- 12:50 AM
- 11/08/09
| Name: | Tom Clancy |
|---|---|
| Homepage URL: | http://thosecleverkids.com/blog |
| Location: | Dover, NH |
| ZIP: | 03820 |
| Member since: | January 30, 2002 |
| Last visit: | November 07, 2009 |
yerfatma has posted 144 links and 6879 comments to SportsFilter and 17 links and 1197 comments to the Locker Room and 1 column.
Hull City Comes Out Against Diving: .
posted by yerfatma to soccer at 08:49 AM on October 03 - 10 comments
The Profound Stupidity of Football: A review of the new book, Why England Lose and Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained. [psst: they mean "soccer"]
posted by yerfatma to soccer at 08:09 AM on October 02 - 16 comments
How Not to Write a Sports Column: Everybody has bad ideas. The trick is to forget them before you publish them in a newspaper.
posted by yerfatma to culture at 04:06 PM on September 09 - 47 comments
Banhammer Requested: Sell you wares elsewhere. I blame owlhouse for this.
posted by yerfatma to bugs at 10:41 AM on August 31 - 29 comments
"Essentially, this site is what I'd have been doing when I was 12 years old had the Internet and Photoshop been available to me in the eighties.": Baseball + Infographics = Flip Flop Fly Ball.
[via Cafe Hayek & my dad]
posted by yerfatma to baseball at 02:44 PM on June 24 - 8 comments
Thanks for posting this. I kept meaning to and forgetting. It will definitely be interesting to see if this works out. Hopefully being in the D-League will mean the players are more willing to work with any coach.
posted by yerfatma at 12:41 PM on November 07
so shouting down this observation as not worthy of discussion seems to me to be out of bounds.
I think the general sentiment here is that it's not worthy of discussion because it's a "Chicken or Egg" problem, regardless of single examples cited. You've provided one unhappy team that won*. Do you honestly think we can't find teams that are remembered as friendly that lost? Seems like that's the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers. And those lovable early Mets. The idea that a championship team was also a group of guys that liked each other is a pointless set of laurels bestowed by fans after the fact because it's pleasant to imagine a team that way. None of us are privy to the 2009 Yankees' locker room, so why argue about it?
* The 1986 Red Sox, while remembered as chokers, might be an even better example. They won 90+ games, got to the Series, all with a team where some of the players spent Spring Training breaking into teammates' motel rooms to take pictures of them cheating on their wives as blackmail ammunition.
posted by yerfatma at 08:04 PM on November 06
It's definitely a performance enhancer. As long as you're trying to sit and watch 12 straight hours of TV.
posted by yerfatma at 07:57 PM on November 06
No, it's not hard. Just because it's beyond you doesn't mean that it's hard.
Oh come on. You've got a world-class pair of blinders. It's a chicken and egg thing: are the Yankees good because they're amazingly talented or are they amazingly talented because the Yankees can afford to pay the best wage? When the As or the Twins win, the reason's clear. When the Red Sox or Yankees do, it can either be inherent genius or it can be a bigger wallet. Same thing with kids at Harvard. Some are there because they're wicked smaht, some are there because they're wicked rich. Maybe the rich kids are smart as well, but you can't ever know they'd have made it without the dollars.
posted by yerfatma at 04:57 PM on November 06
Which proves my point about Australians just talking a tough game.
posted by yerfatma at 04:54 PM on November 06
Is anyone else surprised by how ESPN is covering this? It's strange to me they have an HD feed of a women's college soccer game when half the sports on TV still be struggling to get that together, then they single out one player and follow her around for a good minute or two, which is the amount of time Sportscenter devotes to big pro games. I realize she was nasty out there, but that kind of crap goes on in all sports at most every level. They make a point of showing she gets cracked first but then only show clips of her retaliating. Were there honestly no other incidents involving other players?
This wouldn't have made Sportscenter if it was a men's game and their treatment of it has a Rashomon-feel that suggests someone is a BYU grad. Steve Young probably paid for the cameras. Also, spare me the idea that what she did is worse than trying to gouge someone's eyes.
posted by yerfatma at 03:47 PM on November 06
Is there some point in using a POWER stat to compare a cleanup hitter to a leadoff hitter?
OPS isn't a power stat. It's a combination of on base percentage and slugging, so it measures both positive offensive contributions (and gives them equal weight, whereas some statheads like to give OBP more weight).
A salary floor is just going to lead to silliness where the Royals/Marlins/Pirates sign some aging/useless veteran outfielder for WAY over market value, just because they HAVE to.
That's fine, because at that point the marginal cost to them to sign a over-the-hill veteran or to take the time and spend wisely is close to 0, so they'd most likely improve. I don't see this as a valid argument against a salary floor. Why not have one?
posted by yerfatma at 10:52 AM on November 06
yours is clearly a popular point here
But not other places where smart people actually think about things?
a casual examination of the history of the Yankees should illustrate that "have fun doing it" is a meaningful distinction from other of their championship teams
So the run in the late 90s was all business? Paul O'Neill and Scott Brosius lobbied to change the team unis to bespoke Saville Row pinstripe suits? Also, throwing the word "casual" in there is a less-than-subtle "Fuck you" that would have been best left thought but unsaid.
posted by yerfatma at 07:36 AM on November 06
So will this be the last time that a player wearing #42 wins a World Series?
One less person that believes in my campaign to bring back Mo Vaughn.
posted by yerfatma at 05:08 PM on November 05
Girardi was "jumping up and down, trying to flag me down."
Was probably trying to bring in a relief driver.
posted by yerfatma at 04:12 PM on November 05
You seem to be making my argument for me regarding the revenue sharing.
Don't misunderstand, I agree with your larger point, I just would say it's the revenue sharing and not the salary cap that makes the league even. (Even without a cap, Daniel Snyder would make a mess in DC). As for your Steelers/ Bucs comparison, I think we can put that down as coincidence, unless your theory also encompasses why the Royals and Chiefs are equally inept.
posted by yerfatma at 01:01 PM on November 05
But let's keep the swearing here and on-topic.
posted by yerfatma at 11:48 AM on November 05
One of the reasons that the NFL is so popular is the salary cap and revenue sharing. Any team, regardless of market size, has a legitimate opportunity to win the super bowl.
The NFL would like you to believe that, but it's not true. The salary cap holds down player salaries. The bulk of team revenue comes from national TV contracts which they all split equally. Additionally, they NFL splits gate receipts pretty evenly. So that all means teams are closer to even footing, but try telling Bills fans they have just as much chance as the Giants.
posted by yerfatma at 11:46 AM on November 05
EPL Fantasy 09-10
This is shaping up as my worst week EVAR, especially with Bent as captain.