Monday, July 30, 2007

Mark Teixeira to Atlanta



Pending physicals, the Texas Rangers are trading their slugging first baseman Mark Teixeira (pronounced te-share-a) to the Atlanta Braves. The deal is as follows:

Rangers get
star catching prospect Jared Saltalamacchia
shortstop prospect Elvis Andrus
2 prospect pitchers (believed to be Matt Harrison and Nestali Feliz)

Braves get
First baseman Mark Teixeira
Relief pitcher Ron Mahay

The problem with this trade for the Braves is that they will be giving up their three best prospects (Saltalamacchia ranked #36, Andrus ranked #65, and Harrison ranked #90 in Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects) for a slugger who could become a free agent after the 2008 season. Yet, he will add power to a lineup that could use it (especially when the Braves chief rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets have lots of power). Here are Teixeira's stats:

2005 Season 43 home runs, 144 runs batted in, .301 batting average, .575 slugging percentage
2006 Season 33 home runs, 110 runs batted in, .282 batting average, .514 slugging percentage
2007 (so far) 13 home runs, 49 runs batted in, .297 batting average, .524 slugging percentage

As for Mahay, he's been all over the map having season ERA's as high as 6.81 to as low as 2.52. Which Mahay will Atlanta see? Will Teixeira stay past 2008? Does Atlanta guarantee itself a playoff position with this trade and has it "morgaged the future"?

Friday, July 27, 2007

Schill's a Gamer, Literally



Great article on The Boston Globe's website yesterday that shows one of the things Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling does off the field. Most known for his bloody sock during the 2004 ALCS playoff series and his work to fight ALS, or Lou Gherig's Disease, Curt is also an avid videogamer and is developing his own online game, similar in style to the massively popular "World of Warcraft". He's developing this game, set to debut in 2010, with R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane, known master writers in fantasy genres.

What's great about this article is that it further shows an athlete doing great things off the ballfield. Athletes have personal lives as much as anybody else and while the sports world is engulfed with the Michael Vick investigation and the NBA referee scandal, it's good to see that there are athletes who contribute to society in a positive way not involving their athletic abilities. While athletic heroics (Schilling in 2004, Luis Gonzalez in 2001) and blunders (Bill Buckner in the late 80's) are remembered for years, the off-field ventures can add to society, even something as simple as an online videogame.

Here's the link to the Globe article: http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/07/25/for_gamester_schilling_a_new_play/?page=2

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Great Sports Newspapers: The Arizona Republic



There's no new news in regards to stories previously covered here and while there are some things that can be discussed (like the appraoching MLB deadline, Barry Bonds appraoching Hank Aaron's record, etc.) I intend to cover these topics once they occur, which should be within the next week. So, I thought about highlighting sports papers from around the country to highlight what makes a great sports paper: The ability to connect with the fans and present things from a fan's perspective. This series isn't meant to be like an advertisment, just a reading recommendation.

Living in the Los Angeles area, there are multiple newspaper outlets to get sports news. Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Times, the chief paper, has columns that play the same smart-aleck, glass-is-half-empty perspective, even for the hometwon teams like the Dodgers and Lakers. So I started to look for other outlets that presented sports in a better way. The Arizona Republic (www.azcentral.com) has outstanding online sports content. Each of the local team beat reporters has a daily blog and the hometown teams are covered as they should be: From a fan's perspective. The Republic gets the idea that the town rallies around its team rooting for it to win. That perspective is very hard to find in Los Angeles papers.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Vick Banned From Camp/Stern Holds Conference

Lots of updates on the news items reported yesterday...

First, the Vick story. Michael Vick was banned from the Atlanta Falcons training camp earlier today by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. An excerpt of a letter written by Goodell to Vick available at ESPN.com reads, "While it is for the criminal justice system to determine your guilt or innocence, it is my responsibility as commissioner of the National Football League to determine whether your conduct, even if not criminal, nonetheless violated league policies, including the Personal Conduct Policy," I couldn't agree more with Goodell and he has gained the utmost respect from me that a sports commissioner can receive and he's only been on the job for a year! He recognizes our courts' system of due process and is not going to jump to conclusions our courts haven't made. A link to the posted ESPN.com article is posted below, including some great video commentary by Chris Mortensen that explains the options the NFL has in regards to this case:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2946832

Now, the murkier NBA story. The details just seem to get murkier and murkier and David Stern's news conference doesn't help anything. Unlike Roger Goodell's caution to not rush to judgement, Stern has stopped just short of making Donaghy a guilty man. Details on the Stern conference available on the TrueHoop blog link here:

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-26-84/David-Stern-Talks.html

Monday, July 23, 2007

Welcome Home...Here's a Dish of Scandals

So I got home from Rome Friday night and went online to find two sports riddled in scandal...the NFL/Michael Vick dog scandal and the NBA officiating scandal. There's a nice welcome home present.

First, the Michael Vick story. We live in a society that has laws stating innocent until proven guilty, so I am hesitant to hand out an indictment towards Vick. However, judging from the fact that this story has been developing for months (I first heard it on ESPN back in May, if my memory serves correctly) and from the large amounts of evidence that seems to point to Vick, my view of Vick has further been lowered from where it was, which wasn't very high to begin with. I own a dog and cannot fathom having it for the sole purpose of fighting for cash. To see dogs chewing each other to pieces and viewing it as an acceptable means to make money and have entertainment is disgusting. Yet, if by some miracle Vick is proven innocent, then the press and the public in general will have accused him of something our courts system did not find him taking part of. With that in mind, I am hesitant to hand out a condemnation, despite the evidence that currently says he was very involved with the illegal dogfighting operation.

As for the NBA officiating, I don't find it all that surprising. For starters, the NBA has had image problems for years and this just adds onto the huge pile of bad images relating to the NBA. Second, as Bill Simmons of the ESPN.com Page 2 blog has pointed out, this particular official refereed Game 3 of the Suns-Spurs series, quite possibly the worst playoff series I've ever seen because of all the bad calls. I cannot even imagine the wrath Suns fans will have for this referee when he comes to town...assuming he ever does again. Since details are still leaking out from this scandal, I also cannot give a condemnation here either. However, if he did indeed fix games, may he never referee another game, pro, college, or amateur, again.