As far as Georgians are concerned, Aaron Hernandez is nothing but one of Urban Meyer’s Gator criminals. As far as the NFL is concerned, Aaron Hernandez is nothing:
(HT: Deadspin)
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How Atlanta sees everything: Aaron Hernandez as a case study
This year’s Detroit Tigers are far from perfect, but they’re off to a good start on the strength of their starting pitching and the bats of Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Jhonny Peralta, Torii Hunter, Omar Infante, (increasingly) Victor Martinez, and (once again) Austin Jackson.
The weak link– the bullpen– has been both very obvious and very weak. Hoping for some addition by subtraction, the club sent onetime-closer Jose Valverde down to the minors, and a more focused “closer-by-committee” approach has emerged, centering around Joaquin Benoit and Drew Smyly, with an emphasis on not misusing Phil Coke.
One of the criticisms of manager Jim Leyland is that he likes to have go-to players to fill defined roles, and nowhere is this more applicable than in his handling of relief pitching. In short, Leyland wants to have one guy be his guy when it comes to closing out games in the ninth inning. His unwillingness to deviate from that approach has had exceedingly frustrating consequences when The Closer is someone less effective than the likes of a Craig Kimbrel or, say, a 2011-vintage Valverde. (This is especially true because the Tigers have trouble scoring late in games. If the bullpen blows a lead late, this team is unlikely to mount a comeback.) Even though fans would like to see Leyland be a bit more nimble with the way he utilizes his personnel, some of his attitude surely has rubbed off on them. The fans want to have someone who can be The Closer too.
Buster Olney launched a thousand blog posts with his suggestion that current Philadelphia Phillies reliever Jonathan Papelbon might make a good fit in Detroit. Papelbon has a great reputation as a closer, and, as Buster writes, “there are no questions about whether he could handle October,” which is where the Tigers’ expectations reside.
Team owner Mike Ilitch has shown little resistance to spending money on this iteration of the team, which means that the large contract that’s scaring other teams away from Papelbon is unlikely to be an issue in Detroit.
My opinion is that, if the Phillies are willing to part with Papelbon without demanding much beyond the absorption of his contract, the Tigers should get him. If his steady hand can turn these cardiac kitties into some cool cats come playoff time, it’ll be worth it.
That said, it probably is worth taking a look at how Papelbon would stack up with his new teammates if he were to catch a ride to Motor City this season. Continue reading
About this well:
Sorry, bdoyk.
(via @AlexWeprin)
This Aaron Hernandez homicide investigation is a serious and developing story in and of itself, but it also provides a chance to examine the way people see the world, as evidenced by the assumptions and choices they make.
Here’s how the Atlanta Journal-Constitution currently is presenting this standard AP story right now on its front page:
We are long overdue for a visit with the Uptons. How about a dinner date? (They’ll probably make Chick-fil-A if you ask nicely and are willing to wait until the third inning.)
Appetizer: Team status small talk
Right now, Atlanta is in first place in the NL East, holding a seven-game lead over the Washington Nationals. They also are the only team in their division with a positive run differential. (Only the Cardinals (+106), Tigers (+76), Red Sox (+75), and Reds (+63) can best the Braves +57 mark.) That’s all the more impressive considering …Keep reading…
As noted here, the cover of last week’s Sports Illustrated magazine featured Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, and while I contended then that SI was engaging in a bit of revisionist history with that cover, I still wanted to read that story. I also was interested in the other story advertised on that cover, an update on the Nevin Shapiro case. Both because I wanted to hang onto that cover and because I’d planned a lazy weekend, I wanted to buy an actual copy of the magazine. I’m not a subscriber, and I don’t want to be. I don’t generally have the time, lifestyle, or resources that support buying a subscription to a weekly sports periodical, even though I’ve always enjoyed reading SI (and SI for Kids before that).
I was on the hunt for an individual copy for sale. I live and work in the middle of a major American city. Sports Illustrated is one of the country’s most popular magazines. This should’ve been easy. It was not easy. In fact, I failed in my mission. I tried a grocery store (Publix), a drug store (CVS), and multiple convenience stores/newsstands. I saw a variety of sports periodicals and publications, but not even a whiff of SI. (Possibly interestingly, I recall seeing ESPN The Magazine just once.) I now think the airport or a large chain bookstore would be my best bets, but the above choices weren’t unreasonable options. It shouldn’t be this difficult, right?
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On the integration of the pulp paper and textile industries: Sports Illustrated as a case study
ESPN’s resident baseball-knowledge mouthpiece, Jayson Stark, decided that too many professional baseball people were acting like Donovan McNabb and forgetting the rules of the game this season, if they ever knew them to begin with, so he and Rich Marazzi, “esteemed baseball rules expert,” came up with a ten-question quiz to test folks. They then administered it to “20 of the most astute players in the game,” four coaches, one manager, “six ESPN baseball ‘geniuses,'” and one broadcaster.
Who were these people? The twenty-seven active players, managers, and coaches represent eleven of baseball’s thirty teams, and of those eleven teams, six of which are East Coast teams. That seems like a not unreasonable balance for a small sampling of people.
We don’t often hear people associating baseball players and intelligence, though, so the phrase “20 of the most astute players in the game” caught my eye. Stark pays close attention to the details of the game, so it certainly is possible that he has a good feel for what players might qualify. Maybe it was because I had just read Tommy Craggs’ article on Howie Schwab, but I started to worry that “astute” might mean something like “scrappy.” I took a look at the MLB.com profile pages for each of the “20 of the most astute players in the game,” and while Stark may be right– he goes to great lengths to discuss Sam Fuld’s academic credentials– my hunch wasn’t wrong: of the twenty, nineteen are white. The one exception was Jimmy Rollins, who is black. (According to the first Appendix of the 2013 Race and Gender Report Card for Major League Baseball, 61.2% of players are white, and 8.3% are African-American.)
As far as the quiz itself, it turned out to be pretty tough. Marazzi decided that a passing grade was 6/10, and by that measure, just thirteen of the thirty-two takers passed. That’s probably because, as Stark writes, “the rules might be the rules. But that doesn’t mean they have to make much sense.”
The rest is baseball minutiae and hopeless reform rhetoric. If you want to see how the quiz-takers performed, click here. If you want to take the quiz yourself– at last count, over 171,000 people had– click here. And if you really must know, this writer scored a five, which, while not “passing,” ranks me better than or equal to all but two of the professional media “geniuses.” You get what you pay for here at ALDLAND.
So far, the NBA Finals has been a tale of two blowouts. The most recent one belongs to the San Antonio Spurs, who routed the Miami Heat 113-77 to take a 2-1 series lead. The big story on offense was the three-point shooting of Danny Green and Gary Neal, who together made 13/19 shots from distance. As a team, the Spurs shot 50% from behind the arc, and they attempted 32 such shots.
Thirty-two three-point attempts seemed like a lot to me. The season average across all teams this year was 19.9, that number representing a record high. Thirty-two attempts is not an all-time record, though. In 1996, Dallas attempted forty-nine three-pointers in a 127-117 win over New Jersey. (Somebody named George McCloud was responsible for twenty of those attempts. The Nets, as a team– a team featuring none other than future Maverick Shawn Bradley– only attempted five. Rick Mahorn also played in that game, so do with that what you will.) In fact, there have been 404 games in NBA/ABA/BAA history in which a team attempted at least 33 three-point shots. It isn’t even the most this season, in which eighty-three games saw a team attempt at least 33 threes, and seven of those performances came in these playoffs. All time, only twenty-three playoff games have seen at least thirty-three attempts, though, which certainly comports with the trend the Sporting News discussed in the above-linked story on the steep increase in three-point shooting.
That the Spurs’ thirty-two attempts on Tuesday seemed like a lot to me only means that I haven’t been watching a lot of NBA basketball in recent years, which is absolutely correct.
Enjoy game 4 tonight if you’re capable of enjoying such things.
ALDLAND 