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May 23, 2013
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Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.Monday, November 16, 2009“The Official Major League Baseball World Series Film Collection”If anyone is looking for something to buy me for Christmas: "The Official Major League Baseball World Series Film Collection" (A&E, $229.95), a spectacular DVD set that contains 20 discs featuring extensive footage of 65 World Series from 1943 to 2008. "Thick, elongated hard" "Bob Costas" What's not to love? Sign this petitionI've signed way less important petitions than this one. To: Major League Baseball, MLB Network Do your part for democracy here. My Morning in ExileSo I'm trying to decide if, upon leaving the legal job, I'm going to keep the law license active or let it slip into inactive status. On the one hand, letting it go inactive saves me several hundred dollars and about 15 hours sitting in a classroom taking continuing legal education classes between now and the end of December. On the other hand, not actually having my license active will prevent me from filing all of those nuisance lawsuits I had always envisioned slapping on people once I left the legal job. I mean sure, I could reactivate the license by filing some paperwork and paying a small fee, but that takes a few days. What happens if I get really angry and need to sue them RIGHT NOW?! Another career question: Starting in December, how am I supposed to answer when people ask me what I do for a living? It seems a little presumptuous of me to say "baseball writer." Roger Angell is a baseball writer. Joe Posnanski is a baseball writer. I snark on headlines and argue with people all day. At the same time, if I say "baseball blogger," about 97% of the people are going to respond with "that's . . .that's a job?" So many questions. UPDATE: Mrs. Shyster is too good to comment among you heathens, but she did just email me and suggest that I answer thusly in response to such questions. This is why I love Mrs. Shyster. Friday, November 13, 2009Mr. GQSo, like, I was building this prototype teleportation machine, and just as I was about to test it on Derek Jeter, the Unfrozen Caveman version of Johnny Damon accidentally fell into the transport pod. Total mess. “The New York Mets will be facilitating activities that directly violate international law”If you were to tell me that a Major League team bumbled its way into an international incident, I would immediately say "The Mets. It was the Mets, right?" I mean, is there any other possible answer? My Morning in ExileWater on the moon? "The Lcross Mission" Noah Cross? Water where it should not naturally be? Forget it Jake . . . I don't know why those kitty cats were even nosin' around for water up there. Don't they know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Thursday, November 12, 2009My Morning in ExileWhen you have Wednesday off work, Thursday is Monday. Considering that Monday sucks and that I never really got the hang of Thursdays, I'm just really off my game today. Maybe I'd feel better if opposing counsel in one of my cases were to call me and say he was going to "take a meat axe" to me. Damn, that happened this morning too, and it only made me feel happy for a little while. Sigh. I should totally set up a status conference in the case with the meat axe guy for November 30th. Wednesday, November 11, 2009Two thoughts on Marvin MillerI wrote over at NBC this morning that I think Marvin Miller was a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame. Not everyone agrees with that. Not even some pretty damn reasonable people. Here are two perspectives. First Rob Neyer: I mentioned this morning that I'm still an agnostic regarding Whitey Herzog's Hall of Fame candidacy. I suppose I'm also agnostic about Marvin Miller. Before you tear my head off, let me ask you one question: If you believe that Marvin Miller belongs, would you be comfortable with Scott Boras someday joining Miller? Because Boras, too, has been historically significant and reaped untold millions of dollars for the players. Point taken, but doesn't the innovation trump mere exploitation? Isn't comparing Miller to Boras this like comparing Henry Ford and Lee Iacocca? Wait, that's not even fair. Iacocca at least developed the Mustang. Isn't that like comparing Ford and the CEO of Toyota? If there's an automobile Hall of Fame Ford's in it. The CEO of Toyota isn't. Another perspective comes from NBC commenter Simon DelMonte (don't worry; he's one of the reasonable ones over there): I'm as pro-union as they come in this day and age, the son of a proud member of the teachers union. And I usually agree with Marvin Miller when he gives interviews on the state of affairs in baseball. But I still feel uncomfortable about having him in the Hall. His accomplishments were off the field. Period. And just don't know if they helped the game. Helped the players, yes. The game? I don't think so. Well, for starters there are a lot of guys in the Hall whose accomplishments were "off the field," so that's a non-starter. I understand the thinking behind the "good for the players and not the game" argument, but I don't buy it. The game is radically different now than it was before free agency, I'll grant that. But I think it's a tall order to say that the game is worse off. More people watch it now. Everyone makes more money. The quality of play remains high. There is competitive imbalance, but is it any worse than what we saw during the alleged Golden Age? Are Royals fans really worse off than St. Louis Browns fans were? Wait, we can't answer that because there are no more St. Louis Browns. As for Flood: if you're inclined to put him in the Hall of Fame, I can't see how you can argue against Miller. Miller was behind Flood's challenge in the first place. If failed in his case. Miller persisted and ultimately won with other players what could not be won with Flood alone. Ultimately they were after the same thing, and one succeeded where the other failed. Why honor the guy who failed instead of the one who succeeded? Put less harshly, why honor the name out in front of the challenge instead of the mastermind? Ultimately my argument for Miller comes down to this: there were three times in baseball history where everything frickin' changed: the end of the deadball era, the integration of baseball and the advent of free agency. Marvin Miller was the force behind that third one. How can you not honor that? My Morning in ExileSorry for the late Exile post, but I had the great fortune of taking a cat to be euthanized! Second one this year! On the bright side: the lone remaining cat has been on his absolute best behavior for the past two hours. Anyway: R.I.P., Ringo. Watch your ass George. Tuesday, November 10, 2009My Morning in ExileBefore we get to the posts, take a look at some amazing pictures of that Utah salt flat NASA tried to sucker us into believing was the moon forty years ago. I wish the photo at the link would have focused more on the West Crater so we could see the Monolith. Wait -- It's buried 40 feet below the lunar surface near the crater Tycho. Forget I said anything. UPDATE: The 2001 reference got me surfing, and I made it over to the "memorable quotes" section of the IMDB page for the sequel, "2010." This passage stood out: Heywood Floyd: I'd love a hot dog. It's not quite 2010, and neither of those stadiums exist anymore. I can't help but think the writers of the flick, back in 1984, thought "well, the Astrodome is totally futuristic, so it'll still be around 25 years from now. And Yankee Stadium is freakin' Yankee Stadium. Let's go with those references.!" And while I'm rambling, allow me to go on record as absolutely loving "2010." No, 2001 didn't call out for a sequel -- quite the opposite actually -- and it's not as good as 2001, not does it even attempt to be. But it works on its own merits, and has a bunch of nifty performances by actors I really like. Lithgow and Scheider mostly, but the always welcome Bob Balaban as well. I probably watched that flick on HBO 100 times when I was a kid, and if it's ever on now -- usually SciFi or some other low rent channel -- I'll watch it all the way through again. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
