Small Post for a Friday Morning

After all the talk about how many early-season games were cancelled due to poor weather, and whether baseball should be played in early April in certain cities, someone actually decided to do some *gasp* research into the matter. Arizona State University alum Dr. Greg Goodrich of Western Kentucky University researched select cities for miserable baseball weather and concluded that Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh should not host any home games until after April 10, at which point the increased risk of "miserable baseball weather" becomes negligible. The Minnesota Twins plan to move to an open-air stadium, which would mean they shuold delay their home season's beginning until April 15. Toronto has a dome, so no info for that city if it were to switch to an open-air stadium. On the subject of poor scheduling, you have to wonder not so much about (just) why those cities had home games, but also why certain teams were scheduled to visit during those times. Most notable, the Seattle at Cleveland series that was cancelled, and will be a royal pain to makeup, as it was the only scheduled series between the two teams in Cleveland, plus the two cities are about 2,000 miles apart, which makes meeting on their mutual off days tricky.The Indians, naturally, do not wish to play any "home" games in Seattle (the Milwaukee situation was a bit different as they were playing the Angels, who did not have a homefield advantage there). The Giants and Pirates were unable to play a couple of games in Pittsburgh, but that was on the 14th and 15th, late enough to be more flukish, and making up those games will be annoying for those teams as well (I believe they settled on a mutual August off-day following the two teams' meeting in San Francisco, preceding a Pirates' homestand and the Giants' series in Florida). In short, don't schedule home games for those teams in early April, and, if you do, schedule them against division rivals.

Researchers have managed to rediscover three lost texts in a parchment. Basically, John Myronas had erased writing on several parchments in the 13th century to write his own book (a not uncommon practice). What is unusual is finding three manuscripts of decent importance that were not previously known to exist (by Archimedes, Hyperides, and a commentary on Aristotle's Categories).

Also, back on the baseball front, I'm surprised that with all the stories in recent years, nobody is saying anything about Alex Rodriguez and steroids. So, from here until I get tired of it, I shall give him the nickname Steroids, Jr.

Jake Peavy struck out 16 Diamondbacks through seven innings the other day, but was lifted from the game. I think he should have been left in to go for the record. Sure, he'd thrown 117 pitches already, but Nolan Ryan through twice that many in a game before. Pitchers these days are babied too much.

Baseball, Other Things

Alex Rodriguez is off to a surprisingly great start. My only pre-season prediction for him happened to be one of futility, but he's actually on pace to fulfill it. I predicted a new high in strikeouts, and he currently has twenty of them through nineteen games. His career high is 139, off the top of my head, so even with his hot start, he's still missing the ball a lot. Moreover, if you look at the high mark of offensive futility -- the three-pitch strikeout -- he has eight of them. By comparison, strikeout king Adam Dunn (currently leading the majors with 28 total strikeouts) has zero. Just food for thought. It greatly helps Rodriguez put up his numbers that he's consistently pitched to -- he's seen fewer balls than Barry Bonds has seen strikes (in absolute terms, not even adjusting for the fact that Bonds has played fewer games and gets fewer plate appearances per game).

In the fantasy league I care about, I expected my pitching to dominate while my offense would be slightly above average. Instead, through last night's games, my offense is the best in the league and my pitching is third worst (having moved out of a tie for second-worst with a strikeout at the end of the night). Yahoo! ranks players based on their contributions thus far, and none of my pitchers rank in the top 50, only one in the top 250, and only four in the top 650 (not counting a guy who hasn't pitched this season but ranks in the top 500 anyway).

In YouTube news, John McCain changes Barbara Ann to Bomb Iran, and there's a nifty video on the Kaye effect. I also found an old MAD TV sketch of Terminator meeting Jesus.

Yale took quick, decisive action in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings -- they banned all stage weapons from plays. They softened this a bit and allowed weapons that were obviously fake to be used. When even the actors think your liberal agenda is ridiculous, maybe it's time to back down. Moreover, what would they substitute for a fist fight? Rock-'em Sock-'em Robots?

That Taxing Time of Year

I shall once again point readers to my first tax day blog posting. An abridged version now serves as my annual away message on aim for this time of year.

Dishonoring Jackie Robinson

This whole Jackie Robinson celebration thing has gotten out of hand. When I first heard about Ken Griffey, Jr., wanting to wear number 42 as a tribute, I thought it was a decently nice gesture, but not really worth a second thought. A few more players started to announce that they would as well, and I shrugged it off as a gesture that was becoming "the thing to do." Then I heard the entire Dodgers team would be doing it, and I thought it was absurd and overly-gimmicky. If I thought that about the Dodgers doing it, well, you can imagine how I felt once other teams starting jumping into the fold. It got significant play on the ESPN Baseball Today podcast by Alan Schwarz, who seems a bit too interested in race issues (I'm basing that assessment on previous experience, not just his latest). If you ever wanted to destroy a baseball hero, this 60th anniversary celebration is the way to do it.

Even worse than the normal stuff, is Keith Law trotting out the standard p.c. claptrap about how the team names of the Indians and Braves are insensitive. Perhaps white northners should taken exception to the Yankees. Sea-faring men of all stripes must surely feel deeply hurt and offended by the Mariners. Communists can hardly stand Cincinatti's derogatory slur of a team name, and Queen Elizabeth II must cry herself to sleep after watching Kansas City in action.

There's also the hand-wringing about the decline of African-American baseball players. However, aside from the foolishness of the task to begin with, these leave out the number of Hispanic black players. The number I saw was 9% of all major-leaguers. Well, the black proportion of America's population is about 12%, and foreign-born players have begun to make up a large subsection of the population of major leaguers. I see no problem with this. Should we complain about the lack of whites on professional basketball teams? Until these race hucksters realize that blacks already have a disproportionately large representation among pro athletes to begin with, they're not even worth listening to. Frankly, they're not worth listening to after that, either. I am sickened by people who believe the measure of a man is the color of his skin, and that's what these people are.

Time for the Weekend

My work week has ended. To those who still have to work on Thursday and Friday, I laugh derisively in your general direction.

In my last post (I think), I mentioned an Indian couple who committed suicide after their dog died. Well, in another case of idiotic suicide, a minister commits it after being awake during surgery. Suicide is a foolish thing to begin with, but a minister, of all people, should know better.

Also updating something from my last post, more on Hillary's supposed effort to join the Marines here and here.

As for people making up stories, Ford's CEO is not immune from the problem. Of course, his "joke" never made much sense to begin with.

The different meanings of Al Gore.

Dennis Kucinich wonders why, when supply goes down and demand goes up, prices go up. At least half (and probably three-quarters) of Congress could really use a remedial economics class.

Fred Thompson announced he has cancer. The headline looked bad when I saw it, but with Thompson calling the cancer "a good kind if you can ever call something like that a good kind," my worries quickly abated. I went from thinking "he's out" as far as the presidential race goes when seeing the headline to "he's in" after reading the article. It's smoething he'd need to announce before running, and seeing that more people with that type die of old age than of anything relating to the cancer, it shouldn't be a big deal. Given the unimpressiveness of the rest of the GOP field, I am currently most interesting in supporting Thompson (Fred, not Tommy). That, of course, could change after aking a harder look at him, much as my interest in Huckabee waned.

The ESPN baseball fantasy game is undergoing a fix, as outlined in this note:

In order to address the issues we have been experiencing and restore your ability to play, we will be performing updates on ESPN Fantasy Baseball from Wednesday, April 11th at 8:00 PM ET through Thursday, April 12th at 8:00 AM ET. During this time the game will be unavailable. The steps we are taking will get the game back on track and ensure the integrity of the season will result in the following:

1) Revert all teams to their opening day rosters (Sunday, April 1).
2) Set the starting lineup of each team's opening day roster as the active roster for all games played to date (April 1 - April 11).
3) Retroactively apply scoring for the entire season to date based on that roster.
4) Void all transactions to date (trades, waiver pickups, roster moves, etc.).

Following these changes, all players not on a roster will be placed on waivers for 24 hours, and the waiver order for each league will be restored to where it was on Opening Day.

We have been working around the clock to fix the problems we are having to make the fantasy season the best it can be. We appreciate your patience.

This seems, well, dumb. Voiding all trades, ignoring whoever was put in or taken out of lineups (especially important when it comes to pitchers), and general all-around no-goodness. They've successfully hit upon just about the worst solution they could have gone with. Bravo, gentlemen. While they did have issues with roster spots being inappropriately locked, this was more of a temporary problem each night (except the first one, when it lasted nearly until play started on the second full day of the regular season), so I see no reason not to go with the stats each team had rightfully earned up until that point. Sure, some people may have wanted to edit their roster for that second day and didn't get the chance, but they're not getting the chance with this outcome, either. I find this "fix" to be far more disruptive of the game than the initial problem was.

I have been referred, once again, to the red button, so I pass it along.

Sleep Deprived Blogging

A couple of people quit at work. We were already thinly staffed, so this leads to much schedule uncertainty in the near future. Or, perhaps, the less-near future. Whichever.

I hate it when people park in my parking space.

An Indian couple committed suicide after their dog died. How pathetic.

Doubt is shed on Hillary's claims to have attempted to join the Marines.

Don't have any other links handy, and I'm tired, so that's all for now.

Titanic Truth

At last, the government conspiracy behind the Titanic sinking is being exposed. I'm pretty sure George W. Bush was behind it. He may hide behind convenient excuses like the fact that his parents hadn't even been born at that time, but don't let that fool you. He was on the grassy knoll in Dallas, he was in Ford's Theatre, and, appropriate for today, I'm pretty sure he was Pontius Pilate's political advisor.

Lots of Somewhat Random Links

After not doing any non-baseball posting for awhile, I have something of a backlog of links, so here goes:

The Department of Homeland Security will be using a former lunatic asylum as its new headquarters. Supply your own comentary.

A hexagon formed on Saturn, which is interesting for reasons being, I am sure. More interestingly, the original USA Today caption called it a "bizarre six-sided hexagon." I've never found six-sided hexagons to be bizarre, myself.

A fun game of converting decimal numbers to binary and vice versa can be found here. Or is there something off-kilter about me enjoying that?

In celebrity news, Keith Richards snorted his dad. Given that celebrities are always trying to outdo themselves, I wonder what is next -- The Rolling Stones Cannibalism Tour: This Time It Really Is Our Last One?

In other celebrity news, K.I.T.T. is for sale. Apparently, without the voice of William Daniels, the man who, to me, will always be a car, a principal, and John Adams. He was also, like Reagan, head of the Screen Actors Guild.

In the final bit of celebrity news, Scotty is being beamed up.

Robot heads, gotta love 'em.

Lots of problems going on across the pond. Cheshire police went after an 11-year-old boy for calling a classmate gay. If schoolgrounds there are anything like the ones I grew up on, the police have their work cut out for them. Some teachers have stopped teaching about the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims. Good luck with that. A supermarket chain, worried that not enough people knew the true meaning of Easter, decided to teach the public that Easter eggs celebrate the birth of Christ. Well, it's the thought that counts, right?

A collection of great media-perpetrated April Fools' Day hoaxes.

What a Screwed up World We Live in Part 8,897,432,634: a Georgia man raped his 16-year-old daughter in a cemetary. Twice, apparently.

Yale apparently admits foreign students so they can burn American flags. Those that belong to other people, no less.

Iranian Jews are sticklers for following the teachings of Jesus.

The Kerry camp has started to say that McCain's people approached them about being Kerry's running mate. McCain denies it. I'm inclined to believe McCain, at least in this case.

Rosie O'Donnell is spreading conspiracy theories about WTC7. They're ably debunked by Popular Mechanics. Even aside from all the scientific reasons why those theories are wrong, there's the common sense one: why would the government bring it down in the first place. Honestly, I have my doubts whether half the nation even knows that it collapsed. And, frankly, those that do know about it generally don't care. Whenever the WTC attacks are mentioned, it's almost always about "the twin towers" and never "the twin towers and a third really large building". Do the people spreading these theories think that if only WTC1 and WTC2 had fallen, the American people would have just shrugged it off, but the collapse of WTC7 was a major call to action? Why would the government set up explosives and then wait to demolish it for several hours after the twin towers had collapsed (and it had been evacuated)? There's such a lack of not only scientific knowledge but common sense behind this theory that it boggles the mind.

An environmental comparison between the Bush and Gore residences. Show this to the nearest Gore-worshiper and watch their head explode.

The Supreme Court made another mockery of itself in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency. For those of you who have never decided to pass your time by sitting in a law library, reading case law (math games, case law -- no wonder I'm a hit at parties), an excerpt from the Chief Justice's dissent which really highlights part of the wrongness can be found here.

A professor got called on his bias and responded in a less-than-kind manner. I highly recommend following that link to read his e-mail.

Futurama Quote for the Day

"It was always our plan to trail at the half, thus deepening Earth's eventual humiliation. Also, what game were the refs watching?"

Perfect.

2007 Baseball Season Preview and Predictions Part II

I've decided to predict full standings, sans records, just because.

NL East:
Phillies
Mets
Braves
Marlins
Nationals

NL Central
Cubs
Cardinals
Brewers
Astros
Reds
Pirates

NL West
Giants
Dodgers
Padres
Diamondbacks
Rockies

AL East
Yankees
Blue Jays
Red Sox
Orioles
Devil Rays

AL Central
Twins
Indians
Tigers
White Sox
Royals

AL West
Angels
Athletics
Rangers
Mariners

There's been a lot of talk about how five players could reach the 500 homerun mark this season. Well, guess what -- Gary Sheffield will not be setting a new career high in homers, and, as such, will not be joining the club. Also, at least one other will fall short.

Roger Clemens will come back and best last season's paltry win total. At least he will if he doesn't come back for the Astros. They gave horrible run support to Nolan Ryan (who once won an ERA title while going 8-16 with them), and lately they've done it to Clemens. Something about disrespecting (or over-respecting?) their native sons .... If Clemens would give up on this retiring for the first third of the season junk, he could certainly move into third place on the all-time wins list, and possibly even pass 400 (not this season, of course).

It seems that ESPN is having major issues with their fantasy game. You'd think they would have tested this all out before the season started. They have issues with locking players for future dates and not displaying teams, both of which hinder efforts to edit your roster, and with adding players to your team. I suppose you get what you pay for. While I'm on the subject of complaining about fantasy set-ups, the new Yahoo drag-and-drop lineup editor is nice, except I'm a compulsive text highlighter and whenever I go to highlight a player's stats, it has me dragging the player instead. Nuts to that.

2007 Baseball Season Preview and Predictions

It's time for my annual look ahead for the upcoming baseball season, and the random predictions that come with it.

ESPN ran some of their "expert" predictions and projected standings, and also projected standings based on the Diamond Mind software. Some odd predictions in there, including Rob Neyer predicting the Diamondbacks into the World Series. Now, I like Rob's work, but Dbacks in the Series? I don't think so. John Shea predicts an all-Chicago World Series on the 100th anniversary of the other one, but with a different result.

My projections for division winners:
AL East: Yankees
AL Central: Twins
AL West: Angels
NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Giants

Yeah, they're a bit eccentric. As for the wild card teams, I'll say .... Indians and Dodgers. All-overhyped team of the preseason: White Sox.

Other predictions and notes:
Jim Thome moves into third on the all-time strikeout list, while Sammy Sosa continues his pursuit of Reggie Jackson, however, both will retire before attaining that level.

As for another potential candidate for the crown, Adam Dunn will pass the 1100 strikeout mark (that is, have over 173 strikeouts).

As for my annual "how many players will pass Babe Ruth on the all-time strikeout list," this year's answer is five. Write it down.

One final strikeout prediction: Alex Rodriguez will set a new career high (140+).

Barry Bonds will rebound from last season and have a good year. I could see him breaking Aaron's record by the All Star break, but I'll play it safer on my prediction and say by the end of July. I'll go with 600 doubles by the all-star break, and 2,000 RBI by the end of August (those, of course, being career numbers). Some have mentioned that he has a chance to crack 3,000 hits this season, but that won't happen; he's only reached the 159 total he would need thrice in his career, and not since 1998 (basically, he walks way too much for that). He's talked about playing in 2008, which I really believe he wants to do to reach three numbers: 800 homers, 2296 runs (which would give him sole possession of first place), and 3,000 hits. It would also give him enough RBI's to pass racist Cap Anson's 2076 (there are legends that Anson is the reason blacks were barred from the majors, and, though I don't buy them, I think Bonds might derive some pleasure from beating the total of someone who adamantly refused to take the field with a black man). On a note that cannot be mistaken for "hurray for Bonds" he will pass the 1,500 strikeout mark by Memorial Day. As to swirling rumors about his indictment and the chance that it will keep him from playing/breaking Aaron's record, there's no chance of that. Even if he does get indicted, he posts bail, they set a trial date for after the season (or, at minimum, late in the season). He will not be convicted and thrown in jail before the end of the season, the legal system is incapable of being so efficient. I even have my doubts about them being able to convict him of perjury (if they had such an open-and-shut case on him already, they would have indicted him). Thus concludes the legal analysis portion of my baseball preview and predictions.

Craig Biggio will get the needed six bean balls to set the all time record for most times beaned, and the 70 hits needed for 3,000, and then start spending more time riding the pine. He'll fall short of the 19 homers he needs to join the 300-300 club (whose membership showed rapid growth last year and now includes Barry Bonds, his father, his godfather, two of his former teammates, and Andre Dawson, who probably shared an all-star team with Barry -- I just find the way it all revolves around Barry amusing).

FANTASY

On the fantasy baseball front, I am in the same league as last year (also known as the league I care about), and a couple of public leagues. I predict a repeat victory for me in the one I care about.

Once again, I was required to leave the draft early, though the earlier start time allowed me to stay for an extra round despite the extra person. Once again, the good doctor was left to complete my draft and with the ten remaing picks I got ... four first basemen. I guess that Pujols guy I had already drafted might not be reliable. He did draft me Papelbon right before he got switched back to the closer position, and I leveraged that added value into a trade with the GD for Kazmir. Sucker.

I'm off to a horrible start so far this season with Carpenter, Kazmir, and Zambrano each giving up five runs in their first starts, and Smoltz giving up three, none of them getting the win, plus a team batting average sitting at .160 as of this typing. The only thing keeping me out of last place is the fact that two teams have not had any pitchers play yet, so it ranks me ahead of them in ERA and WHIP. So, really, it puts me at about where I was last year -- perfectly primed to come from behind and assume the lead. Victory shall be mine.