Sporting Madness

I was in an amateur slo-pitch softball tournament in Revelstoke, B.C. over the weekend, and it brought some interesting ideas to my mind. For one thing, I left a lot of skin behind on the diamonds diving for fly balls in the outfield and sliding into the bases. As a result, I've got some rather painfully bunged-up knees and elbows. Conventional sports logic would suggest that it's hardly woth it to take that pain for so little gain; this was a rather unimportant tournament in the grand scheme of things. Yet, there was no question about it at the time; you do what you need to play hard and win, regardless of the stakes or the level competition. At the same time, though, it was refreshing to be participating in a sport that was just for fun. The most interesting element of the tournament was that there wasn't a lot of blame passed around, though. Yes, people on every team screwed up, but the focus was on encouragement and getting it right the next time rather than assigning...

I managed to make it down to Seattle yesterday to catch the Mariners knock off the Rangers 5-3 [ Lookout Landing ], and thought I'd present a few thoughts on the game in classic GBU style . They follow below: - The Good: - Ichiro Suzuki : Ichiro was impressive as usual, going two-for-five while making several outstanding plays defensively. He scored from first with an impressive burst of speed around on a Jose Lopez double, and pulled off a nice unusual slide at home to boot, staying away from the tag while throwing his arm out and catching the corner of the plate. However, perhaps his best moment of the day was his RBI single; he took a swing and didn't get much on it, hitting the ball lightly to the pitcher, but managed to beat the throw to first with an impressive sprint. He's having an incredible season so far at the age of 35, with a career-best .480 slugging percentage, .873 OPS and 133 OPS+, a .362 batting average (second-highest of his career), and .393 on-base p...

I didn't write anything about the Raul Ibanez controversy [ Jerod Morris , Midwest Sports Fans ] yesterday outside of my Twitter feed , mostly because it was aptly handled everywhere else [links, in order, are Alana G , Joe Posnanski , Hugging Harold Reynolds , Rays Index and The Big Lead ]. However, today saw some Canadian media types weighing in, and I thought their reactions deserved some coverage. First off, we have Geoff Baker . Baker's a Canadian guy who used to cover the Expos and Blue Jays, and now covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times . He's a good baseball writer, and I usually enjoy his stuff. Today, though, he produced one of the more annoying pieces on the matter, ironically enough on his blog. You know it's going to be bad as soon as you read the title, "The Difference Between Real Journalists and Basement Bloggers." Baker does actually make some valid points. He has some good thoughts on the importance of accountability, and he'...