Tag: sports

The corporate workplace injury risk

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In the world of internet sports fandom analysis, every sport’s offseason is often pocked with discussions on the player(s) that everyone’s favorite teams should want to acquire, whether it’s through a trade or free agency.  It’s a thankless and pointless black hole of exercises, because in the grand spectrum of things, the chances of a professional sporting franchise actually utilizing the opinions of a bunch of internet armchair general manager tough guys is probably pretty slim, and what it really amounts to is a bunch of dudes on the internet vying to see who might actually be right about theories or predictions.

Among one of the more predominant tropes of internet sports arguing is the dreaded injury risk player.  As the name insinuates, these are professional athletes who have a reputation of getting injured frequently, and therefore not capable of playing the kids games in which they’re contracted for large sums of money to perform.  These are often times players capable of above average talent when they’re healthy, but the constant fear of them getting hurt and providing zero ROI is significant of a deterrent to actually jeopardize their employment chances.

A good example of an injury risk player is linebacker Jadeveon Clowney.  This guy is an absolute monster defenseman who is capable of altering an opponent’s entire offensive scheme just to mitigate his impact; that is, when he’s actually playing, and not on injured reserve, nursing a laundry list of injuries throughout his seven year career that’s enabled him to play a full 16-game season only once.

Pitcher Stephen Strasburg is also another good example, as sure, he’s helped the Nationals win a World Series sure, but from a business standpoint, the guy isn’t glass fragile as he once was, but can be assured to miss at least a month every single season with some sort of really questionable (pussy) injuries.  He’s made 30 starts in a season just three times in his eleven year career, and someone I’d definitely classify as an injury risk player.

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Appreciation for what LeBron James has accomplished

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whether you like LeBron James or you don’t, what can’t be disputed is the success he’s had throughout his career.  After winning his fourth NBA championship, with his third different franchise, I think it’s safe to say that he’s on a platform that not even guys like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant can measure up to him.

Obviously most everyone in the sports world is generally under the belief that MJ is the true Greatest Of All Time, and if there was ever a person in history that would have come close to the crown, MJ himself basically said it was Kobe.  I don’t disagree with Jordan being the GOAT and that Kobe was the closest thing to the Heir to Air, but at the same time, I really began to think that there was a lot of deliberate disrespect sent to LeBron while these claims were made.

I kind of get it too, I thought LeBron was pretty shitty when he jumped to the Heat, and had the whole The Decision spectacle, but as time as passed, and his body of work has expanded and grown, and we’ve seen the kid grow into the man he is today, and all I really want to say these days is, fuck the comparisons to MJ or Kobe, LeBron is just out there being the greatest LeBron there could possibly be.  The GLBOAT.

Because when the day is over, LeBron is never going to get the respect that MJ or Kobe ever got.  So, and I’m guessing he’s already figured it out himself already, he’s fine with that, and he’s simply carving out his own legacy that doesn’t measure up to them, and raising his own bar, that will be the measuring stick for all sorts of future players to try to aspire to be the GOAT or the GLBOAT.

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Bust or World Series

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It still doesn’t mean anything to me: the Atlanta Braves sweep the Miami Marlins, advance to the NLCS for the first time since 2001

Big whoop; if it were any team other than the Marlins, then the Braves would have guaranteed lost in the NLDS, continuing their streak of getting bounced in the (real) first round of the playoffs.  The Cubs would have undoubtedly throttled the Braves, if they could only have not choked against a plucky Marlins squad that shouldn’t have been a playoff team in any ordinary season.

It doesn’t really matter though; awaiting the Braves is most likely the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were one of the odds-on favorites to win the World Series when this hackneyed season even began, and are only not already in the NLCS because of an upstart San Diego Padres team whom is being willed to success by Fernando Tatis, Jr.  But the Dodgers are a team that is playing mad, and playing like they’re owed a World Series, seeing as how they lost to both the Astros and the Red Sox in 2017 and 2018 respectively, with both teams known or likely to have been cheating in order to beat them. 

Yeah, now that the Braves have gotten rid of the pretender scrubs and will be put up against a real contender, it’s only a matter of time before reality comes crashing down on things, and the Braves get swept by the Dodgers, an organization who has bounced them out of the playoffs in 2013 and 2018 and seemingly always has their number, but more importantly, Clayton Kershaw, one of the best pitchers in history and owns the Braves historically.

It’s really cute that the Braves are defying reality and have gotten some stellar starting pitching from kids like Max Fried, Ian Anderson and Kyle Wright, but it’s only a matter of time before their inexperience and the overwhelming pressure of the playoffs cave them in, and then it’s another sad pathetic October sob story is written, and Braves fans are left saying aw shucks, maybe next year, naively dismissing shit like free agency and elevator salaries, that will undoubtedly change the face of the roster by next March. 

Either way, I refuse to have any hope in the Braves, in spite of their current standings.  I know what awaits them in the NLCS, which will be a real contender, and the Braves will fold like bad poker player who thinks they belong at the big table, and I won’t be disappointed by it, because it was always the expected outcome.  Baby magic has carried them this far, and at the time I’m writing this, in the American League, the also-charmed Yankees have stretched the Rays to five games to see who will advance to the ALCS, and if Baby Magic is correct, then the Yankees will advance to the ALCS where the Astros await them.

Huh, seems like the respective championship series will truly be putting Baby Magic to the test, as the Astros have historically owned the Yankees over the last few years in the playoffs similarly to how the Dodgers have owned the Braves.  But in the grand spectrum of things, there’s something fucked up and appropriate if the World Series happens to be an Astros vs. Dodgers rematch too.

Welp, better get ready for the intrigue of that matchup, because that’s probably how it’s going to be.  Yay doofy baseball season that really shouldn’t have happened in the first place!

Should we get excited about the Braves?  Fuck no

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SS;DY – Braves clinch the NL East, for the third consecutive year

Doesn’t have the same ring as winning 14 consecutive division titles, but it’s still pleasant to hear that the Braves are back on top of the NL East as if it were the 90’s again.

But ultimately, it doesn’t really matter, because the Braves are basically dead in the water already.  As I’ve posted about numerous times throughout the years, and as history has proven, the Braves making the playoffs means absolutely nothing except another first round bounce.  The Atlanta Braves are the new Buffalo Bills.  Atlanta is now the new Cleveland, if you’re the type to not acknowledge an MLS championship as an actual championship.  Atlanta is undoubtedly the most insufferable, prone-to-choking sports town there is in the country.

To make matters worse, the way the playoff picture is shaping up, there’s a very good chance that the team the Braves will be lined up against is the St. Louis Cardinals.  The same St. Louis fucking Cardinals who bounced them out of the playoffs last year, the same St. Louis fucking Cardinals that bounced them in the bullshit infield fly Wild Card game in 2012, and the same St. Louis fucking Cardinals that swept them in 2000.  Needless to say, the Braves are shit against the Cardinals in the playoffs, and if such matchup is locked in, the conclusion is already forgone.

If they don’t get the Cardinals, then they’ll probably end up getting the San Diego Padres, who in spite of their own historic ineptitude, have been playing like a season of destiny, and in spite of their wild card positioning, they actually have a better record than the Braves, but unfortunately share a division with another team of destiny, the Los Angeles Dodgers who are playing mad because they’ve lost two of the last three World Series to teams who were basically cheating, and are determined to make things right this year.  But the Padres would absolutely annihilate the Braves because if it’s not the Cardinals or the Dodgers knocking them out of the playoffs, it’s the lightning-in-a-bottle teams like the Padres that will 100% sweep them out of the playoffs.

Admittedly, I thought it would be funny if the Braves would find success in another shortened season, seeing as how they won the World Series in 1995, the last time there was a shortened year.  But that was still over 100 games, and not 60* games.  Plus, this was a great year to put baby luck to the test, since it was finally my turn to see if a team that I favored would win a championship in a year where a baby was born, but since mythical wife is a goddamn Yankees fan, she’s still in contention now and more likely to cash in than Braves will since they actually have some starting pitching.

*if a team was lucky to not get any games cancelled on account of coronavirus AND remain mathematically viable to playoff contention

The point is, just because the Braves clinched the division, there is absolutely no reason at all to be excited about the playoffs.  There is too much history, too many complexes, and most importantly the fact that the Braves have NO STARTING PITCHING, to believe that there’s any chance for success, and that a conclusion that isn’t a catastrophic failure isn’t a guaranteed result. 

Although it will be impossible for me to not pay attention to the Braves in the playoffs, or be annoyed when they inevitably get bounced in the first round, the one thing that I won’t be when all of this comes to fruition is, surprised.  And that, is nothing to get excited about.

Now that’s how to protest

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seems unprecedented: in the midst of the NBA playoffs, the Milwaukee Bucks boycott their game 5 matchup against the Orlando Magic, in protest of the shooting of an unarmed black man by the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, prompting the NBA to cancel all games for the day

To my friends, I first made the obvious, low-hanging fruit joke about how the Bucks did the Magic a favor and kept them alive for one more day, seeing as how they were up 3-1 in the best of seven and were probably going to close out the series tonight, but the reality is, I’m actually pretty cool with what the Bucks did.

Far too often, we see celebrities and professional athletes talk a big game about the reach they have and they say a lot of meaningful things on Twitter about how change is needed, black lives mattering, and all sorts of political statements.  But after they hit send, they put their phones down, and then go back to making movies, music, or putting on jerseys and playing sports, for millions and millions of dollars that they make for themselves, and billions and billions of dollars for the people they work for.  And when the day is over, nothing happens, and this perpetual cycle of humanity failing continues on until the next tragic events causes everything to start all over again.

As long as life goes on, there’s little reason for anyone to stop what they’re doing and try and make any changes, of any size or magnitude.  But when the machine is abruptly killed when it is expecting to be churning at its maximum capacity, people will undoubtedly have to stop and look and wonder what the fuck is going on; and that’s precisely what the Milwaukee Bucks did, when they actually did boycott a pivotal and meaningful nationally televised basketball game.  Make no mistake, the rest of the NBA’s games of the day were cancelled in response and attempt to show solidarity, but this doesn’t happen if one team doesn’t make the first move, and that’s undoubtedly the Bucks.

I also love that it was the Bucks that did it, and it’s obvious why the team from Wisconsin did it, but I just think back to when the Bucks were the bottom dwellers of the NBA and that’s all I can ever think of the Milwaukee Bucks, despite the fact that nowadays, they’ve got a ten-foot tall all-star and are basically the best team in the entire league.

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Things that have happened since the brog’s been down

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Shortly after my brog went down in April 2016, I started a document, bulleting things that want to potentially write about, in the event that the site would be back up within like a month or two.  Obviously that never happened, but it didn’t really stop me from adding to the list on a regular basis, even if it continued for nearly four years.

At first, it was a pretty nitty-gritty list, straight to the point and pretty succinct at what I wanted to remember.  But by the time 2018 rolled around, I noticed some patterns and categories in which things caught my attention and warranted notation, and so some categories started to take place.

I’m not entirely sure why I feel compelled to share all of this, but for whatever reason I’m following through with it, and basically this is going to be little more than a massive bulleted list of things that happened between mid-2016 through mid-2020, with probably not a lot of context, but likely some snark and veiled commentary peppered throughout.

2016

  • Pokemon Go came, lit the world on fire for 15 minutes, and then flamed out harder than the FOX Fantastic Four films
  • I became The Burrito King of Atlanta, winning Willy’s Road Trip promotion by visiting 27 Willy’s locations in four days
  • Kobe Bryant retired from professional basketball, but not before dropping 60 in his final game
  • The Golden State Warriors won 73 games and passed the ’96 Bulls’ unbreakable record, but then lost in the NBA finals like chumps
  • The Atlanta Braves retired Turner Field for whiter pastures, by sucking hardcore and losing 93 games
  • Hulk Hogan killed Gawker
  • Went on a European cruise vacation with mythical then-gf, visiting Italy, Turkey, Croatia and Greece
  • Went to Korea for the first time in my life, with my mom
  • The Chicago Cubs won the World Series, breaking a 108-year long drought and endless memes
  • An orange baked potato reality television personality inexplicably won the presidency of the United States of America
  • A fuckton of people died from senseless gun violence

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How things can change over the span of a decade

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Throughout my 82-day journey of re-posting literally ten years’ worth of brog posts, I naturally took the time to go down memory lane and re-read everything I’d written over that time.  I think as a whole, the collective brog does paint a decent picture of who I really am, but I’ll also be the first person to admit that hoo-boy, there’s some shit I’ve written in the past that most certainly isn’t the way I think these days.

Inherently, I don’t think people are capable of dramatic change in their lives, but I think it’s fair game to say that opinions most certainly can change throughout time.  Environment, influence, and/or just plain growing up, the way people think can harden or soften, or just plain go in different directions as time passes.

I don’t want to one of those people whom when they get become rich, famous and have the spotlight of the internet shone on them (because that’s totally going to happen to me one day), and have their internet history drug out of the past and screen shots slapped onto Twitter for the world to ridicule and judge, I went ahead and took the liberty to drag out some of the more notable changes that I’d witnessed about myself throughout the last ten years, and regardless of how wince-worthy and regrettable some of the things I’ve written may have been, the fact of the matter is that these are things that I’d thought, ways that my mind worked, and feelings that I felt at those specific instances, and I own the things I’ve said.

Because as much as some of the more regrettable things I’ve written might make me, much less anyone else, wince, cringe or face palm, I do think the revisionist history culture of 2020 is way worse.

Alternatively, this post probably should’ve just been titled “content that did not age well”

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