Cardinals manager Mike Matheny changes stance on home-plate collisions - Yahoo! Sports

The only surprise is that it took Matheny this long to come around. Maybe part of it is managing his own marquee player in Yadier Molina but better late than never. The sport has to do something  to protect its marquee players from unnecessary injury. They will be better off having Molina and Buster Posey and Joe Mauer and others on the field and in the batters box than not.

The rigors of catching already take a toll in terms of number of games played per season and total seasons played per career for catchers. Time to give them a little bit of a break. The lower levels of sports have these type of rules in place to protect, so there should be little or no problem gaining acceptance.

from Yahoo Sports:
Cardinals manager Mike Matheny changes stance on home-plate collisions, wants them banned | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports:

From the MLB.com story:

"... [T]his game will get to the point where there will no longer be a collision at the plate. And I am 100 percent in support of that."

Matheny framed it primarily as a risk-reward matter, explaining that any increase in the entertainment value from collisions is outweighed by safety concerns.

"I'd just love to hear the rebuttal," Matheny said, "because what I've personally witnessed was enough for me to change my mind. It actually took me a little longer 'till I got to the realization of the risk we're putting these guys in -- and the runner, too. The runner is stuck in a spot sometimes where if he doesn't do it, he feels like he's let his team down. Take it out of their hands. This isn't a collision sport. There's enough of a physical grind with guys being out there for 162 games. We've got the physical aspect of this game. It doesn't need to include that one spot."

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The 2012 Cape Cod League and the Juiced Ball Theory

More evidence for the "juiced ball theory" provided by the 2012 Cape Cod League. It's not just for tin-foil hat wearing, crack-pot, conspiracy theorists any more. (H/T to Deadspin.com for some of the coverage on this developing story)

Remember, there is so much more that we "know" that we cannot prove. 

The facts on the ground keep showing us that testing is not the answer. Guys are apparently still reaching for performance enhancing substances in spite of the penalties. And yet the performance numbers have gone down in MLB. 

So the question becomes, if the usage of performance enhancing substances is continuing at or near the same rate, but the actual performance numbers are down significantly, then how significant is the correlation between the usage of performance enhancing substances and the actual delivery of performance on the field?

Just asking.... because apparently the Cape Cod League just demonstrated how significantly the numbers can be moved by a simple adjustment to the ball. Now we leave it to the scientists to actually "prove" to us what our lying eyes are "telling" us is obviously true.

from Capenews.net

http://capenews.net/sports/news/2019

Cape Cod Baseball League Commissioner Paul Galop has been with the league for over 30 years now, in a variety of capacities, and he too knows that things have gotten a little bit wacky when it comes to offense. The good-natured official has seen some of the best players college baseball has to offer do some amazing things on the diamonds up and down the peninsula from Orleans to Bourne. This year he saw something he’d never seen before, and it made him a believer.

“I was at Harwich, and I saw a ball hit out to center field that cleared the fence and was halfway up in the trees. I’ve been around a long time, and I’d never seen a ball go out there before,” Galop said. “I’ve been with the league for a long time, since 1980, and I’ve seen some balls that didn’t go that far with aluminum bats...obviously something’s going on.”

......

Explaining The Explosion Of The Long Ball

The onslaught of offense began from the start of the CCBL season and never waned. Longtime Cape League insiders could not shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. Some said that the pitching wasn’t as good as last year. Others said that the NCAA’s switch to BBCOR bats, which are less forgiving than the previous aluminum bats, had the hitters more prepared for wood. It seemed that there were plenty of theories as to why the ball was flying but no hard answers.

The most popular theory, though, is that the ball is juiced, altered from previous seasons in a way that produces more velocity and lift off the bat at impact.

......

Alan Nathan, a noted physicist and professor emeritus from the University of Illinois, specializes in the science of baseball and said that the jump in offensive statistics in the Cape Cod Baseball League is certainly worth further evaluation.

Nathan said that as a scientist he is skeptical about juiced baseball theories without scientific data to back up the hypothesis. “It’s certainly not unreasonable (that the ball could be juiced), but it hasn’t been proven. I’m skeptical because there’s a right way to (test) it...you need to determine the coefficient of restitution (COR).”

Nathan explained that even a small change in the ball’s COR could dramatically change offensive output. “Changing the COR from .5 to .55 could account for the statistics,” he said.

The retired professor, who was a part of the committee that spearheaded the NCAA’s switch to BBCOR bats a year ago, said that the burgeoning batting numbers are worth investigation. “That’s a pretty big jump (on Cape Cod) and way outside what I’d expect out of normal statistical fluctuation,” he continued. “It would not surprise me at all if the ball was juiced. If I was a Major League team I’d want to know...they need to know that information.”

from Beyond the Box Score:
A Sabermetric Review of the 2012 Cape Cod Baseball League - Beyond the Box Score:

The CCBL is typically known as a low-scoring league that is dominated by pitching; mainly because of the adjustment that has to be made from metal to wood bats. The result of the 2012 All-Star Game, a 1-1 tie, would lead one to believe that has been the case again this season.

Ironically, the run scoring environment is at a record-breaking high. With nine games left in the 2012 season, more runs have been scored (1792), than in each of the last two full seasons (2010: 1580 runs, 2011: 1704 runs).

There are a few possible explanations for this rise in run scoring. The CCBL switched baseball manufacturers before this season and I've heard that a change in stitching has led to a "juiced" baseball. College baseball also changed their metal bat regulations to allow only bats with less pop; which could have made the adjustment to wood bats much easier for hitters. Also, the talent-level of pitching is down. As seen by the schools that the All-Star game starters represented, some of the best collegiate starters aren't at the Cape, this summer.

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from zealby.com
http://www.zeably.com/Juiced_ball_theory

The "juiced ball" theory suggested that the baseballs used in Major League Baseball (MLB) during the 1990s and early 2000s were altered in order to increase scoring.

It was claimed that a "juiced" ball bounces off the bat at a higher speed. Johnny Oates observed hits being made off pitches that should not have been elevated.

In 2000, Jim Sherwood, a professor at UMass Lowell, was hired to test the baseballs manufactured in the Rawlings facility in Costa Rica. The tests and regulations for MLB baseballs were described in detail. He said that he did not expect to find any change from the manufacturing process that had been used for the previous 16 years or more. Various baseball manufacturers in the United States also agreed that the theory is nonsense, as there are many quality checks in place. The stitchers interviewed did not even know what a juiced ball is. On the other hand, there is an argument that their livelihood depends on baseball sales, which may increase if the balls are juiced.

Many pitchers felt that the balls became harder and traveled faster. Some pitchers performed their own tests. Kenny Rogers found that the ball in the center of each baseball was made of rubber, rather than the old cork. Billy Koch found that when dropped from the same height, the rubber balls from 2000 bounced 2 to 4 inches higher than rubber balls from 1999.

In 2000, Frank Deford, a writer for Sports Illustrated, interviewed Sandy Alderson, an MLB vice president, to discuss the possibility of a conspiracy by MLB to doctor the balls. Alderson denied this possibility, and Deford also discredited it as a conspiracy theory.

from Scout.com
http://sbb.scout.com/2/1217488.html

The buzz around collegiate leagues this summer was that there was clearly something going on with the baseballs. The Cape Cod League served as the most prominent example, as home run numbers exploded in a league typically defined by its pitching dominance. Scouts began looking closer at the issue, and articles began to discuss it. Were baseballs used in 2012 summer collegiate leagues "juiced"?

 The answer is yes, the baseballs used in the Cape Cod League, and other summer leagues in 2012 definitely were more lively or "juiced" as oppose to past seasons. I've personally spent many years scouting the Cape and kept many baseballs from previous summers. When comparing them to the baseballs used in 2012, the difference truly is massive. 

The impact during game action was obvious. Yes, there was a better crop of power bats in the Cape Cod League than there had been in many years, but when you see almost every player in the league capable of hitting the ball out of the park, you have to consider the idea that something has changed. Home runs in the Cape Cod League were once reserved for only the elite power bats. That changed in 2012. And, there's one statistic that tells you all you need to know. 384 home runs were hit on the Cape in 2012. 317 home runs were hit over the course of 2010 and 2011 combined. That type of difference goes beyond just noticeable; it's downright startling. 

But, make no mistake, the baseballs played an enormous role. 

Rich Maclone of The Enterprise, who first brought this to light last month, did an outstanding job of investigating the issue and his article quoted noted physicist Alan Nathan from the University of Illinois regarding the most effective way to test the difference between the 2012 and past versions of the ball. That method is determining the COR (coefficient of restitution). Physics is certainly not my field, but my understanding is that COR is essentially a calculation of "bounce" or elasticity. Obviously, there is significantly more detail that could be touched on, but to make a long story short, this is the best way to get to the bottom of our matter in question. 

Since the conclusion of the Cape Cod League season last month, I've conducted a number of tests on a 2011 baseball and one of the 2012 baseballs in question. Being that this field is a bit foreign to me, I suspect the tests weren't flawless, but the consistency of the results says a lot. To calculate COR of an object being dropped onto a stationary object (a floor), you divide the height of the bounce by the height you dropped the ball from. 

I conducted these tests and made these calculations sporadically over the course of a couple weeks to be sure the results were consistent. My answer? They were very consistent. Before I began to specifically use COR, I simply calculated the height of the bounce when dropped from the same height. The difference in bounce height between the old and the new baseballs was anywhere from 4-7%. The results when I calculated the Coefficient of Restitution fell right in the same vicinity. 

After averaging out dozens upon dozens of tests and calculations, I found the difference in COR from a 2011 Cape Cod League baseball to a 2012 baseball to anywhere from be 2.2-5.1. As I understand it, this means that the altered Diamond baseball retains anywhere from 2.2-5.1% more of its kinetic energy than it did the previous season. (Edit: Earlier calculation in article did not take square root portion of COR formula into account) 

As I said, my earlier calculations led me to believe that these new baseballs were traveling 4-7% further. That falls in line with the COR calculation. It could be studied much more thoroughly, and I'd like to see someone more qualified than myself study it further. My study is primitive and likely not anywhere near perfect. I am, however, pretty confident in saying that all of the evidence makes me just about positive that the baseballs in the Cape Cod League and other summer leagues went 4-5% further than they've gone in past summers. 

If we use 4.5% as our figure, a ball that would normally travel 350 feet would theoretically travel approximately 366 feet with the "juiced" baseball. And, a ball that would normally travel 370 feet would travel 387 feet in 2012. That should paint a pretty decent picture of the difference this new baseball makes. There's a big difference between a 370 foot fly out and a 387 foot home run. Even if we use the lowest figure found in my experiments (2.2%), that's still a difference of about 8 feet extra distance on a 350 foot fly ball. 

So, what has caused this difference? The manufacturer, Diamond, has not commented on this issue yet so we're left to examine the ball ourselves for now. For one, the leather exterior of the ball has a noticeably different feel and texture. It's harder, thicker, and less pliable. But, it's what is deep in the interior of the ball that's making the difference. I cut open a 2011 and 2012 version of the baseball to illustrate these differences. 

 

The 2012 ball and "pill" are on the left. Besides the irrelevant color difference, this year's pill is much harder, as others have pointed out. The 2011 version has the feel of a typical rubber bouncing ball. 

 

As we cut into the ball even deeper, you can see the difference in width of the layers. The 2012 ball is on the right in this photo, and the outer layer is much thinner and more densely packed. THE BOTTOM LINE Most people that spent time around a collegiate summer league in 2012 suspected an issue with the baseballs. We don't have to just wonder anymore. There was a major problem with these baseballs and it has to be addressed in 2013. One of the most important services these leagues provide, particularly the Cape Cod League, is the ability to easily and accurately showcase the best young talent in the country. When there is an outside factor that's impeding scouts' ability to accurately evaluate these young players, it needs to be rectified for the benefit of everyone involved. Scouts are more than skilled and intelligent enough to sift through inflated offensive statistics and get a feel for who the most talented hitters are. But, this sure doesn't make their job any easier. And, leagues like the Cape Cod League give us some of our most accurate looks at how these players would perform in a professional environment. There's also no league in amateur or professional sports that means more to me than the Cape Cod League. I now make my home on the Cape and the league is one the biggest reasons why. As many games as I've been to on Cape Cod, it was obvious to me that something was different in 2012. And, while the home runs may be exciting for some, I'd like to see it return to a time when the long ball was a rare, unexpected treat from a future big league star, and not a regular occurrence that seemingly just about anyone in the league could achieve routinely. This is certainly not the fault of any of the leagues, however. They believe they were getting the same standard ball as every other season and that simply wasn't the case. Let's hope Diamond Sports can do something to swiftly address this problem and bring the baseballs back to normal standards in 2013. The baseball world is better served when the Cape League is a treacherous gauntlet for hitters rather than a hitter's paradise that makes it more difficult to discover the big league stars of the future.

Giants trade Conor Gillaspie to White Sox - Yahoo! Sports

Not much return for a decent prospect but Gillaspie was never given much of an opportunity in the bigs with the G-men, maybe a change of scenery and all that. Decent enough bat and his numbers were always good enough in the minors to indicate he would be a capable ML hitter. The knock now may be that he is considered somewhat of a four-A player, although 40 AB's is not enough to make a definitive call. We'll see what happens but he clearly wasn't going to get another look is SF.

from Yahoo Sports:
Giants trade Conor Gillaspie to White Sox - Yahoo! Sports:

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) -- The San Francisco Giants have traded third baseman Conor Gillaspie to the Chicago White Sox for minor league pitcher Jeff Soptic.

The 25-year-old Gillaspie spent parts of three seasons with the Giants, hitting .205 with a home run and four RBIs in 29 games and 44 at-bats.

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Baseball America’s top 100 prospects: a team-by-team breakdown | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports

While it may seem like a slap in the face to your organization to only have one prospect in the Top 100, it is comforting to note that all five teams with only one Top 100 prospect finished over .500 last season.

I wonder if there isn't some inherent, underlying bias towards ranking prospects higher who have a better chance of playing in the near future among those who publish these lists. It would accrue to the publishers credibility to the reader if the top end (Top 10) of the Top 100's were to burst upon the scene relatively quickly. Prospects in winning organizations can be blocked easier, so I wonder if some prospect gurus take that into account in some manner.

Just saying....it's an appeal to human nature and makes good, practical business sense to highlight those most likely to succeed short-term rather than long-term.

With 30 teams in MLB you would expect your favorite franchise to place 3.33% or three prospects on any such list if all organizations functioned equally as far as developing players. For the Giants immediate future, I still have confidence that they are doing a better job developing players to play on the field than they are developing players to make prospect lists.

from Baseball America:
Baseball America’s top 100 prospects: a team-by-team breakdown | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports:

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Angels, Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White Sox each had only one player make the top 100.

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“The Cold Within” by James Patrick Kinney: Poem. Purpose. Progress.

from allthingsif.org
“The Cold Within” by James Patrick Kinney: Poem. Purpose. Progress.:

The Cold Within

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In bleak and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story’s told.

Their dying fire in need of logs
The first man held his back
For of the faces round the fire
He noticed one was black.

The next man looking ‘cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes.
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy shiftless poor.

The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn’t die from the cold without
They died from the cold within.

The poem is in public domain, which has been confirmed by Timothy Kinney.

 Click here to read the full interview with Tim Kinney.

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Giants’ Brandon Belt says Dodgers ‘can’t buy chemistry’ | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports

OK, it on now!! Giants - Dodgers!! CAN'T WAIT!!

from Yahoo Sports:
Giants’ Brandon Belt says Dodgers ‘can’t buy chemistry’ | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports:

Reporter Andrew Baggarly of CSN Bay Area, shadowing the Giants as usual during the team's fan fest over the weekend, jotted down the key quote:

When Belt was asked about the free-spending Los Angeles Dodgers, he replied, to a thunderous ovation, “All I can say is, you can’t buy chemistry.”

That statement will be sure to end up on a few blue bulletin boards.

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Of course, most of us old-timers understood the wisdom of young Mr. Belt's words immediately.

Follow the Facts, the facts are your friend. Don't be afraid!!

How many more of these knuckle-heads have to be classified as leftist loons or government manufactured defects before we get some REAL accountability out of DC on the gun-control (grab?) issue? 

The LAPD cop (former Navy with high security clearance).

The Fort Hood shooter (military)

The Colorado theater joker was working on DARPA (Government project to create better killing machines out of soldiers)

Shouldn't it be clear to even Herrs Bloomberg, Feinstein,et. al.  that ordinary citizens need protection FROM the state criminals and mental defectives as well as normal, every-day, garden variety criminals and mental defectives? 

Seems like many of these lunatics are coming back stamped "Made by the U.S.A." And the media is always waiting to pounce on the first one that shows any prior history of conservative America written on them, all the while ignoring the crazies that bear the stamp of the leftist, lunatic fringe. 

PSYCHOSIS: a mental disorder characterized by symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, that indicate impaired contact with reality.

It appears as if we are seeing what the after-effects of a decade worth of wars can do the the collective psyche and mental-health of a nation. We saw some of the same in the aftermath of the Vietnam war. 

FYI: Coming attractions: Iraq and Afghanistan wars are ending. PSTD tidal wave beginning

from abcnews.com

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/death-navy-seal-chris-kyle-puts-spotlight-ptsd/story?id=18393163

While the details of Routh's mental health are unclear, up to 20 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD, according to a 2008 RAND study.

from minutemennews.com

http://minutemennews.com/2013/02/does-psycho-cop-mean-police-weapons-should-be-banned/

So here is a man who, despite some kind of vetting process to serve on the police force, has gone "postal." He has already murdered a couple because the woman was on the panel that recommended his termination. A cop has died in a shootout with him. Others have been wounded. He is promising to kill more.

So where is the anti-second amendment media? Shouldn't they all be screaming about how American needs gun control and all police, or at least ex-police, need to be disarmed? Why isn't Piers Morgan asking "Why does anyone need that much firepower."

Well, as far as I can tell, the gun grabbers are remaining silent. They know that, in order to grab guns, gun grabbers need to be armed. And like all self-respecting people, no police officer is going to work willingly while being told he can't be trusted. Nothing Dorner does will make it acceptable to treat all other cops as if they are obligated to prove that they are better than Dorner.

from clashdaily.com

http://clashdaily.com/2013/01/the-5-worst-mass-murders-in-the-usa-with-a-firearm-came-from-democrats/

Ft Hood: Registered Democrat/Muslim.

Columbine: Too young to vote; both families were registered Democrats and progressive liberals.

Virginia Tech: Wrote hate mail to President Bush and to his staff; Registered Democrat.

Colorado Theater: Registered Democrat; staff worker on the Obama campaign; Occupy Wall Street participant; progressive liberal.

Connecticut School Shooter: Registered Democrat; hated Christians.

Common thread is that all of these shooters were progressive liberal Democrats.

Also, of the worst killings in the last several decades, only one was a female, all the rest were boys, barely men, and none of them had a strong male father or role model in the household. Their role models were rappers, action movies, comics and violent video games.

Our problem isn't weapons, it's boys without boundaries. Who live in 'progressive' households.

Pitchers and catchers report!!

The four most comforting words in the English language. Especially up here in Chicago in mid-February.

Punxsutawney Phil is OK, but "Pitchers and catchers report" is still my favorite indicator for when spring will arrive.

OK Phil, back in the hole!! It's nothing personal.

Florida 2016 or bust indeed!!!

from Yahoo Sports
Spring training is here! See the reporting dates for all 30 major league teams | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports:

Via Spring Training Online, here are the pitcher-and-catcher reporting dates for each major league team (starting Sunday and continuing through the week). Their first full squad workout date follows in parentheses.

Sunday, Feb. 10
Boston Red Sox (Feb. 15), Chicago Cubs (17), Cleveland Indians (15), Colorado Rockies (17).

Monday, Feb. 11
Arizona Diamondbacks (Feb. 15), Atlanta Braves (15), Cincinnati Reds (16), Detroit Tigers (15), Houston Astros (16), Kansas City Royals (15), Miami Marlins (15), New York Mets (17), Oakland Athletics (17), Pittsburgh Pirates (15).

Tuesday, Feb. 12
Baltimore Orioles (Feb. 16), Chicago White Sox (18), Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (16), Los Angeles Dodgers (16), Milwaukee Brewers (16), Minnesota Twins (16), New York Yankees (18), St. Louis Cardinals (16), San Diego Padres (16), San Francisco Giants (16), Seattle Mariners (16), Tampa Bay Rays (17), Texas Rangers (16), Toronto Blue Jays (17), Washington Nationals (16).

Wednesday, Feb. 13
Philadelphia Phillies (Feb. 17).

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Maybe we should just ban youth football too!!

Interesting little factoid. Maybe tucked into the Assault Weapons Ban II bill will be a provision to ban HS football or Pop Warner. Since it's a bout the kids and all.

I don't want to see either level of football banned any more than I want to see the Constitution trampled as much as it has over the past decade. We don't have much more to give up in terms of our rights. These idiot politicians, and you can start at the top, need to focus more on doing their jobs correctly and less on political theatre and grand-standing. Too many political divas. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.

It helps if you take an honest look at the facts that are out there and put things in their proper perspective instead of whip-sawing from one manufactured crisis to another.

JOHNSON FIREARMS, Inc - Gun Facts:

* Twice as many children are killed playing football in school than are murdered by guns. That’s right. Despite what media coverage might seem to indicate, there are more deaths related to high school football than guns.

In a recent three year period, twice as many football players died from hits to the head, heat stroke, etc. (45), as compared with students who were murdered by firearms (22) during that same time period. (6)

SOURCES:

1. Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164.

6. For football deaths, see Frederick O. Mueller, Annual Survey of Football Injury Research: 1931-2001, National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research (February 2002) athttp://www.unc.edu/depts/nccsi/SurveyofFootballInjuries.htm

22. Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 173, 185.

45. Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A. 2d 1 (1981). See also Richard W. Stevens, Dial 911 and Die (1999) which gives the laws and cases in all 50 states to support the statement that government (police) owes no duty to protect individual citizens from criminal attack.

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What is Deer Antler Velvet?

from Training & Conditioning:
Training & Conditioning : Momentum Media:

"[Deer] antlers are the fastest-growing substance on planet earth ... because of the high concentration of IGF-1," SWATS Co-Founder Christopher Key told Sports Illustrated. "We've been able to freeze dry that out, extract it, put it in a sublingual spray that you shake for 20 seconds and then spray three [times] under your tongue ... This stuff has been around for almost 1,000 years."

IGF-1 is a hormone that naturally occurs in the liver and circulates in the blood. The body produces IGF-1 at normal levels in response to growth hormone. When growth hormone signals the need for IGF-1 for muscle growth or repair, the liver produces it, then it binds to muscle cells, which in turn multiply and grow.

....

"Martin Miner, MD, co-director of the Men's Health Center at Miriam Hospital in Providence, R.I., says that despite all this, he doesn't believe that when taken orally, IGF-1 can have much affect on a humans ability to heal or perform athletically.

"It's similar to human growth hormone, and there's very little research on HGH in men," Milner told Boston.com. "What we do know is that HGH needs to be injected to have any effects. The body can't absorb enough of the hormone by mouth since too much gets broken down by the liver during digestion."

"I just cannot believe that one could consume high enough quantities of IGF-1 from an oral spray that it would increase healing or enhance athletic ability," Miner added. "I think this product is pretty much a lot to do about nothing."

'via Blog this'

The Super Bowl highlights (lowlights?) in five .gifs

FIGHT, FIGHT!! Man, #29 on the Ravens gets a good chest-thump into that ref and still gets to play?!? Your modern day NFL. And we wonder why there's such horrible sportsmanship and behavior? As we'll see later on in the game and in the post-game interviews. We're just warming up here.

Oops, power failure. Don't blame Beyonce haters!! She clearly was adding energy to the building. 

This was deemed a better option by NFL honchos to shift momentum from the Ravens to the Niners than sneaking Adrian Peterson into a Niners uniform at halftime. Clearly they had enough time to fly him in and do a wardrobe change, given the time allotted to the half-time show. 

Something has got to change here. If the lights don't change momentum, the length of the half-time differential from the regular season does have an effect on the game. Same for both team yes, but it seems silly to play the game the same way 16 times to get here and then change the game materially to determine the World Champion. It would be like if MLB played nine inning games all season and then said "What the heck, for the World Series, seven innings is good". At some point, commercials and commercialism shouldn't decide your sports champion, unless your just a total sell-out. Oh, yeah!! I forgot. Silly me.

Aw, snap!! That's a hold and a near take down. At almost any other point in the game, that draws a flag, but not here. An obscure section of the rulebook mandates that this penalty is NOT to be called when it could potentially affect the outcome of the game. In basketball, this is known as "swallowing the whistle".

Good no-call is how I believe the head NFL zebra described it.

What you don't see in this .gif is the ref responding back to Harbaugh (Jim) with the universally recognized signal for  "swallowing the whistle".

And here as well, at least two clear instances of holding, might have saved SF some time on the subsequent kick-off. But heck, there's the Super Bowl after-party to think about and a referee has to leave plenty of time to get his drink on.

So there you have it!!

Congratulations Ravens, I was rooting for you, or against the Niners, hard to tell which  emotion was more prevalent.

No, I take that back, the Niners are a renegade program, always have been. The Bill Walsh genius disguise couldn't cover up ALL the DeBartolo cheating. I'm very happy to see them embarrassed. I guess I still remember the Ravens beating the Giants with Trent Dilfer as QB. Talk about embarrassing.

Plus, SF still has the Giants, so they'll bounce back. What else does Baltimore have? Positive replies only.

I was also less annoyed by the sideline behavior of Harbaugh (John-Ravens) than Harbaugh (Jim-49ers). Harbaugh (Jim-49ers) is just a total tool and has been since his college coaching days.

The Best Super Bowl Commercials

The Ram brand declares 2013 the Year of the Farmer

JOIN THE MOVEMENT.

This was the winner for me, hands down. The best qualities of what makes America great are embodied in this classic ode to farmers by Paul Harvey. Some of the other commercials clearly embodied some of the worst and were simply hot garbage by comparison. God Bless our farmers and the best of "fly-over" country.  

Published on Feb 3, 2013

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say,'Maybe next year,' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse with hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, put in another 72 hours." So God made the farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the leg of a meadowlark."

It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and brake, and disk, and plow, and plant, and tie the fleece and strain the milk, . Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says that he wants to spend his life doing what Dad does. "So God made a farmer."

http://www.youtube.com/RAM?sid=1037056&KWNM=Super+bowl+commercial&KWID=3779433026&channel=paidsearch&spid=SB_2013

The extended version from farms.com

Farmers Tribute: So God Made A Farmer. Paul Harvey

Here's the text of Paul Harvey's 1978 'So God Made a Farmer' Speech, which inspired the Ram Trucks Super Bowl ad that has resonated with so many Americans:

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.

"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.

"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'" So God made a farmer.

You really can't go wrong with a Clydesdale commercial and Budweiser has the franchise on that one making them the Yankees of the Super Bowl commercial derby.

2013 Budweiser Super Bowl Ad — The Clydesdales: "Brotherhood"

Published on Jan 31, 2013

See Budweiser's 2013 Super Bowl ad featuring our famous Clydesdales horses — and introducing our newest foal, who was just 7 days old during the shoot. 

I saw one critic wrote that this one was somehow demeaning and insulting. I thought it was pretty cute. To each his own. 

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