Something people don't mention about why the Giants offense stinks

I was looking at ESPN.com today and noticed that, according to the website, the Giants player with the higher batting average is .242. Of course, that's absurd. Pablo Sandoval has an average floating around .300 right now. But ESPN was listing the player with the highest batting average on the team who has enough plate appearances to qualify for consideration for the batting title. According to official stats, a player needs to have 3.1 plate appearances for each game the team has played to qualify for the batting title. According to this measure, the Giants only have two players who qualify for the batting title: Tejada and Aubrey Huff (who is hitting a miserable .232).

This seemed pretty low, so I decided to compare to other teams in MLB. The problem is that the AL has the DH, which means that one player is receiving most of the plate appearances for that slot in the lineup while the NL has plate appearances divied out among the five starting pitchers. So, you could subtract out one qualifying player from AL teams to make them equal to NL teams. After doing that, there is only one other team as pathetic as the Giants and that is the Minnesota Twins. Every other team has at least four players who qualify for the batting title.

There are some issues that might explain why the Giants have so few players receiving enough plate appearances to qualify. One is that the whole offense is bad so players have fewer plate appearances. Another is that Bruce Bochy makes ample use of his bench and platoons players a lot because the team isn't that good. Both of these are good reasons (the latter is probably the reason why Nate Schierholtz doesn't qualify as he platooned a lot up until lately). But, I think the real reason is that the Giants have been beset by injuries and no one really talks about it. Buster Posey and Freddy Sanchez are out indefinitely. Cody Ross, Andres Torres, and Pablo Sandoval all have missed at least 20 games this season with leg injuries. Mark DeRosa has been out with a wrist injury. Bill Hall was brought in to replace Freddy Sanchez and got hurt immediately. Oh, and Mike Fontenot has been out a number of games as well. This is compounded by their top prospect, Brandon Belt, having a wrist injury for about 6 weeks or so.

The Posey and Sanchez injuries are particular tough because they were both hitting in the .280s at the top of the order. (I know, batting average isn't the best measure. They are fifth and seventh on the team in OPS.)  It's not that the Giants were built with a bad offense. It's more that they have been savaged by injuries. Thankfully, the Giants have incredible pitching again this year to buoy the team which is why they are 15 games over .500. (Although, it is fun for ESPN and SI to just say, "The Giants offense stinks!" without mentioning that it's because half their lineup should be playing for the AAA Fresno Grizzlies.)

Private innovation is great until it kills what you love

Dear Netflix:

I hate you. You sent me an email saying that instead of letting me enjoy my "One DVD by mail, unlimited by stream plan for $9.99" in perpetuity, you are now charging separately for the mail service and the streaming service, effectively increasing my bill by 50 percent. 50 percent!! I know, you're getting so big that you are now obsessed with profits instead of providing an awesome service for cheap (which is the sole reason that we signed up with you in the first place). Way to follow in the same footsteps of Emusic and Lala who both decided to go away from their core services (Emusic=cheap, obscure indie music, Lala=Trading CDs) to try and get more profits. And you know what? I cancelled my emusic subscription because it didn't provide the service I wanted at the price I wanted and Lala died, killed by Apple because it decided to do something more than what it ought. You think I'm going to pay 15 bucks for streaming AND DVDs? Not a chance, which means I'm going to choose one or the other, meaning that you will be receiving LESS money from me in the future. 

You fools, you stupid capitalist fools, who think that people will stick with your brand even if you jack up the price not realizing that the price and the original service is why people are patronizing your service. Argh. It's like sports teams who continually increase ticket prices and expect to maintain attendance levels. It doesn't happen, people just decide that they can skip the games and watch on TV. 

So, yeah, in some ways I wish you were like a government program that never changed that couldn't be killed that you would offer the same service forever. Of course, that would mean you would provide a crappy service forever.

I guess that leaves the only other option: Become a charity or church. Please. Let go of the profits, and embrace a live of service and do-goodery by giving the masses streaming and DVDs by mail on the cheap. You know, like the BBC.

Doug

P.S. I am in a particularly foul mood because somehow Bringing Up Baby ended up at the top of the queue and is now sitting on my end table.

A week of validation

I get obsessed with seeing certain movies.

It all began spending hours perusing the walls of movies at Goodtime Video in Orem. They had an alcove that was devoted to Disney movies, including all the weird live-action movies that most people have forgotten about (The Black Arrow, Herbie Goes Bananas, The Apple Dumpling Gang Take Manhattan, etc.). When we went to Goodtime, the kids got to choose a movie usually from the Alcove of Disney. One movie that had caught my eye for several months was Night Crossing which, according to the back of the movie, was a harrowing tale of balloon-building and balloon-floating in East Germany. I was hooked. My older siblings were not. It took me a few months to get the nerve to even suggest that we get it, and when I did suggest it, it was shot down like a giant hot air balloon floating to West Germany.

I didn't limit my looking to just the Alcove of Disney though. I probably looked at every movie in the place and checked the rating on each movie. I chanced across one called the Mosquito Coast that was...a harrowing tale of civilization-building in Central America. I lobbied for that movie for years but never got anywhere like a deflated hot air balloon.

But, one evening, my siblings made the critical error in letting me accompany my dad to Goodtime alone. He wouldn't rent the Mosquito Coast as the kid movie, but a Disney movie about ballooning? Sure, why not? The response when I got home was not one of "Sure, why not?" when I proudly showed that we had rented Night Crossing, but more of "The stupid balloon movie? Were not watching THAT!" And they refused to watch it with me. Thus, began my lonely odyssey of watching unpopular movies by myself. I didn't remember much from Night Crossing, so I didn't know if it was really as terrible as everyone thought it was.

 After two decades, an amazing confluence of events brought me to a couch watching the Mosquito Coast AND Night Crossing within a week. The amazing confluence of events was Christina was off at book group and the Mosquito Coast had arrived from Netflix. And, then after describing how long I had wanted to see it and describing the Night Crossing incident, Christina put Night Crossing to the top of the queue.

The real question: Did they live up to expectations?

First, The Mosquito Coast. Need we ask the question? Peter Weir directing Harrison Ford in a Behold! The Hubris of Man movie? A classic. Loved it. In the reviews I read after I watched the movie, there was a lot of talk about how great River Phoenix is in it as the oldest son. I was more stunned by the younger son, who goes from idolized his father to homesickness to loathing of his father and back to love. Pretty impressive for a ten-year-old. I don't think he was ever in another movie.

Second, Night Crossing. If it were not for John Hurt, the movie would be a disaster. But Hurt takes a Disneyfied script, wooden children actors, and some rotten co-stars, throws the movie on his back, finds the emotional core, and sucks it to the surface. After Hurt saves the first half of the movie, the director steps in and builds some nice tension over the second half of the movie such that Christina and I were both sucked in. What seemed to be a potential disaster in the first ten minutes had us goosebumping in the final ten.

So, Young Doug, bravo young man. You DID possess preternatural good taste in movies for a 10-year-old. And, like Harry Truman, history has validated you.

The Sarah Palin Emails

OK, I'm a little late on this. But, for those who missed it, the Washington Post and the New York Times are soliciting for 100 volunteers to help them go through the 25,000 or so Sarah Palin emails when Palin was Governor of Alaska. As the Washington Post wrote: "That's a lot of e-mail for us to review so we're looking for some help from Fix readers to analyze, contextualize, and research those e-mails right alongside Post reporters over the days following the release."

Why does this bother me? Because the Washington Post and New York Times are exploiting the liberal proletariat, playing on their political ideology to extract free labor! In that statement I quote above, they are basically admitting that they do not have enough staff to do their job of reporting. Thus, people who have such skills should be able to demand a wage because they are in demand. Instead, they are providing their skill for free. It's part of an insidious plot by Capital that demands that people provide free labor before they get considered for a job. (A common problem in the current job market for recent grads.) The irony is that the WaPo/NYT plot is exploiting the very people that should have been well-schooled in Marxist thought and should be able to identify when they are being exploited. Instead, they are running like lemmings to offer their services. The first guy who volunteered on the WaPo page identified himself as extremely liberal and unemployed. Demand payment! The WaPo may be ostensibly liberal, but it is still part of the capitalist machinery.

In this, I agree with Rick Reilly, the evil sportswriter, who said to journalism school grads: "Don't write for free. Doctors don't doctor for free. Professors don't profess for free." And don't dig up evidence on Sarah Palin for free.

The Way Back

It was foreordained from the foundations of time that I would love this movie. In fact, I think the whole reason this movie exists is to please me. Before you cry, "Solipsism!! It's what did in Aguirre, lad!!" let me make my points.

1. It's directed by Peter Weir, fresh off of his towering achievement that no one liked but me Master and Commander
2. It's a prison escapee movie.
3. It features long shots of people walking slowly in adverse conditions
4. It's an Incredible Journey
5. It's a Forced Brotherhood Where Some Will Die But You Don't Know Who movie
6. It has beautiful cinematography.

All this adds up to an incredibly boring movie for 95 percent of movie watchers. The other 5 percent who would like this movie live in Europe and will probably never see it. So, yes, I feel safe in saying that this movie was made especially for me.

Of course, this will not stop me from telling everyone to go rent it because I need to further burnish my credentials of Guy Whose Movie Tastes are Not Generalizable.

Zoofari 2011

Through fortuitous circumstances, we landed Zoofari tickets again this year. Last year, we were so naive, eating a bunch of pedestrian flavored carbs at the top of the Zoo only to find the delectable meats at the bottom.

This year, we went in like Bain Capital-era Mitt Romney, ruthlessly efficient and cruel. An excellent slider to whet the appetite and then bypassing a good number of non-steak establishments. This strategy paid off in spades as when we hit the meat section, I was still hungry. Which means I had to have sampled about 15 different steaks. And Mitt would have been proud because I wouldn't tolerate the trappings associated with the steaks. Arugula? Begone! Thumbs up to Cava for just handing out a slab of lamb and to Capital Grille for just doing steak and potatoes. (I should note that I didn't just limit myself to steak. I had sushi and some pastramied stomach. Two vendors had stomach this year, but I only went for the pastramied stomach.)

Although this year was satisfying, I felt a distinct loss of innocence this year, the difference between a 5 yr old and a teenager at Christmas, the former bedazzled by the number of presents, the latter calculating.

Orwellian Nonsense from HHS

My contact at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (by just referring to him as my contact, suddenly the story seems dark and mysterious) informed me about a year ago that HHS was plotting on expanding the definition of "child" in the TANF program (which is the national cash welfare program) in the regulations they were writing for the extra 5 billion for TANF provided through ARRA (the stimulus bill). I have been salivating waiting for these regs to come out to bring to light the absurd changes in the definition...and I finally heard today that these regs are available online. (For True Patriots who love reading regulations and other government publications, click here.)

It's not as damning as I had hoped. But it sure is complicated. First, TANF money can be provided to a recipient in two ways: 1) "Assistance" which consists of regular cash payments to a recipient. If someone receives TANF "assistance," they are subject to the work requirements of the program as well as the five-year time limit. 2) "Non-assistance" which consists of non-regular cash payments to a recipient or the provision of other services. So, you can give someone a lump sum of cash and, because it isn't a regular payment, it doesn't count as assistance. Which means that the person does not need to meet work requirements and does not count as being "on welfare." You can also give someone a pamphlet paid with using TANF funds and by giving them the pamphlet, they now count as receiving TANF (albeit "non-assistance"). Because they are receiving TANF non-assistance, they are eligible to receive food stamps. And if they are eligible to receive food stamps, they are also eligible to receive WIC. (It also allows them to use the TANF asset test which is typically waived by the states instead of the food stamp asset test which is stricter.)

Anywho, the point is that the TANF law explicitly states that in order to receive TANF "assistance", you must have a minor child in your home. The big deal with these new regs is that HHS looked at Purpose 1 of TANF which is to "provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives” and determined that it does not specify minor children, just children. Therefore, for "non-assistance," states can define a "child" up to the age of 25.

What does this mean? Well, it means that states can provide more non-assistance services to families that would otherwise be ineligible for receiving TANF non-assistance because their children were too old. It also means that more families will be eligible for "non-assistance" funded diversion grants (and possibly state EITC payments...)

I originally thought that this was going to be applied to assistance, which would have been a bigger deal, what with child-only cases and all. Instead, it's really just a change that makes understanding TANF (only a $17 billion program) even more difficult. Which makes me think that the regulations for Obamacare are going to be absolutely impenetrable.

"NA indicates too few white kids for AYP rules"

Yesterday, we got something from Montgomery County Public Schools that said in a loud and authoritative voice: "IF ROSCOE NIX ELEMENTARY DOES NOT MEET AYP THIS YEAR, YOUR CHILD CAN GO TO ANOTHER SCHOOL." Hmm, a school that has field trips and plans for when teachers go on maternity leave and school programs and things like perhaps? That would be really nice, actually.

Surprisingly (not surprisingly), we are limited in our choice of different schools. I thought we would be able to send Dave and Caleb to Potomac Elementary or something (rich part of MoCo). Nope, we get our pick between Takoma Park and Fairland. So much for choice. Anyway, they also gave us the AYP scores of these two elementary schools along with the AYP scores of Roscoe Nix. So, schools are required by No Child Left Behind to report AYP not just for the entire school but also for racial/ethnic groups, special needs kids, and kids receiving free and reduced school lunch, unless there are too few kids at the school of that group to have a decent sample. Well, in looking at the AYP scores, lo and behold, there are no reported scores for white kids because, well, there aren't enough white kids at the school. Now, Dave is the only white kid in his class, but I guess that's the norm throughout the school.

Now, you might say, "That must be tough to not have kids of his race at the school." To which I say, No! Dave is actually providing diversity to the school! Kids in his class can't say they never went to school with a white kid! They will see the media stereotypes about white people being mean robber barons that will sell their own mother for the good of the company and think, "Hey, wait, there's a white kid in my class. He's decent enough. Maybe not all all white kids are greedy corporate executives." And it's those little moments that change the world.

BSP III

So, I finally have a phone that takes pictures and it just so happens that this is the one week that Christina has it. So, I still have no pictures of a British Sea Power concert even though I was front row for the third time.

So, BSP again at the Black Cat. You'd think I be getting bored of this but I was so giddy to get there that Andrew Miller and I created the line in front of the Black Cat at 7:00 (doors opened at 8:00). I don't think anyone else got in line until about 7:45. First people into the club, first people to the merch booth where I had a discussion with Noble (BSP guitarist) about which shirt to buy.

I went with the I'm a Big Fan of the Local Library which I plan on wearing to the White Oak Library next time we go. (I had to buy it. I'm an ex-librarian after all...)

I could have bought one of the shirts that Yan and Hamilton drew and designed, but I figured I would regret wearing one because it kinda looked like those wildlife shirts (you know, the ones with a giant picture of a bear or wolf) that you can buy at Little America or from other fine kitchy Americana peddlers.

Anywho, I set up in between lead vocalist and guitarist. I am obviously craving human communication with Christina and the kids out of town because I was talking to everyone: Noble at the merch shop, some other huge BSP fan (first person I have ever met who shares the passion, nice to know there are people out there), the lead singer of A Classic Education (he is Canadian-Italian, the rest of the band is straight-up Italian), and BSP's roadie (I promised not to dump any liquid on a special amplifier...of course the drunk girl next to me kept trying to do that very thing...she also kept beckoning for members of the band to come to her. I hate fans like that.)

Overall summary of the gig: Wild professsionalism. They sounded tight, like they should as the concert was near the end of their tour. Not as much insanity. No climbing, no crowd surfing, no other kind of stuff that they did last time. However, Yan did stare at the ceiling for a good bit during the Great Skua and then stumbled and knocked over an amp with his head (of which Pat Tiedemann, the toughest man in the crowd, later said "That was the only thing I didn't buy about the performance. Totally contrived." I say, contrived or not, knocking over the amp with your head is neat.) Also, Noble took his bass and mic stand into the crowd during the finale of All In It and had people singing with him and also let a couple people play his bass (he was on bass that song). Plus, the drummer of A Classic Education came out and held another mic stand over the crowd during All In It so we could sing along.

But, yes, they killed it on the music. Opener was Who's In Control, followed by We Are Sound, Atom, Stande Null and Luna. Then Hamilton took over and did Blackout, Baby, and Once More Now. Yan came back on vocals and did some order of Remember Me, Ended on an Oily Stage, Larsen B, and Living is so Easy. Then Hamilton did Mongk II and no Lucifer. Yan then came back with Spirit of St. Louis and Lights Out for Darker Skies. Encore was Waving Flags, The Great Skua, Carrion, and All in It. I hope I didn't miss anything, but I probably got some of the order wrong.

What really struck me this time was the sheer enormity of the sound. At some points you had Noble, Yan, and Phil all on guitar. Especially on Once More Now, we were, well, drowned in sound. The song that really got me going was Remember Me. The opening of that song live is absolutely unbeatable.

Sign of getting old: I hardly jumped at all. Probably just a couple of times. Of course, no one in DC jumps.

There were about three or four photographers at the gig, and I just found some of their flickr pages, so I'll link to them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/escphotography/with/5640970182/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/taracchini/sets/72157626419008493/with/5639278939/

Art

I guess I'm still ten years old. Christina made a batch of play-doh this afternoon for the kids and I reluctantly participated. The next thing I knew, an hour and a half had passed and I had spent the time creating a disturbing scene of bunnies running over each other (while everyone else made, oh, frogs or pillows or Ol' Man Tucker).

In my defense, I was trying to make a bat and then Dave said it looked like a bunny and Christina said it looked like roadkill, so I took off the bat wings and added tread marks. And then things snowballed. The whole time I kept thinking, "Oh Mike [my brother] is going to think this is hilarious!"

Is this post-worthy? Not really. But seeing how I've been completely immersed in work lately, this is the closest I've been to "creative" in a long time.

An early Christmas present

We are at peace.

After the sticky traps failed, we called the Orkin man. He came, set a bunch of sticky traps, and plugged up holes with steel wool. The next day, I noticed some of the steel wool was gone, so I plugged the hole with a plastic bag. The next day the plastic bag was gone, so I put another one in its place. It was gone again the next day. We kept hearing sounds by the oven, so we called the Orkin man to come back. he was shocked to see that a) the steel wool was being displaced and b) that the rodent was avoiding every sticky trap. So, he dropped some poison into the hole where the bag was disappearing and we braced ourselves for a dead rodent in the walls.

For three days, nothing. I assumed it had worked.

Then the scratching began again, by the stove again. I think I mentioned in the previous post about the rodent that there is a fairly large hole behind the stove that I tried to fill with bits of wood. I decided to make it more secure by adding tile and wood. And that led to the beginning of the end.

The next night, Christina saw the rodent peek out from the bottom drawer of the oven. Then he made more noise around the oven, and we realized that he couldn't get back into the walls. So we blocked his exit out into the kitchen with steel traps that Christina got from her dad that he uses at the test site. The rodent tried to exit, bumped a trap, set it off, and retreated.

The next morning (Dec. 23), Christina bought eight (eight!!) large snap traps, baited them with string cheese and put them into the bottom shelf of the oven. An hour later, I got the blessed call at work..."I heard a snap! I'm going to check! We got him!"

And got him we did.

A mouse, yes, but a big mouse (body was probably about seven inches).

We killed him without poison.

We killed him without sticky traps.

We killed him without Orkin Men, boxes, or bags.

The stress of the last month melted away. I saluted my adversary and then ceremoniously put him in a plastic bag and threw him away.

And on the night before Christmas/as I walked through the house/I knew not a creature was stirring/not even The Mouse.

'Cos he was dead.

The End.

Me vs. Devil Rat

From time to time, a mouse enters the house. We've killed about four of them in our tenure here, little devils that fall prey to the ol' "There's some peanut butter at the end of this dark tunnel, just place your paws here and here to eat it" trap. And cue a resounding ZOT!

But, then we began to hear noises of a different sort, louder scratching, under different appliances. Something from deep in the earth's bowels had arisen and had made its foul way into our way by may of an inexplicable huge hole behind the stove. Curse random huge holes behind appliances! Curse slipshod retrofitting of ancient houses for modern amenities! We laid our puny electronic mouse traps and small sticky traps and caught nothing. Christina caught glimpses of the monster during late night feedings of Colette.

But 'twas this most recent Thursday when I finally laid my eyes on the creature. An audaciously fat, slow rodent that was operating in the mid-evening. He escaped under the dishwasher and left me a mess of nerves, recognizing that I had nothing to combat something of that size.

I laid the smaller sticky traps by the dishwasher, and laid bits of cheese on them. In the morning, they were pushed out of the way and the cheese was gone. So, on Saturday morning, we all woke up early to take Christina at the airport. Suddenly, the beast appeared from beneath the piano and scurried around the room. Of course he makes his most bold appearance when I have no time to set up a perimeter and hunt his foul self down. He scampered back to the piano and we had to leave.

So, on Saturday, the kids and I bought giant sticky traps. GIANT! Six of them! And I baited them as before. So, what to my wondering eyes should appear this morning but this!

In the bottom left, you can see two big paw prints. The stinking rat took two big steps in going for the cheese, got stuck, pulled the sticky trap to the middle of the floor and freed himself.

1) I have now given the monster additional Spiderman type powers: Sticky paws.

2) What's the use of the sticky trap if the rat can free himself?? I don't want a "trap" like the Empire's great trap that succeeded in getting the Emperor killed, the Death Star blown up, and Darth Vader rehabilitated. That is not a successful trap. No, a successful trap is like the one that the Ewoks laid for Chewbacca. That worked.

But alas! To quote the plastic surgeon who really did a number on the Joker after he fell in acid "You see what I have to work with here." A bunch of stupid sticky traps. So, here's my new plan...

THREE STICKY TRAPS!

WITH PEANUT BUTTER IN THE MIDDLE!

I will wait for the rat. A stakeout. When I hear his cries of dismay at getting a paw stuck, I will strike. Oh, I will strike with the wrath of a thousand tortured souls who do not want to buy rat poison to have the rat crawl into the wall and die and moulder for the next two weeks.

In other news, I watched Ridley Scott's the Duellists last night. The movie has nothing to do with me suddenly feeling like the rat has insulted me and therefore I must duel with him until the matter is resolved. Nothing.

An hour of nothings

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the House of Representatives and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, came and spoke at the School of Public Policy this afternoon. The topic: Policy Challenges Facing the 112th Congress. Ok, I know that he's a politician, but I expected that because his party just got smoked in the election, because he's a public policy grad, and because there's no way he's losing an election any time soon that he'd be a little more forthcoming about actual policy options.

After an hour of Van Hollen talking I learned only about one policy option that he supports: raising taxes on those making over 250k. Every time he got close to talking actual policy, he ended up veering off into banal generalities. When someone asked about the Debt Commission's recommendations for fixing Social Security, he said that they were all part of a package to be considered and then ridiculed the Commissions recommendations on Medicare without providing any alternatives.

So, no clearly defined policy options. But, he did provide us with a few nuggets about why the Democrats think they got shellacked in November. 1. The Republicans received a lot of secret money 2. A bad political climate 3. A high unemployment rate. That's right, nothing about a growing dissatisfaction with runaway spending and unpopular bills. I don't mind if Democrats say, "we know we got shellacked because of our policies but we think that what we did was right and we're ok with it." instead, they come with a bunch of reasons why they lost which don't really get at t basic unpopularity of their policies. Oh, Rep Van Hollen said that the major discussion that the Democratic Caucus had after the losses was about how to fix their message. Not a thoughtful discussion about policy, but how they should have spun their message. Pathetic.

Anyway, a major disappointment. It's not like the Republicans are inspiring a lot of love in me right now either. Rumor has it that their first order of business is to try and repeal the Health Care law as if that's a viable option. After that, try want to hunker down until 2012. Inspiring.

Giants Win the World Series

I know, I know, they won it almost two weeks ago. (The Call Family will no longer celebrate All Saints Day on November 1st, but will celebrate Giants Day to commemorate the final victory in game 5). And it's embarrassing to have blogged consistently about the Giants up until the WS victory and then not say anything about it. Honestly, I am still basking in the aftermath of it all, so I don't feel compelled to write anything more than the following. You always hope that when your team wins the whole enchilada, that it's not a team of jerks or dour professionals (the 2002 Giants). The thing I will always remember about the 2010 WS team was that they were not full of themselves, they were enthusiastic, they played as a team, and their joy in playing the game was infectious. They were cast-offs, has-beens, and up-and-comers that really seemed like a team without an ego. The kind of team that you thought all teams were like when you were naive to professional sports as a business.

It doesn't matter what the Giants do from here on out. I will continue to follow them and support them, but I won't have the gnawing desire to have them with the World Series. I watched every game this year, I have the memories, that's good enough for me. You can't get a better storyline or a better team.

Seating on Public Transportation

In this editorial in the NY Times, the author laments that on his Acela trips from NYC to Providence and back again, he often has an empty seat next to him and he sadly ascribes it to him being African-American. I think my favorite part of the editorial is where he writes: "But the very pleasing moment of anticipation casts a shadow, because I can’t accept the bounty of an extra seat without remembering why it’s empty, without wondering if its emptiness isn’t something quite sad."

I really don't want to wade too much into the whole point that the article raises about how white people don't want to sit next to black people on public transportation. I have thought about it somewhat seeing how I am typically the racial minority on Metrobus and I rarely end up having someone sit next to me if I have an open seat next to me. But, this happened when I commuted up to Salt Lake as well back in the late 1990s, so it must be something about me looking mean when I ride public transportation.

I really wanted to comment on the sadness of the empty seat next to you as you ride on public transportation. When I would commute to Salt Lake, I hoped the good looking young professional girls would sit next to me (because I'm sure I would have struck up an intelligent conversation at 5:19 in the morning), but that never transpired. So, the empty seat represented me being rejected by various good looking girls, and yes, that made me feel sad. Nowadays, I don't really want someone to sit next to me. But sometimes, when someone bypasses the seat next to me and goes over and sits next to the obese person who's filling a seat and a half, or the person who smells, I still feel a pang of sadness. Really, you'd rather be tottering on the edge of your seat ready to fall off the moment that the bus hangs a left because you chose to sit next to the obese person rather than sitting next to me, a seemingly nice non-obese non-smelly type person? Yes, it makes me doubt if I have any natural charisma whatsoever.

On the other hand, after reading the article above, I decided to review my past seat choices (assuming I had to sit next to someone). I realized that I was more likely to sit next to middle-aged Hispanic women than any other race/sex. Alas! A cause for repentance! Which I have done. Instead of doing a mental calculation to determine who I think is most likely to get off sooner so I get the empty seat next to me, I am now trying my hardest to sit next to black men so they won't think I'm being racist. (Somehow, I don't think that's the kind of change the article was hoping to bring about...)

Great momets in announcing

I feel like Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are good friends of mine after these many weeks of watching baseball. And like my good friends, they say some really stupid stuff. Now, I can't imagine how many stupid things I would say if I had to talk nonstop about baseball for three hours. But they had some lines that really killed me tonight

Joe: strike one
Tim: (admiringly) How many times have you said that tonight?

Now, he's trying to praise Colby Lewis and his ability go throw first pitch strikes. But, Joe says "strike one" almost EVERY batter! I think he didn't say "strike one" once, when Sanchez walked someone on four pitches. So, it's really not that impressive. More impressive is if Joe had said "first pitch strike."

Tim: and that's a breaking ball that breaks down.

Maybe someone has a breaking ball that breaks up. I haven't seen one.

Joe: (watching people buying food) Well, cardiologists are just grinning at this sight.
Tim: yeah, that will keep them in business

I think that's a violation of the Hippocratc Oath, right?

Poleaxing Cliff Lee in Game 1

When I came home tonight, Christina said "Check out the top left of your new SI." it says: "Rangers ace Cliff Lee: why he'll be the difference." I looked at the article, written by Tom Verducci, and he wrote: "The left-hander is more than the central character of the series: he looms above it like the sun above the Earth."

Yes, he sits astride the series like a mighty Colossus...until felled like a cow hit in the face by a two by four. Giants scored 7 runs off him in four innings and tarnished his career postseason ERA, dropping him from third all time to eighteenth.

Of course, no one expected it because no one has figured out that the Giants offense has had to go through the pitching- rich NL West, the Braves, and the Phillies, both of whom are excellent pitching teams, to get to the world series. Yes, their offense has already faced down the best pitchers...and triumphed. Thus, it's perfectly within their abilities to, well, poleaxe the best postseason pitcher since Sandy Koufax.

Of course, if they get shut out tonight, then never mind.

Giants Win the Pennant

This picture depicts the very moment in which the umpire called the third strike, where Ryan Howard was suddenly realizing that he has struck out looking, and where it's just dawning on Buster Posey that the Giants are going to the World Series.

Trying to think about how best organize my thoughts about this series. The national media has tried crafting a narrative of this series as it progressed and I think that the narrative falls short.

Beginning narrative: The Phillies have the best starting pitching in the majors. There was no way that the Giants could win against Halladay, Hamels, and Oswalt. The Giants offense is so bad that they will not be able to score against the Phillies.

This ignored that the Giants starting pitchers had an ERA of 1.00 in the NLDS against the Braves. Also, ignored that the Giants starting pitching had held opponents to 2 or fewer runs in 18 consecutive games in September, and that the overall pitching staff had the second best ERA in the majors. No one acknowledged that Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Madison Bumgarner all had ERAs around 3.00 and that any Giants fan would tell you that Cain was more reliable than Lincecum this year.

As for the offense, Roy Halladay had never beaten the Giants in 4 career starts and had an ERA of 6.66 against them, including giving up 5 runs against the Giants at the beginning of the season. Not only had the Giants beaten each of the Phillies top 3 once this season, they also had beaten pitchers like Josh Johnson of the Marlins, Chad Billingsley of the Dodgers, and other aces. Yes, not a great offense, but nothing like the historical abomination that the media was reporting.

Middle of the series narrative: After the Phillies fell behind three games to one, the accepted wisdom was that the Phillies had beaten themselves in Game 4. Joe Posnanski of SI titled his column's "Manuel Decisions Backfire in Game 4," Mitch Williams on FOX immediately started criticizing the Phillies pitch selection, and other writers basically agreed that the Phillies had lost the game, as opposed to the Giants winning it. So, in Game 5, when Lincecum outpitches Halladay, but Sandoval and Huff both have errors in the three-run third inning...Oh, that's the Phillies winning the game! Not the Giants throwing it away.

And then came the Hagiography of Roy Halladay. After giving up 4 runs in game 1, everyone was talking about how it was a no brainer that Halladay should pitch game 4 on short rest, not game 5. And then in game 5, he didn't look sharp in his six innings and gave up 2 runs. Lincecum lost because his defense collapsed. Other than that, he was much sharper. But, no, Halladay is the guttiest, toughest player in the world!

And then after the Giants win in game 6...Harold Reynolds on MLB network said that this was one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Rob Neyer on ESPN said "The Giants played Game 6 just well enough to win. Which goes double for the entire NLCS. They scored 19 runs in six games; the Phillies scored 20. The Giants didn't outplay the Phillies, exactly. They did play the Phillies to a standstill." Joe Posnanski wrote "These are your National League Champion San Francisco Giants. They beat the Phillies 3-2 Saturday in the most improbable victory since, well, probably since Wednesday when they beat the Phillies by a run. And that was probably the most improbable victory since they beat Roy Halladay and the Phillies in Game 1 of this series by a run."

I'm sure there are a hundred more quotes like this out there. Basically, that the Giants shocked the world, they barely played well enough to win, and got just enough lucky breaks to beat the Phillies.

Here's what I say. The Giants have the best pitching staff in the majors. They completely handcuffed the best offense in the NL. Their offense is much better than advertised. At the beginning of the series they got clutch hits, but in game 6 they had 13 hits. 13 hits! They were getting on base, just not scoring that much. Plus, they were going against a very good pitching staff in their own right. Remember, they didn't eke past the Phillies in seven. They took the commanding 3-1 lead, they blew game 5, and then came right back and won on the road in an insane environment (nice on the Phillies fans for making sure to boo as the Giants celebrated after winning). That's a mentally tough team, that's the championship team, not the underdog scrappy team. Call them the underdog at your peril.

Giants winning with weak hitting

I know that I've been writing a bunch about the Giants, but it's completely justified because the games have been so intense. I'm watching the Rangers- Yankees game and I've seen a number of hard-hit balls even though the score is only 3-2 in the 5th. The Giants have scored eight runs in this series and outside of Cody Ross and his phenomenal three home runs, the Giants have only one other really hard hit all series and that was Rowand's double. No, I guess Burrell had a deep hit in Game 1. But the Giants don't seem to be hitting the Phillies pitching especially hard. Just timely hits when runners get on. Not wasting opportunities. Very economical. They probably are tops among playoff teams in having 1-2-3 innings for their offense. And that seemed true of the NLDS too. If I were a Phillies fan,mid be frustrated that my pitchers aren't getting hit hard, are striking out 8 batters a game, and still getting losses. First time in my life I've been a fan of a team who plays this way.

The Redemption Series

After this afternoon's dominant pitching performance by Matt Cain, I'm pretty stoked at the Giants' chances of making the World Series. (I should also point out the incredibly opportunistic hitting with two outs against both Halladay and Oswalt. The offense may not be pretty, but they don't leave a bunch of men on base like they did in that tragic 2003 NLDS against the Marlins.)

Although it would be great to play and beat the Yankees, I'm actually pulling for a Giants-Rangers World Series and it has nothing to do with the schadenfreude of watching the Yanks lose or because the Rangers haven't ever won a World Series. No! It's because the Rangers and the Giants were both hubs of steroid activity in the 1990s. Perhaps, "hives" is more appropriate. Or "dens." The Rangers seemed to really be the major purveyors of steroids in the early and mid-1990s with Jose Canseco personally injecting as many teammates as he could and then the Giants are the primary recipients of the really good stuff from BALCO in the late 1990s and early 2000s. So, of course, both teams were built around hugely muscled sluggers and no pitching, perfect embodiments of the steroid era. And, yea, verily, both teams were punished by the baseball gods with lack of success. As penance, they both moved away from the muscled slugger approach to emphasize pitching. OK, I know that the Rangers made an effort to work on pitching. I think the Giants have some great pitching talent evaluators and wretched position player evaluators, so they do great in drafting pitchers but have no good position players in the farm system. And Brian Sabean hasn't realized that those aging vets no longer have the Fountain of Youth in BALCO to tap into any more, so many of the position players are decomposing in the field or the dugout.

Anyway, the baseball gods seem to be smiling on the Giants and Rangers. After besmirching the name of baseball and providing fodder for yet another volume of Ken Burns's interminable Baseball saga, these two teams are finally out or purgatory. I think the more power-deficient the Giants are, the more they prove how devout their penance is and thus more worthy to be chosen to win the World Series.

Or the Yanks and the Phillies move on because the baseball gods, like the basketball gods, want a rubber match between the last two champs. I think my storyline is more compelling.