Tag Archives: espn

ALDLAND Podcast

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Here we are with yet another edition of the ALDLAND Podcast.  Chris Cunico is off making bad decisions in Nola, so the task falls to blog founder AD to talk about a wide variety of sports-related topics with me, from the exciting finish to the English Premiere League season to the impending change to the college football postseason.  So take thirty minutes out of your work day and check out this awesomeness.

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

Our Lady of Sorrows Sorry About a Lady

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From the “What Year is It?” file. ESPN reports that a high school baseball team in Arizona forfeited a championship game rather than face a team with a female player:

Instead of playing in a championship baseball game, Paige Sultzbach and her team won’t even make it to the dugout.

A Phoenix school that was scheduled to play the 15-year-old Mesa girl and her male teammates forfeited the game rather than face a female player.

Our Lady of Sorrows bowed out of Thursday night’s game against Mesa Preparatory Academy in the Arizona Charter Athletic Association championship. . . .

Paige, who plays second base at Mesa Prep, had to sit out two previous games against Our Lady of Sorrows out of respect for its beliefs. But having her miss the championship was not an option for Mesa Prep.
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Officials at Our Lady of Sorrows declined comment. In a written statement Thursday, the school said the decision to forfeit was consistent with a policy prohibiting co-ed sports.

The statement also said the school teaches boys respect by not placing girls in athletic competition, where “proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty.”

Our Lady of Sorrows is run by the U.S. branch of the Society of Saint Pius X. The group represents conservative, traditional priests who broke from the Catholic Church in the 1980s.

In junior high, Paige played softball and volleyball. Because Mesa Prep does not have a girls softball team, she tried out for the boys baseball team and received support from her coach and her fellow teammates.
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Both schools play in the seven-team 1A division of the ACAA. Our Lady of Sorrows won the Western Division and Mesa Prep won the Eastern Division with an undefeated season.

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  • Does God care about high school baseball? When religious expression, positive or negative, appears in athletics, secular and religious critics often retort that “God doesn’t care about sports games.” Sports are entertaining. Playing sports is a good way to learn values like teamwork, leadership, and perseverance. It also encourages better treatment of our bodies. People spend a lot of time on sports. Some dedicate their professional life to it in some fashion. It seems at least possible that God cares about sports.
  • What about women in sports? Our (secular) society has encouraged female athletics as a meaningful part of gender equality. The idea that “not placing girls in athletic competition” actually “teaches boys respect” for girls appears diametrically opposed to society’s prevailing view. It also is at least somewhat out of step with the Bible, which in many ways takes a comparatively progressive stance on gender.
  • What time is it? When I start tending toward scriptural interpretation here, it probably is time to wrap up the post. It also probably is really stinky to have your school’s administrators forfeit the championship game and spoil your undefeated season for you.

Whatever the reason, Carmelo Anthony Is hurting the Knicks

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Or perhaps the passive voice is appropriate here: The Knicks are being hurt by Carmelo Anthony. Observe:

With fifty-four playoff games played, this isn’t the result of a small sample size.

What’s harder to know is whether Anthony is to blame or if he’s the anti-Steve Kerr. If it’s the former, which everybody thinks, that’s pretty bad. If it’s the latter, though, Anthony should retire right now and become a general manager.

(HT: Mr. Jedediah)

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Related
The real reason Carmelo Anthony is hurting the Knicks

The DET Offensive: Delmon Young swings and misses

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While I was generally unplugged last week, bdoyk forwarded me this article from ESPN New York, which reports:

Detroit Tigers left fielder Delmon Young apologized to his team and fans Friday, just before getting arraigned on a hate crime harassment charge for a fight at his hotel during which police say he yelled anti-Semitic epithets.

Young posted a $5,000 bond at a brief hearing in Manhattan court and was released less than an hour before the Tigers’ game against the Yankees. He faces a misdemeanor aggravated harassment charge that entails targeting someone for his or her religious beliefs. If convicted, he could face up to a year in jail.
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The Tigers arrived in New York at 10:30 p.m. Thursday after their plane sat on the tarmac for 2 hours, 15 minutes in Detroit, according to Leyland.

Around 2:30 a.m., Young was standing outside of the Hilton New York. Nearby, a group of about four Chicago tourists staying at the hotel were approached by a panhandler wearing a yarmulke and a Star of David around his neck, according to police. After, as the group walked up to the hotel doors, Young started yelling anti-Semitic epithets, police said.

It was not clear whom Young was yelling at, but he got into a tussle with the Chicago group, and a 32-year-old man was tackled and sustained scratches to his elbows, according to police and the criminal complaint.

Not good. Since their hot start, the Tigers have been in a free fall, dropping eight of their last ten games in series against Texas, Seattle, and the Yankees. Perhaps even more concerning has been the lack of offensive production widely expected and on display in the season-opening series against Boston and Tampa Bay. Young is a starter because of his bat. He’s a defensive liability and now a mental and legal liability going forward, whatever “going forward” means for Young vis-a-vis the Tigers. Simply put, this was not the type of offensive production Jim Leyland and Tigers fans were looking for out of the streaky Young this year.

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Previously
The DET Offensive: Brennan Boesch’s Birthday – 4/12
The DET Offensive: Tigers open 2012 season with Sawks sweep – 4/9

Mike Leach Favors Cougars

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I was a Mike Leach fan long before Craig James took the helm of the mothership and got Leach fired from the head coaching job at Texas Tech. I think I first learned about Leach through an interview on Jim Rome’s radio show and was hooked by his deadpan demeanor and the facts that he has a law degree from Pepperdine and kept an automatronic pirate-skelleton in his office. I’m not even a pirate guy, but the random, dry sense of humor, and the nonchalance with which he carried on his job as a successful college football coach of one of the highest-flying offenses in the nation all combined to hit me just right.

When Leach finally landed his next coaching job, Washington State plainly had gotten a real steal, and though his tone of voice would never betray it, it appears that Leach has embraced his new home as well. From an interview posted yesterday on SB Nation’s WSU site:

Jim Moore: In a battle to the death among Pac-12 mascots, which animal or person wins?

Mike Leach: The Cougar absolutely. Let’s go through this a little bit. A cougar obviously kills a duck and a beaver. A cougar against a husky … that’s pretty well a massacre. A cardinal or whatever: I don’t know exactly what a cougar would either climb it or I wouldn’t want to think of what else he’d do on it. Now Golden Bears could be kinda tough. I think you’d want to be a little fast and loose with them. You don’t want to get caught by that bear. The Ute … you gotta dodge some arrowheads, but I still like the Cougar. Buffalo … I think the buffalo would be pretty tough to beat. Wildcat: Cougars are bigger than wildcats. Sun Devils, that’s mythical anyway. Trojans, they may be as well. I think you gotta look out for the Bruins and the Buffalo. The Golden Bear, Bruin and Buffalo .. I think those are the tough ones.

Moore: Why the Buffalo?

Leach: Do you want to fight a buffalo? I don’t know, those buffalo are big. You know, buffalo are significantly bigger than elk. I grew up near Yellowstone so I’ve been near buffalo. Buffalo are huge. And then the other thing I’ve always gotten a kick out of: When you play Colorado, there’s those buffalo dragging those six handlers around. Those handlers aren’t dragging the buffalo. The buffalo’s dragging him.

Ralphie’s not even a big buffalo. Ralphie pulls those people wherever he wants to.

More on the interview, including audio, is available here.

At the very least, Leach gives WAZZU fans a reason to believe they can climb out of the Pacific Twelve basement and the rest of us a reason to watch that miserable conference.

Daytona 500 preview

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Trevor Bayne: defending Daytona 500 winner.

Tomorrow, the first and biggest race of the NASCAR season rolls off for 500 miles in Daytona, Florida. Trevor Bayne, just 20 years old, introduced himself to the wider world with his surprising win a year ago, and although he ran a majority of his season on the second-tier Nationwide Series, he’ll be there tomorrow to defend his win. It will be an uphill battle for him to repeat, though: he starts in the 40th position.

Bovada (formerly Bodog) has a Bayne win at 16/1 and likes Kyle Busch (5/1), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (5/1), and Tony Stewart (7/2). Stewart is the defending Cup champion, and after reeling off five wins in the ten-race Chase (the playoffs) to win it all last year, it’s easy to see why he’s favored in the season-opener this year. Kyle Busch has been strong in the first half of the season the last few years, so it makes sense that he would be a favorite too. Cynics might see Earnhardt Jr. as a sucker bet up there, slotted because his popularity, which outpaces his performance, will net the house some easy money, but he never can be counted out, especially at a track like Daytona, which best suits his driving style and where he has won before, and especially because he drives for Hendrick Motorsports, the best team in the sport. Roush is the next best team, and two of their drivers– Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle– are starting first and second on Sunday and have to be considered strong contenders as well.

Finally, Danica Patrick may be the biggest story going into Daytona this year, as she makes the jump from open-wheeled racing to stock cars on NASCAR’s biggest stage. She’s in good hands working with Stewart, but other successful IndyCar drivers have struggled to make the transition, and one has to expect that it will take her time to adjust as well. Still, she’s finding early success. Everyone’s focusing on a very bad wreck that was not her fault during the final lap of one of the pre-race races (I know), but she starts a respectable 29th on Sunday and has the pole position for today’s Nationwide race, remarkable for any rookie driver.

The full starting grid is here, and the top ten looks like this:

1 99 Carl Edwards Ford Fastenal
2 16 Greg Biffle Ford 3M
3 14 Tony Stewart Chevrolet Office Depot / Mobil 1
4 17 Matt Kenseth Ford Best Buy
5 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet Diet Mountain Dew / National Guard
6 78 Regan Smith Chevrolet Furniture Row / CSX “Play it Safe”
7 9 Marcos Ambrose Ford Stanley
8 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet Lowe’s
9 31 Jeff Burton Chevrolet Caterpillar
10 33 Elliott Sadler Chevrolet General Mills / Kroger

Other stories to read before tomorrow’s race:

  • How owner points deals determine who makes it into the 43-car field at Daytona – NASCAR.com
  • Two-time winner Bill Elliot’s backnot back – ESPN.com
  • How Tony Stewart spent his championship offseason – FoxSports.com
  • “Where have the Southern drivers gone?” – FoxSports.com
  • Why Danica Patrick can win – Yahoo! Sports
  • The latest on Jimmie Johnson’s “major” rule violation – Jayski
  • Blast from the recent past: Ex-driver Jeremy Mayfield says he’s the victim of a NASCAR conspiracy – ESPN.com
Finally, a programming note: ALDLAND will be hosting its first live-blogging event during tomorrow’s race. Check back here or on our new Podcasts & Live Blogging page for details.

LeBron James is the best professional basketball player ever

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It might not seem like it, but, as discussed on ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike this morning, LeBron James’ current season is the best season a professional player has ever had. John Hollinger, also of ESPN, created the Player Efficiency Rating (PER) metric for basketball players. In (his) general terms, “the PER sums up all a player’s positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player’s performance.” It’s an advanced metric, and really, it’s a doubly advanced metric because it’s derivative of other advanced metrics. If you want it, the nitty gritty is here, but what PER allows us to do is compare individual players with their contemporaries and with those from other eras on equal footing.

The following is a list of the top individual full-season performances, based on PER, in the history of the NBA and ABA:

Rank    Player PER Season Tm
1. Wilt Chamberlain 31.84 1962-63 SFW
2. Wilt Chamberlain 31.76 1961-62 PHW
3. Michael Jordan 31.71 1987-88 CHI
4. LeBron James 31.67 2008-09 CLE
5. Wilt Chamberlain 31.64 1963-64 SFW
6. Michael Jordan 31.63 1990-91 CHI
7. Michael Jordan 31.19 1989-90 CHI
8. Michael Jordan 31.14 1988-89 CHI
9. LeBron James 31.10 2009-10 CLE
10. David Robinson 30.66 1993-94 SAS

The full list from Basketball-Reference is here.

James already has two of the ten best seasons, and he’s the only active player in that group. (His teammate, Dwayne Wade, is the next active player listed, at 13.) If the current season ended today, though, James would post a PER of 32.8, by far the highest mark ever recorded.

Perception is a valid and important check on the things statistics tell us. I feel like there are a million things one could write about James and perception, expectations, image, and legacy, all of which would get at the fact that the title of this post is something I’d guess most people reject as an initial, gut reaction but also something we all expected we would read, write, or say at some point. There are myriad potential lessons here. One is that these advanced metrics are a way of witnessing history in the moment, something that’s difficult to do based upon perception alone. Another is that, darn it, I hate LeBron and sabermetrics are for idiot-nerds. A third raises questions about the value we place on winning championships as a component of individual players’ legacies. A fourth is that Patrick Ewing, whose best season comes in at #117 on the big list, might not be the Dan Marino of the 1980s and 1990s NBA, and Kobe Bryant, whose best season so far comes in at #51, isn’t quite the heir to His Airness’ throne, or even Shaq’s big seat. And on and on.

Smackland podcast: The Jalen Rose Show

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Growing up in Michigan, I knew of Jalen Rose as a member of the Fab Five, that faceless monolith of basketball greatness operating out of the east side of the state. Who these guys were wasn’t as important as the fact of their youth and the color of their socks. You knew you were supposed to be able to name them, and that was that. We soon learned to distinguish Chris Webber, though, if not for his timeout, then for his draft position. I remember his #4 Warriors jersey exploding all over the local sporting goods store. I remember it being the first time I ever knew that there was an NBA team called “the Warriors,” also learning that they played in some geographically mystical place called “Golden State.” Understanding these things became less important when he left after his first year for the Washington Bullets (whose geography I only thought I understood until reading a Sports Illustrated for Kids reader poll about new mascots for that team, which suggested “the Presidents” as one of the alternatives). I knew a couple of the other members played in the NBA– that’d be Rose and Juan Howard– and I knew the other two, Jimmy King (who did have limited NBA exposure, Wikipedia tells me as I write now) and Ray Jackson, played in the CBA, which remained popular on the west side of the state until east-side star Isiah Thomas drove it into the ground. Given our instruction as to their greatness, I at first didn’t understand why they weren’t all NBA all stars, but my concern diminished as my escalating interest in the rival Spartans grew and my interest in the NBA decreased.

It therefore was with some surprise that I began to hear Rose making post-playing-career appearances in the national sports media, first (to my ears) on Jim Rome’s radio show, where the two considered each other “brothers in smack” (not a drug reference), and then as an NBA analyst on ESPN. Later, Rose rode the social media wave, positioning himself as an independent online presence through his Twitter feed and interactive website.

I haven’t been a podcast person– until recently, my lifestyle lacked one of the two alternatively necessary elements: a long daily commute or the structure of a single, working person– which is why I didn’t mention Grantland’s podcast section in my initial assessment of that site. Since then, though, I have attempted to integrate podcasts into my regular media consumption, and so far, only one has stuck (although I did check in with The Solid Verbal during the college football season).

When I saw the announcement about the firstsecond episode of the Grantland Network’s “Jalen Rose Show” (the first time it was called that), I didn’t realize it was an actual show or series, and I thought the headline was a reference to Rose’s talkative personality, his ability to carry a segment, a show, a full podcast. Fifteen episodes later, I’m glad I was mistaken.

To give you a flavor of the program, here’s the first of two video clips they have released:

There really isn’t anyone like Rose in sports media today. He is candid, thoughtful, and unintentionally funny. Things he avoid include clichés and directly answering the question asked of him. Keep reading for another video clip…

ALDLAND takes you live to ESPN College Gameday: Kentucky vs. Vanderbilt

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ESPN’s College Gameday returns to Nashville this Saturday, with the focus on an 8:00 pm Central game between Vanderbilt and top-ranked Kentucky, following a 6:00 Eastern game between Michigan State and Ohio State in Columbus. It’s a big night for college basketball– particularly ALDLAND’s brand of college basketball– and because I’ve been to Columbus once and have no immediate desire to return, we’re taking you live to Memorial Gym for the late game.

Both Kentucky and Vanderbilt had high expectations before the season started, ranked #2 and #7, respectively, and while the Wildcats currently are surpassing those expectations, the Commodores have faltered. There are two main donkeys on which the tails of their struggles can be pinned: 1) knee injuries to big-man Festus Ezeli, and 2) a lack of bench support. These two rationales also provide good (and mostly legitimate) smokescreens for what Vandy fans fear may be behind their team’s difficulties: the apparent mental weakness that has kept this group from rising to its physical potential in past years. One sign that this spectre is fading is the pleasantly aggressive and frequently commanding performance of Jeffrey Taylor.

UK comes into Saturday night on a tear. They are 11-0 in SEC play, and they generally have been demolishing their opponents. I saw their most recent game, which was a comfortable win over Florida, a team that itself had a mostly comfortable win over Vanderbilt just last weekend. Vandy, meanwhile, comes limping– literally, in Ezeli’s case– into this game, with Wednesday night’s home win over LSU lukewarm comfort after consecutive eight-point losses to Florida and Arkansas. (The Razorbacks’ 81-59 loss to Georgia on Wednesday doesn’t help either.)

Before handing this post over to more accomplished previewers, a note on one similarity and one difference between these two teams. First, many have cited the Wildcats’ size as a factor in their success this season, but Vanderbilt actually matches up well with them physically. Second, Kentucky’s coach, John Calipari, is known for favoring young players, and this year’s starters– three freshman and two sophomores– track to that preference. Vanderbilt, meanwhile, starts a veteran crew: four seniors and one junior.

For an extended, thorough analysis of Saturday night’s game, read this preview at Open ‘Dores. For a Vandy pep talk, watch Jay Bilas’ video hit.

I’ve seen these two teams play twice before with mixed results. In 2008, the Commodores avenged a 79-73 double-overtime loss in Lexington by stunning the Wildcats 93-52 at Memorial Gym. I stunned myself with my own foolishness when I realized, after the game, that I’d locked my keys in my car and that, even in the Mid South, February is a cold month. Two years later, I saw these two again, when Vandy dropped a heartbreaker at home in 2010, losing by two points after missing multiple opportunites to seal a win or send the game into overtime. That was the most exciting game I’ve attended where the team I favored did not win.

Tomorrow’s game presents an even tougher test for Vanderbilt. I know Bilas is a Dookie of the first order, but if he says they can win, then it can be done. Plus, Vanderbilt has recent experience knocking of #1-ranked rival teams: they did it it to Tennessee in 2008.