Last night, the Detroit Tigers traded first baseman Prince Fielder to the Texas Rangers for second baseman Ian Kinsler. Continue reading
Farewell, sweet Prince
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Author Archives: AD
ESPN and Dick’s Sporting Goods run questionable advertising on Jameis Winston sexual-assault investigation story
Jameis Winston is the Heisman-candidate quarterback of the #2 Florida State Seminoles. Last week, a previously inactive criminal sexual assault investigation involving Winston was reopened, initially without explanation. Today, an ESPN.com story cites research by the Tallahassee Democrat revealing that the initial investigation stalled after the alleged victim “changed her mind and did not wish to prosecute.”
Without knowing more about the case, and few do, there are a number of reasons and combinations of reasons why the alleged victim might have “changed her mind” and decided she “did not wish to prosecute.” One is that her allegations were not true. Another, which can arise in the college football setting (as illustrated with particularity in The System, a book I pre-reviewed and hope to review in full soon), is that the alleged victim felt pressure not to go forward with a sexual-assault prosecution of a major college athlete. Maybe she even felt fear. It wouldn’t be the first time.
That today’s story at least raises the specter of that second reason– and some would say it’s the obvious implication (the headline on the front page of ESPN.com tonight has fluctuated between “Official: Woman at first wary of Winston charge” and “Official: Woman didn’t want Winston Charged“)– makes the advertising on the side of the page at least questionable. (You can click the image to expand it.)
FIDE World Chess Championship! (via Grantland)
It’s time to get prepped for your new November obsession: the FIDE World Chess Championship finals between Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand. This is the most hotly anticipated chess match since Garry Kasparov’s prime. Aside from matches involving the Russian grandmaster, this is the most anticipated match since Bobby Fischer squared off against Boris Spassky. It’s well worth your time.
What Is the FIDE World Chess Championship?
The FIDE World Chess Championship pits the reigning world champion against the winner of a qualifying round-robin tournament between eight of the top players in the world. The finals is a best-out-of-12 tournament with draws earning half a point. If the finals end in a draw, four rapid-chess matches are played as a tiebreaker. If those draw, then blitz chess, played with a three-minute starting clock, serves as the final tiebreaker. … Read More
(via Grantland)
From Barves to Burbs: What’s happening to baseball in Atlanta?
News broke Monday morning that the Atlanta Braves were planning to leave their downtown location at Turner Field and relocate to a new, as-yet-unbuilt stadium in Cobb County, north of Atlanta, near Marietta, Georgia. This is a bad idea.
https://twitter.com/Mr_Griffey/status/399928757127225344
First, to clear out my personal interest, I do not like this move because it means I will attend fewer games. I live and work in town. It is very easy for me to attend games, because I can take public transportation (MARTA) from my office or home and be at the park in roughly thirty minutes. As a result, I was able to attend about eight games this season (as mostly documented here), something that would not be feasible following the proposed move. For a few of the games, I had planned to attend long in advance and coordinated large blocks of tickets with friends. For probably most of them, though, plans came together at the last minute, and I was able to shoot off from work and make it there in time for the first inning. I was shocked, then happy, when I first realized how easy it was going to be for me to attend major league baseball games in my new city. It would be a great personal disappointment if I no longer had that accessible opportunity to attend games.
Even bracketing my subjective, selfish perspective, the proposed move is an objectively bad idea. Continue reading
#2 Michigan State beats #1 Kentucky in the Champions Classic
In their second game of the season, the Michigan State Spartans jumped out to an early 10-0 lead and never trailed the top-ranked Kentucky Wildcats en route to a four-point win, 78-74. For the most part, MSU looked like a typical experienced Tom Izzo team. They were physical, they caused and capitalized on turnovers, they were as effective as ever on scoring on inbound plays, and the team’s designated leaders led. Point guard Keith Appling showed that, from a positional standpoint, this is his team. Adreian Payne showed that he can control a game from any position on the floor. Sophomore and former Big Ten Freshman of the Year Gary Harris showed that he can be an even more complete player than he was last year. (Marcus thinks he can be the National Player of the Year this season.) Branden Dawson is back as a reliable gap-filler.
In listening to and watching tonight’s game, I noticed two things that were slightly different, at least in comparison with last year’s team. One is these Spartans’ ability and willingness to push the ball. Izzo’s Michigan State teams never have been strictly half-court operations, but the frequency with which they ran tonight, and the speed at which they did so, were notable. The second thing is that, as good as Payne is, he’s not going to be able to run the gauntlet of this season alone. Basically no big man can, and the absence of Derrick Nix clearly hurts the Spartans’ depth in the paint. (Nix, for his part, made his presence known online shortly after the final buzzer with the most Michigan State tweet ever.)
On the other side, Kentucky is a good team that will get even better, perhaps much better, before too long, and games like this, whatever, the outcome only serve to benefit John Calipari’s current project. Julius Randle, in particular, seemed to be everywhere for the Wildcats, especially in the second half, when he scored twenty-three of his twenty-seven points. Randle led all players in scoring and in rebounds, with thirteen. One aspect that Kentucky must improve is its free-throw shooting. They managed to bring their average above 50% thanks in part to plenty of opportunities (thirty-six overall, versus seventeen for Michigan State) to shoot from the line in the second half.
Looking forward, the sky may be the limit for young Kentucky, while Michigan State fans have to hope their very good, veteran team hasn’t peaked.
Awareness awareness: Checking in on the NFL’s October pinkwash
November is here, which means that October has come to an end, and with it, the ocular invasion that is the NFL’s breast cancer awareness campaign. Last year, I asked whether, for the NFL, pink really meant green:
Book Pre-Review: The System
I recently started reading The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football, by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. Keith Olbermann interviewed the latter on his new ESPN show, and the segment illustrates the flavor of the book:
At the very least, Benedict and Keteyian know their audience: While chapter one reminds college football fans why they love Mike Leach, chapter two reminds them why they hate Lane Kiffin. Chapter one isn’t Leach’s only appearance in the book– he’s back as quickly as chapter six, though on less happy terms, and he would’ve made it into chapter thirteen had the publishing date been slightly later– but it does offer new insight on Leach’s now-famous marital genesis story. As highlighted here, Leach’s first date with his wife, Sharon, saw him taking her to A&W and telling her to order based on the 2-for-1 coupon book he handed her. From The System we learn that Leach’s approach was even bolder: he and Sharon had only met the night before.
Look for a full review of this book sometime after I finish reading it.
Dia de los Muertos Jam
Following his death on Sunday, today’s Jam features the lately departed Lou Reed. I’ve already posted some of my favorite selections, and there’s an obvious choice for this post, but in the spirit of the week’s holidays, today’s selection is a celebration.
Reed’s wife, Laurie Anderson, published a short obituary in the East Hampton Star yesterday. It concluded:
Lou was a prince and a fighter and I know his songs of the pain and beauty in the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life. Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.
Lou Reed, Rock & Roll Animal, Purveyor of the Perfect Day, passes on at age 71
Legendary American musician Lou Reed died yesterday on Long Island at the age of seventy-one. Rolling Stone called Reed’s first band, Velvet Underground, “the most influential American rock band of all time.”
I first heard Reed in high school when I was on the air at WYCE and someone from a local hippie shop phoned in a request. I can’t recall the album or the song, but I still remember the moment, because I was surprisingly and immediately hooked. By the time I was on WHCL and living with one of Reed’s modern-day disciples, VU’s Loaded was in heavy rotation, and, stretching traditional conventions about linear time, I’d tell listeners that Reed, a Syracuse grad, wrote “Rock & Roll” about that little radio station. In 2008, ALDLAND Podcast co-host Chris and I saw Reed in live performance at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
You can read about the power and reach of Reed’s influence on music across the web today. Here are a few songs and an original photograph for your listening and viewing remembrance: Continue reading
Dawg Upset: Vanderbilt defeats Georgia in Nashville, 31-27.
ALDLAND was out in force last weekend for a cool, damp morning (11:00 am kickoff!) of football in Nashville. Brendan and Marcus broke down the game, as well as Vanderbilt’s bowl chances, in this week’s podcast, so listen to that for full game analysis. The Commodores took the lead in the second quarter on a perfectly executed fake field goal attempt. Two almost certainly erroneous targeting calls against Georgia helped Vanderbilt as well, but Vandy’s surprisingly poised redshirt freshman backup quarterback, Patton Robinette, who came on in relief of injured starter Austyn Carta-Samuels, deserves mention as well. (A botched Georgia punt was reminiscent of the last time these schools met in Nashville. This time, though, the Commodores were able to capitalize on the special-teams error.) Despite reasonably ample scoring, the game developed slowly through the first three quarters before the home team posted seventeen points in an exciting fourth quarter, erasing a thirteen-point deficit to claim an upset victory. It was Vanderbilt’s first conference win of the year (after a heartbreaking loss to Ole Miss to start the season), and both teams moved to 4-3 overall.
While Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin said that either Carta-Samuels or Robinette would be available for this weekend’s game at Texas A&M, he said yesterday that Robinette would start the game and that Carta-Samuels would not be available this week.
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Previously
Michigan On Top
Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Clemson outpoints Georgia 38-35
ALDLAND 