Better Pwn a Columnist: Round 2

In case you missed the first installment, I called out John Dudley, an idiot columnist for the Erie Times News. We had a lovely email exchange where I sent him a link to the rebuttal, and he politely told me that he didn’t click on strange links and wouldn’t read it if I put it in an e-mail. So for now until I get bored or Gally makes me stop, I’ll be mocking some of his archives now and then. First up, this gem from February 16. As always, his words in bold, mine in not.

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Tags: Apologies to FJM and Drew Magary, No one cares, Titanic?, Whatever, Your ass is mine Duds
Category FJM |

Talkin’ ‘Bout a (Statistical) Revolution

It’s that special time of year. The birds are chirping, the grass is borderline visible, and spring training is upon us. Of course, you know what that means- other than the return of exposed skin on the opposite gender, which is lovely- another round of whining about statheads ruining the sport of baseball. The debate seems to be the loudest in baseball (I don’t recall anyone burning down a village when QB ratings were introduced to football), and I feel like that’s for good reason…even though it’s wrong.

Something we can all agree on is that Logic should be the star of the next season of Tool Academy. Seriously, I don’t care how many calls we have to make, VH1 was invented for that exact purpose. Another thing we can agree on is that statistics in baseball are more significant than in other sports. For those of you that have been out of school too long/drank away knowledge/hate numbers/occasionally get dates/all of the above, I’ll explain. Baseball is unique in that it has an incredibly large number of games, and a large number of events within each game. So you get a repeated test against a certain set of variables, and then 161 more repeated tests under different conditions. As these repetitions add up, it becomes more likely that the various statistics are representative of the true values that player should achieve. Football doesn’t allow for this, because even something like passing attempts (which is a huge number) only comes in 16 test situations. Outliers are more likely to exist, because the actual mean is harder to define. Basketball and hockey have simliar problems. Throw in the relatively isolated nature of events in a baseball game (that is, if a guy hits a home run, his own pitcher had nothing to do with it), unlike other major sports which are either inherently team-based (football), have a lot of ebb and flow making singling out instances difficult (hockey, basketball), or both. This is an incredibly long way of saying that baseball players will, logically, eventually regress/progress to whatever the statistic should be, whereas in other sports, it is possible to be lucky/flukey/play the Bills and Lions for the majority of the season (kind of. You know what I mean.). (more…)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: actual essay content, K-Gun, Sounds like a whisper, Unprovoked shots, VORP VORP VORP I want your VORP
Category Ranting |

No, You Suck: A Totally Rational Reply to a Small Town Journalist

You haven’t heard of John Dudley. Why? Because you a) have never lived in Erie, PA, b) are a fan of intelligence or c) Jay Mariotti is all the blowhard you need. Dudley writes- in the loosest “there are words on paper that he put there” sense of the word- for the Erie Times-News as a sports columnist. He also likes to fancy himself as a credible voice on national stories. I mean, if you wanted a take on Tiger Woods, why would you read Dan Jenkins when you could read THE John Dudley (seriously though- Jenkins piece is fantastic and he is a remarkably entertaining, if infrequent, Twitterer). Generally speaking, he (and his cohort, Matt Martin) drove me nuts through my formative years- because before the internet, I had to read the Erie paper and the occasional SI in the doctor’s office to get my sports news. I had always wanted to tear a piece of his apart for humor’s sake (fisking, as the kids say), but then he wrote this.

And totally made it necessary.

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Tags: Apologies to FJM and Drew Magary, Hatchet was a terrible book, Internet fight!, K-Gun, Longer than you're used to (TWSS), No one cares, Not a list!?, Slightly heartfelt
Category FJM |

They Call Me…The Chokey Chicken

A Russian hockey team with an amount of firepower that would make even SPECTRE’s most elite evil scientists blush goes out with a whimper against a Canadian team that was considered dead in the water just two days prior. Throw in some early playoff exits, and the face of the team, Alex Ovechkin, is starting to get a reputation for choking (I, for one, am stunned that those steel teeth can chew through a cable, but not pare food down to an acceptable size) in big moments. Sure, there were other stars on that Russian team- Evgeni Malkin, for one- but at the end of the day, it was AO’s team. So, without further ado, I’ve assembled a list of things to keep away from Ovechkin. Just in case.

McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys (unless approved for children under 3)

Legos (Mega Blocks may be ok)

Mr. Potato Head

Cucumbers

Carrots

Celery

Loaves of Bread

Croutons

Popsicles

Hot Dogs

Pop Bottles

Blow-Pops

Dum-Dums

Saf-T-Pops

Bottle Caps

Alexander Semin (/rimshot)

Pierre McGuire (Er, wait, that’d be the other way around)

Logic’s groin area (Just kidding. No risk there. BA-ZING BLOG BURN)

A Nuva Ring

A Stanley Cup ring

The Stanley Cup

Guys named Stanley

Guys named Cup

2 Girls 1 Cup (more…)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: Another list NO WAI, If you can't put a three piece puzzle together I hate you, K-Gun, south of the border he is el choko taco, There's a pattern here, Unnecessary shots, Unprovoked shots
Category Entertainment, Random Deviations |

I Bet I Could Medal In Jaywalking

NBC’s Olympic coverage has come under fire for just about everything. Tape delays, terrible coverage of the sports themselves, and causing Emperor Penguins to change their migration patterns; they’re all valid. Deadspin devoted most of a day to it, and this post highlighted a large problem. That is, the games are marketed as a two-week long reality show.

News Flash: They already were.

The issue with NBC isn’t that how they package the Olympics as much as their refusal to change how they do so. Ratings have been pouring in, and they actually beat American Idol the other night. The comparison around the internets to the Tonight Show debacle has been well documented. That does not, however, make it any less relevant. NBC wants Jay Leno in that chair because he will give them a consistent ratings win (for the time being) and a rather predictable amount of viewers (if I recall correctly, about 5 million). He may not take any chances, or even be funny, but for that network that’s exactly what they want. It’s also exactly what they’re looking for with the Olympics. Tape delay events to broadcast them when you damn well please. Make any sort of statistics about the events as they happen more difficult to find than the events themselves. They’re getting viewers, and if it worked in 1993, it’ll work now, right?

The flaw in their logic is the same as it is with the Tonight Show. Leno’s most well-known running gags are Jaywalking and Headlines. Thanks to YouTube, I can watch people be idiots without Jay prompting them with a question about US history. And Google makes it pretty easy to find “funny headlines”. Jay will get a consistent audience in the short term, but the day will come that he can’t get by on that shtick anymore. The same way with the Olympics- someday, the illegal feeds will get too numerous to keep whack-a-moling. Someday, people will watch the events live whether NBC wants them to or not. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. (more…)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: heh heh pea-cock get it?, Hey not a list!, I love curling so much, I'm with Coco, K-Gun, Long diversion, more like Notre LAME
Category In All Seriousness |

You’re in Big Tweleven-10 Country

If you’ve been near the internets at all today[Edit:this post was supposed to go up before yesterdays events occured], you’ve probably seen various reports that the Big Televen is courting Texas rather hard. If not, your tubes may be plugged, impeding your progress to the blagosphere. People smarter than me have broken down the potential reasons for Texas to share interest, but I figured I’d just look at this from a college football/Big Ten fan perspective. In disjointed list form!

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: I apparently only write in lists, I heard it on the interblag!, K-Gun, What do we have to call the new thing anyway
Category In All Seriousness |

Doppleganger Week: It’s Spreading Like Country Crock

If you’re anything like me (which is a shame, in many, many regards), you’ve been horribly annoyed at the “Doppleganger Week” thing that’s spread on Facebook. Does anyone care that I bare a resemblance to a chubby Alton Brown or a skinny Drew Carey? I think not. What I do care about are long, convoluted comparisons between two things that can easily be led into by a stupid meme. So I’ve decided to compile a list of sports dopplegangers. (Note: None of these guys look anything like each other. It’s more of a spiritual doppleganger thing. Don’t believe me? Read the first one.) And if you don’t like that gimmick, Valentine’s Day is coming up, and these pairings would totally take each other behind the middle school and get themselves pregnant.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: Birdbirdbird, Drew Carey ruined TPIR, Go back to Queen Dopplepopolous, Linkage, Nickelodeon reference, Tracy Jordan?, Well that took a turn
Category Random Deviations |

The Pro Bowl Sucks. Now What?

On the off-chance that you’ve been in a biodome for 15 years (and/or are physically incapable of scrolling down to the post below this one), it may come as news that the Pro Bowl is a joke. You’re also probably sick of hearing “The Safety Dance,” but I digress. The game of football isn’t something that lends itself to a watchable half-speed product- unlike other pro sports, which can get away with an offensive barrage in an All-Star game. And because they moved the event to a) the site of the Super Bowl (which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Miami would be cheaper than Hawaii and I’m appalled that you would think of such a thing) and b) the weekend between conference championship games and the Super Bowl, now half the starters aren’t playing due to injuries, or the fact that they are in the Super Bowl. Shockingly, the teams that made the Super Bowl, in an exceptionally top heavy league, had multiple people elected to the Pro Bowl. So, we’re going to watch an “All-Star” game where Ryan Fitzpatrick is probably the third string quarterback…riiiiight.

Now then, how do you fix the problem? So glad you asked, person who poses questions that make transition easier. Because I am the great and powerful Oz (or something) I know how to fix make the Pro Bowl borderline watchable.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Tags: imma let you finish but Beyonce had the best bench reps of all time, mmm gravy, Unnecessary Pauly Shore
Category Ranting, Uncategorized |