Goodbye to Mr. Cub

The baseball world lost another legendary figure last week in hall of famer Ernie Banks.  Apparently one of the all-time nice guys in baseball and universally loved, Banks of course grew up in Dallas and was the Cubs' first black player.  The first big-time power-hitting shortstop and forerunner to people like Cal Ripken and A-Rod.

Banks was only really great for about 7 years, but during that time he punched his ticket to the HOF by playing a premium defensive position and winning 2 MVP's.  After that he was fairly average and moved to 1st base but made it to 500 homers.  During those 1st 7 years, he finished in the top 6 in MVP voting 5 times, hit over 40 homers 5 times, averaged 110 RBI, and had a .556 slugging % and .910 OPS.  His MVP years were big-time:

.313 - 47 - 129
.304 - 45 - 143

All of this playing for very bad teams with little protection in the lineup.  Banks was a pioneer and a classic middle of the century hall of famer, peaking at a very high level, lasting long enough to hit a "magic" number, and being a true fan and media favorite.

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NBA Player Efficiency Rankings

Time for me to take that mid-season look at player efficiency to see which players are on the rise, which are underrated, etc.  This year, 6 of the top 20 are point guards, Lebron has started to age just a bit, and your boy Westbrook has taken a big leap up the rankings, ha.  Here are the top 20 if they are playing over 25 min per game:

Anthony Davis - 31.9
Kevin Durant - 28.7
James Harden - 28.0
Russell Westbrook - 27.3
Steph Curry - 27.0
Lebron - 26.2
Demarcus Cousins - 25.8
Chris Paul - 24.9
Blake Griffin - 22.9
Klay Thompson - 22.8
Marc Gasol - 22.7
Jeff Teague - 22.5
Dwayne Wade - 22.5
LaMarcus Aldridge - 22.5
Derrick Favors - 22.4
Pau Gasol - 22.3
Nikola Vucevic - 22.2
Tim Duncan - 22.1
Damian Lillard - 22.1
Kyle Lowry - 22.0

That's a huge number for Davis and a wide lead.  Too bad the "Unibrow" doesn't play for a good team.  Notice, no Dirk, no Kobe, no Dwight Howard.  Dynamic duos: Curry/Thompson, Paul/Griffin, Durant/Westbrook, Aldridge/Lillard.  Kudos to whoever was the youth coach of Marc and Pau Gasol!

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College Football Royalty - Updated

I originally posted this in 2012, and updated it in 2013.  Updating again to give OSU their newest title, painful as it is.

As a follow-up to the season I looked at the historical AP and Coaches polls and added them up.  The thing to remember is that until 1968 for AP and 1974 for Coaches, the polls were taken before the bowls, which used to be considered kind of like exhibitions or bonuses for good seasons.  Coaches polls started in 1950 and AP in 1936.  Alabama claims several championships outside of the AP or Coaches polls, which to me are totally bogus.  For instance in 1941 every poll of substance named Minnesota champion, but one obscure poll named Alabama, and they still claim it.  Also, you can make the case that they did not deserve their 1964 and 1973 championships since they lost their bowl games, or 1978 when they split with USC but lost to them in the regular season.  Regardless, I'm showing the official results of the polls below.  Whether some of these can be disputed or not, these are the royalty.  The numbers in parenthesis indicate total AP+Coaches championships and the number that were undisputed.  The asterisk indicates a split championship:

Alabama (10/7) - 1961, 1964, 1965*, 1973*, 1978*, 1979, 1992, 2009, 2011, 2012
Notre Dame (8/7) - 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1966, 1973*, 1977, 1988
Oklahoma (7/6) - 1950, 1955, 1956, 1974*, 1975, 1985, 2000
USC (7/4) - 1962, 1967, 1972, 1974*, 1978*, 2003*, 2004
Ohio St. (6/4) - 1942, 1954*, 1957*, 1968, 2002, 2014
Miami (5/4) - 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991*, 2001
Nebraska (5/3) - 1970*, 1971, 1994, 1995, 1997*

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