Incredible Cardinals Win Again

The Cardinals are like a spring.
Every time you put pressure on them and seemingly squeeze the air out of them, they recoil with devastating ferocity.
Six elimination games in two years, six victories.
The defending world champs, down to their final strike twice Friday night, scored four runs in the top of the ninth inning to erase a 7-5 deficit and advance to the National League Championship Series.
St. Louis, unfazed, overcame a 6-0 deficit in Washington before a record raucous crowd turned silent at Nationals Park.
The Nationals and closer Drew Storen let their guard down. Inexperience can play dirty tricks on the mind. It instills a false sense of security, a phantom sense of invincibility.
Daniel Descalso provided the game-tying, two out hit, which pinballed off of shortstop Danny Espinosa's glove with the bases loaded. Pete Kozma followed with a two-run single down the right field line.
Calm under fire.
Experience and skillful.
Incredible run.

(A Haggy Haiku)

Notes: St. Louis with the win advances to the LCS for the seventh time in 10 years. The 6-0 deficit is the largest overcome in an elimination game in MLB history. And how about the slate of division series matchups? All of them went the distance. There were multiple walk-off hits and several extra-inning games.
Baseball is at its best this year... so far.

Baseball Playoff Predictions

Play-In Games

St. Louis over Atlanta
Texas over Baltimore

ALDS

Detroit over Oakland in 4
New York over Texas in 5

NLDS

St. Louis over Washington in 4
San Francisco over Cincinnati in 5

ALCS

New York over Detroit in 6

NLCS

San Francisco over St. Louis in 6

World Series

New York over San Francisco in 7

Cabrera: Baseball's Triple Threat

Effortless success
Rare breed of power, average
Triple Crown Winner

(A Haggy Haiku)

Miguel Cabrera is the newest member of an elite club.
The Tigers slugger won the Triple Crown. He becomes the first hitter to lead the league in average, home runs and RBI in the same season since 1967 when Carl Yastrzemski did it. Only 13 different players have accomplished the milestone.  
Cabrera mashed his way to a .330 average to go with 44 home runs and 139 RBI.
Unlike contenders in recent years past, Cabrera received minimal media attention for his feat.
Granted, Cabrera doesn't seek the spotlight. But those who cover MLB also focused very little on the superlative third baseman.
The market size hasn't been the issue. Baseball writers groveled over Justin Verlander, Cabrera's teammate's body of work a year ago. They questionably gave the pitcher league MVP, an honor Cabrera has never received and likely will not be rewarded for this historical campaign, either.
AL MVP is reserved for rookie Mike Trout.
No matter, Cabrera doesn't mind.
He'll just continue to hit his way into baseball lore.

"Princess Warrior" Dies Before Meeting Big Time Rush

A Wadena girl’s dying wish to meet Big Time Rush was going to be granted Thursday, but there just wasn’t enough time.
Kare 11 reported eight-year old Jane Fiemeyer died just hours before her scheduled video chat with the Nickelodeon band.
Jane was diagnosed with leukemia in August of 2011. After numerous attempts at treatment, doctors told her recently that the disease was incurable. Jane returned home for hospice care Wednesday.
Her mother, Jil Fiemeyer, spurred a social media wave this week in an effort to grant Jane her wish to meet the boy band. Friends, family and strangers from all over campaigned to Big Time Rush on behalf of Jane.
The band responded to the outpouring of support and had arranged a video chat with her over Skype Thursday. The band, which portrays hockey players from Minnesota on their show, was reportedly even planning to rearrange their tour schedule to surprise Jane with a visit Monday.
But Jane died peacefully late Thursday morning before BTR could fulfill her wish.
Jane was able to watch a video the band made specifically for her.
Doctors had speculated earlier in the week that Jane’s timeline could be anywhere from days to a month.
She made it just one day.
The “Princess Warrior Fund” has been set up in Jane’s memory. Money raised will benefit cancer organizations. She also raised money for children’s cancer research by making vibrant duct tape wallets. They can be ordered by contacting walletsfromjane@gmail.com.

Movie Review: American Reunion

American Pie is back. 

Everyone has grown up, though not matured. Instead of watching teenagers acting obnoxious and sex-starved, American Reunion is about 30 years olds engaging in sophomoric debauchery. 

It doesn’t work.  

American Reunion is outrageous and dimwitted, but devoid of any humor. The storyline is odd, predictable and fails to deliver the least bit of entertainment. Truthfully, the film is like drinking hard alcohol all night: the gut rot gets progressively worse with each passing moment. 

Don’t bother going to the Reunion to see how everyone turned out. 

Pack Leaders

In baseball money starts -- unless it's attached to Vernon Wells or a back of the bullpen guy.
Yes, closers and only a select few players with unsightly contracts are excused from playing from the get-go. In the former's case, they are paid to preserve ninth inning leads and save games. As for the latter, well, Wells and others are such a detriment to the team's overall success, management feels it is far better to bench  them than witness incongruous, appalling failure time and time again.
Wells is owed $63 million over the next three seasons. He rarely sees the field because he can no longer hit for average or power and the Angels have MVP-candidate and rookie Mike Trout to take his place in the lineup.
Other teams aren't so lucky.
Since the end of the steroid era, pitching ERA has been much better. In the more potent American League, 18 hurlers have ERAs below 4.00. The National League has an incredible 39. Yet somehow, even with the changes to the game and better success rates among pitchers, Minnesota Twin Nick Blackburn struggles to record outs.
A 2008 ESPN piece suggests that one Mike Parrott had the sixth worst season ever among athletes in 1980,  and arguably owns the single worst pitching effort in MLB history. Parrott finished 1-16 with a 7.28 ERA for the Seattle Mariners. Opponents hit .356.

Photo Courtesy of talk-sports.net

Blackburn is paid $4.75 million this year to be just as woeful. League average is $3.31 million through 2011. In 18 starts, Blackburn owns a 7.33 ERA and .334 batting average against.
Need further proof of how bad that is? If an average hitter faced Blackburn all season, he would hold the fifth highest average in baseball and second highest in the AL.
Somehow the Twins do not have any other arms to start.
Speaking of not having other options, the Chicago White Sox have a player with the third most strikeouts among all active players and one of the best pitchers. Unfortunately, they aren't the same guy. Adam Dunn has 167 strikeouts in little more than 400 at-bats. Southpaw Chris Sale is 14-3 with a 2.60 ERA. He has struck out 132 in 138.2 innings. MLB's strikeout leader is Justin Verlander, who has 174.
The beefy first baseman slash designated hitter does not come cheap. Dunn signed a four-year, $56 million contract with Chicago prior to the 2011 season.
Last year he set a modern day record among qualified candidates by hitting .159. This year, Dunn's .209 average is hardly a godsend, though his 33 home runs pace all hitters.

Photo Courtesy of fixmlb.org

Again, Big Donkey's troubles stem from making contact. Over the first 32 games of the season he struck out at least once for a total of 47 times. For comparison sake, the longest hitting streak in baseball this season was 26 games.
The only good that can come from having to play these particular (and relatively) big budget flops is their potential to play each other fairly often as members of rival Central Division teams.
More head-to-head matchups and maybe Blackburn and Dunn will both return closer to league average, even if their salaries don't.

Bryce Harper's All-Star Game Debut

Bryce Harper is a superstar in the making. At 19 years old, he became the youngest position player in Major League history to make an All-Star team. He swings hard, hustles, and shows poise offensively and defensively.

Yet, in his first Mid-Summer Classic, Harper looked his age. He got caught in a run-down after reaching on a walk in his first plate appearance and lost a routine fly ball in the bottom half of the inning, allowing Mike Napoli to reach. 

As to the claim everyone's focus at this year's game is the "who's better? Harper versus Mike Trout debate," like picking between Team Jacob or Team Edward, it's overblown. The biggest story of each All-Star Game is seeing all the stars of the league play on the same stage. Harper and Trout are no more intriguing than seeing Clayton Kershaw pitch or David Wright hit. 

If the goal was to make a memorable debut, Harper achieved it with those mistakes. 

Johan Santana No-Hits Cardinals

Fresh off surgery

Mets get major performance

Johan throws no-no

(A Haggy Haiku)

 

NBA Lottery Nonsense

All 14 NBA non-playoff teams found out their assigned seat for the June draft Wednesday, with the New Orleans Hornets catching the top spot.
The Charlotte Bobcats (7-59), which finished with the worst winning percentage in NBA history, will draft second.
Charlotte had a 25 percent chance of landing the No. 1 pick. New Orleans tied with Cleveland for the third poorest record in the NBA and had a 13.7 percent chance of winning.
The Minnesota Timberwolves will not be drafting in the top 14 despite having a bad enough record. Back in 2005, Minnesota shipped a conditional first round pick and Sam Cassell to the Clippers in exchange for Marko Jaric and Lionel Chalmers.
That pick was lottery protected for six years, until Wednesday.
Los Angeles won't be utilizing what turned out to be a No. 10 pick though, as the team traded it to the Hornets in the Chris Paul trade.
It's no surprise the draft position wasn't higher.
Minnesota has never drafted first. Since the lottery's inception in 1990, just four teams boasting the lowest winning percentage during the previous season captured the top pick.
Given Minnesota's misfortune in that regard during the team's 23-year history, Kevin McHale would have been wise then to have offered up Cassell and a future No. 1 for Jaric and Chalmers.
I kid of course, but hey, the Clippers might have still been waiting 23 years from now.

Conspiracy Theorists' Agora (Place of Assembly)

Something doesn't smell right.

It's not the stench of 36 deceased cats. Nor is it the smell of elderly people. 

The stink is pungent and overwhelming. 

That's it! It's the NBA!

THE LOTTERY

The NBA draft lottery took place last Wednesday night, and for the eighth consecutive year and 19th time in 23 years, a team other than the worst won the rights to the No. 1 pick.

New Orleans will draft in the top spot this year, a convenient result that should have conspiracy theorists grousing about the league. More on that later.

The Charlotte Bobcats, who at 7-59, finished with the lowest winning percentage in NBA history, will draft second. Michael Jordan's team had a 25 percent chance of fielding the top pick.

The Hornets tied for the third worst record in the league and had a 13.7 percent chance of winning.

Going back in recent history, the unfairness seems to swell like a sprained ankle.

A year ago, as the eighth worst team, the Clippers won the lottery. (Through a trade, Los Angeles begrudgingly passed it off to the Cleveland Cavaliers.)

More fantastical than even that was when the Chicago Bulls charged past eight others, including a Miami team with 18 fewer wins, to grab Chicago native Derrick Rose in 2008.

The year before was almost as screwy. Portland got Greg Oden with the first pick, despite being the seventh worst team. Seattle (now Oklahoma City) went from fifth to second, grabbing Kevin Durant before the team's move to a new city; and the Atlanta Hawks moved up from fourth to third. The three worst teams were stuck drafting No. 4-6.

But the greatest hoodwink had to be 1993. Orlando finished with the best record among non-playoff teams thanks to a rookie named Shaquille O'Neal. At 41-41, the Magic had nearly four times as many victories as bottom-feeder Dallas (11-71). Yet, despite the glaring disparity, the lottery ball turned up Disney.

At least changes were made after that surprise twist.

In 2006 and 2010, the fifth worst team landed in first place in the lottery sweepstakes. And in 2005, the Bucks of Milwaukee (30-52) bypassed five teams, including the 13-win Atlanta Hawks in taking Andrew Bogut.

Not since the Orlando Magic, in 2004, has the worst team actually selected first.

Overall, only four times has the lottery draft given the top pick to the previous season's worst team — Orlando in '04, Cleveland in '03 when it selected LeBron James, and Philadelphia twice, in 1996 and in 1990, the year the league adopted the weighted lottery system in place today.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

There are plenty of drafts to feed this elephant in the room. From Rose and James getting picked by their hometown teams, to Cleveland scoring the No. 1 pick the year after the King's departure, the draft has certainly been marked with suspicious fingerprints.

Now this.

The NBA owns the Hornets. Stern runs the league. Ipso facto, Stern controls the team that just landed the No. 1 pick and chance to take an extraordinary talent in Anthony Davis of Kentucky.

Thickening the plot, the team that was coaxed into trading away Chris Paul, its franchise player and the NBA's best point guard prior to the start of last season, now has the necessary place in the welfare line to make a quick recovery.

FIXING THE STERN RULE

After the Magic scored the No. 1 pick in the '93 draft (then traded it Golden State), despite having but one chance to win, Stern adjusted the weight of the lottery.

He increased the worst team's chance to win from 16.7 percent to 25 percent; the best team's odds were lowered from 1.5 percent to .5 percent.

But the system is still glaringly flawed.

The probability of the lottery ball coming up is 25 percent. As it has played out, the team with the worst record lands it 17.4 percent of the time (not statistically significant).

That's not the issue. Neither are the conspiracy theories. Rather, it's that the share is just 25 percent.

For a man who quashed the Paul trade because he said more parity needs to exist and smaller market teams need a fighting chance, it's obnoxious that Stern continues to allow all 14 non-playoff franchises a shot at No. 1.

The best chance a bottom feeder has at improving and rostering stars is through the draft. Yet draft history shows the weakest few teams, namely, the worst one, do not benefit by the lottery system currently in place.

If the commish is so concerned about teams skimming off the top to ensure they have the worst record, which seems to be more of a knock on him for believing his league to be dishonest, keep the lottery.

Reduce it to the bottom-tier of teams, though.

THE MATH

To classify a bottom-tier team, let’s use basic statistics and standard deviation. Most data will be within two standard deviations of an average (in the NBA’s case, a .500 record). The intent of this new lottery concept isn’t to completely hand the worst team from that season the No. 1 pick, though. One standard deviation is a good place to start.

Comparing this past season's .500 mark (33 games) with the number of victories all 30 teams recorded in 2011-12 produces a standard deviation of 10.3.

Subtract that from 33. The result is 22.7 wins.

Let’s see where that number checks out with actual records from this past season. 

Six teams finished with a record worse than 22.7 wins (New Jersey, New Orleans, Charlotte, Sacramento, Washington and Cleveland).

Seems like a pretty reasonable number.

Toronto and Golden State would just miss the cut with 23 wins apiece.

Now let’s try the standard deviation rule for the 2010-11 season.

The cutoff would be 27 wins.

Again, six teams would make it. Not among them, the actual lottery winner Los Angeles Clippers.

The next step is figuring out how to fairly divide the chances at the top pick among these teams.

A sound concept would be to basically break down the shares by win totals.

For instance, Charlotte had seven wins this year. The next worst team had 20 — nearly three times more wins than the Bobcats.

Under this proposal, Charlotte would have odds nearly three times better than Washington of winning the lottery. The Wizards would then have only mildly better odds of getting the top spot, as compared to 21-win New Orleans and Cleveland. And so on.

Saving the mathematical explanation, Charlotte would receive a 37.7 percent chance of drafting in the first position. Washington would have a 13.2 percent chance, followed by the 12.6 percent chances of New Orleans and Cleveland and the 12 percent likelihoods of Sacramento and New Jersey.

For 2010-11, the six lottery-eligible teams were all similarly bad. Minnesota had 17 wins at one end. New Jersey and Sacramento had 24 at the other. While the odds would be in the Wolves' favor to snatch the first pick, they wouldn't be as favorable as Charlotte's this year.

The breakdown would go as follows: 20.7 percent to Minnesota; 18.6 to Cleveland; 16.0 to Toronto; 15.3 to Washington; and 14.7 to Sacramento and Jersey.

Ultimately, teams that finish the season in the second through sixth positions in the lottery sweepstakes would learn their percent chance of landing the No. 1 pick based on the ratio of wins they had compared to the worst team.

WHY THIS WORKS

Charlotte was bad this year because it lacked enough decent players. A No. 1 pick and the selection of Davis would help to fix that. 

The two questions that need to be addressed are, "what will prevent teams on the outside looking in of this proposal from intentionally losing games?" and "once teams know they are in the lottery grouping, what will prevent them from playing more lax?"

To the first question, since the standard deviation is based on end of the year data and there are a bunch of variables to consider (29 other teams), franchises would not know what the magic cutoff is until they've stopped playing. 

A team could intentionally lose and still miss out on a lottery chance.

To the second question, nothing can prevent these bottom feeders from quitting before the season is over. To the formula's credit, however, it would be silly to try and lose every game if five other teams are doing the same thing.

Someone's going to have to win. And given the competitive nature of most athletes, those teams are going to want to win as much as they can. 

And in the event they try as they might but find victories more elusive than Bigfoot, the standard deviation-based lottery system is set up to possibly bail them out. 

Finally Streak Ends, Wolves Win

Sink into spring gloom

April losses piled up

Wolves outlast Pistons

(A Haggy Haiku)

The Wolves at long-last ended their month of April woes, downing Detroit 91-80 Thursday night. The victory was Minnesota's 26th on the season and ends a run of 27 consecutive losses during the month of April, which dates back to 2009. 

It also snaps a season-worst 11-game losing streak. 

Nikola Pekovic led the way with 23 points. 

Justin Morneau Crushes in New York

Justin Morneau absolutely loves the new Yankee Stadium. 

It's a left-handed hitters cure-all. 

After blasting three homers in as many games this week, Morneau now has equaled his 2011 total in one-sixth the amount of games. 

As uncomfortable as he looked at the plate during the first week of the season, Morneau has turned it on of late to look every bit the guy who won an MVP award in 2006 and finished second in 2008. 

In 13 career games at the modern-day House That Ruth Built, Morneau is batting .458 with seven dingers and a 1.535 OPS. 

Let's see how he handles a new venue. 

"Warrior": A Movie Review

Sports and their subsequent storylines are less formulaic than movies would have you believe.

First there was “The Wrestler,” then “The Fighter,” and now “Warrior.”

Hollywood dabbled in an up-close look at the life of a washed up professional wrestler, followed by the life of a middling welterweight boxer and now two mixed martial artists.

Encompassing all three flicks is a noticeable existence bereft of some degree of a healthy familial relationship. At least “The Fighter” was biographical.

The movie “Warrior” follows the lives of two brothers related by blood, who couldn’t be further apart.

Afflicted by a dysfunctional upbringing and an alcoholic father (played by Nick Nolte), Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy) and Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) each separately struggle through their lives.

To begin the movie, Tommy returns to his father’s house after serving with the Marine Corps in Iraq, though he shows no sign of forgiving the parent who altered his life path and led to his mother’s early death.

Brendan is shown to be a family man and physics teacher who has fallen on tough economic times.  

He doesn’t let his father, who sobered up, into his life and has not corresponded with Tommy since they were teenagers.  

As the movie develops, both begin training for admittance to an international MMA tournament, primarily drawn by the $5 million pot.

While Tommy uses physicality to pulverize opponents, Brendan relies on Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Of course, both brothers reach the tournament, and despite being nobodies on an international stage, you can imagine what happens from there. Typical Hollywood.

Tommy’s success is believable enough, but Brendan’s seems to be a journey through a Disney kid’s movie. He found little success in his first UFC go-round years back. At 1,000-to-1 odds, his Brett Favre-like comebacks from being “done” are more predictable than death and taxes.
Compounding the issue, why is it that in film hard-earned lessons are practically always learned when the most is at stake? 

Thankfully, the acting is terrific, especially by Hardy, who spent months training with professional fighters to make the action sequences look realistic. He succeeded. So did Edgerton. The camerawork was superb, capturing the emotions of spectators, commentators, managers and fighters alike with a poignant flair.

The movie also rightfully pays tribute to MMA, a sport which is gaining wild popularity with the continued success of UFC.

Despite director Gavin O’Connor running out of fresh ideas and sticking to Hollywood’s inside-the-box thinking, the movie will leave you believing that even the worst grudges and differences are worth forgiving.  

Stupid Is On the Way to the NBA

Photo Courtesy of USA TODAY

If life gives you tests that you cannot pass, hey, just stop taking them and attempt to cash in your chips.
That's the route Fab Melo is taking.
Last week the 7-foot sophomore from Syracuse declared for the 2012 NBA Draft. Just as he so frequently skipped out on doing schoolwork this past season, Melo will avoid playing the final two years of his eligibility at Syracuse.
Melo missed three games in late January and the entire NCAA Tournament because of academic troubles.
When he played, the Brazilian averaged 7.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.9 blocks for the Orange.
Now the center will try to get an NBA team to ignore his character and work ethic issues to draft him for a healthy chunk of change.
According to ESPN, Melo is projected to be a late first round pick.
Even if he finds success on the court, his past decisions to shirk his responsibility as a student-athlete doesn't bode well in a league that sees so many of its players wind up broke just a few years after their playing days end.
Katherine Mansfield once said, "make it a rule of life never to regret anything and never to look back."
Perhaps down the road a more mature Melo will feel differently.

Minnesota Twins: Where's the Consistency?

To find success in the Big Leagues, a level of consistency must be achieved.
The Minnesota Twins won six division titles over a nine year span beginning in 2002 by piecing together teams built around throwing strikes, fielding well and playing small ball.
Then came the 2011 season. A rash of injuries, an equally inexperienced and lousy bullpen and a general regression by just about every player on the active roster led to a 99-loss season.
More of the same is taking shape this year.
And in Sunday's loss, capping a three-game sweep by the Texas Rangers, the amicable Ron Gardenhire did a dastardly job managing.
It may have only been one foible, but it was the difference in the game.
Stubbornly stricken by the lefty-lefty matchup, and trusting his recently reliable reliever, Gardy elected to keep Glen Perkins in the game to face Josh Hamilton with the tying run on third -- this despite the fact the former MVP was 5-for-11 with a homer and three RBI in his career against Minnesota's setup-man.
One pitch and a mighty cut later, the Rangers took the lead for good.
It makes little sense to go with traditionally favorable generic matchups in the later innings if the specific individuals involved have a significant history. In this instance, Hamilton consistently crushes Perkins like Grave Digger a clunker.
The fact Gardenhire kept the ball in the former Gophers' left-hand is baffling. It also makes what Gardenhire verbalized Monday surprising.
The Twins manager looked at the the specifics of the Yankees series and determined that he would not be playing Justin Morneau Tuesday because the slugger "stinks" when facing C.C. Sabathia, the named starter.
Before celebrating Gardenhire's improved scouting, remember he is also the manager who insisted on batting Carlos Gomez first. The guy's reasoning: Gomez caused mayhem on the base paths. That's all fine and good if Gomez could ever reach base to showcase his abilities. But he didn't hit for average and refused to walk.
While irksome, the managing mistake with Hamilton resulted in just one loss. In a 162-game schedule, only if the pitching staff actually consistently gets hitters out and the team competes, will the err possibly be relevant.