A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
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It shouldn’t have to come to this, but such is life with the screwed up and always controversial way that Major League Baseball selects its All Star rosters.
Paul Konerko – the ONLY player in the AL currently in the top 5 of all three Triple Crown categories – was NOT chosen as an All Star this year. There is not one person who doesn’t think, in the immortal words of Bob Knight, that such a snub is absolute fucking bullshit*.
Luckily, MLB does have a way to write egregious wrongs such as this.
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The All Star Break is quickly approaching, which means fantasy players now have 4-6 weeks to get their teams ready for the stretch run and playoff positioning. Here are some players going in opposite directions at the season’s halfway point.
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The All-Star selections were announced yesterday and, as always, the Yankees and Red Sox dominated the starting lineup for the American League with 6 players selected between the two teams. The only selection that I had a small problem with was Derek Jeter as the starting shortstop.
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It’s the final week before the All Star Break. Do you know who your two-start, must-start, and potential spot-start pitchers are?
We break it all down in this week’s pitching planner.
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The NFL Supplemental Draft will occur once the lockout ends, which is seemingly soon, and there is one notable player who will have his name in the draft: former OSU QB Terrelle Pryor.
Pryor recently appeared on Jon Gruden’s QB Camp on ESPN, and he seemed very mature and showed why many OSU fans originally fell in love with his play. He is very knowledgeable on the game of football, but he just has lapses in judgement that overshadow his great plays.
Pryor has insisted that he is only a quarterback, even though many are suggesting that he play receiver or even tight end. There will certainly be one or even a few teams that would like to give him a chance at the quarterback position. One team who could benefit from giving Pryor a chance would be the Miami Dolphins.
Here are a few reasons why:
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Just came across this music video over at Lost at E Minor. Check out the description, then spend five mesmerized minutes watching it. Awesome.
We love the dedication involved here. The duo, Tidelands, asked illustrator Ami Kutata to create a video for their new single, Holy Grail. Four months later, Kutata had completed the video, based on more than 1,000 pages of her hand-drawn work. Incredible!
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The first half of the season comes to a close at the end of the upcoming scoring period, then there is no baseball for almost a week.
An interesting place to focus this week is in the outfield. Many players that are rarely owned have been seeing a lot of playing time lately and may continue to see more as managers evaluate their teams heading into the second half of the season.
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As we get ready to embark into another season of college football, already talk has begun about who is the favorite to win the BCS National Championship in 2012. Every major conference in college football this season has at least one team that has a legitimate chance to win a national title.
While the heavy favorites to win this season’s national title game play in major conference, there is one team that is in a mid-major conference that has a great opportunity to play for a national title if they can go undefeated.
Of course, if last season is any indication, the teams playing in the BCS National Championship game won’t be the heavy favorites at the start of the season.
Here is an early preview of the favorites to win the BCS National Championship.
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This is fascinating. A story in today’s Chicago Tribune says that the impetus for the Big Ten Network and conference expansion was a meeting between ESPN execs and conference leaders, including commissioner Jim Delany, back in 2004. Delany says that ESPN’s Mark Shapiro “lowballed” the conference during contract negotiations, saying “Take it or leave it.” The Big Ten left it and started its own network. The emergence of the Big Ten Network was a factor in the conference’s decision to add a 12th member.
“ESPN’s ‘lowball’ offer triggered Big Ten expansion”—Chicago Tribune
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This badass track by Omar S called “Strider’s World.” I just it heard for the first time today thanks to a great link recommendation from a friend: Lost at E Minor. If you like art and unique music, check this site out. Now.
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I don’t understand planking*, but professional athletes can’t get enough of it. So I decided to compile this visual treasury of sports stars lying face down, with their arms at their sides, in unusual places.
Note: While I was gathering images, I discovered that Sports Illustrated had beaten me to this idea. Although one gallery of athletes planking is already one too many, it’s good to have options.
Enjoy.
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After I submitted my Top 20 NBA Players list to Jerod on Monday night, I braced for the fallout. To my surprise, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had predicted.
On the one hand, almost nobody objected to Kareem being #1. I did my list a little differently, pretending like I was a GM that was drafting a player for his entire career. I think most people understood that, and the argument of “20 years (16 quality) is better than 15 years (11 quality)” seemed to fly pretty well.
On the other hand, there’s the whole “Michael Jordan” thing.
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The powers that be in Major League Baseball have determined that the Home Run Derby needed to be tweaked to explicitly pit one league against the other, in addition to the traditional individual format. I can see it being a good concept, with the sluggers from each league pulling for each other to win the team contest, but that pretty much was going on anyway. It’s a good idea, but I don’t see why it is really necessary.
One very cool new aspect of this year’s derby though is that for the first time, the participants in the contest will be selected by a captain from each league. The 2009 winner, Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers will pick the NL squad while 2010 champion David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox will pick for the American League.
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For as long as I’ve been watching baseball, announcers, managers, and players have issued the cliché “pitching wins championships.” While this seems like fairly safe logic, it only captures a fraction of the truth.
The reality is that, while starting pitching is important and is often a good measure of a team’s success, the bullpen’s performance is just as vital to most teams.
In the age of pitch counts, inning counts, and Dr. James Andrews being a household name, bullpens are more important than ever, and the heavy workloads that some relief staffs receive could be as vital to a team’s postseason chances as anything else.
By looking at some bullpen performances and usage rates from this season and comparing them to playoff teams from the past few years, we can draw some reasonable conclusions for how some teams may fare the rest of the way in 2011.
