1) Good luck to Don H as he tries to qualify for the Ohio Amateur on Monday in Cincinnati. Let's see that 74, Don.
2) Ryan in Honestly talked about his golfing hell in a post - a 6 hr scramble. I think Don will be in another hell on Tuesday when he tees off in the Publinx qualifier. He will try to get 36 holes in - in foursomes.
Anyone who has plyed torunament golf knows that stroke play tournament in foursome is a disaster. This is guaranteeing a 5 hour round, and quite likely more. Right now, the Cincy golf Assn (making the tee times) has alloted 5 hours between 1st and 2nd round tee times. Don - better have that PB&J sandwich in the bag to scarf down between 18 and 1.
3) Off to Ames tomorrow for a practice round for a tournament on Thu & Fri.
Eric Z.
Jun 4, 2005
The blog curse?
The Tribe is now at 4 losses in a row since we started F&J. All of them were close games we were capable of winning, making it all the more frustrating.
Maybe I should go on a posting strike until we win.
Notes of encouragement for such a strike are not necessary!
Maybe I should go on a posting strike until we win.
Notes of encouragement for such a strike are not necessary!
Sitting here trying to get over this cold and having to listen to Buck and McCarver butcher the Sox-Angels game and talk about Queer Eye for the Straight guy, I stumbled over these little gems.
Not too sure if you heard about this, but the 49ers released a video for their rookies on how to deal with certain situations. Segment number 8 will not disappoint.
Is it too early for this? Or how about this? Pats a 7.5 favorite over the Raiders? I'll take it. I just can't find a decent link to the Over/Unders yet.
This ones for you Lee. I know how much you enjoyed Project Runway. I wonder if his freaky daughter and her fat friend will be on it.
This is why men don't take women athletes seriously . Sort of reminds me of Nomar's cover of SI.
This might be old, but Borat was my favorite character on the show.
For all of you Black Crowes fans, looks as if they are going on tour with Tom Petty.
I don't know what was funnier, the actual site or Paul Katcher's comments to this link stating "This doesn't look like Curt Schilling to me."
Not too sure if you heard about this, but the 49ers released a video for their rookies on how to deal with certain situations. Segment number 8 will not disappoint.
Is it too early for this? Or how about this? Pats a 7.5 favorite over the Raiders? I'll take it. I just can't find a decent link to the Over/Unders yet.
This ones for you Lee. I know how much you enjoyed Project Runway. I wonder if his freaky daughter and her fat friend will be on it.
This is why men don't take women athletes seriously . Sort of reminds me of Nomar's cover of SI.
This might be old, but Borat was my favorite character on the show.
For all of you Black Crowes fans, looks as if they are going on tour with Tom Petty.
I don't know what was funnier, the actual site or Paul Katcher's comments to this link stating "This doesn't look like Curt Schilling to me."
Daily Picks
I'm surprised by the interest of this blog and the requests for posting rights so over the weekend, I plan on building out the blog to allow for others to contribute, but maintain some organization to the site. Already received a complaint from one of our contributors that he feels "crowded".
Added a new link: Our friend Chris has his own blog over at BucksSuperStereo.
A's Notes: Tough loss last night, but it was expected and the team battled nicely against Halladay. Glynn, a AAA call up, pitched seven strong innings, but Cruz pitched like crap and the offense stalled once again. For some reason Macha changed the lineup back to April's lineup, with Kendall in the two hole and Hatteberg batting cleanup. Why? Our offense has been clicking with a lineup of Kendall, Kotsay, Chavez, Keilty, Johnson, Hatteberg, Crosby, Swisher, and Ellis. This is one of the many reasons why Macha needs to be fired. Still with all of their troubles, they are only 10 games out of first place (Thank you Red Sox for coming back and winning last night). The Zito trade rumors are now starting, with Hardballtimes stating that there have been talks between the Padres and A's.
Other Notes: Indians continue to falter losing 3 straight against their division rivals, missing a great opportunity to take the opener. Now they have to go up against Garland. How long until they remove Blake from the lineup? Sox continue to track down the O's, but I think that the O's might be able to build a little cushion during interleague play in June since the O's face CO, Pitt, Houston, and Cincy, while the Sox face the Cards, Cubs, Cincy, and Phillies. And finally the Yanks lose another one. What would be more intersting, the Nationals making the playoffs or the Yankees missing the playoffs?
Onto the picks:
Yanks (Wang vs Mays) -137: The Wanger is on the mound trying to end a 4 game losing streak. No way they continue to lose. Just no way!!! I will eat my plaid shorts if they lose today.
D-Backs (Vaz vs. Padilla) +110: How is Vazquez an underdog?
Phillies (Meyers vs. Ortiz) -173: Game 2 of the double header. Ortiz has been getting shelled and hopefully that trend continues.
Giants/Mets Under 9 -110: Has anyone taken a look at the NL East Standings. The Phillies are in last place, but yet 2.5 games out. The Mets are at 28-26 and in 4th place, but only 1 game out.
Yesterday: 4-0 +495
YTD: 6-3 +305
Added a new link: Our friend Chris has his own blog over at BucksSuperStereo.
A's Notes: Tough loss last night, but it was expected and the team battled nicely against Halladay. Glynn, a AAA call up, pitched seven strong innings, but Cruz pitched like crap and the offense stalled once again. For some reason Macha changed the lineup back to April's lineup, with Kendall in the two hole and Hatteberg batting cleanup. Why? Our offense has been clicking with a lineup of Kendall, Kotsay, Chavez, Keilty, Johnson, Hatteberg, Crosby, Swisher, and Ellis. This is one of the many reasons why Macha needs to be fired. Still with all of their troubles, they are only 10 games out of first place (Thank you Red Sox for coming back and winning last night). The Zito trade rumors are now starting, with Hardballtimes stating that there have been talks between the Padres and A's.
Other Notes: Indians continue to falter losing 3 straight against their division rivals, missing a great opportunity to take the opener. Now they have to go up against Garland. How long until they remove Blake from the lineup? Sox continue to track down the O's, but I think that the O's might be able to build a little cushion during interleague play in June since the O's face CO, Pitt, Houston, and Cincy, while the Sox face the Cards, Cubs, Cincy, and Phillies. And finally the Yanks lose another one. What would be more intersting, the Nationals making the playoffs or the Yankees missing the playoffs?
Onto the picks:
Yanks (Wang vs Mays) -137: The Wanger is on the mound trying to end a 4 game losing streak. No way they continue to lose. Just no way!!! I will eat my plaid shorts if they lose today.
D-Backs (Vaz vs. Padilla) +110: How is Vazquez an underdog?
Phillies (Meyers vs. Ortiz) -173: Game 2 of the double header. Ortiz has been getting shelled and hopefully that trend continues.
Giants/Mets Under 9 -110: Has anyone taken a look at the NL East Standings. The Phillies are in last place, but yet 2.5 games out. The Mets are at 28-26 and in 4th place, but only 1 game out.
Yesterday: 4-0 +495
YTD: 6-3 +305
Is there any worse aggravation....
than running out of gas on your gas grill in the middle of cooking? Argh.
Would Markov watch MTV?
OK, I'm falling in love with the latest in bad TV, "Next". For those who don't know, this is where one person (say, "Brittany") would date up to five guys ("Josh, Jereme, Cory, Alex, and T-Lo"). At any time in the date, Brittany can holler "Next!" and the date would end; the next guy/loser would then emerge. Also, she can choose to stop at any time (not unlike "Press Your Luck") and choose that guy for a second date.
The nerd in me identifies this as a classic Markov chain. A Markov chain is a statstical model for a process where the state changes in discrete steps - like when Brittany yells, "Next!". A matrix is derived listing out the state transition probabilities; one can then multiply the matrices together to see the probabilities of being in a certain state in 3, 4, or more steps.
For instance, if P(Kellen Winslow gets hurt doing one wheelie) = .5, the Markov chain would be:
Healthy Injured
Healthy .5 .5
Injured 0 1
(For now, we assume that Kellen will never move from Injured to Healthy...... a pretty good assumption, no?)
We could then multiply the matrix 5 times to see the probability that Kellen is hurt after his 5th wheelie.
What a fascinating Markov chain we can draw for Next. Making up probabilities...
Josh Jereme Cory Alex T-Lo Winner
Josh 0 .9 0 0 0 .1
Jereme 0 0 .8 0 0 .2
Cory 0 0 0 .6 0 .4
Alex 0 0 0 0 .5 .5
T-Lo 0 0 0 0 0 1
Winner 0 0 0 0 0 0
what's the chances that Brittany will pick somebody after 3 dates? What's the disadvantage of going first?
Answering these questions are an exercise for the reader. Wow, I wish my grad class had questions like this instead of the generic ones we had. The ways math can be made more interesting.....
The nerd in me identifies this as a classic Markov chain. A Markov chain is a statstical model for a process where the state changes in discrete steps - like when Brittany yells, "Next!". A matrix is derived listing out the state transition probabilities; one can then multiply the matrices together to see the probabilities of being in a certain state in 3, 4, or more steps.
For instance, if P(Kellen Winslow gets hurt doing one wheelie) = .5, the Markov chain would be:
Healthy Injured
Healthy .5 .5
Injured 0 1
(For now, we assume that Kellen will never move from Injured to Healthy...... a pretty good assumption, no?)
We could then multiply the matrix 5 times to see the probability that Kellen is hurt after his 5th wheelie.
What a fascinating Markov chain we can draw for Next. Making up probabilities...
Josh Jereme Cory Alex T-Lo Winner
Josh 0 .9 0 0 0 .1
Jereme 0 0 .8 0 0 .2
Cory 0 0 0 .6 0 .4
Alex 0 0 0 0 .5 .5
T-Lo 0 0 0 0 0 1
Winner 0 0 0 0 0 0
what's the chances that Brittany will pick somebody after 3 dates? What's the disadvantage of going first?
Answering these questions are an exercise for the reader. Wow, I wish my grad class had questions like this instead of the generic ones we had. The ways math can be made more interesting.....
Jun 3, 2005
Half-truths and flat-out lies
True or not, what's the point of being able to post to a blog if you can't spread rumors that are completely unsubstantiated? Here's my two additions from unnamed sources:
1. In Chicago, Scottie Pippen is known by the nickname "No Tippin' Pippen". I don't really think that this is news, but I like to bring it up from time to time. One of the 50 greatest players, my ass.
2. Also, a guy I work with has a friend that works at IMG. A while back, there was a rumor that Bill Bellicheck hooked up with Melissa Stark, and that he "put it in her ass". This is so unbelievable that I actually believe it. Do you think that he was wearing his sweatshirt while banging her? I have so much more respect for BB if it's true. One, that he could pull MS. Two, that he actually left the house.
Also, is it wierd that I am now even more attracted to Stark?
1. In Chicago, Scottie Pippen is known by the nickname "No Tippin' Pippen". I don't really think that this is news, but I like to bring it up from time to time. One of the 50 greatest players, my ass.
2. Also, a guy I work with has a friend that works at IMG. A while back, there was a rumor that Bill Bellicheck hooked up with Melissa Stark, and that he "put it in her ass". This is so unbelievable that I actually believe it. Do you think that he was wearing his sweatshirt while banging her? I have so much more respect for BB if it's true. One, that he could pull MS. Two, that he actually left the house.
Also, is it wierd that I am now even more attracted to Stark?
Mmmm bedsheets
What is wrong with the Yankees? Turtle from Entourage said on Cold Pizza this morning that it was due to a lack of chemistry, so I will go with that, since it was better than Kruk's analysis that the fall of the Yanks was due to Torre not ordering his pitchers to hit the opposing team's star after Jeter gets hit. How does a guy like this stay on TV?
A's are on a 4 game winning streak, with our offense healthy and our bullpen back to being consistent. Still worried that 3/5 of our rotation is made up of guys that can't go 5 innings consistently in Blanton, Etherton, and Sarloos. Dotel is out for nearly two years with elbow surgery and looks as if Calero is headed in the same direction after letting up 2 runs and 4 hits in one inning in Sacremento. Dotel's injury really hurts the A's since this was one of our only tradeable players where we have a major league ready replacement. But if we are at .500 by the end of June, which is very doable with our schedule, Beane might be looking to obtain some talent to win the weak AL West.
One quick thought before I go onto the daily picks; When did Grape Soda become so big? Did I miss something? Why is everyone on my case about leaving it off the list?
Onto the picks: (by the way, no more NBA for me)
Nationals (Becket vs. Livan) +120 - Like the odds I'm getting with one of the most underrated pitchers on the mound, but with Nick Jonhson out, I should probably be getting even higher odds.
Twins (Lohse vs. Mussina) +125- How does Mussina only have a 3.90 ERA? Seems like whenever I watch him pitch he is getting racked.
Cardinals (Pettitte vs Carpenter) -130 - Cardinals 8-2 in Carpenter's last 10 starts.
TB (Fossum vs. Sele) +150 - TB will break out of their 5 game losing streak.
Yesterday 2-3 -190
YTD- 2-3 -190
A's are on a 4 game winning streak, with our offense healthy and our bullpen back to being consistent. Still worried that 3/5 of our rotation is made up of guys that can't go 5 innings consistently in Blanton, Etherton, and Sarloos. Dotel is out for nearly two years with elbow surgery and looks as if Calero is headed in the same direction after letting up 2 runs and 4 hits in one inning in Sacremento. Dotel's injury really hurts the A's since this was one of our only tradeable players where we have a major league ready replacement. But if we are at .500 by the end of June, which is very doable with our schedule, Beane might be looking to obtain some talent to win the weak AL West.
One quick thought before I go onto the daily picks; When did Grape Soda become so big? Did I miss something? Why is everyone on my case about leaving it off the list?
Onto the picks: (by the way, no more NBA for me)
Nationals (Becket vs. Livan) +120 - Like the odds I'm getting with one of the most underrated pitchers on the mound, but with Nick Jonhson out, I should probably be getting even higher odds.
Twins (Lohse vs. Mussina) +125- How does Mussina only have a 3.90 ERA? Seems like whenever I watch him pitch he is getting racked.
Cardinals (Pettitte vs Carpenter) -130 - Cardinals 8-2 in Carpenter's last 10 starts.
TB (Fossum vs. Sele) +150 - TB will break out of their 5 game losing streak.
Yesterday 2-3 -190
YTD- 2-3 -190
Initial Thoughts
First, congratulations to the Kansas City Royals for sweeping the Evil Empire. Maybe if the Yankees had listened to Costanza and stuck with the cotton uniforms, things would have worked out differently. No World Series rings since the Subway series of 2000. All I need to make the picture perfect would be for Jim Leyritz to die suddenly from "Overrated Dickhead" syndrome (a very rare mental disorder occuring mainly in below-average Yankee role players who managed to get a couple of lucky hits in big games. See Chad Curtis and Shane Spencer).
Significantly more importantly, the England/Bangladesh cricket test series resumed this morning in Durham (England, not North Carolina). For those too busy to check the score, Bangladesh are currently 70/6 just after lunch on the first day. Exciting stuff!
With football season fast approaching, allow me to be the first to predict that my very own Atlanta Falcons will be crowned Super Bowl Champions in 2006. Good upgrades on defense, and Michael Vick will continue his progression towards consensus league MVP and demi-god.
Back to baseball. Can someone PLEASE explain to me how friggin' Nomar Garciaparra is the leading vote-getter at shortstop in the National League for the All-Star game. Never mind that he's out for the majority of the season; he was only batting .157 when he got hurt with 0 home runs. As of right now, the All-Star lineups should be as follows:
Catcher: AL - Jason Varitek; NL - Ramon Hernandez
First Base: AL - Mark Teixeira; NL - Derrek Lee (tough to not vote for Pujols, but Lee deserves the start this season, and Pujols can DH because the game is in an AL park).
Second Base: AL - Brian Roberts; NL - Jeff Kent
Shortstop: AL - Miguel Tejada; NL - Jimmy Rollins
Third Base: AL - Alex Rodriguez; NL - Troy Glaus
Outfield: AL - Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Ichiro Suzuki; NL - Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Beltran
DH: AL - David Ortiz; NL - Albert Pujols
Significantly more importantly, the England/Bangladesh cricket test series resumed this morning in Durham (England, not North Carolina). For those too busy to check the score, Bangladesh are currently 70/6 just after lunch on the first day. Exciting stuff!
With football season fast approaching, allow me to be the first to predict that my very own Atlanta Falcons will be crowned Super Bowl Champions in 2006. Good upgrades on defense, and Michael Vick will continue his progression towards consensus league MVP and demi-god.
Back to baseball. Can someone PLEASE explain to me how friggin' Nomar Garciaparra is the leading vote-getter at shortstop in the National League for the All-Star game. Never mind that he's out for the majority of the season; he was only batting .157 when he got hurt with 0 home runs. As of right now, the All-Star lineups should be as follows:
Catcher: AL - Jason Varitek; NL - Ramon Hernandez
First Base: AL - Mark Teixeira; NL - Derrek Lee (tough to not vote for Pujols, but Lee deserves the start this season, and Pujols can DH because the game is in an AL park).
Second Base: AL - Brian Roberts; NL - Jeff Kent
Shortstop: AL - Miguel Tejada; NL - Jimmy Rollins
Third Base: AL - Alex Rodriguez; NL - Troy Glaus
Outfield: AL - Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Ichiro Suzuki; NL - Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Beltran
DH: AL - David Ortiz; NL - Albert Pujols
Finally, before I sign off from my first official blog post, a quick cricket score update. Bangladesh are now 90/8 and are at sixes and sevens.
yeah, buddy ball!
who woulda thunk it?
don't get me wrong....i'm still so out of touch with baseball right now (both from a fanboy standpoint for the beloved boys in KC and from the general goings on), but you gotta love it when a bunch of no-names with a fuckhead of an owner, shit-for-brains GM, and one winning season in over a decade steps up to the plate and sweeps the yanks.
i wish i could use my flux capaciter to revisit my childhood and change my allegience. maybe then i'd really care about what's going on in the sport i spent so much of my life playing.
don't get me wrong....i'm still so out of touch with baseball right now (both from a fanboy standpoint for the beloved boys in KC and from the general goings on), but you gotta love it when a bunch of no-names with a fuckhead of an owner, shit-for-brains GM, and one winning season in over a decade steps up to the plate and sweeps the yanks.
i wish i could use my flux capaciter to revisit my childhood and change my allegience. maybe then i'd really care about what's going on in the sport i spent so much of my life playing.
Jun 2, 2005
Soda Poll
Talking to Lee tonight and he wanted to add a couple of things to the site. The first was a counter, which has now been added down at the bottom of the site. The second was the ability to add polls if needed. Well, I found a decent site that provides free polling services so I will give it a shot for a while. The only way that I could make it look good was to put it under the Archive section on the side. If you put it in the post, it creates about 1000 rows worth of space between what I type here and the actual poll.
Anyway, Lee wanted to do a poll on that chic Indy Car driver, but I didn't want this to turn into a Hot or Not site and I didn't want to promote such a ridiculous sporting event (no one televises or cares about any other Grand Prix Race except for this one and we are all supposed to be amazed with what is going on?), so I decided to go with an old stand by. Pop!!!
One last note, did you know that Brittany Spears's husband was the leader of the bad guys dance group in "You Got Served".
Anyway, Lee wanted to do a poll on that chic Indy Car driver, but I didn't want this to turn into a Hot or Not site and I didn't want to promote such a ridiculous sporting event (no one televises or cares about any other Grand Prix Race except for this one and we are all supposed to be amazed with what is going on?), so I decided to go with an old stand by. Pop!!!
One last note, did you know that Brittany Spears's husband was the leader of the bad guys dance group in "You Got Served".
Amnesty International
These kind of stories get my blood roiling....
Amnesty International and Kerry
This is why it's very, very hard for me to listen to these guys - and, in general, a lot of the left-leaning "humitarian" groups. They never seem to hesitate to criticize the US - but where are they when the crap hits the fan in other countries? Did we hear a peep out of them when Daniel Pearl was executed? When tens of thousands of Iraqi prisoners were beheaded?
Gulag, my ass.
Look, are there things going on in Guantanamo that are questionable, and probably against international laws? Probably so - but I don't believe (nor has there been any proof) that it is as common as the media has you believe. I believe that these prisoners throw the accusations on the wall to see what is going to stick in the western media - who love a controversy.
Andrew Sullivan is one writer who has been following the torture/prison story for a while. While I don't agree with a lot of the stuff he says - and it's been getting stale of late - I will never question his motives. He genuinely loves this country and is very concerned of the damage that these stories may have in parts of the world.
However - he calls a spade a spade. He's not afraid to call people "terrorists" (do you see that word in the NYT or on NPR?) and is very critical of the spite and hatred from the left as well.
Those critics carry a thousand times more weight that these do-gooders at Amnesty who have a hard time criticizing real tyrants, but do not hesitate to pile on the US.
OK. End of rant. I feel better.
Amnesty International and Kerry
This is why it's very, very hard for me to listen to these guys - and, in general, a lot of the left-leaning "humitarian" groups. They never seem to hesitate to criticize the US - but where are they when the crap hits the fan in other countries? Did we hear a peep out of them when Daniel Pearl was executed? When tens of thousands of Iraqi prisoners were beheaded?
Gulag, my ass.
Look, are there things going on in Guantanamo that are questionable, and probably against international laws? Probably so - but I don't believe (nor has there been any proof) that it is as common as the media has you believe. I believe that these prisoners throw the accusations on the wall to see what is going to stick in the western media - who love a controversy.
Andrew Sullivan is one writer who has been following the torture/prison story for a while. While I don't agree with a lot of the stuff he says - and it's been getting stale of late - I will never question his motives. He genuinely loves this country and is very concerned of the damage that these stories may have in parts of the world.
However - he calls a spade a spade. He's not afraid to call people "terrorists" (do you see that word in the NYT or on NPR?) and is very critical of the spite and hatred from the left as well.
Those critics carry a thousand times more weight that these do-gooders at Amnesty who have a hard time criticizing real tyrants, but do not hesitate to pile on the US.
OK. End of rant. I feel better.
Expectations
So I'm sitting at work today watching the Tribe score change on the net, and I find myself cursing Scott Elarton for giving up a 3-1 lead in the 5th. We end up losing the game in the 13th, 4-3.
Deep breath.
This is SCOTT freakin' ELARTON, and I'm pissed because his line was:
?
My God, if we get that every other time out from him, we should be so lucky.
Another deep breath. All is well.
Eric Z.
Deep breath.
This is SCOTT freakin' ELARTON, and I'm pissed because his line was:
| 7.0 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
My God, if we get that every other time out from him, we should be so lucky.
Another deep breath. All is well.
Eric Z.
Daily Bets
To steal something from Aaron Gleeman, I will be trying to post daily picks for baseball and other assorted sporting options. Like most other working professionals, I am blocked from most gambling sites, so I will use the USA Today for the odds.
Each wager is $100.
Cubs (Rausch vs. Stauffer) +150 - Rausch is on fire!!!!!
Florida (Willis vs. Williams) -140 - Florida will not lose four games to Pit.
Yankees (Pavano vs. Jensen) -170 - I will eat my bedsheets if the Yanks get swept.
Atlanta (Ramirez vs. Loiza) +105 - This is why people lose money in Vegas. I feel great about the other picks, but I wanted to do 4 baseball games, so I took this game. Stupid, but I can't help it. This is why I live in an apartment and Steve Wynn just built another $2 billion hotel.
Miami/Det over- 182.5
Didn't realize that the games were starting so early today and I had already selected both the Indians (+280) and TX (-110), but I will exclude these from my picks. I wanted to take the Blue Jays over the A's, but this is probably a must win for A's just to get a split in this four game set since they have Blanton and Etherton going this weekend against Halladay and Lilly. Ugh.
Each wager is $100.
Cubs (Rausch vs. Stauffer) +150 - Rausch is on fire!!!!!
Florida (Willis vs. Williams) -140 - Florida will not lose four games to Pit.
Yankees (Pavano vs. Jensen) -170 - I will eat my bedsheets if the Yanks get swept.
Atlanta (Ramirez vs. Loiza) +105 - This is why people lose money in Vegas. I feel great about the other picks, but I wanted to do 4 baseball games, so I took this game. Stupid, but I can't help it. This is why I live in an apartment and Steve Wynn just built another $2 billion hotel.
Miami/Det over- 182.5
Didn't realize that the games were starting so early today and I had already selected both the Indians (+280) and TX (-110), but I will exclude these from my picks. I wanted to take the Blue Jays over the A's, but this is probably a must win for A's just to get a split in this four game set since they have Blanton and Etherton going this weekend against Halladay and Lilly. Ugh.
Spelling Bee Fantasy Draft
Perhaps one of the greatest ideas of all time, the ESPN Spelling Bee Fantasy Draft. I mean, think of how you would have felt if you had the kid last year who passed out and then recovered to spell the word correctly! High drama indeed. It's televised on ESPN and for those of us in the Washington, DC area, we could even go and heckle those little nerds. Anyway, check out the statistics for this year's bee here and start thinking of your strategery for next year's fantasy draft!
Jun 1, 2005
Links
Added some additional Links.
Aaron Gleeman is an excellent writerwho does some wonderful articles for HardballTimes.com, but also has his own blog site that is mainly dedicated to the Twins. About once or twice a week, he usually spends time on other topics that follows the same flow as the Sportsguy, and his hatred for Baseball Tonight and ESPN.com are in line with my views.
John Sickels- great minor league writer, who was abruptly fired from ESPN.com because he didn't fit in their new mainstream format. He now has a nice little blog site and there are some jems is you really like baseball.
AthleticsNation.com- probably the second largest blog site out there dedicated to a specific baseball team with Sons of Sam Horn having the largest following.
Sons of Sam Horn.com- Even though I hated to include anything related to the Sox, I think that this site along with the old time usergroups lead to what we have here today...blogs.
Iowa Golf- So we can all keep up with Eric's tournaments. How does a state like Iowa have enough money to spend on live scoring for amateur tournaments? Still amazes me.
Eric, Jon, and Lee, I couldn't find any really good blogs for the Yanks, O's, and Indians. The two Indians sites I came across had about 6000 hits over the last year and had only been updated about twice a week. I will keep my eyes open for additional sites.
For everyone else, please let me know if there are any other good sites.
Aaron Gleeman is an excellent writerwho does some wonderful articles for HardballTimes.com, but also has his own blog site that is mainly dedicated to the Twins. About once or twice a week, he usually spends time on other topics that follows the same flow as the Sportsguy, and his hatred for Baseball Tonight and ESPN.com are in line with my views.
John Sickels- great minor league writer, who was abruptly fired from ESPN.com because he didn't fit in their new mainstream format. He now has a nice little blog site and there are some jems is you really like baseball.
AthleticsNation.com- probably the second largest blog site out there dedicated to a specific baseball team with Sons of Sam Horn having the largest following.
Sons of Sam Horn.com- Even though I hated to include anything related to the Sox, I think that this site along with the old time usergroups lead to what we have here today...blogs.
Iowa Golf- So we can all keep up with Eric's tournaments. How does a state like Iowa have enough money to spend on live scoring for amateur tournaments? Still amazes me.
Eric, Jon, and Lee, I couldn't find any really good blogs for the Yanks, O's, and Indians. The two Indians sites I came across had about 6000 hits over the last year and had only been updated about twice a week. I will keep my eyes open for additional sites.
For everyone else, please let me know if there are any other good sites.
What's this a 3 game winning streak?
So as I sit here watching my A's complete a 3 game sweep of the Rays (I can't believe I'm actually proud and excited to say that), I'm flipping over to the extended Laguna Beach Landslides. If you don't know what happened out here, below is the link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-060105slide_lat,0,118386.story?coll=la-home-headlines
I'm just shocked at some of the local news reporting of the landslides. First, we are nearly 14 hours after the initial landslide took place and this female field reporter who has been on all day is still so excited about being on TV, she has basically repeated the same 2 sentences over the last 12 hours. "Stan, I'm standing outside of Laguana Beach, where 18 houses were destroyed in a mudslide. This is just a small price these people pay for their beautiful ocean views." No lie, I have heard this about 25 times from this lady. I really don't know who is crazier, her or me expecting to hear something new.
Anyway, I got a couple of calls tonight on the landslides and how people from the East think that Californians are crazy for building their houses on the side of a mountain. I used to believe that until I actually spent some time in some of these houses, and let me tell you, when I have the money I will take the risk. These views are so amazing, its like you are at a beach resort everyday of your life.
When I say risk, I mean that if the house comes down, there is no coverage from your Homeowners Insurance. If it is a mudslide, then it is covered by the Federal Goverment under Flood Insurance, but if it is a Landslide, which this is, it is only covered by Loyds of London policy (since normal carriers don't want any piece of it) and usually runs close to $2,000-$3,000 for every $300,000 worth of home, and this was back in 1998.
And you wonder why you would ever need to know this? Well this also goes for sink holes. And if you don't think landslides can happen in your area, well if it can happen in PA, I'm sure it can happen in Iowa, Columbus, Capital Hill, or Cockeysville.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05049/459336.stm
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-060105slide_lat,0,118386.story?coll=la-home-headlines
I'm just shocked at some of the local news reporting of the landslides. First, we are nearly 14 hours after the initial landslide took place and this female field reporter who has been on all day is still so excited about being on TV, she has basically repeated the same 2 sentences over the last 12 hours. "Stan, I'm standing outside of Laguana Beach, where 18 houses were destroyed in a mudslide. This is just a small price these people pay for their beautiful ocean views." No lie, I have heard this about 25 times from this lady. I really don't know who is crazier, her or me expecting to hear something new.
Anyway, I got a couple of calls tonight on the landslides and how people from the East think that Californians are crazy for building their houses on the side of a mountain. I used to believe that until I actually spent some time in some of these houses, and let me tell you, when I have the money I will take the risk. These views are so amazing, its like you are at a beach resort everyday of your life.
When I say risk, I mean that if the house comes down, there is no coverage from your Homeowners Insurance. If it is a mudslide, then it is covered by the Federal Goverment under Flood Insurance, but if it is a Landslide, which this is, it is only covered by Loyds of London policy (since normal carriers don't want any piece of it) and usually runs close to $2,000-$3,000 for every $300,000 worth of home, and this was back in 1998.
And you wonder why you would ever need to know this? Well this also goes for sink holes. And if you don't think landslides can happen in your area, well if it can happen in PA, I'm sure it can happen in Iowa, Columbus, Capital Hill, or Cockeysville.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05049/459336.stm
Golf update
Tournament season is about to begin in earnest - next week we have the Iowa Public Golfers Championship in Ames. This is tournament #3 on the 12-city tour. Tournaments #4-6 come in a 9-day span at the end of the month.
My game is very inconsistent this spring, and that is solely due to one factor - not hitting balls on the rangs. High-level golfers fall into two camps; the range rats (think Tom Kite, Vijay Singh) and the "practice is playing" crowd - think Crenshaw, and most likely Mickelson. The latter group thinks that playing 18 holes is practice, as you are put in all sorts of game situations throughout the round, and it never hurts to practice "how to score".
I am clearly in the latter camp, but I can tell my game is suffering from the lack of time on the range. I do not have a consistent swing - I've been pull hooking 9 irons, thinning long irons - and that is a result of not having a grooved swing. My scores aren't too bad - since I'm getting up and down OK - but it clearly is not where it should be. And those sorts of thoughts aren't going to do me well under tournament pressure.
(This also explains how I can shoot 74 and be disappointed. Derek is flummoxed by this. How can I be happy when my last 3 iron shots were: a) a wedge from 90 yards 35 feet past the pin, 2) a thin 7 iron to 20 feet, and 3) a fat 9 iron that's 15 yards short? I was +1 on three holes where I could easily have been -1. )
The only solution? More time at the range. Maybe I should stop posting so much and get out there.....
Eric Z.
My game is very inconsistent this spring, and that is solely due to one factor - not hitting balls on the rangs. High-level golfers fall into two camps; the range rats (think Tom Kite, Vijay Singh) and the "practice is playing" crowd - think Crenshaw, and most likely Mickelson. The latter group thinks that playing 18 holes is practice, as you are put in all sorts of game situations throughout the round, and it never hurts to practice "how to score".
I am clearly in the latter camp, but I can tell my game is suffering from the lack of time on the range. I do not have a consistent swing - I've been pull hooking 9 irons, thinning long irons - and that is a result of not having a grooved swing. My scores aren't too bad - since I'm getting up and down OK - but it clearly is not where it should be. And those sorts of thoughts aren't going to do me well under tournament pressure.
(This also explains how I can shoot 74 and be disappointed. Derek is flummoxed by this. How can I be happy when my last 3 iron shots were: a) a wedge from 90 yards 35 feet past the pin, 2) a thin 7 iron to 20 feet, and 3) a fat 9 iron that's 15 yards short? I was +1 on three holes where I could easily have been -1. )
The only solution? More time at the range. Maybe I should stop posting so much and get out there.....
Eric Z.
Sports Futility Trivia
1. To mark the hiring of Mike Brown as the Cavs' new coach, I bet you can't name the three head coaches of the Cavs before the LeBron era....
Answer later in the week.
2. The Colorado Rockies beat St Louis last night, and with that win, Jason Jennings became Coors Field's all time winningest pitcher. In the 11-year-old park, Jennings has...... 25 wins.
The longer I think about this, the more preposterous it is.
3. Anyone catch Jake Plummer on ESPNews tonight? Think Fred Dryer sunglasses, Fred Biletnikoff hair and Burt Reynolds mustache, circa 1977. Yikes.
Answer later in the week.
2. The Colorado Rockies beat St Louis last night, and with that win, Jason Jennings became Coors Field's all time winningest pitcher. In the 11-year-old park, Jennings has...... 25 wins.
The longer I think about this, the more preposterous it is.
3. Anyone catch Jake Plummer on ESPNews tonight? Think Fred Dryer sunglasses, Fred Biletnikoff hair and Burt Reynolds mustache, circa 1977. Yikes.
More Soda blogging
Anyone know where I can get the CD for the "Wanna Fanta" jingle? Boy, is that catchy...
(Strawberry Fanta....mmmmmmmmm.....)
A couple more postings like this and Glenn Reynolds will call me the soda-blogger.
(Strawberry Fanta....mmmmmmmmm.....)
A couple more postings like this and Glenn Reynolds will call me the soda-blogger.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)