As if, with March Madness beginning tonight (technically, I guess…), the VoD could be anything but the obligatory annual hype machine that is a Gus Johnson mash-up!
Archive for March, 2009
I watched The Natural for the first time this week. Please don’t question why it took one of the world’s biggest sports movie fans until he was 22 to see one of the best sports movies ever made. Anyway, I enjoyed it. If you can suspend your disbelief (and it’s a movie, so you better be able to) it’s thoroughly enjoyable and tells a great story.
Ignore the senseless plot set-up, the evil businessmen, the over-dramatic home-run distances, etc, and you have a very good sports movie. The reason I think it’s so compelling is that there’s nothing spectacular about the main character, Roy Hobbs. Unlike other sports movies, he has nothing exceptionally unique about him, he’s not lovable unconditionally, he’s not on extremely high moral ground, and he doesn’t possess any superhuman ability, really.
Roy Hobbs is simply a phenomenal baseball player. To give you an idea of the film, the plot description is as follows:
An unknown middle-aged batter named Roy Hobbs with a mysterious past appears out of nowhere to take a losing 1930s baseball team to the top of the league in this magical sports fantasy. With the aid of a bat cut from a lightning struck tree, Hobbs lives the fame he should have had earlier when, as a rising pitcher, he is inexplicably shot by a young woman.
Obviously, you would have to watch the movie to get a better idea of the plot and character intricacies, but even reading that paragraph you can see why my mind continued to drift to one image while watching The Natural, why one thought pressed against my forehead for two hours.
Josh Hamilton is the real-life Roy Hobbs.
More after the jump!
So, this is the Florida Panthers play-by-play guy. Obviously, any announcer who quotes Vince Vaughn or Will Ferrell after most goals is awesome. One who also just yells random stuff unrelated to hockey after every goal is double-awesome. This guy is also on Off the Record today. Thanks to Vin Weasel for the tip, wacka wacka.
It seems that on today’s NBA landscape, every player falls into one of two broad-spectrum classifications: under or overrated. According to popular opinion, no player in the league has been accurately assessed by the general public. They have either been snubbed or slept on, slighted or over-promoted, fronted on or over-hyped.
Last week, I emailed the world’s greatest podcast to ask for their thoughts on why this need be the case, and if any player today is (for lack of a more grammatically correct name) ‘rightly rated.’ I wondered why it is apparently no longer possible for us to correctly assess a player’s merit and agree upon their relatively value.
The answer to that is simple: the entire process of player evaluation and the rating schema of us fans is relative, subjective, and personalized. Every fan assigns differing values to elements of any player’s game that is non-uniform. Therefore, we are apt to think the majority has under, or over, rated those players whose proportionate fame and respect within the league does not mesh with our own individual grading.
That said, I believe there are a select few players around the Association whose game we the public have reached a widespread understanding on. These are players whose talents and contribution are perfectly in line with our shared understanding of them. They are the Perfectly Portrayed and the Correctly Considered. I give you the All Rightly Rated Team.
More after the jump!
Hilarious. A Vin Weasel poster for the first person who can accurately transcribe this.
Look, cheering for a losing team sucks. Especially when they admit to you in advance that they might suck. However, baseball is far too great a game to spend the season bitter at your favorite squad.
Jays fans, of course, I’m talking to you.
Somehow though, when you cheer for a losing team, playing in the AL East can actually be a blessing. Normally, being overmatched in the AL East is unfortunate – I’ll reiterate that the Jays have the most wins over the past three years of any team that didn’t make the playoffs. Trying to compete on a medium-market budget in a major-market division makes being a playoff team extremely difficult. You’ve heard all this before, it’s the general Blue Jay Way to use the Yankees and Red Sox as a crutch for missing expectations.
But seriously, this year being in this division could be a blessing for fans. We’re probably not cheering for a playoff team, but we do get to watch AL East teams all year. In fact, the Jays play other AL East teams a combined 72 times.
So today, I present to you 72 reasons watching the Jays will still be enjoyable in 2009. Actually, there’s no way I’m giving you 72 reasons, but here are some reasons to look forward to 18 match-ups against each of the usual AL East rivals.
More after the jump!
It`s not Jimmy Fallon. It`s not even Dane Cook. People hate the Red Sox and their fans for stupid stuff like this. It`s just weird.
Dion Phaneuf, Georges Laraque, Riley Cote, Donald Brashear. What comes to mind when you hear these names? I think of the biggest, meanest, most intimidating, most feared players in the National Hockey League. They are the best enforcers the NHL has to offer – protecting, defending, and ensuring their team is taken care of.
Since the days of the Original Six, toughness has always prevailed as a defining characteristic of hockey. This is a basic principle and premise upon which the game is built – fighting is essentially what hockey is made of. The raw passion that results in the bruises, scars, broken bones and missing teeth is what defines a hockey player, and if you couldn’t handle it, you simply didn’t play.
More after the jump!
You have to give it up to The World’s Smallest MVP for his self-deprecation in the new series of MLB The Show commercials. If his play hasn’t yet, these might win you over.
The Weekend Connect is a weekly round-up piece I’m going to be experimenting with, recapping the week past (ODC articles, links from around the internet, etc) and pointing you in the direction of the weekend ahead. Feedback on what you would like to see included would be appreciated.
First: I am terribly sorry for the lack of NHL trade deadline coverage here at The ODC this week. Luckily for you, every other website in Canada had nothing but. I just didn’t have the time to write anything about it, and nobody else did. I apologize, seriously, you can stop mentioning it. Below is the Connect, sans hockey, as usual. Enjoy.
Favorite Links (in no specific order)
The Best Possible World Baseball Classic Teams that countries could put out there. Unfortunately those aren’t quite the rosters, but this is as fun a WBC preview as you’ll find, Cascone.
Defense Improves with Age – I wonder the root cause of this (experience, physicality, basketball IQ, or youthful laziness, slower play by older teams skewing data), but a team’s average age accounts for a decent chunk of their defensive performance.
The Value in Keeping Joe Smith – too late now, but I agree wholeheartedly with keeping a talented veteran big in the mix with a bunch of young players.
Blogging the Copa del Ray with an eye towards European players whose rights are owned by NBA teams.
The Jays Get Lots of Wins for the Money They Spend but are the only team among their peers without a playoff appearance in the given time frame.
Basketball Stats Continue to Evolve and as a big fan of baseball’s statistical revolution, this is intriguing for me.
People are Sick of Shaq’s Attitude after yet another unprovoked tirade. He’s still a fun guy, but the free pass he gets is growing old.
Introducing The Magnificent Seven aka Brandon Roy, who has quietly become one of the league’s best all-around players.
Hell Yeah, I would Have Used Steroids says Darrly Strawberry. Go figure.
Passion and Sports in the Wake of Katrina - my boy Austin at TGP knocks this interesting piece out of the park.
What to Watch More after the jump!
