In a shocking
upset
http://www.rangersfanproshop.com/authentic-matt-moore-jersey ,
today’s Song of the Day is not from Mario Kart"(I don’t think this has been
posted here, but MLB.com likes to make things difficult sometimes by not keeping
things in chronological order or putting posting dates on their stories.)Jeffrey
Flanagan posts his first Twitter mailbag of the new year.Alex Duvall (hey, that
name’s familiar) of Royals Farm Report continues the Royals Top 75 prospect
rankings with 65-61. Speaking of familiar names, this set includes Frank
Schwindel, Foster Griffin, and Donnie Dewees. Speaking of which...In an ESPN
Insider article, Bradford Doolittle argues “baseball needs the speedy Royals to
overachieve”.Pete Grathoff with a couple of oddball Royals stories.In the first,
Kelvin Herrera made nice with a White Sox fan he mixed it up with in 2015.He
also had a blurb about Mario Kart on the CrownVision.As did CBS’s Kevin Skiver.
Man, I really wanted to do Mario Kart today but, well, we’ve done it couple of
times before (not that it stops me from doing it again). And I already had this
week’s Song of the Day written earlier in the week.And, of course, Matt already
beat me to the story.Listicles? YOU BET!ESPN’s David Schoenfield lists
predictions for the remaining free agents. The only Royals mention is as a
potential fallback spot for Mike Moustakas.Even more desperate for content
granular, CBS’s R.J. Anderson ranks the Royals as the 28th most likely spot for
Craig Kimbrel. But,
hey
Prince
Fielder Jersey , maybe every other team besides the Orioles and Marlins
could decide to pass on him.This site has had some pretty impressive folks on
the Masthead.Today’s Best of Royals Review (TM) looks at one of the more
accomplished sabermetricians who has graced the site (and has yet to be featured
in this space): Jeff Zimmerman and Comparison of Kendall and Pena as Greinke’s
Catcher.Something to keep in mind is that looking things up on the internet
eight years ago was different than today.Just look at the warning at the top:
“Warning: 30-40 images are viewable after the jump. It may take a while to view
all on a slow connection.”Much of the work done in this article is at your
fingertips now.Want to see the breakdown of a pitcher by pitch type?Just go to
Fangraphs.Want to see splits based on a particular catcher (or umpire or
whatever)?Baseball-Reference.All sorts of other stats and videos?Baseball Savant
has a wealth of information.Pitch charts?BrooksBaseball.net.Here’s what those
sites looked like when that article was published: Fangraphs,
Baseball-Reference, Baseball Savant (did not exist), BrooksBaseball. Jeff was
doing this sort of analysis for free on our little corner of the internet.In the
comments, when asked how long it took: “Way too long (8 hours maybe), but I have
been wanting to do it for a while”.I suspect it was like so much Royals writing
at the time: part out of love of the team and part out of frustration.Today’s
Song of the Day is a bit of a stretch, but it’s topical so go with me here.I
haven’t been much of an NFL fan for a long time. This isn’t some half-hearted,
half-racist political protest or whatnot. Rather, this is from a different (and
harmless) kind of pettiness: I started to lose interest after our greedy owner
moved the team. I grew up rooting for the Houston Oilers, the high-flying,
hard-luck local team. In 1987, owner Bud Adams threatened to move the team to
Jacksonville and the county renovated the Astrodome for $87M and added 10K more
seats. Side note: these changes also cost the Astrodome its beloved and iconic
scoreboard. A few years later, Adams demanded a new stadium and the city, not
really believing he’d move so soon after the recent renovations, did nothing. So
the censored packed up and
left
Adrian
Beltre Jersey , a huge blow to the city in football-crazed Texas.Once I
moved to Lawrence, I never picked up the Chiefs like I did with the Royals.
While the Oilers leaving affected me in an emotional way, affordability played
an even bigger role. To this date, I have only ever been to one NFL game and was
gifted the tickets. I was a poor college student (and then poor working schlub)
but was able to afford over 100 Royals games in my time in Kansas. However, one
Chiefs game would cost me an entire season of 10+ Royals games.But it was hard
to not absorb some of what I heard and saw. I was struck by how similar the
Chiefs and Oilers were. Both were old AFL teams with some recent success which
had not won anything big since the 60s. They were mirror images of each other
with Oilers being an offensive juggernaut and the Chiefs doing their damage on
defense. Long stretches of making the playoffs? Check! Years of never winning in
the playoffs? Check! Heartbroken by the Buffalo Bills, John Elway, losing home
playoff games, and bad kicking? Do I need to go on? Kansas City Chiefs1995 Lost
Div1994 Lost WC1993 Lost Conf1992 Lost WC1991 Lost Div1990 Lost WCHouston
Oilers1993 Lost Div1992 Lost WC1991 Lost Div1990 Lost WC1989 Lost WC1988 Lost
Div1987 Lost DivThe only time either team made it to the AFC title game was in
1993 WHEN THEY PLAYED EACH OTHER! For the Oilers, that roller coaster season
came on the heels of The Comeback gut punch the previous season. Houston started
1-4 before reeling off 11 straight. But in the midst of the winning streak was
Babygate (a player was fined for missing the game to go to the birth of his
kid), DC Buddy Ryan throwing a punch at OC Kevin Gilbride on a national
televised Sunday Night Football game, and defensive lineman’s Jeff Alm’s
suicide. Blowing the 4th quarter lead to the Chiefs in the playoffs that year
was the beginning of the end of the team’s stay in Houston. They cratered to
2-14 the next year and started a rebuild that wouldn’t finish until the team
moved to Tennessee.Along with the fledgling fantasy football industry, one other
thing kept my waning interest in the league: NFL Primetime. The late 90s were,
in many ways, the heyday for produced “short attention span tv”.* There was no
Sunday Ticket or Red Zone or internet streams where you could watch every game.
So if you wanted to keep up, this was the best way. This was arguably the peak
of Chris Berman’s career and Tom Jackson was an excellent co-host.*In my
mind
Nolan
Ryan Jersey , this would include sports recaps like NFL Primetime,
Baseball Tonight, and SportsCenter but alsolive events that had to switch
between multiple games like the NCAA TournamentWhat I particularly appreciated
is that with the longer format, they told a story about each game rather than
just showing a couple of touchdowns. Per wiki: “Rather than provide the usual
package of scoring highlights, NFL Primetime presented extended highlights which
also showed less dramatic plays. This provided context for the greater depth of
analysis of each game. A common non-dramatic play that would be shown would be a
game-clinching first down while a team was running out the clock. Some of the
less dramatic plays would be used to demonstrate an overall large
accomplishment.” People may diminish the show because of Berman’s later years,
but this was one of the best hours of television for a long time. It was
extremely well produced, smart, and entertaining, especially for a highlight
show. Nominally, I believe the show still exists. But it was basically killed
off in 2006. As part of their Sunday Night Football contract, NBC also got
exclusive rights to doing a highlights show during the Sunday evening window.
Between life changes and the death of NFL Primetime, my interest in the league
has since been relegated to watching a handful of playoff minutes and the Super
Bowl, which is more cultural touchstone than sporting event, anyway.But let’s
talk about the NFL Primetime music. It’s iconic in its own right with a cult
following.We’re going to loosely tie this to video games because, in the early
days of the
internet
Rougned
Odor Jersey , a number of the highly sought after tracks were ripped from
ESPN NFL PrimeTime 2002 for the PS2 and XBox.However, there’s not a lot of
information out there about the music. Fans have tried to piece what they can
together but a lot of the music has been lost and much is unknown. If you’re
doing an internet search for the music these days, the two most iconic songs are
Powersurge and International Statement. Interestingly, today’s clip is probably
the most famous in the show’s history but no one seems to know the song title.
Also, it’s not their best moment production-wise, as you can tell they struggle
with going back and forth between the two games, and I think Berman loses his
script or teleprompter partway through - but it’s really compelling tv. Note:
I’m also going to use this as my license to use more NFL Primetime music in the
future. Despite a disappointing end to their 2018 season, the Chicago Cubs are
expected to bring back manager Joe Maddon.Per ESPN.com's Jesse Rogers, sources
said Maddon will likely return for his fifth season with the Cubs in
2019.Speculation about Maddon's standing with the Cubs has been an ongoing topic
during the season's second half.USA Today'sBob Nightengalewrote in August that
Maddon's "fate is tenuous" if the Cubs missed the playoffs or were eliminated
early.The Cubs started September on their way to earning home-field advantage
throughout the National League playoffs. They had a five game lead over the
Milwaukee Brewers on Sept. 2, but they went 14-13 in their final 27 games and
lost the NL Central tiebreaker to Milwaukee on Monday.The Colorado Rockies
eliminated the Cubs from the postseason with a 2-1 victory in 13 innings in
Tuesday's NL Wild Card Game.Maddon signed a five-year contract with the Cubs in
November 2014. The 64-year-old has one year remaining on his deal. He has a
387-261 record in Chicago, leading the franchise to four straight playoff
appearances and the 2016 World Series title.