Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Great Moments in self-importance


There's a lotta things about me you don't know anything about, Dottie. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you shouldn't understand. You don't wanna get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel. So long, Dott:

This will never be over. Ever. And the truth is, baseball couldn't handle the truth. Neither could the average baseball fan. You don't want to know how many players were on the juice before those 2003 tests made a dent in things. You don't. Trust me.

For some reason, and there's a point to this, radio shows like to call me for my opinion. Well, I know the reason. You see the way I write, right? Imagine me on radio. No delete key. No editor reading over my shoulder. It's me, unfiltered.

I heard that, one time, Greg Doyel couldn't make up his mind about something, so he beat the crap out of himself. True story.

Thing about it is that I don't really disagree with anything he says in the piece. But man, the way he says it . . .
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:35pm

The Cleveland Indians: a non-profit organization


Both the link and the general thrust of the commentary comes via this BTF thread (others provided the commentary; I made the first Spaceballs reference, though) but I'd be remiss in not passing it along. The story:

Cleveland Indians owner Paul Dolan projects the team will lose $16 million this season and says the recent trades of Cy Young winner Cliff Lee and All-Star catcher Victor Martinez were necessary long-term moves.

Dolan estimates the team will draw about 1.7 million fans this season, more than 500,000 less than the team expected before Opening Day.

If you divide $16 million by 500,000 paying customers, you get $32 per customer. What's the per-customer revenue assumption per game figuring in ticket price, concessions, parking, etc.? I wouldn't be shocked if it was in the neighborhood of $32 a head.

If that's right, Dolan's "$16 million loss" is really a loss in projected revenue based on projected ticket sales. For that to be a loss in the profit-loss sense of the term -- which he's clearly implying -- original budget projections had to have been based on the Indians turning zero profit. Call me crazy, but I doubt that the Indians are a 501(c)(3).

I don't doubt that the Indians have lost some money this year -- and certainly are short of their projected financial goals -- but if I've learned anything over the past decade or so, it's that you can't take a word a baseball owner says about money at face value. This is post-Martinez and Lee trade P.R.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:06pm

Journal on Sports and Entertainment Law


The people ar Harvard Law School are really smart. For one thing, they didn't let me in, which in hindsight was probably a very good idea. I probably wouldn't have given them any money after I graduated, and my rantings about how lame law school can be would have reflected poorly on them instead of GW. Well played, Harvard, well played . . .

They're also smart because they just approved the creation of a new sports law journal, the Journal on Sports and Entertainment Law. This is cool because, while there are a handful of journals in this area, there is probably way more scholarship to be done than can fit in those that exist. Sports and entertainment Law covers a lot of ground -- antitrust law, copyright law, labor law, civil procedure, corporate law, contract law, real estate law, you name it -- but they converge in funny ways when athletes and sports franchises and actors are involved, so it's a good thing that they have their own space. This is where the legally and scolarly-minded among you fit in:

My man Moshe Mandel -- who, among others, serves on the nascent publication's submissions committee -- informs me that the inaugural issue will be coming out soon, and that they're looking for submissions. Unlike blogging, this is somewhat more serious business, so please, obey the Blue Book and don't use the terms "y'all," "anyways," "ass-ton" or "bogus." Sentences that begin with "The way I see it . . .," "Which is stupid, because . . .," and "As if." are also strongly discouraged. You can use the word "exacerbate," but please don't giggle when you do. At least if you can possibly avoid it. Which I never can.

Anyways, the way I see it, is that ya'll should come up with something. Submissions should be directed here.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:58pm

Friday, August 07, 2009

And That Happened


Yankees 13, Red Sox 6: Lord, deliver us from Red Sox-Yankees baseball, because this game was positively interminable. And while we're petitioning the Lord here, let us ask Him to prevail upon one John Smoltz (3.1 IP, 9 H, 8 ER) to hang up his spikes, because this is just way too painful for a fan of 22 years to witness. And what's with you, Joba? What happened to that fast-working, strike-throwing ace we saw four or five days ago? Seven walks? 108 pitches in five innings? Is there some NESN/YES deal in place none of us are aware of that pays everyone by the hour?

Phillies 3, Rockies 1: I can't tell you how thrilled we NL East fans are that the Phillies got Cliff Lee. Truly, we're so, so happy for Philadelphia. The figurative cherry on top of our giant ice cream sundae of misery went seven innings, giving up one run and striking out nine.

Angels 9, White Sox 5: Jon Danks gave up seven runs on nine hits and three walks in 6 1/3 innings. "I got my butt kicked, that's all you can say." Well in that case, let's move on.

Rangers 6, Athletics 4: I gotta start reading more prospect books and stuff in the spring. Even though I've noted Tommy Hunter's existence this season -- even wrote about him once -- I see "T. Hunter" in the box score and my first thought is "When did Torii Hunter get traded to Texas and why is he pitching?" My second thought is "I wonder if Tab Hunter is still alive?" He was in "Damn Yankees," you know, so there's a baseball connection. So I went and checked Wikipedia. Yep, still kickin' at 78. And though I knew Tab Hunter and Tony Perkins were both gay, I had no idea that they were a thing for a while. Too bad it didn't work out for those two. Tony Perkins played Jimmy Piersall once, you know. Basically everything's about baseball. Oh, Tommy/Torii/Tab pitched well (7 P, 3 H, 2 ER).

Nationals 12, Marlins 8: The Fish blow a 6-0 lead and wind up getting slaughtered -- and swept -- by Washington. Ryan Zimmerman walked, hit two singles, a triple, a homer and had three RBIs. Elijah Dukes was 3-4 with four RBI.

Tigers 7, Orioles 3: Alex Avila -- the son of the Tigers' assistant GM -- made his major league debut and hit a two-out RBI double in the third inning. The only thing worse than working with the boss' kid is when the boss' kid actually knows what he's doing so you can't claim to have been given the shaft. Game story: "Porcello (10-7) became just the second pitcher in franchise history with double digits in wins at the age of 20 or younger, joining Dave Rozema, who had 11 victories before his 21st birthday." Of course Rozema never won double digits again after his 15-win, 16-CG, age-20 season in 1977. Thanks, Ralph Houk!

Indians 2, Twins 1: That's three earned runs in 11 innings pitched since returning to the bigs for Fausto Carmona. That's deceiving, though, because he's only struck out three guys, walked seven and has given up ten hits in those innings. Oh, and his season ERA is now at 6.66, so like that whole Satan/Goethe/Faust/Fausto thing that everyone always talks about is just underscored now. Wait, you mean I'm the only one who brings that up? Moving right along . . . If I were a betting man, I'd bet that 2007 was just one of those magical one-off years for Carmona, and that he'll never touch that level again. How many personnel decisions did Mark Shapiro make based on the opposite assumption?

Dodgers 5, Braves 4: Three-run walkoff homer for Andre Ethier. I didn't see it, so let's hear from tHeMARksMiTh, who did:

It was signed, sealed, and delivered with Soriano coming in for the ninth, and though it was only a two-run lead, it felt like it was five. But he just didn't have his command, and two pitches before Ethier hit that home run I said, "I don't know what's wrong with Soriano tonight, but I don't have a good feeling about this."

God damn it that one hurt.

Royals 8, Mariners 2: Bruce Chen wins the "scattered" award for the night, by allowing ten hits in 6.2 innings yet only giving up two runs.

Diamondbacks 11, Pirates 6: Wow, when the Pirates lose in extra innings, they lose big. Even Dan Haren had an RBI in the 12th., and he thought he had the night off. Pirate reliever Steven Jackson gave up five runs on four hits in 12th, and was demoted to Triple-A Indianapolis right after the game.

Padres 8, Mets 3: New York has lost six in a row in Petco Park. Strange place to be having trouble. The Padres extended Bud Black's contract through 2010 after the game.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:39am

News Corp to charge for content


This will be fun to watch:

News Corp is set to start charging online customers for news content across all its websites.

The media giant is looking for additional revenue streams after announcing big losses. The company lost $3.4bn (£2bn) in the year to the end of June, which chief executive Rupert Murdoch said had been "the most difficult in recent history". News Corp owns the Times and Sun newspapers in the UK and the New York Post and Wall Street Journal in the US.

While I occasionally get a check for a book review from them, I gotta tell ya, I ain't gonna be paying to read Joel Sherman bleat about the Yankees in the New York Post. That's why God creadted Mike Lupica and the Daily News.

Which explains why I don't believe in God anymore, but that's another conversation.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:32am

The bleeding edge of analysis


I'm pretty sure I spent an hour arguing with this guy in a forum last month.

(thanks to Mark Armour for the heads up)
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:10pm

My Morning in Exile


A couple of people pinged me about that "I don't believe in God" comment in the previous post. Look, I'm not going to go into all of my reasons in this space because it's simply not appropriate, but let me say this much: no all-loving, all-powerful being creates a world in which John Hughes drops dead at 59 and Joe Eszterhas is still kicking at 64.

  • Why is David Ortiz holding that news conference?


  • The Peavy deal already paying dividends for the Pads


  • Watching the Yankees-Red Sox is misery enough without adding bad umpiring to it, but we had it anyway.


  • Dollars to doughnuts that Sabean is the first fish to bite on this.


  • The Yankees trade for another starter not as good as Phil Hughes


  • "Let's get some real physical therapists in here!"

  • A good writer gets some bad news and we're all the worse off for it.


    • Love of John Hughes movies notwithstanding, does anyone else agree with me that the whole Jake-Samantha relationship was bound to end up in sorrow? Get this, which was one of Jake's first lines in the movie: "I do independent study with her. I catch her lo at me a lot. It's kinda cool, the way she's always looks at me . . . I'm being serious, ok. She looks at me like she's in love with me."

    So the whole basis for his attraction to Samantha is that she's into him? That's clear evidence of a narcissistic personality. Even if we assume they dated the rest of the year, there's no way he doesn't cheat over the summer and then dump her the second he goes off to college. I give the whole Geek-Caroline relationship a way better shot at working out. True, she's rich and beautiful and he's young and dorky, but their thing began with trust. They probably got married.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:44pm

    Tragedy in Minnesota


    Picking up Carl Pavano is defensible, but this was not:

    To make room for Pavano, knuckleballing reliever R.A. Dickey was optioned to Triple-A.

    This is a dark, dark day.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:46pm

    Andrei, you’ve lost another submarine?


    How do you lose something this big? Twice?
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:34pm

    The A’s release Giambi


    You kinda saw this one coming.

    I can only assume that Giambi still wants to play somewhere. If not, don't you think that the A's and him would have tried to work out some sort of retirement announcement? I dunno. Maybe contract stuff complicated it. As it is, I think there's zero chance that he latches on anywhere at this point.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:09pm

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