Sporting Madness

I'll be live-blogging tonight's Toronto FC - Real Salt Lake match tonight at 9:30 p.m. Eastern. It should be a good one; TFC are in second place in the Eastern Conference with a 6-5-4 record and 22 points, one behind D.C. United. Toronto also has a game in hand, and D.C. doesn't have another MLS game until July 4, so a TFC win tonight would vault them into first in the East for a while. Real Salt Lake have cooled down a bit from their strong start to the season. They sit fifth in the West with a 4-6-4 record and 16 points, so they'll be eager to get full points from this one as well. Come join the live blog at 9:30 tonight! Toronto FC - Real Salt Lake

If anyone wasn’t already convinced that Twitter has altered the way we cover sports, they would do well to consider the events of the past week. First, we had Kevin Love breaking the news [ Andy Hutchins , The Rookies ] of Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Kevin McHale ’s dismissal on his own Twitter feed, followed in close succession by a supposed Twitter feud [ Andrew Stoeten , TheScore.com Blog ] between Chad Ochocinco and Shawne Merriman , Shaquille O’Neal learning of his trade to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Twitter [ King James Gospel ] and several notable reactions across the sports world to the death of Michael Jackson (including some that were over-the-top [ Jonathan Sacks , Sports Rubbish ). Even before this week, many prominent news organizations have been running stories based on information from the Twitter feeds of athletes, agents and coaches, and that doesn’t appear likely to change any time soon. The big question is what these developments mean for sports coverag...

Toronto FC takes on the New York Red Bulls tonight at 7:30 at BMO Field. It should be a good game, as TFC look to translate their recent Voyageurs Cup success into MLS play. I'll be live-blogging the match here and at The 24th Minute ; come stop by then! Also,if you're looking for a soccer fix in the meantime, I have some thoughts on the U.S. - Spain Confederations Cup match from earlier today over at The Phoenix Pub , Adam has a good piece for tonight's Last Call at Avoiding The Drop , Jason Davis of Match Fit USA has reversed his stance on Bob Bradley and Andy Hutchins , my colleague at The Rookies , has a nice take over at The Big Lead . Hope to see you for the live blog! Toronto FC - New York Red Bulls

Note: this piece originally ran at The Rookies yesterday. However, a massive failure on the part of our hosting server means that it isn't accessible at the moment, so I figured it would be appropriate to repost it here today so everyone watching the Confederations Cup matches could share my vuvuzela hatred. It also originally had more pictures and looked prettier. I'll hopefully be running Part II on specific fanbases over at The Rookies tomorrow if our server's back up. - Andrew The ongoing Confederations Cup in South Africa has seen some great moments on the pitch, including the bizarre collection of circumstances Wayne and Rockabye described here and here . However, they have been overshadowed by one appalling one; the unleashing of the hated "vuvuzelas" (basically, cheap plastic trumpets) on an unsuspecting worldwide audience. A movement to ban them is already underway , and bloggers around the globe have weighed in. Even those who respect the vuvuzel...

I'll be live-blogging tonight's USL-1 contest between the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Cleveland City Stars. It should be an interesting one, as the Whitecaps seek to rebound from both watching the Voyageurs Cup slip away in front of their eyes and then throwing away their chance at revenge on a revitalized Montreal Impact side. The Whitecaps enter tonight's with a 4-5-2 record through 11 games, putting them eighth out of the 11 teams in the USL-1 table . They do have a couple games in hand on many of the clubs above them, but they'll need to start making a run soon if they hope to defend their USL-1 title this season. Of course, it's not going to be easy. Key striker Charles Gbeke and central defender Wesley Charles will sit out this one thanks to the suspensions [ Simon Fudge , whitecapsfc.com ] they received following their punch-up a while back. Defenders Jeff Parke and Geordie Lyall and wingers Ansu Toure and Justin Moose will also miss this one thanks...

Apologies for things being slow around here lately; I've been pretty swamped with other writing work. I'll try to get a full new post up tonight, but until then, I thought I'd share a few of the other pieces I've been working on. Hope you enjoy them! Feel free to leave comments on them at those sites or here, or send them to me via e-mail (andrew_bucholtz AT hotmail.com) or Twitter . Thanks as always for reading! - Over at my new blog, Canuck Puck , I have an analysis of how the Sedin twins stack up against other elite NHL players and why resigning them would be a great Moneypuck move. - At The Phoenix Pub , I have a few thoughts on how the recent increase in statistical analysis has changed sports. It's a bit of a follow-up to the piece I wrote here the other day about the (partial) demise of Moneyball . - At The Rookies , I have a piece looking at the most annoying fan traditions in sports.

Some interesting news came out this evening. Apparently, Columbia Pictures decided to cancel [ Will Brinson , FanHouse ] the upcoming movie of Michael Lewis ' famed book Moneyball at the last minute, only a few days before shooting was set to start. It's rare to see that kind of cancellation so close to production on any film, but even more unusual when it's a big-ticket film involving the likes of Brad Pitt and director Steven Soderbergh . Apparently, the studio didn't like the direction Soderbergh was taking the project. There's a chance the film could still get picked up by someone else; we'll have to wait and see on that front. This is a somewhat unfortunate move in my mind. Moneyball was a brilliant book, and one that truly revolutionized how many segments of people—from print journalists to television personalities to fans, bloggers, and even team executives—approached baseball. Its influence spread beyond baseball to other leagues, and it dramatically...

In the last part of my interview series for this piece on left tackles at The Good Point , I present my full interview with Jason Brewer , who covers the Philadelphia Eagles for the excellent SB Nation blog Bleeding Green Nation . My previous interviews with KC Joyner and Bruce Raffel can be found here and here . Hope you've enjoyed this series! Andrew Bucholtz: What do you see the left tackle's role as in today's NFL: mostly pass protection, mostly run-blocking or a combination of the two? How would you evaluate a left tackle's importance as compared to the rest of the offensive linemen? Also, do you think this role's changed over the last decade, and if so, how so? Jason Brewer: I think that's entirely dependent on the team he's on. We all know that some teams, like the Eagles, pass more than others. However, I would say that primarily the role of a LT is be a great pass protector. The biggest reason the guy playing on the left is more important t...

If this wasn't enough of a USL grudge match before, it certainly is now after Thursday's events . Come join in the live blog below! Vancouver Whitecaps - Montreal Impact live blog

It's time to announce another exciting new venture. I'm now running a new blog, Canuck Puck . It's going to be mostly focused on the Canucks, but also will touch on deeper issues in the NHL from time to time. The idea's to bring subtle, detailed analysis to the Canucks. It's also part of the great Fanball Network, which is an excellent group of blogs across a wide variety of sports. You can check out my introductory post here . P.S. If you liked my draft posts from earlier this week, I have more analysis of them over at The Phoenix Pub . Suggestions on how to improve the method or thoughts on the data are much appreciated!

The seemingly-impossible 6-1 victory Toronto FC pulled off against the Montreal Impact tonight gives them the Voyageurs Cup, the one fact everyone can agree on. Apart from that, there's no clear lesson or moral to draw from this one, though. It means drastically different things to fans of all the teams involved, and there's no one right answer. Read on for my thoughts on what this result means to fans in each city. Toronto: It's a great day to be a Toronto FC fan. Almost everyone wrote them off after the Vancouver game; sure, they've got a solid team, but a four-goal victory on the road is hard for any side. For a team that's suffered some significant setbacks recently, including a brutal home loss to the L.A. Galaxy , a series of fan protests and a recent roster makeover , this is a huge step forward. They finally have the CONCACAF Champions League berth they've coveted for so long, and they have some tangible silverware to show their fans. The load on Mo J...

Note: Post-game piece is here . It's the final game of the Voyageurs Cup tonight, with Toronto FC taking on the Montreal Impact. TFC have their backs against the wall and need to win by four to take the title; otherwise, the Vancouver Whitecaps will claim the championship. Montreal have nothing to play for but pride, but don't underestimate that motivation; they certainly won't roll over and play dead against their bitter archrivals from Ontario. It should be an interesting one with plenty of offence; Toronto will be going for it, and that might provide Montreal with some counterattack opportunities. Kickoff is at 8 p.m., and the game will be televised on all regions of Rogers Sportsnet. I'll be live-blogging the game here and at The 24th Minute as well, so come join in the fun then! Toronto FC - Montreal Impact live blog

Here's the second part of the 2002 draft comparison I started the other day , looking at the success rates of players in the NBA and NHL drafts. See that post for an explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish and a discussion of some of the limiting factors of this type of analysis. The format is almost the same, but the ratings are tweaked slightly to allow for the differences in each sport; full explanations are below. I've also included the ratings as a column in the actual spreadsheets to make it easier to see how players performed relative to their draft position. I have an analysis of the differences between leagues at the end of the post as well. NBA: [Table from Wikipedia ] System: 5 – All-star (at least one all-star game selection) 4 – Solid (played in 60 or more games last season) 3 – Marginal (played in the NBA last season) 2 – One-off (played at least 100 career NBA games) 1 – Bust (played less than 100 games) Ratings: 5 – Ming, Butler, Stoudemire: three play...

Time to continue my series of supporting interviews for this piece I wrote for The Good Point on the importance of the left tackle. Today's interview subject is Bruce Raffel , editor of the excellent Ravens' blog Baltimore Beatdown . The Ravens' tackle situation is quite an interesting one; they used the first draft pick in their history in Baltimore on Jonathan Ogden , who turned out to be a great franchise LT. Recently, they brought in Jared Gaither to replace Ogden after his retirement. This year, they drafted possibly the most famous left tackle out there, Michael Oher of The Blind Side fame, 23rd overall. Raffel has some very interesting things to say about the Ravens' moves at tackle over the years, so read on! Andrew Bucholtz: How important do you consider the left tackle position, especially compared to the other positions on the offensive line? How important is a good left tackle to a team's overall success? Bruce Raffel: While the center position ...

Inspired by a Twitter suggestion from Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus , I figured it would be interesting to compare the washout rate of first-round prospects across the four major North American sports. Carroll suggested 2004 as a year, so I started there, but the baseball evaluation was difficult, as several of those prospects are just beginning to crack the league. Thus, I went back a couple years further to the 2002 draft. It's a nice distance, as prospects' status is usually pretty well set after seven years. This MLB draft also has the added appeal of being featured by Michael Lewis in Moneyball . Here's the first part of the comparison, looking at the MLB and NFL first-round drafts; I'll have the second half, looking at the NBA and NHL, up tomorrow. First, a note on the evaluation system used. I was looking for a simple way to compare prospects across sports, so I went with a five-point scale. Under this system, players ranked as a five are presumed to be a...

[ Photo : B.C. Lions owner David Braley (left) with the Grey Cup, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell , former CFL commissioner Tom Wright and 2005 Grey Cup Committee Chair Dennis Skulsky in 2004. From gov.bc.ca ]. Quite the story in this morning's Globe and Mail from David Naylor and Matthew Sekeres . According to the Globe , B.C. Lions owner David Braley "secretly put up half of the $2-million franchise fee when David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski purchased the Toronto Argonauts out of bankruptcy in the fall of 2003, and continued to lend money to the CFL club". The story says the deal was made without informing then-CFL commissioner Tom Wright (who I spoke with not that long ago about the Coyotes-to-Hamilton situation) and has continued to the present day without the knowledge of current CFL commissioner Mark Cohon . No sources are named and all sides appear to be denying the story, but in very carefully worded terms. For example, consider these comments from Sokol...

For the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a piece for The Good Point about the importance of the left tackle in the NFL, particularly concerning the different views espoused by Michael Lewis and KC Joyner . I finished it up this morning, and editor extraordinaire Austin Kent already has it posted, so you can check it out here . It features interviews with Joyner, a famed author who also writes for ESPN and The New York Times , Brian Galliford of Buffalo Rumblings , Jason Brewer of Bleeding Green Nation and Bruce Raffel of Baltimore Beatdown . As with my previous piece for The Good Point , I got a lot of interesting information that I wasn't able to fit into the piece, so I've decided to again present extended interviews as part of my ongoing On The Ground interview series. I'll present my full interview with Joyner today, with Raffel's to come Wednesday and Brewer's on Friday. Almost of Galliford's quotes made it into the piece, so there ...

To follow up to my initial piece on the Jerod Morris / Raul Ibanez controversy from this past week, I figured I'd discuss the reaction of the guys on Prime Time Sports on Friday. For those not familiar with it, Prime Time Sports is a radio/television program broadcast across Canada daily on the FAN 590 and its affiliates as well as Rogers Sportsnet. It's probably comparable in reach to ESPN's Around The Horn (a show I've complained about previously ), but is generally much more insightful. The regular broadcasts tend to feature host Bob McCown and Globe and Mail writer par excellence Stephen Brunt interviewing top-tier guests from the media and sports worlds, and often have some great stuff. The Friday shows are more of an Around the Horn feel than an interview show, with a couple of other Toronto media personalities joining Brunt and McCown to discuss sports, but the emphasis still tends to be on thoughtful discussion over yelling and extreme opinions, which ...