The Mets welcomed super-prospect Zack Wheeler to the Majors.
Unlike the rest of the Mets roster, you don’t have to squint very hard to see why Zack Wheeler belongs in the Major Leagues. On a day that has affectionately become known as “Harvey Day” it was Zack Wheeler who was garnering all the hype. And though Harvey did his best to remind everyone that, for now, he is the best pitcher in a Mets uniform, but the day nevertheless belonged to Wheeler.
In sportswriting circles, Mr. Sports Journo is a bit of a curiosity.
An anonymous Twitter feed that claims to be written by a longtime sports columnist, it mixes biting criticism of the media and professional sports world with long soliloquies about the beauty of the games we play. Both provide the rare sort of insight that’s more often absent in national newspaper columns and on TV, making Mr. Sports Journo’s identity even more intriguing of a mystery.
Nevertheless, his presence has added a richness to sports conversation on Twitter, and prior to game seven of the Pacers/Heat series, he delivered his latest meditation on sports and society. With a nod to Brandon Sneed, who has done this sort of thing before, what follows is a transcription of Mr. Sports Journo’s tweets over about a half-hour period yesterday afternoon:
By Adam Cancryn
On a historic, fascinating, season-saving prodigy named Matt Harvey.
It’s Sunday afternoon, and Harvey Day is winding down.
Televisions go dark. Bars empty. WFAN, the City’s source for ceaseless sports chatter, turns its attention elsewhere. Harvey Day is over. Just four more days until the next one.
Although it’s often said that hitting is timing, and pitching is disrupting timing, pitching is timing, too. (In fact, baseball is all timing, in the way that real estate is all location: if you don’t have it, the other assets are worthless.)— The essence of baseball, in one succinct analogy, from the Paris Review’s wonderful Consider the Foul
A Game 7 tale in two front pages: The Blackhawks advance, the Red Wings go home.
AS Monaco is buying its way to the top, and touching off a debate over football inequality along the way.
Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for AS Monaco, the newest member of the European megabucks club!
Off you got then, AS Monaco. You’re seated next to fellow French one-percenter PSG, and across from Manchester City and Chelsea. And don’t mind that empty chair where Malaga CF once sat. We thought they had what it took, but they’ve since been replaced.
Instead, all eyes are now on AS Monaco and its Russian billionaire owner, Dmitry Rybolovlev. The club is set to move up to Ligue 1 this season, at the same time becoming one of the two richest in all of France and a direct competitor to the broader continent’s elite teams. It also serves as the latest example of widening economic inequality within European football.
Oh, these two…
Have we found a replacement for Sanchez?
YES!
This is week two of a new series examining the 2013 All-Star Ballot. The first piece can be found here. Remember this is not about predicting who will make the All-Star team.
After the first week, there are four changes to the lineups, all in the American League. That’s not a huge amount, but I was still surprised to see so many changes. I didn’t expect for numbers to fluctuate so much but its still early so even a few good games can really influence averages and such. Second base in the AL looks like the toughest spot to call, and could conceivably change every week from here on out.
Our 2013 All-Star Ballot, the week of May 19th:
Contemplating the future at Man U without Sir Alex Ferguson’s steady hand.
The news of Sir Alex Ferguson’s impending retirement has been difficult to swallow. In fact, the aftermath of his announcement has felt more like one long funeral, what with the eulogies from ex-players and pundits alike. And in many ways that’s the appropriate feeling; Ferguson’s departure marks the death an era, one in which he spoiled us with the kind of coaching brilliance that transformed a struggling giant into one of the world’s most powerful football empires.
There’s only so much we can tell about this season from the first six weeks of baseball. Some hot starts will eventually fizzle out, while some who’ve been slow off the blocks will pick up steam. The league after just barely 200 at-bats will likely look far different by the time we hit mid-July.
Yet despite that, the MLB has already released its ballots for this year’s All-Star Game. Which got us curious just how much different things might look from now until first pitch. How will our perception of the best players at each position change from week to week over the next couple months? Who will fall off the list, and how fast? And who will replace them?
To answer that, we’re going to check in on the ballot once a week. The idea is not to predict who will be chosen, but rather to track which nine hitters from each league are playing the best baseball at their position, and see what conclusions we can draw from it. Here is your inaugural list:
