BBTV

There doesn't need to be a metric. It can just be your eyes and guts. In general, there's three ways I've seen people make their lists: 1) sheer dominance regardless of anything else (probably puts Wilt at or near the tippy top) 2) most natural talent and overall best "overall basketball player" of a generation (Lebron unquestionably right now) 3) "winner". This is where it gets a little vague, but is where people can rank Jordan over Lebron if they want to, and where it's not absurd to rank Kobe above him. I watched Jordan's entire career, and would say that Lebron is the more talented player. He can do things effortlessly that even Jordan had to work hard for. I've never seen anything like watching Lebron live, effortlessly threading needles with passes and basically doing whatever he wants. But Jordan and Kobe both have a "killer" quality to them that's hard to quantify. I don't know that Lebron doesn't have it. Hell - he won a title single-handedly against the '27 Yankees. But if I needed to draft just one guy for just one game with my life on the line - I'd probably choose Kobe.

This escalated quickly. Let the record show that I never doubted him and had his back the whole time.

Someone that was dumped by his helmet one year, his shorts the next, and then his jersey. He should stick to church and overcompensating for his small penis.

I'm not sure how many athletes on the diving or field hockey teams were complaining, They're the ones really taking the short-end of the stick here since (I assume) they are expected to go to class (and probably want to earn a degree) but have their travel schedule turned upside down. That being said, no football coach (especially one with a $24M contract) should be opening his mouth right now since they're all about to get paid so much more than the absurd amounts that they already do. Seriously - the guy is making 24 million dollars and wants to complain about anything? Maybe schools could have two athletic departments. One for big-revenue sports, and one for "everything else". The super conferences could be for the "big revenue" sports, and then regional conferences could form for everything else. Or maybe the super conferences could make scheduling agreements with each other for the "everything else" sports so that they can play more regionally.

Phillies fans decided they're going to give Trea Turner rousing ovations and ("let's go Trea! chants) from now on and show support for him rather than getting all over his case, with the other players wearing Trea shirts and getting the fans into it. So far, seems to be helping! Apparently his mother cried when she saw it because she knows how much it's been killing him that he sucks (and according to him, she booed him too). It sounds almost like a playoff game whenever his bat even touches the ball now (which admittedly is still not very often.) Not sure how I'd take this as a player. There's part of it that's sarcastic and patronizing - like a pat on the head and a "you tried your best!" cheer. There's also a part that's "hey, booing them and telling them to F their mothers for the past 100 years isn't helping, so let's try something new and let him know it's OK to fail and maybe he'll succeed". Same thing happened with Alec Bohm last year after he was caught on camera saying "I F-ing hate this place" while getting booed after an error.

OMG, 11 might be the worst number in that silly-ass gimmicky-ass dumb-ass font. Not sure I've ever seen it before today. How can anyone defend that style?

per espn, "It also remains a partial member of the ACC in football and has a contract with the league stating that if the Irish were to relinquish their independence, it would be for the ACC." According to other sources, their deal runs concurrently with the rest of the conference's rights deal, which goes through 2036. They obviously don't have the same rights issues since they have their own deal, but would still likely have to pay a huge penalty to break it - and right now, there's no reason for them to since they can still qualify for the playoff and still have a lucrative broadcast deal. Of course, if they even hinted at breaking it, the ACC would probably panic and bend over to appease them.

The only thing I know about college sports is what I read on these forums, so forgive me if this is common knowledge, but I just gave espn.com a read and it said that Notre Dame's deal with the ACC stipulates that if they decide to join a conference for football, it has to be the ACC, so any talk about Big Ten is wasted breath. Also, ACC's deal with its schools seems to be iron clad (and pretty draconian... but the schools agreed) so none of them are going anywhere. That would leave the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and ACC as the big-4 conferences, with the PAC-4 dissolving, and no good reason for anyone to take Stanford, Cal, WSU, or Oregon State. Not sure if it was a lack of foresight on their end, or if they were just never attractive to any conference anyway.

Yeah, it's just funny that the article that was posted here says this (emphasis mine): "The Big Ten has begun exploratory discussions about expanding membership to 18 or even 20 teams, industry sources have told Yahoo Sports. The schools being considered are Oregon and Washington if the league adds two schools, and Cal and Stanford if it wants to move to 20. All four institutions are currently members of the Pac-12. The discussions are in the very early stages, sources caution. No decision, including on whether to expand or stay put at 16 teams, has been made or is considered imminent." Whoever wrote that article should be fired immediately, and Yahoo Sports should lose all credibility (if it has any... I've never read it other than this article.)

How did we go from "Big Ten has begun preliminary talks to potentially add Oregon, Washington, Cal, and Stanford on WEDNESDAY to Oregon and Washington being officially admitted on FRIDAY? The articles made it seem like some Big 10 officials were going to start possibly thinking about pondering the possibility of maybe reaching out to other teams, and two days later it's a done deal? This had to have been in the works for a year or more.

Another thing about the pre-cap era is that teams tended to scheme and draft to compete against their divisional/conference opponents rather than have grander ambitions in mind. The conferences felt more segregated back then, even though the actual scheduling doesn't support that. But I remember reading a SI article back sometime during that era where someone - either a GM or writer, was saying how once the AFC started to decline, it snowballed because the AFC teams were only focused on building to win their division and the AFC, while the same was going on in the NFC, which lead to a snowball on the positive side. Basically, the Broncos get blown out in the SB, but become the standard that the AFC teams are building against, rather than the NFC teams, who are building against the standard set by the 49ers et al. There's several NFC teams that never sniffed the SB that IMO would have blown out the AFC champion, with the possible exception of a couple of those Bills teams.

Can't stop staring at the bottom left of that decal.

he’s now the highest paid #8 hitter in baseball, and they said “there’s only so many slots left in the order for him”. He seems to care, I’ll give him that. It doesn’t seem to be for lack of effort or anything like that. By all accounts, he’s putting in the work. It’s just pressure and nerves and maybe some of the yips. There’s a very real (albeit small) possibility that he becomes a $300m bench player come September, with the hope that he comes back better next year. for what it’s worth, expect him to get rousing ovations and a show of support when they come back here me tomorrow… if he’s even in the lineup. it is telling that a guy that’s won a WS and played on great teams said he’s never felt the pressure of being on a team that expects to win.

the original unveiling photos in the newspaper did look like Hunter green (there’s a long lost thread here for unveiling articles and there’s a link in there) and while they were called “midnight”, they were described as Hunter it wasn’t until I saw someone on ESPN hold up the New Jersey under better lighting that I realized it was more of a dark teal. Also in the early years, even the on-field jerseys didn’t seem to have as much blue in them. I’d say it was just a side effect of non-hd broadcasting, but even replicas in stores varied greatly from ones that looked hunterish and ones that looked straight up teal. Basically they picked the hardest color ever to replicate.

The old word mark was great! Way better than the generic one they adopted last year, and the awkwardly-scaled and spikey one they used from ‘03-‘21, and the basebally one from ‘96-‘02.

LOL - the NBC guys - who are Phillies employees on a network partially owned by the Phillies - are on a complete rant about what trash Turner is, and saying he should be benched for at least a whole series, or maybe even be a bench player for the rest of the season. He's costing them game after game after game, whether it's his trash hitting, or his constant errors (the stats don't even show the accurate number of errors due to the hitter-friendly scoring). The Phillies have a lot of flaws, but Trea Turner has cost them at least 5 games. He's worse this year than Castellanos was last year. At least Castellanos rebounded for a few months this season before reverting to trash that's been left outside in the rain, but there's no indication that Trea Turner has any clue what he's doing. He's a great reason why there should be arbitration in baseball contracts so that he doesn't get away with stealing money and sabotaging an entire season. In conclusion, I'm not sure if his issues are mental and he needs a sports psychologist, or if it's simply that he's not nearly as talented as people were tricked into thinking, but he's nothing more than the most overpaid bench player in baseball history. Based on some of their recent moves, it looks like they're preparing for an eventuality where Turner is a bench player, Bryson Stott or Edmundo Sosa slides into SS, and possibly the guy they just got from the Pirates plays 2nd base until they figure something else out. He's killed them.

and Trea Turner makes yet another error, while going 1-7, and costing the Phillies yet another game. He's legitimately, without hyperbole, the worst everyday starting player I have ever seen. He's already been dropped to 7th in the order. He'll soon be a platoon or bench player. He even admitted that he's not used to playing on a team where there's expectations to win. Complete candy-ass loser. He looks like a guy that wants to jump off of a bridge every time he strikes out or weakly grounds out, and especially when he makes any of his 100 errors. Dude is completely lost, and has no idea how to play baseball anymore. Time to shut him down completely and hope he can regain his smile between now and next season (and figure out some way to reclaim some of the money he's stealing... though that's obviously not possible.)

Never seen this before. Bottom of 10th, Phillies up two. Marlins zombie runner on second. Craig Kimbrell intentionally drops the ball, calls his own balk, and directs the runner to third. Broadcasters said he did it on purpose to prevent the runner from relaying signs to the batter... but they use the electronic thing, so there's no signs. WTF? It was absolutely an intentional balk. Technically the run doesn't matter, though you'd like to keep him on 2nd just in case there's a play to be made at 3rd, though that's rather unlikely. EDIT: now they're claiming that even with the pitch com thing, runners can still tell certain things and relay to batter. Apparently some pitchers have tells after receiving the call. EDIT 2: you can actually clearly see the Marlins relaying the signs. There's definitely a tell. It's totally legal (though it's a former Astro doing it, so...) but I'm wondering what the tells could be. Aaaaaaand... Kimbrell promptly blows it. F him. Should be retired. Never had less confidence in a "closer".

A MiLB team should definitely use that. I'd buy a cap!

But there was at least one - I thought more - team that dropped a jersey because of the alleged rule even though they don't have a CC. Tampa, for example, dropped their road gray and there's a quote from their VP of brand in this article that says it's because of the 4+1 rule. They had 1) white, 2) gray, 3) light blue, 4) navy, and 5) throwback. So the Phillies are somehow flying under the radar. I'm assuming because their red is worn so sporadically (I think it's just road getaway days) and I'm not even sure if they sell it in stores. It's definitely not available online.

I know the owner is a multi-billionaire who doesn’t give af about money, but weren’t they reportedly going to make a play at Otani this offseason? I wonder if they shot themselves in both feet by acknowledging they’re not playing for ‘24, and writing a near $100m check for players they won’t even have (though I guess that comes off the books by ‘25… I think).

Wasn't that a Zephyr thing? Or am I confusing that with something else? I vaguely remember a few others like that.

The Mets are paying the Rangers $35M to take Scherzer. They are paying the Astros $54M to take Verlander. They didn't even get great prospects back. That's $90M in dead money, but unlike the NFL, it's real money. JFC - they're paying twice the A's payroll for guys that are on other teams. That's freaking insane. Apparently they told Scherzer that they were playing for '25. That's just mind boggling when you think of all the moves they made and money they spent. Now they're literally giving away $90M for nothing, and their remaining over-paid players know that they're no longer serious about winning this or next year.

Looks like the Eagles midnight green with the Jets "sport green" on top of it. Gross.

That end zone was only used until the end of baseball season. They generally painted the full wordmark on there after the baseball season ended (though 1995, they knew they were getting all new stuff the next year, so maybe they didn't care.) This is from pre-'95, as evident from the mult-colored seats that were replaced by blue in '94 or '95.