This week's voting has concluded, and we must bid farewell to the four finalists who had the lowest-rated blogs this week:

edhardiman

Elizabeth_Bennet

rivjo

ShooterB

Voting for Week 2
1. HiPlainsDrifter -- Avg rating this week: 3.94
2. joshhoskins55 -- 3.58
3. Dudski -- 3.14
4. MooreSports -- 3.02
5. nappytemple -- 3.00
6. tjw118 -- 2.85
7. Gbrent -- 2.83
8. DrMidnight -- 2.83

Eliminated:
9. ShooterB -- 2.77
10. rivjo -- 2.76
11. edhardiman -- 2.73
12. Elizabeth_Bennet -- 2.32

Sorry to those who got eliminated, and congratulations to everyone who advanced to next week.

This week's assignment for the remaining eight finalists will be posted in the next 24 hours, with a comparable due date of Friday a.m.

-Tom

As we near the announcement of who will advance to Week 3, here are the judges' comments on some of the work done in Week 2.

Received highest scores from judges

HiPlainsDrifter
Peter: Well-researched, light-hearted, and thoroughly enjoyable. I specifically enjoyed the internal war against making the lame Bruce Dickinson "Cowbell" jokes. Very original topic. Great job.
Dime: When I opened his "Best/Worst" entry and saw the Disco Demolition Night pic I was disappointed because I thought it was going to be the same old predictable thing. It ended up being really creative and entertaining.
Tom: Very enjoyable read. Strong from start to finish.

joshhoskins55
Peter: Again, a unique look at something many might not know much about. Passion for the A's, good writing, and solid research all made this a terrific piece to read. "All the ambiance of a proctologist's office" is a phenomenal line.
Dime: Really good. This entry not as good as the last one, but still strong.
Tom: I agree that this wasn't as good as his Week 1 effort, but still a solid read. I felt it got a little grandiose at points ("second base apex"), including the lead which struck me as a little "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." And while photos are certainly not required or even part of our judging process, the use of the before/after photos in this piece was a great service to the reader.

nappytemple
Peter: Seems like an episode of "Around the Horn" in article form -- a little too jokey for me. But that's fine. You tried something new, and a less critical reader would probably enjoy this thoroughly. I commend you on the risk-taking.
Dime: Good stuff this week, but not great.
Tom: This was an odd piece, but I really enjoyed it. Loved the lines about Shaq's blue sweater and the Bilas line about Adam Morrison.

Received lowest scores from judges

MooreSports
Peter: An ode to the three-point shot? Not sure I loved the topic here -- and the entire Back to The Future theme seemed like a forced pop culture reference. Was this supposed to be a funny, light-hearted article or a hard-nosed, fact-based one? I still don't know.
Dime: This piece was reaching with the Back to the Future thing, forcing creativity. And the piece was a little all over the place.
Tom: The Back to the Future thing seemed really forced, especially considering the movie is about 20 years old at this point. And then an NBA piece focusing a lot on David Stern and Bird/Magic/Jordan? Not very original.

ShooterB
Peter: Intro could have been tightened a bit (Why not go Horry, who also has 6 rings?), and this goes on and on. However, I like the use of the sidebar, and the research is there.
Dime: No new ground was covered here and I don't feel like much creativity went into this one. The piece could have been more interesting if Shooter injected a little more personality into it, but as it is, it is not a very interesting read.
Tom: This starts off well, but deteriorates as it goes and has a very odd ending.

tjw118
Peter: I dreaded reading this topic, thinking I'd seen all these on cheesy SportsCenter montages throughout the year. But you went with some random events -- the Japan Cup and the NY Marathon -- which made it a bit different. Even still, this reads like a summary of events, not an opinion. Your other posts this week were all a LOT more entertaining.
Dime: I like some of the selections (NY Marathon), but in general I feel like this piece just missed the mark.
Tom: Seems like a random timeframe to choose and somewhat lazy. Why not just talk about the unheralded best finishes like Japan Cup and NY Marathon and make that the entire focus instead of just choosing a random "of the past few months." Couple things also just struck me as being off in the piece: saying Leinart scored the game-winning "goal" instead of just calling it a touchdown, Belmont was misspelled, calling the Rose Bowl Vince Young's coming out party (I'd argue that he was already "out" and that this was simply him stepping onto the biggest stage) and then not mentioning that the Suns and Nash ultimately beat Kobe and the Lakers in that series. 

Other comments

DrMidnight
Dime: I enjoyed the D'Antoni entry, but this piece was a little too long and could have used some cutting down. Couple misspellings and typos too.
Tom: A decent read, but is a little too long and talking about the column in the column just makes me cringe, for example this line: "That and his rather colorful-sounding interviews could have made Avery the subject of this column."

Dudski
Peter: What's Charlie Weis the best at, exactly? Is he the best leader of young men? The best patriotic coach for a Top 25 team? Nice story and all, but what was this? Surely not a response to the topic at hand.
Tom: A little too fawning, but not bad.

Gbrent
Dime: I liked his piece on Andrew Morbitzer much more than the piece on Worst Sports Fan Behavior. The latter was too easy of a topic and it wasn't very creative. Just way too easy and obvious to write about Philly fans.
Tom: Didn't quite understand how this was a "lighthearted" look as the headline states, but then gets all high-handed at the end about the "travesty" of it all. Really liked the headline for the Lakers entry though "Only in Cali, where we riot, not rally" (and yes, I know what it's from.)

edhardiman
Peter: Lame analogy to start it off. Really lame. Pretty much the anti-grabber. But you really rebound. And the research adds to the piece. I laughed out loud at the Juan Lebron stuff.
Tom: I liked this piece, with some very good lines about how "Rome wasn't burnt in a day" and the "meat-and-potatoes fundamentals". The LeBron wordplay was clever too. Didn't like the lead though because I just don't think it's true. I haven't gotten the impression that the media has been slobbering over Bonds at all lately, in fact maybe the opposite and knocking him at every turn.

Elizabeth_Bennet
Peter: Read like a high school graduation speech. Felt like someone was preaching to me. About what? I'm not sure.
Tom: Takes a big swing at this topic and not sure she connects. A little too high-fallutin' at points.

rivjo
Peter: Fun piece. Not the best written -- as there are grammatical errors all over -- but very fun. What was Gastineau the best at? I'm not sure exactly. But you picked an angle and ran with it. Pretty good effort. Drags a bit, but enjoyable.
Dime: I love the choice of writing about Mark Gastineau for the assignment. Totally not expecting that at all ... which is great. But unfortunately the writing does live up to the topic choice.

 -Tom

Here's the second assignment/topic for our finalists:

The best of ...
or
The worst of ...

Again, this is intentionally vague and open-ended. But you can take your pick of wanting to write about something that you deem "the best" of something or "the worst" of something. What's "something?" Totally up to the authors: game, play, team, event ... you name it.

Topic choice is often as important as the writing itself, so giving authors the freedom to choose their own path and seeing where they take it, is one of the ways we will be, and have been, evaluating entries.

Pieces must be posted on finalists' own blog no later than noon ET/9 a.m. PT this Friday.

Good luck to our 12 remaining finalists.

-Tom

This week's voting has concluded, and we must bid a fond farewell to the four finalists who had the lowest-rated blogs this week:

absolutebest

JWatters

tombradyquinn

xea76

Voting for Week 1
1. joshhoskins55 -- Avg rating this week: 3.78
2. HiPlainsDrifter -- 3.77
3. nappytemple -- 3.53
4. MooreSports -- 3.35
5. tjw118 -- 3.20
6. Dudski -- 2.90
7. Elizabeth_Bennet -- 2.76
8. DrMidnight -- 2.74
9. edhardiman -- 2.71
10. rivjo -- 2.65
11. Gbrent -- 2.59
12. ShooterB -- 2.55

Eliminated:
13. JWatters -- 2.47
14. absolutebest -- 2.32
15. xea76 -- 2.00
16. tombradyquinn -- 1.84

Sorry to those who got eliminated, and congratulations to everyone who advanced to next week.

Next week's assignment for the remaining 12 finalists will be posted Tuesday morning, with a comparable due date of Friday a.m.

-Tom

As we near the announcement of who will advance to Week 2, we wanted to take a moment to comment on some of the work done in Week 1.

Received highest scores from judges

joshhoskins55
Peter: Enjoyable, random, informative. Something different. Fabulous.
Tom: Very enjoyable read. Story could have easily devolved into something just about him growing up, but that part stayed in the background enough and served as a strong theme to keep the story moving. Some great turns of a phrase in here too ("the band geek of baseball" for example)

HiPlainsDrifter
Peter: As always, a pleasant read. Take on Barrett is unique, well thought out and timely. Really enjoyed it.
Tom: Timely topic, good lead and some more great phrases ("sophists of the sucker punch")

nappytemple
Peter: Loved it from start to finish. Informative, too.
Tom: An enjoyable read. Very similar to a recent ESPN The Magazine piece. Would have liked to know why Larry Johnson does the diamond celebration mentioned at the end. 

Received lowest scores from judges

xea76
Peter: On a technical level, this is not the best written piece. A little too sentimental.
Tom: Reads too much like a fan fawning over his hero. And turns into something that's more about the writer than the athlete.

tombradyquinn
Peter: This was an SI cover story two years ago, and there's nothing new here. Not sure the three-paragraph intro was the way to go either.
Tom: Spends the whole piece talking about how Sanders left for the love of the game, and then at then end says "As for the reasons (why athletes leave in their prime), such decisions are personal, and should remain personal unless disclosed by the individual who harbors them." Seems to be contradicting the whole piece on some level. Also makes a lot of wide, sweeping statements without much there to back it up. And then phrases like "Today, I will comment on ..." just make the piece read like a book report.

ShooterB
Peter: I'm not sure this piece flows very well. And the summary of Ward's pro basketball career is a bit light.
Tom: Good subject choice, but not much of a follow-through. Like the idea that Ward's time came too soon, but would have liked to hear more about why that was.

Other comments

absolutebest
Tom: Got kind of blah in a hurry. Far from as good, and as thought-provoking, as absolutebest's other work. The X-Men piece on his blog now is a much better piece even.

DrMidnight
Peter: Love the analysis. More than just a Shaq fluff piece, with good insight. But a number of glaring errors, probably due to pushing the deadline so much. Number of missing words and a glaring "Insert stats" comment in the middle of a paragraph.

Dudski
Tom: Liked going off the beaten path a little, but didn't understand why I should really care about this guy beyond his connection to the author. For better or worse, there are literally hundreds of stories like this about small-town legends and didn't understand what made this guy special. More personal anecdotes about interaction with Moore or things he did might have helped a lot.

edhardiman
Tom: The format of this piece made for a pretty frustrating read. Might have worked better for a narrative. Also didn't really understand the "Philly" aspect of this. Certainly there are tons of great ways to mine the Philly sports phenomenon, just didn't understand how it applied in this case.

Elizabeth_Bennet
Tom: Not sure you defend some of these points, but overall an interesting read.

GBrent
Peter: A lot of insight and research, but is about 1,000 words too long. Takes a whole paragraph to say something that you could say in one sentence.

JWatters
Tom: A good read, with some good analysis. But also could benefit greatly from some tightening up. 

MooreSports
Peter: Another Bonds piece? Haven't we heard enough? That said, this is a pretty decent angle and the writing style is unique. Just not sure it was an exciting read.

Rivjo
Tom: Kudos on the topic choice and a decent read, but would have liked it more if it went beyond a little of the small-town-boy-makes-it-big cliche.

tjw118
Peter: Really dug this and liked that you chose a person so close to your heart. A little fluffy and corny at times, but still pretty good.