Author: Peiser

Reporting live on scene from the city that never sleeps and only showers on rare occasion.

Here’s Hopin’

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Apparently, King Felix has a new pitching coach: the internet. I declare this awesome and think that it opens new doors for baseball and sports in general. ??????? If a blogger can say “he needs to vary his pitch selection” and said Felix a) varies his pitch selection AND b) credits the blogger for the idea, two truths emerge:

1. That guy’s ego is gonna go boom.

2. The leadership vacuum in Seattle is having some fucked up consequences. ????????? ???????? Hire Wally Backman.*

If bloggers are the new dictators of baseball policies, I’d like to make one subtle suggestion. Bruce Bochy, if you’re reading this, SIT BONDS. SIT HIM. DO NOT LET HIM PLAY ANYMORE. HE IS A FILTHY CHEATER. Or, in the alternative, BARRY, RETIRE TODAY AND HELP US ALL ESCAPE FROM THIS ASTERISK-FUELED MEDIA SHITSTORM. ????? ?????? That is all.

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The NerdsOnSports Mailbag: Fun With a PR Agent

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Part of the fun of blogging is opening your material up to the world and seeing what the world makes of it. Actually, I suppose that’s all the fun of blogging, unless you’re in that .0001% who are making money off this type of thing. So, like pretty much any editor of any neophyte blog, I get somewhat excited when e-mail from complete strangers arrives in our inbox. The other day, we got a message from a major media outlet, KTVT in Dallas:Mailbag

Saw that you picked up the story of our interview with Tom Hicks where he talked
about Juando and steroids. If you want to see that part of the original
interview, it’s online at http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=19196@ktvt.dayport.com .

Ok, so I suppose that’s not that exciting; he’s just monitoring incoming links. But then this comes in, and this is what makes internet life worth living:

(oh, come on, you know you have to click through.) Read More

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ROCK. THE. VOTE.

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At Shea on Monday night, I learned two things: (1) the campaign for Paul Lo Duca, All-Star is in full swing- this kind of thing is, of course, commonly known as “just being greedy;” and (2) a cathartic win like that is much better in person- even if followed up the next day by an absolute drubbing.

All-Star voting strikes me as both awesome and stupid- awesome because, hey, up with people; stupid because, hey, people are dumb. But there’s a new campaign brewing which could single-handedly derail the entire democratic process, turn night into day, and bring dogs, cats, and birds together into some monstrous type of anti-human alliance.

Vote For Sal. Yes, Sal. Fasano. Click it.

You see, the power of Sal has -finally! ????? ???? ?????? – been mathematically proven. The other day Sal was designated for assignment. As a direct result, and I swear this is scientifically accurate, the Blue Jays lost 10-1 to the Dodgers. How can you ignore such overwhelming evidence? Sal Fasano will likely be out of baseball in 4 days- unless he makes the All-Star team! ???? ??? ???? ??????? Despite not playing for any major league baseball club! ???? ?????? ???? No conceivable outcome would do more to undermine the fan-voting process and show the world that YOU truly deserved to be Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

Change the world. Vote for Sal. Deprive the Long Island Ducks of a catching prospect.

Postscript: Holy shit.

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Don’t Blame LeBron, Blame the Funk

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So, the Cavs went and got swept. ???? bingo 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:

Badass.

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.

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C’mon, Feel the (30-) Love

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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

He'd be dreamy if he wasn't gruntingRafael 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

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Subway, Freeway, Causeway, Thisway, Thatway

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I live in New York City. Much is made here, on the back pages of the two notable tabloid newspapers [i.e., The New York Daily News (motto: “New York’s Hometown Paper”) and the New York Post (motto: “DAILY NEWS SUCKS COMMIE BALLS”)] of the annual “Subway Series” of six games between the New York Mets and the New York Yankees. For those of you who’ve been resting in healing blue light since Thursday, the first half–the Shea half, the better half– of the series has now been played, and the boys from Flushing are up 2-1 on the hapless Bronx Bombers. Here’s a brief recap:

Game 1, Friday: Mets are awesome.

Game 2, Saturday: Mets are awesome, and Robinson Cano has apparently been replaced with one of those zombies from Resident Evil, except the zombies are usually better at playing second base than this.

Game 3, Sunday: Yet another rookie started for the Yankees. Mets were obviously tired from a long night of awesome-ing with Andy Samberg after he awesomed it up on SNL.

The winner of the Subway Series gets featured on the back page of both the Post and the News, unless it’s the Mets, then you have to flip through the classifieds and squint to see the coverage.

Anyway, all that’s ancient history now, if awesome ancient history. You don’t come here for the breaking sports news you might get from, say, ESPN or Sportsline or Amazon. You come here for hard-hitting, in-depth analysis (or because you’re that creepy guy who punched “gil meche ninja fishing” into Google).

So let’s talk about-and by ‘talk about’ I mean HIT HARD, IN DEPTH- the issues of public transportation and sporting venues and interleague rivalries. Read More

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The Worst Idea Since Kaz Matsui

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[Via Deadspin / via Deuce of Davenport]

X-Treme Baseball! Seriously, it’s like Calvinball without the whimsy or imaginary tiger and paper hats. ????? ???? ??? ???? Their website’s as much of a wretched abomination as their concept of sport, and oh, that poor guy holding the makeshift back/side-stop. ???? ????????? ??? ????????? Just watch the video:

If you want to make baseball more XTREME, just fill the stands with gigantic people like we do in Queens. Fans in armor sounds pretty XTREME to me.

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