Sports

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 7/26-27

by

All times PDT.

Saturday
10:30-12 PM: Champions Tour Golf, Senior British Open, third round (ABC). If we’re putting up the third round of a golf tournament – of a SENIOR TOUR golf tournament – we are scraping the bottom of the barrel to put up something, ANYTHING.

1:30-3 PM: AVP Volleyball, Men’s final from Long Beach (NBC). Yes, we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

9-11 PM (both coasts): EliteXC Mixed Martial Arts, Saturday Night Fights (CBS). I’m still waiting to see what the ratings are for Saturday Night Fights Mark II, but hey, there’s nothing else on, other than a re-air of UFC 84 on Spike.

Sunday
10-11 AM: Cycling, Tour de France (CBS). See a bunch of doped-up freaks motor their way to the finish line! Er… on second thought…

10-12 PM: Champions Tour Golf, Senior British Open, final round (ABC). It’s your chance to see Greg Norman all over again!

Honorable Mention: 10:30-1:30 PM: MLB Baseball, Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (ESPN Classic). Goose Gossage and a bunch of people who never played a game.

12-3 PM: Arena Football League, ArenaBowl XXII (ABC). Down in the dumps because there’s no football? Get yourself revved up for the new season! (Who says the NFL season is short? I think the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and associated Game is next week, which means the NFL plays from August into February. The NFL shoves football down our throat for half a year and keeps at it the rest of the time! If you go from the HoF to the Draft, we have nine months where we obsess about football!)

In all seriousness, I’m actually going to be watching the Arena Bowl – try and get myself into it.

5-8 PM: MLB Baseball, NY Yankees @ Boston (ESPN). GAA-GAA IT’S THE SOX AND THE YANKEES GAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!11!111!!111!!!!!!111!1!!eleven!

Getting the house in order when the visitors are already here

by

So it seems we have a few more readers now than we did a week ago, especially with a second LiveJournal linking to us. Yesterday and the day before, Da Blog had nine times more visitors than it did the day before that, so it seems some housekeeping is in order.

First: RSS feeds. The-zaniak has created a LiveJournal feed for Da Blog, and my response is: Um… you do know Blogger comes with its own RSS feed, right? If you have IE 7 or Firefox, you should see an RSS icon light up when you see the page. (I can only speak to IE there; I don’t know how it works for Firefox.) Unless I get something else cool from having an LJ feed, it seems a bit unnecessary. This has prompted me to add feed links to the sidebar. (If you wanted to create an LJ feed, you’d have done better to create one for Sandsday. I’d create one myself if I knew how to create an RSS feed from a pre-existing MySQL database.)

I’ve also posted in the past on the idea of Da Blog as a collection of sub-blogs, and as such I’ve also added a list of all of Da Blog’s labels to the sidebar. They come complete with their own feeds; this post explains how you can form them. Both those new sidebar items are right below the larger blog archive, which makes them, and Da Blog Poll, less visible.

I’m also re-opening and extending by one week one of Da Blog Poll questions, removing the Random Internet Discovery from the list of options and replacing it with the fairly self-explanatory “Explorations into History”, which could include such things as my opinion on the presidents. Although I have saved the other results to a personal file, if you are one of the three people that have voted on the poll before, I strongly urge doing so again. If you vote “other” I expect you to specify what you have in mind on this post (where you can also learn more about the options) or this one. This is probably the last time I’m going to re-open this particular poll, which has existed in some form almost since Da Blog was founded. I’m also giving you until the end of August 16 to tell me whether you think I should post every time I put up a new strip. You can vote on any or all of the poll questions. I also encourage you to contribute to the poll on the front page of the web site.

Also, after nearly a year since the Web site was put up, I’ve finally deleted the long-dormant Da Blog Poll from the days when Blogger didn’t have its own poll element.

Finally, I’m offering you the chance to have your name in lights, as long as you won’t get paid for it, at least not right away. If you’re a movie buff – and not just the “Spiderman” kind, but one with a real grasp of film history – I invite you to join my 100 Greatest Movies Project, my seemingly endless quest to create the definitive list of greatest movies from all the ones that have come before, to sing the praises of the movies that make the list. E-mail me at mwmailsea at yahoo dot com if you’re interested and I’ll show you a sample write-up and a list of movies that are either on the list or close enough to make it on when I retabulate the list (or at some point in the future when new lists come out). I used the same principle in creating the NFL SuperPower Rankings, and released lists for last year, but it proved to be too much work. If you’re an NFL buff, and you’re willing to put in the work, you can have it for your own website as long as you credit me with the idea, and I’ll link to you on Da Blog.

And if you have any other ideas for what the web site or Da Blog could use, feel free to leave a comment on this post.

UPDATE 7/25: Okay, this is why I have long thought about leaving Blogger, because of unnecessary bullshit. Evidently for the last 24 hours the reposted poll and the two new features were at the top of the sidebar even though I had THOUGHT I had saved their moves. Then when I was told I had changes I hadn’t saved, it wouldn’t save, and then it would tell me “an error occured” no matter what I did after that. lk asfdasilnbg grlkldoe m,x bjfk dsndihtsgugvwbgjwhidxdyf

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

by

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)

by

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!

by

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

by

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

by

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.

by

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

by

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.

by

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.