Why watch sports? Or, How To Ramble On About Sports While At Work

In sports, there are players, and there are fans. Clearly.

I'm certainly not an athlete. 90% of my sports-related life falls into the fan category. I spend hours on the couch, at my computer, and at the stadium. I analyze, critique, and applaud with a very broad view of the game and its context. I can scoreboard watch, check line charts, look up advanced batting statistics, and consider receiver/cornerback matchups in real time.

When I spend my 10% as an athlete, all that mental processing, the cerebral analysis and statistics, geometry and physics, doesn't go away. For real athletes, it does. This separation is an unfortunate consequence of the speed of games, as mental operations compute on a seemingly geologic timescale when compared to fast-twitch muscle fibers and hand-eye coordination. It's in this separation of mind and body that great athletes are forged, and where I most frequently fail.

The nervous energy I feel before stepping on the ice, or field, or court, is unmanageable. The incessant doubt which creeps throughout my mind as I glide to the net simultaneously poisons my skills and slows my reactions, generating a new wave of doubt in turn. Professional athletes, for the most part, are not burdened with such pervasive thoughts. Kobe Bryant sees the ball, sees the court, sees the game clock tick away the first second of the game, and immediately flips the Brain Switch to off. Evan Longoria steps into the batter's box and sees nothing but the pitcher, the ball, the simple geometry of a parabola, and the instant of bat:ball contact. Robin van Persie sees the ball arcing into the box and instinctively jumps to meet it a fraction of a second before the defender makes contact.

I see the puck, figure out who the shooter is, see if I can remember if the shooter likes going blocker or glove, high or low, and the likelihood of a pass. Then I check my position to make sure I'm cutting off the angle and start widening my stance to decrease my time to ice. I make sure my stick is on the ice, turn around, and fish the puck out of the net. It's inevitable.

The few times I've played well have been marked by a combination of factors, all of which have been present during those brief flashes of competence.

• Significant distraction from or disinterest in the game
• Some degree of physical pain from previous exercise
• At least some level of discomfort with my equipment
• A particularly noisy environment

While professionals are able to turn off their minds and play the game, I must rely on constant distraction and routine. I stopped 19 of 21 shots during a stretch at a practice yesterday:

• I had just been selected to a team for the upcoming season and was bored with practice
• My knees and back were in moderate pain from patio construction and Sunday's draft skate
• My leg pads were uncomfortably lose
• 26 children were occupying the other half of the ice

The physical frustrations associated with sports are widespread but relatively easily overcome. With enough practice, any basketball player can excel at shooting free throws. The mental aspect, however, is an unwinnable war for all but the top 1% of athletes.

Despite all of this, the hallmark of the truly great athlete seems to be one who transcends the separation of the mental and physical aspects of the game. There are many whose greatness is a combination of relentless practice and superb execution, but these players, many of them All Stars and in their respective Halls of Fame, always fall short of epitomized greatness. Wayne

Gretzky possessed a skill bluntly described as "vision," but, in reality, an impressive ability to both play and analyze the game simultaneously. Being able to act as a fan while actively playing a game at the professional level is a generational feat for all sports, and it provides a spectacle which defies statistics, probability, and reasoning.

Why do people watch sports? Because it is typically more interesting to watch a game played well than to play a game well. With the exception of those generational talents, even the best professional athletes can never truly appreciate their abilities while still maintaining that level of excellence. Although a fan cannot score a goal, hit a home run, or execute a brilliant pass, he can analyze the game to a satisfaction which is otherwise unknown in modern society.

So the next time someone asks you why you spend 3 hours a day watching sports, just say "because sports are cool." Because they are, and you know the real answer anyway.

Mid afternoon mind dump

Miscellany:

• My team won its most recent floor hockey game 8-3. Considering that I only stopped 3 shots, you should be able to determine my team's talent level pretty easily. From my perspective, this game was a disappointing step backward in my development. I say very few shots, and seemed to be out of position with alarming frequency. I had one good scramble that included a Hasek roll, but I wasn't square to the puck (ball), and I allowed two terrible goals, one five hole, and one under my left arm. It's frustrating, particularly since I know the problem is that I don't really see the puck, so my reaction is always based on fiction and physics, not reality. The next step, aside from more playing time, is learning to stare at the puck as it's being shot. Easier said than done.
• The Kings are struggling, but missing the playoffs is still a difficult task. I'll feel better if they win tonight, and much better once they clinch a spot. It will be the first time since high school that the Kings will be playing meaningful hockey come my birthday. Jon Quick is, lamentably, poor. He needs a rest, and Bernier is the answer. Unfortunately, the Kings are all too willing to sacrifice this season for the next, something I don't think is particularly reasonable.
  
• I just finished Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch," after seeing Ben read it in Italy, and found it depressingly accurate. It is surprisingly difficult to explain the feelings associated with being a devoted fan of any team, particularly when said team is bad, or worse, merely underachieving. Go Huskies.
• I'd be more confident about the upcoming Angels season if not for their terrible spring training. Yeah yeah, spring training stats don't mean anything, but the Angels were great last year, and had a great spring training. I love small sample sizes, even though they're wrong, because they're comforting and scary.
• If it ever stops raining in Boston, tennis season is just around the corner.
  

Miscellany

Thiess, you looked better in red and black, but congrats on hoisting your team back in to the playoff hunt. (see final bullet)

Miscellany:

• Jake Newton signs with, sigh, the Ducks. What really disappoints me is the attached picture, because that's a shot ringing off the post against BU in the Beanpot.
• The Kings lost 3-0 to the Blackhawks last night, doing nothing to ease my fears of yet another late season collapse. I think they only need to go 5-8 or so to make the playoffs, but when they can't get up for a home game against Chicago (outshot 37-17), something dangerous is lurking in the locker room. Of course, when you don't get to go on a single power play, something's wrong.
• Brendan pointed out that I made it onto Uniwatch, one of my all-time favorite blogs. Check the second item on the news ticker.
• The Angels are 3-9 this spring training. Ruh-roh.
• Brad Thiessen, despite the awful St. Paddy's day jersey, is besting John Curry's numbers with the baby Pens, posting a 2.66 GAA and a .907 save percentage while improving his record to 8-11-1. But seriously though, that jersey is awful. Meanwhile, Joe Vitale is racking up the assists (and the PIM totals), and is supposedly close to a first taste of the NHL.
  

Miscellany

Just some quick notes today, mostly off-topic:

• My previous post was rehashed and published as an editorial over at the Huntington News. The only real difference is that I nominate myself as Northeastern's next athletic director.
• The Lakers beat Jose Juan Barea and the Mavericks 100-95 last night despite DJ Mbenga and Luke Walton each playing more than 10 minutes. Oh, and Pau Gasol didn't play.
• The Kings followed up an awesome streak of like 10 or 11 games without a pair of losses with a 4? 5? -game losing streak. Welcome to fandom in the Kings' fiefdom.
• I'm playing on two, possibly three, hockey teams this semester, plus broomball. I'll be goaltending for one, backing up for another (and possible taking the ice as a forward), and backing up a third. Schedules will be up on this blog once they're finalized.
  

Vacation

I'm leaving for Italy on Monday, so there will be no IPNO until, at least, January 7th.

While I'm gone, please entertain yourself with Halos Heaven, 6-4-2, Let's Go Kings, Silver Screen and Roll, and, of course, Battle of California, which happens to be featuring an awesome story about hockey (and why we love hockey) on the front page.

While I'm abroad, incoming texts are free, so feel free to send me amusing tidbits, sports-related or not. I'll have email access once a day or so, since I've only got 50 megs of iPhone data transfer before AT&T starts charging me $20 (yes, twenty dollars) per megabyte.

Still here

Yes, it's been historically slow around here lately. I actually started an all-team recap a couple days ago before getting sick, and two days later, lots of the stuff in it was already irrelevant, so it needs to be revised before I can post it. These last couple weeks have been pretty busy as well, with midterms and Beta Theta Pi-related activities, but I'll be back to my regularly scheduled sports blogging around Thanksgiving.


Miscellany:

• Thank goodness. Instead of just reducing breaks, let's cut it to only travel days, or even eliminate those as well. Make home field matter.
• Scott Hartnell would be way less annoying with a haircut.
  
• The Huskies men's basketball team lost to Siena on national TV. They had 8 free throws, Siena had 27. They didn't deserve to win, but they certainly deserved competent referees.
• Belichick's command to go for it on 4th and 2 against the Colts was the right call. The spot was bad. I don' t understand why we have these measuring chains and pretend they mean anything if the spot where the ball is placed after a play is completely arbitrary. Computers, please.
• Basketball is dumb because it's predictable. Whichever team shoots fewer threes and more free throws wins. In hockey, you can get outshot 50-1 and still win, but if another team takes twice as many free throws, you always lose. And reffing basketball is almost impossible, so the refs are always bad.
• I need a vacation.
  

AL West analysis and ALDS preview

The Angels clinched their third consecutive AL West title last night in an 11-0 rout of Texas. After clinching extremely early in September last season, the Angels faced a tougher road after playing terribly against the Rangers this year, but rode a strong middle third of the season to another division championship and a third consecutive berth in the postseason against the Boston Red Sox. The game itself was easy to watch...Kendry Morales turned a pair of 3-6-3 double plays and hit his 33rd jack of the season, Ervin Santana pitched a complete game shutout, and Bobby Abreu was a homer short of the cycle.

I mentioned my distaste for divisional championship celebrations (see miscellany, below), and maintain my position on the matter. But with the number of people claiming the Angels' celebration of their victory by dousing Nick Adenhart's jersey with beer and champagne was distasteful, I have to disagree. Nick was, and remains, a part of the Angels, an inseparable member of the team. If he had been in that clubhouse, he'd have been doused in alcohol. And to the team, he was in that clubhouse, he contributed to the divisional championship, and he deserved the celebration he earned.

To say it's in bad taste because he was killed by a drunk driver is like saying it's poor taste for a football team to honor a player who died on the field by playing football. It's nonsense. Adenhart didn't kill himself drunk driving. He was killed by a drunk driver.

Needless to say, watching the team run out to the wall to take a photo in front of Nick's picture was touching, and another reminder in a season of tragedy that this is, still, just a game.

From a baseball persepctive, the upcoming Angels/Boston series poses a couple interesting questions. First of all, will Mike Scioscia be dumb enough (again) to choose a 3-starter format? The Angels have better pitching than the Red Sox if they use 4 pitchers, not 3. Second, is he smart enough to use Ervin Santana in high leverage situations, including the ninth inning of one-run games, or will he give games away via Fuentes as proxy? And finally, can the offense act like they did in June and not like they did in September? The key to winning in the postseason is not, as is always said, pitching. Or at least it isn't for the Angels. The key is runs. Scoring lots of them will win this series.

Prediction: If the Angels win game 1, they win the series. Otherwise, it's a long road back to the playoffs in 2012.


A bit of miscellany:

I typically scroll through my Google Analytics account at some point after the daily numbers register at midnight. The traffic numbers for this blog are remarkably consistent, usually between 10 and 15 unique visits per day, and somewhere around 300 visitors per month. There's been a couple days where I've had 25-35 visitors, usually when I get linked by the Rev over at Halos Heaven.

Much to my surprise, I open up Analytics last night and see 80 unique visitors in a single night. Intrigued, I plow through the data and find that all the traffic came from a single referring site: sports.yahoo.com

...interesting. So I head over to Yahoo! Sports, search for "In Play, No Outs," and find this story. Check out #12.

Pretty cool. And it really makes you think about what the Internet has done for communication in general, and moreso in the amateur writing field. Ten years ago, my never ending rants on bullpen utilization and Northeastern sporting failures would have sat in my head and annoyed the people around me instead of "enthralling" a small group of devout readers.

Thanks, 'Duk.

Miscellany: Vehicular Abuse

Those of you who know me personally know me to be a car aficionado, despite my seeming lack of interest while at school. I just changed the oil in the 855T and returned to find this:



Hat tip: Jalopnik.

I'm not really opposed to the Cash for Clunkers program, although it does contain some pretty egregious errors. What I am opposed to, though, is vehicular torture, which is exactly what this is. That's a late '90's or early '00's Volvo S80, one of the T5 turbo models, and a car which easily outclasses the car with which it was likely replaced, a Camry or Accord or other generic, non offensive midsize sedan. I would have taken that car in a heartbeat.

Why destroy a car like that? Why not drill a hole in the block and destroy it in a way which doesn't otherwise damage the vehicle? What's gained by forcing the engine to catch fire and spray oil all over the pavement? How is this "green?" Seriously, this can't be the safest/cleanest/best way to prevent the engine from running again. And for those of us who form bonds with our cars, watching this is disturbingly like watching someone kick a dog, or blend an iPhone, or throw a computer off a building. It's just so unnecessary.

Been a while

Yeah, it's been a while since my last update. And you won't be getting much tonight, as the Angels are in the process of losing 10-0 to Detroit, of all teams. When you get mediocre to bad baseball, you get mediocre to bad blogging. So it goes.

I'm in LA for a couple weeks after having shown the lovely Kira around the usual "hot spots," whatever that means. Oddly enough, she managed to be on the beach on the one day it rained in San Diego, so now I look like an idiot for talking about how it never rains in CA during the summer for four years. Thanks, Dallas Raines.

Anyways, I expect posting will pick up shortly as I continue to get excited about the upcoming football and hockey seasons, and as the Angels try to make the playoffs and get obliterated.

Good Morning

I've managed to escape the grips of the worst course I've ever taken at Northeastern. I'm pretty sure I passed, but if I have to take that class again, serious thought will be given to finding a new major/career. I wrote a pretty long diatribe against higher education's principles the other day, and I'll probably condense it at some point for my reader(s) to see.


Angels 5, Baltimore 1

Apologies to Robb Quinlan, but dude, I don't see what Scioscia sees in you. The fact that you've made it this far in the big leagues despite having a swing that would embarrass even Adam "Uppercut" Kennedy and very little understanding of the defensive responsibilities of first basemen blows my mind.

Wait, Quinlan got a pair of hits? And an RBI?

Despite the production, I don't see Robb Quinlan as a real contributor, bench player or otherwise. Lackey nearly punched him in the face during their last game, when Quinlan forgot the advanced baseball technique known as covering first base. Despite Q's versatility, I'd rather have a real backup first baseman than a utility guy who really isn't defensively capable at any of his positions. How about Napoli at first on days when Mathis is catching? I have no idea what Napoli brings defensively, but it'd be hard to be worse than Robb.

Regardless, the Angels won, largely behind a good effort from John Lackey. Lackey went 7 innings and mized in 7 hits, 6 strikeouts, and a walk. It's a shame he's such an asshole, because I'd really enjoy watching Lackey pitch as an Angel for the next few years, but you just know he's following the $$$ and his BFF Teixeira to the Yankees. Kevin Jepsen also pitches really well, throwing 9 of his 12 pitches for strikes while retiring 3 of the 4 batters he faced in the eighth. Despite my early season concerns, he seems to be filling in nicely for Scot Shields.

Scot Shields. It's a weird season when Shields hasn't been on the field since May.

Encouraging: Figgins (3-4, BB), Aybar (2-4), Guerrero (1-3, bases loaded BB), and Kendrick (2-4).
Not: Abreu (0-4, 4K), Matthews, Jr. (0-4)

I haven't seen Abreu look that terrible all season. He was guessing with Orioles starter Matusz, clearly unable to hit the changeup but unable to tell when it was coming. He looked awful out there. I only mention this because this is the first time all year Bobby's had more than one bad AB in a game.

Torii Hunter is back today, and with any luck, he'll be ruining birthdays and keeping GMJ on the bench. Most importantly, stay healthy, Torii.


Miscellany:

• I've been meaning to write about the Kings for a few days now, but can't get off my ass long enough to really do it. I'll get it done eventually, but for now, I'm encouraged by Ryan Smyth and Justin Williams with Anze and Brown. If Doughty and Scuderi can keep Quick out of trouble, the Kings will make the playoffs and I will probably wet myself in excitement. Sad, but true.
• Casual observations from the first few days of iPhone ownership

1. Why is this whole thing made of fingerprint magnet? Matte materials are classy and don't make it feel like you're trying to keep a piece of greasy melting ice from plummeting to the ground.
   
2. The browser is, by far, the best part of the phone. Aside from Flash, it renders everything almost identically to a desktop browser.
3. ESPN Mobile for iPhone sucks...where's auto-refresh? And it doesn't seem to work on data networks.
   
4. Call quality's been surprisingly good. It sounds almost as good as my Motofone, and certainly better than the eBay Blackjack I've been using.
   
5. Having to use iTunes to move data around is a ridiculous limitation.
6. The whole camera interface is pretty neat, particularly the way it interfaces with a Twitter application.
   
7. I live in constant fear of dropping, spilling on, or looking the wrong way at this thing.
   
8. By and large, the applications are cool, but man, there's some real crap out there. Mark sent me a few good ones. I have a couple bucks of store credit, so I'm looking at getting MLB Gameday mobile (not really what it's called), but $10 seems a little steep to watch fake baseball.
   
9. Why can I get a free 30-day trial of Slingplayer Mobile but not Slingplayer iPhone?

Angels and Hockey

Quick note: For those of you who read this on Facebook, a lot of formatting gets screwed up...click on "View Original Post" if you care about things like that.

Yes, my room's a mess. Yes, it's finals week.

If you've never tried on hockey goalie pads, it's really something worth doing. It really helps you appreciate the game from both a shooter and a goalie perspective. The pads are huge, and it's tough to move around. This, of course, is added to the fact that you're on ice and skates, and the ball is a tiny piece of frozen rubber shooting around at 120 mph. And forwards have a tough time because these pads are enormous. I'm not a particularly big guy...I'm about 5'10", but I weigh around 150 pounds, so my frame's pretty wiry, but these pads allow me to fill up most of the goal. I now understand why Thiessen looked so small in Wollaston's but so huge on the ice.

I've made no secret of my desire to play hockey for the last year or so, and this upcoming semester is really my last chance to do it. Northeastern has an intramural ice hockey league, so I'll need to assemble a team. Most certainly, Jeff will play, but finding others to play an incredibly dangerous game without any sort of formal training or equipment is going to be difficult. On the bright side, playing goalie ensures you've always got ice time.

I bought this chest protector on eBay using funds I acquired by participating in an asinine study at MIT. Sadly, without getting paid for my last co-op, this is what it's come to. I've got another study on Friday where I'm watching football for three hours to make $50, which doesn't seem too bad, but jeez, I'd just like my earned salary, please. With any luck, my loving parents will contribute to a real goalie helmet and the ever-important goalie jock.


Angels

"Do you want to know the terrifying truth? Or do you want to see me sock a few dingers!?"

Side note: Talk about weird. So much irony and foreshadowing in that quote. There's a lot of baseball references in the Simpsons, but seeing Mark McGwire in there much before the whole steroid controversy was pretty interesting.

Following the Angels this year has been unbelievably weird. I was convinced they were a third-place team for the first month of the season. I was convinced they were the best team in the AL after the All Star break. I lost confidence in their ability to win thanks to crappy pitching. And now I'm beginning to think they're the class of the AL. Again.

Sweeping Tampa isn't really the same as sweeping the Yankees, but it's still a nice way to round out a homestand. Moreover, the offense seems to have woken up, and Ervin Santana had a hell of a start. I will note, however, that his fastball velocity was up in the 95-97 range in the first and then 92-94 the rest of the way through. That's not ideal.

Trevor Bell made the start this afternoon. I napped through part of his start, but he looked more reliable than his line score indicates. 4 ER in 5.1 innings is kinda bad, but the 4 K's are encouraging, much as the 3:2 groundball to flyball ratio. He's not a future David Price, but it looks like he'll manage league-average numbers at the league-minimum salary. Boom.

By the way, I noticed this over at the site for the Salt Lake City Bees. Yes, Eric Maynor of VCU basketball, throwing out the first pitch. I heckled this guy like it was my job when he showed up at Matthews. It's strange when sports intermingle like this.

Just a couple things

It's the Week From Hell, so posting's gonna be slow.

• I cannot fucking wait for the game of baseball to be called by computers. Never mind the ridiculous strike zone inaccuracies, when a second base umpire flat misses a steal call, calling the runner safe before he even touches the bag (and after he gets tagged), something needs to change. It's an embarrassment to the game.
• Why Mike Scioscia always keeps his crappy starters in to blow leads is a trait I will never understand.
• I might have to revisit my 2006 stance where I stop watching the Angels until they manage to play two games in a row without an error.
• If you were to ask me what player I thought would be the biggest Angel killer on Tampa Bay, Jason Bartlett would be second to last in front of Greg Zaun. Oh wait, they both had critical at bats tonight? Shit.
• It's only going to be fun to watch the Red Sox miss the playoffs if the Angels get in. And until they learn to pitch, it's not looking great.
  
• By the way, here's a rule of thumb for placing blame on certain members of a team should they lose: If the team gives up more than 5 runs, it's the pitching's fault. If the team doesn't score at least 5 runs, it's the lineup's fault. Simple and effective, and rightfully assigns blame to the greater of two sucks.
• I'm starting to understand how Rangers fans have felt for the last two seasons: all offense, no pitching, and plenty of errors.
  
• I would really enjoy an island vacation at the moment. San Diego and LA will provide approximations in about a week.
• Congrats, Vlad, on #400:
  

Fox sucks at baseball

Jered Weaver does not throw 93. He definitely doesn't throw 94. In the interests of science, I went over to Gameday and looked at the PitchF/X numbers for Jered Weaver's sixth inning. His fastest pitch? 90 mph. Why does Fox insist on lying about pitch velocity when it doesn't add anything to the broadcast? Could it be because they're whoring themselves out to Taco Bell who needs something more sexy than "89 mph" for their Volcano Taco ad? Fox is a harlot.


Angels 3, Texas 2

The first at-bat I saw was Guerrero's bomb to left. I think he took my previous insults personally, because his AB's have looked much better in the last two games. I also need to say that I thought Mike Scioscia did a great job managing the game from a pitching perspective. He pulled Weaver at the right time and left Jepsen in to face the first righty of the ninth before bringing in Fuentes for the lefthanders. Smart, and certainly not something I've seen much from Mike.

Weaver, by the way, looked good. The short hair is a win, from both a baseball and a fashion perspective.

This was a pretty big win in that it keeps the division lead at 3.5 games even should the Angels lose tomorrow.


Miscellany:

• Excerpt from my in-progress capstone paper: "From 2002-2008, the MLB-wide average number of pitcher disabled list visits for elbow injuries is 65.5, with a peak of 74 DL visits occurring in the 2008 season. In an absolute best-case scenario, these injuries are distributed amongst the entire league equally, so each of MLB’s 30 teams has 2 pitchers visit the disabled list each season. Again, assuming the best case scenario, these pitchers are league-average 2 WAR pitchers making the average $4,000,000/year salary. With two disabled list visits, 30 days of playing time are missed, for a total of 6 missed starts. These six missed starts cost the team $828,000 and approximately .375 wins. Again, this assumes that any injured pitchers are missing the least time possible and return to the major leagues without any impact on performance. League-wide, 65 DL visits amounts to $53,820,000." I should have been an athletic trainer. Talk about money.
• Seeing Casey Kotchman in a Red Sox jersey makes me cringe.
• I am so ready for hockey. Both watching and playing. I just wanna hit the ice.
  

Big news day

Holy crap. Let's start with ...

'Roids

So David Ortiz was on the juice. About 6 people in America are surprised. Look, his OPS in Minnesota was never higher than .839. His first year in Boston? 961. It increased every year until last season, when it dropped precipitously do .8877. This season? .720.

The 2004 Red Sox have now thoroughly earned the same asterisk which sits happily next to the '98/'99/'00 Yankees, the '01 Diamondbacks, the '02 Angels, and the '03 Marlins.

At this point, does it really matter? The whole league was juicing for a decade. There's no reason to keep players out of the Hall because the playing field was still level. It just happened to be artificially raised.


Kurkjian Doesn't Get It

Check this out. Yet another article about how pitch counts are supposedly stupid and don't help prevent pitcher injury. Yet more proof that athletes will never make good doctors. Josh Beckett actually gets it, and talks about how tired pitches are the worst pitches, but Kurkjian still misses this essential point:

Pitch counts matter because they are a last line of defense against Dusty Baker and Joe Torre.

If you have a pitcher likely to be abused, at the very least, make sure you have him on a pitch count so there's some minimum amount of attention paid to his health. I've discussed this previously.


Lamar Odom Resigns with the Lakers

About damn time. Why, hello 2010 NBA championship trophy.


Scott Feldman (and the Rangers) Are Playing Way Over Their Heads

Feldman's line in a 13-5 loss to Detroit: 2.1 IP, 10H, 6ER, 2BB, 1K, 2HR. I don't buy that the pitchers are better, and I don't buy that the defense is so improved that ERA's are tumbling from 5+ to 3.50. The Angels are lucky, but the Rangers are playing much better ball than their team makeup suggests. Regression, regression.


Idiot Gets Run Over By Train In Front Of My Dorm

I don't really believe in Twitter. I like it when athletes talk about relevant sports stuff, but for the most part, 99% of daily tweets are garbage.

But then, some idiot goes and runs out and gets hit by the T in front of my dorm. About a million cops show up, and I figure hey, why not, and tweet about it. Mark tweets about it too. Soon, BostonTweet gets wind of it and retweets.

You know that scene in Hackers, when Cereal Killer uses Razor and Blade's TV transmission hacks to broadcast to everything in the world with a TV tuner? And he turns around and goes "Dude, I kinda feel like god?" Well, this is sorta like that, kinda. Mark and I were literally the first people in the world to report news. This actually showed up over here today, which is pretty interesting, although I insist that my tweets did contain useful information. They also happened to contain humorous analysis, so eff you too, sir.

Video Blog - Unabridged Edition

Yup, almost 9 minutes of Marcus on camera. There's at least 30 seconds of insight in there.

Crazy Ron?

So apparently the Lakers have signed Ron Artest. And Houston has signed Trevor Ariza.

Sigh.

I know, I know. This is actually an upgrade. Crazy Ron is still a better shooter than Trevor and remains an accomplished defender. His contract is only 3 years long, while Ariza got 5, so when the NBA salary cap drops for a couples years in a row, the Lakers are less screwed than they could be.

But the whole thing is just so dumb. Ariza took the SAME amount of money he was offered by the Lakers to play on a fundamentally fucked team. The Lakers offered the same amount of money to a crazy asshole who I can't stand, and who punched a fan in the stands, and who yelled in Kobe's ear like it was his job. It makes business sense, but goodness, I was much happier when Ariza was a Laker and Artest was a Rocket.

The Lakers needneedneed to sign Odom. If nothing else, he's proven his worth in the playoffs.


Miscellany:

• The Angels are currently leading 1-0 on a Bobby Abreu homer. Let's hope for more of those.
• Mark pointed this out to me earlier today. It's something I've seen before but never mentioned here...pretty cool.
• I own two fish, Drama and Turtle, and if you'd like to watch them swim around, they're on my webcam. At night, it's dark, so you won't see anything.
• The article I mentioned earlier today doesn't get published until July 13th in ESPN the Magazine, so I have no idea why I can read it on my phone in class.
  

How to lose despite scoring 7 runs

Angels 7, Texas 9

The Angels are a disappointing 1-5 against the Rangers this season, and 10-14 against the West thus far. Texas, on the other hand, is 15-4. This is why the Angels are only up a half game despite playing better baseball than the Rangers for much of the season.

Last night's game epitomized the errors I see Mike Scioscia make all too frequently:

• Vlad Guerrero erasing himself on a CS.
• Juan Rivera getting picked off from first on a flyout to center, with one out and Torii Hunter at third.
• Chone Figgins erasing himself trying to stretch a double into a triple.
• Justin Speier being allowed to pitch to a lefty despite his obvious inability to turn lefties into outs.

Rivera's ninth inning 3-run shot to tie the game was exciting, but combined with any less than all of the above turns the game into a W for the Halos. The team's baseball IQ is about 55 right now.

Baltimore's up tonight, and hooray for Peter Angelos having a baseball IQ of 6.


Miscellany:

• Rick Reily's July 1st article entitled "How I'd fix the economy" involves adding sports to work. And I love it. Too bad the only place I can find it is ESPN Mobile.
• I'd be surprised if Ariza left. I don't think many teams are going to be able to offer him much more than the midlevel, and I'm not sure he deserves much more than the midlevel. Then again, the Lakers don't make the Finals without his defense.
  
• The Kings have done absolutely nothing in NHL free agency. I am getting irritated.
• Shocker. Galaxy should've sold him when they had the chance.
  

In play: out(s)

That headline is actually the browser bar over at McCovey Chronicles, an excellent Giants blog. It's pretty funny to think of the thousands of baseball fans affected by MLB's decision making on Gameday pitch-by-pitch live boxscore data...the phrases "In play, no outs" and their derivatives hold a special place in many fans' hearts.


Angels 4, San Francisco 3

I've been mentioning how badly this team needed a 6+ game win streak. And as they reached 5 and had cut their divisional deficit to 2.5 games, I was pleasedm but figured it was sorta over. I mean, yesterday afternoon's pitching matchup was Matt "30 years old and cut by the Giants last season" Palmer versus Tim "2008 NL Cy Young winner" Lincecum.

For a while, it looked like this was it for the LA winning streak. Lincecum struck out something like 5 of the first 9 Angels he saw, and Matt Palmer gave up 2 runs, which usually spells doom for the team's putrid offense against a good starting pitcher.* However, they managed a run in the fourth off a Rivera single, and then played some serious defense. Robb Quinlan, typically an infielder, threw out a Giant at home courtesy of an absolutely gorgeous throw on the fly to Jeff Mathis, and Mathis did superb job blocking the plate. With that, the Giants were out in the bottom of the seventh, and the Angels came to bat for the eighth.

Somehow, both Torii Hunter and Vlad Guerrero managed pinch hit singles. Vlad has gone 3-3 in pinch hit situations this season...maybe it's time to put him in the game every 3rd inning. Scioscia remarked on his choice between the players: "We have two pretty good choices. It's like, what do you want for dinner, linguine with red sauce or white sauce? They're both good."

It's cute because Scioscia is fat.

Figgins followed the consecutive singles by Hunter and Guerrero with a run-scoring double off the glove of the Giants second baseman to get the Angels within one, and an infield single for Erick Aybar plated the tying run. The winning run came on a Juan Rivera groundout to third. I happen to think that San Francisco third baseman Pablo Sandoval had a play on Aybar at the plate, but he elected to throw to first, and that, as they say, was the game.

The Angels get today off before playing the Dodgers in Anaheim. I'll be in LA, so I'll try to make it to one of the three subsequent Angels/Rockies games if I can convince Greg to head out to Anaheim.


Miscellany:

• My flight's at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning, and the T starts running from Ruggles at 5:30. Gonna be cuttin' it quite fine.
• Speaking of the flight, I believe I'll have wireless internet onboard, which promises to be thoroughly entertaining, as long as I remember to copy over some Entourage episodes.
• With summer comes New Phone Day. I'm currently looking at the iPhone and the Samsung Impression. I'm impressed by the Impression (hardy har har), but it lacks WiFi. The iPhone, on the other hand, is notoriously unreliable and you have to, ugh, touch the screen to type. If they build an iPhone with a sliding keyboard, I'll be the first guy in line.
• Memo to Craigslist users: Not every bicycle part is for "fixies," and not a single Huffy/Magna/1990's+ Schwinn is worth more than $50. Ever.
  

Fish from downtown!

Lakers 99, Magic 91 (OT)

I just love looking at the box score for this game. Kobe Bryant goes 11-31. Trevor Ariza goes 6-14. Lamar Odom goes 4-10. You see Dwight Howard with an almost quadruple double, 16 points, 21 rebounds, 9 blocked shots, and 7 turnovers. Turkoglu went 8-13. Then you see Derek Fisher went 2-7 from behind the arc.

And somehow, after all that, those are the only numbers that matter. Two shots, two threes, those six points transforming the Lakers from treading water at 2-2 to dominating a series 3-1. And I sit back, and I wonder aloud about all those times I've talked about how Derek Fisher needs to be on the bench, about all those questionable lineup decisions from Phil Jackson, and about Fisher's "defense."

And all those problems still exist. They just don't matter anymore.

Fisher nailed a three over Jameer Nelson with 4.6 seconds left in regulation. He drilled another one with 36 seconds left in overtime. The first shot tied the game, and the second iced it. Derek Fisher's Twitter just reads "3-1."

Jameer Nelson's failure to foul Fisher with 4.6 seconds left and a 3 point lead is representative of the countless blown opportunities for the Magicians. Hedo Turkoglu shot 8-13 from the free throw line. Dwight Howard shot 6-14. Those aren't just Shaq numbers, those are Shaq-at-the-beginning-of-the-season-when-he's-still-fat-and-lazy numbers. And they should be embarrassing. Dwight, this is the backboard. Backboard, Dwight. If you two work together, you'd shoot 95% on free throws. Hilarious, but my goodness, embarrassing.

Rashard Lewis was pretty much a nonfactor, outside another ridiculous falling away three that he always seems to hit in the fourth. Despite this, the Lakers still managed to win without playing any sort of defense, perimeter or interior, and it's frustrating to watch. But hey, they won.

And now they need one.

Oh, and I almost forgot: The officiating was atrocious, with the Magic shooting 17 free throws in the fourth to 0 for the Lakers.


Angels 1, Tampa Bay 11

It would be hard for me to care any less about this team than I currently do. They are managing to do absolutely nothing correctly. They can't hit, they can't pitch, and they can't field. About the only thing they can do right now is hover at .500.

You'll get better Angels analysis once the Finals are over, and better still once they call up Brandon Wood and Sean Rodriguez.


Miscellany:

• Tonight, I'll be one of seven viewers watching the Stanley Cup Finals. Go Pens!
• I'll be in LA from the 19th through the 27th.
• I'd like to hop in net sometime before I leave...roller hockey, anyone?
  

The "bullpen"

First, I'm getting ready to write a piece in the Baseball for Newbies series on pitch counts and why they matter, despite every Angel fan going "GAWD Scoscaias is an itiot, Lakcey only threw 117 pitches through 7 innings, he should of left him in."

Also, I don't typically write because I'm bored, although I do tend to spend more time on the blog during periods of boredom. But today, I'm bored, and I'm writing. Don't expect quality (not that you ever should, really).


Angels Bullpen

At this point, I don't really know what the Angels should do about their bullpen. It's been their most glaring problem, and while I don't think it's their biggest issue*, it's definitely number two, and with the number of games they've blown, fans are calling for wholesale changes.

While it's true that a lot of the bullpen inconsistency is a direct result of rampant injuries to starting pitchers, it's a good idea to take a look at the relief pitchers' tRA vs ERA:

Oliver: 2.18 2.92
Arredondo: 2.82 2.74
Shields: 6.20 6.62
Bulger: 4.18 5.25
Speier: 5.32 5.06
Fuentes: 3.82 4.95

Mixed results here. League-average tRA is around 5 and league-average ERA is around 4.50. It loks like Shields/Oliver are a little unlucky, Bulger is a little more unlucky, and Fuentes is unluckiest.

Bulger's getting killed by his HR percentage, with over 10% of everything hit in the air leaving the park. Fuentes, on the other hand, is dealing with an unholy .386 BABIP, likely unsustainable long-term but still frustrating to observe now. With a similar line drive percentage two seasons ago, he was a BABIP of .248. That was lucky, but his career BABIP is right around .300, so perhaps he's due for some regression to better stats.

Scot Shields is giving up 35.7% fly balls and 35.7% groundballs, both well off his career averages which tend to give him groundballs at a ~50% clip. He's definitely hurt. Arredondo, on the other hand, is trading some outs for line drives, and with his LD% more than 7 points higher than last season, is getting murdered by a .394 BABIP. Ouchies. He's unlucky at the moment.

Overall, it's a mixed bag for the relievers, and their struggles are magnified because the offense sucks. That said, there should be at least small amounts of improvement in the coming weeks.

*Their biggest issue is a lack of team slugging percentage, a problem which would be mitigated by sending Kendrick down, Figgins to second, and Rodriguez/Wood to short or third. This front office can't be as dumb as they act, but...maybe they are.


Lakers

I'm missing tonight's tip-off because I'll be getting murdalyzed in floor hockey, albeit in my own pads this time. That said, the Lakers are playing above-average basketball at the moment, which probably won't be enough to win game 3. Tonight's game will come down to, as always, perimeter shooting/defense. If apparent headcase Rafer Alston can't overcome his shooting woes, and Jameer Nelson continues to suck, then that just means more time for Courtney "Can't Hit a Layup" Lee and JJ "LOL Duke Sucks" Redick, which happens to be great news for the Lakers.

I'd like to see better defensive strategy from both Bynum and Odom. Bynum's strategy thus far has been "aim for the arms," which isn't particularly effective when there are referees around, while LO has been playing "run away from the guy with the ball," which isn't particularly effective unless he's defending me. Odom gets away with bad defense because he does so many other things quite proficiently...Andrew, not so much.

Sasha Vujacic has, by the grace of god, seen very little playing time. Maybe PJ reads this blog. Also, crow alert: Fisher's been playing well.


Miscellany:

• Things no car needs, from personal observation: horn, blinkers, high beams. Everybody uses a horn when they shouldn't, fails to use blinkers when they should, and the only people using high beams are the same assholes using their horn.
• New two-wheeled love interest.
• It's below 50 and raining. Welcome to Boston, please check your pleasant weather at the door.
• PayPal is really good at taking your money, but really bad at returning it.