Refs study

Anyone read the NBA referee study by those eggheads? I'm skeptical but curious. They have been getting roundly ripped by everyone in and around the league but all the criticism I've heard has been stupid. Barkley said, "of course they'll call more fouls on black players-there's more of them!" That's stupid. I'm sure these guys were smart enough to base their conclusions on frequency as opposed to raw totals. Kiki Vandeweghe said, "I majored in Statistics in college...you can make statistics say anything you want them to say." Again, royally stupid. It sounds as if none of these clowns has actually read it.

610

Has anyone noticed WIP added the rest of the "team" to their "starting lineup"/bios section? Check out The Jolly Man

"Second place is first loser." Come on, Jolly Man! Anyone who believes in that cliche is an asshole.

Recent Top Picks in NHL Draft

Sadly fitting that the Flyers lose the lottery and get the #2 pick. To put things into perspective, some recent draft history (snagged from a Flyers board) ...

2006 - Erik Johnson
Jordan Staal

2005 - Sidney Crosby
Bobby Ryan

2004 - Alex Ovechkin
Evgeni Malkin

2003 - Marc Andre Fleury
Eric Staal

2002 - Rick Nash
Kari Lehtonen

2001 - Ilya Kovalchuk
Jason Spezza

2000 - Rick DiPietro
Dany Heatley

1999 - Patrik Stefan
Daniel Sedin

1998 - Vincent Lecavalier
David Legwand

1997 - Joe Thornton
Patrick Marleau

History bodes well for the Flyers, esepcially since there are no Crosby or Ovechkin Jrs. available this year. Also, and much was made of this when the trade went down last year, but how sick is it that San Jose now has the top two 1997 picks on their roster?

New Die Hard

Have you guys heard about Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard: I Hate Everyone II? McClane and a friendly neighborhood hacker boy must stop a ruthless cyber-terrorist. The worst part is there are no members of the Gruber family in this one. There is no way this movie will be entertaining. The two good Die Hards revolve around the Family Gruber. This reeks of Die Hard 2: The Adventures of Hudson Hawk. Am I right, people? Maybe if the terrorist was Ellis' brother-in-law or something. Better yet - Kelly Gruber. I'd pay to see that.

By the way, the Phillies suck.

My Dad on the Phillies' start

My Dad was watching the Met v. Brave game on Sunday and said this when I asked him why he was watching that game: "Well, I can't watch the Phillies. They're unwatchable! THEY SUCK! THEYSUCK!"
I can't really do it justice without imitating his voice. He got more angry and irritated with each sentence. It was hilarious.

Good stuff from FO on Bird offseason

FO on the NFC East offseason

Curtis' DVOA distroys Stallworth's. Interssstttting.
I liked the Curtis signing but I didn't realize the performance analysis on him was so positive. This could be a huge steal for the Bird.

Sports Talk radio

I spent my lunch break flipping around the sports talk radio dial. The Tony Bruno show breaks for commercials like 10 times an hour. He actually sucks more now than he did when he was with The Morning Guys. The show is nothing but nonstop 'tude. "The 49ers need to draft an impact player." "As long as Burrell is batting behind Howard, the Phils have big problems." I like how just because he's loud and forceful, this drivel passes for insightful opinions. Oh, those comments came after an 8-minute discussion on Vegas. Paraphrasing Tony on being at a strip club, “If I drop $5 it’s gotta get me something. Some back for my buck. Ya know what I mean?”

Then I switched to The Herd on 920. It took him exactly .5 seconds to say something awesome. For reasons I couldn’t piece together, he went on this riff about people with “one name.” It went something like this: “No one with one name ever goes into the tank. Ichiro, (other names I forget) all great. Vanilla Ice-Two names-In the tank. Hammer Time-Two names-Went into the tank. Vitale, Corso, Herbstreet-one name-all hits. Name one person who ever went into the tank with one name. You can’t do it. Elvis, score, homerun. Dylan. Huey Lewis? Two names-garbage. The Thompson Twins-three names-trash, etc. etc.” I can’t wait til this show goes up in his archive. You must hear the whole thing. I’m not doing it justice.

Edit: I listened to yesterday's The Herd again. The "one name" riff started because they were talking about some mixed martial arts fighter named Fedor. The last 30 seconds of the rant went like this:
Elvis. One word. Home run. Sting, Bono, Dylan. Yeah, The Thompson Twins? Three words. Junk. Huey Lewis? Whuh whuh whun...Kiss. Still relevant.

Tourney thoughts

Something about Joakim Noah really bothers me. I can't put my finger on it.

Upsets and Funderella runs are cute but I prefer it when good teams advance. When good teams play each other, you get good games.

Thoughts, counterpoints?

Ryan Doumit=Jack Parkman

Has anyone noticed Ryan Doumit looks like Jack Parkman?


(I can't find any pics of him as Parkman)

What I should have been using this blog for

I should have been using this blog to relay conversions I've had over that past year with Beefheart. If you don't know, I work with this fascist/rascist who looks like this:
Therefore, I call him Captain Beefheart.
He says insane, outlandish things on a daily basis. He is a very annoying sports fan. We discussed John Thompson a week ago. Away we go:
(some of this is paraphrased)
(cb is Beefheart, me is me)
(Thompson is doing color on radio broadcast of Tourney)
cb: (after hearing Thompson's voice) Ugh. Turn it off. This guy is the worst.
me: What's wrong with Coach Thompson?
cb: He was a terrible coach. He let the..ahh..monkeys..uh..run the insane asylum down there.
me: What? How's that?
cb: All those guys are head-cases.
me: Who?
cb: Patrick Ewing?!
me: Ewing wasn't a head case..
cb: (interrupts) Iverson!
me: Oh, come on. Iverson's stable. And what about Mourning and Mutombo? They are by all accounts "good guys."
cb: Yeah, but he was a terrible coach. He didn't win the right way.
me: How's that?
cb: He was always complaining about..ahh..SAT scores.
me: Prop 48.
cb: Yeah, whatever. He and that other guy I don't like..from Temple..they were always complaining.
me: They both won alot of games. Thompson produced three of the best centers of the last 25 years and a bunch of NBA players...
cb: (interrupts) HE STINKS! (leaves room in a huff)

We discussed Coach Chaney before. Beefheart expressed excitement at the start of the Temple season this year because, as he put it, "They might be good this year now that they have a good coach." I reminded him Chaney's in the Hall of Fame. To which he responded, "He didn't thrill me."

Funny commercials on WIP

Have you guys heard the Phantoms commercial with the rip-rocking rock song that goes "Phantoms hockey.....LETS PLAY!"
Did you catch the Temple one awhile back? "Fran-tastic/Fran-tastic/you've never seen fans so enthusiastic/Temple basketball is (it's?)..Fran-tastic"
Do the on-air personalities still have their jingles? "Turn up the radio for information you should know the signal that we're sendin' comes from 7 to 11/come up now/with the knowhow/it's yur good pal/Glen Macnow" or "He's the maaannnn/Big Daddy Graham"

last nights BP event

I attended the Baseball Prospectus book signing fun-time gathering last night at the Columbia Barnes and. It was what it was and it was entertaining.

At one point, this Euro-ish David Bowie-looking (the Thin White Duke era) guy suggested that the D-Rays looking into Darin Erstad was not such a bad idea because "they need veteran leadership." Needless to say, the guy almost got smacked in the head with a calculator. I almost felt bad for him actually.

This shit's back!

(See above)

Our long national nightmare is over!