This Scheduling Is Bogus, Man

Baseball players spend the entire season playing in strings of consecutive games with little rest. Then, when they get to the postseason, they get pampered. Needless to say, for a trip that takes less than 2 hours (assuming both teams spend the night in the ballpark), the players require a rest day of travel for [...]

In the news, briefly

Our colleagues in the world of sports journalism have turned in two fine pieces worth noting here: Kudos to ESPN’s Jim Caple for hitting the streets to find those rare Yankee fans who have legitimate feelings of championship drought. On the other side of the coin, The Onion’s sports section continues its strong coverage with [...]

Post-Season Howard

From the Mildly Interesting Stats Department: The last few NL MVP races have induced many discussions of Ryan Howard vs. Albert Pujols.  Regular season numbers pretty much decide the issue in Albert’s favor.  But playoff numbers are interesting: Howard’s career line: .279 / .376 / .586 (AVG/OBP/SLG) Howard’s playoff career, through yesterday: .300 / .408 [...]

Yankee Nation: “Oh Shit.”

That noise you hear is the collective Yankee fan base slapping themselves on the forehead.  After a serious beatdown of 6-1 in their own house, the Yankees are in for a series they didn’t think could be this hard.  The Phillies out pitched, out hit, out ran and all around out played the Yankees in [...]

Hey Everybody, the Yankees have a new tradition!

The New York Times has broken the news that the Yankees have a new tradition. Regardless of the definition of “tradition”, and blind to the fact that the coverage of this World Series is reaching inane heights, the New York Times goes on to describe this previously unknown “tradition” to its online audience that got [...]

The Tensi… – oh, who am I kidding – Depression Mounts

Mets fan? Yes. Watching the World Series? I suppose. Is this the worst thing ever? Since ’96 and ’99? Quite possibly. Do I appease my Long Island friends and ‘root’ for the Yanks or appease my blogmates and ‘root’ for the Phils. Theoretically I could root for the Mets, but that’s just insane (mostly all [...]

Thank God for the New York Times

By now, most people following the buildup to Game One tomorrow night have seen the NY Post’s front page this morning (and no, I’m not talking about this one). Was the “Victorino in a skirt” thing funny? A bit. Not one of the Post’s better headlines in my humble opinion, but not every NY Post [...]

What’s that, espn? Aces are important?

ESPN’s position as vanguard of in-depth baseball analysis continues with their latest gem: a top-10 list of players who are important in this upcoming World Series. Baseball’s tea leaves being more subtle and multilayered than other professional sports, ESPN did not leave this important piece of prophecy to one writer. No, this gem of a post [...]

Don’t Tread on Philly

A Philadelphia Phillies versus New York Yankees World Series creates a lot of rivalry hype. We’ve heard talk about “Cheese-cake vs. Cheese-steak”, a “statue of liberty vs. the liberty bell,” “Wall St. vs. Broad St.” etc. Implicit in all of this naming is a class-war between New York and Philadelphia, where the Yankees represent money [...]

ESPN analysts take the coward’s way out

The only guy taking the Phillies is the fantasy guy from Philly? if this were the Spanish Civil War, Stark and Crasnick would be lined up against a wall and shot. In any event, I’m looking forward to comparing this screenshot to the end result. These predictions have a convenient habit of disappearing from the [...]