- 01:17 PM
- 04/23/24
I want to be either the scrum half of this ABA team, or whoever gets to hold a bat.
posted by taupe at 07:43 PM on November 23, 2004
So which is the thread, now? Is this the thread? I don't think we can know how fair the suspensions actually are until Stern drops whatever other shoe he plans to drop on the Pistons organisation. The Oakland County cops may or may not be able to mete out the appropriate individual justice to each of the scores of fans who threw shit. But as things stand after just the player suspensions, those same fans, whether prosecuted or not, have the satisfaction of having successfully provoked their strongest division rival into destroying their season. That ain't right. If we're just talking the player end, it would have been fairer to swap Jackson's and Artest's suspensions, and maybe add onto Artest's the requirement of an affidavit saying he's received and is still undergoing treatment for anger-management issues before letting him back in the league. The profile that's emerging of Artest is of someone with a genuine mental illness, and people in that position need help. Someone before has already nailed it that the union's efforts are best invested in addressing the conditions in which management makes them play, rather than simply fighting these suspension lengths for the sake of so doing and prolonging the ugliness.
posted by taupe at 07:42 PM on November 23, 2004
Did this thread die, then, with the slap party in the new one?
Well, let's clean things up, then.
sic, you're a chimpanzee.
rcade, there's a lot more to detest about Metafilter than its preoccupation with current affairs.
The neverending soap opera of running piss fights between this poster and that was the big reason for me when I wrote it off -- whatever Crossfire issue-of-the-day being merely the backdrop for same -- and with it all the snide rhetorical smartassery and bruised-ego defensiveness that made it nothing better than a blue Usenet.
And, God damn, if your every comment from here on down (and on and on) didn't remind me of exactly that.
Thank you all the same for eventually returning focus to emerging models of what actually happened, but...let's not talk any time soon.
crank, your posts are worthy of respect, and you've got some good points.
I should have been clearer in the reply that started this whole ugly mess that, when I started seeing idiots everywhere, it was really those other discussions, those hives I was talking about, moreso than this thread (although we did have some ringers here).
And in those other discussions, there were plenty of people who were perfectly happy willfully to play one-player Telephone with the very videotaped evidence we've all been talking about.
Apart from that, I'm unsure how my asking others not to be so eager to lay down the smack on Artest for "just a cup of beer" is necessarily inconsistent with my own acknowledged eagerness to punish sins of intellect -- the situations aren't quite analogous.
And I wish I could concede to you your characterisation of my characterisation of the average schmuck any of us have to deal with in our daily lives as a "strawman", but...caramba, it's no strawman, at least among those fool enough to open their mouths within earshot of me or nearly anyone I know who's had reason to comment about same.
Props to you for being a more forgiving sort than I, but I just don't see it the same way. I'll continue in a quieter vein in the other thread(s) on this topic.
posted by taupe at 07:14 PM on November 23, 2004
And now dzot and rcade post.
The point about my having said that the fans were "[c]learly...chiefly culpable" has merit, I'll admit; I didn't necessarily know that when I said that.
You've found that mote in my eye, rcade, and congratulations.
One problem: spotting that one instance of my failure to meet a certain standard perfectly, even if I were the one proposing said standard, doesn't address the question of your own standing with respect to that same standard, or that of anybody else in this thread.
I mean, I'll back away from saying that the fans were "clearly chiefly culpable" if you'll back away from "haymakers" and "clearly assault".
Dig?
(And if I can be permitted a digression of my own, rcade, you are doing me one service: with your steadfast efforts to impart a Metafilter-esque tone to this thread, you've reminded we why I long since stopped reading Metafilter.)
And dzot: "anyone who doesn't see things [my] way"?
I stand by the assertion that a thorough and systematic contempt for fact, as both practiced directly by the Administration and encouraged through manipulation of public opinion, fundamentally underpinned the entirely avoidable present nightmare in Iraq.
If you want to say I'm wrong about that, then you've got to offer some pretty creative interpretations of pretty much anything anyone's revealed about the intelligence available at the relevant time, or the Administration's handling of same.
And again, see my previous post about alleged linkages of opinions about this to opinions about what we used to be talking about.
And no, I'm not going to veto trades, or probably do much of anything out of the ordinary unless somebody complains. And my own team won't manage to break out of ninth place, either.
posted by taupe at 09:31 PM on November 22, 2004
crank, if I'm to accept that you're engaging in anything other than discussion-board axe-grinding yourself, I've got to know what assertion of mine, real or imagined, you wish to deny.
Do you deny that "the typical American", theoretical construct of statistical averages with no necessary literal instantiation though he-she-or-it may be, has the problems in question?
To ask exactly the same question, do you deny that more actual real Americans have them than don't?
I just can't agree with you, then.
Maybe I'm wrong on the numbers -- though the last, most comprehensive counting of said numbers suggests strongly that I'm not -- but the mere fact that you can't necessarily find a real so-called "typical American", any one individual who's a member of all majority subsets simultaneously, doesn't prevent you from ever making any generalisations about the full set at all.
You also can't claim to know how anyone who generalises similarly conceives of the generalisations he or she uses.
Do you deny being the kind of falangist retrograde who can't tell one raghead from another and doesn't care?
That's nice, but calm down -- I never really said that you were.
Saying "there's an error I see being committed by people who do X, and that error also underpins the greater and more monstrous doing of Y" is not the same thing as saying "everybody who does X also does Y".
I said the former, and perhaps I should have been more clear about saying it that way; you seem to think I said the latter.
Do you deny that anyone in this thread (other than, I suppose, me) has indulged in knee-jerk lynch-mobbery of one stripe or another vis-a-vis this whole thing with the guys in the place?
Can't fully agree with you here, either.
It's been much worse in hives of muppetry like ESPN's Sports Nation discussion boards, and probably in just about any sports discussion site other than SportsFilter.
But, regrettably, I've seen it here, and for this reason alone, by no means does what I've said have "absolutely zero to do with" anyone here.
On a less serious note, I'm also commissioner of our fantasy league, and we maybe have to figure out how we deal with things going forward.
trox, who has Artest and seemed to have had the most future up-side in terms of games he could still apply, looks the most screwed. I was concerned about sportsBabel, who just before Friday's incident had agreed to trade Tracy McGrady to dusted and looked as though he'd look to Jackson to fill the resulting void at SG, but sB has since made a great pickup in Fred Jones.
posted by taupe at 08:46 PM on November 22, 2004
It's this willingness to assume, from often sloppy, superficial and lazy observation, that one knows the underlying facts of a situation with sufficient completeness to justify indulging one's urges towards self-righteousness, that prompted my comment about the "typical American" that offended rcade so very, very much.
That it's better to feel justified than to be justified is, for just one example, why at least a hundred thousand people are dead and a good hunk of southwest Asia is going to be a big version of Beirut for the next fifty years or so.
A centuries-old tradition of anti-intellectualism underpinned it, talk radio fueled it, an election certified it, and now nothing can fucking stop it.
Do you wonder why I might be sore about it? And obviously I wish rcade hadn't illustrated my point exactly with the "haymakers" distortion, even if he did retreat tactically into the "clearly assault" stance when he was called on it.
And even then, I'd think that if we're indeed insisting on deference to civilised society's means of meteing out proper retribution for injustice, we should wait for the jury trial, complete with depositions from the fan Artest confronted (the one who said that Artest asked him "did you do it"), the fans and staff members around him, and Artest himself, before even calling Artest's actions (in that setting, anyway) "clearly assault".
This isn't a niggling technicality, either -- "reared back his right hand to punch the guy but was stopped by several fans" is an interpretation of Artest's motives, and even of the action itself, based on a view of the incident from a single camera angle, and before we can actually rule out other hypotheses including "reared back his right hand to strike but then stopped himself" or "raised his right arm for some other reason", we can really use the additional information.
The same goes for the "shove", the "open slap", and really everything else.
In the meantime, feel free to say "ARTEST SMASH!" another half dozen times, at the risk of further deflecting toward one (hardly blameless) guy and away from any possible broader systemic ill arising from the marriage of base human impulses and greed.
Maybe someone will put forward a more convincing argument about the particulars. I'd welcome it -- that is in fact the only way to get to the right answer, which is the whole point.
Respect for the basic intellectual disciplines of, one, acknowledging the limits of one's own knowledge of fact, and two, caring enough to work to expand those limits, has reached an ebb in the society I unfortunately lack the means to flee, and this more than anything is why we're all irrevocably screwed.
posted by taupe at 06:18 PM on November 22, 2004
General discussion surrounding this incident does indeed bring into sharp relief how much the typical American (among others, certainly) so loves having strong opinions about things, and so doesn't love doing the basic homework required to support those opinions.
Hardly a new observation this month, but here it pops up again.
posted by taupe at 04:47 PM on November 21, 2004
"I've either been shot in the face or had a beer thrown at me! I won't know till the lab results get back..."
Come on.
The range of possibilities isn't limited to "shot in face" or "beer".
It includes "thing with battery in it", "thing with harmful substance in it", "thing that may just have injured me and threatened my professional career though I don't know it yet".
Again, I'd like to see the nebbishes react in a similar situation without prior warning, and honestly process it as anything more than "thing thrown at me".
posted by taupe at 06:40 PM on November 20, 2004
jbou has the best line of the thread so far.
The nugget of sanctimony enjoying broad circulation in discussions of this that's nauseating me the most is the whole "only a cup of beer" canard leveled against Artest.
Okay, you're in a heated emotional situation in which somebody essentially threw a punch at you not a minute ago, and you're trying, in whatever (perhaps half-assed) way, to stay out of the rest of things.
Then something thrown at you hits you with force.
In a split second you're supposed to identify the missile and place it in its proper responsible context of potential threats?
(Also, chicobangs' link explaining the Mike Curtis rule requires registration.
While a lot of the unwritten codes in professional sport that justify violent action in certain situations do need to be exposed as the childish macho bullshit they are, this Mike Curtis rule if I understand it correctly seems manifestly sane -- step onto the field/court, you're a security risk, pure and simple, and anyone in a position to do something about it should have leeway in doing so.)
posted by taupe at 03:42 PM on November 20, 2004
About that celebration on the field...who were those two little kids? They were running around chasing each other between the mound and first base.
posted by taupe at 11:07 PM on October 27, 2004
Did the Rams' Super Bowl win get most Cardinals fans to finally shut up about 1987 and Hrbek bla bla wrestling bla? Because if not, then the bad thing about this is that they still wouldn't shut up about it.
posted by taupe at 10:59 PM on October 27, 2004
"Who among us knows hoops, loves fantasy sports, and can handle the merciless public taunting that would result from failure?" Not our league's commissioner, that's for sure.
posted by taupe at 03:45 PM on October 27, 2004
Well, that was fun. The roster-setting seems to be bugged with the display of opponents, though.
posted by taupe at 09:47 PM on October 25, 2004
We're at 13 teams now, which makes the league 104 players deep the way we've got it. Since I like dusted's one-Util idea, and since 104's kind of light, I'm adding the one Util slot and keeping the three bench positions. I'll check again this coming afternoon, and if we're not at at least 15 teams by then, we'll keep the nine-player rosters. If we break 15, we can expect eight (one Util, two bench).
posted by taupe at 03:38 AM on October 25, 2004
Closest I could get without going earlier was 9:30 ET, Monday the 25th...so that's what it is now.
posted by taupe at 04:46 PM on October 19, 2004
New blocks of live-draft times just opened up! (Why they weren't open to begin with remains a mystery.) Would a Monday-night-ish time work well for everyone? Say, the 9:00-p.m. hour Eastern, to give left-coasters a chance to show up?
posted by taupe at 03:38 AM on October 19, 2004
As commissioner, I have unilaterally implemented dusted's last suggestion (20 teams, one at each position, 3 bench, one IL). Let me know if that works.
posted by taupe at 05:49 AM on October 16, 2004
Oh, duh, just found the tools. They're buried down the page.
posted by taupe at 04:38 PM on October 15, 2004
I hope I can change all these things once we decide on them. If not, we'd have to recreate the whole league. So far, it's not looking good on this front.
posted by taupe at 04:36 PM on October 15, 2004
League ID: #102126 Maximum teams: 20 Rotisserie scoring No maximums on player acquisitions or trades 2 days to protest a trade Trade deadline: March 3rd, 2005 Waiver time: 2 days No "Can't Cut list" provider Trades reviewed by league votes Undrafted players go on waiver list 82-game maximum per position, unlike last year Roster changes allowed daily League scoring started on Tuesday, November 2nd PG, SG, G, SF, PF, F, C, C, Util, Util, Bench, Bench, Bench, IL, IL FG%, FT%, 3PTM, PTS, OREB, REB, AST, ST, BLK, A/T (Why A/T? I thought the turnovers category last year was simply a consolation prize for fewest minutes played, and figured it would be nice to give assists a weight more comparable to that of rebounds and the scoring and shooting categories. Why keep offensive rebounds? I didn't think the additional weight for rebounds was that bad an idea.) If any of these are bad ideas, feel free to put together a new league.
posted by taupe at 08:45 PM on October 14, 2004
An immense relief. Anyone but Venables. Well, almost anyone.
posted by taupe at 12:15 PM on September 06, 2004
With nothing to lose, I did blow up my squad. Still no Henry, though.
posted by taupe at 01:16 PM on September 01, 2004
I've already given up on this year. I'd truthfully be shocked if Arsenal were to drop a single point this season, or if Henry were to fail to figure, either by scoring or by assist, in any fewer than seventy league goals. And don't tell me how abnormal that is, because I know. But it'll happen, mark my words. The future of the Premiership is Thierry Henry's boot stomping on a human face forever. My only chance to stay respectable would be to blow up my entire squad and rebuild around Henry, but every fibre of my being rebels against the idea. Henry is now the Real Madrid and the Manchester United combined of this fantasy league, with all that that implies. Tables or no tables, you'd all really rather I kept my mouth shut abot this for the rest of the year.
posted by taupe at 05:46 PM on August 25, 2004
Yes, FB, it does mean the other six are doomed. But the point is, for the other 22, he's not a differentiator, except for anyone foolish enough not to have him as captain.
posted by taupe at 01:12 PM on August 22, 2004
Fun fact: 22 of our league's 28 squads contain Henry.
posted by taupe at 04:33 PM on August 21, 2004
Hooray for others taking initiative on the updates. I doubt I'll have time to post tables this season. As for my team, I've again spurned Thierry Henry, so don't expect to see me in the top half of the table all season.
posted by taupe at 04:35 PM on August 17, 2004
I'm in. With an awful team.
posted by taupe at 03:27 PM on August 05, 2004
League name: SpoFi Premier League Code: 4443-1244 I didn't create a second league. If we're actually doing the two leagues, it wasn't fully clear from where we left off the discussion last time, and someone else would have to create the lower--erm, the Coca Cola SpoFi League Championship--themselves anyway. So everybody run out and get Thierry Henry already. He'll cost you 13.0 out the gate, though.
posted by taupe at 10:54 PM on July 21, 2004
Just a quick note: A Google search for the word "Shaqenfreude" comes up with no results. Or maybe now it'll come up with just this page. Let it be known that the word was coined here, then.
posted by taupe at 12:22 PM on July 13, 2004
533 521 508 502 492 482 470 463 460 454 445 443 435 432 424 410 399 395 382 380 376 366 358 354 346 339 332 324 315 310 306 301 291 100%, baby.
posted by taupe at 01:06 PM on July 01, 2004
Hey, I care about ultimate. Just that I only much remember about it in April and May, and I've only been on sporadically in recent days. Not that I know anything about the current situation or could really contribute anything, but, just saying.
posted by taupe at 04:22 AM on May 23, 2004
I'm with Bobby C about how enjoyable Detroit are to watch, and I'm a Bulls fan. But even if Detroit didn't have the offensive capability that they do, I'd still have been rooting for a Pistons-Spurs finals even before all these professional sportswankers started puling about that prospect being a worst-case scenario (which would compel me to do so in its own right). I'd watch every minute of every 68-64 game. Where do we get these fools who can't appreciate defense? Oh, that's right: mainstream American sporting culture.
posted by taupe at 03:02 PM on May 02, 2004
Paul Hornung is still alive?
posted by taupe at 01:12 PM on April 01, 2004
This fan says it's about time they did this. The goofy add-ons to the game that supposedly palliated supposed American sports exceptionalism weren't much palliative and were only much goofy.
posted by taupe at 12:52 PM on March 25, 2004
Minutes after reading this topic, I had to run into this at Calpundit, which crystallizes all the issues relevant even to responding. That said, none of the measurements used in "Metric" football are even really metric -- they're all based on English units. Apart, of course, from the whole question of what kind of bumpkin with sadly limited life experiences finds "Metric Football" a remotely clever thing to say.
posted by taupe at 02:35 PM on February 14, 2004
Whee. This again.
posted by taupe at 01:20 PM on February 14, 2004
Of course he didn't, because he's part of that reason. But he's also, more immediately, part of reason number two: baseball culture is no longer even concealing its insecurity about its place in American life vis-a-vis the Super Bowl and football in general. Further evidence of Super Bowl envy can be seen in the promo MLB just rolled out today, and that's aired during SportsCenter, wherein a bunch of guys (who might actually have been atheletes, except I didn't recognize them) come home from a SB party, tell the wife (who, it is implied, didn't watch) that the game was OK, but that they kind of liked the commercial with the donkey, and then play an ad hoc wiffle game inside the house where they relive Game 3?, "No, Game 6", of the last series. Football's in baseball's head. Also, apart from almost a dozen of Caple's reasons essentially amounting to "the WS is older", reason 26 ought to get its own sitcom. The World Series isn't solely a North American concern -- there are also players from the Caribbean! And a couple developed nations in East Asia! You're ignorant if you complain about the word "World"! The bellylaughs you hear aren't just coming from soccerheads, but also from Gary ettman and David Stern.
posted by taupe at 04:23 PM on February 02, 2004
I come away with so much respect for the guy and for the strength of his convictions.
posted by taupe at 01:15 AM on January 22, 2004
The entire population of Minnesota are laughing their asses off.
posted by taupe at 05:42 PM on January 09, 2004
I vote for Edmonton.
posted by taupe at 09:01 PM on December 15, 2003
Don't take this the wrong way, but BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH. This is another glorious knife wound in the chest of the BCS. You could tell it was when an exasperated sigh was one of the first things to come out of that BCS commissar guy's mouth when (was it) John Saunders (I've already forgotten) asked him what the hell had happened. I'm so looking forward to watching USC spank Michigan in Pasadena and win the AP poll.
posted by taupe at 05:42 PM on December 07, 2003
Here's his career stats (363-245, 3.09 ERA, hit 35 home runs) and a really good interview the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did with him this August, around when his statue was going up in Turner Field.
posted by taupe at 05:31 PM on November 24, 2003
I voted for all the ones where people died. I didn't think to order by body count, though; I should have. If we're talking "most memorable to me personally", that's something like - Gene Larkin's single, 10th inning, Game 7, 1991 - Paxson for 3 (1993 Finals, with WMAQ radio call) - Jordan's winning jumper, Game 6, 1998 - France clubbing the crap out of Brazil in the same year - Leon Lett's fumble (not momentous, just funny) -And and and Marquette winning the NCAAs in what was it, 1978 or something Bigger things obviously have happened in my life, but I was either too young or not paying close enough attention.
posted by taupe at 02:18 PM on November 11, 2003
The guy totally failed to mention Osama. Another thumbs up for Newcastle Brown, which the bigger-beer-snob-than-I friends I was drinking with Friday night were wondering why I was bothering with.
posted by taupe at 09:21 AM on October 27, 2003
Jason Varitek Was once a St. Paul Saint (like Darryl Strawberry)
posted by taupe at 05:01 PM on October 20, 2003
bill: (1) That's Pompey players congratulating Patrik Berger. (2) When I clicked that link, the banner ad read "So you think you could do better?"/"Manage LFC by TXT" (or something similar). Haw.
posted by taupe at 12:00 PM on October 18, 2003
Dude, when she asked you how old you were, you'd have been better off saying you were fourteen or something. Seriously.
posted by taupe at 03:45 AM on October 18, 2003
Jimmie Walker, writing for the Jewish World Review. I bet they want him to do well.
posted by taupe at 09:57 PM on October 16, 2003
Assclownery notwithstanding, the elimination of the Cubs and Sox today, and a Yankees sweep of the Marlins, is precisely what I'm going to be rooting for (from a distance, while not watching). It's the outcome that will send Fox's ratings into the toilet and smother baseball's post-1994 fan revival, which is nothing more than those two institutions deserve.
posted by taupe at 11:56 AM on October 15, 2003
Maybe not Mark Prior, either. Would I be right in assuming Clemens would pitch in the unlikely event of a Game 7? Because that would highlight the worst possible aspect of the Yankees winning in six -- Clemens would then be free to pitch games 2 and 6, and never have to enter a batter's box again in his life.
posted by taupe at 09:55 PM on October 14, 2003
More beer talk. Bell's Oberon. New Glarus Native Ale. Goose Island...something. And that's just a small swath of the Midwest.
posted by taupe at 07:56 PM on October 13, 2003
Had the Badgers lost, would the headlines have contained the word "choke"? Thankfully, that backup QB didn't choke (and Barry Alvarez had some real stones to call that deep out to Evans, and later the naked bootleg on 3rd and 2, with said untested backup). Thankfully Jim Sorgi didn't choke after the attempted tracheotomy that went unflagged and left him unable to swallow, let alone talk. No one should weep for the passing of the Buckeyes' winning streak after that.
posted by taupe at 01:48 AM on October 12, 2003
Whenever a rugby game is on my TV, I actually have to stop myself from watching too much at a time for fear of actually figuring out what the rules are, because it would probably spoil my enjoyment of what's on the screen. That's pretty much what happened with me and Australian rules. At first it was, "Hey, they're beating the crap out of each other and this makes no sense! Perfect!" Then I noticed that they were playing on a big oval with an ugly rectangle drawn in the middle, and there are all these goalposts, and ball carriers have to bounce the ball every now and then, and it was nonsense for a different reason. There were rules after all, but the rules looked as though a bored eight-year-old had put them together. Now, if they were to devise a third rugby code, that was basically like union only allowing forward passes, ball advancement by players who aren't standing, and all manner of obstruction and violent conduct within fifteen metres of the ball, then I'd be all over it. It would be like "smear the queer" with a couple more objectives.
posted by taupe at 04:58 PM on October 08, 2003
And the menus are all freezing And the light man's blind in one eye And he can't see out of the other And the PANTS tuner's got a hearing aid And he showed up with his mother And the PANTS have been drinking... The PANTS have been drinking...oh, forget it.
posted by taupe at 11:26 PM on October 07, 2003
Holland? I thought the draw for that was next week.
posted by taupe at 04:09 PM on October 07, 2003
Spofi Fantasy NBA Midseason Report:
Since I don't remember any precedent for a situation like this, I'm going to stay hands-off on the Gasol-Redd trade, and leave it to people to click "Vote against trade" if they think it should be cancellable. (My own instinct is that them's the breaks, and that if there's a desire for a "failed physical" out for trades, we should write it into our rules at the start of next season.)