Nerds on Sports

As will happen on the internet from time to time (see, e.g., Rule 34), things have a way of just… being out there, simply waiting to be found. Seems our title match has in fact been posted on YouTube!

Now, I know what you’re thinking: we obviously rigged the tournament just to show you this “stellar” piece of “film-making” that was “crafted” by “talented” people. But you would be wrong! Everything’s on the up-and-up here at NoS. This simply serves to prove three important points.

1. We are made of awesome magic, especially Perich.
2. All this has happened before, and will happen again.
3. And, of course, everybody knows that Batman totally rules, and Luke’s a sissy.

I think having a free taco and giving out free tacos to children only slightly dressed up at my doorstep has ruined my writing energy for the week. So I shall tell you where else you can go for some exciting things. Of course, I will mix in some fun pictures, because Google Image Search is our biggest visitor (by biggest, I mean only - I don’t think anyone gets here without going through Google) and I have to keep them happy.

• Does Papelbon have formal training in Irish Step Dancing?
• Goulet is a ghoul now, but Deadspin helps us remember the funny.
• Fire Joe Morgan has checked the PECOTA predictions for next year - They find that the Chicago White Sox are going to end the season at 0-162. Read more »

So I rolled the ol’ 20-sided Blogosahedron this week and I think I rolled a critical hit, but you should be the one to decide that. We have recently enjoyed some wild card baseball. Some people may think that this wild card thing has been around for quite a while, but that’s not true - it’s only been around for 10 years. Way back in 1993 the owners voted to add the wild card into baseball. There was only 1 dissenting vote…

For a little bit of science, there is the new super-high-tech NHL jersey. And if you think those jerseys are stupid, check out what Dallas considers professional journalism.

Tim McCarver may be professional, but it turns out that it took him until ALCS Game 4 to realize that to get multiple runs, getting 1 run is better than getting 0 runs:

Believe it or not, Joe, in 2007 when a team led off an inning with a home run, it led to more multiple-run innings than when a team led off an inning with a lead-off walk! It doesn’t seem like that would be the case.

Now that the science is out of the way, I can move to the fun stuff. Read more »

And now, selected news from the ‘lesser’ sports!

WOMEN’S LACROSSE!

US U-19 Team threepeats as World Champs! Too bad Mike Nifong wasn’t around to give them some publicity. Lacrosse will hit the popular media only once more, but by then it will be too late.

BOWLING!

New Sponsor for the PBA! Bowling’s not obscure, per se, but its prominence in the firmament of broadcast sporting events seems to have been compromised. Used to be bowling was on all the time, on the ABC or the CBS network; I would see balding men in neatly pressed pants hurl weighty objects every time Grandpa dozed back off during ‘Muppet Babies,’ because I couldn’t muster the strength to turn that gigantic atomic-age channel selector wheel, and thank the good Lord he at least finished chewing the donut this time. Anyway, bowling had a certain I don’t know what in French back then, with national TV coverage, kids having birthday parties at the local lanes (Joey, I know, it’s cool, my invite was lost in the mail) and the widespread availability of Carling Black Label and Schaefer, the beer of choice for guys who bowl and/or look like David Koechner.

Anyway, this article’s pretty upsetting, because the PBA is really, really excited about a sponsorship deal from CLR. You know, that stuff that you’re supposed to put in a comically oversized lab beaker and drown your shower head in, and then they expect you to use it to shower again, even though there’s obviously now a tremendous amount of patently toxic chemicals in every last drop coming out of that… that awful thing, and damn it we have to move again, don’t we. It was like this in Topeka, it was like this in Nashville. You need treatment.

SECRET HAVING!

PostSecret:

Man, is that tragic. The deceased probably had to get all her Mexican antioxidant goodness from el jugo de pomegranate.

HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING! SPECIFICALLY, 96 LB FINAL MATCH AT THE NEW YORK STATE DIVISION 2 WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP!

This lengthy YouTube clip–well the part where the kid’s face is being pressed into the ground– is pretty much how I remember high school gym class, but, 96 pounds at age 14? These guys are huge! Seriously, what a pair of fatties! Also, they apparently are very interested in having their heads in each others’ asses. Don’t bother watching beyond the first minute unless you’re one of these kids’ mothers.

(Spoileralert: the kid in blue wins, both are then aggressively wedgied by the guys in the 160 pound division.)

(Last bit: There is an adult-spam comment on the YouTube page; this creeps me out.)

CATS WANTING THINGS!

When Hank Aaron tied and subsequently broke Babe Ruth’s record of 714 Home Runs, the socio-political backdrop involved a great deal of deeply entrenched racism. Hammerin’ Hank played in the South, and his career spanned Brown and Swann– the heyday of the Civil Rights movement, as the Supreme Court dragged the American people into the present, into reality, kicking and screaming. The novel concept that people are people, nobody’s got a god-given right to be held above a fellow human- that took a while to sink in, and still hasn’t quite fully done so. Racism will, sadly, forever dog American history, and will never be fully expelled from our society. Indeed, it’s one of those troubling real-world things that baseball is designed to help us escape. Baseball’s just a game, baseball’s more than a game, baseball is tied to our national soul, baseball’s been racist, baseball’s atoned, baseball will never fully atone.

Hank Aaron’s first two home runs of 1974 were surrounded by death threats, bigotry, excitement, and downright jubilation. It seems terribly exciting- if anyone who remembers it first-hand would comment here I’d appreciate it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of an internet in 1974, and pretty much anything contemporaneous about Hank that’s worth reading involves paid archives. So here’s a link to his well-crafted Wikipedia page and the suggestion that you go out and read something about Hank at your local library. He was a quiet, likable titan of sport, from all accounts. Hank played in the Negro Leagues, the “separate but equal” place to see damn fine baseball through most of the 20th Century, at the beginning of his career, and went from there to a long career as one of the super-elite three or four most consistent offensive producers in baseball’s history (Ruth, Williams, Cobb, I’d say).

Here’s a teaser for what looks to be a pretty decent documentary on Hank’s time with the Eau Claire Bears: Youtube.

And now Barry Bonds. He’s tied Aaron. The internet has it covered. He’s no pioneer, he’s a cheater, he’s a terrific hitter, he’s a circus, he’s ultimately a letdown. I prefer to cling to 755 as the important number, wherever Barry ends up, and to celebrate Aaron, and pretty much agree with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Terrence Moore:

Actually, Aaron is still in it, but in a wonderful way. Whenever those among the public hear Bonds’ name, either positively or negatively, they usually hear Aaron’s name soon afterward. Not only that, when Aaron’s name does surface during conversations involving Bonds, Aaron’s name often is surrounded by implied hugs and kisses. In fact, Bonds once told me with a smile at his locker at San Francisco’s AT&T Park, “I’m helping to keep Hank’s name out there.”

That’s nice of Bonds, but Aaron really doesn’t need his help. For 23 Hall of Fame seasons without the hint of scandal, the eternal king of home-run kings helped himself, thank you.

Unlike George Herman Ruth last time around, Aaron’s still alive, and I think he’s been pretty classy- all things considered. We can only speculate what Ruth would have said or done in April 1974, but I personally doubt he would have taken things in stride; I mean, I get pissed when my bar trivia scores get beaten, I can’t imagine if I had the all-time home run record.

Can’t wait to see how Barry handles it. C’mon, A-Rod.

A friend of mine has started a sports trivia site, ChuckSports.com, check it out - it should only take you about 2 games to catch up to me on the overall leaderboard. It’s still a bit early in the development and he is coding everything himself, but it’s already fun.

Aside from trivia, there’s a lot going on out there in the world, and here are some on the things I found funny and interesting:

Kobe is possibly looking to be traded. I wonder where he is asking to go?

Curtis Granderson wrote in his blog about everyone wanting to marry him.

Elijah Dukes calls a radio station, and talks about the price of crack in the hood.

I’m always a big fan of crazy injuries sustained by athletes, so a salad injury is hilarious.

The Extrapolater does some research on the first Japanese player in the Major League.

We’ve talked about X-treme Baseball before, but Blumpkins For All (what a great name for a blog) went to a game.

Kissing Suzy Kolber has created a guide to American football for the English to help them prepare for the game next year.

With all those great links, I don’t know if you’ll have time, but here are some videos: Read more »

So, the Cavs went and got swept. Watching game 4– no, wait, I don’t want to lie, I (like most of the American people) failed to watch any of the NBA Finals, or, well, any of the semis, or in fact, any basketball since they cut away from that Knicks-Rockets game for the OJ chase. Where was I? Oh yeah, I forced myself to watch the last 2 minutes, in adherence with my long-held belief that the last 2 minutes of any given basketball game is the only part worth watching. Impressions: walked into a low-scoring game, Spurs playing well, Varejao’s hair is outstanding, these guys have spent an awful lot of time in the tattoo studio. 1.9 seconds left: Manu Ginobili is not who you want to be putting on the line. Nice pair of threes at the end, that’s a tough beat for LeBron and Co.

And holy shit, I cannot get that fucking filet-o-fish ad out of my head.

Well, cheer up Cleveland, neither the McDonald’s ad nor the Cavs’ truly pitiable performance in this series is LeBron’s fault. It’s tough to carry an entire team, let alone the hopes and dreams of a championship-starved city, and I’d imagine the pressure could get to even the most super of heroes. And to go up against Duncan, Ginobili, and that guy who’s marrying the slutty desperate housewife, well, that’s not gonna help matters any. But to LeBron’s credit, Tim Duncan had nothing but praise for the ‘kid’ in his postgame interview. Indeed, I think it’s safe to say the finest thing that can be said of an NBA player in regards to LeBron James: that he never fakes the funk on a nasty dunk, to wit:

But the “Cavs Scream Team?” Well, they faked the funk. They popped and locked pretty well, but I think history will show that they faked the funk with a …purple …thingy. And that left the Spurs a cakewalk to the title, free of possible interference from the funk.

Read more »

As you, our beloved readers, have noted, there are distinct biases here at NoS. The staff is east-coast based, and we seem to talk an awful lot about baseball. So I’m taking this opportunity to switch it up and talk about tennis. Well, tennis and the internets.

I. Creepy Youtube Coverage Of Male Tennis Players

Rafael Nadal is an outstanding tennis player, especially on clay, which is evidently not just for making crappy ashtrays. He’s also a pretty well-spoken guy/part-time theologian, it would seem from this ESPN piece:

“I would like to believe there is a God, but I think it is better to say I’m not sure there is a God and live your life with kindness and respect for people than to say I know there is a God and then do bad things,” he said.”

But, sadly, there are plenty of people in this world uninterested in Rafa’s eloquence or keen understanding of Pascal’s Wager. There are people who just want to ogle him and his girlfriend, a woman with the positively mythical name of Xisca.

For shame.

Oh, and these people also make pretty creepy Youtube clips. Read more »