As Bonds approaches the all-time record for home runs, inevitably people are going to want to compare him to Hank Aaron. They'll want to talk about how each one went through their trials and tribulations and were able to overcome them to become the greatest home run hitters ever. They may even talk about all the things Roger Maris has to go through in breaking the single season record. However to compare these men to Bonds is an absolute insult to both.
Hank Aaron played not too long after baseball had first been integrated when racism was still ripe in this country. He did nothing to bring negative attention to himself. His only "faults" were being born black and playing baseball. Nonetheless he received death threats and had to go through a tremendous amount of undue hatred. Despite this he remained extremely classy off the field, and performed to the best of his abilities on it. I can't fully appreciate what was happening at that time, but from what i read, and see on TV i can only admire the way he handled himself.
Even Roger Maris has a more legitimate gripe than Barry Bonds. Maris was just a nice guy who happened to have a good season, but the fans liked someone else. They wanted to see Mantle, their hero break Ruth's record, not some schmo they brought in from St. Louis. Maris ended up losing his hair because of that season.
Than you look at Bonds, who no one outside of San Fransisco has ever particularly liked. Even in college his own teammates voted to kick him off the team. His trials and tribulations are at least 50 percent his own fault (if you want to blame the media for the other 50 percent fine, but i don't). Even if steroids were common in this era it was still his choice to take them and the resulting backlash was not someone else's fault. We can debate whether Bonds knowingly took steroids or not, but when players know if a particular type of lettuce made them way an ounce more than another type of Lettuce i think Bonds knew what he was doing.
So, do I wish a classy guy like Aaron could keep the record? Sure. Do i hope a guy who's never really done anything particularly wrong in his career like A-rod breaks the record? Absolutely. However, Bonds is clearly going to break the home run record, I've come to accept that. There will not be an asterisk next to it and there shouldn't be. That being said just do me the favor of not comparing Bonds to Maris or Aaron; its insulting.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
home run derby and summertime sports
As a person who claims to be a huge sports fan, I'm not sure what it says about me or the home run derby that i chose to watch History Channels, "Cities of the Underworld" instead of the home run derby. I mean the History Channel does have some interesting stuff and I suppose when your first round leaders hit 5 a piece, the final round is won with 3 and yet it STILL takes over 2 and a half hours i wasn't missing much. I did tune in for a few a little bit of it and Vlad Guerrero and Matt Holliday did hit a few long ones, which is always nice. Vlad Guerrero is a heck of a player to watch hit; he can hit any pitch in any location at any time. Tonight we have the all-star game to uh... look forward too?
that's all i really have to say about that. My boy Dan at Celtics Green Party mentioned i might have some thoughts on how his Celtics can get themselves another veteran like Kirilenko or Camby. Unfortunately i don't see either of these happening. In fact i doubt any huge trades are gonna happen and its unlikely more than one "big" trade will happen. (you can call the Ray Allen and Zach Randolph trades big). Kobe... not going anywhere. KG... not going anywhere. Camby most likely not going anywhere considering they traded for Iverson and are clearly making a run at the title NOW. Kirilenko is one player the Jazz might think about moving. He has a max contract which means he's tied up until 2010/2011 season at increasing salaries starting at aprox 14 mil this year and moving to nearly 18 mil in the final year. they insist they're not going to trade him, but if they have any common sense (which most NBA teams don't) they will. He clearly hasn't fit in there and other teams would trade them expiring contracts and perhaps young players for him. If the Celtics offered me Gerald Green and Theo Ratliffs contract i have to do that deal. you're saving almost 50 million dollars and getting a potential stud. on the Celtics side you've made a decision to compete now with the Ray Allen trade, so stick Kirilenko at the four and go after it.
other players that teams should try to move and realistically could would be Chris Kaman of the Clippers, Miami (and by that i mean Pat Riley) reportedly like him and if you can get rid of him for Antoine Walker and a first round pick you save yourself a looot of money over the next few years. Kaman is an ok center, but not worth nearly what they paid him; based on last years performance anyway. Andre Miller has two years left at 9 mil a piece for a Philly team that isn't going anywhere in the next couple years they need to get value for him while they can.
final thought as i look at the contracts and rosters of these NBA teams. One only need look at the contracts of Mark Blount, Marko Jaric and Troy Hudson and you'll know why Kevin Mchale is such an awful GM. The free agent signing period is about to open tomorrow and I can only look forward to seeing how these gm's will waste their midlevel exceptions on players that will tie up cap space and be untradeable for years to come. A role player who provided quality minutes for cheap working off a rookie contract becomes a useless salary cap albatross when the word midlevel exception starts getting thrown around. One only need look up Scalabrine, Brain.
that's all i really have to say about that. My boy Dan at Celtics Green Party mentioned i might have some thoughts on how his Celtics can get themselves another veteran like Kirilenko or Camby. Unfortunately i don't see either of these happening. In fact i doubt any huge trades are gonna happen and its unlikely more than one "big" trade will happen. (you can call the Ray Allen and Zach Randolph trades big). Kobe... not going anywhere. KG... not going anywhere. Camby most likely not going anywhere considering they traded for Iverson and are clearly making a run at the title NOW. Kirilenko is one player the Jazz might think about moving. He has a max contract which means he's tied up until 2010/2011 season at increasing salaries starting at aprox 14 mil this year and moving to nearly 18 mil in the final year. they insist they're not going to trade him, but if they have any common sense (which most NBA teams don't) they will. He clearly hasn't fit in there and other teams would trade them expiring contracts and perhaps young players for him. If the Celtics offered me Gerald Green and Theo Ratliffs contract i have to do that deal. you're saving almost 50 million dollars and getting a potential stud. on the Celtics side you've made a decision to compete now with the Ray Allen trade, so stick Kirilenko at the four and go after it.
other players that teams should try to move and realistically could would be Chris Kaman of the Clippers, Miami (and by that i mean Pat Riley) reportedly like him and if you can get rid of him for Antoine Walker and a first round pick you save yourself a looot of money over the next few years. Kaman is an ok center, but not worth nearly what they paid him; based on last years performance anyway. Andre Miller has two years left at 9 mil a piece for a Philly team that isn't going anywhere in the next couple years they need to get value for him while they can.
final thought as i look at the contracts and rosters of these NBA teams. One only need look at the contracts of Mark Blount, Marko Jaric and Troy Hudson and you'll know why Kevin Mchale is such an awful GM. The free agent signing period is about to open tomorrow and I can only look forward to seeing how these gm's will waste their midlevel exceptions on players that will tie up cap space and be untradeable for years to come. A role player who provided quality minutes for cheap working off a rookie contract becomes a useless salary cap albatross when the word midlevel exception starts getting thrown around. One only need look up Scalabrine, Brain.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Hometown robbery and the all-star game
Mark Buerhle just signed a new contract with the white sox recently to stay in Chicago for 4 more years. He got the pretty sum of $56 million dollars for his trouble, and yet he was basically robbed. He has nearly identical stats to Barry Zito is the same age and got 70 Million dollars less. Now generally i applaud athletes for not running for the money, after all how much do you need really? In fact i grew up wanting to be an agent, vowing that money would not be the most important factor in deciding where my clients would go. However, when your market value is potentially twice what you got paid, I'm not sure you're really making the smart decision. Heck he could have probably worked out a deal to go to the Cubs for 20 mil more and stayed in the same place. Not only that, but the White Sox wouldn't give him a no-trade clause agreeing to an extra 15 million player option if he gets traded after he had asked for a 17 mil.
Buerhle will not be attending the all-star game so like the rest of us he will most likely catch the game on tv... yawn. I'm probably in the minority of baseball fans but i couldn't care much less about the all-star weekend. The home run contest is just muscle bound guys standing there and hitting BP fastballs very hard. It's interesting to an extent, but not for the 2 hours or so it goes on. Then comes the all-star game... were i question if we really need it. Before free agency and inter-league play there was a clear and defined NL and AL. The two leagues legitimately disliked each other and wanted to beat the others brains in to prove they were the better league. Now the players don't care and it shows. They play anyway which is admirable since they do it for the fans, but do we really need it as fans? We're gonna see most of these players play against our favorite team soon enough with inter-league play and if we're that interested in seeing them, we can watch them online or via special TV packages. Sure seeing a potential Verlander-Bonds matchup is interesting, but Haren facing Bonds happens potentially twice a year anyway. This game is supposed to mean something, but the world series hasn't gone to a 7th game since they've used the all-star game to decide home field advantage. If it does mean something though then why do we have reps from every team? The home team should have a rep and everything else is based on merits.
As a Yankee fan i voted for A-rod because he was by far the best third baseman, but I'd rather see him sit. He's got a sore hamstring and the Yankees are done for without him, so take a break instead of playing in a meaningless game.
Buerhle will not be attending the all-star game so like the rest of us he will most likely catch the game on tv... yawn. I'm probably in the minority of baseball fans but i couldn't care much less about the all-star weekend. The home run contest is just muscle bound guys standing there and hitting BP fastballs very hard. It's interesting to an extent, but not for the 2 hours or so it goes on. Then comes the all-star game... were i question if we really need it. Before free agency and inter-league play there was a clear and defined NL and AL. The two leagues legitimately disliked each other and wanted to beat the others brains in to prove they were the better league. Now the players don't care and it shows. They play anyway which is admirable since they do it for the fans, but do we really need it as fans? We're gonna see most of these players play against our favorite team soon enough with inter-league play and if we're that interested in seeing them, we can watch them online or via special TV packages. Sure seeing a potential Verlander-Bonds matchup is interesting, but Haren facing Bonds happens potentially twice a year anyway. This game is supposed to mean something, but the world series hasn't gone to a 7th game since they've used the all-star game to decide home field advantage. If it does mean something though then why do we have reps from every team? The home team should have a rep and everything else is based on merits.
As a Yankee fan i voted for A-rod because he was by far the best third baseman, but I'd rather see him sit. He's got a sore hamstring and the Yankees are done for without him, so take a break instead of playing in a meaningless game.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Why Americans are slow to catch on to soccer
Imagine yourself for a second a fan of the New York Yankees. You've grown up your whole life in America following "American" sports like baseball, basketball and football and maybe a little hockey (it's at least a North American sport). You are currently 25 or older, and in addition to following those sports you grew up playing them. So now someone says come watch a soccer game and you laugh in their face. You say it's a boring sport, 90 minutes of nothing. From your perspective you are absolutely correct.
The problem soccer encounters is that on its face it's a boring sport. All you do is kick a ball around for 90 minutes, occasionally there's a nice pass, someone shoots on goal and most of the time misses. If you're lucky you have a couple goals a game, but that's it. Sounds pretty boring to me. However it's all a matter of perspective. If you look at baseball all it is, is one guy throwing a ball to another for 3 hours or more. Most of the time the ball isn't even put in play and when it is most of the time it's an out. Even when you get hit most of those don't score, so other than the occasional run every few half innings, there's not a whole lot of action.
If you know baseball however, there's much more to it. When you know the players and follow a team closely, you're thinking along with the action. You're thinking about what pitch the pitcher should throw, whether the manager should put on a hit and run, pinch hit, bring in a new pitcher, etc. Plus you know on any pitch your team could hit or give up a home run that alters the course of the game.
Soccer is just the same, every pass matters, every tackle matters. All it takes is one quick pass or one player faking out another and there's a cross from the wing headed into the goal, and the game is completely changed. Even when the defense is just passing the ball around the back, one mistake and the other team is on goal.
Trust me I understand how people wouldn't like soccer, for the first 16 years of my life i never watched it or played it; in fact i thought i hated it. I watched the 2002 world cup and the American team (MY team) made a surprising run. Then i went and worked for an MLS team for two summers and i was following the team I worked for. All of a sudden i had a rooting interest and i started to see why soccer is a game that the rest of the world loves. If you have a rooting interest you will love it. Try betting on a soccer match before watching it, all of a sudden you'll have a reason to root for a team and it'll be much more interesting. The same goes for baseball, try watching a Royals-Orioles game that's being played in August when both teams are out of the race. You won't care who wins and you'll probably fall asleep midway through the 4th inning. Now try betting for one of the teams, and see if you aren't more interested. I'm not advocating betting on sports, i never do, it's illegal. However, decide to root for a team for whatever reason and all of a sudden you will understand the beauty of the "beautiful game" that is soccer.
The problem soccer encounters is that on its face it's a boring sport. All you do is kick a ball around for 90 minutes, occasionally there's a nice pass, someone shoots on goal and most of the time misses. If you're lucky you have a couple goals a game, but that's it. Sounds pretty boring to me. However it's all a matter of perspective. If you look at baseball all it is, is one guy throwing a ball to another for 3 hours or more. Most of the time the ball isn't even put in play and when it is most of the time it's an out. Even when you get hit most of those don't score, so other than the occasional run every few half innings, there's not a whole lot of action.
If you know baseball however, there's much more to it. When you know the players and follow a team closely, you're thinking along with the action. You're thinking about what pitch the pitcher should throw, whether the manager should put on a hit and run, pinch hit, bring in a new pitcher, etc. Plus you know on any pitch your team could hit or give up a home run that alters the course of the game.
Soccer is just the same, every pass matters, every tackle matters. All it takes is one quick pass or one player faking out another and there's a cross from the wing headed into the goal, and the game is completely changed. Even when the defense is just passing the ball around the back, one mistake and the other team is on goal.
Trust me I understand how people wouldn't like soccer, for the first 16 years of my life i never watched it or played it; in fact i thought i hated it. I watched the 2002 world cup and the American team (MY team) made a surprising run. Then i went and worked for an MLS team for two summers and i was following the team I worked for. All of a sudden i had a rooting interest and i started to see why soccer is a game that the rest of the world loves. If you have a rooting interest you will love it. Try betting on a soccer match before watching it, all of a sudden you'll have a reason to root for a team and it'll be much more interesting. The same goes for baseball, try watching a Royals-Orioles game that's being played in August when both teams are out of the race. You won't care who wins and you'll probably fall asleep midway through the 4th inning. Now try betting for one of the teams, and see if you aren't more interested. I'm not advocating betting on sports, i never do, it's illegal. However, decide to root for a team for whatever reason and all of a sudden you will understand the beauty of the "beautiful game" that is soccer.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Jorge Posada in the Hall of Fame?
Summer is traditionally slow for sports, with only baseball and soccer being played and half the country not interested in soccer. As evidence of this paucity of sports stories ESPN devoted a rather long segment to the hot dog eating competition. Luckily there was a Yankee game on today. Watching the game today, one of the announcers mentioned that Reggie Jackson said Posada is a borderline Hall of Famer. When I think about it, I believe this is the case, but I know most non-Yankee fans will say that’s ridiculous. So the easiest way to prove something like that is clearly statistics.
To me if you are to be considered a Hall of Famer you need to be one of the top 2-3 players at your position for your era. So I looked for catchers who have made the all-star team at one point or another during Posada’s career. As of now there are 14 catchers who have made the all-star team at least once in that time and have over 500 career games (which excludes Mauer and McCann). These catchers are Posada, Sandy Alomar Jr, I-rod, Ramon Hernandez, Todd Hundley, Charles Johnson,
Among these catchers Posada ranks 2nd in OBP, 4th in slugging and 2nd in OPS. In each of these categories he ranks ahead of the new hot shot hitting catcher Victor Martinez. Posada ranks 5th overall in home runs, but will pass
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
The Yankees
I love the Yankees and despite how they're doing i felt like i needed to devote a little time to them. This year may be the first year since 1994 (strike shortened year in which they would have made the playoffs) in which they haven't made the playoffs. This doesn't upset me as much as the fact that they've played so poorly at times. You'd like to pinpoint one problem as the cause of their troubles this season but you really can't. Earlier in the season they had injuries to the pitching staff so it was in shambles and right now they're just not hitting very well. It seems like if one part of their game is going well, another will fall apart.
Yet through all of this one of the oddest occurrences has been the correlation between Bobby Abreu's success and the Yankees success. coming into today when Bobby Abreu knocks in even one run the Yankees are 20-7. Now i wish the explanation was as simple as he's one of their key hitters so of course when he hits they have a better chance of winning. However two nights ago Abreu hits a monster shot, it's the only run of the game he scored or drove in and Clemens goes out and pitches amazingly and they win 5-1. All Abreu seems to need to do is drive in one run and the rest of the team magically plays well. So it seems the Yankees will only go as far as Abreu takes them and being that he's a .260 hitter right now... that's not a comforting thought.
Another oddity to this season has been the struggles of Robinson Cano. Last year he hit around .340. This year he's hitting around 270 and quite frankly looking pretty awful doing it. He's never been a selective hitter, allergic to walks apparently. This season however, he's been even less selective swinging at anything within the area code of the plate. Much the way the Yankees success depends on Abreu it will lie with Cano as well. The Yankees are only 14-10 when Cano drives in a run, so success seems to lay more with Abreu than Cano.
Other notes from the season so far:
A-rod is a beast.
Jeter is as solid as ever
Wang and Pettitte have been solid, Pettitte has had awful luck so far though.
If Andy Phillips can hit around 270 with any kind of power it will be a blessing for the Yankees, since he plays a pretty good first base and Miguel Cairo should really be a utility player.
Yet through all of this one of the oddest occurrences has been the correlation between Bobby Abreu's success and the Yankees success. coming into today when Bobby Abreu knocks in even one run the Yankees are 20-7. Now i wish the explanation was as simple as he's one of their key hitters so of course when he hits they have a better chance of winning. However two nights ago Abreu hits a monster shot, it's the only run of the game he scored or drove in and Clemens goes out and pitches amazingly and they win 5-1. All Abreu seems to need to do is drive in one run and the rest of the team magically plays well. So it seems the Yankees will only go as far as Abreu takes them and being that he's a .260 hitter right now... that's not a comforting thought.
Another oddity to this season has been the struggles of Robinson Cano. Last year he hit around .340. This year he's hitting around 270 and quite frankly looking pretty awful doing it. He's never been a selective hitter, allergic to walks apparently. This season however, he's been even less selective swinging at anything within the area code of the plate. Much the way the Yankees success depends on Abreu it will lie with Cano as well. The Yankees are only 14-10 when Cano drives in a run, so success seems to lay more with Abreu than Cano.
Other notes from the season so far:
A-rod is a beast.
Jeter is as solid as ever
Wang and Pettitte have been solid, Pettitte has had awful luck so far though.
If Andy Phillips can hit around 270 with any kind of power it will be a blessing for the Yankees, since he plays a pretty good first base and Miguel Cairo should really be a utility player.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Rod Thorn (NJ's anti-Zeke)
I'm tired of always criticizing people so i wanted to take the time to acknowledge one of the better GM's in the game: Rod Thorn. Thorn started off his reign as Nets gm by trading Eddie Griffin who is now basically out of the league for Richard Jefferson, and Jason Collins. Collins while not good is better than Griffin (although thorn did make a mistake in paying him too much after his rookie contract was up) and RJ is a potential superstar although his development is unfortunately being retarded by VC. The next year he was able to get a then 18 year old Nenad Krstic with the 24th pick in the first round (their were only 28 teams at the time). Krstic is now 23 and if not for an injury last year would have been a much needed low post presence averaging around 16 points and 7 boards a game.
He has made some mistakes, in 2003 he selected Zoran Planinic, Christian Drejer in 2004 and Antoine Wright in 2005 (the last of whom I'm not willing to admit is a total bust yet). However even when he has his hands tied needing to trade Alonzo Mourning he is able to turn that into VC. Say what you will about VC (and i certainly have) but getting him for Alonzo Mourning who's kidney disease was still a question, had quit on the team and had asked for a trade, is a steal. Then last year he picked up Marcus Williams the heir apparent to Jason Kidd and Josh Boone who was very effective in limited minutes last year.
Speaking of Jason Kidd, Thorn made the small move that brought him to NJ. If not for that move the Nets would be, well... the Knicks. He moved Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd, the main reason the Nets made two conference finals runs and have made the playoffs every year since he came to the team, while Marbury's teams have done not a damn thing. Thorn resigned VC the other day which was unfortunate, but the other option was to let him walk and not be able to replace him. It's an option that may not have been worse than signing him, but they were certainly close. That being said the owner loves Carter and he's the one paying the checks so Thorn made the deal. knowing he would have carter on the squad Thorn made the correct move and took Sean Williams, by far the best option for the Nets despite his past troubles.
Not enough for you? oh, well... he also selected one Micheal Jordan.
He has made some mistakes, in 2003 he selected Zoran Planinic, Christian Drejer in 2004 and Antoine Wright in 2005 (the last of whom I'm not willing to admit is a total bust yet). However even when he has his hands tied needing to trade Alonzo Mourning he is able to turn that into VC. Say what you will about VC (and i certainly have) but getting him for Alonzo Mourning who's kidney disease was still a question, had quit on the team and had asked for a trade, is a steal. Then last year he picked up Marcus Williams the heir apparent to Jason Kidd and Josh Boone who was very effective in limited minutes last year.
Speaking of Jason Kidd, Thorn made the small move that brought him to NJ. If not for that move the Nets would be, well... the Knicks. He moved Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd, the main reason the Nets made two conference finals runs and have made the playoffs every year since he came to the team, while Marbury's teams have done not a damn thing. Thorn resigned VC the other day which was unfortunate, but the other option was to let him walk and not be able to replace him. It's an option that may not have been worse than signing him, but they were certainly close. That being said the owner loves Carter and he's the one paying the checks so Thorn made the deal. knowing he would have carter on the squad Thorn made the correct move and took Sean Williams, by far the best option for the Nets despite his past troubles.
Not enough for you? oh, well... he also selected one Micheal Jordan.
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