Friday, February 24, 2012

Jeremy Lin puts the ball in Asian Americans' court | LA Times

Great column that starts out with a very important fact:

"In the Asian American community even third and fourth generations must contend with being treated as perpetual foreigners. So it comes as no surprise that they have embraced the big pop culture bang that created "Linsanity" — a force that already has turned long-entrenched cultural stereotypes on their heads and made the Ivy League-educated point guard the most visible Asian American in the country, if not the world."

Joe Petruccio's latest sketch at My Mets Journal


Another classic sketch by Joe Petruccio.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

MMO: Wilmer Flores Is No Miguel Cabrera (Are you sure MMO?)

Mets Merized Online recently posted about Jim Callis' online chat, where a question about Wilmer Flores came up. My personal opinion is everyone was too high on the kid and is now beating him up.

Just out of curiosity, I looked up Flores’ numbers on Baseball Reference across ages 17-19:
Age 17 (A): .264/.305./.332, 3 HR, 36 RBI
Age 18 (A & A+): .289/.333/.424, 11 HR, 84 RBI
Age 19 (A+): .269/.309/.380, 9 HR, 81 RBI


For the sake of comparison, I took a look at two other guys:
Player A:
Age 17 (Rookie and Low-A): .259/.338/.347, 2 HR, 28 RBI
Age 18 (A): .268/.328/.382, 7 HR, 66 RBI
Age 19 (A+): .274/.333/.421, 9 HR, 75 RBI


Player B:
Age 17 (Rookie): .331/.433/.423, 0 HR, 27 RBI
Age 18(Low-A & A+): .350/.382/.436, 1 HR, 44 RBI
Age 19 (A+): .294/.366/.409, 11 HR, 86 RBI


Player A seems like he’s comparable to Wilmer Flores. Player B seems like he’s a better pure hitter than Player A and Flores. Player A is Miguel Cabrera. Player B is Edgardo Alfonzo. In other words, the jury is still out on Wilmer. We shouldn’t have put him on the pedestal yet so we shouldn’t quickly knock him down either because he hasn’t delivered. A lot can happen in the next few years, as the career paths of Cabrera and Alfonzo over the past decade or two shows us.

Flores’ talents (if they develop) won't be needed on the big league level until 2014 or so anyway. If he arrives sooner than that, it'll only be a bonus. In the meantime, cut him some slack and let him learn at his own pace.

Be patient with the kid Met fans and let him develop.

What do you need to throw a knuckleball? Midi-chlorians.

Mets pitcher and avid Star Wars fan R.A. Dickey answered fan questions on Twitter yesterday, which were posted on Metsblog. This one, by far, has to be my favorite:

Savetofavorites: Ever think about teaching the knuckler to somebody? What do you think you’d look for in a protege?
RA Dickey: Midi-chlorians.


May The Force be with you R.A. May The Force be with you.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Jeremy Lin: His Impact On Changing The Perception Of The Asian American Male

A great column about the cultural impact of Jeremy Lin on the stereotypes of Asian-American males. This is one point that I had thought about myself:

"Most Asian male athletes of significance are either from Asia -- Yao Ming, Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, Manny Pacquiao -- or those not primarily identified as being Asian -- Tiger Woods, Hines Ward, Apolo Ohno, Johnny Damon."

If you factor in South Asians, there are Brandon Chillar of the Green Bay Packers and Manny Malhotra of the Vancouver Canucks, both of whom have South Asian fathers but Caucasian mothers. That's the impact of a Jeremy Lin. He's doing it without giving someone the opportunity to say his non-Asian genes are what's really responsible for his athletic success. And that is why as Asian-American males of all shades and stripes, we can be thankful for the progress Jeremy Lin has provided, even if he doesn't look exactly like all of us.

It would be bittersweet when one day non-Taiwanese people of Asian descent look at Lin and think he's not one of us. On one hand, it would show progress that we are no longer lumped into the same 'Asian or Pacific Islander' category. However, a bit of the unity in our diversity will be lost with it.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Introducing The Politics of Sport!

After writing my blog, The Sport of Politics, for a number of years, I realized that it had become unfocused and kind of a random spot for me to post random things. I also realized that I was writing more about sports than politics these days and although that was always my intent, I never expected the sports stuff to be more than 25% of what I wrote on that blog.

So with that, I decided to launch this new blog, The Politics of Sport. I'm also planning to curtail the random posting on both blogs and really use it to post what I think rather than random things I saw. I'll still do a bit of that but I think my goal will be (for both blogs) to put more of my opinions out there and really talk about the politics that goes on in the sporting world and the gamesmanship that goes on in the political arena.

In other words, I intend to sacrifice quantity for quality. As with before, I put many opinions out there to be questioned and challenged and to generate a discussion. And if no one chooses to read my blog, that's fine with me. This is a way for me to think openly, vent my frustrations, and say what I think. The choice to read it is all yours.

So thank you for visiting this blog and hope you come back and read some more!