And he’s joined mlb’s Mike Siano and creativesports’s Lawr Michaels blogging about it! Follow the dramatic climax at www.toutwars.com.
peter
Save $25 on First Pitch Arizona!
For what I think is the seventh time I’m heading out this November for Ron Shandler’s First Pitch Arizona symposium. This year’s dates are November 6-8, though I’m flying the fourth so I can get in a game on Thursday afternoon.
You cannot imagine how great it is to watch some of the best young talent around (this year we have Stephen Strasburg) in a near empty park, allowing you to sit just about anywhere you want (including behind home plate, where you can sometimes spy the radar readings of the ML scouts who are always in attendance.
AL Tout Warriors Blogging
MLB.com’s Mike Siano and Creativesports.com’s Lawr Michaels are engaged in an epic battle for first place in Tout Wars AL.
And both are blogging about it over at the Tout Wars site. Experience the joy and pain at toutwars.com.
Trade Deadline Fun: The Reds deal Paul O’Neill
and get Wladimir Balentien? Here’s how.
I Love New Metrics!
Except when I don’t.
This story is about O-Swing %, which measures the number of times a batter swings at pitches out of the strike zone. The writer says that O-Swing % is really interesting, and then goes on to prove (unless his numbers are wrong) that it is pretty much meaningless.
What is actually interesting is that the writer does a decent job of demonstrating why the apparently broad swing in O-Swing % numbers is meaningless. It boils down to the fact that some batters swing more, and so they hit the ball more. While some batters swing less, and hit the ball less. Consider 0-Swing % exhausted, at least for now.
When there is reliable pitch location information there will doubtless be information derived from these numbers that will be of interest, but it certainly won’t be simple or absolute. The game isn’t simply a matter of cause and effect, but a complex system of adjustments and readjustments that change how everything happens. It seems to me the miracle is that the game is played on the same sized field now as it was 100+ years ago. In that context, the variation in results should lead us to explore what changes have been made.
But that has nothing to do with O-Swing %.
What Happens to a Lifetime Ban When the Guy is Dead?
I like this argument about punishment and forgiveness when it comes to the Hall of Fame. It helps me frame the argument in a different way.
Major League Baseballs outdated, misleading offset camera angle.
By Greg Hanlon – Slate Magazine
I’ve written about this in the past. What this story adds, however, is a better view of what happens when the camera is right behind the pitcher. In order to see the hitter the camera has to be higher. This, it turns out, is just fine for inside-outside calls, but fails miserably to yield better calls on the high and low stuff. The examples are illuminating, in any case.
That’s How Easy Love Can Be
I found this clip over at boingboing.net and it seems the perfect view with which to remember Michael Jackson, whose music as a young boy is marked by its sweetness and exuberance, but which grew increasingly paranoid and sour as he grew older and it became more reflective of the pains and abuses of those early years.
Women running sprints in high heels
The football magazine is done (well, I’m waiting for the bluelines right now, but that’s it), so there’s time to think of other things. My fantasy teams are schizophrenic. In the American Dream League I’m in second place. In Tout Wars I’m in next to last. In XFL we’re in fourth or fifth, depending on the day. But this morning I find these sporting pictures delightful!
Streaming games on the iPod Touch (and iPhone, too)
That’s an ad, because this is an endorsement. It is an ad for Apple iPod touch 16 GB (2nd Generation) LATEST MODEL
I own an iPod Touch 2nd generation model, and yesterday new operating software came out. I downloaded it right away. There was a $10 charge for adding the software to your old machine, which irks some but is fine by me if I get more, and this upgrade promised some cool stuff. I won’t get into that other than to say that the voice recorder alone was worth the fee.
And, last night, I stopped by mlb.com and there was an announcement that the new MLB AT Bat software would allow the streaming of games to the iPhone and the iPod Touch. I upgraded that software, which cost $10 in March, and offers up to the minute Scores, Box Scores, Game Casts and video highlight, and now offers two games a day in live stream.
I didn’t get to try the streaming until today, but it was terrific. The wifi streaming to the phone was superior to the wired ethernet streaming to my desktop machine. The picture isn’t huge but it is viewable, doesn’t go all pixilated or freeze all too regularly. In fact, it acted TV.
The app is offering two games a day, and of course we’d like them all. You can’t get games in your local market, which obviously limits the appeal for homers. But for a fantasy player who wants to check out his out of town guys, the computer package offers more games, the iPod/iPhone app lets you watch them in more places.
MLB At Bat also offers streaming radio for both teams for all games, which also comes in handy a lot more often than you’d think.
I didn’t buy an iPhone because I really couldn’t justify the cost of the data plan, since I work from my home. I travel, but then I usually have my laptop. Plus, I already have a phone. But the iPod Touch does nearly everything that the iPhone does, if you ignore the phone and camera parts, with no recurring charges. I can pick up my mail when I’m out of the house without carrying my computer, and it is a source of all sorts of information via YouTube, Google Earth, and the regular web browser, plus widgets for the weather and stocks and… well, I hope you get the idea. It’s like the internet, only in a sliver of metal and glass that feel great in the hand.
I was happy with the gadget in December, but the addition of streaming major league games with excellent (if small) video, is stepping forward into the future.
A utopia, by the way.