Jun/083
Cardinals knock Vikings out Tecmo style
This should make you chuckle and shed a tear at the same time. It is a sound clip of the Vikings' radio play-by-play voice Paul Allen during the final play of the 2003 season when the Cards beat the Vikes on the last play and miss the playoffs. The funny part is that it is done with Tecmo Super Bowl.
Watch and enjoy....
Brad, I also found this one in Madden (Hoots):
Jun/083
Twins Win Streak Hits 10
The team with the leagues 25th worst payroll continues to roll in June. The Twins have continued this seasons trend of AL teams beating up on NL teams. So far in interleague play the AL has dominated wining 135 games to 88 losses. The Twins have had fun beating up Milwaukee, Washington, Arizona and San Diego.
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/
Over the last 16 games the Twins pitching staff has only allowed more than 5 runs twice. On average Twins pitching is giving up 2.5 runs a game. When the pitching is clicking the Twins win games. Had it not been for a 4 game sweep to the Southsiders earlier in June where the pitching gave up 40 runs, the Twins would be in 1st place.
Looking forward to the next 15 games before the break, the Twins could increase their lead over 3rd place Detroit and make this a two pony race. With 3 games at home and 4 on the road vs. Detroit there is a real opportunity to puncture some holes in the Tigers ship.
There is no reason the M&M boys should not be playing the All-Star game this year. As of June 27th Mauer is a few points from leading the AL in average and Morneau already has 63 RBI's. I'm looking forward to many years of productivity from this tandem.
Jun/081
Kevin McIdiot
It's official, we now have the Timberwolves Trilogy. Go out and buy the box set and please, please, please buy tickets to watch our team lose 50 games next season.
Episode I - Ray Allen traded on draft day for Starbury - Oh what a joy it was to watch this deal materialize into some first round losses. Allen & Garnett, hmmm...didn't they just win a title together 5 yrs after their prime? Episode I What Could Have Been.
Episode II - Brandon Roy traded on draft day for Randy Foye - It only took one year to find out this was a bad deal. Roy goes on to the win the ROY in 2007 and makes the All Star team in 2008. Foye gets you 43 starts over two years and manages a decent 11 pts and 3 assists per game so far, the equivalent of a glorified bench player. Roy has been averaging 18 pts and 5 dimes over two years. Episode II How We Traded Away An All Star Again.
Episode III - OJ Mayo traded on draft day for Kevin Love - Here's the best part, when talking about how great the deal was for the Wolves GM Jim Stack predicts the Wolves will become "a major player" in the 2010 free agent market. Great, lets mortgage another potential All Star, trade him away for the 2nd coming of NBA bust Marcus Fizer who was also about the same height and weight. Seriously, do we need another Mad Dog on this team? Episode III How We Got Stuck With the Un-Athletic Slow White Guy.
Since when was draft day about setting up your contracts two seasons away? I give up. Lets make it five straight years without making the playoffs. Sweet!
Jun/080
Mauer as a Gopher?
Now we know what Mauer would have looked like as the Gopher's QB.
Thanks to Ben the professor for posting this pic in the first place.
The actual person wearing the number 7 jersey is Eric Decker a junior WR from Cold Spring, MN.
Jun/081
Welcome Mr. Allen
ESPN the magazine did a great Jared Allen piece.
"Anybody can be who they want to be in a 48-hour interview," Childress says. "But I could feel the changes he made coming through."
Story Link - http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3450260
Jun/08370
Pitching v. Hitting, Take Pitching
With the Twins struggling to win 3 of their last 10 I thought I'd dive into some AL stats.
As a team the Twins rank 3rd in batting avg and 4th in runs in the AL. But they rank 12th in ERA and 14th in both opponent batting avg and OPS. There is no doubt the Twins posses the greatest collection of singles hitters in baseball. But it may be time to forget hitting and start building pitching. Pitching wins games, pitching wins championships.
The Texas Rangers are an offensive juggernaut year after year yet never win anything. This year the Rangers have the #1, #4 and #8 AL batting avg leaders. They have the #1, #2, #3 and #6 AL run scorers. They are 1 game under .500. When the year started everyone was picking Detroit to do major damage. One problem - no pitching.
On the flip side, the division leading Chicago White Sox have the #6, #7 and #8th ranked AL ERA pitchers. No other team has 3 pitchers in the top 20, the White Sox have 4. Minnesota has 1, Nick Blackburn at #17 with a 3.87 ERA.
Potential Reason? The Twins have a draft policy of taking High School players. They always try to draft HS talent. There is no doubt this strategy has worked in finding some great singles and doubles hitters, defensive players, all around great athletic players. But the strategy has failed miserably when it comes to finding home run hitters and pitchers.
Two of the great pitching finds (Santana, Liriano) came from the collegeless Latin America. Is it possible that projecting pitching talent in High School might be too difficult? We know projecting power hitting is. I think it's an important question to ask. Is the draft strategy or coaching to blame?
One other small market team with no lack of finding and developing pitching is Oakland. Over the last 10 years Oakland has been a pitching powerhouse although they can only afford to keep their pitchers for a couple years. Oakland's draft strategy? College Players.
Jun/086
History of the Fist Bump
From the clever marketing folks behind the now #1 selling MLB hat, the Tampa Bay Rays.
Jun/080
Celtics take game one thanks to an out-of-this-world performance off the bench by Sammy C.
And who could forget..
Jun/0816
Kobe is not MJ
Let's stop all of these comparisons. It is not doing anyone any good and those who dare to make the leap (yes I said leap) to put Kobe at Jordan's level is nothing short of asinine.
I'm not trying to make the case that Kobe isn't a great player. He is a great and very dominent player in the NBA. He is not however Jordan.
Check out some of the career stats for both Kobe and Jordan
Kobe Career
Points/Game - 28.3
FG% - .453
Minutes - 36.5
FT% - .839
3 Point % - .34
Rebounds/Game - 5.3
Assists/Game - 4.6
Steals/Game - 1.5
Free Throws/Game - 7.7
Jordan Career
Points/Game - 30.1
FG% - .497 (almost 50% for a career and he eclipsed 50% for 4 straight years)
Minutes - 38.3
FT% - .835
3 Point % - .327
Rebounds/Game - 6.2
Assists/Game - 5.3
Steals/Game - 2.35
Free Throws/Game - 8.2
Even if I could look past the statistical matchup between the two players where Jordan is better in all but 3 point percentage, there are still many intangibles that Jordan has that Kobe does not.
Jordan won more championships with arguably a worse supporting case. Sure he had Pippen but for most of his career, he was winning without a center. Remember Luc Longley? Yea, he won 3 with that Timberwolves castoff. Kobe has been successful in his time in the NBA but his lone championship was with one of the most dominating center of all time in Shaq. There certainly is an argument that Kobe could still win many more championships and that could happen. However, once that happens then maybe we can start the comparisons.
Another intangible that favors Jordan is international appeal. At Jordan's peak, he was the most recognized athlete on the planet. Think of Tiger Woods but bigger. He was on every cereal box, in every commercial and everyone's favorite player.
We do not know what will become of Kobe. He is a great player with Hall of Fame numbers but the comparisons to Jordan need to stop. It is very apparent that the NBA is down in popularity however, to try to create a comparison for something that is a stretch does not help the game. It only makes people look silly.