Monte Irvin, RIP

Now that's a baseball card

Lost in all the nonsense about the Rams moving and the Chargers maybe moving and God knows what else this week was a story you probably missed: Hall of Fame outfielder Monte Irvin, late of the Negro Leagues and the New York Giants, passed away.

Trump on Football

If you actually take what Donald Trump says about football seriously, I have four letters for you.

They are, in order:

Wild Card Weekend Takeaways

Here is what we learned during Wild Card weekend in the NFL:

Takeaways from the 2016 Hall of Fame Results

Now that this year's Baseball Hall of Fame voting results have been announced and the furious hot takes about whether Jack Morris should get in have been safely buried for a year, it's time to look at those results - Griffey and Piazza in, everybody else out, Jim Edmonds off the ballot - and think about what this really means. To wit:

Your Handy-Dandy Guide to Fired NFL Coaches

No, Chuck Pagano's not on this list. I didn't believe it, either.

On the Chip Kelly Firing

From the Official Father of Sportsthodoxy, via email:

"Chip fell off the block. He will surface as the next Coach of the Sixers. No guess who the next Eagles Coach will be."

Compared to this, I got nothing.

5 win teams prove NCAA is wrong about bowls - again!

I posted before about the NCAA crying about how there were too many bowls, it wasn't fair that 5 win teams got to go, blah blah blah.  Well guess what?  Did anyone notice that all three of those 5 win teams WON their games?  That's right, so who's laughing now?  One has to ask how deserving were the 6, 7, and 8-win teams they played (and beat).

On Why Bowl Results Don't Matter (Again)

This is your annual reminder that, with the possible exception of the games in the "playoff", bowl games absolutely do not matter. You cannot tell a damn thing about how good a team is, how good a conference is , what a team's prospects are for next year, or really anything at all. This is because:

A Declaration of Sixers-Hood

WHEREAS:

The plan known as "The Process" by which the Philadelphia 76ers basketball club is attempting to rebuild itself is contingent on acquiring and developing as much cheap young talent as possible while not worrying about wins in the short term

AND

Due to the vagaries of injuries, draft position, the greed and short-sightedness of various NBA General Managers, the 76ers have focused on drafting "the best available player" in order to stockpile as much raw talent as possible.

Beckham/Norman, With No Armchair Psychoanalysis

Here is what we know:

Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr., after mixing it up with Panthers cornerback Josh Norman all day, took a running start at him and planted his helmet squarely on Norman's earhole.
This is not allowed.

Various Rushes That Are Better Than NFL Color Rush

Yes, even during the mustache-and-sweater phase

In Order:

1. Canadian prog-rock gods Rush

Color Rush Is A Crime Against Nature

Worst. Minions. Cosplay. Ever. 

Listen carefully.

There is a word for the new "color rush" uniforms the NFL made the Rams and Bucs wear Thursday night.

Things Broadcasters Are Forced to Say

The real proof that football season lasts too long is in listening to commentators desperately trying to fill air time as things stretch on and on.

Take, for example, respected and generally with-it CBSSports.com reporter Will Brinson, who, when discussing the coke-fueled bouncy house party that the ECU coaching carousel became, sternly suggested that East Carolina could not possibly succeed in a conference with teams like Houston if they kept scheduling powerhouses like Virginia Tech. Houston, the AAC champion, instead scheduled Louisville, and there's no comparison between scheduling VT and scheduling Louisville.

115 stadiums and counting - the year in review

About a week and a half ago I drove from North Carolina to Mobile, AL to see App State take on the South Alabama Jaguars.  This was my 115th FBS stadium, not counting bowl games or other special events.  The game started at 6:30 local time, so I had plenty of time to drive the whole way on Saturday, and then come home Sunday.

Some people say I'm crazy (very few have incontrovertible proof though).  But, as I tell my friends, obsession is what lazy people call commitment, and when you are committed to seeing all 130 FBS stadiums, you just don't balk at a 20-hour road trip!

2 semester sport? What are you talking about? Aka why the NCAA is crazy for not allowing a bigger play-off

So here we are again, friends, talking about bowl games.  I meant to write about something else today, but the powers that be keep making stupid comments, so here I go again (on my own).

Earlier this week I read an article on ESPN.com, saying there is no way the play-off will get any bigger, because the university presidents don't want to add more games, and push the season further into January.  That would make football a 2 semester sport, and that would mess up the academics too much.  Because the academics are the most important thing, right?

Top 10 Questions Coming Out Of The Baseball Winter Meetings

Now that the annual baseball winter meetings have wrapped up and all the job seekers, stringers, and agents for backup catchers have caught their flights home, it's time for folks to declare "winners" and "losers" of the deals that went down.

Which is ridiculous. Because nobody's playing a game for another three and a half months and moves don't get made in a vacuum, and besides, nobody's signed Yoenis Cespedes yet.

Would anyone really care if more teams went to bowl games? Aka 6 reasons to have even more bowl games

So in my last post, which I know you all read, right?  RIGHT?  I criticized the NCAA for whining about there not being enough 6 win teams to fill all the bowl slots, which is ironic because it is the NCAA's fault in the first place for permitting too many of them.

Then I got to thinking, so what if more 5 win teams went to bowl games, or even 4 win teams?  Would anybody really care?

NCAA reps please read - 2 brilliant ideas on how to solve the bowl game problem

In my last post I called the NCAA a bunch of boneheads b/c they were whining about teams with less than 6 wins going to bowl games (3 of which are, thanks in part to South Alabama failing to qualify on Saturday in a game they could have won).  Totally the NCAA's fault, because they let it happen.  So here's how you fix it:

Logic and Playoff Spots

Here's a thing.

If your argument is that two teams contending for one spot in the college football playoffs have essentially the same record, except that one team played better opponents because they were in a better conference, then you have invalidated your initial argument.

If your argument is that it's not your team's fault that they played in a weak football conference and they could only play the teams they were scheduled, then you are automatically disqualified from dismissing that argument when it is used to support the candidacy of mid-major schools for NCAA basketball tournament spots. It is called intellectual consistency, people. Learn it, live it, love it.

I was right about the bowl games - but why does that surprise you?

A few weeks ago I posted about there probably being too many bowl games - I totally scooped ESPN on this with my mad analysis.  I figured out that (at that time) there were not enough teams within enough wins to fill the bowls (based on current # of wins and projecting forward over time using kick-ass modeling skills).  No I won't give you my secret sauce.


Now the pundits have finally figured this all out, and the boys in charge are making a big stink about it, saying they will let some bowl games "go dark" to slow down growth in games.  Well, what the hell did you expect to happen?