I'm Moving This

Over to another host. I'll still have to settle on a design. The one I'm using seems a little bland and lacking.

NYT: Roger Federer As A Religious Experience

More of David Foster Wallace on tennis. Here's my favorite part:

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.

The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body.

Fire Wayne Hagin Already!

3) "Oh, I suppose you could do better?" No, I couldn't. I'd be a lousy announcer, for sure. But I don't need to know how to make a movie to know that Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 is a stinker. I don't need to know how to play guitar to know Loverboy was a lousy band. I don't need to know how to cook a really good burger in order to know when I'm eating a crummy one. (As it happens, I do know how to make a really good burger, but that's another story.) In short, I know an overmatched broadcaster when I hear one, and Hagin fits the bill.

Loverboy was a lousy band? Get Lucky had an awful, unfortunate, cover but it had classics like "Take Me To The Top", "Working For The Weekend", and "When It's Over." Okay, maybe they weren't AC/DC or Led Zep, but they had their moments. I can come to only one conclusion: Paul Lukas hates Canada.

Thanks to Can't Stop the Bleeding for the link.

DanDotLewis Is My Hero

Dig.

3) Drop the arrogance of specificity. Use ranges when possible.

We’re measuring luck. Luck isn’t exact. So we’ll never be right on the money. You’ll never be able to find a season where a significant number of players have an xBA equal to their actual batting average. That makes us look stupid, when in fact, we’re just being arrogant — by being so exact.

We should use ranges. xBA should be the 50% confidence interval, not the midpoint thereof. More made up numbers: If a guy’s xBA is .285, it’s probably better expressed by saying that it’s between .279 and .291, or whatever. It makes that .290 BA not seem “lucky” (it really isn’t) but tells us that a .274 is really unlucky. In other words, it does the job — without the excruciatingly nerdy exactitude we are (wrongly) associated with.

It’s our job to communicate this stuff. It’s not their job to get smarter (they’re not dumb) or to figure it out themselves (they’re busy) or that they don’t respect us (true, but fixable). The problem is semantic, not logical, and semantic problems can — and indeed, must — be fixed by revising our language. It’s time to stop using BABIP.

Personally, I have thought for years that BABIP should have been called In Play BA. In Play BA flows better and BABIP, frankly, sounds like the name of a robot in some cheesy sci-fi flick. But I'm not the one who names these things.

The Morning News: Paper Tigers

I read this for the Bethlehem Shoals parts. He can be a little esoteric for my tastes, but when I grok him, I dig him.

By the time my friends and I started our sports blog, FreeDarko, I had done a decent amount of music criticism, and was in grad school for American studies. Typing for a few minutes when I had a stray thought about Kobe Bryant didn’t strike me as anything particularly special... Out of college, I wanted to write about music because writing seemed like an act of love or devotion. Criticism was a necessary corollary of art, a way to get at the meaning underneath the visceral experience, or at the meaning of that experience. While I sometimes dismiss my stuff as “music writing about sports,” I wouldn’t balk at the label “sports criticism.”

My all-time favorite piece of sportswriting is Woody Allen’s 1977 essay on New York Knicks guard Earl Monroe, which appeared in Sport. It helps that it’s Woody Allen, but it’s just as important to me that Woody Allen is not a traditional sportswriter, and that his take on Monroe is anything but traditional.

I’m also a huge fan of Tommy Craggs, senior editor at Deadspin. Tommy is a simply phenomenal writer who could also go toe-to-toe with any sports nerd anywhere. His longer stuff is just fantastic; these Slate pieces on the interpretation of Kevin Love, and the myth of Stephen Curry, remind you why “essayist” is a title one has to earn.

I like the phrase "music writing about sports." I tried to do something similar with my series on Maranvillains, but haven't developed that chops that Shoals has yet. Other works mentioned in that roundtable include the "String Theory" essay by David Foster Wallace that I linked earlier and a couple of books by John McPhee. This isn't the first I've heard of McPhee. Shooty recommended his work to me. Unfortunately, when I read A Sense Of Where You Belong, his expanded essay on Bill Bradley's senior year at Princeton, but it didn't grab me. This is probably my fault more than McPhee's.

WSJ: George Steinbrenner, The Yankee Capitalist.

Allen Barra weighs in on Big Stein. I like Barra, even if he seems to have a bias for the Yankees and the Crimson Tide. He is underrated by the blogosphere. For instance, Football Outsiders didn't acknowledge his work with George Ignatin on football stats. At least this was the case last time I checked a couple of years back. I apologize if this has been rectified.

Bill Veeck, the legendary Chicago White Sox owner and showman, who also was no gentleman, saw a kindred spirit in Steinbrenner. "I like George," he once told me for a story I was writing for the Journal. "He breaks all the unwritten rules."

I plan on expanding on this and other thoughts later tonite.

What Mark Read: Harvey Pekar

I'm dimly aware of Harvey Pekar. I probably saw him on Letterman way back when, but I never read him. I probably should rectify this. He seems like he'd be right up my alley. I'm a fan of the graphic novel form. I haven't been into superheros much. I think the peak of my fandom was one some local channel reran the Superman TV series from the 50s. But I have enjoyed such varied works as Maus, The Bogie Man, The Road To Perdition, and A History of Violence. And I occasionally get a kick out of Zippy The Pinhead.

This may be why I'm attracted to the slo-mo trainwreck of Funky Winkerbean. It's basically a graphic novel dripped out day by day like Chinese water torture. I occasionally think of seeking out an artist collaborator. I think some of my work would be a good fit for the graphic novel form. The Tacks Latimer bio sticks out in my mind as an example. There's also the PETCO thread, but I had little to do with that.

It's Called Writing?

Geeze, Louise. I couldn't come up with worse dialogue than this drivel if I tried. Killer shark issues?

CSTB: Too Young To Have Met Dave Kingman, Eh?

Was Will Clark really a well known a-hole? I don't recall that, but he was an NL West guy and I'm an AL East guy.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

Can't Stop The Bleeding didn't get that memo and I laughed at their headline. Roger Kahn's book October Men makes the case that his Watergate conviction was a screwjob. I wasn't a big fan of the man, but he deserves a Hall of Fame spot. I'll try to expand on that thought later.

Chris Brown's Library

I always like it when Chris over at Smart Football makes posts like this.

Sports Stats Sites: A Quick Compendium

Baseball
1. Baseball Reference
2. Retrosheet
3. Fangraphs
4. Baseball Prospectus

Basketball
1. Basketball Reference
2. College Basketball Reference
3. Basketball Prospectus

Football
1. Pro Football Reference
2. Football Outsiders

Hockey
1. Hockey Reference
2. Puck Prospectus


I think those are the major non-mediaconglomerate stat sites. Am I missing anything?

AP: Conn. land dug up for items from tribe-settler war

I don't link many stories like this here, but this one caught my eye. Battlefield archaeology is a cool topic.

MYSTIC, Conn. – Artifacts of a battle between a Native American tribe and English settlers, a confrontation that helped shape early American history, have sat for years below manicured lawns and children's swing sets in a Connecticut neighborhood. A project to map the battlefields of the Pequot War is bringing those musket balls, gunflints and arrowheads into the sunlight for the first time in centuries.

Freakonomics: If You Don’t Want Your Car Stolen, Make It Pink

However, do not park it at Jiffy Park. Lord knows what will go on in that car.

Dead Presidents #3

He wasn't a president, but today is the feast day of Alexander Hamilton and his death was more interesting than the death of most of the presidents.

Aawon Buh!

Never Saw Them Play

Every Day Should Be Saturday makes Deadspin look like the Dick Cavett show, but I have them in my Reader. Their latest post admonishes poll voters to get a DVR and watch all the games. This might be more important for voters for individual awards like the Outland Trophy. Football stats might not mean much on the individual level, but when it comes to ranking teams, can't you just use Sagarin Ratings or something similar as a guide? It might not be useful the first couple of weeks, but after enough iterations, you should be able to get a pretty clear picture of how to rank the various teams. BTW, what do D-II and D-III voters do? What about the NAIA?

Will Carroll: Equations

A long, detailed analysis of the (Cliff Lee)deal on Monday probably has some value, but it’s so greatly diminished by the volume of things we’re going to see between now and then makes it near zero. I think the time part of the analysis is shrinking. What used to be 48 hours is now maybe 12. Anything beyond that, no matter how good, isn’t going to matter.

I hate the ever-shrinking news cycle. Remember Urban Meyer's resignation? If that makes me a curmudgeon, then so be it. I don't have a solution to this, so I suppose this makes me part of the problem. I used to like reading the news weekly magazines like Time or Newsweek or US News and World Report, but they seem to have gone downhill. By the way, one thing I like about Sports Illustrated that stands the test of time is their photography. But about the only time I see any of these mags is when I am waiting for a haircut or an oil change. One think I DON'T miss about them is their ink smudging my hands.

PS - On this note, I liked the All Star Game as a kid, but it's lost it's luster for me. Is this part of getting older, or are we just oversaturated with sports options on TV?

WSJ: A New Way To Keep Score

Another one going out to p.

This Week In Milford: What Is Anyone Still Doing Here?

Milford must have had a ton of snow days because summer vacation is just starting now. I must say that the Occurrence at Funky Winkerbean Bridge is more interesting than this story about an alt-country pitcher who slightly resembles Tim Lincecum, but Batiuk moves as slow as an appellate judge. The writers at Gil Thorp Enterprise pace their stuff marginally quicker. Hopefully, Clambake or Von Haney show up in the annual summer story.

Trivia time: Do you know who the head coach/protagonist in this strip was named after? Once again, I am offering a ham sandwich to the first correct caller.

Hartford Mag: Play Ball!

More recent vintage base ball. I play in one of their leagues. If you are in the area, I'll be in a doubleheader topmorrow.

What's Pastime Is Prologue

For p: the SI Vault story on Pete Rose's free agency.

Daisuke Matsuzaka: Anti-Maranvillain

I haven't written about the concept of Maranvillains lately, but this Patrick Sullivan article brought to mind the antithesis of Rabbitt and his heirs: Dice-K.

Also, just like so many other Red Sox fans, Daisuke drives me nuts. He works slowly and walks way too many batters. In his final four seasons for the Seibu Lions, Matsuzaka averaged 2.3 walks issued per nine innings. For the Red Sox, his 162-game average BB/9 has jumped to 4.3. Combine the walks, his inefficiency and his unreliability from a health standpoint and it’s all just very maddening.

I'm not one who lives and dies with my favorite sports teams, but even I find him maddening. Some day I'll have to come up with a list of these guys. As frustrating as Matsuzaker (/Remdawg) might be, Steve Trachsel is probably worse.

Apartment 3G

Another single strip blog. How long has the current storyline been going on? It seems like forever. Does anyone read these soap strips in a non-ironic fashion?

WSJ: Innovative NFL Coach Favored Air Attack

Don Coryell's offensive-minded approach helped spark a passing revolution in professional football.

Mr. Coryell, who died Thursday at age 85, was the designer of the "Air Coryell" offense for the National Football League's San Diego Chargers. His teams never made it to the Super Bowl—a fact that may have kept Mr. Coryell out of the Pro Football Hall of Fame—but they exemplified a wide-open style of offense that fans loved.

"He helped give the game the entertainment value that it has today," said Kellen Winslow, a Charger tight end who played for Mr. Coryell. "Before that, the NFL was three yards and a cloud of dust."

I like the running game, but I did prefer Air Coryell to Bill Walsh's version of the West Coast Offense. Any pigskin experts here know what his legacy is? Do any teams still throw long as much as the Chargers did?

WSJ: Tennis Becomes A Numbers Game

Tennis sabermetrics. This is a sport I'd like to get into more someday.

Vintage Vintage Base Ball and The Best Year in Sports

I caught June 17, 1994 last month. It (among other things) inspired me to look up the issue of Sports Illustrated that covered that day. While looking through that issue, I stumbled upon this article about a vintage base ball team that had been playing in Ohio since 1981. I wonder if the baseball strike inspired these guys to get off the couch and play. Why not? The Cosmic Baseball Association was one of the offspring of the strike. I play vintage ball, but only started this year. So I'm a little hazy on the rules, but the ones they play by seem a little off. But they play using older rules than we do.

This morning, or last nite, I started thinking about what was the best year in sports history. It might be 2008. NPR makes that argument and mentions 1960 and 1969. Maybe it's 1969, if you are a New Yawker. What say you? I don't think a year necessarily has to be a calendar year. SI didn't think so, either. They would occasionally print a special issue retrospective in the late winter from around 1977 to 1984. I'm partial to this one because it includes the Miracle On Ice. That might be the biggest sports story in my living memory.

Will Carroll: Comments

I'm ... going to choose to agree to disagree with the famous medhead here. I welcome comments.

Comments, at their heart, are as much about pageviews as they are about the conversation.

I am not going to get enough pageviews for it to make a monetary difference. I do desire some feedback and appreciate the comments I do get. Craig Calcaterra once said words to the effect that blogging is a collaborative art form. I'm not sure if that's the case, but I look at this place like it's a sandbox. These posts are mainly rough drafts and I'd like to polish some of them up into something better. I've crystallized a few of these thoughts already, but sometimes a different set of eyes can see things more clearly than mine. If you feel more comfortable emailing, I'm cool with that, too. I didn't realize it, but I didn't have my address on the front page. It is jon 31768 at gmail dot com. Snail mail would be welcome if I had a publisher you could send stuff c/o.

EDITED TO ADD:

Will is also in a different situation than I am, so I can see his aversion to comments. He writes at BPro which is widely read. Widely read sites to get a lot of idiot comments. I haven't had any of those here. No birthers or truthers have made their digital mark here at Designated Sitter. Even the spammers haven't found me.

Wages of Win Journal: Joe Johnson and the Past Century of the Disconnect Between the Words and Deeds of Sports Owners

I'm not posting this because I have a Joe Johnson fetish. The postscript caught my eye.

P.S. Do you like the shorter posts? This was a topic discussed during the panel on sports and blogging at the Western Economic Association. Justin Wolfers says the posts at Freakonomics are supposed to be 400 words or shorter. I responded that I struggled with the 800 word limit at Huffington Post. Although this is true, I am going to start trying to make whatever point I am trying to make (as if I am always trying to make a point) a bit quicker. And one last note… I am now back in Cedar City. So all the stuff I promised to post might appear soon.

I'm firmly in the camp that short is beautiful when it comes to writing; especially on the web. I sometimes have moments of self-doubt about this; especially when I see popular writers like Bill Simmons or Aaron Gleeman write epic-length articles. But I do believe that style works better in print than online. How many of you read this during stolen moments at work? I bet it's the majority of you. And I don't think that multi-tasking is really conducive to retaining info from longer thinkpieces.

More Cowbell

Foghat and Blue Oyster Cult are coming to Enfield, CT next Saturday nite. I won't be around for this show, but I've seen both bands over the years. Foghat played Finnegan's in San Angelo, TX my last nite at Goodfellow AFB. One of my brothers and I went to Toad's Place in New Haven on the spur of the moment to see BOC. This was in the 90s and they had some dedicated fans. They sang along to stuff off a new album that maybe 400 people owned. This was well after the band's salad days. Anyways, when I think Jurassic Rock, "Slow Ride" is one of the first tunes that comes to my mind.

A Couple of Hanna-Barbera All-Star Teams

I got the idea for these from this post a couple of weeks back.

Jabberjaw

P Don Drydock
C Carlton Fish
1B Gill Hodges
2B Frankie Fish
3B Ken Calimari
SS Luis Aquaricio
LF Willie Starfish
CF Curt Flood
RF Tim Salmon

Flintstones

P Sandy Koufax
C Elstone Howard
1B Stony Perez
2B Ryne Sandstone
3B Brooks Rockinson
SS Cal Ripap
LF Rock Raines (Tom Tango will be pleased)
CF Mickey Mantle
RF Stony Gwynn

Dead Presidents #2

Thomas Jefferson is on the $2 bill. A certain gangster-owned legitimate business near me likes to hand them out as change for some reason. Jefferson was no fan of doctors. He would gaze upwards for a buzzard whenever he saw three physicians together. He especially distrusted the practice of bleeding and purging.

He had urinary problems in his last months, possibly from an enlarged prostate. But what most likely killed him dehydration resulting from amoebic dysentery.

Jefferson became comatose on July 2, 1826. On the third he awakened and asked his doctor, Robley Dunglison, "Is it the fourth?" He died 50 minutes into the next day, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a few hours before his onetime rival John Adams.

Jefferson was buried at Monticello. Monticello still stands today thanks to Uriah P. Levy, a Jewish Naval officer who admired Jefferson's contributions to religious liberty and who believed that Monticello should be preserved as a monument.

Cardboard Gods: Gil Flores

Outstanding entry by Josh.

Is Funky Winkerbean The New M*A*S*H?

TV Tropes discusses the Cerebus Syndrome where a lighthearted piece of art morphs (some would say jumps the shark) into serious drama. Who knows. Maybe Act III is more analogous to Trapper John M.D. of AfterM*A*SH.

I actually like the current car crash storyline, but it's moving like Quaaludes-laced molasses. I don't think Funky has given up the ghost. Masky McDeath hasn't shown up yet.

Tracers: Keith Hernandez Edition Part Deux

1. Chris Dial says that the score in that game on 6/14/1987 was 7-3. He's right. I forgot to fact-check that. Someone else commented on my blog that the game was inspired by this game. Said it was documented in Jeff Pearlman's book "The Bad Guys Won." I did read that book once when I had the notion to write about the 1986 Red Sox season, but I didn't recall that.

2. Devin McC is of the opinion that Seinfeld isn't part of the Tommy Westphall Universe. I agree. Parts of that universe like Murphy Brown were portrayed as TV shows in the Seinfeldverse. That said, the MLB on that show is slightly different. I haven't gone through the show with a fine-tooth comb, but there was no catcher ever by the name of Genderson. The closest real life one I could find was Rich Gedman. Last I checked, he was managing the Worcester Tornados in the Can-m League and not murdering dry-cleaners.

EDITED TO ADD:

3. 2nd Spitter to 2nd Shooter: Len Lesser (Uncle Leo) was in Kelly's Heroes with Donald Sutherland who was in JFK (Along with Kevin Bacon, natch.)

Fangraphs: Corresponding Points (with Drew Fairservice)

Carson Cistulli is at it again. Hi, Carson. (He ego-surfs, so he might see this.) He corresponds with Drew Fairservice whose writing appears at Ghostrunner on First and other points north. I corresponded with him myself a while back. I haven't really touched on Rabbit Maranville and his bastard children lately, but I got the idea from Free Darko. Fairservice is an acolyte of them:

Liberated fandom is something I first saw on Free Darko – the wildly successful and pretentious basketball site of some acclaim. I’ll never fully divorce myself from rooting for laundry but I refuse to shut myself off from Joy dressed as the enemy.

I have nothing but love and respect for Mariano Rivera and couldn’t possibly imagine a world in which Manny and Papi are villains. I couldn’t bring myself to cheer for David Eckstein during his time as a Jay because it just didn’t feel right.

Basically, my bastardized version says listen to your guts. Cast off the shackles of us versus them and embrace greatness in its every form. Appreciate and understand the team in the other dugout because the wins and losses fade over time. It isn’t too far from the “All Joy” concept, just with a wordier name.

I try, but I find it difficult to get pumped up for a non-Red Sox game. Curiosity has led me to check out some of Strasburg's outings, but that's my only extracirricular activity this year. Also, I think I'm more interested in uniqueness or entertainment value than greatness. Well, today is July 1st. I'll make a New Halfyear's resolution to try and watch more teams that don't play in Boston. The way that team's going, they need to call up Trapper John McIntyre.

Esquire: String Theory

I read this David Foster Wallace piece today. Wimbeldon's going on right now, after all. And Wallace seems to have a cult following that I'm trying to understand. (I think that both Bill Simmons and Bethlehem Shoals are fans.) I did like it even though Wallace and I are polar opposites when it comes to writing. I am terse while he was expansive; like a Joe Posnanski or Aaron Gleeman. Too, I tend to keep my digressions within the main body of the text, instead of shunting them off to footnotes. But I am beginning to see some advantages to his method.

Wallace also wrote this article for the New York Times Play magazine. I may tackle it later. I happened to read the Esquire piece in a compilation book. I didn't realize it was online until after reading the piece. Frankly, I find stuff that long much easier to follow in print than online.

Snowclones

The Economist discusses snowclones; those phrases like "X is the new Y" or "It's X's world. We're just living in it." I pretended to read the article.

How accurately can we estimate a hitter’s runs?

The short answer, according to the Hardball Times: Pretty accurately, but not perfectly. I wanted to link to this article by Colin Wyers because I thought it was important. Yet I didn't see much discussion about it when it came out and I hang out online in some of the some places that statheads do. Here's the important part:

Some things to take away from the chart:

Power hitters are far more "inconsistent" than other kinds of hitters. Doubles, triples and home runs by far have the highest standard error.
Walks are very consistent, showing very little standard error compared to other events. Outs are also very consistent. So, all else being equal, players with either very high or very low on-base percentages would tend to have less error in their linear weights estimates.

Colin was writing about hitting. That's the portion of baseball that's easiest to analyze statistically. If there's fuzziness there, what about when it comes to analyzing the rest of the game? None of this should suggest that Duane Kuiper was a better hitter than Barry Bonds or anything like that. But I am curious to hear what others like Tom Tango have to say about this article. Maybe I missed the discussion.

Nails

Last nite, Rob Neyer posted about Lenny Dykstra at his Sweet Spot blog. To me, the most interesting part was the last graf:

And speaking of books, most baseball players really aren't interesting enough to write about. Not in a serious biography, anyway. But Dykstra's different. Between his baseball career and his business adventures and the fractured relationship with his baseball-playing son, there's the makings here of a Shakespearian tragedy. The only problem is that you sort of have to wait until the ending, to really do the story justice.

Who else would Rob (or you) consider bio-worthy? Tacks Latimer had an interesting post-baseball life, but I doubt you could get a book out of it. His story is probably better suited for a film. Then again, no one knows who he is.

Hartford Courant: Suspect In Jasper Howard Slaying Faces New Charges

NBC Connecticut link. I plan on aggregating these as stories are posted.

Tracers: Keith Hernandez Edition

Rob Neyer would do these; even wrote a whole book of them. I was hanging out at BTF last nite (the Factory, not Backyard Tire Fire) and someone mentioned the Second Spitter Seinfeld episode. They said, " They say the game was June 14, 1987, Mets/Phillies, and Keith had blown the game on an error. It turns out that the Mets played the Pirates that day and won 7-4 on with the help of a Hernandez homer." I looked at retrosheet. Against Philly, he had a non-crucial error September 7th. He had one during a tie game vs Pittsburgh on the 18th, but that was at Three Rivers. I don't think that Larry David or whoever wrote the episode cared about the historical accuracy of a midseason baseball game, but it would have been interesting if there was an element of truth to Newman and Kramer's game description. I only checked 1987.

Is Seinfeld part of the Tommy Westphall Universe? I know that there is a tenuous connection between it and Mad About You. Maybe there's a parallel MLB in that universe where Hernandez still won his MVP but blew that game.

BTF seeks its revenge

I saw this title and immediately thought of Baseball Think Factory instead of Backyard Tire Fire. My worlds are colliding!

Schrodinger's Funk

Is Funky Winkerbean dead, alive, or somewhere in between?

Dead Presidents #1A

I found the announcement of James Madison's death in the Hartford Courant. It was in the July 4th edition of that paper. News travelled slower back then. It wasn't a separate story. Instead, it was included with a couple of other dispatches from that part of the country. One of the other ones involved a son of Francis Scott Key.

His son Francis was a midshipman at Annapolis. But he was expelled for killing another USNA student in a duel. I never heard that story before. I had heard about his brother, Philip Barton Key. Philip took Tersa Sickles as his lover. When her husband Daniel found out, he shot Key dead. At the trial, Sickles pled temporary insanity. He was the first in the United States to use this defense. He was acquitted and went on to become a general in the Civil War; thanks to political connections. He wasn't exactly a military mastermind.

Finally, I got a note from my friend Chris Jaffe about yesterday's entry.

The last Founding Fathers were James Madison and John Marshall, with Madison outlived Marshall by almost a year.

The only possible F.F. to outlive them both was Aaron Burr. His Founding claim to fame was involvement in the 1775 invasion of Quebec. Pretty much everyone else of note from that period was dead by then.

The Big Hurt and The Killer B's.

I hung a calender from the Baseball Hall of Fame on my office wall. Some days it has a brief blurb on that particular date in baseball history. Today, it notes that Frank Thomas hit his 500th home run three years ago on 6/28. Craig Biggio got his 3,000th hit that day, too. As many of you know, Frank Thomas was born on 5/27 in 1968. So was Jeff Bagwell. When The Big Hurt takes The Big Sleep, Lance Berkman should $%^& himself in fear. My money's on 7/29/2046.

Dead Presidents #1

I guess that this is ostensibly a baseball blog. I love baseball and enjoyed driving through the eastern part of the state yesterday afternoon while listening to the Red Sox - Giants game on the radio, but the baseball muse hasn't been inspiring me lately, but that's okay.

I got the idea for writing what may turn out to be a new series from Alice Cooper. I was listening to "Nights With Alice Cooper" Friday and he mentioned some presidential trivia. One of the things he mentioned was that Teddy Roosevelt died of a tooth infection. This sparked my interest. I had a nasty one three weeks ago. Good thing I had it treated, no? I went to further research this on Whiskeypedia, but it wasn't mentioned there. However, a further Google search revealed a couple of sites that discuss presidential health and demise.

Today marks the 174th anniversary of the death of James Madison. He was one of the last of the surviving Founding Fathers if not THE last. Most know that Adams and Jefferson died ten years earlier on the Fourth of July. His successor James Monroe also died on the on the Fourth in 1831. According to Dr. Zebra, "...(H)e refused the requests of friends' to take stimulants in order to prolong his life until July 4, the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. . ... Finally, one morning, a few days before the 4th, Madison was found dead in his bedroom, sitting in front of his untouched breakfast tray. " His last words were "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear. I always talk better lying down." A niece had asked him what was wrong.

He was buried in the Madison family gravesite at their estate Montpelier in central Virginia.

A Dissertation on Funky Winkerbean

Stumbled across this this morning. This guy's really into FBoFW, but he takes on other comic strips as well. Today, he discusses Cathy. AAACCKK!!!

I Don't Know Much About Cagermetrics, But...

... was that kid from Harvard the best college point guard last year? I guess you have to adjust for age, so John Wall has room to improve. I also understand that many folks prefer Hollinger's metrics over those from Dave Berri, but does anyone know how this works? Moses? Are they adjusted for competition level or is Lin the modern day Bill Bradley?

Speaking of Bradley, someone suggest that I read some John McPhee. I picked up his short book on Bradley and read the main part of it. I believe it was one long New Yorker article. I still haven't read the chapters ofter that but hope to soon. I have a habit of juggling too many books and am also reading about the Civil War and sexual violence by athletes. Something has to give.

I Propose A New Word

Punice: A play on a name using a stone Age pun a la The Flinstones. I was reading the Whiskeypedia entry for Jabberjaw and that cartoon did the same thing with watery puns like Aqualaska. Never you mind why I was reading about Jabberjaw before work.

Anyways, the All-Punice baseball team will be managed by Stony LaRussa and he'll use a bunch of LOOGYs like Stony Fossas, That's all I have for now.

It's Like Watching A Carwreck

Buzz Bissinger on his membership in the Twitterati.

Fire Tom Batiuk

Today's Crankshaft is funny if taken together with yesterday’s strip. But reading the funnies shouldn’t be this much work. You’re supposed to look at three panels and laugh. It isn’t like this is a graphic novel where you can read the whole story in one fell swoop. The way this is playing out, it is like Chinese water torture. And don't let me get started on Funky Winkerbean. Other folks do a good job with that already.

Heisman Pundit

Stumbled across this site thanks to Senator Blutarsky. There series on program and talent rankings intrigues me. It reminds me a little of the work that Chris Jaffe has done on evaluating baseball managers. Could we evaluate college football coaches on how well or poorly they convert bluechip recruits into NFL performers? I don't think that's the only mission of coaches, but let's be honest. These teams are part of the de facto NFL farm system.

Pato

Never heard of this sport before. Sounds like polo without mallets.

American Tabloid by James Ellroy

Mark S reviews some political noir.

American Tabloid by James Ellroy was a giant curveball by the hard-boiled detective writer. Those of us who loved his L.A. Quartet didn't know what to expect when Ellroy finished with the 50s and started on the 1960s. The writing stayed as hard-boiled as ever, but Ellroy upped the scope from Los Angeles to the entire nation with a book that covers Kennedy's campaign through his death. And what a ride we are on.

Conference Realignment

I expand on my thoughts from yesterday and Howard Megdal (future GM of the Mets) chimes in as well. I really enjoy writing for the Perpetual Post. I find that it challenges me and I hope my writing becomes stronger for it. Plus, I learned how much Dan Szymborski likes cheese.

Here's How to Fix College Football

The Wall Street Journal weighs in on college conference realignment. Right now the Great Realignment of 2010 is more of a whimper than a bang. The way folks were talking, it sounded like changes would've been more radical. Then again, the Pac 16 would have still been more Pacific than the Pacific Coast League.

I don't know about relegation, but there are some big conference/small conference alliances that might make sense. For instance, the MAC could partner with the Big 10 and if the Akron Zips are MAC champs, they could supplant Northwestern in the bigger conference.

Then again, the Pac 16 would have still been more Pacific than the Pacific Coast League. But we care more about college sports than minor league sports. Why? For some, it's the biggest game in town. This is true for places like Nebraska and Alabama. Others went to these sports powers or are affiliated with them somehow. For some, jhaving the last name O'xxx ties them to Notre Dame. But for someone like me, who lives in the middle of the Bowash megalopolis, it's the diversity of offensive and defensive philosophies. These guys aren't as good as the pros, but they play a different game. In football it could be the flexbone or spread. In hoops it could be the 2-3. Anyways, that's one aspect that makes me overlook the corruption in the college sports world; not that the pros are much better.

I'll have more thoughts on this elsewhere tonite.

16 Years Ago Today

The low-speed O.J. Simpson chase took place 16 years ago today. I was at work, so I didn't catch it on TV, but I saw the ESPN documentary last nite. I've dabbled in writing about sports and crime before . I'm thinking about doing it more often. There's the murder of Jasper Howard. There are also a few other high profile incidents that I'd like to discuss in the near future. Be patient, though. This requires a little more thought and legwork than my regular stuff.

Anyways, it's a big sports day. Game Seven and I unfortunately have an early dentist appointment tommorrow.

Delicious Bass

Gil Thorp has a character that is a dead-ringer for Napoleon Dynamite. Is that even legal?

And That Happened

Craig Calcaterra deserves partial blame for this blog. When I heard that NBC signed him, I decided to start blogging again. Why? Did I think it would be a path to fame and fortune? I'm not sure, but here we are and I believe that I've written more in the past nine months than I had before. I should have a couple of pieces elsewhere later this week.

Craig still contributes a daily column at his old digs over at The Hardball Times. "And That Happened" is a quick summary of the previous day and nite's ballgames. Today's installment features a script of a skit where Buster Olney plays a college-aged cockblocker. It's pretty funny stuff and material like that might be why Craig is a pro these days.

Did you know that Olney and Josh Wilker of Cardboard Gods fame grew up together in Vermont? As I keep mentioning here, it's a small world.

Jimmy Dean 1928-2010

I loved the song "Big Bad John" as a kid. Let's see one of these modern guys do a song like that. Maybe Steve Earle could, but I doubt he'd be up to starting a sausage empire afterwards.

What ever Happened To Soccer

If someone tells you that baseball is the only sport that receives this pining-for-the-old-days type of treatment in the press, they should know better after reading this.

Shrek and Donkey

When I first started this blog, I toyed with the idea of calling it What's Pastime Is Prologue and comparing a story in the headlines to one from the past. Some folks have done this with Stephen Strasburg and we are now acquainting ourselves with or reaquaintanting ourselves with Karl Spooner.

In Boston last Thursday, the Celtics beat the Lakers in Game Four of the NBA Finals thanks, in large part, to the efforts off the bench by Glen Davis and Nate Robinson. A fat guy and a short guy beat L. A.. It's almost inspirational. I was racking my brain to find a similar situation from the sports pages of the past. The one I thought of was the 1978 World Series, where Bucky Dent* and Brian Doyle led the New York Yankees in hitting when THEY beat L. A.. Dent was a regular, but he was expected to contribute more with the glove than the bat. Doyle was only playing because Willie Randolph went down with an injury at the end of the season. Doyle and Dent. Davis and Robinson. Are there any similarly odd couples that slipped my mind?

*It's much less painful to mention Dent than it was a few years ago.

Game Theory and NASCAR

The link is in the title. I'm not sure if this is a new feature, but I just noticed it. Anyhoo, this guy is a football game theorist, not a racing one. He raises an interesting point, but I used to watch a lot of NASCAR when the Hayseed still lived up here in Connecticut and there are a lot of other considerations. Sometimes drivers play it safe and race for points instead of the win. You sometimes have to decide when to pit and when not to. And there's drafting; especially at Daytona and Talladega. The deals cut are reminiscent of the political conventions of yore.

Mini Book Review: The Catch

Crossposted from Residual Prolixity:

The Catch was disappointing. I was hoping that it would go into more about how San Francisco overtook the Cowboys as an NFC power. The book does touch on that, but it could have gone into more depth.

Sure, they mentioned the West Coast Offense, but the author didn't explain how the rule changes a few years earlier made it feasible. Or how those changes may have spelled the death of Dallas's Flex Defense.

FWIW, two parts of Landry's offense live on: the multiple formations and the shotgun. IIRC, no one else was really using those tools at the time. But I don't think the writer touched on that at all. Xes and Os may scare some folks off, but I'd like to read about them; as long as there are accessible enough for me, a layman, to understand.

Twilight of The Huskies

I appear in a Perpetual Post piece about UConn's men's hoops along with Howard Megdal. We also discussed the team (and college sports in general) on the radio along with Jason Clinkscales.

The Evolution of Blogs

Link

Hat Tip to Chris at Smart Football.

As I Said At Sonofstuckfunky

That Comics Examiner is a hidden gem. His style differs from Josh Fruhlinger’s, but it’s just as funny. If I had to explain the difference between CE and CC, I’d guess that it’s less hipster-inspired, but I’m not good at deconstructing stuff like this. In any case, it’s sort of too meta for even me to be commenting on comics commentators.

Partial Football

Soccer's a pretty low priority branch on my sports tree, but I liked this article from Marketwatch. I think I'm more of a strat(egy)head than stathead. Hence, I find sites like Smart Football* interesting. Differing ethnic styles of sports also interest me as well, so this was right up my alley.

* It's about the other football.

Spearated at Birth

Jack Nicklaus and Joseph Hart

Warren Beatty and Richard Corriere

Marty Moon Namechecks Ernie Harwell

And Jason Beattie is there to mock him.

Stantonicity

S. Strasburg (as OldHossRadbourn might call him) wasn't the only hyped prospect to debut recently. There's also Mike Stanton. Mike Stanton (reliever) and Hanley Ramirez played together on the '05 Red Sox. Ramirez now plays with Mike Stanton (prospect.)

Another Seamheads Article

This one links two Joe Jacksons.

Still hayseed enough to say look who's in the big town.

Josh Wilker opines about the Joyce Call at Huffington Post.

Another Comics Mocker

The Comics Examiner

Joyce And Griffey

I feel tempted to say something about events from yesterday. But then I recall a lesson I learned.

Don't sound more like everyone else than anyone else is able to sound like everyone else. Write meaningful and original thoughts and write them well.

I think I have the originality part down. I'll occasionally link a blogpost that catches my fancy, but I don't intend for this place to become news-driven. I suppose this might keep my readership level down, but so be it. As long as there is some sort of audience for James Burke-lite musings on sports and entertainment, I'll be happy. I have a few more article ideas on scrap paper that will blow you mind.

Red Sox And Movies Mobius Strip

I have a new piece over at Seamheads. I think I know what to call these literary exercises now. They are loops with a twist; sort of like Mobius strips. IMO, that's the best term for these.