I’ve mentioned many times that my daughter is a big fan of PBS Kids programming, both on WGBH, our local PBS affiliate, and on the cable channel Sprout, which airs kids’ shows 24 hours a day. (That doesn’t make me a fan – I can’t stand Caillou, and I think Angelina is a mean little drama queen.) A reader who works at WGBH noticed this and asked if I’d be willing to donate some time to help the station raise money, and the result is this entry in their current auction: Scout with ESPN’s Keith Law. The winner gets to tag along with me to a minor-league game (or a Cape game, if that’s more convenient) at some point this summer. Proceeds, of course, go to WGBH.
Back on the baseball front, I’ve got a draft gossip piece up on the site, and I’m assuming most of you saw my first top 100 ranking for this year’s draft, which was posted just in time for #3 James Paxton to show up for his last start missing 2-4 mph on his fastball. Good times.
This high school coach should be fired. (Hat tip: BBTF.)
Apparently, dish hero Alton Brown will be appearing this weekend at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to talk sustainable seafood. If you go, I want a report.
Jack Kerouac was kind of into sim baseball. Go figure. (HT: BBTF and Shysterball.)
No radio/TV for me this weekend due to a very important birthday party today.
Is the username the same as the name you registered under? Because I keep trying to bid and it keeps coming up as error.
nevermind. I’m dumb and didnt check my email.
RE: auction posting. Who is responsible for the than/than issue in the first sentence?
Best of luck with the auction!
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4171780
How about this kid?
Looking at the picture in this recap, I am going to guess that he’s a submariner.
Found Youtube video – he’s low sidearm, low enough that our standard notions of workloads probably don’t apply.
Well, I bid $255 and this ‘guy/girl’ has me beat already: Oe67892. Well played Sir/ Madam. Although a little disappointed to know there have been 3 bids, and I’m two of them…
Oe…perhaps Keith will be scouting with someone from Olde Engligh.
Hope you like Malt as much as beer….
Ultimately the typos are on me I have a small team of volunteers writing over 1000 descriptions in a short period of time. The fast pace combined with HTML coding issues has left me with more typos than I would like.
I would like to thank Keith! His generosity is going to help us raise some money.
In other news, Keith; I hope you decide to go the Dickie V route and just offer the same package to anyone who is willing to donate “$x” (and that $x is somewhere around $400 so my wife will buy it for me for my birthday/anniversay/christmas/flag day/AB’s birthday….)
Scott Sullivan backs your side-arm workload theory. 522.2 IP in 5 years from 1997 thru 2001. Although Sullivan eventually blew out.
Klaw, for an extra $50, will you promise to be snarky?
KLaw-
I didn’t realize that arm slot had such an impact on workload. Can you go into more depth on this, either here or in a column? It’d be interesting to hear. Part of it makes sense to me, based on my own experiences pitching; at the same time, it seems counter-intuitive, just because of how stressful side-arm/low-slot *looks*.
Thanks.
Actually, the side-arm/low-slot motion is a lot more natural than your typical pitching motion. I’m sure Keith could break it down a lot better, but essentially, pitchers get hurt often because they’re asking their arm to do something it wasn’t designed to do.
Random, but how do you pronounce Felix Pie’s last name? Is it like the regular word pie, or is it “pee-ay?”
It’s Pee-ay. He was born in Haiti where there is a lot of French.
Thanks, Kevin. I learned long ago about how the typical baseball throwing motion is unnatural for the arm and shoulder (a football throwing motion is far more “normal” as the hand is in the more neutral position). I didn’t realize that side-arm/low-slot was more natural. I guess I didn’t really think about it one way or another. Following up, why aren’t more pitchers taught this way? I assume the answer has to do with because it is “harder” to learn. But if we acknowledge that the normal throwing motion is “unnatural”, than I would guess that side-arm/low-slot would be just as easy, if not easier, to learn, assuming it was taught at a young age. Perhaps because we learn to “throw” before we learn to “pitch”, and we’d therefor have to unlearn or learn a new pitching style? I’d love to hear more. Thanks, Kevin S.
Maddon just wanted to show that he could execute a double switch. Plus Sonnanstine had an RBI double.
PEE-ay is correct but Felix Pie was born in the DR not Haiti, at least officially.
Either way, pie means foot in Spanish. It’s pied in French, but I suppose he could have changed his name.
Thanks for the info, guys!
Anyone torture themselves (as I did) with the audio of the Phillps / Morgan broadcast last night? Not sure why you would, but I just can’t watch on mute and pay attention.
I was forced to a pathetic basketball game after 2 innings straight of discussions of nothing but the Beltran/Reyes/Wright “lack of leadership”, “leading the wrong way”, etc.
FJM is sorely missed this morning.
FJM&SP?
I did learn that the Mets don’t have a “flawless player” however. Didn’t know such a player existed; but, if he does, I imagine he looks an awful lot like Carlos Beltran.
John,
After listening to Phillips and Morgan spend a half inning last Sunday night – see my comments following KLaw’s Radio Podcast Links post – butchering two or three topics, I decided to watch Sunday Night Baseball muted. You should try it. Last night’s game was much more enjoyable and insightful.
The funny thing about that booth is that one would think Morgan and Phillips would be compatable with the mutual idiocy but they hate each other.
Yeah it is almost hilarious.
Also John, I loved your comment because it is so true.
It’s too bad the delay makes it distracting, but the Gary Thorne-Dave Campbell Sunday Night Baseball on the Radio is very good. Puts the TV to shame, and I like Jon Miller. Steve Phillips on the basis of his analysis shows no evidence of why he was hired to run a major league franchise.
Finally.
http://www.sny.tv/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090518&content_id=1501982&oid=36018&vkey=31
Keith,
Who gets to pick the game that you and the winner go to? As a Mets fan I’d like to see a Binghamton game, or even a Bisons game to get your take on F-Mart, but that’s probably a trek for you.
Leonard: Whatever minor league or Cape park is most convenient for everyone – Lowell, Manchester, Pawtucket, even Portland, or anything on the Cape.
In his chat today, Steve Phillips actually said he’d take McClouth, among others, over Beltran. How exactly does this guy have a job in baseball?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/05/19/carlos.beltran/index.html
This should be all we need to settle the Phillips conversation. The line at the end about aliens is great.
I really could not believe someone would say they would rather have Nate McClouth over Carlos Beltran. I guess he must like McClouth’s grit and clutchiness. I think Steve Phillips owes Keith $5.
Phillips owes all of us the time back that we wasted listening to his blather.
Hi Keith,
I am interested in bidding on this and giving it to a friend as a wedding gift. Would two of us be able to tag along?
Greg
Greg: Doesn’t bother me as long as you’re pretty flexible on dates – might be difficult to get the right seats. If you win, we’ll work it out.
Keith, I apologize for asking more of your time, but as the eventual 3rd place finisher in the auction (and to echo the sentiment of JW)…if you were willing to do another day, I would gladly match the winning bid of $925+ on this auction.