Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sportswriters: Fuck Killing Edition

Oh yes. No matter how much the popular absorption of statistical analysis increases and improves the quality of a history of typically shoddy sportswriting, these guys will always find ways to kill my fuck.

From Jerry Crasnick's weekly "Starting 9" column today on ESPN.com, he says in the section on Orioles second-baseman Brian Roberts that:

An optimist might counter that Roberts is laying the foundation for a Hall of Fame run. He just recorded his third season with 100 runs, 70 walks, 50 doubles and 25 stolen bases. Tris Speaker, Kiki Cuyler, Craig Biggio and Bobby Abreu are the only other players to manage that combination, and they all did it once.

For the love of God, this is how inexplicable reputations about sportsfigures develop. Well-known sportswriter bears witness to three minutes of sunshine from an otherwise humdrum B+er, and due to a need for copy casually tosses off a RIDICULOUS notion that a dude like Roberts even has a sniff at the HoF... and sure enough, in nine years there's a diehard contingent of Roberts fans writing on blogs and shitty local newspapers about how "the mom's basement stathead jerks" are barring a deserving guy like Roberts from entering of his pre-destined resting place. Sounds familiar.... oh yeah, it happened for fifteen years with Jim Rice, and now he's finally elected. (And truthfully, Jim Rice was five times the player that Brian Roberts has ever been.)

And seriously--"100 runs, 70 walks, 50 doubles and 25 stolen bases"? Are you kidding me? What kind of nonsense nonstat is this? This entire article is a smorgasbord of barely to not-at-all meaningful number-correlations:

-the fifth player in history to post a 20-homer, 50-double season before age 24
-the first Cleveland right fielder to surpass 20 stolen bases since Von Hayes swiped 32 in 1982
-the first Mets player ever to lead the National League in batting average at home (and also keep in mind that the player in question is hitting .250 on the road)
-the first Padre to drive in 100 runs or more three straight years
-the second third baseman to hit 40 homers and steal 25 bases in a season.
-the fourth pair of Milwaukee teammates to score 100 runs each in a season

Yep, all of these "stats" present various levels of fake-real nothingness. Thanks, Jerry Crasnick for inserting a bit of nonsense into our day. Though I think he left out the fact that Jerry Hairston, Jr. is "Number four all-time in leadoff homeruns by of a left-handed A/B blood type." However, to his credit, I can't remember the last time anyone referenced Von Hayes, so that was good for a laugh.

Jayson Stark is usually the ESPN writer responsible for pumping out time-wasting nonsense like this fluff, but with him it's different because he's always telling (bad) jokes and you expect that he'll say little to nothing with a pretense of seriousness. Crasnick though usually plays it pretty straight-and-narrow (in a typically unstatistical fashion), so this column comes off as more of a desperate "Please. Stop." And unlike Stark, Crasnick seems to imply that he's found some value in this gibberish, under the aegis of the heading, "Players who've thrived for losing teams".

Ack. All bad. But the Roberts mention especially: fuck man, please. TERRIBLE. Really not ok, even as trade among the mongers of hyperbole.

Labels: baseball, case studies, fucktactics, lolgore, MOM'S BASEMENT, statistics

posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/30/2009 02:24:00 PM 2 comments

2 Comments:

Von Hayes09 said...: http://myspace.com/vonhayes09; 10/02/2009 01:25:00 PM
Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything said...: What's extra hilarious about the comment by Von Hayes09 is that I've actually seen the band he links to (his band?)--they played a show in 07 or 08 I think with one my friend-related bands and I remember being astounded by the degree to which they sound EXACTLY like mid 90s Guided By Voices. Worth checking out if somehow Bob Pollard's 94ish releases aren't quite enough for you.; 10/02/2009 02:09:00 PM