The Sports Freakers
"Analysis, Columns, and Freakouts from the world of sports"
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Kobe's Turnover
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
My Favorite Ballpark Seats
-The Right Field Bleachers
Most ballparks have some type of bleacher seats. Some are pretty deep in (
-Field Level in between the foul polls and either first or third base.
Obviously any chance you get to sit Field Level is a golden one, but not every seat gets the job done. But if you are an autograph seeker or just enjoy watching warmups, this seat is for you. Most players don’t sign before games, but just being able to watch their interactions is a joy. I’d also use these seats to get to the ballpark about an hour before the game. Once you are in the Field Level, most teams let you roam around. So I’d highly recommend using this time to sneak down by the field and hopefully get your favorite player’s attention. And of course, once it is game time, you get an awesome perspective of the entire field.
-Third Deck right behind home plate
While being three decks up turns some away, this might be the best seat to watch a baseball game. You can see everything to perfection. No one is blocking up, you are elevated to the perfect height, and there is also a chance to catch a foul ball. These seats are normally one of the best values too. A Camden Yards, you can spend on average about $22 for one of these seats, as opposed to sitting in the second deck by the left field foul pole (A tough seat to see a game), spending $45.
-First row of field level, behind home plate
Fine, I had to throw this in here because I was lucky to sit in this seat for a game. There really is nothing like it. Forget about the fact that you are on the field. But you sit there with your jaw wide open, watching every single pitch as if it was Game 7 of the World Series. You can see the spin on the ball, the velocity of the pitches, and can feel the crack of the bat. When a foul ball comes to the back of the netting, you almost get whip lash from how hard it comes at you. Honestly, as weird as it sounds, you can’t even follow the actual game because you get completely caught up in everything else. But this seat is truly breath taking and completely changes your experience at a ballpark.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Stop Freaking!
We live in a society of immediacy. People tweet, post on Facebook, carry around smart phones, and get all of their news even before news happens. We need to know everything before everyone else. And with that comes the immediate need for success.
So I want to give sports fans the best advice you'll ever hear. Stop freaking!
Tiger Woods will win eight more majors in the next decade. Just because he hasn’t won one in the last two years does not mean his skills have eroded. He was plagued with drama and had to completely change his life around. Yet he still finished in the Top 10 in back-to-back Masters. Woods will be fine, so stop freaking!
The Yankees and Red Sox will be fighting for the AL East come September. The Red Sox lose a few early games and they need to panic. The Yankees fall two out of three to the same Red Sox and they are old. Let’s be real here. The baseball season is just too long. There’s always this debate of “Are April games meaningless?” No, April games are not meaningless, but when there are 150 games left to play, everything evens out. The good teams win and the bad teams lose. Even if the Yankees lose their next game, its only one game, so stop freaking!
So where did this freaking come from? I definitely feel that the social networking world is part of the problem. Everyone has to magnify everything. A pitcher gives up a three-run homer, and we need to over analyze to pitch, the command, and the location. Soon enough, people get ingrained in their heads negativity and we then believe that the pitcher is now bad. You log onto Twitter, follow 35 fans and writers, and all you see flooding your page is posts on the three-run homer. Then you get involved in the discussion as well, and it completely blows up. One pitch does not make a season, so stop freaking!
I also think football is one of the roots of the issue. Football is the shortest of all of the seasons. It is also the most watched and elicits the most in-game attention. So when your team loses a game, you have to worry. One game is almost 6% of a season. And when football is over, the conditioning it gave us to be into every play carries over to the other sports. Football is unique in its length, but every other sport requires patience. And not every sport is football, so stop freaking!
Sorry to fantasy sports players (including myself), but we can throw that into the blame game. When your own money and pride is on the line, it makes you worry rather quickly. You smell that $5000 first prize, so every week needs to be near perfect. Brandon Phillips is doing to have a bad week. But you drafted him in the 5th round and he’ll produce like a fifth rounder, so stop freaking!
There’s a time to worry, just give things time to settle. And stop freaking!
Party Like it's 1997
When kids are brought up in a sports-loving household like I was, there comes a time when the indoctrination translates into actual fandom. Around the age of six or seven, you start having vivid memories of individual games or players. I remember the Jets getting knocked out of the 1991 playoffs by the Houston Oilers, for instance. I was six years old.
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Five Worst Hitters in Baseball
5) Gerald Laird: Catchers are always fun to look up, because there are plenty of bad ones. Laird stands out because he is an overrated defensive catcher. Yes, he can throw out base runners (174 out of 458), but he’s also committed 42 career errors. But we need to take a closer look at the hitting. Where do we even begin? Should we start with a career .300 OBP? How about the .241 average? Laird is just a mess of a hitter, strike out about once every five at-bats. Laird is still 32, so he’s got a few more years of horrendous hitting left in him.
4) Craig Counsell: It’s tough to put Counsell on the list because by next year, he’ll probably be retired (He’s 40). Counsell though deserves not just a spot here, but a lifetime achievement award. In 4588 career ABs, Counsell has just 41 HRs and a .257 batting average. He’s never hit over .300 in seasons in which he has amassed over 300 at bats (6 in total), and his best year was in 2005 when he hit 9 HRs and knocked in 52 runs. Counsell’s batting stance is one of the most awkward in baseball history, and so are his numbers.
3) Jack Wilson:
2) Ronny Cedeno: Cedeno is such an enigma because he actually has some hitting skills. He had two minor-league season where he batted over .350 while amassing double-digit steals. But for some reason, Cedeno just can’t figure out major-league pitching. What separates Cedeno is his strikeouts (369 in 1732 career major-league at bats) along with a .245 career average. The pop is somewhat there (31 HRs), but he’s a complete mess at the plate. Cedeno somehow still has a job despite a 2010 season where he hit .256 with just 38 RBIs in over 450 at-bats.
1) Cesar Izturis: His ten-year career has been full of mediocrity. In over 4000 at-bats, Izturis has hit just 15 HRs while having a .256 career average. Izturis has some speed (109 career SBs, but I doubt any of his seven major league teams would want him up in a big spot. Izturis batted over .280 just once (2003), but has always been known more for his glove than his bat.
Monday, April 4, 2011
I Am Tired of....
….hearing people think the Red Sox are going to win the World Series in 2011.
It’s not going to happen. Forget the fact that I am a diehard Yankee fan and I hate the Red Sox with a passion. But money doesn’t buy championships; we’ve seen it over and over again. And when teams buy players, it takes time to construct a team. The Red Sox have huge flaws that people are just overlooking.
a) They can’t pitch: Jon Lester is good, and Clay Bucholtz is solid, but they have no starting pitching beyond that (And stop with the “Josh Beckett will rebound” argument. Just stop)
b) They don’t have a bullpen: After Daniel Bard, who can be trusted?
c) Someone will get hurt: Adrian Gonzalez is coming off shoulder surgery, Kevin Youkilis is hurt every two months, Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury were hurt last year. There’s no way they all stay healthy.
d) The competition is better: Whether people want to believe it or not, the Yankees are still the Yankees. The entire AL East is much better, and the White Sox, Athletics, Tigers, and Twins will all challenge for the Wild Card if they don’t win their divisions.
...the talk about expanding the the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
How many companies would kill for the popularity the NCAA has? Yet the NCAA needs to change that. I understand tweaking little things about the tournament, but to alter the structure that everyone has fallen in love with, I just don’t get it. We are heading towards a 96-team tournament, and then a 128-team tournament, and soon enough, every team will be in the tournament. I love doing my bracket exactly how it currently is (Isn’t that why 98.3% of Americans watch the tournament anyways?). And expanding the tourney will completely backfire in the face of the NCAA.
…seeing Tiger Woods suck.
Look, I get it. The guy cheated on his wife 9000 times. But we are not fans of athletes for what they do outside of their sports. We are fans of them once they step inside. And when he is on his game, Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all time. Golf fans are spoiled because few remember when we didn’t have Tiger Woods. The guys people were rooting for were Nick Faldo and Greg Norman. While they were solid golfers, people love to root for the best. And for a decade, Tiger Woods was the best. Imagine baseball where the best hitter is Torii Hunter, or football where the best QB is Matt Cassel. Would you really care then?
…when people try to talk to me when I am using my iPod
If you see me with my headphones on, just know that I am not going to hear you when you talk to me. And don’t roll your eyes at me if I can’t hear you. I know this has nothing to do with sports, but doesn’t everyone get annoyed by this?
…Geno Auriemma
Does anybody like this guy?
…sports not using technology to its advantage
It’s the year 2011. We carry around portable computers and can stream a movie while sitting in a local park. I can call someone in
I love what tennis does. They use high-tech lasers and crazy computers, and within two seconds, you’ll know whether a ball is in or out. You think tennis has half the funds the
And the naysayers will say “Oh, but a sport needs that human element to it.” So you’d rather a call be wrong than right? It just never made any sense.
…the same college basketball coaches get a pass for poor performance
How many years will it take for
Teams should have one goal, to win the national championship. Yet every year, the same highly-ranked teams enter postseason play and completely falter. Stallings of Vanderbilt has coached 18 years, has a record of 358-210, has made seven NCAA tournaments. How many times has he made it to the Elite Eight? Zero.
Bill Self is another one. Yes, he won a National Championship, but that was his only Final Four appearance in eight years with
Rick Barnes is my favorite example. 13 years with
Teams need to take a stand. Stop accepting mediocrity. Your players deserve better. So do your fans.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Most Maddening March Madness Ever
It's been a wild ride so far.
The first play-in team has made it past the first round.
All 4 Number 1 seeds have been sent packing.
Butler, again, has found a way to make it to the Final 4.
And now we're here- with only 3 games left to play until 1 team is crowned national champions.
How much crazier can it get? Here are your expert picks for this weekend. Bet wisely my friends, bet wisely:
Uconn +2.5
How on god's green earth can you bet against Kemba. Time and time again, since the beginning of the Big East tournament this guy has been unstoppable. Not only is he racking up massive amounts of points per game, but he's making his supporting cast ridiculous. I don't want to take anything away from Kentucky, they've been playing some amazing basketball, knocking off Ohio State and UNC respectively. Brandon Knight is playing out of his mind right now, but I still don't trust any team that comes out of the SEC, sorry guys, I'm from NJ, I live on Big East Basketball.
This game will be heartwrenchngly close (do you expect anything less?), thus the reason you have to take Uconn with the points. Calipari v Calhoun- I can't wait.
Final Score- Uconn 74 Kentucky 70
Butler ML
VCU what can you say about you?? You squeaked into the tournament with the new play-in style and knocked off powerhouses Georgetown, Purdue, Florida State, and finally Kansas. Nobody in the country even knew who you were 2 weeks ago, and look at you now.
Now that I'm done praising VCU I'll explain why you pick Butler in this game.
Butler finds ways to win. Plain and simple. With pipsqueak coach Brad Stevens at the healm, this team has a good shot of winning the whole thing (see 2010 Duke v Butler championship game). This coach is a phenom- 2nd year Butler coach, and already 2 final 4s. I truly believe coaching is everything and I couldn't pick the VCU coach out of a lineup.
VCU has gone on amazing run, but it ends this weekend. The week off will hurt them and they will finally come down to earth.
I don't see how you can bet against Butler after seeing a repeat of what happened last year, although the spread is a bit scary. Spend the money-take the money line, you don't want to get screwed by a buzzer beater.
Final score Butler 71-VCU 69