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| Member since: | November 11, 2005 |
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EnglishSpin has posted 0 links and 22 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 1 comment to the Locker Room.
You, on the other hand, cared so much about how SportsFilter covers the series that you didn't post a single link or make a single comment about games until this discussion, when your main point seems to be that we're talking about the wrong things and making Yankees fans feel unwelcome.
You're right. I don't care. I was only seconding an observation that had already been made and putting my own spin in defense of that position. The thread was steered in one direction, and there appears to have been no Yankee-fan contingent to have steered it another way. How surprising given the graciousness with which their victories are met by the non-fans here.
posted by EnglishSpin at 10:46 PM on November 06, 2009
Yep, that's what I said, justgary. I said throw out all analysis and meaningful commentary on baseball and only discuss pies. I'm all about the pie.
In the Philly thread last year, pretty much everyone made a comment about who they were happy or unhappy for. Where's the analysis in that? That sounds like an emotional response. Your comment about being happy for Jamie Moyer but not Bret Meyer [sic], is that because of some analytical study you've done of their career salaries to production, or are you responding to them emotionally in some way? Please tell me what's open here. Inter-player chemistry is ridiculous, but fan-player chemistry is meaningful discussion? And these are somehow completely independent of each other?
There are probably 10 sports (not Yankees-specific) sites that were able to discuss the outcome of the series without turning it into a forum on baseball economics. Here's one. What's funny about that is that BBTF is reputed to be a collection of stathead number crunchers, and yet there's more of the kind of emotional response and camaraderie there than you are apparently hoping for here when you describe intelligent sports communities. Yeesh.
Make whatever you want of the site. This thread has no game analysis, no series analysis, really nothing much except for protracted attempts to diminish the accomplishments of the victors. I'm just repeating here what lil_brown_bat pointed out. If that's cool with you, have at it. I'm not too personally psyched for reading about sports that has the human element tucked away behind facts and analysis, but that's just my opinion - I'm not asking you to change anything and I'm already aware of where the door is.
posted by EnglishSpin at 10:32 PM on November 06, 2009
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?
posted by yerfatma at 08:04 PM on November 06
The chemistry of the team has been a storyline all year. Girardi drops a day of training to take the club out to play pool. CC takes everybody out to dinner. Nick Swisher is apparently told to crank up the music in the clubhouse. AJ starts throwing pies at guys, and the New York media starts losing their minds over whether or not that fits the "Yankee Way."
As the Yankees were dropping the ALCS in 2004, everyone was commenting that they looked "tight." A-Rod looked "tight." They had relievers vomiting in the bullpen when they were leading the series 3-1. Now that the Yankees have won, the team's attitude is no longer subject to discussion? That they have been a visibly looser team this year than in recent years past is not a meaningful observation as it coincides with their success?
Sheesh. If you want to defend the Yankees on the merits, I'm eager to have that discussion. But if you're just going to slam people for not being unqualified enough in their praise, what's the point? You don't seem to be making any effort at all to see how this looks to fans of the other 29 teams.
posted by rcade at 05:57 PM on November 06
Why should it look different than any other team's championship to the other 29 teams that didn't win? Here's the thread from the Phillies championship last year.
Last year you opened the thread with how much more exciting the Series was than you thought it would be at the end. This year, you opened with the bleak wait for next year. Then in your next comment, your first editorial on this Series, you said you hate it when the Yankees spend their money well. I don't even know if this is qualified praise -- it seems to be lacking an essential element.
You can paint this any way you want. This thread isn't inviting to fans of the team that won the World Series in anything close to the way that it was for the Phillies. Like it or not, and it sure seems like the former, this is no place that any kind of NYY fan would want to go to discuss their team's victory.
posted by EnglishSpin at 08:46 PM on November 06, 2009
Getting caught with a misdemeanor amount of weed shouldn't even be news, and it certainly shouldn't trigger any kind of testing or suspension for Lincecum.
Marijuana is a banned substance in MLB. MLB testing for drugs of abuse is done on a basis of reasonable cause. Maybe you're arguing that the policy shouldn't exist but given that it does this is pretty cut-and-dried reasonable cause to test. If it was a syringe and just a tiny amount of steroids, people would be going batshit. How is this different?
(On edit: of course I mean how is it different in the eyes of MLB's banned substance policy, not how is marijuana different than steroids. That's not really material here.)
posted by EnglishSpin at 07:54 PM on November 06, 2009
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
Addessing your second comment first, by "casual" I meant that you didn't have to have clubhouse access or be an avid reader of team exposes to know that the Yankees championship teams of the '70s didn't get along, didn't have good chemistry in the clubhouse. I know of Yankee fans that broke off from that team even though they were winning because they couldn't stand the zoo atmosphere. So I would think it's not out of line for a fan to recognize how much this team seems to get along, because there is an implied contrast to other championship teams. Whatever other subtext you've put into that statement wasn't intended.
On the first point, I don't know why I would raise other places of discussion in this forum, but this is the second thread on this site in which there appeared to me to be a majority dismissal of club chemistry as being worthy of discussion. So I guess I wouldn't be able to find a place where smart people think about it because it would have already been dismissed out of hand. I just gave an example of a winning club in the same franchise that didn't have good chemistry. The original comment that was responded to wasn't indicating anything more than that, despite the burden of the highest payroll and the constant weight of the heaviest of expectations and the egos that would presumably come with a club of superstars, the team seemed to have fun. This is an organization that has a reputation for being corporate and unfun and has been criticized roundly for it, so shouting down this observation as not worthy of discussion seems to me to be out of bounds.
posted by EnglishSpin at 05:39 PM on November 06, 2009
Establish a salary cap with a reasonable floor as well as a maximum and that should solve that problem.
I don't see how a salary floor will accomplish anything beyond ensuring that the pay scale for talent gets completely thrown out the window.
See Point V of the Official DrJohnEvans SpoFi Platform.
This assumes a cause/effect without examining the possibility of it working in reverse, but yours is clearly a popular point here and an easy one to derail onto. Even given that you're right, 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.
posted by EnglishSpin at 11:22 PM on November 05, 2009
It's hard to separate the excellence of the team from the unprecedented monetary disparity between the team's payroll and everyone else's.
Yes. It's hard to separate the excellence of the team from the fact that they are close to the only team going about it an honest way.
The Yankees do spend more money than other teams in MLB, but the differences would be less drastic if the payrolls of many teams had been rising up to the waves of new cash that have entered baseball in recent years. Going by the NFL formula, very generous considering the MLBPA is far more powerful an entity than any other union in sports, the payroll floor for 2009 would almost certainly be in the $100 million range. 58% of league revenue, as the players in NFL get, would be, in baseball, an average team payroll of a hair under $120 million. It's pretty clear that while the Yankees are outspending everyone comfortably, the rest of baseball has just as much to do with the payroll disparity as the Yankees do.
The Yankees paid the "small-market clubs" $26.9 million this year. Find out where that money went, then explain how MORE revenue sharing is any kind of solution.
posted by EnglishSpin at 08:49 PM on November 05, 2009
The weak stuff was the "and you're not playing major league baseball" comment. What kind of argument is that?
The kind of argument that a player in the major league trenches is closer to the influence that chemistry has in those trenches than someone who is not. How is that point not relevant?
Crawford talks about the Yankees lacking team chemistry last year, but it's almost the same team this year and they're world beaters.
Did you miss the memo where they brought in a handful of free agents that have been a topic of discussion some this year? Sabathia, Burnett, Teixeira, Swisher -- still the same team? Not that that matters, because the Rays ARE essentially the same team as last year, so clearly chemistry isn't an issue, because chemistry between people never wavers over years at a time.
Basically, you're saying that there is no amount of evidence presented by major league players that's going to change your own well-honed perception of the role of chemistry in an environment you have supreme skill at imagining yourself in. What great good fortune that you are willing to share your insight with us here.
posted by EnglishSpin at 01:33 AM on October 23, 2009
That's the player-to-be-named-later in the Mike Hampton deal. He, literally, had not yet been named at the time of the trade.
posted by EnglishSpin at 07:10 PM on October 22, 2009
Now he will be remembered as that guy who had an affair with an insane production assistant and not for the fact that he was truly awful at both of his primary jobs of the past decade.
Better to have him go away and not have to remember him at all.
posted by EnglishSpin at 12:33 AM on October 22, 2009
I'm pretty sure the codified code of conduct is that, for a man, the minimum dating age is half your own +7.
Also, I've found that men discussing the appearance of a woman on merit, whether it be positive or negative in tone, is a great way to alienate a majority of women from the conversation. Make what you want of that.
posted by EnglishSpin at 10:32 PM on October 21, 2009
Why should baseball have umpires if machines can do better? Do you go to or watch games to see umpires make calls or to see players play?
I go to see a baseball game, which is constituted of players, umpires, managers, and coaches. If I want the experience to be conducted electronically, I'll stay home with my XBox.
posted by EnglishSpin at 10:03 PM on October 19, 2009
Yeah, I don't think Tynan has a leg to stand on here.
posted by EnglishSpin at 07:01 PM on October 18, 2009
If I leave an item out on my front lawn with a sign that says, "FREE"*, could I have you charged with robbery for taking it?
The sign isn't really out for defensive indifference, is it? It's more like seeing something on the front lawn, heading across the lawn to grab it (risking trespassing as well as theft), and only then being informed by the owner that you can go ahead and have it. Also, it is a lawn from which things are often stolen against the owner's wishes.
Baseball ought also to have an "Offensive Indifference" for certain situations that are otherwise called a "Save."
posted by EnglishSpin at 11:06 PM on September 23, 2009
Greatest Teams Of All Time?
Baseball:
2004 NL All-Star team
Renteria SS Pujols 1B Bonds LF Rolen 3B Sosa RF Piazza C Berkman CF Kent 2B Clemens P
Bench included Miguel Cabrera, Jim Thome, Barry Larkin, Carlos Beltran, Todd Helton, Bobby Abreu.
Bullpen included Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Carlos Zambrano, Ben Sheets, and Eric Gagne.
If Larkin had started ahead of Renteria, you could make a Hall of Fame case for every starter and a decent portion of the bench.
Of course, that team lost the All-Star game.