Links of the Day 12/1/09

Former Gopher Keith Ballard is frustrated, and will take it out on everyone around him.

The Big Ten/ACC Challenge is underway again.

With Bobby Bowden retiring, perhaps all the DUIs need to find a new school.

Check out my new gig

In addition to this, The Weather Blog and of course, Barry Melrose Rocks, I have been asked to contribute on a new baseball and mustache blog, the 7th Inning Stache. It's part of the NESW network, and featured noted Bugs & Cranks writer David Chalk, as well as about 58 other people. It's baseball. It's mustaches. It will be funny and informative and worth your while to check it out. So won't you?

Links of the Day 11/30/09

Prince at the Vikings game. I think he likes the purple.

Saskatchewan lost the Grey Cup in heartbreaking fashion. It's football!

And oh yeah, the Colts remain undefeated.

Momentary panic attack

I was watching a bit of the High School State football championships, in which Eden Prairie played St. Paul high school Cretin-Derham Hall. I was reflecting on the history Cretin has, putting several players in professional sports, including Paul Molitor and Chris Weinke. This reminded me of one of their most famous athletes, a guy named Joe Mauer.
Back when he was in high school, Mauer was a three sport star, playing basketball as well as football and baseball. He was a great quarterback, and many got their first glimpse of him in consecutive state championship games for Cretin. In fact, he was named the national quarterback of the year, and had a scholarship to play at Florida State.
The kid who apparently loves Minnesota, was ready to jet off to Tallahassee for 4 years to play football and eventually start an NFL career. If he loved Minnesota so much, why didn't he want to resurrect the Gophers? He was ready to leave Minnesota for NO money (well, not as much).
And this is why I had a momentary panic attack.

Links of the Day 11/29/09

So why did Joe Mauer win the MVP again?

A couple of new guys, Andrew Ebbett and Guillaume Latendresse helped the Wild come back and win their second game in a row.

Patrick Reusse is belligerent in his stupidity.

North Texas-Arkansas State... What I missed

If you have been following along, you will know that one of the games I was supposed to attend was a college football game between Arkansas State and North Texas, but due to a variety of unfortunate circumstances, I ended up going to Middle Tennessee State and watching them play Arkansas State instead. Anyways, the UNT-ASU battle was this afternoon, so I thought I would do my due diligence and check out what happened.
I had to work, but I still followed along with the game on Game Center. Arkansas State jumped ahead thanks to the communal effort of their backfield. Playing in his last game in Jonesboro, running back Reggie Arnold lead the way with 111 yards, but it was Don Jones that scored the first touchdown of the game.
North Texas, 2-9 coming into the game, appeared to be rattled early, as they turned the ball over a couple of times early and couldn't stop the Red Wolves. Thanks in large part to freshman quarterback Ryan Aplin and his ability to run (he ran for 2 touchdowns and 122 yards), Arkansas State was up 27-7 at the half. Arnold scored the 4th touchdown of the game, his final one in Jonesboro.
While the first half was almost all Arkansas State, the second half definitely belonged to North Texas. A fumble by running back Lance Dunbar was picked up by Kevin Dickerson and brought in for 6. The Mean Green used three quarterbacks, perhaps preparing for next year, and two of them tossed more touchdowns. In the end though, one late field goal and two botched extra points for North Texas were what it took for Arkansas State to hold on for the end.
I wish I had been able to go, because this sounds like a pretty good game. Ryan Aplin sounds like he will be a force to be reckoned with in the Sun Belt conference for years to come. North Texas' disappointing season comes to an end, while Arkansas State looks to close out on a high note next week against Western Kentucky.

Links of the Day 11/28/09

Tiger Woods gets in a minor traffic accident, creates an international incident.

Chuck Kobasew netted a hat trick for the Wild last night.

The Las Vegas Locomotives won the UFL title. Or something.

I Now Realize the Fun of All-Star Games

So, each year, I usually check out the baseball all-star game. It can usually be pretty entertaining, seeing the best players in baseball play each other, but to me, and I think a lot of people, its not that big of a deal. Even now that "this game counts" and the home league in the World Series is determined from it, it's still not that big of a deal to the average fan, whose team it may or may not matter to (who really knows in July?). It's actually kind of funny, because all it really is is a passing thought after the game. As a White Sox fan, I benefited from the AL's win in the 2005 all-star game, and I remember thinking after the game, "hey, the AL won, and the Sox are doing pretty good this year. If they make it to the World Series, they'll get home field." That was pretty much it, and it worked out well that game 1 was in Chicago on a Saturday night so I got to go.

But I think it was tonight where I realized the true value of an all-star game, beyond any lame gimmick to let the AL have home field every single year in the World Series: They are absolutely awesome to record and then rebroadcast on the MLB Network about 20 years later. Yes, that's right. They serve as a perfect time capsule of the players of the day to show the stars of the era and to remind grown-ups who were kids at the time of the players they grew up with.

My theory has always been that the most impressionable 5 year window for a kid becoming a sports fan is between 6 and 11 years old. As a 6 year old, they are just starting to understand a little more about the teams and individual players, and they usually create their oldest sports memories. By 11, any good future sports fan should be really knowledgeable about the teams and players and have a little bit of history and trends to fall back on after 5 years of solid fandom, supplemented by baseball cards, board games, or video games, depending on the era they grew up (and not having a job or caring about having a girlfriend allows more free time to be dedicated to sports).

Based on this, my impressionable sports window was from 1989-1994. Leaving the conversation on baseball, some of my baseball memories from that period include the 1989 World Series earthquake, the baseball strike, learning to love guys like Carlton Fisk, Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, and Jack McDowell, learning to hate guys like Jose Canseco, Tony LaRussa, Ryne Sandberg, and Mark Grace, learning to respect guys like Ken Griffey Jr. and Cal Ripken, the destruction of the old Comiskey Park and the opening of the new Comiskey Park, loving every minute of watching the A's get swept in the 1990 World Series (I really hated them back then), seeing the White Sox win a division title and Frank Thomas winning 2 MVPs, and the list goes on and on. Just about every baseball card I own is from this time period and I got even more familiar with players by playing the All-Star Baseball spinner game and playing the primitive Nintendo and Super Nintendo games that actually had MLB teams and players.

So tonight the MLB Network decided to show the 1990 and 1991 All-Star games back to back, which I caught flipping through the channels, and I just couldn't stop watching. Originally, I thought it was funny to see so many members of the Danny Tartabull game playing in these games, which I just posted in the archives, including Danny Tartabull himself, but watching these games really took me back to my days as a 7 and 8 year old watching players that seemed larger than life at the time playing each other, and it was a lot of fun. It really took me back, remembering my baseball cards and silly kid arguments about who is better with my friends. It's also funny to watch games from this era for the awkward moments baseball would probably want us to forget. For example, in the 1990 game, Jose Canseco flew out to Darryl Strawberry, and Strawberry threw out the tagging up runner at home. Heading back into the dugout, he was congratulated by Barry Bonds.....ugh...

So I officially discovered the best part about an all-star game. They are awesome to record and show several years later. I bet there are a lot of 6-11 years out there right now that will sit down and have a ton of fun watching the 2009 all-star game some time in 2028.

Links of the Day 11/27/09

Last night, the Gophers beat #10 Butler. They will be playing Portland, because they absolutely destroyed UCLA.

ESPN says Allen Iverson will retire. Unless he doesn't. (via Deadspin)

Did you buy yourself any robot hamsters this morning?

Thankful

I am thankful for many things this year. I'm going to keep this short and sweet, though, because if you're reading this before turkey, you're impatiently waiting for turkey, and if you're reading this after turkey, you'll fall sleep before you're done reading anyway. And if you're not in the US, you should be working, so get back to work!

I'm thankful for another exciting Game 163 this year. Two years in a row, the Twins have been to the tie-breaker Game 163 (and both years, Adam Everett was on the losing team). Both years the games were phenomenal, which you expect when two teams come through 162 games with the same record--they must be fairly equal, which makes for exciting, competitive games.

But I'm mostly thankful for the Baseball Writers Association of America, who happened to get both AL awards correct: Zack Greinke, despite NOT pitching on a winning team, and not winning 20 games, was the Cy Young winner--the most dominate pitcher. Joe Mauer, helped by being on the winning team, was the MVP. He may not have led in home runs, or RBIs, or Runs, but he was up there--and had enough other stats that made it clear that the stats he had no control over (RBI and runs) were simply that: stats he had no control over. I'm impressed (although the fact that the MVP was voted on before the playoffs made him a clear-cut case).

And I'm thankful for I'm not a member of the Timberwolves. At what point do they get too depressed to get out of bed?

Timberwolves update: They’re now at 1-14, or a 7.1% winning percentage. The have the worst record in the West, but New Jersey has an 0-15 record.

Wild Update: The Wild have improved marginally with a 8-12-3 record, for a 34.8% winning percentage.

Links of the Day 11/25/09

Art is more than a little frightening at times.

Now you can dominate your backyard football game tomorrow.

Hey, did you know the Vikings are leaving? Happy Thanksgiving!

NFL Power Ranks: Week 11

First of all, I'd like to make mention that according to the blogger site, this is post #1,800 all time for Victoria Times/Is It Sports? (And yes, I can put Is It Sports? in there now that all of the archives from the old site have been posted. Take a look at the archive section from January 2005 - March 2006 for the Is It Sports? posts. Is It Sports? and Victoria Times overlapped from January 2006 to March 2006). When we started doing this almost 5 years ago, I never thought we would hit 2000 posts by March 2010, which is about what we are on pace for.

There is only a little to discuss this week with the top 5/bottom 5 in the ranks. The Colts, Saints, Vikings, and Patriots all picked up wins to stay ranked 1-4, but the Bengals choked away a game in Oakland, causing them to only drop 1 spot to 6th (thanks to a lot of stumbling below them as well). The red hot 7-3 Chargers move up to grab that #5 spot.

Two of the Bottom 5 teams actually won this week! Their reward? They moved slightly higher within the bottom 5! Yes, the Raiders beat the Bengals, moving them from #29 to #28, and the Lions beat the Browns in the pillow fight of the year (which was actually a fun, crazy shootout) to move from #31 to #29. The Bucs and Rams fell back to #30 and #31, respectively, while the Browns still suck.

The biggest gainer this week was Kansas City, who pulled off a shocking upset of the Steelers to win their 2nd in a row and move to #21. On the flip side of that game, the biggest losers by far were the Steelers, who fell 9 spots all the way to #16. Surprisingly, the Steelers are now ranked below the #15 Titans, who have won 4 games in a row after starting the season 0-6. What's going on in this league?

If you look past Thanksgiving, there is a big game coming up this Monday when the #2 Saints take on the #4 Patriots. I'm guessing we'll see a little more movement next week.

Projected Playoff Matchups:
NFC
First Round Byes: #2 Saints, #3 Vikings
#9 Eagles @ #7 Cowboys
#8 Packers @ #10 Cardinals
Top 3 Out: #17 Giants, #18 Falcons, #22 49ers

AFC
First Round Byes: #1 Colts, #4 Patriots
#12 Jaguars @ #5 Chargers
#11 Ravens @ #6 Bengals
Top 3 Out: #13 Texans, #14 Dolphins, #15 Titans

Full Ranks:
1. Colts - 89.53 - Even
2. Saints - 84.18 - Even
3. Vikings - 76.47 - Even
4. Patriots - 73.99 - Even
5. Chargers - 73.06 - +1
6. Bengals - 66.90 - -1
7. Cowboys - 64.40 - +1
8. Packers - 62.08 - +3
9. Eagles - 62.06 - Even
10. Cardinals - 59.81 - +3
11. Ravens - 58.93 - -1
12. Jaguars - 56.42 - +3
13. Texans - 55.67 - -1
14. Dolphins - 53.95 - +4
15. Titans - 53.72 - +2
16. Steelers - 53.39 - -9
17. Giants - 52.30 - +2
18. Falcons - 49.11 - -2
19. Broncos - 43.69 - -5
20. Jets - 40.63 - Even
21. Chiefs - 40.40 - +5
22. 49ers - 39.99 - -1
23. Bears - 39.67 - +1
24. Panthers - 38.01 - -1
25. Redskins - 35.43 - +2
26. Bills - 34.57 - -4
27. Seahawks - 33.42 - -2
28. Raiders - 28.18 - +1
29. Lions - 24.81 - +2
30. Buccaneers - 24.51 - -2
31. Rams - 22.24 - -1
32. Browns - 14.82 - Even