When You Try To Kick Something Around That Isn’t There
True dead zone in sports right now. NFL is impossible to watch with all the bullshit penalties. NBA is, eh, whatever. Hockey may or may not have started I have no idea. This is normally the time to take a big bite out of the hot stove nectarine but the lockout has stolen that from us.
So I will keep updating the blog periodically just to keep the line moving but there’s also a likelihood this devolves into a horse racing blog like it did for a week circa 2007 at The Splash…..
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
You may have all discussed yday but it is the Flap perspectives in that Derby winner dying yday at just 3??? Should Baffert be arrested?!! Somewhat tongue in check…
What is…
Sorry…could not resist with the kicking around comment…Kick ’em up, kick ’em when they’re down…we will we will rock you.
I hope MLB (owners and players) can find some common ground and get things back on track before it impacts the season.
And I share your sentiments on the NFL. There is just no flow to the games because of all the damned penalties. The one change the NFL REALLY needs to make is to make pass interference a 15 yard penalty (as it is in NCAA football). No penalty should ever result in more than 15 yards.
And hockey season has started Sharks are doing OK. If the season ended today they would be one point from the eighth playoff spot.
Meanwhile I go back to my window…
Only 69 daze until pitchers and catchers report. Hopefully…
Agreed, I like the college rule on PI though I still think it’s called way too often in NFL. Not so sure baseball will get things settled anytime soon. Lot of talk about players agreeing to a floor of $100 mil per team but that just means teams at bottom would add in few more entry level salaries. They want quicker path to arb/FA $$, allowing for more significant raises.
And the owners want expanded playoffs, as that is just another revenue stream for them.
I’m sure it was just a terrible tragedy.
I’m no fan of Baffert but this was the last thing he needed or would want to happen.
1984 Derby/Belmont winner Swale dropped dead a week after the Belmont.
There was no one cleaner than his old school trainer, Woody Stephens…
agreed. Can’t believe there any drugs in his system with all the scrutiny on that horse/trainer. But I guess the tox report will tell the tale on that.
Was MS overworked? any truth to argument American horses (as opposed to Europe and elsewhere) are raced too often at too young an age on too hard surfaces and for long distances?
The short answer is no.
Horses run far less frequently these days and long distance dirt races are rare.
Carry Back won the 1961 KYD in his 27th career race…
Whether they are champions or cheap claimers, the people that care for these horses day in and day out love them every bit as much as we love our dogs, cats, etc…
Thanks Loo. One thing this will bring back to surface is credibility of CHRB. Baffert horses still banned in NY, right?
From what I looked up, WillieD, it looks like it was overturned in July.
I couldn’t remember.
I think he’s still banned in Kentucky maybe…
I enjoy college sports, especially football (exciting season winding down) and basketball. Big 10 and SEC will be great basketball leagues, ACC and Big 12 have frontrunners at top of polls, and local in state are teams fun to watch and keep track of (whether good or bad) for me. Something good on almost every day once league play starts, and announcing teams often insightful and fun.
Also hoping to be able to watch some players/families I’ve seen or coached in younger days play HS ball. Saw handful of games earlier this year and talked to parent/players I knew, and a ref whose family I knew back in 70s, lot of fun. Lot depends on school and gym rules, etc.
Another sport that I like to follow this time of year is High School football. One of our local teams (Sacramento area) Folsom High, just beat De La Salle (who has three losses this year), for a right to play for the state title. I am hoping that game will be televised.
https://sports.yahoo.com/six-things-know-death-kentucky-005219245.html
That was interesting. Hopefully it was just a sad event that just happened. I did look up the horse to human in years and a 3 year old horse is = to 18 human years. That’s pretty young but with all that training it has to put a strain on a horse.
At halftime of the Niner game, I flipped it over to the Raiders game and saw 5 penalties on 1 drive, then I flipped the channel. What a litigated sport.
And I do support all rules to protect the players. The NFL is in a situation now where they have an incredibly violent sport that is trying to protect its players better than it used to, so there are going to be lots more penalties.
Meanwhile, UK basketball junior starting forward #0 is Jacob Topping, Obi’s younger brother. SEC has bunch of teams in Top 25.
Interesting commentary on Baffert thanks. Tragic but will expect a medical report at some point. Horse died in Santa Anita where they have had all those horse deaths in races?
Right GH, but this was an anomaly and not related to the track surface…
I’ve given up watching the NFL several years ago. I will watch highlights only on nfl.com. The way the league froze out Kapernick pissed me off, baseball handled those issues much better, for a change. Primarily, the constant penalties just got too ridiculous for me. Add the ref calls “under review” insanity, often with inexplicable results. Too often the replay showed what I concluded was an obvious result, then the opposite conclusion comes from the replay official’s decision. Crazy. “Yellow flag litigation” is what I call it — disrupts the game no end — to unwatchability. No wonder most of the fans in the stands are drunk — you need to be gassed in order to watch the crap on the field…
surviving the ground for it to be a catch is the one that pisses me off. Motherfucker all these dudes survive the ground!
De-cloaking from many years of lurking to say: Just don’t let replay officials look at footage in slo-mo. Make the judgement on real-time replays. Keep it human.
“decloaking from many years of lurking” is one of the best things I’ve seen written in a while….
Probably re-cloaked by now…
LMAO
In his more salient moments, Bill Walton complains all the time about fouls called while doing Pac 12 games–usually “Oh come on let them play!”
. Last week he was doing UCLA home game with Ted Robinson, and first or second time down floor a foul was called on Bruins. Walton says, “A foul called in the first minute? yeah that’s what I came to see.”
The NFL can’t get out of its own way. From the celebration penalties they finally gave up on calling to now taunting? Nearly breaking a guys neck = looking at him sideways? Yeah, brilliant.
The more rules they enact, the more interpretation there is around them. Holding and pass interference are either happening on every play or it isn’t happening at all. They haven’t been able to figure that out what is PI and what is defense despite making and contact illegal, except when it isn’t.
And one more thing is so many of these ticky tacky penalties are game-altering. Can’t tell you how many times on 3rd and 15 you get 5 yard illegal contact call when a WR simply runs into a DB sand draws a penalty.
And the insane rules about how to hit a QB. Can’t hit low, can’t hit high, can’t tackle straight on for fear of landing on the QB, can’t use your arm to tackle for fear of the horse collar, on and on.
That the 49ers are SO adept at getting nailed for these types of calls also makes it more frustrating. It ALWAYS happens in Seattle, except for that goal line call a couple years ago. The 2017 season before Garoppolo got here, we lost our first 6 games all by one score.. Every one of those games had a crucial call go against them to either extend drives for the other team or stall our own.
The effects of these calls and the undie influence the refs have has always bothered me about the NFL.
The ONE thing the NFL got right this year was a replay official onsite to do a quick review of close plays. Takes away the entire long drawn out review process if it is an obvious call.
The AZ game I went to, when Josh Norman and Kliff Klaven were thrown out, we fans had absolutely no idea what was going on while 15 minutes went by as they wrangled whatever the fuck happened.
Story on cbs sports site from Business Insider that MLB used different baseballs this past season, reason given that factory in Costa Rica where they are made had problems due to Covid and could not meet demand. As noted, runs scored rose over last 4 months of season and speculation was juiced (heavier) balls were in use instead of lighter ones. Also noted, lot of distrust from players as to official word on baseball itself from MLB.
willedav- I read that one too and it also said than no one knew which balls they were using throughout the season. I also understood it to say that some balls were played more than others in certain parks.
sounds like clusterF baseball wasn’t prepared for and just did whatever. Thanks for blues vid too, awesome.
2 months after “Bream’s slide beats Bonds throw” to plate ending 1992 NLCS in walk off for Braves.
Brought us the House that Barry Built. Tough to get an argument that it was the best / most important free agent signing in history.
“We are not worthy”
The signing was also significant because it was coupled with the Magowan group buying the Giants and keeping them in SF.
What a year 93 was.
Barrly recognizable from his appearance 10 years later…
I was watching this game as I’m sure a lot of you were. Called my brother, who saw them in ’65 and was a HUGE Beatles fan, was crying. He said he was halfway through the interview in the October Playboy when he heard Cosell make the announcement.
Mets to interview Bob Geren for mgr. job. Spent last six seasons as Roberts’ bench coach with LA. Tasks accomplished: “Hand me the iPad “
I heard the news during Monday Night Football, but not from Cosell. I was driving, listening to the game on the radio, when the news of Lennon’s death was announced. It was the first time that a celebrity’s death had ever hit me as hard as that. Cobain’s death was another one that hit me close to that level.
It’s hard for me, off the top of my head, to think of any others that hit me on the level of emotion of those two.
Yeah, mainly because it was so senseless, at least with John Lennon. He was pretty much revelling in his anonymity in New York. Hearing Skynyrd’s plane had gone down was a pretty big deal to me. Andrew Wood and Kurt Cobain both really sucked. Layne Staley was great friends with Mother Love Bone and Andrew Wood. He wrote a tribute. Layne’s death was inevitable but still tragic. . .
Sorry Loo: