Happy Saturday! Here’s hoping you weren’t out too late last night, trying to get your liver in shape for St. Patrick’s Day. I do, however, endorse any efforts that involve rounding into shape for March Madness, and over the last couple of days, we’ve had plenty of practice opportunities. The Gophers played at 11 a.m. two days in a row, the state hockey tournament has been going on at all hours of the day, and ESPN has been showing conference basketball tournaments from conferences that you didn’t even know existed. If you happened to be lucky enough to have a TV in or near your office, you could do nothing but watch sports on TV for a couple of days.

Even if you didn’t get the chance to get your reps in over the last two days, now’s the time to get ready. I’ve always maintained that next Thursday and Friday are the two best sports days of the year; I encourage you to find a way to participate, whether it involves watching the games on your computer, sneaking out to a bar in the middle of the workday, or just taking a couple of sick days and not leaving the couch.

But enough of that: how about some links?

*We start with Joe Posnanski, who takes apart a panel of MLB Network “experts” who believe that stats are ridiculous (That’s a direct quote from Harold Reynolds: “Stats are ridiculous.” Harold goes on to make his own statistical predictions, but never mind.) Honestly, I just can’t understand people who are against the notion that stats help explain baseball, or at least explain it better than studio analysts who say things like “This team is playing together” and “this team just wanted it more.”

*As an example: Twinkie Town’s Adam Peterson, instead of believing analyst-spouted nonsense about “this team clogs up the basepaths” or “this team really takes the extra base well,” actually dives inside the numbers — and finds out who really runs the bases well.

*While we’re going with the Mythbusting angle: EDSBS has a take on the “SEC SPEEEEED” myth. His conclusion, which I think is right on the money: The SEC ain’t faster. The SEC ain’t even better. They’re just much, much, much LOUDER about their beliefs.

*Alexander Ovechkin: Spectacular. Extraordinary. Gassy.

*And finally: Chris Bosh is a weatherman! () Key Random Quote: “I don’t know how many people live in Peterborough, but it’s going to be cold there.”

That’ll do it for me. Roughkat’s up next, and hopefully Stu will pop in with a Totally Unimpeachable Great Song choice, as well.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.