Sabel79

Good hands by 24 there. Nice goal.

Depending on where in China you'd be moving to, the language barrier may well be nonexistent. In my time there I literally had parents stopping me in the street and presenting me their children, asking if I could speak English with them. Businesses operate in a number / picture based system (mostly because a good portion of Chinese, even in the cities are illiterate, but foreigners benefit). Street signs are all in English and Chinese, it's not terrible. I'd assume you'd be doing business in English as well. Of course, you get to areas outside of the larger cities and good luck...

Ugh.

Be thankful. I'm currently listening to Sandinista! (Thanks, NS!) instead. Also, more than three minutes in, I don't think a Sabre has made a pass to another Sabre yet...

With Taro on this one, One of mine once off for three weeks then showed back up at the house like nothing happened. Don't give up hope.

I just can't fathom why they (the NHL) think it's not pant-crappingly awful from an optics point of view to come out with a directive to do thing A, then after some complaining a week into preseason come right back to those charged with doing thing A and say: "You know that thing we told you to do? Maybe stop doing it so much?" Alternate conversation: "Hey refs, it's the league. So, about those rules... turns out some people are all bent about them. Yeah, we know what it says and what we told you to do and what we told everyone else you were going to do.... but never mind."

D'oh, Dortmund give up their first goal this season. Scoring five themselves earlier in the game was probably a good idea.

Same as it ever was, unfortunately.

Pu dumped back down to London this morning, per Sabres.

F***in' long, innit?

Sabres. Leafs. I'll get my coat...

A vegan, an atheist, and a crossfit enthusiast walk into a bar. We know this because none of them will shut the up about it.

It also has sensible ownership regulation (51% of every team must be owned by fans in trust, though Leipzig (Red Bull) seems to have effectively scammed this system, stay tuned) thus keeping prices low and actual fans in the stadium and is actually fun to watch both for the on-field product and the atmosphere the aforementioned fans create. I'm not a huge fan of La Liga, speaking of leagues. Sure, Real and Barca. Sometimes Atletico. After that, a miles-deep free fall. IMHO.

I heard an unfathomable stat today. Actually the second time I've come across it so I feel comfortable relaying it while not bothering to verify: if Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich's Goalkeeper) had let in every single shot on goal he faced in the Bundesliga last season, Bayern would still have won the league. That's a dominant team.

It could very well be the small sample size I've actually seen plus me interpreting the numbers backwards.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=15640&position=OF Under plate discipline.

It could be worse, we have an excel spreadsheet in a shared drive we use to balance our checking account. There have literally been face to face meetings with people for the purposes of telling them: "For the love of god, do not "save as" or it creates multiple spreadsheets, all of them with different information. Auditors love that . Just hit the little blue button in the corner and leave it." Inexorably, there will be five copies of the spreadsheet in the folder within a day after it gets fixed.

To be fair, pretty much every team falls into one of two categories on social media: 1. Boring 2. Cheap knock-off of the LA Kings. (See: Vegas). I'd like it to be, you know, at least a bit interesting. But the Kings-style cut and paste pattern is done to death. God forbid somebody do somethign original more than one. That Vegas tweet at the Habs was pretty funny though.

Repressed memories being released: Aforementioned coach took us as a team to see that movie when it came out. Dating myself a bit, I suppose...

His swinging strike percentage is 13.4%. For a guy with that many strikeouts, he doesn't swing the bat enough.

These are both fair enough. But from what I've seen Judge likes to keep the bat on his shoulder a bit too much, and seems to have a bad eye / understanding of the strike zone. I mean, Jose Altuve is hitting .347 with not even half the strikeouts or walks. Granted, situations are different, but the ability to put the bat on the ball reliably seems to something that eludes Judge. Now, he could keep doing this and keep putting these numbers up, but I suspect he'll need to change his approach and improve his eye or else he'll get eaten up going forward. Full disclosure: I hate the Yankees and never want them to have anything good. Some of this might be wishful thinking. It is a possibility though.

Dude literally strikes out in more than 1/3 of his at bats. I'll be interested to see what he does from here, but I have doubts as to the sustainability of those numbers requiring contact.

Judge is in danger of becoming the next Dave Kingman and or Rob Deer. If he hits it, it's going to go far. If, of course, he hits it.

Yeah, if Lozo can be criticized for anything, it's his insane dislike of wings. Of course, living his entire life in freaking New Jersey, he can't be expected to know any better.

From your lips to god's ear Dave Lozo... https://sports.vice.com/en_ca/article/9k3amp/america-needs-buffalos-jack-eichel-to-be-a-superstar TLDR: Eichel needs to have a breakout year so we don't ever have to hear from or about Pat Kane ever again.