I'm watching Game 2 of the World Series last night and Fox Network is using something they call "Fox Trax" which is a graphic showing where the pitch was located versus the strike zone. Unfortunately, every time they show it, it was fucking wrong! I want to know where the pitch was located when it crossed home plate - NOT WHERE THE CATCHER CAUGHT IT, you fucktards!
ESPN'sGamecast and MLB.com'sGameDay online modules show you where the pitch was located as it crossed home plate, i.e. in relation to the batter. Fox is showing me where is the pitch was located when the catcher catches it. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The world is watching the game and seeing batters getting called strike three's, but according to Fox, the pitches are no where near the strike zone.
Come on, Fox! Are you rusty since TBS carried the majority of the earlier playoff games this year? Are you just that freaking lazy? Get off your asses and do the job you're fucking supposed to do!
Hello, folks. Our local fucktard sports columnist actually took the time to write an article this week and it is his usual half-assed drivel with horrible and asinine attempts at humor. Oh, well. At least Kravitz gives me something to write about.
The Indianapolis Colts don't currently reside in Panic City (pop. 53).
Right off the bat we have a shitty attempt at trying to covey the fact the Colts are on the verge of needing to panic and all 53 players are the entire population. I would think if the ENTIRE team was on the verge of panic the population would also include, at a minimum, the coaches, the front office, the owner, just to name a few. I would think you could also include Colts fans in that number as well.
They are, however, keeping a residence in the suburbs.
Oh, and what is the name of that suburb? Anxiety Acres? Consternation Creek? Trepidationopolis?
A victory Sunday in Houston would make most of the doubts go away, at least for a couple of days. A loss, especially a loss combined with another Tennessee victory, and Eli Lilly and Co. will be forced to spike the city's drinking water with Prozac.
Could someone please hook Bob up with someone with a sense of humor? I’m tired of his poor attempts at comic relief.
Let's be honest: This team, a Super Bowl front-runner the minute New England quarterback Tom Brady went down, is one road loss in Houston from a national what's-wrong-with-the-Indianapolis-Colts story.
Well how about this international article on what’s-wrong-with-the-Indianapolis-Colts stories or this? OK, there Canadian, so you can make your own judgment calls on them.
This team, which has a golden chance to win its second title in three years with New England out of the way, is one poor 60-minute performance from being this year's biggest and most inexplicable flop.
Yo, fucktard! There are still 12 games to go after this game. Yes, being 1-3 and then making the playoffs is difficult, it is not impossible. What if we have a decent 60-minute performance, but still lose? With the injuries and retirements and waiving of players, I don’t know if that makes us the biggest flop. I would put the Lions and Bengals ahead of the Colts. While the Lions have sucked for a while, I felt that they could have battled for a .500 record or an outside shot at the playoffs after a decent finish last year. The Bengals have been just awful this year.
There's a thin blue line between a must-win game (that would be any game where a loss would mean elimination) and a need-to-win game. This game resides in that nether region in between. If they lose and the Titans win, the Colts would be 31/2 games behind the AFC South leaders and in last place in the division for the first time, not counting the season's opening week.
If it is a thin line, then how the hell are we in between? We might be right on the line, but personally I feel it is only a need-to-win game. A loss is not the end of the world at this stage.
Consider this: Each year since 2003, the AFC South winner -- always Indy -- has had 12 or more victories.
Ummm, what about the first year of the AFC South in which Tennessee won the division with an 11-5 record?
Jacksonville won 11 games last year and was a wild card. If the Colts lose and past is prologue, that means Indy would have to go 11-1 the rest of the season to hit that magic 12.
Good luck with that.
A 10-2 finish is daunting.
Maybe daunting, but not impossible.
Shoot, 9-3 would get them to 10-6, a record that hasn't been historically good enough to make the playoffs out of this division.
It kills me that the man can spent time to write an article but not spent less than five minutes to do even a minute amount of research. Because if he did, he would realize that most of his assumptions are totally incorrect. In roughly three minutes with the use of just basic search engines and a few pages on a website, I found out that not only do 10-6 teams generally make the playoffs, they even do it from the AFC South.
So five out of the six years the AFC South has been around, at least one 10-6 team has made the playoffs. Better yet, the Colts did it back in 2002 with, yep, a 10-6 record. And both wild card teams we from the AFC South last year! Wow, just a quote bit of research and once again we proved what a lazy fucktard Kravitz really is.
"Can you remember one stretch this season when you've played really good football?'' defensive end Dwight Freeney was asked.
He shook his head.
"Nah, nah, nowhere near that, and that's in all phases: defense, offense and special teams,'' he said. "Across the board. I don't think anybody can sit in here and say we're playing the way we want to play. I don't think anybody's happy.''
Yes, Dwight understands the team has not played well.
That's why Sunday is one of those really-close-to-a-must-win games. At 2-2, the Colts would have survived the first quarter of the season despite injuries to key players, the defection of Quinn Pitcock and the release of Ed Johnson. At 1-3, they'd be in trouble -- even more trouble if the Titans beat Baltimore and move to 5-0.
The Colts still have not played the Titans. If the Colts do go 1-3 and beat the Titans both times this year, they would have the tie-breaker if they finish tied at the end of the year. See, not impossible to come back from.
It's often said that a team can't win a division in September, but a team can lose the division in September. And that's where the Colts find themselves as they prepare for a Houston team that is winless, although better than its record suggests, desperate and preparing to play its first home game in front of rabid crowd that is still rebuilding from Hurricane Ike.
It is also often said, at least on this site, shitty writers will continue to write shitty columns as you prove week after week.
Remember, one week ago, the Texans were one play from walking out of Jacksonville with a victory. These are not you're slightly-older-brother's Texans, despite the uninspiring record.
The Colts must slow somebody's running game. Seriously, if Steve Slaton pulls a Ron Dayne on this group, Indy should wave the white flag of surrender. Or at least think about another Booger McFarland-type trade. Maybe talk Warren Sapp off the dance floor. Something.
Or how about actually tackling someone? How many times have we hit a runner in the backfield and have him still go for plus yardage or even for 44 yards?
I do think we are at the point where we need to consider revamping our defensive line paradigm. I understand the Colts like to have lighter, but quicker D-lineman. But we get pushed around so much in the running game that is keeps biting us in the ass. I can understand having a Freeney on the end, but we need some honking big guys at the tackles to make it tougher to run on us.
Pressure quarterback Matt Schaub the way they used to torture David Carr. Schaub can throw if he has time. Against pressure, he's just another guy.
I do miss watching David Carr get repeatedly driven into the ground.
Re-involve Anthony Gonzalez, who was so active in the first two games. Against Jacksonville, the Colts didn't have enough plays from scrimmage to incorporate their blossoming wide receiver.
The main issue against Jacksonville was not that the Colts did not involve Anthony Gonzalez, it was they did not get enough offensive plays to run. Another factor is that Dallas Clark was back in the lineup against Jacksonville and it seems that when Dallas in on the field, Anthony is not.
Win the turnover battle. Since coach Tony Dungy came to Indy, the Colts have been on the right side of turnover differential in five of six seasons. So far this year they've forced two turnovers and committed five (four interceptions), leaving them an uncharacteristic minus-3.
It would also help to have defensive backs actually catch the interceptions when they get their hands on the ball. There have been at least a couple of instances that we have had sure interceptions dropped and then the opponent continue on downfield and score on us. But Kravitz is actually right (damn that hurt) in that when the Colts win the turnover battle, they have won.
One national writer with a strong football pedigree, Sports Illustrated's Paul Zimmerman, suggested the Colts look "spent.''
Could he be on to something?
He might be, but you never are.
They have looked unorganized, especially against the Bears. Could it actually be that players do need to have a preseason in order to get ready for the regular season? Peyton has been rusty and it did take longer than expected for him to recover from the bursa sac surgery. The bye week should have helped him and the team get more on track and recover from injuries and dings.
It's understood that a slow start isn't a death sentence in this upside-down league. Last year's Super Bowl-winning New York Giants began the year 0-2 and looked miserable in the process. They turned it around late and got on a postseason roll.
They actually turned it around early and kept getting stronger late.
My sense through three shoddy games is that the Colts are still a primary player in the AFC, that the slow start is due largely to injuries, the Pitcock defection and the Johnson release. They are still the AFC South's sleeping giants, the team with the greatest potential to seize control of a conference that lacks a clear and present danger.
Bob, you do not have any sense.
I feel that the Colts are an 11-5 team, but it would not surprise me if they finished 8-8. Even great teams can have an off year where nothing goes right.
Tennessee? Fine. The Titans are better than anybody thought -- except for Colts president Bill Polian, who knows all because he is a football man and serves on the Competition Committee. I'll give the Titans 11 wins. Tops.
Since the Flaming Thumbtacks are also known as the Indianapolis Colts South or the home for the Colts Rejects, it does not surprise me that they are doing well. The Colts won with those rejects even though we were happy to see most of them go. The Titans have had the benefit of an easier schedule and having bounces go their way. The Titans have played three of their first four games at home and their only road game was against the hapless Bengals. Their only tough game so far was the home game versus the Jaguars in Week 1.
I’m going to put on my Nostradumbass hat on and predict that the law of averages catches up with the Titans and they will come into Lucas Oil Stadium in Week 17 with a 10-5 record and either the division title or a playoff berth on the line.
How would have thought that the final game of the season at home versus Tennessee could actually mean something?
Jacksonville? The Jaguars are still the Colts' biggest threat, regardless of their early struggles.
The Jaguars have struggled just like the Colts and are only a couple of plays from being 0-4 just like the Colts are really one play from being 2-1 and then we wouldn’t be reading crap like this. We could easily have a three-way battle for the division this year. Or even four-way battle if the Colts lose this week, but turn it around the rest of the season.
If the Colts lose Sunday, it's not over. But it's moving perilously in that direction. Then it's Panic City, here they come.
Oh for fucks sake. It’s not over until you are mathematically eliminated, so until then you keep playing to make the playoffs.
1-3 is not the end of world and an 8-8 season maybe good for the team and the Colts faithful. We’ve been spoiled the past five years and fans begin to expect that every year. It’s been a fun ride and maybe a few bumps along the way will be the jolt the Colts need to point them in the right direction. Or it might knock the wheels off and turn ugly really quick.
If the Colts lose, this will be Bob on Monday morning.
Nothing like a dose of Kravitz-ripping to get you going in the morning.
It's week 4 of the NFL season, yet Tony Kornheiser has somehow gone unscathed on this blog. You know Tony Kornheiser, right? He's the extra guy in the Monday Night Football booth on ESPN, joining Mike Tirico and Ron Jaworski.
It's pretty much understood that anyone who pays attention to such things thinks Kornheiser sucks (who would actually pay attention to such things?). In his two-plus seasons of being the third wheel in the MNF booth, Kornheiser has told unfunny and pointless jokes, been confused about the game he was watching, and has not understood how real play-by-play people get and use background information for the game.
Tonight's Kornheiser moment involves the third example. In the first quarter of the Ravens/Steelers game, Kornheiser tried to interject some background info about Steelers rookie running back Rashard Mendenhall by saying, "I think this is right--Mendenhall is the first running back taken in the first round by the Steelers in something like 19 years."
This statement is correct--I knew without having to look it up. Why did I know? Because as he was finishing the sentence, the ESPN on-screen graphic showed the exact same statistic.
Normally, not much of an issue, except the same thing happened last week during the Chargers/Jets game: after Favre threw his first touchdown pass, Kornheiser threw this in: "I don't want to get this wrong, but I think that was Favre's 95th touchdown pass of less than 5 yards, which is an NFL record." Again, just as he was finishing the statement, the on-screen graphic showed the same stat.
What to make of this? It seems pretty obvious to me that Kornheiser is too lazy to either a) do this research himself, like he's supposed to do, or b) write everything down in a usable form to quickly and reliably access on the air. I think Kornheiser is cherry-picking his stats from a producer or spotter; basically, that person does all the prep work and Kornheiser just picks one stat and copies it. The tip-off is Kornheiser's preface each time he uses something: if he had done the research himself and prepared relevant notes, he'd know the stat was a good one. I mean, for something like $1.8 million a year, preparation would be the least the fucktard could do, yes?
More Kornheiser fun from the same game: late in the first half, the Steelers faithful voiced their displeasure over the poor offensive showing by booing (not just a few boos--a full chorus). Kornheiser's observation: "Those are boos you're hearing, folks." Ah, great analysis there.
At least he's consistent. And by consistent, I mean a piece of poo.
P.S. And if I hear Chris Berman fucking quote "Maggie May" one more time on ESPN during NFL highlights, I will kill something.
I enjoy rooting for the underdog a lot of the time. Since WFNI 1070 am started as a all-sports radio station, my XL 950 am sports station is a distant third for sports radio stations in a medium-sized market. I think they have a much better afternoon show (The Zone with Rake & Woch) than 1070's Kravitz and Eddie, but that just my personal opinion.
However, they are not doing themselves any favors on their website with little blurbs like this one:
Crunch Time
The Indiana Fever forced a Game 3 with a thrilling 98-92 overtime win in Detroit on Sunday. They'll have to repeat that feat tonight if they want to continue playing basketball this season. The deciding game of the best-of-three WNBA Playoff series between the Shock and Fever takes place tonight from the Palace. Detroit has knocked Indiana out of the playoffs the last two seasons. The winner of tonight's game will advance to take on Connecticut in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Nothing really wrong with this paragraph. It gives me all of the pieces of information I needed to know - Game 2 score, forcing a Game 3, the fact Detroit has knocked the Fever out the past two seasons, etc. There is only one, small problem with this blurb.
THE CONNECTICUT SUN ARE NOT IN THE WNBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS!!!!
The Sun were knocked out last night by the New York Liberty, you 'tards! I'm not a real fan of the WNBA, but I do passively root for the home team. Just by parsing through the sports pages online I was able to notice that the Sun lost last night and were eliminated from the playoffs.
You work at a sports-centric job. How the hell do you make this error? I think I know who maintains the website and this person is from Connecticut. I'm guessing he was asleep at the wheel while writing this.
I was hoping my guys would be able to keep themselves off our site, but I can't give them a pass on this one.
Evidently, September is Be Kind to Writers and Editors Month. I guess they have come up with a "holiday" for everything.
Here at LomHenn.com, we would like to say thanks to the majority of writers and editors that do their job admirably and provide a worthy service to readers everywhere.
For those current and future targets of LomHenn, your still fucktards and will get no reprieve on the drivel and crap you produce. We take great pleasure in letting fucktard writers and editors know they suck and why they suck.
I noticed that November is Slaughter Month. (Calm down, Kringlebert!) Could November be a blood bath of epic proportions? Only time will tell.
Why am I doing such a thing? Because of the good people on tonight's Chicago Tribune Live broadcast on Comcast SportsNet. Our participants: host David Kaplan and his three "panelists:" writers Fred Mitchell and Phil Rogers of the Tribune, and John Crist, publisher of Bear Report Magazine (the football team, not the large woodland animal).
Anyway, the panel was discussing the recent injuries to Cubs' pitchers Carlos Zambrano and Rich Harden and the apparent secrecy and lack of disclosure to the media. Kaplan made the point that the sports media don't trust the Cubs because of their handling of Mark Prior's injury a few years ago. Then, this exchange:
Kaplan: "Baseball is less forthcoming with injury info. Some of it is the federal government and HIPAA, but generally, they've come to think that's their business and why should they talk about it?"
Crist: "This is not exclusive to baseball...this is an epidemic across sports. These teams act like they are protecting government trade secrets, and that's just not the case." (emphasis mine)
I like how Kaplan mentions HIPAA, and the panel just dismisses it like it's a minor inconvenience. An "epidemic across sports"??? HIPAA is a federal law protecting patients from having their health care information shared without their consent. Is MLB--or in this case, the Cubs--doing something wrong by not disclosing injury information about two players? Or, are they merely upholding a federal law??
Crist's statement is especially dumb. Johnny, they're not "protecting government trade secrets;" they are following a federal government law. Just because you think you're Richard Thornburg and that the public has a right to know everything, it doesn't mean a team is above federal law.
Look, I get that fans want to know the status of important players on their favorite teams. But you can't fault the teams for doing the right thing, even if you think the teams are merely doing it to be secretive. It doesn't matter--it's the law.
****BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!!****
On the same show, the panel decided to preview Sunday's Bears/Colts game. The discussion turned to the new stadium, and how Lucas Oil Stadium will be different than the RCA Dome during the game:
Rogers: "What do you think about Lucas Oil Stadium? Are they (the Colts) giving up an advantage that they had playing in that dome, where they would pipe in the noise and do some goofy stuff?" (again, emphasis mine)
The sportswriters of the baseball world all seem to be against Adam Dunn. The man just cannot seem to overcome his high strike out rate even though he is tied for the NL lead in home runs and is in the top 20 for OBP, SLG and OPS. Yes, the man strikes out once in every three at-bats, but he also gets on base more than he strikes out.
Paul Daugherty is the latest to trash on Dunn and his trade to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Dunn too much to afford Defense, demeanor, salary too costly
The Reds, who are exciting only when they're not playing, traded Adam Dunn to the Arizona Diamondbacks Monday for a 23-year-old Class-A starting pitcher named Dallas Buck who, in another life, died in old Western movies. Cincinnati also will receive two players as yet unnamed. Unless the pair throw like Seaver or hit like Perez, you have to wonder what's up.
As insignificant as Dunn was to winning here, 40 homers and 100 RBI don't appear magically every March. After the club traded Ken Griffey Jr., the brass wanted to see if Dunn would emerge as a clubhouse presence. Apparently, after 11 days, the brass had seen enough.
No, you don't have to wonder. The Reds suck and have for a while. Just because the Reds have traded away Griffey and Dunn does not mean the team's atmosphere meter will suddenly swing to the winning side and the Reds will start winning.
Griffey and Dunn were high-priced players that the Reds felt they were not getting their money for and sent them away for cheaper players and open up payroll for upcoming years to sign players that might, emphasis on might, turn the Reds' fortunes around. The question should be, did anyone step up in those 11 days? I've seen the sorry state of this team and I really did not see anyone who would really fit the bill as leader.
As insignificant as Dunn was to winning here, 40 homers and 100 RBI don't appear magically every March. After the club traded Ken Griffey Jr., the brass wanted to see if Dunn would emerge as a clubhouse presence. Apparently, after 11 days, the brass had seen enough.
What is wrong with 40 HRs and 100 RBI per year? The Reds had been shopping Dunn around longer than Griffey. I'm pretty sure that even if Dunn had stepped up as the leader of the team, he would have been traded away. We all know he "clogged" the bases and Dusty Baker does not like base cloggers.
Regardless, Dunn's tax bracket didn't match his production, at least not here. He'd have wanted too much money for what he provided. Dunn was who he was: a guy who could hit a baseball 400 feet more often than almost anyone else, but couldn't produce a two-out RBI single.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Daugherty did not do his statistical homework on this one. Lets take a look at Dunn's stats for two outs and RISP:
# of singles - 1
Fuck. One fucking single. But wait...let's check the rest of his stats for shits and giggles:
He was slow, he had a mediocre arm, he played a dangerous left field. He was a big man whose bigness could give the impression he wasn't trying. Baseball wasn't his passion. It was his job. He played it that way.
Just because he didn't ooze passion, like say, Ken Griffey, Jr., doesn't mean he wasn't trying. So Paul, are you passionate about your job or do you just work?
"Another day closer to retirement," Dunn said once a few years ago, around the batting cage before a game. That was Dunn. His teammates liked him, but he didn't lead. Laid back should be a character trait, not a career choice. Not when you're making $13 million.
This paragraph makes me want to compare Dunn to Marvin Harrison. All of his teammates like him, but he does not come off as a leader (albeit due to Peyton Manning). He is super laid back and makes a fortune, at least compared to me. Laid back is not necessarily a bad trait.
It's doubtful Arizona will keep him after this season. Dunn will be the prototypical DH in '09, when his adventures in Left Field Land won't be duplicated.
If I had the time I would mock-up a Left Field Land and I am enough of a dork to go all on it too. Stay tuned, it might just happen.
Did you really want the Reds to lock up $60 million for Adam Dunn? Did you want them to offer him arbitration and hope he'd decline it, so the club would get two draft picks? What if he accepted? (Hint: More of the same.)
Which is why he was put up on waivers in the first place.
The optimum would have been for the Reds to move Dunn before the trade deadline. Nobody wanted him. That's why Mark Teixeira was dealt, and Jason Bay and Manny Ramirez and Xavier Nady, while the Big Donkey stayed a Red.
How do you know nobody wanted him? How do you know if the Reds got offers but asked for too much in return?
Dunn's value was always seen as greater in Cincinnati than elsewhere. To be dealt to Arizona, Dunn had to clear waivers. Any other club could have claimed him and the trade would not have been made. None did. Because J.P. Ricciardi was wrong to say what he said about Dunn doesn't mean what he said was wrong.
Once again, Daugherty shows his ignorance of baseball, even though he IS a baseball writer for a newspaper.
The waiver wire works this way as I understand it:
Team A puts Player Z on waivers.
Any team can claim Player Z before the waiver deadline.
If a team claims Player Z, Team A can arrange a trade, rescind the waiver, or let the player go to the claiming team.
If more than one team claims Player Z, then the team with the weakest record has the claim on Player Z.
Just because the D-backs won the claim, if the Cardinals, Cubs or Phillies had tried to claim Player Z as well, the D-back would get the claim since they have a worse record than those above.
Bravo to the Reds to actually get a few players in return.
You could say the rest of Major League Baseball was being nice to the Reds and the Diamondbacks. Or you could suggest Dunn ain't all that.
Or I can suggest you are a fucktardextraordinaire and are enamored only by batting average, wins and ERA.
I suggest the latter. More to the point: Dunn never improved. He went through a steady stream of hitting coaches, none of whom could change his style or approach. After coach No. 3 or 4, you start to believe it was the hitter, not his coach.
Those enamored with numbers couldn't get enough of Adam Dunn. Stat freaks genuflected at the foot of Dunn's on-base percentage, while dismissing his detractors as ill-informed hacks.
You are an ill-informed hack as I have demonstrated more than once in this article alone! He gets on base, he hits HRs and he knocks runs in more than most on his team!
Forty Homers! Hundred RBI! Hundred Runs! Look at that man ... Walk! The standard argument was, and is, "How do you replace numbers like those?" We're about to find out.
Based on the current Reds roster, with more than one player. See previous comment on enamorement with hack statistics.
This is further evidence that Walt Jocketty evaluated the '08 Reds and became ill. He has, in 11 days, removed the twin heads of the patient. Griffey and Dunn are elsewhere. Will the Reds be better without them? Could they be any worse?
Well, we are about to find now, aren't we. The Reds will be able to see how their younger players work out and see if a "leader" can actually emerge. Or, they will implode and we will all get to watch the majestic fallout from it.
Time now for the clubhouse culture to undergo a sea change. Who wants to win? Who wants to prepare to win? Anyone? Elvis and his sidekick have left the building. Who wants the footlights now?
So which one was Elvis? Your team is still shitty and will continue to be shitty until your big wigs can put a respectable team on the field and you get rid of Dusty Baker.
After attending the Reds' game last night versus the Brewers, Slut and I listened to the Reds' post-game show on WLW-700AM, Extra Innings. The usual hosts were off, probably trying to get better jobs, so the show had Seg Dennison, the "Seg-man", filling in.
As Slut mentioned in a previous blog, most sports talk radio anymore is atrocious and you get what you deserve when you listen. However, I don't think it is outside the realm of expecting too much to have a Reds post-game show that talked about the Reds, even if the callers or host wanted to bash the team, even though the Reds actually did win last night.
For the hour and a half or so that we listened to the show on the way back to our respective mothers' basements, the Seg-man spent maybe ten minutes on the Reds team. Here is the list of topics that Seg-man would rather discuss on the REDS post-game show:
Whether it was a good thing that the Reds had a $5 ticket/$1 hot dog game special for last night's game?
No you fucktard, I would rather pay the $20+ for a ticket and $4 for the hot dog. I enjoy seeing 27,000 fans dressed as empty seats. Supposedly there were 24,705 fans at the game. It definitely didn't look like it.
OK...your team is in last place in the NL Central...you just traded away Mr. Red, Ken Griffey, Jr....your team has been shitty for too long...and its a Monday night game.
The Reds want to put butts in the seats, so short of giving away tickets, $5 tickets sound pretty good to me. Plus, they still make money on a $1 hot dog!
I shutter to think what the attendance would have been if the Reds had not offered the discounted tickets and doggies.
Brewers shoving match between Prince Fielder and Manny Parra.
Yes, the shoving match between Fielder and Parra was a noteworthy topic. However, all Seg did was rehash the same bit over and over and over. Ned Yost did not give any additional insight during his news conference and so all we heard was the same information ten different ways and no one called in to talk about it either.
Red attendance versus the Nationals attendance
Seg was disgusted with Cinci fans for having less attendance at the Reds' Monday night game (24,705) compared with the attendance at the Washington Nationals' games over the weekend (~30,000), even thought the Nats are the worst team in the NL.
Well, shit for brains, let's look at why this could be:
1) Population of Washington, D.C. = 588,000; Population of Cincinnati, OH = 332,000. 2) Nationals games - Friday, Saturday and Sunday; Reds game - Monday night 3) Nationals - newer team, new stadium; Reds - shitty team, newer, plain stadium
The Nats are a lousy team this year, but as you can see above, my four-year old daughter could probably tell you why Washington had a better attendance than the Reds!
Chad Johnson
OK, the Extra Innings post-game show is a sports show, I can understand having someone call in on another sports topic. However, the topic of Chad Johnson was not what we expect out of Ocho-Cinco this season or what stunt he will pull after a TD this year. Its -
That Chad was yucking it up with the fans but still giving the press the cold shoulder!
Oh, for fucks sake.
I guess I'm spoiled being a Colts fan.
---------------
And the piece de resistance!
Cow Tipping
Yes folks, cow tipping! I'm not quite sure what that has to do with sports today, but the Seg-man spent a good three segments discussing and asking listeners to call in to discuss cow tipping.
Sadly, people from as far away as Iowa and Florida were calling in to talk about it.
So to recap last nights events, we listened to discussions on cheap tickets and hot dogs - good or bad, the Brewers mini-brawl, Reds' attendance, Chad Johnson and cow tipping.
Sigh...what a sad state the world of sports talk radio has succumbed to.
So what kind of conundrum is created when a person who hates blogs and bloggers creates his own blog? Murray Chass, writer for the NY Times, has created his own baseball blog and proceeds to tell us that he hates blogs. I guess he circumvents that by stating that his site is for baseball columns, not blogs. You can say that cow manure is fertilizer, but it is still cow shit.
FJM did an excellent job of reviewing Mr. Chass' blog site and had some insightful thoughts on what his page is about.
However, I am not here to rehash what his site is about. I am here to bash Murray Chass on his first blog, er...column or whatever he wants to call it, regarding the All-Star Game. Murray does not like the All-Star Game format in which the winning league receives home-field advantage in the World Series. The "added" significance to the All-Star Game has not had much influence on the television ratings since its inception after the tie game in 2002. Murray has some better ideas than the "silly scheme" of awarding home-field advantage for the All-Star Game winner.
One way would be to reward the team with the better won-lost record. But that idea wouldn't work logistically. Baseball can’t wait until days or even a week before the World Series is scheduled to start to determine where Series game will be played. Airlines and hotels don’t work that way.
Last time I checked, I'm pretty sure I could reserve a flight and a hotel room a couple of days before I leave.
So let me get this straight. This would not work for baseball even though this is how the finals NBA and NHL determine home-field advantage? Even with the current format in baseball, MLB officials can only narrow down which team will host games 1 and 2 in the World Series to two teams prior to the completion of the Championship Series. If they used the better won-lost record that would only expand the possibility to four teams.
As a Cardinals fan, if I wanted to go to a World Series game in 2006, I new that if the Cardinals won the NLCS, they would be playing in either Detroit or Oakland for the first two games. Since the Tigers swept the A's and the Cards took seven games to beat the Mets, I would have known where the Cards were playing before the end of the NLCS. However, I would have either had to take a chance that the Cards would win and make my flight and hotel reservations early or wait until the end of series knowing that game 1 would start in only a couple of days.
I think MLB officials would be able to handle the additional strain of coordinating everything with four possibilities versus the current two possibilities. I just think you are an absurd idiot for thinking this would not be possible.
Chass has another idea for awarding home-field advantage...
If baseball, on the other hand, based homefield advantage on the outcome of interleague games, the winning league this season would have been known before the end of June, leaving three months, or half the season, to make travel plans.
Using interleague games may actually be a slightly better idea for determining World Series home-field advantage as it uses a bigger statistical sample than one exhibition game and can show which league is better (at that time). However, Chass is either The Amazing Kreskin or an amazing, fucking retard if he knows where the World Series would be played using interleague games results! Yes, you would know if the American or National league pennant winner would have home-field advantage, BUT YOU DON"T KNOW WHICH TEAM, ASSHOLE!!!
Man, what a fucktard!
But the outcome of the interleague schedule would do nothing for Fox and its ratings for the All-Star game. Don’t let a sound idea get in the way of greed.
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good", or at least it was in Wall Street.
It may be a sound idea, Chass, but those greedy little networks are what help MLB pay the bills. So if Fox or ESPN want to have some input on the game and will put up some extra dough along with that input, MLB may agree.
There is a reason why you receive so many emails from angry readers. When you are wrong, people like to point that out to you, just like I am doing now. That does not mean you are doing some thing "right" by getting such a response from your readers.
I can't say that I'm looking forward to more "columns" from Murray Chass, but I believe we will be seeing a lot more of him on this site.
Fans are asked to treat Chiefs games like bowling matches
MJD writes for a Yahoo! Sports blog called "Shutdown Corner." In fact, he is the editor of said blog.
The Kansas City Chiefs have a "Fan Code of Conduct," which is essentially a list of rules that fans have to follow when they're attending a game at Arrowhead. In theory, it's not a bad idea, as you'd like your stadium to provide a friendly atmosphere for families and people who aren't drunken hooligans.
To quote one of my favorite movie franchises, "I have a bad feeling about this." I mean, is this guy actually going to say that it's a bad idea to have fans adhere to a code of conduct?
In practice, though, it might not be such a great idea, especially if the person responsible for coming up with the rules is an 85-year-old woman who teaches the 2nd grade and regards standing up as one of the evil things that young whippersnappers often do.
I seriously doubt that's the case. Most 85-year-old women are retired, even if they were teachers in the first place. Or they're dead. In any case, I don't think any of them are coming up with rules for fan conduct.
Seriously, standing erect is the No. 2 item on the list of things that are prohibited:
• Standing and/or obstructing the view of other fans (italics his)
It is? Really? Because if you go here, and look at the second bullet point, it reads "Continual standing and/or obstructing..." (italics mine)
As much as I'd like to jump all over him for inaccuracy, I have to give MJD the benefit of the doubt here. Because of the way he quoted it in his article, I'm pretty sure the Chiefs changed the wording after his article was written.
Awesome. I hear they're even taking the extra step and including bed pans with every seat, so no one has to get up to use the bathroom. They're going to make the beer and peanut vendors crawl through the stadium on all fours. Also, as soon as you get to your seat and sit down, an usher's going to come by and inject you with a temporary paralytic.
That's pretty goddamn funny. I'm laughing my ass off. Oh, wait: LMFAO!
First off, let me go back to the title of his article: "Fans are asked to treat Chiefs games like bowling matches." MJD, have you watched PBA bowling? I know it's not a big sport, and it shouldn't be, but have you watched it? Because if you have, there's a lot of goddamn cheering.
Secondly, even if MJD wrote this article before the Chiefs updated their website, no reasonable person would think that the Chiefs don't want anyone to stand at all at their games. Most teams have something similar in their guidelines for fans. But getting back to the rule as it's now written, it has more to do with trying to get people from standing in places they shouldn't--i.e. aisles--or for no reason at all--i.e. when NO ONE ELSE is standing--than it does for legitmate standing and cheering.
There's an idiotic idea out there that people who sit at games aren't real fans, or are somehow automatically less interested than someone who stands all the time. Although that actually may be true for some people, for most people it's not. If you think the amount you stand at a game automatically makes you more of a fan than someone else, your IQ is less than 60.
Typically, if those in front of you stand up, you're going to stand, too (if you're able). And you have every right to do so. But, if you're one of those mouth-breathers in the middle of the 65th row who stands the entire game for no reason when no one else is standing in front of you (and also flip off the referees whenever any call goes against your team, as if they could see your classy act), then you are a fucktard.
The standard Fucktard attitude can be summed up this way: "I paid for my ticket, so if I want to stand the entire game, I can." Did you ever consider that it's not just about you? Did you ever consider that the 85 year-old guy, or the 10 year-old girl, or the 5 foot 1 woman behind you ALSO paid for his or her ticket (okay, maybe not the kid) and deserves to see the game, too? And no matter how much standing that person does, he or she simply won't be able to see if your fucking carcass is in the way? Even if the person behind you is tall and able-bodied, why should he or she have to stand just because you want to?
Sure, if something exciting happens that's worth standing for and everyone in the first 10,000 rows stands, then it's just bad luck for the short or unable-to-stand people. It happens. But at other times--read, 90% of the game, or more--there's not a reason to stand. So perhaps, for once in your miserable fucking waste of a life, you'll be considerate of someone else.
Doubtful, right MJD? We can't expect people to be considerate at a football game when the same people can't be considerate anywhere else, right? Then perhaps the Chiefs are on to something to include that "standing" clause in their code of conduct, since people really aren't into the idea of looking out for one another.
