Sports Talk
Red Sox Memories…
Monday, September 17th, 2007Since the Yankees are currently giving the Red Sox a run for the AL East, I thought I’d post this video for inspiration: It’s the bottom of the tenth inning in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox, complete with actual audio, re-enacted with a video game called RBI Baseball.
It’s a little long, but you can fast forward to the end if you just want to relive the worst moment in Bill Buckner’s life…
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It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over…
Thursday, August 30th, 2007Coming up on September 1st, and the Red Sox lead the Yankees by six games in the American League East. As Mike Francesa of Mike and the Mad Dog (WFAN, New York) says, “The Red Sox are like the timezones – ahead in the spring and behind in the fall.” Look at this chart:
With the exception of 2004 (their World Series year), where they actually made a mini-run at the division at the end of the season, the pattern is always the same – build a small lead in the beginning of the season, and then watch it fade away by October.
This year, unfortunately, has been a bit different. The annual, mid-season lead spiked to double digits for the first time in six years, and this is their biggest lead for September 1st in that timeframe (data prior to 2001 was not easily available on the web). The biggest 9/1 lead they’ve blown has been 5.5 games (in 2001), so it’s not out of the realm of possibilities, but it’s going to be tough…
GO YANKS!
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Rangers miss extra point, win by four touchdowns
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007Now this, my friends, is a baseball game:
This game set so many records, it probably set a record for setting records. I’ll spare you the very long list and just throw out three fun facts:
1) The last time a team scored 30 or more runs in a game was 110 years ago (that’s 1897, for the math-impaired)
2) The Baltimore Ravens haven’t allowed 30 points in a game since Week 12 of 2005.
3) After three innings, Baltimore was leading this game 3-0.
Man, what a game…
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Yankee Stadium Blogging…
Sunday, August 19th, 2007Here’s something most people who go to Yankee Stadium don’t see:
That’s the construction site across the street from the stadium, which will become the new Yankee Stadium at the beginning of the 2009 season. When Phil Rizzuto died, the construction workers apparently spray-painted “Scooter Rizzuto, MVP” on some of their materials. From the picture, it looks like temporary wooden boards used during the building process, but I’d like to think that those boards will somehow become part of the completed stadium, and that Scooter’s name will be entombed in the new stadium for as long as it stands. Unless I find out differently, I think I’ll choose to believe that story from now on…
Oh, and as long as I have your attention, here’s something most people who go to Yankee Stadium do see:
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A Truly Holy Cow…
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
| “I guess heaven must have needed a shortstop.” | |
| — George Steinbrenner — August 14, 2007 | |
| “Fly ball to deep right field. Tony Armas going back, back, back, at the wall . . . Holy Cow, did you see that?!?!?” | |
| — Phil Rizzuto — Radio Broadcast — Late 1970’s | |
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A Week of Milestone Homeruns
Sunday, August 12th, 2007Just catching up on some blogging tonight, so for posterity sake, here are the videos for three notable homeruns, all of which took place in the space of three days:
Barry Bonds ties Hank Aaron with #755 (August 4, 2007):
Alex Rodriguez hits homerun #500 – youngest player ever to accomplish the feat (August 4, 2007):
Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s homerun record by hitting #756 (August 7, 2007):
And because people will ask, here’s my take on the steroid scandal: Baseball’s obsession with statistics and records has always been misplaced. Yes, it’s likely that Bonds used steroids and Aaron did not. But Bonds and Aaron also played in different sized ballparks, with bats that were made differently. Bonds had access to weight lifting equipment that Aaron did not have, as well as training facilities, rehab facilities, medical procedures, and conditioning techniques that didn’t exist in the 60s and 70s. So much has changed in 33 years, that the only thing I can think of that is exactly the same between the two eras is the distance between the bases, which doesn’t matter a lick when it comes to hitting homeruns.
So I don’t really care who holds the record for most career homeruns. Both men have hit a lot of homeruns and will long be regarded as two of the best long ball hitters ever to play the game. What matters is this: To my knowledge, Aaron didn’t cheat. I (and, apparently, no one else) can prove that Bonds cheated, but the evidence seems to suggest that he did. If it turns out that’s not the case, then please put me first in line to apologize to Mr. Bonds. Until then, I can tell my 7 and 4-year old sons that Hank Aaron was a great baseball player. I’ll be telling them that Bonds was a great baseball player too, but also a stupid man (they’ve learned in school, and at home, that people who take drugs are stupid people) and a cheater (they’ve also learned in school, and at home, that if you cheat, no one will want to play with you again). If I’m raising them right (and, of course, I believe that I am), then they’ll grow up to understand both men’s accomplishments, and hold Hank Aaron in far greater regard than Barry Bonds. That’s about right, I think.
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Yankee Stadium Blogging…
Sunday, June 10th, 2007Reporting live from Yankee Stadium…It’s Bat Day today in the Bronx.
The game started at 1:05. It is currently 1:30, and there are already 3 bats available for sale on eBay.
I have two (one for each kid), and on my way to my seat, someone offered me $200 for one of them. He obviously doesn’t understand the need to have two of anything when you have two children…
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The Many Fortunes of Alex Rodriguez
Monday, June 4th, 2007
After a disappointing post-season last year, talk around New York baseball fans/writers was about whether or not the Yankees should trade Alex Rodriguez.
A-Rod silenced those voices this year, by having what could arguably be called the best April in the history of baseball: a .355 Batting Average, 14 Home Runs, 34 RBIs, a .415 On-Base Percentage, and an .882 Slugging Percentage. Most of these statistics led the league.
But consider this: what would fans and sportswriters have said if their “28 million dollar man” wound up April with a .235 Batting Average, 5 Home Runs, 11 RBIs, a .361 On-Base Percentage, and an .422 Slugging Percentage?
Because that’s what he did in May.
Of course, April’s stats are the only ones that are published on their own; May’s are baked into the season-to-date numbers, hidden forever to anyone who doesn’t know about ESPN’s Splits page. I get the feeling, though, that had A-Rod’s first two months of 2007 been reversed, and April 30th saw him hitting .235 and embroiled in a couple of on-field and off-field scandals, that the New York sharks would be smelling fresh meat.
Once again, perception meets reality and clocks it upside the head…
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It’s all about perspective…
Friday, April 27th, 2007Many of my fellow Yankee fans are unhappy about the baseball standings these days. I don’t see why. After all, it’s all a matter of how you look at it…
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Don Imus – the Mourning Show
Friday, April 13th, 2007
As the 2007 NCAA tournament wound to a close, I bet the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team figured they’d remember this basketball season for the rest of their lives. Other than losing to Tennessee in the finals, it was a dream season. They accomplished (almost) everything they set out to do, and had achieved national recognition for their efforts. They would all graduate from a fine school and move on to successful professional careers, some in the basketball realm, others not. No matter – they would always be remembered as the 2007 Rutgers team – the one that made it to the finals against the mighty Tennessee Lady Vols.
Well, all of that is gone now.
As it turns out, they’ll always be remembered as the women that a popular morning radio DJ made a stupid, racist comment about. The news articles coming out about them now don’t even mention the basketball season, and we’re not even a month past it yet.
So here’s my question: who did this to these poor women? Who ruined their legacies? I would submit that it was not Don Imus. He said a stupid thing that was only heard by his ever-shrinking audience, and most of them probably ignored it or deemed it a lousy attempt at humor. The small minority of folks who took him literally probably brought their own racist and/or sexist attitude to the table to begin with. All the same, he attacked these women without provocation, and he got his punishment – both from the court of public opinion and the unemployment line.
But it was the so-called “civil rights leaders” that affixed the “victim” label on these women for the rest of time. As racism continues its slow decline in our society, folks like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson run the risk of losing relevance. To combat this trend, they need to elevate public displays of racism to “national scandal” status. To do any less would suggest that this instance is somehow less awful than the last one. And so we see a steady stream of condemnations: Trent Lott, Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Don Imus.
This Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of the start of Jackie Robinson’s major league baseball career. Baseball is acknowledging the day with a league-wide celebration, in which every player on every team 200 players throughout baseball (and of every skin color) will wear Jackie’s number 42 for the day. Yet, there are some who believe that Robinson’s legacy is in danger, because only 8.4% of current major leaguers are African American (more than 40% are minorities – primarily Latinos, as well as a growing number of Asians).
Like Revs. Sharpton and Jackson, I believe these folks completely miss the point. And that point is this: skin color is no longer relevant in becoming a major league ballplayer. Black, brown, yellow and white have all succeeded. Kids of all colors cheer players of all colors, and there is very little talk of who’s in who’s group. What matters is what you can do on the field. That’s why all the so many players are wearing #42, not just 8.4% of them. That’s what Jackie Robinson helped bring about. That is his legacy.
The Rutgers women should be remembered for what they did on the court, not what they said in some press conference or on the Oprah Winfrey show. They’ve earned that legacy. To the extent that it’s been stolen from them, I think it’s a shame.
UPDATE: Apparently, some players felt that having everyone wear the number lessened the impact of it, and preferred to have one or two representatives wear it for their team. Four teams, including the Dodgers (Robinson’s former team), had all the players wear it. All in all, it came out to about 200 people, with at least one on every team.
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