Sports

While I think this change will be good for baseball, I have to wonder if the people criticizing the mid-season decision to stretch the NBA first round to 7 games will criticize baseball for doing the same thing. (Winner of the All-Star Game now gets home field advantage in the World Series.) Parenthetically, I approve of it because strength of schedule is not something controlled by the World Series teams. For example, right now, three of the teams with the four best records are in the AL. Should the National League World Series team suffer because there’s more parity? I don’t think so. The Giants (say) can’t control who wins the All-Star Game, but they can’t control everyone in the AL falling over for the Yankees either. ...

I got unexpected gift tickets to the Red Sox game (original) tonight. Happy times! Red Sox win, despite an in the park home run by the evil KC Royals. It turns out that if your group decides “Hey, let’s pick up beers for everyone” whenever anyone goes to the bathroom, you wind up with a lot of beer. It’s kind of a positive feedback cycle.

“We expected to see a lot of meat slapping here tonight.” I’d like to introduce the above quote as the most convincing evidence yet that the first round of the NBA playoffs should not have gone to seven games. The announcers are starting to get just a little punchy.

About yesterday’s NBA action — Nothing surprising happened in Dallas, New Jersey, or Sacramento. As expected, the Sacramento/Utah series looks like it’ll be the most enjoyable series of the playoffs. As far as I’m concerned, watching those two teams play each other for a minimum of four games justifies the seven-game first round. I would not be surprised if Byron Scott went to his players before that first game and pointed out that if they don’t go a long way into the playoffs this year, Jason Kidd will be playing elsewhere next season. ...

A lot of people are saying that Michael Jordan had the best year ever for a 40 year old NBA player, and I guess I gotta agree with that. Look at these numbers: .483 from the field, .363 from three point range, .826 from the stripe, 7.7 assists and 1.7 steals per game in a mere 27.7 minutes… Oh, sorry. That’s John Stockton at 40 (original). OK, OK. Shooting .462 from the field, with 7.8 rebounds per game, 4.7 assists, and 20.6 points per game, it’s… damn it. Karl Malone (original). ...

I might as well make some bad predictions about the NBA playoffs, right? First Round Spurs over the Suns, because rookies can only lift you so far. Kings over the Jazz, because… well, it should be obvious. The Kings are hungry. Mavs over the Trailblazers, cause the Trailblazers just can’t handle the playoffs. Lakers over the Timberwolves, because the Lakers have enough talent to get past the first round. Pistons over the Magic, despite Ben Wallace being out. The Magic are nowhere this year. ...

Masanori Murakawa, better known as the Great Sasuke (original), won a seat in the Iwate Prefectural Assembly today (original). By special arrangement, he was permitted to run and will be permitted to take his seat masked; also, he was allowed to use his wrestling nom de plume on the ballots. Well, he’s not the first wrestler ever to be elected to a government, but he’s probably the first one to do so masked. Also probably the best of them all (sorry, Jesse). In fact, you could make a decent argument for him as the best athlete ever to reach elected office.

Man, this is why I love sports. Battie just blocked a shot which saved the game for the Celtics. You can’t really tell from the picture, but he’s pogoing up and down here, arms tight to his side, looking just like this. Cutest damned thing I’ve seen in a while. How can you not love this team?

Kevin Drum comments on an excellent post by Eugene Volokh on college sports. The core question: “Why should we be demanding that athletes who are getting an education in athletics pass muster under academic standards, or for that matter engage in academics at all?” I feel obliged to observe that in many cases, we aren’t. Let’s look at the four major North American professional sports. Neither the NHL or MLB really care much about college educations. Not coincidentally, both of them have very good minor league systems, in which hockey or baseball players respectively can get fine educations in their sport. The NBA doesn’t have much of a farm league, and angsts a fair bit about kids coming straight to the NBA. Since there’s no way for a team to keep the rights to a player while sending him to the minor leagues to mature, this is no big surprise. The NFL is in the same boat. ...

I could just spit. The Sonics traded Kenny Anderson to the Hornets for Elden Campbell. The Celtics traded Anderson for Vin Baker before the season. Baker has been an utter bust. Campbell would be a huge upgrade. This sucks more than I can possibly express.