Monday, July 23, 2007

SPANISH FOOTBALL TRANSFER GOSSIP. BAPTISTA & SIMAO

JULIO BAPTISTA wishes to convience his new coach Schuster & his team REAL MADRID that he has a place in the new proyect.However, Real has said that they will listen to any offer that theyconsider interesting.Spanish daily, "As" reports that English Premiere League club NEWCASTLE has communicated to Real that they are interestedin Baptista´s services. Real Madrid have put a price of 20M€ & now
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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Hanley Ramirez: Most Underrated MLB Player

I try not to get too big in the "underrated/overrated" game, because it's so subjective, and players are ranked differently by pretty much everybody. But in this case I have to make an exception, and claim Hanley Ramirez as the most underrated player in the MLB right now. I think people know he's good, but I'm not sure people realize just how good.

The biggest reason for this is that he plays in Florida in front of about 100 fans every game. The Marlins are an OK team, but they have, well, not much of a fan base. Second, everyone is so enamored with Jose Reyes they hardly have time to focus on another NL East SS. This isn't such a bad thing... Reyes is really good after all... and they're really pretty close when you compare them, but I think people tend to overlook Ramirez because they don't think he stacks up to Ramirez.

This rings true when looking at the final All-Star voting, when Jose Reyes was voted the NL Starter and Hanley Ramirez finished 8th. 8TH. Among NL Shortstops. And then he didn't even make the team as a reserve. That's a crime.

Well, as you could tell when I said Hanley Ramirez was my first-half NL MVP, I think he's a pretty special player. He is only 23 years old right now, 6 months younger than Jose Reyes. It's not very often that you see 23 year-old SS being one of the best hitters in the League, but that's the case here. He ranks 9th in the NL in OPS, and again this is especially valuable coming from a SS with lots of speed.

Ramirez was very good last year as a rookie (when he won ROY), but has bumped his performance up from being a very good player to being a star. His average is up, he is getting on base at about a .390 clip, and he is showing a lot of power. He's on pace to hit 46 doubles, 8 triples, and 27 homeruns. That's absurd.

He's also a terror on the basepaths. He's not quite the base stealer Reyes is, but he already has 27 stolen bases, which is 4th in the NL. This is following up the 51 that he had last year.

He dislocated his shoulder in Sunday's game, and hopefully it isn't too serious so that he can continue to put up fantastic numbers to hopefully get him some more recognition. There are better known SS's in the MLB, and there are a lot of better known player, but I'm not sure there's too many players that are better than Hanley Ramirez is right now, at age 23. Indeed, he currently sits 3rd in the MLB in VORP, behind only A-Rod and Magglio Ordonez.

So by that measure at least Hanley is a top 3 player in the MLB... so why doesn't he get any recognition for it?
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SPANISH SPORTS. VICTORY FOR FERNANDO ALONSO & RAFAEL NADAL & BAD LUCK FOR SERGIO GARCIA

Big weekend for Spanish Sportsmen. Victories for FERNANDOALONSO in Formula 1 & RAFAEL NADAL in Tennis. In GolfSpaniard SERGIO GARCIA was unlucky & finished 2º in the BritishOpen.Current two time World Formula 1 Champion & Spaniard FernandoAlonso put in a fabulous race to win The EUROPEAN GP at theNurburgring circuit in Germany, ahead of Brazilian Felipe Massa &Max Webber who finished 3rd.It was a
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U/19 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS. SPAIN 0 - GREECE 0

It was the last game of Group A of the U/19 EUROPEANCHAMPIONSHIPS being held in Austria. Both SPAIN & GREECEneeded a point each to qualify for semi-finals, & thats how it finishedwith a 0-0 draw & a point to each team.Spain which is the defending Champion are not playing at their best,however they have managed well their Group & now find themselvesin the semi- finals & will play France on Tuesday.
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INTERTOTO. GLORIA BISTRITA 2 - ATLETICO DE MADRID 1

Watched from my countryside house in shock at a sad ATLETICODE MADRID performance against Rumanian side GLORIA BISTRITAThe away leg of the INTERTOTO competition saw Gloria Bistritadefeat Atletico de Madrid 2-1, with goals from ZAHARIA (6min) &TILINCA ( 31min) & thank god, a goal from SEITARDIS ( 54min)to give hope to Atletico in the home leg next week.Terrible defence from Atletico & poor
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Mark Alesia Honored for Empirical Study of Intercollegiate Athletics Financing

Congratulations are in order for Indianapolis Star reporter Mark Alesia, who was honored this week by the Society of Professional Journalists with its 2006-07 Investigative Reporting Award for the empirical study (Part I, Part II) he conducted in April 2006 on the extent to which schools and the NCAA profit from star players, how university general funds and students contribute to athletic departments, and the interplay of those contributions with the NCAA's tax exempt status as a non-profit entity. From the study, he built the NCAA Financial Reports Database, which is the most detailed, publicly available database of college athletic department financial information ever assembled.

Among Alesia's findings is that fewer than 1% of NCAA athletes generate more than 90% of the NCAA's money, which confirms the incredible economic value of basketball and football stars to colleges and universities. For instance, he found that 43 public schools in the 2005 March Madness tournament paid out a combined $12 million in expenses relating to the basketball players (including scholarships and tuition and other expenses), which proved to be a very good investment, as those same players generated $267 million in revenue for those schools. Where did the $255 million difference go? "The rest was used to pay for coaches, administrators and money-losing sports -- basically, all others except football."

Alesia also found that athletic departments at taxpayer-funded universities nationwide receive more than $1 billion in student fees and general school funds and services, and that without such outside funding, fewer than 10% of athletic departments would be able to support themselves with ticket sales, television contracts and other revenue-generating sports sources. In fact, most would lose millions of dollars.

The award committee at the Society of Professional Journalists praised other noteworthy aspects of Alesia's study:
What he uncovered is this: Taxpayers indirectly subsidize athletic departments because college sports are exempt from federal taxes, based on their tie to education. The exemption particularly benefits big schools, which receive up to 40 percent of their athletic revenue from donations, most of which are tax deductible. Critics believe college sports have largely become a business of mass entertainment and should no longer receive an education-based tax exemption, especially in an era of rising tuition and stagnant state support for higher education.

Judges praised Alesia for challenging “how college teams are funded. In so doing, it effectively attacks institutional support and student fees subsidizing college sports. Database work incomparable … brave work with compelling results.”

James Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan and now a member of the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, said this coverage is “the most thorough analysis of the financing of intercollegiate athletics I’ve seen since we asked the Big Ten chief financial officers to do an independent audit of our athletics departments during the 1990s. … You folks have done a great service to higher education!”

Congrats again to Mark, whose work will undoubtedly assist those of us at the newly-formed College Sport Research Institute.
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Brazilian sport newspapers

Brazilian newspapers have over 100 years of history, are written in portuguese and have about 1.5 million readers per newspaper every day. Brazilian sport newspapers write mainly about football that is the most popular sport in Brazil (the brazilian national team is most sucessful football team winning 5 world cups), and other sports like tennis, volleyball, basketball and auto (formula one).
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