John Pudner wrote his first statistical analysis for the New York Post more than 20 years ago, ranking pitchers on opposite Sundays from when Bill James ranked batters, and he was named as the top sports news writer in his newspaper class in Virginia by the Virginia Press Association.
Since then he has run more than 200 political campaigns for candidates or ballot issues while continuing to write statistical analysis for sports and developing a database of thousands of basketball players at www.valueaddbasketball.com and writing for www.crackedsidewalks.com. He met with and advised several NBA teams to advice on the future performance of potential draft picks this year. His work for the Alabama Farmers Federation in 2010 included helping to coordinating door-to-door efforts that reached the homes of 170,000 voters, and his more recent statistical work was featured by CNN/Sports Illustrated.
On the most emotional hockey night imaginable, the Boston Bruins were on their way to a win after 59 minutes and 30 seconds of play - only to have the Buffalo Sabres Cody Hodgson score with 26.6 seconds to play to tie the game 2-2 and Drew Stafford to score on a shootout to send Boston to defeat 3-2. The one point for going to overtime clinched the playoffs and Montreal's loss to to the top Eastern team Pittsburgh moved the Bruins from a fourth seed (at least one home series) to a two seed (at least two home series) as shown by the Northeast standings:
17 Apr 2013
Braves starter Mike Minor and A's starter Bartolo Colon both allowed only one run Wednesday, but only the A's won - catching the Braves with a major-league-best 12 wins. The Braves 1-4 rotation has not allowed more than one earned run in 11 consecutive starts, but they fell 2-0 to the Kansas City Royals.
17 Apr 2013
On Monday, the Boston Bruins went from worrying about coming back home after a couple of losses to fight off Ottawa, to worrying about the victims of the Boston Marathon explosion. On Wednesday, they will attempt to help lead Bostonians back to a life of normal by taking the ice at 7:30 ET on NBC Sports against Buffalo in the first sporting event in the city since the explosion. Ottawa crept to within three points of the Bruins for the fourth spot in the playoffs, which is the final spot to get home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
17 Apr 2013
While the Braves five home runs Tuesday grab attention, another dominant starting pitching performance is the biggest reason the Braves are 12-1 with 10 straight wins. Kris Medlen made it one earned run or fewer allowed in 10 straight starts for the Braves top four starters (see table) - a mark that even Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Steve Avery would have had trouble matching in the early 1990s. Here are the numbers four the four since (but not including) Opening Day:
17 Apr 2013
Marcus Smart was expected to be guaranteed $8.7 to $9.7 million in a couple of months despite being in a shooting slump for a good part of his freshman season and having his Oklahoma State team lose in the opening round of the NCAA. In two stunning announcements, Yahoo! Sports announced that Smart announced that he would forgo the money to stay on campus, and CBS Sports reported that Vander Blue of Marquette announced he would leave for the NBA draft despite not being expected to be guaranteed a salary at the draft based on the grid provided April 9 by Breitbart Sports.
16 Apr 2013
While most Americans were running to mail forms to the IRS Monday, IRS agents were raiding the Knoxville headquarters of the Flying J truck chain owned by the owner of the Cleveland Browns and the Governor of Tennessee. During the GOP primary for Governor of Tennessee, Zach Wamp labelled Bill Haslam (pictured) a billionaire, and after the election Haslam put all of his investments into a blind trust - except the Flying J chain.
16 Apr 2013
Whether or not the 2013 Kobe-less Lakers join the Lakers teams of 1958, 1975, 1976, 1994 and 2005 as the only ones not to make the playoffs now comes down to if either Marc or brother Pau Gasol can win their season finale Wednesday. Either Marc needs to stop Utah's Al Jefferson inside after he scored another 22 points Monday to beat Minnesota, or Pau needs to step up and help the Lakers beat the Rockets.
15 Apr 2013
An important hockey game was scheduled Monday, as the Boston Bruins came home to try to rebound from two losses and keep the visiting Ottawa Senators from threatening to make a run at home ice advantage for the playoffs. However, the game quickly became unimportant and cancelled in the wake of the explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
15 Apr 2013
Ninth inning rallies by both Tampa Bay and Boston extended the Monday morning game beyond three hours and hopefully kept most of the 37,000 Red Sox fans from getting far from the stadium before explosions just over a mile way. The explosions appear to have occurred less than a half hour after the conclusion of the game.
15 Apr 2013
Dwight Howard scored 26 points and grabbed 17 rebounds Sunday against one of the greatest players of all-time, Tim Duncan, to get the Lakers one win from the playoffs. The Lakers were able to win the final three minutes after Bryant went down in the last game, and in their first full game without Bryant they beat the Spurs, the second best team in the West. A win against the Rockets Wednesday, or a loss by the Utah Jazz Monday or Wednesday, puts the Lakers in the playoffs most likely against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
14 Apr 2013