Borderline Fantastic Sports

I was checking out ESPN’s Home Run Tracker today and found something very interesting. Jamie Moyer is #5 in the NL in Home Runs with an 0-2 count. Only four players have done it so far this year, so somehow, out of all the other players in the league, Jamie Moyer’s name came out on top.

One strange thing about the HR Tracker, it randomly selects these situational stats. The 0-2 count one seems to be most rare. I must have reloaded 100 times trying to find it again.

I didn’t watch the championship. I watched the entire tourney up to the last game. My bracket had been done for a while. I was pulling for Michigan St but it wasn’t close from the start. I checked in and saw it was a 20 point game and went to bed. I’ve stayed up in the past just to see One Shining Moment, but I wouldn’t of made it. So here it is, in its web glory.

I went down to Florida for Spring Training a few weeks ago. I flew down on a Thursday night and back on Monday morning. It was a quick trip. I was able to squeeze in 3 games: Marlins @ Red Sox in Ft. Myers, Pirates @ Twins, in Ft. Myers and Phillies @ Braves in Disney.

I took along my new camera, a Canon XSi. I have no idea how to use it yet. Luckily I saw all day games and it was bright and sunny. I also had amazing tickets for 2 of the games. Here are my favorites:

Baseball Pickem is all set to go. Some changes for this year. Picking every series was a bit overwhelming. Instead I am going to come up with 10 series to pick each week. If you create a custom group, you can adjust that number. Also for custom groups you can select to use wager points as in all the other pickem games. Get over there and make your picks!

Here are the 10 top rated series for the first week:

I think Obama knows more than me about college basketball this year. My question is, what happens when everything goes just like this? Don’t you have to support our president and throw the game if he didn’t pick you?

Make your bracket picks!

I originally created Ice Cream Helmet two years ago for Baseball Picks. I had some extra time and decided to do the Tourney. I’d been disappointed by the options to customize the experience and I wanted to make it more social.

It hasn’t been as easy or successful as I had hoped. Although I’m pretty sure the other sites have more resources to throw at the game than I do. From what I have seen, the other sites have improved over the past two years.

Now that Ice Cream Helmet has so many different games, the competition can run throughout all of them. The only issue is making sure that people do their ICH Picks. At first, that required making a different set of picks. I’m simplified that over time. If the group has the same type of settings as the ICH settings, then the picked will carry over. Situations where the settings are different are things like football groups choosing to not use spreads.

Using the ICH Picks can spread into all sorts of rankings. You could compare yourself against your ICH Friends. Compare with other fans of a particular team or school. Compare against members of ‘teams’ (sort of like groups but they aren’t tied to one specific game). Really, rankings could be made based on any sort of information a member provided. Not much of this has been implemented. My hope was to slowly work out these features as membership grew. If the only people playing are in my group, then there isn’t much use in these additional features.

So sign up and make your picks for the Tourny on ICH.

Today I added the pick distribution so you can get an idea of what people are picking. Right now only Pitt, UNC, and UConn are getting any love to win it all.

Laettner & Pitino in a Vitamen Water Ad

The Onion breaking the news that the NCAA tourney is expanding to 4,096 teams.

Half Court Shot Prank at Maryland.

Stories behind some odd college mascots.

Randy Moller is one strange hockey announcer.

It’s been a while since I loaded up ESPN360. Probably since early in the college football season when there would be an upset in the making that wasn’t on any of my TV channels. It wasn’t great the best. It seemed to slowdown my whole computer.

I checked it out today because of all the conference tournaments going on. I wanted to see what games I could listen to while I was at work. The key games during the day were both at 2:30: Villanova/Marquette and St. Joe’s/Temple. The Big East is solid, they provide audio for the games free on bigeast.tv. The A10, not so much. On ESPN360 all the games from the Big East, ACC, Big 12, and SEC are on there. Live and replay. The new player is much improved. Videos load up quickly and things run smoothly.

The live video helped out when I saw the Kansas/Baylor game was tight at the end. I was able to watch the last minute as Baylor held off Kansas. For the Villanova game I listened to the 1st half before having a meeting. On the way home I wasn’t able to find it on the radio until just after it ended. Still, I went on ESPN360 and was able to load up the replay and watch the last minute of the game and see what led to the last second game winner.

ESPN360 isn’t available to many. I get it because I have FIOS. With the login I can use it on any internet connection. I think ESPN treats it like a channel, charging per subscriber, no matter who uses it. I don’t know how much it costs but it doesn’t seem like a fair model. There is enough disagreement when it comes to carrying expensive channels for just sports fans. Now that I know it runs smoothly and that they have a lot of college football and basketball I’d be winning to pay a few bucks a month to have access to it.

Evan: I pick the Cardinals. I have a source who has been telling me that the Steelers have been out partying in Tampa all week. Kurt Warner is the greatest quarterback of our generation, perhaps the greatest football player of all time. The only person who can cover Larry Fitzgerald is Usain Bolt, but he would probably pull up as they were nearing the goal line. Playing in the warm weather will hurt Pittsburgh, as they are more successful when conditions are unfit for human beings to be outdoors.

Mike: I don’t know about anyone else but I have no desire to watch this game. While I said a while back that I liked the Steelers this season, that didn’t mean I wanted them to win the Super Bowl. I’m indifferent toward the Cardinals, their only negative was knocking the Eagles out of it. Unfortunately there really aren’t any options of things to do during the Super Bowl. So it looks like I’ll be watching. It used to be that even with a matchup that I didn’t care about there was the draw of the commercials. Now you can watch them all online the day after (I think some might already be available).

As for the game. The Cardinals just need Curt Warner to pick apart the Steelers defense. Bouldin needs to show up and have his head in the game. Their running backs just need to hang onto the ball to be considered a success. The Cardinals D should be able to hold their own, at least enough to let the offense keep pace in front. Wow, it sounds like I’m leaning toward the Cardinals. But that’s how it’s been all season in Steelers games. How they won didn’t make sense, especially early in the season when every RB was injured and the O-line was just allowing free shots on Roethlisberger. If the Steelers win, it will be a close game. Anything goes for a Cardinals win. They could get out hot like they did in the NFC Championship, only this time they’d know to not let up. Pick: Cardinals

Ahad: I am not very excited about this game. I will watch it only because it is the Super Bowl and I need something to hold me over until the Combine and Draft Season. This game has the potential to be a blowout. The Cardinals have to hope that Kurt Warner is on his game, because if not, they are in trouble. The Steelers might overlook the Cardinals because no one predicted them to win and the Cards aren’t getting much respect. Look for the Steelers to blitz and try to get some hits on Warner because he has a history of turning the ball over after a few shots. I will be rooting for the Cardinals, but I think the Steelers will win because of their defense. Pick: Steelers (I can’t be accused of picking with my rooting interest in this case).

Matt: I don’t care who is playing, but I am always going to be excited to watch the Super Bowl. Anything can happen in any particular game throughout a season. Just look at who was playing in the NFC Championship Game…a 9-7 Cardinals team and a 9-6-1 Eagles team, and the Cardinals of all teams are playing in the Super Bowl! The Steelers are favored by a touchdown or so as they should be. They survived one of the toughest schedules ever and are the more experienced team. Like Mike said, nobody knows how the Steelers kept winning and pulling games out, they just flat out won. I feel that the Cardinals have a very good chance of winning, but they obviously have to do a few things: 1. Take care of the football 2. Don’t get out-physicaled 3. Protect Kurt Warner. I am not all that impressed by the Steelers offense, and I like the way the Cardinals are playing defense. They just need to keep things in front of them and make sure they tackle Roethlisberger when they get to him, and they WILL get to him. If the play breaks down and turns into a backyard free for all, the advantage goes to Big Ben in those situations. I like what the Cards are doing on offense…they just need to continue that. They must establish some semblance of a running game, but their yards will come through the air. Warner just has to be smart with the football and get it out quick to the hot reads. I will be rooting for the Cards, and picking them too. Pick: Cardinals, 24-16