Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category

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
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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?

Sunday Morning Under the Fedora Media vs Brady, Kyrie addition by subtraction, Tampa Bay Lightning not striking twice, Betts as Ruth Redux and Games on paper vs games on paper

Posted: December 29, 2019 by datechguy in baseball, dynasty baseball, gaming, nba, nfl, nhl, Sable Baseball, Sports
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Are we still after last year seeing sports casters saying that even if the New England Patriots win against the hapless Dolphins today that the only question in the playoffs is: “Do the Patriots lose to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs at home or in Kansas city?”

Now don’t get me wrong, Kansas City is a good team and as demonstrated earlier in the year they are quite capable of beating any team including the Patriots, but I can’t think of anything that is more likely to motivate an already great Patriots defense and Tom Brady back into “Deflategate revenge tour” mode than stuff like this.

It’s still very early in the season but I’d like to point out that last year the Brooklyn Nets finished the year at 42-40 with a .512 winning percentage without Kyrie Irving as the 6th seed while the Boston Celtics finished at 49-33 with a .598 winning percentage as the 5th seed in the east with Kyrie irving.

This year Irving left the Celtics and the team is currently the #3 seed at 22-8 with a .733 winning percentage and even with the #2 Miami Heat in the Loss Column. Irving signed with the nets who are currently 16-15 with a .516 winning percentage and 7th seeded in the conference, but more importantly is 12-8 with a .600 winning percentage since an injury sidelined Irving after a 4-7 start.

This man is the anti-Brady

Last year in the NHL during the Regular Season the Tampa Bay Lightning simply dominated the league in a way we hadn’t seen in years until the playoffs came around. I remember driving home after game one listening to sports radio as they declared that despite that loss Columbus had no chance right up until they finished the lightning off.

It’s a year later and the team that managed 128 points, a solid 20 above every other is now currently at 42 points five points behind the last wild card team. Now there are still 46 games to go but it’s an important reminder that you have to take advantage of any opportunity you have because you just might not get another chance.

Speaking of not getting another chance as the year ends and the 2020 season draws near we are still getting “the trade or don’t trade Mookie Betts” debate in Boston.

It’s been a pretty quiet off season for the Red Sox with three players from last world series win (Brock Holt, Mitch Moreland, Rick Porcello ) currently testing free agency and Catcher Sandy Leon traded to Cleveland for minor league pitcher Adenys Bautista. As of today their current offensive depth chart looks like this (via redsox.com):

With the exception of Pedroia this is pretty much the Red Sox offence that tore up the league last year but was betrayed by injuries in the rotation and weakness in the bullpen. Or to put it another way, this team is one closer and perhaps one healthy rotation away from fielding a team more than capable of dominating the American league with a monster offense, a zipper outfield and a rotation as good as any other in baseball.

So to those who say forget 2020 and trade Mookie let me remind all these people who have forgotten the lean times of a little history.

Exactly 100 years ago another Red Sox had an off season at 66-71-1 (one game called after 10 innings never made up) where they had dropped to sixth a year after winning the world series. They decided to get rid of their star right fielder, who could also pitch a bit, before the start of their next season selling him for a price higher than the entire payroll of the the previous year’s team. More money than the combined salaries of the top 8 players in the league.

That team had won five World series in the 20th century at that point, they would not win another.

Now Mookie Betts is no Babe Ruth but the point of the story is when you have a chance to win a World Series take it, because it might be another 86 years before you win another.

Finally as I mentioned before the old table top face to face fantasy baseball league that I started 32 years ago (the year before I got married) was revived this year. Going into Friday I had a record of 8-4 having won my 1st 4 series with a pair of series coming up against two relative newcomers with one season of experience between them both with losing records.

Over the next two days I lost 4-6 including a 9th inning blown save by Kimbrel, a 14th inning marathon, and had a team with Mookie Betts batting 1st and Anthony Rendon hitting 3rd shut out for the final 20 innings of the last two games against a sixteen year old kid who was playing in his 1st baseball simulation league 50 years after I had gotten my 1st baseball simulation game, Milton Bradley baseball for Christmas in 1969 (great game btw you can get it on eBay here) at the ripe old age of six.

This demonstrates a sports rule that extends even to games on paper. No matter what the betting line or the prognosticators say there is a reason why you actually play the games.

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