October 26th update

Check out the late-posted NFL recap from Monday's update.


Wednesday Spotlight: Theo Epstein

• Theo Epstein, aka the Boy Genius, was announced as the General Manager of the Chicago Cubs this past week. Epstein who was the former GM of the Boston Red Sox, and helped them break their 86-year World Series drought, is now taking on the only team with a longer drought. The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908.
• Epstein is a follower of sabermetrics, the policies popularized in the book (and movie) “Moneyball” by Oakland GM Billy Beane, to whom Epstein was an assistant. Sabermetricians basically have found a new way of looking at baseball statistics to find players who were undervalued by the rest of the league. Oakland had a small budget so finding these players was paramount to the teams they had in the early 2000s, where they were remarkably successful. This revolutionary statistical analysis rocketed Beane to stardom, and he brought a few of his subordinates with him, including Epstein.
• Beane’s footprint also includes Paul De Podesta, who is the VP of Player Development for the New York Mets, Sandy Alderson who is the GM for the Mets, and Epstein. Beane’s discoveries were ironically cut out from under him with the publication of Moneyball and the subsequent spreading of sabermetrics. Teams with bigger budgets were able to outbid Beane for the services of the players he had found although Oakland continued (and still does) to find new players who cost a fraction of the game's "name" superstars.


Rangers look to clinch first World Series tonight

• The Texas Rangers, who won exactly one playoff game in their first 38 years in Texas (until the 2010 season) are now one win away from winning the World Series the year after winning their first American League pennant.
• The St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa committed an extraordinary blunder after twice failing to communicate to his bullpen that he wanted closer Jason Motte to be ready to face a Texas hitter in the right situation. When he realized that Motte wasn't ready to face Rangers catcher Mike Napoli, La Russa had no choice but to leave in a pitcher who did not match up as well and Napoli hit a bases loaded double to essentially end the game.
• The series has been a pitching performance for the ages with the staggering exception of game 3. Game 3 was won 16-7 by the Cardinals but even the Rangers 7 runs in that game surpass the TOTAL from both teams in ANY other game. The Cardinals have only averaged 1.5 runs per game in the other 4 and if they intend on winning the World Series they'll need to garner more run support for their fantastic pitchers in Games 6 and 7, both of which will be in St. Louis because the National League won the All-Star game this year, giving the National League the homefield advantage in the Series no matter who the team was.
• Game 6 will feature pitchers Colby Lewis for the Rangers and Jaime Garcia for the Cardinals, the two pitchers who pitched very well in a 2-1 Texas victory in Game 2. Garcia left with a 1-0 lead but Texas scored 2 runs in the 9th inning. Despite playing in over 100 World Series games, the Cardinals had not (and still haven't) been on either side of a 1-0 game.


Basketball Crazy Shot Bonus

Tired of hearing about the NBA lockout? Remember when basketball was still fun and was just about putting the ball through the hoop? Enjoy these amazing shots to start your day as suggested by a loyal reader. In no particular order:

Rudy Fernandez's canasta impossible
Isaiah Rider's play of the decade
Blake Hoffarber's shot from his back
Jordan Snipes' full court football toss buzzerbeater to win the game
Reggie Miller scoring 8 points in 9 seconds in possibly the greatest playoff performance ever.
MJ getting in an opponent's head by taking (and making) a Free Throw with his eyes closed.
Dr. J's baseline scoop, easily the greatest layup of all time.
A montage of shots made by Steve Nash's former backup Goran Dragic in the 4th quarter of a playoff game against the Spurs. I won't give away the total number of points Dragic scored in the quarter, but it's more than 22.
Uh-oh Kings fans... look away before it's too late.
Fake video but fun to watch shots by Lebron