Month: June 2008

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Fox News: All Racist Network

Edit on 6/10/08: Maybe Fox News isn’t that bad at all… Ha, who am I kidding. But in a surprising move, they did cancel the show of the woman who I talk about below… (link)

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I know I say this everytime I link something from them but are the people at Fox News really this racist? Are they really this ignorant and gonna continue to spit out lie after lie and one racist comment after another?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xScZN2-Z_Sg

Terrorist Fist Bump? Is there even such a thing? Of course there is… at Fox News!

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Say It Ain’t Mo!

So every now and then, Mariano Rivera goes through a stretch where he gets roughed up a little. I remember a couple of years ago when he blew two saves against the Red Sox to start off the season and people started questioning whether he was done for good that year. Well that year he bounced back with 43 saves and a 1.38 ERA. This year, after allowing only 1 earned run in his first 26 innings pitched, he has now allowed two 9th inning homeruns – both of the games which were tied when he came in.

This is the first time since August of 2003, that Mo allowed two HRs in a span of 3 or less appearances. The last time it happened against the Orioles when he allowed 4 hits and 2 solo HRs while facing 10 batters in the 2 innings of work. This time around, in the two blown games, he faces 8 batters in the 2 games allowing 2 solo shots again and those were the only two hits he allowed. However, today was the first time in the 4 games that it ended up costing the Yankees the game. The previous 3 times, the destructive Yankees offense came through to bail him out.

Is this something to worry about for the Yankees? They have moved Joba out of the bullpen because they figured Mariano can still last them another couple of years… but is he losing his edge? Where will the Yankees turn to if they need someone as a closer now? Everytime it seems that the Yankees are finally ready to turn the corner and move away from being just a .500 team, they fall back and fail to capitalize on the momentum.

Here is a good stat to know about this Yankee team this year: Through 66 games this season, the Yankees have been either at .500, or plus or minus 1 game of .500 for 50 of those days.

Days at .500: 22
Days at one game under .500: 17
Days at one game over .500: 11

Maybe it’s just me but it could be that the Yankees are just that… a middle of the road .500 team.

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History at Belmont?

You can be certain no one really expected this out of Belmont today. Big Brown just didn’t seem like he wanted to run today. Stumbled a little bit out of the gates early and never really recovered. The jockey pulled up about half way through the race and just slowly took him around the track to finish up the race.

Just goes to show why winning the Triple Crown hasn’t been done in 30 years now and once again a horse wins the first two legs and fails to deliver in the 3rd.

Trainer Nick Zito who trained the horse that beat Smarty Jones in 2004, trained Da’Tara this year that ended up beating Big Brown.

Was it Big Brown’s jockey who tempted fate by pissing of the horse racing gods or was it just not meant to happen? It’s certainly something that will be discussed for days to come now.

Edit: For those that missed it, here is the Belmont Stakes from earlier today.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3quuWRj6KE

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Microsoft Excel Anyone?

So I have been going Excel crazy recently by trying to compile stats, keep score and just record wins and losses over several seasons for teams. So I’m going to focus this for anyone who is some what resourceful with Excel and wants to help me out.

My dilemma is that I have a column that is counting the streak of the said team. For example, let’s say if the team wins 5 in a row, loses 2 in a row and then wins one… the column will say the following:

W1, W2, W3, W4, W5, L1, L2, W1

Now that is a relatively small scope of what i have. I have recorded data of over 130 games so far, and I am trying to figure out a way to automatically calculate what is the longest winning streak, losing streak, etc.

I can provide the Excel sheet if someone wants to give it a try. Any help or suggestions of further stats to determine from the given data would also be greatly appreciated. Just leave your email in the comments or contact me directly and I can send you the file.

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Big Brown’s Big Bash?

As any one who follows horse racing, and by “follows” I obviously mean watches the 3 big races and forgets about the sport until next year… anyways, anyone who follows it knows that The Preakness is tomorrow with Big Brown trying to win the Triple Crown – a feat that hasn’t been accomplished in exactly 30 years.

Affirmed in 1978 still remains the last Triple Crown winner. Sadly, the last Triple Crown winner left alive, Seattle Slew, passed away on May 7, 2002. There have been several close calls in the past decade or so with horses winning The Kentucky Derby and The Preakness as you can see from the list below:

1997 Silver Charm 2nd
1998 Real Quiet 2nd
1999 Charismatic 3rd
2002 War Emblem 8th
2003 Funny Cide 3rd
2004 Smarty Jones 2nd

Hopefully things will be different this year because there is no bigger support of ‘Brown’ success around the world than the Angry Brown Guy. I’m hoping to have some real good news to report tomorrow after the race but there has been major talk of Big Brown’s jockey tempting fate with the horse racing gods. He has called out that his horse will win this race easily and although that type of confidence is nice, it seems to have come off as very ignorant.

Big Brown has been the picture of cool this Triple Crown season. He loves to strike a pose for the cameras and saved his best performances for the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. The only thing that has tried to slow the colt is the quarter crack.

The injury is having about as much luck at stopping Big Brown as the competition. Several veterinarians characterized the quarter crack as innocuous and said racing in Saturday’s grueling 1½-mile Belmont shouldn’t pose an additional risk to the strapping bay colt.

A quarter crack is a vertical crack in the hoof wall between the toe and heel, usually extending into the coronary band, where the hoof meets the skin of the leg. Healing time can range from a few days to a few months, depending on the severity of the crack.

That is from an ESPN article citing that Big Brown’s biggest threat to the Triple Crown, Casino Drive, has a bruised hoof but still remains in the race.