Author: Vin

Vin is a Philly boy who shouldn't be invited into your house because he'll judge you on your book and music collection. He owns Dawkins, Utley, Iverson, and Lindros jerseys, which is all you really need to know about him. He can be reached at [email protected].

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Yankees get a baby step


1. Boo Me Now: Alex Rodriguez was ridiculed by the Red Sox fans every at-bat over the weekend. On Sunday, he made them shut up by hitting what proved to be a game-winning homer in a 6-5 victory for the Yankees. A-Rod hit a solo shot off Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth, his league-leading 20th big fly of the year. The win gave the Yankees a series victory over Boston, but they are still 12.5 games back and just one game out of last place. The projected pitcher’s duel between Andy Pettitte and Josh Beckett did not occur, as both aces did not pitch their best. Both teams have one more series before starting Interleague play later this week.

2. West Coast Showdown: The weekend did nothing to separate the top teams in the NL West. The Diamondbacks, Padres, and Dodgers remain tied in the league’s most heated divisional battle. The streaky D-backs have won 9 of their last 10 games, including two of three from the Mets over the weekend. Doug Davis pitched 7 2/3 excellent innings in a 4-1 win on Sunday. The Padres won as well, with David Wells picking up the win and Josh Bard driving in four runs. The Dodgers rallied in the seventh and eighth innings to beat the Pirates 5-4. According to ESPN.com, the Dodgers are 27-0 when leading after eight innings. This is a testament to the outstanding play of closer Takashi Saito, who is 16-16 on save chances and has a 1.50 ERA. All three of these teams have an overachieving offense, solid bullpen, and a capable array of starters. Though the NL West race usually doesn’t get much attention, it should this year.

3. MVP Resurgence: The last two National League MVPs, Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols, were very disappointing early on this year. However, both have picked it up in the last week or so, and they will likely return to superstardom as the year goes on. On Sunday, Howard hit his fourth homer in nine games since returning from the DL. He was one of four Phillies to go deep in a crazy 9-8 win over the Giants. Though he is still hitting just .224, Howard is still on pace for 38 homers and 133 RBIs on the year. Pujols, meanwhile, hit two homers to help the Cardinals win 8-6. He had his fifth multi-hit game in his last ten games. Neither Pujols nor Howard are atop the leaderboards like they were last year, but expect that to change very soon.

Player of the Day: Gary Sheffield, Tigers: 2-4, HR (13), 3 runs. Sheffield’s April struggles are now a distant memory thanks to 11 homers and 24 RBIs since May 2.

Stat of the Day: Giants phenom Tim Lincecum has a 9.00 ERA in two starts against the Phillies this year. In his other four starts he is 2-0 with a 2.17 ERA.

Categories
MLB General

June 1 2007 MLB Power Rankings Roundup

It’s hard to believe that we’re already 9 weeks into the baseball season. The Red Sox are still the best team in the land according almost everybody and the Mets aren’t too far behind. The big gainer this week were the Diamondbacks, on a 7 game winning streak. The big loser this week were the Brewers who, after a fast start, have dropped 7 of their last 10.

Here are the major power rankings this week:

Rank Sportscolumn ESPN FoxSports Sportsline USA Today TSN.ca
1 Red Sox Red Sox Red Sox Red Sox Red Sox Mets
2 Mets Mets Indians Mets Mets Padres
3 Indians Indians Mets Indians Indians Red Sox
4 Angels Padres Angels Angels Tigers Brewers
5 Tigers Angels Padres Padres Angels Dbacks
6 Dodgers Dodgers Tigers Tigers Dodgers Dodgers
7 Padres Dbacks Dodgers Braves Braves Braves
8 Braves Tigers Braves Dbacks Brewers Indians
9 Dbacks Braves Dbacks Dodgers Padres Tigers
10 Brewers Twins Brewers Phillies White Sox Angels
11-30 more more more more more more

Categories
Dallas Cowboys

Just who the hell is Tony Romo?

We’re not really sure how an athlete who botches a crucial game winning FG in the playoffs can get so much love but it seems now that Jessica Simpson is going out of her way to try to meet Tony Romo.

First, a little history. On his first MNF game, Tony Romo mentioned that his celebrity crush was Jessica Simpson. The next thing you know, there are rumors flying all over the place that he’s dating her because he left two tickets for her dad at a Cowboys game. That was pretty much gossip rag invented crap. Then, out of nowhere, he scores Carrie Underwood, the hottest thing ever to come out of American Idol and he’s judging the Miss Universe contest.

But that’s not all. Romo reportedly has dumped Carrie Underwood because she wants a commitment and he “wants to focus on football” so he needs his space. And his space includes inviting Jessica Simpson to Dallas after the Jessica Simpson camp (stupid celebrities) made a big push to get her and Romo together.

If you’re not a Dallas Cowboys fan, you’ve got to love this nonsense that’s going on here. Pretty soon, T.O. will be sick of Romo’s media coverage and do something really stupid. And that basically will be a complete blogger meltdown day. We can’t wait.

By the way, look at the two photos of Carrie Underwood and Jessica “I am going through male hormone therapy” Simpson. Is Tony Romo going blind, insane, or gay? Maybe he and A-Rod can go cruising for she-males together.

Categories
Golf

The 2007 50 Highest Paid American Athletes



Still good to be Tiger

SI has released their list of the top U.S. money earners for 2007. Of course, Tiger Woods is #1 with his $100M in endorsement money and the regular cast of characters fill out the top 10 (Shaq, Kobe, Mickelson, A-Rod, etc.) but it’s really the middle of the list that is the most interesting.

We spotted two types of athletes in addition to the genuine superstars. First, you have the washed up former superstar that is making a ton of cash on their contracts (thank you stupid GMs!) and practically nothing in endorsements. These are mostly NBA players (Michael Finley, Jalen Rose, Eddie Jones, Steve Fraacis, Grant Hill) but also includes useless baseball player Jason Giambi.

The second anomaly is the overhyped athlete that hasn’t done a damn thing but manages to get into this list by virtue of the great hype machine. Well… it’s just one person actually — Michelle Wie. With only $700k in earnings, she manages to come in at #22 with $19.5M in endorsements. What a joke.

The full list of the Top 50 earning American athletes in 2007 after the jump.

Continue reading “The 2007 50 Highest Paid American Athletes”

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Halladay is dominating again


1. Return to Dominance: Roy Halladay hadn’t pitched since May 10, and he hadn’t pitched like himself since April 30. It didn’t take him long to return to his usual form. Halladay shut out the White Sox in seven innings, allowing six hits and no walks. He struck out seven on the last day of a horrible May for Halladay. In April, he was one of the early Cy Young favorites in the AL. But in May, he allowed 17 combined runs in his first two starts and then underwent an appendectomy that cost him three weeks. Mark Buehrle of the White Sox pitched eight strong innings himself, but he gave up two solo homers to Frank Thomas and Aaron Hill.

2. Still Rollin’: Everything about the Mets, from their starters to their lineup, is clicking right now. On Thursday, Orlando Hernandez delivered a great start in what has been a surprising season for him. El Duque allowed two runs in seven innings, lowering his ERA to 2.20. He is one of three Mets starters with an ERA below 2.80, which is quite unexpected for a staff that came into the year with numerous question marks. Billy Wagner converted his 31st straight save, his 13th on the year. Wagner is one of the more underrated closers in the majors with a 1.57 ERA and 0.96 WHIP. He has been unhittable for the last decade. Though Carlos Beltran struggled in May on offense, David Wright and Carlos Delgado broke out of their April slumps and Jose Reyes continued to be a steal machine (29 and counting). Right now, the Mets are clearly the favorite in the National League, which lacks another truly dominant team at this point.

3. Remember this guy?: Ever since breaking the single-season hits record in 2004, Ichiro has been virtually silent. This year he has returned to being a great contact hitter, with a .336 average and a 230-hit pace. He finished May with a 24-game hit streak that raised his average 76 points. He hasn’t slowed down, either, with 14 steals on the year. On Thursday, Ichiro carried the Mariners by going 3-5 with two RBIs. If he keeps hitting like he is now, Ichiro will definitely start to gain back the attention he lost after two below-average seasons for him.

Player of the Month: Prince Fielder, Brewers: Milwaukee may have slowed down towards the end of the month, but its best player continued to dominate. Fielder had four straight games with a homer to close the month. He led all major-leaguers with 13 homers in May and was tied for first with 28 RBIs. His slugging percentage was .755, which raised his season total to a league-leading .641. Fielder’s breakout is reminiscent of Ryan Howard‘s last year, when Howard hit 13 and 35 in May.

Pitcher of the Month: Jake Peavy, Padres: Many pitchers slowed down in May after dominating in April, but Peavy was not one of them. He went 4-0 with a miniscule 0.79 ERA and 39 strikeouts on the month. Peavy allowed no earned runs in three of his five starts, and the Padres won every time he took the mound in May. He is clearly the National League’s Cy Young favorite at this point in the year.

Categories
NBA General

Odds and Ends: ESPN finally makes itself useful


ESPN sucks. There’s hardly any redeeming features to the slow ass bloated website or the retarded programming but we finally found something that’s worth using over at “.com.” The Trade Machine allows you to propose a trade between up to 4 teams and the website will figure out if the trade will work from a salary standpoint and point out any clauses that might negate the trade.

For example, if you want to test the trade that Peter Vecsey is claiming might happen between the Pacers and the Lakers, you could put in Jermaine O’Neal for Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom. But the resulting trade would fail because “the Lakers are over the cap, and their incoming salaries are greater than 125% plus $100,000 of their outgoing salaries. They need to cut $10,405 from the incoming trade value to make this trade successful.” With all the trade rumors flying around, it’s fun to see if it even makes sense salary wise.

In other news…

[Sportsline]: Prosecutor: Informants say they can link Vick to dogfighting

[Can’t Stop the Bleeding]: Florida A&M basketball coach arrested for stalking a woman

[The Big Lead]: So this is why UFC can’t market Rampage Jackson

[The Offside]: People really need to stop thinking up new sports

[The Golf Blog]: Michele Wie is kinda useless

And finally, a random story about a woman who is suing Wal-Mart because she slipped in a puddle of vomit. Investigators don’t know how to proceed because you can’t really dust for vomit.

Categories
New York Yankees

A-Rod "likes the she-male, muscular type." Hmmmm… like Derek Jeter?



Cynthia Rodriguez is not happy

We had a whole conspiracy theory yesterday that the report and pictures of Alex Rodriguez with some blonde in Toronto was drummed up by A-Rod and the Yankees to take everyone’s attention away from the fact that the Yankees are in last place in the AL East and effectively out of competition for the title. Well, either A-Rod’s wife is in on it too or he’s in serious trouble.

The NY Daily News, with writers who were chewed out by the Editor in Chief for missing out on the scoop, launched into a full fledged investigation in multiple cities about A-Rod’s womanizing. The Daily News reports that A-Rod’s wife Cynthia packed up a couple of suitcases and left their East Side condo. But that’s not all, they also report on possible infidelities in Miami, Tampa and Las Vegas. It seems taking hot chicks to strip clubs is A-Rod’s M.O.

There are a couple of startling revelations in this Pulitzer -worthy piece. First, a (we assume female looking) stripper claims that A-Rod “likes the she-male, muscular type. They brought me up to the champagne room one time. I spun around once and that was it. I’m not his type.” Second, A-Rod, king of the strip clubs, “loves to text dirty.” (How much do you want to bet some blog is already working on a fictitious A-Rod text message log?)

Luckily for Yankees fans, both Rodriguez and Torre have said that these reports won’t affect the play of the Yankees. So expect a lot of below .500 ball for the rest of the year.

And finally, Sports by Brooks tells us that those ESPN douchebags Mike and Mike are appalled that anyone would spill the beans about infidelity on a major baseball superstar. Mike Golic probably got some tail by virtue of his professional athlete status but you know Greenie had to pay for it.

Links:

[NY Daily News]: As wife packs up, is A-Rod out at home?

Categories
NHL General

2007 Stanley Cup Finals Game 1 Review


Ducks 1, Senators 0
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t actually watch this game, because I was at a coffee bar in Hartford, CT trying to pick up some foxy ladies. It’s a good thing, too – not that I failed miserably in trying to get girls (that’s bad), but that I didn’t watch it – because me, not being a hockey purist, probably wouldn’t have appreciated this see-saw battle.

The only goal came from Samuel Pahlsson, interesting in the sense that Sami’s main role in this series was supposed to be checking the hell out of good, scoring-centric Sens players. Now, for two consecutive games – that being 1 and 2, for those of you in the know – an Anaheim player mostly responsible for checking (Travis Moen in Game 1) has scored the essential goal for the Ducks, in the process giving them a 2-0 advantage and helping them to retain home ice advantage.

As we said earlier, no Canadian team has actually hoisted Lord Stanley’s chalice since 1992, when the Montreal Canadiens did it. That’s 15 years, which seems like an egregiously long period of time considering that Canada is probably the No. 1 thing you associate with hockey, at least in a geographic sense. For the Sens to make this interesting, here’s what has to happen:

1. Emery has to enter complete lockdown mode, like Giguere was in last night. No mental mistakes.

2. Their first line – Heatley, Alfredsson, and Spezza – has to start lighting the red light frequently.

3. They have to take the Ducks checking lines and let them hit ’em, but don’t let those guys get open looks at the net.

4. They have to somehow imagine the Ducks are, in fact, the Buffalo Sabres.

Brett Hull predicted this series would be over in five games. One win in Ottawa, and I’ll go with him. Every Cup Finals since ’01 with just one exception has gone seven games. I’d love to see this one join it, so long as we can get a few 5-4, 2OT finals in there as well.

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Diamondbacks are hot again


1. The League’s Hottest Team: The Arizona Diamondbacks have had an up-and-down season, alternating between winning and losing streaks. Right now, they’re on an MLB-high 7 game winning streak after sweeping the Astros and Phillies. Randy Johnson was dazzling on Wednesday as they finished off the Phils. The Big Unit pitched 6 innings, gave up one hit and no runs, and won for his third straight start. In May, Johnson put up a 2.93 ERA and 41 strikeouts. He’s part of an excellent Diamondbacks rotation that includes four pitchers with below a 3.90 ERA. Also, Jose Valverde has proved to be a capable closer, with a league-leading 19 saves in 21 chances. Between the D-Backs, the Dodgers, and the Padres, the NL West has one of the more underrated division races going on right now. Those three teams are separated by just a game.

2. The League’s Coldest Team: The Houston Astros, one of my preseason favorites in the NL Central, have suddenly become the third-worst team in the National League. They have dropped ten straight games, including two in a row at home to the league-worst Reds. Their problems are numerous: Lance Berkman isn’t hitting well, they lack an above-average starter besides Roy Oswalt, and three of their regulars have an OPS below .700. In almost every offensive category, the Astros rank in the bottom five in the MLB. Their only bright spot has been Carlos Lee, who has proved worthy of his contract with a .313 average and 46 RBIs. This team still has potential to be a contender in the weak NL Central, but time is running out.

3. Almost Unbeatable: Oakland’s Dan Haren is not undefeated, but he should be. The breakout ace has allowed three or fewer earned runs in all of his starts this season, good for an AL-leading 1.64 ERA. He also leads the league in WHIP and has won six decisions in a row. On Wednesday Haren dominated the Rangers, going 8 innings with one run allowed. Rich Harden was supposed to be the A’s ace this year, but he’s hurt once again. That spot has been filled admirably by Haren, who has come a long way since his 14-13 record and 4.12 ERA in 2006. The A’s are sitting at .500 now, but if they go on another second-half run, Haren will get the attention he deserves.

Player of the Day: Tie between Erik Bedard, Orioles; Derek Lowe, Dodgers; and Chris Young, Padres: Combined 22 innings, 0 runs, 17 strikeouts; each of them picked up the win.

Categories
General Sports

May 30 2007 episode of Poor Man’s PTI

Welcome to another episode of Poor Man’s PTI.

You can download this week’s podcast directly (running time 65 mins) or subscribe to the feed.  

If you use iTunes, just click here and then click subscribe and iTunes will take care of the rest.

This week’s topics include:

  • A-Rod busted in Toronto
  • Kobe demands a trade – where could he end up?
  • Michael Vick – The Last Dogfighter
  • NHL Playoffs loses to Bull Riding on Versus / gets preempted by the Preakness
  • NBA playoffs
  • UFC 71: Lidell vs Rampage
  • Charm School
  • David Beckham and MLS
  • Josh Hancock’s father
  • OT: Huge email of the day (this one truly offensive)

Hope you guys enjoy the podcast.  If you did enjoy it, please give us a good rating below so we can rise up in the rankings. If you didn’t, send us an email ([email protected]) and give us some suggestions. Thanks for listening.