Since 1995, head-to-head record has been used to determine first place if both teams are going to the postseason. But with the start of a one-game, winner-take-all wild-card round, the sides agreed that the difference between first place and a wild-card berth is too important to decide with a formula and a tiebreaker game would be played.
It's so important that we're willing to ignore the 19 games the team played against one another over the course of six months and instead decide it with one? I don't have a major beef with the idea, but that reasoning doesn't add up.
It's arbitrary no matter how you cut it. Why ignore the 143 games the teams didn't play against one another? If a team has a 10-9 edge over the other is it because they had more home games? Would a 10-9 edge be any more meaningful than a one-game playoff?
One of my favorite things about baseball is that they can play so many games. I like the idea that in some way, they are saying "shove it NFL, we decide it on the field." I think a lot of fans will probably appreciate the simplicity of the arrangement as well. Division ends in a tie? Okay, one game play-off to see who is the best.
I like this. One of my fears of expansion was going more the route of the NFL, NBA, and NHL with tie-breakers.
Tiebreakers make sense in the NFL, where games are so few that ties are frequent and that adding extras would create a scheduling problem. In MLB (and the NBA and NHL), adding one game to 82 or 162 does not require much more than one day. I can't believe that the NBA and NHL don't have tiebreaker games.
I would guess that the reluctance to play one-game playoffs to break ties is that teams and players don't get paid extra for them. If they did, then there would be an incentive for teams/players to collude and go for a tie at the end of the season. (Which is why in MLB playoff games, teams and players are only paid additional money for non-mandatory games--games 1-3 of a 5-game series and games 1-4 of a 7-game series. The additional revenue goes to the league.)
English wickets fall way too easily in Abu Dhabi .
A poll on NBA.com:
Which of these players is more exciting to watch?
Ricky Rubio - 31%
LeBron James - 29%
Derrick Rose - 21%
Blake Griffin - 19%
Looks like the rest of the world has figured it out as well.
I took that last night (just to see the results). LeBron was up by a tick at the time, but I was impressed at Rubio's numbers. It seems the NBA fans at large have gone out of their way to see him.
Canis Hoopus sent their readers over there. I don't know how much that has impacted the results, but there was a few Minny fans directed that way.
Rubio has 36000+ votes. If Canis Hoopus has that much pull I'm pretty impressed.
There is a very funny Pek twitter account @allthatisman14. He tweets during the game which is funny. Here's his last tweet:
"Big Pek hero of game with spur! Many womans fight for use Peks genitals! Great success!!"
Is this brought to us by the same person who operated the "Nick Punto" twitter account?
Alas no. I have been thinking of creating a Matt Capps twitter however. Would fit my schedule a lot better.
Tough to type with fat fingers.
I don't know what to do with myself this morning. Slept until 8, lounging around. No wrestling tournament to go to today. I guess that means I will have to do the taxes and FAFSA....
Yeah, I think I've run out of reasons to not do the taxes too.
Still waiting for a better price on Quicken? Or to you get the store discount?
My discount makes it cheap as free. I just haven't felt like sitting down to do it, even though we should get a pretty sizable return.
It seems likely to me that this is one of those studies where they find statistical significance for the effect, but in practice, the effect is very small, so not significant in the practical sense of the term. The only raw GPAs mentioned in your link are 2.94 for males vs. 3.12 for females. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I can't tell the difference between a 2.9 student and a 3.1 student.
I just put my pants on backwards. Hopefully it's not that kind of day.
Yes, I nearly lost my mind last night when Pek scored 6 consecutive points. My day today will be spent shopping for a Pekovic player tee.
I'm predicting huge success for WGOM Radio.
I'm editing it as we speak - adding the intro and credits, the theme song, cutting some dead air, bleeping Rhu_Ru (kidding). Should be ready for your Sunday morning listening pleasure.
I hope the timeslot works for us.
Would a widget for the latest episode make sense? I think it would.
sean installed a plug-in to syndicate the episodes. Everyone should be able to listen at their leisure. I'm not sure exactly what all it does, sean can speak to that better than myself.
There's a category for it, so it could have its own spot somewhere like the videos.
Ah. Even better.
Editing is done. Now to get it uploaded and posted properly. Should I go ahead and publish tonight?
I'm fine with that. How large is the file?
The file is 25MB. Is that going to work?
Yeah, that's okay. A lot of people don't realize how much you can compress podcasts and leave them overly large. They don't realize you don't need stereo and 96 or even 64 kbps is plenty for just voice. You could probably compress it a bit more and use VBR to squeeze out some additional quality, but it sounds great and is a decent size.
that's pretty average for the podcasts i subscribe to given the time.
I did 112 and mono. I can do 96 next time.
If you have the higher quality master still, you could try compressing parts of it at different levels and settings to see what sounds best. Encoding the entire thing would take a while, but doing a minute from the middle would probably count as a representative sample.
Face made for radio; voice made for texting. It was entertaining, but daunting. I'm interested in listening to others give this a try.
I was disappointed that there were no bleep outs.
Credit Rhu_Ru for restraining himself.
I went to Twinsfest last night. My cousin gave me two free tickets, but my friend had to be a late cancel, and he gave me notice while I was in a meeting that lasted until the end of my work day (else I would have offered it here).
My favorite thing in years past has been the steep discounts on items featuring released or traded or just not very good players. Like my Julio DePaula game-used jersey, which only cost me $100. I was so fixed on finding a Chuck James 44 jersey, and maybe a kid's Nishioka shirsey for my Japan-obsessed son. So I just went over there myself and planned to catch the last bus to take me home from downtown.
I was really disappointed with the stuff they had in the pro shop. Maybe about a third of the discount game-used jerseys, and almost all of them were $200. (For spring-training NRIs? For Nate Dammann, the bullpen catcher? For Tolbert? Steve Holm? Steve Holm???) Anyways, they didn't even have a Chuck James in stock. Probably because men whose first name is James took them?
There were only two jerseys for $100: Neshek 17 white and Neshek 17 grey, both 2011 versions. Must have been from Spring Training. If I wouldn't have been set on James 44, I probably get that white Neshek. But that wasn't what I wanted.
Finally, I could find no children's clothing at all. Cuddyer would have been good for CER, and Nishioka for HPR. Maybe Young for AJR? Kubel? Anyways, I was overall just ticked and sour. All I bought was a stocking cap for $10.
And nothing of Slowey's anywhere either, I might have moved on that...
I really wanted to show off my awesome CJ44 jersey, so I've really just guilty of having counted my chickens before they hatched, but in all my prior years going to Twinsfest (2006, 2008, 2010), there was never a time when the analog of a CJ44 jersey was not for sale for $100.
There are some pretty neat items on ebay for citizens to waste their tax returns on:
I am yet to purchase any game used stuff myself but I think I would like to build a game used bat collection one day. I think that would be kind of cool.
I'm more into the game-used sub-replacement-level player market because typically the fact that an actual negative WAR player wore the item in a game drastically reduces the cost from buying a authentic* at a store.
$75 for a Crain cap is too much. Also, the date given, Oct 17, 2007, did not have the Twins playing within 17 days of it.
*"authentic" does not mean that it actually matches the on-field jerseys.
Sounds like it is a good thing i am not purchasing this stuff.
Oh, I can see the appeal of collecting game-used items from good players. I just am not a collector, especially not at this time in my life. I'm just a fan who wants good-looking team-branded merch and who's hoping to leverage his appreciation for replacement-level relievers into cheaper versions of same. Plus, I don't want a Cuddy or Morneau or Mauer jersey, I really would pick the relievers. (Except Doomsday, he blocked CJ all season, so screw him.)
I wonder if the date given for that Crain cap is a typo. August 17, 2007, maybe? My best guess is October 1, '07, which means it was dated as the day they cleaned out their lockers.
I think we can agree Six would look great in the Davis duds.
Davis? NG and Six both go to the Pek pic.
Maybe I am wrong but I am pretty sure that Six was a HUGE Ricky Davis fan.
My brothers have been giving each other the same Golden State "Sprewell" jersey at Christmas for years now. This year I asked why it was never given to me. "Because you would have actually worn it," was the reply. They're prolly right.
From the Chris Jaffe posts the most hilariously bizarre historical things on Facebook file, at some point today, it was the one billionth second since the release of The Empire Strikes Back and Pac Man.
NHL Skills Competition is starting.
Is the banner of Love grimacing and making faces a little too long? I can't see the "W", and I'm missing about half of the first picture. "GOM" doesn't have the same ring to it.
It is quite wide. I haven't seen it yet on my home monitor, where it might fit.
Man, going from the T-Wolves game last night to watching this Gophers game. It's hideous. Sloppy turnovers, awful free-throw shooting. Gophers go for two, down three, with four seconds left, and get lucky with a lay-up and a foul. Pathetic.
Welcome to college basketball.
But hey, they won.
yeah, Illinois wasn't exactly impressing either. At least the announcers were honest. "They ain't making a Tom Emanski video based off this game."
yeah, court awareness and situation management were awful that game. But a win is a win
Rodney Williams aerobatics is about the only thing keeping me interested in this team right now. My gosh, that dunk he threw down early in the second half was a beauty
No more "tiebreaker formulas" in baseball.
It's so important that we're willing to ignore the 19 games the team played against one another over the course of six months and instead decide it with one? I don't have a major beef with the idea, but that reasoning doesn't add up.
It's arbitrary no matter how you cut it. Why ignore the 143 games the teams didn't play against one another? If a team has a 10-9 edge over the other is it because they had more home games? Would a 10-9 edge be any more meaningful than a one-game playoff?
One of my favorite things about baseball is that they can play so many games. I like the idea that in some way, they are saying "shove it NFL, we decide it on the field." I think a lot of fans will probably appreciate the simplicity of the arrangement as well. Division ends in a tie? Okay, one game play-off to see who is the best.
I like this. One of my fears of expansion was going more the route of the NFL, NBA, and NHL with tie-breakers.
Tiebreakers make sense in the NFL, where games are so few that ties are frequent and that adding extras would create a scheduling problem. In MLB (and the NBA and NHL), adding one game to 82 or 162 does not require much more than one day. I can't believe that the NBA and NHL don't have tiebreaker games.
I would guess that the reluctance to play one-game playoffs to break ties is that teams and players don't get paid extra for them. If they did, then there would be an incentive for teams/players to collude and go for a tie at the end of the season. (Which is why in MLB playoff games, teams and players are only paid additional money for non-mandatory games--games 1-3 of a 5-game series and games 1-4 of a 7-game series. The additional revenue goes to the league.)
English wickets fall way too easily in Abu Dhabi .
A poll on NBA.com:
Which of these players is more exciting to watch?
Ricky Rubio - 31%
LeBron James - 29%
Derrick Rose - 21%
Blake Griffin - 19%
Looks like the rest of the world has figured it out as well.
I took that last night (just to see the results). LeBron was up by a tick at the time, but I was impressed at Rubio's numbers. It seems the NBA fans at large have gone out of their way to see him.
Canis Hoopus sent their readers over there. I don't know how much that has impacted the results, but there was a few Minny fans directed that way.
Rubio has 36000+ votes. If Canis Hoopus has that much pull I'm pretty impressed.
There is a very funny Pek twitter account @allthatisman14. He tweets during the game which is funny. Here's his last tweet:
"Big Pek hero of game with spur! Many womans fight for use Peks genitals! Great success!!"
Is this brought to us by the same person who operated the "Nick Punto" twitter account?
Alas no. I have been thinking of creating a Matt Capps twitter however. Would fit my schedule a lot better.
Tough to type with fat fingers.
I don't know what to do with myself this morning. Slept until 8, lounging around. No wrestling tournament to go to today. I guess that means I will have to do the taxes and FAFSA....
Yeah, I think I've run out of reasons to not do the taxes too.
Still waiting for a better price on Quicken? Or to you get the store discount?
My discount makes it cheap as free. I just haven't felt like sitting down to do it, even though we should get a pretty sizable return.
heh, "cheap as free"
+1 Crappity Crap
Hey, that's what I did today!
College football: dumbing students down, one win at a time.
It seems likely to me that this is one of those studies where they find statistical significance for the effect, but in practice, the effect is very small, so not significant in the practical sense of the term. The only raw GPAs mentioned in your link are 2.94 for males vs. 3.12 for females. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I can't tell the difference between a 2.9 student and a 3.1 student.
I just put my pants on backwards. Hopefully it's not that kind of day.
Kris Kros'll make ya...
You should know, you should know better...
and while I'm at it, a word to my academic friends: play some classical music in the background while you lecture.
Yes, I nearly lost my mind last night when Pek scored 6 consecutive points. My day today will be spent shopping for a Pekovic player tee.
I'm predicting huge success for WGOM Radio.
I'm editing it as we speak - adding the intro and credits, the theme song, cutting some dead air, bleeping Rhu_Ru (kidding). Should be ready for your Sunday morning listening pleasure.
I hope the timeslot works for us.
Would a widget for the latest episode make sense? I think it would.
sean installed a plug-in to syndicate the episodes. Everyone should be able to listen at their leisure. I'm not sure exactly what all it does, sean can speak to that better than myself.
There's a category for it, so it could have its own spot somewhere like the videos.
Ah. Even better.
Editing is done. Now to get it uploaded and posted properly. Should I go ahead and publish tonight?
I'm fine with that. How large is the file?
The file is 25MB. Is that going to work?
Yeah, that's okay. A lot of people don't realize how much you can compress podcasts and leave them overly large. They don't realize you don't need stereo and 96 or even 64 kbps is plenty for just voice. You could probably compress it a bit more and use VBR to squeeze out some additional quality, but it sounds great and is a decent size.
that's pretty average for the podcasts i subscribe to given the time.
I did 112 and mono. I can do 96 next time.
If you have the higher quality master still, you could try compressing parts of it at different levels and settings to see what sounds best. Encoding the entire thing would take a while, but doing a minute from the middle would probably count as a representative sample.
Face made for radio; voice made for texting. It was entertaining, but daunting. I'm interested in listening to others give this a try.
I was disappointed that there were no bleep outs.
Credit Rhu_Ru for restraining himself.
I went to Twinsfest last night. My cousin gave me two free tickets, but my friend had to be a late cancel, and he gave me notice while I was in a meeting that lasted until the end of my work day (else I would have offered it here).
My favorite thing in years past has been the steep discounts on items featuring released or traded or just not very good players. Like my Julio DePaula game-used jersey, which only cost me $100. I was so fixed on finding a Chuck James 44 jersey, and maybe a kid's Nishioka shirsey for my Japan-obsessed son. So I just went over there myself and planned to catch the last bus to take me home from downtown.
I was really disappointed with the stuff they had in the pro shop. Maybe about a third of the discount game-used jerseys, and almost all of them were $200. (For spring-training NRIs? For Nate Dammann, the bullpen catcher? For Tolbert? Steve Holm? Steve Holm???) Anyways, they didn't even have a Chuck James in stock. Probably because men whose first name is James took them?
There were only two jerseys for $100: Neshek 17 white and Neshek 17 grey, both 2011 versions. Must have been from Spring Training. If I wouldn't have been set on James 44, I probably get that white Neshek. But that wasn't what I wanted.
Finally, I could find no children's clothing at all. Cuddyer would have been good for CER, and Nishioka for HPR. Maybe Young for AJR? Kubel? Anyways, I was overall just ticked and sour. All I bought was a stocking cap for $10.
And nothing of Slowey's anywhere either, I might have moved on that...
I really wanted to show off my awesome CJ44 jersey, so I've really just guilty of having counted my chickens before they hatched, but in all my prior years going to Twinsfest (2006, 2008, 2010), there was never a time when the analog of a CJ44 jersey was not for sale for $100.
There are some pretty neat items on ebay for citizens to waste their tax returns on:
I think AMR might like this one, and one for the Dread Pirate , New Guy, Six, or any citizen with an eye on value and game worn jerseys.
I hope these links work.
I am yet to purchase any game used stuff myself but I think I would like to build a game used bat collection one day. I think that would be kind of cool.
I'm more into the game-used sub-replacement-level player market because typically the fact that an actual negative WAR player wore the item in a game drastically reduces the cost from buying a authentic* at a store.
$75 for a Crain cap is too much. Also, the date given, Oct 17, 2007, did not have the Twins playing within 17 days of it.
*"authentic" does not mean that it actually matches the on-field jerseys.
Sounds like it is a good thing i am not purchasing this stuff.
Oh, I can see the appeal of collecting game-used items from good players. I just am not a collector, especially not at this time in my life. I'm just a fan who wants good-looking team-branded merch and who's hoping to leverage his appreciation for replacement-level relievers into cheaper versions of same. Plus, I don't want a Cuddy or Morneau or Mauer jersey, I really would pick the relievers. (Except Doomsday, he blocked CJ all season, so screw him.)
I wonder if the date given for that Crain cap is a typo. August 17, 2007, maybe? My best guess is October 1, '07, which means it was dated as the day they cleaned out their lockers.
I think we can agree Six would look great in the Davis duds.
Davis? NG and Six both go to the Pek pic.
Maybe I am wrong but I am pretty sure that Six was a HUGE Ricky Davis fan.
D'oh!
My brothers have been giving each other the same Golden State "Sprewell" jersey at Christmas for years now. This year I asked why it was never given to me. "Because you would have actually worn it," was the reply. They're prolly right.
From the Chris Jaffe posts the most hilariously bizarre historical things on Facebook file, at some point today, it was the one billionth second since the release of The Empire Strikes Back and Pac Man.
NHL Skills Competition is starting.
Is the banner of Love grimacing and making faces a little too long? I can't see the "W", and I'm missing about half of the first picture. "GOM" doesn't have the same ring to it.
It is quite wide. I haven't seen it yet on my home monitor, where it might fit.
Man, going from the T-Wolves game last night to watching this Gophers game. It's hideous. Sloppy turnovers, awful free-throw shooting. Gophers go for two, down three, with four seconds left, and get lucky with a lay-up and a foul. Pathetic.
Welcome to college basketball.
But hey, they won.
yeah, Illinois wasn't exactly impressing either. At least the announcers were honest. "They ain't making a Tom Emanski video based off this game."
yeah, court awareness and situation management were awful that game. But a win is a win
Rodney Williams aerobatics is about the only thing keeping me interested in this team right now. My gosh, that dunk he threw down early in the second half was a beauty
I may have made this point a time or two myself.
Heh.
Shaq gets pantsed over Kevin Love.