Home cookin'

As I’ve made clear before, I think there are few pleasures in life more pure than a long, uninterrupted day of sports. In that same piece, I suggested one way to get those glorious days to occur more frequently in Major League Baseball would be to radically expand home field advantage in the playoffs and play every single wildcard, divisional, and league championship game at the stadium of the team with the better record. Two and a half years later I think it’s and even better idea and I’d like to talk more about it here.

Postcards from Addis

It’s been about a year since I went to Ethiopia. As part of a University of Michigan sponsored effort (EM-PACE), I spent a month teaching two post-graduate classes at the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAIT) and got to see, eat, and do some pretty cool stuff. I had a bunch of thoughts while I was there and even managed to write some of them down, but as you can probably tell, never quite fit everything together into a post (or posts) that I was happy with.

Welcome to Atlanta Addis Ababa

Instead, you guys get something else: sports!

A rough draft

The NBA regular season is over which means you’re either celebrating a playoff bid or you’re getting ready for the lottery.

Since the first envelope emerged from the freezer in time immemorial,* teams have schemed for ways to get ahead using the draft. Of course, the NBA has a lottery system to prevent just that. Instead of distributing picks according to record alone, the NBA introduces an element of randomness to discourage teams from losing on purpose to secure a good draft pick.

First name basis

You know how Coors Light claims to be “cold filtered?” Well Benjamin Booker’s voice is kind of like that. Except instead of good times, football, and twins, the sieve is composed of heavy gauge railroad gravel and thumbtacks. Just how much of that is effect and how much is genuine Booker family growl is a question too sophisticated for my ears to parse; the resulting sound, however, is distinctive enough regardless to at least hint at a cannon of first name guys like Bruce, Tom, and whatever astral creature did this.

Rowing the boat

Last March* Kevyn Orr, the Emergency Manager charged with cleaning up Detroit’s balance sheet came to speak at the Michigan (University) Union. Being a frequent visitor of the city, an (I like to think) alert and responsible regional denizen, and always looking for an opportunity to blow off lab,** I went.

Hold Steady, Part II

There is a Replacements song called “Treatment Bound.” It’s a freewheeling number; like most of their stuff it sometimes sounds sloppy and sometimes comes off tight, but most of all is just perpetually threatening to fall off the highwire. It took me a while to realize it, but Paul Westerberg and company weren’t beating their chests or telling fishing stories when they sang, “First thing we do when we pull up / get shiiiiiitfaced drunk / try to sober up.” They didn’t care about labels, hits, or SNL and even if The Mats didn’t live every single line they sang, at least they could have. With the recent release of Teeth Dreams, The Hold Steady’s sixth album, I’ve come to a similar realization about Minnesota-born but Brooklyn-bred group.

North by Northwestern

This. This this this this this.

The football programs may not be worth the decaying frost-covered post-industrial arctic hellscapes* that its universities are dotted across but damn if the B1G isn’t leading the pack into the future of college athletics.**

State of Grace

We might as well get this out of the way first: Grace Potter is a stone cold fox. Of course, you can’t tell that from any of her studio tracks. All you can really gather is that she can absolutely shred a B3 organ and she’s got an easy singing style that can jump from embers to inferno at a moment’s notice. And that’s more than enough.

Chris Klu-less

Last week Chris Kluwe published an open letter on Deadspin taking the Minnesota Vikings organization to task over his firing nearly a year ago. By the end of the letter, it becomes clear that his chief motivation was to discourage anyone in the NFL from hiring Vikings special teams coach Mike Priefer. Ever. Again.* I had initially decided to let this one go, but I’ve been asked about it a couple of times and still see it floating around on the internet nearly a week after, so I suppose I’ll add my two three cents. Here goes:

Kidding around: the three levels of Rock

I first really got to know Kid Rock on a random weekend during my junior year of college in Madison. It was Saturday, there was weather, and we didn’t have anything better more fun to do so me and my roommates were drinking beer and grilling brats in the backyard we shared with our neighbors. I don’t really remember who, why, or how it happened, but “Cowboy” came over the iPod that was furnishing the soundtrack to our cookout. It’s not like everything stopped, but I think we all had a moment not unlike the first time you drink a beer out of a pink lawn flamingo. It might not make a lick of sense, but it’s awesome nonetheless. For the rest of college that song remained our anthem. It had all the right ingredients: it was badass, it sounded good, and we were the only ones on the block that knew it.

More fun with binomial stats: Dunn, Davis, and Anderson

I mentioned in my last post that it is possible to use binomial theorem to compare player statistics year-to-year (between any two samples actually) and assess whether a player’s current numbers are in line with previous performance or well beyond our expectations, indicating that something – a new mental approach, a lingering injury, a mechanical adjustment – has changed and substantially affected his or her abilities.

Since it’s fun* and easy,** let's apply this to a few more cases and see what we can see.

*You bet your sweet ass it’s fun.

**Again, see my previous post for a slightly more detailed explanation of just what we’re up to here.

The new Gordon Beckham: binomial statistics for baseball

Watching the White Sox this year has been awful.* I have to imagine Robin Ventura wants to do this pretty much every  night. Through the end of May the Sox were hanging around .500 and then the wheels just fell off. It’s ok to lose to Detroit or Texas, but to get swept by the Cubs and Twins or drop three of four to the 4A team that is Houston** is just…ugh.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve stopped watching.

** Seriously, a league-average major league player puts up about 2 WAR in a given year. The Astros have 6 players total (4 position, 2 pitchers) on pace to even sniff that mark this year. That team is baaaaaaad.

Poster boy

Something terrible happened to Brandon Knight of the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night. I could try to explain, but it’s best if you just take a look at the video after the jump.

Tactless in Seattle

This is awful. Actually, I should specify: Sacramento’s NBA franchise moving to Seattle after a rather public courtship is awful for the fans. It’ll work out just fine for the owners, and probably even better for the league. New stadiums flaunt, new merchandise to sell, and hey even though they won’t be able to the threat of moving to Seattle as leverage for franchises anymore, they’ll be able to do the same thing with Sacramento in a couple of years.

There has been plenty of study/discussion of team relocation and how best to handle it. You could just keep on playing and hoping or you could dance on a grave or practically anything in between. After seeing my hometown Twins forced to sit under the damocletian sword of contraction in the aftermath of the 2001 World Series, I got to watch helplessly again as the Viking were batted around as a likely candidate for LA's new NFL franchise* during the second half of 2012. That is at least until the state built them a new stadium. Funny how that sort of thing works out.

Fully Framing Farmers

Maybe I’m getting older, but this year seemed a down one for super bowl commercials. Budweiser turned in a few clunkers featuring a man who may or may not have been Stevie Wonder*. Go Daddy decided that tasteless was not enough and just went for straight out stupid. And Audi, along with Hyundai and others, simply recycled previously aired spots. The one commercial that did manage to stick with me, however, was a “Dodge Ram: the pickup truck for farmers, for America” spot.**

Windy >> Indy

Editor’s note: This piece is part of an inter-blog point-counterpoint series on the site of the B1G Championship game. Scoot on over to Crossroads of the Interwebz to hear their take on why this years Leaders-Legends showdown should stay in Indianapolis. Stay here and read why it belongs in the Windy City. Either way, make sure to vote in the poll on the sidebar!

This Saturday Wisconsin and Nebraska will face off in Indianapolis for the B1G* championship. One of those things is wrong, and it’s not that Bucky is playing for a trip to the Rose Bowl despite being the third best team in its division. The major problem with the championship game this year and every year is that it will be held in Indianapolis. Now if this was the Big XII or the Mountain West and we were debating between places like Boise, Idaho and Norman, Oklahoma Indy wouldn’t seem so bad. But we’re not stuck in those flyover states,** we have a world class city at the heart of our region in Chicago. Specifically, the alumni base, ease of travel, stadium, and city itself all make Chicago the ideal place to host the B1G championship game. So why isn’t it played there? I don’t know either, but here’s why it should be.

*Yes, I am going to write it that way for the entire post.

**Mostly at least.

Droning on

I’ve taken a lot of classes as a college student. As a result, I’ve come up with more than a few ways of wasting time during lecture. One of my personal favorites is FanGraphs – an analytically inclined baseball blog. The irony of reading up on new hitting metrics during my stats lectures was delicious and I like baseball, so it’s a pretty good marriage. One of their tricks is to post two stat lines without identifying the player. If done right it illustrates for readers how their preconceived notions of player value may have clouded their judgment when evaluating talent. For example, which of these players would you rather have:

Player A – batting avg.: 0.302; on base %: 0.360; slugging %: 0.522*

            Player B – batting avg.: 0.251; on base %: 0.332, slugging %: 0.475*

*Stats per Baseball Reference, contract info (below) via Cot’s Contracts.

Player A is clearly better right!? Well player A is Aaron Hill, a second baseman for the Arizona Diamondbacks who pulls down $5 million a year and didn’t even make the all star team this year. Player B is Mark Teixeira; he of the $180 million contract and New York Yankee fame. Unless they had already done their homework, few baseball fans would guess that Aaron Hill had a better 2012 than Mark freakin’ Teixeira! Anyways, if you’re into this sort of thing it can be quite fun, and since the presidential election was just a short while ago it might be a cool trick to apply to politics. So, try this one on for size:

President A – drone assassinations: 278; enemy combatants detained: 2,400; awesome quote: “I’ve now been in fifty-seven states; I think one left to go.”

President B – drone assassinations: 52; enemy combatants detained: 1,400; awesome quote: “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." 

CATHOLICS VOTE NO

Minnesota always has been home and always will be home. We’re damn proud of our lakes, high school hockey, Prince, and Paul Wellstone. We were the first state to answer Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers at the start of the Civil War and we have one of the best social safety nets in the country. But in one week we could also become the 31^st state to rewrite its constitution to ban same-sex marriage.*

*This is civil marriage – a legal contract recognized by the state that privileges two parties to state-recognized benefits – not the sacramental union in the Church (which also happens to be recognized by the state). This is an important distinction.

We’re also proud to call ourselves Catholics. It is a beautiful Faith and the Church does some wonderful work from advocacy on Capitol Hill to feeding the homeless at the Dorothy Day Center. Nevertheless, the Minnesota Catholic Church and its exceptional support of the amendment to ban gay marriage are major reasons that the vote Tuesday remains too close to call. It would be a tragedy if Minnesota votes yes – not just for the LGBT community, but for our state, and for our Church. 

Baseball!

Is there any better feeling than waking up and knowing that – if you wanted to – you could watch playoff baseball for something like 12 glorious, uninterrupted hours? It’s like the early days of the NCAA Tournament where you get to devour a sport you love for the better part of a week. Who cares if you can’t tell Savannah State from Gonzaga without the commentators’ help, it’s basketball dammit!  Same thing here. I don’t care that I am perpetually surprised to learn that Scott Rolen hasn’t retired or that my mind races to the former still-playing (!?) catcher Henry every time Gregor Blanco gets his name called. It’s baseball! 

Those who spam will be champions

Athletic departments are expensive ventures. Last year the University of Michigan’s operating expenses totaled nearly $125 million. That’s ok though because they brought in $130. With $27 million of that coming from donations it’s safe to say they know a thing or two about how to fundraise. But that doesn’t mean they know how to write emails.