peter

Fantasy baseball advice for those who ask.

Let Baseball Players Police Themselves

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JC Bradbury – New York Times

Before the ill-fated War on Terrorism there was the more-provenly ill-fated War on Drugs. One of those drugs wasn’t deco-durabolin, or HGH, or some other performance enhancing drug. But our approach to stopping the scourge of PED’s in baseball and other sports has been more akin to our failed approach to stopping cocaine coming from Columbia and heroin coming from Afghanistan than any actual strategies contemporary thinkers might have come up with.

Whether those strategies might be successful remains to be seen, but JC Bradbury’s approach has the virtue of actual incentives and our knowledge that it hasn’t failed before. I used to believe that because it was impossible to control the use of illicit drugs sports shouldn’t outlaw them, but I’m pretty sure that’s wrong. But I’m totally sure that if you’re going to ban illicit drugs you better come up with effective ways of getting them out of the game.

If you don’t, the whole system will collapse. As it should.

No Discipline

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Baseball Musings:

I may have written about David Pinto’s story earlier, but I know that spent much of tonight arguing the same thing. Discipline in this case is futile, for the most part, and counterproductive. The right thing would have been to embrace the information anyone would have given without threat of punishment, the better to judge what happened.

We still want to know what happened, because so many players who feared punishment didn’t talk to Mitchell.

That was a mistake.

Mitchell Report to Name Names

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Newsvine

This post is mostly to express my weariness about the forthcoming Mitchell report. Since everybody else in the world seems to have an opinion, why not me? Mine is that all discussion before the report is released, including leaks of tantalizing tidbits that don’t actually include information, should be taken in the form of PR people spinning, since at this point none of us know anything real about the report.

My ears did perk up when someone leaked that there would be surprises. I’ll be surprised (but hardly shocked) if that’s the case.

Yardbarker: Dontrelle Willis

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welcome

I’m eternally dubious of enterprises like Yardbarker, simply because when I get there I can’t figure out what it is I want. But reading Dontrelle’s take on the trade, well, Nuthing Compares 2 It.

And I think there’s no doubt that Dontrelle wrote his stuff (no PR guy wrote it, though it was probably vetted), which changes the whole idea of news. Which, I think, is a good thing.

I say that as if news wasn’t already a version of PR.

Good stuff, Dontrelle, keep it up.

Video: James Wolcott on Norman Mailer, 1991

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Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com

When Norman Mailer died recently I was surprised by the number of friends who told me that Harlot’s Ghost is the book of Mailer’s to read. I’m a huge fan, have read most of the major books and some of the less major, but lost interest in his later books.

About Harlot’s Ghost I remember bad reviews, but with such recommendations I’ll have to find a copy.

In the meantime, here is a short film directed by the excellent Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho) for a PBS TV show that is really a review of Harlot’s Ghost by the excellent Jim Wolcott. It makes me want to wade into those 1,400 page a little less, but is well worth watching for more than the simple review.

Walt Jocketty and the Search for Golden Arms

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Squawking Baseball

This somewhat rambling analysis of how to stock your pitching staff (if you’re a major league GM) strikes me as very smart. Don’t pay a lot because you need a lot. Pay a little because if you take enough small chances you can find a lot in the pool.

I think we need some real studies of what happens (namely, where the good pitchers on good teams came from) to buy into this fully, but given Rany’s survey of drafts it makes total sense to me that the best investment is in hitters.

And certainly major league teams are going this way now.

Barry Bonds – A guide to help you cut through the noise

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The Hardball Times

I’m a little skeptical about these grand jury cases where the prosecution offers someone immunity from prosecution in return for testimony, then asks questions for which the honest answers would be personally damaging, then prosecutes for perjury.  As you can imagine, I’m thinking Barry Bonds, Scooter Libby, Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton.

It isn’t that perjury isn’t a crime, but that somehow the immunity grant seems to be a special sort of torture for public figures whose reputations will be damaged by truthful testimony. The right answer, obviously, is for them to testify truthfully, but I certainly understand their decisions to try and save their asses by lying.

Keith Scherer’s informative walk through the issues in the Barry Bonds case at Hardball Times doesn’t get into that, but instead walks us through the hard issues of what happens when federal prosecuters decide to indict someone. The answers can’t be comforting to the Bonds defense team, which no doubt knows all this.

If there is real evidence I don’t know why Bonds isn’t copping a plea, and I suppose there is still time for that. But it looks like if he defends himself this thing is going to be going on for a long time. (thanks baseballmusings.com)