Tag: sports

Bill Simmons: The non-contenders rule Part 1 of the NBA Power Poll – ESPN

~ Mark

On Grant Hill:

You realize Grant Hill quietly just had one of the most incredible seasons in the history of the league, right? He played 135 games total from 2000 to 2006; in the past three seasons, he’s played every game but three and averaged 30 minutes a night. This season, he tossed up 48-84-39 percentages for FG/FT/3FG, scored 13 a game, played the best perimeter defense of anyone other than Andre Iguodala and even wrote a takedown essay of Jalen Rose for The New York Times. He’s 38 years old! This shouldn’t be happening.

Bill Simmons: The non-contenders rule Part 1 of the NBA Power Poll – ESPN

~ Mark

laphamsquarterly:

laphamsquarterly:

In our sundown perambulations of late through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing “base,” a certain game of ball. We wish such sights were more common among us. In the practice of athletic and manly sports, the young men of nearly all our American cities are very deficient—perhaps more so than those of any other country that could be mentioned. Clerks are shut up from early morning till nine or ten o’clock at night—apprentices, after their days’ works, either go to bed or lounge about in places where they benefit neither body nor mind—and all classes seem to act as though there were no commendable objects of pursuit in the world except making money and tenaciously sticking to one’s trade or occupation. Now, as the fault is so generally of this kind, we can do little harm in hinting to people that, after all, there may be no necessity for such a drudge system among men. Let us enjoy life a little. Has God made this beautiful earth—the sun to shine—all the sweet influences of nature to operate and planted in man a wish for their delights—and all for nothing? Let us leave our close rooms and the dust and corruption of stagnant places, and taste some of the good things Providence has scattered around so liberally.

—Walt Whitman, from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1846

Today’s the first day of the the base and ball season. Play on, youths!

~ Mark

There’s Blake flying up for an offensive rebound, soaring higher, and higher, and then a little bit higher … and we’re sitting there in awe, and we’re gasping for air … and right at the moment of truth, we realize one of the following four things:

A. Blake is about to make the single greatest highlight in the history of professional basketball.
B. Blake is about to give us the highlight of the night.
C. Blake can’t pull this off because the degree of difficulty is too high, but he’s trying anyway.
D. Blake is going to break his neck or land in a such a way that his leg flies off his body and lands in the fifth row.

Those are the four options EVERY time he goes in the air. Watching it unfold reminds me of watching my 3-year-old son, who’s equally fearless (and dangerous).

Bill Simmons on Blake Griffin, who’s probably the most ridiculous player I’ve ever seen.
~ Mark

There’s Blake flying up for an offensive rebound, soaring higher, and higher, and then a little bit higher … and we’re sitting there in awe, and we’re gasping for air … and right at the moment of truth, we realize one of the following four things:

A. Blake is about to make the single greatest highlight in the history of professional basketball.
B. Blake is about to give us the highlight of the night.
C. Blake can’t pull this off because the degree of difficulty is too high, but he’s trying anyway.
D. Blake is going to break his neck or land in a such a way that his leg flies off his body and lands in the fifth row.

Those are the four options EVERY time he goes in the air. Watching it unfold reminds me of watching my 3-year-old son, who’s equally fearless (and dangerous).

Bill Simmons on Blake Griffin, who’s probably the most ridiculous player I’ve ever seen.

Company Man: Why Bud Selig Is Wrong For Baseball & Why It Doesn’t Matter by Ben Birdsall

~ Mark

Winning in sport matters because it doesn’t matter in any grander scheme. Because nothing beyond a game rests on which team scores the most runs, we can give it our all without having to consider anything else. Our team is righteous, our opponent is craven precisely because nothing outside the field of play is at stake.

Company Man: Why Bud Selig Is Wrong For Baseball & Why It Doesn’t Matter by Ben Birdsall

~ Mark

Norman Einstein’s Sports & Rocket Science Monthly #17: October 2010. “Movies. Music. Media. This month the Einsteins are digging into on our sporting stories, why they are told and how they unfold.” One reason Norman Einstein’s has grown on me is that the monthly gap from issue to issue is kind of a nice change from usual RSS trickle from the rest of the web. *Surely* there is an untapped market for more online periodicals.

Bill Simmons: World Cup’s 20 questions – ESPN

~ Mark

I love the Cup because it stripped away all the things about professional sports that I’ve come to despise. No sideline reporters. No JumboTron. No TV timeouts. No onslaught of replays after every half-decent play. No gimmicky team names like the “Heat” or the “Thunder.” (You know what the announcers call Germany? The Germans. I love this.) No announcers breathlessly overhyping everything or saying crazy things to get noticed. We don’t have to watch 82 mostly half-assed games to get to the playoffs. We don’t have 10 graphics on the screen at all times. We don’t have to sit there for four hours waiting for a winner because pitchers are taking 25 seconds to deliver a baseball.

Bill Simmons: World Cup’s 20 questions – ESPN