Nerds on Sports

It had all been going so well for the Houston Rockets. They were making a solid playoff push in the hellacious Western Conference, undefeated for the past month. Under first-year skipper Rick Adelman and a still-stingy defense left over from Jeff Van Gundy, the Toyota Center was rocking from the opening tip to Rafer Alston’s dribbling out the clock. Houston’s win streak didn’t exactly catapult them up the ladder but it did solidify them as a team to contend with, especially in a season where the playoffs might end up looking like hockey’s: an utterly chaotic grind, no one safe, duck and cover. Even Tracy McGrady was getting his proper love. The cousin in Vince Carter’s grand and unnecessary shadow, McGrady is going on four years with his third team, and as option #1A on the Rockets, the 28 year old was hitting his prime in stride, piloting Houston to a 12th straight victory with a 110-97 dub over the Bulls. The very next day, according to the entirety of the voices covering the NBA, their beatdown of Chicago became the high point of the season.

See, that day franchise center and all-around tall man Yao Ming went down for the season. Read more »

Since I’m a no-good, unimaginative hack, I am going to take the same questions Serpico answered, and answer them myself. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this. But before I get into the letters, I have to get something off of my chest.

The New York Football Giants are a terrible football team. Ever since Serpico was a wee lad, the giants have been terrible. Remember in 1995 when the Patriots were terrible. They were a 6-10 team, but the Giants were worse — 5-11. Or how about 1997 when both the Patriots and the Giants won their respective divisions. The Giants were worse due to losing in the wild card round.

All I’m saying is that Serpico doesn’t like terrible teams — He actually stopped caring about baseball when the Yankees didn’t have the best record in baseball this year. How can I prove it? He had to email me on the deadline to fix his fantasy baseball lineup for a playoffs week. So I have an answer for Serpico: Follow the Patriots. You are a fair weather fan and we all know it. Just find the biggest band wagon, grab your instrument, and hop on.

Now for the actual questions. Read more »

Yes, the opening of the World Series kicked up a storm of questions, from “Is this Sox team the greatest World Series offense of all time?” to “Is calling Jeff Francis an ace like calling Subway a delicacy?” That’s all well and good, and at the end of the day the team that wins four games latest in October earns the right to all the glory the sporting world can bestow.

But go back to Cleveland. Despite my sick Red Sox fever, I can’t help but feel pangs of regret for the losing diehards, the Cuyahoga crazies, consigned and resigned to another snowy winter of woe. It’s going to be the 49th consecutive year where family members’ holiday conversations will center on we-need-to-improves rather than here’s-how-to-defends. After twenty seasons, you begin to lose count; after forty, you simply can’t forget. Every year, new Clevelanders reach that twenty year mark, and hope drains from them like blood out a cut fish.

This season is especially brutal. The Indians scratched and clawed their way to a 3-1 series lead, punctuated with a seven run fifth inning in a 7-3 beatdown over Boston. The Indians, boasting a powerful lineup with Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, and Victor Martinez, and anchored by two solid aces in Fausto Carmona and C.C. Sabathia, were knocking on the pennant’s doorstep.
Then the other shoe fell. Read more »

Game Time.

It’s that time of year again.  The leaves are changing.  The wind has that crisp, cool feel in the morning.  Football is reestablishing itself as the premiere American sport.  And baseball playoffs have begun.  Per the usual, there are grumblings about the scheduling of the opening round of the Major League Baseball playoffs.

Imagine that you are baseball.  Not the commissioner, just a human embodiment of the sport itself.  You dominate the airwaves and sports talk shows with non-stop games since the Warriors upset the Mavs in Round 1 of the NBA Playoffs.  There are games every single day and five out of seven days a week, every single team is playing.  Regular season scheduling can take place whenver you want.  Day Game? Sure.  Night Game? Sure.  Doubleheader? Sure.  Games in April with the potential for snow in Boston, New York, and Cleveland? Sure.  West Coast game the day after playing on the East Coast in Sunday Night Baseball against your biggest rival? Sure.  You have no limits, no rules, no regulations when it comes to scheduling.

That’s why it is no surprise that when baseball sells its opening round of the playoffs, it gives the broadcaster full reign to schedule the games whenever they want.  Well, the broadcaster has very different goals than baseball or its fans.  Thus, conflict.  The broadcaster (this year it is TBS, but ESPN has been just as guilty if not more so of this kind of chicanery) wants to maximize revenue, particularly catering its big games to the big markets.  But beyond that, it wants to make sure that televisions are turned to TBS for the maximum amount of time.  The result is our incredibly stretched schedule, where everyone is scrambling home for the early games, while no one is watching the prime-time games. Read more »

I went into Boston’s Chinatown Sunday afternoon and feasted upon Dim Sum.  If you’re not familiar with this magnificent tradition, you’re missing out.  It’s a buffet that comes to you, delighting your senses and satisfying your hunger with a savory variety of dumplings, rolls, and buns.  Like football, it is best enjoyed on the weekend and in a pair of stretchy sweatpants.  Inspired by this glorious meal, I am presenting to you Business Day One Dim Sum - a sampling of news from across the entirety of the sports world.  And like Dim Sum, it should satisfy everybody.

Shrimp Dumpling: The New York Mets are not going to the playoffs.  Their season ended with Tom Glavine allowing seven runs in a third of an inning, while one state over the Phillies put the finishing touches on a playoff clinching win.  Mets Manager Willie Randolph is not going to get fired, nor should he.  He’s a quality manager with a lot of experience that can handle the scathing New York media.  There are going to be some off-seasons changes, to be sure, and the team taking the field next year will be markedly different.  There’s a lot of great young talent on that team, but I think this year was their big shot and they slowly bled it out. Read more »

So I watched a basketball game last night.

I was out with a crowd of friends at a bar in Watertown and the last quarter of the Cleveland/Detroit game was on. Between speculation as to which upcoming films based on Marvel properties were going to suck (Transformers, probably; Fantastic Four 2, certainly), we watched some postseason basketball.

Things I Still Don’t Like About Basketball:

• The inordinate influence held by one or two players. “Name three Cleveland players other than LeBron James,” a friend observed. I’ll bet all the plays in Mike Brown’s playbook have four squiggles for the other players and a gold star for LeBron.
• The repetitive dynamic of play. The most crucial plays in a game of basketball will alter the score by no more than 3 points for either side; in a 100-point game that’s meaningless. Basketball’s more Mozart than Beethoven - too many notes to follow.
• Courting fouls. As one girl at the table pointed out, Rasheed Wallace is particularly operatic in his play, clutching at wounds real or imagined and shaking his fist at heaven if a foul isn’t called. He’s an understudy for the Fisher Theatre’s production of Twelve Angry Men this fall.

Read more »