Last night a new king of dog shows was crowned. Stump a Sussex Spaniel won Best In Show at the Westminster Dog Show. Of course, this decrowns, or retires, or whatever you want to call it, Uno the Beagle as the king of dogs. Graciously Uno did a final tour, he even went to the top of the Empire State Building, before making an appearance at Westminster on Monday night. I guess he wanted to make sure the transition went smoothly.
Oh well, all good things must come to an end and this is no exception. I will borrow an idea from the Vatican, which when the pope died referred to John Paul II as John Paul the Great. Uno the Great it is!
Also, tonight we got to see the debut of Jay Beagle for the Caps. (Yes the Caps lost, but it was in a shootout... against a team that is seemingly built for the shootout... and who has a ridiculous number of wins from the shootout.) Anyways, I'm hoping Beagle does well if only so that I can get Gilligan a jersey.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
ESPN's Sports Guy is off his rocker - Part 2
I wrote up the first part of this rant soon after the ESPN's Sports Guy (Bill Simmons) absurdly called DC a "top-3 lousy/indefensible major sports city" but I didn't post it immediately. I rediscovered it this past weekend cleaned it up and posted it today... but I felt like it wasn't complete. I needed to rank, in my opinion, who should be in the "top-3 lousy/indefensible major sports city". (BTW, this may make more sense if you read the first post before reading this one.
So here we go: My thoughts as to who should be considered the "top-3 lousy/indefensible major sports city". First though, we need to establish a few terms and such:
What is a "Major Sports City?"
It seems a bit obvious that we should stick to the traditional "Major Sports" of NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. (Sorry, MLS I'ld include you but until us soccer fans become more of a force I'm keeping MLS off the list. Take it as incentive to build.) But then how do we define the cities?
Do We Include Cities With Only One Sports Team?
There are various teams that only have one sports team: San Antonio (NBA), Salt Lake City (NBA), Portland (NBA), Jacksonville (NFL), various Canadian NHL cities, etc. Since these cities only have one sports team, competition is less and the following is usually pretty good. And when the following isn't all that good, it's usually a result of suckage on the part of the team and consequently it's too easy to pick on the city. For those reasons I probably won't make much mention of them.
There are, however, cities that only have one team but could be joined with neighboring cities (Orlando to Tampa, San Jose to San Francisco, Green Bay to Milwaukee, Columbus to Cleveland and/or Cincinnati, Raleigh to Charlotte, Memphis to Nashville, etc.)? This is tough because I'm going to have to make a rather arbitrary line. We'll go ahead and put the line at being within approximately a one hour drive. So for the purpose of this evaluation, Orlando is now part of Tampa and San Jose is part of San Francisco. The rest remain by themselves. So cities such as Green Bay, Raleigh, and Memphis won't figure much in this discussion for the reasons listed earlier.
Roughly put, if a city only has one major sport AND we can't combine it with another city... you don't really count as a "Major Sports City".
What about "Major Sports Cities" with two sports?
The way I figure there are 11 cities in this category: Baltimore, Buffalo, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, San Diego and Seattle. First, and to drive home the point from the previous post: When it comes to NFL fans, none of these cities' fans can match Redskins fans (the Chiefs probably come closest). Of course, Milwaukee doesn't have an NFL team, but no one would believe you if you tried to say that Brewer or Buck fans are as fervent as Skins fans. The only city whose combined sports fans come close to Washington's fans may be Buffalo... but that is only because DC would be pulled down by the lack of Nats fans (like I said, they're still new). And in "defensibility" Buffalo has the upper hand, since they have no Stanley Cup wins and no Super Bowl wins (their last championship win was an AFL Championship in 1965).
To make things interesting, I'm not going to include these cities. That way, it will be even more obvious that Simmons doesn't know what he's talking about.
What about "Major Sports Cities" with three sports?
This is where things get interesting. By my count there are 5 cities which definitely fit this category: Cleveland, Houston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Toronto. Now if we we're to include these towns, Houston would probably be the only one in consideration for the top side of lousy/indefensible sports cities. Not to say they're definite but Cleveland and Pittsburgh have great football fans, St. Louis has great baseball fans and Toronto has great hockey fans. Houston's best fans are probably their football fans, but they gave up on the Oilers and were given a team most because of the efforts of the city of Cleveland to get their football team back.
The interesting part is how to include San Francisco and Oakland. Each has a NFL and a MLB team but do we put the Warriors under Oakland or San Francisco? Or both? Hard to say, but I won't worry about it since they not making the Top 3.
Dealing with how "Lousy" and "Indefensible" a fan base is.
The tough part of this is to gauge how defensible the lousiness is. (Did that make any sense?) For instance, Nats fans "lousiness" is defensible in that, aside from an interesting overachieving first season which still ended with a .500 record, the team has sucked since it's been here AND they've only been here for 4 years. On the other hand, the Marlin's fans "lousiness" isn't defensible because they have two World Series trophies in the past 11 years AND are last in MLB attendance by a huge margin. Their only defensible point is that they're relatively young at 15 years of existence.
Finally: The Top 3...
Did I say Top 3? Heck, I'll do a Top 5! Here is my list, in no particular order:
So of the 14 cities (that doesn't include San Fransisco or Oakland) that have four or more professional teams, those are the top lousy/indefensible 5 cities. And if we include San Fransisco, Oakland, and the 5 "three team cities", we would definitely need to give San Fransisco and Houston a good look before even considering putting DC on that list.
So here we go: My thoughts as to who should be considered the "top-3 lousy/indefensible major sports city". First though, we need to establish a few terms and such:
What is a "Major Sports City?"
It seems a bit obvious that we should stick to the traditional "Major Sports" of NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. (Sorry, MLS I'ld include you but until us soccer fans become more of a force I'm keeping MLS off the list. Take it as incentive to build.) But then how do we define the cities?
Do We Include Cities With Only One Sports Team?
There are various teams that only have one sports team: San Antonio (NBA), Salt Lake City (NBA), Portland (NBA), Jacksonville (NFL), various Canadian NHL cities, etc. Since these cities only have one sports team, competition is less and the following is usually pretty good. And when the following isn't all that good, it's usually a result of suckage on the part of the team and consequently it's too easy to pick on the city. For those reasons I probably won't make much mention of them.
There are, however, cities that only have one team but could be joined with neighboring cities (Orlando to Tampa, San Jose to San Francisco, Green Bay to Milwaukee, Columbus to Cleveland and/or Cincinnati, Raleigh to Charlotte, Memphis to Nashville, etc.)? This is tough because I'm going to have to make a rather arbitrary line. We'll go ahead and put the line at being within approximately a one hour drive. So for the purpose of this evaluation, Orlando is now part of Tampa and San Jose is part of San Francisco. The rest remain by themselves. So cities such as Green Bay, Raleigh, and Memphis won't figure much in this discussion for the reasons listed earlier.
Roughly put, if a city only has one major sport AND we can't combine it with another city... you don't really count as a "Major Sports City".
What about "Major Sports Cities" with two sports?
The way I figure there are 11 cities in this category: Baltimore, Buffalo, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, San Diego and Seattle. First, and to drive home the point from the previous post: When it comes to NFL fans, none of these cities' fans can match Redskins fans (the Chiefs probably come closest). Of course, Milwaukee doesn't have an NFL team, but no one would believe you if you tried to say that Brewer or Buck fans are as fervent as Skins fans. The only city whose combined sports fans come close to Washington's fans may be Buffalo... but that is only because DC would be pulled down by the lack of Nats fans (like I said, they're still new). And in "defensibility" Buffalo has the upper hand, since they have no Stanley Cup wins and no Super Bowl wins (their last championship win was an AFL Championship in 1965).
To make things interesting, I'm not going to include these cities. That way, it will be even more obvious that Simmons doesn't know what he's talking about.
What about "Major Sports Cities" with three sports?
This is where things get interesting. By my count there are 5 cities which definitely fit this category: Cleveland, Houston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Toronto. Now if we we're to include these towns, Houston would probably be the only one in consideration for the top side of lousy/indefensible sports cities. Not to say they're definite but Cleveland and Pittsburgh have great football fans, St. Louis has great baseball fans and Toronto has great hockey fans. Houston's best fans are probably their football fans, but they gave up on the Oilers and were given a team most because of the efforts of the city of Cleveland to get their football team back.
The interesting part is how to include San Francisco and Oakland. Each has a NFL and a MLB team but do we put the Warriors under Oakland or San Francisco? Or both? Hard to say, but I won't worry about it since they not making the Top 3.
Dealing with how "Lousy" and "Indefensible" a fan base is.
The tough part of this is to gauge how defensible the lousiness is. (Did that make any sense?) For instance, Nats fans "lousiness" is defensible in that, aside from an interesting overachieving first season which still ended with a .500 record, the team has sucked since it's been here AND they've only been here for 4 years. On the other hand, the Marlin's fans "lousiness" isn't defensible because they have two World Series trophies in the past 11 years AND are last in MLB attendance by a huge margin. Their only defensible point is that they're relatively young at 15 years of existence.
Finally: The Top 3...
Did I say Top 3? Heck, I'll do a Top 5! Here is my list, in no particular order:
- I definitely agree that Phoenix deserves to be on the list if only because they had problems selling out the D-Back's (who won a World Series 7 years ago!) playoff games last year. Who knows, maybe they're just more into the ASU Sun Devils than anything else?
- Considering Los Angeles has 2 NHL teams, 2 NBA teams and 2 MLB teams, they deserve to be on this list because they don't seem to care about the NFL. Yes, the Lakers and Dodgers have a good fan base, but 2 out of 6 is not good enough for a place with so many professional teams. (BTW, they even have 2 MLS Teams!)
- Miami. If I were ranking them, I would almost put Miami above Atlanta. Despite 2 World Series titles in the past 12 years and 1 NBA title (three years ago), the Marlins are last in attendance and the Heat aren't in the top half of attendance percentage.
- Tampa Bay/Orlando. They've got a Stanley Cup and Super Bowl trophy in the 2000s and neither fan base is "hefty". I guess it makes sense, since the oldest of their teams is from the 70s, and pretty much sucked until their Super Bowl win. Oh well, I guess if I lived in Florida I wouldn't care as much about sports, aside from football, either.
- Atlanta was mentioned by Simmons, but I'm not too sure about their inclusion in the top 3. Their lack of overall support is "defensible" in that, aside from the Braves, they've got no championships. I would put them in the top 5 though, because considering how good the Braves were in the 90s they're barely in the top half in home attendance last year (they're in the bottom half in attendance percentage, i.e. how full their stadium gets).
So of the 14 cities (that doesn't include San Fransisco or Oakland) that have four or more professional teams, those are the top lousy/indefensible 5 cities. And if we include San Fransisco, Oakland, and the 5 "three team cities", we would definitely need to give San Fransisco and Houston a good look before even considering putting DC on that list.
ESPN's "Sports Guy" is official off his rocker
Back in the early 2000s I used to read ESPN.com and CNNSI.com all the time, since they were the big time online sources for sports. Particularly, I liked reading Page 2's "The Sports Guy" (formerly "The Boston Sports Guy") because he melded pop culture references, stretching back to the 80s, with sports. And of course it helped that, growing up in a town without a baseball team, I was a Red Sox fan.
His view of things was helped by the fact that, besides the success of the Celtics in the early 80s, Boston was woeful in terms of sports. The Patriots were the laughing stock of the league. Maybe the Pats weren't the Saints or Lions but they were the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings. The Bruins, aside from getting pummeled twice in the late 80s by the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup finals, had done nothing since the times of the Original Six. And the Red Sox were... well the pre-2004 Red Sox.
Additionally, it didn't matter that aside from the NBA and to a lesser extent MLB, he was full of it (for example, listen to his recent thoughts about MLB pitcher Troy Percival). He didn't care about soccer and he didn't talk about the NHL, claiming that he "divorced" the Bruins. He spent a lot of time writing about the NFL, but it was pretty obvious that although he knew a lot about the game, he was terrifically wrong with his predictions and saw the league through his newly Patriot colored glasses. You see right as he got big, so did the Patriots and he conveniently avoided the fact that although technically a dynasty (in terms or Super Bowls won over time), the Patriots were anything but dominating. He also ignored the fact that the AFC consisted of only one true threat to the Patriot's dominance (The Colts) and that their Super Bowl wins were a result of last minute field goals and playing against Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb. By the way, do I need to mention the fact that cheating could very easily account for how slightly better the Patriot's coaching seemed to be?
Anyways, I stopped reading mostly because many of his ideas proved to be wrong and his writing became cocky and annoying. I particularly remember his whiny self-pitying article about how he got beat at the WSOP in the first 3 hours. That article was the point when I stopped consistently reading him. He became like a dumbed-down version of Dennis Miller with too many sarcastic analogies and too little actual information.
I would still read his weekly NFL picks, mostly wanting to get to the part where he would pick against the Redskins and all but assure a Skins win that week. Of course, he would finish right around 50% with his picks (in other words no better than a coin flip) and to make matters worse he would lose to his wife (who apparently knew zippy about football). But recently, I starting reading him consistently again... I think the Tom Brady injury brought me back. I guess I felt bad but I also (to be honest with some schadenfreude) wanted to see his reactions.
Unsurprisingly, he was just as lost with his predictions (see how he thought Red Sox were still alive and how he blows off his incorrect NFL rankings by calling it the "goofiest NFL season in six years"). But it all culminated in a "chat" he had a while back where he lumped Washington with Phoenix and LA in something he called the "top-3 lousy/indefensible major sports city."
Once again his lack of NFL knowledge is blatantly obvious since he apparently has no idea of the love this town has for the Redskins. That alone would eliminate DC from this list. Not to mention the fact that the Capitals have a DEVOTED following (just do a search for the various Caps blogs on the internet) in spite of their lack of championships, that the Nats just finished their 4th season here, and that DC United has essentially the biggest and most devoted following in MLS (but like I said he doesn't care about soccer). Now, I'll admit that the Wizards following isn't great considering they've got a championship 30 years ago, but then again it was 30 years ago. So I'll agree that the Wizards following MAY be "lousy/indefensible" but he's insane for suggesting that DC is in general a lousy/indefensible major sports city.
His view of things was helped by the fact that, besides the success of the Celtics in the early 80s, Boston was woeful in terms of sports. The Patriots were the laughing stock of the league. Maybe the Pats weren't the Saints or Lions but they were the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings. The Bruins, aside from getting pummeled twice in the late 80s by the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup finals, had done nothing since the times of the Original Six. And the Red Sox were... well the pre-2004 Red Sox.
Additionally, it didn't matter that aside from the NBA and to a lesser extent MLB, he was full of it (for example, listen to his recent thoughts about MLB pitcher Troy Percival). He didn't care about soccer and he didn't talk about the NHL, claiming that he "divorced" the Bruins. He spent a lot of time writing about the NFL, but it was pretty obvious that although he knew a lot about the game, he was terrifically wrong with his predictions and saw the league through his newly Patriot colored glasses. You see right as he got big, so did the Patriots and he conveniently avoided the fact that although technically a dynasty (in terms or Super Bowls won over time), the Patriots were anything but dominating. He also ignored the fact that the AFC consisted of only one true threat to the Patriot's dominance (The Colts) and that their Super Bowl wins were a result of last minute field goals and playing against Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb. By the way, do I need to mention the fact that cheating could very easily account for how slightly better the Patriot's coaching seemed to be?
Anyways, I stopped reading mostly because many of his ideas proved to be wrong and his writing became cocky and annoying. I particularly remember his whiny self-pitying article about how he got beat at the WSOP in the first 3 hours. That article was the point when I stopped consistently reading him. He became like a dumbed-down version of Dennis Miller with too many sarcastic analogies and too little actual information.
I would still read his weekly NFL picks, mostly wanting to get to the part where he would pick against the Redskins and all but assure a Skins win that week. Of course, he would finish right around 50% with his picks (in other words no better than a coin flip) and to make matters worse he would lose to his wife (who apparently knew zippy about football). But recently, I starting reading him consistently again... I think the Tom Brady injury brought me back. I guess I felt bad but I also (to be honest with some schadenfreude) wanted to see his reactions.
Unsurprisingly, he was just as lost with his predictions (see how he thought Red Sox were still alive and how he blows off his incorrect NFL rankings by calling it the "goofiest NFL season in six years"). But it all culminated in a "chat" he had a while back where he lumped Washington with Phoenix and LA in something he called the "top-3 lousy/indefensible major sports city."
Once again his lack of NFL knowledge is blatantly obvious since he apparently has no idea of the love this town has for the Redskins. That alone would eliminate DC from this list. Not to mention the fact that the Capitals have a DEVOTED following (just do a search for the various Caps blogs on the internet) in spite of their lack of championships, that the Nats just finished their 4th season here, and that DC United has essentially the biggest and most devoted following in MLS (but like I said he doesn't care about soccer). Now, I'll admit that the Wizards following isn't great considering they've got a championship 30 years ago, but then again it was 30 years ago. So I'll agree that the Wizards following MAY be "lousy/indefensible" but he's insane for suggesting that DC is in general a lousy/indefensible major sports city.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
TV: American Idol and Important Things
This evening marks the return of American Idol for its eighth season. The good news is that I'm taking the adding of Kara DioGuardi as a fourth judge as a step away from the "kinder, gentler" Idol we saw last season. Not only is DioGuardi supposedly a tough judge, I'm hoping they show more of the "not so good" folk... but only the next few days will tell.
Hope is most certainly alive though with what I'm calling the best new show I haven't seen: Important Things with Demetri Martin. Like I said, I've yet to see it (it debuts in February) but it's Demetri Martin's show and that is good enough. The guy is seriously hilarious, kind of like a sober Mitch Hedberg. Anyways, I'm looking forward to it and so should you... if you want a taste go ahead and do a quick youtube for his comedy.
Hope is most certainly alive though with what I'm calling the best new show I haven't seen: Important Things with Demetri Martin. Like I said, I've yet to see it (it debuts in February) but it's Demetri Martin's show and that is good enough. The guy is seriously hilarious, kind of like a sober Mitch Hedberg. Anyways, I'm looking forward to it and so should you... if you want a taste go ahead and do a quick youtube for his comedy.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Friday, December 19, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Stores with Online Shopping and In-Store Pickup
A while back I needed to buy a present for someone. It was too late to order it online and have it shipped, and I didn't feel like going to a bunch of different stores to comparing items, prices and stock. So I used Best Buy's in-store pick up system.
Now, these systems aren't perfect (just yesterday I went to pick up 2 DVDs and they only had one ready) but they are nice in a pinch. So, I've decided to start a list of places that have online ordering with In-store pickup. Just to clear things up, these are stores that, through their website, let you see if an item is in stock at your local store, purchase it online, and then pick it up... usually within about an hour.
Note that this is different then stores like Wal-Mart and REI, which allow you to buy something online and ship it to a store for free. Very cool, but with those stores you have to wait about a week or more for those items to arrive. (I should mention that, with REI, you can call a store with an item number to see if they have that item in stock and have them hold the item for you.)
Sure it's a short list but I'll keep adding to it when I find/hear about others.
Now, these systems aren't perfect (just yesterday I went to pick up 2 DVDs and they only had one ready) but they are nice in a pinch. So, I've decided to start a list of places that have online ordering with In-store pickup. Just to clear things up, these are stores that, through their website, let you see if an item is in stock at your local store, purchase it online, and then pick it up... usually within about an hour.
Note that this is different then stores like Wal-Mart and REI, which allow you to buy something online and ship it to a store for free. Very cool, but with those stores you have to wait about a week or more for those items to arrive. (I should mention that, with REI, you can call a store with an item number to see if they have that item in stock and have them hold the item for you.)
- Best Buy - www.bestbuy.com
- Sears - www.sears.com
- Circuit City - www.circuitcity.com
- The Container Store - www.containerstore.com
- MicroCenter - www.microcenter.com
Sure it's a short list but I'll keep adding to it when I find/hear about others.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Jim White
One of my favorite lesser known artists (I least I think he's lesser known) is Jim White. A singer and writer of songs and stories, I first heard of White 10 years ago during the closing credits of the movie Home Fries. The song used was "Heaven of My Heart."
The original version can be had by purchasing his album Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Included in the liner note of that album is a short story written by White called "The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus". It's a pretty entertaining story, which makes the CD even better. Equally entertaining is his short story "Blessing and Curses."
The original version can be had by purchasing his album Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Included in the liner note of that album is a short story written by White called "The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus". It's a pretty entertaining story, which makes the CD even better. Equally entertaining is his short story "Blessing and Curses."
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
What Would We Do, Baby, Without us... Sha-na-na-na!
Without a doubt, the best use of the term "Sha-Na-Na-Na" in a song. Also, extra points for the use of the phrase "ain't no nothing."
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
My take on ESPN's ranking of the best NFL Teams
ESPN has gone done it again. They decided to rank the best NFL teams, since the NFL-AFL merger. Now, you may remember when I wrote about how they butchered their list of best Super Bowl teams (and placed the 1991 Redskins at #10). One of my main issues with that list was that it was pretty arbitrary... there was no tangible explanation or formula to their madness.
Well, fortunately this time they gave their list a formula. But, of course, they seem to have butchered the formula this time around. My main issue with this formula is the serious underscoring of Super Bowl championships. I'll elaborate on this as we go along but let's start where they seemed to have started:
Winning percentage: I don't really have a problem with this calculation in which a team gets one point per mill (i.e. .500 = 500 points). The difference between the best (.608) and worst (.333) percentages is 275 points, and that seems like a fair start. However....
Super Bowls: Like I said, they SERIOUSLY underscore a Super Bowl win (50 pts) and they terribly overscore a Super Bowl loss (25 pts). To them, it is better to lose three Super Bowls (75 pts) than it is to win one (50 pts). Now if the ridiculousness of that calculations isn't apparent, just ask any Bills fans if they would trade their four Super Bowl losses (100 pts) for two Super Bowl wins and two AFC championship losses (100 pts). 50 points for a Super Bowl win would start to seem right if a Super Bowl loss was worth nothing, especially considering my next point.
Playoff victories: Ten points per playoff victory seems high. I just can't convince myself that five playoff wins is the same as a Super Bowl win. But even if we agree that 5 playoff wins is the same as a Super Bowl win, this high value is an even stronger argument for making a Super Bowl loss worth nothing.
Put it this way, the loser of NFC or AFC Championship can score as little as ten points (If they had a playoff bye). The winner of that Championship game (who goes on to lose the Super Bowl) can score as many as 55 points. That means that the difference between winning the NFC or AFC Championship can be 45 points, which as you know is almost the same as winning a Super Bowl.
12-win season and Four-win season: First, why 12 and 4 wins? Why not 11 and 5 or 10 and 6? It seems extremely arbitrary and excessive to grant 10 points (remember this is the same as a playoff win or 1/5th of a Super Bowl) for a 12-4 season, but a 11-5 season gets no points.
Additionally, these artificial plateaus don't take in to account strength of schedule. It should come as no surprise that New England's 4 12-plus win seasons have come in the past 5 years. So because the Pats were fortunate enough to have 6 games per season against the lowly Bills, Jets and Dolphins they get an extra 40 points. They essentially get a Super Bowl win because they played in a weak conference.
All-Pros: Now here is where things start getting silly. First, five points is just way too much (that's 1/10th of a Super Bowl!). Second, why only 1st team All-Pros? Why ignore the 2nd team and Pro-Bowl selections? Third, All-Pro selections vary because it's not just the Associated Press making selections. For instance check out the 1987 All-Pro selections in John Elway was 1st team for NEA and Sporting News and Joe Montana was 1st team for the AP, Pro Football Writers, and Pro Football Weekly. So why is one of these organizations selections better than the others?
Besides, what does it matter? All-Pro selections are the epitome of individual achievement and we're talking about the best teams, not the teams with the best individual players. And, yes, I can understand looking for a way to measure "Individual Star Power" but All-Pro selections are not the way to do it. You're just not going to get "star power" from most of the positions... Honestly, who was the last "star" All-Pro center or defensive tackle?
"MNF": MNF, which stands for Monday Night Football appearances... Did I mention how this is getting silly? At least they're not giving this more than one point, but even one point seems excessive.
Coaching changes: Now we're heading back to ridiculous land. So let me get this straight, a coaching change (-10 pts) negates a playoff win? And if that's not dumb enough, they count interim coaches! I don't even know how to respond to how stupid that is. At least the difference between the most (New England with -120) and least (Houston and Jacksonville with -10) coaching changes isn't huge at 110 points, but it still represents the equivalent of more than 2 Super Bowl wins. Are you following me here with the idea that Super Bowls are scored too low.
Crushing postseason defeats: I understand what they're trying to do here, but there are too many problems with the way they did it. First, this is WAY overscored. Two of these and you practically negate a Super Bowl win? Second, why limit this list to only 25 games. Third, I seriously doubt the Music City Miracle which was a Wild Card game, was as crushing a defeat as the Patriots loss to the Giants in the Super Bowl earlier this year. Finally, there are no points for being on the winning end of those games. I'm sure it's even sweeter for Giants fans that they defeated the 17-0 Patriots.
Busts: Here we have landed smack dab in the middle of Dumb-land. First, the 10 points lost here are WAY too much. If we are to believe this, the Chicago Bears' lone Super Bowl is practically 1/2 negated by their two busts. Second, not all busts are the same. As a Redskins fan, I can assure you that wide receiver Michael Westbrook (#50 on the list) wasn't anywhere near as disappointing as quarterback Heath Shuler (#4 on the list). At least we got one respectable season out of Westbrook. But in the eyes of ESPN they were equal. Third, why only count draft busts and not free agent and trade busts?
So with that said, and with much more emphasis on Super Bowl wins allow me to reorder the top 10:
So once again I disagree with where the ESPN ranks the Skins: 5th place at worst for me vs 8th place for ESPN. Well that should be no surprise I guess... since obviously they're wrong.
Well, fortunately this time they gave their list a formula. But, of course, they seem to have butchered the formula this time around. My main issue with this formula is the serious underscoring of Super Bowl championships. I'll elaborate on this as we go along but let's start where they seemed to have started:
Winning percentage: I don't really have a problem with this calculation in which a team gets one point per mill (i.e. .500 = 500 points). The difference between the best (.608) and worst (.333) percentages is 275 points, and that seems like a fair start. However....
Super Bowls: Like I said, they SERIOUSLY underscore a Super Bowl win (50 pts) and they terribly overscore a Super Bowl loss (25 pts). To them, it is better to lose three Super Bowls (75 pts) than it is to win one (50 pts). Now if the ridiculousness of that calculations isn't apparent, just ask any Bills fans if they would trade their four Super Bowl losses (100 pts) for two Super Bowl wins and two AFC championship losses (100 pts). 50 points for a Super Bowl win would start to seem right if a Super Bowl loss was worth nothing, especially considering my next point.
Playoff victories: Ten points per playoff victory seems high. I just can't convince myself that five playoff wins is the same as a Super Bowl win. But even if we agree that 5 playoff wins is the same as a Super Bowl win, this high value is an even stronger argument for making a Super Bowl loss worth nothing.
Put it this way, the loser of NFC or AFC Championship can score as little as ten points (If they had a playoff bye). The winner of that Championship game (who goes on to lose the Super Bowl) can score as many as 55 points. That means that the difference between winning the NFC or AFC Championship can be 45 points, which as you know is almost the same as winning a Super Bowl.
12-win season and Four-win season: First, why 12 and 4 wins? Why not 11 and 5 or 10 and 6? It seems extremely arbitrary and excessive to grant 10 points (remember this is the same as a playoff win or 1/5th of a Super Bowl) for a 12-4 season, but a 11-5 season gets no points.
Additionally, these artificial plateaus don't take in to account strength of schedule. It should come as no surprise that New England's 4 12-plus win seasons have come in the past 5 years. So because the Pats were fortunate enough to have 6 games per season against the lowly Bills, Jets and Dolphins they get an extra 40 points. They essentially get a Super Bowl win because they played in a weak conference.
All-Pros: Now here is where things start getting silly. First, five points is just way too much (that's 1/10th of a Super Bowl!). Second, why only 1st team All-Pros? Why ignore the 2nd team and Pro-Bowl selections? Third, All-Pro selections vary because it's not just the Associated Press making selections. For instance check out the 1987 All-Pro selections in John Elway was 1st team for NEA and Sporting News and Joe Montana was 1st team for the AP, Pro Football Writers, and Pro Football Weekly. So why is one of these organizations selections better than the others?
Besides, what does it matter? All-Pro selections are the epitome of individual achievement and we're talking about the best teams, not the teams with the best individual players. And, yes, I can understand looking for a way to measure "Individual Star Power" but All-Pro selections are not the way to do it. You're just not going to get "star power" from most of the positions... Honestly, who was the last "star" All-Pro center or defensive tackle?
"MNF": MNF, which stands for Monday Night Football appearances... Did I mention how this is getting silly? At least they're not giving this more than one point, but even one point seems excessive.
Coaching changes: Now we're heading back to ridiculous land. So let me get this straight, a coaching change (-10 pts) negates a playoff win? And if that's not dumb enough, they count interim coaches! I don't even know how to respond to how stupid that is. At least the difference between the most (New England with -120) and least (Houston and Jacksonville with -10) coaching changes isn't huge at 110 points, but it still represents the equivalent of more than 2 Super Bowl wins. Are you following me here with the idea that Super Bowls are scored too low.
Crushing postseason defeats: I understand what they're trying to do here, but there are too many problems with the way they did it. First, this is WAY overscored. Two of these and you practically negate a Super Bowl win? Second, why limit this list to only 25 games. Third, I seriously doubt the Music City Miracle which was a Wild Card game, was as crushing a defeat as the Patriots loss to the Giants in the Super Bowl earlier this year. Finally, there are no points for being on the winning end of those games. I'm sure it's even sweeter for Giants fans that they defeated the 17-0 Patriots.
Busts: Here we have landed smack dab in the middle of Dumb-land. First, the 10 points lost here are WAY too much. If we are to believe this, the Chicago Bears' lone Super Bowl is practically 1/2 negated by their two busts. Second, not all busts are the same. As a Redskins fan, I can assure you that wide receiver Michael Westbrook (#50 on the list) wasn't anywhere near as disappointing as quarterback Heath Shuler (#4 on the list). At least we got one respectable season out of Westbrook. But in the eyes of ESPN they were equal. Third, why only count draft busts and not free agent and trade busts?
So with that said, and with much more emphasis on Super Bowl wins allow me to reorder the top 10:
- Dallas Cowboys - I can agree with them being first over the 49ers and Steelers for one reason, their 5 Super Bowls are the most evenly spread out.
- Pittsburgh Steelers - I put them in front of the 49ers because they have been more consistent than the 49ers and although most of their Super Bowl wins were in the mid to late 70s, they did finally get their fifth a few years ago.
- San Francisco 49ers - So far I've agreed with ESPN and that won't change here. As ESPN notes, their glory days span 16 years in the 1980s and early 90s. Aside from that time they have been less than stellar.
- Oakland Raiders - Here is the first point I disagree with ESPN. Basically, to me going 3-1 in Super Bowls is better than going 2-3 especially when Oakland's last SB appearance and victory were more recent. Sure the timeline shouldn't matter for the formula (a SB I win is as good as a SB XXX win), but I still think Oakland has a better overall history.
- New England Patriots - I can certainly see an argument for putting the Pats before the Raiders, but Oakland has the better overall winning percentage and not as many SB loses. In fact, I think Oakland, New England and the next team area all very close.
- Washington Redskins - I was tempted to put the Skins above the Pats but, besides the fact that I could easily make a case for the Skins (better winning percentage, not as many SB loses), I just didn't want to seem like such a homer. But like I said before spots 3-5 could very easily be considered spots 3a, 3b and 3c.
So once again I disagree with where the ESPN ranks the Skins: 5th place at worst for me vs 8th place for ESPN. Well that should be no surprise I guess... since obviously they're wrong.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The 2007-2008 NBA Season: Why I now hate the NBA
I've mentioned before how I couldn't watch the NBA, mostly because of referees (notice that complaint came a year before the Tim Donaghy Scandal). Well, this year's NBA Finals is just reinforcing my aversion.
The Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics seem to be everyone's dream final... especially the NBA's dream. Well, it's definitely not mine. Not that I wanted Spurs vs. Pistons, but at least those two teams weren't gift-wrapped trips to the Finals. Both the Celtics and Lakers benefited from ridiculously lopsided trades which virtually guaranteed their conference championships.
The Celtics were first, when former Celtic and current Timberwolves executive Kevin McHale sent Kevin Garnett to Boston. The Timberwolves essentially received the Celtics bleak future of young players. The Lakers on the other hand received Pau Gasol for... well, aside from Kwame Brown I don't even know what they got. Sounds fair doesn't it?
Think about it, a year ago if you could have placed a bet against a Lakers-Celtics final this year you would have taken that in a heartbeat. The Celtics were young and completely unremarkable and the Lakers had ONE good player who didn't even want to play there anymore. Now they're playing each other for the championship. I won't scream NBA conspiracy, but it's enough to make you think.
The Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics seem to be everyone's dream final... especially the NBA's dream. Well, it's definitely not mine. Not that I wanted Spurs vs. Pistons, but at least those two teams weren't gift-wrapped trips to the Finals. Both the Celtics and Lakers benefited from ridiculously lopsided trades which virtually guaranteed their conference championships.
The Celtics were first, when former Celtic and current Timberwolves executive Kevin McHale sent Kevin Garnett to Boston. The Timberwolves essentially received the Celtics bleak future of young players. The Lakers on the other hand received Pau Gasol for... well, aside from Kwame Brown I don't even know what they got. Sounds fair doesn't it?
Think about it, a year ago if you could have placed a bet against a Lakers-Celtics final this year you would have taken that in a heartbeat. The Celtics were young and completely unremarkable and the Lakers had ONE good player who didn't even want to play there anymore. Now they're playing each other for the championship. I won't scream NBA conspiracy, but it's enough to make you think.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Gummi Bears! Bouncing Here and There and Everywhere!
A little while back I linked to the DuckTales opening theme song over at Youtube. I even gave you a bunch of different languages, so you could imagine yourself enjoying DuckTales as a young spanish, slovak... or whatever language speaking youth.
Well here is the Gummi Bears Theme:
This time, instead of Gummi Bears in different languages (which you could conceivably just look up yourself) I'm linking to this interesting Techno version of the Gummi Bears Theme Techno version:
Well here is the Gummi Bears Theme:
This time, instead of Gummi Bears in different languages (which you could conceivably just look up yourself) I'm linking to this interesting Techno version of the Gummi Bears Theme Techno version:
Friday, May 02, 2008
Nat's Attendance Woes
So much hoopla was made about how the Nats drew a paltry 20,487 fans in their second game at Nationals Park. Yeah, it sucked... but I'm still making excuses and here they are (in order of importance/reason):
So sure one or two of these factors and it's not a big deal, but this truly was a "Perfect Storm" against the Nats. Although I think the first factor was the biggest reason, all of those things combined just made for a low turn out.
But not to worry, despite the fact that, until a few nights ago, the Nats had the worst record in the majors, the Nats are doing okay attendance-wise coming in at #15 according to ESPN. And don't forget that every team from #1 to #14 has a real MLB history, except for the Colorado Rockies, who went to the World Series last year. Now I'm not saying Washington will be a great baseball town, but I think we'll do just fine.
- Over a week from game 1 to game 2 - These people seem to be missing this fairly important point: The Nats opened Nationals Park with a single game "series", after which they went on a week long road trip. Home Game #1 was on Sunday, March 30th and Home Game #2 came over a week later on Monday, April 7th. Pittsburgh, who was lauded for having 35,045 fans in their game following opening day, had a slightly similar situation. The Pirates had a 3 game series to open PNC Park, and then went on a road trip. When the came back a week later they drew 20,128 fans. And not coincidentally that game was on a...
- Monday night - Capital Punishment compared it to other weeknight game #2, but that entirely ignores that it not only was a weeknight, but it was a Monday night. The following game, on a Wednesday, drew 23,340 fans. Sure, not a huge improvement, but definitely an improvement considering the Wizards and DC United also had homes games that night.
- The Opponent (Florida Marlins) - Capital Punishment glosses over this point by saying "Want lousy opponents? How 'bout the Brewers?" to which I respond: No, not the Brewers. Consider that the Brewers actually draw fans and the Marlins just don't. They don't even draw fans to their own stadium in Miami.
- The Nats don't have a history and just aren't that good - It's just not fair to compare Washington to the rest of the league because the Nats don't have a history here (even if you include the Senators, their last Washington World Series appearance was 1933) and all other recent expansion teams started play in a new stadium, save for the Colorado Rockies who waited only 2 years for Coors Field and were actually a good team that year (they started 7-1, as opposed to the Nats 3-4 record when they returned for the monday night game 2).
- It was 50 degrees - Sure, Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago drew more people on similar weather, but all of those are cold weather towns AND those games were the next game following the opening day.
- NCAA Final Four - The NCAA College Basketball Final Four was on that same night.
- Local Sports competition - The DC sports media was enthralled with the Washington Capitals who had, just that Saturday, made the playoffs with a seven game winning streak to end the season. The Wizards were likewise headed to the playoffs. When you don't have a "time-rooted" following and you've been gone for a week, it helps to have the media pump up game 2 at the new ballpark... which the media absolutely did not.
So sure one or two of these factors and it's not a big deal, but this truly was a "Perfect Storm" against the Nats. Although I think the first factor was the biggest reason, all of those things combined just made for a low turn out.
But not to worry, despite the fact that, until a few nights ago, the Nats had the worst record in the majors, the Nats are doing okay attendance-wise coming in at #15 according to ESPN. And don't forget that every team from #1 to #14 has a real MLB history, except for the Colorado Rockies, who went to the World Series last year. Now I'm not saying Washington will be a great baseball town, but I think we'll do just fine.
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