- 05:28 AM
- 07/25/08
| Member since: | May 11, 2007 |
|---|---|
| Last visit: | July 18, 2008 |
dave2007 has posted no links and 57 comments to SportsFilter and hasn’t posted any threads or comments to the Locker Room.
The Friendly Frozen Confines New Years Day 2009, Detroit Red Wings vs. Chicago Blackhawks at Wrigley Field.
posted to Hockey at 11:03 PM CDT
Video: Diamondbacks Catcher Chris Snyder Fractures Left Testicle Although the injury report just says that Arizona Diamondbacks catcher Chris Snyder is on the 15-day DL with a groin injury, the team revealed that he suffered a "left testicular fracture" Monday when hit by a foul ball. "Suspended in the scrotum, a skin pouch below the penis, each testicle is surrounded by the tunica albuginea, a tough, fibrous covering that often takes the hit of trauma to the gland," according to UrologyHealth.Org. "Like the shell of an egg, it can be easily 'fractured' or shattered when confronted by a blunt or violent force." See the video.
posted to Baseball at 2:14 PM CDT
Yeah, I was going to say the exact same thing, then ended up watching the video anyway. I had no idea that testicles could "fracture". So I guess baseball catchers don't wear protective cups?
posted at 3:36 PM CDT on July 3
Title IX, Curse or Blessing? Title IX opened a door for women in athletics. Its impact has been great, and has led to more and more opportunities for women to excel. Particularly at the high school level, I have seen many young girls become confident young ladies from their participation in athletics. Many feel that Title IX has led to decreased opportunity for male athletes. In this article, the author raises many valid questions concerning the way in which Title IX is interpreted.
posted to Culture at 2:39 PM CDT
"Nothing in that article makes me think that male athletics are being unfairly neglected. So, in schools where women vastly outnumber men, men's athletics are being cut back on. Good. Put that money where it can aid a larger portion of the student body."
Just because women make up more than half of the student body does not mean that more than half of the student athletes have to be women. Nor does it mean that female students WANT to participate in athletics in equal numbers as male students. This is quota-based thinking and it's precisely this kind of idiotic political correctness that needs to be stopped.
How about we fund student athletics based on how many students actually want to participate instead of assuming that female students MUST participate on equal per capita numbers with male athletes? It's not the end of the world if female students choose not to participate in athletics in equal numbers with male students. Female students don't exist merely to validate the social engineering dreams of frustrated academic Marxists.
If we are going to use the brute force of the federal government to meddle in college athletics, I'd much rather it do so to increase support for neglected sports which could use the help to raise the level of USA play in international competition. There are a lot of neglected sports that could use the support and doing so would also increase female participation at the same time - for instance soccer, rugby, cricket, team handball, field hockey, badminton, wrestling, etc, sports that are a big deal internationally but which (with partial exception now of soccer) get little to no help from NCAA or other academic sporting institutions. It would also be nice to get the NCAA to abide by the rules of the governing international bodies of said sports.
Look what the Australians have done with their success in international sports (per capita, much more impressive than the USA in international competition). Forget this politically correct crap about getting equal numbers of female to male athletes, and get the government to encourage more amateur and international athletic competition and you'll have more opportunities for female athletes than ever. I don't think the Aussies have an equivalent of Title IX and their female athletes do fine.
American amateur sports are a mess and the NCAA is a big part of the problem, but quota based, PC victims rights mentality a la Title IX is not the way to go about fixing things.
posted at 5:53 PM CDT on June 30
The Decline of Commentary in cricket, but probably applicable to all broadcast sports. Osman Samiuddin takes ex-players to task. A well-considered rant.
posted to Other at 5:19 PM CDT
I like the Premier League commentators we can hear over in the USA on Fox Soccer Channel; they let the game "breathe" and don't seem to feel the need to talk continuously. Unfortunately American soccer commentators tend to babble too much so some American soccer fans watch the Spanish language broadcasts; somehow I doubt the Spanish commentators are really that much better, it's just that not knowing the language we aren't distracted by them.
In American gridiron, the networks seem to like hiring ex-players and ex-coaches from the NFL to commentate NFL games; I won't name names but we have our share of buffoons commentating NFL games.
Speaking of cricket, owlhouse, what's all this about cricket suddenly discovering the switch hitter concept? Baseball has had this since the 19th century at least, why has it taken cricket so long to think of this?
posted at 9:18 PM CDT on June 18
Interesting. Of course I was being a bit unfair comparing baseball to cricket since the switch hitting isn't the same in both sports; in baseball the batter has to chose to stand in either the right or left handed batters box before the pitch is made, so there is a little time for the fielding team to adjust fielding positions and a little time for the pitcher to adjust his pitch. The baseball batter can't switch sides in mid-pitch.
posted at 9:05 AM CDT on June 19
The greatest golfer ever is someone you've never heard of: John Montague. (aka LaVerne Moore)
posted to Golf at 4:34 PM CDT
NPR's Only a Game had a piece on John Montague a few weeks ago. If you check out the Only a Game website they should have a podcast of that episode.
posted at 7:49 PM CDT on May 31
Canadian NHL teams mean money The six Canadian teams account for 31 per cent of the $1.1 billion (U.S.) in league ticket revenue, and have gone through league-leading double-digit increases over last season, according to the internal NHL report.
posted to Business and Law at 11:36 AM CDT
We've been hearing about southern California becoming an ice hockey hotbed for the past twenty years....it still hasn't happened. It's not gonna happen.
posted at 8:53 PM CDT on May 30
Fines will be imposed for clear cases of flopping: The league office has yet to determine exact fine amounts for offending flops and how fines might escalate for repeat offenders, but in-game arena observers and video reviewers will be instructed to report instances of theatrical flopping for potential punishment as part of postgame reports on officiating and other matters.
posted to Basketball at 11:35 AM CDT
if any professional soccer leagues have ever done anything like this
The thing to remember about soccer, unlike most American sports, is that leagues do not set their own rules (as far as officiating the game is concerned): it is called the "world's game" for a reason. Everyone, everywhere, whether it be the Premier League in England or some amateur village league in central Africa, is playing by the exact same rules (ie, the Laws of the Game).
Leagues don't set their own rules: FIFA does (or to be technically correct, the International Football Association Board does). The best that the various national football associations and leagues can do is to give their referees guidelines about how to interpret the Laws of the Game.
Flopping/diving/simulation has always been against the rules in soccer if it is an attempt to cheat so as to gain an undeserved free kick or penalty kick. The problem is that the game is fast flowing and non-stop and there is no time to watch replays; it is therefore very rare for a ref to penalize a player for flopping; more commonly these attempts to draw a call are simply ignored by the ref unless they are extremely blatant. There have been proposals in soccer to do after-match video analysis to punish floppers, too, but there are similiar objections to this in soccer as there is in basketball.
The problem has gotten worse as the game has internationalized; different countries have different cultural tolerances for flopping/diving/simulation. In Britain, North American and parts of northern Europe for instance it is very much frowned on but in Latin America or parts of southern Europe it is more likely to be accepted as "part of the game". That wasn't a big deal when the game was isolated within each country but now that you have players from all over the world playing in top leagues all over the world, you have conflicts over just how much of this sort of thing is tolerable.
Soccer and basketball are quite similar in this respect in being international games. Interesting how flopping is allegedly an issue that will ensure that soccer will allegedly "never" be acceptable to Americans, yet flopping isn't an issue with basketball being acceptable to Americans.
posted at 6:59 PM CDT on May 29
How soccer prepares athletes for the NBA NBA'ers credit much of there skills to playing soccer as young'uns
posted to Basketball at 9:58 AM CDT
Yeah it would help American soccer a lot if more kids would play street soccer and random pick up games when young, and leave the more rigorous coaching in team tactics until they were older. You can teach advanced tactics when they get older, but if they don't learn basic ball skills and positional sense when young, they can't be easily taught later.
As for basketball pivoting, true you can't turn the same way in cleats, but besides street soccer, don't forget futsal. This is soccer played with five a side on what is basically a basketball court, with a smaller, heavier ball that doesn't bounce as much so you don't need walls like you have in indoor soccer. Go to YouTube and search for futsal to see what I mean.
posted at 12:31 AM CDT on May 22
Seattle Sounders announce new fan association with power to vote GM off the team, thanks to Drew Carey. Members can be nominated and selected to the Sounders FC Association Council on a yearly basis. Those interested must receive at least 25 nominations from other association members, with the first nominations accepted next month. Association membership is free for all season-ticket holders. Non-season-ticket holders can join beginning in June for an annual fee of $125. Benefits include voting privilege, a membership pin and card, a discount at team shops and an invitation to the annual meeting — which Carey himself will host beginning later this year.
posted to Soccer at 6:57 PM CDT
This could be interesting, I'm interested to see how this works out in practice. What exactly is the job description of the general manager? I believe it isn't the same at all clubs?
Drew Carey is a great guy, a real fan's fan. I'm glad he's involved with the Sounders. I hope he sets some positive precedents for MLS.
posted at 12:50 AM CDT on May 22
New York City Makes Cricket a Varsity Sport. With an eye toward the growing ranks of local players, the New York City Department of Education established cricket this year as its newest varsity sport.
posted to Other at 1:12 PM CDT
@Chargdres: the US national cricket team isn't that bad, what with the influx of Caribbean and Indian immigrants. The first international cricket match was between the USA and Canada in the 1840s, but the growth of baseball pretty much killed the development of North American cricket, although cricket held on in many American cities during the 19th century, and in Philadelphia it lasted a bit longer until the 1920s after which cricket was pretty much dead in the USA.
IIRC, the US cricket team has come close to qualifying for the World Cup in recent years, so that's not too bad. We are probably many many decades from becoming a test playing nation, though, which won't happen at all without a much bigger growth in people playing the sport.
The real problem right now, apparently, is that the governing body, USACA, is a bit of a mess, with lots of political, monetary, and organizational problems, or so I have read. Making cricket a varsity sport is a huge step, though. Gives it a chance to expand beyond its current ethnic enclaves.
@Mr Bismarck: we need to blow more circuits, frankly. American sports fans could do with a few mind expanding exercises. And the length of test matches isn't really that long if you think of it like a World Series, or like a major golf tournament. Five days is not that long if you think of it in those terms. American soccer fans don't have a problem with tie games, and fans of other sports used to accept tie games, too; frankly it is nice to be a fan of a sport which does not pander to lowest common denominator ideas about "entertainment value" by forcing tie breakers where they are needed.
BTW, they have built a cricket stadium in Lauderhill, Florida, recently, which is intended to hold international matches.
posted at 4:28 AM CDT on May 14
By forcing tie breakers where they are NOT needed, that is.
Youtube video of Lauderhill cricket stadium:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ohPFFzdnaU
posted at 4:36 AM CDT on May 14
I was thinking about mentioning the distinction in cricket between a tie and a draw, but decided that would be too much information. My fellow Americans probably think I'm weird enough for knowing this stuff as is.
posted at 8:52 AM CDT on May 14
@owlhouse:
The USA has to have played some kind of qualification matches besides those, though, for the ICC World Cup?
Also, is it not also possible to have drawn matches in four day county matches? I was wondering why the level below international test matches was four days instead of five...
And then there's the little matter of "declaring" if I am remembering the right term, to avoid a draw?
posted at 8:56 AM CDT on May 14
Canada vs. USA:
http://content-www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/141170.html
posted at 9:16 AM CDT on May 14
They should make use of all that wasted space and play bandy instead of ice hockey. That would make for an even more interesting change of pace, plus get the fans closer to the action:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandy