Category Archives: ALDLAND

Atlanta Hawks make NBA All-Star Game history, good and bad, in consecutive seasons

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In 2015, the Atlanta Hawks became just the eighth team in NBA history to place four players on the all-star team in the same season. Despite returning those same four starters– Al Horford, Paul Millsap, Jeff Teague, and Kyle Korver– in 2016, only one Hawk, Millsap, is an all-star this season, making Atlanta the first team in NBA history ever to follow up a four-all-star season with a season in which only one (or fewer) of its players made the all-star team. (For purposes of the 1998 Lakers, I looked to the 2000 ASG, the event having been cancelled in 1999 due to an owners’ lockout.)

Furthermore, due to an ankle sprain he suffered in last night’s loss to the Pacers, Millsap might not even make an appearance in next month’s All-Star Game.

The Hawks’ 27-21 record is good enough for first in their division and fourth in the Eastern Conference.

Mike Ilitch’s baseball bona fides

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Everyone knows Mike Ilitch as the wealthy pizza baron who owns the Detroit Tigers and Red Wings, but when new Tigers General Manager Al Avila appeared on Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo’s television show today, he revealed something about Mr. I that most folks probably don’t know: Ilitch is a former professional baseball player.

Ilitch played four seasons of minor-league ball in the mid-1950s. He split the 1952 season between the Jamestown, NY Falcons, a Tigers affiliate, as chance would have it, and the unaffiliated Hot Springs, AR Bathers. He spent the entirety of the 1953 season with the unaffiliated Tampa, FL Smokers, where he was the starting second baseman and his .310 batting average was second-best on the team. In 1954, Ilitch divided his time between the Smokers and the unaffiliated Miami Beach/Greater Miami Flamingos in what would prove to be the Flamingos’ final season of existence. He continued to demonstrate an ability to hit for average, if not power (his sole home run of the season was just the second of his career to that point), finishing 1954 with a .324/.375/.400 line, the best of his career. 1955 was Ilitch’s final year as a professional baseball player. He appeared in just sixty-two games while playing for three different teams: the unaffiliated St. Petersburg, FL Saints, the Norfolk, VA Tars (Yankees), and the Charlotte, NC Hornets (Senators). Ilitch’s offense slipped in his final season, in which he hit his third career home run and batted .255/.328/.273 for the Tars (incomplete records from the other teams suggest this line is representative of his performance for the Saints and Hornets as well).

The knee injury that ended Ilitch’s playing career in 1955 probably explains the decline in his offensive production. Four years later, he and his wife opened the first Little Caesars Pizza restaurant. They bought the Red Wings in 1982 and the Tigers– from Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan– in 1992.

2016 NHL All Stars to receive impressive Nashville-themed gift bag

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The 2016 NHL All-Star Game, which takes place this weekend in Nashville, already was going to be a special event, with the shift from a traditional five-on-five game to a three-on-three tournament for a $1 million prize. Now comes news that each all-star will receive a pretty neat collection of Nashville-themed goodies.

The Tennessean reports on the contents, which include:

  • A specially designed bottle of Jack Daniels, which is distilled in nearby Lynchburg. All of the whiskey for these bottles reportedly comes from the same barrel.
  • A bottle of Winter Park Wheat beer, a specialty brew created by Nashville’s Yazoo Brewing Co.
  • A Goo Goo Cluster, a Nashville candy staple.
  • Most impressively, a custom, personalized guitar from Gibson (which was founded in Kalamazoo, but now is based in Nashville). These Les Paul-model guitars have a number of neat features, including a 2016 NHL All-Star Game logo, the individual player’s name (close-up of Shea Weber’s here), and specially designed back plates and truss rod covers.

If you want one of these guitars but aren’t a 2016 NHL All Star, your only shot is to win one of the two available at a charity auction that appears to be occurring after the game. If you’re not John Rich, literally or metaphorically, you’ll have to be content with watching the skills competition at 7:00 Eastern on Saturday and the revamped all-star game at 5:00 Eastern on Sunday and hope that none of the players pulls a Kyle Busch with any of these custom Gibsons.

Turn and face the strange jam

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The 2016 Jam queue already is filling up, but we’re going to start with this one:

David Bowie was featured in the third-ever Friday Jam post on this site, and here he is now. Nobody turned around the end of a line with such elegance as Bowie, so as we all attempt to plow through life’s commas, I suspect we’ll all recognize that, even if time changes us, we’ll always trace time, at least in part, by reference to Bowie.

Thanks for letting us rock and roll with you, Starman.

The many (many) ways to watch and hear the college football national championship game tonight

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My latest post at TechGraphs details all of your numerous options for seeing and hearing (at the same time!) tonight’s college football national championship game, which kicks off at 8:30 pm Eastern. Long live the Megacast!

The full post is available here.

2016 Detroit Tigers still in search of man out standing in (left) field

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After a disappointing 2015 season, which included some odd maneuvering at the trade deadline, the Detroit Tigers entered the offseason with a significant to-do list. They’ve already made acquisitions designed to address needs in the bullpen and starting pitching rotation, but, with three months until opening day, the team still has one major hole to fill.   Continue reading →

College Football Playoff Semifinal viewing and listening options

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My latest post for TechGraphs outlines your options for watching and listening to the “New Year’s Six” bowls– the Peach, Orange, Cotton, Fiesta, Rose, and Sugar Bowls– taking place today and tomorrow. The Peach Bowl kicks off momentarily, with the two playoff semifinal games following this evening.

Go Green!

The full post is available here.

Behavioral Economics and the Rise of the Player Opt-Out (via Baseball Prospectus)

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“The logic of the opt-out clauses for the club escapes me.” —Commissioner Rob Manfred

Nothing gets the baseball internet writer hot like a newly popularized contract structure. Rob Neyer has weighed in on the potential benefit to team of a player opt-out, and Dave Cameron has weighed in on how these cannot be seen as anything but additional costs. Neyer’s point is that giving a player an opt-out is often preferable to giving a player more money. Cameron’s point is that giving a player an opt-out is less preferable than not giving a player an opt-out. Both points are correct. Like most things, if we change the perspective, then we can look at anything as a positive or a negative. More simply, everything is better than a worse scenario and everything is worse than a better scenario.

So why the need for another article? Because unaddressed remains the most curious question about the player option: Why has it become so popular? Put differently, what benefit does the structure provide for each side as an alternative (in most mega-deals) to just agreeing on more money? … Read More

(via Baseball Prospectus)

Matthew Stafford among NFL’s most-improved QBs in the second half of 2015

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In early November, after the Detroit Lions dumped their offensive coordinator, general manager, and team president, I wrote that people using those events as an opportunity to suggest that the team would be better off without Matt Stafford were wrong.

Those moves seemed to spark new life into the scuffling Lions, and while they remain out of the playoff picture for 2015, there are some signs that this won’t be an entirely wasted season.

According to data recently posted at FiveThirtyEight,* Stafford is among the most improved quarterbacks in the season’s second half:

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* QBR and ANY/A data compiled through December 22.

Stafford accomplished this without a corresponding increase in throws to top receiver Calvin Johnson, which is evidence that OC Jim Bob Cooter’s new offensive scheme is about more than looking out for no. (8)1. Stafford’s improved numbers also could reflect a positive regression to his true talent level, as well as signal indirect improvement in the team’s offensive line. (On that front, the numbers are a bit mixed, showing minor decreases in sack rate and yards lost due to sacks, while fumbles lost held steady, and fumbles increased in the second half of the season.)

2015 obviously has not been the best season for Stafford or the Lions, but the team would be foolish to part ways with their starting quarterback. A better second half from the former top overall draft pick should help to ensure that he stays in Detroit.