The Drubbing

As noted before, there’s no doubt that LeBron James will be going to New York Knicks when his contract in Cleveland is up. No other city can offer LeBron what New York can. Between basketball, business and celebrity, New York was made for James. But as we’ve seen with other premier athletes, one sport can only keep them occupied for so long. Deion Sanders, Bo Jackson and the 45, Michael Jeffrey Jordan.

So how long will the NBA, Nike, Coke, Microsoft and State Farm be able to keep LeBron occupied. If recent history is any indication, we may not have long to wait. Jordan needed a break once he got to 30. Which gives LeBron six more years until he needs a change.
Continue reading “Only six more years until LeBron suits up for the New York Giants” →

How do you teach a young man how to be a responsible member of society and be accountable for your actions? By suing Duke University when they get kicked off the golf team of course. But I guess that’s what we should expect from a “student athlete” that embodies the stereotypes often associated with the Duke University student body.
Continue reading “Want some cheese with that whine?” →

Would this man force more errors if he could make contact with the ball?

Perhaps more than any other sport baseball is subject to the cliché. With so many games a year and so many hours of radio/television coverage for each of those games, things get repeated a lot. As with anything else, once something gets repeated enough people begin to accept it as true. It is an amazing thing about the human mind, once we hear something a few times, as long as it seems logical, we accept it. One of them has been bothering me for a while, and until now I didn’t have a way of looking at it. Thanks to the magic of baseball-reference.com, now I can.

Whenever someone like Ichiro, Torii Hunter, or Jose Reyes reaches first on an infield error one of the announcers will inevitably say “That shows you how speed forces defenses to rush which creates more errors”. This sounds perfectly logical. If I am at shortstop and Usain Bolt is running to first I know that I have to hurry the throw. However, because I tend to overthink things I always wondered if it was true.

Before I explain the methodology I used, let me first admit that it is not perfect. I took two different sets of data and looked at the statistics as best as I could. It is rudimentary statistical analysis at best, and would not qualify to be published in any scholarly journal. However, it can give us some illustration of what is going on So here goes.
Continue reading “Does speed force more errors?” →

Chuck’s links will now contain our weekly poll recap results:

Who will be the MLB Home Run leader at the end of the season?

5 votes for Pujols, 2 for Howard 1 for Carlos Pena.

Now on to the links:

MJ & MJ.

Binoculars, soccer, and an Asian game show = hysterical.

This is tremendous.  TO gets cursed out by a model and has zero comeback.

Big man fall hard.  Poor Houston.

Your Weekly Chuck Norris Fact:

Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas.

* Please note that Chuck Norris is in no way affiliated with The Drubbing or its writers. If he did find out we were using his name in a gimmick he would roundhouse kick all of us to death.

Stan Van (or SVG if you prefer) is never one to shy away from controversy or put his nose where it doesn’t belong. His latest victim, the NCAA. In a post-game interview after an NBA Finals loss, Van Gundy called the NCAA “about the worst organization going.” And called the NBA’s age limit “a sham.” Every organization has their own set of problems, some more than others, but Stan has gone a little far here, as usual.

I have my own issues with the NCAA, several of them in fact. But the NBA (flagrant fouls), MLB (steroids), NHL (Gary Bettman), NFL (protecting quarterbacks), NASCAR (Chase for the Sprint Cup), PGA (FedEx Cup) are no gems themselves. So to label the NCAA the worst organization out there is just a slight exaggeration.
Continue reading “Stan Van Gundy hates the NCAA” →

Lance Armstrong

In a recent AP report posted on ESPN.com, cyclist Lance Armstrong was quoted as saying he would accept, if necessary, a support role to assist Astana teammate Alberto Contador’s attempt at a Tour de France victory. The key to the story is that Armstrong said he would support Contador’s victory attempt if the Spanish rider is in a more likely position to win. I highly doubt that Armstrong will let Contador assume such a position gracefully.
Continue reading “Armstrong to ride as a ‘domestique’?” →