Posts Tagged ‘tim mccarver’
31
Oct
Posted by NPI in Monday Medley. Tagged: 2011 MLB postseason, 2011 World Series, Aaron Sorkin, Apple, biopic, bullpengate, Edgar Allen Poe, Game Five, Game Six, halloween, iPod, Joe Posnanski, Jonah Keri, Matt Taibbi, Occupy Wall Street, Rick Perry, Roger Angell, seafood, seven-game series, st. louis cardinals, Steve Jobs, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Texas Rangers, The Mentalist, the raven, tim mccarver, will leitch, world series. Leave a comment
19
Oct
Posted by NPI in MLB Preview Bonanza, Sports. Tagged: Albert Pujols, Alexi Ogando, Andrea Bargnani, baseball, bullpens, cardinals vs rangers, casual baseball fans, chris carpenter, David Freese, george w. bush, Joe Buck, Jonathan Lucroy, Josh Hamilton, lance berkman, Marc Rzepczynski, mariano rivera, Matt Holliday, michael young, MLB, Nelson Cruz, NLCS MVP, ryan braun, Shaun Marcum, starting pitching, tim mccarver, Tony La Russa, world series, world series 2011. 1 comment

Cardinals vs. Rangers
Well, just like Tim and John S always predicted (don’t bother looking it up), the 2011 season comes down to the Rangers and Cardinals. Will Tony La Russa prove his genius? Will a starting pitcher reach the seventh inning? Will Joe Buck emote? All that and predictions are discussed….
John S: Man, can you believe Jonathan Lucroy didn’t win NLCS MVP?! And can you believe someone almost as unlikely–David Freese–DID? You know, I usually hate the discussions that media outlets have every year that the Yankees/Phillies/Red Sox miss the World Series, where they make jokes about how angry FOX must be. But this World Series DOES seem conspicuously lacking in star power. At least last year the Rangers had Cliff Lee–the closest this year’s team has to such a star is Josh Hamilton, who had a disappointing season. The Cardinals, of course, have Albert Pujols, but after him their biggest star is Tony La Russa, who seems to wear out his welcome more and more every year. But while my instinct is to say that these two teams are mediocre, the evidence doesn’t really support me. The Rangers were better this year than they were in 2010, and even the Cards won 90 games, which is more the 2006 championship team won. Perhaps I should be more excited for this World Series… Am I off base about the lack of compelling personalities in this matchup?
TIM: No, I cannot believe Jonathan Lucroy didn’t win NLCS MVP. His .294 average in the six games was bested by only four Brewers, and like the four best Brewers in Randy Wolf, Jerry Hairston, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Ryan Braun. It was practically half of what Freese hit! I hate these traditionalist writers who always vote for the guy with the ..500+ average on the winning team. Continue reading →
8
Jul
Posted by John S in Culture, Literature, Sports, Sunday Book Review. Tagged: 1996 ALCS, 3000 hits, A-Rod, A-Rod bashing, Alex Rodriguez, bad journalism, book reviews, Captain Intangible, Chad Curtis, cincinnati reds, darryl strawberry, David Cone, David Wells, Derek Jeter, esquire, George Steinbrenner, Ian O'Connor, Jeffrey Maier, Jeter's contract, Jeter's girlfriends, JFK, Jim Leyritz, Joe Posnanski, Joy Enriquez, Julian Mock, Ken Huckaby, myths, Sports, sports biographies, the captain, tim mccarver. 21 comments

The Captain
“The greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” —JFK
As Derek Jeter is poised to make history this weekend, his career is in a very unusual place. On the one hand, he is standing on the cusp of history, poised to become the first Yankee to reach 3,000 hits. On the other hand, he is following up 2010, the worst season of his career, with an even worse year. The Yankees played their best stretch of baseball with him on the DL, leading some to wonder if the team is better off without him. And he remains under contract through at least 2013.
So why release a biography of Jeter now, at such an uncertain crossroads in his career? Writing a biography of Jeter that culminates in the 2009 season—squeezing his dreadful ’10 and his contentious contract negotiations this off-season into the epilogue—is like writing a biography of Julius Caesar that ends on March 14th.
Ian O’Connor’s new book, The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter, is bound to be incomplete. So why did he write it? It seems clear that the primary motive O’Connor had for writing this book was not to bring new light to Jeter’s career, but to enhance the myths already surrounding it. The Captain is, above all else, an exercise in mythmaking. Continue reading →
1
Nov
Posted by NPI in Monday Medley. Tagged: 110 percent, 90s theme songs, best postseason pitchers, bill shannon, billy altman, billy madison, Candy, christine o'donnell, college-white-boy rap phenomenon, Conan O'Brien, cover songs, david schoenfield, duck tales, ed coleman, espn, hipsters, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Jay Leno, kevin lincoln, Malcolm Gladwell, marty noble, mike posner, moneyball, NBC, negative campaign ads, new york baseball, paul depodesta, peter keating, Rally to Restore Sanity, Sandy Alderson, Sean Parker, social media, the chronicle, the hairpin, the rise and fall of the hipster, The Social Network, three-man rotations, tim mccarver, tom boorstein, towerview, Vanity Fair, wallace matthews. Leave a comment
What we read while deciding not to publish our own story about not having sex with Christine O’Donnell…
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- Speaking of statistical analysis, the Mets hired sabermetrics-advocate Sandy Alderson as their new General Manager this week. Here is an extensive (and excellent) interview of Alderson back when he was CEO of the Padres. Rumor has it that he’s going to bring along Paul DePodesta to the front office, who was prominent in Moneyball (a book we’ve invoked a few times so far), and has his own blog.