Virgina Wins!

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Virgina WinsThere is no I in team… or in the last syllable of Virginia apparently. The good people at “the other college basketball tournament” or N.I.T. as they like to be called made a little mistake on some championship t-shirts. Looks like the mountaineers have a new West Virgina shirt to bring home. Hey, it could have been worse, they could have been wearing some new West Vagina shirts.

I know, I’m not really one to talk about spelling, because I can’t spell my way out of last place in a Scrabble game. But come on people, they invent tools for this. Hell, Firefox has it built in so that, no matter what website I’m on, I can comment like I went to College, unlike the folks at the Not Invited Tournament who make the No I T-shirts. And that’s not the only thing the NIT does stupidly: scheduling game to happen at the same time as the NCAA games. You have to realize that you’re the second fiddle and that you’ll get much more SportsCenter air time if you have games on different nights.

Of course, you have to wonder (or you don’t, but I will): what about those lovely championship shirts that would have gone to second place Clemson if they had won? We all know that they immediately ship these shirts out to impoverished African nations, so we’ll never know if there is some child wearing a beautiful Clemson Tiggers shirt.

O Captain, My Captain

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Badass

Jason Varitek might be first in my heart, but he’s coming off an awful spring training. He batted a whopping .103 while in Florida, which included an 0-17 streak. One mustn’t extrapolate too much from this. He did, after all, hit as many home runs while there as Albert Pujols. But the next few months will be the test as to whether his work with batting coach Dave Magadan has done anything to halt the precipitous drop in power and offense he had last year.

But don’t worry. I still love you, JV. Read More

Instant Replay Never Looked So Good

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Red flags are here to stay. No, not warning flags, the challenge flags thrown by NFL coaches. ??? ???? ????? The NFL owners voted to make instant replay a permanent rule. But they still haven’t come up with a solution to the crappy “overtime decided by a coin flip” problem. bet365 ????

Now this isn’t the interesting part of the news because the NFL has been instantly replaying under these rules for 2 years and nothing is changing. The fun fact here is that the owners said that if we ratify the instant replay rules than we promise to have high definition cameras installed in all stadiums. ??? ???? ??? ???? That’s right, they weren’t going to do it if there was no replay. Hey, owners, some people like to watch the game with 720 delicious lines of bright colors refreshing 60 times per second.

And since I really don’t have much to say myself, I will force you to visit this random San Antonio Spurs blog and read about the NBA rookie debut of James White.

Realism in Fantasy

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Tis the season for fantasy baseball drafts. Weeks or, in some cases, months of dedication to the statistical analysis of every player worth drafting (and some that aren’t) culminate in one magical afternoon. Surrounded by a dozen friends, half a dozen pizzas and a CTU-esque computer bank, fantasy owners put together their teams. Paper flies everywhere and insults-masked-as-questions (“Is Armando Benitez still playing?”) abound as the rounds wear on. By the end, if you did things right, you have a group that is capable of winning a championship for you.

Here’s the kicker, though. You probably didn’t do things right. I know I didn’t, and I’m probably the only person I know that understands this. Of the ten or so people I’ve chatted with this week, from all different fantasy baseball leagues, all have given me the exact same response when asked about their team.

“Honestly, I think I have a great team.” Read More

Hoya Saxa… not that it matters

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I’m a terrible gambler sports prognosticator. As mentioned previously, we do this little fantasy baseball league, and I’m solid middle of the road year-in, year-out. So it should hardly be surprising that my lack of picking prowess translates into other, equally venerable sports betting guessing arenas.

I entered an NCAA pool this year, giving in to that yearly sisyphean impulse. Imagine my dismay when I saw that Georgetown (and the combo of Patrick Ewing Jr. and John Thompson XV/V) and BC would meet in the second round! (If it helps the imagination, the most dismay I could experience was about five bucks’ worth.) What to do? Logically, I couldn’t pick BC over a bigger, more consistent Hoyas team with a fierce basketball pedigree… but if a team were to eliminate our Eagles, clearly I should pick them to win out. Read More

Monsterleague Baseball Draft Day Breakdown

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Ok, so even though peiseresque already mentioned this in brief, I thought I’d type up a brief list of notable draft picks for our own little league this past Sunday. I can’t give you all my thoughts – I’m still potential trading partners with the majority of this blog – but here are some thoughts I’d be willing to share with anybody.

#8 Matt Holliday, OF Colorado Rockies – Willis, San Dimas High School Baseball

I am still infuriated to an unfathomable degree that Willis made this pick before I could. This guy was around #30 in a lot of the mock drafts I saw going around, but because of the way our league is scored and the stats our league favors, he was going to make a great under the radar pick. Or so I though. Then again, since Willis and I have similar methodologies in picking players, I shouldn’t be too surprised. But still: fuck you Willis.

#39 Daisuke Matsuzaka, SP Boston Red Sox – peiseresque, East Village Unemployed Performance Artists

A week or so before the draft, I was talking to fellow league-member Brett about when the Red Sox’s brand new pitcher was going to be drafted. Given the amount of homerism in our league, my guess was that it would be Round 3, specifically by Charles and Diane’s team (who finished 13th last year). So I was slightly surprised that peiseresque was the one to pull the trigger. It’s a calculated risk – will he put up as good numbers as same-round draftees Bonderman and Zito?

#118 Jason Varitek, C Boston Red Sox – Greg F., BlueBombers2000

Every round, as a joke, I said I was drafting Tek as my homo homer pick. But even for me, Tek’s falling stats and power would not let me take him this early – 8th round. I couldn’t take him next round either – I had Jemaine Dye as a 9th round keeper – so I would’ve definitely picked him up in round 10. J.V. has been working on his offense during spring training, but whether that winds up in quantifiable results remains to be seen.

#143 Frank Thomas, DH Toronto Blue Jays – Brett, Radiant Arkham

I just find this pick amusing because Bobby had him last year and during the offseason was trying to unload him for some draft picks. He went in Round 19 last year, and Bobby had originally posted on the league board that was he looking for Round 10. I thought that was unreasonably high (indeed, Bobby later said that this was a typo; it should have said “Round 10s”), but even when it was dropped to Round 20 he got no takers. Regardless, the Bobby trade would in effect have cost two draft picks (Round 18 and whatever round that would’ve been given to Bobby); the question is whether Brett got an advantage in taking him in Round 9. He’s still a huge injury risk in my book, but he puts up very nice numbers while active. If ever injuries would unfortunately occur, he might be in need of pain-relieving items like biocbdplus.

#176 Roger Clemens, SP unsigned – Mike L., The REAL Comptrollers

Heh. Will he or won’t he this year? Angry Ed made a killing by signing Roger in Round 8 last year. Will Mike have the same luck? I have no insight into Roger’s ego, so who knows?

#213 Dan Wheeler, RP Houston Astros – RJ, Homerun-Hitting Honeymooning Homos

The RP position was really shallow this year, and by the time I decided to draft my second reliever I was stuck with the Astros setup man. The guy has an amazing OBA and ERA, and during spring training posted much better numbers than Lidge. So long as he keeps his numbers, he should suffice. Because the alternative could be:

#251 Seth McClung, RP Tampa Bay Devil Rays – Serp, The Somerville Crooners

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

#258 Kyle Farnsworth, RP New York Yankees – Angry Ed, Angry Miserable Fucks

I really love Ed’s team concept – all “angry” players. And what better player for that team than the guy who wound up on the DL after kicking an electrical fan?

And finally, my favorite out of all of my picks:

#300 David Wells, SP San Diego Padres – RJ, Homerun-Hitting Honeymooning Homos

The man formerly known as Beer Truck is now known as DIABEETUS.

That’s all, folks! It’s gonna be a long, awesome baseball season!

Sports in Halo 2

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Have you ever created a custom game type in Halo 2? Have you created created any custom types where the rules didn’t involve killing everyone or some of the rules are based on trust? One of the most widely known of these custom types is zombie where the special rule to follow is to switch to the green team after death. Well, I like to try and create my own new types sometimes just as idea. Of course, being a sports nerd, I have to see what sports I can mix in.

Read More

The Single Best Fantasy Draft Pick Ever

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…would be Corey C. Hart, possible outfielder for the Milwaukee Brewers and probable disguise of the most phenomenal 80’s sunglass wearer ever. The fact that this guy is involved in about half the trades in our league each year (there are not a lot of trades) makes me smile on a semi-monthly basis.

But a close second would be expending a measly 22nd round pick for a violent sociopath who happens to swing a mean bat. Travis Lee decided to hang up his squiggly hat, and Nick Johnson (oh, wait, wrong one– try this link)isn’t gonna be back for a while… so, Nationals fans, guess who’s your opening day first baseman? Yep, it’s the career leader in domestic violence warrants, Dmitri Young! ????? ?????

At the end of last season, it looked like the end of the road for the increasingly unhinged Dmitri. But now that lil’ brudder Delmon’s in the majors, Dmitri’s got a reason to persevere. He’s a driver, he’s a winner, things are gonna change he can feel it, and I am going to run right the hell away with the fantasy crown this year on those supple, cornrowed shoulders.