Tag Archives: tim marchman

Interweb, Sports

Support Your Local Sporting Scene

If you read this site and/or follow me on Twitter and the like, I’m guessing there’s a very good chance you’ve heard this news already. On the off chance you haven’t, have you heard the news?

It seems that a veritable supergroup of great writerly types is teaming up to make a brand new daily sporting web site called The Classical. Like who? The first name that caught yours truly’s eye was Tom Scharpling, whose Best Show on WFMU I’ve waxed about rhapsodically on this show many times. Aside from being one of the funniest people around, he is also an NBA fan ne plus ultra (see this interview for evidence) and can speak/write on the subject with the utmost authority, and thus is an ideal catch for such an endeavor.

But when it comes to the roster of champs involved with this endeavor, that is far from all. There’s Bethlehem Shoals of Free Darko fame (read their hoops books if you haven’t, because you should). Tim Marchman, one of the best and most criminally underused baseball writers in America. Eric Nusbaum from Pitchers and Poets. David Roth, whose weekly sporting chats at The Awl (w/David Raposa) never fail to crack me up. And that is but a sampling.

Okay, great, they’re gonna do a website. Why am I writing about it? Because in order to make The Classical “a sustainable business, rather than yet another blog or Tumblr” (their words), they need dough. So they’ve set up a Kickstarter page with the goal of raising $50,000 to make this a reality. If you’re on the fence about whether you’d like to contribute to the cause, I’d suggest reading the Project Description and the full list of contributors, and above all else, watching the accompanying video, which has some hilarious visual cues.

And of course, if you do contribute, you’re in line for some valuable schwag, including (but not limited to) a chip clip. But if you can’t swing a contribution (times are tough, I know), you can always like The Classical on Facebook, or tweet about it, or mention it on the social media platform of your choice. It’s free, and it helps.

From what I can tell, the response has been pretty great thus far; as I post this, The Classical has already raised over $11K. But that’s obviously not quite their goal, so if you’ve ever complained about call-in radio shows or lamented the general meatheadedness of sports commentary, please consider doing your part to elevating said commentary on the interwebs. Future generations will thank you.

Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter

Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter: Tim Marchman

Like Joe Posnanski, who I covered in a previous Warm Thoughts… post, Ive written about my love for sportswriter Tim Marchman before on this site. Unlike Posnanski, Marchman doesn’t have much of a national profile. He wrote for the now-defunct New York Sun for a few years, and now pens the occasional column for SI.com. He runs a very close second to Posnanski as my favorite baseball writer.

Marchman isn’t quite as poetic as Posnanski, and he has a calm, cool style that’s somewhat at odds with recent trends in sportswriting. Nowadays, you either have to be a manic Super Fan liek Bill Simmons, or a angry, grousy crab like virtually everyone else. Marchman, by contrast, is measured and erudite. You can tell he chooses every single word carefully, which you can not often say of his contemporaries.

But he can also bust out the occasional bon mot, as he did in a column last December about the Mets’ lack of hot stove activity.

Think of the market as a greasy street at the ash end of Las Vegas at a quarter to five in the morning, and Minaya and his rivals as the sad lot slumping along the sidewalk. Should they really listen to the sharps and touts sidling up to them, making offers? One supposes that they could catch some luck. They could catch something else just as easily.

Marchman’s specialties are the numbers of baseball: sabermetrics and dollars. Take his recent column about Tim Lincecum’s impending arbitration case. It’s a case that has a lot of owners shaking in their boots, because Lincecum asked for a record high salary ($13 million). Marchman touches on players’ historic lack of luck in this process (they lose 60 percent of all cases) and what Lincecum’s prospects are for remaining a great pitcher (prognosis: positive).

Or another recent column about the Reds’ signing Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman. By his math, the economics of the deal don’t quite add up. At the same time, he likes to see that teams like the Reds are taking high risk/high reward chances like this.

I love that the Reds are laying marks on real talent rather than squandering $5 million on Kyle Farnsworth or someone like him. I love that Reds fans are (rightly) so excited about this. I love that Chapman can finally start thinking about the best players in the world rather than worrying about money. Mostly I love that it was the Reds, rather than the Yankees or Angels, who signed him.

Baseball

A Glorious Day for Fans of Baseball Prose

Tim Marchman writes for Sports Illustrated? Why wasn’t I informed earlier?! Oh Brenda, I’m very concerned about your secretarial skills of late! I would seriously consider firing you if you weren’t imaginary!

Readers of this site know I’ve shared my love for Mr. Marchman many times. He is a quality baseball writer, and the only reason to read the now-defunct NY Sun. He wrote a column on Monday about the difficulty of predicting playoff teams this time of year. As always, it is quality stuff. Go read it now.