SportsFilter: The Monday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
still worth reading even if you don't know your swing plane from your flying elbow
Evidently, Kevin Garnett would gain something from reading the article.
posted by beaverboard at 09:30 AM on April 19, 2010
Cartoonist Scott Adams on Tiger Woods: "I'm always fascinated when society decides to label some type of behavior as a mental problem. For example, Tiger Woods is allegedly being treated for sex addiction while his real problem is some sort of unusual blindness to risk and consequences. The common name for that is optimism. That optimism is probably a big part of what makes him a spectacular golfer. No one would practice as much as he did from an early age without some sort of crazy optimism that he was The One. And it has to help your nerves in critical situations if you are optimistic that your putt will go in. If Tiger hadn't succeeded in becoming the greatest golfer of his day, he'd be the crazy caddy with delusions of greatness. The only difference between crazy and confident is that the confident guy was lucky enough to have the resources to pull it off. Somewhere in China there's a guy with just as much golfing talent and optimism as Tiger. He's a bus boy. And a virgin."
posted by rcade at 10:31 AM on April 19, 2010
Jerry Seinfeld on the difference between David Letterman's sex scandal and Tiger Woods': "The biggest difference is, what can a guy who has humor do that a guy who does not have humor cannot do? You're looking at a guy who knows how to make fun of himself, and a guy who hasn't the first clue how to make fun of himself -- and the resulting difficulty."
posted by rcade at 11:05 AM on April 19, 2010
So as impossible as it seems, according to the Forbes numbers, the Royals and Yankees in 2009 spent almost exactly the same percentage of available money on winning baseball games.
posted by justgary at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2010
That Yankees/Royals link makes me wonder why baseball hasn't put a third team in New York City.
posted by rcade at 01:51 PM on April 19, 2010
US Open defines "open" for a tournament: "For the first time, the United States Tennis Association is giving anyone 14 or older a chance to qualify for a Grand Slam that's become more 'open' than ever before." Nice story on some of the entrants (netrants?) via Richard Deitsch.
posted by yerfatma at 03:18 PM on April 19, 2010
Tony LaRussa and the beauty of overmanaging a 20-inning game.
posted by wfrazerjr at 05:58 PM on April 19, 2010
New York City did have three teams until 1958, back when New York was the center of the baseball universe. And the Mets are the bastard stepchild of the Giants and the Dodgers (even their color scheme shows this).
But I don't think NYC would be interested in a third team now. Maybe another team that represents the state of New York?
posted by cjets at 07:29 PM on April 19, 2010
The New Jersey Gardeners, maybe
That LaRussa article is a good one.
posted by rumple at 02:54 AM on April 20, 2010
I've found something incredibly rare - an article about Tiger's... GOLF! (Probably need to be a bit of a swing technicality geek to enjoy it as much as I did, but still worth reading even if you don't know your swing plane from your flying elbow). Bradly Riggs from Golf Magazine argues that Tiger's driving is so erratic because: "He's trying to fix his bad shot by getting the club out in front of him, which is the reason for the bad shot."
posted by JJ at 07:42 AM on April 19, 2010