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Tuesday, April 24, 2007Reds Update - 4.24.07Well, since my last Reds update a lot has happened. Little of it good. The Reds keep losing and keep not hitting the ball. I have seen a lot of stats and heard a lot of arguments on why the Reds are going to be OK...but I just don't see it. The starting pitching has been pretty solid, so there are no complaints there. The bullpen has been terrible (except for Mike Stanton). The offense can't hit or do anything right. It's been a frustrating time for Reds fans. The problem is that they are coming off of 7 straight losing seasons and there was hope for this year. I just don't see much change from those past teams to the new team. There are a couple bright points though. Josh Hamilton has obviously been excellent. Kyle Lohse has been lights out. Bronson Arroyo has been awesome (as usual). Other than that not too much to be excited about. On the plus side I got to see a triple play in person the other night. Never seen that before. My 2007 record is 0-1 so far. Labels: Cincinnati Reds Tuesday, April 17, 2007Reds Update - 4.17.07Now that the Reds have played a few games this season we can start making overly exaggerated prognostications about the team and the players. Here goes:
Labels: Adam Dunn, Baseball, Bronson Arroyo, Cincinnati Reds, Edwin Encarnacion, Jeff Conine, Josh Hamilton, Matt Belisle, Reds Update, Ryan Freel Wednesday, April 11, 2007Top 7 - 4.11.07The weekly DIA Top 7 List Seven Things I Like Right Now
Labels: Discovery Channel, Josh Hamilton, NFL Draft, Planet Earth, Scarlett Johansson, Skyline Chili, Tiffany Amber Thiessen
I'm So Proud... My guy Josh Hamilton went deep yesterday. It was his first major league hit. That's pretty sweet. Here's the video for those who want to watch it over and over again just to admire his The video is ruined because of the jerks calling the game for Arizona. Minor milestone? It was the dude's first major league hit! That's a huge milestone for any player. Jerk. Anyway...I am sure there will be plenty more of these to come and I am glad they will be in Reds uniforms. (in case you hadn't figured it out..Hamilton is my baseball man-crush) Labels: Baseball, Josh Hamilton Monday, April 9, 2007WWJRD?What would Jackie Robinson Do? What would Jackie Robinson say? ESPN.com columnist John Helyar thinks he knows. I should warn you before you read that column though: it is filled with a bunch of Nantz-like drivel...sprinkled liberally with a bunch if ignorant, racist commentary. Cover your children's eyes. Now that we have that out of the way...the article says that Jackie Robinson would be furious with the fact that there are so few black baseball players. In a chart he notes every black player, which totals up to 68 out of 750 players. That is 9.1%. The black population in America is about 12%. {editors note - this chart has since been removed. It refuted his point, so he probably took it down.} That's pretty close considering the tiny sample size of the MLB. He does not go on to list all the Latin, Korean, or Japanese players. My guess is the percentage of Asian players compared to the general population is lower too. Should we write long boring columns about that too? Maybe we should limit the number of Hispanic players so we can fill quotas from other races. We could squeeze some more Blacks and Asians in there. Then I could write a long boring column about the company that I work for. They probably have about 10% black employment. RACISTS!!!!!!! Or how about we do this...let's find the best 750 baseball players in the world and let them join the league. We will ignore their race and color and just judge them on baseball ability (as well as we can). Then we'll count out the percentages and see where they are. Wait...it looks like we did that. It looks like about 9.1% of the league at this time would be black. It also looks like the majority of the league is Hispanic. OK...let's just move on to other sports. First basketball. ooooo...no let's just skip basketball...that won't help prove our point at all. How about football. Yikes, that's not going to help either. We could just limit our scope to quarterbacks, I suupose. No wait, I've got it. Hockey! HOCKEY IS RACIST. EVEN AFTER THEY LET THOSE THREE BLACK DUDES PLAY. PLUS TWO OF THEM ARE CANADIAN SO THEY DON'T EVEN COUNT. HOCKEY IS RACIST!!!!! See...now I have the same amount of journalistic integrity and quality as the idiot who wrote this piece. I forgot his name already. And that shows how little journalistic integrity I have! As for Jackie Robinson, he is a great guy and I would legitimately place him in the "hero" category. I also believe Jackie Robinson would say that he is very pleased with the current make of up Major League Baseball. He would be happy that so many different races are represented on the field. I don't think he would pout around about there only being a 9.1% black population. But I don't think Robinson was racist or ignorant or an idiot. So maybe this clown writer shouldn't try to speak for Robinson. Labels: Baseball, ESPN, Jackie Robinson, racism Saturday, April 7, 2007Are Record Stores Disappearing?I was pointed to this article the other day from the NY Times. It is written by guest writers who happen to be the owners of a once popular record store. The article attacks the Recording Industry (RIAA) for ruining the CD and, by association, music in general. The article wasn't all that well written (this coming from me!) and kind of haphazardly addressed different things, but there were a few things I found interesting. Despite the major record labels’ best efforts to kill it, the single, according to recent reports, is back. Sort of.This statement I agree with, although I'm not so positive that the record labels wanted to kill the single. The single has always been a major sales tool in record sales. The single is what gets played on the radio and it is what gets people into the stores to buy the album. I do agree that during the cassette tape and CD era, singles were not major players in the music industry (except for radio of course). Back in the ancient days of 45's, singles were pretty big. I don't know why...maybe that's all kids could afford after they spent their money on coke and bubble gum at the Pony Keg. But now in the age of digital music, the single is HUGE. If you look at the numbers from iTunes, WAY WAY WAY more singles are purchased than albums. A lot of people like spending $1 for the one song they like instead of $15 for the CD. So I don't really attribute anything the RIAA did as being good or bad for the single. It's just the evolution of music. Later, the authors make one of my least favorite arguments: But instead, those labels delivered the death blow to the record store as we know it by getting in bed with soulless chain stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart.Why are they soulless? Because they make the CD's that most of the country's population wants to hear inexpensive? Isn't that a good thing? Aren't lower costs better than the higher costs that it takes to run a pretentious independent record store? They are for me. And apparently they are for most everyone else...this is why the record store went out of business. Don't blame the RIAA (who, by the way, could probably be run better by two dolphins and a magic eight ball. Oh, and one person to write down the dolphins decisions. From what I hear, dolphins have poor handwriting.), don't blame the record labels, don't blame Wal-Mart and Best Buy, and don't blame Napster and iTunes. If you want to be really arrogant, blame your customers for "falling for it". but most of all, blame yourself for refusing to adjust to the new marketplace. Overtime there have been MANY industries that have had major changes and sometimes certain occupations become obsolete. Almost the entire horse and buggy industry was wiped out by automobiles. The steam engine industry was almost completely wiped out by better and more efficient engines. BOO to the automobile for putting people out of business!!! BOO to internal combustion engine creators for ruining lives!! I just tire of these old "you are ruining my industry and making me obsolete" arguments. Evolve with the industry, cut your costs, create value...but don't cry when you get passed up by more efficient and better run companies. Thoughts? Thursday, April 5, 2007NCAA Coaches Get PaidI was reading a post over at The Sports Economist about NCAA Coaches pay. It has been in the news lately because of all the coaches changing (or not changing) jobs. I thought his post was very well written, and interesting. Here is the part that was most interesting: The average I-A football team earns about $15 million a year in revenue; the average N.F.L. team earns about $160 million. How can a college coach create as much value as an N.F.L. coach?Actually that is a quote from someone else, Andrew Zimbalist. I don't know who that is. Anyway, I think that is a very interesting point that I had never thought about before. How is it that schools are able to pay the head coach that much money? Bob Stoops gets paid over $3 million and Billy Donovan is about to sign a new extension down in Florida. He will probably make somewhere around $72 million dollars a year. That's how much in demand that guy is right now. I guess it is easier to pay your coach $4 million in a big program that brings in a lot of revenue if you don't pay your employees. So I actually do understand where they get the money. College sports are a coaches game. The coaches are the draw. Bob Huggins created all kinds of news (and revenue) in his one year at Kansas State. He will do the same next year at West Virginia. There are just very few players that are bigger than the coaches, and even if they are it is only for a few years. It's a coaches game...so the best ones get paid the most. Makes sense to me. I'm glad we worked this out together. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Wednesday, April 4, 2007Amazon.com DiscountsCheck out this page. It is a generator that allows you to find all the items at Amazon.com that are on clearance. It lets you pick by category and by discount amount. Really neat. Happy Shopping. Labels: Frugality
Time Warner Cable = bad service Here in Cincinnati most people have Time Warner Cable. It is a huge company that just doesn't always do the right thing for its customers. (I am not anti-big companies either...I am only anti-any company with poor customer service) I don't think I have ever heard anyone who was really excited and satisfied with Time Warner. I've heard people with other networks satisfied. Satellite people won't shut up about how great theirs is. (I have looked into getting sattelite...but I think the trees block the signal). I have had bad experience in the past with Time Warner, and I expect bad experiences in the future. Anyway...People around here have been pining for Time Warner to add a couple channels:
Next -- Fox Sports HD!! Tuesday, April 3, 2007Mark Mallory's First PitchI realize this is pretty much everywhere including national shows like Jim Rome and widely read sports blogs...but I don't care...it's funny. this is the video of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory throwing out the first pitch at Opening Day yesterday. Check out Eric Davis' reaction! Now, I like Mark Mallory...I think he is a pretty good guy. I don't even really know what his politics are to be honest. I just know he is heavily involved in Cincinnati politics and therefore must be an idiot. That said, he is pretty funny. He went on Willie Cunningham's radio show today and took it like a man. Labels: Baseball, Cincinnati, Cincinnati Reds Monday, April 2, 2007Opening DayYippee!!! The Reds win! 162-0!!! Here are my comments on the game (I did not watch it...just read reports).
Actually, from what I read the Hamilton was a really nice story. He came in to pinch hit and got a big standing ovation (he got over drug addiction...yea!!! But more importantly, he can help the Reds win...yea!!!). He flew out to left, but apparently the guy had to make a nice catch to get it. All in all it looks like a pretty successful opening day. Labels: Aaron Harang, Adam Dunn, Cincinnati Reds, Josh Hamilton
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