Cup of Coffee

June 19, 2012: The Heat

171 Comments

Not the basketball team. Actual heat. It's 110 here daily right now, and I understand the humidity in MN is a killer at the moment as well. Keep hydrated, gentle Citizens.

171 thoughts on “June 19, 2012: The Heat”

  1. Our predicted high today is 74. There is a good chance of severe thunderstorms, though.

  3. Olney:

    The 12 jurors voted that Clemens was not guilty. But they also, by extension, effectively repudiated the standard of proof used in the Mitchell Report, which was a bad idea at its inception and became, in the end, an unconscionable exercise that generated a handful of scapegoats to distract the mob from the failings of more powerful men.

    This.

    1. Not sure if it was mentioned here before, but Verducci had a SI cover story which focused on 4 pitching prosepects for the Twins (1994 Miracle) and their choices regarding PED's. Great read if you have the time.

    2. On a related note, I am so sick and tired of sanctimonious sports writers telling me how the PED users ruined the games through their cheating. Puh-leeeeze. Chicks (and guys) dig the long ball. And the strike out. And other Feats of Strength. And they want their heroes to be on the field, not recovering from injuries. They are modern gladiators, and most consumers don't care that the athletes are putting their long-term health at risk to entertain us.

      Plus, dammnit, injecting a PED isn't going to hit the ball or throw the strike. These guys are elite athletes already, seeking an edge. I am fine with regulating PED usage, just don't insult my intelligence by telling me that nothing that is done on the field is valid, worthwhile, meaningful or memorable when an athlete has used a PED.

      1. personally, i'm waiting until steroids are mandatory. i want the best athletes that science can create, dagnammit.

      2. Related to that, in today's Strib:

        "Your swing has nothing to do with strength," Morneau said. "You can take a body builder, and they're not going to be able to hit a ball out of the infield. It's mechanics, it's technique, and then it's actually how hard you hit the ball, and where you hit the ball on the bat.

        1. That's a trainwreck of an argument. For one, body builders aren't really even training for strength, they are training for looks. And of course they wouldn't be good at hitting, no one has ever claimed that strength alone would make someone good at baseball.

          The last sentence on its own is fine, but I'd be willing to bet that given two players with the same swing, the stronger guy is going to hit the ball farther. Like, say, pre-'99 and post-'99 Barry Bonds.

          1. Yeah. I can get this argument coming from a manager trying to energize his players and make them believe in themselves, but all the mechanics and technique in the world wouldn't allow my skinny girl arms to put one in the seats.

              1. No way he could've been pitching in the majors at 17, and winning more games than his age for three consecutive years!

    2. A bit heavy-handed, but not bad. One thing that drives me crazy is that there's no acknowledgement that, absent free downloads, a lot of people would just have tiny music collections, and would have sourced their music in other ways (radio, mostly, I suppose). That's the one part of things that rings hollow for me. The example gal wouldn't have 11,000 songs, she'd probably have no-more-than, say, 10% of that. So the level of damage she's actually done is 10% of what the article presents.

      1. If I had to argue, I'd suggest the example in question would be well above 1100 songs if she paid for it all. He was addressing a college radio dj with music industry aspirations. I mean, I'm no where near the music industry and have about 2900 songs on my iPod, about 95%+ of which I paid for. Granted, I'm much older than this Emily, but I also all but stopped buying cds after college. If I had been illegaly downloading music, I doubt I'd have 30,000 songs.

        1. You're probably right that she's a bad example. But I think my point is still true. People who illegally download simply would source much of their music other places, and if they were paying money for songs would be much more deliberate and less-frequent with their downloads, such that personal libraries would be smaller by a tremendous amount.

          1. You are probably right that her 11,000 songs don't necessarily represent 11,000 lost sales, but excusing theft by saying "well I wasn't going to pay for it anyway" doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

            1. Except it's not theft. It's all digital, so someone having an identical copy doesn't deprive anyone else of having it.

                1. I'm with Rhu on this. It IS theft of someone else's intellectual property. The fact that information is non-excludable does not make it non-property. It is the arrangement of the information that makes it valuable, and therefore socially worthwhile to defend the use rights to.

                  I'm with the Stick that such property rights are (should be) reasonably limited in duration and scope. The appropriate duration is an empirical question, not a theoretical one. Moving the line in response to political pressure from well-heeled interests is crap, but entirely anticipable.

                  1. That is not how theft is defined. I don't follow the cases that closely, but I have yet to see someone prosecuted for theft because of illegal downloads. Digital things have no scarcity, so laws and culture are trying to adapt to this.

                  2. Buying 10% of the music you listen to vs buying 100% of the music you listen to but only buying 10% as much affects the music producers the same way if there is no physical scarcity.

              2. Fair enough. Theft was the wrong word. But still, I consider music to be a product with an inherent value. Acquiring it for free may not technically be stealing, but it's not far off.

                I don't know. I just don't buy all of the moral relativism that people try so hard to defend piracy with. Yeah, there might be some gray areas. But all of the labored arguments about circumventing corporate interests, about DRM, about proving to the industry that their business models are outdated, about only downloading things that they didn't plan on paying for... when people say these things all I actually hear is "I do it because it's easy and I can get away with it."

                1. That's fine, it just needs to be clear we're dealing with something completely different from the rest of the world.

                2. So, if you buy a CD, do you own that copy? Not really. Sure, you have a right to play it. Sometimes. Can you put your copy in a jukebox and charge others to hear it? No, not without paying more. Can you take your copy of the CD and play it in your bar as entertainment for your patrons? No, not without paying more. Can you play your CD that you bought on your radio station? No, you cannot without paying more, even though this particular use, and the others for that matter amount to advertising for the artist and the put upon record companies that make bets(!) on artists (surely, no other industry makes bets on ideas or other things). Never fear, however. You can do all those things eventually -- seventy years after the artist dies (unless the term gets extended again).

                  I'm not saying that pirating music is right, but I'm having a hard time generating much sympathy, especially for the record companies, who have basically been given free reign to write the copyright laws themselves.

                  1. I don't have much sympathy for the record companies either. I don't know very much about copyright law, but it's clearly flawed. And the RIAA is a bloated monster, with its hyperbolic hand-wringing and malicious lawsuits against the few poor souls they have singled out for downloading a few songs.

                    But I am saying that pirating music is wrong, because at worst it actively hurts the artists and at best it does nothing to support them.

                    Also, why should you be able to buy an album, put it in a jukebox, and charge other people to listen to it? Is there a logical argument for that being acceptable?

                    1. Why should you be able to buy a piece of construction equipment protected under patent laws and then use it to perform work for which you are compensated without sending a kickback to the company who made the equipment? Because you own the damned thing and are free to use it in a manner that you see fit. Copyright laws were supposed to prevent, you know, copying, but they've now become a way of preventing people who pay good money for something from using it in commerce (without copying it!) without paying a kickback to the record companies.

                    2. I suppose that makes sense. If you own something, you should be able to do what you want with it. I guess I just see charging people to listen to a CD as morally wrong, but that doesn't mean it must be illegal.

                    3. I think you're missing that exposure to their music is, to some extent, a good that musicians are afforded by downloads (whether legal or pirated). For example, I heard a single song by Rilo Kiley on the radio ("Portions For Foxes" - still one of my favorites), downloaded a couple more of their songs, became a fan. I have subsequently paid for their music and to attend their concerts. I was a net gain for Rilo Kiley that would not have happened without piracy (note, I'm reasonably confident that I have subsequently paid for versions of any songs I may have downloaded, and that all such downloads happened long, long ago).

                    4. Is it immoral to buy a CD and play it over the air for free, such that your revenue streams come not from charging the listeners for listening, but from advertisers? Is it immoral to play music in a bar as free entertainment for customers who are buying drinks from you? Is it immoral for a church to have a fundraiser that includes watching the Super Bowl on TV screens that are deemed to be illegal because they are too big or because too many people are attending?

                      I think it's more immoral for record companies and entities like the NFL from prohibiting such things without requiring that people pay for it when they've already paid.

                    5. Yeah, piracy can increase exposure. I think that's why you'll sometimes see artists intentionally leak their albums to torrent sites. But what percentage of people do you think have retroactively paid for all the music that they've downloaded illegally? .01%? I know I sure haven't, even for all of my soapbox high-horsing against piracy.

                    6. Paid for all of it? No one. But paid for some of it? A lot of people. The point is that, for some artists, piracy is probably a net gain. This is especially true for independent acts. To say piracy hurts all artists is inaccurate. To say piracy costs as much as the article said it did is inaccurate. The case against piracy is much less strong than it is made out to be. Is it still wrong? Sure. But sometimes it's a close call.

                    7. @SBG Morally wrong was a poor choice of words. I'm not the morality police, or even Chuck Klosterman. I should have said that I find the jukebox thing uncouth. Perhaps a bit gauche. But again, that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be allowed. And I won't argue that the policies of the NFL, MLB, RIAA, etc. are anything but draconian.

                      But I do see a big difference between a church having a Superbowl party and a bunch of people downloading "Black_Keys_Complete_Discography.torrent"

                    8. But I do see a big difference between a church having a Superbowl party and a bunch of people downloading "Black_Keys_Complete_Discography.torrent"

                      Isn't the difference mainly in terms of lost revenue? The NFL basically loses no revenue to Super Bowl parties because they get paid more or less through the advertising that networks are able to sell for the Super Bowl and advertisers understand that lots of people have these parties, so they'll still bid against one another for ad time.

                      On the other hand, the Black Keys undoubtedly lose some potential revenue (lost CD/mp3 sales), though they also gain publicity. (Similarly, the NFL likely gains publicity through the church Super Bowl party--non-fans are more likely to see the game if it's an event and a bunch of their friends are there.)

                      I'm sympathetic to your point, but if you could know with certainty that the additional publicity would outweigh the lost CD/mp3 sales, would you still see a big difference?

                    9. if you could know with certainty that the additional publicity would outweigh the lost CD/mp3 sales, would you still see a big difference?

                      Good question. I don't know. Probably. I would still feel that supporting the musicians by paying for their music is the only right thing to do, simply based on what my conscience tells me. And if the artists just said screw it, the publicity we get from piracy is a net gain and we don't care if you bootleg our albums, isn't that rather unfair to their true fans who will continue to put down money to support them?

                    11. And if the artists just said screw it, the publicity we get from piracy is a net gain and we don't care if you bootleg our albums, isn't that rather unfair to their true fans who will continue to put down money to support them?

                      I think if the artists took this position, they would go to the NPR/PBS pay-what-you-like model. They raise a lot of money even in the presence of freeloaders. In that model, it's the customer's choice what a fair price is.

                    13. Radiohead tried the "pay-what-you-like" thing with an album a few years ago. I think it was mostly a publicity stunt, but I remember them saying it was successful. I don't think they ever revealed their actual sales figures though. It might work for bands like Radiohead with household names, but probably not for any smaller acts.

                    14. Panera Bread has opened 2 or 3 "pay-what-you-like" restaurants in the US, and they wouldn't have opened more than the original test site in St. Louis if they didn't work.

                    15. i hereby nominate new guy as the official WGOM ethicist!

                      I don't think he's qualified.

                      Then again, is anybody? Hey, that's a semi-colorable argument for giving New Guy the job!

                      Remember, we can follow his advice, but we can't copy it down without permission until he's been dead for 70 years.

                    17. I'm not so sure it would be bad for smaller acts. The biggest problem as a smaller act would seem to be getting your foot in the door. When you put a fixed price on an album, you're bound to have some potential customers who are reluctant to pay that price because they are unfamiliar with your work. You might lose sales to some tightwads, but you'll probably gain some revenue from people who would otherwise be unwilling to give you a shot. Then maybe they come to a show, bring some of their friends, etc.

                      In some ways, it comes down to what you consider your main product. If you consider your live shows to be the main product, then you could look at records as advertisements for shows. Maybe you're willing to give up some money on records to potentially make more on shows.

                      This reminds me somewhat of when sports leagues were worried that television would hurt them because people would stop going to the games. Why pay to be there if you can watch for free at home? Or does watching the games on television make you more likely to want to be there in person?

                    18. isn't that rather unfair to their true fans who will continue to put down money to support them?
                      Nope, because if you want to hear more of it, you'd better pay for some of it, or more won't be coming.

            2. I'm not excusing it. I'm just saying that the kind of economic analysis that happened in the article is inaccurate, and it's inaccurate in a very meaningful way. The author wants to say that lots of artists won't succeed because of these downloading habits (even going so far as to link two suicides to the diminshed income! Come on...). I'm saying that's bogus, since a lot of the songs we're talking about are songs that otherwise-would-not-have-been purchased.

                1. I'm not sure what you're saying here... I'm not making the case that illegal downloading is ok. I'm just saying "it's not nearly as dire as the article makes it out to be because much of the lost income doesn't really exist."

                  1. Just trying to extend your initial statement -- not only would a lot of the songs not be purchased, but a lot of them would not have even been recorded in the first place. The ability to sell songs directly allows for many more to be available to the public, sans middleman.

                    2. Except, and here's a problem with creative endeavors, people will be making music regardless of how well they get paid. It might not be the best, but fools like me might even like it more.

          2. That's why I included myself as an example (SSS, I know. But I suspect a larger portion of the WGOM is the same.) to say that I think your estimated 10% actual damage is very low.

            1. Personally, during my college years/law school years, that might have been high. And from a lot of people I talked to about the issue at the time (and I talked about it a fair amount, especially in law school... I actually attended the Grokster case!). Now? Yeah, 10% is way low. But for that age group, I think 10% is probably about right.

              1. I had a good 7 or 8 years of buying CDs before Napster, et al. So you don't have to be much younger than me to never have had to buy a physical thing with your music on it.

                1. Right. But I don't think buying a physical thing vs. a download changes how much money you have to spend on music.

          3. I agree with Phil. I still don't have my library back, but I have 4000 songs on my iPod, so I'm probably around 15,000 tracks. I also have 1,500 or so CDs in my house, and there's a bit of overlap there. Maybe a third of my tracks were from CDs I own or downloads I've purchased.

            But: many of those 15,000 tracks are a) out-of-print, b) bootlegs, c) import-only, d) vinyl-only, e) cassette only, f) legitimate free downloads. I'd guess that about a third of my tracks fall into this category (which is a mixed bag or legal and illegal, but if I can't buy it (or if I could buy it, if I couldn't listen to it), I have no concerns about downloading it from the other sites.

            For the rest, a lot of times I use downloads as a trial (as I don't listen to radio and don't have a device that supports streaming), and if I dig it after a few listens, I'll try to get a copy. (I've still got a karma backlog though: gotta true the accounts.)

            If there was no internet file-swapping or free downloads, I would probably spend more on records, but I wouldn't be as satisfied with my purchases and wouldn't go to as many shows, and wouldn't have purchased most of what I have purchased over the past decade: Peaking Lights, Sharon Van Etten, Lydia Loveless, Scott H. Biram, Black Dice, Eric Copeland, Dub Colossus, Burning Spear, Burial, the Field, Animal Collective, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Current 93, Bobby Bare Jr, etc.

            I would spend a lot more time in record stores perusing the used bins, trying to stretch my record-buying dollars as far as I could. (Back in college, I'd go to Cheapo and/or the Electric Fetus weekly, and Let It Be approx monthly.)

      2. One of the things not really addressed in the article is access to music. They basically reference buying things on iTunes, but personally unless I'm literally given no other choice I will not purchase DRM'd, lossy music. There's Amazon MP3 which is a bit better, but still not perfect. I'd prefer to buy physical copies of music, and that's getting more and more frustrating. The music section at Best Buy is maybe about 10% of what it used to be, and unless something is a giant, huge release it's unlikely they'll have it on release day. There's a record store downtown that is pretty decent, but they don't always stock what I'm looking for either. All of the other music only stores have closed or turned into head shops here. I could order stuff in the mail, but sometimes that can take forever.

        Spotify is a decent solution. I can listen to things on release, and have access to the music while I'm waiting for my vinyl to ship. I'd pay more if it meant the artists are getting more royalties, and maybe there's a way to make that happen. But I guess I think the biggest issue here is that the record industry is a dinosaur that would rather throw their considerable wealth & power around to scare people with lawsuits rather than find a music distribution channel that is modern.

        1. Illegal downloads are justified because paying for mp3s is "not perfect" and ordering things in the mail "sometimes...can take forever?" I don't know, man. Not a very convincing argument.

          1. No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is downloading is easier than that, and people will often times go to the path of least resistance. Make it easier/simpler to pay for music, give the consumers real ownership, and I think they're a hell of a lot less likely to download things illegally. I feel the same way about TV shows, movies, games, etc.

              1. It depends. For a lot of the smaller bands I listen to, I try to buy from the band or their label directly. For rappers on major labels and whatever, I just buy them at Best Buy or whatever.

            2. Ah, well I agree with you about that. The easier it is to pay for things, the more people will get their credit cards out. I would argue that buying things from amazon is extremely easy.

              1. I feel like these discussions tend to get muddled quickly because there are different questions in play and it's not always clear which question is being addressed. Some questions I can think of off the top of my head:

                * Is it legal to pirate mp3s?
                * Is it morally acceptable to pirate mp3s?
                * In what ways does music piracy hurt/benefit musicians? All musicians? Some musicians? None?
                * In what ways does music piracy hurt/benefit record companies?
                * What is the most effective way for musicians to market their music?
                * How good are the copyright laws governing music? How could they be improved?
                etc.

                Frankly, the first two questions are kind of boring, and the rest are more interesting.

                1. Here's an even better question: Should copyright laws protect music, especially recorded music?

                  The Constitution states that the goal of copyright law is to promote the progress of science and copyright was supposed to protect writings. Is locking up the recording of "I've Got You Babe" forever promoting the progress of science?

                  1. Actually it says "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." I'd say music is a useful art.

                    But I think much of copyright law interferes with it's progress, so there's that.

                    1. The phrase "useful arts" is actually the rationale for the implementation of a patent system. Promoting the progress of, that is.

                  2. I definitely think there should be some protection. But it should probably be a separate set of rules & regulations from the standard copyright laws.

                    1. A 100 years ago or so, the copyright term was 14 years, extendable for another 14. Think of it. Songs from 1984 would now be coming into the public domain.

                  3. In the past, I have mostly taken the current laws as standard operating procedure and not really given them much thought. But thinking about this over lunch, it seems pretty crazy. If I sold a painting to someone, I couldn't prevent them from showing it in public. If I sell someone a music CD, I have the right to keep them from showing it in public? That seems inconsistent at best.

                    1. If I bought a painting from someone, could I make prints of the painting? Sell them? If the painter creates a book of his paintings, would he have to have the permission of the owner of the painting to include it?

                    2. Depends on who owns the copyright. When I sell a painting, or print for that matter, I always retain the copyright. Annie Leibovitz famously sold her copyrights to get out of debt during the financial collapse and no has no say where her images end up.

                    3. I should add that I can't stop someone from destroying my work once they own it, but I retain the right to the image. They can lend it to any exhibition they want, but they can't reproduce the image in a catalog without my permission (which is usually granted in a contract of sale). I'm so small potatoes that I really don't worry a whole lot about reproduction, and it's implied that I'll grant permission, but if you start to make money off a representation I'll be calling for my cut of the action.

        2. I'm probably too old-fashioned for my age, and when I pay for recorded music, I want to own a physical copy of it. Don't know why I more fear digital deletion vs theft and loss and breaking or scratching, but there it is.

      3. She killed those guys with her illegal downloads! It's like she pulled the trigger, man.

        1. Not sure if you're serious, but I'll say that I can understand the frustration and depression associated to "critical" success without any monetary reward.

          1. Is that like making the final challenge in Spookymilk Survivor but still losing?

          2. No, not serious, but it's a little much to bring that up in the context of a discussion about piracy. Plenty of really rich musicians have lived pretty destructive lives, as well.

            1. I should get The Roommate over here to write a post on property rights of artists/authors. He gets pretty worked up sometimes about things like digital publication forms and pricing.

              1. I'm all in favor of this...make it happen bS.
                On a completely unrelated note, my wife and her sisters were in Napa last week for a mini vacation. While there, they had dinner with highschool friends, who, coincidentally, now call your fair city home.

          3. There were plenty of critically-regarded poor-selling artists way before Al Gore invented mp3s.

    3. The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.

      This, at least, I wouldn't totally call a bad thing. There was a definite bubble where, thanks to technology, anyone could put out a quality sounding recording...including people who should not go anywhere near a microphone. Thankfully many of those are now just posting on youtube.

    4. I prefer physical copies to downloads but (usually) I can't stomach paying $15 for a new CD. I hit up Cheapo, CD Warehouse or the Salvation Army/Goodwill/random thrift stores in an attempt to find lower priced music. Mediocre to terrible selections, but great value!!!
      Antyhing I download, I pay for. The thing is, if you're willing to utilize overseas outlets*, you can usually find the songs you want for as little as $.09 each. How much of that is actually going to the artist, I don't have a clue (probably very little), but I'm paying for it so it satisfies my conscience. I use Amazon or iTunes only as an absolute last resort.

      *of course, you have to be willing to risk using your CC on a foreign website.

      2. I want to take this time to apologize to everyone for turning into such a preachy, sanctimonious blowhard. I sorta got on a roll, and didn't know how to stop.

        A big part of why I am passionate about this issue is that I have a number of musician friends who are indeed struggling to pay the bills. Their music is probably not being pirated much, but it still makes me empathize with all of the artists who aren't seeing their hard work rewarded to the extent that it should be. The other big reason is guilt. I downloaded tons of music in college, and it bums me out. I am nothing if not a big hypocrite.

        1. No need to apologize (from my standpoint anyway), I think it's nice to have opposing viewpoints around here and I don't think you've been rude or anything.

        2. I'll echo ubelman. I thought it was kind of a nice conversation, though I'll apologize for my part too if lines were crossed.

        3. Oh I downloaded more than my fair share of music in college. I feel bad about it too. I third the sentiment that there's no need for an apology.

          1. I purchased more than my fair share of music in college. I helped add to that bubble in 2000. A few months, I bought more music than I had money available, the only time in my life I carried a credit-card balance.

        4. It was good. Piracy may or may not be a net gain for artists. I'm not sure and don't pretend to know the answer. I agree that if it is a harm, than it's little guys struggling to make it that are hurt the most.

          It's pretty clear that I hate copyright law, but beyond that, in an increasingly digitally connected world, the whole notion of the right to exclude (forever!) is contrary to pretty much everything happening in that arena these days. It will be interesting to see if this craptastic set of laws will survive going forward.

          1. it's little guys struggling to make it that are hurt the most.

            I'm not so sure, I think they may be struggling as much as they were. I think this more hurts the small bands that would have been big-labels' gambles and made a lot of money right away (and frittered it right away or had it go to the various things that labels billed to the artists themselves). Would bands like Nirvana and Mudhoney be able to get signed to a major-label before they became popular?

            I think it also hurts the big labels because there aren't that many artists that will make it big. A lot of the songs I have and haven't paid for and never plan to are from big-label artists where I don't want to pay for more to be made. (Say, some Justin Bieber singles.) There won't ever be as many Platinum albums as there were 10-15 years ago, and it seems as though that's where the major-labels played.

        5. Just reading this, and being pretty much neutral, I'd say this was a very civilized conversation. One of the best things about this site is that, for the most part, we're able to disagree while still being respectful of each other.

            1. I avoided this one specifically because I was afraid of becoming a problem. I think people can guess where I land on this anyway.

    6. Honest question. Is it morally wrong to buy a CD from a pawn shop, since the artist doesn't see a damned penny of revenue from it?

      2. Does it have a promo-only sticker on it?
        If not, the original purchase price was inflated by the purchaser's ability to re-sell should they either tire of the music or need the cash. So no, and I'm pretty sure that Klosterman would agree.

        If it had a promo-only sticker on it, then maybe less so, but I felt that I was at least supporting the record stores and the radio station DJs that sold the CDs to the stores. I give Klosterman less than 50% chance of agreeing with me there, though.

        I remember back in the early to mid-90s some of the top-selling artists/labels were complaining about used CD sales cutting them out, like they should some royalties from resales. I found that argument to be completely ridiculous. Garth Brooks was part of that fight. He still had three of the top-five selling albums almost every week for months on end.

  5. maybe i notice it more since he's the gem of my replacement level rotation, but r.a. dickey is having an amazing year so far.

    i wish he could have found his potential with the twins. i always liked having a knuckler.

    1. I think I blame a lot of this on Gardenhire's usage of him. The only Dickey moment I really remember was Gardenhire bringing him (A KNUCKLEBALLER!) out of the 'pen with the bases loaded against the Rangers. It was a horrible idea and went about as bad as I expected.

      1. I read the chapter of Dickey's book where he talks about his time with the Twins, and he mentions that moment. Gardenhire went to him after the game, told him that he realized it had been a mistake and that he was sorry for forcing him into that situation, and took responsibility for the loss. Dickey spoke pretty highly of Gardy. I think the real issue was that he hadn't finished developing his knuckleball yet, and when he was with the Twins he simply wasn't a good pitcher.

        1. It wasn't until this year that he figured out the knuckler enough. His K/9 was the same 2009-2011, it's just his walks that improved in 2010 that allowed him to be decent. I also wonder how much of that is the league change.

        2. this comment by New Guy makes me want to go buy Dickey's book. Or at least pirate it.

    2. Should RA Dickey win the NL Cy Young Award, or should they rename it the RA Dickey award?

  6. You have to be kidding me.

    Defense attorney Joe Amendola told reporters earlier Tuesday to "stay tuned" to find out if Sandusky would take the stand himself, comparing the case to a soap opera. Asked which soap opera, defense attorney Joe Amendola initially said "General Hospital," then "All My Children."

    1. Holy balls. I'm starting to think its not as hard to get a lawyering job as you guys make it sound.

    2. Hey nothing lightens up the mood during a trial of someone convicted of numerous counts of child molestation than a joke about it!

      1. Hey nothing lightens up the mood during a trial of someone soon to be convicted of numerous counts of child molestation than a joke about it!

        FTFY

        1. It was before noon so the "selecting accurate word" section of my brain wasn't working. I meant accused. FIAL.

      2. When Phil Spector was on trial for murder, he showed up every day in a different funny wig. I wanted him to freaking pay for that stunt.

      2. 1-0 England but further proof that lack of scoring does not mean a boring game. That was very entertaining.

  12. Good discussion above on IP.

    Made me wonder, in every broadcast you hear - Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this game, without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, is prohibited. Does that apply to our game logs? Maybe doesn't apply to 1/2-bakef accounts of the game.

      1. Good thing we're covered by AAPA and ABoR.

        * Avatar's Anonymity Protection Act of 2003.
        ** Avatar's Bill of RIghts, Ralph Koster.

      2. Good thing we're all protected by the veil of anonymity provided by teh internets. Well that, and we have a readership citizenship of about 4 dozen...
        Edit: Crazy, the veil of anonymity has official sounding names!

        1. Not to freak you out, but between emails I've gotten, the odd poster showing up once and the number of people that have registered on our site, I'm fairly sure we have a lot of regular lurkers.

          1. It does seem like there are fewer rookie posters on WGOM than I remember when I came out of lurkville 3-4 years ago. When I was away for @5 months the only name I didn't recognize upon returning was Philo's.

            1. Part of the problem is that the WGOM isn't linked to by anyone. Gleeman no longer has a WGOM link and Twinkie Town still links to SBG's URL.

              1. On the one hand, I find the quality of this place so high that I am amazed it doesn't attract more people; on the other, those two things could be causally linked.

        2. Also since Stick is a lawyering feller, probly has all the necessary paperwork filed away in The Vault.

    2. I believe that they can put those restrictions on there, but they can't make fair use illegal, and they can't copyright original descriptions of factual events, which any recaps or gamelogs do.
      /Not a lawyer, I believe that so many things I want to do are fair use.

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