The fate of the Astros looks glowing
When Clemens or Oswalt is throwing.
But Atlanta can fight
If their karma is Wright,
Or if Houston goes Backe-Munroing.

Though pundits are plotting and planning,
The stats they are scouring and scanning
To lay out who wins–
The Yankees(!!!) or Twins(???),
Are worthless when Johan’s Santanning.

To triumph, the Angels will need
To use their advantage in speed.
Boston needs early licks,
For beyond inning six,
The Halos won’t give up a lead.

Both have rotations in doubt.
Each has their best starter out.
The defensive play
Slightly favors L.A.,
But on offense, the Cards have more clout.

Sadly, this needless divorce
Stems from an odious source:
Ownership greed
And failures to lead.
I feel sick from their lack of remorse.

My friends

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.

–Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809

Out of the bullpen, a chair
Catapults into the air
Landing some blows
And breaking the nose
Of a soon-to-be millionaire.

Eisner has plans to leave Mickey
In 2006, which is tricky.
Some have chosen that year
To let go their career
But found that their job is too sticky.

Erubiel Durazo has the hardest name to type in MLB history. I think the correct spelling actually contains backspaces.

Susan Slusser has an interesting article about him in today’s SF Chronicle. Last year, he was the perfect example of taking the walks-are-good philosophy too far. He was

drawing a tremendous number of walks, but doing little else and leading A’s statistics expert David Feldman to coin the terms “good on-base percentage and bad good on-base percentage.”

This year Dra^H^Hurza^H^Hazo is actually doing what Billy Beane expected when he traded for him. He’s hitting. Money quote:

“It kind of works together,” A’s hitting coach Dave Hudgens said. “Sometimes last year, guys were working for a walk, when what you want to do is work for your pitch (to hit). You want to be aggressive, and walks come as a byproduct. That’s why I think Ruby’s walk total will be up next year, because on-base percentage comes from respect.”

It’s an amazingly fine line that batters have to balance between aggression and patience, isn’t it?

The same goes for typists.

NOTE: the first two versions of this sucked. So,
[Cntl-X]*n (where 5<n<30), and thereby
text-- == postmodern++;

Baseball Prospectus threw me into postmodernism

without flaws
I lacked
  meaning

aggressive reactions have relied on
devolvement into incremental deconstruction

   twisting baseball around

often so weird
   that no one in their right mind

can make a n y sen
se o
f i
t

please
let’s skip

to whatever comes next

Last year, the A’s went into Florida for three games in June. In the first game, the Marlins blasted Mark Mulder, 13-2. The A’s managed to win the second game, but only after Florida had knocked Tim Hudson around first. In the third game, the A’s couldn’t touch Dontrelle Willis, and were shut out.

The A’s weren’t swept, but Florida made a statement. It seemed so bizarre, because the Marlins were under .500 at the time, but the impression I got out of that series was that Florida had kicked Oakland’s butt, and they were clearly the better team.

So this year, I’ve been watching for that type of butt-whippin’, where just watching the opposition it felt like the A’s were clearly inferior. Where you know that even if you play well, you’re still at a disadvantage. I got that feeling against two teams this year: the Cardinals and the Red Sox.

The Yankees have beaten the A’s pretty good this year, too, but their wins felt more like a function of the A’s playing poorly than the Yankees being superior. I feel like the A’s can stay with the Yankees. Perhaps if the A’s had played well and still lost, I’d be more impressed with the Bronx Bombers.

Last night, the A’s and Red Sox played a great, tense ballgame. Then the third base umpire made a horrible call in the eighth inning, ruling Manny Ramirez had caught a ball he clearly trapped, and the A’s were toast. One break went against them, and the A’s fell apart. The Red Sox got their break, and they stomped all over Oakland with a kind of killer instinct I’ve never, ever seen in the Red Sox before. A close game ended up 8-3.

Color me impressed. Traditionally, Boston falls apart at the slightest provocation. This post-Nomar team is different. I think this is their year, and the only thing that can stop them is Albert Pujols, star of the equally impressive Cardinals, shooting bullets through the Green Monster. Either that, or some weird ghost showing up.

I’d love to see the A’s win it all, but if justice is served, we’ll see St. Louis and Boston face off in the World Series this year.

Said Baseball: “Flee Hurricane Frances!”
“We’ll watch how the stormfront advances,”
Replied Tampa Bay.
“We’d much rather stay.
And on Monday, we’ll just take our chances.”

Come Monday, the storm was still blowing.
That morning, no planes were yet going.
The Rays had to wait.
They arrived much too late.
“It’s a forfeit!” the Yankees were crowing.

Said Tampa, “The weather’s to blame.
If a ring’s won with this, it’s a shame.”
Bud bought Tampa’s story.
So sorry, Joe Torre,
You’ll earn your wins playing the game.

Ken Arneson will miss 2-4 weeks of the soccer season, after suffering a sprained ankle three minutes into Friday’s game.

Owowowowowow. My foot got stepped on, my ankle turned over, and I could hear the ligaments rip. That hurt. So this old fart is now stuck sitting in front of the TV, practicing RICE, and there’s nothing on TV to watch except this godawful Diamondbacks-Giants game.

I’m a fair-weather Giants fan, but I find this year’s Giants team darn near unwatchable, except for Jason Schmidt and Barry Bonds. How good is Bonds? The Giants are right in the middle of the playoff hunt, and they have Deivi Cruz batting third tonight. Deivi Cruz!

Dave Burba entered the game in the fourth inning. My sister-in-law walked into the room and said, “Oh my God, is that Dave Burba? Are you watching ESPN Classic?”

I wish. I don’t get ESPN Classic. This game is almost three hours old now, it’s 18-5 Giants, and we’re still in the sixth inning. It won’t be good enough to be a classic, but by the time this game is over, it will have aged enough to qualify. And I might be ready for my AARP card.

As Bryan Smith points out on Wait Til Next Year, the A’s knocked Scott Kazmir around in his second major league start on Sunday.

I was at the game, so I decided to give Kazmir a close look to see what all the fuss was about. I watched him warm up in the bullpen. From the side, his delivery reminded me of Ted Lilly. But when I saw him from behind the plate, it looked different. From that angle, I could see why so many people are worried about his delivery. I’m no expert or anything, but it looked very effortful, not smooth at all.

Kazmir is the second heralded rookie I’ve seen this year. I’ve seen Zack Greinke twice. Greinke is much more impressive, changing speeds like he’s been pitching in the majors for fifteen years. Kazmir throws harder, of course, but it didn’t look like he changed speeds very well at all. Everything was hard: hard fastball, hard slider.

The A’s spat on the slider, sat fastball and, being the patient team that they are, eventually got it. If Kazmir doesn’t want to end up as just a LOOGY, I think he has some learning to do.

I woke up this morning have just dreamed this:

There’s a rustling coming from my attic. As I approach to investigate, I notice the attic is dripping.

I climb up the ladder to the attic, and discover that Arnold Schwarzenegger has just finished installing a new toilet for me.

Arnie smiles, but says nothing. He demonstrates: the toilet works now, no leaks! As the flush completes, Richard Nixon begins speaking on radio, telling me about all the great features of this new toilet.

That’s weird, I say to myself. I thought Nixon was dead.

I have no idea what this means. I’ve dreamed about sports before, but never politics. This blog is doing strange things to me.
 

I just finished watching a Nova episode on PBS about how the earth’s magnetic field can reverse direction. Compasses that pointed north before suddenly point south, instead. These flips begin when pockets of reverse polarity appear in the opposite hemisphere, and weaken the magnetic field until it flips upside down. These flips usually happen every 250,000 years, but we haven’t had one in over 700,000 years. We’re quite overdue for a reversal, and there is mounting scientific evidence that such a flip may have begun.

And to add to that evidence, today there’s this: Indians 22, Yankees 0.

The momentum between the opposite poles of the Red Sox and Yankees looks like it’s reversing. The Yankees, who were cruising for most of the season, look terribly vulnerable now, while Boston looks like a steamroller. Just 3 1/2 games separates the two. Is a flip imminent?

Magnetic North has ruled the compass for an exceptionally long time. Unless you believe in some kind of supernatural intervention, some kind of blessing or curse, Magnetic South must eventually have its day. The flip will come. But whether it comes this year, or next, or another 700,000 years from now, only time will tell.

Yesterday, I was holding my daughter’s hand as we crossed a street. A car, presumably turning left, stopped to let us cross. After we reached the sidewalk, the car did a u-turn. Instead of a 90-degree left turn, it ended up making a 270-degree right turn.

This puzzled me. Why not just turn right to begin with? Perhaps his steering wheel was faulty, and it could only make left turns?

I thought of this as I read Charles Miller’s review of Paul Graham’s essay on great hackers. Miller hilariously sums up Graham’s argument about brilliant programmers like this:

1. Hire great hackers.
2.

Here is a translation into baseball, of a French essay, via Two Blowhards.

What I particularly appreciate in the batting act of the swing is this impression: to gradually become the instructor of the body of the pitcher.
At the beginning, it feels a little flat, difficult. It is not obvious how to activate “the right spot” on the first blow of the ball. I feel awkward, as if I did not have anything to grasp there. And then quickly, the small encouragements of my opponent (his choked sighs, his hands run through his hair) comfort me. I feel self-assured, willing to take walks.
I take my time, I vary the pleasures: my swing travels like adventures through the strike zone, from top to bottom, inside and out, pulling to left, fisting to right, small blows of the ball in each neighborhood, the bat kissing the ball, all that in the area of the strike zone, of course. One should not harm the intimacy of the young pitcher, settling immediately inside his strike zone. Extending would be impolite and that could be interpreted as disrespect. The charm would be broken.
I also like to vary my approach, without losing sight of the goal: the long swings and slow contacts, smooth and generous, suddenly replaced by feverish rotations, several loose tremors, then return to the lazy strokes. After some time (generally, up to 10 minutes of this small play), my opponent starts to lose the control of his body. Initially, light tremors begin on the level of the thighs, like small revolts. Often, it is at this time that it approaches one of its fingers, then reaching the wrists, then settles on the elbow. If this does not happen to him, I take the hand of authority to him (but carefully) by directing the ball where needed to create the desired effect. This gesture makes him understand that he can be cherished if he wishes it, that there is nothing to be afraid of from now on. When we find the release point, the fusion between us takes place.
At certain times, I escape, I escape from reality from the act. I find myself elsewhere, thinking of something else. Or rather, I do not think of myself any more as a private individual. The ball works like a small adventurous animal while my spirit is spread out and is spread in the blue light of a kind of batting nirvana over which a most serene calm reigns. But the least shiver, the least small cry, the least herky-jerking of my opponent awakens me suddenly. I find my spirits, I rediscover this pitcher’s body which is offered to me.

Thus the at-bat can last a long moment. I think well of having extended the at-bat for nearly one hour, without leaving the batter’s box, fouling off pitches like a discrete rain beating in rhythm on the panes of a window. Generally, one conceives the swing as preliminary. It is perhaps for that reason that I prefer to continue it until the end, by argumentativeness. Until the end, i.e. until my opponent cannot retain any more and finally yields the home run, although he did not expect it yet. This is what I wanted to say by presenting the image of the instructor. Little by little, the music even becomes more present, pressing. It invades all space, reality and imaginary, until it is not possible any more to be concealed with its power.
During all this time, I take guard not to neglect the other parts of his body. I cherish his overall size, his belly, the way his hands settle near his hips, how he lets them slip along the thighs. My eyes continue on, down the legs to the feet. Then I seize in my mind his rotator cuff with a delicate firmness, I fantasize of passing his labrum between my fingers, and I feel it begin to yield almost instantaneously. All these physical contacts allow me to return to the task, concretely, that it is a pitcher who is there in front of me, with the heat and the silk of his skin. A pitcher!
After a more or less long time, when the storm is ready to burst (not before), I start to focus in his strike zone. Previously, it has sometimes happened to me that I’ve swung surreptitiously before the pitch, to intimately match his hip rotation with my hip rotation, but without ever going further. And then I slip the bat onto the ball, easily now, since all the batting from this point is inflated with desire. Short swings, timid, preparatory entries. At this stage, my forearms are taken with a regular tremor, my fingers are activated without more any reserve on my bat. I know whereof I gained. Soon, I will enjoy.
What excites me more, it is when the at-bat cannot retained any more, when I place my hand on my bat, that my body by itself dares to exert a significant pressure in order to make sure that I will keep going. Its size twists, its chest is drawn up, its eyelids drop with a marvellous grace. And then it comes, I can feel it, I even taste it, I accompany the pitcher’s release point as if I were a guide, an instructor in the cockpit of a plane. Lastly, after contact, my body rests, and I feel his whole body softening like butter between my hands, all of which comes on suddenly, as a great smile settles with the hollow of my face. It is like a relief.

I left it all to trust and am very happy. It may seem silly, but I have the impression of being a winner. I succeeded in becoming a master over the mysterious throwing machinery. I bored the intentions of my opponent, his delivery becoming entirely my own, until this small piece of me which is the ball seemed to become directed by my will. We have created–we have made–love.

Mark Liberman at Language Log has an interesting take on the story about the Pirahã, who can’t count above three.

Suppose that there’s an isolated group — call them the Nerdahã — who just aren’t interested in throwing things…There’s no religious or moral prohibition against throwing, they just think it’s boring and a bit stupid, when they bother to think about it at all, which is rarely.
…
Because of their complete lack of interest in throwing, the Nerdahã language is completely lacking in throwing vocabulary. They have no words for pitch, fling, chuck, toss, sidearm, slider, curveball, bouncepass, and so on.

Liberman needn’t have invented a fictional group. He could have simply called them “Swedes”.

Which begs the question: how in the heck would you translate “Saving the Pitcher” into a non-throwing language like Nerdahã or Swedish?