FIRE JOE MORGAN

The Kansas City Star's Jeffrey Flanagan has started a blog wherein he defines all the different types of sports fans. One of them is a "nerdy" character who loves stats. Guess what he named it.

Just guess.

You'll never guess -- just try, even though you'll never guess. It's hilarious.

I'm not going to tell you what it is, but you should try to guess, because you'll never get it.

It's hugely inventive, and super duper hilarious. Guess.

Remember that Mr. Flanagan writes for the KC Star -- one of the best sports newspapers in the country. The same paper that employs Joe Posnanski and Jason Whitlock (who's a bit goofy on TV, but the man can write). A smart, forward-thinking newspaper with interesting columnists and controversial opinions. Remember that, and then guess what Flanagan named this statistically-minded "nerd" character.

You'll never get it. It's fucking funny, though. Super funny.

Okay. Just guess.

What was your guess? Was it

Mom's Basement

?

If it was, you were right!!!!

Mom's Basement is a guy who never played sports &mdash or probably was embarrassingly bad at them — but nonetheless firmly believes he is an expert on any sport because he thinks sports can easily be reduced to a series of mathematical equations, or acronyms that go on forever, like the OPSTS, which I think stands for "Oh please shove those stats..."

This is painful. One long run-on sentence of pain and misery. Trite, poorly-written, turgid, and simplistic, and it wraps up in the neat little bow of: the worst version of that hacky "crazy stat acronym" joke I have personally ever seen.

Mom's Basement is aptly nicknamed because I'm convinced that's where, at 54 years old, he still resides, crouched over his computer, wearing his Star Trek jammies, researching whether, statistically speaking, it is better to bunt with a runner on second and none out in the fifth inning of night games during the mid to late spring when there is a Democrat in office and the national ratings for "American Idol" are exceeding the ARF (average rainfall) of Moose Squat, Alberta.

Why do you hate periods so much, Flanagan? Jesus. Maybe his editor said, "Okay, fine, you can write a totally hackneyed turdclump about nerds who like stats. But I'm limiting you to three sentences." And Flanagan was like, "Well then, I'm gonna get my money's worth!"

Let's break this monster down.

Mom's Basement is aptly nicknamed

You picked that name, braggart.

because I'm convinced that's where, at 54 years old,

I'm 32.

he still resides, crouched over his computer, wearing his Star Trek jammies,

Dude. Seriously? Star Trek?

Let me explain something to you. "Nerds" don't watch Star Trek anymore. This is a painful, painful joke. You cannot get hackier than this joke.

Jokes about nerds : Star Trek :: Jokes about airplanes : Those peanut bags are hard to open!

researching whether, statistically speaking, it is better to bunt with a runner on second and none out in the fifth inning of night games during the mid to late spring when there is a Democrat in office and the national ratings for "American Idol" are exceeding the ARF (average rainfall) of Moose Squat, Alberta.

Sorry. Can't do the breakdown anymore. It's just too awful. This chunk of text is the linguistic representation of what comes out of a person when they get a colonic.

Mom's Basement cringes at the notion that sports are actually played by human beings and ultimately won and lost by such non-statistical factors such as fear or intimidation or simply stronger wills.

Listen to me, friend. This character you are describing? This person doesn't exist. There is no such thing as "Mom's Basement." Yes, there are people of all ages who (foolishly, I guess? according to you?) attempt to learn things about the game they love. Those dicks. There are people who love statistics, who use spreadsheets, who like the back of the baseball card as much as the front. But they all love baseball. They all love watching baseball, and going to baseball games, and they all acknowledge that there are non-statistical factors at work. Mom's Basement, as you have described it, does not exist.

Mom's Basement is a boogeyman, invented by small-brained people with no aptitude for, or interest in, learning shit. It's the baseball equivalent of a dummy going to an art museum, looking at a Miró, and saying, "That ain't art! My 2 year-old could do that!!!!!!" It's a desperate, desperately unfunny, desperately boring, desperately hacky, desperately transparent attempt to make yourself feel better about not being smart enough to understand what OPS+ means, and because you don't know how to type "define:OPS+" into Google you invent this character and hope you can pick up a few cheap laughs from readers who are as uninventive as you are.

You write for a great paper, man. Act like it.

Labels: jeffrey flanagan, mother's basement

This morning on my way to work, I was listening to the Mike Tirico radio show. Joe Morgan was spouting his usual nonsense about how the Yankees are a "confusing team," and how he's not sure how they're going to win games.

Then some crazy shit happened.

"They're not -- and I won't say manufacturing -- but producing runs."

I nearly drove my imaginary car through the walls of my mother's basement!

He won't say "manufacturing?" He won't say "manufacturing runs?"

Until this morning, "manufacturing" was one of Joe Morgan's favorite things to say. His favorite soccer team was Manchester United, just so he could get half a boner by saying "Man U" repeatedly. If Joe Morgan were an eskimo, et cetera et cetera.

"I won't say manufacturing." It's troubling, really. Has someone talked some sense into him? Has someone talked some different nonsense in to him? Is Bill Fremp doing a perfect Joe Morgan impression in audio-only interviews?

Aaand, this just in: Joe Morgan is in fact an eskimo!

Labels: bill fremp, joe morgan, manufacturing runs, mother's basement

Friends, we have truly entered a strange era of sports journalism criticism. It's not like the salad days of sports journalism criticism, where all of the sports journalism was straightforward and sincere in its idiocy. Nowadays, it seems to me, the increasing prominence of sports journalism criticism has led to what appears to be ironic sports journalism, which -- again, it appears to me -- seems to be either (a) taking into account or (b) outright like seeking sports journalism criticism, in order to draw attention to itself or get more hits for its specific site, or just maybe to stir some good old fashioned shit. (If these pieces in fact contain what the legal system calls "intent," they might be properly called: sports journalism criticism criticism. This is one of those f(f(f(x))) deals that make Junior giddy.)

With this Pynchonian-style paranoia as my backdrop, I present to you what was called "The Most Ridiculous Article Ever In The History of Everything Ever" by reader Matt. It comes from Jim Armstrong of AOL, and it's called:

Baseball Stats Mania Rates a Zero

Let's go ahead and take it as a given that this turdpile may be tongue in cheek, or at the very least, bait. If it's a parody, it's brilliant. If it's sincere, holy God. And if it's bait, well, I just bit, and it tastes delicious, even though I know the hook is about to pierce me through the lower jaw and drain my lifeforce.

Given the state of the economy and all the political mud slinging going on, I probably should be worried about my country these days. But the truth is, I’ve got more important things on my mind, including the most important thing of all. Baseball.

Me too. Love baseball. Love it. Love everything about it. You and I have a lot in common, here, Jimmy. Let's talk baseball. What do you want to hit first? The Tigers' surprisingly bad start? The Go-Go Royals? The Yankees' injuries? How about Johnny Cueto?! Have you seen that guy pitch? Holey moley! Whatever you want to talk about, man -- it's your article. You pick.

No, not the lab rats who play it or the trust-fund babies who run it. Baseball has been around since they used cowpies for bases. It has survived despite itself for this long, so there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to.

So you're not thinking about the players, or the owners, or even the game itself. Seems like those are fun things to think about when one thinks about baseball -- the players, teams, or games. But okay. I'm all ears. What subject tickles your fancy this fine Spring day?

I’m worried about us, the fans. I’m worried that aliens are trying to attack our brains.

If the article stopped right here, it would be my favorite sports article of all time. Armstrong should have stopped right here, and then, as a publicity stunt, run onto the highway wearing only a Green Hornet mask and diving flippers, waving a toy gun and screaming about the Warren Report. He would be a legend.

At least they might as well be aliens. But for the record, they’re lifeless geeks who wake up every morning in hopes of creating a new baseball statistic.

Oh.

Sigh.

Hang on a second. I was half-asleep asleep on this old busted-up futon in my mom's basement, eating handfuls of sugary cereal out of the box and contemplating buying some vintage Ram-Man action figures off eBay, but now I guess I have to struggle to an upright position and try to address this guy's concerns.

Have you seen some of the quote, unquote stats out there?

My man: when you are talking you say "quote-unquote" to indicate sarcasm. When you are writing you can just put things in quotes. As in: Jim Armstrong is a "journalist." He is also "funny" and "smart" and I "want to hang out with him" because he seems to have a lot of "good" "points."

When I was a kid hustling autographs at Wrigley Field, the game was all about W’s and L’s. Now it’s about WHIP and VORP and OPS and BABIP.

Anyone who writes anything for a living should avoid cliché. I think we can all agree on that. This thought is now officially the #1 cliché about the baseball statistics debate. When I was a kid, people only cared about wins and losses. Now everyone is a nerd who loves weird stats and hates baseball. Please, all of you who have this thought, listen to me. Please. Here we go.

There have always been statistics in baseball. Always. Statistics like WHIP and VORP and OPS are better than the old statistics, because they give you more actual pertinent information. This is not up for debate. If you don't like these stats, don't use them. But don't tell me that they aren't interesting or good.

I just don't get it, man. No one ever said: "When I was a kid, if we were going to cut off your leg we'd give you a shot of whiskey and a rope to bite down on, and we'd just take a dirty hacksaw and just hack away, outside, on the ground. Why do all these nerds keep talking about 'anaesthesia' and 'sterilization?!'"

And let’s not forget the most important acronym of them all: HGH.

Has nothing to do with the argument you are developing. Not a stat. Bad writing.

VORP? WHIP? BABIP? Since when did a Harvard physics degree replace a ticket stub for admission to the left-field bleachers?

Since March of 2003. You didn't hear? You need a math/science/engineering degree from Harvard, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, MIT, or University of Mumbai. Or a Philosophy degree from Pittsburgh.

I don’t know about you, but I liked the way things were before some self-absorbed numbers cruncher dreamed up VORP (Value Over Replacement Player, whatever that means.)

It's pretty self-explanatory, but here. Read something. It makes you smarter.

Additionally: pandering to ignoramuses is not a flattering character trait. And being a snooty dick is? Hey! How'd you gain the ability to type, Ken's superego?

And while we’re on the subject, didn’t that guy have something better to do that day?

Here we go.

Like getting some fresh air

It's a-comin'.

instead of spending the entire day

Oh my god. I can feel it. It's so close.

in his boxer shorts

Do it!

in his

Yyyyyyyyyyyy...

mother’s

...yyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

basement?

...yessssss! Whoooooooo!



HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!

In his mother's basement!!!!!

In his fucking mother's fucking basement!

Holy shit.

Holy shit, you guys.

In his mother's basement!

Boooooooooo-ya!

In his mother's basement.

He fucking nailed it, you guys.

Nailed it. Jesus.

Man. Okay. Just...that was awesome, is all. Awesome.

Let me guess.

Please.

The guy spends every waking moment of every day on his computer. And his only correspondence with the outside world is with fellow self-absorbed numbers crunchers who spend every waking moment of every day in dogged pursuit of the next esoteric pseudostat.

Keith Woolner is his name. He currently works for the Cleveland Indians. I guarantee he has watched more baseball games in the past ten years than you have. Also: they're not "pseudostats." They're just: stats. (They're not even really that esoteric, though I suppose what's straightforward to some might be "esoteric" to someone who never reads anything, or cares to, or has any intellectual curiosity at all.) (When did having zero intellectual curiosity about the world -- and a corresponding sneering contempt for those who have any -- become a positive character trait instead of a flashing warning signal that this person is a stubborn dummy?) (Oh -- right.)

These are the baseball writers of today. Forget Roger Angell and David Halberstam and all those other curmudgeons. They wrote about the romance of the game, the visceral attraction of the game, the simple pleasures of the game. They wrote about the Boys of Summer and the dads who took their sons out to the yard to watch them.

Fantastic writers. Brilliant. I eat 'em up. Most people I know love them.

Today, it’s all about the numbers and the psychos who crunch them.

No it's not. No. Wrong. It is not. Did you read Tom Verducci's piece about Red Sox fans in SI, for their Sportsmen of the Year issue in 2004? Do you read Leigh Montville, or Buzz Bissinger, or Bill Plaschke? Now, I am not personally a fan of some of these people, but they write about the humanistic elements of the game. That kind of writing is out there, if you want it.

They call themselves sabermetricians. I call them seamheads, among other things.

(crying) Shut up. That's mean. Shut up. (runs home)

I’m telling you, we need to stop these people before it’s too late. Before we’re all walking around in a cyberfog talking in acronyms that only Stephen Hawking could understand.

Come on, man. Hawking is such a hacky choice. At least go Roger Penrose, or Andrew Wiles, or Max Tegmark or something.

President Bush, your basic baseball junkie, needs to swing into action in the best interests of the country. He needs to have his Homeland Security Nazis break into these people’s homes and take a Louisville Slugger to their computers.

I don't exactly know how this is offensive, but I'm sure it is. Let's figure it out together. He mentions Nazis, which is generally considered offensive. He mentions them in reference to people serving in the U.S. Government, which is probably not supercool. He is asking the President of the United States to order the government to attack its citizens for talking about baseball statistics, which is interesting. Huh. Can't quite pinpoint it. At least it's a hilarious joke, though.

If not, I may have to resort to drastic measures. I may have to become a soccer fan. Think about it. There are no seamheads trying to take over the soccer world.

Ha ha! Fuck you, dude -- you're too late!

There can’t be because there are no numbers to crunch. Well, a few maybe, but not enough to get all hot and bothered about.

Also, soccer is cool and fun to watch.

Things are simpler in soccer. There’s no WHIP or VORP in soccer, just a few DOAs after the usual fan rowdiness in the stands. In soccer, all the stats are the same. All the goalkeepers have a .001 goals-allowed average and, at the end of the season, everyone ties for the league lead with one goal scored.

Not in baseball.

Right. Which is why we need more statistical analysis.

In the past few days alone, I’ve come across such stats as OPS (One-base Plus Slugging percentage),

Huh?!?!?!?!

GWRBI (Game Winning Runs Batted In),

Da-whaaaaaa?!?!

DIPS (Don’t Ask),

What'd you call me? You're a DIPS!

QERA (Quantified Earned Run Average),

That looks like "queer!" Heh heh heh heh heh!

WHIP (Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched)

Skler-boink?!?!?!?!

and BABIP (Batting Average for Balls In Play).

(slack-jawed; confused; drools)

Let me just get a few things straight. (a) You just found out about OPS? (b) You just heard about GWRBI, a stat that was so mainstream it was briefly on the backs of baseball cards in the late 1980s before people realized it was dumb? (c) You can't succinctly explain DIPS? Here.

Good thing Casey Stengel isn’t around to see this nonsense. All this numbers crunching might have interrupted his nap in the dugout.

And that...would be...bad?

Or Earl Weaver. He would have been so busy thumbing through computer printouts, he wouldn’t have had time to sneak in a half-pack of smokes in the runway.

Napping and smoking. You know -- baseball. What baseball should be. Napping and smoking while you manage a professional baseball team.

GM: Thanks for meeting with us.

Prospective Manager: Thank you for seeing me.

GM: Look. We are one of 30 professional baseball teams in the country. The franchise is worth about $500 million, give or take. We have a brand new stadium, partially financed by the taxpayers of this county. The revenue of our sport last year was roughly $7 billion. You are going to control a roster of 24-40 men, the average salary of whom is north of $3 million. They come from Canada, the U.S., Central America, South America, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and several Caribbean Islands. You have to make sure that they are used correctly, that their egos are in check, that they can withstand the grind of a 162-game schedule, that they don't do stupid extra-curricular shit like go to strip clubs, and you need to be aware of which guys are in trouble with steroids, which guys need carrots and which need sticks, and you'll need to soothe the feathers of the veterans (and rookies) who get sent down, and you have to do all of this while winning at least 90 games.

Prospective Manager: Got it.

GM: So, what will you do during the average game?

Prospective Manager: Nap and smoke.

GM: You're hired.

Prospective Manager: Great.

GM: Now you're fired. I wanted to hire you just so I could fire you.

Prospective Manager: But Casey Stengel napped!

GM: He managed the fucking Yankees from 1949 to 1960. You'd've napped too, if you had those players.

Prospective Manager: And Earl Weaver smoked!

GM: He also used stats. A lot. He famously encouraged his hitters to walk and knew the value of 3-run homers. Get out of my office.

Other than their utter lack of social skills, I’m not sure why all these computer nerds keep dreaming up new stats.

Look. It may be true that I have no friends, no wife, no children, and that I live in a soggy refrigerator crate in my mom's basement. That's no reason to be rude.

I guess my hope is that by dreaming up new stats, I will somehow attract the attention of a nice, introverted, monobrowed nerd girlfriend with bad teeth who will take pity on me and marry me and we can have nerd children who will grow up to be rocket scientists and develop a secret Doomsday Device with which we can rule the world!

In the end, the question is whether their numbers add to the enjoyment of the game. And the answer is no.

Shut up. Seriously, man, shut the fuck up. This is like saying,"I don't like action movies, so no one can ever enjoy action movies because action movies are terrible." If you don't want to use stats, don't use them. I don't care. But for the love of goddamned God, don't tell me that statistical analysis "doesn't add up to enjoyment of the game." You are telling me that my friends and I are incapable of enjoying baseball. I promise you -- I PROMISE you -- I enjoy baseball. I love baseball. This is not a situation where only one kind of person can love baseball. Lots of different people can love baseball for lots of different reasons. In my case, I love baseball every bit as much as you, but -- and here's the difference between you and me -- I also understand it. If you are interested in learning how to understand it, just ask. I can teach you in like 10 minutes. (And I don't even know that much about sabermetrics.)

I’ll tell you what adds to the enjoyment of the game, and I’ll put it in terms these geeks can understand.

(a) Fuck off, again, and (b) hit me...

ABAB (a Beer And a Brat).

Blammo. Nailed the joke. I give up. I will crawl into your cave with you and relearn how to enjoy baseball without using any part of my brain. Just my stomach. And we'll be alcoholics together and high-five a lot and yell "You Suck" at opposing players. Sounds like a good time.

Labels: f(f(f(x))), food acronyms, jim armstrong, liberal use of "food metaphors" label, mother's basement, sabermetrics, statistics

I want to point something out in the quickly-becoming-tiresome Old Media vs. Bloggers debate: most stuff sucks. All stuff. In all forms. Most books suck. Most movies suck. Most magazines suck. Most trees likely suck if you get to know them. Fish, bugs, various metals -- they all probably mostly suck.

So yes, pipe-smoking Old Media dudes, you're technically correct: most blogs do suck. But then, so does most everything. Don't act like you're surprised about this development. And please, America's most talented sportswriter (or at least the guy compensated and esteemed as such), don't resort to hoary old clichés when criticizing the great new unknown.

"It’s all over the map," Reilly says about sports journalism on the dot.com world. "There's some good journalism, and some really horrible crap on there...

Again, this could be said about journalism. It's all over the map! There's good, there's bad! There's the Atlantic and then there's Chicks and Guns Weekly (you decide which one's good and which one's bad)!

...from guys holding down the couch springs in their mother's basement...

SIGH

I guess I shouldn't expect Mitch Hedberg-like ingenuity from jokes written by Reilly, who is, after all, just a sportswriter. Sportswriting is all over the map. There's some good stuff and there's some really horrible crap. There are, in fact, entire websites devoted just to the crap.

...that have never been in a locker room but are pining on this and that. And this gives them cache, and then they're being quoted? What? This guy is in his underwear.

But where is this underwear-clad man sitting? Underground, perhaps? Close to his maternal womb? Surely we need more information about whether this man is subterranean and whether he owns his own home.

They could use a Greyhound bus full of editors and it still wouldn't help them. So this is the 'new style of journalism' we gotta learn?

This seems like a really solid joke. Credit where credit's due.

"On the other hand, you see the solid writers they have on ESPN.com,

The place that currently Reilly under contract -- purely coincidence, of course --

who check their facts, go places, see people ... People who are classically trained in journalism are harder to get used to (on the Internet).

I love how he talks about journalism training like it's learning how to play Yo Yo Ma-quality cello. Of course there's actual Woodward and Bernstein-style reporting out there, and that's a real talent and skill. But how much classical training does it take to shit out an 800-word opinion piece on whether Matt Leinart should hot tub with Arizona State girls in the off-season?

It's like, for some of these, the faster you type, the better you're supposed to be? It's like the old days of sending a Western Union telegram.

No words. No words. I really didn't even think Rick Reilly was that old. But his own line here is like a joke we would construct in Furman Bisher's voice.

Once it's written and gone, do they ever look at it again? They're trying to type as fast as they can think.

I personally have the power to type my future thoughts, but for this blog I write in flowing longhand with a quill pen made from the feather of a moa (it's a very large pen). My personal secretary then makes mimeographs of my originals and types them into a 1936 Underwood typewriter, which has only the essential vowels (a, o). Her personal secretary then does something with the results. I'm not sure what, but it involves a computer.

"I really think a lot of this stuff (on the Internet) is read only by the people's parents.

WHO LIVE ABOVE ME I LIVE IN A BASEMENT LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT THAT PART

Do you read a live blog about a game? Why not turn on the game and listen to Vin Scully, the best live blogger ever?

That is a weird, weird, weird thing to say. I can't decide whether to be insulted on Vin Scully's behalf or insulted on bloggers' behalves or hungry or sexually aroused or what. Does Rick Reilly not understand that human beings are now capable of doing two things at once? Why can't I read funny or insightful things about a game at the same time I'm watching it? Does that make me un-American?

Ricky Reilly (I typed Ricky for some reason and I'm just going to leave it because I like the way it looks and because I think of this blog as a telegram STOP I just type and words come out and I never read them over or look at them again STOP): Why are you reading the Economist? Why can't you just consume the news like everyone else -- from Charlie Gibson?

Ricky Reilly: Stop watching the Tonight Show -- news comes from Charlie Gibson.

Ricky Reilly: Burn all Rolling Stone magazines. Whatever happened to reading liner notes?

Why do we need to hear what Mortermer Franks in his basement is thinking about it?

I think this is a bad transcription, but I fervently hope he said "Mortermer" and pronounced it slowly and deliberately. Guys who write for paper (I mean all paper things) need to just drop this "These guys are nobodies!" angle. If you're a good writer, and you have an interesting, insightful, or entertaining opinion, no one has any right to tell you to shut the f up. Until I am appointed to run the U.S. Department of Shit Writing Detection in 2012. Then all will kneel before me. And they will know fear.

"I was covering the Masters recently, was in the press room, in the clubhouse, on the course. And then I get back and there are three guys writing columns about the Masters, one in Houston, one in L.A. ... watching it with their buddies or their dad. Why are they writing?"

Because they enjoy it. Because they have ideas and emotions and jokes and they are human beings, who have a deep-seated need to express themselves. And yes, maybe 50 or 90 or 99 percent of them are bad ideas and insipid emotions and hacky jokes. But that remaining, small percentage of the pie -- the part that fits into Pac Man's mouth on the pie chart -- that stuff is good. And it doesn't matter if it's printed on stone tablets or radiowaved directly into people's brains. Forget the medium, dude. There's gold in them thar Internet hills.

Labels: mother's basement, rick reilly

Ahhhhh, baseball! The crack of the bat. The sweet smell of dewdrops in spring. The checking of home/away splits. The improper substitution of a LOOGY just because the hitter is lefty even though the hitter has a like total reverse split. The whirring and clicking of massive Cray Supercomputers spitting out PECOTA Predictions. Swarthmore professors using something called "Chernoff Faces" to convert managerial tendencies into graphical/pictorial form. Baseball.

It's back again. And here's what we definitively learned from day one of the 2008 MLB Season: Nothing, dummies. It's a small sample size.

So instead, let's gallimaufry it up.

Several readers sent us to this article, which contains many of my least favorite words:

The Blue Jays felt like they needed an infusion of gritty players, the type who can spell the difference between winning and losing in tight games, and they believe they've added those pieces in third baseman Scott Rolen and free agent shortstop David Eckstein.

Rolen is going to cost them $12m this year, and he's already out for a few weeks with a screw in his finger. He turns 33 in a few days, and has played in 310 games in the last three seasons. But: he's gritty. Boy oh boy, is he gritty.

Eckstein is: Eckstein.

"When they take the field, they're both always on the ground," Gibbons said.

That's how fucking professional these dudes are. They obey the laws of gravity no matter what.

"They give us a toughness that I think we need."

They -- the left side of your infield -- will give you 800 AB combined and 15 homers, if you are lucky. (Did I mention Rolen had 8 HR in 112 games last year?)

Wells, Toronto's star center fielder, likes the idea of having Eckstein drive opposing pitchers batty with his knack for fouling off pitches, making contact and getting on base out of the leadoff spot.

For the ever-growing record, Eck saw an average of 3.64 pitches per AB last year, tying him for 317th on the list of all NLers with, among others, notorious hacker Jacque Jones. N.B. that fucking Roy Oswalt had a 3.76. You want a lead-off guy to see a lot of pitches and drive 'em batty -- go with Roy.

Many hundreds of thousands of you also pointed us to this article about tools.

The proverbial five tools for position players -- hitting for average, hitting for power, defense, arm and speed -- are covered throughout the survey [of MLB scouts], in one way or another.

Only one player really scored high in all of the above: Ichiro.

Really. Hitting for power. Huh.

Ichiro career: 67 HR in 4782 AB.

The panel of scouts rated him tops in all of MLB in the categories of Best Hitter, Best Bat Control, Best Outfielder, Best Arm and Best Baserunner. He also rated second in the categories of Best Bunter, Fastest Runner and Best Basestealer.

He also won Best Personality, Best Dancer, Girls' Choice for Brother, and Cutest Stubble. He is tearing things up at Central High, people! Rumor has it, this saucy little import has grabbed the heart of none other than Clarissa Prettyface -- Cheer Captain and Improbable Virgin -- and he is not letting go! But what will happen when her boyfriend Jock Fisterson finds out?

"You could put Ichiro down for almost everything -- best arm, best outfielder (when he wants to be), best basestealer, best hitter, and he could hit 50 home runs if he wanted to, but he'd rather get his 220 hits and bat .330," said one scout.

You guys don't get it. He's awesome. If Ichiro wanted to, he could play basketball and probably be like the best ever. So I voted for him for 2-guard in the NBA All-Star Game this year. He could fucking fly if he wanted to. That's why I put him down for "Best Bird Imitator." If Ichiro felt like it, he could totally discover important things about gamma ray bursts, which is why I voted for him for the Cal Tech Fellowship in High-Energy Astrophysics.

[Extreme side note. While poking around the internet looking at gamma ray burst articles and black hole articles and things -- part of my mandatory mom's basement/nerd study program -- I came across this article, which discusses the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

HEAD-AAS.

Why would you acronym yourselves to make HEAD-AAS?" What bunch of ass-faces.]

Diversion over. Let's take some mail, shall we? Edward writes:

In case you missed it, here's how David "I'm scrappy and pesky, and I should have gotten a 3-year deal for it" Eckstein's evening went:

• 1st inning: 0-1 count, lead-off groundout, setting up his team nicely with the first out.
• 3rd inning: Lead-off strikeout on 4 pitches, see 1st inning.
• 5th inning: With runners on 1st and 3rd and no outs. 1-1 count, grounds out to 1st, runner from 3rd doesn't score, though the runner on 1st does advance to 2nd.
• 7th inning: Runner on 3rd, 2 out. First-pitch ground-out to 3rd.

It must be said that he fielded his position flawlessly. But he did not remotely do his job as the lead-off hitter. 0-for-4, averages 2.5 pitches per at-bat, doesn't get the ball out of the infield.

Fun with small sample sizes. A lot of fun.

Adam writes:

The other day Steve Phillips said (this is a rough quote, the number is what is important): "The Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox could both score 1,000 runs this season."

The sheer stupidity of the statement is incredible. Now obviously anybody could score 1,000 runs in a season. Since 1900, however, only 7 teams have scored 1,000 runs in a season, with the modern-day record being 1,067 by the 1931 Yankees. Teams that have scored 1,000 runs in a season:

New York Yankees - 1,062 (1930), 1,067 (1931), 1,002 (1932), 1,065 (1936)

St. Louis Cardinals - 1,004 (1930)

Boston Red Sox - 1,027 (1950)

Cleveland Indians - 1,009 (1999)

Labels: cray supercomputers, david eckstein, gallimaufry, HEAD-AAS, hideki matsui's porn collection, ichiro, mother's basement, steve phillips

KT here. Back from the hospital after the successful and unironically life-changing birth of my first child, McCarver FRAA Tremendous. (We call him "Woody," for short.) Here's a picture of me with him in the hospital:

Cute, right?

After five days, I would like to say that this parenting thing is an absolute breeze, and that I don't understand why anyone would complain. Mrs. Tremendous and I are fresh as daisies and have tons of free time. Tonight we're going to catch a show, and maybe take off for the weekend. We're thinking of going to Coachella this year, too. Could be good.

Thank you to those who have emailed various kinds of congratulations. Those of you who find articles you want us to read might want to send those dak's or Junior's way, because -- again, though I have tons of free time right now -- holding a baby with one arm while fisking sports journalism with the other is a lot for one mom's-basement-confined Kansan nerd to handle, and I am currently 400+ emails in the hole.

But you guys didn't come here to read meae culpae regarding lack of blogging time. You came here to read about how David Eckstein is small and scrappy, right? Great! Someone has finally written that article. Prepare yourselves to learn something.

The Blue Jays family tree of shortstops begins with Hector Torres in 1977.

The next branch is Luis Gomez, followed by Alfredo Griffin, co-American League rookie of the year in 1979.

...

Sorry. I just fell asleep. I'm kind of worn out. Give me a second. Okay. Here we go. What about Blue Jays' SS again?

Had it not been for Griffin's persistence and insistence, the Jays might have had to look elsewhere for their shortstop for this their 32nd season.

Mmmmrph.

...

Ah! God. You scared me. I'm up. I'm up. Okay. Awesome. I am totally concentrating.

The Anaheim Angels were scuffling through the opening month of 2001 with a losing record. Benji Gil and Jose Nieves were splitting time at short, while a white-haired, mighty-mite, 26-year-old named David Eckstein was replacing injured Adam Kennedy at second.

A white-haired mighty-mite. I know it's like his whole deal, and it's what made him famous and rich, but would you like to be called a "white-haired mighty-mite" if you were 26 and a pro athlete?

With Kennedy due to be activated and a roster move coming, Griffin, the Angels' first base coach, headed into manager Mike Scioscia's office.

"Alfredo went to Mike, said they should keep me and play me at short," Eckstein said at the Bobby Mattick complex yesterday. "He'd never seen me play short. I heard later Alfredo told Mike 'Keep him, I'll teach him how to play.' "

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, I have obtained the transcript of that conversation.

Mike Scioscia: Come in. (beat) Hey 'Fredo.

Alfredo Griffin: Hey Coach. Got a sec?

Scioscia: Sure. What's on your mind?

Griffin: Well, Kennedy's coming back, which means we have to make a roster move. I'm thinking we start Eckstein at short.

Scioscia: ...

Griffin: You know. See if he can handle it.

Scioscia: Eckstein?

Griffin: Yeah.

Scioscia: David Eckstein?

Griffin: Yeah.

Scioscia: ...

Griffin: What do you think?

Scioscia: (punches Griffin in the face)

Griffin: Hey!

Scioscia: Are you fucking serious?

Griffin: Yeah! I think he can do it.

Scioscia: Fredo, my kid's little league coach came by yesterday and asked Eck if he wanted to try out for the team.

Griffin: Let me just make my case. I know he's small -- barely 5'7", maybe 165 pounds -- but he's scrappy. He's also gritty, gutsy, and he hustles. He's an albino, which is kind of cool, in like a human-interest, fan-outreach kind of way. He has a lot of grit and hustle. He can't throw very well, which is a bonus, and he doesn't hit much, which is good, because we want our baseball team to be bad. He always runs to first base when he hits the ball -- most guys just jog down, or like kind of saunter. Eck runs. He's small, too, I don't know if I mentioned that. Now, granted, his lungs are too small to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide, and he has to play barefoot because no one makes cleats for dolls. But he's gritty, coach. And scrappy. And I think we should give him a shot --

Scioscia: Fredo. Stop.

Griffin: What, coach?

Scioscia: You had me at "doll cleats."

Griffin saw in Eckstein something all the king's men and all the king's horses with the Boston Red Sox did not.

Why the "all the king's horses..." trope? Odd choice. Also, the thing that Griffin saw was: a player who over his entire career has an 89 OPS+. That's right: Eagle-Eye Griffin had the præternatural 6th sense necessary to spot, from a great distance, a player who is 11% worse offensively than the average major league baseball player.

The 5-foot-61/2 Eckstein played second in the Boston organization from 1997 until he was released at triple-A Pawtucket in 2000 to make room for the redoutable Lou Merloni.

Framingham Lou, Career OPS+: 87. And please don't use the ironic "redoubtable" to draw a contrast between anyone and David Eckstein. And if you have to use "redoubtable," please spell it correctly.

Angels GM Bill Stoneman claimed Eckstein for $20,000 US, sending him to triple-A Edmonton for 15 games.

Stoneman had never seen the infielder play, but he knew Eckstein arrived at the University of Florida Gators as a walk-on without a scholarship in 1994 and left as an All-American.

But did he punt? I don't care about anyone's college sports career unless he was a punter.

Griffin, an 18-year major leaguer, has told us before he has to walk away from Eckstein to stop from hitting him ground balls.

Kiss-up.

Then Griffin would look up 10 minutes later to see Eckstein taking grounders from another coach.

Fine. Great. Admirable. But he's a kiss-up.

"They made me everyday shortstop after we lost two of three at SkyDome and I only started once -- as a DH," Eckstein said of the series against the Blue Jays.

This quote adds: nothing, to this story.

When the Angels returned to the West Coast, Eckstein was named the starting shortstop.

The boxscores from the games in Toronto show Gil had three clanks leading to an unearned run.

I don't understand this. Does that mean Gil had three hits? That he was 0-3? How did the unearned run factor in, from Gil's point of view? This is insanely confusing. My brain cannot process that sentence. I am going to stop, take a quick nap, and let my son take over for a few lines.

Despite his size, Eckstein is still a large enough target for pitchers.

grrph. ahm. sp.

He broke Frank Robinson's rookie record being hit by 21 pitches in 2001. He had 27 the next season and has been double figure in bruises each of his seven seasons.

fffff. bl.

Even his nickname with the Angels was short -- Eck -- as it rhymed with 5-foot-5 Freddie Patek, the shorty who played short for the Kansas City Royals in the 1970s.

Hey -- I have a headline for a potential article written about that fact: "Short Shortstop Has Short Nickname, Like Other Short Shortstop." That sounds interesting! Thank you for including that in your article. Fascinating stuff.

(That was McCarver. He's learning quickly. Let me just put him down for a nap and then I'll take over again.)

(Also, let me add something to what my son wrote earlier: the best you can do to prove that Eckstein is like good at baseball is to point out how often he is hit by pitches? That's weak, even by pro-Eckstein article standards.)

"He has been through it all before," manager John Gibbons said. "He won a World Series with the Angels and St. Louis. There is something to be said for winners.

Sometimes that thing is: "That guy was on a team that won something."

"He's small. He's a throwback player. He'll get on base for us and make all the routine plays."

Small? Check.

Throwback player? Well, he's white, so: Check.

"He'll get on base for us?" Check. 35.1% of the time he plays, which is not bad for SS. Of course, he has missed 84 games to injuries in the last two years, and he's no miniaturized spring chicken. He turns 33 next year, which is 57 in albino meerkat years, so expect his numbers to decline a little from their 11%-below-league-average status.

The routine plays ... ah yes. The Rogers Centre turf will be quicker than either Angels or Busch Stadium.

"If it's quicker, I'll play a little deeper, you never know until you get on the field itself," said Eckstein, who hasn't been in Toronto since 2005.

You, my friend, give electrifying interviews. Also, please don't play any deeper. It will be sad when you can't get the ball across the infield without doing one of those Eric Byrnes "run towards the target, release the ball, and Superman-it forward into the turf" things every time a 2-hopper comes your way.

Scouts don't expect Eckstein to have a problem getting on base -- he hit .309 with a .356 on-base percentage in 2007. They do wonder how he will handle the turf.

Of course, he only had 434 AB because he missed 45 games. So he only walked 24 times or something. Whatever. Eck can weasel his way on base okay for a SS, I'll give him that. The turf, however, is going to eat him alive. After which, the turf will be still be hungry.

(I just ran that joke by McCarver, and he said he thought it was 'kind of lame." I'll leave it in.)

Gibbons has said a couple of times this spring "Eckstein is our shortstop," and will not have John MacDonald as a defensive replacement/caddy when the Jays are up a run in the late innings. It is a situation worth watching.

...If you like watching incredibly boring things.

"The thing about Eckstein," Gibbons said the day the little big man showed, "is that he will never, ever look back and say 'I didn't give it my all.' "

You hate to give out year-end awards in February, but this is a frontrunner for Most Backhanded Compliment of the Year.

Signed as a free agent, Eckstein, who won every Most Underrated or Who Gets the Most of Their Ability poll we've seen, said he had other options.

He wins those stupid polls because you and your cloying, hacky brethren keep writing this same article over and over. I will also -- again -- point out that if a guy keeps winning awards for how Underrated he is, he is ipso facto no longer underrated. And as for Who Gets the Most of [sic] Their [sic] Ability, the answer is probably Alex Rodriguez. Or Pujols, maybe, or Miguel Cabrera, or maybe Jimmy Rollins, or something. They have more ability, and they get more out of it.

And by the way -- I know I keep interrupting it with dumb comments, but does this article have any cohesion or flow or point?

"This," he said, "seemed like a good opportunity. This is a team that wants to win, needs to win."

Meaningless.

I'll leave the final comment to my new son. What do you think of this article, McCarver?

McCarver: [spits up on me]

Labels: bob elliott, david eckstein, mccarver fraa tremendous, mother's basement

Regular readers of this blog may be familiar with this post, containing an article written by legendary prose artiste, poet laureate of the Americas, and Congressional Medal of Honor Winner: William Everton Plaschke IX. That piece won Plaschke a Pulitzer, a MacArthur Genius Grant, and a from-beyond-the-grave visit from Dr. Samuel Johnson, who battered Plaschke about the face and neck with a dictionary and told him to stop writing forever, lest he squander every gain made by proponents of the English language over the last 250 years.

I bring this up because the article began with PlaschkeGraphs™ -- the single-sentence contrapuntal paragraphs that made him famous -- thusly:

Around the hotel table sat Dodgers executives discussing trades.

In the corner sat the old scout watching television.

Around the hotel table they were talking about dumping Milton Bradley and wondering whom they should demand from the Oakland A's in return.

In the corner sat the old scout who has never worked with radar gun, computer or even stopwatch.

Around the hotel room table, someone mentioned an unknown double-A outfielder named Andre Ethier.

In the corner, the old scout jumped.

Poetry, my friends. Pure, unadulterated, terrible, poetry.

Anyway, I was smurfing the WW Web today and came across this little number, also from Plaschke, which assaulted my retinal arena in a frighteningly similar way.

On one end of the dark wood table sat baseball's ideals -- the swaggering, swarthy starting pitcher.

On the other end of the same table sat baseball's reality -- the slinking, shirking steroid pusher.

On one end of the table, Roger Clemens bragged about tough times and hard work and never taking a shortcut.

On the other end, Brian McNamee talked about syringes and abscesses and bloody pants.

Look. I know it's probably really hard to file 3-5 stories a week, when you're a sportswriter. (Or 0-1/month, if you're Stephen A. Smith.) I know that Plaschke has won awards and gets to be on television and stuff, so there's no real incentive to change anything. But come on.

At the L.A. Times, Plaschke sits at his typewriter.

Here in my mom's basement, I make fun of Plaschke.

At the L.A. Times, Plaschke lazily concocts another identical opening to one of his columns.

Here in my mom's basement, I ask my mom for more Kix.

Etc.

Ad nauseam.

Labels: bill plaschke, mother's basement, samuel johnson

Old. But bad.

Does the statistic "RBIs per 100 at-bats" really measure how valuable a hitter is? You have cited that stat in at least two stories comparing Brian Schneider to Paul Lo Duca.

Schneider is a strong defensive catcher, and a below-average hitter. The RBI as a stat is not nearly as telling about a player's ability to be a productive hitter as are on-base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs, extra-base hits and even the vastly overrated batting average stat. I just feel that citing that statistic adds little, and is somewhat insulting to students of the game.
-- James K., no hometown given

Good question, James. And more restrained than we stat-minded basement dwellers usually are. Very well done. Who can argue with such logic?

Oh. Marty Noble can.

I beg to differ, and I guess I'm obligated to explain my use of RBIs per 100 at-bats because yours is one nine [sic] e-mails I've received that have questioned it. To me, it is a fundamental and quite legitimate means of measuring run production.

Obvious thing:

Player A and Player B both have 500 AB. Both have 65 RBI. Player A and Player B are the same, in terms of run production, right? Wrong! You fell into my trap. I am a diabolical genius who totally just outsmarted you so bad.

Because what you don't know is that Player A hits clean-up for the Awesome City Crushers, and the three guys in front of him all have .950 OBPs, so in his 500 AB he had like 1450 guys on base and only drove in 65. He struck out like 400 times, never walked, and generally acted like a sullen dick. He is terrible. The only reason he is hitting clean-up is that his dad owns the team. It's totally unfair.

Player B hit lead-off for the North Suckington Suck-Bears. He was an excellent baseball player who walked all the time and hit like .450 with a .700 OBP, but in his 500 AB, his stupid sucky teammates had only gotten on base 20 times, total, in front of him, and he was so good he drove all of them, and also hit 45 solo bombs. (Why was he batting leadoff, am I right? Maybe it's because his manager saw that the Cubs were hitting Soriano leadoff and followed suit.)

Anyway, here's the undeniably true thing: Player B is better than Player A. Player B will create more runs than Player A 10 seasons out of 10, assuming their seasons were not total flukes.

Now here's something that will blow your mind. Player A is Mickey Mantle. Player B is Dustin Pedroia!!!!!!

(Just kidding. I made them up.)

Computers have contributed to a current glut of statistics that, to a degree, distort the picture. We have so many now that we lose focus on what is most important. The objective of the game is to win, and to win a team must outscore its opponent. Nothing, therefore, is more important than runs -- both producing and preventing them.

Wow. I am being taught a very valuable lesson here. Color me: chagrined. No -- ashamed. In all of my stat-mongering, I forgot that the idea of baseball is to win. I further forgot that in order to win, a team must outscore its opponent. Mary Noble's condescending spoonful of proudly provincial bullshit has jolted my RobotBrain™ back to earthly reality. Thank you, sir. Or, as my people say,

"0101010001001000010000010100111001101011011110010110111101110101."

Runs and RBI totals provide insufficient information because neither tells us how many opportunities a player has had to produce. And in the case of catchers, who are unlikely to play every day, the number of opportunities helps us understand how they produce.

What's amazing is that he acknowledges a problem with RBI here. He even goes so far as to say that the problem is that RBI as a raw stat doesn't work because it ignores RBI as a percentage of RBI opportunities. Then explains his method of using RBI, which does little or nothing to fix the problem. It's like saying, "Throwing money into your toilet is bad, because if you throw money in your toilet, you won't be able to use it to buy food, or furniture. Instead, you should set it on fire, and toss the ashes into the toilet. That way, the toilet won't clog."

Knowing the potential rates of production affords us a better sense of what a player does, particularly if the rates are compared, as they were in the two instances you cited.

RBIs per 100 at-bats measures run production as ERA -- earned runs per nine innings -- measures pitching. It's a quite legitimate means of determining who does what.

Last year, Lo Duca had 487 plate appearances, and Schneider had 477. Pretty damn close. Given this fact, RBI/100 AB is essentially exactly the same thing as just asking "who had more RBI?" (Plus, you should use PA instead of AB, probably, since AB don't count walks.) If the difference were huge -- like 100 or more PA -- it might shed a little more light on the subject. But 10 PA? Two games?

What matters more is -- obviously -- how many guys were on base when they got their PA, and how successful they were driving them in. Schneider had 331 guys on base in his 477 PA. Lo Duca had 307. So Lo Duca drove in the same number of guys, in almost exactly the same number of PA, but there were 24 fewer guys on base for him. Now, 24 isn't a ton, but it's something, and the only thing a rational, non-condescending person could possibly conclude is that Lo Duca was more efficient in terms of driving in runs last year than Schneider was.

Now, this isn't the be-all, end-all of a batter's worth. Clearly, OBP, SLG, and myriad other things should be checked out. But Noble concerns himself solely with RBI, so that's what we're doing, here, on our Saturday, is looking through BP's sortable stats to determine that Lo Duca drove in runs at a higher rate last year than Schneider. (He also had a higher VORP -- 9.2 to 2.4.)

I'm too lazy to do this for the last three years, but it actually doesn't matter. It's the methodology I object to. Sorry -- mis-typed. It's the methodology logic objects to.

That Lo Duca might have had a higher on-base percentage or slugging percentage means less to me than the number of runs he produced. The next time a team wins a game because it produced a higher on-base mark and scored fewer runs than its opponent, please alert me.

This is hard-core boneheaded. The more guys are on base, the more chances they have to score. That can't be hard to grasp. Why fight it?

OBP, OPS, et al, are the ingredients in the recipe for offense. Runs are the meal.

"Food metaphors" label? Today is your lucky day.

Next question for Marty?

C'mon, Marty. Jerry Koosman must be considered for the Hall of Fame, given what we are witnessing today. He must be considered.

-- Ray, Matawan, N.J.

Must he, Ray? Must he really? A .500 pitcher with a 110 ERA+? With a 1.26 WHIP and barely a 2/1 K/BB ratio? Must he be?

I'm not quite sure if you're referring to something specific that I've written about Koosman or just making a general comment. I wish there were a place for Koosman in the Hall. He's a personal favorite. When he was healthy, he was as effective as almost any Hall of Fame pitcher and nastier than most of them. [...]

This bold claim might -- might -- be defensible in 1968, 1969, and 1976. I guess he wasn't healthy in any of the 16 other seasons.

Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax and Morris are popular answers to the question, "Which pitcher would you choose to start a must-win game?" Koosman wouldn't be a bad choice, either.

Homework assignment: name 100 pitchers since 1960 you would rather have start a big game then Jerry Koosman. (Don't really. Or if you do, don't send them to me. Print them out and post them on your wall, and look at them every day and say to yourself, "I am so happy Jerry Koosman is not in the Hall of Fame." And then say to yourself, "No one should ever use 'Who would I want to start a big game?' as a criterion for Hall of Fame induction." And then say to yourself, "I can't believe I spent an hour making this list. I should read more."

At least Noble doesn't actually say Koosman belongs in the HOF. That's something, I guess.

How can Aaron Heilman not be given a real shot as starter? He pitched a one-hitter. At least it'll stop him from wondering. And if it works? Remember, what good is relief if you're down by six or seven runs all the time?
-- Charles F., Brooklyn, N.Y.

That one-hitter didn't make Heilman a lock to produce a 15-victory season as a starter. And making him a starter would affect one game in five. Losing him as a reliever might affect three or four games in 10. Chances are Heilman working as a starter wouldn't prevent being "down by six or seven runs all the time."

Noble's solution: make every pitcher a reliever. That way, they all get to affect the most games.

Abrupt ending to this post......now.

Labels: food metaphors, marty noble, mets, mother's basement, statistics

Take it away, Mr. Excellence:

Memo to 30-year-old stat geeks combing through Jim Rice's numbers: Get out of the house and look at the sky one time. I know personal contact frightens you, but let go of OPS for a moment and try talking to someone who saw Rice play, or better yet, played against him.

An excellent idea. And excellently presented. I should have thought of this. Here I am, a 30 year-old stat geek, living here in my mother's basement, eyes glued to my computer, playing God by determining who should be admitted to the Hall of Fame via Excel spreadsheets. It never occurred to me -- I mean, it literally never even occurred to me -- that I could go watch these games in person. (Truth be told, I actually didn't know they were live events, presented in front of an audience. I assumed -- and who can blame me, given my half-carbon-based, half Intel© Celeron Processor-based brainputer -- that baseball games were avatar simulations run from a Cray Supercomputer somewhere in Langley.

I should definitely talk to someone about what baseball looks like when human men play it. Perhaps I can ask my friend Walter, whose family has had season tickets to Fenway for like 60 years. Or my friend Dave, who essentially lived in Section 41 for the years 1992-1998. Or maybe I can reprogram my frontal lobe algorithm to access stories from my dad, or any one of the hundreds of Sox fans I know, or even from the dark recesses of my own pre-robotic-conversion brain, where live memories of (rough estimate) around six or seven hundred live baseball games I watched, live or on TV, in which Jim Rice played.

That would certainly help me objectively evaluate Jim Rice's candidacy for the Hall, instead of just analyzing the millions of lines of Matrix-style code that I see when I look at a picture of him.

Please stop writing things like this, Dan. Thanks.

Love,

KT

P.S. I just climbed up the 1000-foot ladder leading out of my basement and looked at the sky for the first time. Holy fucking shit! It's huge!

Labels: dan shaughnessy, hall of fame, jim rice, mother's basement, statistics

What a week. Mrs. Tremendous and I moved last Sunday, to a slightly larger house right outside Partidge, KS, in South Hutchinson. The friendly confines of Partridge were a little too confining...because Mrs. Tremendous is expecting! That's right, friends. It is my great joy to announce that Mrs. Tremendous is with child, and that little Timothy McCarver Joseph Morgan HatBoy Tremendous will arrive in our world sometime next Spring. I am as proud as a basement-dwelling Insurance Pension Plan Monitor can be.

But back to what's really important: this blog. In my distracted absence, I have neglected my duties, and that ends today. Let's check in with Joe, as he checks in with his perpetually-confused readers.

Joe Morgan: It's been a very unusual postseason, with all the sweeps. They surprised me because most of the teams were evenly matched. It just tells how a bounce here and there or a call here or there can change everything.

Ken Tremendous: Please remember that when you talk about how important wins are as a pitching stat.

Jon (Audubon, NJ): What should the Rockies concetrate on over the next 9 days until the World Series starts?

KT: Oh, Jon. Your use of "concetrate" warms my heart.

Joe Morgan: It's going to be difficult to stay sharp, because hitting is something you need to keep your timing on. It's difficult to do because unless you're facing game action, it's tough to keep your timing. Intrasquad games don't do it very well because there is not the same intensity. It's probably easier for pitchers to stay sharp. In any case, it'll be difficult for them to stay at the level they're playing at now.

KT: Possibly. Also, their pitchers get a ton of rest and they can travel comfortably and have won 20 out or 21 or something, so they're sitting kind of pretty, I'd say. Who knows. What do you guys think of "Plaschke" as a first name?

Jug (Benicia): Which team has the best home field advantage Joe? Rockies, Red Sox or Indians? Each park is so unique?

Joe Morgan: I would say the Red Sox and Rockies because of the way the game is played in their parks. Fenway has the Green Monster, which they take advantage of, and balls fly out of Coors, so positioning is important. Those ballparks confer a unique advantage to the home team.

KT: Balls fly out of Coors Field...so positioning is important. It is important to position the outfielders in the left field bleachers. Then they can catch those balls. Also, the Indians, Red Sox, Rockies, and D-Backs had nearly identical home-away records this year. For what it's worth.

Seth (Denver, CO): Mr. Morgan, how do you feel about the Rockies current run compared to what you and the Reds accomplished in '76? Even as a Rockies fan I must admit the Reds' run in the playoffs, at least to this point, is more impressive, but do you see similarities in how the Rox have handled themselves during this streak and the great Reds' team that went undefeated in the postseason?

KT: How is Joe going to claim that being 6.5 out on Sep. 15th and 2 out with 2 to play and then winning a one-game playoff and sweeping two postseason series is not as impressive than what the 1976 Reds did? Let's find out!

Joe Morgan: I have to say that the Rockies' streak is very impressive, because in my opinion, a lot of the teams that they played were equally matched up against them. To win seven games against teams that are your equal is more impressive than what the Reds did, because that team set a lot of records and were "the team". The only other difference would be that the Rockies did it against teams they were familiar with.

Ah. Very clever. He says that the 1976 Reds were so good that nothing they did was really impressive because they were just so damn good.

Jeremy (Blacksburg, VA): how long do you think the game will be between slow pitching byrd and wakefield?

Joe Morgan: I don't think it'll be five hours and fifteen minutes, but obviously it will not be played at a fast pace. Wakefield will throw a lot of pitches, will walk some guys, and let up some steals, and Byrd will pitch carefully. It will not be a faster-paced game like last night's was.

KT: Time of game: 3:12. Time of previous game: 3:28. Why do people keep insisting that Wakefield is a slow pitcher?

Ryan (San Francisco): These Sox are killing me. Their offense is just not playing consistent baseball. Maybe they should stop trying to blast HR's and try a little small ball. With the number of guys in that lineup who could potentially reach Coopertown one day, there is not excuse to only get two runs off of Westbrook.

KT: Oh, Ryan. Such lovely Joe-baiting. Coopertown. Small ball. Maybe I'm just emotional because my wife has produced an heir to the Tremendous family name, but...God love ya!

Joe Morgan: I talked to David Ortiz yesterday, and this reflects back to the question about the Rockies and their 9-day layoff. David Ortiz told me they'd only played five games in 14 days. That doesn't keep you sharp as a hitter, although he's hit the ball as hard as possible each time. That could be part of the problem, having that many layoffs of games in between. They'll have another off day after today. It will be a problem for the Rockies as well.

KT: Indians don't seem to be having a problem. Maybe it's...good pitching? Nah.

Pete (Miami): Is Todd Helton a Hall of Fame player?

Joe Morgan: A Hall of Fame player is supposed to be the dominant player at your position during your era, so you could answer the question yourself using that criteria. Has he been the dominant first baseman in his era?

KT: I'm thinking Joe means: no, he is not. Now, Helton is only 33, and obviously the next few years will tell us yea or nay. But his career line is .332/.430/.583, and his career EqA is .315, and he's an excellent fielder. I'd say he has a decent shot. How about "Big Red Machine Tremendous?" Is that good?

Brosef (NJ): Is Kaz Matsui this years David Eckstein in the playoffs?

Joe Morgan: Any time you go into the playoffs or World Series, guys who are unheralded have a chance to stand out more, because they will pitch to them more. David Ortiz has walked a lot of times, for instance, so they will not pitch to him like they will to a guy like Kaz Matsui.

KT: For the last time, (not really), David Eckstein is heralded. He's wildly heralded. Everyone in the sports journalism world heralds David Eckstein. He is actually way way over-heralded. How else can a guy who was 8-41 with 2 extra-base hits in the 2006 NLDS and NLCS emerge from that postseason and be considered a clutch playoff hitter?

Andrew (Toledo): Does Ryan have a counting problem, I only see one sure fire bet for the Hall from the Sox (Manny) and one maybe (Ortiz). Is the Red Sox lineup overrated?

Joe Morgan: I'm starting to wonder if a lot of lineups are overrated during the regular season. The Yankees scored tons of runs not just this year, but last year as well, and they got shut down in the playoffs both years.

KT: You think the Yankees' line-up was overrated? Seriously? How? How can that be? They had seven regulars score 90+ runs. They led the league in runs. They led the league in hits. They led the league in HR and were 3rd in walks. They led the league in OBP, SLG, and thus OPS, and OPS+. They hadn't seen Carmona or Sabathia at all during the regular season***, and lost a best-of-five series to those dudes, and your conclusion is that the Yankee offense is overrated?!

Mike, Brunswick Ohio: Who do you think wins? Cleveland or Boston?

Joe Morgan: The edge goes to Cleveland, because I think their pitching is set up better than Boston's is.

And because when you wrote this they were up 2-1 in the series.

Jon (Audubon, NJ): Why do some players like Eric Byrnes get a pass when they have a bad series because they play the game hard, but guys like Alex Rodriguez get blasted by the fans and media for not being clutch? Shouldnt all players be judged the same way, as one series is such a small sample size of overall performance?

KT: Jon, you're insane. Take this "logic" and shove it, friend. Leave baseball analysis to the experts, and go look at some birds or something. Am I right?

Joe Morgan: Unfortunately, the world is not fair, and baseball is the same way. If you look at it another way, Jeter was three for 17 and grounded into three key doubles plays, but there's nothing said about him because he's done well before. You're right; Byrnes and the other players should be judged the same way on a series-by-series basis, but it's not the way of the world. Personally, I think all players play hard, especially in the playoffs, but players like Byrnes, who I like a lot, have effort that is easier to see than someone else's.

I'm suspicious. I don't think Joe wrote this. I think he had a coughing fit and Rob Neyer snuck into the booth or something.

Joe Morgan: The one thing I have noticed is that I don't think the umpiring has been as consistent in these few games that I've seen. I'm not used to it being this inconsistent. The umpring has been a little erratic in the games that I've seen, though I have not seen each and every game. Even some of the calls on the bases have not been consistent. Thanks for your questions!

If this is the last JoeChat of the year, I am very glad that we got a send-off with three "consistents" in one paragraph. At least he's consistent.

Also, by "consistent" here, I think he means "accurate."

How about "Jay Mohr Tremendous?"

Labels: concetrate, coopertown, joe morgan, joechat, mother's basement, smallball, tim wakefield

This quotation comes from absolutely out of nowhere in a blog that has become Must-See Internet for everyone who enjoys screaming at computers. Take it away, Guy Who Once Argued That a 4.00 ERA Was Bad and Also Argued That Batting Average Is More Important Than VORP.

Imagine the strength of the Red Sox' rotation if they had the good sense to get rid of 87-year-old Tim Wakefield. The knuckeball act has become dreadfully tedious; even the Yankees own him. He's had some nice moments over the years, but it's time to join the cows and the sheep out on the pasture.

I was curious as to why Jenkins has it in for Wake, so I invited him to come with me to a Sox-Giants interleague game in beautiful AT&T Park. Here's my transcript of that totally real event that happened:

(Ken Tremendous and Jenkins settle into their seats in the Club Level. Ken has one of those awesome cheese-infused sausages they sell; Jenkins, fairly drunk already, holds an egg crate filled with eleven beers and one hot dog. He also has a flask filled with Old Grandad whiskey, and a wineskin overflowing with chablis.)

(For some reason -- and I did not expect this -- he speaks with a slight British accent.)

Bruce Jenkins: My my, what a lovely day.
Ken Tremendous: Yes, it sure is. Careful! Oops...

(Jenkins has spilled six of the eleven beers all over his shirt. He does not seem to notice.)

BJ: Tell me, Mr. Tremendous, is this the first professional baseball game you've ever seen?
KT: Um, no -- I've seen, like, hundreds of -- look out! Oh boy.

(Jenkins has taken a bite of his hot dog; the entire dog squirted out the other end of the bun, falling on his lap. There is now a copious amount of relish and ketchup leaking through his unzipped fly.)

BJ: (gnawing happily on the empty hot dog bun) You were saying?
KT: Yes, um, I've been to hundreds of games.
BJ: (chuckles) Really. Because you being a "web logger" and all, I just assumed that you would spend all your time--
KT: -- in my mom's basement.
BJ: (simultaneously) -- in your mom's basement!!
KT: Very clever.
BJ: Zing! I zinged you, m'boy!
KT: Yes, you did. Well played.
BJ: You web-log all you want, Kenneth. Endulge yourself in imaginary statistics like "VORP," HEEP, SKANK and VLZSKS. I'll be out here in the sun, talking about a little thing I like to call "Runs Batted In." (Belches loudly.)
KT: Okay. So, listen -- about this thing you wrote about Tim Wakefield...
BJ: Oh my, yes. His knuckleball act has become dreadfully tedious. The Red Stockings should put him out to pasture!
KT: He did get roughed up by the Yankees -- a very good hitting club -- and he's struggled recently. But the guy isn't bad. Every year, he's good for 180 innings and a 4.20ish DIPS. Isn't that good for a fourth starter?

(Jenkins stares at me blankly.)

BJ: What did you call me?
KT: (confused) What? I didn't call you anything.
BJ: You listen to me, you rogue! You blackguard! I didn't fight in the Boer War to be insulted by a man who probably still lives in his mom's basement! (chuckles to himself)
KT: I wasn't insulting you. I was just pointing out that no matter what kind of pitch the guy throws, he's a pretty good fourth starter. I mean, the Sox only pay him $4 million a year, and his K/IP ratio is better than Mark Buehrle's.
BJ: Blorrrmp.

(Jenkins has vomited a little. I help him clean off his chin)

KT: There we go. You okay?
BJ: Listen, I don't care what your so-called "statistics" say. The man's act has become dreadfully tedious.

(He produces a partially-eaten grilled cheese sandwich from his waistcoat and washes down the bite with a long draw off the wineskin.)

KT: Yes, you mentioned that. But what--
BJ: I mean, where is the man's fastball?! Where is the challenge pitch? Where is the wicked googly?
KT: Is that...a curveball? Because he throws a curveball occasionally. And no matter what, the guy has had a 100-or-above ERA+ in 13 out of his 15 years. That's pretty good.
BJ: Will you stop spouting statistics, you mom's-basement-dweller?! Where are you even getting this information?
KT: From my Blackberry.
BJ: (eyes light up) A blackberry? Sounds delicious!

(He eats my Blackberry.)

KT: Oh boy.
BJ: (licking fingers) Excellent.
KT: I needed that.
BJ: Look, Ken Tremendous -- if that is your real name!
KT: It's not.
BJ: This game is about traditions, my friend. It isn't called "NumbersBall." It's called "Rounders."
KT: "Baseball."
BJ: And Rounders just isn't Rounders without the sweet smell of the chalk, and the loud crack of rawhide in the Snufflebucket, and the crisp feeling of flerbits in the mrrrrph mrrgggle...

(Jenkins is fast asleep. I gently take the wineskin off his back and wrap him in my new Noah Lowry jersey. The first pitch is thrown, and I settle in to watch a baseball game.)

(Two hours later, Jenkins offers his final salvo...)

BJ: (talking in his sleep) ...Mom's basement.

Labels: bruce jenkins, mother's basement, tim wakefield

At some point in probably like 1974 or so, comedians everywhere, in a sort of collective unconscious kind of way, all started talking about how hard bags of airline peanuts were to open. This led jokes about that subject to become something people in the professional comedy world call "hacky." Some other examples of jokes/observations that became hacky, over time, include:

If the black box survives plane crashes, why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box?

If the Professor can make a radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix the hole in the boat?

When I smoke weed, I get the munchies so bad!

There were two different guys who played "Darin" on "Bewitched": Dick Sargent and Dick York.

Also, who do you think was hotter -- Jeannie or the Bewitched chick?

-- Ginger or Marianne?

Men like to watch television and scratch themselves while women want to talk about their feelings.

Women shop a lot.

Monica Lewinsky!!!!!!!

And so on. You all know what I am talking about.

Now, officially, today, I would like to nominate a new member to the hacky joke Hall of Fame. The notion that bloggers live in their mom's basements.

And who better to put the final hacky nail in this hacky coffin than Boston's own Dan Shaughnessy.

Shaughnessy wrote this column because Curt Schilling has started a blog, 38pitches.com, so that he can communicate directly with his fans. Seems like a good thing to do. Why not? Unfortunately, Shaughnessy, it appears to me, has now seen the writing on the wall for muck-raking journalists like himself, who have careers mostly because they get access to athletes beyond that of the general public and thus get to poke and prod them for quotes and then write articles detailing their every move. If the athletes get to talk right to their public, what use is there for middlemen like ol' Danny? Some real estate agents are going to disappear eventually because of on-line video tours of houses. Brokers took a hit from e-Trade. Brick-and-mortar bookstores suffered from Amazon. The internet is a highly effective middleman reducer.

Now, far be it from me to downplay the role of journalists in sports reporting. There are many good ones, and I personally enjoy the old-timeyness of the on-site reporter. And, just as in politics, I believe that the public does benefit from professional prodders professionally prodding athletes. (I wish they had prodded more over the last 20 years, when it must have been blindingly clear that everyone in the league was juicing and not one single journalist had the guts to report it. Or even raise it as an issue. Their fancy journalism degrees didn't serve them -- or us -- very well then, did they?) But I also, as you might imagine, see the great benefit in the personal blog. It simply cannot be a bad thing to have more outlets for athlete-fan communication, if for no other reason than giving the average $80 ticket-buyers a chance to speak directly with those whose services we are paying to see.

Shaughnessy thinks differently. He thinks blogs are for nerds who live in their mom's basements. He thinks Schilling is just an attention-seeking glory hound. (Which I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact that Schilling has been critical of the media in Boston.) He thinks this whole blogging business is something to sneer at, deride, dismiss, and ridicule. And that is why he is a dinosaur who will grow up to be more bitter and miserable than he already is.

(The premise of his article is that it's excerpts from Schilling's chat.)

38 Pitches: Fire away guys. I've got a few hours of spare time before my next start and would be happy to answer questions about anything. Like I've been saying, the idea of this blog is that it allows me to communicate directly with my fans without any misrepresentations from those nitwits in the media.

Sycophant38: Hey, Curt. This blog is so cool. I can't believe you actually communicate with us directly. You will always be a god to me, Curt. You and the bloody sock. You honor me and my friends with this blog. So, let me ask you, do you think you would have won 25 last year if the umps weren't squeezing you?

38 Pitches: You'll never get me to say anything bad about the men in blue, Sycophant38. But thanks for joining the chat.

I like that enjoying the ability to chat directly with a player makes you a "sycophant."

Lapdog38: Hey Curt. This blog is awesome. I mean, I can't believe it's really you. I'm nervous just typing, knowing you are there on the other end. Let me tell you a little about myself. I am 38 years old (pretty cool, huh, 38?) and I have your jersey in XXL (both home and away versions). I'm living at home, in the basement, rent free, and I've got cable and plasma TV. Domino's delivers. I guess you could say I'm living the dream. Anyway, I was wondering if you could tell us who's going to be on the final 25-man roster for the Sox this year?

I'm sorry -- it makes you a lapdog. A fat lapdog. A fat lapdog who lives in a basement.

Yes: here's the first instance of "living in [mom's] basement." Well done. Good parody. By the way, Danny, parodies of things need to have grains of truth in them. Your parody of the questions on Curt's chat is clearly taking the position that the questioners are sycophantic nerds who live in their moms' basements. I will now cut and paste a bunch of the actual questions that were asked of Schilling, so we may contrast and compare:

Q-Who else has upgraded their starting pitching in 2007?

Q-I understand the desire to not face AL East teams, but isn’t the reverse true? Might you learn something from them by facing them in ST?

Q-Does one hitter protect another in the lineup, in the pitchers mind?

Q-I read that Beckett’s problems last year were him relying on his FB too much, doesn’t Tek make sure that doesn’t happen?

Q-What is the one thing you need in a game to be successful?

Q-Worried about pressure on Pedroia?

Q-What’s Daisuke been like to watch in person?

Q-Can the O’s overtake us?

Q-You have set incredibly ambitious goals for 38 Studios and its role in the gaming industry. Are you worried at all about losing sight of your goals, or the company being passed down into incapable/corrupt hands? If so, what measures have you put in place (or wish to put in place) to prevent that from happening?

Q-Your recap reminded me, I’ve always wanted to know; what goes through your mind between innings when things aren’t going well or you are worried that you don’t have all the tools you want or need on the mound on any given start?

Q-On SoSH awhile back there was a discussion what is more valuable: A catcher with an exceptional bat or exceptional catching skills?

Q-Who do you think is the best lefty of all time? Does RJ beat out Koufax?

Sorry to clip so much, but I wanted to show that the questions were not particularly sycophantic. Not at all, in fact. They actually seem like pretty interesting and thought-provoking questions. There is no indication that the Qers are lapdoggish, to me.

To be fair, there are also a fair number of questions about on-line gaming, because Schilling is a hard-core gamer, and is even developing his own gaming studio. These questions are pretty nerdy. But not sycophant-y.

None of these facts will stop ol' Shaughnessy, however. Some more excerpts...

Suckup38: Curt, you are the best. Thank you for this blog. It completes me. You had me at hello. I have blood stains on all my white socks. I was wondering if you would please consider going back to the negotiating table with the Red Sox during the season. If you leave Boston, I'll be forced to leave, myself.

Fanboy38: God bless you, Schill. You are the greatest human being, ever. I'm glad you have this blog because I could never speak to you face-to-face. It's so much easier to communicate anonymously, without eye contact or using my real name. That's why blogs are better. Anyway, I was wondering if you'd consider running for Senate or perhaps President? The White House could use a guy like you, Schill.

I don't understand this criticism. So what if you don't have to use your real name? This is an informal Q and A. It's not an article voicing an opinion. Schilling is using his real name, which is all that matters -- and which is the whole point of the exercise.

This is a criticism we here at FJM get a lot -- anonymity. With us, since we're bitching about things, I see the validity. We stay anonymous for several reasons, most of them having to do with our real jobs (I am at my desk right now, as I type this). But I get why someone whose work we attacked might find it distasteful that we don't use our real names. To them I say: sorry, I guess. But in this case, who cares if the Qs are anonymous as long as the As are not? What is the problem there?

38 Pitches: That's flattering, Fanboy38, but I just feel there is so much good I can do with my other ventures, saving the planet, saving mankind, etc. I wouldn't want to be stuck in a stuffy Oval Office all day, unable to speak my mind. I much prefer a forum like this where all of you can say whatever you like about me. No holds barred. Good spontaneous give-and-take. Just let it fly.

Another insinuation that these questions are softballs. Again, the questions on Schilling's site are actually pretty tough. There's

Q-Does [the Sox'] “no renewal” stance make you feel like they are, in effect, betting against you having a big year? Does that bother you?

and

Q-Why should the Sox pay you 13 million dollars for the 08 season?

and

Q-Baseball is incredibly out of sync with the rest of the world.

But Shaughnessy has just decided that all of the questions are sycophantic, and is presenting that view, without actually looking at the material he is "parodying." That's journalism! And this is comedy:

Loser38: I used to go to Star Trek conventions and comic book trade shows. No more. Now this blog is my life. My girlfriend says I'm spending too much time on this site. I say she's being ridiculous. I mean, what's six hours a day when you have a chance to communicate -- cyberspace to cyberspace -- with a legitimate Hall of Famer? Do you think I'm being reasonable, Schill?

Loser 38. Star Trek conventions. Wow. That is original and fresh. William Shatner himself made fun of Star Trek conventions...on Saturday Night Live...on December 20, 1986. And here, only 20 years later, you are making the same joke. Well done.

Also, don't you know anything about making fun of nerds, Dan? Nerds don't have girlfriends! Nerds masturbate to pictures of Princess Leia in the gold bikini outfit from the Jabba's palace scenes.

LonelyHeartClub38: Any chance you can blog during games this year?

38 Pitches: Funny you should ask. I've been toying with the idea of blogging between innings. I mean, how cool would that be? I come into the dugout after punching out Vernon Wells, then I tap out some thoughts for all of you and return to the mound for the second inning.

This is a joke. But I think that would be kind of cool. I'd rather he prepare for the next inning, but if he strikes out Vernon Wells a lot this year and then comes into the dugout and writes: "Fuck yeah!" and posts it, I'll be happy.

CHB38: What do you say to those media morons who contend that you are a self-important blowhard with an ill-informed opinion about everything and an insatiable need to be worshipped by sheep-like fans and late-night blog boys who live in Ma's basement?

First of all, the moniker "CHB" that Shaughnessy has chosen...for those of you who do not obsessively follow Boston sports, that stands for "Curly-Haired Boyfriend" (sometimes reported as "Curly-Headed Boyfriend.") It is a thing that Crazy Carl Everett said to Globe writer, Gordon Edes, I believe, about the jheri-coiffed Shaughnessy: "Where's your curly-haired boyfriend?" I'll refrain from postulating why Danny would use that little bit of code for himself at the end of this article. I would add, however, that if he really wanted to drive his point home in re: anonymity, he should have just had it read: Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe.

And then, of course, we have the hilarious and cutting remark about us late-night blog boys who live in Ma's basement. Ouch! Ya burnt, blog boys!

Schilling is a loudmouth. He is an attention-seeker. These things are true. But this blog is kind of awesome, I think -- if more athletes did this, perhaps people wouldn't feel so alienated from the sports stars they worship. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to walk up a flight of stairs to my mom's kitchen so she can cook me some pasta shaped like TIE-fighters, which I will eat before rewatching last night's Battlestar Galactica season finale, which was the most exciting thing I have seen since Leroy Jenkins hit YouTube.

Labels: blogs, carl everett, curt schilling, dan shaughnessy, mother's basement