You know that memo to Brett Favre that I wrote 2 years ago, and wanted him to read? I don't think he did. My God, I am completely and utterly tired of the endless "drama" every summer since he left Green Bay. It's pretty obvious at this point, contrary to what this *at the time* awesome ad was referring to - Favre's indecisiveness is nothing more than a contrived scheme to keep him out of training camp. So what if he's 40? If the man wants to play in the NFL, he ought to go through training camp like everyone else. And if - as he claimed this year - medical issues prevent him from doing so, he ought to be way more upfront about his intentions. The guy is a gloryhound who enjoys playing the media like a violin, and media outlets like ESPN (witness their breathless coverage of his reported retirement by text a few weeks ago) are all too happy to oblige.
Just because he's Brett Favre, iron man, doesn't entitle him to skip training camp. Just because he's Brett Favre, NFL legend and holder of several records, doesn't mean he gets special treatment. But the Vikings, lacking the guts to play hardball, are all too willing to go along with Favre's games. It must really suck to be Tarvaris Jackson right now.
On a much more glowing note, JOSH HAMILTON. As pissed as I was that the Sox blew an 8-2 (8-2!) lead against the Rangers last Friday, I don't think I've seen a more impressive all-around performance by a positional player in a long time than by the Hambino in that game. Here's the line:
4-5 w/ a homer and 2 doubles, 4 runs, an RBI, and a stolen base. Also, two incredible catches in center, and he scored on an infield single...FROM SECOND BASE.
I was a big fan of Hamilton before that, but my respect only grew after that game. It's really hard not to root for the guy. It's also utterly mind-blowing that he was out of the game that long - yet was able to come back and play like he had never been away. Yes, he'll always be an injury risk, and yes, he's already 29. But the amount of natural talent defies description. He's 6'4", 235 - and scored fairly easily from second on a ball that never made it out of the infield, was never bobbled or dropped, and changed hands pretty quickly. Guys that big aren't supposed to move that fast, and I guess that's why it's a shock to see him making Griffey-esque plays out in center (even though the Rangers, rightly so, usually play him in left to lessen the chance of injury).
The thing that really impresses me, however, are his home runs. Take his bomb in that game against the Sox, a blast measured at 444 feet by HitTracker. It's a line drive, relatively speaking - a line drive that went well into the stands in the deepest part of the park. The site has the ball speed off the bat at 113.1 mph, the elevation angle at impact of 20.7 degrees and the apex of the ball's flight at 68 feet. By contrast, the homer most statistically similar to Hamilton's in the first two categories, Hunter Pence's Aug 14 homer, had a ball speed of 111.2 mph and an elevation angle of 20.1 degrees - but only traveled 365 feet. Why? The apex of the ball was only 46 feet. The homer closest to Hamilton's in distance within the surrounding days, Jorge Posada's homer of 441 feet on Aug 14, had a ball speed of 106.1, an elevation angle of 26.9, and an apex of 99 feet. In essence, Posada hit the ball higher and not as hard.
Hamilton has a line drive percentage this year of 22.3, and hits line drives 21.8% of the time for his career. Considering the league average is usually considered to be around 19%, this is pretty good. However, what really sets it apart is his ability to hit a lot of those line drives out of the ballpark. I watched video of most of his home runs, and was shocked at how many of them were line drives - and just how far they were carrying. While many players need to hit the ball fairly high to get it to travel 400+ feet, Hamilton clearly is not one of them. Obviously the numbers in the above paragraph are way too small a sample to make a conclusive statement, but based on them I can pretty well say one thing...Josh Hamilton is freakishly strong and an incredibly talented baseball player.
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