The Inside Slider

I have an idea. Lets take a sport, that loses fans to the NFL every year, over to Japan for the start of the season. Yeah, you heard me right. Think of all of the benefits. First, no one in the United States of America will watch (exactly what we want). Second, the "national pastime" will be held in another nation. What could be cooler than that?!

But seriously, if you happened to miss it (which you did), the MLB season kicked off with the Seattle Mariners beating the Oakland Athletics 3-1 in 11 innings on Wednesday afternoon (or very early morning if you are in the United States) in Tokyo, Japan. From what people have said it was a pretty good game. I wouldn't know. I was asleep. What exactly is the purpose of having opening day in Japan? What was being accomplished? Some could argue that it allows Japanese fans the ability to become more excited about American baseball, but that argument would be wrong. The MLB is already huge in Japan! Remember when Dice-K had his debut? There were more Asian photo/journalists at the game then any other. The same is going to happen for Yu Darvish this year. Asian baseball players playing in the MLB are basically rock stars.

I get it. They are trying to expand the game into a global market, but not opening day. That is not the time to do it. We have a hard enough time trying to get our own fans to watch.

I just needed to vent. Thanks.

Unless you have been living in the jungle ( like this guy ) you have undoubtedly heard that Tim Tebow is now a New York Jet. In an apparent attempt to somehow get their name in lights, rather than improve their team, they have taken on the same mentality that they had when they introduced Brett Favre as their QB. A mentality that resembles that of Annie Wilkes.

Even the team that drafted Tebow in the 1st round made it their mission to get him the hell out of Dodge so what plan could Rex and Tannenbaum possibly have for Tebow? If it's to use him in a wildcat offense scenario they have obviously not noticed its failure rate in the NFL. If they don’t use the wildcat then who backs up who? Does the QB with the most turnovers in 2011 start, or the QB that was second to last in Total Quarter Back Rating start? One would think that the Jets would want to build around Sanchez (considering the contract he just signed) and allow a veteran QB help him along the way. The Jets went 8-8 in 2011 and proved that they need a massive amount of help on both sides of the ball. I am not sure how adding Tebow to the roster aides in the improvement of their team.

And lets not forget about the effect that this could have on their current QB's psyche. How does the “Sanchize” feel about this move? Looks like a slap in the face that screams lack of confidence to me. There is only one thing that the Jets could do here to keep Sanchez's head on straight and that’s to place a “TE” in the Position column next to Tebow’s name. But we know that won’t happen.

...and for pure comedic value I give you this: The back page of the New York Sporting News

Stay tuned. This should be good.

Purely for entertainment I have listed my 10 favorite GIFs from 2011. They are in no particular order although I would have to say the Barajas celebration is probably my favorite. Do you have any favorites? Post them in the comments. Do it now or Jesus will kill a kitten.

What should I base my answer on? I could use RBI's, HR'S, or even BA. But lets be honest, "not all hits are created equal". A home run could cause the same change in the score as a single. Slugging percentage wont work either. Is a double worth twice as much as a single? The only real true gauge of a player like Pujols' worth is the Weighted On Base Average, or wOBA for the noobs. 


Quick lesson:


“Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) is based on a simple concept: not all hits are created equal. Batting average would have you believe they are, but think about it: what’s more valuable, a single or a homerun? Batting average doesn’t account for this difference and slugging percentage doesn’t do so accurately. OPS does a good job of combining all the different aspects of hitting (hitting for average, hitting for power, having plate discipline) into one metric, but it weighs slugging percentage the same as on-base percentage, while on-base percentage is more valuable than slugging.”

As a professional athlete it is safe to say that you are fairly anal about what you put into your body. So when the reigning MVP, Ryan Braun, popped on a standard MLB drug test for an unknown banned substance you can imagine the disbelief when Braun's spokesperson issued this statement: 


"There are highly unusual circumstances surrounding this case which will support Ryan's complete innocence and demonstrate there was absolutely no intentional violation of the program. While Ryan has impeccable character and no previous history, unfortunately, because of the process we have to maintain confidentiality and are not able to discuss it any further, but we are confident he will ultimately be exonerated."


Wait...what? "Highly unusual circumstances"?  "No intentional violation"? Does it matter? The MLB had multiple testing agencies, including the World Anti-Doping Agency, test the sample. All positive for extremely high levels of testosterone that was determined to be exogenous, meaning it came from outside the body. As in fake. As in not the stuff that's made when i'm in a bar shouting about the Skankies/Red Sox rivalry.


Braun's camp is claiming that the failed test was a result of medication given to him for a prior infection. Here is where it gets embarrassing. Rumor has it Braun was combating Herpes with this medication. The bloggers at TerezOwens.com claims to have spoken to a high ranking Brewers official. On their site they wrote: