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September 11, 2012: Moment of Silence

49 Comments

I changed forever that day, eleven years ago, as I'm sure a lot of people did. The unease went away in time, of course, but the horrors carried out by people who insist that we're their enemies left me doubtful of humanity for a long while.

I love people, really. I just can't believe what they're capable of.

49 thoughts on “September 11, 2012: Moment of Silence”

  1. From the PiPress:

    Twins fans should start getting used to the Florimon-Casilla infield combination and a consistent rotation spot for Deduno. A solid chemistry is developing between the shortstop and second baseman, and Casilla is a comfort zone for Florimon to help him with the language barrier.

    If playing Florimon means more Casilla, then I say bring back Dozier.

    1. I love Florimon's defense, but I am very skeptical that he'll be able to hit enough. I really don't want to have two outs in the bottom of the lineup.

      1. I decided to investigate.

        His career minor league OPS is .675. I found two players, John Buck and Endy Chavez, who have averaged a .670 OPS over the last two years to get an estimate of how many negative batting runs they're worth. It seems if Florimon were to have a ~.675 OPS with the Twins, that would correspond to about -15 runs per 600 PAs. He's a shortstop, so that's +7.5 runs per 600 PAs, meaning he needs to be +7.5 runs on defense in order to be replacement level. It seems like he could be at least +10 runs, but that still only puts him in the < 1 WAR area, which isn't exactly an improvement over Dozier.

        2. FWIW, in 1978 Larry Bowa had a 689 OPS (92 OPS+) and accumulated 5.7 rWAR. In 1977, his OPS was 652 (72 OPS+) and his rWAR was 3.0. In 1979, Tim Foley had a 671 OPS (80 OPS+) and accumulated 2.0 rWAR.

          Tim Foli, btw, somehow compiled 6,573 career PA over 16 seasons, hitting 251/283/309 (64 OPS+) and accumulating 3.4 rWAR on the strength of +16.2 dWAR against -2.8 oWAR . That's some impressive offensive suckitude, even for an NL shortstop in the 1970s.

          1. I see Bowa was at 0 batting runs in 1978 though, not -15 as I originally assumed. His 1977 WAR does remind me that I was missing something in the original calculation. I thought I was but couldn't remember what.

            Re-doing the calculation, assuming a -15 batting runs (and a +0 for baserunning) as a shortstop means he needs to be at least +7.5 fielding runs to be a 2.0 WAR player. If he's instead a +15 or better fielder and a plus for baserunning (+5 is entirely reasonable, that's what Revere has in 104 games), then 3 WAR might be a better evaluation. I like him better.

            1. Bowa in the minors: 278/305/333 (ages 20-23). Ahh, the good ol' days when "banjo-hitting shortstop" was an improvement.

            2. Also, FWIW, if you look at 2012 qualified shortstops sorted by OPS, a .675 OPS would land Florimon around 15th or so in the league, in the same ballpark as Alexei Ramirez, Mike Aviles, Rafael Furcal, and J.J. Hardy. I'm not sure Florimon can hit that well, but if he can and he continues to field well, he could find plenty of playing time somewhere in the majors.

    2. Fanfreakingtastic.

      Also, I have two sibs with CF, which totally made me empathize with the guy more at first.

        1. Same here, especially after the comment from the CF foundation person that they hadn't received any money from the guy.

          1. Yeah. That part killed me a little bit. The CF Foundation is a nonprofit that I've got a ton of experience with (and a lot of respect for. They're among the best nonprofits out there), so I either wanted it to have gotten a lot of money or to have not actually been affiliated in any way (like, no kids with CF for the guy).

            It reminds me a lot of The Informant!

        2. The way that Litton described his kid--mainly that the child not willing to do any of the treatment when non-family members were around--definitely made me expect to read that he was making that up, too.

          1. The way he described him made me certain it wasn't made up. That's exactly what I've seen first hand, and what I'd expect for just about anyone who has a disease they have to spend significant time treating every day with noisy, smelly, sizable equipment.

  5. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I was supposed to be flying into New York (on my way to Athens) that day. I was just about to leave for the airport when the first plane hit. It took us 2 weeks to get to our destination after that.

    I feel like I had a very different experience of 9/11 than a lot of people, since I ended up being in Europe for the semester after the attacks. People were incredibly supportive to Americans, and we got to hear about a lot of things that were very reaffirming. If anything, the experienced helped me become more confident of humanity: there is good will to offset the bad.

    11 years later, my experience is even more different. Aquinas' birthday was yesterday, so in the lead-up to 9/11, and even today too, as a follow up, I'm thinking more about the life-affirming experience of being a parent than the horrors of that day. It's a study in contrast, really. And a perspective that I consider myself lucky to have.

    1. It's hard for me to talk about 9/11 without striding stridently into the FZ, so I'll just offer my opinion that in the eleven years since the attacks we've witnessed both the best and the worst of our national character.

  7. Objective: To analyze neurodegenerative causes of death, specifically Alzheimer disease (AD), Parkinson disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), among a cohort of professional football players.

    Methods: This was a cohort mortality study of 3,439 National Football League players with at least 5 pension-credited playing seasons from 1959 to 1988. Vital status was ascertained through 2007. For analysis purposes, players were placed into 2 strata based on characteristics of position played: nonspeed players (linemen) and speed players (all other positions except punter/kicker). External comparisons with the US population used standardized mortality ratios (SMRs); internal comparisons between speed and nonspeed player positions used standardized rate ratios (SRRs).

    Results: Overall player mortality compared with that of the US population was reduced (SMR 0.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.48–0.59). Neurodegenerative mortality was increased using both underlying cause of death rate files (SMR 2.83, 95% CI 1.36–5.21) and multiple cause of death (MCOD) rate files (SMR 3.26, 95% CI 1.90–5.22). Of the neurodegenerative causes, results were elevated (using MCOD rates) for both ALS (SMR 4.31, 95% CI 1.73–8.87) and AD (SMR 3.86, 95% CI 1.55–7.95). In internal analysis (using MCOD rates), higher neurodegenerative mortality was observed among players in speed positions compared with players in nonspeed positions (SRR 3.29, 95% CI 0.92–11.7).

    Conclusions: The neurodegenerative mortality of this cohort is 3 times higher than that of the general US population; that for 2 of the major neurodegenerative subcategories, AD and ALS, is 4 times higher. These results are consistent with recent studies that suggest an increased risk of neurodegenerative disease among football players.

    so, overall mortality was lower, but deaths from neurodegenerative conditions was three times higher than the general population. Although this result is specific to the most elite football players (NFL players who played for 5+ years), I'm glad my kid did not play football.

  12. No. Brewer has Surly Furious kits back in - they must have found a supplier for their hops.

    Also Surley Bender and Cynic Partial Mash Kits. Now that the temps are starting to drop (47F tonight in H'town), thoughts of grain/malt/wort/yeast have started again.

  13. Outside magazine (not sure how I got the subscription, but I'm telling you I didn't pay for it) has an article about this 'overachiever' (Tallahassee native) who is going to kayak from Minnesota to Key West, Florida.

    He's starting in Lake of the Woods, and plans to portage to Lake Superior, then portage to Mississippi river, Gulf, blah-blah-etc. funded by Outside's inaugural Adventure Grant.

    He's only paddled in sit-on-the-top kayaks before. Locals are being friendly/nice, but hopefully someone tells him about our black flies/mosquitoes.

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