Three Rivers Three Links: April 3

1. Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke brings up the very relevant topic of the economic impact not just on the Pirates this season but also on how it could damage some of their long-term plans. At some point, I'm gonna post on this myself, but that's still a work-in-progress. Still, WHYGAVS makes excellent points across the board, especially in regard to the spending the Pirates finally started last season within their system. If the Pirates aren't able to invest as much into the draft or Latin America they lose any chance of making up ground on the other organizations. Also interesting is that there is, I think, a very good description of the backwards-thinking that might occur this season among Pirate fans upset over the record-breaking losing season. "These are the fans that either don't pay enough attention to understand what Huntington's doing, don't understand the intricacies of rebuilding a baseball franchise, or simply don't have the patience to wait."

2. Hey look, this blog doesn't get a running joke when it sees one! I wouldn't think it would be terribly hard to grasp that fans making up t-shirts to celebrate beating a community college and "chirping" before the game is a running joke among the fans. When you're a Pirate fan, you NEED to have a sense of humor about yourself. It's the only way to survive. But yet this blog completely flips out for no reason and uses capital letters about how "YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BEAT THEM!!" Yeah, sure we are, but even a casual fan can look at the box score and see that it shows that the Pirates were more interested in getting different guys' work then winning the game. While some of our top prospects may have played (Cutch, Tabata, Walker, and Bixler all played but were pulled very early) the pitchers were a bunch of scrubs. Like I said, I couldn't possibly be less concerned about this loss considering Virgil Vasquez and Dave Davidson were the culprits on the mound. So please baseball blogs the world over, don't go so ridiculously over the top with your hyperbole to try and tell us that an exhibition game with prospects and scrubs losing to a college team means the Pirates "crush the hopes and dreams of their fans" for the season.

3. Jon Heyman, one of the most underrated writers out there, lists 30 breakout candidates for the 09 baseball season. Whether you are interested for fantasy reasons or just curiosity, it's worth a look. Number 1 on that list? None other than Paul Maholm. No other Bucs make an appearance, though, but I am excited about having multiple players listed here on my fantasy teams.

Three Rivers Three Links: April 2

I've been slacking the past few days with stuff on the site unfortunately, but hopefully I'll be back on top of things starting today with the permanent return of your daily links and the long-awaited Pitt hoops season recap and some Pirate and Penguin stuff, too.

1. Gene Collier does an interesting column for the PG today about the improvements at Pitt over the last decade. And it's not just about the big-time sports improvement at the university, it's actually about the academics, too. Imagine that! Involving academics in a sports column. Turns out I go to a pretty good school. Not like it's helping me find a job or anything, though.

2. KDKA is reporting that because John Calipari peaced out on Memphis to go give himself gray hair and an ulcer and take 10 years off his life at Pressure University University of Kentucky there now may be a recruit Pitt could go after that was originally slated to go to Memphis. His name is Will Coleman and is a highly touted Juco recruit. If DeJuan leaves, which looks like more and more of a sure thing every day, I'd be all about going after this kid. That would of course amend my column from the other day about 09/10 Panthers. But amend it for the better I might add. The Panthers could definitely use a steady, experienced Juco guy next year inside to complement all that youth. Dude averaged a 16/16 last season. Not sure how you could not be enticed by that.

3. Frank Coonelly's always-interesting monthly chat returns just prior to the start of the season. Coonelly's candidness always amazes me in these things.

Three Rivers Three Links: March 31

Okay we're finally back on TRS after about a 60 hour hiatus to lick our wounds about that devastating loss Saturday night by the beloved Panthers. At some point in the next week, I am going to get around to posting about that loss, and about the season as a whole and all the great stuff we've experienced, as well as take a look at the 09/10 Panthers. But right now I just can't do it. I tried to write something a little bit ago and didn't make it beyond about 70 words before giving up.

Still, I needed to get back to writing something. So, first I'm giving you your daily dose of the TRTL followed by some Pirates stuff later on today at some point and at some point in the next 24 hours a breakdown of the NL Central.

Let's get to the links:
1. It's Tuesday, so in keeping with recent tradition (2 weeks' worth), I'm linking to a 24-related blog. Today, I'm linking to the wildly popular blog Dave Barry runs for the Miami Herald. Every a Monday he does a quasi-liveblog thing for the 24 episodes. He's not bad, but the real funny stuff is due to his commentors. It's all sarcastic, though and a lot of it points out some of the uhmm.... liberties that 24 takes with reality. So if you don't like when people point that stuff out and make fun of things like that, this probably isn't the site for you. Hell, sometimes it isn't the site for me, either.

2. The Post-Gazette's The Fantasy Factor blog does an interesting breakdown of an alternate 1996 Penguins-Avalanche Stanley Cup final. Seems a little interesting, right? It is pretty solid and the thoughts evoked will be a regular walk down memory lane. But here's why I linked there: I just spent 20+ minutes going through stuff on that blog and I can't figure out what the hell the subject of that blog is supposed to be. It sometimes seems as though it actually is fantasy sports (as the title suggests) but then other times it seems to serve as a sort of catch-all category for whatever goofy shit the Post-Gazette wants to explore but has nowhere else to put that kind of random material. They have quite a bit of fantasy baseball preview stuff up there and have some fantasy hockey junk randomly thrown in too. They occasionally have breaking news about hockey posted in there...but then they don't for a few days at a time. And then they have literally fantasy games like that aforementioned Cup game or a 78 Steelers vs. 94 49ers. And then they have a SB43 breakdown. Look I have no problem with the blog, there is some legitimately good stuff on there. I'm just very confused by it all.

3. The Pirates make not one, but two appearances on this list of the Ugliest Uniforms of the 1970's from Fantasy Pros 911. Not gonna lie, that's a little impressive.

Three Rivers Three Links: March 27

I'm still recovering from last night's...err...revelry... which consisted of a solid 4 hours of drinking (2 hours of which was nervous, drown-my-problems drinking, 2 of which was celebratory WE WON! drinking, a lethal combo) and then coming back to my apartment and deciding to write what turned out to be a surprisingly coherent 1300+ words on the game. Actually, it was probably a shade more coherent than my usual writing. Maybe I should do that more often. Anyway, by the time that was done it was almost 2 AM, at which time I decided I needed to make some pizza. I really am going to miss college.

Anyway, the morning was not nearly as kind to me as the night, and because I'm in a pretty lazy mood I'm not giving you much in the way of off-the-beaten-path links. All these links are from pages much more popular than mine, but whatev. Let's do this...

1. Talks are heating up between the Bucs and Will Ohman right now. Ohman's a lefty reliever for those of you not aware. He's nothing spectacular, as evidenced by the fact that it is almost April and he is still a free agent, but he won't embarass himself, and when talking about the Pirates pitchers, that's more or less a glowing review. To me this means one of two things: Either the Pirates think they are close to dealing John Grabow or they aren't satisfied with Sean Burnett. Hell, it could be both. I think this is definitely the year that Grabow gets dealt, it's just a matter of when, and having someone like Ohman will give us at least a decent replacement when that inevitably happens. Maybe Grabow could even be dealt for a starting pitcher or something. Who knows? Just a thought. As for Burnett, he sure picked a hell of a time to have his first bad spring training in a few years. He tore through the past two spring trainings, even when he clearly wasn't major league ready in 07, and now in 09 when all he has to do is be okay and he gets a job he starts struggling. Doesn't that figure? I want to see if this actually happens, as the M.O. recently with the Pirates is that when they get seriously interested in a useful guy like Ohman he often signs elsewhere and the fans are let down because of it.

2. Sean from Sean's Ramblings gives us a breakdown of some of the things he saw during his trip to Bradenton to see the Buccos in spring training. He's got some good pics on there that are definitely worth a look.

3. Check out this article about Missouri's "Forty Minutes of Hell" style of play written by one of the best sports writers in the country, Joe Posnanski. This is what convinced me to pick Mizzou over Memphis when I did my picks yesterday, and I'd say it definitely worked out well for me. Good call, JoePo.

As always the links take the weekend off cuz they're lazy like that, but the site will still be working hard to have some Pirate stuff, some Pens stuff and some Pitt stuff up over the course of the next 2 and a half days.

Three Rivers Three Links: March 26

It's Sweet 16 Day! The day our beloved Pitt Panthers hope to (finally!) move past the Sweet 16 for the first time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams. It would be a big W for all Panther fans to finally see and to know that the previously unbreakable Sweet 16 glass ceiling has finally been shattered. Standing in the way of our Pitt Panthers are the Xavier Musketeers, a very tall squad at basically every position that is led by former Pitt star Sean Miller. With all that in mind I wanted to go through a few different Musketeer blogs that are out there and see if I can find what their take in all this is:

1. Our leadoff-hitting Xavier blog is called Crosstown Shoutout. I just linked to the front page, because their main preview for this game is breaking down Pitt, and well that's not really something a Pitt fan is going to read. Still, their Pitt preview impressed me. I've seen too many blogs do opposing team previews and F it up something awful. These guys did a nice job. Still, you can obviously go through some of the older posts and find some Xavier team info if you'd like.

2. Head to Musketeer Blogosphere for a few different posts on the Pitt and the game, as well as a bunch of other posts about (obviously) the Musketeers. I also just linked to the front page of the blog, so scroll through whatever you want to see there. As I figured, most of their game preview is also breaking down Pitt. Still, there are a good number of other posts about the X-men worth a look.

3. Finally, some stories from the Cincinnati Enquirer: Sean Miller talks about how tough of a test Pitt is for the X-men. And here are some random notes about the game from the Enquirer.

I'll be back later today with my own preview of this thing.

Finally, I wanted to wrap things up today with a little comment about the controversy over the now-infamous Sidney Crosby video from Puck Daddy. Yesterday in the Links, I wrote about that video and talked quite negatively about Puck Daddy. Greg, the editor at Puck Daddy, shot me (and I'm guessing others who talked negatively about it) an e-mail and gave a bit of inside info about the video that does change things a bit. I'm guessing you've probably read the e-mails that were sent to the Pensblog by now, and as things turn out, those e-mails probably weren't so legitimate after all, especially the "poor college kid" e-mail. Greg sent me the full video and it was pretty clear he wasn't taken advantage of on the cutting-room floor, as the kid claimed in his Pensblog e-mail.

While I still am dubious about the motivations behind that video and obviously don't agree with the impressions left from the video, I also appreciate the way Greg handled this backlash. I'm sure its a bit tough when you have so many blogs bashing you out there, especially when the thing they are bashing you on isn't actually true, either. I can't blame him for e-mailing and getting this whole thing straightened out. So thanks for the heads up Greg.

Three Rivers Three Links: March 25

Sorry for the delay in today's TRTL. Unfortunately that is probably going to happen at least once more this week as I desperately try to pimp myself out to the local places of business in the hopes of finding a job. I know that's no excuse, so let's get right to today's links.

1. If you haven't yet been introduced to Alyonka Larionov, allow this video of her and Geno Malkin cooking pierogies on Pens TV to introduce you. She is the daughter of former NHLer and Russian legend Igor Larionov and was also rumored to be dating Alex Ovechkin (which may be gross, but also tells us that any one of us has a chance with her as appearances clearly don't mater to this girl). Anyway, there are a bunch of videos doing "The Penguins Show With Alyonka" on the website linked above. Nothing earth-shattering there, but they are pretty fun videos for the most part, and it helps that she is featured prominently in them. As you'd expect, the awkward level on this puppy is about 9.5 out of 10. Geno sticks mostly with Russian and is trying to make lame jokes (and probably get in her pants) for about 90% of the segment, but it's still funny to see. Highly recommended. I don't think either one is going to be getting offers from the Food Network anytime soon.

2. Yahoo! Sports broke a story about UConn making some recruiting violations. Shocker, right? It's amazing to me these types of stories don't come out more often. If you don't think there are all kinds of recruiting violations going on the throught all of college sports you are on naiver S.O.B. Still, I'm not exactly upset or feeling for the Huskies. Jim Calhoun is one of my least favorite coaches ever, and seeing him come under fire will put a wide smile on my face.

3. As if we needed it, we now even yet another reason to love the Pensblog. After some bush-league "documentary" stuff by Puck Daddy that basically mocks Sidney Crosby in addition to being just a generally poorly put-together video. the Pensblog reponds tremendously. That's a good job by them. The video is on the Pensblog site. I'd rather you click there and watch it then go to Puck Daddy and give him the extra hit on his site. There's also an e-mail on another Pensblog post from one of the guys in the documentary who Puck Daddy makes look a little ignorant on the subject of puck thanks to some heavy-handedness in the editing room. Shame on Puck Daddy.

Three Rivers Three Links: March 24

1. Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke takes a look at potential 5th starter candidates who aren't currently in camp with the Pirates. He focuses mostly on potential non-tenders after ruling out the entire (worthless) crop of free agent pitchers. If you were hoping for some possible nice pickups here like Tyler Yates last season, I'd calm the excitement down a bit. The best option for the Pirates WHYGAVS concludes is probably Phillip Humber from Minnesota. I'd rather stick with Karstens with Gorzo and D-Cutch as the fallbacks. And WHYGAVS says basically the same thing. I will be interested to see if anyone else comes available, maybe someone who you wouldn't expect but just gets pushed out. Seems like that happens to 1 or 2 guys every year. Still, I see little problem with Karstens as our 5-man.

2. This is related to a post I'm going to have up tonight at some point (hopefully), so I thought I'd post it. It's the MVP debate between Pierre LeBrun and Scott Burnside for the Hart Trophy maybe a few days old, but it's worth the read. Also, LeBrun wants fan feedback.

3. Finally, it's Tuesday, which means I'm a little sad because there are 6 days until Jack Bauer is back in my life. So I've got to post the requisite 24 Blog of the Week. Today I'm featuring Blogs.4Bauer. Seems like this is one of the more popular 24 blogs out there, as evidence by their heavily-participated-in live blogs. If you have a spare 30-45 minutes, I'd recommend reading through last night's. Good stuff. Also, for any other casual 24 fans out there who don't have the time to read up on all the happenings in the 24-verse, did you know that Elisha Cuthbert is coming back this season. As a 24 fan, this offends me terribly. But as a male, I'm terribly excited. Quite the conflict waging inside of me.

Three Rivers Three Links: March 20

Okay there's no grand intro to the Links today. Sorry, but I have my priorities, and today that priority is getting to Hemingway's by 12:30 or so and reserving myself a top-notch seat right at the bar so that I have both a superb view of one of their nice TVs and easy access to the bartenders and the waitresses for all of my beer and food needs.

1. Among others, your truly participated in a post over at Sean's Ramblings in which we asked Sean some questions about what he should look for as he ventures down to Bradenton for a few days watching the Pirates in Spring Training. Some pretty good questions and some pretty funny ones, too. I'm looking forward to his answers.

2. Yeah Sage Rosenfels is one team's high-priority offseason move, Dan Orlovsky is signed for 3 mil a year as a backup, and yet Byron Leftwich doesn't have a job. The Bleacher Report wants to know the same thing I do, why doesn't Leftwich have a job? It's ludicrous. Right now I'd put Leftwich among the top 20-25 QBs in football, yet no one wants the guy. I mean I won't complain if the Steelers bring him back for another year, cuz he's a crazy good backup, but I kinda feel for the guy. And I just don't get how the 10 NFL teams that need a good QB can be this dumb. To paraphrase Will Ferrell from his award-winning turn as Mugatu in Zoolander, "Sage Rosenfels, Dan Orlovsky, J.T. O'Sullivan, Chris Simms, THEY'RE THE SAME TERRIBLE QUARTERBACK! Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!!!"

3. If you are a numbers nerd, like me, this article in the PG about the statistics of the tournament in relation to how far the Pitt hoops squad will advance this season is definitely worth a look.

Three Rivers Three Links

It's time to let the inmates loose! The Madness officially begins today, and with that in mind I have a few different links about the madness as I prepare for an exhausting day of sitting on my ass, watching 12 hours of basketball, eating copious amounts of pizza and drinking beer and coke all while I'm supposed to be sleeping sitting in my finance classes. If only my parents could see me now.

1. Are you one of the poor saps sitting at your cubicle on this glorious day hoping to catch a sneak of the grainy, snuff-film-looking footage of the March Madness games on CBS's website? Well then I would direct you here: Skipping work from TheLoveofSports.com. I especially liked the fake pink eye excuse. That could get you out today and tomorrow. Too perfect.

2. If you like sports simulation stuff, I can't recommend ESPN's Accuscore bracketcaster highly enough. I just spent 20 minutes simulating different brackets. It really is way more fun than simple percentages and odds ever should be, especially when it gives you zany upsets like it just gave me, with Siena in the Sweet 16 and Bobby Mo beating Sparty.

3. PSAMP pretty much nails spot on my thoughts about Dwyane Wade picking Pitt to win the title. I still wake up sometimes in a cold sweat thinking about what he did to Pitt in the tournament. Few people really remember this, but that game was really his coming out party, as he had only really dominated C-USA teams to that point. After he debacled Pitt, I think a lot of people realized just how special of a player he could be. Perhaps even more importantly, Wade's trademark move, the "drive-recklessly-towards-the-hoop-looking-for-contact-and-toss-up-a-terrible-shot-while-obviously-flopping-to-the-ground-like-you've-been-picked-off-by-a-sniper" routine was first unveiled to a national audience in this game. It was a big moment for basketball. Oh, and I think the refs from the 06 NBA Finals just called another foul on the Mavericks.

Site update: I'll be back later tonight with my personal and completely random thoughts from today's NCAA games. My plan for today is to skip not one, but two classes, and only tear myself away from the TV and the computer when the pizza guy shows up. God I love this time of year.

Three Rivers Three Links

Like so many others on the morning March the 18th, I'm not really in peak mental and physical form right now. So let's get right to this thing:

1. A video from ESPN of Todd McShay talking to some random ESPN anchor about Shady McCoy's Workout. It sounds as though our old friend Shady had a good but not quite great workout. The 40 was a decent 4.50 (or so) which is better than Knowshon Moreno or Beanie Wells. The actual on-field performance in his workout was very solid and McShay raved about McCoy's ability to catch out of the backfield and get upfield quickly. That sounds like the Shady I know and love. In my mind this probably solidifies him as the 3rd best back in the draft, but I don't think that it was good enough to pass Wells or Moreno. What is interesting though is the job he did receiving. If the right team gets enamored with that facet of his game (Philly? Arizona?) he could definitely find himself going in the late first round.

2. Tom Gorzelanny is out like Tom Hagen. Gorzo, the once highly touted lefty starter who put up a superb 07 season with the Bucs, was optioned to the minors earlier today. This continues a ridiculous downward spiral for Gorzelanny. It also all but solidifes the opening day rotation as: Maholm, Snell, Duke, Ohlendorf and Karstens. You really have to wonder whether he even has a future with this organization, as a demotion with 3 weeks still to go before Opening Day doesn't just signify he wasn't as good as the others, it signifies some definite dissatisfaction with him from the organization.

3. Interesting bit about Pitt's (and every other big team's) chances to make it to the Final Four based on having future NBA players from 3 Hoops Fans. By their account, Pitt only having two future NBA picks (more on that in a sec) would make Pitt an underdog to the Dukies in their region. one of the more likely teams to make it to the Final Four, as having 2 is the magic number, as Jon pointed out to me in the comments below. Just going off the teams with the most future NBA sure-fire players, the Final Four would be North Carolina, UConn, Wake Forest and Duke. That would be a Big Time ACC year.

Also, I don't know that Blair and Sam I Am are the only Panthers with a shot at going pro, though. I still maintain Gil Brown has the athleticism and either Jermaine Dixon or Brad Wanamaker have the potential if they can continue to grow. Just something to keep in mind.

Finally, this isn't a link, but my nasty addiction to standing-watching in the NHL is really only getting worse, so I figured I'd share the affliction with all of you. The Pens are solidly the 5 seed right now in the East. Just gotta keep on winning. I don't want to play Boston or New Jersey in the first round personally.

Three Rivers Three Links

1. With 24 Season 7 heating up, I thought I'd link to one of my all-time favorite sites, The Jack Sack. For fans of the 2-4, you really have to go there and experience it to understand the awesomeness of the site. The photo shops, the Jack Sack descriptions, the Snuggie parodies, the recaps, the recent Larry-Renee love letter... just a superb job by the folks over there. If you are a legit 24 fan I dare you to go there and not spend a solid half hour lurking around. There are a freaking ton of 24 blogs lurking around, many of which I at least sporadically check out. Maybe every Tuesday I'll link to a new one or something. But I just recently discovered The Jack Sack and it's my new fave I think.

2. Bob Smizik blogs about something I heard Joe Bendel bring up last week when he was killing time on-air because Pitt was out of the Big East Tournament. What would Pitt say if the Big Ten came calling and wanted the Panthers as a 12th member? I don't think there is any doubt that the Panthers would say yes in about .0001 seconds because of the monetary bonuses. However, there is the seperate issue of what Pitt should say if that happened. The Smiz also examines that. I also think that is a definite yes. Is the basketball as prestigious? Of course not, but it is still a damn good b-ball league and Pitt would still be a national power and their play would probably fit in quite well with the Big Ten actually. And it is fairly obvious that the football program would be better off joining the Big Ten. While there is no question that Pitt would be a lower-tier Big Ten team at first, I think the football program could definitely work its way up. They'd never be an annual contender like the Big Two in The OSU and Michigan, but I do think they could mature into an Iowa/ Michigan State like program. The usual expectation being 7-9 wins and maybe every so often the stars could align and they could legitimately challenge for the conference title.

3. I've been searching around for an article/ blog posting that dealt specifically with East Tennessee State. After combing through Google for 2 days, I finally got one. Nothing controversial here. It's cliche city and the Bucs go out of their way to be complimentary of the Panthers.

Finally a quick site update:
After a delay of a couple days, I'll finally be putting up my latest Mock Draft later today.

TRS 3 Links of the Day

I haven't done enough linking type posts lately, so I think I'm going to change that, starting now. Previously, I usually waited until I had several links and then dumped them all out at once when I had literally nothing else to write about. That probably isn't the best way to do business in the blogosphere I've decided after frequently looking at some other sights. So instead, we're going to do our best to pump 3 links a day to timely topics every week day. Why 3? Well check the name of the site. 3 may not be a bunch of links, but it works well as a gimmick for the site. I'm still working on a better name for this though.

With Pitt in the tourney, here are three links worth checking out about our Panthers:

1. From the Sporting News Today Publication. Click over to page 17 to read it. Or you can just read it all below:
"Reason to watch: The Pitt Panthers, ousted by backyard rival West Virginia in the Big East Tournament, will be rested, focused and poised to make the deepest run in the short Jamie Dixon era. The combination of powerful center DeJuan Blair, point guard Levance Fields and leading scorer Sam Young are always worth checking out.
Pitt will win if... It just focuses on the fundamentals, with Fields keeping the game and his teammates under control and Blair dominating what should be an overwhelmed Buccaneers front line. The Panthers need to focus their defensive efforts on taking away the Bucs' three point game, as Kevin Tiggs, Courtney Pigram and Mike Smith are all prolific shooters and scorers.
ETSU will win if... It can keep up its red-hot play from the Atlantic Sun tournament, which included incredible shooting and shutdown defense in an impressive run. The problem is, the Bucs are likely to be very rusty after nearly two weeks off, and the bruising, battle-tested Panthers are a whole different big-time team from what Marty Bartow's team is used to seeing."

2. Pitt gets multiple mentions in Pat Forde's Minutes column about the tournament. Notably, as a team feeling pressure to succeed, and DeJuan Blair's biceps are named among the most important body parts. They are also one of the 9 teams Forde thinks can win it all. He does raise a point that appears to question Jamie Dixon a little bit.

3. In big-time sporting events, it's always worth checking out what the oddsmakers think. The terrific blog Vegas Watch does that for all of us to see. Click on the picture on that page to check out the initial numbers for Bodog, Greek and the numbers figured by Ken Pomeroy for each of the top 6 seeds in each region to reach the Final Four and to win the National Championship. Pomeroy gives Pitt a 31.90% chance to reach the Final Four and 8.94% to win the National Title. That is the third-highest for the Final Four, behind only Louisville and Memphis! Some really, really interesting numbers over there if you are a bit of a stat-head.