- 12:45 PM
- 05/19/13
The thing that concerns me about that video is amount of head first hits and cross checks to the head, especially at the beginning.
Exactly - that's why I was saying that most of the hits would be illegal. It seemed like the vast majority of the video was cross-checks, and then there's the one slow-mo cross-check to the neck by a UNC (Hopkins maybe) player that gets repeated, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. Of course someone's going down if you club them in the neck with a length of metal.
But anyway, supposedly the hardest hits, mostly illegal, still tamer than football.
posted by LionIndex at 05:26 PM on April 25
I don't know about youth league lacrosse, but the sport in general has pretty strict contact rules regardless of the age level. Hits to the head are penalized in almost every circumstance - I always felt like the helmets were more for protection from the ball or errant sticks flying around than from anything deliberate. While contact is part of the game, it's definitely not the point of the game as much as it is in football. Also, as the skill level of players increases, the contact level generally decreases, especially for full-on hits. Most of the contact I see when I watch NCAA games is just defenders riding attackers to keep them away from the goal, so there's no real "impact" to the contact. Even when I played in high school, we'd only see someone really get lit up once or twice a season.
Here's a video of the hardest hits from 2009 - most of which are illegal in some way, usually cross-checking. Other than the guy taking a stick in the neck, most of them are just one guy pushing another. I've seen much worse.
posted by LionIndex at 12:48 PM on April 25
Depending on drinking experience, what kind of beer, and the weight and body composition of the person.
posted by LionIndex at 02:24 PM on April 21
I think holden's got it - the Dodgers and their payroll/trades/free agent signings have been big news since the latter part of last season, along with the new ownership group with Magic Johnson and all that, and that's the lens through which the whole Quentin/Greinke thing is magnified. I don't think any stats matter for the story other than Greinke's salary and the Dodgers' payroll.
First line from ABC news article: You are about to watch a brawl that broke out at a game in san diego. And it left a pitcher worth nearly $150 million
New York Times had something similar.
posted by LionIndex at 01:02 AM on April 13
As of right now, ESPN has 5 stories on their front page about the brawl, and Grantland has one. One story misleadingly calls Greinke an "ace" when he's the Dodgers' #2 starter. I just have a hard time believing that happens if the teams involved aren't the Dodgers, Red Sox or Yankees, mostly because the big undercurrent to the story is Greinke's salary.
posted by LionIndex at 05:26 PM on April 12
Is he stupid enough to think that if a pitcher wanted to intentionally hit him he would do it with a marshmallow?
I wouldn't put it past him. I don't think anybody other than Quentin believes that he got beaned intentionally.
posted by LionIndex at 05:21 PM on April 12
As far as umpiring, there's no bias. But I don't think this would be all over the news if the tables were reversed or if it was a Padres-Rockies game. There would certainly be media coverage, but not to the level that it's been. It's not so much a anti-San Diego bias as apathy. Which, honestly, is somewhat deserved, since we're not much more than a AAA club at this point. Was it a big deal that Quentin got plunked two games prior and had to sit for the game prior to last night?
posted by LionIndex at 05:07 PM on April 12
Interesting question on local (San Diego) talk radio today: If Matt Kemp charged Jason Marquis and injured him last night, would anybody give a shit? Would anybody from Grantland write a story about it?
posted by LionIndex at 04:16 PM on April 12
Hooray for the future ACC!
posted by LionIndex at 08:07 PM on April 09
Well, he had been suspended previously, so the university was apparently aware of his "methods" but just wasn't going to go as far as firing him until the video aired.
I'll say one thing for the guy though, his apology after getting fired was at least an actual apology and he admitted that he was wrong and his treatment of players wasn't the way to do things.
posted by LionIndex at 06:18 PM on April 03
That was actually a pretty decent article - just seeing the headline here, I was wondering what in the world USC was thinking and ready to laugh at them, but I guess the truth is that they just don't have many options to choose from. And with the guys that in years past would be moving up to the big programs choosing to stay put (Stevens, Smart), they can't really go poaching.
posted by LionIndex at 11:39 AM on April 02
Even though I didn't fill out a bracket or anything, I enjoy reading the updates at ESPN for their tournament challenge. They don't give a percentage of people taking Wichita State to win the whole thing out of all the brackets submitted, but simple math says it's .03%. No matter how today shakes out, somewhere around 50 people (out of over 8 million) will have the correct final four. Obama is still doing better than every ESPN analyst.
posted by LionIndex at 10:55 AM on March 31
Yeah, everybody at ESPN had either Indiana or Miami winning the East, so they're all hosed. A few had G'Town or VCU winning the South, but generally, it seems like still having 3/4 of your Final Four intact at this point is pretty normal.
posted by LionIndex at 11:32 AM on March 29
It is sort of ironic that the Patriots would wear redcoats.
posted by LionIndex at 06:35 PM on March 28
I have no ties to Miami and no emotional attachment to the team, but I actually like the change. I'm more disappointed that they're changing the facemask color to white.
posted by LionIndex at 11:21 AM on March 28
Boy, it sure would be nice to have a game today that's not a blowout.
posted by LionIndex at 07:15 PM on March 23
Well, at least you got four hours. :/
posted by LionIndex at 11:14 AM on March 23
This year it is completely free.
It looks like it's that way for four hours, then you have to have a cable subscription. I couldn't get it to work anyway, but that was only in chrome. Maybe I'll try some other browser.
posted by LionIndex at 06:05 PM on March 22
As far as I can remember, the the committee has tried to give higher seeds locations at least in their region, only moving teams into odd places when they have conflicting seedings (like, Kentucky and Duke or UNC being 1 seeds - someone's going to have to go to a different region, usually the "lower" 1 seed).
posted by LionIndex at 12:37 AM on March 18
And would the Vikings then have 2 first round picks if they wanted to trade up and try to get a QB early? Yeah, that could be a really good move all-around.
posted by LionIndex at 04:22 PM on March 11
What are the Seahawks in the market for draft-wise this year? They've got a QB, their defense seems pretty solid, and they've got a running back. If their biggest hole that they need to fill is WR, the trade is probably a good move instead of trying to pick up a guy late in the first round and then trying to groom him. If Harvin can contribute immediately, that works well with their talent window and they can make a really good push this year.
posted by LionIndex at 04:21 PM on March 11
Nice that there's a firearms training ad showing up over there for me --->
posted by LionIndex at 12:40 PM on February 14
I think there was a Hispanic mother and son.
Yeah, they were manning a roadside or farmer's market stand or something. There was also an older male African-American guy sitting on the tailgate of a truck at one point.
posted by LionIndex at 01:17 PM on February 04
Yeah, and I don't mean to make an argument that Flacco had a bad game or anything by any means when I'm saying that Jones should have gotten the MVP. Flacco had a great game. But that play by Jones was ridiculous, and it seems odd to credit Flacco with 3 TDs for the game when that one TD was primarily Jones' doing.
I'm just basically saying that Flacco played an A game; Jones played A+.
posted by LionIndex at 01:13 PM on February 04
Yep, if Flacco had hit Jones in stride, Jones wouldn't have had to juke/outrun out half the defense to get the TD. He already had Culliver beat, had to come back for the ball, then make some other guy look stupid, then smoke Culliver all over again. We were tremendously upset later in the game when they'd show little blip highlights coming out of commercials or whatever, and they'd just show Jones getting into the endzone, and not the whole part leading up to that where he basically beats 4 players (counting Culliver twice).
posted by LionIndex at 12:42 PM on February 04
I think Jacoby Jones probably should have gotten the MVP nod. Flacco going 22-33 is pretty impressive, but otherwise his numbers aren't anything crazy, especially since that Jones touchdown was almost all Jones.
posted by LionIndex at 12:52 AM on February 04
Prepare to be disappointed, but perhaps not surprised: The current front page article for the NASCAR section on ESPN.
Let's hope they keep it quarantined there.
posted by LionIndex at 01:49 PM on January 25
It would be funny if San Diego went after Reid. It would mean kicking one of the most overrated coaches of all time to the curb (Turner) and replacing him with another (Reid).
It's exactly what they did last time when they traded Schottenheimer for Turner, although I don't think Schott is quite so overrated.
posted by LionIndex at 10:55 AM on December 31
This is certainly a bad thing Lomas Brown did, but he doesn't really have so much say in whether or not Mitchell actually gets hurt - part of the blame there would also go to whoever sacked him. Plenty of QBs get sacked every Sunday without getting injured to the point where they need to be taken out of the game. The intent behind it is what's despicable. Otherwise, you could really say the same things about a coach sending in a wholly incompetent line to block, even if he's not intending to get the QB injured *cough*NorvTurner*cough*.
In a way though, this is sort of similar to receivers "taking a play off" when they're not the primary target. If QB protection fails and the QB is in trouble, a receiver can greatly help him by getting open, so WRs (or other eligible receivers) that dog it are potentially doing the same thing as Brown, just not quite so directly.
posted by LionIndex at 05:46 PM on December 27
Raiders could use one more Trojan. Where's Booty at?
I have a feeling Sanchez may be available after this season.
posted by LionIndex at 07:06 PM on December 23
I'm going to agree with beaverboard on the worst bowl name, but amend that it's actually the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl.
posted by LionIndex at 10:54 AM on December 21
I, a Charger fan, was joking with my Jet fan roommate from college about how Rivers and Sanchez should just play catch for a few hours so as to eliminate the middleman defensive back and not waste everybody's time and effort.
posted by LionIndex at 11:36 PM on December 18
How awkward for East Carolina.
SDSU and Boise State were supposed to be joining the Big East next year too. If the conference dissolves (the 7 schools have the votes to do it) what then?
posted by LionIndex at 11:37 PM on December 13
It looks like the better conference record tiebreaker comes before the head-to-head one.
Here's the ESPN version which has notes on why teams are ahead of others if their records are the same. But even that doesn't totally make sense, because they have Pittsburgh in ahead of Cinci based on head-to-head, when Cinci has a better conf record.
posted by LionIndex at 01:08 PM on December 03
So which team is most likely to start poisoning/injuring children in order to achieve the highest sick kid count? Probably the Raiders or the Cowboys.
I was thinking of starting a business of renting inspirational sick kids out to teams for speeches. Maybe we'll have to "manufacture" the sick kids to meet demand - I don't know. I'm sure I can get Greg Maddux as an investor.
posted by LionIndex at 12:58 PM on November 27
Virginia-Virginia Tech. A powerhouse battle between the 4-7 Cavaliers and the 5-6 Hokies. Since it's in Blacksburg and they might actually have something to play for, I'd guess the Hokies will win. Virginia has been pretty putrid this year.
posted by LionIndex at 11:32 AM on November 23
He missed 56 shots!
Yeah, but 44 of those misses were 3-pointers. So, he was 38% for 3s (27/71) and 25 of 37 from the field (67.5%) otherwise. I don't think that's too shabby.
posted by LionIndex at 11:47 AM on November 21
Ack, I was thinking of Loyola, not Lehigh, although Lehigh has a DI team.
posted by LionIndex at 02:58 PM on November 19
Rutgers is supposed to follow suit tomorrow, so the Big Ten will have 14 teams then.
As part of Notre Dame's agreement, they're already playing 5 games against ACC opponents every year, so them joining in football wouldn't really be a huge additional step.
Yeah, does DI Lacrosse really hew to the conferences? I only watch the tournament at the end of the year, but I'd think good schools seek out other good schools, especially since the sport is concentrated on the East Coast.
I think the only time conferences really come into play for lacrosse is during the conference tournaments, and I'm honestly not sure whether conferences other than the ACC even have one of those. Generally, during the course of the regular season, UVa will play Syracuse, Hopkins, Towson and Princeton anyway, which until recently were the only big teams outside of their conference. Now that Denver is somewhat decent (they took Princeton's championship-winning coach a couple years ago) and other schools are coming up (Lehigh) that might change to where they don't play all the other big teams during the regular season, but the NCAA tournament for UVa is really just a rehash of their regular season opponents. But, the sport at the DI level is really even more concentrated than just "East Coast" - most of the big-name teams are located in the Mid-Atlantic region, from NC to NY.
posted by LionIndex at 02:34 PM on November 19
That was certainly on my radar, but I know I'm in the minority. The ACC was set up to have pretty much half of the ranked lacrosse teams in it (UNC, Duke, Maryland, Notre Dame, Virginia, Syracuse, possibly others). Division 1 lacrosse is still small enough that there shouldn't be an issue with scheduling games with their old opponents. It's not like the Big 10 has a whole bunch of teams.
I'm not from the area, but I went to school at UVa, so I'm a bit disappointed in the news as well.
posted by LionIndex at 01:17 PM on November 19
I guess other than the potential money thing, I don't really see how this makes sense for Maryland. The ACC has been adding competent football members for years, so their likelihood of getting into bowls and gaining additional revenue is only increasing, and there's a possibility that Notre Dame will eventually become a full member. But, Maryland is pretty mediocre football program, so they're just going to be mooching off the other B1G teams' bowls. Interesting that Maryland is the ACC's first casualty of all the conference shifting recently (and you could argue that the ACC started it all by poaching Miami, Va Tech and Boston College from the Big East). And Maryland is leaving what is almost certainly the premier basketball conference in the country, and will be even more so if they get UConn to replace Maryland as a football member; there's also rumors of Georgetown coming over.
posted by LionIndex at 12:59 PM on November 19
And Turner was brought in to replace Schottenheimer, when the whole problem with Schottenheimer was that even though he'd built the team up into a contender that would reliably play a consistent, decent game during the regular season, he couldn't win a playoff game. Prior to Schottenheimer, the Chargers had mostly taken chances on promoting college coaches and NFL coordinators to the top spot and gotten burned, so I kind of understand their aversion to doing that again, but trading Schottenheimer for Turner didn't even make any sense at the time.
posted by LionIndex at 02:18 PM on November 14
Norv "went off" at a reporter after the latest Chargers' loss. Norv's version of "going off" sounded like Fred Armisen's character giving traffic directions on Saturday Night Live's "The Californians".
I think Norv's exit at the end of the season is pretty much a fait accompli at this point, and I'll be happy about it just because I won't have to listen to his mealy-mouthed press conferences any more, but I really, really dread seeing what washed-up retread the ownership brings in to replace him.
posted by LionIndex at 03:48 PM on November 13
Yeah, unless they start making the schedule so that teams only play Thursday night games when they come off a bye week, I really don't think they're good for the players.
posted by LionIndex at 04:13 PM on November 01
In a division where the division champ went 8-8 last year and the Chiefs were slated to be somewhat improved (I may have seen a couple picks for them to win the division this year?) from their 7-9 record, it's not that odd of a selection since it's sort of a rivalry game that had playoff implications at the start of the season. I'm pretty sure it's blacked out here, so it's not like I'm going to be able to watch it anyway.
posted by LionIndex at 04:00 PM on November 01
tahoemoj: it appears there's just about every variety of ______face in that movie because it has people playing multiple roles that sometimes change race over the course of the different "reincarnations" or whatever. For reference, here's a Grantland article about whether it's racist or not. I'm not sure if I agree with all of it, but, there you go.
posted by LionIndex at 12:55 PM on November 01
#1 Happy Beisuboru Fun Winning Show?
posted by LionIndex at 06:53 PM on October 29
The torrential downpour during the final inning did seem to suggest that the Earth was going to drown both teams if it went on any longer.
I know. It got my hopes up, only to have them dashed. Honestly though, I can live with the Giants going. I have Bochy's autograph from when he was the backup catcher for the Padres and visited my elementary school, and he was a decent manager and good guy for the Padres - I was sad to see him go, actually, and he took Flan with him.
posted by LionIndex at 12:12 PM on October 23
As a Padre fan, I hope the earth swallows the stadium whole in the middle of the 4th inning and both teams are eradicated from existence.
Giants: in my division. Can't root for them. Cards: seem to knock the Pads every time they go to the postseason ('96, '05, '06); have Matt Holliday on their team, who made himself infamous for Padre fans in 2007 by not touching home plate in the 1-game playoff between the Rockies and Padres.
posted by LionIndex at 06:38 PM on October 21
But then there are things like Colorado in 2007 (?) where they burned through EVERYBODY in the end of the season and playoffs, then had to sit and wait until the WS started and got clobbered. I don't know if that's a team I would have wanted sitting still for any length of time.
posted by LionIndex at 01:37 PM on October 20
On a different note, as a Padre fan I have to be somewhat pleased with how the season ended. Despite being 20 games under .500 at one point in the first half, milling through 15 or 16 different starting pitchers, and being the first team in the majors to get to 50 losses, they managed to pull themselves together to end up with fewer than 90 losses, and even pretty recently still had a realistic chance to actually get a winning season. The Giants did well enough that I don't know if the Pads could have taken the division if they played the whole season the way they did from July through September, but it would have been a pretty good race.
posted by LionIndex at 02:33 AM on October 04
My favorite has been Sport McAlister, a super-utility guy around the start of the 20th century.
posted by LionIndex at 07:55 PM on September 29
If Dickey wasn't a knuckleball pitcher... would there even be any debate as to who is the current frontrunner for the NL Cy Young?
Only if you're only looking at starting pitchers. If Kimbrel wasn't a relief pitcher would there be any debate as to who the current frontrunner for the NL Cy Young is?
posted by LionIndex at 10:45 PM on September 22
Is hockey the only (or just the largest) college sport that's so fractured from the conferences we all think of when we think college sports?
Lacrosse is kind of odd - until recently, when teams outside of the mid-Atlantic states have started to have good teams, all the decent ones usually played each other over the course of the season, even though there were technically conferences. Soon, the ACC will almost corner the market on power lacrosse teams with the addition of Syracuse and ND; they've already got Duke, UNC, Maryland, and Virginia. All they're missing is Hopkins, maybe Loyola, Princeton and Denver.
posted by LionIndex at 11:44 AM on September 13
I think that should be a good move for both ND and the ACC. ND over the last decade has become more of a perennial contender in sports other than football, especially basketball and lacrosse (maybe some others that I don't follow), so joining a conference that's a bit more competitive in other sports makes sense. Also, the Big East seems like it's getting hammered by all the teams switching conferences, so I can imagine ND wanting to jump ship. Big East basketball will certainly take a hit after Pitt and Syracuse leave. ACC gets a quality football opponent for a few non-conference games and another decent tournament-quality basketball team.
posted by LionIndex at 11:45 AM on September 12
Why would the owners of poor teams be more likely to pocket the TV money?
I don't know enough to say for certain, but if there are teams that are operating at a loss currently, getting more TV money wouldn't necessarily increase their payroll budget, while for larger market teams it just increases their budget. Whether there are any teams operating at a loss is probably debatable.
Even if there are no teams operating at a loss, since every team gets the same amount of money, there shouldn't be a difference in smaller market teams now being able to afford anyone because the richer teams are getting the exact same increase. If anything, it'll just drive up salaries across the board. "Rising tide lifts all ships" and all that.
posted by LionIndex at 12:08 PM on August 29
that is a pretty pathetic haul when you consider they traded Anthony Rizzo to get Gonzalez very recently.
Speaking as a fan of a team on the receiving end of that trade, Sox fans have nothing to complain about. At least you had major league talent for a couple seasons. Hopefully, Rizzo is able to get up to par, but he wasn't able to do anything for the Padres.
posted by LionIndex at 03:00 AM on August 25
Joking aside (I hope), are there any ladies tees at Augusta?
I can't find anything online to back up this notion, but I think that women were only previously barred from being actual members of the club, not from playing on the course or attending events as guests. If that's true, and I have no certainty that it is, I would expect that they had ladies tees for member's wives or other guests of the club to play from if they wanted. But, again, I'm totally fabricating this conception of the club and it's not based on any fact that I can find. Looking at the course on Google maps (overhead view - the 45 degree view of the course shows it under reconstruction or something), it looks like there are forward tee boxes for most of the holes, but I don't know if those are the pro/amateur boxes or if the forward one is for ladies.
posted by LionIndex at 03:37 PM on August 20
I have to admit, a water polo player wasn't what I was expecting, but not a disappointment either.
posted by LionIndex at 02:16 PM on August 06
SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle
Ronde Barber has finally decided to hang up his leather helmet and high top shoes after a near-Methuselan number of years in the league.
Not that he's been doing a bad job or anything, but it's time. Tiki went out maybe a little early (only 5 years ago), but it's really impressive that Ronde's lasted so long. They were in my class at UVa, which was heavily represented in the draft, and we had a couple guys in the pros from then that lasted a long time - James Farrior went until 2011. Jamie Sharper seemed pretty durable and then fell apart pretty quickly.