July Randomness

July 31, 2007, 9:01 PM | 2 Comments

It’s been far too long since my last post, and for that I’m sorry. I can’t get into too many details right now about why it’s been so quiet around here lately but I will say that I’ve had to make some difficult decisions over the past few months. Those decisions have been both mentally and physically draining, and that’s pretty much why I haven’t spent too much free time online in the past couple of months.

Anyways, the reason for this post is partly because I feel a little guilty that I haven’t been posting regularly lately, and partly becasue I just can’t allow my site to go an entire calendar month without at least one post :). So, I thought I’d post a few quicker thoughts that have been rolling around in my brain for the past few weeks. Hopefully they’re usefull to someone and maybe we can start a conversation over one or all of them. Anyways, here goes…

Disappointing people is not fun.

No matter what, no matter how good your reasons are for letting someone down… it’s never easy.

The MLB All Star game is a joke.

Because I’ve been spending a lot of time watching baseball this season, I’m starting to think about the game a little more and trying to understand some of the decisions that have been made over the past several years. MLB’s decision to have the winner of the All Star game determine home-field advantage in the World Series is a complete joke.

I believe the original reason for this was to boost the TV ratings of the All Star game, and I think FOX may have had a role to play. Everything I’ve heard about it though has said that the TV ratings haven’t gotten any better since switching to that format. The main problem I see with this decision (besides not making any sense for the World Series) is that it alienates the fans who play a large part in determining which players go to the All Star game. But, as illustrated this year by the whole Albert Pujols thing, just being there doesn’t mean you’ll actually play in the game.

Why can’t the All Star game just be about having fun? You know, that thing we teach kids when they first get started with any sport. The NFL, NBA and NHL seem to get this a little more for their All Star games, which are really nothing more than hyped up exhibiition games. I know that it’s all about TV ratings, and ultimately advertising dollars for the MLB and the network that carries the event, but maybe, just maybe if the MLB adopted a bit more of a strategy to encourage parity in its league, the regular season, playoffs and World Series would be much more interesting to casual baseball fans year after year and ultimately bring that increase in revenue that they want.

Continuing on with the All Star game, I have 2 more thoughts.

1. ESPN’s coverage of the Home Run Derby was absolutely horrible. The whole thing looked extremely haphazard, disorganized and, well, bad. Most of the time I’m a big fan of what ESPN does, but they really dropped the ball this year with the HR Derby. Note to Bristol: If there’s a batter at the plate hitting home runs… YOUR VIEWERS WANT TO SEE THE HOME RUNS BEING HIT, THEY DON’T WANT TO SEE YOU INTERVIEWING A-ROD!
2. It was awesome to see Alex Rios place second in the HR Derby. This guy has a lot of talent and is going to be a big name in the MLB for years to come.t

Speaking of the Blue Jays

The Blue Jays are really frustrating me this season. Yes, the first half of the year you can use all the injuries as a scape-goat if you’d like. However, since the All Star break the Jays have had all their regular starters back in their line-up, and their pitching has been surprisingly good. This team is a great 31-20 at home in Toronto, but a horrible 21-33 on the road. (They’re currently leading the Devil Rays in Tampa Bay by 1 run as I write this, but they’ve still got plenty of time to mess it up). I just don’t understand how a team that’s so good at times can be so horrible the rest of the time. They’re not even a mediocre team, they’re a bad underacheiving one.

More Baseball

I hope Barry Bonds breaks the all time home run record soon, that way the entire baseball world can finally just move on and stop talking about it. Yeah, he’s not a very nice guy and some people don’t want him to break the record based on that alone. Sure, he may or may not have done steroids, but the fact of the matter is that MLB never had any drug testing or rules against steroids at all during Bonds’ best years, and it’s their problem, not Barry’s. They tried to sweep their issues under the rug and hope that no one would notice, but now that one of their most treasured records is about to be broken, the rug has been lifted in a big way.

I don’t condone or support using performance enhacing drugs at all, but how can you really blame Bonds (and many other players) for doing something that MLB had no rules against? 

I can’t wait for the NFL to start up again

As interesting as it has been watching a bad baseball team all year… I have to say that I’m getting pretty excited for the 2007-2008 NFL season to start up soon. My regular readers can expect my weekly picks again this season, and maybe some other new surprises as well. We’ll have to see, but I am looking forward to September 6th. Heck… I’m even a little excited to watch some pre-season football.

Flickr

I haven’t been using Flickr enough, but I’ve started updating my photos again lately and I have to say that I’m still very impressed by what the fine folks over at Yahoo! have been doing. Flickr is really a fun application to use, and I’m hoping that my recent re-acquantance with it will encourage me to not only use Flickr more, but actually take more photos as photography has always been an interest for me. My favourite feature is the map – it’s just a lot of fun to see where you’ve been in such a visual way.

Another redesign is coming.

Yep, it’s coming. I’m not sure when, but after doing some quick work on my portfolio a while ago I realized that it’s time for another one. I’ll keep you posted.

Posted in: Life, Sports