Olympic Highlights!

I’ve been consuming the olympics on an almost nightly basis for the past two weeks.  It’s been way exciting, and I’ve really enjoyed getting into the Olympic spirit and all that.  Here are some highlights for me….

1) The Obvious…OK, Michael Phelps is totally awesome.  There’s no two ways around it.  He is on the very short list of possible “greatest olympians of all time”.

2) Informative pieces by Mary Carillo.  OK, I like these because every time she comes on the TV, me and my friends immediately start doing our Will Ferrell-Janet Reno impressions.  Her voice is so manly, that it puts my own to shame.  And seriously, I didn’t know all that stuff about panda bears and Chinese calligraphy.

3) The Redeem Team – USA Basketball is looking great and our defense is looking fantastic.  I’ve watched the China game and part of the Spain game.  I’m going to tape the gold medal game tonight, because it comes on at 2:30am.  The only thing that sucks is that all the games are at like 8am in the morning.  Seriously, I know these games are in China and all, but that is stupid.  They should rebroadcast or something.

4) I know there’s more sports than swimming, gymnastics, volleyball and diving, but this is all I’ve seen on the primetime broadcasts.  I think thats dumb too, but I know that these are the sports that are happening from 8am-10am over there.  Still, really dumb.  Rebroadcast.

5) The men vs women arguement.  OK, buckle up because I have to go off on this one.

While we were watching Misty May and Kerri Walsh do some awesome things one day, one of my roommates, obviously a little too impressed by their dominance (which I’m completely happy about, don’t get me wrong) attempted to present the idea that he believed that our women’s team could defeat our men’s team in a match.

This could never happen.

I repeat: THIS COULD NEVER HAPPEN.

I politely told him that I thought he was completely crazy for thinking that, and he asked me if it was because they were women, and I told him “ABSOLUTELY”.  They he huffed and said “OK” like, “wow, Jim, you are a chauvinistic/misogynistic jerk for thinking that”.

Here’s my thoughts.  I’m not saying that these women couldn’t beat any men.  They would certainly beat a lot of them.  But what we are talking about are olympic athletes who are at the top of their sport for each of their genders.  In general….

- Men are taller.  Kerri Walsh, the taller USA women’s volleyball player is 6′2″.  Philip Dalhauser, the taller USA men’s volleyball player is 6′9″.

- Men are stronger.

- Men are faster.

Period. End of story.  If these teams played each other 10 times, I predict that the men would beat the women 10x in a row.

I’m not saying these women aren’t good.  They are amazing and I’ve really enjoyed rooting for them.  They have a ton of fire, and that’s one of the things you really notice about these amazing people.  The competitive fire!  The competition gets them going!  They want to win!  They need to win!

So I made my arguments and my roommate still wouldn’t concede.  He was like “I guess we just disagree”.  I don’t think this is a matter of opinion though.  Its a matter of right or wrong.

Baseball Stats – the Save

Here’s a link to Jim Caple’s article on ESPN regarding how overrated the ’save’ statistic is.  I think the most interesting part of the article is the idea that eventually, we may see the best relief pitcher – today’s closer – pitch the 7th/8th innings when the game is actually on the line.  Caple cites a study which shows that in the last 73 seasons, a team will winning the game entering the 9th inning will win the game 95% of the time, regardless of pitching strategy (closer, closer by committee, etc). 

In other words, it doesn’t really make sense to spend tons of money on a closer (unless your closer happens to be a future HOFer like Rivera or Hoffman). 

So thanks, Cincinnati, for  paying a guy >$8 million this year (and $35 mill for the next three), who hasn’t even pitched 50 innings, and who has already 6 blown saves.  There’s nothing like spending 10% of your payroll on one guy who throws 15 pitches every three days.  The team would have been just fine closing with one of their other ten relievers, rather than wayyy overspending on Francisco Cordero. 

Cordero’s stats are remarkably similar to Sherrill’s…yet Sherrill is making $7 million less.   Sherrill’s blown saves are easier to take, given that he’s still young and is making less than $1 million.

Kevin Millar, King of Awesome

Obviously I’m not talking about his stats, though you must admit this has been a good year for Kevin. For those of you who haven’t been following the O’s lately, and who can blame you, there’s been a little bit of drama lately.

Danial Cabrera has been suspended for allegedly throwing at A-Rod intentionally, and Edwar Ramirez of the Yankees has been suspended for retaliating by throwing over Kevin Millar’s head. I don’t really care about any of that. If we had to mention every time Cabrera hit a batter or was ejected we’d need a whole new blog. What is really awesome about this is the quotes from my man Millar about the incident. Here they are:

“One hundred percent,” Millar said when asked if he thought the pitch was intentional. “I was upset they threw him out of the game because he’s really good hitting. He’s a cute little fella, he didn’t throw that hard and he doesn’t have very good stuff. So it’s probably a good idea they threw him out, because it probably would’ve been in Monument Park.”

“There just needs to be a thing about how to throw at a guy, that’s all. Stay in the waist-below, it’s part of baseball. You don’t want to mess with anybody’s career,” Millar said. “He doesn’t throw that hard, so it wouldn’t have hurt, but I wouldn’t have minded facing him.”

“If they can’t throw in,” Millar said, “then throw down, that’s all it is. It’s not a big deal. Ramirez tries his little heart out, but I love facing him. He doesn’t have many out pitches. [He's] fortunate he’s in the big leagues.”

And with that, I say thank you to the King of Awesome, Kevin Millar.