Baseball-Related Program Activities

And without further adieu...



Looking forward to another baseball season!

Labels: bill james, predictions, sports illustrated

I can't believe I forgot to do this last year, especially given what happened in the American League East! In my defense, I was more interested in this prediction at the time.

For those of you just joining us, every year, baseballrelated.com presents the predictions from the baseball preview issue of Sports Illustrated, as well as the predictions produced by an extremely quick-and-dirty formula from a Bill James Baseball Abstract of the 1980s. It's now time to compare the 2008 predictions against the 2008 final standings.



Neither prediction did particularly well in 2008. Both failed on the surprising Rays, and on predicting the Tigers to finish first (actually, the Bill James formula had them tied with the Indians). The Bill James formula also predicted the Padres to finish first -- yikes.

But now we start with a clean slate for 2009, and two fresh sets of predictions. They will be posted here soon.

Labels: bill james, predictions, sports illustrated

Yes, this blog is still in business. It's time for our annual look at the Sports Illustrated baseball predictions, all the better to laugh about later when the Cubs do not win the National League pennant. (Yes, that's what SI has predicted -- a Tigers-Cubs World Series, in fact, with the Tigers victorious.) As usual, they are accompanied by a set of predictions made using a quick-and-easy formula found in a Bill James Baseball Abstract from the '80s (double last season's win total, add the win total from two years ago, divide by 3).



In other news, although I have upgraded my TV watching to high-definition since last year, I have also had a schedule change at my job. I now work a normal Monday-through-Friday week, which means I will not be at home to watch the Opening Day games, as I did in 2007 and 2006 and 2005. Sorry about that. Perhaps by 2009, I will be independently wealthy, or I'll use a day of vacation time.

Labels: bill james, predictions, sports illustrated

The predictions were posted on March 29th, and exactly seven months later, it's now time to see how everyone did.


(Levi's predictions, made in the comments to the March 29th post, didn't actually include the Rockies, which I didn't notice until I was preparing this table. If he wants to lie in the comments to this post and claim he meant to put them in first or second place in the NL West, that's his prerogative.)

Labels: bill james, predictions, sports illustrated

Yes, my Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue arrived a week ago, but their predictions were printed on a dark green background in white text that came out a little blurry in my copy. And that's why it's taken me so long to post these!

Also, I realize I haven't yet used Bill James's quick-and-dirty prediction formula as I've done previously.



The biggest surprise in the Sports Illustrated predictions is the position of the Cubs, but I guess that's the eternal optimism for you.

Their World Series pick is for a freeway series, Angels over the Dodgers. Incidentally, they've changed the parking procedures at Dodger Stadium this year (and raised the parking rate from $10 to $15 in the process), so any late-arriving fans can be ascribed to the parking attendants not knowing what they're doing, rather than the usual apathy.

My schedule is clear for Monday and MLB Extra Innings will definitely be on DirecTV, if nowhere else, so I'm ready for another year of Opening Day blogging.

(Note primarily to myself for future reference: here's how I fixed the problem with the table.)

Labels: bill james, cubs, dodgers, predictions, sports illustrated

This is from the 1988 Baseball Abstract, but it's not written by Bill James; it's the work of Mike Kopf (briefly mentioned in this article), and is one of several "book reviews" taking up three pages' worth of space between the National League East and the National League West.

Darkness at Noon (The Battle Over Night Baseball at Wrigley Field)
Mike Royko
University of Chicago Press, 286 pages, $19.95 ($14.95 when purchased during daylight hours)

More interesting, these days, than the Cubs performance on the field is the ongoing battle over installation of lights in the friendly confines. This is a controversy, as Royko points out in his inimitable manner, that has torn close-knit Chicago families asunder, much as the Dreyfus affair is said to have done in France. Indeed, police reports for the past two years note an otherwise inexplicable increase in intrafamily homicides, as well as a seemingly endless array of bar wars, the patrons dividing into vitriolic camps of "suns" and "lights." Even teenage gang warfare in the Windy City, it is rumored, has crossed racial and ethnic lines to become a battle between "days" and "nights."

Not surprisingly, Chicago's notoriously corrupt politics has played a major role in the controversy. At first, skittish aldermanic and mayoral candidates tried to straddle the ivy, so to speak, but inevitably were forced to take sides. An already volatile situation was made worse when both pro- and anti-abortion activists jumped into the fray. The anti-abortionists began holding protest marches and labeled themselves "right to lightsers," while the pro-abortionists, predictably, came out in favor of "choice" and called for a Supreme Court ruling. This moved the "right to lightsers" to contemplate a constitutional amendment mandating the installation of lights.

Against this hysteria, even the remnants of the old Democratic machine felt themselves powerless. The late Mayor Washington, after flip-flopping on the issue at least twice, found himself finally vituperated by all factions, and Royko, in his most shocking disclouse, reveals that not everyone in Chicago is convinced that the Mayor died of natural causes: foul play by right to lightsers, who have long threatened a terrorist campaign, is suspected by many. Into this whirlwind stepped a newly appointed Mayor, and as the book went to press, his promise to appoint Jesse Jackson as head of a mediation committee seems at least temporarily to have calmed the storm. But lights or no lights for Wrigley remains one of the most volatile issues of our time, and readers are Royko's book are sure to come away enlightened and yet disheartened, because, as with Catholic versus Protestant in Ireland, or Arab versus Jew in the Middle East, no solution seems on the horizon.

Also reviewed: Water Under the Bridge: The Mysterious Death of Ed Delahanty; What, Me Worry?: An Insiders' Account of the '87 Twins (by Al Newman); The Secret Diaries of Shoeless Joe Jackson; and Ate Men Out: A Culinary History of Fat Men in Baseball.

Labels: al newman, bill james, ed delahanty, fat pitchers, mike kopf, mike royko, shoeless joe jackson, Wrigley Field

Now that we're deep into the NFL playoffs, here's Bill James in the 1988 Baseball Abstract, complaining about the integrated major league/minor league system in baseball:

Another of the ugly features of the current system is the abuse by club owners of their monopolistic position in negotiations with cities. Although major-league baseball has a relatively good record on this point in the last fifteen years, a good example of what can happen is what has happened to the football St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals, who may be the Phoenix Assholes or something by the time you read this, are owned by an oversized wart named Bidwell. The Cardinals have a perfectly good stadium, Busch Stadium, a major-league facility in every way; nonetheless, Mr. Bidwell is not satisfied. He wants a new stadium, all his own, and he wants the city of St. Louis to tax its $18,000-a-year citizens to build it for him, and if he can't have that at the very least he feels he is entitled to have several hundred luxury boxes constructed for him at taxpayer expense so he can sell them to rich people for $150 a game. In effect, Bidwell is telling the people of St. Louis that if they don't give him millions of dollars he will deprive them of their status as a major-league football city -- while Phoenix stands by, anxious to give him millions of dollars to acquire that status. It's an appalling situation, the most blatant abuse of monopolistic power.

The good news is that St. Louis got rid of the Cardinals, who are the worst team in the history of professional football (even though they've been around forever, you can't call them a "storied franchise," because they have no stories). However, St. Louis ended up deciding they couldn't live without an NFL team, so a $280-million domed stadium was built for the Los Angeles Rams, who wanted out of Anaheim. Following their move to the Phoenix area, the Cardinals have been in temporary residence at Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium for over a decade and a half. I've been to both, and can report that Sun Devil Stadium is not as nice a facility as Busch Stadium. But now, finally, the Cardinals are getting a $371 million stadium of their own for the 2006 season (and $267 million of that is coming from public funding). The luxury boxes, I'm sure, will sell for many times more than $150 a game.

At any rate, in the process of all this, both Busch Stadium and Anaheim Stadium became baseball-only facilities, and got renovations befitting that status.

Labels: angel stadium, bill bidwell, bill james, busch stadium, phoenix, st. louis

As with last year, I spoke too soon. Arriving today in the mail was a gift from Levi and Stacey: The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006, and you can tell they're serious about the "annual" thing this time because they remembered to include a year in the title. I'm sure Levi likes it because of the profile of Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty; everyone else can enjoy the two articles by Bill James, which include statements such as "The Royals walk less than Stephen Hawking."

Labels: baseball books, bill james

From the 1988 Baseball Abstract, preceded by six pages of imaginary dialogue, here's Bill James's list of the 20 best players in baseball:

1. Wade Boggs
   
2. Tim Raines
   
3. Ozzie Smith
   
4. Don Mattingly
   
5. Tony Gwynn
   
6. Darryl Strawberry
   
7. Dale Murphy
   
8. Roger Clemens
   
9. Rickey Henderson
   
10. Kirby Puckett
    
11. Mike Schmidt
    
12. George Bell
    
13. Jack Morris
    
14. Pedro Guerrero
    
15. Alan Trammell
    
16. Eric Davis
    
17. Ryne Sandberg
    
18. Phil Bradley
    
19. Dwight Gooden
    
20. Dwight Evans
    

With the benefit of hindsight, this still looks like a pretty good list, except maybe for Phil Bradley.

By the way, if Levi is even more scarce around here than usual, it's because he's got his very own blog now, solely devoted to books he's been reading lately. He reads a lot.

Labels: bill james

Now we can get back to Bill James. Using a quick little formula provided in the 1986 edition of the Baseball Abstract, here are the early predictions for 2006:

AL East

N.Y. Yankees (93-69)
Boston Red Sox (91-71)
Toronto Blue Jays (77-85)
Baltimore Orioles (76-86)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays (71-91)

AL Central

Chicago White Sox (90-72)
Cleveland Indians (87-75)
Minnesota Twins (84-78)
Detroit Tigers (73-89)
Kansas City Royals (62-100)

AL West

L.A. Angels (91-71)
Oakland A's (87-75)
Texas Rangers (82-80)
Seattle Mariners (70-92)

NL East

Atlanta Braves (90-72)
Philadelphia Phillies (86-76)
Florida Marlins (83-79)
N.Y. Mets (80-82)
Washington Nationals (78-84)

NL Central

St. Louis Cardinals (97-65)
Houston Astros (88-74)
Chicago Cubs (82-80)
Milwaukee Brewers (78-84)
Cincinnati Reds (76-86)
Pittsburgh Pirates (72-90)

NL West

San Diego Padres (83-79)
San Francisco Giants (81-81)
L.A. Dodgers (79-83)
Arizona Diamondbacks (72-90)
Colorado Rockies (71-91)

Labels: bill james, predictions

This is probably going to be the last Bill James excerpt for a while, because it's playoff time. I have balsamic vinegar and cocoa powder in my kitchen right now, two things I have never had in my kitchen before, because I am preparing for Operation Duplicate Chili, in which Levi and I both eat chili made from the same recipe while watching the baseball playoffs, even though we're several thousand miles apart. This can only help the Cardinals. Why, I might even take my stuffed animals into the living room and set them up facing the TV!

The following is from the 1986 Baseball Abstract, and the headline is "Is Steve Sax Available?"

The Houston Astros, I have decided, must be an acquired taste. You know what an acquired taste is, something like French cooking, modern sculpture, jazz, fat women, ballet, Scotch, Russian films...it's hard to define. An acquired taste is a fondness for something the advantages of which are not immediately apparent. An acquired taste in my part of the country is painted saw blades. Do they have those where you are? You go to somebody's house and you discover that above their fireplace they've got a bunch of old, rusty saw blades with farm scenes painted on them, look like a hybrid of Currier and Ives and Norman Rockwell. I don't really understand what the advantages are of having them around, but I figure that they must be an acquired taste. Or like Charlie Chaplin. I mean, W.C. Fields is funny. The Marx Brothers are funny. Charlie Chaplin is an acquired taste.

We all acquire a certain number of inexplicable attachments; mine include Bob Newhart, Jethro Tull albums, sabermetrics, and Pringles potato chips. I am assured by other people in my life that all of these can be hard to get into if you have no history with them. If taken literally, everything in life is an acquired taste with the exception of a few basic staples like salt, sugar, sex, and slapstick comedy, which we all share an enjoyment of; however, the term is not usually applied to things which make an obvious display of their attractions -- in the case of a baseball team, by doing things like winning lots of games, playing interesting baseball, or developing exciting young players. One would never describe the New York Mets, for example, as an acquired taste. Acquired tastes have very subtle advantages. The expression "this must be an acquired taste" is quite useful, inasmuch as it can be adapted to hundreds of situations, meaning something a little different each time.

If you hear the expression "Must be an acquired taste," on leaving a French restaurant or any other restaurant in which the food costs more than $20 a pound and tastes as if the oregano was left out, what it means is "I suppose you'd rather have stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken, wouldn't you?"

On a date, if you hear the expression "Must be an acquired taste," what it means is "This is the last time I'm going out with this bozo."

In an art gallery, if you hear the expression "I guess it's an acquired taste," what it probably means is "What the hell are we doing here?"

If you're discussing a fondness for some particular poet, painter, playwright, or breed of dog with someone you are close to, and he or she says "I guess it's just an acquired taste," what that means is "I don't want to talk about it right now."

"It's an acquired taste" means either that I'm in the know and you're not, or that this is a particular type of sophistication to which the speaker does not aspire. I do not aspire to be an Astros fan. The Astros are to baseball what jazz is to music. Think about it:

1) Jazz is improvisational. Jazz musicians, uniquely among musicians I hope, sometimes string the elements of their music together as they go, with no particular plan or outline. Do you think the Astros know where they're going? Do you think there's a score for this?

2) Jazz ambles along without crescendos or refrains, going neither andante or allegro and without reaching either fortissimo or pianissimo. A good piece of jazz only uses about half an octave. The ultimate jazz tune is a saxophone player undulating slowly between D flat and middle C.

Similarly, the Houston Astros amble along at 80, 82 wins a year; the last four years they've been 77-85, 85-77, 80-82, and 83-79. Since 1969 the Oakland A's have finished a total of 216 games over .500 in their good seasons, and 169 games under .500 in their bad seasons. The Houston Astros have finished 70 games over .500 in their good seasons, and 67 under in their bad seasons. The ultimate Houston Astros season is one in which they lose on opening day, then win, lose, win, lose, win, etc. until they reach 81-81.

3) Jazz is usually played indoors.

4) Jazz uses comparatively few instruments. Jazz ensembles are rarely enlivened with sousaphones, steel guitars, oboes, bassoons, or any other instrument which might tend to break up the monotony. Similarly, the Houston Astros use comparatively few weapons, relying heavily on the stolen base and the starting pitcher, but with no power hitters, no batting champions, no Ozzie Smiths or Jack Clarks. Both jazz and the Houston Astros, in short, are boring.

5) All jazz music sounds pretty much alike to the uninitiated, that 99.97% of us who haven't acquired the taste; it's repetitious, depressing, ugly, and inclined to bestow a headache upon the recipient. Much the same can be said of the Houston Astros, well known for wearing baseball's ugliest home and road uniforms. Similarly, one Houston Astros season, one Astros game, and one Astros player looks pretty much like the next one.

No, I'm kidding of course; the Astros have been a little boring in recent years, but they'll get over it, and I'm sure jazz is as beautiful, varied, and enjoyable as real music if you happen to have a taste for it. It's just that...well, I'm a night person. During the Abstract crunch (a fifth season, unique to Winchester, Kansas) I start to work around 4:00 P.M. and I work until daybreak. About ten years ago we went through a period where the only thing on the radio between one and four A.M. was country music. I've never understood this...I mean, if you don't like C&W in the middle of the afternoon, why do radio executives think you're suddenly going to be struck with a yen to hear some Merle Haggard at 12:59 A.M.? Now it's jazz; I listen to a mixture of classical music, rock music, and talk shows as I work, and at seven o'clock every evening, they all decide that I'd like to hear Count Basie. Public radio stations, usually a reliable port in a storm, have for some unfathomable reason decided that jazz is socially and morally uplifting, and that they have a responsibility to impose it on us. But if I want to listen to Mozart in the afternoon, why does anybody think I'd want to listen to Miles Davis all night?

Ah well, I've got my Jethro Tull and a stereo, and baseball season's coming...what I should do is get a VCR and record a couple hundred baseball games, and play them back while I'm working. I might even acquire a taste for the Astros.

This time around, Bill James lost me in calling Bob Newhart an acquired taste. This was written in late 1985, when he was starring in a very popular sitcom on the CBS Monday night lineup. The modern-day equivalent: would anyone call Ray Romano an acquired taste? No, everybody loves him.

Also, "...undulating slowly between D flat and middle C..." -- I think Bill James may have confused jazz with new age here. I haven't gotten around to reading the 1987 Abstract yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's mention of a myriad of fans of both baseball and jazz having written him angry letters in response to this piece. "Jazz is usually played indoors" is very, very funny, however.

Labels: astros, bill james, bob newhart, chili

More from Bill James in the 1986 Baseball Abstract...

For the benefit of anybody who is not familiar with the cities, St. Louis is a much nicer city than Kansas City, and I'll tell you why in a moment. Yet at every insurgence of the national media, Kansas City press packets are handed out repeating a number of overworked boasts about the place. "Kansas City has more fountains than Rome." Well, I suppose so; the only problem is that about two-thirds of Kansas City's fountains are just jets of water shooting up in front of a branch bank in the middle of a bunch of Burger Kings and stuff, and have the esthetic impact of large lawn sprinklers. "Kansas City has more miles of boulevards than any city except Paris." This one always conjures up images of the International Board of Boulevard Certification, walking along saying "No, I'm afraid this one is just an 'avenue' unless you widen the curb space by four more inches and plant six more trees per half-mile." Another favorite is "Kansas City is the Christmas card capital of the Midwest." Can you imagine going into New York City for a World Series and having a press person come out to Shea and tell you how many Christmas cards are printed in New York City?

There are about seven reasons why St. Louis is a much nicer city than Kansas City. Number one, it is older, and has a much richer architectural heritage. Number two, its neighborhoods are much stronger. As Kansas City has grown, it has absorbed and neutralized the small cities around it, none of which retains a distinct flavor to contribute to the city. This hasn't happened in St. Louis. Number three, the downtown area is much more pleasant -- you can walk around it, there's shopping there, the ballpark is there. Kansas City's downtown area is basically a business area. Number four, St. Louis has integrated the river into the city, adding a great deal to the city esthetically; Kansas City has buried its river underneath a heap of train tracks, access roads, and dirty bridges. Number five, St. Louis probably has more good restaurants. If it doesn't have more of them, they're easier to find. Number six, St. Louis has many more areas that one can walk around and enjoy. Kansas City is all built to accommodate the automobile. And number seven, you can drive around St. Louis without getting lost. Unless you stay on the Interstate system, Kansas City has got to be the most confusing, frustrating city to drive around in the United States, with the possible exception of Atlanta, and Atlanta only because all of the streets are named Peachtree. The Kansas City street department renames their streets about every three blocks, so that it is all but impossible to keep track of where you are and how to get where you want to go. Drive you nuts.

That being said, there are things to like about Kansas City. It's reasonably clean. The best restaurants in Kansas City generally don't have any kind of expectations about dress; requiring a jacket or tie is considered rather pretentious. I like that. I'm mor ecomfortable eating out in KC than I am in New York -- but anybody who suggested that the third-best restaurant in KC would crack the top 50 in New York would be out of his skull. The city's image would improve a lot if they would just accept themselves for what they are, and stop handing out malarkey about how many miles of boulevard they have.

From my perspective, I know there's one advantage to Kansas City: passenger trains are once again using the old train station downtown, even though most of it was turned into a science museum years ago. That's apparently not an option in St. Louis, where the old train station was permanently transformed into a mall years ago. Also, right near the train station in Kansas City is an old building with an old advertising sign on the top...



On the other hand, my one experience at the Kansas City airport found me having to leave the security area in order to use the men's room (in 2000 -- hopefully they've done some rearranging in the years since); by contrast, the St. Louis airport has a more conventional design, and I remember that the exposed ductwork and digital clocks on the signs hanging above the concourse (helpfully labeled "Central Time") fascinated me as a young boy when my family was changing planes there on the way to Iowa.

And I've been to a baseball game in St. Louis but not Kansas City. So, in conclusion, Bill James is absolutely right.

Labels: atlanta, bill james, kansas city, st. louis

When we left Bill James, he was at Royals Stadium for Game 1 of the 1985 World Series, complaining about having paid $30 for a ticket. But then he realizes, "No one has a divine right to attend the event, and if you're not willing to pay a good price for the tickets, you shouldn't be there." However...

All season, whenever Susie and I had gone into games we had been extremely fortunate as to the people seated around us; we made it through almost the entire season without being in earshot of an obnoxious drunk. On this memorable occasion, the law of averages caught up with us. We were seated three rows behind the last human being in the Western hemisphere that I would ever want to marry into my family; she is to this day known in our house only as That Dreadful Woman. That Dreadful Woman combined the virtues of a coquettish Southern Belle, the kind that during a Tennessee Williams play you always want to reach onstage and strangle to speed up the plot, with those of your ordinary garden-variety obnoxious drunken fan. She had a voice that would remind you of a clarinet with a broken reed, set to the volume of an airhorn, and I suppose that she had been a cheerleader two or three years ago, for she was determined to lead the section in cheers. She was a Cardinals fan, which was not the problem; in fact, the ingrained hospitality with which Midwesterners receive guests is probably all that kept her alive as the game progressed. Whenever anything happened...no, that's not right...whether anything happened or not she would leap to her feet almost with every pitch and, turning around and gesturing with her arms as if tossing an invisible baby into the air, implore the section to screech along with her and give her some sort of reassurance about how cute she was. After about a half-inning of this, every time she got up she would, naturally, be greeted with a chorus of people yelling encouraging things like "Sit Down," "Shut Up," "Watch the Game," "Lady, Pleeeese" and "Will you get your ass out of the way?" However, being apparently none too swift even when sober, she could not take in that it was not anyone in particular who was yelling these things, but everyone in the entire area taking turns. Having focused on someone who was abusing her, she would fasten onto the luckless soul -- several, I am sure, will never go back to a baseball game as long as they live -- and begin to whimper accusingly about how she didn't mean to do any wrong and she was just trying to enjoy the game and didn't they want to enjoy the game and didn't Royals fans like to have fun and what had she done except cheer for her team and couldn't they be friends? Eventually she would shake hands with whoever it was; this was, after all, the only way to get her to stop whining in your face. Then she would grab her camera and put her arm around her new friend and have her husband (or boyfriend, or whoever the poor bastard was) take a picture of the event.

She had other uses for the camera -- for example, she would try on a funny hat, hand off the camera to a stranger and have him take a picture of her. She would do this, mind you, with the inning in progress.

The rest of the fans in the right field bleachers were not exactly a prize aggregation, either. There was an ABC crowd camera near us, and scattered around were several dozen children and nitwits whose attention was entirely focused on it. Whenever this camera panned near us they would leap to their feet and hold up banners, requiring the people sitting behind them, which was all of us except the front row, to jump up and down constantly in an attempt to follow the game. There were several beach balls bouncing around, enough that it took the baseball fans in the area two or three innings to capture each one and neutralize it with a pocket knife. It was easily the worst Kansas City baseball crowd that I've seen.

Also seated around us were a number of die-hard, life-long Cardinal fans who had driven over from St. Louis (five hour drive) to see the game. By the fifth inning, That Dreadful Woman had most of them discussing whether they should continue to support the Cardinals or perhaps should switch to the Royals. Several people offered to buy the Dreadful Woman a beer if she would just go stand in line to buy it. She took one guy up on his offer, apparently not understanding the purpose of it -- she wasn't easy to insult, this girl -- and as she was leaving a guy about ten rows behind us shouted, 'Remember where your seat is -- section 342." Needless to say, Section 342 was in an entirely different part of the ballpark, but it didn't work. We enjoyed the game for a half-inning until she returned.

The next night, Bill James goes back for Game 2...

As Susie and I were walking down the aisle toward our seats the man in front of us yelled gleefully "I don't think she's here!" We broke out laughing; we were looking for the same thing. We had the same seats for all four games in Kansas City, if there were to be four games in Kansas City, and the thought of spending three more games trying to get HER to shut up had considerably dampened our enthusiasm for the event. We never saw her again, but it was easy to spot the people who had been in the same seats the day before. They were distinguished by the wary looks that they cast around until the offending seat was occupied.

Labels: bill james, Cardinals, royals, world series

This handy list of 2005 minor league champions was in the agate type of Sunday's Los Angeles Times sports section, near the CFL results (Edmonton 37, British Columbia 20).

• Triple A
  
  
  
  • Pacific Coast League: Nashville Sounds (Milwaukee Brewers)
    
  • International League: Toledo Mud Hens (Detroit Tigers)
    
  
  
• Double A
  
  
  
  • Eastern League: Akron Aeros (Cleveland Indians)
    
  • Southern League: Jacksonville Suns (Dodgers)
    
  • Texas League: Midland RockHounds (Oakland Athletics)
    
  
  
• Class A
  
  
  
  • California League: San Jose Giants (San Francisco Giants)
    
  • Carolina League: Frederick Keys (Baltimore Orioles)
    
  • Florida State League: Palm Beach Cardinals (St. Louis Cardinals)
    
  • Midwest League: South Bend Silver Hawks (Arizona Diamondbacks)
    
  • South Atlantic League: Kannapolis Intimidators (Chicago White Sox)
    
  • New York-Penn League: Staten Island Yankees (New York Yankees)
    
  • Northwest League: Spokane Indians (Texas Rangers)
    
  
  
• Rookie
  
  
  
  • Appalachian League: Elizabethton Twins (Minnesota Twins)
    
  • Arizona League: Giants (San Francisco Giants)
    
  • Gulf Coast League: Yankees (New York Yankees)
    
  • Pioneer League: Orem Owlz (Angels)
    
  
  
• Independent
  
  
  
  • Can-Am League: Worcester Tornadoes
    
  • Central League: Fort Worth Cats
    
  • Frontier League: Kalamazoo Kings
    
  • Golden Baseball: San Diego Surf Dawgs
    
  • Northern League: Gary SouthShore RailCats
    
  
  

Note that two teams that play in cities along the route of the South Shore Line won league championships, which may be a good omen for the Chicago White Sox.

Meanwhile, here's Bill James, attending Game 1 of the 1985 World Series and writing about it in the 1986 Baseball Abstract: "On the way in I grumbled about the $30 price of the ticket, but on arriving at the park was struck by the absurdity of this; you pay $45 for tickets to a Broadway show and don't think anything of it, and this is the World Series." I believe Levi saw a Broadway show earlier this year, so perhaps he will enjoy that 1985 price quote as much as I did.

More from Bill James's extended review of the 1985 World Series coming soon, including a comparison of the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City, and the tale of That Dreadful Woman.

Labels: bill james, white sox, world series

Actual quote from an e-mail from my father: "Better you should have never been born, than to post something good about
Harry Caray." Obviously, I can't resist now. Bill James on Harry Caray, from the 1985 Baseball Abstract:

Cable television has arrived to the distant Balkan outland that I call home, and I have been watching Harry Caray whenever I get the time. It's the first significant exposure to Harry that I've had in fifteen years, and I realize with a sense of shock how much of my own attitude about the game and about my profession, which I thought I had found by myself, I may in fact have picked up from hundreds of hours of listening to Harry Caray as a child.

Or perhaps it is a false pride, but I love Harry Caray. You have to understand what Harry Caray was to the Midwest in my childhood. In the years when baseball stopped at the Mississippi, KMOX radio built a network of stations across the midwest and into the Far West that brought major league baseball into every little urb across the landscape. Harry's remarkable talents and enthusiasm were the spearhead of their efforts, and forged a link between the Cardinals and the midwest that remains to this day; even now, some of my neighbors are Cardinal fans.

This effect covers a huge area and encompasses millions of people, many times as many people as live in New York. A Harry Caray-for-the-Hall-of-Fame debate is in progress. To us, to hear New Yorkers or Californians suggest that Harry Caray might not be worthy of the honors given to Mel Allen or Vince Scully is a) almost comically ignorant, sort of like hearing a midwesterner suggest that the Statue of Liberty was never of any real national significance and should be turned into scrap metal, and b) personally offensive. That Harry should have to wait in line behind these wonderful men but comparatively insignificant figures is, beyond any question, an egregious example of the regional bias of the nation's media.

But besides that, the man is really good. His unflagging enthusiasm, his love of the game, and his intense focus and involvement in every detail of the contest make every inning enjoyable, no matter what the score or the pace of the game. His humor, his affection for language and his vibrant images are the tools of a craftsman; only Garagiola, his one-time protégé, can match him in this way. He is criticized for not being objective, which is preposterous; he is the most objective baseball announcer I've ever witnessed. He is criticized for being "critical" of the players, when in fact Harry will bend over backwards to avoid saying something negative about a player or a manager. But Harry also knows that he does the fans no service when he closes his eyes and pretends not to see things. A player misses the cut-off man, Harry says that he missed the cut-off man, the player complains to the press, and some sweetlicking journalist, trying to ingratiate himself to a potential source, rips Harry for being critical of the player.

Harry is involved in another controversy now over the firing of Milo Hamilton, onetime heir apparent to Jack Brickhouse. Hamilton as a broadcaster is a model of professionalism, fluency, and deportment; he is, in short, as interesting as the weather channel, to which I would frequently dial while he was on. Milo's skills would serve him well as a lawyer, an executive, or a broker. He broadcasts baseball games in a tone that would be more appropriate for a man reviewing a loan application. He projects no sense at all that he is enjoying the game or that we ought to be, and I frankly find it difficult to believe that the writers who ripped the Cubs for firing Hamilton actually watch the broadcasts. Is Harry to be faulted because the fans love him and find Hamilton a dry substitute?

People confuse "objectivity" with "neutralism." If you look up "neutral" in the dictionary it says "of no particular kind, color, characteristics, etc.; indefinite. Gray; without hue; of zero chromel; achromatic. Neuter." That pretty well describes Milo Hamilton. To Harry Caray, the greatest sports broadcaster who ever lived. This Bud's for you.

Dad, you'll be pleased to know that Bill James lost me somewhere around "Vince Scully." Surprised he didn't also refer to "Melvin Allen." Also, it seems Milo Hamilton must have run over his dog or something.

Another quibble is that broadcasters don't go into the Hall of Fame per se, they just win the Ford Frick Award. Harry Caray won in 1989, and despite Bill James's best efforts, Milo Hamilton won in 1992.

Labels: bill james, Cardinals, cubs, harry caray, jack brickhouse, mel allen, milo hamilton, radio, vin scully

From the 1985 Bill James Baseball Abstract, which I know from the sticker inside the back cover that my father purchased at Haslam's Book Store in St. Petersburg, Florida, which within a few years would be located in the shadow of the Florida Suncoast Dome/Thunderdome/Tropicana Field (well, the shadow's not that big, but it's close enough)...

Fate, or chance? The Cubs in 1945 met the Tigers; the Cubs in 1984 would have met the Tigers if they had won one more game. Chance, or destiny? A new commissioner of baseball, Happy Chandler, was named in April of 1945, but had other commitments that kept him busy until that October; a new commissioner of baseball, Peter Ueberroth, was named in March of 1984, but prevented from beginning the job until October by other commitments. Coincidence, or fortune? Steve Trout pitched a 5-hit, complete-game victory for the Cubs in the 1984 playoffs; his father, Dizzy Trout, pitched a 5-hit, complete-game victory against the Cubs in the 1945 World Series. Luck, or predetermination? The 1945 season was the last hurrah for a popular Cub infielder named Stan Hack; the 1984 season was the last hurrah for a popular Cub infielder named Larry Bowa. "Hack" and "Bowa" each have four letters in their names, even if you spell them backwards. Coincidence, or sheer pap? The 1984 Cubs fired their television broadcaster, Milo Hamilton; the 1945 Cubs released a catcher named Len Rice; it goes against my grain to accept that as a mere coincidence. Goodnight.

After that, Bill James goes into a paean to Milo Hamilton's replacement on the Cubs TV broadcasts, Harry Caray, which I'll post later.

Labels: bill james, cubs, milo hamilton, tigers, tropicana field

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.

Labels: bill james, computer, danny o'brien, dave henderson, mariners

"A talented player, he projected as a rookie who would hit, but didn't seem to react well to the challenge of earning the job.
Well, let's not be coy about it. I don't know how much truth there is in this, but what I was told is that, with a job virtually handed to him, he displayed what we might call a Miguel Dilone syndrome. He wouldn't put out any extra effort as a show of good faith., wouldn't take extra hitting practice or work on his defense; he just acted like the job was his. The worse he played, and he played quite badly indeed, the less receptive he became to help.
When a young player does that, people say that it doesn't seem like he wants the job. Well, of course he wants the job; every young baseball player wants to play. What this behavior suggests to me is a player with a deep-rooted lack of confidence. Men who are consumed with a fear of failing often protect themselves from the failure that they subconsciously anticipate by adopting a pose of indiffernece and hostility; any attempt to reach out to such a player would be interpreted as an attempt to force him to make an emotional commitment to the job, and thus would feed the fear and force the player to fortify his defense mechanisms. Such a player would exhibit external signs of self-confidence, and would refuse to make any special efforts to cooperate, as to do so would be a tacit acknowledgment of his unsteady position. Not until the player sheds the label of a hot prospect, and nothing more is expected of him, will the fear subside and the ability once more begin to assert itself.
What can be done about it? I don't think anything can. If a twenty-two-year-old athlete doesn't believe in himself, deep down, I doubt seriously that there is anything anybody else can do about it that will change that fact. He has terrific talent. He might have a big year sometime. If he can have two straight big years, he might even grow into the confidence that he needs. But I doubt that anybody will ever be able to control his talent."

--Bill James, in 1985, writing about Angel Salazar, whose career line ended up, over five seasons and 886 at-bats, being .212/.230/.270. He finished his career as a Cub, in 1988.

Labels: angel salazar, bill james, miguel dilone

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn writes today in his blog about the White Sox, their magic number, and his new concept, the "toxic number." (Which is a concept Bill James probably already had, 25 years ago.)

Labels: bill james, eric zorn, white sox

From Bill James, again, from 1982:

Talk about your eerie coincidences. Mookie's real name is William Wilson, but they can't call him that, for obvious reasons. There is another major league player who does and doesn't do exactly the same things that this guy does, and who is the same age and color, and that man's name is Willie Wilson. To use the same name would invite unnecessary and unattractive comparisons.

Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story about a man who was haunted by another man of the same name, same build and talents and face. The idea was that you were supposed to catch on that his personality had split, and he was merely projecting himself into another character of the same description. The two men's names? William Wilson. Swear to God.

Labels: bill james, mookie wilson, william wilson