tieguy’s profile

My list had the Angels listed as the Anaheim Angels so my brain skipped over them.

posted at 01:26 AM on June 16

So now I've got a spreadsheet (no losers, only winners. Someone else can do that.) I think I've got the years lined up right, though I probably don't account for things crossing years very well (like Sox '07/Celts '08 if it happens.) Besides the ones mentioned above: '35: Detroit Tigers/Lions, and Red Wings won in spring '36, so I guess all three teams were holding the title at the same time? '27: Yankees/football Giants, though the Giants did not win a championship game- merely had the best regular season title before there was a championship game. '28: Yankees/Rangers '33: baseball giants/Rangers '52: Lions/Red Wings (I ignored the AFL-NFL split years in the '60s for football; also, during this period the Lakers were losing a lot to the Celts while the Dodgers were winning.) Impressively, the Celts and Bruins managed to miss each other in the late '60s/early 70s, looks like. Ditto Pirates/Steelers of the same era. '86: Mets/football Giants '89: (sort of): A's/49ers (obviously giants/raiders fans disagree.) '04: Sox/Patriots (duh, given how this came up.) Perhaps the thing that was most interesting to me about this list was how many great dynasties (Jordan's Bulls, the Yankees, early Celtics, '49ers, Steelers, etc.) never overlapped with other great teams in their cities. You'd think that would happen more often. Boston fans really do have it historically good in that sense- even Detroit in '35/'36 didn't have that.

posted at 04:09 AM on June 14

Hal: Mets fall of '69, Knicks spring of '70; also Lakers and Dodgers in '88. In baseball-football, Yankees/Giants did it in '38 and '56. I immediately guessed 'Knicks-Yankees', just because the Yankees have so many titles the odds are good, but forgot that the Knicks only titles came during the '64-'76 Yanks malaise. Oddly, the most recent (football) Giants titles came during Yankees droughts as well (the '81-'96 drought and '01-present). Rangers-Yankees also have some overlap, I think. No three-fers for NY that I can see, and I can't imagine there are any for other cities either- Chicago's baseball titles well predate professional football and basketball; the Lions and Tigers had long dry spells, and so on. It'd be interesting for someone with more time on their hands to see if the three appearances in championship games in the same year is unprecedented- I'd imagine it must be. (Handy reference chart for someone who wants to undertake it.)

posted at 03:45 AM on June 14

The Sox had two double steals today, both featuring Ellsbury. Bizzarro Sox! Far cry from the manufacture-runs-by-walks-and- hits-and-none-of-those-pesky- steals team of '04 (that did, admittedly, have one of the most famous postseason steals ever in the ALCS.)

posted at 09:59 PM on May 04

The whole starting lineup is signed though, right?

posted at 02:57 PM on April 30

$17.5million over 6 (guaranteed) seasons is really not that big of an investment for a MLB team. It's actually below the current average salary, so if the kid is good, this is a steal.

posted at 08:50 AM on April 19

Weedy: the difference is that in China you could be arrested for posting a criticism like that on sportsfilter.cn- that is, if you could get to a politically sensitive page like this at all. I fully agree that the US has lost a fair amount of moral high ground in the past seven years, and as someone with Latin American roots, I'm pretty strongly aware of how weak that high ground was well before that- most of Latin American could swap notes pretty handily with Tibet. If people wanted to protest an American Olympics right now, they'd have every right. But even with all that damage China's government, and the lack of rights people have to protest it, is still in a different, even lower, class. Relatedly, that's why I don't even feel that badly for the torch runners. They chose to participate in an event that was explicitly- from day one of the bidding process- planned as a propaganda coup for the Chinese government, through which they would announce to the world that they had ascended into the realm of modern, respectable, 'first class' nations. (They didn't build those fancy stadiums to show off how effective forced labor is.) Unfortunately, China has been called out on what a lie that is, and so those who were being used as part of the propaganda (torch runners, athletes, etc.) are being caught up in it. Certainly it wasn't their intent to propagandize China, so I feel a little badly of them, but they should point the blame at the IOC- which damn well knew it was a propaganda exercise when they accepted the Beijing bid- rather than the protesters who are trying to expose the Chinese government for the authoritarian police state that it is. (And don't get me started on the 'if we expose them to our culture, they'll realize how bad their government is' stuff. It is basically true- but in letting the Chinese government set up all the ground rules for the Olympics, you really think the average Chinese citizen is going to get any exposure to Western democratic values? No, they're going to get hours and hours of propaganda about how the Olympics proves the greatness of China and the Chinese government. By participating- by showing our flag there- we're only complicit in that masquerade.)

posted at 05:04 PM on April 08

lbb: no, not you specifically, sorry if I gave that impression. Lots of others, though. (Or alternately, it is only about Darfur, or only about... whatever.)

posted at 09:02 PM on April 07

It also sucks to be a Tibetan Buddhist nun imprisoned and tortured for taking part in a demonstration. Or a college student shot and killed in Tiananmen, only to have it stricken from your country's history books. Or a Darfurian starved by a government suported by China in return for mineral resources. Or a blogger jailed for speaking their mind, or an athlete prohibited from speaking about all this. The list is very, very long; I could go on. I'm sad that so many people think it is only about Tibet. If the IOC didn't want politics, they shouldn't have given the games to a police state.

posted at 07:19 PM on April 07

Jalopnik has extensive coverage of this. It is indeed hilarious.

posted at 04:22 PM on April 05

Cricket for baseball people.

posted at 04:16 PM on April 05

Jeez. I've complained about the Dolphins pathetic drafting of late (particularly painful when the Patriots draft magic is in your division) but at least we've had successful draft picks more recently than 1986...

posted at 04:14 PM on April 05

Uhm, what? The Pats O line, the one commentators drooled over all year is a problem? Well, there is the detail that the Giants D line should have collectively been the MVP of the Super Bowl. Partially their great play, partially the Pats O line's complete inability to block most of the night.

posted at 12:34 PM on February 06

Somebody (#1? #2?) emailed me because they'd found me discussing sports on mefi. And now here I am. Wish I had more time to comment here anymore...

posted at 01:18 PM on January 25

162-0. If the Red Sox lose a game next year, I am going to be pissed. I know this was said in jest, but man... if a Boston fan 10 years ago had set this as their bar for excellence, they'd have been laughed out of the room. Now everyone just hates them quietly, fearing it just might happen...

posted at 06:19 PM on December 30