Sports
oracknows | November 18, 2006Mourn, Michigan fans. On the eve of the most important Big Ten game of the season this year between two of the greatest rivals in college football history, the University of Michigan and Ohio State University, the greatest coach in U. of M. history has passed away:
Legendary University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler died today at age 77 from an apparent heart attack while taping a weekly television show.
Schembechler was rushed from the Channel 7 studio where he was taping "Big Ten Ticket'' to Providence Hospital in Southfield at 9:17 a.m.
Schembechler collapsed on Oct. 20, also…
stcynic | November 7, 2006I know I'm a few days late on this, but I thought I'd follow up last year's embarrassing predictions with another slate. Actually, it wasn't all bad. I predicted that the Pistons would be better than the year before and they were. I predicted that the Miami Heat would start slow, leading Pat Riley to force Stan Van Gundy to step down so he could take over as coach, and he did. And I predicted that the Larry Brown situation with the Knicks would be disasterous, and it was. But I whiffed completely on the Heat winning it all. I really thought the off-season moves they made, bringing in selfish…
evolgen | November 4, 2006For all you runners and cyclists out there, I give you a toy you're sure to enjoy: Gmaps Pedometer.
Ever had a ride or run you wanted to do, but weren't sure how long it was or the elevation change? Enter Gmaps Pedometer. It works with the Google Maps interface, by far the best online maps application. You tell it where you want to start, enter checkpoints by double clicking, and that's it. It tells you mileage, elevation change, and you can save your routes.
There is a website that has good information on local rides in my area, but it gets boring doing the same routes every time. I started…
oracknows | November 3, 2006I feel for you, ScienceBlogs compatriot Afarensis. I really do.
Sure, your Cardinals beat my Tigers in the World Series last week. Sure, the Tigers made a lot of embarrassing errors and showed every sign of letting their youth and inexperience lead them to choking under the pressure. Sure at times the Tigers looked like a Little League team, throwing balls away hither and yon to let unearned runs score, looking nothing like the lean, mean baseball machine that had earlier dispatched the mighty Yankees with such aplomb after losing the first game. Sure the Cardinals managed to win it all after…
stcynic | October 30, 2006Yes, we probably use that term too often, especially in sports. But if it ever applied, it surely does to Red Auerbach. His career accomplishments are so monumental that they almost defy being listed. 8 straight NBA championships as a coach and 9 in 10 years. As general manager, he built another 7 championship teams. He coached Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, Sam Jones, KC Jones, and many more. He drafted John Havlicek, Jo Jo White, Dave Cowens and, of course, Larry Bird. Bird he drafted after his junior year, knowing that he would not be able to play for another year. That worked…
oracknows | October 28, 2006Mitch Albom sums the World Series and the Tiger's 2006 season up far better than I ever could.
oracknows | October 27, 2006This is getting depressing.
Last night, the Tigers lost a particularly heartbreaking game 5-4. It's heartbreaking because it's a game that they really should have won. Unfortunately errors and the two unearned runs that they allowed killed them.
Now the 2006 World Series is at the same point that the 1968 World Series was, with the Cardinals leading three games to one. In 1968, the Tigers came back and won three games in a row. I'm not so sanguine that they can do it again, particularly given how their inexperience has led the pitching staff to make so many costly errors. (And, besides, the…
oracknows | October 25, 2006This one's for you, Afarensis (all in good fun, of course--well, for the most part, anyway):
Here's Jeff Suppan, pitcher for the Cardinals (who, it just so happens, will be starting game four of the World Series tonight) appearing prominently along with Patricia Heaton, Jim Caviezel, and other celebrities in a predictably lame "response" ad to the ad that Michael J. Fox made supporting the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate Claire McCaskill. Fox made the original ad because McCaskill supports removing the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research that destroys embryos to…
oracknows | October 24, 2006...the World Series, with the Tigers versus the Cardinals.
The series is now tied at one game apiece and set to start again in St. Louis tonight at 8:05 PM. This is a real pain because it means that it'll be pretty late when the game ends, and if it goes into extra innings I'll be hurting tomorrow.
Even so, all I can say again is: GO TIGERS!
jlynch | October 22, 2006I'm no fan of pro football and only really watch the odd Monday night game (while relaxing after work) and the Super Bowl (if family are over). Last Monday I watched the Arizona Cardinals choke big-time against Chicago, the only Cardinals game I've watched in nearly thirteen years of living in Arizona.
Today the 1-5 Cardinals took on the 0-5 Raiders ... and lost 22-9. Wow. The coach, Denny Green, makes $2,500,000 a year for "coaching" this "team" to a 12-27 record. Nice money if you can get it ... approximately $62,000 per win, more that I get paid a year.
If only 31% of my students succeeded…
oracknows | October 21, 2006...the 2006 World Series.
The Tigers are rested and ready; the Cardinals just finished taking out the Mets in a prolonged series. Will the Tigers be rusty in Game One? Or will they pick up right where they left off?
My prediction? The Tigers in six.
GO TIGERS!
oracknows | October 20, 2006
Sadly for some of my readers, it won't be a Mets-Tigers World Series. The Cardinals pulled it out in game seven in a classic fashion, winning the game 3-1.
FOX isn't going to like an all-Midwest World Series. You could almost hear the disappointment that there wouldn't be a big market team like the Mets in the Series this year to generate better ratings.
But I love it and can hardly wait. Unlike fellow SBer Afarensis, I'm hoping the end result is a repeat of 1968. But without the Tigers falling behind three games to one before coming back. I don't know if I could take that sort of suspense…
oracknows | October 18, 2006Tom Verducci makes the case that the greated reversal in baseball history has just occurred with the Tigers making the World Series. Although they didn't have the worst record of any World Series team in the season before they reached the World Series (that "honor" belongs to the the 1991 Atlanta Braves), they had the largest number of consecutive losing seasons before their day in the sun, twelve seasons of futility:
Does all this make the Tigers the most shocking World Series team of all time? Yes. At the very least, they are on the short list with the 1914 Braves, '69 Mets and '91 Braves.…
drorzel | October 18, 2006Well, at least, the physics of the new NBA basketball, at any rate...
For those who haven't heard the story already, the NBA is changing the style of the basketballs used in its games this season. They're moving away from the traditional leather basketballs to a new synthetic material, which is supposed to hold up better to wear and tear.
Predictably enough, most of the players hate the new ball, and Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has gone so far as to enlist physicists to look into the situation:
Jim Horwitz is chair of the physics department at UT-Arlington, and Kaushik De is the project leader…
evolgen | October 16, 2006If you thought American colleges and universities were all about thugging it up and diagramming the Z-scheme, you'd be surprised to learn how big of a deal football is. Heck, if you were to visit some universities on Saturday afternoon in autumn, you'd be surprised to learn that you were on the grounds of an institute of higher learning. And it's not just the four year colleges and universities that can be called Football-U.
California has the best public university system of any state in the US. Multiple University of California schools are ranked as top national universities. On top of that…
evolgen | October 15, 2006Little Lord Sweater Vest teaches photosynthesis at the Ohio State University. Seriously. Watch below:
(Via Deadspin.)
jlynch | October 15, 2006
Yesterday's Miami versus Florida International game "featured" a bench-clearing brawl that should result in more than just a few token one-game suspensions. The NCAA needs to get involved and I agree with Kevin that scholarships should be lost. Miami seem to be a little out of control, what with brawling in the tunnel with LSU at the Peach Bowl or classlessly stomping on the Cardinal at Louisville last month.
stcynic | October 15, 2006Fall is my favorite time of the year. Part of it is the weather, part of it is the smell and the crispness of the air, and part of it is that basketball is starting again. Midnight madness, the official kickoff for the college basketball preseason, is this weekend, and the NBA is going through its preseason schedule as we speak. And while in the middle of football season, the Sports Guy is already making a prediction:
I gave you Jonathan Papelbon, I gave you Laurence Maroney, and now, I'm giving you Rajon Rondo. And without giving away too much -- I want to write about him in detail at some…
oracknows | October 14, 2006...Because the Tigers are actually going to the World Series! And they did it in fine style, too, with a come-from-behind victory in which Magglio Ordonez hit a three run homer with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning. I have to confess, I never quite believed they could get this far, particularly after they had a horrendous August and September, plummeting from being way in front to actually losing the division to the Minnesota Twins and having to settle for the Wild Card berth by being swept by the worst team in baseball, the Kansas City Royals, in the last series of the season.
Even…
jlynch | October 14, 2006Detroit sweeps Oakland 4-0 with a 6-3 comeback today in the Motor City ... as an honorary Michigander by marriage, I approve of this.