SimonOnSports

When was the last time somone stole 100 bases and who was it accomplished by? I'll hold off on giving that answer til after I explain that Mr. Carl Crawford speedster extraordinaire is currently at a pace where 100 steals is with the realm of possibility. Currently through 49 games Crawford has 30 steals. 30! The AL league leader last year was Jacoby Elsbury who stole just 50 bases. Crawford's pace is currently on track for 99 steals, but why not add another 1 and join Vince Coleman (85, 86, 87) and the 100 steal club.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

Roy Oswalt is just one of many players on my fantasy roster who has been a colassal disappointment through the first 2 months of the season. In his case he's pitched to a poor 4.62 ERA and has only 1 victory, and to make a long story short drafting him cost me Zack Greinke (Idiot!). Deducing why he has won just 1 game is simple, he's got a weak ERA and its not like the Astros are a powerhouse offense. Well that's what you would think. Of all the pitchers with a minimum of 60 innings thrown, Roy Oswalt is currently ranked 10th best in team run support . So what the hell gives? First, in Oswalt's lone victory the Astros scored at total of 12 runs. Secondly, the two games Oswalt actually pitched well coincided with the two games that the offense provided no run support. In the only outing in which Oswalt did not allow a run, Ramon Hernandez hit a walk off two run homer. In the only game Oswalt gave up a total of 1 run, the Astros didn't were stifled for 1 run t...

Mr. Cabrera has been cut by the Washington Nationals because, quote the GM, "I was sick of watching him." I'd imagine that's in reference to his 0-5 record and near 6 ERA. But his hitting prowess of 0-11 with 9 Ks and 2 BBs probably didn't help. Overall Cabrera improved his career batting by putting two balls in play and walking twice but still sits with a .000 average and 23 strikeouts in 21 at bats.

If you follow the wonderful site MLBTradeRumors, you've noticed that there have been lots of conversations about the trade value of Adrian Gonzalez . Many people including Jon Heyman have floated about his value. The GM has even stated that "no player" is untouchable, aka Peavy and Gonzalez. On one hand you can understand the logic. The Padres farm system isn't terribly strong and their current roster can only be classified as poor or worse. Adrian Gonzalez is the ideal player a contender would want to trade for. First off he's terrific, he's already got 18 homers. He's in his prime at age 27. He never misses a game. And most importantly he's signed through 2011, and he's on the cheap. Gonzalez makes just $8.25 million spread over 2009-2011. He'll get a kings ransom on the market. The problem is that the Padres are already one of the lowest payrolls in the big leagues . Despite this they still have maintained better than average attenda...

My Team Meetings are nothing like kids football huddles, instead their pain, lots of pain and equal limited blogging time. Combine that with much lovely homework every night this week and the blog has suffered. Hopefully it'll kick back into action when the meetings slow.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

If there's a lesson to be learned in this Magic-Cavaliers series it's that even the best player in the NBA needs a sidekick. Mo Williams was brought in this season to be the sidekick to get the Cavs over the hump and for the most part he's fit the bill. He made the All-Star team. He averaged nearly 18 points per game while shooting well over 40% from three during the regular season. He had solidified the point guard and the secondary scoring position position around Lebron. And then the Magic roll into town and poof, he's gone. If you simply take a look at his scoring outputs in the 4 games played you might think otherwise. Mo has put up 17+ points in the 4 games, that sounds pretty good right? The problem is the clip he's been shooting at has been absolutely horrendous, especially from down town. In the four games played, Mo has yet to eclipse 33.3% from the field or 30% from downtown. In total he's gone just 6 for 27 from deep. In each game he's mis...

Of all words uttered last night during the 4th quarter none was more prevalent than the word "Foul". All in all there were 22 personal fouls, 4 technical fouls and 1 flagrant foul called in the 4th quarter. The whistle blew so much in the final 12 minutes that it truly made the game unwatchable. Let's take a look at a few of the facts from the foulfest last night. ~The 4 technical fouls were all called on separate instances that occurred with 5:30 minutes from 9:11 to 3:48. ~Luke Walton went from 3 fouls to fouling in a total of 5 Nugget possessions. Throw on an additional personal and a technical and Walton was whistled 5 times in the 4th. ~From 4:05 to 3:00 there were 5 personal fouls and 2 technical fouls. Only one possession wound up in something other than free throws, a J.R. Smith missed three. ~The Nuggets scored 16 of their 43 4th quarter points on the free throw line. ~Kobe Bryant made 4 free throws in a row during one possession at the 3:48 mark thanks to a pers...

In March when I purchased tickets for the Red Sox Mets matchup on Sunday the 24th little did I know that I was going to be in attendance for something so wonderfully delicious. I never could have imagined that on the day I sat on the Budweiser Roof that I would see David Ortiz go 0-5 and watch his average dip below the Mendoza line a full 154 at bats into the season. Oh sweet and delicious fail, how I enjoyed thee. Too bad the Mets pitched Tim Redding and I was forced to watch them get pummeled and avoid an enjoyable sweep.

I can't stand the Lakers or Kobe Bryant and thus I've been looking for every reason to cheer against them this post season. I hoped the Rockets would shock the world and now I hope that the Nuggets pull off the Conference Final Upset. The Nuggets have plenty of guys I can pull for: I was a big Melo fan back in the 'Cuse days, Chauncey just seems to play the game exactly like how I would want to if I was an NBA point guard, the Birdman is fun to watch, I even for some reason like Kenyon Martin back in the day. With all these players it's been relatively easy to pull for Denver, if not for one person, J.R. Smith. The problem with J.R. isn't his skill set. Nope, I love his game. He's freakishly athletic, he's got a jumper, he even ahs showed off some passing and defensive prowess this series. The problem I have with J.R. is that his celebrations after he makes a shot are boarderline ridiculous. I understand celebrating every once in awhile after a big dunk or a...

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

The below chart shows a comparison between the Salary spent by each MLB teams and the percentage of attendance in their stadium. The higher you are on the chart the closer you are to the Yankees 200 million dollar payroll, the lower you are on the chart the closer you are to the Marlins 38 million dollar payroll. The further right the team is the closer they are to the Red Sox 101% average capacity. The further left a team is the Pirates 40.8% attendance. Ideally you want your salary low and your attendance high, so the closer you are to the lower right the better and the closer you are to the upper left, i.e. high salary low attendance, the worse off you are. ~The Brewers are doing very well for themselves this year post Sabathia and Sheets as they are 7th in attendance percentage but just 17th in salary. ~Only Milwaukee, Kansas City (Thanks Greinke!) and San Diego have a better than average attendance while also below the median of MLB salaries. ~The Padres apparently pay no one ...

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

For anyone who may have been surprised by Jake Peavy's exercising of his no trade clause yesterday, I would respond with why? After the 2007 season, when the Padres finished in 3rd in the NL West despite terrific seasons by himself and Chris Young, Peavy signed a a 3 year extension on top of his original contract thus dedicating himself to the Padres until at minimum 2012. When Peavy signed this deal in 2007 he was effectively signing up to be on a losing team for years. The Padres offense was putrid in 2007 and with Mike Cameron's impeding free agency was only set to get worse. He had to fully understand that outside of the emerging Adrian Gonzalez there were no big time hitting prospects on their way. He had to understand that life in Padre land was going to consist of him trying to squeeze out 3-2 victories and watching his fellow pitching staff struggle to do the same. All he had to do to understand this was look at teammate Chris Young, whom in 30 starts in 2007 post...

Perhaps I'm out of the loop on this one but when the hell did Joe Mauer become a slugger? This afternoon in the Twins mauling of the White Sox, Mauer hit his 8th bomb of the season. 8th! He missed the entire month of April. What the hell is going on? His career high for homers in a season is 13 and that was accomplished in a year he played 140 games and accumulated 521 at bats. Last year in 146 games he hit 9 homers. Through 19 games this year he has 8. Someone give him a piss test.

Think Melky Cabrera wears a cup? I don't, he is an outfielder. I bet that was terribly painful. Courtesy of Jimmy from Hot Clicks

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

Well I guess Ricky Rubio is in the #1 draft pick discussion considering the Clipshow are hawking both his and Blake Griffin's images to sell season tickets for the big article on their homepage . However, if you're not Rubio or Griffin you can end that hope now.

I went to the Yankee game last night which of course was enjoyable because they picked up their 8th victory in a row. But yet again the stadium and its weak home runs were troubling to me. 2 of the 3 home runs in the back to back to back, were entirely the product of Yankee Stadium. The first of which was Nick Swisher's which went out despite the swing, contact and sound off the bat suggesting bloop single. Take a look. The Pitch: Inside & Off the Plate The Contact: Oh Look, He's Miserably Jammed The Follow Through: One Armed and Terribly Awkward The Distance: Two Rows Deep The Reaction: Biggest Joke Homer of Swisher's Life

It's been a rough 2009 for the Davids, both Eckstein and Ortiz. Neither of these classic power hitters are have hit a single ball over the fence in almost two months. Let's take a look at which of these guys has been the better slugger this season. Ha. F'n Eckstein has had a better slugging percentage almost the entire year. Get back on the Roids David.

It could be argued that last night was amongst the worst nights in Blake Griffin's life. We all knew prior to the lottery last night that Blake Griffin was going to be the first pick, it was just a matter of where. Of all the teams to wind up on, I'd imagine that the Clippers were near the bottom of the list, if not completely rock bottom. The Clippers have been amongst the worst professional franchises in America since their existence. Their owner is a joke. They are the ugly stepchild in their own city. Despite the NBA inviting over 50% of their teams to the playoffs year after year, the Clippers rarely ever make it . Throw in the fact that the current roster is filled with totally random pieces which include aging All-Stars in Baron Davis and Marcus Camby and most negatively a malcontent best player in Zach Randolph who just so happens to play the same position and has a contract which is completely unloadable. At some point in time last night someone mentioned Mr. Olow...

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

If David Ortiz goes 0-2 tonight he strikes the Mendoza Line. If he goes worse than 0 for 2 than Mr. Ortiz will officially have fallen below the Mendoza line. Come on Brett Cecil.

I like Punchout just as much as anybody, but I'm not sure about this... Looks to me like it's nearly impossible. The dude is losing to Glass Joe. Nobody loses to Glass Joe. How the hell are you supposed to beat Tyson if you're struggling against the scrubs? Courtesy of Gizmodo via EC

Optimus Prime would most certainly be able to take Lebron James to the hole. Courtesy of Deadspin

The 2009 NBA Draft Lottery is tonight and well I'm not that interested. If you flip through ESPN's mock draft lottery tool , there is not a single scenario where Blake Griffin does not get drafted first. In fact I have yet to see one scenario where Ricky Rubio does not get drafted second. Sure, Blake Griffin is a monster and Ricky Rubio is supposed to be some stud Euro-Point Guard, but neither seems a lock to be a perennial all star. It's not like landing either is going to jump a team like the ClipShow from irrelevance to playoff glory. If this draft closely resembles any of the past its clearly the 1997 Draft, aka the Tim Duncan Lottery . We all knew Duncan was going 1 and Keith Van Horn was going #2. The rest of the picks were uninspiring. Sure Chauncey Billups has morphed into one of the best point guards in the league and for awhile T-Mac was one of the top scorers in the NBA, but neither was a guaranteed thing on draft day or for a few years. The rest of the draft pic...

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

The Baseball Season is one that leads itself towards drastic day to day over reactions. Your team sucks cause last night they lost. Your team is great cause last night they hit a walk off home run. Your team sucks because your #5 starter gave up 8 runs in 3 innings. Your team is awesome cause your ace is unhittable. The big picture is always overwhelmed by the small picture and this is entirely evident by the past week in the Bronx. Last week the Yankees sucked because they were 15-17. A 200 million dollar payroll and two games under .500 after 1/5th of the season? How could this be? Terrible just terrible. And who's a bigger bust than Mark Teixeira? Why did they give that bum 180$ million dollars? The Red Sox and Blue Jays are going to pull away from the Yanks. Panic is spreading throughout the Bronx. Today the Yankees are on a 6 game winning streak coming off a sweep of the Twins with 3 epic walk off victories and so... Everything is Great. The world is a better place, the sun is...

Watching a bitter enemy turn old and useless over night is always delicious, but watching David Ortiz blow up takes it to a whole new level. He's only a few more 0-fors away from the Mendoza line after yesterdays abomination . Do you think he hits the line? Or starts taking roids again and has a resurgence?

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

We all know about the historic SI Cover jinx , its well chronicled over time. Well now I introduce you to its internet spawn, the SI Hot Clicks jinx. In two days, Jimmy at Hot Clicks has managed to kill off two streaks. Streak #1: Ryan Zimmerman's 30 Game Hit Streak Zimmerman's streak has been going on for a month, yet Jimmy waited until it hit 30 games to mention it up and dedicate a major section to Hot Clicks to Zimm and the streak. What happens? He goes 0 for in the afternoon session and only hours after the Hot Clicks post, the streak is dead and buried. No DiMaggio for Zimmerman. But the Nats one, so I guess that's good. Streak #2: Chris Davis' 21 Game Strike Out Streak Then yesterday he apologized to the readers about ending Zimmerman's streak and linked up my post on Chris Davis saying his strikeout streak was the new streak to follow. What does Davis do? He first off doesn't strike out at all, killing the streak. But he also hits a walk off homer....

This isn't necassarily a breakdown of guys that have moved up the charts like a 100 or so ranking spots, but rather a list of players whom I never thought would have major relivence this year. So Zach Greinke moving up to #1 from the 100s is shocking but not as shocking as it would have been say if Kei Igawa was a top 50 player. Those are the guys I'm going for. Hitters Adam "Not Pacman" Jones, Oreos' Outfielder: Jones was just one of the many young players with the potential for 5 category development. He was slightly on your radar as a late round pickup but if you drafted him you certainly weren't expecting him to carry your team. And that's what he's done. Current Yahoo Rank: 6 Jason Bartlett, Rays' Shortstop: To call Bartlett a light hitting shortstop coming into this season would have been entirely accurate. He's never had more than a handful of homers in a season and after a month he's almost already reached his career high, thro...

Look at the ESPN people playing nice. One jackass who's a TV guy and another jackass who's on the radio conduct a ludicrous shouting match. Wasn't that just lovely? Thank god Mike Missanelli no longer works at 1050 in NYC, just think about him and Stephen A doing a radio show Together. Ya it was painful. By the way if you GOOGLE MIKE MISSANELLI, my post about his Token Idiocy is on the second page . Courtesy of AA

People are up in arms over the " Double Standard " in Major League Baseball where an umpire makes contact with Magglio Ordonez and nothing bad happens to him. Let's look at the tape and be the judge for yourself. He essentially touches his back gives him a directing "Get out of the box Magglio" push. It was absolutely nothing. He's the person with the authority. If your boss give you one of those at work are you filing charges? If you're thinking yes, than I guarantee I wouldn't be friends with you. Hello Pussification of America. Can we please get a grip, before the entire world turns into flopping soccer players?

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

This isn't really news worthy, but buddy mentioned how UVA hasn't beaten VaTech in 1994 days so I decided to see just how long it's been since the Wolverines have beaten OSU. And well today is the 2000 day anniversary . UGH...

These guys had to be incredibly inebriated last night, as a result they were highly entertaining in a game that was pretty much done after the Yankees threw up a 5 spot. Courtesy of HHR

With Ryan Zimmerman's streak falling 26 games short of DiMaggio yesterday, we are all left to search around Major League Baseball to find an intriguing streak to follow. Well, I have the perfect streak for you, it includes 20+ games of whiffitude. That's right it's the Chris Davis strikeout streak. The sophomore 1B masher for the Rangers has 9 Home Runs through his first 113 at bats this season. Those are pretty solid power numbers. However, it's an all or nothing approach. Chris Davis has recorded at least one strikeout in EACH of his last 21 games . All in all Davis has struck out a total of 52 times, recording at least one in 30 of his 32 games played. In fact his streak would sit at 30 games if not for April 19th when he did not start but rather pinch hit and in his only plate appearance recorded a hit. It's probably safe to say if he got another at bat, the streak would likely be at 30. In total Davis has only started one game, the second of the season,...

After three quarters on Tuesday Night the Celtics play could be described as nothing other than brutal. They looked like death, but after a little Stephon revitalization the Celtics started to fight back and it appeared as if their Swine Flu transferred over to the Magic. The Magic went into a complete funk, couldn't put the ball in the basket and ended up choking away the game. So naturally the post game interviews were filled with frustration, including Dwight Howard going off about getting the ball. "Offensively I have to get the ball," Howard said candidly. "I don't think you are going to win a lot of games when your post player only gets 10 shots. It's tough to get yourself going and get a lot of touches without a lot of shots. We have to do a better job with that." First off I loved Jalen Rose's take, which was essentially "If You're the Leader of the Team You Demand the Ball. Lebron demands the ball in the huddle, Kobe demands the b...

The Big Picture did a Top 5 Fantasy Baseball Players you want to bludgeon with a baseball bat ... I have 3 of the 5. Shit balls.

The NHL is in line for some thrillers over the next two days. They have Sydney Alexander Crosby vs. Ovechkin game 7 tonight. They get the storied Detroit Red Wings in Hockey town in Game 7 on Thursday Night. They get the resurgent #1 seed Boston Bruins in Game 7 on Thursday night. Everything is great in Hockeyland, how could they mess anything up. Oh but of course NHL & Versus can. How? Look at Thursday nights schedule. You might be thinking "Oh look Versus is carrying both the Red Wings vs. Anaheim Ducks game and the Bruins vs. the Carolina Hurricanes game. The Nation will get to see two great hockey games, everything is great." But take another look, notice something about the timing of these games. Yep, they're only an hour a part. That means that if you really want to watch the Bruins game and not the Red Wings game than unless you get NESN, there will be no soup for you until the Red Wings game is over. In the best case scenario if you're a Bruin or Can...

Last night Stephon Marbury went from a sub that many Celtic fans shook their heads at, to a key contributor to a playoff victory. Marbury all of a sudden out of nowhere found the confidence his playoff appearances was lacking. For a few fleeting minutes the swagger was back, the desire to make buckets was back. At the start of the 4th quarter Marbury strapped the offense on his back, dropped 12 points, kept the Celtics in the game and was essentially a playoff hero , a very mild one. This entire season and playoff with the Celtics, Stephon's main goal has seemingly been to be a good teammate. He cheers on the bench. He never hogs the ball. He never tries to be the star. He often passes on open shots to try to get other teammates better looks. He's even trying to play good defense. Gasp. How can you use Marbury and good defense in the same sentence? I said trying, not playing. From my perspective I've seen these things for the entire postseason and have thought tha...

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

Everything at Yankee Stadium is starting to go on sale, let's see how well you can figure out the ridiculous prices of the many odd items up for sale. yankee_memorabilia_trivia Try Some More Trivia or Perhaps Some PhotoHunts

There are several Nintendo games that stand the test of time, one of these games is Mike Tyson's Punch Out. As I've mentioned several times on this here blog I have a mild obsession with the game, I even was Glass Joe for Halloween a few years back. So the re-issue of the game on the Wii, makes me contemplate a purchase. Especially after a few humorous youtube clips. Little Mac looks like he put on a few lbs, and a little muscle mass. I guess now he's in the steroid era so it makes sense. Doc's in great shape. No one knows boxing Quite like Doc. He's a true Trainer of Trainers. H/T With Leather

Immediately after Big Baby dropped the game winning basket and ran up the court in celebration, I noticed him tossing aside a little kid. So I laughed, I took a picture and I posted it up as did many others . It was humorous fun the kid obviously didn't get injured in anyway, so it was just harmless fun. But of course as the world turns with rich men having no toughness or scrotum to speak of the bitching came forth. Instead of sitting around in silence over a harmless incident, Ernest Provetti the father the 12-year old sent the NBA an email calling Big Baby a "Raging Animal" and demanding that Davis apologize for the incident. Essentially he turned his kids classmate reaction from "Dude I can't believe you got hit by Big Baby" to "Dude you're a pansy, there's no way that hurt." Since his email, Provetti has back tracked somewhat from his initial statements and says he will back off. I'm guessing the nasty emails he received on monda...

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. Roger Clemens is making the lying rounds today so why not take a lot at his numbers and pinpoint that steroid conversion time. Averages Say: The Toronto Dip, Followed By Yankee Piss Poordom Strikeouts Say: The Toronto Bulge. Explaining It Away If you're looking to explain away the Clemens Toronto experience you can go one of two angles. Either A) Roger Clemens was unhealthy during his last season in Boston and refound his health in Toronto or B) Getting told he was unwanted in Boston motivated him to be a workout animal in the offseason and motivated him to prove that Dan Duquette was a complete D-Bag. Option B actually works for me. I believe that getting told he sucked might have been just enough to push Clemens towards the edge motivate him to prove everyone wrong. Pin pointing Clemens as a vindictive person is not a very far stretch. The Verdict The problem with explain...