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November 22, 2009

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Shyster's Daily Circuit

Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Dibble to the Nats

Just when you think Nats fans have suffered enough, along comes the latest atrocity:

The Nationals will have a new color man this year for their TV broadcasts: the always-colorful Rob Dibble. MASN announced today that Dibble has signed a multi-year deal to broadcast the games alongside Bob Carpenter. Dibble is replacing Don Sutton, who requested a release from his contract -- presumably to take a broadcasting job with the Atlanta Braves.

The eleven people who watch Nats games will soon be suffering unspeakable horror.

(thanks to Wooden U. Lykteneau for the heads up)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:02pm (7) Comments

The People in my Neighborhood

I'm not writing jack today, but these guys are:

In what constitutes my greatest oversight in quite a while, I forgot to include Wezen-Ball in the first two installments of the ShysterBlog neighborhood. Lar does good work over there, uncovering many a priceless historical gem such as prospect previews from a couple of dozen years ago and historical analysis of all stripes. His latest offerings are a career retrospective of Jeff Kent and a look at a 1993 Street and Smith's article which purported to list the best players to ever wear each uniform number, which Lar has taken the liberty of updating. But I won't give him Jeter of Charlie Gerhinger at #2. That's just crazy talk.

tHeMARksMiTh recalls the Miracle Braves of 1914 and the story of Elaine Weddington. Weddington was the first black female -- and maybe the first female, I'm not sure -- to reach the position of assistant GM with a Major League Baseball team. That's awesome, but for totally personal reasons I'm much more inspired by the fact that she had the guts to do something with her law degree other than go to work for some giant soul-sucking firm.

Ron Rollins -- the bard of Bournemouth -- has a couple of cool videos, a fun Ichiro story, and the latest international baseball ephemera over at Baseball Over Here.

Jason at IIATMS found a pretty neat post about cheap cologne and implores you to root for the laundry.

Jorge Says No! is revisiting the Joba debate and comes down on the side of the bullpen. I disagree with him about that -- 200 IP of a really good pitcher > 70 IP of a really good pitcher, and that's before you factor in the dropoff you'll get in the form of whoever takes his place -- but I'm not the sort of guy who only reads that with which he agrees, and Josh usually hits the mark, so we'll let it slide. This time.

Fack Youk is doing something interesting: counting down the days until Spring Training starts via uniform numbers. Today is 17, so FY's new Mets blogger Matt Laudato has some stuff to say about Keith Hernandez. Before that was Scott Brosius (18), Aaron Boone and Dave Righetti (19), and Jorge Posada and Kevin Youkilis (20). Check back each day. In the meantime, let's guess who they'll use for the remaining numbers.

Finally, The Common Man went to TwinsFest. What's the deal with mid-word capitalization, anyway? Don't you find it annoying? ShysterBall would really like to know!

By all means, take a stroll around the neighborhood. You'll be glad you did.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:49pm

Charm City gets more charming

For those of you unable to make it to Kansas City.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:05pm

The Cubs must protect this house

If you're like me, and you hate those stupid Under Armour logos on the outfield doors at Wrigley Field, this is good news:

The Chicago Cubs baseball team has sued Under Armour Inc, charging the athletic clothing and shoe maker with reneging on a five-year sponsorship agreement worth $10.8 million.

The Cubs, in documents filed in a U.S. District Court in Chicago on January 22, said Under Armour breached a contract in which it agreed to pay the Cubs more than $2 million a season from 2009 through 2013.

Under the deal, the Cubs would display Under Armour's company logo on the outfield doors at its home park of Wrigley Field, and the Baltimore-based company would receive the right to use the Cubs logo, according to court documents.

Of course, I have to admit that even if that sort of thing is good news for aesthetic purposes, it's bad news for baseball. There are countless companies hemorrhaging money in this poo sandwich of an economy, and you can bet that as things continue to go bad, they're going to cut back or, as Under Armour is alleged to have done, renege on sports sponsorship deals.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:30am

Chris Needham returns

Fans of the now-defunct Capitol Punishment blog will be happy to see that Chris Needham is writing about the Nats again, this time for NBC.

As he explains at the old space, he's only doing it for the Benjamins. Well, since it's blogging, he's probably only doing for the Jacksons and maybe the Grants, but you get the idea. At least I hope it's just about the money, because anyone who would subject themselves to as much Nats baseball as he does on a volunteer basis is certifiably insane.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:00am

Today at THT

I watched the movie "Five Easy Pieces" for about the tenth time last night, and it never gets old. Fabulous movie. If someone told me I had a day to live, I'd probably cue it up.

But one thing has always bothered me about it. Well, not the movie, especially, but the reaction to its most famous scene. You know which one I'm talking about (and if you don't, here it is). The reaction you often get to that are cheers for Nicholson for telling that waitress to hold the chicken between her knees. That's great and all, but no one ever seems to remember Nicholson's first line when they're back in the car: "Yeah, well, I didn't get it, did I?" referring to the toast he wanted. It's not a scene of triumph. It's a scene of impotent rage, and no one ever seems to acknowledge this.

Sometimes I feel like this with respect to a great article about why Jim Rice shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame or why Derek Jeter's defense is horrible. Sure, my first impulse is to cheer -- and hear everyone else's cheers too -- but then I realize that no one's mind has been changed. At least that of anyone who matters. Unworthy guys will be elected to the Hall, and Jeter -- or Michael Young or someone else who occasionally looks slick but is actually terrible with the leather -- will win the gold glove. The idiots win an awful lot, and because of it, it tempers my excitement.

Um, sorry about that, but my wife kind of hates that movie, so I had to talk to someone about it. Anyway, today at THT:

Josh Kalk presents an utter boatload of data on who are and who aren't first pitch fastball hitters. The kicker: he concludes it by saying "there are a million different things that could be done with these data; I have just scratched the surface." If that's just scratching the surface, I'd like to see what Josh could do if he got a a MacArthur Grant or something and could just shut himself up in his room for five years cranking this stuff out.

Alex Eisenberg breaks down the development of Orioles prospect Jake Arrieta. Money quote:

The more forceful the hip rotation, the more torque Arrieta creates between his torso and hips. The bigger the separation between his torso and hips, the more power is transmitted to the shoulder. The more power transmitted to the shoulder, the greater the potential for velocity--as long as the kinetic chain is in-sync throughout the delivery, which Arrieta's is.

That's what SHE said.

Steve Treder continues his trek through left handed history, this time taking a look at the second basemen. Positions he will not be looking at: left handed martyrs (Joan of Arc), left handed cartoonists (Cathy Guisewite and Matt Groening), and left handed mass murderers (Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler). Go ahead. Look it up. I'll be here later when you want to apologize for doubting me.

Finally, over at Fantasy Focus, Paul Singman hooks Alfonso Soriano up to the Consistency Meter. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Consistency Meter, the device's primary component is an electrical measuring instrument which analyzes the subject's galvanic skin response. By inducing a tiny electrical current through the body, the device measures changes in the electrical resistance of the human body. According to Fantasy Focus doctrine, the resistance corresponds to the "mental mass and energy" of the subject's mind, which change when the subject thinks of particular mental images, known as engrams. At least that's what Carty and those guys have been telling me at the meetings.

It seems like I've been doing this a lot lately, but I'm going to apologize in advance for what will be, in all likelihood, a very short day around here, as I have some business to attend to in town. Yes, I suppose that's a rather dramatic way to put it, but I've always wanted to say it.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:17am