
3 hours, 37 minutes
posted by holden at 01:25 AM on October 24
I am in favor of the Cardinals winning (I am a Cards fan), but, honestly, between last year and the Nats series this year, it seems greedy to get too worked up if they lose. Hats off to the Giants if they are able to complete the comeback tonight -- six straight elimination game victories (and maybe more?) in the same postseason would be quite an accomplishment.
Silver lining here is that if the Giants win, I can unabashedly cheer for the Tigers, who were the local team for the majority of my youth and who I would like to see win over any team but the Cardinals.
As to the Cardinals fans being insufferable on the infield fly call in the Wild Card play-in, I guess I have not seen a ton of that. I do think the call was correct by the letter of the rule, but would also agree that the call would not be made in the majority of circumstances and the umpire should have made the call sooner. I certainly was not expecting the call, and would not have complained if it was not made. It does seem, however, that a post-hoc narrative has been built around that call that it cost the Braves the game, as if the winning run was called back on that play. While the Braves would have had a better chance of winning with the bases loaded and one out in that situation, the effect of that call is probably not as great as people seem to want to think.
As to the Cardinals in general, I have been surprised this postseason by the amount of negativity people seem to have with respect to the Cardinals. I think success (and perhaps postseason familiarity) breeds contempt, as does the fact that the Cardinals have won a couple of World Series in the past 6 years after just scraping into the playoffs. (Although it is worth noting that they had NL-dominating sides in 2004 and 2005 and lost in the WS in 2004 and lost in the NLCS the next year -- reinforcing the maxim that the playoffs really are a crap-shoot when considering they won with much worse teams in 2006 and 2011.) Will Leitch had a good write-up on why people might dislike the Cardinals the other day here.
I do think the "best fans" in baseball thing leads to some Cardinals hate and is pretty ridiculous; I had no issue when outsiders like Peter Gammons were labeling the Cardinals fans that way, but when the fans themselves seem to believe it, it has gone too far. I was at Game 5 in St. Louis on Friday (an awful game to attend, as the Cardinals got nothing going against Barry Freaking Zito), and the "rally towels" they were handing out included the "best fans in baseball" moniker. Made me want to puke.
posted by holden at 12:49 PM on October 22
If there is a Tigers/Cardinals World Series, it will mark the third time in the last 4 World Series trips for the Tigers in which they have faced the Cardinals (the others being 2006 and 1968, broken up by the Padres in 1984) and the fourth time overall (the other being 1934).
posted by holden at 03:20 PM on October 19
SportsCenter is the absolute best. A cursory one-minute (maybe 30 second?) segment on the only baseball game to actually be played today and then a good 7 or so minutes of A-Rod for the main story at the top of the program.
posted by holden at 11:38 PM on October 17
SportsFilter: The Friday Huddle
It's not looking good for Gonk. At this point, I wonder about his future with the Patriots.
Perhaps they could upgrade and replace him with an R2-series astromech droid.