Archive for May, 2008
Your Game Seven Pre-Game Analysis
Monday, May 19th, 2008Ice Machine – What’s That Rattling Sound?
Monday, May 19th, 2008
Here’s a clear shot from the daily Ice Machine, with crystal blue linkage of stories that will refresh you before you start your day (assuming your day involves making bail after a game at Yankee Stadium):
- Chicago’s Olympic bid will approach $60m before a decision is made. Y’know, for all that money, we bet one could put on a pretty big event in Chicago.
- Is it just us or has this story not received any traction outside Chicago? How can a rising star in baseball management circles allegedly skim off the top and only get a throat clearing from the national media? Do they know something we don’t about this story? (Full disclosure: Cubs fan but not Bud man.)
- Why we never buy into the “if you have nothing to hide, you’ll do whatever we want; otherwise, you hate puppies and heart cancer” argument.
- We can’t believe we’re saying this, but: Ryan Dempster’s pitching tomorrow! Gotta see that!
- Oreos strewn across Chicagoland highway. In other news, C.C. Sabathia is kicking himself that Cleveland didn’t travel to Chicago today.
- This was something of a shock to the system first thing this morning while preparing our SPORTSbyBROOKS pieces:
Yahoo!, indeed. Whose idea was it to attempt market penetration in the online sports media space? The mastermind behind this idea must be one slippery hombre. Does this work on the pooch that Mike Brown screwed yesterday? Why would we want to see more couples first thing in the morning? At that time of day, we only care if it’s full of caffeine and/or works on our cereal. Otherwise, please keep it off our desktop. Thanks.
And the Question of the Day: What’s the most sadistic and/or wonderful song you can think of for a wedding reception? (We’re pretty sure those are not mutually exclusive criteria, but your mileage may vary.)
Don’t You Want to Eat Him Up?
Saturday, May 17th, 2008
And may Utah’s fans deserve you, too, Deron.
In Lieu of Actual Entertainment
Friday, May 16th, 2008… here’s a song about waffles:
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Dddvr9YJI8]
Actually, this is an excuse to shill for the Treehouse Fort tonight (8 pm ET) and mention that we’ve got a bit in this week’s Voodoo Sabernomics on Babes Love Baseball again. Ken Griffey, Jr. is poked with pins until he ‘asplodes.
UPDATE: Camp Tiger Claw is on my list. He knows what he did.
Ice Machine – Party Ice
Friday, May 16th, 2008
Here’s a clear shot from the daily Ice Machine, with crystal blue linkage of stories that will refresh you before you start your day:
- Don’t forget that our SPORTSbyBROOKS, Big Tilde, and In the Weeds stories (as well as Treehouse Fort shows) appear on the right of this page every weekday. Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed as well. We don’t mind. Not at all.
- Ask us why we don’t listen to much sports talk radio and we’ll reply that Ricky Williams’ mom spent 90 minutes on Internet sports talk radio this week. Look, we *do* sports talk radio on the Internet and we want you to gently roll us out to pasture if we spend 90 minutes with anyone’s mom on the radio. Even our own.
- An incredibly sweet story about Steve Garvey. We’ll always grant you that Steve Garvey can be charming, especially to young women.
- Watch out, ESPN and Yahoo! Sports: you’ve got a competitor coming.
- This one’s mostly to piss off Sussman: Dan Dakich will get $175,000 to not coach a Big Ten team next season, on top of Kelvim Sampson’s $750,000.
- Must own items of 2008: The Andy Kaufman-Jerry Lawler action figures. Great videos there for those of you under 30, but here’s another one:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uQlB99WCuk]
(We feel compelled to add: it’s an act. It’s all an act. She’s only mostly dead.)
And the Question of the Day as suggested by Nationals Journal and following our words on the subject recently: What are the rules on what jinxes a no-hitter? In Nationals Journal’s case, does a blog post on the matter constitute a jinx? After all, we did one, but we were careful to not use the Special Words. This is wildly unimportant but fascinating to us, which makes it an ideal Friday question.
Sir? Remember Me, Sir?
Thursday, May 15th, 2008
Hello? Hello, Mr. Piniella? Hi, this is Matt Murton.
Matt Murton.
Ma… yes, I used to play for you.
No, not in Tampa. In Chicago. Remember me from spring training?
Yes, the ginger kid. Anyway, I just wanted to check in with you and see if you needed my help for anything around the Cubs this week.
Oh, no reason, except I heard you just hired a dead man to start in the outfield for the Cubs. I thought maybe you forgot about us down he…
No no, sir! No, sir. He’s not really dead. It’s just… he’s not very good anymore. He hasn’t hit for years and I think his defensive range can be measured by the specs on his Rascal.
Ice Machine – Clear, Cool, and Collected
Thursday, May 15th, 2008
Here’s a clear shot from the daily Ice Machine, with crystal blue linkage of stories that will refresh you before you start your day (with new and improved morningness!):
- We rather like when The Sports Economist goes for the funny.
- To follow up on an SbB piece: Sarah Fisher has a sponsor now. Bully for her. Now win and show up that strumpet!
- A preview of the Subway Series of the Week by a very funny fellow.
- This is a pitch-perfect use of a blog post by a newspaper, possibly explaining Sam Zell’s actions in a very reasonable manner while absolutely ripping your big boss. Also: wildly entertaining.
- But now the biggest news of the day: “The Electric Company” is coming back. We have already scheduled our blogging mornings around this come January. We demand cameo appearances by Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno while begging Tom Lehrer for more songs:
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=XxVoHqgemWE]
And the Question of the Day (looking for a sponsor to bring us the power): What kids’ television show from your (or anyone’s) childhood do you want them to bring back for kids today? Mind you, you’re saving America’s children, so choose wisely.
Wild Animal Captured in Detroit Building
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
City of Auburn Hills, MI, animal control officials were called to The Palace of Auburn Hills Tuesday night to deal with an infestation of an unknown kind, spotted first by television viewers of the Magic-Pistons game. The creature, approximately five inches long and roughly circular, seemed to be an unnatural yellow color and roosted on color commentator and former head coach Mike Fratello’s head.
Animal control officials were able to approach the beast and corral it for further tests after trapping it under a set of broadcast headphones. Preliminary results suggest the creature is a mammal due to the presence of a womb on the creature and the milky smooth face of Mr. Fratello.
No one was harmed during the incident, though Mr. Fratello would not come out from under the TNT broadcast table until after the arena had been cleared after the game.
Ice Machine – Hey, Where’s the Instructions for This?
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
Here’s a clear shot from the daily Ice Machine, with crystal blue linkage of stories that will refresh you before you start your day (assuming your day starts around noon):
- We mentioned the Arizona State teams cut on SbB, but we didn’t mention the hotness released into the already baking Arizona sky.
- Chris Leak’s BCS shoes. They’re less dainty than we expected, perhaps from all the dancing around.
- TierneyLab discusses the difference between men and women’s sports injuries as linked here yesterday. If you will, the story behind the story.
- Father’s Day at Comerica Park includes a fantasy package involving batting practice off Proven Veteran and World Series ringbearer Dave Rozema. We hope he also teaches them the Crane. (Also, what we assume is a joke by Wikipedia and/or a higher power: “On December 22, 1985, Rozema and his former teammate Kirk Gibson married twin sisters, JoAnn and Sandy Sklarski in a double ceremony at Grosse Pointe Memorial Church in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.”)
And the Question of the Day (seeking lucrative sponsorship here): What college sport would you happily push the plunger on and blow to Bolivian? It must be a fairly prevalent sport, so nothing too regional or obscure. (Unless, of course, it’s funny.)
Ice Machine – What’s Cooler Than Hot?
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
Here’s a clear shot from the daily Ice Machine, with crystal blue linkage of stories that will refresh you before you start your day (starting tomorrow, anyway; this is a test run):
- Girls in sports injure differently and more frequently than boys.
- Hosting Super Bowls is a loss leader. Emphasis on the loss.
- Your local sports team probably hates the environment. Proof: fake grass doesn’t even try to be carbon-neutral.
- Thai officials are tired of their athletes pissing away their Olympic bonuses. Solution? A payment plan.
- As high schools have problems funding academics, athletics suffer. You know… the uncool athletics in poor school districts.
- Konstantinov continues to sue everyone within reach for the limo accident that made the former Red Wings star a “vegetable”. (It’s not much of a reach anymore.) This one struck us because this helped us set a date on when we stopped caring about hockey. No, it wasn’t this accident. However, we can’t remember much beyond this event in hockey history. It’s odd to hear the name again and sad to know why.
And here’s another little ditty to test out: let me fill your glass with the Question of the Day.
Much to our chagrin, we heard Joe Morgan admit Sunday night that he owns an iPod and Frank Sinatra’s version of “The Best Is Yet to Come” can be found on it. A quick poll of colleagues agreed this was a frightening proposition. So your Question of the Day (awaiting sponsorship): What do you think is on Joe Morgan’s iPod?
Our initial guesses:
- The sound of bats against baseballs. They have special sounds there and sometimes they just sound special when they hit the ball with the bat hitting the ball against the bat.
- Anything Hank Aaron told him to put on there. Hank Aaron is so great and this one time Hank Aaron said that Hank Aaron could hit a home run with Hank Aaron pitching and Hank Aaron Hank Aaron Hank Aaron.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
