LostInDaJungle's profile

LostInDaJungle
1756
Name: Synonymous Bengal
Member since: March 04, 2005
Last visit: June 24, 2014

LostInDaJungle has posted 5 links and 256 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 0 comments to the Locker Room.

Recent Links

Bill Belichick, Home Wrecker?: Vincent Shenocca, a self-employed construction worker, alleges in a divorce filing that the coach has been delivering wood to his wife for several years and gave her "large sums of money and expensive gifts which she has used to purchase expensive clothing, pocketbooks, watches, a treadmill and maid service."

posted by LostInDaJungle to culture at 02:29 PM on July 25, 2006 - 27 comments

Jean Strahan hints that Michael is gay.: His alleged partner? Dr. Ian Smith, the medical correspondent for ABC's The View. Jean Strahan told reporters that, when the marriage fell apart, "Michael moved into Ian's one-bedroom apartment. And you can say an alternative lifestyle sprouted."

"Michael Strahan is one of my best friends and needed a place to stay after he was kicked out of his own home," Smith said. "I let him sleep on my couch as any best friend would do." Bizarre....

posted by LostInDaJungle to football at 11:38 AM on June 21, 2006 - 60 comments

No balls? 2 strikes.: In the notoriously homophobic world of sports, can Baseball Prospectus writer Chris Kahrl survive as a sportswriter now that he has come out about the sex change that made Chris a Christina??

Baseball geeks can be anything from a roofer to, well, a transsexual.

posted by LostInDaJungle to baseball at 04:05 PM on August 28, 2005 - 19 comments

"Holding a hearing on steroids in baseball without Bonds would be like an inquiry into the Titanic sinking without mentioning the iceberg.": Dave Zirin on the Congressional Hearings being conducted to cope with the problem of Steroids in baseball. He discusses why Bonds was not subpoenaed, and why Dennis Kuchinich is not to be trusted.

posted by LostInDaJungle to baseball at 12:59 PM on March 11, 2005 - 18 comments

Recent Comments

Gay Athlete Michael Sam Drafted by St. Louis

Kony Ealy was his teammate, and was from the get-go considered better than Sam. Early mocks had him going #8 overall. Instead he lasted until #60.

Sam notched his sacks through effort and teammates funneling guys to him. And what showed on tape was a slow first step, limited chase ability, and no refined pass rush moves.

Even his draft profile on NFL.com mentions it:

Sack production results from effort and production flushed to him and is not creatively produced with savvy pass-rush moves, speed, power or bend.

He was projected to be a 5th round pick before he announced he was gay OR had a lousy combine. I think the second part of that had more to do with his slide in the draft.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 06:10 PM on May 13, 2014

Lakers to Get Howard, Lose Bynum in Four-Team Trade

Which of the Lakers can guard Westbrook? Durant? Harden?

Meh, I'm a magic fan and not happy with Howard, but he makes up for a lot of mistakes on Defense. He can guard the rim.

That said, OKC has DH's Kryptonite... Kendrick Perkins, for some reason, has Dwight's number. Ever since his Celtics beat down the Magic in '09-'10, Perk has been able to push, bully, and frustrate Howard.

Howard has a high shooting percentage, but you would too if you never took a shot more than 3 feet out. IMHO, I thought Roy Hibbert outplayed him on the offensive end this year. Dwight has benefitted from being a big fish in a small pond... I'll be curious to see how he handles being a part of a real team.

Dwight is soft for a big man. I'll be curious how he handles it when Kobe gets in his face and starts dropping F-bombs. Nash to Howard could be devastating, but how will Kobe feel about that cutting into his touches? Dwight's star struck and a bit immature, how will he handle Hollywood? The Big market media? Being a 3rd or 4th scoring option? Can Mike Brown keep these guys playing together? Remember Shaq and Kobe needed the Zen Master to make it all work, and it barely did. Kobe's older, more established, and more of an a-hole. (See his comments from the Olympics!) Dwight, unlike Shaq, is very thin skinned. Stan Van Gundy's criticism was too much for him to take.

I'd be stupid to say anything other than the Lakers look scary but this is hardly a slam dunk. In addition, they have a small window to make things happen before age kicks in.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 11:28 AM on August 14, 2012

Slave Genes Myth Must Die

How would you even study such a thing?

First and foremost, you have the social factors. You can be born with great genetics, but you still need to develop skill from an early age.

So, to get a control, you'd have to take a young black child and raise him in a middle to upper class family. Give him access to video games, a mall, and a billion other distractions and see if he's still great at sports. Give him a life where playing in the NBA isn't the only way out of the ghetto and see what his motivation is.

Are white hockey players genetically better, is that why the sport is so pale? Or is it a matter of poor kids can't afford to go ice skating? Are white people genetically better at tennis? Yachting?

If you know anything about genetics, then yes, it is amazing how quickly we evolve to match our environment. It's also amazing how much of that happens in our first ten years. It doesn't happen in the womb as much as people like to think. Whatever benefits someone might have received from genetics inherited 3-4 generations back is a drop of water in the ocean of the ways our body adapts to the environment in our developmental years.

2 siblings will only be 6.25% genetically compatible with a single grandparent. A generation beyond that, genetic compatibility is trivial. Within 4 generations, you have a completely new and somewhat random set of genetics based on breeding. My grandfather was 6'8" and built like a brick wall... I'm 5'9" and 155 pounds soaking wet.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 11:12 AM on July 27, 2012

Steve Williams explains why Adam Scott's victory at Bridgestone Invitational was best of his career

Maybe he was just describing the work he had to do as Tiger's caddy?

"I was so happy with the win that I became aroused and wished I could have sex with Tiger again"

Nope. Even in that context it's racist... And creepy.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 12:17 PM on November 07, 2011

The Footage the NFL Won't Show You

What's interesting is that as a coach, your playcalling isn't much different than what you do in Madden. You have a handful of "Bread and Butter" plays with a few plays mixed in to take advantage of the defensive adjustments to those plays.

Although those plays change week to week to take advantage of certain matchups, the average NFL offense is run in the space of 30-40 plays. You may call the same run play 7-8 times in a game. Defense is simpler than that.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 12:04 PM on November 07, 2011

Dan Pastorini: 'F--- Drew Brees'

So do lottery winners owe previous lottery winners money for coming before them?

Pastorini spent his money racing dragsters, marrying playboy playmates, and even NOW has multiple businesses. http://www.dpqualityfoods.com/

We should all be so unlucky.

We should help him pay for his mistakes, like drunk driving. Without a license. In his Mercedes.

Upon his release he went directly to a golf tournament. http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/04-27-10-dan-pastorini-plays-through-dwi-cant-keep-oiler-from-charity-golf-tournament/

In 1977, he had to pay out 1.5 Million for killing two people in a speedboat crash. How much would that be worth today? I'm sure those relatives would rather have their loved ones back.

Pastorini was also involved in sports handicapping aka. bookmaking.

According to the second information, the gambling charges stem from Wire Wagering Act violations dealing with sports bets placed by undercover IRS-CID agents over the phone and Internet in Wisconsin with Gold Medal Sports in Curacao. The money laundering charges stem from twenty-one identified wire transfers or check disbursements, made in excess of $10,000, with Gold Medal betting funds. The identified money laundering transactions total in excess of $3,200,000 over a three-year time span.

The final set of charges in the second information relate to mail fraud counts. According to the information, Pede and D'Ambrosia's company, Sports Spectrum, solicited customers through false advertising to call one of four sports handicapper services (Jeff Allen Sports, Mike Wynn Sports, Razor Sharp Sports, and Dan Pastorini Sports) for the purpose of receiving "guaranteed" winning picks on upcoming sporting events. Once a customer called one of the four handicapper services, phone salesmen or "touters" would make and use false pretenses, statements and representations in an attempt to sell weekly or monthly "winning" pick packages to the customer.

2009: http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/03/16/453392.html

Pastorini is entering his Lambo in Sebring.

F--k Dan Pastorini. Christ, what an a-hole. He still has a better life than most of us. He's looking for a handout. If I'm lucky, I might earn $1.5 Million in my lifetime... He has literally pi$$ed away more money than I'll ever see. And what has he done with that money? Helped people? Made anyone's life better other than his own?

Dan Pastorini has been a black eye on the face of the sport... The only mitigating factor is that he wasn't good enough to get mentioned often.

The funniest thing about this is that Brees didn't mention anyone by name... Pastorini is just upset that the generic description fit him to a tee. Dude is an embarrassment. Pete Rose has a cleaner image.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 12:16 PM on September 01, 2011

Man City Pulls Striker When Backheel Backfires

What about the teammate that served him up the assist? I'm looking at the second striker and can hear "Dude, if you don't want to score, I do!"

It was poor sportsmanship all around, and I for one am glad that the Soccer fans of the world can respect that.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 04:24 PM on July 26, 2011

Former NFL Player Accused of Molesting Coach's Daughter

@yerfatma The point being that the person on the other end of this allegation has something to lose. It's something you don't want to make public even if it is true... Therefore, there is a higher probability that these charges have substance.

For better or for worse, the character of the accuser is a part of every allegation. I guess if you want to get technical, Webster is innocent until proven guilty as well. You can be sure that the character of the accuser will be brought up repeatedly in court.

Sorry if I'm being non-PC, but when stuff like this comes up it matters to me if the allegations are being made by someone respectable or by a hood rat fishing for fame. Why "shoudn't" it matter?

And not to beat this point into the ground, but NFL assistants work 100 hours a week, and live and die by their players. I'm guessing that Dad wasn't easy to talk to... And in most cases of sexual abuse, the children believe that their parents won't believe them over the abusing adult. I can't even begin to fathom what this must be like for the dad in question.

"Another study found that in most cases when children did disclose abuse, the person they talked to did not respond effectively, blamed or rejected the child, and took little or no action to stop the abuse."

So, even when the kids DO speak up, parents are generally ineffective. Studies also estimate that %40 of abused children NEVER report their abuse.

"Estimates suggest that only 3% of all cases of child sexual abuse (Finkelhor & Dziuba-Leatherman, 1994; Timnick, 1985) and only 12% of rapes involving children are ever reported to police (Hanson et al., 1999). A nationally representative survey of over 3,000 women revealed that of those raped during childhood, 47% did not disclose to anyone for over 5 years post-rape."

"In everyday life, most people assign victims too much blame for their assaults and offenders too little. In truth, it is hard for most people to imagine how any person could sexually abuse a child. Because they can't imagine a "normal" person doing such a heinous act, they assume that child molesters must be monsters. If the accused does not fit this stereotype (in other words if he appears to be a normal person), then many people will disbelieve the allegation, believing the accused to be incapable of such act."

I hope that answers the question. For more: http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/csa_myths.html

posted by LostInDaJungle at 04:09 PM on July 26, 2011

Former NFL Player Accused of Molesting Coach's Daughter

Dude, this girl was raped repeatedly over two years at gun point. What part of that is so hard for you to understand? She was the daughter of an assistant coach, not some skank.

Realize that while this was going on, Webster and her "Dad" were friends. Nate for two years looked that man in the eye while he was raping his daughter. Does that not clue you into the kind of sick monster we're dealing with here?

@hincandenza You're basing this "blame the victim" mentality on what? You can go read the allegations and know that he is not being accused of consensual sex with a minor, which is still illegal.

Also, with this girl being the daughter of a Bengals assistant... It's not hard to figure out who the victim is. (Hmmm, ex Bengals assistant that just got a new job this year and has a 17 year old daughter....) So, you have the fact that if these were specious allegations, it would be very damaging to the accuser.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 01:59 PM on July 25, 2011

Hawks Take 2-1 Lead Over Magic

I've seen the Hawks hit too many "lucky" shots for it to be luck anymore. At some point you just have to say "That's skill son."

posted by LostInDaJungle at 12:45 PM on April 24, 2011

Bill James: Develop Writers Like Ballplayers

It would certainly be a shame if young writers got personal coaches to teach them their craft in grade school as Carson Palmer did.

Maybe that writer's career will be as disappointing as Carson's.

In Shakespeare's time, men of letters were very famous. It was not a "solitaire, quiet, with no guarantee of riches or recognition" profession. But there weren't movie stars, or rock stars either. One might as well pine for the death of theater.

The printing press did to the story teller what the recording industry did to the musician. The Beatles were not just a talent, they were a time and a place. If they started today, the record company would have found a new act to promote after their second album. If they had come along 20 years earlier, the recording tech wouldn't have been there to immortalize them.

Shakespeare was the first man to get credit for telling centuries old stories. He appears to be this great talent because he is the first recorded culmination of 5,000 years of story telling. Imagine if they invented recorded music tomorrow... How many hit songs could you cobble together? Elvis and the Beatles covered "Black" tunes that were already hits.

The Beatles and Shakespeare were the "best" of their special era or at least captured their zeitgeist... Don't get me wrong... But it's not as simple as the author purports. The assumption here is that talent alone accounts for the fame of Shakespeare. That could not be more erroneous.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 03:10 PM on April 05, 2011

New York Times to begin charging for online access

The end result will be that the Times gets linked to less often eventually eroding their readership and authority.

As someone who works for one of those dinosaurs, it is also disheartening to see that the greatest assets online are those like the Huff-Po which aggregates our content. We cook the meal, give it away, and then she serves it in her restaurant.

What will the aggregators aggregate when they have finally killed off all of the dinosaurs that fueled their sites? I like to think of it as "Peak Content". Say what you want about Dowd, Krugman, etc... But without these voices, a good bit of the discourse on the internet would not happen. Agreeing or criticizing, they are prominent voices who spark the debate.

Internet advertising simply does not pay for the cost of producing content. When companies like the Times go down, aggregators like the Huff-Po are going to find it's not so easy to make money while actually paying people to make content.

Print operations also had virtual monopolies and obscene profit margins for a century... Don't feel too bad for them.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 11:28 AM on March 22, 2011

Grant Hill, Jalen Rose and 'Uncle Toms'

I thought the doc was very clear that this was how he felt then. Aside from that, it's the same old story of poor vs. rich. To even bring race into this really obscures the story line.

Jalen Rose didn't hate Duke because they were white, he didn't hate Grant Hill because he was black. he resented them having everything handed to them while his family had to struggle. That's the most normal thing in the world.

Uncle Tom was a poor choice of words... But how does one say "house negro" these days? That's the "feeling" Jalen Rose was trying to convey, and to many people 40 and younger, that's what they think an "Uncle Tom" is. The term "uncle tom" got misapplied to progressive blacks at the turn of the 20th century. W.E.B. DuBois misused the term when speaking about enterpreneur Marcus Garvey.

So Jalen Rose is just about as stupid as W.E.B. DuBois.

Oddly enough, Uncle Tom, the Book, is not about a subservient man: Stowe's melodramatic story humanized the suffering of slavery for white audiences by portraying Tom as a Christlike figure who is ultimately martyred, beaten to death by a cruel master because Tom refuses to betray the whereabouts of two women who escape from slavery.

I too think Grant Hill missed Jalen Rose's point purposely. I think it hit close to home for Hill who has probably put up with that a lot throughout his life. But I also think Jalen Rose would let you call him "Uncle Tom" non-stop for a decade if he could go back and have the childhood Grant Hill had.

If Grant Hill had taken the seconds needed to pause and consider what the world looked like to an 18 year old Jalen Rose... I'm not asking Hill to apologize for his upbringing, but we shouldn't ask Rose to apologize for his either.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 12:35 PM on March 18, 2011

If Stan Van Gundy Goes Missing ...

The Magic are what, 3-4 games off last year's pace?? Yeah, really fraying.

Pointing out that Howard hasn't been "flagrantly" fouled in some 600 fouls, really does just reinforce the notion that they're not getting called.

The Stern era has been the end of the dominant center. Kareem, Walton, Wilt?? How would they have fared under Stern? Stern has empowered the perimeter players. Really, MJ's Bulls should have won 1 or 2 rings, and Ewing/Olijawon should each have 1-2 more.

Stern molded the league around MJ, changed the rules to enable his success, and in the process devalued size in the middle. You need more than just size now, you need that perimeter scorer. The Magic have little after Howard. Jameer Nelson is probably the #2 guy, and he's not a top 20 player.

SVG just needs to understand that David Stern's NBA is a guard's game.

posted by LostInDaJungle at 03:42 PM on March 11, 2011

Team Apologizes for Fan Lap Dance Contest

I hear a lot of comments about the team and the mascot, but what the heck is up with these women? They were like "Lapdance in public, sounds good!" "Hey, kid, hold my bra."

posted by LostInDaJungle at 12:27 PM on January 19, 2011