Without further ado, let's get on to the first week:
Minnows at the World Cup
I understand that the World Cup only comes around once every 4 years, but there are people out there complaining about the inclusion of teams like Panama and Saudi Arabia, especially after the pasting handed out to the latter by the hosts Russia, who themselves aren't even that good. But to suggest that those teams don't deserve to be there completely disregards the qualification process that all teams have to go through, which is already weighted heavily in favour of the confederations where the vast majority of the main contenders lie (UEFA and CONMEBOL). It is absolutely not the fault of the likes of Saudi Arabia, Panama and Peru that they managed to beat the teams in front of them, while Italy couldn't force their way past an Ibrahimovic-less Sweden, or the Netherlands couldn't beat Bulgaria to even reach the playoffs. The David v Goliath matchups at the major tournaments are some of the most fun to watch (Iceland v England, anyone?), and in a similar vein to the FA Cup, I love watching a minnow outkick their coverage, although by the time we get to the quarters or semis, I'm always wanting the best teams to come out on top. But during the group stage and early knockout rounds, let's give it up for the smaller teams and celebrate football throughout the world. And anyway, even if the Saudi Arabians do end up getting battered every game, they might not make it to another World Cup for ages.
Unwritten Rules in Baseball
If you watch baseball, then you will know that there are a number of unwritten rules that the sport seems to abide by. I'm going to cover different unwritten rules each time I write about baseball in this column, but this week I'm going to talk about 'not bunting away from the shift'. To quickly explain 'shifting', if a right-handed batter tends to pull the ball to the left side of the ballpark, the opposition will set up as such, leaving a gaping hole to the right side of second base, and vice-versa for lefties. For some reason, there is an unspoken bond between most players, managers, pitchers etc. that dictates that players don't use the vast expanses of land available to them. Were I a major league manager, I would tell every single player of mine 'if they show shift, bunt and get to first base'. There are many reasons for this, chief among which is that the more baserunners you have, the more chance you have of winning the game. But equally, if you bunt away from the shift, the opposition are less likely to set up in the shift the next time up and you can go back to hitting to your preferred part of the field, with less chance of finding a shifted fielder. In an era of baseball where power is becoming the most important element of the batting game, and pitchers and fielders are becoming more savvy with their positioning and ability to work around the strengths of a hitter, why not fight fire with fire and expose their shortcomings in exactly the same way?
There are only two things wrong at West Ham (for now)
Obviously this won't last, I'm not daft. But for the moment, there only seem to be two things holding West Ham back, and they are the two members of the board not named David Gold. His co-chairman/woman seem to be the two barriers standing between the club and progress. For Karren Brady, a lot of the obstacles she seems to put up are off-the-pitch issues regarding the fan experience, and making it accessible for all. Of course, with the price of season tickets at the London Stadium being relatively low, single game tickets will fetch more on account of not wanting to price out 'loyal fans' and make it more cost-effective to just buy tickets on a weekly basis, but there were times last season when a Tier 5 Junior ticket was something extortionate like £60. How many under-16s do you know that have that kind of money to spend going to watch their football team play Manchester United or Chelsea. Similarly, a lot of the on-field issues seem to be sparked by David Sullivan. His insistence on being the head of recruitment (until the appointment of Mario Husillos last week) has led to a well-documented lack of improvement in the playing squad, and I daresay that had Manuel Pellegrini not come out and vocalised the struggles he was having with Sullivan in just his first week in the job, that process would have continued long into the summer. West Ham need reinforcements and they need them soon, especially with the transfer window closing early this year, so Sullivan needs to pull his chequebook out and start actually paying for players rather than subsisting on loans with options to buy and free transfers.
I think that's quite enough for week one, but I'll be back with more hot takes on hopefully developing/new topics next week.
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