Author: Perich

“[NBA] playoffs? You want to talk about [NBA] playoffs? Are you kidding me?”

2 Comments

(this post may contain recycled content)

Other people hear that Dallas was knocked off and cheer. I hear it and immediately say, “Wait – didn’t the NBA just have playoffs?”

I seriously cannot keep track of the NBA’s season. Baseball and football have traditional seasons associated with them (spring and summer in the former; fall and winter in the latter). But until the NBA starts playing outdoor games, I’ll never have a concrete sense of when it’s “basketball season.” However, you can get the latest and most up-to-date NBA picks when you need them most only here at NBA picks and predictions!

NBA.com tells me that the playoffs started on April 21st and could end on June 21st. That’s two straight months of playoffs. Consider that pre-season games begin in early October and you’ve got an 8-month season. Can you imagine if football started in July? Or if the first pitch was thrown in March? That’s the level of absurdity we’re talking about here.

So here’s my new and improved NBA schedule, designed using science and shit.

(1) You play everyone in your conference twice.

(2) You play everyone in your division an additional time (so, three times for them in total)

(3) You play eight games out of conference, I don’t care against who. Are the fans really dying for a Clippers / Bobcats match-up? I don’t think so. Read More

Basketball , , ,

On-Base Percentage / “The Bubble”

1 Comment

Two crucial posts from elsewhere in Internovia:

1. From Fire Joe Morgan, the blog that wants ESPN to fire, well, inept baseball commentator Joe Morgan:

[sez Morgan] “but that’s how people compare statistics. My point is you can’t compare things with statistics.”

Think about that, people. “You can’t compare things with statistics. ?????? ??????? ”

Exactly what, one might be tempted to ask, as one’s hands were shaking so badly one would think one had just survived an assassination attempt, might one use to compare things? Metaphor? How about the infallible human memory? ???? ????? Or perhaps poesy?

Much have I traveled, in realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen
Round many Western Islands have I been,
And I have observed some stuff about some shortstops
Bill Hall did not have a monster year
Derek Jeter has a calmer set of eyes
David Eckstein is super clutch
Please don’t show me statistics that disprove my observations

2. Via Mahalanobis (which I typically don’t even read for sports), the following:

Watching the NFL (ie, real football for non-Americans) draft last weekend, they would often mention some prospect “has a good bubble”. I didn’t know exactly what they were talking about, but got confirmation on the radio today. ???? ??? ???? It means they have a good–big–butt. As the gluteus maximus, or buttock muscle, is the largest muscle in the human body, it is useful signal of overall musculature.

Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

Ravens Draft Day Roundup

1 Comment

One of the virtues of being in the thirties when it comes to draft day is that hey, you’re there for a reason. You’ve got shit figured out. Take it easy. Now’s the time to start making long-term investments that’ll pay off in a year or two, rather than hurrying sandbags into a collapsing levee.

So I’m going to talk about my Ravens.

1st round: Ben Grubbs, right guard, Auburn. One of the most liked linemen coming into the draft. The combine is full of those non-specific but enthusiastic notes that, were this baseball, would make Billy Beane tip over a lat press machine. “Explodes off the line” … “non-stop motor” … “mauler with a mean streak.”

Go You TigersOn the other hand, it’s tough to quote impressive figures about a guard, so I understand the ambiguity. So here’s one impressive stat: Ben Grubbs never missed a game in college. This speaks of good health and, more importantly (on a team which still starts Jamal “Probation” Lewis and Ray “Obstruction of Justice” Lewis), good behavior.

3rd round: Yamon Figurs, wide receiver, Kansas State. The Ravens probably didn’t draft Figurs to catch passes, which is no doubt making the Texans pull their hair out. Say what you will about his hands – Figurs posted the fastest speed at the combine this year, and he ran back more than five fields’ worth of punts, twice for touchdowns. Pair him up with the like of B.J. Sams and the Ravens could once again have a punt return unit that puts points on the board. Read More

Football , , , , ,

And Other Unpopular Suggestions

2 Comments

Short one today, but I want some feedback: why doesn’t Boston build a new ballpark for the Red Sox? ????? ??????

First, some economics: let’s say an average Red Sox seat retails for $501. In practice, most of those tickets are scooped up by scalpers, who resell them for 0 and up. ???? ???? ??????? ??? ????? If I’m Theo Epstein, then every penny between the original $50 price and the final $100 price is a penny that I could have captured. This steams my britches.

Should I raise ticket prices across the board? Not necessarily. Baseball tickets are a luxury good, so they tend to have a higher demand elasticity. This means that people are more sensitive to changes in price than with other goods. Cigarettes and gasoline have very inelastic demand, by way of contrast: you can raise the price by 10 or 25 or 50 cents and people won’t buy less of it2. But no one needs loge seats. And a ticket that might have looked perfect at $40 might suddenly seem too expensive at $50. Yes, it’s only another $10, but people are weird.

Further, the Red Sox have been raising ticket prices pretty regularly for years and the problem remains. Scalpers buy up as many tickets as possible, resell them for half again as much, and pocket the difference. It seems pretty clear that the issue with the Red Sox is fundamental: demand outstrips supply.

Fenway Park is the oldest baseball stadium still in operation. It seats 38,805 and is pretty rickety. While other stadiums have fewer available seats (PNC Park in Pittsburgh, for instance), there’s no franchise in baseball with greater demand and fewer seats. Given their tremendous history – to say nothing of their 2004 championship – the Sox can bet on drawing capacity crowds every time.

I would wager that the Red Sox can draw in more fans a season than the struggling Orioles3 (48,800 in Camden Yards) and at least as many as their rivals, the Yankees (56,500 in Yankee Stadium). By this logic, Fenway Park is at least 10,000 seats too small.

So what should happen? Should the Red Sox build a new baseball stadium, raise prices to a level where scalpers won’t be able to make a profitable resale, and start counting their future revenue?

Well, maybe not.
Read More

Baseball , , ,

The Five Most Controversial Franchise Moves in U.S. Sports

4 Comments

My old man once told me that sports is the universal language among guys. Find out that your new neighbor just moved in from Ohio and ask, “How ’bout them Bengals, huh?” And you can strike up a conversation with any stranger on the T by talking about the Sox, the Patriots, the Bruins or (if you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling) the Celtics.

Given the ties between city and team, it’s always a heartbreaker when a storied franchise moves from one city to another. But in the continual struggle between a team’s business interests, a city’s tax needs and a fanbase’s fervor, someone has to lose out. And it’s a shame when your team moves on and you can’t move with them.

In that vein, I give you my Five Most Controversial Franchise Moves in U.S. Sports. These are the big ones, or the sad ones, or the ones worth talking about.
Read More

Uncategorized , , ,

PRIDE Fighting – Like UFC But With More Hugs

7 Comments

PRIDE (or, to use its Christian name, PRIDE Fighting Championships), was founded in Japan in 1996. It’s an international mixed-martial arts league, similar in format to UFC, where two large men hit each other as hard as they can when they’re not hugging. If you can follow UFC, you can follow PRIDE. ????? ??? ???? ???

PRIDE differs from UFC, though, in a few key areas:

  • Fighters in a PRIDE match can kick downed opponents in the head, where UFC frowns on it. Oddly, PRIDE forbids elbow strikes to the head, where UFC allows them (so long as it’s not point first, i.e. fatal).
  • UFC bouts consist of three rounds of five minutes each. ??? ????? ????? This is already pretty grueling – while football requires short bursts of adrenaline every 40 seconds, MMA demands a pretty consistent level of exertion. PRIDE, preferring to watch huge men stagger like wounded elephants, sets its first round at ten minutes and any subsequent rounds at five.
  • There are a lot more Japanese men in disturbing tights in a PRIDE fight than you’ll find, on average, in UFC.

If the above excites you half as much as it excites me, check out “PRIDE Fighting Championship” on FSN. Fox Sports rumormonger Jay Glazer and erstwhile MMA fighter Frank Trigg. In a couple of ill-fitting silk suits, they turn 30 minutes’ worth of archived footage into 48 minutes of show by adding their own redundant analysis. For extra fun, watch the fight recaps where Frank Trigg highlights the StrikeZoneTM – a CGI’ed box that inevitably appears around a fighter’s ass, crotch or face.”He really turned this fight around,” Trigg will say, “by planting his feet, picking his opponent up, and slamming him into the mat skull first” (said skull-slamming actually happening to Josh “The Baby-faced Assassin” Barnett, a match he went on to win). And then we StrikeZoneTM on Josh’s ass.

FSN’s PRIDE recaps are the kind of show DVR was made for, as it comes on at odd hours (7 PM on Sundays, and not always then) and has a pretty low signal-to-noise ratio. ?????? ????? 888 But if you want to watch Fedor Emilianenko legally rape a man, this is probably the show for you.

MMA , ,