Joey Votto

A warm congratulations goes out to Joey Votto, 1B of the Cincinnati Reds who yesterday nearly swept the 1st place votes for National League MVP. I'll let the Associated Press tell the rest of the story.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!



The full ESPN story can be found here with an interview with the MVP himself.

'Bout Time

Richard Seymour did something yesterday that I (and countless other people across this great nation of ours) have been wanting to do for a long time. Check out the video below. Replay it a few times. Bookmark it. Smile.

Happy Monday.

Effort

It's always nice to hear positive feedback at your job or in school. Words of encouragement and reinforcement give someone incentive to try harder and do better moving forward, because they know their efforts are being appreciated.

Now imagine you're Flip Saunders. Your Washington Wizards are playing the Boston Celtics last night. You have a guy named Andray Blatche as your starting power forward. In the offseason you signed a contract that pays him $35 million over the next 5 years. That seems like a nice pat on that back if you ask me. In the 1st quarter of the game, Andray decided to display some truly fantastic defense that he's known for (read: sarcasm).



He's pretty luck Shaq wasn't expecting that at all. The NBA - where caring happens.

Like a Bosh

Since Chris Bosh put up 35pts in a Miami win against the Phoenix Suns last night, this doesn't seem quite as appropriate anymore, but the proof is in consistency, something the 7 year NBA veteran hasn't necessarily convinced me of yet.

Case in point: Bosh is the Raptors franchise leader in points, rebounds, blocks, double-doubles, free throws made and attempted, and minutes played. During the '06-'07 season, he led the team to their first playoff berth in 5 years in the '06-'07 season... with a 47 win team that won the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. 47 wins in an 82 game season wins the division?! Welcome to the Eastern Conference.

The Raptors then lost in the first round of the '07 playoffs to the New Jersey Nets. Regardless, below is a hilarious video that "raps" up all things Chris Bosh, pun absolutely intended.




UPDATE: Just noticed this gem on today's Daily Dime article:

"[Spoelstra] knows he has to meet us halfway. He wants to work; we want to chill." - Chris Bosh. Now that's a champion's work ethic if you ask me.

And We're Back!

No apologies, no excuses. We're just going to move on. Some new format changes - I'm still going to try and draft some longer posts, but I feel like there's a lot of quality sports stuff that has fallen through the cracks that doesn't take much more than a quick video link or an image that goes viral - all good things.

That being said, I'd like to introduce you to my new arch-nemesis. As reported by Yahoo! and posted on Break.com, this chick absolutely destroys at Pop-A-Shot. I need to get back to a couple of my old watering holes and start practicing again.


Chick Destroys Basketball Game - Watch more Sports

The Year of the Pitcher or Baseball is Boring

Growing up in the steroid era of Major League Baseball started out awesome before, of course, we found out that everyone was cheating. We were treated to the summer of Sosa and McGwire and Bonds' 73 homers; records were being challenged and beaten, and we just assumed it was because they were that good. We didn't question the pulsating veins and tree-trunk sized biceps belonging to Mark McGwire, etc.

And then it all started unraveling. Sosa's corked bat, HGH became a household term, Canseco, Clemens, the Mitchell Report, and now Clemens again. The hitters had their heydey, but now will they pay for them in the record books?

This season is being called the "Year of the Pitcher," and maybe rightfully so. We've had two perfect games (er, 3. I will hereby refer to any terrible decision or outcome as being "Galarraga-ed" or "Armando-ed."), several no-hitters, and a plethora of 1 and 2 hitters. The pitchers are getting revenge for the steroid era, commentators have crooned. But is that really true? And if so, how has it affected baseball?

The great thing about baseball is you can break everything down by the numbers. In this so-called year of the pitcher, the league leader in ERA is Clay Buchholz with a 2.21 (whoa, on my fantasy team). In fact, the top 10 pitchers in the category have ERA's that are all well under 3: Buchholz (BOS, 2.21), Hudson (ATL, 2.24), Latos (SDG, 2.25), Halladay (PHI, fantasy, 2.27), Johnson (FLA, 2.28), Wainwright (STL, 2.30), Garcia (STL, 2.33), Hernandez (SEA, 2.38), Dickey (NYM, 2.57), Jimenez (COL, 2.69).

In 2009, however, it was much of the same: the leader was Zach Grienke (KC, 2.16, what the hell happened) and the number 10 spot was Matt Cain (SFG, 2.89) - not a big disparity. In the height of the steroid era, 2001, only Randy Johnson (ARI, 2.49) and Curt Schilling (ARI, 2.98) were under 3, but the 10th best was a 3.29 from Russell Ortiz (SFG). Side note: Arizona had the top two, Atlanta had the next two, and St. Louis had the 6th and 9th in the top 10 - Randy and Curt were co-MVP's for the World Series Champ Diamondbacks, i.e. pitching and defense wins championships... but I digress.

Okay, ERA is one stat, but how about strikeouts? In 2010, with roughly 30 games to go in the season, Felix Hernandez and Jered Weaver lead the majors with 200 strikeouts each. Last year, the league leader, Justin Verlander, had 269. In 2001? Randy Johnson had 372. Curt Schilling had 293. What about complete games and shutouts? 2010: Halladay, 8 and 3 respectively; 2009: Halladay 9 and 4; 2001: Steve Sparks (DET) 8 and Mark Mulder (OAK) 4. Mulder had 6 complete games. Of course, they don't make 'em like The Unit anymore, but does that mean we should lower our standards?

On the flip side, if pitchers are really dominating this year, we should see the dominance reflected in the offensive numbers as well. And, yes, we're going to have to take some of the 2001 numbers with a grain of salt... an asterisk sized grain.

Let's take a peek at batting averages, OPS numbers, and other categories and see if we can figure out what's going on. First of all, I find it interesting that in the "Year of the Pitcher," we are witnessing a legitimate Triple Crown race between Albert Pujols and Joey Votto. Pitchers aren't having a very good year against these guys. This season, Josh Hamilton is leading the league in batting average, hitting .361 through today. He has been mashing the ball all over the field, and it has been spectacular. Beyond Hamilton, the leader board has the likes of Miguel Cabrera (DET, .338), Carlos Gonzalez (COL, .329), Joe Mauer (MIN, .327), and Joey Votto (CIN, .325), to name a few.

In 2009, Mauer led the league with a .365, followed by Ichiro, Hanley Ramirez, Derek Jeter, and Pablo Sandoval with .352, .342, .334, and .330 respectively. In 2001, the league leaders were Larry Walker (COL, .350), Ichiro (SEA, .350), Jason Giambi (OAK, .342), Roberto Alomar (CLE, .336), and Todd Helton (COL, .336).

In 2010, an OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) of 1.072 is good for league best for Miguel Cabrera, followed by 1.050 and 1.027 from Josh Hamilton and Joey Votto. In 2009, Albert Pujols went for 1.101, Joe Mauer for 1.031, and Prince Fielder for 1.014. In 2001, OPS was dominated by (shocker) Barry Bonds with a ridiculous 1.379 followed by Sammy Sosa at 1.174, Giambi at 1.137, and Luis Gonzalez, from Arizona, with a 1.117.

We're comparing the best versus the best, which may not be fair, so let's look at the league as a whole. In 2010, the earned run average of the entire league through today is 4.12. In 2009, 4.32. In 2001, 4.42. The league's batting average in 2010 is .259, and its OPS is .733. In 2009: .262 and .751. In 2001: .264 and .759.

The point is this: the numbers are really close, and the major difference comes in OPS, which makes sense considering sluggers were hitting Mars on the wings of HGH during the 2001 season. But back then, baseball was wildly popular. We watched every Bonds game, craved the home run race, lived for the Sosa/McGwire summer, watched the home runs and numbers piled up, and we ate every bit of it right up.

This year? The MLB All-Star game had awful ratings and people routinely snide that "baseball is boring," and it doesn't help that reports are coming out that teams are actually making money from losing. I'm looking at you, Pittsburgh. I love a good pitching duel. I went to a Jon Lester gem earlier this year at Fenway Park, and I was at Clay Buchholz's no-hitter. Both incredible games. The people behind me at the no-no left in the 8th inning. WHAT!? They must have been bored by the fact that Clay had been knocking down Orioles like bowling pins, that his curveball was a work of art that night, that Nick Markakis is still wondering what happened on that last pitch. But for some reason, the general population can't get behind a great pitching performance. It's apparently not exciting.

Baseball's boring "Year of the Pitcher" (or kind-of sort-of YotP media created reality that we're clinging to in order to give people a reason to keep watching) has to be indicative of a cultural shift that has happened over the last 10 years. We are now a world of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube: instant gratification, need-to-know-now, big moments, decisive actions - home runs if you will. One swing and the game is changed. We don't want to work for 6-9 innings for a big victory - we want it now. Baseball games are getting longer, and fans are dropping like flies. Case in point: if Bud Selig started to let baseball highlights go to YouTube, we could have that instant gratification, but what would get more views: Barry Bonds' 73rd home run or Dallas Braden's perfect game?

La Furia Roja

The World Cup has come and gone, and man, will it be missed. Soccer is one of my favorite sports, but it is routinely put on the back burner here in the United States. But hopefully, after this edition of "La Copa," America will come around and realize how great this sport truly is. This tournament gave us the incredible, the horrible, the unfair, the hilarious, and the heart-wrenching. Let's recap.

Yes, Spain won. Yes, they were the favorites, but they didn't make it easy on themselves. They squeaked by in most of their games on the crunch-time heroics of David Villa, and losing the first game shocked the world, but that wasn't the only shock. The reining champion Azurri of Italy didn't make it to the elimination round, and even more bizarre, the French squad was such a disgrace, the country's president felt the need to intervene when they got home.


Nigeria's President banned the country from participating in international soccer for two years due to a "shameful" performance; they were one meter and a missed shot away from a chance at the elimination round.


There were beautiful goals all tournament: from Van Brockhurst of the Netherlands, Maicon of Brazil, and of course, Landon Donovan and "the goal." There were goals that weren't goals (*cough, Tevez*) and goals that were never called. I'm sorry Frank Lampard, but that's the way the cookie crumbles with FIFA.


As I said in my preview post, "This World Cup is chock full of great players and stories to be had." However, many of the biggest stars failed to shine. Just take a look at Nike's "Write the Future" advertisment and tell me how these guys did. (Hint: they didn't).

We all watched and were amazed as Germany scored goals seemingly at will with their furious counter-attack. We watched the heartbreak of Ghana as their World Cup hopes and dreams were taken away by a Suarez handball (oh, wait, actually it was a Gyan penalty kick...)

The Netherlands went deeper than many had thought, though I can't imagine why. Their squad was solid and Robben's return in the second round only served to solidify an already potent attacking squad. Argentina had all of the circus and fanfare that comes when you pick Diego Maradona to be your coach, but the show failed to do anything against the Germans when their glaring lack of defense was painfully obvious. PS - where was Messi?

My Brazilians had an earlier exit than expected, thanks to the gifted (read: sarcasm) abilities of Felipe Melo. I can't even talk about this yet. I just hope Melo has a nice place to live other than Brazil, because I guarantee he's not very welcome there right now.

And now, we have to wait four more years for this magical month of sports to grace our televisions again. The next edition: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There is nothing that could prevent me from going. Ah, World Cup, you will be missed.

What was your favorite World Cup memory?