SB Nation User Blog: soundchaser

VICTORY!!!! / Elimination watch, 9/25/09

soundchaser — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:14:14 -0000

VICTORY!!!! It is now mathematically impossible for the Giants to finish with a better record than the Dodgers this year. That makes it 4 years in a row and 5 out of the last 6 seasons. Let's hope for many more!

Many more teams now eliminated from playoff contention: Padres are praying for next year, Astros are lost in space, Reds are not ready, and the Brewers have gone dry. Four more to go in the NL!

In the junior circuit, the White Sox have been washed away, the Indians have lost their spice, the Mariners are out to sea, and Tampa Bay has been e-RAY-sed. Only two to go!

AL Teams eliminated: Orioles, Royals, Blue Jays, A's, White Sox, Indians, Mariners, Rays

NL Teams eliminated: Nats, Pirates, Diamondbacks, Mets, Padres, Astros, Reds, Brewers

6 teams remain to be eliminated from post-season play.

Dodgers' best possible record: 101-61
Dodgers' worst possible record: 92-70

Elimination watch, 9/15/09

soundchaser — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:58:16 -0000

Pirates have walked the plank to the sea of elimination. Nice that the Dodgers have so many games w/ them and the Nats (the first eliminated team). The D-Backs have been de-backed and the Mets were finally put out of their misery.

Since my last post, there are now 5 AL teams with no chance of post-season play: the Orioles and the Blue Jays have been shot down, the Royals dethroned, and the A's are getting their Z's.

AL Teams eliminated: Orioles, Royals, Blue Jays, A's

NL Teams eliminated: Nats, Pirates, Diamondbacks, Mets

14 teams remain to be eliminated from post-season play.

The Giants' tragic number to finish with a worse record than the Dodgers is 11.

Dodgers' best possible record: 103-59
Dodgers' worst possible record: 86-76

JD Booty on Vikings practice squad

soundchaser — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:01:17 -0000

JD Booty on Vikings practice squad

in case you were wondering what he'd do after getting cut

Elimination watch, 9/8/09

soundchaser — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:28:25 -0000

This weekend saw our first team eliminated: once again the Washington Nationals will not be in the playoffs. It looks to be a while before the next worst team in their division, the Mets, are eliminated. The Pirates are 3 games from being elminated from the Wild Card and can't win the Central while the D-Backs and Padres are six games from being out of the Wild Card hunt and 2 games from missing out on the Division race.

Still nobody out in the AL. Orioles are 2 games from being out of WC contention while they won't win the division. Royals are out of the WC and one game from missing out on the Central Title. A's are still in contention, at least for another week....

AL Teams eliminated: none

NL Teams eliminated: Nats

21 teams remain to be eliminated from post-season play.

The Giants' tragic number to finish with a worse record than the Dodgers is 19.

Dodgers' best possible record: 105-57
Dodgers' worst possible record: 82-82

Elimination watch, 8/25/09

soundchaser — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:05:10 -0000

It's late August and time for me to once again do my at-least-weekly posts on which teams are in danger of being eliminated from the possibility of post-season play. Since all teams still have a mathematical chance, today I'll just look at the 6 last place teams.

In the AL, the Orioles, Royals, and A's are bringing up the rears. The Orioles have a tragic number of 10 for the division but 18 for the wild card. The Royals have the worst record in the AL but only 19 games back of their division-leader; a combination of 14 BoSox wins and KC losses will kill their post-season hopes. The Oakland Moneyballs are the best last-place team in baseball but still 20 out of the Angels.

The 3 cabooses of the senior circuit are the Nats, Pirates, and Padres. The Nats again have the worst record in all baseball and predictably are the closest of elimination: their tragic numbers are 2 for the division and 10 for the wild card. The Pirates have 40 games to play and are less than 20 games back of division and wild card leaders. The Padres are only slightly worse than the Pirates in the wild card race but have a tragic number of 13 wrt the Dodgers.

22 teams remain to be eliminated.

The Giants' tragic number to finish with a worse record than the Dodgers is 30.

Dodgers' best possible record: 111-51
Dodgers' worst possible record: 74-88

EJ Woods: Transformer

soundchaser — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:05:40 -0000

Bumped...Ironic isn't it? - P

I know some of you like to see what the sports fans across town are talking about so it won't surprise you that EJ Woods is no longer a great prospect but suddenly a bad person. And what brought about this transformation? Maybe it was the fact that he mentioned wanting to come to USC! If you look thru the chatter about EJ you'll see the following:

1) where he was once one of the top DB recruits in SoCal NOW it's a joke that he wants to be like Troy Polamalu

2) where he was once a kid with a 'legal situation' NOW he's another punk

3) where he once was innocent until proven guilty NOW the only way he can get out of his trouble is thru corruption of the legal system

I suppose these kids across town are upset because they were just saying a few months ago that EJ wouldn't leave and they were happy with how 'crn' disciplined him. at one point they wished EJ luck with his academic issues, now he's the plague and they can't get rid of him fast enough.

Conspiracy theories and lazy fact checking

soundchaser — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:53:36 -0000

When people are looking for the truth, a lot of them end up cultivating conspiracy theories.

Here is an interesting comment from the Blog across towN. (my emphasis added)

Ten days ago, Yahoo Sports broke the story, which I thought was pretty big: A direct, specific allegation that Tim Floyd was seen giving at least $1,000 to Rodney Guillory as a payoff for directing OJ Mayo to the Trojans. Floyd has said nothing in the interim. Garrett has said nothing in the interim. USC’s lawyer said what lawyers always say – “We can’t comment” meaning she didn’t want to comment.

In the past ten days, the Times has done essentially nothing. There was a story on the story – with a question mark in the headline. Then there was a Q and A between Adam Rose (USC alum) and Craig Penrose (USC Alum). What a shock – Penrose saw absolutely nothing wrong. There is a nice children’s story called “The Emperor’s New Clothes” which was a lot like that interview. We also heard it a lot from Sgt. Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes.

That's from an email sent by one the resident legal scholars over there to Plaschke attempting to take the LAT to task for not "reporting" the Floyd story.

I'm wondering where they get was seen; where has that been reported? That's right, nowhere! This is an utter fabrication and exposes an obvious bias, not that we should be surprised.

But wait! It gets better: Plaschke responds not once but twice and his responses are surprisingly sharp and informative (emphasis added to drive the point home)...

From: “Plaschke, Bill” <Bill.Plaschke@latimes.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2009 1:08 AM
Subject: RE: USC Basketball

“the charges were made by a felon who is trying to sell a book…he is the only source…I’m not personally involved in it, but I’m guessing that we need more than one biased source to publicly crucify a man..if it were your reputation on the firing line, you would feel the same way..”

Ouch!

That is pretty significant, wouldn't ya say?

Here is Plaschke's second response after the sly old fella tries to bait Plaschke by "dressing him down" in response to Plaschke's response (again, emphasis added)...

“From: “Plaschke, Bill” <Bill.Plaschke@latimes.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2009 7:26 PM
Subject: RE: USC Basketball

So you think we’re NOT pursuing the story?..You think we HAVEN’T been calling people?…You assume that because we don’t write a story, we’re not checking out all leads?..We chase things hard, and it’s a sign of the potential weakness in this story that, for all our chasing, we have yet to find someone to corroborate.
…
Where have I been on this? I’m the Times’ lead general sports columnist, meaning I cover the biggest story. If you read our newspaper or website, you would know that the Lakers are my town’s biggest story. If I’m not covering them through the playoffs, then THAT’S a story.… I’m sorry you are so bitter about this, and cannot afford me the same respect that I have afforded you, but, hey, I understand, that’s how the world works these days

plaschke."

Game over!

The last paragraph is classic. Bitterness consumes this crowd to no end. After a while, listening to these guys is like hearing one hand clapping. I only bring it up because Plaschke articulates what many SC fans have been trying to say. I don't even consider myself a huge SC supporter; in fact, I was raised a UCLA fan by my UCLA-grad dad but some of the bile over at the Blog across towN is just pathetic. I don't want to be part of that crowd and just reading some of their posts is enough to make me feel like I need a shower. As Paragon has said many times, they have a great history and are a fine university with nothing to be ashamed of and plenty to celebrate. It's beyond me why some of their supporters act so insecure. But it's this kind of insecurity that makes fertile ground for these lame conspiracy theories.

I don't often agree with Plaschke; in fact, I frequently despise his goofy one-line paragraphs and may never forgive the way he ran a previous Dodgers GM out of town. But I have to admit he is dead on here. No worthwhile news organization is going to ruin their own reputation without having backed up a story of this magnitude with legitimate sources. And the LAT will not sit around and do nothing if there was a legit story of this magnitude. Plaschke does an excellent job of exposing this guy as nothing more than a hater with an agenda... is anybody here surprised?

CC basketball tourney group

soundchaser — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:47:43 -0000

Once again I've created a group where those of us who frequent this fine site can compete to see who has the best bracket in the NCAA Tournament that starts next week. No experience w/ college hoops is required and in fact that may hurt your chances... if you'd like to join:

1) Go to Yahoo! Sports

2) Group ID # is 60188

3) Password to join is "floyd"

The more the merrier so come on and join the fun!

Predicting success

soundchaser — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:00:49 -0000

Since we just had signing day last week, this article I read a while back came to mind. It's about predicting future success in two different jobs: quarterback and teacher. It also came to mind a couple of weeks ago when Petros was talking about how the two big stars from the 2006 Rose Bowl haven't (yet) achieved the same success in the pro game. It's a bit of a read, but well worth it:

Most Likely to Succeed

Schadenfreude watch, 11/7/08

soundchaser — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:37:26 -0000

It's been a few weeks and we've one month left. Some rankings have changed, so let's give it a go!

#1 Alabama is playing #15 LSU this week. I heard something about there being some drama with this game...? After this week, they have Miss St and Auburn; Bama did almost lose to Mississippi and Kentucky last month, so these games aren't gimmies.

#2 Texas Tech gets #6 OK and #9 OK State before finishing with Baylor.

#3 Penn St. gets Iowa and Indiana before #18 Michigan St.

#4 Texas is done with ranked opponents, but have to face Texas A&M at the end.

#5 Florida has no ranked opponents until the end of the month when they face #24 Fl State.

#6 Oklahoma will meet both #2 Texas Tech and #8 OK St after Texas A&M this week.

#7 USC has #21 Cal this week and some big rivalry games at the end, ND and UCLA. SC could be helped out a lot if Oregon and Cal both win out the rest of the year. At least that's what Petros thinks...

#8 Utah is undefeated, tho they almost lost to Michigan in week 1. They'll get #17 BYU after they party down at San Diego St. next weekend.

#9 Oklahoma St. has another one of those big finishes to their schedule, with #2 Texas Tech and #6 OK coming up.

#10 Boise St., Lords of WAC! They're playing Utah St, Idaho, and Nevada before facing a competitor in Fresno St. Hopefully they'll get their 7th bowl game in a row.

If you like looking back, you can check out the last two posts.