Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category

6 Quick Kobe Thoughts, Confession, The Difference a Day Makes, Life goes on, Liang Wudong, What Impeachment? and some things never change Under the Fedora

Posted: January 27, 2020 by datechguy in catholic, culture, entertainment, nba, Sports
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What happened to Kobe Bryant is why I don’t get into any aircraft or go on any long trip without going to confession and receiving absolution first.

None of us from short fat lower middle class 56 year old bloggers to 41 year tall healthy rich basketball superstars are promised tomorrow. So if you need the sacrament of confession the best time to get it is now

It’s amazing the difference a day makes, I would wager that 24 hours ago if offered a chance to ride on a chopper with Kobe Bryant and his daughter you could likely count the number of people who would decline such an offer on your fingers and toes.

You could make a very good episode of the twilight zone about a basketball fanatic selling his soul for the chance.

It’s worth noting that moments of silence and tributes not withstanding the NBA games still went on yesterday, the Grammy’s took place yesterday, on Sunday the Superbowl is going to take place and all of the athletes in all the various sports will keep going on as normal. Unless you are one of the family of those who died life goes on as normal. It’s a lesson worth learning if you are one of those taking the court, field or stage yesterday with the crowd cheering you.

Another person died yesterday that should be remembered by likely will not.

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There will likely not many glowing tributes in the news for Doctor Liang Wudong who died treating patients from the disease that everyone around the world is running from.

There should be.

If you thought people weren’t paying attention to impeachment last week today you’d better believe that nobody is paying attention to it today.

This is one of those very rare times when a Monday Morning is the perfect time for anyone in politics or business to dump an embarrassing story and know for a fact that nobody is going to cover it.

Finally I was on twitter while all this was happening and saw this tweet from a DC blue check journalist in reply to the President’s comment:

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Twitchy has a whole batch of such replies I think my initial reaction to this is correct: God what’s wrong with you people?

9th surprise, Adam Who? CNN as Tragedy, CNN as Comedy and two SB stats Under the Fedora

Posted: January 20, 2020 by datechguy in media, News/opinion, nfl, politics, Sports
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If you want to know why the left is so afraid of Donald Trump this headline says it all:

9th Circuit Dismisses Climate Change Lawsuit Brought By Kids

The idea that a federal court would dismiss a frivolous lawsuit is in general not all that odd a thing, but that the 9th circuit, the historical court of liberal insanity is doing so is a sign of the difference Donald Trump is making.

This was the fun story of the week.

Let’s point out that Congressman Schiff was on TV constantly, the media was pushing him constantly, newspapers were mentioning him constantly and three contestants on Jeopardy, the folks who know everything about everything had no idea who the hell he was, even with a picture. included.

That’s how little impeachment means to the public.

Speaking of things nobody cares about the media outrage over Senator McSally putting media hack Manu Raju in his place is really funny:

Given the abysmal ratings of CNN these days, the complete disintest by the country in impeachment and the low opinion the press is currently held while their anger is in fact a “tale told by an idiot” or rather idiots and does “signify nothing” I don’t think it their whining rises to the level of being “full of sound and fury” although it is full of something.

I’m really enjoying all of the outrage by the Bernie Sanders fans and others over CNN as being biased:

The big loser of the night was the network that hosted the event. CNN was so consistently aligned against Bernie Sanders that it compromised its claim to journalistic neutrality.

That’s from that well known right wing bastion the Nation in fact some Bernie sites are taking direct action:

A Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) subreddit has banned all content from CNN over the network’s coverage of the presidential candidate.

A moderator with the r/SandersForPresident subreddit, which has more than 373,000 members, announced the decision on Wednesday following the presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa.

The post argues that CNN, which hosted Tuesday evening’s debate, has “abandoned their journalistic integrity” in an effort to derail Sanders’ campaign.

The level of outrage is really amusing as much worse than all of this is the kind of treatment that any conservative who isn’t willing to attack conservatives is subjected to daily.

Of course the Sanders crew has never been outraged over this kind of behavior as long as it’s directed at conservatives, but the idea that they might be the target, is beyond the pale.

cue the Troll in chief

Point and laugh time.

Finally it’s the Chiefs vs the 49ers in the Superbowl in two weeks. Basically an unstoppable offense vs an impenetrable defense but there are two stats that I find amusing going into this game

Stat 1: Going into the playoffs there were four QB’s in the playoffs that are locks for the hall of fame. Brees, Brady, Rogers and Wilson. Only Rogers made it to the final four and none of them made it to the big game suggesting this will be the passing of the torch.

Stat 2: If San Francisco wins this will be Jimmy G’s 3rd Superbowl ring as he won two with the Pats, one as a backup all season and the other starting a pair of games without losing one (he gone by the time they lost to the Eagles) that will put him at a full half Brady and he’s just getting started.

Raise the Mound back to 1968 levels and Make Sign Stealing Legal in MLB

Posted: January 15, 2020 by datechguy in baseball, Sports
Tags: , ,

You knew what was coming, but so what?

a MLB hitter on facing pitcher Walter Johnson

With Democrat debates, Presidential rallies and impeachment going on, not to mention the turmoil in Iran I’ve decided it’s time for this blog to get back to a subject that really matters.

Baseball!

It’s been a busy week for MLB as the league has assessed still penalties on both AJ Hinch and Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow resulting in not only the Astros throwing them under the bus but in the Boston Red Sox deciding to part ways with World Series winning manager Alex Cora after only two years for his part before MLB even went after him.

Now I don’t have a problem with these penalties in principle as I’m a bit of a rules lawyer, if the rules say something they should be enforced ( I still think calling George Brett out in the pine tar game was the right call) but i’m also of the opinion that the rules on sign stealing are pretty stupid.

Sign stealing has been a part of the game since the day signs were and has been practiced with varying success by every team and the idea that sign stealing done one way (with no electronic help) is legal but sign stealing WITH electronic help is not frankly isn’t practical in a world of iPhones, I watches, instant replay and challenges.

So I propose a simple solution that will not only solve this dilemma but will do something that major league baseball is desperate to achieve, speed up the game.

  1. Make all forms of sign stealing legal
  2. Raise the mound back to the 1968 level

Getting rid of all restriction on sign stealing will have a liberating effect on all these teams that are doing their best to steal signs (and let’s not pretend they aren’t) by bringing this strategy out in the open you make it a more interesting part of the game and force a pitcher, catcher and coach to be more creative in their pitch calling.

Now you might argue that this will give an even greater advantage to batters in an age of lousy pitching and you’d be right, and that’s why it’s so necessary to add the second part of the equation to the plan, raising the pitchers mound.

Baseball’s panic move to lower the mound after the year of the pitcher (1968) was an action borne out of fear and did nothing to prevent the decline of the games popularity in relation to football, what it instead did was make offense easier at a time when you were increasing the number of pitchers in the game by 20% meaning that pitchers who would not have made a major league roster five years ago were not only pitching to the likes of Carl Yastrzemski , Hank Aaron Harmon Killebrew and Pete Rose but were doing it from a smaller mound.

50 years later we have smaller parks but 6 more teams meaning that there are 60 more pitchers who would not have been considered major league quality now pitching in those parks. It’s time to give the pitchers back an edge. Sure you might have a couple of Bob Gibsons emerge with microscopic ERA’s Max Scherzer instantly comes to mind but you would also give those other guys who frankly aren’t worth stealing signs against an actual shot at getting people out and speeding up the game.

Since the lack of a clock is a defining part of baseball the only way to make the game faster is to make outs easier. Raising the mound will do and doing so in conjunction with allowing all forms of sign stealing, including electronic ones will do so without overcompensating in favor of the pitcher.

And it will save everyone a whole lot of trouble.

Patriots in the Same Situation as Last Week

Posted: January 4, 2020 by datechguy in nfl, Sports

After last week’s game vs Miami a lot of people all over the sport world started proclaiming the NE Patriots doom and the end of the dynasty but everyone seems to have forgotten one thing.

Going into week 17 to reach their goal of the Superbowl (which really is the only goal they have) they needed to win three games in a row.

But now after losing to Miami on that final drive the Patriots instead of being in a position of having to win three games in a row to reach the superbowl are now in the much more challenging position…of having to win three games in a row.

So what’s the big deal?

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