Month: September 2007

Epicenter-iPhone Mania

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Wired Blogs

This is certainly not the place for this, but I happen to have handled an iPhone last weekend and was mighty impressed. Not enough to even consider signing on to the hefty data charges that come with the ATT service (I don’t really need cellular data), but it sure worked well and felt nice in my hand.

The intro of the iPod Touch changes things. It has web browsing. It has more capacity than my shuffle, and it can help you find your stuff on it because it has a screen. That’s what I’m looking for. It’s an iPhone without the phone and camera, which I didn’t really need to begin with. Count me in.

But then Apple dropped the price on the iPhone, and all hell broke loose. Some people were proud to be early adopters who paid a premium. Some felt that sudden (and early) price drop dissed them.

I have a theory and since I have no other place to post it I’ll do it here. I haven’t seen anyone else come close to this, which is why I claim it as my exclusive tea reading. But I haven’t read everything. So please consider it just a thought.

Apple is trying to negotiate a deal with single carriers in all the international markets, the way they did with AT+T in the US. But cell phone systems abroad don’t work the same way, they resist exclusivity, so Apple is having a problem.

Meanwhile, they have the iPod Touch coming out. It’s an iPhone without the phone. And camera. The beauty of it is that they can sell it all over the world without making deals with the phone companies.

Those phone companies then have to contend with the prospect of losing out on the iPhone business. So maybe they will fall into line. And even if they don’t, Apple is selling pricey iPods all over the world.

All the hubbub looks like more masterful marketing, yet again. Giving out $100 gift certificates will hurt cash flow, but given the push around the world to make the iPhone touch THE xmas gift, that price is chump change.

The deal here is all in the international markets, which is why Apple decided to risk pissing off the early adopters in the US.

It wasn’t because they could. It was because they had to (in order not to surrender to the European cell companies).

If this turns out right, you read it here first.

Minor League Baseball Statistics and History

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Baseball-Reference.com

Sean Forman has got a draft of minor league history up since 1992. As usual the pages are elegant and easy to digest, and fast. Kudos, even though this noble second step indicates just how much more work there is to be done.

(No knock intended to thebaseballcube.com, which was the first step.)

The city of brotherly losers

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Bruce Buschel | Salon News

Bruce has written for the Fantasy Baseball Guide, but I didn’t know until just now that he wrote a piece for Salon about the Phillies losing 10,000 games faster (if you can call it that) than any other franchise. Bruce is promoting his book Walking Broad, in which he walks the length of Broad Street and revisits his home town, his history, it’s history and all the people who share their histories and lives there.

I bring this up because the book is a good one, even if you’re not particularly interested in Philadelphia, but also because he mentions that the Atlanta Braves are only 300 loses behind the Phillies. But does that count? Does the accumulative history of losing carry over from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta?

This matters because all sorts of baseball history is tied up in the towns we live in, and the teams we root for there, and it does a disservice to the localism to tie records to the legal entity of the franchise. Is Andre Dawson really the premier home run hitter of the Washington Nationals?

Ask Rotoman at MLB.com

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The Official Site of Major League Baseball

The new column is posted. Would you keep Jack Cust or Jarrod Saltalamacchia next year? Do you know how I spell check Salty’s surname? I count. If there are 14 letters I figure that’s close enough. Would you keep AJ Burnett or James Shields?

Have you wondered which cheap pitchers are working wonders this year, and which are crashing their teams? You’ll find a list.

And then there are some notes on the past week’s top minor league call ups, though I’m sure I’m missing a few significant ones. If you seen an omission let me know.

Expert Help for Your Fantasy Baseball Franchise

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McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Rick Paulus has been writing about fantasy baseball writing for a few years now in McSweeney’s, and he’s pretty funny. Especially so in this Super Scouting Report of Excessive Keeper Leagues. I’ve already signed URF, so don’t bother.