Funketown

Nothing immediately comes to mind outside of Adenhart and Taveras. Fernandez apparently was imprisoned three times in his native Cuba for attempting to defect before successfully doing so at age 16, when he jumped overboard to save his mother in the process. http://grantland.com/features/marlins-rookie-pitcher-jose-fernandez-journey-cuban-defector-mlb-all-star/ He was an all-timer at age 24. I knew he was an elite MLB pitcher, but did not realize how he looks compared to the all-time greats. Sorting on post-deadball era (1920 - 2016), >450 IP, starters, here are some figures: 2.67 ERA (2) 2.43 FIP (1) 11.25 K/9 (2) 4.21 K/BB (13) 67 ERA- (2nd) 64 FIP- (1st) .206 AVG (6th) 1.05 WHIP (4th)

Basketball is a bit uninteresting given how much better the US professionals are than anybody else. Hockey has had a yearly World Championship for a really long time now. But, it's usually during the NHL playoffs and the European nations have a bit of an advantages as a result (all top USA players are in the NHL, some very good Europeans play in Europe). The US and Canada (while still often #1) are often ranked below where they should be as a result. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Six_(ice_hockey) Until this year, the hockey World Cup was on an irregular schedule, and as such, I'd always viewed the Olympics as the most important international competition. Now, they're planning on holding it every four years, so I guess it should be viewed as the biggest competition. The 'Team North America' of U-23 players and European team which consists of players from Slovakia, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia etc. are a bit odd. But, whereas half of the teams in a FIFA World Cup have <1% chance of winning, I'd say even Team Europe has about a 1/30 shot, so this should be fun. Honestly though I'd rather see 16 teams like they have during the World Championships, given the depth of 'good hockey nations' that would make competition similar to the FIFA World Cup.

and/or prevents me from swapping out my battery and adding removable storage.

I am in no way surprised by the Lochte story. Some of the lesser-discussed track and field events are really fun to watch. Hammer throw is awesome. Anita Wlodarczyk has now set the record something like a half-dozen times. As for race-walking...let's just say I thought runs got you eliminated.

Handball is amusing, but after watching it, I think a team of six NBA power forwards + a goalkeeper would win the gold medal by double-digits if they had a month or two. Can't step foot in the crease? Irrelevant, says LeBron as he invents the handball dunk.

You know exactly what will happen. He'll behave exactly like he did in Milwaukee and they'll discuss how he's changed and learned the "Cardinal Way".

What does that mean? I'm not alone! This came out an hour later. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-countries-medal-in-the-sports-that-people-care-about/ 'Merica.

It means that I very scientifically have determined that basketball, 100 meter sprints, and gymnastics count triple, whereas horse stuff counts as 0.10 X medals.

I suspect it has to do with the fact that the club season is starting in the next few days, and given that the Euro's run on the same cycle, clubs especially don't want players taking part in two competitive summer tournaments. Neymar was offered the choice of playing either the Copa America or the Olympics, and chose the Olympics. Teams can have a few overage players, but they're often not stars. For women, I'd guess that the spotlight of international competition is hugely beneficial to their professional leagues. Handball is amusing, but it always strikes me as the sport you'd come up with if you didn't want a 'twist' to it. I mean, in hockey, you skate. In field hockey and lacrosse, you need to handle the ball with a stick. Basketball puts the goal on a ten foot post. Water Polo is, you know, in water. And I'm also all-in-favor of a subjective quality-adjusted medal count. While the US rack up medals in swimming, they also dominate in some of the most-desired medals.

He hit two inside the parkers in his career. That is as many as Ted Williams, Willie McCovey, Rod Carew, and Brooks Robinson combined, according to some old SABR article. #prince4cooperstown

Gymnastics is really fun to watch. Obviously the women get more press at the olympics (as the US women deserve), but I was amazed at some of the things the men were doing on Tuesday as well. With most other sports, I often think to myself, 'I could maybe do that once in a thousand tries if I got lucky', or 'I could do that once in a hundred tries if I spent my whole life training for it', or 'If I trained long enough, I might not look absolutely ridiculously stupid doing what they're doing', like running the 100 meter in 13-14 seconds or lifting some small percentage of what the powerlifters lift. With Gymnastics, I feel like even if I had spent my entire life training, I'd have pretty much a 0% chance to pull off even the simplest thing they ever do.

My favorite Brewers game that I actually attended was on 08/31/2005. I watched this game from behind home plate, presumably a few days before going back to high school. Turnbow was my favorite player and kept them in the game by striking out the side in the top of the 9th. Then, this happened: I don't usually get nostalgic about this stuff, but the sheer joy I got as a teenager from watching this oddly-proportioned tank of a man hit moon shots, I'll never forget. From 2007 to 2011, he ranked 4th in the majors in wRC+ (147), 5th in wOBA (.401), 4th in slugging (.553), and 8th in OBP (.399). I think we all suspected he would not last that long as an elite player, but boy was it fun while it lasted.

There's a great deal on MLB.tv for the end of the season: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/192399002/watch-baseball-live-with-mlbtv-price-drops/ $17.99 for two months of baseball is pretty affordable.

Had to do a double-take when I saw 'rluzinski'; takes me back to my early days on the board 6-8 years ago. Given that Villar's played a grand total of about 90 MLB innings at 3B, of which I've seen about 3, it'll take some time to get a better gauge for how he handles the position. My completely subjective guess is that he'll eventually be pretty average defensively at 3B, given that he's a below-average but competent SS. I suppose he retains some defensive value in that he can offer a short-term injury replacement or stop-gap at SS. I still don't have a great gauge for how well his bat projects. He's been impressive this year, and he seems like a guy who could carry a high BABIP, but he's hanging around .400 this year which is not reasonable to expect going forward. That said, he's still at a point in his career where he could see some improvement at the plate. I think it would be generous to project him as a ~110 wRC+ type of guy, but if so he would seem to have some value at 3B.

...and, there's my excuse to stay up and watch the game while pretending to work late tonight.