By Jim Coffman
Does it even matter if Draymond Green kicked Steven Adams in the balls on purpose?
It does not.
Posted on May 23, 2016
Slump Busters
By Marty Gangler
So this is what a slump feels like when your team is still really good.
Can’t say that the Cubs themselves and the fans didn’t need some reality in their lives. Week after week of insane record-breaking or matching or last times since 1907ing was starting to feel really weird.
Like, let’s just have a good year, get completely healthy come October and stay a good six to 10 games in front of everyone in the division and we can call it a good season and take our chances in the payoffs.
The pressure will be enormous anyway, why tack on the extra burden of an insanely good record and all of that? Not sure if it would matter, but yeah, I’m kinda OK not lighting the baseball world on fire and just cruising to the playoffs.
But first things first, these guys need to get out of this slump. With this in mind we here at The Cub Factor have come up with a few slump-buster options for the 2016 season:
Posted on May 23, 2016
Video Vexation
By Roger Wallenstein
I’m still not sure about this replay review that’s in its third season of use in MLB. In this Instagram-Twitter world, I don’t ignore that fact that the technology is available to try to make every umpire’s decision accurate. Nor am I opposed to tweaking the game to make it better.
But I have questions, ranging from the mundane to the pertinent.
I continue to be amused every time it takes two – not just one – umpires to apply the earphones for contact with the people in New York who make the ultimate decision. I can only assume that this is perpetuated for security purposes. Like what if an umpire is crooked or his ego won’t permit his decision to be overturned? Is the second ump listening so that no one can disregard instructions from Review Central? Has it never occurred to Commissioner Rob Manfred that the fellows looking at those screens might also keep observing long enough to make certain that their instructions are followed?
That’s the mundane.
Posted on May 22, 2016
TrackNotes: Post-Preakness
By Thomas Chambers
Exaggerator, son of the millennial all-timer Curlin, and under the savvy ride of an experienced Kent Desormeaux, used Nyquist’s precociousness against him to win the 141st Preakness Stakes, dashing Nyquist’s hopes of a Triple Crown.
Yeah, the angle for Exaggerator was the mud, but he won this race. He won it.
Posted on May 21, 2016
TrackNotes: Dumb Asses
By Thomas Chambers
Was (or is) Floyd Mayweather good for boxing?
My buddy and I have debated Mayweather’s legacy for a long time, sometimes to the point where we’ve had to just stop talking about it.
I don’t like “Money.” Don’t like his “defensive” style – I see a runner – and he was one of the prime players in the fraud that was his fight against Manny Pacquiao, a bout that took six frickin’ years to make. Their duplicity severely damaged the boxing pay-per-view business, which hasn’t recovered since.
The same might be asked of American Pharoah and his herculean campaign in 2015, in which he won the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Unprecedented. One big difference is that ‘Pharoah and his human connections are so much more likeable than Mayweather’s.
Posted on May 21, 2016
The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #103: Chicago’s Fevered Baseball Dream Is Over
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Cubs, White Sox spiraling into oblivion. Plus: Cy Sale And The Rubs; Bulls Offseason Going Great!; Bears 1st-Round Draft Pick Leonard Floyd Is Stuffing His Face Right Now; Absent Alshon; The Olympic Way; and The Nerds Who Are Ruining Horse Racing.
Posted on May 20, 2016
Are Nerds Ruining Horse Racing?
By Alexander Murk and Erhan Bayraktar/The Conversation
From Wall Street to politics, quantitative analysts (or quants) are revolutionizing much of the world. Nowadays, that even includes horse racing.
By using computers to identify hidden patterns in past racing data and arcane mathematics to optimize every aspect of their betting strategies, horse racing quants can confidently wager staggering amounts. At first, that may seem good: more money in the pot means the house and the winners take more home. Still, their trades have been blamed for (among other things) driving away other bettors and shrinking prizes for everyone over time.
Posted on May 20, 2016
IOC: Sochi Doping Allegations Could Show ‘Unprecedented Criminality’
By Karolos Grohmann/Reuters
BERLIN – Allegations of Russian doping at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics would represent a shocking new dimension and an “unprecedented level of criminality” if proven to be true, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said on Wednesday.
Russia is at the heart of the biggest doping scandal in sport, with its track-and-field athletes suspended as a result of a probe into accusations of widespread doping and their participation at this year’s Rio Olympics in doubt.
Citing the former head of Russia’s anti-doping agency, the New York Times reported last week that Russian anti-doping experts and members of the intelligence services secretly broke into tamper-proof bottles to replace urine samples tainted by performance-enhancing drugs with clean urine collected earlier.
Posted on May 19, 2016
Tokyo 2020 Olympics Beset By Corruption Investigations
By Elaine Lies and Karolos Grohmann/Reuters
TOKYO – A Japanese official who led the successful bid for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics said on Wednesday the Japanese Olympic Committee plans to investigate the bidding after questions were raised about payments by the bid committee.
Media reports say the bid team made payments totalling more than $2 million to a Singapore bank account linked to Papa Massata Diack, son of disgraced former international athletics chief Lamine Diack.
Japanese officials have said the payments were legitimate consultant’s fees.
Posted on May 18, 2016
Who The Hell Are The Chicago Clovers?
Whoever They Are, They Just Lost To The Wisconsin Storm
The hometown Clovers dropped a three-point decision (135-132) to the visitors from the north at Hyde Park High School on Saturday.
Wait, who?
Posted on May 17, 2016