Hairyducked Idiot

This is the biggest tournament in cricket. If they win this match, which there is almost no chance they could fail to after bowling England out for 102 in the first day, they just need in the final test to hold on to the Ashes as the defending champs. I'll admit, it may be a tough sell to convince people that it's an awesome sport when they play 25 days of cricket over almost two months, and we're looking at a tied series.

England completed peed down their own legs this morning, reaching a pathetic 72-6 at one point, now on 92-6. Hopefully it's just the conditions and they can keep Australia down too, but they really don't want to be going into the last test needing the win. Edit: 92-7. Expletive.

Please do; you can enjoy watching a test match for five days and discuss the progress here. Annoying any posters while doing so is just an added bonus. 8-) I don't think I could get the test match on TV here even if I wanted to. I doubt it's available. However, I do intend on watching most of the Headingly test on my computer. I probably won't be able to get up at 4 a.m. for the first day, but Saturday and Sunday are fair game.

There's got to be a photo of that out there somewhere. That'd be fascinating.

And they've developed a technology that will use it to transmit AIDS through the internet.

Nah, I'm pretty sure those guys are legit.

Life, like a Golden Snitch, slows down for no wizard. You have to fly it down and catch it!

Please. Even if I bought a TV, I'd still be a ND-living, curling and cricket fan with world-class knowledge of Harry Potter and dreams of moving to Canada and rooting for a team other than the Cubs someday. I'm pretty sure all that would still keep me awesome and interesting. Fair point on the affording it part, though. But we can just add my awesome sense of frugality and priorities to the list of reasons why I am awesome. Anyways, to keep this vaguely on topic, the fourth match of the Ashes starts tomorrow morning! It doesn't look like Freddie Flintoff will be fit, which really hurts England's chances to play positively. I can actually kind of see this match bogging down to negativity pretty quick and marching toward a draw. Australia might not want to take many risks when they know they can make their last stand going for a win at The Oval to split the series and retain.

I'm pretty suspicious of this data. It's fun to look at, but the whole "best slider in baseball" thing is a little overstating what we know. Sequence and other pitches matter to this. For all we know, a pitcher could have a mediocre curveball that shows up as amazing on these stats, because his fastball is so awful that batters are looking to tee off on it and don't mind whiffing on the occasional curve trying to get it.

I'm worried that if I buy a TV, I'll get caught up in the moment and provoke a weatherman, then back down when he challenges me to a fight. The sheer emasculation would be too horrifying to contemplate.

The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it bullcrap. No, the fact that it sucks, does. The opinion of the Oklahoman NBA fan has been given its due notice. Maybe if the Barmy Army incorporated some rap music into its chants?

Holy crap, I got a capital letter from IMB! I think that's a Freudian slip that shows how much you really respect me.

Here's the comparison I like to make: 1) Baseball fans get excited when a guy hits the other way, slightly altering his swing. A cricket batsmen has a dozen or more wildly different shots (swings) available to him, which he often has to choose from in the same split-second a baseball batsman has. 2) George Will wrote one-fourth of a great baseball book on the brilliancy of shifting a shortstop one or two steps in either direction, and that's about the extent of defensive strategy. In cricket, there is an almost unlimited number of fielding options, all with unique strategic implications. It's sort of like the baseball that non-stathead baseball fans like to imagine exists but doesn't.

Everyone's right. He has been rushed in the sense that he is pitching at levels he doesn't deserve. He also sucks really, really badly and has shown nothing to indicate that he's a potential MLB-quality pitcher (except for a fluky 27 innings of a pretty ERA that came with a mediocre WHIP, awful control and a lot of unearned runs).

A million baseball purists need to excuse themselves for a few minutes of privacy to celebrate the beauty of that run.

He throws *really* hard and he's an athlete. What more do you want? 2 words: Kyle Farnsworth. I don't know if Farnsworth was really an athlete. Plus, I wouldn't mind him in this bullpen right now.

He throws *really* hard and he's an athlete. What more do you want?

Those are some funny looking Cubs uniforms in that picture. When did they use those?

My god that's depressing. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Everyone in the lineup insists on their turn at bat, instead of deferring to each other.

For those who can watch, how does Gorzelanny's stuff and control look?

And this is what I get for taking too long at the store on the way home from work.

Other factors such as throwing way, way too many pitches down the stretch, including in blowout wins. Such as throwing 119 pitches in game 2 with a 10-run lead. Anything is debatable. In this case, the people on one side of the debate are very, very wrong. That's a very dumb argument. This is not a difficult concept. High pitch counts in younger pitchers are *correlated* with injuries. You increase the risk. Of course that doesn't mean that all of them will get hurt. It just means more will than would have otherwise. True, but irrelevant. True. Once a guy is past the early 20s, his arm is no longer developing, and there's less risk involved in stretching it. That's why I don't blame Baker for Wood's injuries, even though Wood was pushed just as hard. Of course, people used to say Jon Lieber was a horse and could throw all day without getting hurt. Oops. Also a valid point. Another reason why I don't blame the Cubs for what happened with Kerry Wood. He was heavily, heavily abused in high school, before they ever got him. But they are absolutely culpable for Prior. Pitch counts haven't really been reduced over the years. Innings have gone down because it takes more pitches to get through innings these days, because batters walk and strike out more often. Slippery slope arguments are a logical fallacy.

Funny, in the eighth inning, it looked like he ran out of gas. If only he'd had a little more rested arm... The simple fact is that high pitch counts at a young age are highly positively correlated with arm injuries. Trying to deny that is to, well, be in denial.

I thought we established years ago that getting hurt and control issues are both signs of a lack of mental toughness? Anyone who played HS baseball knows that.