Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Adderall has become a popular drug for athletes trying to gain an edge | The Seattle Times

In light of Philadelphia Phillies' Catcher Carlos Ruiz getting a 25-game suspension for testing positive for Adderall without a therapeutic waiver from Major League Baseball, The Seattle Times has an article about the prevalence of Adderall in professional sports as a Performance Enhancing Drug (PED).

Considering there was a shortage of Adderall last year, impacting many people legitimately taking the medicine under a doctor's supervision, it's despicable players are taking it illegally and depleting the heavily regulated supply in the market.

R.A. Dickey's thoughts on Disney buying the Star Wars franchise

Just like with baseball, I can't disagree with his thoughts on this except that he seems a bit more optimistic than me:

Friday, November 23, 2012

The Value of Good Coaching | Baseball Prospectus

A very informative column written by New York Mets LOOGY C.J. Nitkowski about the value of good coaching. A must read even for the casual reader that isn't a baseball fan.

With writers like Nitkowski, Collin McHugh, and 2012 National League Cy Young Award Winner R.A. Dickey, the Mets have quite the literary group on the hill.

Like an ESPN commercial

SportsRadioInterviews.com posted some excerpts of Josh Johnson's radio interview with Dan LeBatard. The money quote:
"Where he was when he found out about being traded:

“I was actually upstairs with my kids playing and I went downstairs to check my phone and I had a bunch messages and calls from my agent and I called him back and he said ‘have you heard?’ I was like ‘what are you talking about?’ As soon as that happened I heard a bling on my phone, the MLB trade rumors and it says ‘Blue Jays close to acquiring Josh Johnson’ and I was like ‘I just did right now.’ He was like ‘yeah let me make some phone calls and see if it is for real or not’ and he did and here I am.”
"

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Loyal R.A. Dickey Wants To Stay With Mets, Says He Believes In Future Of Franchise | CBS New York

R.A. Dickey actually seems more optimistic than the fan base. I guess that's a good thing, right?

More video of R.A. Dickey (lots more video!)

I have to admit, as a life-long Met fan I haven't enjoyed watching a Met pitcher this much since Dwight Gooden's 1985 Cy Young season. To get a flavor of not just how dominating R.A. Dickey's season was but the things that he can do with the knuckleball, here's plenty of video going back to his consecutive one-hitters against Tampa Bay and Baltimore. A few things to notice:
- How many times the Mets catchers, Josh Thole and Mike Nickeas drop the ball and have to throw to first base to complete the strikeout
- The Darth Vader theme at the beginning of some of the videos (Dickey is a HUGE Star Wars fan and warms up to that music during home games.)
- The All-Stars that struck out on the knuckler over the course of the season (Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, and Jimmy Rollins, to name a few.)

E N J O Y ! ! !

One-hitter against Tampa Bay:


One-hitter against Baltimore:




All-Star game appearance:








Bryce Harper strikes out three times in the same game:
















20th win of the season:


R.A. Dickey, Cy Young Winner | New York Magazine

Great post by Will Leitch but here is the money quote:
"Of course, this is the Mets, and there is a dark side. That dark side is that Dickey is a free agent at the end of the season, and general manager Sandy Alderson hasn't ruled out trading Dickey if they can't come to terms on an agreement. That brings up all sorts of questions about the Mets' finances — even though we're talking about a pitcher in his late thirties here — and no one wants to talk about that when the Mets just got some unadulterated good news."

All R.A. Dickey All The Time!

Last night New York Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey ran away with the 2012 National League Cy Young Award, becoming the first knuckleballer to do so. For all the video analysis I could find on the web, check it out right here.

MLB.com:









ESPN won't allow users to embed most of their videos but you can check out Adam Rubin conversation here and the Karl Ravech and Curt Schilling analysis here and watch the R.A. Dickey SportCenter interview here:



R.A. Dickey interview on SNY.TV:



If I find more clips, I'll update them. Until then,
E N J O Y ! ! !

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Kevin Johnson's 1994 playoff dunk over Hakeen Olajuwon

Yes, this is the current mayor of Sacramento, California. In his previous life he was the All-Star point guard of the Phoenix Suns. I remember watching this dunk in the 1994 playoffs (I was a HUGE Phoenix Suns fan back then) and randomly came across it again today. It's not everyday you get to see a 6'1" point guard go up over a 7'0" center. He even nails a three-pointer at the end of the video clip too. ENJOY!
Of course, thinking about dunks and reading an article in the latest Sports Illustrated this morning about Glenn Robinson III led me to look for this dunk from the 1994 NCAA Tournament, when his father, Purdue's Glenn Robinson, dunks on Kansas's Greg Ostertag. All Ostertag could do after that was walk over and shake The Big Dog's hand.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

R.A. Dickey: The Market’s Other Ace | FanGraphs Baseball

I have to begrudgingly admit that I agree with the premise of this post on FanGraphs:
There are teams best suited to take a chance on a talented 38-year-old knuckleballer. The present New York Mets aren’t real high on that list.
As much as I enjoyed R.A. Dickey pitch and hope he does win the National League Cy Young Award this season, I'm not sure he's going to be the same pitcher he is now when the Mets are finally ready to contend. It's a shame because he's really fun to watch pitch.