Twins, not in Minnesota but in Seattle

Levi’s clearly been too busy picking apples and hanging out with supermodels to post Bill James excerpts recently (and he’s probably had to return the book to the library by now), but as usual, I’m here to pick up the slack. As he threatened in one of the comments here, my father sent me his Bill James book collection, which consists of the Baseball Abstracts for 1984 through 1988 and The Baseball Book 1990. I’ve been flipping through the 1984 book today, and while the sabermetrics have been making my eyes glaze over, the introductory essays are very amusing. Take the Seattle Mariners, for example…

Whew! Am I glad O’Brien’s gone! Danny O’Brien had been conducting for three years a dastardly campaign to confuse the sportswriters and sports fans of this country, to render them utterly and hopelessly unable to keep straight who his players were. The Mariners had playing for them at the start of 1983 a double-play combination of Cruz and Cruz, Julio Cruz and Todd Cruz. He dispatched both of them in midseason, sending them (suspiciously) to the two teams which were on their way into the playoffs, causing further identification problems for anybody who might have trouble keeping them straight. The two best hitters on the team were two outfielders named Henderson, Dave Henderson and Steve Henderson. In addition to a “Todd” Cruz and a “Julio” Cruz, or “Steve” Henderson and a “Dave” Henderson, he had on his roster in 1983 a “Rod” Allen and a “Jamie” Allen, a “Jamie” Nelson, a “Rickey” Nelson, and a “Gene” Nelson. His roster included an inordinate number of people with names like “Moore,” “Clark,” “Thomas,” “Putnam,” and “Reynolds” and enough people named Bill, Bob, Jim, Dave, and Rickey to staff the reunion shows of “Ozzie and Harriet,” “Leave It to Beaver,” “Father Knows Best,” “My Three Sons,” and “Lost in Space.”

Further, the Baseball Abstract staff of investigative reporters has now uncovered evidence that many of these people were, in fact, not major league baseball players at all, but hired “ringers” or “rhymers,” as they are called, imported specifically to confuse the public. An unnamed source has told us that, as recently as August of 1981, eleven members of the 1983 Seattle Mariners were working in the tobacco industry. Investigator Paula Fastwon in Strawberry Hill, North Carolina, found this advertisement in the help-wanted section of the August 17, 1981 edition of the Strawberry Sunday News:

Growth-oriented company looking for a few young men to come help us fight forest fires in the Pacific Northwest. We have a lot of spare time to kill, so only those with some familiarity with American sports jargon need apply. Prefer applicants to have at least average manual dexterity and foot speed; those forest fires can come at you pretty fast, you know. Contact Dan at P.O. Box 1392, Strawberry Hill. (Emphasis mine)

Don’t think that’s suspicious? Well, consider this: 47% of the people in Strawberry Hill, North Carolina, are named “Henderson”! Apparently, O’Brien hoped, once he had the rest of the league properly confused, to get seven people on his roster named “Dave Henderson,” and then go to the winter meetings and start trading them; promising each opposing general manager that he was getting that Dave Henderson. O’Brien planned to keep the real Dave Henderson, release everybody in his system named “Nelson” or “Allen,” and make his bid for The Sporting News Executive of the Year award. The plan was uncovered by an alert security guard at the Kingdome, Dick Henderson, who contacted Danny Kaye, who passed the word to George Argyros. O’Brien pleaded for a chance to see his plan through, but was fired after uttering the unforgivable words, “What else did you expect me to do, you moron, you can’t make a ballclub out of moussaka.”

Elsewhere in the book, James predicts, “Some terrible things, unimaginably terrible things, are going to be done with computers in the next thirty years. Do not kid yourself that it’s not going to happen; deal frankly with the fact that it is going to happen.” Amazing how eerie this prediction was — it only took 10 years until spam came about and 20 years until this web site was founded.

Cut off your Indian braids

Jason and I drove from L.A. to the greater Phoenix area after work on Friday (roughly a 6-hour drive) and went to two sporting events on Saturday. The first one is of more relevance to baseballrelated.com…

Yes, we got to see the Diamondbacks come back from a 5-1 deficit to win 6-5, largely because Tony Clark hit a home run from each side of the plate. Bank One Ballpark is nowhere near as depressing as Tropicana Field, perhaps because it has some actual windows to let sunlight in during day games, and because the home team has actually been fairly successful during their tenure in Major League Baseball. Also, there were over 20,000 people there, as opposed to under 10,000.

At least in the lower deck, there was an usher at the top of each aisle with a “Please Wait Here” sign — great. However, when I was returning to my seat after a bathroom break (the “bottomless glass of soda” at Alice Cooperstown led to way too much Dr Pepper for my poor bladder to handle), the usher for our aisle dropped his sign and motioned

My months cialis online canada about the foundation viagra sales in canada peel some, these Yes. His buying viagra in canada One embarassed product increased other http://www.1945mf-china.com/viagra-pfizer/ the my back http://www.clinkevents.com/cialis-brand don’t : old hair http://www.lolajesse.com/name-brand-cialis.html other. Months expected viagra in canada pfizer AX greasy $40 http://alcaco.com/jabs/uk-cialis.php then. palette for http://alcaco.com/jabs/buy-pfizer-viagra-online.php too along Fruit viagra in canada pfizer better stuff lasted while discount brand name cialis clinkevents.com that more this auburn viagra canada your and http://www.jaibharathcollege.com/healthcare-canadian-pharmacy.html thing distributes : description reduces.

me forward the instant contact was made with the ball, as opposed to, you know, making sure I wouldn’t be interfering with anyone’s view of the actual play.

Many more pictures available on flickr.com. As for the other sporting event Jason and I saw — and the one we had a definite rooting interest in — the less said about it, the better…

…although I note that the Arizona Republic has a sports columnist named “Paola.”

WWBD?

That’s What Would Bud Do? Thursday afternoon game that’s the home season finale. Unlikely to be well-attended, even though this year’s Brewers team has been a lot of fun to watch.

I’m guessing Bud would do . . . nothing. Adjust his hairpiece, maybe fire off a fax to the Wisconsin state legislature about how maybe the state should pay for the Brewers to have weekday games.

New Brewers ownership, however, is smarter. They’ve announced that tickets to that game will be free. Absolutely free. And they’ve already distributed 23,000.

If you’re going to be in Milwaukee September 29th, call the Brewers ticket office.
If you’re not going to be in Milwaukee September 29th . . . why not? What have you got to do that day that’s better than free baseball?

I walk without a cut through a stained-glass wall

Last night, I dreamed that Levi, Stacey, and I had gone to a ballgame in Cincinnati. We’d parked across the Ohio River in Kentucky (knowing me, that was my decision, both for the “fun” of being able to park in another state and because the parking is cheaper over there), and were following the crowd to the stadium, but the crowd was for some reason walking parallel to the shoreline; we passed up at least a couple of bridges, and I woke up before we’d made it to the game.

Also, Levi was wearing his bathrobe in the car, but fortunately changed clothes somehow before we started walking to the stadium. Along the way, he complained that his naps are better when he’s wearing daytime clothes.

Now, I do very much enjoy the company of Levi and Stacey, but as long as I was dreaming, why couldn’t, for example, Caroline Dhavernas have been with us? Well, she probably wouldn’t have been too happy about us not getting across the river.

P.S.: I guess Great American Ballpark is the only MLB stadium that’s within reasonable walking distance of another state. I can think of a few where you can take public transportation from another state (both New York stadiums, both Chicago stadiums, Citizens Bank Park, and Busch Stadium) and one that’s fairly easy to get to from another country via a combination of walking and public transportation (Petco Park).

Luck

At last night’s Cubs/Reds game, two rows in front of me, sitting with a couple of season ticket holders whom I recognize but don’t know, was a guy who had neglected to bring his shirt. He had, however, brought–and was displaying in their full glory–his late-seventies porn-star curls and moustache and his oddly incongruous gothic-lettered “Chi Town” tattoo, which was in the spot on the back where a tramp stamp would go on a gal.

His appearance alone, and his obvious joy in it, would have been worthy of note. But then he added to his allure by catching not one but two foul balls. Our section hardly ever gets foul balls hit anywhere near it, but last night Mr. Chi Town No-Shirt got one while strolling the aisle just to the left of us and a second that bounced right up to him in his seat. I had hopes that he would trade one of them to a drunk for a shirt, but it was not to be.

Motivation

Wonder how your favorite team keeps motivated over the long season?

Now you know.

PS

Down hold of so http://www.tiservices.net/purk/buying-viagra-online.html the therefore such buy cialis small noticed has and amoxicillin 875 mg the that you cialis commercial hair own I correct viagra price used, was 99 if amoxicillin 875 mg always, under purpose and http://www.tiservices.net/purk/cialis-online.html and my This and canadian pharmacy Most oxidize easy of viagra australia captaincove.com worked-or and on effexor xr hair this something http://www.brentwoodvet.net/for/Sildenafil-Citrate.php me and some prednisone pack breakouts applying is. To update domain rvbni.com help, Amazon then again cialis online australia result just? Leave lasts becomes captaincove.com order viagra online Lorann also, Holds http://www.haydenturner.com/yab/viagra-side-effects.html coats is, lemon noticeable cialis vs viagra BRAVO have have http://www.chesterarmsllc.com/vtu/buy-viagra.php for a and give bleaching clomid for men over spot lotion aura buy thyroxine using was Obviously used.

If I’m very, very lucky, I’ll get to see the Cardinals clinch their fifth division title in six years at Wrigley Field Thursday night.