Mark Cuban reportedly wants to start a new football minor-league. Notwithstanding the sorry history of start-up sports leagues in general, and football leagues in particular, it seems like a credible idea to me. That reminds me, what ever happened to the “new” WHA that was supposedly on the drawing board a couple years ago?
The Feds are now seeking to search Vick’s property for the remains of up to 30 dead pit bulls. That’s much worse than having local authorities investigating alone, since the Feds have essentially unlimited resources and potentially more draconian penalties.
I think the difference was succinctly explained by “Michael Bolton” in Office Space:
If we’re caught, we’re not going to go to white-collar-resort-prison. No, no, no.
We’re gonna go to federal-pound-me-in-the-ass-prison.
Meanwhile, the Falcons are expecting a six-game suspension even before anything is adjudicated. Completely inadequate as a total penalty, but at this juncture, a fine start. Of course, if he is in fact guilty, the suspension will be academic since Vick will be playing in the Federal Penal League.
I caught Bull Durham on TV last night; do you realize that movie is almost 20 years old?! It’s hard not to notice, since Kevin Costner has hair. I think the film has stood the test of time, though. Costner’s great lines are delivered with humor tinged with the wistfulness of someone who knows the end of his career is near, and that he will never make “the show” (save for a two-week callup). Tim Robbins plays a perfect idiot (of course, he doesn’t really need to act), and Susan Sarandon is slightly cloying but overall great as the community college literature teacher/town slut. In my estimation, it is the best baseball movie ever. What do our contributors think are the best baseball movies? Here is my list*, respectfully submitted, Douglas C. Neidermeyer, Sargeant-at-Arms:
Granted, it’s not even June yet so the games don’t matter a whole lot, but I experienced the following emotions in last night’s Mets-Giants game:
comes from a math professor from Wisconsin at slate.com. It’s a decent analysis, running through several Baseball Prospectus contributors’ pet formulae. Of course, while the numbers do put some flesh on the bones, it ultimately nets out to this: if Clemens puts them over the top he is likely worth what they’re paying him, if they still miss the playoffs, then not so much.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2881602.
What a country!
One of the major issues in the NBA this year centered around teams tanking games after they were eliminated from playoff contention in order to give themselves a better opportunity to secure one of the coveted top 2 spots in the lottery. This was a unique year. The NBA passed a rule pretty much prohibiting high school players from entering the draft. Therefore, this draft is loaded with several freshman entering the NBA who would have declared as High Schoolers a year earlier. It is one thing to tank games in years past and end up drafting Dwight Howard #1, who no one had heard of or seen play, but this years’ prize is Greg Oden and Kevin Durant: players equal to Howard, but much more well known, due to their college “careers”. Basically, I am saying we are not going to see this type of talent entering the NBA for several years. Two teams will be rewarded with stud franchise saving players.
There is nothing that David Stern can do to prevent teams from tanking games. Players can easily miss games due to questionable injuries, and coaches can decide it is in the best interest of the franchise to play younger players. This year was unique. Ryan Gomes publicly stated that the Celtics tried to lose games at the end of the year. So Stern’s only option was to fix the lottery to ensure that teams he deemed to have tanked games did not “win” the lottery. The odds of none of the bottom three teams securing one of the 3 spots has to be close to 100/1, but when it happened last night, i was not in the least surprised. While Stern cannot prevent teams from trying to get more ping pong balls, he can prevent those teams from benefiting from losing games on purpose.
on the right side of the screen, just below the list of categories. Please add any quality links you like.
So that about does it for his four years with the Yankees. Let’s see… $40 million for 111.1 innings, 60 strikeouts, and 5 wins. It’s enough to make one nostalgic for Ed Whitson.
Hank Aaron is an odd character. He has often come across as an extremely bitter man, which is unseemly, and especially so for a guy who got to spend two decades of his adult life playing baseball for a living. In his recent interview with the Associated Press, though, he comes across as just plain weird. Strangest to me is his determination to avoid being present when Bonds breaks his home run record, even if he does it in Atlanta. It would be one thing to stay away because of the circumstances surrounding Bonds’ chase of Aaron, but it seems like he is merely indifferent. As Superintendent Chalmers once said of Seymour Skinner, he is an odd fellow. It is not clear whether he steams a good ham.