Seth Curry Saves Duke!

We're moving on!

2011-08-08T09:36:00.003-04:00

Ladies and Gents, this is officially the end for Seth Curry Saves Duke!

I'm purposefully not making a big deal out of this post for two reasons. First, I don't want to weep all over your internet.

Second, I don't see this as an ending. Seth Curry Saves Duke! is just growing into its next phase of life, and that phase is:

TOBACCO ROAD BLUES

I will see you over there, my friends! In fact, I expect to see you there. This shit don't die. Thanks for everything.

Three Discussion Topics

2011-08-01T09:50:00.002-04:00

1 - New recap piece up on Grantland. The feature is now called "About Last Weekend," and I'm pretty happy with today's post.

2 - Tobacco Road Blues launches in ONE WEEK!

3 - I'm now engaged. For REAL, y'all. Downtown Shane Ryan has become a legit human being. (You guys call me "Downtown Shane Ryan," right?) Anyway, I hope this will be just the first of many happy engagements for me.

29 Batters: A Visual Representation of Ervin Santana's No-Hitter

2011-07-28T23:31:00.009-04:00

With gratitude to Jeff Sullivan for pioneering the form. Follow along here.

I believe in myself! With love and a little elbow grease, anything is possible!

First Inning

There goes your perfect game, amigo.

My bad, brah. Kinda fell asleep for a second. Looong night.

Gee whiz, talk about an unproductive out! Sorry, fellas!

Advance the runner, am I right? Fuggedaboutit.

There goes your shutout, amigo.

When you're right, you're right.

I still believe in myself! Life is an ongoing treasure!

OH FUDDY DUD, A STRIKEOUT.

Second Inning

Seriously, make a Santana joke. Just try it. I dare you.

Life ain't nothin' but heartache and strife. Might just as well ground out.

WASSSUP DUDES! I just watched that third strike like it was a 3-foot wave! This guy's good!

Third Inning

Heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh. Yer awful pretty. Aw durnit a grounder.

Now if I just calculate the velocity and approach angle, this should be child's play OH BLAST A STRIKEOUT.

You got me this time, amigo, but we will see each other soon.

Fourth Inning

Golly, you hate to start an inning with a simple grounder. Yeesh and phooey!

Eh, what are you gonna do? Everyone strikes out. C'monnn.

PARDON MY FRENCH, BUT I AM PLAYING CRAPTASTIC BALL.

Fifth Inning

I can just tell you want to say something about the guitarist who shares my name. I can just tell.

That's just one out closer to death, is all. Don't suppose the world could get much sadder.

WHOA, brosephs! Another out! That dude on the mound is straight jammin!

Sixth Inning

Heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh. You want I should take yer photo? Aw tarnation I grounded it again.

This is nothing more than simple physics. I swing now, and OH MERCURY'S MOTHER, A GROUNDER.

Dios mio, brother, you have fooled me. But soon, you will dance with el diablo.

Seventh Inning

Shucks, if I wasn't raised to know better, I'd have a mind to wander off and curse right about now!

What do I care, I got three car dealerships in Jersey doing 10 mill in a bad month. Out the wazoo, BABY!

I AM PLAYING LIKE A PIECE OF TURD! THEY SHOULD TRADE ME FOR A BRICK!

Eighth Inning

How the hell can I focus when everyone wants to make a mockery of my name! I'm NOT paranoid!

Sure, I reckon I'll walk to first. But a casket is every man's true destination, and his ticket shall be redeemed.

This is gnarley. I know I should be upset, but man, you gotta respect a dude who straight rocks it out.

Heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh. I'd sure like to go a-courtin' with you. Aw hellfire, I plain swung at air.

Ninth Inning

Three outs until history! How could any man not love this bountiful earth!

YEEEE-HAW! I'M WILD TRAVIS BUCK, AND I'M HERE TO PINCH HIT!

Never lose that spirit, Travis! Now sit down.

CAN I BORROW FIFTY DOLLARS?! I CAN PAY YOU BACK TOMORROW!

Go on back to the dugout, son. I'm Tim Barrett, home plate umpire. Hello.

Oye, amigo! You may have got me out this game, but this isn't over! We will dance again!

Oh my, one more batter. I will be sorry to see an end to another wonderful day.

Oh, bushel corn! I've muffed it again! Mike Brantley, you are a preacher's cuss!

Christmas came early! I could just about cry!

(PS: Happy 700th post to this blog.)

Ron Gardenhire's Game Diary, 7/25

2011-07-26T15:04:00.002-04:00

The Minnesota manager's account of last night's 20-6 loss to Texas.

Pre-game. 0-0.

Sweet Jesus, it's hot. But that's Arlington. What did I expect? It's got to be 100 degrees out here, and it's 7pm! What the hell temperature is it at noon? Why does any sensible person live here? You gotta be half crazy. But then again, Texans are half crazy. They're always trying to secede, God bless 'em. That, and they drink poison river water that changes the shape of their brains. I saw that on a science show one night in an El Paso motel.

I hope Morneau didn't forget the miniature hand-held fan. I told him if he's going to be sitting around on the DL, he might as well make himself useful. And having him hold a fan aimed at my head for nine innings is useful. It's also degrading, which I like. It'll motivate him to heal faster.

End of 1st inning, 3-0 Texas.

What a miserable. I'm ready to put my boot up Nick Blackburn's ass. Three runs? I wish I'd left this guy where I found him, outside an Oklahoma Denny's throwing old pancakes into a bucket. That should have been a warning sign. Plus, he only made about half the pancakes. What was I thinking? What were any of us thinking?

Then again, those were the early 2000s. In those days, we'd do just about anything to get our kicks.

End of 2nd inning, 6-0 Texas.

Well, this game's over. I'd get ejected if I had the energy to leave the dugout. It'd be easy. Mike Winters is behind the plate. All you have to do is remind him that his wife lost most of their life savings in an insurance scam, and bam! You're gone. I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I'm not getting up. Same reason Blackburn's still in the game. The hell if I'm going out in the sun. I don't care how much Rick Anderson stares at me. Everyone's replaceable, Anderson, you pompous devil! Even a pitching coach!

End of 3rd inning, 11-1 Texas.

I had to take Blackburn out. On the walk to the mound, it was so hot I hallucinated that Tom Seaver was out there. I tried to tackle him, but I ended up stumbling on the mound and falling. I hate Seaver so much. He was always so uppity. Uppity Tom, with his handsome eyes and his cackling laugh. I still have a tape of him laughing. I listen to it every morning if I need to feel angry.

Speaking of laughing, you could hear the idiots in the stands yukking it up when I fell over. I was so embarrassed when I got back to the dugout that I slapped Morneau right on the head. But in good news, we're on the board. Good job, Cuddyer. Good job grounding into a double play so a run scored. That's like cutting off an arm to lose weight.

I knew a guy who did that, actually. We called him Tipper, because he was always tipping to one side. Good man, great gambler.

End of 4th inning, 14-1 Texas.

I'm thinking of buying stock in these new Squish Teddies. A friend of mine from Hoboken told me about them. It's a new business, he think they're going to be bigger than Beanie Babies. A lot of people made money on those Beanie Babies, they tell me. My wife had one that looked like David Crosby until I accidentally burned it in the grill. They were the big thing. Now it's Squish Teddies. He wants $50,000. I think I'm going to pull the trigger.

End of 5th inning, 18-1 Texas.

Morneau is really getting on my nerves. He's starting to cry. Someone named Chuck James was pitching for us this inning. I can honestly say I have no idea who that is. I have never heard of Chuck James in my life. He's terrible, though. He's worthy of this pitching staff. I told Morneau to go piss in his locker to make an important point- giving up 4 runs isn't the Twins way. That's when Morneau started crying. But he did what he was told.

End of 6th inning, 18-1 Texas.

If I have to make another pitching change, I will literally walk out to the mound naked. It's something I've always wanted to do anyway. I've done it a thousand times in my dreams, and the people always love it. I just asked Morneau what he thought of the idea, but good luck getting a reaction out of that guy. He's one of the seven most boring people I know, and the other six all come from Canada.

So help me God, we're holding them to under 20. I'll bet my job on it.

End of 7th inning, 20-2 Texas.

You win some, you lose some. Like my friend Tipper. He won a weight loss contest, but he lost an arm. And he's still one of the happiest men I know. Happier than me, that's for damned sure. Phil Dumatrait is pitching now. How do you think you pronounce that last name? I've never had a conversation with him, so I couldn't tell you. He reminds me of an old photo of James Garfield from my 7th grade history book. God, how I hated Garfield. I cheered like a mad fool when I found out he was assassinated. It's still one of the ten best days of my life.

End of 8th inning, 20-5 Texas.

We're turning this one around! Jason Kubel just hit a home run. There's a man I can respect. He's got a beard like you used to see on movie stars, before Hollywood became a giant sissy factory. Jason Kubel could out-act any man in this country. I'd bet my life on it.

End of game, 20-6 Texas.

Three hours ago, I was dreading this game, but I have to say, I had a really good time. Morneau and I shared a lot of laughs, and Joe Mauer went 0-5. He's always rubbed me the wrong way. Somehow, this has been a pretty good night. It's just another one of the wonderful mysteries of this game we call baseball.

I hope the post-game spread is good. I could eat the head right off a horse.

Introducing: Tobacco Road Blues

2011-07-25T08:05:00.009-04:00

Moody B's, Powders, and everyone in between:

A launch is coming.

Some of you may have heard rumblings about a supposed new site, SethCurrySavesDuke.com. My plan was to launch it way back in...March? April? I can't remember. One way or another, it didn't happen. Call it distraction, laziness, or the fact that whenever I tried to work on it, my attention was drawn to a quart of ice cream sitting in some cooler only a mile or two away (in other words, distraction plus laziness).

Anyway, that site is DEAD. Sorry. But I'll tell you what's alive:

TOBACCO ROAD BLUES

From the creators of Seth Curry Saves Duke!, as they say, comes a new site devoted to Duke and UNC athletics. Here's how TRB will differ from SCSD:

1 - Focus. As much as I'd like to write about the Yankees all summer, the blog world isn't aligned that way. We're narrowing the field of vision to two schools, and those two schools will be covered like we're Nolan Smith and they're Kendall Marshall, circa 3/13/11. (As you see, a slight Duke bias will remain.)

2 - Voices. I'll be blogging for Grantland full time (check out this week's piece here), and while the majority of posts on TRB will still be mine, I welcome any and all folks* who'd like to lighten my load and write about any subject within the Tobacco Road sphere. I can pay you in gratitude and esteem, and I'll send you an autographed photo of me pretending to kiss a Coach K poster.

*Slight misspeak. There will be standards. But seriously, be in touch. Also, if your name is Laurie, I have this great idea for a feature called "Tuesdays with Laurie." All Lauries will have a huge leg up in the application process. Ditto for anyone named Corey or Tori.

3 - Content. Basketball will always be the jewel in the crown of TRB, but we'll be branching out heavily into football as well. Come the spring, we might delve into baseball and tennis and sports of that ilk. I have no idea what will happen in the late spring and early summer. I shudder to think that we might have to cover recruiting. Surely there's a way around that.

4 - Appearance. Unlike SCSD, which is the blog equivalent of a mistreated, waterlogged notebook, I'm going to try to make TRB look nice. And by that, I mean I'm soliciting help from folks who know how to do that kind of thing. I'm already working with a couple people, but if you feel you have something to offer in that regard, please be in touch.

5 - Car Chases. I've really dropped the ball on this one over the past two years, but believe me, that's changing. Every Wednesday, TRB will feature one of the internet's top car chases. Guaranteed to end in a crash.

Tobacco Road Blues will launch on Monday, August 7th. For a week, I'll be re-posting SCSD posts to ease the transition. Sort of a 'Greatest Hits' type of thing. The national championship post will go up, the Psycho T post will go up, the sportswriting post will go up. Anything that made people glad or mad to extremes. Then, starting August 14th, Duke is going to China! We'll be covering that trip in-depth, and I really, really hope the games are on television. If anybody knows something about that, dish.

Following that, it's football and soccer season, emphasis on football. I will personally be making Duke football my pet project this fall, in part because I love Coach Cutcliffe, and in part because they're at a really interesting crossroads. If we're ever supposed to take this rebuilding process seriously, it has to start this season. I've looked at the schedule, and I'd say there's a fair outside shot at 6 wins and a bowl berth.

So, that's the big news. Let me know what you think of the name. Follow me on twitter: @TobaccoRdBlues. And stay tuned to this blog in the meantime for news and updates. This is going to be good.

(Also: Happy Birthday, Nolan!)

Living Up To Expectations

2011-07-19T16:25:00.001-04:00

Why Detroit is primed for a fade and Milwaukee won't make the playoffs

Imagine a hypothetical 3-game series between two baseball teams. Team A wins the first game in a rout, 13-0. Team B recovers to win each of the next two games 1-0.

At that point, Team B obviously has the better record at 2-1. Their run differential, however, is -11; they've scored two, and allowed 13. Team A is behind in the standings, but boasts a run differential of +11.

The sample size is too small to draw any reasonable conclusions, but it's safe to say that in this short series, Team B has maximized their run scoring. If they maintained this exact pattern over a 162-game season, they would score 108 runs and allow 702, for a run differential of 594, but their record would be an excellent 108-54.

That's an extreme example that could never happen in major league baseball, but we see the phenomenon on a smaller scale every year. This season, the Detroit Tigers have been among the best in baseball at distributing their runs. With 419 runs scored and 437 runs allowed (-18 differential), you'd expect them to have won roughly 46.5 of their 95 games.* Instead, they've won 50. For the purposes of this post, we'll say Detroit's Wins Above Expectation (WAE) is +3.5.

*I'm using a simple formula that shows expected wins in proportion total runs scored and total runs allowed. The formula is (Runs scored x games played)/(Runs scored + Runs allowed).

On the other side of the table, the Toronto Blue Jays are two games below .500 at 47-49. Their run differential, though, is a respectable +17. Based on their runs scored, they should have won 48.9 games. Toronto's WAE is -1.9.

What conclusions can we draw from these numbers? The most obvious is that Detroit is winning close games, while Toronto is losing them. The stats prove the point- Detroit is 32-19 in games decided by three runs or less, but only 18-26 when games are decided by three runs or more. Toronto, on the other hand, generally wins the blowouts but loses the tight ones. They're 30-35 in three-runs-or-less affairs, and 17-14 when it gets lopsided.

More broadly, we can make some educated guesses. The two factors which logically seem most important in winning close games are opportunistic hitting, and a strong bullpen. We know Toronto is a power hitting team, so it makes sense that they beat up on bad pitchers and win some games by a lot of runs. Their pitching, on the other hand, is 50 runs worse than the best teams in the AL East, so they're vulnerable in games that are close near the end, especially in the division (though the Toronto bullpen is average- 8th in the American League in ERA).

With Detroit, conclusions are more difficult to draw. Their bullpen is the second-worst in the AL by ERA, and they actually score more runs than anyone in the AL Central. They also have the best power numbers in the Central, which means their profile is more fitting of a team like Toronto. So why, with a bad bullpen, are they winning 63% of their close games? There are two possible explanations.

1 - They're getting lucky.
2 - There's something inherent about the Tigers- call it clutch play, or opportunism, or whatever- that allows them to thrive in pressure situations, and which conversely makes them perform poorly when the pressure's off.

If you believe they're getting lucky, Wins Above Expectation can work as a predicting mechanism. If everything gravitates toward a statistical norm, Detroit is due for a correction- they should start losing games at a faster clip, and possibly end the season below .500 and out of playoff contention. Toronto, meanwhile, should start winning, though the pace won't be enough to catch their AL East brethren.

But using WAE to predict future outcomes is an exercise fraught with peril. While no team since the 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks has made the playoffs with a negative run differential, as Detroit is threatening this year, almost every playoff team finishes with a positive WAE. This makes sense, since in theory WAE should depend on opportunistic hitting and a strong bullpen, two critical components of a successful team. Here are the WAE totals for last year's playoff teams:

Tampa Bay: +6.5
New York: +5.3
Minnesota: +6.9
Texas: +5.3
Philadelphia: +8.4
Atlanta: +3.5
Cincinnati: +3.2
San Francisco: +3.8

You have to go back to the 2008 Los Angeles Dodgers to find a playoff team with a negative WAE- the Dodgers registered a -0.1 in a down year for the division. That same year, in Anaheim, the Los Angeles Angels posted a +15.3 WAE, the highest total for any team in the past four seasons.

Let's take a look at this year's WAE numbers by team, from best to worst. Bold italics denote a team currently in playoff position, and all numbers are rounded to the nearest tenth. Run differentials are in parentheses.

1. PHI: +6.2 (+88)
2. SFG: +6.2 (+12)
3. BOS: +4.5 (+113)
4. ATL: +4.4 (+61)
5. DET: +3.5 (-18)
6. TEX: +3.3 (+68)
7. ARZ: +2.9 (+11)
8. NYY: +2.7 (+114)
9. CLE: +2.3 (+6)
10. LAA: +1.9 (+16)
11. PIT: +1.7 (+12)
12. TBR: +1.3 (+35)
13. STL: +1.1 (+26)
14. MIN: +0.8 (-65)
15. WAS: -0.1 (-10)
16. FLA: -0.3 (-30)
17. NYM: -0.6 (+12)
18. CWS: -1.1 (-7)
19. TOR: -1.9 (+17)
20. SEA: -2.0 (-33)
21. CIN: -2.1 (+29)
22. COL: -2.4 (-1)
23. BAL: -2.7 (-98)
24. LAD: -3.2 (-35)
25. MIL: -3.7 (-12)
26. SDP: -4.5 (-36)
27. CHC: -4.6 (-98)
28. OAK: -4.9 (-15)
29. KCR: -6.7 (-52)
30. HOU: -10.3 (-110)

As expected, WAE correlates pretty closely with actual winning- excelling in close games generally means you'll have a good record. The anomalies are where things get interesting. Detroit's success in spite of a bad bullpen and a negative run differential has already been mentioned. But the real strange bird here is Milwaukee. We already knew the Brewers were an odd team, but now they're threatening to make a playoff run with a negative WAE. That would be a rare feat, last accomplished by the narrowest of margins in 2008. The Brewers, though, are doing it in style, with a drastic -3.7 WAE.

Despite the difficulty in using these numbers to predict how the season will end, I'll go out on a limb and draw two conclusions:

1 - With a power lineup and a weak bullpen (third worst in the NL), it's no surprise the Brewers lose a lot of close games. That trend should continue as the season plays out. What is surprising is that they're atop the NL Central. With just under 70 games remaining, it's doubtful they can sustain their position. If you're looking for a dark horse candidate in that division, check out the Cincinnati Reds. They score the most runs in the NL, and their bullpen is 6th-best in the league. Sure, their starters are pretty bad, but their second half schedule is great- outside of the division, they only play 10 games against teams with a record above .500, and 26 against teams at .500 or worse. Their -2.1 WAE seems like a fluke of bad luck, while Milwaukee figures to continue losing the close ones.

2 - Detroit, with their second-worst bullpen ERA, can't possible continue to win 63% of three-runs-or-less games. In their division, Cleveland's offense scores almost as many runs, and their pitchers are better across the board (with a bullpen 3rd best in the AL). The Indians' +2.3 WAE seems a lot more realistic than Detroit's +3.5, and they're a good bet to outpace their rivals in the final two months.

Two Takes

2011-07-18T11:39:00.002-04:00

Here's one take on the weekend recap, Grantland style, and here's another that only partly makes sense:

Today, we'll be looking back at the weekend in sports through the lens of important moments from the Women's World Cup final. Does that even make sense? Let's find out!

1. Abby Wambach's post-rattling shot in the 28th minute.

This one goes to the World Cup final itself. The shot was a microcosm of the entire match for the U.S. women; full of excellent chances that, through bad luck or error, went begging. Japan came back from the dead twice, scoring late goals in regulation and extra time to force the match to penalties, where they won the Cup 3-1. The Americans controlled play throughout the match, but couldn't reap the fruit of their attacks, at least enough to hold off the unflagging Japanese.

The prevailing post-match narrative was Japan's triumph in the wake of the tragic earthquake that devastated the country in March, but the humanitarian angle won't curb the regrets of U.S. fans who reasonably expected a win.

2. Wambach's header in the 104th minute to give the U.S. a 2-1 lead.

It was the perfect ending, until it wasn't, and this moment goes to Darren Clarke, who did sustain his storybook finish to win the British Open. It was the first major victory for the easygoing Clarke, 42, and the jewel in the crown of a strong career. He also became the third Northern Irish golfer to win a major in the last two years. As you might have heard in the sporting ether, Northern Ireland is a nation of 1.8 million, and they've split the last six majors with the rest of the world (population: 6.9 billion).

Then again, the rest of the world managed to get their independence from Great Britain somewhere along the way. Am I right, Earth?? (If that comment plays any role in re-igniting The Troubles, I apologize in advance.)

3. Alex Morgan's breakthrough goal in the 69th minute to end the 0-0 gridlock.

To the Texas Rangers, who are in the midst of their own breakthrough in the AL West. They won their 11th straight game on Sunday, sweeping the Mariners and opening up a 4-game lead in the division. Texas always looked like the superior team in the west (the run differentials alone bear this out), but a sluggish start kept them in range of the Angels. Now, the cream is rising, and it would be a shock if Los Angeles- or anyone else, for that matter- could keep pace as the summer unfolds.

Speaking of the Rangers, did anyone else read the review of Kornheiser's great Nolan Ryan profile and feel really bad that Ryan played in an era before people realized the flaws of measuring a pitcher by wins and losses? We should all congratulate ourselves on living in a world where Felix Hernandez can win a well-deserved Cy Young with a 13-12 record. If the old mindset persisted, David Price (19 wins) or CC Sabathia (21 wins) would have won in a walk.

4. Aya Miyama's game-tying goal in the 80th minute.

The stunning equalizer gave U.S. fans the sinking feeling that the deferred celebration had transformed back into a war of attrition, but it was hardly less stunning than the fact that the Pittsburgh Pirates are sniffing around first place in the NL Central. They beat the Astros in 11 innings Sunday to stay level with the Cardinals and a half-game back of the power-happy Brewers. The Reds are within striking distance too, and all four teams have benefited from the ineptitude of the Astros and Cubs, who are currently the two worst teams in baseball.

The winner of this horse race is anyone's guess. The Pirates have pitched the best, the Reds have hit the best, and the Brewers, with their -12 run differential, have either been very fortunate or excel at winning close games, depending on your worldview.

5. Homare Sawa's gut-punch goal - 117th minute.

If you're a pessimist, and an American, Sawa's goal probably gave you the sinking realization that fate or luck or karma or whatever was on the side of the enemy Sunday. For lack of a better candidate, we'll give this to the NBA and NFL lockouts. Good news seems to be on the horizon for the NFL, but a litany of issues remain unresolved as the preseason approaches with the looming threat of canceled games. In defiance of their own lockout, the NBA released next year's schedule while Deron Williams signed a contract to play in Turkey and Dwight Howard considered a similar path. Resolutions to both conflicts may be imminent, but in the meantime fans will have to suffer the byzantine twists and turns of the player-versus-management drama.

6. The U.S. collapse in penalty kicks

First, Shannon Boxx pushed a tentative kick to the right that was easily saved by Kaihori. Then the much-maligned Carli Lloyd sailed her attempt over the crossbar, and when Tobin Heath's weak shot to the left was kick-saved, America's hopes were all but snuffed out.

This one could go several ways. Phil Mickelson certainly qualifies; after a scorching start brought him within one shot of the lead, he shot a back-nine 38 to fall to a distant second. Or it could go to the woebegone Mariners, who celebrated the tenth anniversary of their 116-win season with 9 straight losses, and who boast the league's worst offense for the second straight year.

Instead, let's give it to Bengals running back Cedric Benson, who managed to get arrested for assault one week before the start of free agency, jeopardizing his expected contract extension. And if there's one thing we know about NFL football, no player ever comes back from committing a crime to have a successful career.

7. "Epic"

The one word which most aptly describes the entire match goes to the weekend's second-best game: Red Sox-Rays, Sunday night. A fantastic pitcher's duel between Josh Beckett and Jeff Niemann (8 scoreless innings apiece) stretched into extra innings, where the Red Sox finally won in 16. With a game that long (almost 6 hours), there's always the risk that fans will leave early. Luckily, this game was in Tampa Bay, so the fans had nothing else to do. Also, none of them showed up in the first place.

Robinson Crush-oe

2011-07-12T08:56:00.004-04:00

That was sort of a pun on both Robinson Cano and Robinson Crusoe, which is a seriously high-caliber headline pun. And it's the least I can do after my favorite player just won the best Home Run Derby in world history.

That photo shows Cano just after he bashed the winning home to run to beat Adrian Gonzalez in the last round. A second later, he stretched both arms out to the side like a baseball Jesus icon, and was lifted into the air by Russell Martin and David Robertson. I can't find a photo of him by himself with both arms outstretched yet, but if I do, I'm getting it tattooed on my stomach and forehead (that's two separate tattoos, not a weird interrupted one). Here's one from the aftermath, but they caught it a little too late. Ditto for this one and this one. If anybody can help me find that photo, I'll do you some favor that you can't even imagine.

I can usually take or leave the derby, but last night was special. And as I said on twitter, the best part of the whole thing was that everyone got to see what a great guy Cano is. I mean, after he tied Gonzalez in the last round, he actually walked to the mound, hugged his dad (a former Astro who was pitching to Cano), and said, "I love you, dad." Who else would do that?

Okay, I just found this:

Without the obnoxious "swag," that would be pretty great.

In other news, Sunday's Women's World Cup match against Brazil was phenomenal. I actually watched the whole thing, and I doubt I'll ever see a more unlikely goal in my life.

Wednesday, they take on France, which is nice because typically the Wednesday of the All-Star Break is the one day of the year where absolutely nothing is happening in the world of sports. Along with the Monday, it's one of only two days where no professional sports are played, and Monday has the derby.

Another Grantland weekend recap thing went up yesterday, and I might have a story soon about pro wrestling, of all things. Or I might not. We shall see.

82nd All-Star game tonight. Let's go AL! Also, my girlfriend is coming home after a 10-day vacation. Prior to that, I was gone for about 10 days myself on a trip to upstate New York. We got to see each other for like half a day in between, so it's basically been three weeks since we've lived together. And if I've learned one thing in that time, it's that I'm barely capable of maintaining a non-horrifying life by myself. Thank God this little experiment is about to end.

America Made It Another Year

2011-07-05T10:12:00.004-04:00

Hurrah!

In my own personal world of fireworks, you can check out the new piece on Grantland.

Also, if you want an excellent investigative recap of the whole Kyrie/Miss Hawaii twitter saga, along with (forgive me) naked pictures of the culprit, read Robert Littal's piece at Black Sports Online. For a refresher, here's my original post on the subject from March, along with a twitter timeline of the whole craziness.

Back with more later this week. Also, I'm still trying to figure out how SCSD will function now, but I definitely intend to keep it going. Stay tuned.

Three Things

2011-06-28T10:47:00.003-04:00

1. Marc is the new Pick Six champion! In a wild week that ended with everyone losing points, his intelligent selections propelled him to the top spot. Well done, Marc!

Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

Final Standings:

1. Marc: 7

2. Craig & Tim: 5
3. John: 3
4. Tim B.: 0
5. Swetha & Sabreena: -13
6. Monty: -21

2. Last week, I had a soccer essay go up on Run of Play. The site is run by Brian Phillips, an unbelievable writer whose recent Wimbledon pieces are must-reads. A similar version ran in this blog previously, but I took it out once I knew it was going on RoP.

3. My second recap-style piece on Grantland went up yesterday. Give it a gander.

Have a great week!

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX! Volume Four, WEEK SIX!

2011-06-25T09:45:00.002-04:00

There's no turning back now!

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX

VOLUME FOUR, WEEK SIX

The Friday Pick Six is an original SCSD! game where six people make six sports predictions for six weeks. Along with their picks, they're allowed and encouraged to submit a 'sound-off' on any topic, sports or otherwise. When it's all done, the winner earns great honor among the people, while the two losers are exiled in shame and the three middle finishers go to purgatory, with the chance rescue their good name up to three times. To learn more about the rules, and about the current contestants, read below:

VOLUME FOUR

Here's how it looks:

The Last Chance Gals (3rd attempt, win or bust): Swetha & Sabreena
Purgatory Part 1: Marc, Monty
Newcomers: Craig & Tim, Tim B., John

-Volume Four Intros
-Week One
-Week Two
-Week Three
-Week Four
-Week Five

THE HALL OF ANGELS: OLD CHAMPIONS

1. Tom.
2. Mike
3. Patrick and Dylan

Current Standings

1. John - 26
2. Tim B. - 23
3. Marc - 20
4. S&S - 19
5. C&T - 17
6. Monty - 9

John came out guns ablaze in Week 5, vaulting to the top of the leaderboard. However, history doesn't favor him; the leader after Week 5 has never won a pick six. In fact, 4th-place seems to be the charmed position, and that's where S&S sit at the moment. It all comes down to week six, and that is as it should be.

Time for this week's docket:

1. Pick the finalists of the College World Series. By Friday, when picks are due, it'll be down to a final 4. 1 point each.

2. Mets - Rangers - weird interleague series. Who wins it?

3. Who wins the Gold Cup? US-Mexico.

4. Yankees against Rockies, Boston against Pirates...which team scores the most runs of all 4? The least? 1 point each.

5. Pick any other baseball series that you think will be a sweep. If it's a sweep, you get a point. No sweep, no points. No need to tell me the winner.

6. THE PICK SIX WEEK SIX SPECTACULAR!

Monday is the greatest day in tennis, with every round-of-16 match being played on both the men's and women's side of the draw. You may pick as many or as few Wimbledon quarterfinalists (Round of 8) as you wish. This is for men's and women's, so the maximum you can guess is 16.

Here's the scoring:

For every quarterfinalist you correctly pick, you get 3 points. For each quarterfinalist you incorrectly pick, you lose 5 points.

Exceptions: 1 point only for the following players - Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray. Sorry, but that's too easy. You can certainly pick against them if you so desire for full points.

Let's get it started with John the Destroyer. This is for every marble in the bag.

John

Here it is...moment of truth. I’m up a break and serving for the match. I have many years of knowing that tense feeling that comes with knowing that a tough match will not be handed to you...that you still have to go out there and serve and hit hard and win yourself this damn match! I’ve gotten better at this by learning a this: you play a lot better by realizing that a tennis match really isn’t that important. This of course is a false realization, because every loss stings for days. I don’t lose much, but I’m down 4-6, 0-3 right now in a match rain delayed yesterday for top place in a local ladder...I’ve been stewing for a day about it. I digress...if you can fool yourself a little, you can close the deal...that is my goal. Obviously all the marbles are on #6 this week since the others are small fries...tennis too...bittersweet since I know if I play conservative I can coast into at least a purgatory finish, while if I go all out, I risk it all...time to relax and tell myself(the false notion) that it really isn’t important...I mean I’m about to have a new daughter any hour now and you would think that that would be what I’m worried about, right?...this is just a game, right? Loosen up and pick’em! OK, if I win, I’m dedicating my Indian trophy to my as yet unborn girl...and naming it after her as well!

1. How can I pick against the winner’s bracket? I’m rooting for UVA and Vandy, but I have to pick UF and the Cocks...I’m pretty much guaranteed at least one of those.

2 I’ll go for the Rangers in Texas

3. I don’t really know much ‘bout dis. I recall some Mexicans getting kicked out for doping so maybe they are weakened…I see the final is in Pasadena so I’m expecting good ol’ USA to get drowned out by the bunch from East LA. I would be mildly ok with being wrong, but I’m going with El Tricolor (thanks Wikipedia)

4. I’ll go with the Yanks for most since they have the stupid DH this weekend. Least? Pirates.

5. Philly/Oakland

6. THE PICK SIX WEEK SIX SPECTACULAR!

Men: - Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Roddick, soderling, berdych

This is tough, I can’t even keep all Russians straight, and the women’s game has no order right now. I’m tempted to leave this section blank...seriously...but the women are for all the points...

Women: Sharapova, the Woz(niaki), Ivanovic, Serena, schiavone

Tim B.

1. It’s probably smarter to pick the two teams who only need to win once, but I’ll split the vote: South Carolina and Vanderbilt. The Commodores deserve my faith after beating UNC twice.

2. Are there any non-weird interleague series? Even though Arlington is, as all Mets fans know, where Jose Reyes made his big-league debut, it’s also where teams with power hit a lot of home runs. The Mets do not have power. Rangers.

3. It’s on U.S. land, but last I heard, Freddy Adu was actively involved in a slim win over Panama. Plus, and I don’t know if he still plays for them, but Cuahtemoc Blanco always had one of the best names in soccer. Cuahtemoc Blanco. Like an Aztec emperor. Mexico.

4. While the Red Sox have the best offense of the four, the Pirates have actually pitched pretty well, and Boston will be without Ortiz (unless they hilariously play Gonzalez in RF). The Yankees, meanwhile, will probably be better off without the albatross of Jorge Posada in the lineup, and they don’t face Colorado’s best starter (this year) in Jhoulys Chacin. New York.

5. I hate being bland, but the Phillies are so easy to take against the lackluster A’s, who won’t even toss Gio Gonzalez against them. Of course, if Oakland sweeps, I still win, right?

6. Has anyone ever considered multi-surface tennis? Not one court that contains all three, but like a match that takes place on all three. You could do a best-of-three-sets with each set occurring on a different surface, or (my preferred idea) a first-to-win-on-all-three-surfaces marathon in which you cycle through surfaces. Only then can we really settle Federer-Nadal. (Federer, I think, would win a best-of-three by taking grass and hardcourt; Nadal would win in the latter idea because it’s so tough to take even a set from him on clay.)

Nadal (what happened to Del Potro?)
Berdych
Murray
Federer
Soderling
Djokovic

Wozniacki
Ivanovic (a pick with my heart over my head)
Serena
Zvonareva

Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

Well shit. The Bobcats once again prove to be the most inept organization in the NBA. Kemba Walker won't amount to shit in the pros and Bismack Biyombo is reincarnated Casey Sanders, but shorter. Hey Michael Jordan, you were supposedly good at basketball at some point in your career. I guess you spend too much time jacking yourself off with Air Jordan's to understand how to create a successful basketball team. Enjoy another year of apathetic fan support. How fast can we get a different NBA franchise in Charlotte?

1. Virginia and Vanderbilt going with the V's!
2. Rangers. These teams are singlehandedly responsible for the financial collapse. I wish they'd both collapse into a lava pit.
3. Mexico! We suck at soccer.
4. Yanks most, Pirates least.
5. Phillies and Athletics.
6. Nadal, Federer, Murray, Djokivic, Berdych, Soderling and the Williams sisters.

Swetha & Sabreena

Alright readers and fans (aka Jill and Carrie), this is our final Pick Six post ever. Ever! So if we don’t emerge victorious, this is goodbye.

1. Virginia’s mascot kind of looks like Antonio Banderas with a pirate hat. And Vanderbilt is good. UVA,VANDY

2. Texas forever. RANGERS

3. I wanted to make some sort of “tree falling in the woods with no one around, does it make a sound” joke regarding soccer and whether Americans would care. But I don’t know how to phrase it so it makes sense. MEXICO.

4. Most - BOSTON. Least - PIRATES.

5. Well, it doesn’t say we lose any points for picking incorrectly (we are holding you to the original email, Shane). So we are picking them all! BRAVES/PADRES, REDS/ORIOLES, ATHLETICS/PHILLIES, DIAMONDBACKS/TIGERS, RAYS/ASTROS, TWINS/BREWERS, NATIONALS/WHITE SOX, BLUE JAYS/CARDINALS, CUBS/ROYALS, ANGELS/DODGERS, MARINERS/MARLINS, INDIANS/GIANTS

6. The boring ones. NADAL, MURRAY, FEDERER, DJOKOBITCH, SODERLING.
The Americans. RODDICK, S. WILLIAMS, V. WILLIAMS.
The ones with names that sound like spies. IVANOVIC, SCHIAVONE, TSONGA, KUZNETSOVA, WOZNIACKI, PETROVA.

Craig & Tim

1- Florida and South Carolina. I have a dream that one day a team from the north of the Mason-Dixon line will compete for a CWS title. Alas, it is not this year.

2- Rangers over Mets. Mets are hovering near .500, I eagerly await their inevitable collapse in the second half of the season. No way they take two of three from the Rangers in Arlington. Jose Reyes may be in pinstripes come July. And with the Mets' financial situation and attending drama, I wouldn't be surprised if Fred Wilpon loses custody of the Mets to Kevin Federline in the near future.

3- Hey! Its another U.S.-Mexico Gold Cup match! The U.S. is coming off a gritty victory over Panama which featured the return of Freddy Adu to the international soccer scene. Apparently this is a good thing, since he was touted as the Next Great Hope in American soccer when he was 13. Even though the game is going to be played at the Rose Bowl, I think Mexico takes it. The US can't stop Chicharito even if he isnt flanked by dos Santos and Guardado.

4. The Red Sox

5. Nationals vs. White Sox. Will the sudden and surprising resignation of Nationals manager Jim Riggleman backhand slap the Nationals into a shock-induced losing streak? Will it result in a spite fueled winning streak? Either one would be fine with us.

6. It's time.

Gentlemen

Federer
Djokovic
Murray
Nadal
Soderling
Roddick

Ladies

Caroline Wozniacki
Maria Sharapova
Serena Williams
Petra Kvitova
Vera Zvonareva

Monty

1. The College World Series is all about the letter V, So I'm quite certain that Vanderbilt and Virginia will face each other in the finals. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that no one will reach the final, given the wild party nightlife in Omaha.

2. No one wins when the Mets play the Rangers. But if you mean which team will wind up having scored more points than the other in more games, I'm pretty sure that won't be the Mets.

3. It's not possible to win the Gold Cup. Winning is only a description of a way to achieve possession of the cup, and possession of material goods is an illusion, as are the material good themselves. That being said, the Mexicans have much more skill at soccer than the Americans.

4. The most likely outcome of both baseball series is that the stadiums are infiltrated by Thetans who perform weird group-therapy on everyone. In the off chance that Mr. L. Ron was wrong though, I'd have to pick Boston for the most points and the Rockies for the least number of points.

5. LA Angels at LA Dodgers. I have nothing odd or unwitty to say about this.

6. Nadal, Haase, Murray, Lopez, Ferrer, Federer, Soderling, Djkovic, Wozniacki, Sharapova, Lisicki, Williams, Schiavone, Petrova, Wickmayer, Williams

Everyone should prepare to feel supremely humbled when I come from this far behind to win everything at the last moment.

New News, Grantland Style

2011-06-20T22:42:00.003-04:00

Hello my friends. Sorry for the lack of activity lately, but things have been in the offing.

First, I'm excited to tell you all that I wrote a piece for Grantland that was published today. I'll hopefully be doing more with them in the near future, and I'll be sure to keep everything updated here. Grantland, for those that don't know, is a site started by ESPN's Bill Simmons dedicated to sports and culture writing. It's been pretty great so far, give it a look if you're not familiar.

Second, and this has been a long time coming: please read The Fabulous Penguin's baseball blog. T Fab P has been a loyal reader for some time, and combined with his son Dylan to win the last Pick Six. I've been meaning to link his blog for like 2 months, and now the deed is done. No longer will I hoard this very enjoyable site. Check him out.

The Grantland stuff came as a direct result of this blog, and I can't thank everyone enough for the support you've shown over the past two years and change. Without you guys, I would've quit long ago. Because of the blog's vibrancy, though, especially during basketball season, I can't imagine doing anything else with my weekday mornings. It's always been a pleasure.

More later, pals.

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX! Volume Four, Week Five

2011-06-17T11:29:00.002-04:00

Onward, brothers!

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX

VOLUME FOUR, WEEK FIVE

The Friday Pick Six is an original SCSD! game where six people make six sports predictions for six weeks. Along with their picks, they're allowed and encouraged to submit a 'sound-off' on any topic, sports or otherwise. When it's all done, the winner earns great honor among the people, while the two losers are exiled in shame and the three middle finishers go to purgatory, with the chance rescue their good name up to three times. To learn more about the rules, and about the current contestants, read below:

VOLUME FOUR

Here's how it looks:

The Last Chance Gals (3rd attempt, win or bust): Swetha & Sabreena
Purgatory Part 1: Marc, Monty
Newcomers: Craig & Tim, Tim B., John

-Volume Four Intros
-Week One
-Week Two
-Week Three
-Week Four

THE HALL OF ANGELS: OLD CHAMPIONS

1. Tom.
2. Mike
3. Patrick and Dylan

Current Standings

1. Tim B. - 15
2. John - 14
3. S&S - 13
4. C&T - 12
4. Marc - 12
6. Monty - 9

Week Four was an incredible one for pure scoring, as Tim vaulted up the leaderboard with 8 points. The others kept pace, giving us a tightly-packed top as we head into the penultimate week. Monty, who forgot to submit picks, paid the price as he went from first to worst.

Time for this week's docket:

1. Gold Cup Quarterfinals. This is the national soccer competition held roughly every two years for countries from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Saturday, the US takes on Jamaica. Normally this would be a formality, but the US has looked like shit and Jamaica has looked surprisingly strong. Plus, I'm throwing in a wrinkle. So, yes or no answer, will the US win by 2 goals or more?

2. US Open, golf. How many foreign blokes will finish in the top 20 of OUR FUCKING EVENT? 5 points for a direct hit, 3 points for best guess otherwise, 2 for second, 1 for third.

3. UNC takes on Vanderbilt in Game 1 of the College World Series. Patrick Johnson will be going for the Heels, and he's given up about 1 run in 30 innings or something insane like that. Jacob Stallings, the UNC catcher, is the son of Vanderbilt basketball coach Kevin Stallings, and has been ridiculously clutch lately. So, which total will be higher: Jacob Stallings' hits, or the EARNED RUNS conceded by Patrick Johnson in his outing?

4. The Yankees play in the hallowed grounds of Wrigley Chewing Gum Field for the first time in what must be ages. We're earning our "Bombers" nickname over the past week, so how many home runs will the good guys hit over the ivy?

5. It was tough for all of us to watch the thugs from Boston punch their way to a Stanley Cup title, but perhaps the Brewers can extract a measure of revenge in Fenway this weekend. How many runs will the Brew Crew score against the woeful John Lackey Friday?

6. There's a weird tennis event going on in England right now which is a run-up to Wimbledon but isn't the famous Queens tournament. Try to pick who'll win.

We start with Tim B., the man who capture our hearts and imaginations in Week Four:

Tim B.

1. Two goals? The US isn't Barca. No.

2. Said it a few weeks ago. Euros are taking over golf, and they've been more competitive at the US Open in recent years (with McDowell breaking through for the win obvs). I'm going with 11 unAmericans.

3. I can't trust an athlete named Patrick Johnson, whom I merely see as a conflation of Blue Devil walk-ons Patrick Davidson and Steve Johnson. Earned runs.

4. Wind was blowing out Thursday, which bodes well for the long ball. Doug Davis pitching Friday night bodes better. Eight.

5. Lackey's been aight since coming off the DL, but he did allow 66.7% of the runs the Sox gave up in that Toronto series (and that was considered a good start). Milwaukee touches him for five.

6. Tipsarevic. Not because he's the only one I've heard of (I know Stepanek too, although I probably would have guessed he played hockey for the Rangers [that's Radek Dvorak, I guess]), not because he's the only one ranked, not because he almost beat Federer that one time and did beat Roddick that other time, but because his wife looks like this. Tennis allegiances can be fickle.

John

1. I think our team is currently falling apart and hasn't hit the bottom yet...still in denial stage. I say, No, we will not win by 2 or more goals.

2. 11

3. ER by Johnson. I hope I'm wrong.

4. 4

5. I'm assumming this is just runs against the starting pitcher (and earned runs since that is what is credited to the pitcher): 4

6: Tipsarevic

Swetha & Sabreena

I've been on a real "This is SportsCenter" kick recently, so we're going to use this docket as an opportunity to throw out some of the best commercials related to these topics since we don't really have any strong opinions about any of the questions. Also, we're aiming to finish this week in fourth place overall, because that seems to be the formula for winning the pick six.

1. Jozy Altidore tries to share, Landon Donovan gets owned by a copier, and America still kicks Jamaica's ass. USA BY 2+ GOALS.

2. Our favorite golfers either aren't in the field (please get healthy, Tiger) or now more famous for drinks than drives. TEN INTERNATIONALS.

3. This genre is kind of lacking in terms of college sports, so here's the only UNC video we can really tolerate, pretty much because of Danny Green's tongue gag. JOHNSON RUNS.

4. Derek Jeter gets peeved (while on the bench, of course), and the Yanks get homer-happy in his absence. SIX.

5. The Milwaukee Brewers are another team seriously underrepresented in the SportsCenter set. They're really not that impressive. THREE.

6. None of these four names are even remotely familiar. You'd have to imagine that if any of them walked around ESPN headquarters, something like this would happen. JANKO TIPSAREVIC.

Craig & Tim

Familiarize yourself with the concept of Qualia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia . Nothing I can say will ever be able to fully capture just how special this Boston Bruins team was...so I'm not even going to try.

Instead, I'll just state the obvious. Vancouver didn't win because you don't need a cup if you don't have balls.

1. The United States will be celebrating on Saturday, but it will be parade style in the storied streets of Boston...non soccer related. No, the US will not win by 2 or more goals. Yes, the US will show those clowns to the North how to gather together as a city without burning it down.

2. There will be 12 fuzzy little foreigners that finish in the top 20 of the US open. That's a Caddyshack reference for any of you who thought about getting angry since being castrated by the knife of political correctness.

3. The number of earned runs let up by Patrick Johnson will exceed the number of hits by Stallings. Metal bats are a joke, even a great pitcher can get tuned up within a blink of an eye.

4- "Good guys" is an inherently arbitrary term, as it implies that there is some universal consensus as to what is "good" and what is "bad". However, the term "good guys" should never be ascribed to the Yankees. Not in a baseball sense, not in a "they're good guys" sense. Jeter = womanizer. Posada = whiny little bitch. Teixiera pulled a LeBron before LeBron and took his talents to the Bronx, eschewing a return to his hometown Orioles for the bright lights and glamor of NYC. It is rumored that he plans on leaving his wife at the end of the season for the Olson twins. Nick Swisher? Unabashed tobacco-chewing enthusiast who displays a general lack of personal hygiene at all times. Russell Martin routinely pushes small children and old ladies out of the way to grab foul balls and then stares at them triumphantly. Cano steals the money from the collection plate at St. Patricks Cathedral and when confronted by the priests, he pretends not to understand English. A-Rod? I don't know where to start. Let's just say that he doesn't have a soul and it is unclear whether he can even be considered a human being.

That being said, the Yanks aka "Not Good Guys" face the immortal Doug Davis on Friday, Ryan "Dumpster" Dempster on Saturday, and some kid who won a contest to pitch for the Cubs on Sunday. I won't underestimate the Yanks and it could be a close race in the AL East all season. The Cubs pretty much suck, are near dead last in terms of team ERA and WHIP, and are close to last in BAA. Yanks hit 7 out of Double Mint Park.

5- Brewers score 3 off Lackey, who pitches into the 7th inning before his double chin starts wearing his face down.

And way to support America, Benedict. You'd rather see a group of traitors from Canada prevail over a hard-working, blue-collar, nitty-gritty hockey team that represents the best of America? In any sport? By the way, the Bs didnt need to punch their way to the finals. The 'Nucks did a pretty good job falling down on their own like a bunch of Euro-trash soccer players and drunken teenagers. And the Bruins couldn't punch a Canuck in the face because they'd get bitten or cheap-shotted. Plus, look what happened when Vancouver lost: Vancouver-ites trashed their city, creating a state of national emergency and forcing a massive increase in the nation's mandated sedative doses. In Boston? Only two arrests, for public intoxication. The Boston police didnt even have to shoot, maim, or kill a celebrating fan this year. See you at the title parade on Saturday.

6- So a Serb, Russian, Italian, and Japanese guy walk into a bar and start drinking...who is the last man standing? The Serb drinks beer, the Russian drinks vodka, the Italian drinks red wine, and the Japanese guy drinks sake. The Japanese guy passes out after his 8th sake bomb. The Italian follows suit, after his third bottle of
Chianti. The Russian is wobbly and cross-eyed after polishing off a liter of Stolichnaya...looks like the Serb is the last man standing! 18 beers later, the Serb succumbs to his beverage of choice. But wait! The Russian is back on his feet...and he doesn't even look drunk...AH HAH! The Russian tricked the Serb! The oldest trick in the book! After all, everyone knows that vodka courses though the veins of all Russians!

As a result of this possibly racist hypothetical, it can be said with confidence that the Russian, Igor Kunitsyn, will win the ATP Aegon International.

Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

This past week was crazy. My apologies for lack of a rant. I'm going to have a short rant this week because Shane decides to send in the docket at the latest moment possible and some of us have lives Shane!

1. It was a few months ago when I stole into my friends house to watch their cable while I pretended to do push-ups on the floor. HBO On Demand is a wonderful thing. So many options, from shows to movies to documentaries. However, one choice on the television screen sparkled at me. Cool Runnings. Feel the rhythm, Feel the rhyme, Get on up, It's bobsled time...... COOOOOOOOOL RUNNINGS! The ending scene nearly brings me to tears every time. The only thing I've cried about in the past four years is the conclusion of Marley and Me (the book). Therefore, the answer is No.

2. I'm trying to navigate the US Open website but it seems the old white guys just discovered flash and decided to put as much of it everywhere on the site. Wild guess time! 12

3. This is tough, I remember your piece on the catcher, and it seems he has a lot of Jesus behind him. That's something to be feared. As we all saw, Jason Terry has a bunch of Jesus and look what happened. What about the losing teams? Don't those guys believe in God? Why didn't he ordain their victory? Regardless of your views on religion I think it's absolutely ridiculous when athletes praise God for their victory. If there is a God, he/she hopefully doesn't care about sports, but who knows. I'm going with Stallings.

4. At this very moment (4:44 on 6/16) the Yankees are going into extras with the Rangers. This might make them tired for the weekend. Baseball is a very tiring sport. All that sitting down and chewing gum (tobacco yeeeeehaw!). Maybe playing a little bit of grab-ass. I'll go for four homeruns because of those tired arms.

5. It seems Lackey's ERA is a billion and he has only pitched four innings this season. He's giving up four runs.

6. Wildcard question! Janko Tipsarevic!

Monty

Monty has yet again chosen not to participate. It's a bold strategy that he hopes will pay off in Week Six.

Weekend Wrap-Up

2011-06-13T14:05:00.003-04:00

(Note: This blog post was written for a different site and is being posted here instead due to timing issues.)

This past Saturday, three friends and I went to watch Game 2 of the UNC-Stanford super regional here in Chapel Hill. We sat in right field under the direct, awful heat of the sun, where it was 117 degrees* by first pitch.

*This is an estimate - stadium security confiscated our thermometers.

The tough thing about sweltering heat is that it dominates your thoughts and emotions. In the bar beforehand, we were focused on Tar Heel baseball. By the time we finished the long walk to Boshamer Stadium, though, the only thing that registered was the very miserable hotness of our existence.

While the drama on the field played out, I tried not to discuss the weather. It's something I usually reserve for dead-end conversations with neighbor types, and only then as a last ditch effort. I can persist for up to ten minutes on meaningless formulations like, "hooo...man" before I'll resort to weather talk. It's one of my few principles- that, plus never fighting with the priest in church.

But when the weather is so extreme that it invades your personal space, you can't stay mum. Deep tragedy renders us mute, but a mere inconvenience? That spawns endless protest. During one of the lulls in action, I finally broke:

"Guys, it is really hot!"

Their reactions were some form of "we know, shut up." But they broke too, inevitably. To keep it interesting, we approached the topic in different ways. We treated the heat like a parent who keeps showing up drunk to PTA meetings:

"What is with this weather?!"

We sprinkled in profanity:

"Son of a bi*** it's hot!"

We reacted like it was a long line at the DMV:

"Come on, this is getting ridiculous!"

By the sixth inning, we were like punch drunk boxers, slack-jawed and swaying. But there's a weird kind of satisfaction in outlasting extreme weather. We didn't actually do anything besides sit in place and occasionally buy a snow cone, but it felt like we were persevering through something meaningful. It's the same way marathoners feel, if they're lazy and don't run marathons.

Carolina took a 6-1 lead, and it was all building to the glorious end when they would clinch a College World Series berth. By the top of the ninth, things had cooled down and we were in good spirits. The game mattered again.

Then the sky darkened and the unthinkable happened: lightning struck

Call me selfish, but I was hoping the teams would risk their lives and play through the storm, metal bats and all. I couldn't leave without a resolution, even if that meant death. The bureaucrats on the field didn't agree, though, and the game was postponed. We were long gone by the time UNC won. I saw "Super 8" with my friend Justin, which was great until we got to the important alien part and an earthquake destroyed our theater.

The weekend in sports was a bit more satisfying.

-The Dallas Mavericks won the NBA title with a 105-95 win against Miami in Game 6. A jubilant Jason Terry, pointing to his bicep tattoo of the Larry O'Brien Trophy, said, "when you do something as crazy as I did, you gotta back it up!" In the Miami locker room, meanwhile, a distraught Chris Bosh pointed to his Eastern Conference Trophy tattoo and said, "I should have been more ambitious!"

-Dirk Nowitzki won the Bill Russell Finals MVP award, averaging over 20 points per game in the series and leading three separate fourth quarter comebacks. In a related story, LeBron James finished 9-7 as the Chicago Bears in the Tecmo Bowl season he played during timeouts.

-Francisco Liriano was perfect through six innings Sunday before an error by third baseman Luke Hughes spoiled the effort. He lost the no-hitter in the 8th, but the Twins beat the Rangers 6-1 to win the series. Afterward, Liriano said he was slightly distracted when he received a fifth inning phone call from the entire Miami Heat team congratulating him on his perfect game.

-The Yankees won Sunday to sweep the Cleveland Indians, who, despite an impressive 34-29 record, continue to be a terrible baseball team.

-The Vancouver Canucks beat the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals Saturday to take a 3-2 edge in the series. The two teams play a sport called "ice hockey," a Canadian invention featuring 12 men in bladed shoes racing back and forth on a sheet of manicured ice while attempting to hit a vulcanized rubber disk with wooden stick implements. The game ends when somebody dies.

-Phil Humber pitched 7 strong innings and Adam Dunn hit a three-run homer to lead the White Sox over the Oakland Athletics Sunday. After the game, the two men finalized the marketing strategy for their latest clothing product- the "Humber-Dunn Cumberbund."

-The Seattle Mariners hit three home runs to give staff ace Felix Hernandez plenty of support in a 7-3 win over Detroit. After the game, local villagers wept and erected a shrine at the scene of the miracle. A mariachi band led a spontaneous parade, and the Virgin Mary's face was spotted in a tattered photograph of Miguel Olivo.

-The city of Dallas went into a state of shock Sunday night as the Dallas Baptist Patriots' dream of reaching the College World series fell short in the NCAA super regional. They were swept by the California Bears- or, as the Baptists call them, "The University of Gomorrah." Or, as the really old Baptists call them, "gold country!"

-Along with Cal, UNC, Vanderbilt, Florida, Texas, and South Carolina all punched their ticket to the College World Series. The winner of that tournament will presumably play the champion from the northern half of America.

That's all for now. Enjoy Bruins-Canucks tonight.

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX! Volume Four, Week Four

2011-06-11T09:15:00.007-04:00

Here we go...

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX

VOLUME FOUR, WEEK FOUR

The Friday Pick Six is an original SCSD! game where six people make six sports predictions for six weeks. Along with their picks, they're allowed and encouraged to submit a 'sound-off' on any topic, sports or otherwise. When it's all done, the winner earns great honor among the people, while the two losers are exiled in shame and the three middle finishers go to purgatory, with the chance rescue their good name up to three times. To learn more about the rules, and about the current contestants, read below:

VOLUME FOUR

Here's how it looks:

The Last Chance Gals (3rd attempt, win or bust): Swetha & Sabreena
Purgatory Part 1: Marc, Monty
Newcomers: Craig & Tim, Tim B., John

-Volume Four Intros
-Week One
-Week Two
-Week Three

THE HALL OF ANGELS: OLD CHAMPIONS

1. Tom.
2. Mike
3. Patrick and Dylan

Current Standings

1. Monty - 9
2. John - 8
2. Tim B. - 8
4. Swetha & Sabreena - 7
4. Marc - 7
6. Craig & Tim - 5

Week Three was WILD, as Monty shook off his early fatigue and busted out with 8 points, correctly guessing that there would be 6 sweeps in baseball. John and Marc also acquitted themselves nicely, and the three lowest in the standings are now the three leaders. It was a week of tragedy for Swetha & Sabreena, who only managed 1 point and are now in last place in their final Pick Six. Can they begin the comeback this week, or is it lights out for the ladies?

Time for this week's docket:

1. Heat-Mavs, GAME 6. Who wins?

2. Friday night: Bruins-Canucks!

3. Pick two weekend baseball series' (Fri-Sat-Sun) and tell me who wins. Get both: 2 points. Split: 0 points. Lose both: -2 points. Go 6-0 on games (as in, both are sweeps): 5 points.

4. UNC-Stanford in the CWS: 3-game set, who wins?

5. How many innings will Ivan SuperNova pitch Friday?

6. Who will get the most points in Week 6 of all the other Pick 6 players? You can't pick yourself.

We start with our new leader, the man who claims not to be British:

Monty

Monty has unfortunately not submitted picks this week, and will have to take a big 0. I blame myself- I sent the docket late, and that can't have helped.

John

No time for screwing around this week...to the picks!

1. Miami is warm this time of year: feel the HEAT

2. ? Bruins I guess. I watched the whole overtime to game 2. I admit it was an exciting period. I can officially handle 12 seconds of hockey if it involves a game winning goal.

3. Atlanta wins on the road and Philly at home

4. Good going shane, make people root for the Heels!

5. I had to google to find out who this was. I’m guessing a decent outing with 5.1 innings

6. Well...my unofficial count has Monty in the lead with 9 points with me pulling into a tie for 2nd with 8...since he doesn’t like hockey either, and because his name sounds like a funny Brit, I’m going with Monty the Python

Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

1. Heat
2. Canucks
3. Phillies and Giants
4. UNC
5. I have no idea who this is. 6.
6. John

Tim B.

1. Series is going seven. Heat

2. Boston totes overconfident, ‘Nucks win it, perhaps big. This is like ’94, folks: Game 7s across the board. ‘Cept we’ll have a World Series, too.

3. That the Red Sox and Yankees are still playing throws a wrench into two of my secondary picks. I mean, everyone’s gonna take the Phillies over the Cubs, obvs. I’ll go with the Braves over the ‘Stros as well, as vengeance for Chris Burke.

4. Home-field. Carolina sinks the Cardinal's diamond...more so. I would sigh, but I don’t much like Stanford either.

5. 5 2/3. He will be replaced by Joba, oh, my bad.

6. Presented without commentary, Swetha and Sabreena.

Craig & Tim

1. Game 6 goes to the Mavs. Lebron James is a fucking douchebag and I'd rather get punched in the face than root for him to win anything...and I'm not joking. Anyone that loves them self that much deserves a bus to the nuts, not a championship. The people in the Gomorrah-esque coke-funnel known as Miami care more about the umbrella positioning in their mojito than they do basketball - so fuck them too.

2. Bruins win. I'm in full superstition mode right now so my commentary here is a bit bridled. I will however leave you video evidence showing what happens when arrogant Canadian based hockey teams try to get physical. NHL hockey teams often take on the persona of the city they play in. Montreal is the most European of North American cities, and their hockey team is a perfect reflection of this French, diving, pussy trapeze artist mentality. Vancouver - don't expect to win the Stanley Cup when you take on the attitude of a tweed-sweater wearing beatnik sitting in the corner of a solar-powered coffee shop flicking at an iphone oblivious to the world around you. Take your greenman costumes and put them to use at an environmental rally. Your blind faith in the global warming hoax is better served there than your blind faith in the regular season Canuck stat sheet. Go Bruins.

3. Rays and Red Sox.

4. Truth be told, I rarely watch college baseball. In fact, I've seen more American Legion and Cape League games than college games. And I think a big part of that has to do with the fact that they still use metal/composite bats. I simply hate that. So while it may be "fun" to see 12 homers a game and scores like 24-17 on the reg, I think the college game is lacking. Plus, there were some real douches on the baseball team when I was in college. Lax players generally seem to get a bad rap for being punks, but the baseball guys were worse. That being said, we're going with UNC over Stanford in this series.

5. Thank you for including this question, it allows us to take gratuitous pot-shots at the Yanks. First off, that was a very enjoyable series at Yankee Stadium. Besides being swept, the Yanks skipper made an ass of himself by trying to "protect" his young pitcher after Ortiz dropped a bomb and flipped his bat in Game 1. Sox are 6-0 at Yankee Stadium this year and the seats behind home plate are half-empty every game. Secondly, I'm convinced that A.J. Burnett is completely insane. After his most recent meltdown it was entirely conceivable that he went on a murder spree in the Bronx right after the game ended. Yet we digress...seeing that Nova has only pitched 7+ innings once in his last 10 starts, I don't see him getting there. We predict he lasts 6 1/3 after giving up 4 runs. Yanks lose to the Indians.

6. The most difficult question to date. Gotta go with the gut on this one, and we'll select Tim B., a/k/a Little Whiny Tim. He just seems like the kind of guy who scours the web on a friday night, looking for inside info on his pick 6 selections.

Swetha & Sabreena

Not really a banner week for us last time around. We’d like to think it’s because we threw a little more effort into the links than the picks, and that's not going to happen again.

1. No way Miami goes down three times in a row. Besides, this series deserves a Game 7, no matter how much we want Dallas to win. MIAMI.

2. Seems like Boston has gained control of this series, but we really have no idea. Maybe home ice means something now? CANUCKS.

3. The Phils have the dream team going (sorry, Hamels) and the Giants have a pretty good rotation this weekend, too. PHILADELPHIA AND SAN FRANCISCO.

4. Let’s be honest, we’re not going to put a whole lot of effort into college baseball. We are from Duke, after all. NORTH CAROLINA.

5. The Indians are good -- can’t imagine this is going to be a successful outing for SuperNova. 5.1 INNINGS.

6. Even if we could pick ourselves, that would probably be a bad idea. Ideally, we want the person in last place to get the most points. Unfortunately, not only is this unlikely, but we’re not entirely sure how the scoring broke down for the baseball sweeps last week, so it’s unclear who sits in last place. We’ll just choose the other Dukie in this group. TIM B.

Pick Six coming soon!

2011-06-10T08:41:00.001-04:00

Probably tonight, maybe earlier if fortune smiles...

Federer’s Tears: Why LeBron and the Heat Will Probably Win the NBA Title, and Why That’s Okay

2011-06-06T00:19:00.005-04:00

(Editor's Note: This post was conceived before Game 1 of the NBA playoffs and written before Game 2.)

A couple years ago, I met my family in upstate New York for a weekend trip. My two brothers, 15 and 17, were joined by their friend, a German foreign exchange student named Malo.

Malo was different than your average teen. There was something calm about him, an easy style inherent to a dude with nothing to prove. He watched the aggression of his friends with a kind of amused half interest, but though he never participated, he still had their respect.

In essence, he seemed emotionally mature in a way that’s foreign to most teenagers. That relaxed quality manifested in almost every situation. He, my brothers and I were driving once, headed out to lunch, when the song “Take On Me” came on the radio. When Malo put his falsetto to use, I watched my brother’s face in the rearview mirror. First, the instinctual laugh, the pleasure of watching something fun. Second, the urge to participate, to let himself loose for a moment. And third, the stifling, corrective barriers of being a cool American teen.

There were times when I forgot that Malo was almost a decade younger than me. The reason I enjoyed him, mind you, was because I was older. My teenage days were not free of the humming angst I saw in my brothers, and if I met Malo as a 17-year-old, who can guess which of my neuroses would have interfered? I could relate only because we’d finished a maturing process at different points in life.

Anyway, Malo was a very good high school basketball player who wanted to become a professional, and his hero was Dirk Nowitzki. So when I see Dirk, I think of Malo.

And that’s convenient, because the contrast between my brothers and their German friend is playing out in the NBA finals. Dirk is the graceful, free-flowing entity that seems almost literally fluid in his movements. He’s elegant. He’s majestic. He’s almost wispy. He could have played one of the elves from Lord of the Rings, if he was into that kind of thing. If these were the 1960s, he’d be an inadvertent counterculture icon, like Bill Walton without the arrogance.

LeBron, meanwhile, basically lacks subtlety. He’s the bull-headed, relentless emblem of stubborn America, all muscle and rage. He wears his masculinity proudly, and we can witness the effortful assertion of self at every moment. While Dirk seems to exist in sync with his soul, LeBron is a striver. The machismo comes with its attendant egocentrism, which became embarrassingly evident during ‘The Decision.’

This is elegance versus power. Am I generalizing? Probably. Plus, rumor has it that the finals are being contested by two teams with full, functioning rosters of a dozen professionals.

Still and all, the NBA is constructed around individual battles. Two men will write the central narrative of this series, and the unabridged manuscript of the Finals will resonate with their disparate voices.

*

This is not the first time elegance has confronted power in professional sports. Far, far from it.

The first chronological example that comes to my mind is a little arcane; the 1954 World Cup Final. A team from Hungary, of all places, had recently revolutionized soccer. They were called the “Magnificent Magyars,” and they came into the World Cup unbeaten in 32 matches. They routed West Germany 8-3 in the group stages and outscored all opponents 25-7 on their way to the final. There, they met West Germany again, who switched things up by playing a slower, plodding game with an emphasis on punishing defense. With the help of the weather and a few questionable calls, they beat the Hungarians 3-2 and killed a strange, wonderful dream.

The Magyars played an attacking style that was a forerunner to the “total football” of the 1974 Dutch team, who some consider the greatest and most beautiful side of all time. Led by Johan Cruyff, they made the World Cup finals by outscoring opponents 14-1 in six matches. There, they met (who else?) West Germany, a so-so squad who had lost in the group stages to an East German team that presumably practiced with a ball made of old scarves knitted into a lumpy sphere. Despite that, the West Germans prevailed 2-1 against the Dutch, playing a practical style and negating the legendary offense.

(If it makes anyone feel better, the situation was reversed on Germany in the last World Cup when they played the most engaging style throughout the tournament but were beaten by the steadfast, defensive-minded Spaniards in the semis.)

Every sport has its examples. In professional basketball, the quintessential case study is Spurs-Suns, 2007. The Nash-led Phoenix team embodied the ideal of fast, sophisticated basketball. The Spurs were so stolid and ruthless as to be almost cynical, and this particular clash of styles turned on a cheap trick by Robert Horry.

In NFL football, Bill Belichick has been involved in destroying two of the greatest, most explosive offenses in history. In 1991, he had his Giants defense ‘accidentally’ kick the ball after the whistle to slow down the Buffalo no-huddle attack, and that tactic, among others, led to a hard-earned championship. In 2002, he may have illegally videotaped St. Louis’ ‘greatest show on turf’ to gain a defensive advantage before the Patriots’ eventual victory. In both cases, a stalwart defense and a competent, controlling offense took the air out of their spectacular foes.

In college football, last year’s national championship was just the latest example of an exciting, unique offense falling prey to a physically superior SEC team.

Baseball is harder to pinpoint, but what about the 1993 Phillies? There was a team of scruffy, oddball players who captured a kind of bizarre chemistry until the uber-corporate* Toronto Blue Jays beat downed them in 6 games in the World Series.

*This is probably an unfair adjective, but come on, baseball in Toronto?

You’re probably starting to see a pattern. In the cases I’ve presented- and, I would argue, in the broader history of sports, with notable exceptions- we routinely see the exquisite teams brought crashing back to reality by the efficient tough guys.

There are two ways to look at this. The first is to see it as a recurring tragedy, like an endlessly streaming YouTube video of Gandhi losing a fistfight to Sean Hannity. The rarity of the mystic geniuses actually winning makes them, I realize, more appealing. There’s an exciting, revolutionary flair that naturally attracts you to their side. As such, it can seem pretty shattering when they lose, like some kind of flat signal from the earth that nothing is divine.

But I’m here to tell you there’s another way to frame this phenomenon: you can appreciate it. The prosperity of the power game can be, believe it or not, a celebration of humanity. It can be the final hard-fought emergence of a resilient group who won by finding an absolute unity.

It can be, dare I say, a triumph of the will.

(Crap, I promised myself I wouldn’t accidentally use that phrase again.)

*

David Foster Wallace, a better writer than I, visited this contrast back in 2006. His famous essay about tennis for the Times treats Roger Federer as a sporting deity. The title of the piece, in fact, is “Roger Federer as Religious Experience.” In it, he discusses Fed’s “kinesthetic virtuosity” and capitalizes what he calls the “Federer Moment.”

The last line of the article is this:

“Inspiration, though, is contagious, and multiform — and even just to see, close up, power and aggression made vulnerable to beauty is to feel inspired and (in a fleeting, mortal way) reconciled.”

This was after Wimbledon 2006, when Federer defeated Rafael Nadal in the final. The “power and aggression” belong to Nadal himself, a subject of subtle mockery, or perhaps just philosophical dislike, throughout the piece. Wallace describes Rafa as “mesomorphic and totally martial,” cites his “passionate machismo” in contrast to Federer’s artistry, and notes that his style of dress makes it so that you “have to look at his muscles right away.” He makes note of how Nadal tugs at his shorts, and “his way of always cutting his eyes warily from side to side as he walks the baseline, like a convict expecting to be shanked.”

It served Wallace’s purpose well, but not long after that final, history took a different turn. The next year, in 2007, the two men met again in the Wimbledon final. This time, Rafa took Roger to a fifth set. The intensity affected both men, but particularly Federer, who seemed suddenly petulant and asked that the video review system be turned off because he thought it was malfunctioning. Still, Federer withstood the scare and won again. Then came 2008, and the greatest match ever played, when Nadal finally triumphed on the English grass and began the process of usurping Federer’s title as the world’s best player.

Full disclosure: Rafael Nadal is my favorite athlete. Period. I can get a little boring when I sing his praises, the way an obsessive person prattles on about trains or politics or lovers or babies, so I’ll try to keep this to a sentence: His work ethic, individuality, and humility are the three (clichéd, I admit) qualities that make him, for me, a transcendent athlete.

*

Like many of my peers, I feel ensconced in a lifetime battle for fulfillment and success that seems, so often, unwinnable. Maybe I see the small story of my struggle reflected in Nadal’s quest to beat Federer; the sheer, disgusting impossibility of the thing, the way you understand the amount of work required and the absence of any guarantee that your work will be rewarded, but do it anyway because that’s the fucking drill.

David Foster Wallace was, without a doubt, a genius. He became renowned, albeit in a kind of niche way, at a very young age. So did Federer. It would be too simplistic (and, in fact, wrong) to say that they achieved their fame without work. But Wallace’s gift with words was somewhat like Federer’s native brilliance, and though he would probably never admit it, he surely saw himself in the grace and ability of the Swiss star. He could understand the magic because he had a bit of his own. Though his facility with the language and his prodigious memory weren’t coupled with the prosaic elegance of a Fitzgerald or Nabokov, his style nevertheless reflected a congenital sort of luminosity.

But we’re not all like David Foster Wallace. In fact, I rabidly disagree with that closing line about inspiration. Beauty, to me, has always been merely an enjoyable abstraction- not something with which I could ever identify. But when I saw Rafa crumble to the court in the Wimbledon dusk in 2008, having overcome, at last, his historic obstacle…well, screw kinesthetic virtuosity, because that is when I felt reconciled.

*

To repeat myself: it’s possible to enjoy the ascension of power, of practicality. More, it’s possible to find it beautiful in a way that might not be initially obvious.

Which brings me back to LeBron. The way he guarded- nay, stifled- Derrick Rose practically gave me goosebumps. Rose was the MVP, the fan favorite, maybe the greatest symbol of dynamism in this year’s NBA. For LeBron to put a cap on that genie lamp seems, on its surface, like an act of great cruelty. We imagine a humorless Chinese soldier finding a Tibetan monk boy singing some gorgeous, lilting song, and responding by smashing him with the butt of his rifle.

And LeBron, as we know, isn’t very sympathetic. Still, if we force ourselves to focus on the court and pretend, like a juror at the trial of a celebrity, that we don’t know the backstory, how can we not be moved by that act of defense? To meet an electric force and render it basically immobile, with everyone in opposition, reflects an unbelievable body awareness and, more to the point, a pressing desire to win. It was by its nature a profound act of defiance.

LeBron is the man who stands in the way. He’s the muscular linebacker who lowers his shoulder and barrels into the lane. He absorbs contact and maintains his forward momentum. On both ends of the floor, his strength grinds, and grinds, until it breaks you down.

That’s what the LeBron style means; breaking the enemy down. It’s what the Germans did, it’s what the Spurs did, it’s what the Belichick defenses did, it’s what the SEC does. It’s what they’re all forced to do in order to win. And there, it seems, is the common thread: champions understand winning, and how it’s not a product of magic or rarified spiritual qualities, but a very practical and brutal act of repetition that becomes ingrained and habitual.

*

In his article, Wallace gives Nadal a brief moment of credit when he mentions that Federer “may be peculiarly vulnerable to, or psyched out by, that first man.”

This might have been a mere supposition in 2006, but by 2008 it was reality. After the 2007 Wimbledon final, when Nadal lost in five sets, he retreated to the locker room and wept. He wept for the missed opportunity, for the staggering loss, and probably for the idea that despite the endless work and his unwavering spirit, he might never beat Federer.

A year later, everything changed. Federer lost to Nadal in the French Open for the fourth straight time, and this defeat was worse than the others. When Wimbledon came around, he grew irritable and repressed, by turns, as the match wore on. His demeanor after the loss seemed to indicate that he’d been the victim of a horrible fluke, a king brought low by an unworthy serf.

But when they met in the Australian final the following January, the truth had set in. Despite barely surviving an epic 5-hour semifinal match in withering heat the day before, Nadal recovered to defeat Federer in 5 sets. If Wimbledon 2006 was Roger Federer as Religious Experience, Australia 2009 was Rafael Nadal as Iconoclast, sending a God tumbling from Olympus to dry land.

After the match, the two waited on the podium. The full weight began to bear down on Federer. He remembered Nadal’s topspin, and the relentless way the Spaniard sent the leaping shots to his backhand, time and again, hammering at a perceived weakness, and how it produced an unlikely mental and strategic advantage that chipped away, and chipped away, until Federer’s magic was ground into dust. Maybe he saw the future, too, and how Nadal would come to dominate the rivalry.

He stepped up to the microphone. He waved to the crowd. He even smiled. He held the second place silver plate by his side. But as the fans shouted their support, he stopped.

His voice caught. His shoulders shook.

“God,” he said, almost choking on the words. “It’s killing me.”

And then he broke down, weeping in that broken heart way you just can’t fake.

*

If Dirk Nowitzki leads the Mavericks to an NBA title, it will be glorious. A lot of people will feel vindicated for hating LeBron and the mercenary way he ended up in Miami, and the title will be the jewel in the crown of Dirk’s excellent career.

But the sweep of history tells us that we should expect the Heat to win. When they do, we should do them the favor of realizing that every championship requires a journey, that few of us are blessed by genius, and that in our gritty, imperfect world, most men have to elevate themselves.

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX! Volume Four, Week Three

2011-06-03T03:30:00.006-04:00

Here we go...

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX

VOLUME FOUR, WEEK THREE

The Friday Pick Six is an original SCSD! game where six people make six sports predictions for six weeks. Along with their picks, they're allowed and encouraged to submit a 'sound-off' on any topic, sports or otherwise. When it's all done, the winner earns great honor among the people, while the two losers are exiled in shame and the three middle finishers go to purgatory, with the chance rescue their good name up to three times. To learn more about the rules, and about the current contestants, read below:

VOLUME FOUR

Here's how it looks:

The Last Chance Gals (3rd attempt, win or bust): Swetha & Sabreena
Purgatory Part 1: Marc, Monty
Newcomers: Craig & Tim, Tim B., John

-Volume Four Intros
-Week One

THE HALL OF ANGELS: OLD CHAMPIONS

1. Tom.
2. Mike
3. Patrick and Dylan

Current Standings

1. Swetha & Sabreena - 4
2. Tim B. - 4
3. Craig & Tim - 2
4. Monty - 1
5. John - 1
6. Marc - 0

Time for this week's docket:

1. Holy shit, greatest French Open semi-finals ever, Part One: Can Roger Federer do the unthinkable and end Djokovic's streak? Does the Djoker have more than just an Australian Open title buried in that soul? 2 points if you pick Federer, 1 point if you pick Djokovic.

2. Holy shit, greatest French Open semi-finals ever, Part Two: Rafa vs. Murray. Murray may have hurt himself in the third round, though you'd be hard pressed to tell, and Rafa is giving press conferences where he says he's not good enough. Which beleaguered star makes the finals? 2 points if you pick Murray, 1 for Rafa.

3. Sunday is Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Will Dallas defend their court?

4. Bruins-Canucks, NHL finals, game 2, Vancouver, Saturday. Who wins?

5. There are 15 series this weekend in MLB. How many of them end up in sweeps? 4 points if you nail it, 3 points if you're the closest, 2 points if you're second, 1 point if you're third. (I know some of them start on Thursday, so just be warned: the Thursday game doesn't count).

6. MIND BENDER: How many points will Swetha & Sabreena get over the first 5 questions? 2 points for the closest guess.

We begin with the gals who lead for the second straight week:

Swetha & Sabreena

While we still hold the coveted position atop the field (or at least atop the ranting list given that we are in a tie for first), we thought we’d give some shoutouts.

First, to the Giants for winning the World Series last year (never thought I’d say that) and giving the NL the interleague point. Yay for Ryder Cup rules! Although, that Posey injury is a real downer, even though one of us has a strange fascination with gruesome sports injuries.

Second, to Carrie and Jill for being an awesome fan base and making a chant for us. We’d like to think that was all we were missing.

And finally, to the Toronto Blue Jays, whose incompetence has left us hungrier than ever and still in the pursuit of perfection. Although I will never understand using a pinch-runner when said runner can’t score on a double from first--I’m looking at you, Mike McCoy.

Before we get to the tennis picks, in honor of the French Open, a video that will make you want to run out to buy Rosetta Stone - Bradley Cooper speaking fluent French. God is that a beautiful... language, yeah we'll go with language. If you’re only going to click one of our links, this should be it.

1. As much as we want Federer to win this one to restore our faith in tennis (those epic Nadal-Federer finals really were the good ole days), Djokovic seems to be on a roll. It’s okay though, this gives us a chance to make up more nicknames for him. Djokobitch? Djoko is Loco? Novak is whack? PS. His head is shaped like an eraser. DJOKOVIC.

2. We’re convinced that Andy Murray is never going to win anything significant and will forever be a part of whiny “oh pooey, an Englishman has never won Wimbledon so Murray is Britain’s only hope” features. Rafa and his wedgie picking are going to take this one. NADAL.

3. Miami definitely has the edge in hometown media, with our favorite child journalist superstar - Damon Weaver, but you gotta believe Dallas has the momentum after that awesome comeback in Game 2. DALLAS.

4. We really know nothing about hockey, and have successfully avoided it until now, so this question presents a real conundrum. As much as we hate Boston teams, these NHL playoffs have been really back and forth, so we see the series evening up in Game 2. BRUINS.

5. I tried to find some sort of stat that says how many MLB series end in sweeps, but the search proved elusive, so instead, we have called upon recent history. The number of sweeps in the last five weekends - 4, 6, 5, 2, 2.
So, essentially, there's no pattern. Here's our best guess. FOUR.

6. There is way too much pressure on this question, even though we’re flattered at being included in the docket. Brings back fond memories of Shane and Spike’s epic Scrabble clash when we learned that Shane has Scrabble ethics, but is not very good at Scrabble. SIX.

Tim B.

I wanted to tear into John for taking offense at my insidious use of quotation marks and for fulfilling his role as my foil, but then two weeks passed, and I kind of forgot about it, and I heard that Broken Bells song I really like about “The High Road” and, well, I don’t really know what it’s about, but it talks about a high road, so I’m taking it. Then I decided to just whine about Shane giving the tie to the NL and citing the Ryder Cup for doing it, in doing so latently praising the RC for the absolute worst part of it (if it’s tied, you play sudden-death match play with a captain’s choice; it’s what the President’s Cup does, and tell me this wouldn’t be the second-most captivating moment in golf history, behind only that brief second where it looked like Bob May’s putt on the 76th hole of the 2000 PGA* was going in), but I’m an NL guy at heart, and since the AL has the competitive advantage when it comes to the DH, I agree that ties should go to the Senior Circuit. So here’s some Shaq.

*The 2000 PGA Championship is the greatest golf tournament ever.

The only relevant moment of the last 15 years of the All-Star Game, there. I was reading somewhere this week that Shaq’s propensity to play the star off the court hurt him on it. Well, dude went 30 and 15 in two straight playoffs and won three Finals MVPs. Todd MacCulloch still has nightmares from guarding Shaq while he’s playing pinball. Watching Shaq destroy my Nets was the most helpless feeling in sports. With Kobe (and all great shooting guards for that matter), stopping them seems plausible. With Shaq in his prime, it never did.

1. Wow! You’re telling me this is the greatest French Open semifinal ever??? What incredible previous semis does it top? Surely it can’t be better than Gaudio/Coria/Nalbandian/Henman? Or Federer/Nadal/Davydenko/Puerta? Is it really a French Open without Juan Carlos Ferrero? Or Guga?* The point is, calling this year the best French Open Semis ever is like calling “Live the life you imagined” the best part of Walden. The competition doesn’t really register.

*That’s not being facetious.

At what point do we begin to wonder if Federer is hanging on too long? I know it’s not yet, but we’re getting there, aren’t we? Djokovic in straights.

2. Is Andy Murray, in his prime, that much better than Tim Henman, in his prime? I don’t follow this sport enough to know. Nadal in straights.

3. I’m trusting Shane on this one since I’m sending it in prior to the end of Game 2. With no analysis at all, I’ll go with whoever lost Game 2 to bounce back.

4. So, in preparation for these Finals, I did what I always do for championship rounds (for football and hockey), which is try to simulate the action on the old Nintendo game of my youth. Breaking out the “Blades of Steel” cartridge, I was saddened to realize the Bruins were not one of the eight teams in the game. Neither, amazingly, are the Red Wings. My sadness was immediately erased by the awesome “Blades of Steel” music, which is like 10 times better than the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme that those north of the border admire so much. Also, if Fox had made the players holding the puck glow, instead of just the puck, I’m pretty sure the lockout wouldn’t have happened.

Expect a cleaner game, which means more five-on-five, which means special teams don’t kill the Bruins, who bite back in Game 2.

P.S. I suck at that game now, just like I sucked at it when I was a kid. And I really wanted to pick the Canucks there.

5. Arizona and Atlanta seem the best bet, if only because the unbeatable Dillon Gee is going up against noted Met-killer Jair Jurrjens (who’s been killing a whole bunch of teams this season, although like 2009, his ERA and FIP are out of whack, so it probably won’t last. Sell high, fantasy compatriots). Philly or San Fran (the Giants and Rockies play some weird series) might slip in there, with a fourth coming out of the blue (like BAL over TOR or BOS over OAK, with John Lackey finding a way to beat Trevor Cahill on Sunday).

So let’s go with four, which I imagine will probably be the stock answer, but I had to pretend to arrive at it logically instead of “Well, four seems about right.”

6. Well, four seems about right.

(They’ll get the Djokovic and Nadal because they’re conservative when it comes to sports they don’t know, they’ll get the Heat because they’re good with sports they do know, they’ll go home-ice when it comes to hockey, and they will finish third in terms of sweeps.)

Craig & Tim

We plan on following up with a more elaborate reasoning behind these selections later on, but just in case something comes up…here are our picks for this week.

Question 1: Federer

Question 2: Nadal

Question 3: Dallas

Question 4: Bruins

Question 5: 2 sweeps

Question 6: 5 points

Monty

To start with - I'm going to pick the Mavericks to win game 2 in Miami. I think it should be obvious to everyone that Dallas is a team that will probably get down around 15 points and then storm back and win at the end. Older players are usually more explosive than younger players at the end of a game.

1. Jesus. This is the most unanswerable question ever. I kind of think that Djokovic is going to do it. But Federer has been playing really well and I think he really wants to prove that he doesn't suck. So I'm going to go with Federer.

2. This is not hard. Rafa is going to win. You don't beat Rafa on clay
unless he's hurt - and I don't think Andy 'choke in big games' Murray is going to be the one to set a new precedent here.

3. Yes. They will. (Dallas wins.) Hi Nowitzki. Zomg. I mean - who knew that the Germans were this good at basketball? (I mean, other than Mark Cuban, who has
held to the long-term strategy of keeping a team built around a tall German who doesn't fit any of the traditional superstar models. Of course, Mark has also invested in a chain of indie file theatres and the HDNet cable channel...)

4. Who cares? Oh - wait. I suppose someone is watching hockey. Um - let's say Canucks. I hear that they're Canadian - which means that they are inherently better than us at all forms of this sport that aren't this past year's olympics. Also, this is going to be a year when no Boston sports team wins anything. Just saying.

5. I did some math. In fact - I even wrote a computer program to do the complex mother fucking math I did. It's in the programming language scheme as interpreted by the GNU Guile interpreter. It looks like this:

(random 15)

This resulted in the answer of: 6.

6. I think that S to the S is going to pull down 5 points. I think they're going to be second closest on the baseball, are going to nail hockey and NBA, and Rafa, and are going to miss the first French question.

Also - I'm pretty sure that I'm hungry, but have no food in the apartment other than gummi bears - and even though I'm in a city with 24-hour delivery service, that's too much effort - so I'm just going to sit here and watch sportscenter loop and drink some water.

John

Time and wit is short this week...answers quick and little thought out, maybe that's for the best.

1. I'm pumped for some good tennis...wish I wasn't stuck at work tomorrow while these babies are going on. I'm going to try to to see the scores, but I always blow that. Anyway, man these two are both playing lights out tennis! Can NoDjok be stopped? i don't know, but I still don't like him much. I think RFed is playing solid tennis and has about as much chance as anyone at unseating Nole. I figure if I keep betting against the Serb, I have to be correct at some point, right? FEDERER (I could use the points)

2. Murray is a half step slow and is making up for it by slugging the ball, which could actually improve his game. However, Nadal on Parisian clay is not who and where you want to be experimenting on a new style with: RAFA

3. Heat are tough...the Cubans go down: HEAT

4. Is hockey still going on? Shane, it would be interesting to write an article about Americans and hockey, except that I couldn't stand to read a piece more than a short paragraph about this boring sport. If soccer is the most beautiful game, what is hockey exactly? I'm not a big futbol fan, but I'll take it anytime over this, but yet it's more popular in the US (I assume)...why?

I visited Vancouver last year and it is a great city...so is boston now that I think about it, but Vancouver is fresher in my mind...Canucks!

5. no time for my planned elegant simulations involving records, probabilities, locations, temperatures, humidity, etc. based on coin flips you'd expect 3.75 series to sweep. I'll round up due to previously mention factors causing this expectation to increase: 4. I wonder there will be some nonsensical Shanian tie-breaker if more than one tie for closest. Like "sorry guys, you know i don't like ties and since a low era is good in baseball, I'm taking the guy below the right answer rather than above it...arbitrary? Maybe, but logical!"

6. hmm, in their email S&S stated that they would be perfect over 1-5 for 8 points...I guess that tips their hand that they are playing rafa/djok in #1 since 10 points are possible. I don't know what that means exactly, but I'm factoring it in somehow for an advantage. 4

Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

Holy bananas. Time for a comeback. This is Duke vs. UNC in Durham 2011. I won't be stopped, I can't be stopped. As I survey my competition I can barely suppress my schoolgirl giggles as I know they will soon be crushed. I hope everyone had a fantastic memorial day. Some people see it as a wonderful day off from work. Other people make commentaries on the people who only see it as a day off from work. I see it as a day where people crowd the wonderful beaches of southeastern North Carolina and make me road rage because it takes thirty five minutes to drive two miles. However, we must thank the troops. For without the troops we wouldn't be able to engage in such wonderful activities such as the Pick Six. Hopefully there will be a time when we won't need any more troops, but people are idiots so that ain't happenin.

Before I start talking about sports I must regale everyone with information they don't need to know about me. I have huge nipples. It's kind of ridiculous. I also like to surf. Recently the water has warmed up enough for us surfers to shake off our stinky neoprene and wear only board shorts. This past week we have had surf three out of four days. My surfboard is covered in rough and sticky wax. When nipples meet wax bad things happen. Nipples + Wax = Destroyed nipples. I have scabs covering 50% of my nipple area. I put neosporin on my nipples to try and heal them. To top it all off my girlfriend thinks it's hilarious to pinch my overly large nipples. The more you know....

1. I'm really up in the air here. I think I'm going to use my supernatural math abilities and run a statistical analysis to prove stuff about data. Remember when John did stupid nerdy stuff like that. See how well it served him. If you take the formula f(x) + 39.7 * Switzerland/London minus the bear = Dicks. Roger Federer wins.

2. Here comes another formula for sphincters like John: Take the square root of the elderly mortality rate in Sri Lanka then add the mortgage derivative of the Atlantis Space Shuttle. Now with that result add that to the standard deviation of Rafa's biceps and subtract the amount of teeth in a Red Eared Slider. Simple stuff, I know. I'm on the same level as Carl Sagan. Nadal takes this shit.

3. Everything is bigger in Texas. At this moment I'm watching Game 2 and it seems the refs really really want Dallas to win. Therefore Dallas will win Game 3.

4. God I hate Boston. However now when I think of Boston I think of "The Town." And when I think of "The Town," I can think of Blake Lively and her naked pictures on the internet. Blake Lively is probably the hottest girl in the universe. When I see her I get sucked into a boner black hole that I don't emerge from for at least three days. Shit, now I'm going to miss my weekend. Fuck you Boston. Go Canucks!

5. Three sweeps. I asked a baseball expert. Thanks Nolan Ryan, now go beat up Robin Ventura again.

6. Swetha and Sabreena, the most dangerous pair in the Pick Six. Not most dangerous in that they'll win, but they might lecture you on the validity of WNBA fundamentals. No one cares about that. Seriously. S & S showed me a four hour long powerpoint presentation on why two handed layups are more advantageous than one handed layups. Then they tried to prove the WNBA was awesome by showing Candace Parker "dunking." Remember when she won the McD's dunk contest with her "no-look" dunk. That was dumb. Just like S & S. Shit yea I'm talking shit. Bring it on what up. They will get three points over the first five questions.

Gloves are off now. I'm coming for everyone.

Just so y'all know

2011-05-31T09:22:00.002-04:00

As mentioned last week, Seth Curry Saves Duke! will be on a summer schedule for the next two months. This means a longer post Monday, and the Pick Six on Friday. There may be more posts sprinkled in occasionally, but for the most part, probably not.

The first longer Monday post, about the many planets in the soccer solar system, is below. See you Friday.

La La La

2011-05-29T17:57:00.008-04:00

Post temporarily removed...

A Tribute to Nolan Smith

2011-05-25T20:47:00.003-04:00

I wrote a thing about Nolan Smith for my friends over at Ballin' is a Habit.

You can check it out here:

Saying Goodbye: Nolan Smith

Sorry, My Friends

2011-05-24T21:46:00.005-04:00

As you may or may not be aware, depending on how often you check this here blog, I've been absent without explanation the past couple days. Sorry about that. I'm at a summer internship that's been incredibly busy (a good thing), and until tonight I didn't have the internet at my new, temporary digs.

The 'ship lasts until the end of July, and my original plan was to update at night and post in the morning. Unfortunately, it looks like that probably won't be possible, so here's the the new plan:

*2 posts per week. We'll still do the Pick Six, since it's not that complicated for me, and I'll post something of my own on Monday. Less frequency is crappy, but I'm hoping to be able to do more feature-y type pieces since I'll have some weekend time to write.

Once August rolls around, things should be back to the normal schedule. Oh, and I still intend to get the new site up and running. I swear.

Until Friday, here's a picture of an astronaut in the sea. I call it "Dude Went The Wrong Way."

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX! Volume Four, Week Two

2011-05-20T08:28:00.004-04:00

Life is starting to get back to normal. My little mini-vacation is over, the Yankees are winning baseball games, and the comments section is full of angry people. If the world ends tomorrow, I'll go out with a nice sense of stability. (Side note: what I really love about apocalypse predictions is that the predictor always puts themselves squarely on the line; according to Harold Camping, armageddon starts tomorrow with 207 million people dying. That's a bold-as-hell call, and there's no half measures. When tomorrow ends normally with about 155,000 people dying, as usual, he will be flat-fuck wrong, and all his followers will abandon him and he'll be a laughingstock. There can be no equivocating. Which, in a way, you have to admire.)

Stability aside, holy shit dudes...holy shit. This week of Pick Six is by far the most contentious, bitter installment to date. Some folks (two, actually) have serious gripes, all joking aside, and they're letting it spill forth in the rant. I think we've embarked upon the angriest volume yet.

I'll let the internet warriors speak for themselves. Vamos.

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX

VOLUME FOUR, WEEK TWO

The Friday Pick Six is an original SCSD! game where six people make six sports predictions for six weeks. Along with their picks, they're allowed and encouraged to submit a 'sound-off' on any topic, sports or otherwise. When it's all done, the winner earns great honor among the people, while the two losers are exiled in shame and the three middle finishers go to purgatory, with the chance rescue their good name up to three times. To learn more about the rules, and about the current contestants, read below:

VOLUME FOUR

Here's how it looks:

The Last Chance Gals (3rd attempt, win or bust): Swetha & Sabreena
Purgatory Part 1: Marc, Monty
Newcomers: Craig & Tim, Tim B., John

-Volume Four Intros
-Week One

THE HALL OF ANGELS: OLD CHAMPIONS

1. Tom.
2. Mike
3. Patrick and Dylan

Current Standings

1. Swetha & Sabreena - 2
2. Monty - 2
3. Tim B. - 2
4. John - 1
5. Marc - 0
6. Craig & Tim - 0

The gents who ended with straight zeros got roped in by the Boston Temptation. The Tampa Bay Lightning ruined their day, and they ended the weekend where they began it, with zero points. S&S, Monty, and Tim B. hacked their way to 2 points apiece, but it was a low-scoring affair all around.

Time for this week's docket:

1. The Mavs and Thunder play Saturday afternoon. It's game 3, so it's in OKC. Who scores more points: Westbrook, Durant, or Nowitzki?

2. Interleague fun! There are 14 interleague series' this weekend played between Friday and Sunday. That makes 42 games total. Who wins the most, AL or NL?

3. It must be lonely being the two NL teams during interleague weekend who suffer from the league imbalance and don't get to play an AL team. This weekend, it's the Rockies and Brewers. Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez pitches Sunday, and Zack Greinke pitches for the Brew Crew on Friday. Both have ERAs above 6. Which formerly great pitcher goes deeper into his game?

4. Yanks-Mets. Who will get more hits over the 3-game series between Curtis Granderson and Jose Reyes?

5. Sunday is game 3 between the Bulls and Heat in Miami. Will any individual player score more than 30 points?

6. TEMPTATION PARLAY: For 5 HUGE points, enough to catapult anyone into the lead, pick the outcome of any 5 of the following: NHL game, NBA game, or MLB series. If you attempt this and fail, you lose 3 points. Anyone who refuses to attempt the parlay loses 1 point for cowardice.

We begin, like last week, with the recent grads:

Swetha & Sabreena

First off, damn you James Harden and your refusal to see a dentist. Secondly, this is easily the most uneasy we've ever felt about our picks. With that out of the way...

1. Dallas really has to win this game, not because of that must-win garbage that analysts spew around this early in the series, but because (spoiler alert!) we have picked them in the temptation. But based on game 2, the Mavs will likely win if Durant is quiet AND the Dallas bench has a killer effort, meaning Dirk won’t have to score a whole lot of points. Also, we figure Russell Wes is going to be a little pissed at his benching and is due for a trigger-happy game. So we’re taking the dark horse. RUSSELL WESTBROOK.

2. We thought about actually looking at all of the matchups and seeing if there was some sort of imbalance between both leagues, but that proved to be kind of tedious. So because the majority of our MLB allegiances tend towards the Dodgers (who will likely get swept in their set against the White Sox, but let’s ignore that for now), we’re picking the NL. If only this actually determined home-field in the World Series instead of the damn All-Star Game. NATIONAL LEAGUE.

3. Greinke is still coming back from injury, so he’ll probably be on some sort of pitch count. And Ubaldo did make it seven innings in his last start, so here’s hoping he’s on the upswing. UBALDO JIMENEZ.

4. For how long Shane has gone on about Curtis Granderson, we were pretty shocked to learn that his batting average is only .266 this season, whereas Reyes is sitting at .322 (yes, we actually did research this time!) Smart money says Reyes, even though the Mets pitching is god awful (sorry, Tim B.) JOSE REYES.

5. Only one player has hit the 30-point mark in this series and it was, you guessed it …. Chris Bosh! But we have a good feeling that Derrick Rose will be taking his talents to South Beach and come up with 30 plus. YES.

6. We were thinking about not participating, but then figured we were probably being too conservative this early in the game. Plus, in the chance that we lose the three points, it’s not like we can’t just make them up later when Shane starts inventing new rules.

1. OKC has been awesome at the Ford Center this postseason, and we think they should win, but the Mavs seem to do better as the underdog. DALLAS in GAME 3
2. The Cubs suck. Period. RED SOX.
3. It’s about time the Yanks started winning. Right? YANKEES.
4. The record disparity between Houston and Toronto is the best of the bunch. BLUE JAYS.
5. Philly’s got the dream team of Halladay, Lee and Oswalt going. And nothing like facing a former team to get Cliff Lee back in the winning column. PHILLIES.

Monty

First of all - let me say: fuck both Ryan Palmer and Graeme McDowell.

1. He's a monster, and he's at home - and also I'm pissed off at Durant for not finishing out the last series in six, which cost me a point. So I'm gonna have to say Nowitzki. No one has an answer for him. Anywhere.

2. Well, the NL has the best team in baseball, but I'm pretty sure the AL is stronger across the board. AL.

3. Definitely Greinke. I have no idea why - other than that I don't know anyone named Ubaldo.

4. I just went on a date the other night with a girl who's a Mets fan. She was pretty cool - but I'm picking Granderson anyway.

5. Hell no. Both teams are spreading things around.

6. I'm WAY too hung over right now to pick the outcome of 5 anythings - so call me a coward.

Tim B.

What I’m picking while thankful I don’t have the same relationship with my older brothers that Craig/Tim apparently has with his/theirs:

1. Well first of all, I don’t expect Russell Westbrook to ever play the game of basketball again. He’s gonna join Greg Paulus and that dude from George Mason in the official “Eric Maynor Owned Me” Facebook group. To be fair, Paulus is in several “[Insert college basketball player] Owned Me” Facebook groups, as John can attest.

Dirk has been absurd — I’m not gonna be the one to call him “ridirkulous” — to the point where Around the Horn asked the question “How can Thunder stop Dirk?” and I thought to myself, “What would an NBA fan from the 1980s think about that hilarious, when you think about it, question?” But, Dirk has averaged 26 on the road this postseason, Durant nearly 32 at home, and the fans in OKC are gonna be rocking. Durant goes for 34+ to win this one. The game is probably a different story.

Side question: At what point in this postseason do we forgive any and all of Dirk Nowitzki’s purported clutch failings? In other words, are we still having the “Dirk is one of the 10 best ever” conversation three weeks from now if he gets to the Finals and loses to a better Heat team?

2. The American League, as always. (The NL will have a far better playoff bracket this season, though.)

3. Both these guys are gonna be fine. The Rockies have barely ever seen Greinke, and the Brewers individually have great numbers against Ubaldo, but Jimenez has had his better starts on the road, and the Milwaukee offense, while good, isn't Colorado’s. Ubaldo lasts a touch longer.

4. Jose Reyes is 0-for-17 in his career against Saturday starter A.J. Burnett, which is far and away his worst career mark against anybody in baseball. But he’s also like the coolest player ever, and I’m sick of having to defend him to people who don’t understand how awesome it is to watch Jose Reyes play baseball, and so if this question were “Who will get more hits: Jose Reyes or the entire Yankees team” I’d still be picking Jose Reyes.

Curtis Granderson is a gentleman, by the way.

5. Yes. Juwan Howard. Good thing who we pick to score 30 doesn’t matter.

6. I wouldn’t be willing to do a five-team parlay on opening weekend in the SEC this September. But like O.J., if I did do it, here’s how I would have: Heat and Mavs in their Game 3s and the Yankees, Phillies, and Blue Jays. This is just me having my cake and eating it, too. No thanks.

John

First of all, I have to give props where they are due: Novak Djokavic has received no love from me over the years, but he made Nadal look like a commoner out there. Nadal was usually 10 feet behind the baseline getting yanked back and forth like he was a marionette of a master puppeteer. Rafa had little answers for the Djoker. I'm pumped for the French (which I hear is being played in France this year! Quelle merveille!)

I wish I had more time to address the snobbish comments of fellow contestant “Tim B”. I think his disrespectful statements like hilarious “university” down the road in reference to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill speak for themselves and sound eerily like the tongue-in-cheek characters that our host oft parodies. Yes, that’s right, UNC is a self proclaimed "university" on par with say Phoenix University or ITT Tech, maybe? I'm glad you find it hilarious and cute that us little public schoolers dare say we went to a "university".

I used to fall for these little games and refer to Dookies and such, but have since decided that such childish games serve little purpose and end up making the writer appear immature and foolish...Now if my avatar bugs you, well, all’s fair in the sports world…I hope you like teabags! And Megan from the comments...I’m glad you find NHL hockey to have the best/most exciting playoff systems in sports, professional or collegiate. Bold statement. Yes, I’m glad you enjoy staring at a sheet of ice while trying to find a small dot artistically flung this way and that until icing is called. You are a better and more knowledgeable and discerning sports fan than I. I hope that by refraining from going to any more NHL games in my life that I free up a ticket for you at just the right moment.

You just couldn’t resist another jape at my institution of higher learning ( “I guess I shouldn't be surprised that John was not willing to put in the leg work; after all, he did go to UNC. “ ). Yes you and your fellow highborn are better than me all around...please sleep well knowing that and lower your expectations of me in the future.

1. Well the trendy pick must be Nowitzki with all the press he’s getting. Also, Durant let me down last week...hmmm...He couldn’t let me down again could he? I’m pulling a last minute switch back to the German...I say he pulls out a well sharpened dirk and slices his way to a big night.

2. I don’t know...according to Wikipedia the AL has won 1808 games versus 1652 to the NL. This 52% percentage is statistically significant (95% CI: 50.6-53.9). Additionally the AL has won for the last 7 years. So I guess I’ll go AL.

3. Tough one...pretty equal as far as the numbers are concerned...it looks like greinke has only pitched a few times this year and so may still be warming up a bit...I say Greinke surges to the innings victory

4. Reyes looks to be playing well...gotta go with him (I admit I don’t know either of these players as a very poor pro sports fan these days).

5. Tough call...obviously ‘Bron DWade and Rose could pull this off, even in a relatively close affair...however, I just think this game turns physical and ugly with points hard fought for. I say NO.

6. TEMPTATION PARLAY: I gave this one due consideration. I ended up working backwards here in order to determine a break-even point of expectation. As long as I am interpreting everything correctly, I would have to get all 5 correct in order to get 5 points, otherwise it is -3 (with -1 for a Pass on the Parlay).

I would need to be at least 25% confident that I could get all 5 correct in order for this to seem like an even bet: E(points|p=0.25)=0.25(5)+(-3)(0.75)=-1

In order to have a 25% chance of getting all 5 correct, I would need to have a 76% chance for each of the 5 picks (0.76^5=0.25)

For baseball, in order to be 76% sure of a given series, I would need to believe that my team has a 68% chance of winning each game...this is more than a 2:1 odds.
In short, this is not a temptation, but a death trap. I hope that my Duke educated brethren have the confidence it takes to take up this bet so I can (likely) gain 2 points on those that enter. I EASILY RESIST THE TEMPTATION.

Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

My first week can be characterized as a complete victory. The trap is set, and when I come surging from behind to crush the competition everyone will be flabbergasted at my impeccable Pick Six abilities. After this week I can wholeheartedly contend that Boston is the worst place in the universe and I'm ashamed at how far it has fallen since the days of revolution.

To celebrate my time off between normal school and summer school I ate a lot of shitty food, went to bed extremely early (8 o'clock at one night) and passed out on the floor in a drunken stupor at my girlfriends apartment, in front of her parents, who I had just met for the first time earlier in the week. In the morning the father told me to take care of his daughter, but then he changed his mind and said "Actually she'll probably be taking care of you." My finest hour.

On to the sports!

1. Dirk went absolutely bonkers in the first game and Durant also had a great game. This one is hard to choose because Westbrook is such a wild card. Some days he's amazing, and other days he pulls his best Bosh impression and attempts to shoot 1-18. Furthermore Westbrook has the wonderful ability of ignoring Kevin Durant. I'm going to have to go with Durant to impress the home crowd with the most points!

2. Fuck the AL, the DH is bullshit. NL 4 lyfe homies

3. More baseball, shit. Summer sports are the worst. Yahoo says Greinke is better so I'm going with him.

4. Joses Reyes is a beast. Going with him. Plus he's just soooooooooooooo cute.

5. Yes.

6. Here it is, the temptation. I can't resist it. I have to take it. Using my advanced quantum rocketry degree I've figured out that it's mathematically in our favor to take the temptation. There's no debate to this claim. Stephen Hawkings stopped by last night for a beer and he was blown away by my analysis. In fact he even patted me on the back. In reality he ran over me with his wheelchair while laughing in that chilling autotuned voice.

Red Sox over Cubs!
OKC over Dallas on Saturday!
Vancouver over San Jose on Friday!
Braves over Angels!
Indians over Reds!

Craig & Tim

Why did I eat Hot Fries immediately before bed? Maybe I'll luck out and have a dream about picking at my teeth with my tongue. Oh....hello. Tim here (not to be confused with Tim-2, / Tim-B, / Tim-Danny-Devito-From-The-Movie-Twins). I'm going to skip the BS and re-emphasize the fact that despite the rough start, we sneeze God particles. I'd also like to make it known that your iPhone sucks, and your lack of knowledge pertaining to the United States Constitution sickens me (that about covers 95% of America, sorry if you were wrongly offended).

1. Gotta go with Durant at home here. Look for OKC to play better defense at home. 24 of Dirk's deceivingly sexy 48 points the other night were at the line and we don't see that happening again. Durant is a versatile, pure scorer. Dirk is more reliant on the jump shot. If he goes cold on the road, it could be a long night for the rabbit-toothed German. Then again, he could walk right in and fart in the Unitarian church known as the OKC Arena. Tough call, but the fact that "Kevin Durant" is an anagram for "Native Drunk" means that he's the winner this week (and yes I refer to Native using the fire-water drinking version of the term).

2. The National League is just...there. I mean I'm a big baseball guy so I appreciate the National League; I respect their devotion to the hitting pitcher, I like the small market club as much as the next guy, but the whole league just kinda sucks. The AL has a record of 1806 and 1652 vs the NL in interleague play, and I don't expect anything different this weekend. AL takes it.

3. On the one hand you have Greinke, who hasn't gotten past 6 innings yet this season...but has yet to walk more than 1 batter in a start. On the other hand, you have Ubaldo who while giving up a ton of runs/walks this year and exiting games early on a consistent basis - is coming off a 7 inning outing in which he only gave up 3 runs. We're going with Ubaldo here. I call him Jimmy, because I don't like using foreign accents.

4. Jose Reyes. And that's all Forest Gump has to say about that.

5. Yes, there will be a 30 point scorer. Too many scorers here to short change. Still disgusted with the Celtics, so I'll admit we're going through the motions on this one.

6. We refuse to attempt this parlay and will take the 1 point reduction - for intelligence, not cowardice. I've done enough sports betting (and winning) in my life to know that a 5 team parlay is the last ditch bet of a desperate loser. We will not jeopardize our Pick Six chances on a suckers bet. This next statement may come off as misogynistic (and I don't care), but I bet S&S had to jump on them interwebs and fire up Ask Jeeves to find out what a parlay was. Hopefully they get suckered in and blow it; it would serve them right for their anti-Boston rhetoric. S&S, it would not surprise me if your ignorance led you astray here and you cost yourselves 3 points. At the same time, it would be equally unsurprising if you did not take the chance....after all you have no balls. It's science.

Is that it? There's no more questions we can weave demographic-based insults into? Oh well, taking charge in the Pick Six standings will have to do.

************
The gauntlet done been laid. Enjoy the NBA games this weekend, and if you're bored on Sunday afternoon, check out Duke lacrosse in the quarters against Notre Dame at 2:30 on ESPN2. See you Monday.

Sports Shorts

2011-05-19T09:11:00.005-04:00

Robinson Cano Improves 15th-Inning Batting Average by 1.000 Points

With a 2-RBI double in the 15th inning against the Baltimore Orioles, Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano sent his career 15th-inning batting average skyrocketing from .000 to 1.000, a record-tying turnaround.

"It feels good to have the monkey off my back," said Cano, who hails from the Dominican Republic. "I am now the best 15th-inning hitter in baseball, and nobody can take that away from me."

After the game, his Yankee teammates mobbed him by the dugout, fully aware of Cano's woeful numbers in the 6th extra inning.

"I'm really happy for Robbie," said right fielder Nick Swisher. "You never like to admit it, but it was certainly on his mind. That can weigh on you, as a person and a player." Swisher, who was replaced for defensive purposes in the 9th inning, could be seen weeping as the game continued into extra innings, well aware that he was missing his chance at history.

Yankee manager Joe Girardi expressed cautious optimism about Cano's feat. "It's certainly a step in the right direction," he said. "But Robbie has to realize he can't rest on his laurels. When you look at the numbers, there's a lot of work left to be done. He's still batting .000 in innings 16-47, and I know he expects more of himself than that."

Joel Anthony, NBA's Best Player, Leads Heat to Game 2 Victory

The Miami Heat have evened their Eastern Conference Finals series against the Chicago Bulls at one game apiece behind the efforts of Joel Anthony, the best player in the NBA.

Anthony, the team's star center, held the Bulls to a playoff low 75 points, including just 10 in the fourth quarter.

"It was a great night," Anthony said. "Anytime I can personally hold Derrick Rose to just 7-23 shooting, I know I have a good chance to win the game."

Playing before a hostile crowd at Chicago's United Center, Anthony was unfazed. He limited Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng to a combined 20 points, gave the team a spark through reserve forward Udonis Haslem, and prevented Bulls sharpshooter Kyle Korver to just one three in five chances.

"You can measure greatness in so many ways," said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, "but true excellence means elevating your teammates. Tonight, we saw Joel inspire LeBron and Dwyane to score 53 combined points, and those are the little things that make the difference."

Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau agreed. "Joel Anthony was just too much tonight," he said. "Some of the stuff he had LeBron doing at the end of the game...we just couldn't handle it."

Anthony, who wears a bright purple jersey that says "The Best!" in neon green letters, grabbed 2 rebounds and scored 0 points in 22 minutes of action.

For 110th Straight Time, French Open to be Held in France

Satellite photographs taken yesterday above the Stade Roland Garros in Paris indicate that this year's French Open will once again be played in France.

The photos, taken from a distance of more than 4,000 feet, show workers preparing the many clay courts for what appears to be a tennis tournament. With the French Open set to begin this Sunday, it's all but assured that the timing is not coincidental.

"The French Open has been played at Roland Garros since 1928," said French tennis expert Gilbert L'Estrade. "It's important not to make any assumptions, but these photographs seem to be showing that in 2011, nothing has changed."

Fury quickly spread around the tennis world.

"It's a bloody disgrace," said Liam Holder, the head of the All England Lawn and Tennis Club, which has held the Wimbledon tournament since 1877. "The unforgiving regionalism and prejudice of the French has reared its ugly head again."

Others shrugged off the news.

"Yes, it would be nice to have the tournament in a different country," said defending champion Rafael Nadal. "But these things are complicated, and we must give them time."

Many experts thought the French Tennis Association would take notice of the example set by the Madrid Open, which held its tournament in Johannesburg, South Africa this year. But FTA prime minister Francoise Lambert remained steadfast.

"The French Open will forever be in France," he said before an raucous crowd of nationalists. "And beginning in 2014, it shall be open only to French players."

ESPN.com Can't Find Score for Last Night's Sharks-Canucks Game

As of 10am eastern time, ESPN.com's NHL division still could not get a score for last night's western conference finals match-up between the San Jose Sharks and the Vancouver Canucks.

The game, held in Vancouver, is thought to have ended sometime last night around 10pm eastern time. In the twelve hours since, desperate phone calls and e-mails have gone unanswered as executives try desperately to find the result.

"We don't really know anybody in Vancouver," said NHL Division Chief Thomas Stuart. "One of our interns had a friend who moved there a couple months ago, but the kid turned out to be a total hippie who had no idea about hockey, and none of his friends could help us either."

After exhausting their personal connections and finding themselves no closer to the score, ESPN workers attempted to contact local newspapers.

"It was awful," said marketing coordinator Jim Erickson. "I was screaming out, 'does anyone know of a fucking newspaper in Vancouver??!' We couldn't even scratch the surface."

"Nobody even really knew where San Jose was located," said second-year administrative assistant Bethany Little. "I mean, is it in Oregon? Canada? We may never know."

ESPN staff was unable to remember any player or coach's name from either team, and the entire department deleted all NHL contact info from their cell phones last November. "We thought they'd call us if something important was happening," said Erickson.

One ESPN vice president had saved Mario Lemieux's phone number from the 90s, but all calls went straight to voicemail. Later, a staffer was able to use 411 to find the number of the arena in Vancouver. Earlier this morning, someone answered the line, but through the scratchy connection it became apparent that it was a representative from a beauty pageant scheduled to be held in the arena later this afternoon. The woman had no idea about a hockey game.

At approximately 9:30am, ESPN writers were ordered to post a fake story about last night's game with a fabricated score and story based on rosters found on a rudimentary fan website. According to the fictional account, which is accompanied by streaming video from a 1997 game, Vancouver scored 4 goals in the 3rd period to win 7-3.

Duke Can't Spell: Why UNC is Trouncing us on the Recruiting Trail

2011-05-18T09:23:00.009-04:00

This was a hard one to read.

Deadspin reported, wrongly, according to some, that PJ Hairston officially announced that he'll be attending UNC.* The kinda sad part of that story is that the recruiting letters Hairston got from Duke spelled his name wrong. The really sad part is that his decision to go elsewhere came about because he thought of the Blue Devil system as 'mechanical.'

Which, you know...he ain't wrong.

It would be hard to argue that Duke has a free-flowing system, especially when compared to UNC. We're not exactly some fundamental Indiana high school squad from 1951, but we're a far cry from 'loose.' Hairston is somewhere 6'4" and 6'6", depending on who you ask, and you can see some highlights here.

The question becomes: did he make the right choice? If you were a swingman like Hairston, someone who could shoot and penetrate, would you rather play for Coach K or Roy Williams? There haven't been a ton of Dukies lately who resemble Hairston. We've had shooters, like Redick, who use the regimented system to come off pick after pick and get their points on shots. We've had players like Nolan this year, who thrived when given the freedom of the point guard position but looked like a flickering shadow of himself when subjected to the restrictions of the 2-guard slot.

But really, who was our last great non-point guard slasher? Please don't tell me Singler. Scheyer doesn't fit the bill, even before he was point. I guess you could argue Gerald Henderson, but he never seemed like he was at ease within the system and his performances were hugely inconsistent. Before that, maybe Deng? If I'm missing someone, let me know, but none are springing to mind at the moment.

What I'm saying is, Hairston probably made the right decision. And if that's true, it's just another example of Roy having a recruiting leg up on the Devils. We already know Duke can't land a big man; why would any promising center go to Durham with the track record they've established over the last decade? Good power forwards have been few and far between, and the failures of players like Shavlik Randolph are more pronounced than any success.

And it's worth taking a deeper look at Hairston's language: 'mechanical.' Is it just me, or is there a pretty obvious racial component to that word choice? Some will agree with me, and some will say I'm stretching, but I think 'mechanical' conveys whiteness. Something restricted, something militaristic, something in opposition to the free-flowing black game where players like Hairston will thrive. And whether you agree with me or not, you can absolutely bet that recruiters are exploiting that angle. Do you think Hairston spent hours studying Duke game tape, or analyzing their set offense? Maybe. But I bet words like 'mechanical' come from recruiters. That's what they whisper in his ear.

And if you're Hairston, hearing that, with your own worries about whether you'll fit in to a stifling Duke culture, maybe the misspelled name becomes a bigger deal. Maybe you see that kind of an error as an indication that Duke just sees you as a cog in a machine, that they don't care enough about your individuality to even get your name right. PJ? TJ? Makes no difference. Unless you're white or the son of an NBA star, you're nothing but a name to fill a position at Duke.

Mind you, I don't think that's true. But I do think it might be easy to convince someone like Hairston of the fact. I don't think the extreme racial perceptions of Jalen Rose persist to the same extent today, but you can bet they linger in a tamer form. Instead of "Uncle Tom," milder words like 'mechanical' are used. But the two are not unrelated, and it's clear from Duke's recruiting record that Coach K (for one reason or another) does not have a foothold in the urban black community. That reality, it seems, is half circumstance and half choice. How aggressively do we pursue those kids anymore? How much was Coach K turned off by swallowing bitter pills like William Avery?

Whatever the mix, Duke is crucially separated from a vast and rich source of basketball talent. Unfortunately, the team's style plays right into the hands of those who would exploit that image of separation. At this point, it seems like Duke's recruiting prowess is limited to excellent point guards and shooting guards.

As I've discussed before, that's good and bad. Good because the style is pretty high scoring and three-point shot heavy. Bad because it creates teams that aren't built for endurance or March success.

If you look at the overall pattern of Duke basketball since 2003, you have to see 2010 as an anomaly. The fortunate and surprising emergence of Zoubek and Thomas as ironclad enforcers underneath, along with a down year in the NCAA, created a perfect storm for a title. This past March looked a lot more like what we've come to expect from Duke, with an athletic team getting hot and sending us home early.

All of which means that we can probably count on UNC winning another title, even another two titles, before Duke breaks through again. It's impossible to predict how a season will develop, but as of now it would surprise me if UNC wasn't at least in the Final Four next season. It was wonderful watching the Dukies excel behind senior leadership this year, and the win in the ACC title game was glorious, but the truth is that was just a stepping stone for Roy and his young team. You could even call it a good loss. This time in 2012, we might see it as a crucial step in the construction of a championship team.

As we've seen, there's a delicate balance between recruiting college players who are championship caliber and recruiting guys who will stay for more than a year. You don't want to be Calipari, but you also don't want to be stuck with the Greg Pauluses of the world for four years.

Roy, you have to say, has found a way to toe that line and get the best of both worlds. What can you say about next year's Carolina team? Sure, luck is involved; you could argue that Barnes would never have stuck around if his season had started the way it ended. But now, Roy has his perfect mix of four year guys and raw talent. He found an ideal NCAA point guard in Kendall Marshall, a guy who has already proved his excellence at the college level and yet lacks the natural gifts to go early to the pros. He has the best big man tandem in the country in Zeller and Henson, two guys who complement each other's gifts, an offensive and defensive specialist. He got Barnes to return, a guy who could compete for Player of the Year. And he's got a supporting cast of returning players and fresh recruits from which, at any point, a star might emerge.

And he also seems to have perfectly bridged the racial line. He feeds the UNC dixie faithful their Hansbroughs and Zellers, but he also gets the best black players from all walks of life, and he does it while maintaining UNC's strong academic reputation. He's halfway between Coach K and Calipari. Or, better yet, he's standing solidly atop the mountain while those rivals are trying to scramble up the rocky slopes on either side.

Which is why it was so comical to hear UNC fans sound their negativity this season. I know there's never supposed to be a rebuilding year at Carolina, and I know the negative feelings from 2009 were still fresh, but the lack of perspective was still surprising. I wonder if they'd rather have a program like Duke, with its sustained medioxcellence- a new word I just invented to classify a program that is always nominally among the elite yet requires extraordinary circumstances to compete for a title- rather than a team that obeys a natural ebb and flow, riding waves of talent, floundering a bit in the low tide days but finding themselves positioned for a championship at least every three years.

Meanwhile, what do we see for Duke's future? Second in the ACC next season is probably a good bet. Austin Rivers will be the star, and he'll shoot a lot and score a lot of points in some games. Carolina will probably beat us both times during the regular season. Maybe the Heels will lose early in the ACC tournament and we'll win that. Then, in the second round or the Sweet 16, Rivers will go cold for a game and some athletic team will absolutely expose us underneath, and we'll be gone. And we'll sit at home and watch UNC win another title.

Maybe that's how it'll go, and maybe not. But the critical point here is that we expect it play out like that. At least if we're paying attention.

In today's ACC, it's Carolina's world. And Hairston's saga gives us insight into the perception of all the stars that will come into the college game in the near future. Duke is 'mechanical.' Duke is rigid. Duke is, when you get down to it, white. Duke will not allow you the freedom of expression you need to become a top draft pick. Duke is no place for big men, unless you want to end up in Europe or competing for playing time with goofs like the Plumlees.

"Duke is a great school," as Hairston said in a conciliatory gesture, and everybody claims to respect the program. But it's a different kind of great school, and a different kind of respectable program. There's a wide chasm that's been developing for a decade, and both sides seem increasingly accepting of the separation. But while Coach K builds the same kind of team he's built for years and suffers the same noble losses each March, Roy will be laughing all the way to the Final Four.

The Ten Most Exciting Positions in Sports

2011-05-17T09:10:00.003-04:00

One day after an Italian dude in Kansas City allowed 14 runs in a major league baseball game, I think we need some group therapy. Something to make us forget.

That something is a top 10 list- the most exciting positions in sports. Which essentially means this: if you have the ultimate player in every position, the absolute most dynamic and spine-tingling human possible, tailor-made and born to the task, which position is inherently the most exciting? Clearly, quarterback is more exciting than left tackle, and forward is more exciting than midfielder. But across sports, how do the rankings shake out?

Time for qualifications. First off, we're dealing with team sports only. There's no distinct 'position' in a sport like golf or tennis except the position of 'individual,' and the excitement level is dictated solely by the player's style. It wouldn't make sense to include a category like 'golfer' on the list. Second, I'm only including team sports I know and understand. Sorry, jai alai and gaelic football. Third, I'm eschewing sports that are limited to niche audiences. Sorry, lacrosse and field hockey and rugby.

After all the exclusions, I'm left with the following: baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey.

Let's get to it, and let me know your rankings in the comments.

Honorable mentions:

Soccer goalie

There are times, rare times, when a soccer goalie can bring fans to their feet with incredible performances. A few diving saves mixed with some intelligent snuff-outs mixed with overall consistency can make the keeper's presence felt. I'm thinking of Spain's Iker Casillas in the last World Cup, or Germany's Oliver Kahn in 2002. In general, though, the goal is too big for the keeper to exercise absolute control; you can only do so much if the circumstances are wrong, as Kahn learned in the '02 championship when, after allowing 1 goal in 6 matches, he watched Brazil slip two into net.

Speedy leadoff hitter/outfielder, baseball

I really went back and forth on this one. Maybe it should be on the list. Guys like Pete Rose and Rickey Henderson and Ichiro Suzuki and Kenny Lofton really are exciting, and there are many electric elements to their game. The infield hit, the bunt, the triple, the steal, scoring from first on a double, the diving catch in the outfield...there's a lot to be said for these guys. You could argue that the great ones at this position have the most baseball intelligence of any position except, possibly, catcher. They miss the list by the skin of their sharp, sharp teeth.

10. Goalie, hockey

Unlike soccer, the net in hockey is small enough that an excellent goalie can absolutely control a game. Back when I paid attention to the sport, I remember guys like Patrick Roy and the Rangers' Mike Richter dominating for 60 minutes, to the point where it felt impossible for anyone to slip one by. But the ultimate example a goalie singlehandedly determining an outcome will always be Dominik Hasek at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano. In 6 games, Hasek allowed just 6 goals. The Czech Republic lost just 1 game, in the group stages against Russia, and they avenged that defeat with a 1-0 win in the gold medal game. The highlight of Hasek's dominance, though, came in the shootout against Canada in the semifinals. The whole video below is worth watching, but the action starts at 4:00. "Is anyone going to beat this goaltender??"

9. Center, basketball

I can't help but be reminded of our discussion about flow a few days ago in this space. A center is naturally a bit slower and perhaps more plodding than most other positions on a basketball court. But like it or not, there's something exciting about their height, and when that height is combined with great moves and great defensive prowess, an interesting kind of dynamism is birthed. We talked about Hakeem with his fluidity and grace, but even the hard brutality of a younger Shaq or the defensive dominance of Mutombo can be thrilling. It would be easy to leave this position off the list because of the myriad boring-but-effective players who have filled the center role, but as I said, this is about the best of the best.

8. Power hitter, baseball

Though Hank Aaron called the triple the most exciting play in baseball, many would disagree and give that honor to the home run. Nothing is more terrifying than watching a power hitter stroll to the plate for the enemy, and nothing is more exciting than seeing your man come up in the clutch. Ortiz still gives me nightmares, and even when he's slumping, I'm at the edge of my seat when A-Rod steps in the box. The possibility of a long ball is alternately titillating and anxiety-provoking. And when it comes to fruition, the explosion or devastation is incredible.

This was the best power hitter moment I've ever seen live. The Yanks were down 3-1 in the ninth inning to the Twins in Game 2 of the 2009 ALDS. A-Rod was up with a man on base.

In some ways, that was the moment when Yankee fans knew the World Series was ours. The mystique that had been absent for a decade was back, at least for a year.

7. Forward, soccer

Messi and Pele and Maradona and Cruyff stand out as the best of the best. When these guys make a charge, you can sense the entire stadium start to buzz. The only problem is that actually scoring in soccer is damn hard, so it's still rare for their incredible brilliance to end with a goal. The genius is best experienced in highlight videos.

6. Running back, football

There are a thousand examples, and it can be exciting on a spectrum from the quick and juke-happy Barry Sanders way to the grueling, driving Ron Dayne way. Here's one of the best who most of us probably never got to see:

5. Receiver, football

This is always more pronounced in college, where the future greats can really dominate against d-backs who will never make the NFL, and when it's right, it's right. I'll never forget Randy Moss with his high green-and-white striped socks at Marshall (at least I think I remember those socks; YouTube seems to disagree), or Keyshawn Johnson in the Rose Bowl, or Chad Johnson and Houshmandzadeh killing Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

4. Pitcher, baseball

When a no-hitter or perfect game or even a 20-K performance are on the line, a baseball stadium is the most alive it will ever be in a non-playoff situation. I've mentioned this before, but the closest I came was a Chien-Ming Wang perfect game that was carried into the 8th inning before the Mariners broke it up. I get envious every time I see one go through to the end. Only twice in MLB history has a pitcher thrown a no-hitter in the postseason, and you have to consider those two of the greatest moments in sports history. Here's the end of one:

3. Point guard, basketball

I originally thought I might put this at #1, considering how exciting it is to watch Derrick Rose this postseason. And really, a case could be made. I can't remember ever having more fun at a live sporting event than watching Jason Williams play for Duke. He could do absolutely everything, and even though it might not seem possible, he brought Cameron Indoor to a new level of intensity. When a point guard can shoot, drive, and pass, he becomes pure electricity. As with the football receiver position, it's more pronounced in college since the competition is diluted, but you still see greats in the pros. Rose and Paul are the current best, with Westbrook a close third and Rondo and Williams in the running. In college, J-Will was my all-time favorite, but Ty Lawson is another recent dynamo. At their best, these guys are engines.

2. Quarterback, football

A great passing quarterback is a beautiful thing to watch. There's an aesthetic appeal about a ball slicing through the air in a tight spiral, a moving object destined to meet a larger moving object at an exact moment. The mastery of initiating that encounter makes a quarterback a type of wizard, a king of the most stressful position on earth. We could sit here all day and toss out the great names in football history, but for me, no offense or quarterback was ever as exciting as the fin-de-seicle Rams and Kurt Warner.

1. Shooting guard, basketball

In all of sports, nothing is quite as electrifying as hot shooting guard. They're the ones we remember the most, and the ones who become legendary. The greatest athlete in history played this position. It allows for unprecedented creativity, a freedom to express individual style, and the potential for hot streaks that seem to defy logic. There's nothing better.

The Nadir

2011-05-16T09:35:00.002-04:00

It's going to be a quick one today, my friends. Site design will soon begin earnest on the new home, and I hope to make the transition this week. Let's hit some quick points from the weekend.

1. I would say the Yankee organization is in its worst state since 2008. Maybe longer. After getting swept by the Red Sox and losing 5 straight, the team is now 20-18. Worse, they don't seem to have much hope. Everybody is old. Nobody, with the exception of Curtis Granderson, is hitting. The clutch hitting has been shit all year, but we survived and got off to an okay start based on a surplus of home runs. That well has dried up, and we're left with a bunch of stiffs and a whimpering offense.

The biggest stiff among them is Mark Teixeira. I'm at the point now where I wish he'd never been signed. He's hit .170 in 5 playoff series' with the Yanks, and he never, never, NEVER comes up with a big hit. The mental block in his brain is as real as the one we all perceived in A-Rod for so long.

Robinson Cano is having a terrible season. He's swinging at more bad pitches than ever, he's walking less than ever, and his average at .280 isn't good enough to make up for it. An OBP of .318 for a number 5 hitter just won't cut it. He has no plate discipline and doesn't seem eager to learn. Right now, he's Vlad Guerrero with less natural ability.

Jorge Posada is a prideful ass who should be booted from the team. When your average is the lowest in the major leagues, you should be getting on your knees and thanking your manager for batting you ninth from the bottom of your heart. I know it must be hard for him to cope with the reality of aging, but fuck, what does he expect? It was a total bush league move for him to sit out, and if I were Girardi I wouldn't play him for a week. Jorge has always been too prideful, but Saturday he gave the ultimate fuck you to the team.

Jeter is done. Period. Too old, not enough power, too many ground-outs.

Swisher is an ongoing frustration. Sometimes it seems like he's learned something from Long, and then he slumps.

A-Rod looked so amazing at the start of the year, and now he's all but useless.

Gardner and Granderson are the only offensive bright spots, particularly the latter. But it's not nearly enough. Red Sox starters owned us this weekend at home, and now they're only a game back. Tampa Bay could run away with the division. Yankee start pitching has been surprisingly effective this season, but the bats have let us down in a big way. More than anything, the team seems lifeless and ineffectual. It hasn't been fun watching them for about a month now, and I find myself wishing we were younger, more uncertain, more interesting. I'm ready for Jesus Montero. I'm ready for whoever's going to replace Jeter. I'm ready for the Teixeiras and A-Rods to finish their careers. There needs to be an infusion of new blood.

Right now, we're like Great Britain at the end of their empire. Stuffy, old, boring, and with less firepower than anyone thinks. It's time to move on. Unfortunately for the Yanks, we have too much invested in too many fading stars. This is the foreseeable future, and it stinks.

2. I love the Chicago Bulls. Other than maybe the Phoenix Suns, has there been a more exciting NBA team in the past ten years? Their style is so open and satisfying, and they're built in such a perfect way. I know I'll be accused of overreacting to one game, but I think they're going to win this series in 5. You can just seem them starting to understand their own strength. In the course of a single game, they lost their fear of Miami and went a long way to realizing the greatness that's been with them all year. Last night, it was great to see two former Dukies spearhead the effort. Boozer and Deng were phenomenal. And of course, there's Derrick Rose, the most electric man in sports.

3. Djokovic beat Nadal on clay again. Hoo boy. The drama for the French will be incredible. I'd be amazed if these two don't make the finals.

4. Great weekend for Duke sports. I saw the tennis team advance to the round of 16 with two easy wins in Durham, and I watched a quarter of the Duke lacrosse game as they beat Delaware to make the final 8. Tennis is fantastic to watch live, and lacrosse is interesting; I like it, but for some reason it makes me really miss football. Maybe it's because the two sports are similar enough to evoke the memories. I don't know. I just have the constant feeling of, 'okay, this is cool, but I wish it was football.'

5. I'm watching season 5 of Friday Night Lights in a kind of crazy binge. I'll finish the last episode today, and it's been great. Much better than season 4, and a nice series finale.

6. Dylan sent me this great video of a field runner who got away. Legendary.

That's it for today. Back in better form tomorrow.

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX! Volume Four, Week One

2011-05-13T21:10:00.012-04:00

For those who didn't notice, Blogger screwed the pooch yesterday, briefly deleted my Thursday post, and permanently deleted a few comments from the last two posts. Also, I couldn't post the Pick Six until now. As always with this service, you get what you pay for.

So we can abide no more hesitations- the new class has mercury in their heels. They're rarin' to run! Also, this is by far the weirdest group of rants in the history of Pick Six, which is, to put it mildly, awesome.

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX

VOLUME FOUR, WEEK ONE

Oh, that music! Goosebumps, folks! All interception returns should be set to dramatic music.

The Friday Pick Six is an original SCSD! game where six people make six sports predictions for six weeks. Along with their picks, they're allowed and encouraged to submit a 'sound-off' on any topic, sports or otherwise. When it's all done, the winner earns great honor among the people, while the two losers are exiled in shame and the three middle finishers go to purgatory, with the chance rescue their good name up to three times. To learn more about the rules, and about the current contestants, read below:

VOLUME FOUR

Here's how it looks:

The Last Chance Gals (3rd attempt, win or bust): Swetha & Sabreena
Purgatory Part 1: Marc, Monty
Newcomers: Craig & Tim, Tim B., John

-Volume Four Intros

THE HALL OF ANGELS: OLD CHAMPIONS

1. Tom.
2. Mike
3. Patrick and Dylan

It's Week One, so there are no standings as of yet. The first docket is a true variety pack. Dig it:

1. The Internazionali BNL D'italia!

For those who haven't been paying attention to tennis, there's some real drama happening. Rafa Nadal is still #1, and still considered the king of clay, but Novak Djokovic has started the year 33-0 (second best all time), and even beat Nadal in a tense one at the final of the Madrid Open (a clay tournament) last week. Now the players are in Rome, again on clay, in the last tournament before the French Open. Who wins the men's draw on Sunday? Nadal? Djokovic? Federer? Someone else?

2. The Player's Championship! Pick two golfers, one American and one international, to finish atop the leaderboard. Everyone whose two golfers make the cut will get a point, and the person with the lowest combined score will take 2 points. If anyone's golfer wins outright, 4 points, even if they don't win lowest combined score.

3. Red Sox - Yankees. For this one, pick which team will win the 3-game set.

4. For this one, pick which Yankee pitcher (Colon, Sabathia, Garcia) allows the fewest hits. Do the same for the Red Sox (Buchholz, Beckett, Lester). If you get 1, 1 point. If you get both, 3 points.

5. What will happen in Friday's Grizz-Thunder game?

A- Memphis wins by double digits.
B- Memphis wins by single digits.
C- OKC wins by single digits.
D- OKC wins by double digits.

6. THE BOSTON TEMPTATION.

The Tampa Bay Lightning visit the Boston Bruins in Game One of the Eastern Conference Finals on Saturday. If you choose to accept the Boston temptation, you take the Bruins. If they win, you get 2 points. BUT BE WARNED: if they lose, you lose 2 points, which is a tough hit to take this early in the Pick 6.

We begin with the veterans, the graduating gals on their last legs. Take it away, dynamic duo:

Swetha & Sabreena

First, a disclaimer. It’s pretty clear that our strengths are way more tailored to fall and spring sports than summer, so we’re setting the bar low for this volume of the pick six.

1. Most likely, Nadal and Djokovic will end up in the final, and as impressive as this Djoker streak has been, it’s about time for Nadal to right the ship. Besides, Novak’s really annoying. NADAL.

2. Don’t really know anything about golf, so I guess our best odds are really just the people at the top of the leaderboard. LUCAS GLOVER AND RORY SABBATINI.

3. We hate the Red Sox and pretty much all teams from Boston, and these two teams tend to even things out. So given that the Red Sox took the first series and this one is in New York, it’s a no-brainer. YANKEES.

4. Well I googled Colon(o) and ended up reading about his questionable stem cell treatment. That makes me think his judgment is also questionable. He’s out. And Garcia kind of looks like The Rock. And The Rock has bad taste in movie roles. SABATHIA.

Who gives a shit about Boston. But I do kinda love Josh Beckett from his days with the Marlins. He’s off to a good start, and his WHIP is the best. BECKETT.

5. Aside from the end of Game 3, when OKC couldn’t buy a bucket, the Thunder have essentially controlled this series. But Memphis’s crowd is really good, and Tony Allen plays awesome defense, and this series has been so much fun that it has to go to a game 7, just like Boston and Chicago two years ago. We’re thinking Memphis wins an epic barn-burner, but then OKC comes back and kills it in Game 7. But for now, (B) MEMPHIS WINS BY SINGLE DIGITS.

6. THE BOSTON TEMPTATION. Eww. No thanks.

Monty

First of all ... I'm just barely able to care about sports again after
the tragedy of the tournament. Very few things have made me as
unhappy, but I'm coming out of it and in to a nice fog of rage I
intend to keep going until we win again. Just be warned.

1. The Internazionali BNL D'italia!

I can't believe I'm doing it, because unlike some blog-authors, I'm not a huge Rafa fan. But I hate Djokovic even more. I mean - he just seems gross. I'm sure he smells bad, and I heard that he likes punching babies.

But- he's gonna win - because that's the way my damn world of sports is going this year. Asshole.

2. The Player's Championship is this weekend.

Wow. Golf.

Ok. First of all - it's not a sport. My overweight grandfather played two or three games of it a week while drunk. He wasn't in shape enough to play sports. Ergo - not a sport. It's a game - or an activity - or something. And really Tiger? Injury? My overweight grandfather played two or three games a week while drunk.

I have to pick people though - so I'm 100% certain that both Ryan Palmer and Graeme McDowell will win the tournament.

3. Red Sox - Yankees.

They're both on a 2-game losing streak, but the Sox are WAY worse than the Yankees this year. So I'm going to pick the Yankees - unless a group of 12 year old girls show up, in which case both teams will lose.

4. Garcia and Beckett. But that's Samuel Beckett, the dead playwright.

5. Finally - a real sport.

I REALLY want Memphis to win, because, I mean Jesus - the only reason they are good is because they have Shane Battier, and he's just willing them to win because he's that badass. However, I think Kevin Durant is tired of this series - so (C) OKC by single digits

6. THE BOSTON TEMPTATION

In Baseball - Tampa Bay is on top of the division and Boston is on the bottom. I think this is telling, and for that reason I'm not rising to the bait. Tampa is going to win. They're also going to go out and run around the Boston Common afterwards all wearing mini-skirts and high-heels before grabbing some ice cream at JP Licks. They like oreo toppings... but not as much as they like sculling.

Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

1. Mmm this is a tough one. Nadal is a baller on clay as everyone knows and Djokovic has somehow strung together an extremely impressive streak of victories. I'm not even going to consider Federer because, sadly, he's past his prime. I think Djokovic will eventually self destruct at some point and Nadal is going to take this fucker down.

2. I don't know anything about golf. I wrote about how much I hate Nascar last week and I hate golf just as much. It's a boring game, I won't even dignify it by calling it a sport. I rage whenever I talk about golf with my Dad because he claims how athletic you need to be to excel at it, then I just point to John Daly and punch him in the dick. Suck it dad. I'll just go with players I recognize so Rory Sabbitini for the international contingent, and Mark O`Meara for the Americans.

3. Supposedly the Red Sox suck this year and the Yankees probably spent 12 billion dollars to lose in 2nd round of the playoffs again. Another sport I hate. Holy shit Shane I'm starting to hate you. I suppose you don't have much choice considering sports in the summer are the most boring thing in the universe. I guess I'll pick the Yankees in this match up, not like it matters because the baseball season is 800 games long.

4. Sabathia, Beckett. Rage.

5. This series has been fantastic. Full of ups and downs (not Zach Randolph since he doesn't jump) and great shots. I think a lot of this comes down to how much Westbrook wants to ballhog and shoot terrible midrange transition jumpers. I think Memphis may be gutted after that 3-OT loss, but I think they will take Game 6. B. Memphis by Single Digits.

6. Oh I'm accepting the Boston temptation. If there's one thing everyone knows about Boston is that it's a city full of assholes. Assholes who love hockey and Kevin Garnett. I'm taking the Bruins to win this game.

John

1. Well as a statistician and competitive tennis player, I declare with high probability that I am the local tennis pro of Pick Six. I also commend the bold pick of tennis as the first pick of the season premier. I hope it turns out to be the hook that catches unsuspecting internet surfers, holding them entranced for the
duration. May many web hits come your way, Shane.

That said, this is a difficult assignment...like Nadal, I should be stone cold and pick not with my heart, but with the empirical evidence before me. Rafa’s last sacred ground was destroyed by the Djoker last week when he took him down on red clay in SPAIN!!! As much as it pains me, Novak is playing the best in the world right now on all surfaces...I hope that it is just everything coming together for him and that he’s not Djuicing because he is playing as a man possessed. On top of it all, Nadal is sick and who knows how his shape will be in the coming days. Can’t do it...the Djoke is on him...Nadal takes it with a classic final of heart and courage and storms into Roland Garros with all the mo. ¡Vamos Rafa! (or maybe Murray takes ND in Semis, but I’m going with Rafa). Sorry, Now I’ve run out of time...rest will be short this time!

2.Golf: Sorry guys, I’m taking the boring pick: the leader Watney. He has 5/9 top 10 finishes with a win this year and looks tough…here’s hoping the pressure doesn’t get to him. International I pick Rory Sabbatini over my original pick of Graeme McDowell.

3. BoSox or Yankees...Yankees have better record, it’s in NY...gotta go with the Yanks here.

4. Pitchers: No idea, I’ll go with Garcia for NY and Beckett for
the Mighty Mighty Bostons.

5. C- I like Durant.

6. Hockey...are there playoffs going on? I refuse to do any research here. I see Boston is a 3 seed and TB is a 5 seed. The game is in Boston. So I’m guessing that they are the favs. So maybe they have a 70% chance of winning…then by indulging the temptation I have an expected points haul of 0.7(2)+0.3(-2)=0.8 so I must do it...ok I googled something and see that someone I’ve never heard of is out for Boston...they say he’s good…well, I’m not here to puss out...I do hereby accept The Beantown Temptation!

Tim B.

First, I need to clarify one thing after the first-week introductions. While I do maintain that my goal is only to finish in third place, I am further specifying this ambition to include a distinct pecking order one through six, based off my impressions of my so-called competitors.

6. John

We all want John to finish last. But I am not prejudging John simply because he is an alumnus of that hilarious “university” down the road, but rather because John appears to enjoy playing this role of the hated competitor, which we can all agree is a little bit played out by this point, thanks to the Jets and the Heat.

5. Craig & Tim

I mean, I don't know where to begin with the problems of these two. First and foremost, of course, is that one of them is named Tim, which means I have to be Tim B., which is shall we say less than ideal. I’ve prided myself for 24 years on being the only Tim my friends knew; even when another kid named Tim showed up in my first-grade class, I wasted no time in coming up with a slick new nickname for him so I could still be the Tim. It worked.

Furthermore, they’re playing the Boston card, which only adds to their co-opting of my identity within the game. Plus, a team? Really? Call me back when you’re old enough to pick six yourself.

4. Swetha & Sabreena

They know what they did.

3. Me

I will use this brief space to inform Shane that, although he is correct on Fitzgerald having flow and Hemingway lacking it, he is totally wrong about David Foster Wallace, who is doubtlessly America’s finest novelist whose last name does not begin with the letter “F,” if not the greatest without qualification. (This isn't to say DFW has “flow,” which is a different and, in my mind, irrelevant question. J.P. Prince at Tennessee had “flow,” but he is nowhere near the caliber of the most anti-flow basketball player of all-time, Dirk Nowitzki. I just mean to say DFW is far far more than an “interesting plod.”)

2. Monty

Monty’s picture appears to come from a cricket match, and this marks him either as a man of pretentious tastes or stupid ones. It also makes me think he liked the Joseph O’Neill novel Netherland, which everyone said was almost as good as The Great Gatsby but which was, without hyperbole, 1/1000th the novel The Great Gatsby was, primarily because its narrator Hans was a somehow much more milquetoast version of Nick Carraway and its other principal Gatsby-like character, Chuck Ramkissoon, was needlessly mysterious and unexplained. (As an aside, my friend and I once got into an argument
over the greatness of The Great Gatsby, with our different judgments of the book basically deriving from his belief that Daisy Buchanan couldn’t have been worth it and mine that, at the age of 17, she definitely was.)

1. Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

Although Marc spells his name with a “c” and has bought into popular music’s heinous bastardization of the alias, he did take the time to rant while a returning player, and his avatar includes a sentient bear. And he hates NASCAR. A worthy winner, indeed.

Oh, so there are picks, too:

1. Shane told us to wait until later in the week just in case upsets happened to Nadal, Djokovic, or Federer, which is kind of like saying, “Don’t pick Duke or UNC to win the 2012 ACC title just yet; I hear Tony Bennett’s got some strong recruits this year!” It’s pretty obvious it’s going to be a Nadal-Djokovic final, and it means more to Novak than it does to Rafa. Djokovic 7-5, 3-6, 6-4

Also, can anyone explain why tennis draws don’t pay attention to seeding? Why would No. 1 Rafa play No. 3 Federer in the semis instead of No. 4 Andy Murray? This, my friends, grinds my gears.

2. It’s interesting that the stipulation is to choose one American and one international, and I wonder if Shane did this simply because anyone paying attention to golf probably would have chosen two Europeans. The fact that almost all of the best players right now are European (Kaymer, Westwood, Donald, McIlroy, McDowell) is the second-biggest story in golf (behind Eldrick, obvs), and it will be fascinating how this evolves over the next several years, aside from Europe dominating the Ryder Cup, which will continue to suck. Save us, Rickie Fowler!

Oh, and my picks are banal: Martin Kaymer and Matt Kuchar. (I definitely would have picked Graeme McDowell if permitted two Euros.)

3. Red Sox won two of three at home, Yankees return the favor. Boston can’t win on the road outside of the AL West.

4. The insidious aspect of this question is that Sabathia will almost certainly pitch much longer than Colon and Garcia, and thus have more of an opportunity to allow additional hits. Plus, the Sox knocked around Sabathia pretty good last time around in Fenway, so I’ll go with Garcia.

For the Sox, Beckett leads the league in fewest hits per nine, but he’s already had his good start against the Yankees. Lester bounces back from a bad one in Toronto.

5. This has been a fun but not altogether well-played series, right? That’s the consensus? I can’t watch Greivis Vasquez playing important minutes without thinking about the time Tim Brando called him “the vivacious Venezuelan, from Caracas with love.” Now you can’t either. You’re welcome.

Speaking of Maryland, sad to see Gary go; such a fun foil for years, one who coached up some otherwise mediocre teams (Gilchrist’s ACC champs and Greivis’ co-champs as 4-seeds each come to mind) but also let us dominate the DC recruiting area. Turgeon may be the same: excellent in-game coach, but I wonder if his style — not too dissimilar from Bennett’s in fact — will do much to draw the DC kids to College Park.

And yeah, Memphis sends it to Game 7 with a tight 10-point Game 6 win.

6. Have any of you ever heard Jack Edwards, the Bruins’ NESN play-by-play guy known for his “Mine eyes have seen the glory” call of a US World Cup win, announce a Boston hockey game? Dude did not learn from why he was let go by ESPN. It is jarring to hear such a homer announcer call playoff games, even if they are on the local cable channel. It’s like Hawk Harrelson calling an ALCS involving the White Sox. Furthermore, hockey seems to me the sport most in need of an overhaul in how its announcers call the game. With HDTV, we can see the puck; you don’t have to pretend we’re listening to the game on radio. So drop the “Chara to Horton to Krejci” (those are three Bruins…I have no idea if they play on the same line) patter followed by the “Look at the play Bergeron makes here! Just, wow!” replay provided by the analyst, and tell me what is legitimately going on in the game on a deeper plane. (I still don’t understand the prominent hockey strategy of dumping the puck into the zone; I think 95% of the times this happens is because they’re changing lines, but there are times when it seems as if whoever flings the puck up the boards is thinking, “Yep, this is our best chance to score: an outlet pass to no one in particular.”)

This is all to say that, while Tampa’s won seven straight and Boston eight of nine, the Lightning have a goalie who’s been this far before and the Bruins don’t. Dwayne is gonna Rol-oson the Bruins in Game 1, so I’m resisting the Boston Temptation, the name of which I assume comes from a pick-up move perfected by Thomas Brady.

Craig & Tim

Let’s get serious for a moment. The past few days have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Excitement as the Bruins swept the Flyers to head to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they get a juicy matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning are the equivalent of a Mike D’Antoni-coached NBA team. Sure, they might put up be fun to watch because they put up big offensive numbers, but they’ll never win anything because they play no D. However, the joy of having the Bs make a run to the conference finals was tempered by the Celtics’ inability to play the sport basketball down the stretch against the Miami LeWades. Seeing LeBron fake cry after winning a second round playoff series was pathetic. Even more upsetting, Miami is coached by the snozzberry kid from Super Troopers and constantly looks overwhelmed/confused/tripping on mushrooms.

Speaking of the NBA Playoffs (Where David Stern making sure that Miami reaches the Finals happens!), the Celts, Lakers and Spurs were all bounced from the playoffs. Changing of the guard? Maybe. But one thing's for sure. There's gonna be some new blood atop the Pick Six Standings. Out with the old, in with the new. Here goes:

1- The Internazionali BNL D'Italia

First off, has anyone figured out exactly why professional tennis is played on three distinctly different surfaces? Other than tradition, there’s no other explanation. And “that’s the way we’ve always done it” is not a good reason to do anything. Why not play golf on clay? Or basketball on grass? It’s a mystery to everyone.

But what’s not a mystery is who is going to take this tournament. The frontrunner has to be Djokovic, who hasn’t lost this year and has beaten Rafa twice thus far. But I haven’t trusted a Serbian since World War I and I’m not about to start now. Nadal isn’t 100% and almost withdrew from the tournament before the third round. He’s more concerned with prepping for the French Open, anyways. Andy Murray is the biggest British choke artist since Lord Cornwallis- he’ll win battles but can’t win the war. We’re gonna go with Robin Soderling. The Big Swede is due. He plays well on clay (defeating Nadal at Roland Garros in 2009 and Federer in 2010). Plus, his middle name is “Bo Carl”, a pretty great middle name any way you dice it. Big serve, killer forehand. He takes Djokovic out in 3 sets today.

2. Player's Championship.

American - Ben Crane

It's tough to be laying 4 strokes right off the bat, but Ben Crane has been wining and dining Sawgrass for a couple years now, and it's about time TPC put out. Crane has finished in the top 10 at Sawgrass each of the last 2 years.

International - Martin Kaymer

Proven ability to perform under pressure and win a major tournament. Proven ability to hit fairways, which is especially important as the rough at SG thickens out later in the week.

3- Red Sox – Yankees

Red Sox. Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house in blackjack. No one likes that person.

Growing up, being a Sox fan was like being the little brother who was always getting his ass kicked by an older brother (the Yankees). The older brother was bigger, stronger and more popular. he treated his younger brother with disinterested contempt and considered him an annoyance. Little bro harbored lots of smoldering resentment. Then, in 2004, it was like the little brother went to college, started lifting weights, dating the hottest girl in school, and came back home and beat up the older brother for the first time.

2007 was the college graduation. the little brother was now as big or bigger than the big brother, came home from college, beat the shit out of the big brother just for the hell of it, and stole the older brother's girlfriend.

Now they're all grown up and they don't like each other, but there's a perceived level of equality, at least to the rest of the family (MLB). It isnt true. We don't want close, tense games. We want to see the Yanks humiliated every time they step on the field. We want to kick the crap out of the Yanks every game of the year. We want them to fail.

The 2011 Sox haven't rounded into form yet. I think it starts this weekend against the Yanks.

4. Colon = No. Why? His head looks like a skin jar full of pennies.
C.ream C.heese Fatassia = Yes. Why? Because we have to pick one of these losers to win.
Garcia = No. Why? **rhetorical**

Bucholz = No. Why? Lester's too dirty to pick against.
Beckett = No. Why? Lester's too dirty to pick against.
Lester = Yes. Why? Lester's too dirty to pick against.

5- Grizzlies – Thunder

The Grizz got embarrassed the other night by Durant and Co. The Grizzlies' best players are a head case and a bearded Spaniard who looks like a 7-foot hobo. Meanwhile, the Thunder have the best pure scorer in the game in Durant, an emerging star at point guard, some Ibaka guy who only started playing hoops like 2 years ago, and a solid supporting cast. Plus, the Thunder play in Oklahoma City, where I don't believe there is anything other to do than play basketball because the entire state is a barren wasteland. The Grizz will put up a fight, but the Thunder take Game 6 by single digits.

6. THE BOSTON TEMPTATION.

Easiest choice of them all. B's take game one and go on to take the series. I can't wait to watch that retirement community known as Tampa try and muster up some embarrassing semblance of a legitimate fan base in fleeting support of their warm-weather NHL franchise. I guess if I had to rely on a little French jockey like St. Louis to backbone my team I'd be less than enthusiastic too. But at least I wouldn't also have emphysema. Go Bruins.

************
And that's it for another great week of Pick Six. Lots of highlights, but I particularly enjoyed Tim's shit-talking, Monty's repeated references to young girls, Marc punching his own dad in the penis, and Craig's use of an erotic family metaphor to explain the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. Well done, everyone.

FA Cup final happening RIGHT NOW, then it's Duke tennis, Duke lacrosse, Red-Sox Yanks! What a day. Enjoy some feel-good 60s tunes, and I will see you all Monday.

In Praise of This Weekend

2011-05-12T09:26:00.000-04:00

Before we begin, Carrie posed an important question late in yesterday's comments, and I think it bears exposure to a wider readership:

Which Supreme Court justice has the most flow?

I don't have the answers, folks. Maybe it's a question without answer, but I'm looking forward to the justifications. Feel free to go way back in time. If anyone says 'John Roberts,' though, I'll track you down to whatever country club restaurant you mistreat waiters at and slap you with your own khaki polo hat. Which I think is fair.

THAT BEING SAID.

This weekend is just a sugar-sweet killer, a tiny little gem of sports the likes of which you find only in the spring season. The stars have aligned, and everything is happening at once. The great part about May and June is that it could happen again in two weeks. Let's go through the rundown, starting with a trio of local events to satisfy my bloodthirsty North Carolina base. I'll be posting a picture of the current Supreme Court justice whose personality most closely suits each sporting event, but without further context or explanation:

1 - NCAA Tennis - First and Second Round, Durham

Have you ever seen a high level college tennis match? It's almost always awesome, with a crazy amount of variety in player quality and drama that's practically inherent in the format. Real quick, a tutorial: it starts with three doubles matches, and the team who wins at least two of the three gets a point. After that, there are 6 singles matches, each worth one point. So 7 points are at stake, and the team who wins 4 points takes the match.

At a high level, the #1 singles match features players who may be low to medium level professionals some day (tennis being one of those sports where if you're really REALLY good, you typically don't play in college). It's fast, and it's awesome. The #6 singles, on the other hand, will be players you think you might be able to hang around with for a set. It won't be true (not even close), but it's fun to consider the possibility, and it's still fun to watch.

One of my best undergrad sports memories, non-basketball division, came at a Duke-UNC tennis match. The teams ended up tying 3-3, and the whole kit and caboodle came down to #6 singles, where one of my freshman dorm-mates, Pete Shults, was down a break in the third and deciding set. Everybody- fans, players, family- came to court #6 as the lights came on. Shults broke back and eventually took the set 7-5. His teammates stormed the court, we went a little nutty, and I was hooked into college tennis.

The only match I've seen this year was a regular season ACC showdown between Duke and UNC. Duke was up 3-2 and in the lead in both extant matches. I wandered down to #5 singles, and with the encouragement of the UNC fans, their player turned it around in the third set and won. The match came down to #1 singles, and UNC took that too for a dramatic 4-3 win. Theoretically, I should have just enjoyed the match and not cared who won. I go to both schools, and it's not like this is basketball. But I'll admit: I was a little annoyed that Duke didn't win, and was glad to see they beat UNC 4-0 in the ACC championship.

Okay, I've written possibly too much about college tennis. Here's the point: Duke hosts the first and second rounds this Friday and Saturday. At 1pm, the Dukies take on George Washington, and on Saturday at 3pm, they'll face the winner of Maryland-Michigan (who play at 10am Friday). I'm definitely heading over for at least the 1pm match Friday. If you go, say hey. I'll be the guy wearing the giant Uncle Sam hat and loudly berating anyone who looks foreign, because I'm stilled fired up about bin Laden and some things are more important than sports.

2 - NCAA Lacrosse, Sweet 16, Durham and Chapel Hill

This is another sweet spectator sport, and this weekend Duke and UNC are each hosting a Sweet 16 NCAA tourney game. You can see the bracket here.

A - Duke vs. Delaware, Saturday, 5pm. Duke is ranked 5th in the tournament, and they just lost 11-9 to Maryland in the ACC tournament championship. This will be a fun 1-2 punch with the 3pm tennis match, though there will probably be some unfortunate overlap.

B - UNC vs. Maryland, Sunday, 1pm. The Terps beat UNC 7-6 in the semifinals of that same ACC tourney, but UNC came back in the next game to beat third-ranked Notre Dame at home.

Again, I will at both of these, and it will be awesome. After looking at these match-ups, is it sad that my main reaction is, 'man, I hope Maryland loses.'?

3 - Yanks vs. Red Sox, The Bronx

Yankee Stadium. Buchholz-Colon, Beckett-Sabathia, and Lester-Garcia.

For a while it seemed like Boston was righting their ship, but they've stagnated recently and remain 3 games under .500. It turned out that Tampa Bay was the team with the true false beginning; the Rays are now tied with the Yanks atop the AL East. A sweep in Yankee Stadium by the Red Sox would put them at 20-20 on the year, and possibly spur them to greater heights.

Needless to say, that would be annoying. For an early series, I don't think it's a stretch to call this one 'important.' It wouldn't be a death blow if we took 2 of 3 or swept, but it would slightly cripple the Sox. If we can't win, we should definitely consider a strategy I've been advocating for years but which Yankee management studiously ignores- attacking Josh Beckett with a baseball bat.

4 - Internazionali BNL d'Italia, Rome

This is a tennis tournament, and you can see the bracket here. Normally I would not direct your attention to a non-major tennis tournament. I know how valuable your time is, and I'm not the kind of fellow to waste it. But we got some drama, gang.

Rafa Nadal is still #1, and still considered the king of clay, but Novak Djokovic has started the year 33-0 (second best all time), and even beat Nadal in a tense final at the final of the Madrid Open last week. ON CLAY. However, Nadal did make this shot:

Now the players are in Rome, again on clay, in the last tournament before the French Open. Who's going to win the men's draw on Sunday? Nadal? Djokovic? Federer? Someone else? The final will be well worth watching.

And I'll just say this: I can take many disappointments as a fan and human being. But Djokovic beating Nadal at the French Open? That would destroy me. It can't happen. Am I terrified? Yes. This sumbitch can't lose. And this quote from Rafa after the Madrid final was particularly soul crushing:

While Nadal holds a healthy advantage over Djokovic in the world rankings, the Spaniard said it's only a matter of time before Djokovic takes over the No. 1 spot if he keeps playing like this.

"The No. 1 ranking is not in danger -- it's finished. Let's not lie to ourselves, that's the reality," Nadal said. "Nobody likes to lose. I have to see what's missing and working with a cool, open mind to decipher things and find the solutions. To try to do a little better next time."

5 - The Player's Championship, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

This past week, I've been taking up golf and loving it. I played a par-3 course on Monday and managed to shoot an 87, which is kind of bad but not terrible. I had several very good holes, though, and even came close to making a birdie once. There is very little more satisfying, at least in the beginning, than a precise iron shot. I'm not saying I'd take a glorious 5-iron over great sex or anything, but...I would take a glorious 5-iron over great sex.

Anyway, actually playing golf, I've found, makes me more likely to watch it. I sat through like an hour of a playoff between Lucas Glover and some other guy last Sunday, which is pretty unprecedented. The Player's Championship is called the 5th major by some folks (FDR was the first, I think), and it's cool because it has an island green on the 17th hole. They have to take the players out in little rowboats after their shot.

That's actually not true, I don't think, but it is basically an island hole, and it sets up some good drama. Could be fun to watch come the weekend.

6 - Thunder-Grizz, Friday, Memphis

I was too much of a tired old man to stay up for the entirety of game 4 at Memphis, when the Thunder had an incredible comeback to save their playoff lives in overtime. After the start of the game, I'd somewhat written OKC off. They blew a very important game 3 because Westbrook went into crazy egotistical ballhog mode, Durant got super passive, and the Memphis crowd did its job. When it looked like Game 4 was a bust too, I figured the Grizzlies would win in 6. Then the incredible gritty-gutty-scrappy win, and last night the Thunder defended at home with ease to take a 3-2 lead. I do not see them losing this series now, but I still think Game 6 will be pretty great. Can Memphis hold serve at home and at least give itself a chance in Game 7? Will Durant and Westbrook go in for the kill?

7 - Possible Bulls-Heat, Game 1, Sunday, Chicago

I'm pretty sure this would happen if the Bulls win in Atlanta tonight. It's fairly clear to everyone involved that Chicago is better than the Hawks, so hopefully it all ends tonight rather than dragging things out to a Game 7 in Chicago.

Anyway, the Bulls-Heat series is going to be spectacular. I'm so excited that I think I'll write a preview next week, which is a presumptuous move since my knowledge about these teams, or the NBA in general, couldn't fill a thimble. But here's the great angle for the series: it's a team who went through a fairly normal evolution (Bulls), with young guys who gelled over a couple years and gradually improved until they became legitimate title contenders, against a manufactured team (Heat), constructed to be instantly great and defy the usual progression. Fascinating.

I gave in to the monster inside myself and pulled hard for the Heat against the Celtics, and now I'm in the awkward spot of having to pull a 180, because I really, really want the Bulls to win. Watching this a few times should get me in the proper mood.

8 - The FA Cup Championship, Saturday, 10am, Wembley

Hell yeah I'm watching! It's Manchester City, who beat Manchester United in the semis, against Stoke City, which is a place where English people go to have sex. The FA Cup is the best thing you can win in England short of the actual premiership, and Man City hasn't won anything in quite a long time. I'm thinking the 1970s, but I will not deign to look it up. Anyway, it's a perfect way to start a Saturday. I plan to get up early, do some exercise so I don't feel horrible about myself, and then settle in. Soccer, tennis, lacrosse, baseball. What a day!

9 - Hockey, Sometime, Somewhere

Hockey is a sport that, on its face, essentially bolsters AND undermines a quality of life so often ignored, the glaring yet hidden substrata which we trod lightly upon lest the lesser angels of our nature bring forth such hobgoblins as would shatter our very conceptions of-

Oh God, I can't do it. There's hockey on, somewhere. Probably on like VH1 now, or something. Find it if you like.

*******

Damn, I was really hoping to get to 10 things so I could include a picture of Harriet Miers. If anybody can fill in the last one, I'll be obliged. Tomorrow is Week 1 of Pick 6, plus a quick treatise on the most exciting positions in sports. That's right, I said positions. How do you even define that?

How indeed, my friends. How indeed.

In Praise of Flow

2011-05-11T08:48:00.007-04:00

Last night, Derrick Rose got me thinking.

There goes a dude, I thought, at the height of his powers. Watching him lead the fast break is now one of the most exciting moments in earthly athletics, and his singular shifting method of driving to the hoop is a visual definition of why we watch sports. From the moment it begins, with an indefensible crossover or a sudden lurch to the side, to the very end, when an unlikely twist of english sends the ball careening off the glass and through the net, we're witness to an act of physical beauty.

It's a little bit like a dance. Rose leads, the defender reacts, and they create a dynamic, interactive waltz with a clean spatial appeal. It's just that in this dance, one partner can win. But that doesn't keep the other from maintaining the proper steps. The defender, after all, is being led.

Rose has flow. For the purposes of today, I'll loosely define 'flow' as a natural bodily rhythm, a physical looseness that translates into smooth, fluid motion. A sort of grace, if you will, not visibly beholden to the point-A-point-B-point-C progression a normal human uses to complete an athletic task.

Robinson Cano has flow. When he swings the bat, or turns a double play, there's a sweet purity, as though his bones are made of something less rigid, something less cobbled and more unified than the skeleton the rest of us carry around. He never looks like he's trying very hard to achieve great results, and the effortlessness stems from the flow. He can just let the natural processes work.

Let's look at Duke basketball. Nolan Smith has flow. Kyrie Irving has flow. Jon Scheyer did not have flow. Kyle singler does not have flow. The Plumlees have the opposite of flow; a word like 'blocky-ness' or 'chunkitude.' I don't know, but with these last four players, to varying extents, their bodies don't seem to respond quite as quickly to the brain's commands. You can trace their movements in sequence- part one, thought, transition, part two, thought, transition, execution. There are breaks in the action, however momentary, and with these pauses they become relatable.

As you may have begun to notice, there's an awkward racial component to flow. So let's state the obvious: black athletes are more likely to have flow than their white counterparts. Who knows why? Who cares? The why isn't important. And it's definitely not absolute. Steve Nash most definitely has flow. I think, but can't quite remember, that Larry Bird had a weird kind of flow. Roger Federer has obscene amounts of flow. Karl Malone had no flow, and it was infuriating. LeBron James, weirdly, has only limited flow.

But the larger pattern is unmistakable. Fans tend to react to this truth in one of two ways, and it should go without saying that the reaction is largely based on the fan's own race. You can either love the flow, and praise players whose games are at a transcendent level because of it, or you can admire those players who succeed despite missing the flow, whose intelligence and craftiness and hard work bring them to the highest levels of the game.

Of course, it's not all black and white (which is not meant as a racial pun, but I'll take it). For one, fans, can admire both kinds of player. For two, it's not like there's a clear-cut dichotomy between free-flowing, graceful, naturally-blessed players and hard-working, bright, scrappy grinders. The truth is that when a player combines both sets of qualities, they become pretty unstoppable. Derrick Rose is the embodiment of that duality; his native brilliance has now officially meshed with an incredible work ethic and a redoubtable intelligence to vault him to superstardom. It's an easy comparison, but you can't help remembering Jordan. Like I said: height of his powers.

But you do see a split in the world of the fan. One of the clearest examples I can remember was the 2009 UNC national championship team. They were almost a perfect test case, containing as it did two great players with two very different styles. And the question is, who did you like more? Was it Ty Lawson, with his perfect body control, with his endless capacity to penetrate the lane, set up teammates, and single-handedly destroy watertight defenses like Michigan State? Or was it Hansborough, with his utter lack of inner music, making shot after shot against reason and logic and probably physics, always stepping the wrong way, always falling in the wrong direction, always off-kilter, and yet never missing his mark?

Today, at UNC games, when they air the 'I Am a Tar Heel' montage on the big screen, Lawson does not appear. Hansbrough does, and he gets the loudest ovation from the overwhelmingly white crowd. He didn't have the flow, but he has the love.

Size is a factor, too. It's harder for a big man to have the flow, white or black. They don't move the same way; they're naturally slower. Shaq never had the flow. Yao Ming, though...he had the flow (just kidding). I tried for a long time to think of a big man who had the flow, and I came up with maybe Kareem, maybe a young Arvydas Sabonis with his subtle artistry, or maybe...I don't know. Maybe the commenters can enlighten me on that front. But it gets at the LeBron problem; he's too gigantic, too solid, too much the linebacker to become liquid and silky. Too large to disappear. (For the ultimate big man flow king, see this video, courtesy of commenter _bam.)

And you notice flow the most in basketball. You can see it in certain aspects of baseball. Robinson Cano has the flow, as does Vladimir Guerrero. Both men play a similar style of game; they swing at everything. In some ways, their natural talents become a slight liability. They can almost do anything they want, and it shows in their approach; no walks, very little patience. The flow's attendant qualities make them vulnerable.

Most top level tennis players have the flow. Federer is probably the best example, and, hard as this is for me to admit, Nadal may be the worst. His pounding, relentless game has its own kind of rhythm and aggressive grace, but it's not nearly as obvious as the ethereal Federer style.

In golf, the flow is obvious, as you see:

vs.

Football flow is a little harder to define. You can see it mostly, I think, in receivers. Randy Moss at Marshall, with his high green socks, will always be the quintessential example of football flow for me. He just sort of glided by everyone, exerting less energy and moving at a higher speed. Larry Fitzgerald shows flow for the Cardinals. But the truth is that football is such a regimented, strategic sport that it's not conducive to displays of continued elegance.

Soccer is great for flow, as Pele and Maradona and Messi prove. Contrast them with someone great like Cristiano Ronaldo, and you can see what it means; Ronaldo's movements are more constructed and efficient, more rigidly brilliant, while Messi moves with more natural inspiration.

Flow can extend to other walks of life. In writing, the two English-language writers with the most effortless elegance, for me, are Vladimir Nabokov and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love Nabokov and only really like Fitzgerald, but the way they handle the language goes past any lessons you can teach and reaches the realm of the instinctive. You get the feeling they wrote in some kind of trance, some semi-aware state in which they channeled ghosts. In contrast, you can look at a writer like Hemingway, legendary in his own right, who used a stoic style to forcefully stuff the language down a reader's throat. Or someone on the other end of the spectrum like David Foster Wallace, endlessly intelligent and clever, but full of hesitations and clarifications and ultimately, in my mind, lacking the internal rhythm necessary to make his writing anything but an interesting plod.

Or movie directing; I'll defend Wes Anderson to the day I die, and I think he flows better than anyone alive (except maybe Terence Malick). He's got it in his bones. Jim Jarmusch, on the other hand, wouldn't know flow if it hit him in the face with a slate.

Flow, at its core, is difficult to define and defend. My conception will be different from yours, and yours different from the next man. So my question is this: who embodies flow for you? Talk to me about sports, art, life, whatever. Help me make sense of this intangible quality, to put a label on a gust of wind.

The Truth About Darwin

2011-05-10T08:19:00.004-04:00

(Today's post comes from a story I wrote as a final project for a sports writing class this semester. The assignment was to write a profile about a UNC athlete, and I was lucky enough to speak with Jacob Stallings, a catcher for the UNC baseball team. He couldn't have been more generous with his time, and he couldn't have been any nicer. He's a genuinely good person, and the article was a pleasure to write. Just so everyone knows what they're getting into, this article touches on religious topics. Christianity is a big part of Jacob's life, and that angle is explored later on in the article.)

The Truth About Darwin
The visible portions of white in Jacob Stallings’ soft eyes expand when he remembers the shock of coming to Chapel Hill.

“It’s a lot of things,” he begins, searching for the right words. The old images from freshman year come to mind, and they prompt a few false starts. “I never was even…I never even dealt with it. Just the partying, and then, you don’t have to go to class. I mean…it’s on you to go to class!”

The memory retains its power. He still can’t believe it.

Stallings, now a junior and the baseball team’s starting catcher, speaks with me outside Boshamer Stadium at a green picnic table in the shade. The first time I met him, weeks earlier after a win against UNC-Charlotte, he took the time to go over the finer points of framing a pitch; how to fool an umpire into thinking a ball is a strike.

“You can’t frame width, but you can frame height,” he said. He explained how he uses his long arms to reach out as far as possible for the low pitches so they look higher, and catches the high ones as deep as possible so they have time to drop. He quoted an article he’d read the year before, when Yadier Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals said he tried to steal 10-12 strikes per game.

I was struck by the earnest way he spoke; he seemed genuinely concerned that I come away with good information. In contrast to the business-like approach many athletes take with the media, it felt refreshing, and his unfailing politeness was accentuated by certain verbal habits, like the way he said ‘golly’ without a hint of irony.

If you like baseball, he’s the kind of person you want to speak with again, mixing as he does the ingredients of generosity, intellect, and talent. I didn’t know at the time that his father, Kevin Stallings, is the head basketball coach at Vanderbilt, or that Jacob has never touched a drop of alcohol, or that he was reborn to the Baptist faith as a freshman and now attends mass at the Summit Church in Raleigh, or that on Sundays during the season he leads a team devotional.

But this information isn’t hard to uncover while we chat in the shadow of the stadium. Stallings is tall for a catcher at 6’5,” and so thin that you can safely call him ‘gaunt.’ He recently buzzed his hair in a charity promotion for cancer, and the short style highlights a receding hairline. He’s stronger now than he’s ever been, but if you saw him in loose clothes you’d still think he was a bag of bones.

And he’s unwaveringly sincere. Each question I lob his way is given a fair measure of consideration and answered in a way that strives for clarity. Which isn’t to say he’s robotic; he laughs, he hesitates, he reverses ground. But he’s not youthful—not in that casual, carefree sense. He’s the kind of 21-year-old who will say things like, “before I know it, I’ll be too old to play this game.”

He’s honest without being loose-lipped. You never get the sense that something is being held in reserve, but he does want to get it right.

Freshman year, that was part of the problem.

**
Before he came to Carolina, Stallings led an unusually stable life for the son of a college basketball coach. He was born in Lawrence, Kansas, moved to Illinois four years later, and settled for good in Brentwood, Tennessee before his tenth birthday. He’s the oldest of three children, and though he describes himself as a “home body,” he wasn’t spoiled.

“My dad always made me work hard at whatever I did,” he says. “And my mom too, for that matter.”

Lisa Stallings is a stay-at-home mom, and Jacob still receives her haranguing phone calls about the importance of grades. “She’s always on me about getting a tutor,” he says, a sheepish grin turning his lips. “Lord knows I need them in my science classes.”

He still loves to go to his dad’s practices at Vanderbilt when he gets the chance, and he spent the summer after his senior year in high school working out with the team to increase his strength for college.

But though Stallings sees himself as the product of his parents, he was a shy kid. Even today, when he speaks openly and intelligently on a variety of topics, the remnants of a reserved bearing occasionally emerge; a slight halt in the cadence, or a pause while the right word hovers just out of reach. And maybe that explains his sincerity; a conversational late-bloomer, he lacks the elliptical gift of gab and must approach the truth straight on.

**
It took baseball to bring him out of his shell when he arrived in Brentwood. His first little league coach took a risk for the newcomer, threatening to forfeit the rest of the team’s games if the rigid league didn’t let Stallings play due to his late arrival. The tactic worked, and Jacob is still appreciative more than a decade later. By his own admission, he wasn’t very good at baseball in those early days, and the coaches’ gesture made him feel like he belonged in the new town.

Stallings didn’t love baseball, though. Not the way he loved basketball. Stuck at third base, he excelled defensively and had a very strong arm, but was bored with only getting a few chances per game. And he wasn’t a great hitter, either; each successive summer dragged on while he struggled to improve. He refused to quit or coast, but the coming of basketball season was always a welcome relief.

That changed in eighth grade, when an injury to a teammate (at a tournament game in Omaha, no less) forced him to fill in at catcher. The first time behind the plate, he wasn’t even wearing a protective cup. He had no knowledge of the position, and had to rely exclusively on a strong arm and above average hand-eye coordination to survive. Once he immersed himself in the action at the busiest position in the game, though, Stallings knew he could never go back to the infield.

As junior high turned to high school, his basketball skills hit a plateau while his baseball ability soared. It became clear that his athletic future lay on the diamond, and the approach of college recruiters reflected the new reality. Many expected him to attend Vanderbilt, but thanks in part to Commodore head coach Tim Corbin, the decision was easy.

“Vandy had a lot of catchers on their roster that were older than me,” says Stallings. “Coach Corbin even told me that’s in my best interest to come to Carolina.”

While he considered his future, Carolina made the College World Series three straight times. The allure of playing at a school where he could become a champion cemented the decision; Stallings would go to Chapel Hill.

**
“Very, very hard on himself, when he first got here,” says UNC head coach Mike Fox of Stallings. “Perfectionist, really.”

In a game as precarious and unforgiving as baseball, a coach is obliged to play the occasional role of psychologist. That’s especially true in college, where young players cope with the reality of leaving home for the first time. But Fox, contrary to the expansive style employed by a stereotypical shrink, speaks in short sentences, often omitting the first clause.

“Really wanted to be good,” he says of his catcher. “And couldn’t handle not being very good, especially offensively.”

Fox, in his 28th season as a head coach, has led 10 different teams to a top five finish in the College World Series in Omaha. He’s amassed over 1,000 wins and compiled an eye-popping .742 career winning percentage. This is a man who understands success.

And he’s intimate with failure, too. Fox has never reached the summit of his profession, despite a sustained excellence that inevitably brings his teams to the very edge. He came closest in 2006, losing 3-2 in a deciding third game against Oregon State for the national title. Daniel Bard, the heir apparent to Jonathan Papelbon and the Boston Red Sox closer’s role, was Fox’s losing pitcher.

Experience alone prepared him to deal with a pupil like Stallings, but there are parallel lines between the two lives. Like Stallings, who was an all-state basketball player for Brentwood Academy in high school, Fox excelled on the hard court; he played JV ball at North Carolina under Eddie Fogler. Like Stallings, Fox is a Christian. Like Fox, and his own father, Stallings hopes to become a coach when his playing days are done.

Fox calls his catcher “very, very good” defensively, consciously stopping short of ‘great.’ Stallings has thrown out 21 of 48 base stealers this season, good for the fourth-highest single-season percentage in school history. With a strong arm and a surprisingly quick transfer for a tall catcher, he’s adept at cutting down ambitious runners. His flexibility allows him to block difficult pitches—he’s allowed just two passed balls this season—and his .990 fielding percentage speaks to his deft glove play.

But hitting has always been the problem.

When he first took batting practice at East Chapel Hill High School, where the team trained when Boshamer Stadium was being built, Stallings could barely hit a ball out of the cage.

He only started 19 games as a freshman, hitting .246 with a meager .263 slugging percentage. He did show a talent for earning walks, a self-preserving trait that Fox says allowed him to stay in the lineup while the rest of his offensive game was developing. Last year, as a sophomore, his hard work bore fruit; he started 41 games and hit .307 with 13 doubles and two home runs, posting a .417 on-base percentage.

“From where he started to where he is now is just leaps and bounds,” says Fox.

This season, Stallings’ average has dipped to .283, and his power numbers are slightly down from a season ago. He takes pains to keep his mind off his production numbers, but admits that it’s difficult.

“I’ve got a little too much going on up there,” he says, pointing to his head. And though he dismisses stats, he will cite something called ‘Quality At-Bats,’ a measure of productivity meant to show that his current numbers are a bit unlucky.

But his patience has served him better than ever before; with 32 walks on the season, his on-base percentage is still strong at .408. Fox allows that his catcher might be disappointed with the stats, but is quick to delineate the two seasons. Unlike a year ago, when he hit ninth, Stallings has batted clean-up for much of 2011.

“He didn’t have as much offensive responsibility last year,” says Fox. “All the sudden we’re asking him to do a lot more, and hit in the middle of the order.”

Coach and player maintain that the numbers are of less concern than the process. They even use the same word to describe their approach: faith.

**
In the middle of our conversation outside Boshamer, speaking about his relationship with Fox, Stallings brings up Christianity for the first time.

His mother Lisa is Catholic, he tells me, and he grew up going to Catholic Church because he felt obliged. But in Chapel Hill, faced with a stiff culture shock and struggling to find his place on the baseball team, he needed more. That’s when he found Mike McKee, a senior catcher who’s now in seminary school, speaking with a group of players.

As Stallings begins to talk about McKee, my ears perk. I understand this will essentially be his origin story, the tale of his conversion.

“He was talking to a bunch of guys in the locker room,” Stallings says, “just about, you know, you don’t want to prove that Christianity is the right way, but as far as Christianity and evolution goes—the guy who created evolution—is it Charles Darwin? On his death bed, which I had no idea, he refuted evolution and became a believer.”

Before continuing, Stallings looks for my reaction. I mumble something about having maybe heard this before, which is a pale version of the truth.

“That just blew me away,” he exclaims. “I was just like, wow. If the guy who invented it says it’s not true, then how can it be? Then how can you argue now that there’s no higher being in the world? And to me, that person is Jesus Christ, and that’s all I needed to take that next step forward.”

The explanation is, at that exact moment, disappointing. The content itself strikes me as a false bit of apocrypha, a too-convenient narrative designed for quick conversions. Later research confirms the instinct. It also strikes me that Stallings is too smart for that kind of thing.

And as someone who believes in a God compatible with evolution, my own expectations are let down. We always want the people we like and admire to be just like us.

But when I get past my own prejudices, I realize the how of Stallings’ conversion isn’t important. It doesn’t matter what he believes about Darwin. What matters is the why. Why did he choose to believe? Why did he need to believe?

“I think Jacob, his freshman year, was probably like most of us at 18,” says Coach Fox. “I think he thought, ‘well, I should be happy here. What’s missing?’ We had some guys on the team at that point who were really strong Christians, and I think Jacob saw them and they had a big influence on him. I think his faith has given him a little different sense of purpose, and I think it’s given him a sense of calm.”

In other words, Stallings had to adapt. “I needed to make a few changes in my life,” he admits to me. Far from home and in what may as well have been a foreign culture, he felt lost. It wasn’t a sustainable way to live.

And by making those changes, he’s improved his game and improved himself. Coach Fox tells me he used to pout, used to get discouraged, used to get angry when he failed. Extreme competitiveness, that quality which propelled him to one of the best baseball programs in the country, began to work against him.

“Not that he’s still not working hard,” says Fox, “but I don’t think he sweats over it and lets it eat him up like he used to. And I think that’s a good thing.”

His faith has brought him home. That’s what faith is meant to do, and it’s why he was better off without the truth about Darwin.

**
The Carolina baseball team is 32-10. They made the College World Series in Stallings’ freshman year, but missed out last season. Omaha is the goal in 2011, if not the focus.

On a personal level, Stallings wants to find his baseball ceiling. He’ll be eligible for the draft at the end of this year, and he’s not yet sure whether he’ll come back for his senior season. When his career ends, he hopes to parlay his sports administration major, and maybe his dad’s connections, into a coaching career. He has a high school sweetheart named Amy Beth who goes to school in Tennessee and who he describes as ‘the strongest Christian I know.’ He expects to marry her and start a family soon.

As to his baseball future, he admits that it’s all a mystery. Fox, while allowing that Jacob’s best baseball could be ahead of him, shows concern.

“The question is, can Jacob hit at the next level with a wood bat? Can he make that adjustment?”

The unspoken worry is that his hitting at the college level, while competent, has fallen short of excellence. That’s never a terrific omen in the competitive world of professional baseball. But in typical fashion, neither man wants to look past the journey.

**
For what it’s worth, Jesus Montero is a catcher too. He was born in Venezuela, and he signed with the New York Yankees when he was 16 years old while Stallings played for Brentwood Academy. By age 17, when Stallings was wondering where he’d go to college, Montero was starring in the Gulf Coast league. As Stallings suffered his acute growing pains during freshman year, Montero hit .327 for the Yankees Single-A team in Charleston. While Stallings moved up the UNC lineup, Montero moved up a professional farm system. This season, he’s at AAA, just a blink from the big leagues.

Both are 21. For Stallings, men like Montero are the competition. This is the parallel universe he’ll enter in the next two years.

And for all his sincerity, for all his faith, and for every moment of real likability, Stallings may be close to learning a truth he’s found comfort in denying: we proceed at the mercy of a precarious path, our futures dictated by the survival of the fittest.

Jeter's Home Runs Become 'Wonders of the World'

2011-05-09T08:32:00.008-04:00

WORLD HISTORICAL SOCIETY HONORS JETER

BERLIN--

Immediately following the New York Yankees' 12-5 win against the Texas Rangers on Sunday, the World Historical Society (WHS) officially declared both of Derek Jeter's home runs 'wonders of the ancient world.'

"Jeter's accomplishments were nothing short of miraculous," said WHS curator and president Nils Von Eimann in a prepared statement. "As an organization, we would be seriously remiss not to recognize the odd and beautiful nature of these dual occurrences."

The WHS is an umbrella institution which oversees all officially sanctioned regional historical societies, and its participating members number more than 3 million worldwide. As such, it has final jurisdiction on all matters of historical importance.

Nevertheless, the declaration came as a surprise to many historians.

"It's a bit of a shock, really," said Lionel Desmain, a professor of classical civilizations at the University of California. "It's been more than 2,000 years since anything- literally anything- was given the title of 'ancient wonder.' A lot of important contenders have been passed up. For the final breakthrough to come from a baseball player...well, as I said, it's a shock."

Other experts in the field expressed excitement. Donald Laurie, a best-selling historical novelist whose books explore Greek and Roman culture, pointed out that Jeter's home runs are the first purely physical acts to warrant inclusion on the exclusive list.

"In the past, ancient wonders have always been some kind of standing, man-made structure," he said. "You can look at the Temple of Artemis, or the Statue of Zeus, or really any of them. It's always something built by humans. This is a real departure for the WHS, and I personally think it was a brave and forward-looking move."

In response to scattered criticism, the WHS pointed to Jeter's abysmal performance thus far in the 2011 season. Jeter, a shortstop for the New York Yankees, came into the game batting just .256 with a meager .282 slugging percentage. With only three extra base hits on the year, and no home runs, the WHS noted that the prospect of even one round tripper seemed dim. Von Eimann even claimed that he lost money due to Jeter's unexpected power.

"I bet my friend twenty euros that he wouldn't hit a home run this entire year," he said. "Looking back, that was kind of stupid. But still, two home runs in one game? Historically astounding."

In a postgame press conference, Jeter downplayed the honor.

"Honestly, I haven't even thought about it," he told the gathered media. "I play baseball because I love the game, not because I'm hoping for awards, praise, or unprecedented historical designations. I know it gives you guys something to write about, but I'm focused on winning another World Series."

Still, he admitted that it was an honor to be considered in the same breath as the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

"Sure, it's something every little kid dreams about," he said. "To think I'm now in the same company as an iconic Greek God like Helios from the Colossus of Rhodes...yeah, that's a little wild."

To date, Derek Jeter is the only New York Yankee to achieve 'ancient wonder of the world' status. For many fans, the recognition has been a long time coming.

"We've watched a lot of greats be ignored by the WHS," said 89-year-old season ticket holder Salvatore Morelli. "First Ruth, with his 60 home runs, then DiMaggio's hit streak, Larsen's perfect game, and Maris with 61. It's been one screwjob after another, when you think about it. But this makes up for those lost years."

Morelli told reporters he was overjoyed that he didn't have to die without seeing a Yankee feat become an ancient wonder of the world.

Jeter's first blast was a 403-foot opposite field solo shot in the fifth inning. That brought the Yanks to within 4-3. His second home run, another opposite fielder in the 7th, gave New York a 5-4 lead in a game they'd go on to win in a rout. The home runs will replace the Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus and the Lighthouse of Alexandria on the list of ancient wonders.

Reaction around the league varied.

"I think it's a tribute to a great player who worked his butt off for the better part of two decades," said St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols. "If anyone deserves recognition by a worldwide historical body, it's Derek Jeter."

Others, including some of Jeter's own teammates, were less enthused.

"On one hand, I'm happy for him," said Yankee left fielder Brett Gardner. "On the other, I had this sweet diving catch in April that I thought had a chance. So, yeah, I'll admit it. This is pretty bittersweet."

Yesterday's events continue a recent trend of baseball's influence extending into unlikely realms. Last year, Roy Halladay's playoff no-hitter was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in British Literature, and umpire Jim Joyce was formally censured by the United Nations for a missed call that cost Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game.

PICK SIX! Volume Four Introductions

2011-05-06T10:17:00.009-04:00

Whatup everyone. Sorry for the late post. I'm going to keep the introductory stuff short, because last night this old dog went a'drinkin, and today the world is one big frying pan being rubbed by a brillo pad inside a working vacuum. If you get what I'm saying.

Also, yes, you read that first sentence correctly: I WENT DRINKING.

I AM COOL.

Man, I miss the days when it was normal for everyone to subtly brag about how much they drank the night before. Was it kind of sad and pathetic? Sure. But it beats the overriding sense of shame I feel now. I think the point when you start to get old is when you start trying to under-report how much you drank the previous night. In the old days, I would just inflate away, and I know everyone else would too. Now, respectability means something different.

2001

Friend: Hey man, you go out last night?

Me: Hell yeah.

Friend: How much you have?

Me: It had to be like 15. I'm never drinking again, ha ha!

Friend: Oh my God, did you really drink 15 beers?

Me: Beers?! I'm talking kegs, man! I drank 15 kegs of beer by myself! And I wasn't even drunk! And I hooked up with the Dean!

2011

Friend: Hey man, you go out last night?

Me: No.

Friend: Uh...I heard you did.

Me: Well you fucking heard wrong!

(tense staredown)

Me: I only had three quarters of an O'Douls.

The only good thing about being hungover is that it increases my capacity for really stupid humor. Like, the semi-annoying kind my dad always employed and that I swore I would never stoop to. In fact, another obvious and depressing sign of getting old is when you find yourself reverting to crap your parents did. And in my case, awful, obnoxious jokes are easier when I'm hung over. No idea why. But I'm able to easily pull off gems like this:

Girlfriend: Crap, have you seen my phone?

Me: No.

Girlfriend: I can't find it. Can you call it?

Me (yelling): Oh phonnnneeee! Phonnneeee, where are you?!

Just real classic gems like that. For about 80% of her life, my girlfriend functions as a target for that aspect of my personality. I'm not sure why anyone would want the job.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME. The time is finally here. After several months of hiatus, Pick Six is back and better than ever! Buckle up, fancy Dans. It be go time.

THE FRIDAY PICK SIX

VOLUME FOUR, INTRODUCTIONS

Oh, that music! Goosebumps, folks! All interception returns should be set to dramatic music.

The Friday Pick Six is an original SCSD! game where six people make six sports predictions for six weeks. Along with their picks, they're allowed and encouraged to submit a 'sound-off' on any topic, sports or otherwise. When it's all done, the winner earns great honor among the people, while the two losers are exiled in shame and the three middle finishers go to purgatory, with the chance rescue their good name up to three times. To learn more about the rules, and about the current contestants, read below:

THE HALL OF ANGELS: OLD CHAMPIONS

1. Tom.
2. Mike
3. Patrick and Dylan

Today we commence Volume Four, and here's how it looks:

The Last Chance Gals (3rd attempt, win or bust): Swetha & Sabreena
Purgatory Part 1: Marc, Monty
Newcomers: Craig & Tim, Tim B., John

The trophy currently sits with Dylan & Patrick, and we are awaiting their championship photograph. The actual picking begins next week, so let's take today to meet the newcomers and maybe hear a few words from the old guard. This is truly a great crop, and I'm really looking forward to the rants. Volume four features our first UNC fan (look at that avatar- typical), more friggin' lawyers, a Bostonian duo who root for the Celtics and Red Sox (vomit) but have maybe the greatest avatar in Pick Six history, a guy trying to emulate Mike Conley, Jr., and a line about tennis balls and Nascar from our old pal Marc that will be hard for anyone to top. Ever.

The standard has been set. Sound off, gang!

John

Hi SCSD! fans, I’m John. As far as I know, I’m the first UNC fan to be pegged for the PICK SIX competition, so I’m sure to be a crowd pleaser. I demand that you all look at the picture of me above and acknowledge my athleticism. I am certainly not a Yankee fan by any means…not that passionate about MLB, but what fan I am is National League, which gets little airplay around these parts. Mostly into college sports of all types with big on the bigs. After that NFL, tennis, mlb, and the big sporting events good Americans come out for (majors, Olympics, Copa Mundial and the such). I could watch
highlight reels of cool soccer goals for hours, but the games lose me unless it means an awful lot. So it’s a shame that college sports are winding down for summer hibernation. Hopefully we can get some Pick Six about the waning college meets such as baseball and tennis.

This site is one of only two sports blogs I check in on, and the other is only college football season. I guess we all know that Shane is entertaining, respected by sports writers everywhere, and reasonable man despite his occasional forays into his true nature.

Well, I am no writer, so will not make much attempt to recreate my spontaneous social wit into deftly composed and lyrical paragraphs for the masses. I think I said lyrical due to enjoying some live dead right now. I do have a warning: I plan on using my hard earned doctorate to employ advanced statistical modeling, reasoning, and simulation techniques during the PICK SIX contest. With high probability this will render me unbeatable. That yet-to-be-named (unless I missed it) indian statue is calling for me
to place it on my desk for all to jealously admire.

Gary Williams is retiring and it doesn’t even seem like much of a deal…can’t you imagine if Roy or K was retiring instead? That guy always seems to be whining about how good of a coach he is. Hockey is the worst…was always the section of sports section I skipped and I still get upset with prolonged coverage during sportscenter. After the Hurricanes won the nhl, I saw in the Daily Tar Heel that Stanley’s cup was on campus…I wandered over with my Mexican friend and there it was sitting in a nearly empty room…really not very impressive. Here is a (cropped) crappy cell phone pic of me with the Cup…I like to show it to any crazy hockey people since they are all crazy and flip out.

Anyway, I went to a Hurricanes game since everyone says “It’s soooo much better in person.” Well they lost 0-4 and it was just about the most bring event I’ve ever been to. Also nba (especially a much too long regular season) is usually quite boring. I drove to DC and went to a Wizards game since I wanted to see Jordan play once in my life. It was his last season, he scored 45 points, highest scoring affair of the season, and it still was duller than the worst Carolina game I’ve been to. Tennis is good in person…underrated sport…although it’s now getting picked up by all of the big outlets like this link, which has tons of promise: http://sethcurrysavesduke.com/tennis/

You may ask: Why is John playing pick six with a bunch of Duke fans? What’s in it for him? I will answer your questions in the form of a quote from our host Shane from 12/8/10: “Also, John, you should definitely play. If you can beat a bunch of Duke fans, you'd have bragging rights for life.” I may have to pass my trophy on some day, but I’m playing for life!

Craig & Tim

Name: Craig J.

Location: Cape Cod, MA

Relevant skills: Codebreaking, windsurfing, fingerpainting, and filing frivolous lawsuits

“Fear Us. Envy us. Worship us.” – Probably Larry Bird said this, and I adopt this statement as my own.

I’m not here to bore you with our stellar Pick Six credentials. I’m not here to prove why we’re the prohibitive favorites to dominate this series of Pick Six.* I’m here to tell you the truth. And the truth is based on cold, hard facts. Facts are determined by winners. And the truth is that me and Tim are winners.

*Yes we are.

As we watched the Bruins humiliate the Flyers on Wednesday, the question asked wasn’t how we were going to win this, it was how could we possibly lose?

Craig: What are your thoughts on Pick Six?
Tim: Oh we’re gonna dominate.
Craig: Yeah, but whats the plan?
Tim: Whaddaya mean?
Craig: Well, I guess I mean, lets think about this, how could we possibly lose?
Tim: … … … (utterly confused look on his face)

You see, it never even crossed Tim’s mind that we would lose!!!

That pretty much sums up our philosophy and it’s really all you need to know about either of us. That’s what the competition is up against- unwavering self-confidence combined with blind gut instinct. There is nothing more dangerous. Well, except maybe for Jaws, he was pretty dangerous.

Expect chaos, expect dominance, expect strong opinions and even stronger fightin’ words. Let Pick Six begin!

Name: Tim

From: Massachusetts

Height: 1 Fathom

Statement:

I've traveled to the molten center of English language command and back. This was long ago. My time away from its limitless, chaotic core has left my ability to swap prose at a mere fraction of its potential. That said, I'm excited to reignite my passion for the written word and thank SCSD for the opportunity to do so competitively. I look forward to pulling your figurative pants down in public.

Tim B.

Having been on the waiting list for a few months now — back when I signed on, I was all, “I know it’s improbable, but Andre Dawkins could totally shoot well above 50 percent from three-point range for the duration of this season, Salim Stoudamire-style” and “If I know one thing, it’s that Kyle Singler’s senior year will in no way be regarded as a time of developmental stagnation” — I have come to fear this opening statement. Introductions are hard, and that’s before Shane gave us a “say whatever” prompt that didn’t include a single icebreaker question. Seriously? Since icebreakers are the foundation of any good introduction, I’ve decided to provide my own, simply by remembering every event in my life that was labeled an “orientation.”

Where am I from?

This is an increasingly complex question, which the English form of the word “to be” doesn’t portray as accurately as, say, the Spanish split between ser and estar, where ser has something to do with origin and estar with present location, if I’m remembering middle school correctly. In the general sense, I’m from New Jersey, but I was born in Staten Island, spent four years in Durham which would seem to be germane to this blog in particular, and currently reside in Boston while spending a reasonable chunk
of time in the state of Rhode Island. All this information has led you to believe that I must have some absurd/awesome conglomeration of accents.

Where did I go to school?

I’m pretty sure I let that one out of the bag above, but my relationship to Duke is of the alumnus: alma mater kind. Among the things that I personally witnessed while at Duke were the Blue Devils’ worst regular-season and NCAA Tournament losses of the last decade. Among the things I did not personally witness while at Duke was a win over UNC at Cameron.

As an aside, I very much enjoy finding out where other people went to school, because it says something about their background and I happen to know a lot about college sports, so, for instance, if someone were to say they went to, I don't know, Winthrop, I would be like, “Curse that Chris Lofton! You guys definitely deserved more than a 15 that season!” and “Is your school named after that Puritan?” But I often refrain from the alma mater question because, with many people, (a) it will look simply like an
excuse to gloat about going to Duke — because that’s what we all are, pretentious gloaters — or (b) it will lead to a conversation about the lacrosse case.

It kills me to contemplate all the potential Winthrop University alumni I have encountered but missed out on having the aforementioned three-line conversation with.

How will I approach this volume of the Pick Six?

Having done my research in the past 10-15 minutes, I’ve noticed two dominant strains going through Pick Six rants: over-the-top bravado and self-confidence masked as self-deprecation. Unfortunately, these are like two of my defining qualities. But for now, I’m going to try a third, slightly more original approach: sober, detached realism, complete with cultural references that are only tangentially relevant. Think Emile Zola, whom I’ve never read but have simply associated with sober, detached realism (and tangential relevance, for that matter) since discovering he was the answer to a question in a crossword puzzle (I would venture that the majority of crossword-puzzle answers that begin with the letter Z- are Zola, for either Emile or Budd).

I’m not trying to set records or blow everyone away. I’m gunning for a third-place finish, like the Blue Jays. I will attempt to emulate the career path of Mike Conley, Jr., who was steady and generally unimpressive for years in Memphis before becoming slightly steadier and less unimpressive this season, to the point where everyone thought, “This Mike Conley, Jr. isn't so bad” before remembering “Oh wait, Mike Conley, Jr. was supposed to be better than ‘not so bad.’”

See what happens when you don’t give me boundaries?

Marc, aka Mr. Intrigue

Finals in grad school blow. I feel like in these past two weeks I've written more for finals than the entirety of my undergraduate writings. Expect the rest of this rant to have terrible syntax because my brain is done. All my brain wants is for me to ingest copious amounts of alcohol to try and forget everything that I've learned this semester. Five o'clock on May 9 and I will breathe freedom. I plan to strap myself to a wooden table while my friends stab me with various medieval implements. Eventually I'll raise my head in triumph, prepare my best Australian/Scottish accent and scream "FREEDOM," or "ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE." I have yet to decide. I feel like I bonded with Kevin Garnett when my girlfriend asked me to read Shane's Boston Osama story. May 9. A few more days.

Nascar. N-A-S-C-A-R. A few weeks ago I was invited to go to a Nascar race at Darlington. I hate Nascar. It's miserable. Sitting in a hot stadium, surrounded by thousands of sweaty screaming rednecks, watching insanely loud cars turn left while drinking natty ice is not my idea of a good time. The thing is, if I rejected the invitation it would be extremely impolite considering the circumstances. I didn't see a way out. All I want to do on a Saturday is relax, eat good food and do something enjoyable. Going to a Nascar race would destroy my Saturday. I may be from the South, but I cannot handle large parts of southern culture.

The last time I was surrounded by rednecks I almost had a panic attack. My friend invited me up to Minnesota, and during the visit we ended up going to an ice fishing competition on a frozen lake. Once we got there all I could see were bastions of camouflaged rednecks drinking keystone light. "Dude, we have to leave. Now," I pleaded to my friend. He smirked at my discomfort and made us stick around for a while but I was close to meltdown mode. If I couldn't handle hundreds of rednecks in the great outdoors there is no way I can handle thousands of them, trapped in a stadium. Going to a Nascar race is my worst nightmare. Luckily though, I had a trump card. Finals. As much as I hate finals, they have finally come to my rescue. My finals have gotten me out of a torturous affair.

At this point I would not like to issue an apology to any Nascar fans I may have offended. Sorry, it blows. It does not have any redeeming qualities. If you like to watch Nascar for the "crashes," then that's just despicable. "YEEEHAW John-boy-riley-billy, didja see that number four car hit that number three car? Didja? Didja? Oh golly when those two cars crumpled into heaps of destroyed metal and the drivers barely survived I sure got my rocks off!" I would rather lie down on the ground and throw a tennis ball up in the air with the goal of it landing on my genitals, then go see a Nascar race.

Well my friends, I'm ready for a new Pick Six! season. In fact I may throw this one on purpose so I can stick around for the fall edition so I can pick Duke to win a few football games. But seriously, I plan to dominate this year and not blow my lead at the end. I'm no Rick Pitino.

Monty

No rant for Monty. He's that confident.

Swetha & Sabreena

Finals week sucks. But we're back ... third time's a charm?

**********************
By the way, remember how I was saying I jinx possible no-hitters almost as soon as it becomes realistic? It happened yesterday. I was calling AJ's no-no in the fifth inning, and less than ten minutes later it was broken up. Then the Yanks lost the series to Detroit, and now we have to go to Texas. Gulp.

Enjoy the weekend, enjoy the playoffs, enjoy baseball. See you Monday.

The Eurostep

2011-05-05T09:10:00.004-04:00

Have you guys heard about this? That might be the coolest name for a basketball move ever. My brother linked Dwyane Wade's Eurostepping of Kevin Garnett from Game 2, and I was immediately on board. Here's the video:

And the definition, from Wikipedia:

Eurostep (not to be confused with the Rickwood step) is also a basketball move in which a player utilizes his two steps to change direction twice and confuse defenders to avoid contact. Patented by Jordan Seeley, and later taken to greater heights by George Scarborough. However it is still regarded by some referees as a travel.

So basically, it's a move you can only use in the NBA since it's actually illegal. But we have to admit, it's pretty sweet to see Wade literally turning Garnett around. And you can tell by the reaction of the crowd and LeBron how sweet it was to see live.

Here's Ginobli explaining the technical details of executing the Eurostep after a pick-and-roll:

That Wiki definition raises two additional questions:

1) Who is Jordan Seeley?

2) What is the Rickwood Step?

As for Seeley, would you believe that he's the tall, white, Welsh dude in this photo?

I actually don't believe it, since he's born in 1989 and there's almost no way he could have invented this move.

Aren't Welsh words hilarious, though? I refuse to believe that the Welsh weren't actively trying to be funny when they invented their language. Blaenau Gwent? Abergavenny?

And their language is just plain absurd. I used an online translator to go from English to Welsh, and typed the following sentence: "I enjoy the sport of basketball because it shows the players' athletic ability." The result:

"Fedda 'r fabolgamp chan basketball amdani arddangosfeydd 'r chwaraewyr ' 'n athletaidd abledd."

My favorite part is the apostrophe just standing on its own. Welsh people pronounce that by grabbing their crotch.

Anyway, Jordan Seeley is also mentioned in this article, which is worth reading just to see the hilarious way that British writers talk about basketball. It's a fun mix of soccer writing mixed in with the odd American phrase, like so:

England bossed the game as their experience ultimately told, but Wales kept pace for the majority of the first quarter, before shots fell wayward and gaps in their defence began to grow.

And:

But this break from Wales was cancelled out within milliseconds of the ball hitting the court. The half was all but up when Stephen Gayle threw an improbable shot from downtown for a massive three points right on the buzzer.

And:

England’s Tayo Ogedengbe launched himself towards the baskets to meet Gayle’s alley-oop, adding two more to the scoreboard before hanging from the rim of the basket to demand that Birmingham acknowledge his athleticism.

Beautiful. I wish that just one time in my life, just once, I had the skills to demand that someone acknowledge my athleticism. As it is, I have trouble being acknowledged in a super market line. Seriously, they skip right past me to the next guy. I just want some fucking milk, guys.

There's also no mention of the Rickwood Step online except in conjunction with that one sentence on Wiki.

Seriously, Wikipedia, fuck you and your user-generated content.

But we're getting off track. Here's my point: The NBA Playoffs have been super fun this year. I hate to admit it, but with the Yanks in a serious offensive tailspin up and down the lineup, the appeal of basketball has been too hard to resist.

Last night, the Bulls rebounded from a Game 1 stunner to beat the Hawks and even the series. I'm not going to sit here and analyze the game, since I was switching back and forth between that and the Yanks, but my take is that the Bulls have some serious offensive problems. They kept fading at the end of quarters, and if they hadn't played great D and benefited from a pretty terrible night from Atlanta, they could easily be facing 0-2.

The question becomes: can they steal one on the road? And it's a pretty exciting question. They play Friday and Sunday in HOT-lanta, and right now smart money has to pick the Hawks in both games. If the Bulls have any shot at a title, they'll need to make a huge push and steal one on the road, because it'll be impossible for them to win on the road in Game 6 down 3-2.

And that's pretty fun. I can't wait to see what happens down south. I never thought I'd say this about an NBA game that wasn't Game 7 of the Finals, but I will be glued to the tv.

There's a very similar deal going on in the Oklahoma City-Memphis series. After dropping the first game and taking the second, OKC is now forced into a position where they HAVE to win 1 of 2 in Memphis. And somehow, the Grizzlies are awesome now. As far as I can tell, it's mostly because of that fat bastard Zach Randolph, who weighed approximately 400 pounds when he played for the Knicks.

The Thunder will be severely challenged in the next two games, and it's going to be great to see if Durant and Westbrook can pass the test. If I was a super rich person, I'd spend the next week jet-setting between Memphis and Atlanta to see these games live. Or renting a car, or something, because I think they're pretty close. (Just looked it up, they're not: 6 hours. Fire up the jet.)

In the Heat-Celtics series, we're so, so wonderfully close to pronouncing Boston dead. Just one win by the Heat on enemy turf and it's over. And really, Boston as a team will be effectively over. The nightmare of the past four years will have passed, and the scourge of Kevin Garnett will fade from view. But we're not quite there yet. If Boston defends in games 3 and 4 at home, you create a horrible situation where one choke by Miami in Game 5 gives the Celts a chance to clinch at home. OH GOD THE IDEA IS SO AWFUL.

And how about this: the Lakers are done. Wild, right? After dropping 2 at home, I cannot imagine a scenario where they advance to the next round. Unless David Stern sends down another mandate to the refs that Dallas must lose. Which could still be fun to watch, when you think about it.

Anyway, here's some bullshit: for whatever reason, the next two games aren't played tonight! It should be Heat-Celts and OKC-Memphis, but they're taking a day off the rotation for whatever reason. And instead of playing those games on Friday, they go back to Lakers-Mavs and Bulls-Hawks. Which doesn't make any sense. It's not like they need to catch up; all four series' have played 2 games, so this just reverses the order. And why do the first sets of teams get 3 full days off when the others will never get more than 1?

Doesn't make sense to me.

Real quick, time for Yankee watch: nobody can hit. Last night, we got blanked by Max Scherzer (a Polish-German anarchist from 1890, judging by his name) and the Tigers, 4-0. Freddy Garcia did a passable job on the mound, but he won't be accumulating many wins this year without support, and that support was utterly absent.

Here's the rundown: Jeter, Swisher, Posada, and Gardner have been terrible all year. Cano and A-Rod have been terrible lately. Teixeira and Granderson have been mediocre.

And that's basically everyone. Not a good situation. We have a chance to salvage a split this afternoon in the last game at Detroit, and then it's off to Texas for what could be a miserable weekend. By the way, I was so, so happy to see the start time of 1pm. When you have almost nothing to do during the day, afternoon baseball is just spectacular. Three hours of purpose for my life!!!

Future notes: I'm working on the new site at the moment. It's kind of a touch and go process. I have three things working against me: 1, I'm lazy. 2, I'm scared of change. 3, I don't know anything about designing a website. So you know, be patient on that one.

Tomorrow, some player introductions for the next round of...PICK SIX! It's returning, baby! See you then.

Jealousy is Your Friend Seeing a No-Hitter

2011-05-04T09:13:00.004-04:00

I got the call last night at 10:37 eastern standard. My good friend Mike had just left Comiskey Park, where Francisco Liriano threw the first no-hitter of 2011. The call was totally unexpected, and not just because I wasn't aware a no-hitter was happening. Mike happens to live in Milwaukee, and there was no indication that on this particular night he'd find himself on the south side of Chicago. It came out of nowhere, which is what makes it so great and so bittersweet.

First, I'm happy for Mike. He's a huge Brewers fan, and he's more than put his time in at live baseball games. This was well deserved.

On the other hand, it dredged up some rough memories.

Four years ago tomorrow, on May 5, 2007, my friend Kyle and I had left field seats at the old Yankee Stadium. Chien-Ming Wang was on the mound against the Mariners, and because it was Cinco de Mayo, Kyle and I dressed up in ponchos and sombreros and had a sign that said "CinKo de Wango." It was going to be a fun day.

But then it turned to hell.

But not right away.

You can read the game story here. Wang's patented sinking fastball was diving like a hungry heron that day, my friends. You could tell he had hit his stride almost immediately, and after a 5-run 6th inning, it became clear that the Yanks had the game in the bag. And yet, we couldn't relax. Something was afoot. Wang had a perfect game.

I'm one of those compulsive no-hitter perfect-game checkers. If a pitcher gets through three innings unblemished, I notice. I can't help it, it's just how I am. I like to make my girlfriend angry by jinxing potential milestones like that very early in a game. "Hey," I'll say to her in the second inning. "Granderson just got a triple. He's already got the hardest part of a cycle! Nothing can stop him now!"

So believe you me, I was well aware of the perfect game. When he got through 6, everyone else started paying attention. When he got through 7, the tension built in the stadium. Then came the 8th. Sexson started it by grounding out to the pitcher. One down. Ben Broussard, who is now a musician and no longer in the league, came up next. Wang dealt a strike.

And then...

And then, my friends, he threw his only changeup of the game. Worse, he threw it high. Broussard smoked it past the point where Yankee gloves could reach. Ding. Dong.

What will probably be my one and only chance to see a perfect game in person was gone. In my poncho and sombrero, I joined the rest of the Stadium in applauding Wang's performance, but secretly I was quite disappointed. Today, I'm glad for the experience, but at the time it seemed like it would have been more fun if the home run came in the first inning and we could have watched the masterful 8 innings without anxiety. And when I heard Mike celebrating outside Comiskey last night, a huge part of me was happy for his luck and enjoyed Liriano's feat vicariously. But there's also that other part, that little seed of jealousy planted four years ago by a French-Canadian swing on a Taiwanese change-up...

*

Let's take a quick stroll around the world of sports.

1) I LOVE LOVE LOVE watching LeBron James torch the Celtics. You can tell by their expressions just how much they utterly hate LeBron and the Miami Heat. They desperately do not want to lose to these guys, and I think they understand this will be the last year when competing with them is a viable reality. Game 1 was a delightful blend of bad feelings and chippy calls and near-fights. Game 2 was less contentious, but no less bitter.

And let's be clear: LeBron is kind of a douche, or he at least made a douchey decision because he's surrounded by other douches. But man, he is fun to watch on a basketball court. I mean, good God, he is incredible. In a weird way, it's almost like the presence of the Boston Celtics is giving me permission to root for him from a safe place. A lesser of two evils type situation, you know?

But then again, you can't help but be reminded of that timeless DMB lyric:

"You seek up a big monster, for him to fight your wars for you...
But when he finds his way to you, the devil's not going..."

DON'T LAUGH AT ME I KNOW YOU WERE ALL THINKING IT!

The point is, I might regret this support in the next round when he's beating up on the Bulls or Hawks.

Until then, though, I refer you to another DMB lyric:

"Been to suffering, been to hell, it's a place you can get lost in...
but I've never seen a darker world than the rotten heart of Boston..."

IT'S A B-SIDE, WHY ARE YOU QUESTIONING ME?

2) The internet is littered with articles about Derek Jeter's decline. Here's a good one, courtesy of Jill. My take? He's finnnne.

Then again, whenever he comes to bat I replay this video, so I'm not totally up on how his year has gone.

3) The Yanks lost last night despite having plenty of chances to score more than 2 runs. Sabathia got hit surprisingly hard by one of the worst teams in the league and tonight we have to count on ole Freddy G. to give us the edge in the series.

4) The run of four Clasico matches between Real Madrid and Barcelona ended yesterday with Barca advancing to the Champion's League final on the strength of a 1-1 tie at home. My analysis, after watching at least part of all four games (though I missed the bulk of what was apparently the best one...the King's Cup final, Real's only victory): first, Barcelona is fun to watch. Second, Iker Casillas is an annoyingly good goalie. I say annoying because more goals would have been nice. Third, soccer refereeing is just atrocious. I know we all complain about NBA and baseball and, to a lesser extent, football, but they badly, badly need the robots in professional soccer. I'm sure this is selection bias to an extent, but it seems like there's basically a 50% chance that the refs will get any major call wrong, and I also think that 75% of the soccer matches I've seen in the past, oh, 6 years have been ruined by the refs.

I don't like Ronaldo, but he has a point in this article. I don't know if there's any kind of pro-Barcelona conspiracy (I doubt it), but the outcome of this Champion's League tie was entirely swayed by the refs.

I know it's really common for Americans to call soccer boring, but I think I'm fairly past that point. I can enjoy 90 minutes of action without getting too restless. But the big thing keeping from true soccer fandom is the constant refereeing bullshit. Every time I commit myself, something happens to ruin the moment. It's one thing to win, and it's another to lose, but in soccer I feel like I can't even trust the outcome. To me, that's not a fun or interesting part of the sport. It just sucks.

Seriously, look at this play. The game was tied 0-0, and Real was about to score. This foul was called on Ronaldo, the guy in white, and the goal was disallowed. It's absurd:

Anyway, I keep coming back to this with soccer, and at this point I feel I've learned my lesson. See you at the World Cup in 2014, where I'll probably have the same exact gripes.

5) There were a lot of Osama jokes in the aftermath of the announcement Sunday night, and for the record, this was my favorite (from my friend Brandon, via twitter):

"So sad. A couple of months earlier and he could have made the in remembrance slide show at the Oscars."

That'll do for today. Huge game for the Bulls and Lakers tonight. Enjoy.

I'M BACK, With Osama Content

2011-05-03T09:18:00.012-04:00

Hello my wonderful wonderful internet friends. Today is a sunny, bright day, and I'm d-o-n-e done with final papers. The school year is over, and I have three sweet weeks before summer work begins. I feel like I need to re-introduce myself and get back in everyone's good graces, the same way you always have to work really hard to convince your girlfriend to be intimate if you've been away for a week. (That's a common thing, right?)

But I've got some good news. Right after the news about Bin Laden came out and I sorted through my feelings (I've always had a very complicated relationship with that man, even before 9/11), I set to work on a couple fan fiction novels. The premise of them all is, what would it have been like if instead of a special ops team, the assassination mission was conducted by a sports team?

RIGHT?!

I'm working on three different versions. The first involves the Duke basketball team, the second involves the Yankees, and the third involves the Boston Celtics. I can't show you guys the finished products yet, especially since I'm having a lot of problems with the details- where is Pakistan, anyway? South America?- but I can re-print the excerpt from all three where Osama finally gets taken down.

Let's check them out.

DOWN WITH OSAMA! The Duke Basketball Version

"Los Americanos!" the terrorist yelled, falling through the door to Osama Bin Laden's secret room in the back of the compound.

It would be the last words he ever spoke. As he sunk to the ground, Bin Laden saw the axe sticking out from his back. Soon, a horde of blue-clad men stormed into the room. Each of them held a machine gun, except for Seth Curry, who was trying to take the axe out of the terrorist's back.

"I told you this would come in handy," said Curry, wiping the blood off the blade.

"You could have done the same exact thing with a gun," said Kyle Singler, clearly annoyed.

"Yeah, but did you see his face when he saw the axe?" asked Curry. "Actually, it's probably pretty similar to his face right now. Hold on." Curry flipped the body over. "Oh, no. Now it looks like he's sleeping. Give me one second." He opened the terrorist's eyes and tried to open his mouth, but the jaw was clamped tight. "Forget it. But you'll have to trust me, it was awesome."

At the back of the room, Bin Laden coughed. Everyone looked up. This was the moment they'd been waiting for. It was the reason they camped out in the hills of Pakistan for weeks, training with the gauchos and camping on the Amazon.

"I am at peace with my God!" Bin Laden shouted. "Do what you will!"

Mason Plumlee narrowed his eyes. "I've got this, guys. I've got this."

He moved forward, closing to within three feet of Bin Laden. As the terrorist mumbled a prayer, Plumlee opened fire with his Heckler & Koch MP5 machine gun. The bullets rattled through the carbine, and the firing continued for two minutes before the ammunition was spent. When he was finished, a deep silence settled through the room.

"Wow," said Bin Laden. "Wow. I did not expect to be alive right now. Wow."

"You have GOT to be kidding me," said Coach K. "Seriously, Mason? Seriously?!"

"I'm not even hit," said Bin Laden. "I'm literally not hit with a single bullet. Is this a miracle?"

Behind them, Andre Dawkins began groaning. "You shot my foot, you bastard!"

"It must have been a ricochet," Mason stammered.

"But probably not," said Ryan Kelly, earning chuckles from his teammates.

"I, uh," Mason began. "I just need a few more bullets!"

"No way," said Coach K. "Nolan, finish the job."

"Done and done," said Nolan. He stepped forward and fired a single short burst from his machine gun. "That should do the trick."

Mason Plumlee's large form toppled to the ground.

"Oh my fucking God!" said Coach K. "You killed Mason! Nolan, you killed Mason!"

"Isn't that what you meant?" Nolan asked.

"No!"

"Isn't it?!"

"No!"

"Isn't it?"

Coach K looked away, his face sheepish. "Yes," he quietly admitted. Andre Dawkins laughed, and soon everyone was laughing. "But come on, take care of the problem. This isn't the time for jokes."

"Fine," Nolan said. Another short burst followed from the Heckler & Koch.

Miles Plumlee's body slumped to the floor.

"Nolan!" Coach K yelled, trying hard to keep his laughter contained. "Come on, man!" The rest of the players were breaking up, and in the corner Bin Laden was still amazed to be alive.

"I don't think I can be killed!" he yelled, his body shaking with excitement. "It's a miracle. I'm divinely protected!"

"You're right. You can't be killed," said Seth Curry. He paused dramatically. "By a gun."

Osama's expression turned to surprise just before the axe split his forehead. He fell forward, his mouth ajar and his eyes wide open in shock.

"Oh my GOD!" Curry yelled, turning to his teammates. "You guys saw his expression that time, right!? Tell me you didn't miss that! Holy shit, that was awesome!"

"That was pretty cool," Singler admitted.

DOWN WITH OSAMA! The New York Yankees Version

"Los Gringos Yanquis!" the terrorist yelled, falling through the door to Osama Bin Laden's secret room in the back of the compound.

It would be the last words he ever spoke. As he sunk to the ground, Bin Laden saw CC Sabathia riding the terrorist's back to the ground, strangling him with a hemp necklace he stole from Josh Beckett. Soon, a horde of men in pinstripes stormed into the room. Each of them held a machine gun, except for Joba Chamberlain, who held a half-eaten burrito.

"I still don't understand how that's a weapon," Girardi said to him. "Is it a poisonous tortilla, or something?"

"God, I hope not," said Chamberlain, taking another large bite.

At the back of the room, Bin Laden coughed. Everyone looked up. This was the moment they'd been waiting for. It was the reason they'd trained for weeks in Pakistan, learning the ways of los campos and earning extra pesos by leading donkeys in circles around a well.

"I am at peace with my God!" Bin Laden shouted. "Do what you will!"

Derek Jeter stepped forward. "Now shooting," he began. "Number two, Derek Jeter." He unloaded the entire magazine of his Heckler & Koch, spraying the bullets toward the terrorist. When the noise settled, his lips settled into a grin. "Number two."

"Every single one of those bullets hit the ground first," Girardi said, stunned. "I mean, every single one."

"Don't look at me," said hitting coach Kevin Long. "He ignored my suggestions for holding the gun."

"Hey," said Jeter. "It got the job done. Look at his shins."

Bin Laden was writhing on the ground, holding his shins where the bullets had ricocheted off the floor. "Holy fuck, this is so painful," he screamed. "I seriously have not felt pain this bad in my entire life, and I've spent like a decade with serious liver problems."

A dumb, guttural giggle came from the back of the room. "There's beef in this burrito," said Chamberlain. "Aren't they not supposed to eat beef? Muslims? Let's make him eat beef, guys."

He walked forward with the burrito and stuffed it in Bin Laden's mouth. The terrorist screamed, but he had no choice but to swallow.

"I mean, I hate Bin Laden and everything," said A-Rod. "But that is seriously a dick move, Joba."

The rest of the team murmured their agreement.

"You are a legitimate douche," said Teixeira.

"Whatever," said Joba, tugging his pants up. "I wasn't finished anyway." He grabbed the burrito from Bin Laden's mouth and took a huge bite.

The team groaned in disgust. "Fuck, that is gross, man," said Robinson Cano.

"Can't be grosser than drinking water in the Dominican Republic," Chamberlain shot back.

"Wow, what an asshole," said Burnett.

On the ground, Bin Laden gasped in pain and held his shins as bits of beef fell from his mouth.

DOWN WITH OSAMA! The Boston Celtics Version

"Los de Boston!" the terrorist yelled, falling through the door to Osama Bin Laden's secret room in the back of the compound.

It would be the last words he ever spoke. As he sunk to the ground, Bin Laden saw Paul Pierce sullenly twisting his neck. Soon, a horde of green-clad men stormed into the room. Each of them held a machine gun, except for Kevin Garnett, who emerged in the front holding a pistol.

"No!" Bin Laden shouted. "No! This is not cool! I am at peace with my God and et cetera, but I seriously DO NOT want to be killed by Kevin Garnett!" He panted, looking at the Celtics with a plea in his eyes. "Come on, dudes. I know I'm not you're favorite guy in the world, but seriously, I hate Kevin Garnett. He is the worst. Even as his teammates, you can't possibly like him that much. I mean, he's a dick to everyone, he does that stupid barking thing, he's a total phony, and that Villanueva cancer incident? Arguably worse than 9/11, right?"

The Celtics grumbled angrily.

"Okay, tough crowd," he continued. "I was just spitballing there, I'm not married to the idea. Probably not that bad, admittedly. Just...I mean, I know I'm going to die, I'm ready for it, just please don't let me be killed by Kevin Garnett." His pleas were greeted with silence. "Fuck, what a nightmare. Please, grant me that one wish. It would really be too much to bear."

The Celtics gathered to discuss his plea. Garnett came forward. "Okay," he said. "We've agreed that someone other than me will kill you."

A huge wave of relief swept over Bin Laden's face. "Thank you," he whispered. "A warrior's life now draws to a close."

Then Kevin Garnett shot him in the stomach.

"Oh, Fuck. You." Bin Laden said, slumping to the ground. "Seriously, that is one of the all time asshole moves."

Garnett laughed to himself.

"Um, Kevin?" Doc Rivers said. "We actually agreed that you wouldn't do that."

"I know," Garnett said, still laughing. "I know it."

"Right in the stomach too," Bin Laden said. "The worst place, the most painful death. The place in the body where only a real son of a bitch shoots someone."

Garnett started barking.

"Awful. Awful awful awful." Bin Laden's eyes grew dimmer. "Just do me one favor. Don't say 'anything is possible.' I can handle this right now. Hell, I probably deserve it. But don't send me to the afterlife having heard the words 'anything is possible' from Kevin Garnett's lips.

"That's fair," said Garnett.

Several moments passed. Bin Laden was now on the ground, wheezing. His breathing became ragged and soon it stopped almost completely. The Celtics watched him slowly pass into the next world. A last whisper, some form of prayer, escaped Bin Laden's lips. The time had come.

"ANYTHING IS POSSSIBBBBLLEEEEEEE!" Kevin Garnett screamed. Bin Laden's eyes grew wide, and he died.

I Lied

2011-05-02T09:31:00.003-04:00

This is truly the last of the short posts. Here's something awesome from BlueFacedDevil:

At times like these, when America is united behind a single cause, it's important that we all pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and remember to hate Boston.

Just really, really hate the fuck out of them, in ways that are borderline uncomfortable.

And I leave you with this question: what about Garnett, Mr. President? He's still out there!

(Oh man this post is #666!!!)

The Last of the Short Posts

2011-04-29T10:09:00.002-04:00

Cora Munro: You've done everything you can do. Save yourself! If the worst happens, and only one of us survives, something of the other does, too.

Hawkeye: No, you submit, do you hear? You be strong, you survive... You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you.

Is Fat Bart the Savior?

2011-04-28T09:29:00.003-04:00

I got an e-mail last night from Patrick (of Countless Screaming Argonauts fame) that said this:

After a very short sample of the season so far, with all that has gone on, could you make the arguement that Bartolo Colon is this year's MVP - 2 great relief appearances early for Hughes and now two outstanding starts. He could be the "round mound on the rebound..."

Thoughts?

That gave me the idea to make a Yankee MVP list. I'm still plagued by the end-of-year school stuff, so this will be a little hasty. That said, lessgooo!

The 2011 Premature Yankee Team MVP List
1. Alex Rodriguez - Unquestionably one of the 10 best players in baseball. If he stays healthy, he'll compete for a League MVP.

2. Bartolo Colon - The Yankee starting pitching was highly questionable coming into the season, and that was assuming Hughes would be effective. When he went down, we basically needed a miracle. So far, Bart has been a bit of a miracle man. He started as long relief for Hughes, giving us a chance to win after Hughes put is in a hole for in three straight appearances (on the third, the Yanks beat Baltimore in extra innings). He earned a spot in the rotation, and he's won his first two starts with excellent command. Last night, he went 8 innings and held down the White Sox to end a 2-game slide.

3. Russell Martin - Unbelievable production from a huge question mark. He's been a huge boon for the offense, and it also lets the Yanks be patient with Montero in AAA.

4. Curtis Granderson - He's been bashing for the past two weeks, and it's a big reason why the Yanks got on their roll. After a rough start, he's now a top-25 offensive threat in the majors.

5. CC Sabathia - He's been tremendously unlucky so far. He could easily have 5 wins under his belt, but his 2.73 ERA speaks to his effectiveness.

6. Mark Teixeira - A very nice start by any standard, but especially wonderful when you consider his previous April slumps. With the assumption that he'll improve as the season wears on, a .409 wOBA to start is great.

7. Mariano Rivera - He technically has two blown saves, but at least one was quite unlucky. From the look of how he's pitching, it seems like he's the same reliable closer we've known for three decades. Not worried about Mo.

8. David Robertson - Make him the 8th inning guy, please. He hasn't allowed a run in 8 innings, his strikeout rate is insane at 10.8 per nine innings, and he seems to deal well with stress.

9. A.J. Burnett - Pretty okay start with a solid 3.52 ERA. Lots of swinging strikes, some moments of dominance, and a lot of question marks.

10. Robinson Cano - Great power numbers, decent average. Here's a trivia question you'll hate, though: between Cano and Jeter, who has a higher OBP? Obviously, the answer is Jeter, and by a fair margin. Cano's average is .299, his OBP is .303. Last season, he seemed to be taking more walks and getting on base (.319/.381). This year, he's back to old habits in the early going; swing at everything, get a lot of hits, never walk.

11. Andruw Jones/Eric Chavez - I'm grouping these guys together because they've both given the Yanks great production as replacements. To the point that benching Jorge and Brett in their favor is starting to seem tempting.

12. Freddy Garcia - So far, so good Freddy. It almost seems like too much to ask for he and Colon to contribute, but I'll ask it anyway.

13. Ivan Nova - He's still learning. I don't love his ERA, but I do love some of the excellent starts he's made, including Tuesday's. He's only going to get better.

14. Jorge Posada - He's got 6 home runs to his name, but his average is a terrible .138. You have to wonder if he likes the DH spot. If not, the hope is that he'll come through the transition and adjust.

15. Derek Jeter - Only two doubles on the year. No triples, no home runs. Most of the singles I've seen have been grounders up the middle. He seems to have no range and no bat.

16. Nick Swisher - Looks utterly lost at the plate. What happened to everything he learned from Long last season?

17. Joba - His stuff looks amazing at times, but he'll absolutely kill you every time he enters a game under any kind of pressure.

18. Rafael Soriano - Uh-oh.

19. Phil Hughes - Crap.

20. Brett Gardner - If Carl Crawford died tomorrow, Brett would be the worst player in baseball.

There's the list. What do you think?

Obama's Birth Certificate is Fake!

2011-04-27T09:20:00.003-04:00

Sorry to get all political, guys, but I'm looking closely at the full version of Obama's birth certificate the White House just released, and I'm noticing some HUGE problems.

1 - Why is it green? Did they even have the color green back then?

2 - His dad has the same name, so shouldn't Obama be a Jr. instead of a II? GOOF UP BY THE WHITE HOUSE FORGERY SQUAD!

3 - Why is his mother's name 'Stanley'? Isn't that usually the name of a man who works in a tool shop? What is everyone trying to hide???

4 - Why did it take 3 DAYS after the baby was born until the mother signed the birth certificate. What was she doing???

5 - Where is the giant picture of Ronald Reagan riding a horse that adorns every American birth certificate?? (Or is that just a personal touch by my parents?)

6 - Did they even HAVE the color green back then?

I don't know about you guys, but I'm taking all my money out of the bank and shorting Obama's birth certificate, which I'm pretty sure is now a public company that just opened at BULLSHIT DOLLARS PER SHARE.

Ahhhhhh I'm loopy from school work! I know I said I'd have some good sporting material today, but I lied. The work continues, probably until the end of this week. After that, we're all in for some good times.

I did get to watch a Yankee game last night, and it was kind of incredible. Ivan Nova kicked ass into the seventh, Gavin Floyd held the Yanks in check, and at the end of 7 we led 2-1. Which fed perfectly into Rafael Soriano, who makes approximately $87 million per year and has made a habit of fucking things up. He let 2 runs in and was lucky not to concede more, and going into the bottom of the 9th the Yanks were down 3-2. Jeter and Teixeira reached base, and with one out, A-Rod and Cano were due up.

And then this happened.

Brent Lillibridge, whose birth certificate confirms he's an actual Lilliputian, made two ridiculous catches in right field to end a game that should have been ours. LOOK AT HIM SMILE, GUYS.

He hates us.

I have to end there today. But I've been getting a lot of e-mails lately that look something like this:

Hey Shane,

Why don't you do more stuff about the evolution of tennis? Quit being a son of a bitch and tell us exactly how the game has changed in text, video, and graphical form. Douche.

PS Please send money,

Dad

Well, I finally have something for you guys. It's THE EVOLUTION OF TENNIS, a website I created in Multimedia class and finished up yesterday.

Try not to ruin your whole workday by playing the game.

What's the best song with the word 'Rain' in it?

2011-04-26T08:02:00.003-04:00

That's the question for the comments today.

On my last day of extremely hard work this semester, a few brief thoughts:

1 - The Yanks lost 2-0 to the White Sox and a pitcher named Phillip "Humbert" Humber. The old devil held us hitless until the 7th despite the fact that most experts still aren't sure he plays major league baseball. Still, I loved this quote from the game story:

"When I was young I had big dreams. I thought I was going to go out there and dominate every time," Humber said. "It hasn't worked out that way to this point."

A former phenom coming to terms with the realities of the world in a somewhat world-weary fashion? I'll nod my head meaningfully at that six days a week and twice on Sunday.

2 - In this article, Michael Vick and the Humane Society take issue with a dog-fighting Droid app called 'Dog Wars.' The HS Prez used a variation on the classic 'video games are making our children violent' argument to bolster his point:

Human Society President Wayne Pacelle said, however, the game could be used as virtual training ground for would-be dogfighters.

Sorry, dudes, but if a game like Grand Theft Auto exists, where you can literally walk around a street killing women and children, we'll probably have to tolerate 'Dog Wars.'

3 - I thought this was really good, except for the fucking horrible seizure-inducing droid advertisement on the sidebar.

4 - This article on ESPN insider was an interesting first-person take on the art of trash-talking. Using aggressive investigative reporting tactics, Seth Curry Saves Duke! was able to obtain the full transcript despite being way too cheap to pay whatever ESPN charges for insider access. The best part was a bona fide Jordan Story from the day:

Legend has it Gary Payton, who vets say talked an endless stream of trash, once told Jordan that he drove a better car than MJ. "The cars I got are just like yours," Jordan replied. "Except mine were free."

5 - In a half-on, half-off kind of way, I've been enjoying the NBA playoffs. To be fair, the enjoyment is a little abstract; I haven't had time to see any full games, and it sucks that the Knicks lost. But the portions of the Thunder-Nuggets Bulls-Pacers games I've seen have been pretty great, and I'm excited to hopefully watch Chris Paul for the first time tonight as the Hornets try to shock the Lakers. Also, the second round of the Eastern playoffs are going to be amazing; Chicago vs. Atlanta/Orlando, and Boston-Miami. And now the Spurs are losing too? Yikes.

Anybody else getting the feeling that OKC could easily sneak into the finals?

6 - I just want to take a quick moment to applaud the judges in this whole NFL lockout mess. It's good to see base greed go unrewarded once in a while in this country.

Tomorrow we get rolling again. I AIN'T NEED NO SCHOOL!

Oh, and the rain has stopped in Chapel Hill, but here's my playin-it-kinda-safe vote anyway:

Limping to the Finish Line

2011-04-25T09:36:00.004-04:00

We're almost there. The year is ending, the work is coming to a close, and the blog is about to undergo a transition. There are a couple of hard days of work left, though, and while that's happening, I'm going to keep it brief.

1 - I'm on a podcast! The fellas at Countless Screaming Argonauts had me on their show to chat about sports, politics, journalism, and etc.

Take a listen to Part 1 and, if you dare, Part 2.

2 - This is just a fascinating article about the relationship between Jeter and Cashman.

3 - Yanks won 6-3 in 11 innings last night after a lengthy rain delay. All three of our runs came on infield singles, which has to be some sort of record. Jeter had four hits, Granderson continues to pound the hell out of the ball, and Freddy Garcia had another really nice start. Joba blew most of the lead in the 7th, and Mariano did the rest in the ninth to let the Orioles back in.

And in case you couldn't decipher from this brief recap, I saw none of this game. Or any other game. Please, please end, school.

4 - I'll close with a reader e-mail from John, a big Duke fan. He has a strong take on the Kyrie situation, and I thought it was well-written and salient enough that it'd be interesting for everyone to read. Have a good Monday.

Let’s talk Kyrie Irving. Admit it, the more time has passed from that awful ending to a good season, the more angry you’ve become with Kyrie for choosing to spurn the Blue Devils. Admit it. Despite your satirical post addressing this very subject, Kyrie’s premature Duke defection burns you up as much as it does me. ADMIT IT!!!! Come on, you can tell me.

Not ready yet? Ok, fine. But hear me out for a second...

At the risk of sounding like a spoiled Duke fan – that would be a first, right? – I’m gonna try to convince you of why I think we’re all letting Kyrie off the hook a little easy here.

Now, before you go there, let me say this – I get it. I get it that Kyrie was always “supposed” to be a one-and-done talent. I get it that this was “supposed” to be the only year for us to enjoy the magnificent basketball abilities from our “once every ten years New Jersey point guard.” I get it that a kid considered among the favorites for the number one overall draft slot is “supposed” to go pro. I get it.

Here’s the problem, and there’s really no getting around this. Kyrie was SUPPOSED to play more than 11 games this year – not become the best cheerleader Duke has ever seen. He was SUPPOSED to be the missing piece that returned Duke basketball to its up-tempo days of domination – not return from injury just in time to screw up our chemistry when it mattered the most. SUPPOSED matters about as much as Larry Drew II now, doesn’t it? Side note – the number of UCLA fans who think that they’ve found their point guard savior is amusing, at the least.

Not yet convinced? Let’s keep going. There are essentially four players with a reasonable chance to claim the number one overall draft pick this season – Sully, Prince Harry, Perry Jones, and Kyrie. Even though all four are essentially guaranteed a slot in the elusive lottery, complete with a first contract worth millions, 75% of the above group have already committed to returning to school! The only one jumping ship? Kyrie! I SIMPLY DON’T GET IT!!! WHY, KYRIE, WHY?!?!?!?!?!?! WHAT DID WE EVER DO TO YOU?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Wait, I saved the best for last! THRE’S NOT EVEN GOING TO BE AN NBA NEXT SEASON!!!!! No matter where the kid gets drafted, he’s going to be playing exactly zero basketball next year! None! Zip! Zilch! Squat! Squilch! – combination of squat and zilch. UGH!!!...Breathing deeply and collecting myself...

As much as I’ve tried to be ok with all of this, I simply cannot support a decision that involves a basketball loving kid choosing to not play basketball next year. And what’s so bad about another year at Duke? Outside of his injury – Matt Howard’s revenge – it seemed like he had a pretty good year, right? Seemed like a happy, fun loving kid living the college life to me. Why not come back for one more year of that? Not to mention that the team that he would be leading next year would be - to say the least – FUUUUUUNNNN! Throw in a pre-season top five ranking, a chance at a National Championship, and what’s not to like? If Kyrie’s decision is final – I’m simply never going to understand. Sigh.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don’t give me the “he might hurt his draft stock” argument. For one, he’s too talented, and there’s too much of a premium in the NBA for point guards of his caliber for his stock to fall considerably. Secondly, I counter with an obvious assertion from the season – for every Kyle Singler (player whose stock unfortunately drops during his senior season) there’s a Nolan Smith. Period.

Ugh. I’m depressed. I haven’t seen any headlines telling me that Kyrie is “rethinking” his decision. Alas, what’s there left to do - keep bitching?

Maybe I’ll pray for a miracle- it is, after all, almost Easter Sunday.

Dear God,

Please don’t make us play a stacked UNC team next year without Kyrie. Please don’t make us play a stacked UNC team next year without Kyrie. Please don’t...

What's your LIFE CHANGING song?

2011-04-22T09:33:00.004-04:00

I know there are some varying opinions on the movie "Garden State," but for this post I'd like you all to accept my premise, even just for the moment, that it was a steaming pile of overwrought, pretentious trash.

Fair?

And the worst part of Garden State- i.e. the worst scene of what might be the worst movie ever- can be seen here. If you think I'm going to embed that shit, YOU ARE WRONG MY FRIEND. I won't sully the free, poorly-designed pages of blogger with even a second of Zach Braff. I will, however, transcribe the scene in question. I don't remember character names, thank God, so I'll just use 'Zach' and 'Natalie.'

The two are in a hospital, or auditorium, or plane, or something. Natalie is listening to music.

Zach: What are you listening to?

Natalie: The Shins. You know 'em?

Zach gives a thoughtful pause.

Zach: No.

Natalie: You gotta hear this one song. It'll change your life, I swear.

She leans over, but Zach is filling out forms or something.

Natalie: Oh, I'm sorry. You're filling out forms. Conundrum! Do you think you could, uh, listen while you fill out the forms?

Zach responds to her light teasing with an unamused 'yeah, I get it' demeanor.

Zach: I think I can handle it.

Zach puts on the headphones. He's totally skeptical. But then...SOMETHING HAPPENS. 40 consecutive shots show Zach and Natalie smiling at each other. A life is changed.

Even watching that scene so I could transcribe it was painful. I hate, hate, hate the way they hammer you over the head with the song. Music is supposed to support a movie (see: Wes Anderson), not an overt advertisement that tries to jam emotion down your throat. My throat is closed, Braff. But here's why I really hate that scene:

Back in the second semester of my junior year in college, late to the game, I came across the album 'Chutes Too narrow' by The Shins. It's fair to say I listened in a state of moderate awe. Song after song was spectacular. I was convinced this was the best pop album I'd ever heard.

When I get into something, I tend to get a little obsessed, so I took to the internet to research The Shins. I discovered they had another album, 'Oh, Inverted World,' released a couple years earlier. So one day I borrowed a car and drove to the mall to buy it. I can't remember if I even owned an iPod then, or if I was still rocking the discman, but one way or another I brought it out with me to the Duke Gardens for a listen.

It was a gorgeous spring day, and I immediately loved what I heard on the album. It was a little more melancholy and brooding, maybe, than the driving pop of 'Chutes Too Narrow,' but equally full of excellent melody and poetic lyrics. I had a new favorite band.

Then track number 6 came on. "New Slang." And, uh...

Well, I'm not going to repeat any words mentioned in a Zach Braff script. I'll put it this way: I'm not a big crier. I can go through some bad stuff, or witness horrible things, without ever shedding a tear. It just doesn't occur to me. But for some reason, when a piece of art hits me in the gut, tears will come to my eyes. By the cry test, I seem to have strict tastes (thank God, or I'd be crying all the time and wouldn't have friends), so it's a rare phenomenon. But it's consistent; to give a quick example, I cannot watch the part at the end of the "The Royal Tenenbaums" where Chas loses it and says, "I've had a tough year, pop," without breaking down. Seriously, even writing that sentence and remember the scene makes my eyes water.

Sitting in the Duke Gardens, listening to "New Slang" for the first time, I started crying. It pains me to admit this, believe me. But that's what happened. I probably hit repeat 10 times in a row, and with each listen the sheer heartbreaking beauty of the song just shattered me.

"Life-changing" is a huge term. I'm not sure listening to "New Slang" changed my life in any measurable way. But it's hard not to be grateful for those moments where you feel truly affected, and until I grow old and my memory dies, I'll remember listening to that song for the first time.

And then Zach Braff cheapened the living hell out of it by writing that scene. You can't do that! You can't force your moment down other people's throats! I was hesitant to even do that here, on a simple blog. It can't work that way. Everybody has to have their own moment.

After "Garden State," the snide fuckheads in the indie music community would use that scene to devalue The Shins. If you mentioned liking any of their stuff, especially "New Slang," the inevitable retort would follow: "Did it change your life???"

So a big thumbs down to Braff. I still love the song, but he kind of spoiled it for a lot of people.

Anyway, here's the point: another great moment I had hearing a song for the first time was "White Winter Hymnal" by the Fleet Foxes. It's less obviously brilliant than "New Slang," but it has the same elusive, sad quality that appeals to me in music. It's something I always have trouble describing, and in the end can only explain it the way people sometimes explain that they believe in God: "I just kind of feel it."

Which is probably annoying to hear. Here's the song, along with a great video:

In a couple weeks, the band's next album is coming out. I've been waiting on that for three years, and I'm hoping there's a few gems in there.

My question to you is this: what's your "Life Changing" song. You can tell the story, or just list the song. I'm curious to find which specific tunes really get to people. Hopefully we get a nice cross sampling of genres and old versus new, and maybe I can make a mix or something.

Sound off in the comments. Happy Friday, and we'll be back to sports next week.

The Skeleton Crew Rattles On

2011-04-21T08:38:00.005-04:00

But they don't rattle their sabres. They keep making the ghost walk across a dark misty meadow.

The skeletal madness will be over sometime around next Wednesday, but until then here's what the bone peddlers have on offer:

1 - Yanks won 6-2. Granderson is just hitting the stuffing out of the ball in the past few games. Fat Bart was fantastic in his first turn since replacing Hughes in the rotation. A-Rod's back, 0-2 with a couple walks. Jeter 0-5 with a trademark GIDP and two ground-outs each to short and second. Gardner out of the lineup.

2 - My pal Mike sent me this article about the Brewers shift defense. Based on spray charts, manager Ron Roenicke has his infielders shifting on a constant basis. It's the percentage play, and I've wondered why teams don't do this more. Still, there are a couple vulnerabilities. Unlike power hitters, contact hitters who are shifted upon are more capable of just rolling a ball to one side of the infield. Also, the Brewers haven't quite mastered it yet, so they've allowed a bad steal or two because their third baseman was away from his bag. It'll be interesting to see if something like this is sustainable. Obviously it's wise from a numbers perspective, but the times when it fails tend to make everyone very stupid. More so than the successes make them look smart. And while not doing it can cost a team wins, it's not necessarily an identifiable thing; it's just normal hits that went through. But when shifting costs a team the win, the failure is on display for everyone to see. So kudos to Roenicke for having the balls to accept those public gaffes in the service of a greater strategy.

3 - HOLY SHIT. For the first time anyone can remember, Major League Baseball has actually had to assume control of a team. And somehow, that team is not the Mets.

The LA Dodgers are experiencing hard times with the messy, expensive divorce of Frank and Jamie McCourt. They've also had to borrow large sums of money recently ($30 million from Fox, specifically, when they wanted $200 million), while payroll and attendance are both down. Looks like the franchise desperately needs a white knight. This is pretty unprecedented stuff in baseball.

4- A robot tried to throw out the first pitch at a Phillies game, and the Philly Phanatic called for a relief pitcher.

<a href="http://video.msn.com?mkt=en-us&brand=foxsports&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:d2e25ed6-7eea-424d-a34a-006df4b1b297&showPlaylist=true&from=IV2_en-us_foxsports_videosearch&fg=RAMP" target="_new" title="Robot throws first pitch">Video: Robot throws first pitch</a>
Here's more video of the Philly Phanatic, baseball's best mascot. See you tomorrow.

Humanizing the Evil UNC Basketball Team

2011-04-20T08:23:00.009-04:00

Good morning, pals. I got to see exactly 0% of the Yanks-Blue Jays game last night due to school work, and I'm kind of glad.

After holding a 5-3 lead into the ninth, Mariano blew it and the Yanks lost in extra innings. Man, I hate that guy. WHEN IS GIRARDI GOING TO FINALLY BENCH HIM?!

We're going to be quick as hell this morning again, but luckily I've got some goooood shit to share. My boy Daniel over at Reesenews has unleashed a killer video that deserves to go sports-viral.

The idea was that when the UNC men's team went to Newark to play their Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games, Reese would give a camera to D.J. Johnston, one of the 'Blue Steel' walk-ons. Johnston agreed, and came back with almost 50 minutes of footage.

Daniel, who has a seriously deft editing touch, put it all together into a compact, fascinating package. Yesterday he asked me to watch it with another staffer, and the girl I was with asked how long it was. "12 minutes," he said, and I felt my stomach drop. Twelve minutes is an eternity to watch bad video.

Lucky for me, it kicked ass. Warning to Dukies: this might make you like UNC basketball players on an uncomfortably personal level. D.J. Johnston himself is bright and hilarious, and the perfect guy to be holding the camera, but some of the big names are pretty good too, especially Kendall Marshall. And what's really great about the whole thing is that it presents an unfiltered snapshot of the players' personalities at a time in big college sports when that is really, really hard to find.

My favorite part comes with this exchange in the team bus at 6:20:

D.J. Johnston: My argument is that the north is better than the south. The argument is that there are people around.

Voice: There are people?

D.J. Johnston: There's no people in the south. Hey Dex, Dex...is the north better than the south?

Strickland: Absolutely. I mean, look at the view.

(Camera pans to the Newark landscape.)

There's also the hilarious part where they make Zeller lead off a beat game, play catchphrase in the locker room, and have a discussion about David Dupont's undiagnosed tuberculosis.

Definitely do Daniel and his partner Pressley a solid and go read the story at Reese.

Video below; let's hear your reactions, Dukies.

The Yankee Blog Naming Contest

2011-04-19T07:49:00.005-04:00

The skeleton crew is even more skeletal than usual today. Lots of work plus Yankee off day = lame post.

As I mentioned yesterday, this blog will be splitting in the near future into a Duke blog with the same name and a Yankee blog with a different name.

Today we will get closer to deciding that name. Here's what people tossed out yesterday:

The Pinstripe
The Yankee Yodeler
Robinson Cano Saves The Yankees
Sweet Robbie Saves The Yankees
The Blog That Ruth Built
The Robinson Ca-Know-It-All Report
The Yankee Bandits

If you want to endorse one of those, that's cool. If you want to suggest another, that's cooler. I'm partial to names that include 'Yankee' in the title, and also ones that are somewhat evocative. One of my favorite blog names ever was 'The USS Mariner.' Everybody was on the ship! But these guidelines can be broken if you've got something awesome.

Winner gets a slice of internet fame and possibly sweet prizes down the line.

Yanks-Jays tonight, with Burnett facing his old club on the turf. Toronto has turned into one of those teams I hate in a kind of surprising way. It's mostly Jose Bautista's fault. Wrap-up tomorrow.

A couple days ago, in a Business Reporting class, we had a mock press conference with a Public Relations class. Each of us represented a different publication, and mine was the New York Post. The PR class adopted a company. We faced the 'Apple' PR contingent, and their big announcement was that Steve Jobs had died in a motorcycle accident. We had to write an article after it was over, but I remembered from my NYC days that the big draw of the Post was the cover. So I spent most of my time on that instead:

I got an 85 on the assignment.

Go Home, Texas: Games 12, 13, 14

2011-04-18T08:35:00.004-04:00

Note 1: Yeah, yeah, I saw it. Roy has built himself a national title favorite. Flopsy Z and Ken Doll and Baby John and Prince Harry will be pretty good. However, I offer this thoughtful counterpoint: go to hell, Carolina.

Note 2: Over the next two weeks, posts may be abrupt and colorless. Fair warning. We're running a skeleton crew around here. A quick update on our writing team:

Mandigo LeValenz: Revolutionary instincts got the better of him; he ran off to North Africa to fight where he's needed. Managed to watch El Clasico on Saturday in an improvised 'tent bar' with the Libyan rebels. Says the Mediterranean is beautiful this time of year.

Friendly Ted: Still trying to break into the church newsletter business. Got some good feedback from an arch bishop in upstate South Carolina last weekend, who told him there's a place for humor in the genre, but it has to be very, very tame. Like it or not, the target audience still trends old, and old people don't like to be shocked.

Yasmine Ferrinseaux: Focusing on a lumber jack story that's been in the works for 2.5 years. She hopes to pitch it to The Atlantic when it's finished, but in some ways there won't be a resolution until there are no more lumberjacks or no more trees.

Cliff the Shameless: Seeing how long he can stand naked in the window of his apartment before some action is taken.

Maximilian the Fearless Terrier: Just barkin' away!

Ergon 7-U: Visiting his home planet for the X4T holiday. Still hates when earthlings call him 'Argon,' which is a totally unrelated noble gas.

Shane: So much school work over the next two weeks it's making him blush (school work is embarrassing).

In two weeks, this blog will undergo a severe identity crisis. Seth Curry Saves Duke will be transitioning to SethCurrySavesDuke.com (go there now to see rudimentary site design and a pretty amateur tennis graphic I made for class!), and there will be ANOTHER, SECOND blog that sort of "buds" from this one. The new one will be all about the Yankees. I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that cracking the Yankee internet world with a blog called "Seth Curry Saves Duke!" is a non-starter. So I've basically decided to split this blog in two. SCSD! will be operational all year round, but only updated daily during basketball season. The new Yankee blog (name suggestions welcome) will run daily during baseball season. Lucky for me, the seasons don't really overlap. Each blog will include the usual smorgasboard of thoughts and ideas and departures into other sports.

Hopefully that all made sense. Now, vamos to baseball!

****

This was a very, very, very good series win against a strong team. Especially since the Yanks somehow won the Freddy Garcia-Derek Holland match-up on Saturday. I personally hate Texas so much that I feel the urgent need to post this picture:

The Good

*Freddy Friggin' Garcia, who somehow went six innings and only gave up two hits on Saturday. He only elicited 3 swinging strikes in 84 pitches, and his fastball peaked just below 88mph, but he got himself some outs against a very strong hitting team. Michael Kay and Ken Singleton kept praising his meticulous, obsessive style on YES, and maybe they're right; maybe the attention to detail paid off. Maybe we've got a Greg Maddux/Jamie Moyer on our hands. Maybe he's going to win 20 games. Probably not, but hey, for a fifth starter he looked damn good.

*Robbie Cano, who hit a big home run in each of the Yankee wins. It's been an interesting start for Robbie, who has a very nice .403 wOBA due to some extreme power, but who, despite hitting .310, is only getting on base at a .322 clip. That's largely due to impatience; he's walked just one time this season, a 1.7% rate that's down from last year's career high water mark of 8.2%. He's swinging at more pitches, especially ones in the strike zone, and that's resulting in quite a few ground-outs. In some ways, this is the old Robbie; no plate discipline, and you either get a hit or an out every at-bat. But in other ways, this is something entirely different- we haven't seen this kind of power from Cano. It's early, but his slugging percentage is about .100 points higher than it's ever been. We could be witnessing a strange transition. A singles hitter becoming a power hitter, but without the attendant rise in walks. Bears watching.

*CC. The guy clearly doesn't love pitching in cold weather, and he's had no luck getting wins this season, but he's got that wonderful quality of grinding out decent performances when things don't start out magnificently. Last night was quintessential cold weather CC; struggled in the early going, never looked dominant, but lasted into the 7th and left with a lead. In a perfect world, CC would be the best #2 starter in baseball. As it is, he's an indefatigable ace.

*Rafael Soriano, who did this last night:

The biggest concern with him was the velocity, but he appears to be recovering the mph he lost. Everything else should start to fall in place. This is not, thank God, a Hughes scenario.

*Russell Martin, who continues to be the best positional pick-up the Yanks have made in a long, long time.

The Bad

*Jeter. 3-11 on the series, more ground outs, and a general blah performance. I won't believe he can hit line drives consistently until I see it.

*Joba. Looks like a world beater in some games (Saturday), and then comes out in pressure situations and walks people in 4 pitches and gives up huge runs (Sunday). There's no consistency to the guy. He's hitting 96 on the gun, but I still don't feel good when he enters a close game. It might be time to recognize the fact that he'll always be something of an enigman, and always a bit unreliable.

The Ugly

*Brett Gardner. Spike sent me this analysis from FanGraphs, which shows that Brett the Jet is a compulsive non-swinger. It's a really good statistical portrait of a guy who takes an average of 1 strike per at-bat before strike 3. He's excellent at making contact, but in 2010 he let 55% of strikes go by without swinging. 55%! That is simply not sustainable, and it's no small wonder he's seeing 70% first pitch strikes from pitchers this season, compared to 56% last year. Time to get the bat off the shoulders, Brett.

*Phil Hughes. Girardi's move to put him on the DL says it all; his arm is dead. Hopefully his career isn't soon to follow.

Off day today. In other news, I hate Boston more than ever after yesterday's game Knicks-Celtics game, and Oklahoma City seems like the most fun place to play basketball in the NBA. And now, Monday is here.

Someday, We're All Gonna Pie: Game 11

2011-04-15T07:48:00.003-04:00

Or here, if you like quality and don't want to see some guy's trophy collection.

I've got an early morning obligation today, so I'll be quick this morning and add more around 11am, but here are the basics:

*Hughes was a disaster again.

As you can see from his velocity chart, his fastball didn't get past 91, and his cutter didn't cut, fooling the PitchFx tool into thinking his cutter was actually a slow fastball. It also seems like he's lost some confidence in his curve (best pitch) and change.

*The bullpen, especially game MVP Bartolo Colon, kicked ass.

*Down 5-4 in the ninth, Jorge wasted no time tying the game against Orioles closer Kevin Gregg.

*A-Rod continues to be the best player in baseball.

*Cano is hitting the hell out of the ball too.

*Joba looked amazing and touched 96mph on the gun. Mariano's ERA is still 0.00 after 6 appearances.

More later...

AND I'M BACK. It's almost noon and I don't have a ton to add. Here's the fairness factor plot:

It was a good day for the Yanks, who were +4 in favorable calls. That brings us to -8 on the year, and only -2 at home.

On a down note, the Gardner bench watch is now on full alert. His unbelievably awful .157/.227/.225 line is among the 10 worst in baseball. Hurray for his speed, and all that, but that's a bit like having a fast motorboat in the middle of a desert.

Jeter isn't faring much better, unfortunately. He's secure since he's Jeter and we don't really have another shortstop, but his numbers are only marginally better than Gardner's. He's leading baseball right now with a 78.9% ground ball rate, and most of them aren't hit hard enough to find holes. (Interesting, Joe Mauer is second in that category in the midst of a bad beginning by any standard and a terrible one by his own.)

It's Harrison vs. Nova tonight as the Rangers come into town with the best record in the American League. Don't know about you, but I haven't forgotten last season. Let's hope Ivan brings it tonight. If he doesn't, we have to rely on Freddy Garcia tomorrow before CC comes back on Sunday. If we want to win this series, tonight's game is a must-win.

See you Monday.

From Great to Good: Game 10

2011-04-14T08:36:00.003-04:00

Pitching

Through 6 and a third, AJ Burnett cruised. The Yanks had a 7-0 lead, the win was all but guaranteed, and AJ had top command. The seventh would be his last inning regardless, and there was no reason to expect he couldn't close it out in style, especially against the bottom of the Oriole order. He retired Jones on a grounder to Teixeira, but then things started to go bad. Double to Reynolds. Home run to Weiters. Walk to Andino, the 9th hitter. Home run to Roberts. The hook from Girardi. 7-4. Blech.

Still, this was a quality start. Before the late fireworks, the Orioles only mustered 4 hits and 1 walk. AJ had 5 strikeouts, 8 swinging strikes, and 69 strikes to 53 balls. His excellent command on the season continued unabated. The strikeout-to-walk ratio after three starts is 3.20, which is better than any season-long total in his career.

In a feature on AJ's performance, Wallace Matthews at ESPN plays psychologist (like so many people love to do with AJ) and touches on a few possible keys to his success:

1 - AJ likes Larry Rothschild, the new pitching coach, and they relate better because he keeps it simple. Matthews starts with a subtle dig at Eiland, who we already know isn't AJ's favorite guy:

He has a new pitching coach, Larry Rothschild, who rather than boggle his mind with dissertations on mechanics tells him to just go out and let it fly.

Wednesday night, after walking Matt Wieters in the second inning, Rothschild trotted out to the mound. It was not his idea.

"First time in my career I ever called a pitching coach out," Burnett said. Turns out he was being troubled by the way his heel was landing on the mound and wanted Rothschild to help him correct it.

"Forget about that," Rothschild told him. "Just let it fly."

2 - Ivan Nova, of all people, is helping to keep him loose and control the anger that's hurt AJ in the past.

And he has a most unlikely mentor, the rookie right-hander Ivan Nova, who has taken on the role of stabilizing force in Burnett's clubhouse life.

"Last year, I would get really [ticked] and blow up, but no more of that," Burnett said, referring to his blowup last year after a bad inning against the Rays caused him to smash his hands into the clubhouse door, forcing him to leave the game with an injury.

This year, he's got Nova, a happy-go-lucky type who is as unflappable as Burnett is volatile, to remind him, "Don't get so mad. Don't get so mad."

"Do I have to follow you around everywhere?" Burnett said Nova asked him last night.

"Yeah, maybe you do," Burnett replied.

3 - Russell Martin is making him throw the change-up.

But most of all, there was Martin, who recognized during spring training that Burnett had a third pitch to go along with his live fastball and nasty hook, as Burnett refers to his curveball.

"It took me 12 years to throw a changeup," Burnett said, "and Russ has me throwing it more and more. Tonight, he kept putting it down and I kept throwing it. Lefties, righties, fastball counts, you name it. I think it's going to be a big pitch for me."

For Martin, Burnett's third pitch is a change he can believe in.

"It doesn't have great differential in velocity but it has good action to it. He works it off the same plane as his fastball and the next thing you know it dips, so he gets a lot of groundballs on it," Martin said. "In spring training, I had to keep telling him, it's a good pitch, you got to trust it, you got to trust it. And I think he's starting to figure it out."

Let's take a look at AJ's velocity chart from last night with pitch type:

You can see they count 14 pitches as change-ups (yellow), but in the post-game interview, AJ claims to have thrown 16. The blue dot that represents a "sinker," a pitch that isn't really in AJ's arsenal, was probably a change, as was that 89mph "fastball" grouped with the other change-ups. Let's call it 16 for the sake of argument. That's by far the most AJ has ever thrown in a game (with the exception of an anomalous outing in Florida when he threw 44 to piss off his manager), and according to Brooks' linear weights stats, it was his most effective pitch, just beating out the fastball.

The only real concern with AJ right now is his line-drive rate, which is uncharacteristically high at 25%. We're dealing with a super small sample size, of course, but that number combined with a pretty low .280 BABIP might indicate that he's been a little lucky not to be touched up for more runs so far this season (the basic gist of these two stats: although more batters are hitting line drives, their batting average is lower, which indicates they're hitting it right at people).

As the guys at River Avenue Blues point out, the bullpen was terrific again, with the only mild concern being Rafael Soriano's lack of velocity. He didn't break 90 last night, and he hasn't broken 95 yet this season. Still, he's had five appearances and four of them have been good, so it's just a minor blip on the radar at this point. It shouldn't be forgotten, though, that his one bad start cost us a win. Too many more of those and the lost velocity will bear further examination.

Offense

Guess who's leading the majors in wOBA? Guess who's healthy? Guess who's tearing up the league?

He started it off right yesterday with an opposite-field bomb to stake the Yanks to an early 3-0 lead, and he finished the day 2-3 with a walk. That's already his 4th home run of the year (HE'S ON PACE TO HIT 64.8!!!!!), his OBP is a disgusting .474, and he leads the majors with a 1.280 OPS. This is vintage A-God, right here.

Briefly, otherwise:

-Jorge broke out of his slump with his 4th home run, which seems to be the only kind of hit he gets.

-Grandy (0-3) and Gardy (1-5) are both seriously struggling. Their averages are well below the .200 Mendoza line, and they seem lost at the plate. What's really interesting about Granderson is that opposing pitchers are only throwing him fastballs 44% of the time. He's seeing a majority of junk, which has never been true in his career before (lowest previous fastball % was 54.5). This might be statistical noise due to a small sample, but it also might mean pitchers have learned how to handle him. It makes perfect sense when you see his pitch type values from previous years. He's always best when facing the straight stuff, and this year he's not seeing it.

Gardner, on the other hand, sees 68.3% fastballs, a good indication that opposing teams do not fear his bat. Not even a little.

-Robbie Cano is still finding his form, to some extent. He hit a 2-out double last night, and his average is a strong .317, but his OBP and slugging are still low by his standards. He's not in a full rhythm yet.

-Jeter managed two hits. Gulp.

-Though he's hitting for some power, Teixeira's average is still super low. This is still his best start as a Yankee, though, and his OBP (.364) and OPS (.919) are more than fine. If he follows the upward trajectory of previous seasons, this could be an amazing year.

The Fairness Factor

Let's check in on the umps.

Doug Eddings was being real stingy in the lower left side. It hurt Baltimore more than it hurt us, though things more or less evened out. The Yanks missed out on 6 valid strikes and got the benefit of 4 bad calls. The Os missed 8 valid strikes but got lucky 5 times. Overall, it's +1 for the Yanks, which falls into the "basically even" category.

On the year: -12

Majorly Screwed: 3
Minorly Screwed: 1
Basically Even: 3
Minorly Favored: 2
Majorly Favored: 1

Home: -6
Away: -6

The Annals of Lame

Since I'm in North Carolina, I watch Yankee games on MLB TV. Unfortunately, we're technically in the Baltimore cable jurisdiction, despite the fact that Baltimore is 6 hours away. That would be fine, though, if MASN, the Orioles network, was actually available down here. It's not. So we're blacked out of MLB TV, but we also don't get the normal cable feed. Basically, there's no way to legally watch Yankee-Orioles games. Which is bullshit.

Luckily a pal hooked me up with an online stream, so I wasn't in the dark. Otherwise, it was John Sterling/Suzyn Waldman time. And man, that just ain't sustainable.

Tonight

Brace yourselves, Yankee fans. It's a Phil Hughes start. The Orioles are offering up Jake Arrieta, who we should batter and bully. But as we saw against the Sox, prolific scoring isn't always enough with Hughes on the hill.

See you tomorrow.