ESPN's AJ Mass Has No Idea What He's Talking About

That completely asinine blurb appears in ESPN.com's recent 2011 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers, Busts article. I don't know if AJ Mass just mailed this one in or what, but he couldn't be any further from the truth. I'm not even looking at this from a fantasy baseball perspective - it's just all wrong from a general baseball aspect.

I try to not get on anyone for stating their opinion, but it's tough when they're basically inventing a reason like this. The reason Hamels has been a .500 pitcher over the last two seasons has nothing to do with the execution of his curveball being "few and far between". Wins are a fickle stat and not entirely indicative of how well a pitcher is performing. Plain and simple, Hamels got no run support last year. He struck out over 200 guys with an ERA of 3.06 for Christ’s sake. If he even gets a little more run support, he's easily a 15 win pitcher. In fact, according to Fangraphs, Hamels only threw his curve 8% of the time last year due to the introduction of his cutter. The debut of that cutter helped keep hitters off balance and only helped make his fastball, curve, and changeup (his true “out pitch”) more effective.

Anyway, it's predictions like these that just annoy me and make me wish AJ Mass was in my fantasy league. If you're looking for some really exceptional fantasy baseball advice, do yourself a favor and go to Razzball.com. Best fantasy blog on the interwebs. You can thank me later.

What the F*ck is the Internet?

And here is a video of Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel trying to figure out what the internet is. What's greater: Gumbel's indifference to a medium that would soon revolutionize the way the earth does EVERYTHING, or Katie Couric's giant wave Jonathan Taylor Thomas haircut?

Gotta go with the JTT cut. There are low-income lesbians who won't even fuck with that look.

MMM HMMM.


h/t dlisted

Matt Mosley Will Write Something Useful At Some Point

Thanks Matt Mosley; that was extremely helpful. I wasn't certain they'd go after a defensive coordinator, but luckily your crack reporting has quelled all our speculation. Sure, as far as I know, nobody actually likes you. But that doesn't stop you from getting answers to the tough questions. We all appreciate you taking the time to update ESPN's NFC East blog with this bombshell. I know you had to get cracking on that next Cowboys post.

[ESPN]

Glen Beck: "Philadelphia Sucks"

Also said "Philadelphia is not a place you want to be." I could probably write several thousand words on how I feel about this, but I'll keep it to four.

Fuck you, Glen Beck.



h/t Philebrity via MediaMatters

Proof: Sports Writing is Crazy Easy

h/t philly.com

We Can Separate Sports from Reality, Thank You

We try to stay away from most things political here at TheWizWit.  We're here for your sports related entertainment and don't want to alienate any of our readers who may be gun-loving Tea Party racists or freedom-hating Socialist hippies.  You're not going to see us delve too much into that realm - unless an elected official makes an ass of himself by throwing like a 13 year old girl during the ceremonial first pitch of a baseball game.  Or we feel like criticizing something Ed Rendell says about the Eagles.  Both are entirely possible.

Where was I?  Oh yeah -- President Obama recently attended a rally at Philadelphia's Vernon Park.  During the rally, an unidentified man threw a book from the crowd.  The picture above is a screen grab of the moment where you can see the book in mid-air behind Obama's head.  There was no further altercation and the Secret Service determined the man meant no harm and released him after questioning. 

Our issue comes with the last paragraph of Brett Michael Dykes post on The Upshot, a Yahoo! News Blog:

"Many originally thought that the book-hurler was acting out of anger, much like the infamous Iraqi reporter who hurled a shoe at then-President George W. Bush. But high spirits often get out of hand in Philadelphia. This, after all, is a city whose residents are famous for booing Santa Claus. By those civic standards, a streaker and a text missile in the vicinity of the president's head make for a pretty serene day."

Are you kidding me?  Did you really go there with this?  Never mind the tired example of the Santa Claus incident or the fact that sports fans of any kind are completely unrelated to this book-throwing incident.  In a matter of a few sentences, Dykes implies Philadelphians treat entertainers the same way we treat the leader of the free world.  He might as well keep going with the sensationalism and end the article with a line reading, "Philadelphians are out of control psychopaths who cannot tell the difference between sports and the real world." 

A book getting tossed toward the President could happen ANYWHERE -- not just in Philly.  Unless the guy shouted the E-A-G-L-E-S chant then hit Obama in the head with The Eagles Encyclopedia, there's absolutely no reason to lower yourself to taking a shot at the local sports fan base.  Brett Michael, comparing Philadelphia sports fans to rogue Iraqi reporters just makes you look ill-informed and petty.

The Upshot is a blog, and as a part of Yahoo! News I suppose Dykes is still entitled to make assertions and form opinions like any other blogger.  It would just make more sense for him to think twice before stretching for a correlation that ends up coming off more asinine than funny.



[BGN FanShots]

Get Your Stalker On: TheWizWit Mike Vick Email Apocalypse

To the left is this morning's cover of the Daily News, in all its painfully titled glory.  The fact that every media outlets' go-to line is something pet related has begun to irritate the crap out of me.  I sent an email to my two cohorts here at TheWizWit this morning expressing my disgust as I tried to get a confirmation that I'm not crazy and heartless for thinking the way I do.


After the jump, you can view the entire email chain.  Nothing was changed for the sake of this post (besides cleaning up spelling) and the email wasn't originally intended for us to publish.  But alas, good points were made and the public deserves to know, dammit!  So do your best Larry Mendte impersonation and get a candid look at my inbox from this morning.

Chris Berman's Mustache Looks Terrible, Requires Mockery

"HE COULD...LOOK...SUPE...ER...GAYY!"

C'mon Berman, I'm normally a fan of 'staches but nothing positive can be said of yours. I understand that a mans gotta do things to spice up his look from time to time, but how about considering a dress shirt with sleeves instead of allowing that creature to nest on your lip. You look gross, dude. You look like the 30-year owner of a leather shop in San Fran's Castro district.

Get that Von Kaiser Mike Tyson's Punch Out shit off yo face. I don't care how many self-deprecating jokes you make, it doesn't excuse you for looking like you do on national television.  Whoop!

Newspapers: Where Amazing Happens

Per USA TODAY, THE SECOND-MOST POPULAR NEWSPAPER IN THE COUNTRY:

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Kevin Kolb elicits the image of Simba, the cub from The Lion King, suddenly thrust to the head of the pride after the unexpected departure of longtime leader Donovan McNabb. And with plenty of hungry hyenas lurking in the NFC East — McNabb, now a hyena in Washington Redskins clothing and still among them — Kolb will have little time to adjust to his new role on the league's hotly contested 100-yard plains, and he knows it.

I can't believe this shit was written by a real, live PAID journalist. What a terrible, terrible analogy.

Pumba better watch the fuck out.

[USA Today]

Percy Harvin's New Training Camp Nickname?

Chris: glaring typo in that espn story btw
Chris: unless of course Percy Harvin's nickname around camp is now Migraine
Maurice: I say we post this before it becomes unfunnied by his death

UPDATE: Story was picked up by Deadspin...they gave credit to "six tipsters".

Aww snap best believe one of those was us.

This is News??

Eagles Training Camp needs to start, pronto. The Philly sports "news" I've been forced to read is so remarkably dull that I'm actually writing a post about how remarkably dull it is. I literally saw a headline today that read "Herremans says foot is fine." Are you shitting me?

So I actually clicked on this article and, sure enough, Todd Herremans says of his foot: "It will be fine." Yay.

The article is a total of 423 words. Another article on Philly.com, this one concerning new anti-poverty iniatives in Camden, is 623 words. For realsies, the difference between these stories needs to be more than 200 words.

Also on Philly.com, I found this story (Alice is a fan of toys) sandwiched in between coverage of Hungarian crash victims and the Philadelphia mayoral election. Go Inquirer!

I just...I just need real philly sports news that's not about Flyers trades or how bad the Phillies look. I swear to God if I have to read another story on Cornelius Ingram's knee I'm going on a tri-state murder spree.

If you feel like me, maybe this'll brighten up your day. A smiley Randy Moss and a walrus after the jump.

The Most Ridiculous Headline of All-Time:

This is a screen-grab of an article I saw on Yahoo this afternoon.  You can see it in its entirety HERE.  You can also see that it's completely retarded. 

I don't know what's worse - the Knicks 'source', or the SportingNews for quoting something from 'zagsblog.com'.

How anyone thought this was legit news is beyond me.  Doesn't common sense kick in at some point?  Shouldn't someone have said "Wait... this 'source' is full of shit.  That didn't happen." 
The best part is when the source continues to try and rationalize the reasoning:

“I don’t care what most people think. I’m not saying that LeBron is not a good player but other stuff comes with it. LeBron’s friends want jobs. You’re gonna lose running your organization. As time goes on you gotta hire this guy, you gotta hire that guy.”

The Source then asked everyone to "move their feet" as he had to "mop the rest of this shit up." Sigh...you poor delusional bastard. 

The Source went on: "I'm not saying the iPhone 4 isn't a fantastic device, but a pink RAZR with rhinestones on it is what we wanted all along."

Alright commenters, your turn.  Come with your best.

Rick Reilly Has A Vuvuzela Shoved Up His Hindquarters

Did you happen to catch Reilly’s article over on ESPN today? He seems to be awful bitchy about the World Cup.

Actually, pretty much just the vuvuzela in particular.

Chicago Tribune Writers Unoriginal, Kind Of Bitchy

You know what I hate most about Philadelphia sports? Being forced to see newspaper "articles" that begin with:

PHILADELPHIA - The City of Brotherly Love. That's a good one.

Oh good. Another 'Philly fans are assholes' story.

This Is Why No One Reads The Sporting News

I love statistics, lists, and rankings as much as the next guy, but holy shitballs - The Sporting News has no idea what they're writing about anymore.

Each year, they comprise a list of Major League Baseball's Top 50 players. These rankings are decided by a brain trust of 125 experts. I'm not sure what type of time vortex or bizarro world these "experts" are stuck in, but my God... this is probably the worst job of judging current talent I have ever seen.

Fox Sports: Hack, Unoriginal Journalism at its' Finest

This was the splash page to Fox Sports' MLB section this morning.  Some idiot got paid to write this article. Think about that. I know sports is at its "slow time" right now.  But seriously, an article entitled "10 Guys Who Would Look Good In Pinstripes"?

Bob Klapisch, have you no pride?