Feeling Minnesota

In the other football news last Tuesday, the NFL awarded the 2018 Super Bowl to Minnesota. Apparently the stiffest competition came from Indianapolis, which meant that the owner who got four felony charges knocked down to two misdemeanors got beat out by the one who's already had a judge call him a racketeer.

On Personal Responsibility, the NFL, and Getting Screwed Over

In the wake of the announcement of the lawsuit against the NFL, it's become popular for ESPN's in-house ex-player contingent to dismiss the suit's claimants as, essentially, whiny babies. The meme, stated memorably by Mark Schlereth, is that a player should take responsibility for what was done to him while he played, and by suing, these guys are trying to have their cake and eat it, too.

Great Moments In Mood-Swinging Sports Journalism

And this is why I love NBA journalism:

Before game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals:

"The Pacers are terrible. They're going to get run right out of the gym. I don't know why the Heat even have to bother playing the games. Also, Pacers coach Frank Voepel is a dummy, and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is a genius."

Your Handy Dandy Guide to Donald Sterling's First Amendment Rights

And here's a reminder for all you budding constitutional law scholars out there:

Donald Sterling's banishment from the NBA is not a First Amendment issue. Mr. Sterling is not being prosecuted by any government agency for his words, as ill-chosen, hateful, embarrassing or stupid as they might have been. He is free to say as many dumb-ass racist things as he'd like, without fear that they will land him in jail. Ergo, his First Amendment rights are not being infringed.

It's Schafer Time. Or Maybe Not.

Sometimes, the funny stuff that happens in baseball never makes SportsCenter.
Take, for example, the sad case of Braves reserve outfielder Jordan Schafer. A former top prospect who blazed his way out of the Braves organization (and yes, that means exactly what you think it means) before returning as a surprisingly useful spare part last year, Mr. Schafer is not entirely happy with his role.

On Michael Sam and Toughness

The word we hear used more often than nearly other when talking about the NFL is "toughness". Coaches want players with toughness. Announcers love guys who show toughness, because "tough" players do things like break tackles, and that can be shown again and again in slo-mo to fill air time. Analysts praise guys for their toughness, because it's a great way to say a nice thing about a guy even if there is nothing else to say. Fans fall in love with players because of their toughness, because, hey, it's easier to imagine yourself as the not-as-talented-guy-who-nevertheless-gives-his-all-and-somehow-makes-the-team than as guy-with-star-level-talent-you-demonstrably-don't have.

11 Things We Learned From The NFL Draft

We won't know who "won" or "lost" the NFL draft for years. It kind of takes that long for players to develop, or not. We can, however, take certain things away that are strictly a result of the data provided by the draft, and that on-field production (or the eventual lack thereof) will have nothing to do with. 

To wit:

It Was A Really Thick Sandwich

Baseball injuries are the best.

Case in point: Matt Cain, starting pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, just got himself put on the disabled list as a result of a - and I am not making this up - sandwich-related accident. Apparently Mr. Cain was making himself a snack in the clubhouse before his start and decided to go all Top Chef on that sucker, because he sliced a finger open trying to cut it into "fancy little triangles".

NBA First Round Surprises

Do you remember when the 1st round of the NBA playoffs were all about the upsets? When Indiana was about to go down to Atlanta because they hadn't played well since trading for Evan Turner, and Oklahoma City was about to get knocked out by Memphis, and #1 overall seed San Antonio was on the ropes against 8 seed Dallas, and those veteran Nets everyone was supposed to be afraid of were getting pushed around by the Raptors? Remember how commentators were stone-facedly telling us that 3 of the 4 serious contenders for the title were likely to go down in that first round (which, incidentally, lasted longer than a Phillip Glass improv session, and probably contributed to the favorites' comebacks by allowing the more veteran teams to rest and recover).

Yeah. About that.

Never mind.

Feeling the Draft

This year, in an attempt to tear American families apart, the NFL pushed its annual player draft back two weeks to Mother's Day weekend. The logic, apparently, was that two more weeks of buildup to the draft would be two more weeks of people talking about football and doing mock drafts (replacing two weeks after the draft with everyone talking football and doing draft report cards, equally erroneous).  So far, the only apparent difference is that roughly 5% of the on-air time that used to be spent wondering if Jacksonville was going to take a left tackle you'd never heard of with their first pick is now spent wondering about the wisdom of that additional two week buffer.

So in order to relieve you of what must be the unbearable tension of waiting for the NFL draft - which, it must be said, is a glorified roll call that now extends over 3 days - here is the official Sportsthodoxy guide to what's about to happen:

Minus Several Million For Good Thinking

I remember going to a Carolina Mudcats game back in the day when Michael Pineda hit triple digits on the Five County Stadium radar gun. His first warmup pitch - he was with the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx in those days - hit the catcher's mitt with a sound like shotgun being fired. People stopped what they were doing, all around that chatty, friendly little ballpark. People turned. People listened as much as they watched. And the numbers from the radar gun showed 100, 102, 99, 100, 101.

The Mudcats, who were not what you'd call an offensive juggernaut at the best of times during that 2010 season, were helpless. And I walked away from that game thinking I'd seen a future star.

Facts In The Case Concerning D. Sterling

So.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, staring down the barrel of a playoff boycott, pulled the trigger on Clippers owner and inveterate dirtbag of long standing Donald Sterling. Eager to lap the punishment MLB laid on Marge Schott back in the day, Silver has fined Sterling $2.5M (pocket change to a guy worth 1.9 billion or so), suspended him permanently, and announced plans to force Sterling to sell the team. It's clear, it's clean, and it's a win for those of us who prefer our sports without overt and gnarly racism of the sort Sterling has been spouting for years. Never mind that, as Dave D'Alessandro pointed out, Sterling is hardly the only charmer among NBA owners, or that the NBA has for years been aware of exactly what sort of creature Sterling is and chose to hold its collective nose and do business with him as part of the cartel anyway. Bomani Jones has already laid down the best word on that subject.

Baseball-English Translation Guide, Part 2

• "He just doesn't know how to win" - his team didn't score any runs while he was pitching.
• "What's important is that everyone in the bullpen knows their role" - the closer is simultaneously the most expensive and the worst pitcher out there, but even he can generally get three outs without melting down too often.
• "He's hitting the ball hard but right at people" - Other teams have scouting reports and position their fielders accordingly.
• "He's much less effective working from the stretch" - because that's what he does when there are runners on, as opposed to when the bases are empty
• "RBIs are much more important than getting on base" - The commentator has not yet figured out that the runs that get batted in are the result of someone getting on base.
• "Guys who take a lot of walks clog the bases" - Because aesthetically speaking, the clean, empty expanse of a base with no one on it is much more pleasing
• "He really wanted that pitch" - Because it was a foot and a half outside
• "The batter wants to know where that pitch was" - Because it wasn't over the plate
• "Should be an easy play for the left fielder" - But won't be, because this guy takes worse routes to the ball than Ponce De Leon
• "Struggling to find himself at the plate" - The Pointer Sisters have had a hit more recently than this guy
• "Still has to earn back the fans' trust" - this guy got caught using PEDs and everyone outside his team's home town hates him. The hometown fans, on the other hand, think he's the greatest thing since microbrews at ballparks, at least as long as he keeps producing. If he's ever traded or signs elsewhere as a free agent, his former hometown fans will suddenly decide en masse that he's a bum, while the new hometown fans will embrace him. 
• "He's a different hitter on the road" - And by different, we mean "worse"

Who The Good Guys Are

Once upon a time, everybody hated Bryce Harper. They hated him because he was cocky and arrogant and disrespectful (or possibly a 17 year old kid who had been told most of his life he was a transcendent talent and who was under an intense media spotlight from the age when it became possible for him to grow hair in awkward places).

This lasted for a while, until suddenly an idiot political columnist had a new idea: Bryce Harper, who didn't do underaged drinking and who went all-out on every play, even when that meant crashing into walls, was no longer Everything Wrong With Baseball.

Baseball to English Translation Guide, Part 1

Now that baseball season is underway, we here at Sportsthodoxy felt it would be a public service to translate some of the more obscure phrases in Baseballese into English for our readers. For example:

• "This team's got great chemistry" - Nobody's punched anyone over what music gets played in the locker room. Yet.

Must-Read x3

Here are three excellent pieces of long-form sportswriting that you should read.

• This one, over at SBNation, explores the world of an SEC football "bagman", who slips kids and families cash in exchange for results on the field. 
• This one, from Deadspin, is written by a man who used to manage boxers - and fix matches.
• This one, at ESPN, talks about what Yasiel Puig went through - and is still going through - in order to get to the US to play baseball. 

They are all sobering reminders that the machinery of big-time sports is lubricated, not just in sweat, but in money and blood, and that the blood can be shed unwillingly. Never mind stadium shenanigans or any of the other stuff we usually yell about here; all three of these are about what it takes to keep our sports entertainment flowing. 

Enjoy the reads. 

Under Mis-Standings

You want to know why not a ton of people get that into hockey's regular season? It's because you look at the standings and the NHL looks like a second grade spelling be where everyone's rewarded for participation.

Rauuuuuul

Raul Ibanez has 2000 more hits than you do.

Shark, Tanked

So it's Jeff Samardzija's turn to be That Guy.

You know That Guy. The pitcher who does a good job every time out there, but whose team suddenly decides that baseball bats are leading cause of deforestation and refuses to hit? The guy who can't buy a win for love or money, no matter how well he pitches? The guy who, for whatever reason, will have ten thousand fantasy baseball owners shaking their tiny fists, and tiny-minded commentators saying gravely "well, he just doesn't know how to win."
This year, the Shark has pitched 3 times. He has an ERA of 1.29. Last night, he went seven, allowing one run on six hits with no walks. He left with a 2 run lead, which the bullpen promptly coughed up. 

One Thumb Ligament Equals Two Feet

Everybody repeat it with me: headfirst slides into first base are dumb.

The latest casualty? Josh Hamilton, who ripped up his thumb's internal workings and will be out a couple of months as a result. This is not a new thing for Hamilton, who is making something of a second career out of doing dumb things early in the season that get him hurt, but it's a bad thing for the Angels, who were enjoying his small sample size return to form in hopes that he'd help them return to relevance.

Instead, this.