Three Course Meal
By Blogger
Appetizers
-I've finally grown weary of pointing out the hypocrisy and blindness rampant among Barry Bonds Bashers. I'll let the MLBlog Inside Pitch, and poster Carl Shimkin, eloquently illustrate the problems with hating Bonds beyond all others. (Yes, I know drinking beer wasn't illegal in Ruth's day, but that doesn't undermine his argument.)
-Do not challenge Prince to a basketball game. Also, never challenge him to a guitar-playing contest.
-In offline conversations shortly after the Preakness, Ben called it: a professional sports columnist has said that Barbaro is everything Barry Bonds isn't. Well... not exactly. The exact words are: "...while it is easy to cheer against Bonds and other athletic churls, cheaters and chokers, race horses are -- like most domesticated animals -- almost universally laudable creatures. They try hard, do not complain and do not get in much off-the-track trouble. They're pure." Pat Forde, we salute your hackery.
-The Dime Magazine folks at Fox Sports are projecting Andrea Bargnani as the number one pick in the NBA Draft. My Warriors are projected to take Tyrus Thomas. Why do I get a bad feeling about both of those picks?
Soup and Salad
-One pitcher has pitched 72 innings and sports a 2.88 ERA. However, he's only struck out 40. While he's walked only 10, his BABIP is .259, which is well below his career norm. You can look for that number to rise since BABIP is thought to be mostly a function of luck. Another pitcher has tossed 69 innings, striking out 59 and walking 17. His ERA is 5.19, but that may be due to the inordinate number of balls in play that have fallen for hits against him. His BABIP is .305, twenty points above his established career norm, and about fifteen points above the generally accepted average. Based on overall career history, you'd have to prefer having the first pitcher, Roy Halladay, for the rest of the year. However, Dave Bush's performance over the first two months of the season is just more evidence that Mike Maddux is a hell of a pitching coach.
Entree
The ideal internet community is out there, somewhere. It doesn't quite exist, yet. But I hold out hope it will. One of my favorite outposts is McCovey Chronicles, run by a guy who goes simply by Grant. Yes, it's a San Francisco Giants blog, so I'm immediately predisposed, but the community is endearing in other ways. First, as far as I can tell, there are no formalized rules of behavior. The community self-polices against trolls, and generally encourages fun and humor. The Diary function (found on all the SBNation sites) allows registered members to open their own threads and start new discussions. In other words, McCovey Chronicles gives readers the opportunity to buy in, to have a stake in the well-being of the blog. While most blogs, Sportszilla included, remain shackled to old notions of Information Transmitter-Receiver, either by choice or because the platform doesn't offer options, the SBNation blogs, and their cousin Daily Kos, nurture communities closer in nature to neighborhood hangouts than neighborhood newsletters. Therefore, it makes more sense for people who interact on McCovey Chronicles to meet face to face than it does to arrange a meeting of most other blogs' readers (I'm the dude in the second photo). Of course, the content still has to attract readers in the first place, but once they're hooked, their stake in the site will keep them.
Dessert
-This is why I will never, ever, go open-sea kayaking.
-I've finally grown weary of pointing out the hypocrisy and blindness rampant among Barry Bonds Bashers. I'll let the MLBlog Inside Pitch, and poster Carl Shimkin, eloquently illustrate the problems with hating Bonds beyond all others. (Yes, I know drinking beer wasn't illegal in Ruth's day, but that doesn't undermine his argument.)
-Do not challenge Prince to a basketball game. Also, never challenge him to a guitar-playing contest.
-In offline conversations shortly after the Preakness, Ben called it: a professional sports columnist has said that Barbaro is everything Barry Bonds isn't. Well... not exactly. The exact words are: "...while it is easy to cheer against Bonds and other athletic churls, cheaters and chokers, race horses are -- like most domesticated animals -- almost universally laudable creatures. They try hard, do not complain and do not get in much off-the-track trouble. They're pure." Pat Forde, we salute your hackery.
-The Dime Magazine folks at Fox Sports are projecting Andrea Bargnani as the number one pick in the NBA Draft. My Warriors are projected to take Tyrus Thomas. Why do I get a bad feeling about both of those picks?
Soup and Salad
-One pitcher has pitched 72 innings and sports a 2.88 ERA. However, he's only struck out 40. While he's walked only 10, his BABIP is .259, which is well below his career norm. You can look for that number to rise since BABIP is thought to be mostly a function of luck. Another pitcher has tossed 69 innings, striking out 59 and walking 17. His ERA is 5.19, but that may be due to the inordinate number of balls in play that have fallen for hits against him. His BABIP is .305, twenty points above his established career norm, and about fifteen points above the generally accepted average. Based on overall career history, you'd have to prefer having the first pitcher, Roy Halladay, for the rest of the year. However, Dave Bush's performance over the first two months of the season is just more evidence that Mike Maddux is a hell of a pitching coach.
Entree
The ideal internet community is out there, somewhere. It doesn't quite exist, yet. But I hold out hope it will. One of my favorite outposts is McCovey Chronicles, run by a guy who goes simply by Grant. Yes, it's a San Francisco Giants blog, so I'm immediately predisposed, but the community is endearing in other ways. First, as far as I can tell, there are no formalized rules of behavior. The community self-polices against trolls, and generally encourages fun and humor. The Diary function (found on all the SBNation sites) allows registered members to open their own threads and start new discussions. In other words, McCovey Chronicles gives readers the opportunity to buy in, to have a stake in the well-being of the blog. While most blogs, Sportszilla included, remain shackled to old notions of Information Transmitter-Receiver, either by choice or because the platform doesn't offer options, the SBNation blogs, and their cousin Daily Kos, nurture communities closer in nature to neighborhood hangouts than neighborhood newsletters. Therefore, it makes more sense for people who interact on McCovey Chronicles to meet face to face than it does to arrange a meeting of most other blogs' readers (I'm the dude in the second photo). Of course, the content still has to attract readers in the first place, but once they're hooked, their stake in the site will keep them.
Dessert
-This is why I will never, ever, go open-sea kayaking.
posted by Blogger at 12:05 AM
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