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Teach me sports!
Rhino
TheRhinLOLRegistered User regular
TheRhinLOLRegistered User regular
Few questions on sports.
Is there a date feed on all upcoming sporting events? xml feed maybe? I just want something clean and easy to read, most sport sites have way to much crap packed into their page.
Basically I'm looking for same day events to a week out. - should include all major sports, baseball, basketball, football and most importantly Internationally Soccer, cause that shit is insane, right?
Also any sites that offer real time data feed on the score? xml feed or clean page preferred.
Baseball, how many innings is that? 12?
How many rounds are in Soccer? What happens if game goes 0-0 at end?
Basketball is 4 rounds right?
Is there a date feed on all upcoming sporting events? xml feed maybe? I just want something clean and easy to read, most sport sites have way to much crap packed into their page.
Basically I'm looking for same day events to a week out. - should include all major sports, baseball, basketball, football and most importantly Internationally Soccer, cause that shit is insane, right?
Also any sites that offer real time data feed on the score? xml feed or clean page preferred.
Baseball, how many innings is that? 12?
How many rounds are in Soccer? What happens if game goes 0-0 at end?
Basketball is 4 rounds right?
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May I ask why you're so interested in sports?
s top of 8th, it means they are half way though it?
I'm interested for small talk. Every time I get on the god dam elevator someone says "So, how about those [insert generic sports team]? You see that game today?" and then I go "No, I didn't." and then it goes to an awkward silence.
The top of the inning is when the visiting team plays, and the bottom of the inning is when the home team plays. I don't know the origins, but I always figured it was so the home team fans have a last chance to watch their team win it, *shrugs*
Bottom of the 8th means that the visiting team just finished getting 3 outs, so it's the home team's turn.
In basketball/football, each "round" is called a quarter. You can also substitue the use of "halves" if 2 quarters are up "did you watch the first half? the Pistons were dreadful, I hope they pull everything together in the second half"
*edit*I think it'd help to list where you are right now. if you say...live in Boston, there's really not much to talk about for basketball except "God damn, we got screwed this year in the draft??" listen to their conspiracy theories, agree, etc. You SHOULD pay attention to Baseball though, as the Red Sox are kicking ass this year.
HOWEVER if it is say a 2 all draw the visiting team gets more points in their goals scored tally (used for the ladder when there are two teams on the same amount of premiership points) this is because it is considered harder for the teams to score goals when they don't have home ground advantage.
In finals (from memory) if it is nil all at full time there are two periods of 10 minutes where it's golden goal wins, then it goes to shootout which is best out of five or more if scores are level.
Satans..... hints.....
There are 9 standard 'innings'. An inning is defined as a round of play in which both teams have a chance to bat and field.
In traditional American baseball, the home team that hosts the 'away' team bats at the bottom of each inning. So a game will begin in the top half of the first inning (referred to as 'top of the first'), and the away team will have a chance to bat.
Once the batting side incurs 3 outs, this concludes to top half of the inning. Now we enter the bottom half of the inning, where the home team gets to bat. Once the home team accumulates 3 outs, the bottom half of the inning has concluded and we've finished a full inning- now we're into the second inning. This goes on until the ninth inning. If the score is even, it continues into extra innings.
Are you familiar with the dynamics of an individual at bat?
There are two "halves" of play. Each lasts 45 clock minutes. This is usually extended with some extra time that is used to play an advantage or compensate for injury/outage time. If tied at 0-0 upon the completion of regular time, the game will enter a period of extra time. If the score remains tied during this, a shootout will occur.
As noted, some leagues do not make use of 'extra time'.
Yes, 12 minute quarters.
Watch Sportscenter: By far the premier show in sports, covers everything sports related with discussion that will make you sound like you're not talking out of your "lack of information" (god I love those commercials). It's on like 20 times a day, just check your listings.
Go to ESPN.com: This is for when you're curious about a particular player and want to, say, look up his stats over his career or this season, see news about him, and also see schedules for teams along with more in-depth editorials on more niche issues in sports
You won't get much soccer info, but I don't think you'll get much watercooler talk out of "Oh man, did you see the FC Delta v AC Milan game!" Most people don't care about it, but if you want to get into it or your coworkers actually happen to be big soccer fans, go for it.
Edit: The only difference between college and pro are a few bookkeeping differences, no 2-minute warning in college, and you have to be down by contact in the pros. Also, the cardinal rule of college football: the SEC is the greatest conference to have ever, and to ever in the future, exist.
NHL Stanley Cup Finals: Anaheim leads Ottawa in the series 3 game to 1, in best of 7. You can catch the potentially final and most important hockey game of the year Wednesday, June 6, at 8 pm EST.
The French Open: This is the premiere tennis clay court event of the year. What's interesting is that the top 2 men's seeds, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are still in the draw, and it looks likely they will repeat by both making it to the final match. Should Federer win, it will be his 11th Slam title (all time record is 14) and allow him to continue on his quest to win a true Grand Slam (Win all 4 major tournaments in a year: Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open). Nobody has done this in the modern open era, so he's going for sporting history. 2nd week play continues all this week, while the finals are on Sunday, June 10th. Full television schedule available here.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
NBA Finals: Cleveland Cavaliers vs San Antonio Spurs. To rip off the commercials, this is basically the new face of the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers and their star LeBron James (the most hyped player to enter the NBA, and actually living up to a lot of it), versus the San Antonio Spurs dynasty, which has won three championships in the past seven years, led by Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili.
I also second greatly the advice to watch the French Open. The scoring I guess is complicated, along with terminology and rules, but Wikipedia has great explanations of every single sport and, more importantly, explanations of every single position played in those sports. Knowing what positions are where and what they do and the players that are assigned to those positions will help you understand the technical aspect of the game much better, rather than "this guy passes to this guy". That's how I figured out what the hell a "three-technique" is.
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Ha, I'd be interested to know that, too. So much of football is lost on me. I can't even play Madden properly.
I coach tennis and do lessons for that, so if anybody has any tennis questions. Same for ice hockey. Outside of that I become increasingly useless in the world of sports.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
Most people will be interested in local teams, and so will your local paper.
-A soccer match consists of two 45 minute periods with a 15 minute half time in between. The time clock is continuous, so the referee usually adds on a few minutes of "stoppage time" at the end of each 45 minute period. The amount of stoppage time depends on how many fouls, goal celebrations, substitutions, etc. were made during play.
-When the period stops is at the referee's discretion. There can be two minutes of stoppage time added and he could stop the period at +1:30.
-If a player passes the ball back to his own goalkeeper, the goalkeeper cannot pick it up. However, if an opponent kicks the ball to a goalkeeper, the goalkeeper can obviously touch the ball with his hands. A goalkeeper can only hold onto the ball for six seconds. After six seconds, he must either get rid of the ball or set it on the ground and take possession.
-Beginning soccer fans are usually confused about the offsides rule. It's a little hard to explain in writing, but I'll try my best.
You are offsides if you are closer to the goal that you're attacking than the opponent closest to that goal (not counting the goalkeeper) when the ball is passed to you. I know, it's hard to understand right away. I don't feel like finding any diagrams for you right now, either... sorry!
Anyways, the purpose of the offsides rule is to prevent players from camping out by the other team's goal for easy goal-scoring opportunities.
Any questions?
-EDIT-
http://www.soccer-for-parents.com/soccer-rules.html
Check that link out. It's pretty good.
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Edit: Oh, and to clarify, in America, only NBA (professional) basketball is played in 12-minute quarters. College basketball, which is more popular than the NBA in a lot of places, is played in 20-minute halves.
The real problem with your question, I think, is that there are simply way too many games going on to track all at once. Think about it: Major League Baseball alone plays 2,592 games in under six months. If you want to pick a team (or two, or three, or ten) and follow them throughout the season, my.yahoo.com has a pretty apt calendar feature that will plot out your team's game times and opponents on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. For example, I'm currently following the University of North Carolina college basketball team, the University of Florida college basketball and football teams, the St. Louis Cardinals major league baseball team, the Florida Panthers professional ice hockey team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers professional football team, and the NASCAR Nextel Cup season. Every time I visit Yahoo, there's a box at the top that shows me any of my teams' results from yesterday, as well as who they're scheduled to play today. There's also a 7-day calendar that shows all results and upcoming events, from two days ago to four days in the future. With one click I can get to any team's monthly calendar.
If you want to focus on a particular sport, most of the time you can just go to their website and they'll give you a season schedule, or a "today's games" thing, or something. You picked a bad time to ask for schedules, though, because of the U.S's four major sports, only baseball has all its teams fully active. NFL football is not in season and both the NBA and NHL are at the very end of their seasons, with only the final two teams playing a handful of games before the season's over. So there's not a lot of action going on the 'big four', but there are plenty of other things going on like professional tennis, soccer, golf, and auto racing. Come fall, though, the NFL will start back up, along with basketball and hockey again. It'll be great!
Oh, one last thing before I forget, if you get the newspaper, your sports section will almost certainly have a little "On TV Tonight" box hidden somewhere that will tell you all the relevant games and what channel's televising them. If you know you want to set aside some time to catch a game on a certain night, that little guy will help you decide what to watch.
These are all functionally the same position. Football positions.
Offense
Offensive Line - the 5 fatasses in front. From left to right, Left Tackle, Left Guard, Center, Right Guard Right Center. The line may also include one Tight End, two Tight Ends, or 0 Tight Ends depending on the formation. A tight end is basically an offensive lineman who will occassionally run downfield to catch passes from the quarterback.
Offensive Backfield - Quarterback (takes the ball from the center and either hands it to the fullback or runningback, or throws the ball down field), Fullback (usually runs and blocks for the runningback, occasionally carries the ball), and Runningback (will take the ball from the Quarterback and run with it, sometimes runs downfield to catch the ball).
Receivers - Catch the ball from the Quarterback. An offensive formation will have anywhere from 2 to 5 receivers at a given time, depending on the formation. You may hear a receiver referred to in a number of ways; Wide Receiver (to the wide sides of the field), Slot Receiver (between the Wide Receiver and the offensive line, but a few steps backwards).
There can only be 11 offensive players on the field at once. A generic offensive formation will look like this:
WR
LT-LG-C-RG-RT-TE
QB
WR
FB
RB
While another could look like this:
WR
LT-LG-C-RG-RT
WR
SR
QB
FB
RB
Or:
WR
LT-LG-C-RG-RT
WR
SR---SR
QB
SR
Or if you're dealing with wierdo assholes like my team way back in HS (you will never see this professionally though):
TE-LT-LG-RG-LT
C
WR
SR
RB
SR
QB
I could go over defense too, if that'd be helpful.
Edit: Hmm...how do I preformat text? The formation spacing went away O_o
Also: You might want to delete or clear out your first post there. You know, for the children.
Also also: That last formation, what the fuck? Who snapped the ball to whom? Why didn't the opposing d-line just line up opposite the QB and gang-rape him and the center?
For example, if you live in Atlanta, you'd want to know just as much about Michael Vick's dog-fighting kennel he's being investigated for as you would the Atlanta Braves. Plus it allows you to use such hilarious jokes as "I asked one of his dogs what it was like living there, and he said 'Ruff'". Now THAT will win over an elevator.
Actually, now that I think about it, the QB was shotgunned to semi avoid the situation you mention.
Basically, the QB would look at how the defense was set up and audible. If the d-line was all on top of him, he just threw the ball to the RB and it was a touchdown. If the DL stacked on top of the OL, it played pretty much normally. The QB also had the option to audible to "live polecat," which basically meant the whole line pulled to their right. The QB would then either pitch it to the RB behind the pulling line, or fake the pitch and boot out naked to the left.
We had an undersized line but all were pretty athletic, and the QB ended up going to the University of Virginia to play receiver. The idea behind this offense was to take the opposing team's DL out of the equation if there was a big size discrepancy.
This is a good diagram to see how it all lines up together. For defense,
DT: Defensive Tackle. These are big honkin' guys that use their size to push through the middle of the offensive line. Most of the time they don't make it through that far, but they absorb blocks, opening up space for the DE to come through.
DE: Defensive End: Somewhat smaller than a DT, and a little faster, designed to use their speed and strength to break through and attack the backfield.
LB: These guys aren't on the line, but they either drop into pass coverage or join the defensive line in trying to get into the backfield. When they do attack the backfield that is called a "blitz" because a large amount of people are being brought in to attack the QB or RB. They are smaller than defensive ends, but faster and can play decent pass coverage.
CB: Cornerback. They cover the receivers, and tend to be the fastest players on the field.
SS/FS: Strong Safety/Free Safety. Lines up far back. If it's a pass play, they will help the linebackers in coverage. If it's a run, they come in and stop the run. Strong safeties are more oriented towards stopping the run, and line up a little closer to the iine, while Free Safeties are more oriented towards stopping the pass, and line up the farthest back.
Also, a tailback is a running back alone in the backfield without a fullback, while a halfback has a fullback, which is probably how a quarterback got his name (quarter, half, full). Running back is a general term for the position, regardless of formation. Wikipedia is awesome for this.
There are two 45-minute sessions of playing, reffered to as the first and second halves (in Britain at least, don't know about elsewhere). In fact they'll last longer than 45 minutes, because the referee will add on time - typically 1 to 4 minutes - to each half to make up for time when play stopped for injuries or whatever. If the game is 0-0 (or any other drawing score) at the end of the second half then the game is drawn, and what happens depends on in what competition the game is being played. In leagues, both teams will get 1 point (not 2 as someone above said) where a win is worth 3 points. If it's in a knockout tournament and has to be resolved then and there, then extra time will be played (two more 15-minute halves), and if that doesn't settle it, there's a penalty shoot-out (each team takes 5 penalty kicks, with sudden death kicks afterwards if necessary).
Then again, sometimes matches in knockout tournaments are played in two legs (a match each at both teams' stadiums), and if the aggregate score is drawn after two legs, the winning team is decided by which team scored more away goals (goals at their opponents' stadium), with extra time and stuff if they both scored the same number.
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I didn't see anything about positions, so I'll throw in some.
There are 9 standard positions: 1B (first base), 2B (second base), SS (shortstop), 3B (third base), P (pitcher), C (catcher), LF (left fielder), CF (center fielder), RF (right fielder).
In addition, in the American League the pitcher doesn't have to bat... Instead, a DH (designated hitter) bats in his place.
Most major league teams use a 5 man starting pitching rotation, with anywhere from 5-7 bullpen pitchers, from short relievers (middle innings, usually 1-3), long relievers/spot starters (anywhere from 2-6 innings, usually), setup (often the 7th and/or 8th), and closer (often the 8th and/or 9th).
Please don't hesitate to ask baseball questions! I love discussing baseball!
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People who find baseball boring usually are not really well versed in the sport. What I mean is, they only get satisfaction from a small subset of the activities, such as home runs, or strikeouts, or what have you. Or they really only like a specific team and not the sport as a whole, so they get bored when their team isn't batting, etc.
Also, playing baseball is one of the funnest things imaginable to me, and I've played just about every sport for at least one full season.
EDIT: And while I agree with the bad calls issue, I'd say that plagues most sports that don't have instant replay.
Also, I always figured bad calls in baseball always tend to even out based on the long-ass season. Now, in the post season, that changes, as each call makes a difference. I believe Billy Beane said that he could get a team into the post season, but once there, it's all a crap shoot.
How about books on sports to help the op? I really liked A Scout's Honor? the equivalent of the Braves'/"old school" for Moneyball
The grip with the pointer, middle and thumb depends entirely on position on the baseball.
Essentially, any non-fastball grip is designed to use the raised seams on the ball to create different variations of movement to deceive the batter. Not all of them are supposed to look like a fastball but with movement; For example, a knuckleball does not look like a fastball.
A curveball is a pitch that is thrown slightly slower than a fastball with a rotational movement that causes the ball to make a downward and lateral movement against the plane of rotation. This causes the ball to appear to the hitter to be heading high and inside (to a righty from a righty) and end up low and away. (see: Barry Zito)
A slider is essentially a much harder, tighter pitch that has similar movement to a curveball except on a shorter plane. The added speed makes it much harder to discern from a fastball, and therefore the batter more susceptible to swinging at balls. (see: Randy Johnson)
A change-up is the prime fastball-fake, as its entire purpose is to look exactly like a fastball coming out of the hand (same arm slot, arm speed, and non-awkward rotation) except that it actually leaves the hand (due to grip) at a much slower speed due to friction, making the batter swing very out in front of the pitch. Occasionally, a pitcher will put some backward spin on the ball (an example: Pedro Martinez) which gives the change-up some screwball-like movement away and down from lefties (from a righty). (see: Trevor Hoffman)
A splitter (split-fingered fastball) is a fastball that is thrown with intense tumbling rotation that causes the ball to dive downward in the strikezone. This causes this hitter to swing over the pitch, and often miss entirely. (see: Roger Clemens)
A sinker is similar to the splitter in that it is designed to sink down in the zone only the pitch is often thrown with a heavier die (the splitter really sinks as it moves, whereas a sinker "dies" in the last 20 feet or so). (see: Derek Lowe)
A knuckleball is a pitch that is thrown with the intent to keep the ball from rotating at all as it moves toward the plate. This causes the air resistance to make the ball dance wildly as the air encounters the awkward seams on the ball. (see: Tim Wakefield)
And then, even fastballs have tremendous variants.
The primary fastball is the 4-seam fastball, and it is the one you most commonly associate with a fastball. It is thrown hard, and it has a (fairly) straight arc (thanks to gravity, all pitches move downward slightly no matter how hard thrown, but this pitch moves down the least). When thrown up in the zone, this is most often called a "rising" fastball, not because it's actually rising, but because the arm angle and location give the illusion of a rising pitch to the hitter (who is used to seeing pitches lower in the zone).
Then there is a 2-seam fastball, which is thrown with slightly less velocity and often has a lateral movement inside and down to righties (from a righty).
Then there is a cut fastball (see: Mariano Rivera). This pitch often rides into lefties (from a righty) and is most commonly associated with a breaking bats because of the sudden inward motion causing the batter to connect with the ball on the handle of the bat.
A lot of these pitches motion described above is dependent on a 3/4 or low 3/4 arm slot. Pitchers that go straight over the top or submarine style.
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As I said, I love discussing ball. If you have any more questions, don't be afraid to ask! This is the one area of H/A that I actually have a specialty in.
Also, have any suggestions on baseball/sports books? I have Moneyball, A Scout's Honor, Heat? (Dwight Gooden), Love Me or Hate Me (Bonds). I'm going to pick up John Schuerholz' book soon as well. Even though I never played in organized baseball, I love reading up on it, and I love the feel of bat hitting ball in the batting cages.
Ball Four is generally recognized as the best book about the experience of being a major leaguer. You should have it under your belt if you're interested in books about baseball.
To tell the difference between a right and left handed batter:
1) From the perspective of the pitchers mound (looking in from the outfield toward the plate), a lefty stands in the LEFT batters box (to the left of home plate) and a righty stands in the RIGHT batters box (to the right of home plate).
2) From the perspective of the umpire/catcher (from behind homeplate), a lefty stands in the RIGHT batters box and vice versa.
As for books, I highly suggest The Head Game if you are at all fascinated by the chess-game that is pitching (I'm a pitcher, so that's my fun!). Beyond that, it really depends on what you want to know... If you just want a general overview of the history of the game, then I suggest Baseball: An Illustrated History... If you want to learn how to play the game, I'd need to now what position... If you want to learn about a specific team or players, then it also depends... There are, literally, MILLIONS of baseball books, so you'd need to be more specific.
This is the truth.
I am a pitcher, so I tend to think of things from that perspective, but if you're ever watching a game, the commentators will talk about it from the perspective of the plate looking out almost always.