A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
Football players risk their long-term health on every play. Baseball players are notorious for steroid use. Freakishly athletic basketball players will attack the rim knowing every time they could get fouled and go tumbling to the hardwood floor. Soccer players will use their head to redirect, in mid-air, a large and relatively firm ball traveling at great speeds.
The point is, athletes will do anything and everything to gain a competitive advantage.
Including flop.
Stats are funny.
As anyone who has ever written about, watched, or even just thought about sports can tell you, statistics can paint whatever picture you want them to based on how you present them. This is, of course, not just limited to sports. As the old saying goes, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
With Colby Lewis set to take the mound for the Texas Rangers in Game 6 of what has been an incredibly compelling World Series in which even the blowout treated us to an individual performance for the ages by Albert Pujols, I am intrigued by the superlative playoff statistics compiled by Lewis over the past two seasons and their power to comfort or antagonize Rangers fans, Cardinals fans, and objective bystanders alike.
It just depends on how you look at them.
With about two months left in the season, some managers are starting to separate themselves away from the rest of the pack while others may have to call this season a wash.
As we are entering the hottest point of the year, expect some bats to heat up. This is usually a time when pitchers begin to feel the effects of the long season and hitters start to see the ball better than ever, and we have outlined a few of them in this week’s hitting planner.
Captain America came out in theaters on Friday, and it got me thinking: if I had to choose my sports version of Captain America, who would I pick?
I am not talking about someone who is a physical specimen like Captain America. I am also not just talking about athletes like Jim Thorpe, who might have actually been the real “Captain America.”
Instead, I am looking for an athlete who I would be proud to announce as an American athlete if someone from another country asked me who our country’s best athlete was. For example, I would take character into account (which automatically disqualifies LeBron James).
In looking for my candidate I decided to break it down by sport, picking one or more athlete(s) from each of the major three sports.
Derek Jeter joined one of the most elite clubs in baseball after he recorded his 3,000th hit on a home run in the 3rd inning of yesterday’s win over the Rays. He joined a club that includes the likes of Cap Anson, Honus Wagner, and Paul Waner. The club now has 28 members, with Jeter being the first player in a Yankee uniform to join.
There is no doubt that the Yankees are the most disliked team in the history of sports (with the Miami Heat desperately trying to take over this title), but this hate should not be directed towards Derek Jeter. He is not like the others, the ones who were hated such as Roger Clemens or Jason Giambi. He has done nothing to garner this hate, with his only offense being playing for the Yankees.
If Jeter was in the news for negative reasons, as some of his teammates over the years have been, there would be reason to dislike him. This has not been the case.
I don’t really know what to say about this, other than what I already said on Twitter.
Note the spelling of Derek Jeter’s name not just in the subject line, but throughout. The worst part is that she spells his first name two different ways, so she even misspelled her misspelling!
Consider this Today’s Worst:
My friend’s father once spent an afternoon explaining to me the Black Swan theory, and how it relates to sports. Surprisingly, it has little to do with Natalie Portman and much more to do with Roger Maris.
Maris was a decent hitter, he explained, but never a great one and certainly not the person you would peg for an all-time power-hitting season. His 61 homers in 1961 was an aberration in the same way Brady Anderson hit 50 homers in 1996 or even Barry Bonds hit 73 in 2001. Those home run totals were so out of whack that they have almost nothing to do with the player’s past or future performance.
Think of it this way: if you see a black swan swimming amidst a flock of white swans, does that mean that there are more black swans on the way? Or is he the only one of his kind?
Deep stuff.
With that brain buster in mind, I wanted to take a look at some MLB players who are having black swan seasons either heading into free agency or right after earning a big contract.
Should MLB executives pay the guys who are about to hit the open market based on how they have done in the past, or how they will do in the future, or a blend of both? And which guys are rewarding or punishing the GMs who paid them the big bucks last winter?
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.
There is something special about being a captain. Whether you are the captain of a ship, the captain of a sports team, or heck, even just the captain of a bowl of crunchberries, you are the captain. You’re a leader. You’re the top dog. People respect you, follow you, look up to you.
Oh, and you’re usually the first one in line when it comes to getting the best looking women. (Sorry non-captains, that’s just how it goes.)
Inspired by our current affiliation with the Captain Morgan BracketMaster Challenge, we decided to put Erica, the official MSF Morganette, to work by having her determine who would be on her list of the sexiest captains of all-time.
Every year, there are several players who never meet their fantasy potential, and these players can ruin a fantasy season when they are taken too high.
Busts always damage hopes of a championship, whether it’s: the usual suspects (guys like Jimmy Rollins, who always seem to let down their owners; the one-year wonder (guys like Ben Zobrist, who only seemed destined for great things; or the power hitter who goes into the huge slump (think Carlos Peña).
This year, there are several players who fantasy owners should stay away from. These are just a few of them (click here for the complete list):
This past weekend, the Yankees visited Chicago for a three game set with the White Sox. New York won two out of three to maintain its first place tie with the Rays in the AL East, but the Yankees and manager Joe Girardi were not able to get out of town without a little bit of controversy.
The controversy wasn’t about the team on Chicago’s south side, however; rather, it had to do with the team that plays its home games on the city’s northern end, which just happens to not have a manager lined up for next year, and which also just happens to be Girardi’s former stomping grounds.
As we were when LeBron was making his Decision, and when Brett Favre was trying to decide whether or not to retire, MSF was there with our camera to capture the most important moments:
The title of this post is meant to, in a very matter-of-fact way, shock the hell out of you and leave you wondering what the hell is wrong with the sports world.
Mission accomplished? Good. I thought so.
And trust me, it’s no typo.
Just for effect, I’m going to type it out again: stone-handed Darrius Heyward-Bey, he of the nine catches for 124 yards as a rookie in Oakland last year, will make more money from salary and endorsements ($21,505,000) in 2010 than Albert Pujols ($21,000,000), one of the greatest baseball players and athletes we have ever seen.
Let’s see what other fun comparisons we can make with SI.com’s annual Fortunate 50!
Earlier today while perusing a post by MSF’s good friend Josh Q. Public, I happened upon a very humorous animated GIF showing the brokeback affection shared between former teammates Gary Sheffield and Derek Jeter.
I proceeded to tweet that said animated GIF was “the greatest animated GIF of all-time“. Admittedly, I was exaggerating to induce click-throughs, but it did make me laugh out loud, so I knew people would like it.
Mere minutes later, World of Isaac laid down the gauntlet, saying that another animated GIF was *gasp!* better than the one I had tweeted.
I looked at his, chuckled a familiar chuckle (as I’d seen it before), and then decided to place the onus on you, my trusted MSF reader, to make the final decision.
The 2009 World Series embodies everything that a Midwest baseball fan hates.
1) No representation from either of the Central Divisions. That’s right, no White Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Tigers, Twins, Brewers, Astros, Indians, etc. In fact, none of these teams even really came close.
2) Two straight weeks of complete immersion in the East Coast bias/obsession that can become so annoying and grating during the regular season.
3) A battle of two teams with enormous payrolls who, on a yearly basis, pluck the best players off of teams in smaller markets who cannot afford them. (And yes, I know the Cubs, and to a certain extent the White Sox, have a high payroll…but Chicago gets Milton Bradley and Alex Rios, New York and Philly get C.C. and Cliff Lee.)
With all of that being said, I’ve decided that we have done enough actual analysis of this year’s World Series. AJ wrote a great preview piece earlier this week, and that will have to suffice.
In place of the article that I was going to write about the 2009 World Series (currently tied at 1-1 if you live in The Shire and don’t get Fox or have an Internet connection) before I thought more about it and just got pissed off, I decided that we could all benefit from a couple of gratuitous photo galleries of two of the most attractive WAGs on either team.
So while there are many legit questions out there as the series heads to Philly (What’s up with ARod and Ryan Howard? Does either manager have faith in its bullpen?), we are going to tackle one that is perhaps a little less exigent as part of our usual Friday Morning Would series.
Would you rather have your favorite baseball hero date Minka Kelly or Kate Hudson?
Earlier this afternoon Myles and I had the great pleasure to host SI.com’s Jimmy Traina on the latest edition of the MSF Podcast.
We are grateful that he was able to take 30+ minutes out of his afternoon to talk with us, and impressed that he was able to be so composed…what with his beloved Yankees (especially Derek and Minka) preparing for Game 1 of the 2009 World Series tonight.
But I guess when you’ve already won 27 of them and can buy your way into the playoffs every year, it’s easy to stay even keel. (Actually, more on this topic later.)
If you are not familiar with his work, Jimmy Traina runs the Hot Clicks blog on SI.com and is an editor of the always entertaining Extra Mustard section of the site, which fuses sports, pop culture, and humor. Hot Clicks is one of the most visited sports pages on a daily basis, as any publisher knows who has ever received a link from Traina.
Let’s just say it can put a strain on your server.
