The Chicago White Sox have now lost 120 games, tying the 1962 Mets.
I plan to post a longer update on Tuesday with the NFL loser update.
Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category
Very short, very quick loser update.
Sunday, September 22nd, 2024Random notes: September 18, 2024.
Wednesday, September 18th, 2024Lawrence sent over two stories that I don’t think justify a blog post individually, but together might make a good one.
Story #1, which is actually getting a surprising (to me) amount of press coverage: Adrian Wojnarowski is leaving ESPN to become the GM of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team.
The New York Post says he could be walking away from up to $20 million dollars. I probably wouldn’t have noted this, since it isn’t a firing, but Lawrence tells me this is a big freaking deal for basketball fans: Mr Wojnarowski has a reputation for breaking NBA news on Twitter.
I saw in another story (which, of course, I can’t find now) that Mr Wojnarowski had talked for years about his fantasy of throwing his cell phone into the ocean when he retired, as he was pretty much tied to it 24/7/365. “Kemosabe kiss my ass, I bought a boat, I’m going out to sea” indeed.
Story #2: Erma Wilson had her lawsuit against Midland County and former prosecutor Ralph Petty dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in a “plurality decision”, which apparently means that it doesn’t set a binding precedent. The decision was on somewhat narrow technical grounds: the Court of Appeals felt she hadn’t exhausted her remedies in state court yet.
Why was she suing?
…Wilson had been convicted in Midland County 23 years ago on felony possession of cocaine charges and given an eight-year probation sentence.
Long ago, Wilson had appealed her conviction to the state’s 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and lost.
Okay, so? Turns out that prosecutor Petty was moonlighting. He was a prosecutor by day…and a law clerk for “several district judges” at the same time.
And I’m going to pause here to insert a quote from one of the greatest philosophers currently walking the earth, Judge Don Willet.
…
Judge Willet disagrees. Strongly.
Willet, on the other hand, led a fiery dissent in which he stated that he would have let Wilson’s lawsuit proceed, noting, “A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.”
“The Constitution’s fair-trial requirement is Con Law 101 — a bedrock due-process guarantee. In fact, the Framers cared so much about the sanctity of the criminal jury trial that our Constitution specifically mentions it twice — not only in the Sixth Amendment, but also in Article III,” he wrote.
“And to underscore they really meant it — that criminal-justice fairness is sacrosanct — the Founding generation doubled down, enshrining a host of procedural non-negotiables in multiple provisions of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, more words are devoted to We the People’s fair-trial right than to any other constitutional guarantee. Safe to say, the Framers were fixated on the adjudication of criminal charges — both the power to bring them and the process for resolving them — and spilled a lot of ink to ensure that the Constitution’s inviolable fair-trial guarantee is no empty promise.”
…
Just in case you were wondering, Mr. Petty has been disbarred, and according to “The Texan”, has been ordered not to use his name “in any manner in conjunction with the words ‘Attorney at Law,’ ‘Counselor at Law,’ or ‘Lawyer.'” He was also fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage. No, wait: “He also had to notify any of his clients in writing of his disbarment, give them back their money and documents, and notify all judges with whom he may have business pending.“
Your NFL loser update: week 2, 2024.
Tuesday, September 17th, 2024NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Denver
New York Football Giants
Carolina
Los Angeles Rams
In other news, the White Sox have actually won a few more games. Mostly they won against the City Unknown A’s, though they beat the LA Angels last night.
Currenrtly, the Sox are 36-115, for a .238 winning percentage. That projects out to 123 loses this season. Put another way, in order for the Sox to lose only 119 games and avoid tying the 1962 Mets for worst MLB record, they will have to win 7 out of the final 11 games, for a .636 winning percentage down the stretch.
They play the Angels again tonight, and LA is favored by ESPN. Of course, LA was favored by ESPN in last night’s game as well, and you see what that got them…
Obit watch: September 13, 2024.
Friday, September 13th, 2024Donald Sheppard passed away on September 7th. He was 104. BBC.
Mr. Sheppard served in the Royal Engineers during World War II.
Mr. Sheppard was one of more than 150,000 soldiers who crossed the English Channel on June 6, 1944. He landed at Juno Beach, in Normandy, under a hail of gunfire. More than 4,000 Allied troops died that day.
“When he landed on the beach, he said he was just walking over dead bodies,” his son said. “Dead boys, dead men. And they gave their life for our freedom. I think to him, personally, he never wants that to be forgotten.”
…
In 1945, Mr. Sheppard helped British forces liberate Bergen-Belsen, one of the largest concentration camps in Germany; more than 50,000 people, including Anne Frank, died there. When the British arrived, corpses lay in piles; about 60,000 people, emaciated and ill, were still alive.
Mr. Sheppard struggled to talk about the experience; a granddaughter, Daisy O’Brien, said she did not learn about it until she was a teenager. Mr. Sheppard would become emotional remembering that day, his son said.“He couldn’t believe that one human could do that to another human,” Jonathan Sheppard said, and would often lament the “senselessness” of war.
…
Chad McQueen. I think I’ve noted before that I don’t do obits for celebrity children just because they are celebrity children, but he did have a career beyond being Steve McQueen’s son. Other credits include “V”, “New York Cop”, and “Firepower”.
Bob Weatherwax, Hollywood dog trainer. He was most famous for succeeding his father, Rudd, in training dogs to play “Lassie”.
On a trip to Philadelphia to promote the 1994 movie “Lassie,” a successful attempt to revive the franchise, he and the film’s star stayed at the luxurious Rittenhouse Hotel, where the celebrity collie dined on boiled chicken that was prepared by a chef, delivered by room service and washed down with distilled water.
Lassie usually traveled with Mel, a Jack Russell terrier. The two dogs watched “Lassie” reruns on Nickelodeon in between promotional appearances.
“The hotels say they wish they had more guests like Lassie,” Mr. Weatherwax told The Los Angeles Times in 1994. “They don’t have to deal with cigarette holes in the carpet or spilled drinks.”
Joe Schmidt, one of the Detroit Lions greats.
Schmidt was named to 10 Pro Bowls, selected as a first-team All-Pro eight times and chosen for the N.F.L.’s all-decade team for the 1950s.
The Lions were an N.F.L. powerhouse in those years. They defeated the Cleveland Browns for the 1952 league championship; beat them again in the 1953 title matchup, when Schmidt was a rookie; and bested them once more in 1957, routing them 59-14. They also went to the championship game against the Browns in 1954, but that time they lost.
Schmidt was 6 feet 1 inches and 220 pounds, not especially big even by the standards of his era. But he anchored the defense on Lions teams that included his fellow future Hall of Famers Yale Lary, Jack Christiansen and Dick Lane (known as Night Train) in the secondary, along with an offense featuring Bobby Layne at quarterback, Doak Walker at halfback and Lou Creekmur and Dick Stanfel on the line.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in 1973.
…
Obit watch: September 10, 2024.
Tuesday, September 10th, 2024James Earl Jones. NYT (gift link). THR. Variety.
I didn’t realize he was an EGOT (but the Oscar was honorary, not competitive).
The IMDB trivia asserts he was a NRA member, which is interesting. It also asserts that he was considered for the lead role in one of the spin-offs of a minor 1960s SF TV series, but they cast Avery “Hawk” Brooks instead.
Other credits include three episodes of “Homicide: Life on the Street”, something called “Excessive Force” that sounds fun, “The Last Remake of Beau Geste”, “Exorcist II: The Heretic”, and, of course, “The Star Wars Holiday Special”.
As a not-quite-an-obit but belongs here anyway note, the NYT obit is credited to Robert D. McFadden. Mr. McFadden retired from the Times on September 1st, and the paper of record ran a very nice tribute to him. I’ll say something nice about the NYT for once: I agree, Mr. McFadden was a pretty swell obit writer. I think he belongs in the same class as the legendary Robert McG. Thomas Jr..
He retired with more than 250 advance obituaries still in the pipeline, each awaiting its day.
Also among the dead: Ed Kranepool, one of the original Mets.
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After the ’69 Series, Kranepool and several teammates, including Tom Seaver and Cleon Jones, put together a musical act that performed in Las Vegas, singing, among other songs, “The Impossible Dream.” After the group’s debut on the Circus Maximus stage at Caesars Palace, Kranepool conceded that the singing Mets were nervous.
“It’s not like Shea Stadium, where we know what we’re doing,” he told The Times. “But we had enough Scotch.”
Your NFL loser update: week 1, 2024.
Tuesday, September 10th, 2024As foretold in the prophecy, we have returned.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
New York Jets
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Las Vegas
Denver
Washington
New York Football Giants
Green Bay
Carolina
Atlanta
Los Angeles Rams
Arizona
In other news, the Chicago White Sox are now 33-112, for a .228 winning percentage. This projects out to 125 losses this season.
Put another way, there are 17 games left in the season. For the Sox to have only 119 losses and miss tying the record for worst MLB team in the modern era, they will have to win 10 out of those 17, for a .588 winning percentage.
Loser update update.
Friday, September 6th, 2024The NFL regular season started last night.
The NFL loser update will return on Tuesday (because Monday night game) unless I am hit by a bus between now and then.
I am thinking that I will probably wait until Tuesday and combine the NFL loser update with the White Sox update, so I can take care of them both in one swell foop.
UnHinged.
Wednesday, September 4th, 2024Rael Enteen, VP of content for the Washington Commanders, has been suspended. Which isn’t technically a firing, but I kind of have a feeling it is going to turn into one.
What happened?
Mr. Enteen met a woman on the Hinge dating app. He went out to dinner with her twice. During those dates, he made some…unfortunate comments.
He told…that, “over 50% of our roster is white religious, and God says, ‘F— the gays.’ Their interpretation. I don’t buy any of that. Another big chunk is low-income African Americans that comes from a community that is inherently very homophobic.”
…Enteen also said some players are “dumb as hell” and said some who were smart don’t stay that way after getting hit in the head too many times. He also said those who “get their heads knocked around a few times” are more susceptible to conspiracy theories.
Enteen also said, “I don’t think the commissioner of the NFL hates gay people, hates black people. Jerry Jones, who really runs the NFL, I think he hates gay people, black people.”
Enteen, who was with the New York Jets for two years before coming to Washington, called the league’s social justice initiatives “performative.”
“It’s not done out of the goodness of their heart,” he said. “It’s done because George Floyd changed the game … It’s to make as much money as possible. The NFL cares about the bottom line, like any corporation, above all else.”
Enteen said because the league makes so much money, “they can faux prioritize DEI for the sake of good publicity.
“Enteen told…that “most of the fans are high-school-educated alcoholics” and called them “mouth breathers.”
There were just two problems with these comments:
1) His date recorded them.
2) His date was actually “…an undercover reporter for the O’Keefe Media Group.”
Kind of a big “whoops” there. But remember: these people hate you, and they want your money.
Edited to add 9/5: The suspension indeed became a firing.
Loser update: September 2, 2024.
Monday, September 2nd, 2024Final score of today’s game: White Sox 3, Baltimore 13.
The White Sox are currently 31-108 and have lost their last 11 games. 31-108 puts them at a .223 (heh!) winning percentage, which projects out to nearly 126 losses this season. Over the weekend, they set a franchise record for most losses in a season.
At this point, with 23 games left in the season, the Sox will have to win 12 of those just to finish at 119 losses and miss tying the modern MLB record for futility. That would be a winning percentage of .521 in the stretch.
Obit watch: August 30, 2024.
Friday, August 30th, 2024Lawrence sent this over, but it was already on my radar and just waiting until I had time.
Johnny Gaudreau, winger for the Columbus Blue Jackets of the NHL, was killed yesterday along with his brother. He was 31. His brother was 29. NHL.
According to the reports, Mr. Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, were out cycling. A car moved over to one side to give them clearance as it passed: another driver, who was allegedly drunk, tried to pass that vehicle on the right and hit the two brothers from behind.
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Memos from the Sports Desk.
Tuesday, August 27th, 2024Lawrence and I have bet $5 straight across on the Houston Texans’s chances of making the playoffs. Lawrence is taking the pro-playoffs side, while I am skeptical enough about Houston sports teams in general that I am willing to put up $5 that they won’t make the playoffs.
This is probably a sucker bet, but I get more than $5 worth of entertainment out of my bets with Lawrence, and we haven’t done a bet in a while, so why not?
Lawrence also sent over a story from Not the Bee, though I was already on it and planning to cover it today.
Danny Jansen became a historical footnote on Monday. He was the first (and so far only) baseball player to play for both sides in a baseball game.
As a matter of fact, not just both sides, but both sides in the same inning.
How did this happen? He was playing for the Toronto Blue Jays on June 26th. In the second inning, he hit a foul ball off of Boston pitcher Kutter Crawford. Then the rain started and the game was postponed.
On July 27th, Mr. Jansen was traded to Boston for three minor league players.
The postponed game was resumed on Monday.
Before the game resumed at 2:06 p.m. ET Monday — a delay of 65 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes — Red Sox media relations coordinator Daveson Perez announced the changes in the Fenway Park press box: “Pinch hitting for Danny Jansen: Daulton Varsho. Defensive changes: Danny Jansen now at catcher.”
With Jansen behind the plate, Nick Pivetta struck Varsho out to complete the at-bat Jansen started. Then Jansen came up for the Red Sox with two outs in the bottom half of the frame, getting a nice cheer from a sparse makeup game crowd, and hit a lazy liner to first base to end the inning.
Toronto won, 4-1.
Loser update: August 26, 2024.
Monday, August 26th, 2024The Chicago White Sox lost their 100th game on Sunday.
The Sox are currently 31-100, for a .237 winning percentage. Projected out, that comes to 123 losses.
Put another way, in order to go 43-119, and miss tying the record set by the 1962 Mets, the Sox will have to go 12-19 in their remaining games, for a .387 winning percentage. They play Detroit at home tonight: Detroit is favored about 55% – 45%.