- 06:56 AM
- 04/19/19
| Name: | Holden O. |
|---|---|
| Location: | Chicago |
| Member since: | February 11, 2002 |
| Last visit: | April 17, 2019 |
holden has posted 53 links and 2,500 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
Not sure why you'd taunt the refs in that situation (or any situation, for that matter). They can screw you that game (maybe was the case here) or in future games.
posted by holden at 11:29 PM on March 30, 2019
Great read.
Watching Lakers-Rockets last night made me wonder if the refs in that one were on the take.
posted by holden at 09:31 AM on February 22, 2019
Enjoyed this piece from Ratto, which was published at Deadspin yesterday.
posted by holden at 03:09 PM on January 30, 2019
I think Rivera getting unanimous induction is more indicative of the changing nature of the electorate (i.e., the old dudes who would not vote for someone on the first ballot on which he was eligible as a matter of "principle" aging out of the electorate/dying - or maybe just happening to be Yankees fans) than any sort of statement about his place in the pantheon. Also does not hurt that he played for the most visible team in the sport, won multiple World Series, has never had a whiff of controversy around him, and exhibits humility, selflessness, philanthropy, etc. Kind of just a perfect storm of features.
The Matt Stairs comparison is kind of fun in the sense of two players that did a very good job in somewhat specific/limited role, but Rivera has a career bWAR higher than 17 starting pitchers who are in the Hall of Fame (including Koufax), whereas Stairs' overall value is lacking. (And I know (think?) grum was just using that comparison as a rhetorical device.)
And here's echoing the hope that Larry Walker gets a big bump in his last year on the ballot. Although if Tony La Russa (together with Jerry Reinsdorf, apparently) could get Harold Baines through via the Today's Game Era Committee (successor to the Veterans Committee), hopefully La Russa managing Walker for his last season plus in MLB provides enough juice in that room to put that Committee in a position to actually get one right.
posted by holden at 11:50 AM on January 23, 2019
Indy by 3
Seahawks by 7
Chargers by 4
Bears by 8
Passer: Wilson
Rusher: Carson
Receiver: Hilton
INT: Fuller
Points: Indy
posted by holden at 03:58 PM on January 05, 2019
The Henry run gets discounted in my estimation because of the lack of effort of some of the Jags players (I'm looking at you, Leon Jacobs and Myles Jack).
posted by holden at 02:15 AM on December 28, 2018
A belated Merry Christmas to this cast of degenerates.
posted by holden at 02:12 AM on December 28, 2018
I saw that a week or two ago. Great story.
posted by holden at 03:46 PM on December 27, 2018
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).
posted by holden at 02:53 PM on December 14, 2018
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
Farewell to 20th Century Baseball
All of this is just a reminder of how old we all (or at least some of us) are. I'm at the stage of life where when I go into a gas station or C-store and see "You must have been born before this date to buy tobacco products" and think to myself "That can't be right, can it?" Basically my unknown love child from high school can now rent a car without paying the extra "under-25" fees.