Sports

Because as Woody Paige would say, I am a solutions-oriented guy!

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Josh Hamilton had a fantastic performance in the Home Run Derby – but didn’t win. As a result, there are now a lot of calls to reform the HRD.

I don’t support making home runs from the first two rounds carry over to the final. In this year’s Derby, there would have been no reason to keep watching after the first round. Hamilton would have had the title pretty much in the bag already. Nonetheless, it is true that the Derby tends to be anticlimactic. By the time of the supposedly pivotal final, everyone is worn out and barely hits anything.

The Small White Ball blog appears to have a promising solution: carry over first and second round totals to the final, but have second round balls count double and final round balls count triple. Hamilton would have been able to benefit from his first round performance, but the final round still takes on momentous importance.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 7/19-20 (UPDATED)

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All times PDT.

Saurday
11:30-1 PM: AVP Crocs Tour, AVP Crocs Slam Brooklyn, men’s final (NBC). Yes, despite the British Open we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel this week.

1-4 PM: MLB Baseball, regional action (FOX). Tune in immediately upon the end of volleyball. Because it didn’t end in a tie I originally wasn’t going to comment on the All-Star Game, until people on TV started commenting on it anyway. The “this time it counts” era was supposed to prevent this sort of thing, and it’s obvious that it didn’t. Now there’s a lot of hand-wringing about adding more pitchers to the roster, but how about tackling the problem at its source? Here are the problems with the ASG and their sources:

  • The players and managers treat it like an exhibition, instead of as a source of pride for their league. “This time it counts” was supposed to fix that problem, and strangely, it’s being credited for fixing that problem. We may be able to attribute to “this time it counts” the fact we could have gone into the 16th whereas 2002 ended after 12, and the managers were prepared to use position players to pitch instead of ending the game in a tie.
  • The managers feel obligated to use every player that’s willing, to mollify them but even more to mollify their fans. In the old days, it wasn’t uncommon for position players to play the whole game.
  • Teams’ concerns about overworking pitchers.
  • The rise of middle relievers and closers. Have a look at the 1968 All Star Game, the year before saves became an official stat. You see the same pitching carousel we see now, with a few more multi-inning pitchers – but every last pitcher was a starter, in an age where it was rare for pitchers to fail to go seven innings. The 1967 All-Star Game went 15 innings with no problem; Catfish Hunter pitched the final five innings for the AL (and ultimately lost), a feat that seems inconceivable today. Now teams protect pitchers more and gobble up large chunks of their rosters with relievers. Now pitching is not a position where players are interchangable at will – replacement pitchers have specific roles in theory – and thus is not a position well suited for all-star games. The NBA All-Star Game may well be the best all-star game, followed by the NHL, because their games actually feel like real games, unusually strong offense notwithstanding.

I’m not sure if anything can be done about any of that at this point, but if anything can, it’s worth thinking about.

6:30-9:30 PM: NASCAR Nationwide Series racing, Gateway (ESPN2). Because I rarely get a chance to put up a Nationwide Series race and there’s no Sprint Cup action this week.

UPDATED 7/19: ALTERNATE: 6-9 PM: Ultimate Fighting Championship, Fight Night (Spike TV). Not sure how highly to rate this since it’s not what would normally be considered a PPV, but I don’t want it to go unmentioned. Live on both coasts, so 9-12 on the East Coast.

Sunday
5-10:30 AM: PGA Golf, British Open, final round (ABC). If there’s a golf tournament, and Tiger isn’t playing in it, does it make a sound?

10:30-1 PM: IndyCar Racing, Honda Grand Prix at Mid-Ohio (ABC). Last year ratings were inflated by the British Open. Look for history to repeat itself.

12-2 PM: LPGA Golf, State Farm Classic, final round (ESPN2). Girl Power Sunday again!

2-4 PM: US Open Series, Bank of the West Classic, women’s singles final (ESPN2). Girl Power Sunday and Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel Weekend again!

6-8 PM: The ESPY Awards (ESPN). Because there can exist nothing for which there is not an awards show of some kind. And no network should have to go without an awards show.

Hey, it’s a part of the site not named Sandsday getting updated!

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Street Sign Gallery is updated with a new batch of signs, all in the Seattle area. Redmond, Bellevue, and Tukwila (okay, okay, Shoreline and the University of Washington too) all get their moments in the sun, as well as a couple new Seattle pictures.

I mentioned when I started the project that I didn’t know if anyone else was doing this. Well, as it turns out, I did not know the terminology at all. Apparently the standard sign is known as a street blade, and one Samuel Klein has kept up a Street Blade Gallery on his (otherwise rather diverse) blog. Both of us are on the West Coast, so most of our signs are from around here, but both of us are interested in seeing what blades you have around your community. In my case, you can send it to mwmailsea at yahoo dot com.

Warning, Around the Horn geekery ahead:

I think we’re all losers in the mustache contest between Cowlishaw and Blackistone. Cowlishaw should never have shaved the goatee because he really does look like a porn star, while Blackistone just looked ridiculous yesterday, especially with those coke-bottle glasses.

The Drinking Game is updated to reflect the fact Michael Smith has not been on the show in ages and the new “Deal… (long pause) …or no deal?” kick Reali has picked up recently (and which should have been on the list a long time ago).

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 7/12-13

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All times PDT.

Saturday
9-11:30 AM: Arena Football, Cleveland @ Philadelphia (ESPN). No real championships this week, so the Arenaball conference championships will make up the difference.

12-2:30 PM: Arena Football, Grand Rapids @ San Jose (ESPN). Um… see above. Yeah. Can you tell I’m not an Arenaball man?

5-8:30 PM: NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing, LifeLock 400 (TNT). I’m not sure NASCAR really wants to have a race sponsored by these guys.

Sunday
9:30-12:30 PM: MLB Baseball, All-Star Futures Game (ESPN2). Wait, the All-Star Break has two all-star games involving top prospects (counting the AAA All-Star Game)?

12:30-2:30 PM: WNBA Basketball, Connecticut @ Washington (ABC). There are two golf tournaments going on but both start at noon, when the Futures Game is on, so…

3-5 PM: LPGA Golf, Owens Corning Classic (ESPN2). …it’s Girl Power Sunday on the Watcher!

5-8 PM: MLB Baseball, Colorado @ NY Mets (ESPN). Ha, the Rockies and Mets players will suck at the All-Star festivities.

Championships return next week, but no ArenaBowl yet – hot British Open action instead!

Quick thought on Brandgate

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Why did Elton Brand go to Philadelphia?

It wasn’t the money. He could have gotten roughly the same amount from the Clippers and more from the Warriors.

It wasn’t the exposure. There’s a LOT he was getting from LA he wasn’t going to get in Philly.

By all accounts, it was to play in the weaker Eastern Conference.

We are starting to see, finally, the evening out of the conferences in the NBA.

(I can’t wait for the Sixers to come to the Staples Center to play the Clippers or even the Lakers. What’s the world record for loudest, longest boos ever to ring through an arena?)

Absolutely amazing final. Now that that’s over, something completely different.

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Two things. I mentioned before that I conceived of Da Blog as a series of sub-blogs, but regardless of which sub-blogs you follow, you should probably also follow the blog news tag, because it will often have things pertaining to all other tags. I’ll also use “blog news” to herald the introduction of new tags you might like, like this “sports tv graphics” one.

I know a lot of people don’t like ESPN’s attempt to create a strip or banner at the top of the screen for a score display for tennis coverage; it’s rather non-intuitive. But everything is strips these days – the only networks that still use a box for ANY sport, not counting tennis, are CBS for football and TNT for basketball. And tennis doesn’t lend itself well to a strip; even after importing its post-“Sunday Night Football” broadcast package, NBC still uses a box for tennis, and so does its corporate sibling USA, and so does CBS, and so does the Tennis Channel.

Well, I’ve stumbled upon (no, this is not the Random Discovery of the Week) the BBC’s Wimbledon graphics package, and I believe I may have a solution. You can kind of make it out in this video (which is not the same as the one I’ve linked to):

It’s a box, but it may contain the key to creating a workable tennis strip. I’ve created a mock-up based on ESPN’s graphics package:

I would probably want to make the space for the score longer, because “DEUCE” doesn’t fit in that space and I might want to say something like “AD FEDERER” rather than what ESPN does now, which is just “AD” and highlighting whoever has the advantage. And I forgot to include any indication of who’s serving. Break points, set points, match points, and the like would be indicated by a small banner slipping down underneath the strip. I don’t know what I would do for tiebreaks. My guess is either have another little banner fall beneath the strip, similar to what would be done for statistics, or shift over the spaces for sets and games and add a new space. Or separate both sets and games into their own clearly delineated spaces and simply open up a new space to the left of the others for the tiebreak. But that breaks the implied sets-games-points hierarchy.

Thoughts? Ways my idea could be improved? Or am I so off base I need to be whacked with a two-by-four before my abominations become accepted?

Sports Watcher Independence Day 3-day Weekend Special for the Weekend of 7/4-6

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From now on, Sports Watcher will put out a 3-day Weekend Special for all Friday and Monday federal holidays. All times PDT.

Friday
9-10 or 11 AM: Competitive eating, Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest (ESPN). Let’s just move on.

12-5 PM: Tennis, Wimbledon, includes men’s semifinals, Roger Federer v. Marat Safin and Rainier Schuettler v. Rafael Nadal (NBC). Same on both coasts, so you lucky East Coasters can skip the hot-dog eating contest. Wait, NBC covers the second week of Wimbledon and CBS doesn’t do the same with the US Open… and the US Open is more popular in the States. NBC even covers the last Friday of the French Open and CBS doesn’t even do that with the US Open – the closest it comes is Labor Day. It’s the same CBS cheapskateness that caused them to leave their studio team in the studio for the Final Four.

Saturday
6-11 AM: Tennis, Wimbledon, includes women’s final, Serena Williams v. Venus Williams, and men’s and women’s doubles finals (NBC). Wow, it’s just like 2003!

12:30-4 PM: MLB Baseball, Boston @ NY Yankees in most markets (FOX). OMG OMG OMG IT’S THE SOX AND THE YANKEES OMG!!!!!!!!!!1!!111111!!!1!!!1!!eleven! There’s an Arena League game on ESPN if you’re not interested. Speaking of which…

4-6:30 PM: Arena Football, New York @ Philadelphia (ESPN). The weekly look into the Arena League playoffs.

7-10 PM: Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC 86 (PPV). I’ll just say this: UFC may have popularized MMA, but as monolithic as it may have seemed even six months ago, it may not be the organization that defines it in the mainstream when all is said and done.

Sunday
6-12 PM: Tennis, Wimbledon, includes men’s final and mixed doubles final (NBC). We were predicting a Williams Sisters final when the third round was barely ended. We were predicting a Federer-Nadal when the fourth round was barely ended. The raft of upsets is only making tennis too predictable.

12:30-3 PM: IndyCar Racing, Grand Prix at the Glen (ABC). Because I can’t put every Arena League quarterfinal on here. Alternately, AVP volleyball is on NBC starting at 1:30.

5-8 PM: MLB Baseball, Boston @ NY Yankees (ESPN). OMG OMG OMG IT’S THE SOX AND THE YANKEES AGAIN OMG!!!!!!!!!!1!!111111!!!1!!!1!!eleven!

I need a job. You need to fill one, whether you know it or not.

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I have a little memo for Fox:

If Joe Buck doesn’t want to call baseball games anymore, can I take his spot?

Despite not having any consistent and truly private Internet connection with which to do so, I’m still looking for ways to take one game each week, load it up on MLB.tv, and call the game like I’m a broadcaster. And I’m probably a more excited broadcaster (even on baseball) than the infamously-dull (even on football) Buck. Not to mention I would probably brainfart on the rules less than a good many of the broadcasters out there on baseball and football, despite having no real training at it.

Once I can work up the equipment needed for it, I might put up some samples of me calling games on YouTube and on Da Blog.

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 6/28-29

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All times PDT.

Saturday
9-12 PM: Tennis, Wimbledon, 3rd round action (NBC). The reason why the 3rd round gets this spot and the 4th round doesn’t is because I actually have something to fill this spot tomorrow.

1-3:30 PM: Arena Football, Colorado @ Utah (ESPN). The playoffs are in full swing so the Arena League appears every week through ArenaBowl.

5-7 PM: IndyCar Racing, IndyCar 300 at Richmond (ESPN). Hey, NASCAR causes interference too often and this is the one sport I watch every time it’s on. If you think NASCAR is just a bunch of cars going around in circles, maybe the real problem is it’s too slow.

8-9 PM: US Olympic Trials, Track and Field (NBC). Same on both coasts so it interferes with the IndyCar on the East Coast.

9-2 AM: Boxing, Manny Pacquito v. David Diaz (PPV). Same on both coasts again, so it interferes with the IndyCar – just barely – on the East Coast.
Sunday
9-11 AM: MLS Soccer, Los Angeles @ DC United (ABC). “Soccer is so boring, it’s just a bunch of passing a ball back and — OMG IT’S BECKHAM OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!11!!11!111!1!!!!eleven!”

12-3 PM: LPGA Golf, US Women’s Open, final round (NBC). It’s the Annika Sorenstam farewell tour! Those other golfers expected to pick up the slack? Who cares about them? No one cares about the male golfers not named Tiger.

Honorable Mention: 11:30-1:30 PM: UEFA Soccer, Euro 2008, final (ABC). Because Dad will kill me if I don’t mention this at least once. You could watch the soccer and switch to golf at 1:30, but then you only catch an hour and a half of golf. Wasn’t Euro 2004 mostly on pay-per-view? Now the final is airing on broadcast television and the US doesn’t even have a horse in the race anywhere! And last month the Champions League final was made into a fairly big deal on ESPN2!

(The really odd part? The only other game in the tournament on ABC was a quarterfinal last week. And ESPN2 showed one of the semifinals Thursday because of the US Women’s Open, whereas all the non-ABC quarterfinals are on regular ESPN. Huh?)

5-8 PM: MLB Baseball, Chicago Cubs @ Chicago White Sox (ESPN). This is “ESPN Sunday Night Baseball presented by Taco Bell Part of AL/NL Showdown presented by State Farm”. No further comment needed.

8-9 PM: US Olympic Trials, Swimming (NBC). Same on both coasts again, but ironically, that means the Track and Field trials the previous hour interferes with baseball on the West Coast but not on the East Coast!

One last thing… Sports Watcher just might continue past August. I’m starting to get into a bit more of a groove. Stay tuned.

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 6/21-22 (UPDATED)

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All times PDT. Sorry about the bare bones nature of this when it first went up!

Saturday
11:30-2 PM: UEFA Soccer, Euro 2008, Netherlands v. Russia (ABC). Because Dad will kill me if I don’t mention this. There is something very interesting about this quarterfinal game, which I will mention next week.

4-7 PM: College baseball, College World Series, Fresno State v. North Carolina (ESPN). Ignore what I said on the previous version of this post about this being the second semifinal game. Due to a rainout, it’s now the first. If a second is needed, it will be on ESPN Classic tomorrow.

9-12 AM: Ultimate Fighting Championship, The Ultimate Fighter Finale (SpikeTV): Same on both coasts. I can’t remember if TUF is a Contender ripoff or if the Contender is an Ultimate Fighter ripoff.

Sunday
10-12:30 PM: IndyCar Series, Ethanol IndyCar 250 at Iowa (ABC). Talk about odd timing…

2-5:30 PM: NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing, Toyota/Save Mart 350 (TNT). At one point I was planning on having an Arena Football game and a baseball game here – and three of the four teams, including both home teams, would have been from Chicago. I only excluded the Battle for the Windy City because this interferes with that, just barely.

Thus ends a Sports Watcher mainstay until fall – well, it would be a mainstay if I had re-started the Watcher sooner – the NCAA championships. But fret not! The Arena Football League playoffs start next week! That doesn’t excite you? One word: Wimbledon!