- 05:38 AM
- 12/17/18
| Name: | Holden O. |
|---|---|
| Location: | Chicago |
| Member since: | February 11, 2002 |
| Last visit: | December 16, 2018 |
holden has posted 53 links and 2,491 comments to SportsFilter and 8 links and 268 comments to the Locker Room.
The Great Heist: How Fox Paid for and Changed Football Forever: A long, but excellent oral history from Bryan Curtis at The Ringer on how Fox went big for the NFL and ended up becoming the fourth major broadcast network in the process. Lots of fun nuggets in there, including the facts that (1) at the time John Madden signed with Fox for the 1994 NFL season, he was paid more annually than the highest paid NFL player, and (2) at the time it was introduced, people hated the "Fox Box" (the box containing the running clock and score at the top corner of the screen).
posted by holden to football at 02:08 PM on December 14, 2018 - 5 comments
Are You Ready for Some Football?: The World Cup draw was conducted earlier today. An Iberian showdown in Group B, while Groups D and F look, if not quite Groups of Death, at least Groups of Moderate Discomfort. The U.S. is in Group I.
posted by holden to soccer at 12:41 PM on December 01, 2017 - 6 comments
The Premier League Season Kicks Off Tomorrow: After a short post-WC break, the season in England's top flight begins tomorrow. The first manager to quit or get fired has already left the building, in the form of a man who seems almost unrecognizable minus the hat. Don't forget to join the SpoFi Fantasy Premier League mini-league (anyone know the SpoFi league code?). Post your season predictions inside.
posted by holden to soccer at 11:30 AM on August 15, 2014 - 9 comments
Euro 2012 Confidence Pool (Final Standings): Congrats to our winner, goddam, who narrowly pipped second-place finisher owlhouse (and apologies to those of you whose entries the software ate). Full standings inside.
posted by holden to fantasy at 11:43 AM on July 05, 2012 - 1 comment
Euro 2012 Confidence Pool (Standings Post-Group Round): Standings after the group round inside.
posted by holden to fantasy at 02:59 PM on June 22, 2012 - 1 comment
Navy Man would prefer they wear blues.
posted by holden at 10:32 PM on November 04, 2018
Two things tonight - one a SpoFi observation, and one a fun chance encounter:
The SpoFi observation - love that Howard_T is the elder statesman (no disrespect intended) of SpoFi. If you told me you were on the Enola Gay, I wouldn't bat an eye (and yes, I know you're not that old -- but I'm probably closer in age to your kids than you and I've got a 12 year-old son myself).
On the chance encounter, I got stuck in NY over a December weekend a couple of years ago (I live in Chicago) for an M&A transaction I was working on and got back late to my hotel in Midtown and ended up seated at the hotel bar grabbing a late dinner next to none other than John Lynch. Great player (obviously) but a great guy as well. He was in town to call a Giants game when he was the color guy for a Fox team (with Kevin Burkhardt as the PBP guy?). Got a lot of good inside-baseball (or inside-football) info from him just chatting away, and he introduced me to the whole production team. As a Louisiana native, I told him I thought that maybe Eli to Odell was the most prolific QB-WR combination of two players in the NFL that went to the same high school (Isidore Newman in New Orleans) and that they should look it up. Lo and behold, on the broadcast the next day he mentioned that, as the stats team had looked it up. God bless the information age.
posted by holden at 12:45 AM on November 03, 2018
I'm not particularly interested in whether or not they got this call right or not. I find it frustrating that MLB has a fan interference rule that applies to anything other than someone jumping over the rail and running onto the field. Either (1) let fans sit close to the action, and get over the fact that occasionally fans and players are going to touch each other while reaching for the same ball, or (2) engineer it out of the ballparks.
At Wrigley, they have a "basket" all the way around the outfield wall, so there's no real chance of fan interference on home run balls. But of course, possibly the most famous fan interference incident of all time (with apologies to Jeffrey Maier, the only other fan known by name for interference) happened at Wrigley, on a foul ball, so there's probably no designing it out of the game 100%.
Apparently the baskets at Wrigley were installed in 1970 because of fan interference, but in this case drunk fans in the 1969 season regularly jumping from the bleachers onto the field.
OK, just now seeing this play for the first time and, boy, did Boston ever get a gift there. Had nobody been there, the ball would've bounced off the side of the mitt and it would've been a home run. Crazy call
If you look at one of the replays, seems his glove hit the fan's hand before the ball hit the glove, so I think he may have been impeded in getting his glove as far over to his left as he needed to in order to make the catch.
posted by holden at 10:20 AM on October 18, 2018
Pats by 10
posted by holden at 07:49 PM on October 04, 2018
Two bonus baseball games tomorrow. Great fun.
posted by holden at 07:49 PM on September 30, 2018
I liked it. These teams are effectively playing for 3rd place in the AFC South and ties suck.
posted by holden at 06:09 PM on September 30, 2018
rcade - please deduct 10 points from my score for last week. I posted my picks on Friday, which is why I picked Cincinnati by exactly 11 and then subsequently wrote "(kidding)." Sorry for screwing around there. (Although will note that you didn't double my picks for the lock.)
Cleveland by 3
New Orleans by 7
Kansas City by 14
Miami by 6
Minnesota by 20 LOCK
Philadelphia by 7
Green Bay by 4
Carolina by 7
Jacksonville by 14 LOCK
Baltimore by 10
Houston by 7
L.A. Rams by 6
Chicago by 7
Seattle by 10 LOCK
New England by 14 LOCK
Tampa Bay by 7
posted by holden at 03:34 PM on September 20, 2018
Cincinnati by 11 LOCK (kidding)
Atlanta by 6
L.A. Chargers by 7
Green Bay by 3
Houston by 8
New Orleans by 13 LOCK
N.Y. Jets by 3
Pittsburgh by 6
Philadelphia by 7
Washington by 6
L.A. Rams by 20 LOCK
San Francisco by 10
Denver by 7
Jacksonville by 7
N.Y. Giants by 6
Chicago by 7
posted by holden at 10:52 AM on September 14, 2018
I have no problem with what Bell is doing and would feel the same way were I a Steelers fan. The shelf life of NFL players is quite short, and running backs are on the low end of average career length. If NFL contracts were fully guaranteed, I might feel differently about the concept of "honoring your contract."
On the flip side, stoked to be learning some great tips about how to get backlinks. Although if rcade was still alive, this would never be happening.
posted by holden at 08:14 AM on September 09, 2018
Also, please ban robinjack.
posted by holden at 06:46 PM on September 08, 2018
Wait, there's a Beaverboard and a Bored Beaver?
I assume the Bored Beaver just is in need of some wood.
posted by holden at 06:45 PM on September 08, 2018
Between this and the Losers Lunch thread, I hereby call upon the banhammer.
posted by holden at 06:42 PM on September 08, 2018
Atlanta by 3
Cleveland by 6
Indianapolis by 7
Tennessee by 6
Minnesota by 10
New England by 13
New Orleans by 17
Jacksonville by 3
Baltimore by 13
L.A. Chargers by 7
Denver by 6
Arizona by 3
Carolina by 8
Green Bay by 13
Detroit by 6
L.A. Rams by 13
posted by holden at 09:26 PM on September 06, 2018
The Great Heist: How Fox Paid for and Changed Football Forever
An interesting point made is that TV executives at rival networks hated the idea of the Fox Box the most and thought it was a horrible thing for the networks because it would drive viewers away if the game was a blowout. Basically better to keep channel flippers in the dark as to score than to have them move on (which ignored the fact that disinterested viewers would probably flip before getting to commercials in any event as the networks already showed the score as the game cut to commercial).