Borderline Fantastic Sports

These were back-to-back in my Twitter feed.

First, Nate Silver …

Detroit Tigers sign Prince Fielder for 9 years, $214M, per @JonHeymanCBS

— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) January 24, 2012

Then, MLB …

OFFICIAL: @Athletics agree to terms with RHP Bartolo Colon on 1-year contract.

— MLB (@MLB) January 24, 2012

It’s like the same thing repeated. Obviously, teams are at different points in their signing process, so these shouldn’t be compared. But just the fact that they posted so close to each other, and the A’s would never have the chance to sign Price, makes it somewhat interesting.

A while back (3 years ago) I did a Fives listing the teams that are most important to me. My list then:

1. Phillies
2. Penn State Football
3. Flyers
4. Eagles
5. Sixers

It’s not too often that these rankings are actually tested. Sometimes the Phillies and Penn State have games at the same time but that matchup is easily decided by the importance of the game. If the Phillies game has any importance, it will win.

Today is a more interesting matchup. The Flyers in the Winter Classic and Penn State in their bowl game. Thankfully, the Winter Classic was delayed two hours so there isn’t much of an overlap anymore. Still, it got me thinking, and I think the Flyers should pass Penn State on my list.

There is something to be said for the importance of each game.
Winter Classic: In Philly for the first time. The alumni game was so cool. 24/7 has been awesome. Important game against the Rangers.
Ticketcity Bowl: Penn State bowl game. Interesting matchup with Houston.

On the negatives.
Winter Classic: Regular season game.
Ticketcity Bowl: It’s called the Ticketcity Bowl. It doesn’t mean very much for the future of the team.

Head-to-head, the Winter Classic wins. I think the Flyers also move up to #2 in my rankings. I’d rather see them win the Cup than Penn State with the BCS. That might have something to do with the low likelihood of Penn State winning a championship along with the terribleness of the BCS.

The best hope of Penn State retaining that #2 spot: keeping Tom Bradley as head coach.

The Xavier/Cincy fight with post game comments. Watch to the end to see the Cincy coach.

It was easy to be appalled by the Cincy players during the brawl. When I saw it the ESPN anchor said suspensions. Suspensions? One or two of them should be off the team. Then the Cincy coach, Mick Cronin. Wow. Exactly what he should have said. Made the players take off the jerseys and will decide who should get to put it back on. Jump to around 3:20 if you want to see the coach.

I assume no Cincy players spoke to the media after the game, or else ESPN would have shown it. I doubt the coach would have let them. I don’t think the Xavier players should have been out there either. I didn’t think they were wrong talking about being thugs and standing up for themselves, but maybe give it a little time before letting the players speak.

ESPN Story

Favorite Story of the Day.

I probably don’t need to tell you but the Phillie Phanatic was born in the Galapagos Islands.

I didn’t see much about the details of the trip, but based on the pictures this appears to be a book tour as he is trying to sell his book about his adventures in the Galapagos Islands.

So many great pictures, this has to be my favorite:

What that little sea lion must be thinking. Check out all the pictures.

Favorite story of the day. (Actually yesterday, but I didn’t get to it.)

How much fun is that?!? This is a yearly tradition, after the first goal of the game, everyone tosses their stuffed animals onto the ice. Not sure what happens if the home team gets shut out, but it is minor league hockey and in my experience, that doesn’t happen very often.

The home team is the Calgary Hitmen. What are the chances that a team called the hitmen survives in the US?

Found at PuckDaddy.

The Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals AAA) are having Organ Donor Night where they will wear these sweet jerseys:

If you are an organ donor, you are entered to win some prizes, including a keyboard organ (those crazy marketers).

Redbirds Info
Saw this on Uni Watch

I saw part of a quote on SBNation and thought there must have been more to it. I found a more complete version here:

“I sure don’t think of myself as a fat person, just someone who carries extra weight. I’ve never seen anyone on the DL with pulled fat.” – Rod Beck

So simple. How is that not always the argument of heavy athletes? “I’d put on muscle, but all you hear about is guys pulling muscles.” Nice work Rod Beck on this quote that must be 20 years old that I just heard today. Sure hope RB knows about Google Alerts. He’ll be pretty excited today.

By now you’ve read the talk about the potential realignment for baseball. A team moving to the AL. No more divisions. Interleague all the time. Stark’s Rumblings & Grumblings has a good conversation with Olney about it.

No one seems to be talking about solving some of this with expansion or contraction. I don’t think contraction will happen, but why not expansion?

It will take a bit of work. It might lead to more distance between the top teams and the bottom. If they wound up as small market losing teams it would be more competition with the likes of the Pirates and Royals at the top of the draft. My only suggestions to help with this, and this is just for fun, so these could be argued, would be a cap or lower luxury tax threshold, and reworking the draft. Having a global draft with limits on draft pick salaries is a must without my expansion suggestion.

My first shot at the new teams are Portland and Vegas. Rivals for the Mariners and DBacks. This would bring the total to 32 teams, 16 per league. Then the divisions can be divided up with 4 teams in each. For the playoffs there could be no wild card, or two with some sort of bye for the top division winners. Oh, and the World Series homefield is for the league with the better record in interleague, which I have been saying forever. Also, with an even number of teams in each league eliminates that odd NL-only matchup during interleague times of the season, which really screws with the out of town scoreboards.

While I’m making things up, might as well come up with the divisions.

I didn’t do anything drastic. Seems to fit pretty well. I probably screwed up some rivalries, but most of the geographical ones are still in place.

The Blue Jays had 3 triples in a row last night. 3! The best is the announcer saying ‘you don’t see that everyday’ after the 2nd one.

I love triples. I wanted them to be worth more than home runs in my fantasy league. I think we settled on them being worth the same.

More: Baseball Reference blog has some facts including the last time this happened was the Expos in 1981.икони

Somebody Should Explain The Concept Of A Walk Off Win To Chris Berman

Sadly, this can’t be much worse than the usual ESPN announcers. If the video gets taken down, the key quote is, “The Cardinals have seven walk-offs this year, most of them at home.” Ugh.

I watched some of Sunday Night Baseball and got to see how awful the new crew is. I had high hopes after getting rid of Morgan, but that also meant getting rid of Miller. I also had high hopes because when I was at ESPN a few months back and asked about that particular duo (I subtlety hinted how awful they were and the employee subtlety agreed with me) and was told things would be ‘different’. Which to me meant better.