crashcarson15

Why hello, Louisville.

Apparently all Notre Dame road games this year will be against teams wearing bad, unnecessary alternate jerseys.

It does genuinely surprise me that more matches don’t end up like the ones we got today, when there’s such a correlation in this sport between score and tactics (e.g., that more trailing teams don’t go for it and get repeatedly burned like I do when I get behind in FIFA). This Villa team has absolutely zero depth and will cave in like a house of cards when that becomes an actual problem, but I’m going to enjoy them being plausibly good in the meantime.

Huh? They’re in with two of last season’s final four (including the runners-up).

Robert Morris plays just three men's sports the Horizon League offers and dorks up the travel rotations the league has for men's basketball. But hey, at least it's not Grand Canyon?

Purely as a fan, two come to mind: 2016 NBA Finals Game 7 (for obvious reasons), and the Jackets winning their first playoff series last year. As a mixture of a fan and human, the night of Game 4 of the 2016 World Series is probably the happiest I've ever been with just, like, life in general. Tribe are up 3-1 in the World Series; Cavs are reigning NBA champions; in the middle of the best run of ND men's basketball in my life; it's the senior year of college, fall semester at that; my job is writing about sports; it's the Saturday night of Halloween weekend; the world still feels normal. It's like, an all-time "top of the world" moment for me. Two personal-driven ones: In general, covering the ND men's run in the 2016 NCAA tournament, particularly the first two rounds in Brooklyn. Forget the basketball, which was incredible in that run, but it's like, here I am, sitting courtside and covering what was, growing up, maybe the coolest sporting event in the world. Sitting in a press conference and looking over like, hey, it's Nicole Auerbach or whatever other national reporter I'm covering the same thing as. It also helped that I got to see both Villanova and North Carolina in our stops that year. Second personal one — since graduating college, I've been a volunteer assistant for my high school's baseball team, primarily focused on scouting. We won a state championship last year, which is probably the coolest thing I've been part of. Being part of both building a foundation for the program as a player and playing a small part in seeing that through to the ultimate goal was super neat.

I don't think the relativity is based on expected success, rather on market size and dynamics. The Indians have been one of the best franchises in baseball over the last 7 years, and certainly fit the "always expect to be a contender" bill right now, but recently reduced capacity of their ballpark (and aren't filling the smaller number either). For about a quarter of the clubs in the league, I'd make the case that if a new ballpark were to be built, it shouldn't have a permanent capacity larger than 35,000. I'd say there are 9 true "small-market" clubs in baseball -- Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh have much lower populations than any other markets in baseball; Baltimore and Oakland are geographically constrained; Miami and Tampa Bay are in the wacky Florida sports climate. For whatever reason, the Brewers draw out their ass and buck the trend, but for the other 8 clubs in that list: The Royals drew 2.5 million fans in 2015 and 2016, the only 2 times they've ever done so The Orioles last drew 2.5 million fans in 2005 The Indians last drew 2.5 million fans in 2002 The Reds last drew 2.5 million fans in 2000; the only other time they'd done so was from 1976 through 1978 The Rays only drew 2.5 million fans in 1998, their inaugural season The Marlins only drew 2.5 million fans in 1993, their inaugural season The A's last drew 2.5 million fans from 1989 through 1991, the only time they've done so in franchise history The Pirates have never drawn 2.5 million fans in a season There's no reason that any of these clubs need more than 35,000 permanent seats in their stadium -- and Miami aside, it's not like these numbers are being influenced solely by bad baseball. Baltimore, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh each made 3 postseason appearances this decade that broke 15- or 20-year droughts; Oakland and Tampa Bay have made pretty regular playoff appearances and have shrewd front offices. That the recent high-water mark for these clubs is the Royals averaging ~33,000 the season after they broke a 28-year postseason drought to go to the World Series tells me that none of these clubs need a park larger than 35,000, irrespective of how good they expect to be. The teams themselves recognize this, too -- Miami and Pittsburgh built their ballparks small; Kansas City kept capacity small in its renovation; Cleveland and Tampa Bay have reduced capacity as they can within their stadiums. When Oakland builds its new park and joins the trend, it'll be appropriate for them.

The Coliseum at Richfield was born of the era of urban sprawl — the idea was that Northeast Ohio would continue to grow, and that the metro areas of Akron, Cleveland and even Youngstown would grow into each other and become one (here, Richfield would be like Arlington is to DFW). Of course, it only took three years after the Coliseum opened for the Youngstown economy to start to tank, and similar trends developed in Akron and Cleveland to keep that from ever happening.

This is 100% a negotiating tactic, I think, but the idea isn't really that far from workable. If you want an outside park in Montreal and are concerned about early-season weather, just have the team play 3 or 4 home series in wherever their Spring Training park is, then have "home" Opening Day in May or whatever. Home slate of 69ish games, which is fine and balances the need to have a clear home city with scheduling concerns (and also keeping something as egregiously stupid as this from happening).

That’s really bad. All of it.

I really appreciate Chicago’s naming conventions, because it’s easy to be clear and concise in traffic reports about which road you’re talking about. “[inbound or outbound] [name of expressway]” is pretty easy and unambiguous! Contrast that to Indianapolis, where you regularly get traffic reports you have to pay strong attention to like “westbound 70 on the east side,” “southbound 465 on the west side,” or “northbound 65 heading out of the North Split.” My favorite, though, is a report like “northbound 465 at 56th Street.” Which 56th Street? There are two exits for northbound 465 at a 56th Street on opposite sides of the town! Which one is kinda important! -- I am also in favor of adopting L.A.’s conventions, though, if for no other reason than my sophomoric sense of humor being able to tell people I grew up near, or might take, “The 69.”

All, We're trying to figure out a solution and should be moving toward having this under control. You may notice one or two changes to your posting experience as a result. Shoot me a PM if you have any concerns.

Huh? Mexico has made the quarter-finals of the World Cup exactly twice, in 1970 when they hosted and in 1986 when they hosted. They’ve never gotten past the round of 16 outside home soil. Sure, Croatia is a small country, but it’s a small country that’s now made two semi-finals in the six years it’s been an independent nation eligible to compete in the World Cup, and before that, it was part of Yugoslavia, which reached two semi-finals itself and six quarter-finals (well, technically five quarters plus the second group stage in 1974, which consisted of the last eight teams). Croatia in the final is a lot more natural than Mexico in the final would be.

A little while back, the moderating team adopted a new voting system for forum punishments that introduced the ability to give longer suspensions than before in an attempt to avoid having to quickly escalate to a full ban. There’s a thought that certain members would’ve simply seen a long suspension, rather than a ban, had the current system been in place. (We believe this to be the case with Will, for instance.) I think there’s also a realization that (a) people change and maybe shouldn’t have actions from multiple years ago held against them and (b) we probably make mistakes as moderators such that, a couple years later, we can maybe realize that we got it wrong. That’s my personal take on it all, at least.

ha, good joke

Not entirely sure who it would be, but since we're guessing things, I do believe that Grand Canyon is currently the only for-profit school in D1.

Again, if you have questions, please send a PM to the moderating team.

Always good to cycle back to this and give an update/further explanation. Browns/Cavs/Indians are the same explanation: I was born in Youngstown, Ohio, to a diehard Cleveland sports fan. Even though I moved to Indianapolis when I was 17 months old, I never had a choice to be anything else. Blue Jackets are related to that, but something I pushed more than my dad did. We went to a game in the team’s second season (I was 6) and I was hooked instantly. It’s all part of why, at the end of the day, the Jackets are my favorite sports team. Notre Dame’s twofold: my family’s Catholic, and my dad grew up a big Notre Dame fan — and growing up in Indianapolis, just over two hours from ND, football games were a regular thing in the fall. Last May, I graduated from Notre Dame. Both my parents went to Youngstown State, so I pull for them, too. Aston Villa’s a club I was introduced to through the Browns (joy), who at the time shared an owner. Fell in love with the name, colors, history and stadium from there, and have been over to visit Villa Park twice (once to tour, once for a match). I’ve moved my German football interest from Hertha to Union Berlin; I love the city (Berlin’s my favorite place in the world), and that’s what got me hooked on Hertha to start with, but as time went along, I found myself more interested in how Union were getting on, so I took the plunge this summer and switched (hopefully for good). I also have soft spot for Strasbourg in France, for no real definitive reason. I’m also in and out of following the Portland Timbers stateside, and to a lesser extent these days, Indy Eleven (I think the owner’s a twat who only started the team so the city could pay for the stadium he wanted). I got involved in Timbers support mostly through falling in love with the Timbers Army, though — I really liked what that fan base stood for (and still does stand!) for, and at the time, the Crew’s ownership was miserable. Down under, I follow the Adelaide Crows in the AFL, mostly because they’ve got my favorite uniform in sports. Also, they were (a) not on the west coast (for a college kid getting into Aussie rules, I was generally after clubs that’d play earlier matches in Australia), (b) typically are solid but (c) aren’t one of the powerhouses/biggest clubs in the sport. IndyCar is not a team, but I kinda view it that way sometimes. Growing up in Indianapolis as a sports fan, it’s hard not to fall in love with the 500. The series itself is great, too. I think that is most of the stuff, yeah.

I saw Indianapolis discussed a few pages ago, and I think Indianapolis could maybe support an American League team in the same way that Cleveland and Pittsburgh support the Indians and Pirates -- they're all metro areas of roughly 2 million, and each CLE and PIT have the three-team grouping of football/baseball/winter that Indianapolis would. Of course, that way is "lower mid-pack in attendance when the team is good, near the bottom when the team isn't good," which is probably not the long-term pathway to success. Baseball has very few small-market teams, and most of those that do remain are longstanding clubs -- only Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh have fewer than 2.5 million people -- and is already in literally every market larger than that in the English-speaking part of the continent. The best you could do population-wise is adding Charlotte, which would still rank 24th in both population and as a media market. Would Charlotte have more success supporting the football/baseball/winter trio than either Cleveland or Pittsburgh do? Perhaps Raleigh/Durham is more feasible, with only the Hurricanes and (admittedly big) college sports to deal with?

An update on Orlando’s new flag search from the other month, as this appears to be what they’re going with — and color me a big fan.

“We’re the Pride of South Australia…” Seriously, I think I love this for the Crows, which kinda scares me. Hell, you could make a new primary logo out of that flying crow mark and it’d be loads better than the current stuff.

This is really well done, man. Like… phenomenal. There isn’t a crest in the lot that would look out of place in today’s Bundesliga. Love that Rostock crest.

Rep is just the number of times your posts have been liked — in the past, this was seen on just a user’s profile page. I’d expect that we’ll take it back off of posts if we have that option post-update.

Originally when the like button was introduced, for a brief period of time, there was one, so it's supported.The issue is what members could do with it; if everyone hated user XYZ, they could just "dislike" every post XYZ writes, irrespective of its merits. The same underlying reason Facebook doesn't have it.

There is literally a pinned thread in Sports in General for realignment proposals. Also: This post, and its replies, are now there.