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Espn sucks - pincemob - 02-19-2012

Perhaps I am still weary from their Andrew Luck teardown campaign, but the tenor of this article on Mark Appel and the baseball team really rubbed me the wrong way.  We are all of 3 games into the season, and this writer has loads of criticism for Stanford's players and coaches.  What is this guy's deal? 

http://m.espn.go.com/mlb/story?storyId=7589733

Re: Espn sucks - washingtonismoney - 02-19-2012

He's been saying the same stuff for years now.

Anyway, Stanford's pretty consistently produced high picks and started off the season with a series sweep and a #2 ranking, so you know:

[Image: 1272938115936.jpg]

Re: Espn sucks - fullmetal - 02-19-2012

I can't see the article (ESPN Insiders only), but along the lines of ESPN screwing around recently, I did not find the Jeremy Lin article with the (quasi-)racist headline funny at all.  And maybe it wasn't supposed to be funny, but it was a bit offensive.  Lin will say that it didn't matter, but he wouldn't ever say such a thing--it's part of his public personality to show nothing that would be construed as a hot button.

Re: Espn sucks - Robbie - 02-19-2012

I haven't heard the name of the person who wrote that headline, but it is probably somebody I know, or have at least met.

And yes, if it was up to me, I would have fired him (or her.)

I'm embarrassed.

Re: Espn sucks - Ratmandoo - 02-19-2012

The most damning quote in this article was this gem:

Quote:- Diekroger looks like another victim of Stanford's one-size-fits-all approach to "developing" players (and I use that term loosely). He's gotten bigger and stiffer since high school, and his swing is now very short and linear with a noisy lower half that doesn't give him much balance. He's an average runner who'll probably move to second or third base in pro ball because his feet don't work well enough for short. I'd love to see what he could do with a more typical pro swing in which he rotates his hips and tries to drive the ball like a 6-2, 200-pound hitter should. But Stanford forces kids to all hit the same way, and it certainly isn't helping Diekroger.

Keith Law really doesn't respect Stanford baseball very much.

I did watch parts of all three games at Sunken Diamond this weekend and from my untrained eyes, this team look REALLY good. We just swept the #10 team in the county (Vanderbilt) which included the 18-5 beat down today. Can't wait to see what this team does next weekend when #5 Texas comes to Sunken Diamond.

Re: Espn sucks - fullmetal - 02-19-2012

Robbie: I always try to assume that such things are individual mistakes and not the fault of an organization, but how did that get missed by what I presume are multiple layers of copy editing?

That was a great sweep of Vandy to start the season.  I guess Keith Law is indicting several years of Stanford hitting--do Stanford players typically change their swing once they hit the pros?

Re: Espn sucks - fullmetal - 02-20-2012

Well, it was published at 2:30AM and perhaps not necessarily written then.  Allowing writers to publish without any layers of editing seems folly to me--I have thankfully adopted a habit of focusing on something else for five minutes after finishing writing and before sending any emails to my manager just so that I can avoid terrible mistakes along the lines of this headline.

Re: Espn sucks - StannyBoy - 02-20-2012

I was also offended by this article. Not sure why Law hates Stanford so much. But the team is very talented and could definitely go all the way this year so he will probably end up looking like an idiot.

Re: Espn sucks - StanfordYEA - 02-20-2012

Keith law certainly doesn't hate Stanford, and his opinion is well respected amongst the baseball community.

The opinions he shared regarding many of the players may seem harsh to the casual fan, but quite often a talent evaluator's job is to find the flaws in someone's game.  The fact that he was at the game, and wrote about so many of our players should prove just how highly regarded these players are by the pro baseball scouting community. 

Now, the comments regarding the Stanford approach to hitting in the diekroger section are nothing new. It is well known that 9 has a philosophy on hitting that the pros completely disagree with.  Every Stanford hitter is taught from day 1 to put the bat on the ball with two strikes at all costs, use an inside out swing to go the other way, keep the top hand on the bat, etc. is this the wrong way to hit? Absolutely not, but it does not translate to the professional level, and what these scouts value highly are skills that translate to the MLB.

All the aforementioned players are extremely skilled and will all go very high, but if you read the article again knowing these things, you'll realize that he is merely providing the opinion of a scout who's looking for the next player for his MLB team, not some guy who "hates Stanford."

Re: Espn sucks - washingtonismoney - 02-20-2012

(02-20-2012, 07:04 PM)StanfordYEA link Wrote:All the aforementioned players are extremely skilled and will all go very high, but if you read the article again knowing these things, you'll realize that he is merely providing the opinion of a scout who's looking for the next player for his MLB team, not some guy who "hates Stanford."

Hey, if Law wrote it the way you're saying, I don't think there'd be as much annoyance. But when you write a sentence like this "Diekroger looks like another victim of Stanford's one-size-fits-all approach to "developing" players (and I use that term loosely)," it's hard to look at the writer as a dispassionate observer commenting on different philosophies of playing the game.

Re: Espn sucks - StanfordYEA - 02-20-2012

(02-20-2012, 07:11 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:[quote author=StanfordYEA link=topic=5595.msg40939#msg40939 date=1329789885]
All the aforementioned players are extremely skilled and will all go very high, but if you read the article again knowing these things, you'll realize that he is merely providing the opinion of a scout who's looking for the next player for his MLB team, not some guy who "hates Stanford."

Hey, if Law wrote it the way you're saying, I don't think there'd be as much annoyance. But when you write a sentence like this "Diekroger looks like another victim of Stanford's one-size-fits-all approach to "developing" players (and I use that term loosely)," it's hard to look at the writer as a dispassionate observer commenting on different philosophies of playing the game.
[/quote]

What he wrote is a very common perception that talent evaluators with no ties to Stanford collectively have.  Is it 100% accurate? No, but the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and is much closer to how Keith Law describes it compared to what the average fan might believe. 


Re: Espn sucks - pincemob - 02-20-2012

The article is mean spirited.  The team had played all of one game and Law is likening Appel to a prior first round bust.  He says Gaffney is effectively all hype and his swing is a "train wreck".  There are numerous other pointless insults in the article. 

From what I can tell, Law is either vehemently anti-Stanford and/or part of the establishment of critics who make a living ranking 8th graders and telling guys like Jeremy Lin to give it up.  Either way, very tired. 

Re: Espn sucks - washingtonismoney - 02-20-2012

(02-20-2012, 10:21 PM)StanfordYEA link Wrote:What he wrote is a very common perception that talent evaluators with no ties to Stanford collectively have.  Is it 100% accurate? No, but the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and is much closer to how Keith Law describes it compared to what the average fan might believe.

Well, look. If a writer puts pen to paper and produces words that sound mean-spirited, then he shouldn't be surprised to get people attacking him. This is especially true when the team is, as he admits, loaded with high-caliber talent and had a long track record of success. In that case, it's reasonable to wonder what the hell he's talking about.

Re: Espn sucks - DC - 02-21-2012

(02-19-2012, 09:42 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:I can't see the article (ESPN Insiders only), but along the lines of ESPN screwing around recently, I did not find the Jeremy Lin article with the (quasi-)racist headline funny at all.  And maybe it wasn't supposed to be funny, but it was a bit offensive.  Lin will say that it didn't matter, but he wouldn't ever say such a thing--it's part of his public personality to show nothing that would be construed as a hot button.

It was more than quasi and more than a bit.  It was the equivalent of the n word at least. And Lin was born in Taiwan, and possibly didn't encounter it that much in Palo Alto or Harvard, so it may not carry the same impact with him.

Re: Espn sucks - jayasena - 02-21-2012

(02-21-2012, 06:28 AM)DC link Wrote:[quote author=fullmetal link=topic=5595.msg40922#msg40922 date=1329712938]
I can't see the article (ESPN Insiders only), but along the lines of ESPN screwing around recently, I did not find the Jeremy Lin article with the (quasi-)racist headline funny at all.  And maybe it wasn't supposed to be funny, but it was a bit offensive.  Lin will say that it didn't matter, but he wouldn't ever say such a thing--it's part of his public personality to show nothing that would be construed as a hot button.

It was more than quasi and more than a bit.  It was the equivalent of the n word at least. And Lin was born in Taiwan, and possibly didn't encounter it that much in Palo Alto or Harvard, so it may not carry the same impact with him.
[/quote]

I don't think FM was referring to the word as "quasi" and "bit" but rather the headline. At least, that how I read it.

Re: Espn sucks - fullmetal - 02-21-2012

Actually, DC read me right.  It has to hurt Lin that he did hear it a lot on opposing schools' courts used to taunt him.  In the unlikely case that Lin didn't know the term in California, he would have quickly figured it out once he started playing college ball.

Re: Espn sucks - fullmetal - 02-22-2012

It's been written in at least 2-3 articles I've read online, but they don't quote Lin.

Re: Espn sucks - Leftcoast - 02-22-2012

Boy, who knew those Ivy league crowds were so rough? 

Could you see ANY Pac 12 crowd chanting racial epithets in unison in 2012?  Until proven otherwise I have to think the articles must be bringing up isolated incidents. 



Re: Espn sucks - fullmetal - 02-22-2012

Might have been UConn, who knows.  Harvard does play non-conference away games--there are only so many Ivy League schools :p

Re: Espn sucks - DC - 02-22-2012

(02-21-2012, 08:09 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:Actually, DC read me right.  It has to hurt Lin that he did hear it a lot on opposing schools' courts used to taunt him.  In the unlikely case that Lin didn't know the term in California, he would have quickly figured it out once he started playing college ball.

The c word is as bad as the n word.  I'm just encouraging you to call racism out for what it is without soft peddling, otherwise society will never learn.