Random Sports and Such

• This past weekend I played in three softball games. Two of them ended in ties because we used up our allotted hour. I've never had a tie in baseball before.
  
  
• Random stupid stat from baseball, the grand pubah of random stupid stat keeping.
  
  
• The likelihood of a lockout in the NBA seems high. The team owners are going to cry poor. Yet one of the perennial worst teams in the league just sold for a record amount.
  
  
• The NCAA has decided to include 4 more teams to the NCAA basketball tournament by introducing the First Four. These will be the first four teams everyone picks to lose.
  
  
• Over the course of the 4 game series with the Phillies, the Cubs gave up 10 runs in the 9th inning: 4 on Thursday, 4 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. They ended up winning the Thursday and Sunday games because they had big leads when the bullpen melted down. There's an argument that with big leads you are trying to just throw strikes and not worry about a couple runs. That may be to some extent but I don't think it fully explains it. The bullpen is weak and going towards the July 31 trade deadline I think the team will be sellers not buyers of players.