This is extraordinarily cool: a mini-film of last weekend's Auto Club Speedway 400, cut to mimic the famous regatta scene in "The Social Network." You don't need to have seen that flick to appreciate what's going on here, but if by chance you haven't, see the original scene right here.
This is by filmmaker Eric B. Shanks, and if NASCAR doesn't snap this cat up and get him making commercials pronto, somebody's asleep at the wheel. Hat tip to Jalopnik for the find.
Nader's League of Fans, a group aimed at reforming sports, proposes that the scholarships be replaced with need-based financial aid. He says that would help restore academic integrity to college sports.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposal Thursday, ahead of its official release.
Nader, a former presidential candidate, argues that his plan would also help reduce the "win-at-all-costs" mentality in high schools, by reducing the incentive of college scholarships.
No word on the hypothetical mentality of athletes whose pursuit of an athletic scholarship is the only reason they stay in high school in the first place.
But perhaps a reformer of Nader's idealism, persistence and maniacal work ethic shouldn't be dismissed so easily. (That's him above, overseeing an airbag test in 1977.) Previously, the League of Fans has blasted corrupt NBA officiating, theorized on how to overthrow the BCS and replace it with a 16-team playoff, called on LeBron James to help improve conditions in Nike's overseas factories, pleaded with George Steinbrenner to preserve the original Yankee Stadium, lobbied Gov. Tim Pawlenty to veto a plan for a taxpayer-funded baseball stadium for the Minnesota Twins, and so forth. You can grasp the pattern here: Gadfly asks people to do the right thing instead of the profitable thing, gadfly gets absentmindedly swatted against the wall.
In the case of abandoning athletic scholarships, it's an idea whose time came, oh, around World War II or so, when the rising cost of and emphasis on fielding a top team started to force some academic-leaning schools to reevaluate their priorities. First it was the University of Chicago, a one-time powerhouse and founding member of the conference that would become the Big Ten in 1896, which dropped its football program in 1939 as "an infernal nuisance" to becoming "the kind of institution it aspired to be." Fifteen years later, the eight university presidents of the Ivy League, cradle of American football, signed the "Ivy Group Agreement," reaffirming their commitment to ban athletic scholarships and keep athletics firmly under the foot of the universities' "academic authorities." That is, they voluntarily abandoned the arms race to preserve their longtime gridiron dominance (Princeton had just won a national championship in 1950, Cornell as recently as 1939) for their top priority: Preserving their hoity scholastic rep.
And there they've stood as a gleaming beacon of academic integrity for the football-obsessed barbarians for more than 65 years, and still hosting rousing gridiron derbies all the while. I wonder why, in all that time, not one single other major athletic program has thought to follow their example?
UPDATE, 10:11 a.m. ET, 10/25] The NCAA has issued an official response to Nader's proposal, conservatively titled "Ralph Nader's got it all wrong."
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
An absurdly premature assessment of the 2011 Cyclones.
? Previously On… Nobody starts out gunning for the title of "Best 5-7 Team in America," but if you happen to be 5-7 ?�and especially if you happen to be accustomed to being 5-7 ?�you can do a lot worse than Iowa State in 2010: The Cyclones took out a pair of bowl teams (Northern Illinois and Texas Tech) by double digits, stunned Texas in Austin, came up one crazy fake extra point short of shocking Nebraska in overtime and still had a chance to sneak into a bowl game in the season finale. On the other hand, they were also blown out by rival Iowa, 35-7, and whipped in November by both lame-duck Colorado (34-14) and Missouri (14-0) with the postseason within their grasp, leaving coach Paul Rhoades' second season looking like a sideways step at best on the heels of his solid, 7-6 debut in 2009.
? The Big Change. Quarterback Austen Arnaud and running back Alexander Robinson weren't just the biggest names on the offense for three years; statistically, they've been virtually the only names worth paying attention to. Between Arnaud's arm and Robinson's legs, the pair accounted for 84 percent of the Cyclones' total offense as sophomores in 2008, nearly 80 percent in 2009 and 77 percent last year. The simultaneous exit of the team's top two receivers leaves the offense totally bereft of proven playmakers, and down an All-Big 12 center, to boot.
That's not to suggest they left a very high bar to clear ?�the Cyclones were next-to-last in the league in total and scoring offense, after finishing dead last in scoring in 2009 ? only that no one's ever seen the new kids jump. If anyone's going to fill Robinson's role as primary playmaker on offense, it's shifty Shontrelle Johnson, a Florida transplant who did most of his damage as a true freshman on kick returns but made the most of his limited chances in the backfield: He went over 100 yards rushing with a 61-yard touchdown in the shootout win over Texas Tech, broke off a 38-yarder against Utah and left half of Kansas' defense icing down its ACLs on the sideline with this 33-yarder:
Still, after shaking up the Jayhawks, Johnson touched the ball a grand total of four times for eight yards over the last three games, hardly the work of an exciting up-and-comer. At best, he'll emerge as another competent role player with the occasional flash of an extra gear, a la Robinson, but the Cyclones lack anything resembling a consistent home-run hitter.
| The Least You Should Know About... |
Iowa State |
| In 2010 |
| 5-7 (3-5 Big 12); 4-3 at home, 1-4 on the road. |
| Past Five Years |
| 2006-10: 21-40 (9-31 Big 12); Three head coaches. |
| Five-Year Recruiting Rankings* |
| 2007-11: N/A (no classes ranked in Rivals top 50) |
| Best Player |
| Best Year Ever |
 Iowa State has never finished undefeated, even in the early days when it took on local high schools and so forth, and hasn't won a conference championship since sharing the Missouri Valley crown in 1912. But no ISU outfit in the intervening 100 years has come closer than the 1938 edition, which started the season 7-0 with back-to-back wins at Nebraska and Missouri before stumbling into a tie at Kansas State and a 10-0 loss at undefeated, Orange Bowl-bound Oklahoma to close the year. There were only a couple bowl bids to go around in those days, but the '38 team finished 7-1-1 and cracked the Associated Press poll for the first — and for 34 more years, only — time in school history. Here's a video of Iowa State campus scenes shot in the winter of 1938 — no sign of the football team, but there are men playing unidentifiable musical instruments and literally cranking a car by hand. |
| Best Case |
| Jantz and Johnson provide some spark for the offense, defense improves against the run, 'Clones pull a pair of road upsets at UConn and Baylor. 6-6, TicketCity Bowl. |
| Worst Case |
| Revolving door at quarterback, spotty production from the running game, minimal improvement on defense. Winless as underdogs in every Big 12 game. 1-11, new hot seat for Paul Rhoads. |
| * Based on Rivals' national rankings |
? Big Men On Campus. The Cyclones were typically bad against the run (technically, they were bad at everything, with the possible exception of net punting), but at least found a pair of cornfed mainstays in linebackers Jake Trott and A.J. Klein, first-year starters who combined for more total tackles (241) as sophomores than any other combo in the Big 12. Those two aren't going to resurrect the moribund pass rush, but they should lead a charge up the ranking is all-purpose run defense: In general, the front seven rotation was extremely green last fall, and banged up. Pending a couple ongoing legal cases, it will also return almost entirely intact this fall, and frankly can't be much worse.
? Open Casting. The mass exodus on offense might be a bigger concern if the attack was any good in the first place,�and if the practice field this spring wasn't littered with candidates vying to pick up the slack under center. At least four would-be successors to Arnaud's mediocre throne are duking it out, and at least two more will show up with the incoming freshman class in the fall.
At the head of the pack for the moment is a) Last year's backup, Jerome Tiller, who's sole claim to fame in two years is a fluky 47-yard touchdown pass that sparked ISU's 9-7 upset at Nebraska in 2009, an otherwise dismal afternoon punctuated by seven Cornhusker turnovers; and b) Splendidly-named juco transfer Steele Jantz, who initially walked on at Hawaii before breaking out last year at the City College of San Francisco, his first full season as a quarterback at any level. They be wary of admitting it, but secretly, ISU fans are hoping they uncovered a late-blooming gem. Who just happens to wear a legitimate fauxhawk.
? Overly optimistic spring narrative. It may be a longshot, but Iowa State is so far behind the curve in Big 12 recruiting that a a guy like Jantz ? a sudden riser with good size, respectable wheels and fairly crazy numbers in a situation where even his juco coaches were apparently counting on another guy to beat Jantz out for the job ?�is about as good a chance as the Cyclones have of finding the offensive star they've so sorely lacked since Seneca Wallace graced the depth chart almost a decade ago. With an above average quarterback, there's always enough competent skill talent to get something done offensively, which the Cyclones clearly have not in coordinator Tom Herman's first two years.
? The Big Question. Does their fate really lie in the hands of an obscure transfer? Well, no; if Jantz was named the starter tomorrow, he'd probably rank ninth or tenth among projected Big 12 quarterbacks, if not at the bottom. But the fact that the great unknown represents the best-case scenario tells you all you need to know about the not-so-great known. Tiller's brief cameos in place of Arnaud have been underwhelming. No one else who's touched the ball in an actual game has shown much more. The defense needs a vast leap forward just to qualify as "middle of the pack," even by Big 12 standards. If there's any hope at all of getting back above .500, it might as well come from an unexpected lightning bolt.
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Other premature assessments (in alphabetical order): Nebraska. … Nevada.
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
An absurdly premature assessment of the 2011 Bulls.
? Previously On… USF lived on the edge over the second half of 2010, and died on it. But mostly lived: Over the last seven games, the Bulls won two in overtime, another by one point, another on a defensive stand in the final minute and took the bowl game by five ? five wins by a grand total of 20 points.
They also dropped games to Pittsburgh by a touchdown and to UConn on a last-second field goal in the same span, lending a certain what-could-have-been vibe in the midst of an anarchic Big East race. In general, though, the dice came up in USF's favor, delivering its sixth consecutive winning season and bowl trip in as many years in the conference ? an ordinary season under most circumstances, especially in light of the somnambulant offense. But eight wins was a critical benchmark for first-year coach Skip Holtz in the wake of the controversial exit of the only other head coach in the history of the program, Jim Leavitt, whose backers on campus can't claim that the departure of its architect set the program back on the field.
? The Big Change. The Bulls lost their leading rusher (Mo Plancher) and receiver (Dontavia Bogan), but neither will be missed to nearly the extent of center Sampson Genus and tackles Jamar Simms and Jacob Bass, veteran anchors with 77 starts between them over the last three years. It's no coincidence that last year's offense relied far more heavily on the running backs than it did under the Leavitt-era spread attack, in which quarterbacks Matt Grothe and B.J. Daniels led the team in rushing four years in a row and conventional, between-the-tackles handoffs were basically ignored: Genus and Sims were All-Big East picks, a repeat nod for Genus, leaving the offense with just four returning starters ? fewer than any team in the Big East except Louisville ? and no apparent standouts among them.
| The Least You Should Know About... |
 South Florida |
| In 2010 |
| 8-5 (3-5 Big East); Won Car Care Bowl |
| Past Five Years |
| 2006-10: 42-23 (16-19 Big East); 4-1 in bowl games. |
| Five-Year Recruiting Rankings* |
| 2007-11: NR ? NR ? 29 ? NR ? NR |
| Best Player |
 Official heights and weights released by teams tend to be, let's say ... idealistic. So when you're officially listed at 5-foot-8, 161 pounds, you'd better be able to run, really run, and junior receiver/kick returner Lindsey Lamar can: A top sprinter on the USF track team, Lamar's explosiveness in the return game made him the team leader in all-purpose yards as a sophomore, and his kickoff returns for touchdowns against Syracuse (the Bulls' only touchdown of the game) and Louisville made him the coaches' choice for Big East Special Teams Player of the Year. Lamar also capped his first season as a receiver (he played running back as a freshman) by pulling in a career-high five passes for 40 yards in the bowl win over Clemson, a preview of his turn as one of the Bulls' go-to offensive weapons this fall. |
| Best Year Ever |
 There were still some casual college football fans who didn't know South Florida existed in 2007, before the upstart Bulls knocked off Auburn, North Carolina and West Virginia in consecutive weeks en route to a 6-0 start and stunning No. 2 ranking in the initial BCS standings in mid-October. The dream quickly melted in a three-game losing streak, but USF rallied to finish 9-4 and firmly in the national consciousness for the first time ? if not in the final polls, a distinction it's still waiting to hold. |
| Best Case |
| Scott and Aycock lead the Big East's most productive ground attack, Daniels benefits from defenses' attention to the run, defense holds serve in the top 20; season-opening upset at Notre Dame fuels fast start en route to Big East championship. 9-3, BCS bowl, low top 25. |
| Worst Case |
| Offense fails to establish the run, continues to languish at the bottom of the conference; defense done in by untimely turnovers. 5-7, first losing season since 2004. |
| * Based on Rivals' national rankings (top 50 only) |
? Big Men On Campus. It took maybe 10 minutes after he arrived in Tampa last spring for defensive coordinator Mark Snyder to begin raving about the speed of the linebackers, which turned out to be prescient: The starting 'backers were the top three tacklers on the team with 205 total stops between them, and regular Sabbath Joseph not far behind with 43 of his own for a defense that (along with most of the defenses in the offensively-challenged Big East) finished in the top 25 nationally in total and scoring D. The lynchpin of that group, Jacquian Williams, is on his way out, as is Joseph. But up-and-comers Sam Barrington (a true sophomore in his first season as a starter in '10) and Devekeyan "DeDe" Lattimore (a freshman All-American according to Phil Steele) were as active in their debut as any returning duo in the conference, and ought to have an All-Big East nod waiting for at least one of them by year's end.
? Open Casting. There doesn't appear to be any serious challenger to B.J. Daniels as the starting quarterback, which has a lot more to do with the lack of quality depth than anything Daniels has done to entrench himself in the job. He threw 13 interceptions last year, his first as a full-time starter, to just 11 touchdowns, while adding far less as a runner (259 yards, 5 touchdowns) that he did as a redshirt freshman, when plans b), c) and d) if the primary receiver wasn't open all read "run like hell." Given the dismal results through the air ? USF finished 101st nationally in passing offense, 98th in pass efficiency and 105th in total offense ? he might have been better off doing a little more of that as a sophomore. Anything that reduces the number of times per game Daniels has to throw in a given afternoon is a priority.
That's one reason all eyes this spring are glued on the running backs, a forgotten position here for most of the last five years. The other is that two of the candidates for carries are high-profile transfers Dontae Aycock (top picture), a former four-star recruit at Auburn in 2009, and none other than Darrell Scott, once heralded as one the handful of elite prospects at any position when he signed with Colorado in 2008. If someone published "Bust" Magazine for the overheated, post-Internet era of recruiting, Scott would be its most frequent cover boy.
The third guy in the mix is Demetris Murray, the second-leading rusher last year, who qualifies as the runt of the litter at a mere 202 pounds; Aycock, who is apparently composed of Neptunium, reportedly carries in the neighborhood of 224 pounds on a 5-9 frame, while Scott showed up for spring practice packing 230. With thumpers like that in the fold and an extremely limited passing game, the requisite buzzword is "downhill": Whether it comes via the I-formation (the Bulls frequently deployed an actual fullback last year) or a one-back, zone-blocking scheme, his should be the most rugged edition of the USF offense in ages.
? Overly optimistic spring narrative. The Big East lent itself to a lot of low-scoring battles of attrition last year, and was ultimately won by the team with the worst passing offense in the league, UConn, which based its run to the Fiesta Bowl on repeatedly plowing tailback Jordan Todman into the line of scrimmage until the wheels fell off. USF has at least two workhorse types whose initial recruiting hype suggests they have the raw potential to reproduce such a slog to the top of the conference rushing charts and standings. It doesn't hurt that the most obvious preseason frontrunner, West Virginia, is losing most of its dominant defensive front and has to come to Tampa to close the regular season.
? The Big Question. Who's the go-to playmaker on offense? The backfield riches remain purely hypothetical: Neither Aycock nor Scott did anything at their initial stops to suggest they might be up-and-coming stars, and Aycock is coming off October knee surgery; Murray's part-time role last year suggests he's Just a Guy. The returning receivers were uninspiring in Bogan's shadow, and if that's more of a reflection of the mediocre quarterback than their own talent, well, the mediocre quarterback is the same.
What it really amounts to, then, is how far Daniels has progressed as he hits his junior season, and to what an extent an improved running game will allow him to demonstrate that progress. Can he make defenses respect his arm enough to keep them from loading the box? Can he make them pay for it downfield if they do? Can better production on first and second down help Daniels reverse his dismal third-down rate? If yes, USF is a serious Big East contender. If not, see the last two years.
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Other premature assessments (in alphabetical order): Iowa State. … Nebraska. … Nevada.
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
At this point, seemingly half the NBA is on Twitter. It's a wild world of training updates, questions as to which movies they should go see, and explanations of their Call of Duty prowess. Every so often, though, you also get a picture into the more interesting aspects of NBA life. This feature is your window into that world.
Jason Thompson: Rider FANS in Denver!! LOL http://plixi.com/p/88152706
Bostjan Nachbar: I still love to watch Police Academy movies. Watching one right now. I used to watch them all the time as a kid. :)
J.J. Hickson: To the cavs fans saying thank you. No, thank you guys! You guys are the best and the city deserved this. Many great things to come! #gocavs
Rudy Gay: Im beyond board, I've been stuck sitting in the same place for days. I've def took life for granted
Greg Monroe: Sometimes you gotta put the whole rooster in the oven.
You can also follow Eric Freeman on Twitter at @freemaneric.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Baseballmusingscom/~3/hlLatkqRG_A/click.phdo
Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/sport/2011/03/21/so-many-story-lines-at-indian-wells/
Source: http://brahsome.com/2010/08/09/this-just-in-charlie-weis-is-fat/
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Baseballmusingscom/~3/Wl9888R-aSw/click.phdo
Renewing the annual templates of spring.
I can hear the protests of Florida and Texas fans already, and maybe a cough or two from LSU. But the fact is, when it comes to experienced, incumbent quarterbacks who appear completely untenable to continue in starting role, they've got nothing on UCLA. In fact, the Bruins have spent pretty much the entirety of Rick Neuheisel's tenure as head coach redefining untenable QB play at a major program. Neuheisel's first starter, Kevin Craft, set the school record for interceptions in 2008 and had already been relegated to lame duck status by the time coaches handed the reins to redshirt freshman Kevin Prince the following spring. But Prince, too, has spent the last two years in various states of injury and ineffectiveness, twice yielding last year to the equally injured and ineffective Richard Brehaut.
Between them, Prince and Brehaut have attempted 721 passes in 23 starts over two years. But scanning the seven candidates in the Orange County Register's spring quarterback preview, it seems the real question when the Bruins hit the field isn't going to be "Why should we bench our veteran QBs for incoming freshman Brett Hundley?" but why not?
The most obvious reason why not: Prince and Brehaut are severely damaged goods after presiding over arguably the most spectacular offensive collapse in UCLA history. The Bruins finished dead last in the Pac-10 in total offense and very nearly last in the entire country in pass efficiency, beating out only Vanderbilt and Buffalo; only the triple-option attacks from the service academies and Georgia Tech passed for fewer yards. The two primary passers combined to serve up 12 interceptions to just nine touchdowns, and failed to lead a single victory when not subsidized by at least 200 yards from a relatively mediocre running game. Beyond them, it was even worse: With Prince (knee), Brehaut (concussion) and third-stringer Nick Crissman (shoulder) all on the bench at Washington on Nov. 18, backups Clayton Tunney and Darius Bell completed twice as many passes to Husky defenders (two) as they did to their own receivers (one) in 11 attempts in the fourth quarter, one of which was returned for a touchdown that iced another nationally televised catastrophe for the Bruin offense.
Another reason: Hundley is worth the investment. He enrolled in January as the undisputed headliner of an otherwise unremarkable recruiting class, one of the top 100 overall prospects in the entire 2011 class according to Rivals, and the second-best "all-purpose" quarterback, and looking the part at 6-4, 210 pounds. And another: Neuheisel, staring down the chopping block himself after offering up both of his coordinators over the winter, can't afford to bring anyone along slowly. In 2008, it made sense to ride out the season with Craft rather than blow Prince's redshirt on a low-stakes transition season that wasn't going anywhere, anyway. Now that that investment has (apparently) gone bust, he has to hit paydirt — or at least come close enough to convince fans and administrators that paydirt is around the next corner —�right now. Hundley seems to be unanimously regarded as the best talent at the position, and if he's not curling himself into a fetal position in the pocket, he has to get his shot.
If he doesn't, though, it may be for the same reason. With two years spent on developing Brehaut and three on Prince, Neuheisel has to hope one of them is on the verge of a return on investment as a junior. The head coach is personally taking over the title of quarterbacks coach from Chow, and the new offensive coordinator (Eric Johnson, in from the San Francisco 49ers) can breathe a little fresh air into a meeting room that had to be stale with the stench of Vicodin and failure by last Halloween. If Hundley represents the highest ceiling in terms of potential, Prince and Brehaut may finally be at the points in their career where they offer a significantly higher floor.
The real question, then, is which of the two newcomers makes his presence more immediately felt. If it's Hundley, Neuheisel can conceivably write off another mediocre record as "growing pains" as long as his new star-in-waiting still looks the part in December. If it's Johnson, the onus will be squarely on making one of the older guys look like a viable Pac-10 quarterback at last in his pro-style system. If it happens to be both, they'll go into the fall ready to sink or swim together. But just treading water isn't an option.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Baseballmusingscom/~3/GAAVK-Zm1fY/click.phdo
I'm in too many leagues, let's just establish this up front. I wasn't even sure of the exact count until I went through today's exercise. It's seven, in all.
When you go through the draft and auction car wash that many times, you're going to wind up with a few common thread players. For better or for worse, these players will be a large defining point to my season. (Players are listed by the number of times I selected them.)
Coco Crisp: No one has a problem with his skills, it's a matter of staying on the field. He's the Rickie Weeks of center fielders. If Crisp can stay out of harm's way for even 120 games, he's a major profit guy. If he can't, it's not the end of the world – outfield is fairly deep and you get a replacement for two months.
Derek Jeter: This doesn't count all the mocks I selected him in. Regression isn't always linear. The womb of the Yankees lineup provides a nice floor. Jeter was still a useful player last year even when he hit .270 – go look at the counting numbers again – and I'd venture anything his average improves in 2011.
Francisco Cordero: I'm forever going ugly at closer, and the buzz of Aroldis Chapman made Cordero a good, cheap option this spring. I'm banking on two things: closing really isn't that hard to do, and Dusty Baker is patient with his veterans.
Cole Hamels: A possible No. 1 at a No. 2 price. A smidge undervalued with Doc and Cliff getting so much attention.
Ryan Braun: If I were walking into a new mixer today, he'd be No. 3 or No. 4 on my overall board. No downside, giant upside, every category gets filled.
Carlos Zambrano: When the Cubs put him back in the rotation last year and left him alone, he was fantastic. I don't need Zambrano to be an ace, just someone worth using every week as a support guy.
Brett Gardner: Please let him bat leadoff most of the time, Joe Girardi. Do the right thing. Gardner vs. Jacoby Ellsbury could be a dead heat in 2011, and Gardner came much cheaper in all formats.
David Murphy: He probably should be platooning but here's hoping Ron Washington doesn't see it that way. Nice line-drive hitter, some pop and speed, and Arlington is a blast in the summer.
Jake Westbrook: Dave Duncan and ground balls. Hopefully he's not done in by the new St. Louis defense.
Aaron Hill: Split the difference of the last two years, make profit.
Bill Hall: A sneaky power/speed guy. Peter King hated on him most of last summer, which made me appreciate Hall more. The Astros have no choice but to play Hall every day. Have fun with the Crawford Boxes.
A.J. Pierzynski: Generally I don't go with designer catchers. AJP will play, and there's no personality risk in our made-up game.
Carlos Pena: I'm just asking him to hit .240. That's not asking too much, is it?
Clayton Richard: Petco covers up a lot of mistakes. Not a strikeout ace, but he's not Jamie Moyer, either.
Derek Holland: A stab at pedigree, and left-handers have a better chance of beating that park.
Hideki Matsui: An Ibanez All-Star, and a 20-80 possibility means a lot more today than it did 5-10 years ago.
Kelly Johnson: Strong second half validated his fast start. I'm a sucker for guys who bat in the top three in their lineups, especially if they're in a hitter-favorable park.
J.J. Hardy: The park switch and a healthy wrist could lead to 18-22 homers. Idiotically, I dropped him in one league where I had no business doing so.
Mark Teixeira: There's not a lot of difference between him, Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder, value-wise, though they're all good at different things. Being parked in New York makes Teixeira a safe play.
Mike Aviles: Multiple positions, cheap speed, small-market screen.
Ryan Franklin: The world can hate him, so long as Dave Duncan and Tony La Russa don't.
Shin-Soo Choo: His haul from the last two years is almost identical, and there's something to be said for knowing what you're paying for in the third round. Choo no longer has to worry about pending military service.
I thought Jonathan Papelbon (misunderstood 2010) and Matt Garza (fly-ballers are not death sentences) would be on a lot of my clubs, but I only got them once each. And I kept missing Gio Gonzalez, who everyone is obviously in love with.
Some notable players that I didn't draft (or purchase) at all:
Jay Bruce: America's reach. He has to improve for everyone to break even. That's not how I play.
Joe Mauer: Winning smile and line drives, but he's given us one power season. Doubles are not a roto category.
Matt Wieters: I don't accept that he's a post-hype guy – to me, that term means you're getting a massive discount. Alex Gordon is a post-hype player. People are still paying for Wieters to do things that he hasn't done yet.
Josh Beckett: Career ERA at Fenway: 4.59. Career ERA against the Yankees: 6.26. There goes more than half of the schedule.
Mike Stanton: Generally I'm not going to pay for buzzy sophomores – someone always wants them more than I do. At the end of the day, it's a game of value.
Grady Sizemore: I don't want to chase the medical noise for two more months.
Rickie Weeks: His sticker price expects a full season. Good luck with that one.
Mariano Rivera: Never buy a closer from the team you root against the most. You can own their hitters all you like, but owning the closer is rooting for wins where you don't want them.
Albert Pujols: Not my fault – his ADP might as well be 1.0.
And for what it's worth, here's the 2010 edition of this column.
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Image courtesy Associated Press
Coach Lane Kiffin made a ... let's say, earnest acting debut last week to promote USC season tickets. It worked out, but only after they'd left a few of Kiffin's original, raspy ad libs on the cutting room floor:
? [trumpet blares] "It's garbage day."
? "I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be."
? "They told me this is made of unicorn hair."
? "I used to coach in the NFL."
? [trumpet blares] "It's burrito day. You know, in the cafeteria."
? "Can I borrow those handcuffs?"
? "I'm just a gangsta, I suppose."
? [trumpet blares] "It's Tolkien Reading Day."
? "'The Visor'" is going to be my thing now. Did everybody get that? Spurrier? The Visor is my thing now."
? "Say hello to my li'l friend."
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Time again for another Marbles chat! Come hang and talk about the glory of those final laps at Fontana, the upcoming race at Martinsville, and oh so much more. Bring your own hot dogs. See you at 1 p.m. Eastern Wednesday!
Nader's League of Fans, a group aimed at reforming sports, proposes that the scholarships be replaced with need-based financial aid. He says that would help restore academic integrity to college sports.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposal Thursday, ahead of its official release.
Nader, a former presidential candidate, argues that his plan would also help reduce the "win-at-all-costs" mentality in high schools, by reducing the incentive of college scholarships.
No word on the hypothetical mentality of athletes whose pursuit of an athletic scholarship is the only reason they stay in high school in the first place.
But perhaps a reformer of Nader's idealism, persistence and maniacal work ethic shouldn't be dismissed so easily. (That's him above, overseeing an airbag test in 1977.) Previously, the League of Fans has blasted corrupt NBA officiating, theorized on how to overthrow the BCS and replace it with a 16-team playoff, called on LeBron James to help improve conditions in Nike's overseas factories, pleaded with George Steinbrenner to preserve the original Yankee Stadium, lobbied Gov. Tim Pawlenty to veto a plan for a taxpayer-funded baseball stadium for the Minnesota Twins, and so forth. You can grasp the pattern here: Gadfly asks people to do the right thing instead of the profitable thing, gadfly gets absentmindedly swatted against the wall.
In the case of abandoning athletic scholarships, it's an idea whose time came, oh, around World War II or so, when the rising cost of and emphasis on fielding a top team started to force some academic-leaning schools to reevaluate their priorities. First it was the University of Chicago, a one-time powerhouse and founding member of the conference that would become the Big Ten in 1896, which dropped its football program in 1939 as "an infernal nuisance" to becoming "the kind of institution it aspired to be." Fifteen years later, the eight university presidents of the Ivy League, cradle of American football, signed the "Ivy Group Agreement," reaffirming their commitment to ban athletic scholarships and keep athletics firmly under the foot of the universities' "academic authorities." That is, they voluntarily abandoned the arms race to preserve their longtime gridiron dominance (Princeton had just won a national championship in 1950, Cornell as recently as 1939) for their top priority: Preserving their hoity scholastic rep.
And there they've stood as a gleaming beacon of academic integrity for the football-obsessed barbarians for more than 65 years, and still hosting rousing gridiron derbies all the while. I wonder why, in all that time, not one single other major athletic program has thought to follow their example?
UPDATE, 10:11 a.m. ET, 10/25] The NCAA has issued an official response to Nader's proposal, conservatively titled "Ralph Nader's got it all wrong."
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
And Jake Fox is accused of being this year's first big violater, not only by the opposing team, but by his own manager as well.
According to Jeff Zrebiec of the Sun papers, the Baltimore Orioles catcher ruffled the feathers of the Detroit Tigers and O's manager Buck Showalter during the eighth inning of Monday's spring training game in Sarasota. His big offense? Swinging at a 3-0 pitch with no outs and runners on second and third.
That doesn't sound that egregious ? especially since there were runners in scoring position and the at-bat ended in a bases-loading walk anyway ?�so what was the beef?
Apparently the O's were winning 13-3 at the time and there was a minor league pitcher on the mound, so Fox's bat should have been on his shoulder. Or so some would have you believe.
Swinging 3-0 in a 10-run game with no outs in the eighth inning with a minor league pitcher on the mound is a decent way to make sure you get a fastball in the ribs in your next at-bat. The average fan may not think it was a big deal but Orioles manager Buck Showalter and Tigers manager Jim Leyland certainly did.
Showalter angrily yanked off his hat, and was seen yelling in the home dugout to anyone in particular. His hat off the whole time, he kept shaking his head and muttering throughout the rest of Fox's at-bat, which resulted in a walk Leyland, meanwhile, yelled at Fox from the top step of the dugout.
When Fox was removed for a pinch runner, Showalter made sure that he was one of the first people to meet him in the dugout and he gave him an earful. The Orioles manager was still fuming about it after the game as it apparently wasn't the first time this spring where Fox ignored a clear take situation.
First off, the objections of Leyland and Showalter, of course, are completely ridiculous because we're talking about spring training. For the past month, we've watched games where starters threw 10 changeups in a row, closers worked the fourth or fifth innings and everyday players got one or two at-bats before showering, dressing and leaving for their condos by the time the seventh inning rolled around. If there's one rule about spring training baseball, it's that the normal rules of baseball don't apply.
Going further, though, Fox is a special case who should have been swinging away as long as he hadn't received a sign saying otherwise. Though he hit a whopping 10 homers this spring for the major league lead, his deficiencies on defense kept him in limbo on a team that's already full of guys who can go deep. It wasn't until Tuesday that he found out that he'd officially made the team as its lone backup catcher. Until that news, he should have been using every opportunity ? something that spring training is designed for ? to show what he can do (namely, launch baseballs at a sometimes prodigious rate).
By the way, if Leyland and Showalter continue to insist that the score of a spring training game should dictate anything that goes on the field, there's this: The final score of Monday's game was 14-9, so that 10-run lead at the time of Fox's "transgression" wasn't as much of a lock as it looked. (Nor did any of the players in the game give up either.)
? Oh wow, have you guys heard about this? Not one but two bastions of Serious Television Journalism are devoting significant airtime this week to probing the eternal question: In the age of multimillion-dollar athletic department surpluses and billion-dollar television contracts, should "amateur" college athletes be paid? First, PBS' always solid series Frontline is leading tonight's hour (check local listings) with a look at the NCAA's amateur model as filtered through the incredibly lucrative basketball tournament; HBO will follow that up on Wednesday night (10 p.m. ET) with a very special roundtable hour devoted entirely to "the state of big-time college sports in America." I just assume Reggie Bush will be watching and laughing, wherever he is. [HBO Real Sports, Frontline]
? Capitalizin' on a Sunday afternoon. There's nothing official, it's just an idea, but … yeah, the Pac-12 is considering airing games on Sundays this fall if the NFL locks out its season. The empty time slots would obviously make for great exposure, but the logistics are a nightmare: Is a firm move from Saturday to Sunday worth the risk when the NFL could break its labor deadlock and be back to sucking up all the Sunday airtime at the drop of a handmade fur felt trilby fedora? For his part, commissioner Larry Scott sounds like he doesn't really think so: "We certainly are monitoring the situation," Scott told Rivals' Tom Dienhart. "We have no plans in place at this time, but you want to be prepared and consider all options. Still, these labor situations have a way of getting done the closer they get to a critical situation." [Rivals]
? It won't help ratings, but LaMichael James will be the breakout critical smash of the fall. In more concrete television news, college football will be coming this season to the cable channel FX, which will take 14 Big 12 and Pac-12 games from the schedule of its considerably less hip colleague, Fox Sports Net. Give me Raylan Givens on play-by-play, Louis CK on color, Mallory Archer on the sideline and the Always Sunny guys in the studio, and you've got yourself a viewer. [Sports Business Journal]
? It wasn't me. An attorney for Dakota Mosley, one of the four Auburn players arrested and charged with multiple felony counts in an alleged armed robbery earlier this month, is seeking more information in order to "differentiate his client's role" in the crime ? specifically, by portraying him as the non-violent, non-robbing getaway driver. Attorney Davis Whittelsey says in court papers that Mosley remained in the car throughout the robbery, had no intention of entering the house, and "there will be no evidence to the contrary." [al.com]
Penn State will also be missing a 2010 starter this fall, defensive end Pete Massaro, who tore the ACL in his left knee during a spring practice session last Friday. Massaro also missed the entire 2009 season with a torn ACL in his right knee. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
? The rich get richer. Former Ohio State wide receiver Duron Carter, 6-foot-5, 210-pound spawn of NFL great Cris Carter, is expected to make an official visit to Alabama this week and could join the Tide in time to see the field this fall. Carter was a top-100 recruit in 2009 and caught 13 passes for the Buckeyes as a true freshman before being exiled to a year in junior college as an academic casualty. [al.com]
Quickly… USC athletic director Pat Haden will be attending Tennessee's NCAA infractions hearing. ... Soil samples from Toomer's Corner show the poison is actually worse than expected. … Safety Marcus Davis, a former transfer from Texas, is leaving Oregon. … Al Golden sees rare signs of life in Miami's backfield. … Jesse Scroggins has "a slight edge" on USC's backup quarterback job. … A (SFW) look back at Playboy's last trip to the Plains. … And Mark Dantonio really, really wants old boss Jim Tressel to know that he had absolutely nothing to do with this headline.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Source: http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2011/03/ksk-mock-draft-a-movie-room-of-ones-own.html
(This is, by no means, meant as an indictment of Flyers fans.)
For someone that didn't grow up with the sport, the NHL can be intimidating. The rules are different. The standings look like a calculator threw up in the sports section. There's a century of legends, records and suspensions to catch up with. And that's before you even get to the fans.
We're a suspicious lot when it comes to our fellow fan, poking and prodding during conversations to establish a baseline of shared knowledge. Trying to root out the casuals in die-hard clothing. Seeing if the individual is "long suffering" or recently located the bandwagon.
Once we've established that this person is new to the game, we either embrace them a brother or sister in puck or we silently scorn them for not having been part of the cult to begin with. Which isn't something exclusive to hockey, mind you; try telling a Radiohead fan you just recently discovered "The Bends."
Blogger Doug McKenzie (awesome) of The Elsinore All-Stars (awesomer) blog doesn't feel this protectionist elitism does the game any good. In an open letter to hockey fans today, he writes:
If NFL & NBA disputes last into the fall, perhaps we'll have many more new fans at NHL arenas in October.� While it can wreck havoc with ticket availability, it is not a bad thing to have more fans.� An explosion in the popularity of football made the NFL far more accessible to fans.� While the NHL will likely never compete with the NFL in the American market, hockey fans should look at that as a perfect reason to be welcoming of new fans.� In closing, as new fans are introduced to the sport, don't be so snobby.
Too often hockey fans try to outdo one another, competing over who is a "better" fan or who has been watching/following hockey longer.� That sort of attitude won't help the sport grow.� Certainly there's nothing wrong with some playful banter and trash-talking done in the spirit of fun, but there's no point in looking down on someone for being new to the sport.� Remember, everyone was new to the game at some point - even you.� We follow the greatest sport in the world and there is no harm in sharing it with others.
Look, there's no question that hockey fans get on the defensive more than other fan bases. It's a natural reflex, developed through generations of being demeaned by the mainstream media and pop culture. We also pull rank more than a Army disciplinarian, wearing the years and decades we cheered for our teams like badges of honor and humility.
The venerable Mr. McKenzie is arguing two things: First, that we shouldn't pull elitist crap with newbies trying to share the tent, with which we agree. Second, that a fan, even one that's lived and died with his or her team for years, is hurting the sport's popularity by acting like they're "better" than someone who recently discovered the sport. That's a tougher call, because it speaks to long-term dedication vs. wariness of bandwagonism; are you going to be here after two straight seasons without the playoffs, or will you be back buying NBA tickets instead?
But to ask McKeznie's question to you, dear readers: Is part of the problem in creating more hockey fans the attitude and behavior of, well, hockey fans?
This week, The Dagger takes a deeper look at each of the four universities participating in the 2011 Final Four. First up, VCU.
Location: Richmond, VA
Enrollment: 21,835 (56.4 percent female)
Team Mascot: Rams
How they got to Houston: d. USC (59-46), d. Georgetown (74-56), d. Purdue (94-76), d. Florida State (72-71), d. Kansas (71-61)
Greatest basketball moment: This. While making the Final Four is the unquestionable highlight of VCU's history, the school isn't without its NCAA tournament memories. In 1985, the first year of the 64-team field, the Rams entered March as a No. 2 seed. They didn't make it out of the first weekend though thanks to an upset loss at the hands of Alabama. The first-round win would be VCU's last until Eric Maynor hit a 15-footer to upset Duke in 2007.
Reason to root for them: This sign was hung during a rally sending the team off to San Antonio for the southwest regional. It refers to Dick Vitale's badmouthing of VCU's at-large bid.
Reason to root against them: Do we really want a national champion that has losses to Northeastern, Drexel, James Madison, Georgia State, South Florida and, ugh, Tennessee on its r�sum�?�
How the school dealt with Final Four appearance on its main website page: Top-billing, which is much more than the other three schools.
Most interesting sounding class on the school's 2010-2011 course register: Backpacking 201. "Emphasis will be given to the skills and knowledge necessary for safe, low-impact, short-to-moderate-duration travel through back country areas." With the offers sure to roll in after next week, Shaka Smart may be packing from VCU very soon.
Famous alumni: Hunter "Patch" Adams (famous clown-nose wearing doctor), Debbie Matenopoulos (former co-host of "The View"), Gwar (band)
Smart quote to make others think you've been following VCU all along: "If you want to get down to it, VCU's run to the Final Four really began at [the school's Nike-sponsored coaching conference] Villa 7 when [VCU athletic director] Norwood Teague first met Shaka Smart."
What not to say at your Final Four party: "VCU? Isn't that the Law & Order with Ice-T?"
What Clark Kellogg will probably say about VCU: "The team's escapability and effort will help in executing."
Chances of winning it all: Better than you think. The Rams won five games to get to Houston, including a convincing victory over tournament favorite Kansas. Are you going to doubt them?
Jim Nantz's most likely scripted line if they do: "They Shaka'd the world!"
