The Year in Music 2011

Rather than attempt yet another top 50 list of the best albums of the year, I thought I would walk through a year in music from my perspective. The albums I have bought and the concerts I have seen. I suppose albums is a bit of a misnomer. 2010 was the year that I kind of got into downloading albums; 2011 was the year I almost exclusively downloaded everything.

The year started off with an album that the Sports Juicette and I were really looking forward to. Somewhere along the line we found ‘Hang me out to dry’ by the Cold War Kids and fell in love with the band. Mid-January saw the release of their third studio album, ‘Mine is Yours’ . Some of the songs are among the best they have ever done, but overall the album lacked the quirkiness of their other work. Ms. Juicette had the opportunity to go to Vancouver and see them live in March. Really good show.

I say Poo, you say Holes. Pujols.

Albert Pujols is my favourite baseball player. The St. Louis Cardinals are not my favourite baseball team. I can probably thank fantasy sports for that contradiction. With Pujols, not only are we watching one of the best baseball players who ever lived, we are watching the most consistent fantasy player in the game.  

My favourite memory of Albert is watching him play the New York Mets at Shea Stadium in 2006. We were in New York for our honeymoon and I managed to squeeze in a baseball game with the usual honeymoon activities. The fact that I steered our honeymoon to New York in part to watch him play was not lost on her; fortunately Mrs. SportsJuice doesn’t mind taking in the occasional ball game. I had never seen Pujols play and I came to the game with big expectations. 

In the top of the fourth, Pujols came up to bat for the second time in the game with men on first and third with nobody out. With a 0-1 count, he crushed the ball to right center to make it a 3-1 game. 

Fast forward to the top of the fifth and Pujols came up with the bases loaded and two out. On a 1-1 count, another bomb, this time to left center to make it a 7-1 game. I was dancing in the aisles and Mrs. SportsJuice was into it as well. I think the 7 RBIs has stood as his career best, matched during the recent World Series. 

That night might have been the start of our tradition whenever I see Pujols come up to bat on tv. I interrupt whatever Ms. Juice is up to and say, “When I say poo, you say holes. Poo!” She obliges and says “Holes!”, I then say “Poo”, she follows with “Holes”. We occasionally mix it up and she says poo and I say holes, but it doesn’t work quite as well. 

Anyways, it was a fantastic game that ended with Carlos Beltran hitting a walk off three run homer in the bottom of the ninth to win it for the Mets. We were sitting beside a mother and son, with the mother wearing a Beltran t-shirt. I think the son worked on a crossword puzzle most of the night. Beltran hits that homer and the mom goes absolutely bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s. I suspect she then sent her kid home on the train and spent the night trying to hook up with Beltran.

—

I have often thought about the goals of being a professional athlete. When superstars make decisions to join another team, I try to reconcile that to what I would do in the circumstances. In my mind, I would have noble intentions to play for a single team, win championships and create a real legacy. Late in my career, I could envision pulling a “Ray Bourque” and leaving my team in search of an elusive championship (Bourque left the Boston Bruins very late in his career and won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche). Beyond that, I would want to finish my career where I started if I could be so lucky. 

In my mind, I would have great respect for the jersey that I proudly wore. If I was a Yankee I would never play for the Red Sox. If I was an Edmonton Oiler, I would never play for the Calgary Flames. I would never play for the Flames under any circumstances, but that is another story for another day. 

Albert Pujols has never hidden his ultimate goals in baseball. After being drafted in the 13^th round in 1999, he has been driven to prove his doubters wrong. He wants to be known as the best player who has ever played the game. In addition to the MVP awards and the .300 average, 30 home runs and 100 RBIs each season, he views his salary as an indication of his worth. He just wrapped up a 7 year, $100 million contract that had him outside of the top 25 player salaries last season. This offseason was to be his choice between his legacy with the Cardinals and his legacy with his banker.  

We all know how that turned out.  

Pujols signed a 10 year, $254 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim located in California (or whatever they are called). The $254 million eclipses Alex Rodriguez’s $252 million 10 year deal with the Rangers, falling just short of ARod’s $275 million deal with the Yankees. Mission basically accomplished. 

We don’t really need time to tell us how this contract is going to play out. Pujols will be great for awhile yet, but age will eventually catch up to him and he will be a shell of the player he once was. Rather than play through his decline in front of the St. Louis fans that view him as a god, he will grind it out in southern California in front of fans that wish he wasn’t an albatross over the team’s ability to spend money on more productive players. Instead of a statue beside Stan Musial, he will likely sit alone in the clubhouse and wonder if the money was really worth it.

MLB Expands the Postseason and Waters Down their Product

On the day the Toronto Blue Jays unveiled their snazzy new version of their old logo, I thought I would check in on MLB’s announcement to move the Houston Astros over to the American League and add two additional wild card teams to the already bloated playoffs. With the change, 10 of MLB’s 30 teams will get to hang banners celebrating their trip to the postseason. Even if that trip is only for one day.

VUKOTA Fantasy Spreadsheet Review

The other day, I wrote a mostly positive review of Hockey Prospectus’ 2011-2012 book. I also recently spent $4.95 to pick up their VUKOTA spreadsheet to “dominate my hockey fantasy league”.

For the VUKOTA spreadsheet, I wasn’t expecting a spreadsheet as comprehensive and flexible as Football Outsiders KUBIAK (which costs $20), but I did expect enough statistical detail to allow me to manipulate it to my league’s rules.

In short, the good news is that the spreadsheet only costs $4.95. It is hard to call spending $4.95 a waste of money. I prefer to think of it as a donation of encouragement to the Hockey Prospectus team.

The website suggests that the purchaser will dominate their league thanks to the VUKOTA rankings. In reality, the spreadsheet only shows three of the six typical offensive categories (goals, assists and penalty minutes) and only one of the four typical goalie categories (save percentage). Missing was any type of instructions on how the creator of the spreadsheet envisioned it being used for fantasy purposes.

To be of substantial value, the spreadsheet needs to project shots, shot percentage and total power-play points. It also needs to take a stab at projecting goalie wins, shutouts and goals against average. If I am going to be greedy, it should list hits, blocked shots and short-handed points. 

While I understand that VUKOTA may not track these variables, it must list them if it is going to be sold as a fantasy drafting solution. A short term solution would be to add columns and simply list last year’s stats for those categories that aren’t projected for 2011-2012.

For me, the spreadsheet was of little to no value. Instead, I opened up a spreadsheet, went to NHL.com, grabbed last year’s stats by position and then sorted by shots taken. Although I didn’t really understand Corsi until I read the Hockey Prospectus book, I did understand that the key to scoring is shot volume.

From baseball, I knew that players peak around age 27 and surmised that is was more like age 23 or 24 for hockey. For fantasy purposes, I focus on shots and player age, and make sure I have some coverage across the stat categories. If your league is like mine, there will only be a couple of other teams thinking in similar terms which makes for a pretty easy draft.

With the season starting tonight, it is probably too late to pick up the spreadsheet for this year. My advice for next year is to ensure their spreadsheet has enough detail to help you win your league before you pull out your credit card.

Hockey Prospectus 2011-2012 Review

The folks over at Hockey Prospectus (formerly Puck Prospectus) recently published their second annual season preview. I picked up the pdf version for $9.90; it can also be purchased in old fashioned book form for $19.95 (Cdn$20.95).

To assist you in digesting my review, a bit about my background as it relates to advanced hockey stats and my knowledge of Hockey Prospectus. 

The Conversion of Baseball from Religion to Science

For the first 100 years or so of baseball’s history, there was a near widely held belief in the keys to winning baseball games.  On the defensive side, it was the starting pitcher who was central to team success; he was credited with the win or loss.  Over time, the starting pitcher increasingly turned the game over to the bullpen and the last pitcher in the game on the winning team was credited with saving the game for his starter.   As starters began exiting games even earlier, a stat was created to credit other relievers with holds.   Pitching was 90% of defense as the old axiom held. 

Over on the offensive side of the equation, the key to victory was scoring runs.  Stats kept track of who scored the run and who batted in the runner.  Common wisdom was that the critical element to the scoring of the run was the action that immediately preceded the run, which was usually a hit which enabled a runner or runners to cross home plate.  The home run was king to the run scoring action as hitter drove himself in.  It didn’t hurt that chicks dug the long ball. 

The Impact of Tiger Woods on Golf and Implications of his Fall from Relevance

The following exchange with a friend on Facebook last Friday got me thinking about golf in a post-Tiger world. 

Patrick – Tiger put me on to Golf! Can’t bear to see my hero struggle like this, yo sonny get the bird dog and my 12 bore shot gun, time to put his driver out of its misery! 

Jonathan – You popped a thought in my head. Will all the people who didn’t care about golf 15 years ago stop caring about golf when there is no more Tiger? 

Patrick – Although a lot younger back then, I didn’t care for the sport, but now do, I think viewership will decline and so will the money. More so that Americans aren’t doing well. Golf is looking for a savior and Tiger and Phil are both done! They need a draw! So to answer your question, I will play more than I watch although I am trying to get my kids to try the sport. 

Tiger’s impact on golf over the past fifteen years has been immense, which is still an understatement. He has brought millions of new fans to the game, which has brought many millions more in dollars to the sport. 

The legion of new the huge increase in interest in the game led to significant changes in media coverage of the sport. Prior to Tiger’s arrival on the PGA Tour, golf was rarely front page news outside of the four major tournaments each year. The Golf Channel was a small, fledging specialty network. Golf coverage on television was limited to 2-3 hours each Saturday and Sunday on CBS, ABC or NBC. 

Today, golf is front page news every time Tiger plays in a tournament. All four rounds of each tournament are televised, with the Golf Channel showing the first two rounds. Most weekends the Golf Channel adds an additional 90 minutes of coverage before the weekend network coverage. The Golf Channel also provides four round coverage of almost every European Tour event.

Show up, Keep up and Shut up

I wish Steve Williams would just tell us how he feels already.  I can’t take much more of not knowing his thoughts on his departure from Tiger Woods.  On the one hand Williams did moonlight with Adam Scott, which is an absolute no-no in almost every player’s books.  On the other hand, Tiger didn’t have the common decency to tell Williams he wasn’t playing in the US Open in June.  Stevie flew around the world from New Zealand to find out his services weren’t required.  What’s wrong with helping out a buddy like Adam Scott for a week? 

Naming Winnipeg’s NHL Team

My congratulations go out to Winnipeg Jets fans, who yesterday received news that the NHL was coming back to town after 15 years.  While they aren’t getting back their Jets, who still somehow reside in Glendale, they are back in the game. 

What the heck is this new team going to be called?  My sense is that the overwhelming public sentiment is that they be called the Winnipeg Jets.   Other names I have come across are the Manitoba Jets, Manitoba/Winnipeg Moose, Manitoba/Winnipeg Falcons and Manitoba/ Winnipeg Thrashers.  The Moose is Winnipeg’s currently American Hockey League franchise name, while the Falcons were an amateur team in Winnipeg that represented Canada in the 1920 Olympics and the first ice hockey gold medal awarded.  The Thrashers would represent maintaining the team’s name from Atlanta.  Calling the team the Thrashers would shock me.

The Sports Juice Top 50 Albums of 2010

’Tis the season to make lists and check them twice.  Here at the Sports Juice, we are temporarily jumping out of the sports arena and dipping our toes into the music scene.  The Sports Juicette and I love music, love going to record shops and waiting for something to call our name. 

My top 50 list is going to differ a little bit from more authoritative lists, which can be found here, here, here, here and here.  The list will run through 50 of the albums we purchased this year, which includes albums released outside of 2010. 

Restoring Meaning to MLB Regular Season and World Series

The past sixteen seasons of Major League Baseball were a farce.  The Yankees victories in 1996 and 2000 should not have happened.  The Red Sox should not have ended their 86 year drought in 2004.  The Marlins should never have played for a World Series title, let alone win two titles.

Forty-four percent of the World Series participants since 1995 should never have been there.   Fifty percent of the World Series Champions did not belong in the postseason.  If baseball had never changed to three divisions and a wild card in 1995, baseball history as we now know it would read much differently.

The Calgary Flames: A Tale of Three Seasons

With the Heritage Classic up next on Sunday for the Calgary Flames, I have found myself thinking about my least favourite team in the NHL.  Generally, my thoughts about the Flames consist of, “Flames suck”, followed by a lengthy daydream about the Edmonton Oilers.  In my daydreams, the Oilers always play like they did last night against Montreal.

The Flames have been nagging at me the past couple of weeks as they have gone from bottom feeders back in late December to a four way tie for sixth place in the Western Conference.  To shake things up, the Flames fired their GM, Craig Conroy retired and Alex Kotalik was jettisoned to the minors.  For the most part, the Flames are the same group of old and slow players they always were, but for some reason they are the hottest team in the league.  What gives? 

Milos Raonic – Canada Finally has a Tennis Star

It is an exciting time to be a tennis fan in Canada and it is about to get a whole lot better.  This past weekend in Memphis, we had Canadians in the men’s, ladies and doubles final.  Daniel Nestor added a 72^nd career doubles title to go along with his 6 Grand Slam trophies and 2000 Olympic Gold Medal.  On the woman’s side, Rebecca Marino made her first career final before withdrawing due to injury after the first set.  With the finals appearance, she is now the #60 ranked woman in the world. 

The majority of the buzz over the weekend was reserved for 20 year old Thornhill, Ontario native, Milos Raonic, who lost a three set thriller against Andy Roddick.  Widely acknowledged as the best match of the year, it probably ranks somewhere in the top 5 matches I have ever watched.  A large part of what made it fascinating was the fact I was watching a Canadian play tennis as well as anyone in our country ever has. 

He should have wilted from the pressure and the fatigue multiple times.  He finally did appear to run out of gas in the third set, going down 4-1 and in danger of being broken for 5-1.  With a smirk that oozed confidence, he held serve before breaking Roddick to get back on serve.  A couple of loose shots at 5-6, followed by one of the greatest tennis shots ever, and Roddick was the champion.   

Oilers and Flames: Where Hope meets Desperation

Tonight marks the fifth of six meetings between the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames, with the Flames having taken 3 of 4 games thus far.  As always, Rexall Place will be jumping for the Battle of Alberta. 

Is it better to be an Oilers fan or a Flames fan these days?  Is it better to have a promising future or be part of a spirited fight to make the playoffs?  I am horribly biased, but I will take the Oilers current situation over the Flames every day of the week. 

The Oilers come into tonight’s game having lost eight in a row.  Already thin on talent, the Oilers have cobbled together a lineup better suited to play in Oklahoma City.  With Hall, Hemsky, Horcoff, Brule and Gagner on the shelf, tonight’s team won’t be full of household names.  I had to go onto the Oilers website to get the first names of Chris Vandevelde and Teemu Hartikaninen.  Ryan O’Marra, Liam Reddox and JF Jacques round out the AHL All Stars that will suit up tonight. 

The Flames come into tonight desperately tying to end their three game losing streak.  A loss tonight will likely be the final nail in the coffin to a team that looked like it had run out of gas against San Jose Wednesday night.  A great stretch of hockey from late December through the Heritage Classic on February 20^th got the Flames right in the playoff picture.  A 6-6-3 slide since the Classic now puts the Flames in 10^th place with 85 points and only six games left to play.  They are chasing Anaheim, with 87 points and eight games left, and Chicago, with 88 points and nine games left.  It doesn’t look good. 

Sports Juice: Baseball Greatest Hits

With the baseball season starting later this week, I though I would blow the dust off of my favourite blog posts that relate to baseball.  I have my MLB.tv subscription ready to go and am excited for the return of spring.  If only it would stop snowing in Calgary…

1. Stephen Strasburg will dominate, but for how long? - a post about Strasburg and injury risks just prior to his first major league start last year.  My fantasy team misses him dearly.

2. Jason Bay: I just felt like the Mets would give me a chance to make the most money.  Written just after Bay signed with the Mets in the winter of 2009.

3. Who should be in charge of the MLB Hall of Fame Vote?  From January, 2010, a comparison of MLB voting rules with other professional sports.

4. Shot to the gut, Baltimore Orioles style.  Written after Buck Showalter’s hire last year.  Was shocked to see Ken Rosenthal pick Baltimore to finish 4th ahead of the Jays in his predictions column today.

5. How to win your fantasy baseball pool.

I have some baseball related posts in the hopper and will be working on them over the next few weeks.

Revisiting Dave Stieb’s Chase for Perfection

“If I haven’t gotten a no-hitter after three times,” Dave Stieb said, ”I doubt if I ever will.”

The above quote was taken from an August 5, 1989 New York Times article, the night after Dave Stieb took a perfect game into the 9^th inning against the New York Yankees before Roberto Kelly hit a two out double to break up the bid for perfection.  Steve Sax followed with a single, scoring Kelly, and giving Stieb a complete game two-hitter.

Coming into his August 4^th start, Stieb has thrown four career one-hitters.  Stieb would go on to throw his fifth career one-hitter three weeks later against Milwaukee.  Finally, in September, 1990, Stieb got his no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians.  It was the end of a 12 year quest that began on June 29^th, 1979 against the Baltimore Orioles.

Europe Vacation 2011

We just got back from our trip to Europe a few days ago.  With the jetlag fully shaken off, I thought I would share a few tales from the trip.  Our tour took us to England, Switzerland and Italy.

England found its was on the agenda so we could catch up with K’s extended family and friends.  Switzerland was a chance to see former Cayman colleague and bar mate, Robbie O.   

We arrived in London on June 11^th and immediately hopped on the tube to go and catch a train.  We were off to Matlock Bath, representing the first four hours of what would be over 24 hours on trains during the two weeks.  Awaiting us were Katherine’s aunt and uncle, Pauline and Bruce.  I also had my first chance to meet Katherine’s granny and uncle Andrew. 

 

The most interesting thing that I learned on the trip is that an English person will completely clean their plate, no matter how much food is on it.  It slowly dawned on me over our week in England, starting with our lunch with granny and uncle Andrew.  We ate at a pub near their house.  I had the roast pork dinner while Katherine had the roast beef.  We must have been the only ones who ordered it as they seemed to give us the whole pig and cow. 

Katherine made her typical little dent while I gave it an honest effort, getting through ¾’s of it.  Meanwhile, pint sized granny and rail thin uncle Andrew had polished their plates.  I didn’t think much of it, though Katherine commented that she was relieved granny didn’t give us a piece of her mind for not eating everything. 

Next stop was London, where we stayed with K’s friend Katie.  Technically we were in Colchester, about an hour away.  I guess Colchester was once the capital of England back in Roman times.  It is now a dreary, dreary place filled with people you wouldn’t want to cross in the middle of the night.  I exaggerate, but only slightly…

We met up with the other half of Katherine’s brain, Rachel.  Friends since they were in diapers, they are in their own little world when they are together.  After a couple of pints we went out for Italian.  I recall being impressed that Rachel absolutely licked her plate clean.  At that point the light bulb came on and I had my theory that English people always eat every morsel.  The war mentality remains strong I guess.  The night ended in a bit of embarrassment as we unsuccessfully attempted to pay for dinner and treat Rachel. 

The next day we met former Cayman colleague and still current friend Craig for lunch.  He too cleaned his plate, though that was no surprise if you know what I mean…  Our last meal of England was dinner with Katie, who is a skinny, nice young girl.  Gigantic pizzas were on the menu and of course Katie ate every bite.

We ended the trip by taking in the Kaiser Chiefs in concert at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town.  Huge over there, the Chiefs playing that small of a venue was a treat.  There are a couple of hilarious videos of K and Katie rocking out during the show.  My ‘editor’ decided that they will remain in the private collection.

 

With England successfully visited, we flew to Zurich, spent a night there before heading down to Altendorf to visit with Robbie O, his wife Julie and their cute little girl Chloe.  The most common question we were asked during our stay was, “Do you love it?”*  I have to say that yes, we did love Switzerland.  If you could take the beauty and charm of Banff and apply it to an entire country, I think you would end up with Switzerland.

* The question was often asked by Chloe and related to just about anything and everything.  K and I still ask each other the question about random things all the time.  Eating a cracker?  Do you love it?  A bit of sun on your cheek?  Do you love it?

 

Our arrival in Zurich also brought us our first bit of really warm weather.  It was about 28c, but felt like 38c in our hotel room.  The silly place had windows that could swing wide open, but they installed vertical blinds that prevented them from opening more than a couple of inches. 

The clearance space needed was tantalizingly small, so I kept fiddling with the window, trying to force the thing open.   I eventually found a latch that allowed me to take the entire blind off the wall.  With that move, we finally had some air.  We also had a clear hear of the big church bells that went off every 15 minutes.  One chime at 15 minutes, two at 30 minutes, four at 45 minutes and a bunch of noise followed by a chime for every hour (11pm gets 11 chimes, etc.). 

After a restless night we quickly made our way down to Altendorf.  Not a church in sight, nor in earshot!  It really was beautiful and Robbie O’s townhouse was awesome.  Rob did a fantastic job of touring us around and cooking up some fantastic food.  The tenderloin steaks we had the first night were in the top three I have ever had.

 

We followed up that great meal with what was supposed to be a fantastic sausage party.  There was plenty of sausage at breakfast, followed by a trip to Luzerne to the Rathaus Brauerei to see some more sausage.  I went with Robbie’s suggestion which were a couple of white sausages in water, a pretzel and a beer.  I am more of a dark meat sausage kind of guy and I have to say I was lukewarm on the white sausage, which came to the table kind of lukewarm.

 

That evening I was feeling a bit nauseous and hit the hay early.  We booked a three hour train ride to Brienz, up in the Swiss Alps, the next morning.  I was still feeling queasy the next morning, but we pressed on.  After a beautiful train ride, we had just started touring around when I made the call to abort the mission and head back home.  Too bad that a bit of food poisoning put a damper on the end of our time in Switzerland.

 

The next morning we were off by train to Venice.  It was Venice that was the spark for the trip.  Three years ago my grandmother, Groovy Gert, gave all her grandkids a little inheritance before she passed.  I decided we would spend it on a trip and I asked her to tell us her favourite place out of all her world travels.  She quickly came back with Venice and that was that. 

Venice quite simply is unlike any other city I have ever been to.  First off, it is really old.  It was a world power back between 700 and 1200.  Some of the buildings are over 800 years old. 

 

Second off, it is this crazy collection of 150 of so small islands, connected with little bridges.  The Grand Canal is full of small boats, gondolas and the water buses that made getting around a little bit quicker.  It was fantastic to tour and get lost in a city without any cars. 

Getting sidetracked, I have to confess that we did not take a gondola ride.  They were silly expensive, but more importantly I kept seeing the gondoliers on their cell phones while they were touring their paying customers around.  If the days where they would sing to you while taking you through the winding canals ever existed, they are now long gone.  To get the experience, we did take a traghetto, which is a gondola used to take tourists across the Grand Canal.  Essentially a two minute ride for fifty cents.  Apparently you aren’t supposed to take pictures.

 

Getting back on track, the beauty and history of the churches and some of the squares were absolutely awe inspiring.  Perhaps Rome and Athens are even better (I have never been), but we were left speechless touring the Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa del Frari, which isn’t even the most famous basilica in Venice.  It was grand on a scale that I never knew existed. 

The same can be said for the Piazzetta di San Marco, which is the most famous touristy bit of Venice.  It was crazy cool, even if we didn’t opt to wait in line for hours to get inside the basilica. 

 

Right beside the square is a classy watering hole called Harry’s Bar.  Famous writers like Orson Wells and Ernest Hemmingway used to frequent it.  Johnny Depp supposedly likes the place.  We thought we’d pop in for a beer, figuring it was a popular tourist spot given its description in the Lonely Planet guide.  Medium sized mistake.

The place is actually stuck in time, with really famous looking and rich clientele.  We in our shorts were quickly escorted upstairs to a small room without a view.  We had no view of the water and the important people had no view of us.  Sizing up the drink menu, we quickly established that they didn’t serve beer.  Just a bunch of whisky and gin based drinks that went for about €18 a pop. 

We made the decision to put the tail between our legs, scoot down the stairs and back out the front door without ordering.   To those who thought I got a bit of a burn on the trip, unfortunately it is just a bit of the residual embarrassment from the ordeal.

The next day it was sadly time to fly back home to Calgary.  We did exit in style, hiring a water taxi to take us to the airport.  They quite literally pick you up at your hotel and dock right at the airport.  It was a great way to say goodbye to a great city.