It’s time to start clearing out my list of things to post. How crazy that the oldest thing on my list is a crazy balk by Justin Verlander from a few weeks ago. Tonight he had his 2nd career no-hitter. I managed to see the last out. I think it was overshadowed by the Kentucky Derby, so I didn’t hear about it any sooner than that.
This link (cause MLB doesn’t embed) shows that Verlander balk from April 16th. He does sort of a pickoff move toward home, but that’s a simplification. Everyone was confused. The umps had to conference to decide what to do.
A’s and Tigers get a laugh from balk sequence | MLB.com: News
Evan posed the question this morning if this coming week is the best sports week of the year.
His evidence: NCAA Basketball Tournament Championships, 1st full week of baseball, playoff push in the NBA and NHL, and the Masters.
Can I add the Frozen Four as well? Probably not a lot of awareness in Florida for that one.
I find it hard to argue with his logic. Although I have usually have little care for the Final Four. I go for the excitement of the early rounds. My only competition is in the fall with the baseball playoffs along with other sports starting up.
I did think last week that with Opening Day falling in March, is that the best month of the sporting year now?
At least that’s the rumor from sources on ESPN.
I said he got fired during the Michigan game on Friday. I tried to pinpoint the general area that it happened during the game …
My Ice Cream Helmets have never had a home. They were displayed on a shelf with my hats in my old room. I don’t even think they made the trip to my first apartment. Here at my current apartment, they found a shelf of their own next to my TV, but it was more of a pile than a display. I hadn’t really thought about it too hard, but my mom had.
She was talking to a patient of hers who does woodwork and somehow they hatched a plan for a project. My mom had originally wanted some sort of enclosed case that could be hung on the wall so that I didn’t have to worry about my helmets getting dusty. These aren’t the most high quality items. The logos come off pretty easily on some of them.
The guy thought about that idea, but thought it might be too heavy. He came up with his own design and made it out of a really light wood so they could be easily hung on the wall.
On Christmas morning, I was down to my last present. I hadn’t asked for too much and I had already opened those. So I was extra curious what could possibly be in my last box that was saved for after everyone else was done and mom had the camera ready.
My first question was how many could each one hold. Each has 16, he couldn’t come up with a good design to have 14 on the AL one and 16 on the NL one. Probably good. If there is another expansion, it should be to have 16 in each league. Any more than that and I’m in trouble, but I think I have some time.
I sent a picture over to Evan on Christmas morning and it was forwarded to his mom letting her know she should get in contact with my mom to place an order.
After being back to school for a week I finally had a chance to hang them up.
As for the helmets, I obviously have some work to do in the AL. If you consider the two fewer teams, they aren’t that far behind. It just looks more obvious because the corner spots aren’t filled yet.
I’m currently missing four helmets of places I have been:
Orioles – I’ve been to Camden Yards, but it was before I had started collecting the helmets. I’ve already looked at the schedule and found two promising weekends in April.
Giants, A’s, Dodgers – Something about California. The Padres were the only stadium to have helmets on the trip. We didn’t go to Anaheim, so I can’t speak for them. The A’s had helmets for popcorn and french fries. I have one of those larger helmets, but will not be putting it on this display. The Dodgers may have had them, but Evan bought the tickets for the outfield seats and you aren’t allowed to leave that section.
1) The rules don’t make any sense. ‘Oh, he knocked out that defenseless receiver but he hit him with his shoulder, so that’s legal.’ I don’t care if it’s a helmet or not. If it looks like a cheap it, it should be a penalty. If it was vicious, throw him out of the game. Next year, I’d like to see a whole lot more ejections. It’s the best way I can see right now to get the point across.
2) Anyone can win any week. The Seahawks were terrible all year. Them beating the Saints was a huge upset. Was it? I wasn’t surprised. I’m never surprised by a team winning in the NFL. Yawn. I like upsets. I like to root for underdogs. With the current system in the NFL, there is no such thing.
3) Announcers. Ugh. We have the technology now. There is no reason each team can’t have their own announcers. Why not have three feeds of every game? One for each team and a national crew. I see no downside here. Not only would I stop hating the announcers every second of the game, it would increase my enjoyment a ton. Local announcers wouldn’t have to water down the coverage.
I’ve been having trouble deciding on which game to use my wager points on for my ICH group this week. I’m leaning toward the Bears.
It may be surprising that I’m considering the one matchup that is split. I’m not surprised by the split. Nobody watched the Seahawks all year before last week. Then saw them beat a Saints team that didn’t show up and they were home. How quickly everyone forgets they were terrible in a terrible division. Their win last week is one of my three biggest reasons I hate the NFL.
Make Picks
I enjoy Oregon’s crazy uniform changes. Yes, many of them are really awful (like those neon socks in the BCS Championship), but I like that they try and mix it up. You aren’t going to find something new if you don’t try.
On the other hand, I saw an Oregon basketball game on TV the other night and I thought there was something wrong with my TV. The image here looks ridiculous, and it was just as ridiculous looking on TV.
Oregon’s crazy new basketball floor is quintessentially Oregon – The Dagger – NCAABÂ – Yahoo! Sports.
I’ve finally seen all of the 30 for 30 documentaries on ESPN. Thanks to the marathon on Sunday I was able to catch the last two. Thanks to Fios On Demand, where they look to have all of them, I was able to finally see Birth of Big Air over the weekend as well. Here are a couple of my favorites from the series.
Winning Time
I don’t care about the Knicks, Packers, Reggie Miller, or Spike Lee. With all that, this was the most fun of the bunch. It’s been 15 years and everyone remembers every detail of this rivalry and it still gets them fired up.
Four Days in October
A bit biased because I was firmly on that Red Sox bandwagon that October. The amount of time I spent watching baseball that month was the reason for my only poor semester in college. Not being a full time Red Sox fan, I hadn’t really watched a full review over their amazing run since it happened.
The Best that Never Was
I knew nothing about the story of Marcus Dupree going in. Two parts made this one amazing. First, just how incredible he was. Second, how completely content he is with his life now. You really couldn’t blame him if he was a little bitter.
Once Brothers
Much different than the others. It followed Vlade Divac and basketball in Yugoslavia. I didn’t know about any of the political issues involved. Vlade’s leading of the story kept me interested.
The Birth of Big Air
This one I couldn’t get to see until this week. I knew I’d love it. The Tremaine crew. That’s all I need. The stories of the beginnings of all the sports now in the X Games all go the same way. But the crazy stuff that Mat Hoffman pulled back then, that makes it all stand out.
The U/Pony Excess
I’ll limit the similarities to these being about programs. They were questionable in their own ways. The dynamics of the players, coaches, city, and boosters give these stories so many characters it’s almost hard to keep track. It’s almost too much to squeeze in to the two hours. Both did a nice job getting to as much of the story as they could. Longer would have allowed them to dig deeper, but also would have been, well, longer.
Haven’t heard about Cuban defections during sporting events in a while.
Continuing -- but not confirmed -- reports that seven Cuban players have defected, leaving them with 12 players v Mexico tonight Did they defect to Mexico or the US. If it’s the US, then I think the economy is finally turning around. If it’s Mexico, umm …
I only watched a little of this game. Little enough to see the Seattle goal and none of the Union goals. That’s not why I share the highlights with you here. I share them because the fact that the ESPN2 Bottom Line wasn’t cropped out of these highlights. It just looked odd.
Thumbs up for nice, long hightlights in good quality and for allowing them to be embedded. Just take a little more time and get some without the Bottom Line.
As for the MLS. I’m new to paying any attention (and I really haven’t yet, but will because of the Union). My problem is that the best players in the world are playing in a little competition called the World Cup and I haven’t heard anything about this being an issue for MLS teams.
A few weeks ago Evan called to let me know he had purchased a plane ticket to NYC. School would be over, so he was free. He didn’t have any plans for when he arrived. He checked the baseball schedule after booking the ticket and saw that the Phillies were in town on Thursday and the Mets would be there for the weekend.
Phillies? I’m in. I checked with Janos, he was in too. Evan’s sister’s boyfriend John rounded out the group.
I went on to StubHub and got 4 tickets in the very top row of the stadium, in a section where I thought we’d get a good view of everything. I think that goal was accomplished.
There were Phillies fans everywhere. By the end of the game, they were all that was left. The 9th inning took forever and the Phillies put a few more runs on the board, leaving to a slow exodus of the rest of the stadium.
I’d been to the old Yankee Stadium twice. Once when I was about 11 and during the last season because Evan hadn’t been there so we made the trip. The new one certainly doesn’t have the charm of the old one. I feel like they tried to copy how the stadium looked at the end. Meaning they attempted to make the new building look old instead of letting it age. It either will look great in many years or will fall apart very quickly. To me, the biggest improvement is the amount of extra space. The lines for food used to fill the concourses so you couldn’t even walk through. Now there is almost too much space, which is a good thing.
Any points gained by design improvements are lost by that ridiculous restaurant in center field. There is no excuse for the bleacher seats being blocked from seeing the other outfield. TV screens are not enough.
The video screen in center field looks amazing. I’m just not sure why they don’t use it for replays. I saw a few early on, but later in the game, there was nothing. Especially in the 9th when the Yankees left the field and no one could figure out what had happened. When I got home I saw that Ibanez had been hit by the grounder to end the inning. No replay or anything in the stadium to let us know what happened.
On last thing, every seat in the stadium has a warning: “Be alert for bats and/or balls.” Every seat. Even all the way in the upper deck. This picture isn’t even from all the way at the top where we were sitting, yet still, really, really far. No bat was making it’s way up there.
