- I’ve got an actual news story up on ESPN.com on the NCAA’s most recent beatdown in the Andy Oliver case. One lawyer to whom I spoke about yesterday’s ruling said that “No good lawyer would allow his client to send out that memo if it was subject to the February ruling that Judge Tone issued. It’s reckless and arrogant and risks even more ire from the considerable amount the court has already shown the NCAA.”
- I’m assuming most of you have already seen my ranking of the top 100 prospects in this draft. It’s going to change between now and June 9th; I’m already thinking 11-13 should be Wheeler, Purke, Green. Anyway, 39 players currently have reports, and I’m hoping to get that to 50 by Sunday.
- Klawbaiters, your fines are now due. Our first project is on Globalgiving.com, which I mentioned in the review of White Man’s Burden. The project’s goal is to help 250 disabled Kenyan children attend school. You can send your fines here; I kicked it off with a $50 donation, which should cover the times I’ve been successfully baited by you.
- I did finish that book of Chekhov’s short stories, and I have to say, I was underwhelmed. He’s considered one of the greatest short story writers ever, if not the greatest, but I don’t understand why – the writing was good, but the stories weren’t compelling, and most of them were fundamentally the same – stories of poor Russians struggling in the post-serfdom era under the de facto caste system and their own idiocy. If one of you lit hounds can set me straight on this, I’d appreciate it.
- Current book is Edna Ferber’s So Big
, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1925. It was already on my shelf when I mailed out some Mother’s Day cards my daughter had painted and had to go buy 83-cent stamps … and as it turns out, the 83-cent stamp in use today features Edna Ferber. I figured that was a sign that I should read it next.
→ May 14, 2009
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Bullet-point Wednesday.
→ May 5, 2009
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Media & links.
I’ll be on XM Radio channel 144 with Bill Pidto and Bruce Murray on Tuesday at 9:25 am EDT, and will appear via phone on First Take at either 10:50 am or 11:25 am EDT, time TBD. I’ll also be on with longtime friend Jeff Erickson’s Fantasy Focus Internet radio show, although we won’t do straight fantasy content. If you remember Jeff’s radio show on XM, this is the same show, but he moved it online after the Sirius-XM merger.
My most recent post on my main ESPN.com blog now has BP video of Buster Posey. There’s also video up of Tim Wheeler and Drew Storen in my most recent draft blog entry. I should have more draft notes and videos later this week.
Jason Whitlock had some strong (and dead-on) words about Selena Roberts and accuracy. Shysterball had similar words last week. I’ve pointed this out previously, but Roberts has gone after A-Rod at odd times before, like writing her 2007 World Series post mortem about him, even though he hadn’t played in that or the previous series. Squawking Baseball takes aim at Roberts’ implication that A-Rod couldn’t have tripled his bench-press ability without the use of PEDs.
Is Twitter the CB radio of Web 2.0? (HT to Shysterball.) I kind of hope not, now that I crossed the 1000-followers mark.
JoePo is obsessed with cycles. I couldn’t agree less; I think cycles are boring – statistical oddities that hold no interest for me. One reason is that a player who goes 1b-2b-3b-hr has hit for the cycle and goes on that list that some guy keeps that gets trotted out the next time some Joey Bagodonuts goes 1b-2b-3b-hr, but some other player who goes 2b-2b-hr-hr had a better day and doesn’t make any list, unless there’s some other guy keeping some other list that he really doesn’t get to trot out that often because no one gives a crap about guys who went 2b-2b-hr-hr.
This clip cracks me up: auto-tuning the news. (HT to mental_floss from their post earlier this week auto-tuning.) I’m not sure which I like best – the facial expressions on the guy “talking” to Katie Couric, the angry gorilla, or the ever-present tambourine.
→ April 25, 2009
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Joba’s Joba.
Is there a better litmus test for baseball smarts right now than one’s opinion on the ideal role for Joba Chamberlain? I do love the new meme, though, that 14 big league starts constitute conclusive evidence of … something.
By the way, SI does have a great piece on Jeremy Tyler, a high school basketball star who’s going to go play in Europe for two years instead of enriching some undeserving US university for a season. The NBA’s age limit is an atrocity, anti-player and anti-capitalist, and anyone giving the finger to David Stern on this issue gets my applause.
→ April 20, 2009
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Go Natinals!
So by now you’ve all seen the fact that the Washington franchise in the National League is saving money by only embroidering some letters on the fronts of their uniforms.
I just showed my wife the photo, and the first thing she said was, “That’s great – but who are the Chefs?”
→ April 17, 2009
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I’d rather watch PFPs than go to the ER.
UPDATE #2: I’ll be on the Herd today at 1:40 pm EDT.
I’m mostly recovered from what was probably just a nasty stomach virus – the PA I saw in the ER yesterday couldn’t explain why my lower back would hurt like this, but I’ll give her a pass because she was cute – but I can, in fact, confirm that I’d rather watch pitchers take fielding practice than spend three hours in an ER. And I hate watching PFPs.
This list of Blackberry shortcuts was gold for me. For some reason, my blackberry jumps to the bottom of the list of messages from time to time and I didn’t know how to get it to the top (newest messages) of the list.
Klaw links: Audio clips of me with Ryen Russillo debating the top ten starters in the game, on AllNight, and on Chicago baseball tonight on ESPN 1000. My blog entry on Zack Wheeler is up, with video up later today. UPDATE: One more, from Tuesday, on the radio version of Baseball Tonight.
→ April 6, 2009
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Season predictions.
My actual predictions for each team’s W/L record, with some brief thoughts on why for most clubs, are now on my main ESPN blog.
By the way, I love this headline. This might be the first time ever that a front office person has said with a straight face that a pitcher was better suited for the pen because he was tall.
→ April 3, 2009
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Friday nonsense.
And we have our first malcontent in response to my decision to stop accepting Facebook friend requests from total strangers. Kevin R.’s response to my message asking him to follow the fan page instead:
omg, that is so pretentious…have a lovely day…
After which he promptly blocked me from even responding to him.
Speaking of Facebook, Slate’s Big Money site has an op ed on why Facebook’s current model won’t work. It’s interesting – I’ve said before that I don’t know how Facebook thinks it’s going to make money off of me – but I don’t know that I was convinced of anything. I guess it’s better than this travesty, an article that trashes MBA educations, written by a guy who hasn’t actually been to business school but appears to know all about what’s taught there. (For the record, I’ve said before I’m not sure that business school is a good financial decision for most people, and it certainly wasn’t for me given the career change I made after attending.)
This weekend doesn’t just mark Opening Day in MLB, but in baseball leagues all over the world. Japan’s NPB started up last night; Korea and Germany start tonight; and France and Sweden (yes, Sweden) start along with MLB on Sunday. The Dutch Honkbal Hoofdklasse starts next Saturday.
A simple recipe for lemon squares. Not quite my cup of tea – where’s the chocolate, dude? – but the picture is appealing.
Links over at the Four-Letter: Yesterday’s chat, my Wednesday hit on The Herd (around 6:20), my Thursday hit on First Take (and no, that’s not my photo), and our MLB preview package, with two sentences from me on each team covering one rookie hitter and one rookie pitcher who could make an impact in 2009.
→ April 1, 2009
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Breakout players, media, Jay Cutler.
My annual breakouts piece is a photo gallery this year with shorter text from me. And yes, I still love Rickie Weeks, even though he’s not on there.
I’ll be on First Take via phone at 10:20 am on Thursday, and KTAR at 9:24 am Arizona Time. I’ll be on Baltimore 105.7 FM tonight at 9:30 pm.
Yes, there will be a Phoenix food post soon. It’s mostly done, but I’ve got some more preview stuff to hand in to ESPN.com first.
There will be a Klawchat on Thursday at 1 pm.
So can someone explain this Cutler thing to me? I keep hearing how the Broncos have to trade him. Isn’t he under contract? So he wants a trade. I want a million dollars, a night with Ashley Judd, and a pony. If I’m Josh McDaniel, I’m staring at two options:
1. Keep Cutler and make it clear to players and agents that I am in charge.
2. Trade Cutler for 80 cents on the dollar* and show everyone that the lunatics are running the asylum.
*This is my assumption, as someone who doesn’t really know football, because Denver would be seen as somehow unable to keep Cutler, and because I doubt you ever really get full value when trading a top-ten quarterback.
Erik Kuselias was subbing for SVP on the Tirico/VP show today and kept saying how Cutler has “leverage” – but does he? He’s an employee of the Broncos. If they decide to bench him for four games to teach him a lesson, as long as they’re paying him and abiding by the letter of the contract, they are within their rights to do so. I’ve heard no mention of a contractual obligation on the part of the Broncos to avoid hurting Cutler’s feelings, nor does he have a no-trade clause or a no-discussing-a-trade clause or a no-even-thinking-about-a-trade-even-while-you’re-on-the-throne clause. If Cutler doesn’t show up for a required camp or workout, you fine him. You may be able to suspend him without pay, which would be true in MLB. But just like I don’t give in to my daughter when she throws a tantrum, a GM shouldn’t give in to a player (or agent) when he throws one.
Am I wrong?
→ March 30, 2009
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The Soul of Baseball.
If you’re here, you’ve probably already read Joe Posnanski’s The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America
JoePo followed Buck O’Neil around the country for a year as O’Neil stumped for the Negro Leagues Museum and more generally worked to preserve the memory of the Negro Leagues as real baseball, rather than the minstrel show of the Hollywood depictions of those Leagues. Along the way, the two men ran into a handful of other former Negro Leaguers and gave us a window into their memories, some told by the players themselves with others retold through Joe’s voice. Some are hilarious, some touching, some downright sad.
O’Neil’s personality – his soul, really – dominates the book, which at times seems to border on magical realism with the incredible effect that O’Neil has on other people, most of whom are complete strangers, and his perceptions of others even based on a look or a few sentences. At the book’s close, my overwhelming thought was, “Wow, I wish I had met him.”
It’s hard to compare it to Lords of the Realm, which I’ve always called my top baseball book, but I’d say I enjoyed The Soul of Baseball more – it’s a serious book but has substantial entertainment value, particularly from the stories about other characters like Satchel Paige, but also from the glimpses into the (then) current lives of Willie Mays, Monte Irvin, and the questionable Johnny Washington.
Next up: Lonesome Dove
→ March 27, 2009
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March Maidens.
I don’t follow college basketball at all, and even March Madness holds only a faint interest for me, since I’m usually wrapped up in spring training at that point. I do pay attention to one aspect of the tournament though: I pull for the maidens – that is, the teams that have never won the championship before. (In horse racing, a maiden is a horse that has never won a race.) We came close to having a maiden team win last year with Memphis, but they let me down.
Unfortunately, this is looking like a really lousy year for maidens. Memphis has just been knocked off by Missouri, and while Missouri is an even bigger maiden than Memphis (the Mizzou Tigers have never reached the Final Four, and this is just their third Elite Eight appearance), Memphis was Ken Pomeroy’s top-ranked team, so in theory, they had a better shot to topple one or more #1 seeds.
Pitt is the only maiden among the #1 seeds, but of course, they barely got by Xavier, which doesn’t inspire any confidence in me that they’re going to beat this relentless ‘Nova team.
Today was actually the better day of the two Sweet 16 days for maiden teams, as Friday’s four games feature just two maidens: Oklahoma (two title game appearances: a 1988 loss to Kansas and a 1947 loss to WHO THE HELL LOSES TO HOLY CROSS IN ANYTHING? back when the court was 12 feet long and they used peach baskets instead of nets) and Gonzaga (never reached the Final Four). Gonzaga faces UNC, who seem to be the consensus “expert” pick to win the whole shebang.
College basketball might be the most likely endeavor among major team sports where you could very easily see a maiden winner every two or three years. In MLB, we get long droughts, but there are only eight franchises that have never won, two of which are less than twenty years old. (It’s nine if you don’t count the New York Giants’ titles for San Francisco). The NFL and NBA have more maidens, but more than half the franchises in each league have won, and it’s hard to get all worked up about Oklahoma City’s title drought of one year even if we don’t give them Seattle’s win in 1978-79. In college basketball, not only do we have a huge number of schools that have never won – only 34 of 347 schools who play D1 basketball have won it – but it takes neither a long time nor a large number of great players to make a team competitive. Unfortunately, we’re on track for our third straight year without a maiden winner after a great run of five in ten years (Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, Syracuse, and Florida).
* Speaking of the NCAA, Dayn Perry has a great post on Spolitical about the exploitation of college athletes, specifically those in “revenue sports,” which for most schools means football and basketball. That said, issues like revocable scholarships crop up in baseball as well. You’re a freshman pitcher. Coach works you so hard that by year-end you can’t comb your hair and have to visit Dr. Andrews. You’re out for a year or more and odds are your velocity isn’t coming back. You lose your scholarship. Coach loses … nothing. Yeah, that seems fair. If scholarships were guaranteed for three years, wouldn’t coaches have an incentive to handle players (particularly pitchers) better in at least their first two years at the school?
* So my alma mater has a couple of researchers trotting out the new vegetarian mantra that eating beef boosts global warming. Here’s the part that confuses me: If raising cows means more greenhouse gas emissions, can’t we slow global warming by killing all cows? That seems to be the obvious conclusion here.
* Handshake deals are illegal under MLB rules, folks. The Nats should tell Young’s agent to shove it. An oral agreement is only worth as much as the paper it’s written on.