I guess an entertaining first seven and a half innings is as much as I can ask from this team.
138 thoughts on “August 24, 2012: Ceiling”
I have to wonder at this point if the Lance Armstrong saga will be more damaging to Armstrong or the USADA.
This. Armstrong may very well have used performance enhancers, but given the complete absence of procedural due process (USADA prosecutes the cases, controls the evidence to the exclusion of the defendant, and has established a "hearing process" that is devoid of traditional accuracy-providing safeguards (and, for that matter, Constitutional rights... 5th amendment anyone?)) we'll never have any reason to believe one way or the other. This whole thing disturbs me.
Even noted Fifth Amendment hater Jeff Novitzky couldn't dig up any dirt on Armstrong.
Yup.
Also this is probably worth noting: I'm pretty sure that Congress created USADA's authority, which should bring the 5th Amendment issues into play more specifically than some negotiated process (MLB/NFL drug policies).
I'm pretty firmly in the witch hunt camp on this one. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The fact is that there's no physical evidence that he did.
Ah, but USADA claims there's all sorts of physical evidence. They just won't let anyone see it, especially Armstrong and his defense team.
Physical evidence of a rule violation should not be a matter of faith. No transparency, no evidence.
You don't have to convince me.
They just won't let anyone see it, especially Armstrong and his defense team.
Maybe they're afraid he'd eat/inject the evidence.
Witch hunt or not, the end result is that LeMond is the only American Tour winner.
Arguably the USADA doesn't have authority over the Tour's award. They're claiming to have stripped him, but they don't run the Tour, so I'm not entirely sure that's effectively happened.
Sure. My point is that Barry Bonds retians the title of homerun king but nobody cares.
Point taken.
I thought you gave points. Hrm. This is confusing.
Oooh, nicely played, meat.
I still want Floyd Landis to get his back... I found that whichever day that was where he took over more inspiring than any time I have watched Armstrong.
(Note: have not had cancer, ymmv.)
Proof that USADA was worth the expenditure!!!!1111one111!!! [sorry, Forbidden Zone]
you should be apologizing for the excessive punctuation, if anything
In many ways, it seems like it doesn't even matter if they "catch" someone doping years and years after they've raced. IMO, it hurts the Tour more than anything else. If Lance was doping and not caught, and Landis was doping and not caught, how many other cyclists were doping and not caught? 10%? 25%? 50%? 90%? Doping seems to have a huge impact on cycling, above and beyond what you'd expect in, say, baseball, where even there it seems to be awfully effective.
(Note: I didn't watch the game last night.)
So Ron Washington says Nathan will only be used in save situations to save wear and tear. Then he warms him up and brings him in for 1 out in a 4-run game. To get a save. Stupid.
So in reality the save stat is more important than the whole wear and tear concern. Stupid.
(I suppose he may have had to warm him up anyway just in case, so pitching to one batter is a drop in the bucket. I'm not sold that he needed to warm him up given the game situation, though.)
That was the second time he warmed up though. He was going to pitch the ninth until the Rangers kept scoring. Then he pitched the ninth anyway because Scheppers had a little trouble.
Ha. So he probably put more wear and tear on Nathan by slavishly sticking to his "only put him in for a save situation" line. Of course, that quote itself is the indicator of stat-focused managing. Why not just say "we will only use Nathan 3 times a week" or something.
Nathan is a crysknife. Once unsheathed, he must be put into the game so that blood may be drawn.
Chekhov's Pitcher.
I really do not understand throwing out the second guy that throws at a batter. That really makes no sense to me.
It's the rule. Umpires have to toss someone who intentionally threw at a batter. The umpire couldn't be 100% sure Oswalt did it, in part I'm sure because it made no sense to hit Mauer.
That doesn't mean it makes sense. The Twins should throw the first pitch to the Rangers lead off hitter 10 feet behind him tonight. It is better to be first.
Right. Just like sprinters and swimmers(?) with bad starts used to false start intentionally when the rule was to charge the first one "to the field".
Actually, if they perceive it to be intentionally they can toss 'em out without warning, even if they're first.
Start Diamond and have him throw (well) behind/hit the first batter - problem solved!
I like it!
I also think they should just go w/ HBP instead of intentional walks.
That's the way I used to manage my Strat teams. IBB are for wusses.
heh heh. Won my first game legitimately, and the second one by killing all their players.
But they almost never do. They almost always focus on the second guy getting hit.
Ten feet behind him? Nay. Plunk him square in the ribs. If the pitcher misses and gets tossed, bring in a new one and try again. Repeat until the message is clearly established. If we forfeit the game, what difference does it make? Not like we're heading to the playoffs this year.
Gardy will get fined to the point where he'll have to sell Superbowl tickets.
Also, check out same link.
If Mauer was a real leader he would offer to pick up the tab for Gardy.
The first Cincinnati batter of the game was Pete Rose, and the first pitch from Ellis was at his head—“not actually to hit him,” Ellis said later, but as a “message to let him know that he was going to be hit.” He then hit Rose in the side. The next pitch hit the next Reds batter, Joe Morgan, in the kidney. The third batter was Dan Driessen, who took Ellis’s second pitch in the back. With the bases loaded, Dock now threw four pitches at Tony Perez (one behind his back), but missed with all of them, walking in a run. He then missed Johnny Bench (and the plate) twice, whereupon Pirate manager Danny Murtaugh came out to the mound, stared at Ellis with silent surmise, and beckoned for a new pitcher.
Dock be trippin'.
I read another account of that incident where Ellis explained how he was pissed at his teammates for being so intimidated by the Reds. It was his personal message that he was not intimidated.
Ellis, Willie Stargell, and Rennie Stennett missed the team bus to Riverfront Stadium on May 5, 1972. A security guard asked the three for identification; Stargell and Stennett complied and were allowed in, but Ellis did not have identification with him.[49] The guard said that Ellis did not identify himself, appeared drunk, and "made threatening gestures with a closed fist."[5][50] Ellis countered that he was showing his World Series ring as evidence of his affiliation with the Pirates. In response, the guard maced Ellis.[50] Ellis was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.[51]
The Reds sued Ellis for assault, and Ellis countersued. Before going to trial, the Reds dropped the suit and wrote Ellis a letter of apology.[5] The municipal court dropped the charges against Ellis, though Ellis stated that this incident made him "hate better".[52]
The beaning game was two years later, May 1, 1974. For his career, Dock had 17 appearances against the Reds, allowing 284/356/367 with 47 runs (3.73 ERA) in 453 PA (68:40 K:BB and, ahem, 6 Hit Batsmen), 101 1/3 innings. Overall for his career, Dock's slash line was 255/313/357 with 1136:674 K:BB and a 3.46 ERA in 2128 innings.
also, more Dock (bad words warning)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO281JqXQdc
That game was talked about for months and mentioned here and there for years in the part of Ohio where I grew up.
Ten feet behind him? Nay. Plunk him square in the ribs. If the pitcher misses and gets tossed, bring in a new one and try again. Repeat until the message is clearly established. If we forfeit the game, what difference does it make? Not like we're heading to the playoffs this year.
This.
Oh, and Oswalt should be suspended for 5 games.
He didn't have to throw out Diamond. He could've issued a warning at that point, even if he thought it was intentional. You see it all the time.
I don't know that he would have, if Diamond would've kept the ball about rib/back level.
I didn't watch the game last night either... why did they throw at Mauer?
Probably a combination of 3-0 count so why not? and Oswalt is jealous of Joe's contract/success/sideburns/awesomemess
I think if you hit a guy on 3-0 count with a fastball, it's awfully suspicious.
A warning should have been issued after Oswalt threw at Mauer. When Bell did nothing about that, what did he think was going to happen next?
I turned on the game on the radio right as the Twins were out in the third. Dazzle was quite agitated. I knew Diamond would be plunking a Ranger, that he would get ejected, and that Gardy would get pissed and get ejected. I was just wondering if Gardy would let him simmer to get more innings out of him, but I found that unlikely. If I can get all that out of one announcer's tone of voice for 15 seconds and a mention that Mauer got hit by a pitch and Gardy's been as mad as he'd ever seen him, I wonder what Bell was thinking.
And I thought all that when I assumed that warnings had been issued.
Also: Dazzle apparently is a very good announcer when it comes to mood on the field.
Nine innocents and the gunman shot outside the Empire State building. Does anyone think we should do something about this?
Perhaps. But let's tread cautiously here.
It is a sad commentary indeed that this is a political topic, but I do recognize that it is.
As an Arizonan, I'm subject to politicos using this social issue to gain votes on a regular basis. I really, really want to relate a mind-bogglingly stupid oxymoron I heard on a political ad today, but I'll refrain.
First caucus + swing state = Iowa is the f***king worst.
And the worst part of the state, as far as that sort of thing is concerned, is the Sioux City area. You get the ads from Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
Awful, awful news.
It's also exactly 4,000 since 9/11. (Hat tip, as always, to Chris Jaffe.)
Yikes, apparently some of the victims were accidentally shot by the Police! (none seriously)
I will tread cautiously here since it is close to the boundary. This could be viewed as a gun issue or a public mental health issue or a combination of both. How you attempt to resolve the issue depends largely on how you perceive it.
Bad day in midtown Manhattan, normal weekend in Chicago.
Worse than that - 19 people were shot last night in Chicago. Funny ain't it, the things that get attention and the things that don't?
i remember a couple years back that not only was the radio noting the general murder rate for the year, but they were also keeping a separate tally of "school aged children that have died violent deaths". i'm pretty sure it topped minneapolis' total rate.
FWIW, the murder rate for the city of Chicago has declined from over 900 per year in 1991-92 to under 500 per year in 2004-2011. Lots of great data from the Chicago police department. That's a model for transparency.
progress?
nationally, violent crimes have trended down ever so slightly and property crimes more noticeably since 2000 at least.
Absolutely true. The world is a much safer place than when we were kids. Most people don't realize that.
Chicago still has a problem (murder rate much higher than NYC despite being 1/3 the size, etc.).
The difference is perception. When we were kids, we didn't have 24 hour news channels constantly detailing the world's violent vagaries and atrocities in high-definition video. If it didn't happen in our own back yards, we were largely and blissfully ignorant of it. Today there's a lot money to be made by telling people to be afraid, be very afraid. We have a biologically based affinity to fear that is rooted in evolution, fear reactions are survival mechanisms. Fear does really interesting things to brain chemistry and body physiology, adrenalin rushes and whatnot. It's why amusement park rides and horror movies are such popular forms of entertainment. But today we get too much fear fed to us far too frequently, and for no good reason from a survival standpoint.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Muok29bJA
It's this same reason that people fear flying, while I (rightly) am more worried about my drive to the airport far more than flying itself.
Hey, where did those plant-thingys in my header come from?
I've gotten them sometimes, too. The fresh plants hide the smell a bit -- I like!
it's one of the default banners that seems to have been added back to the rotation.
Yep. When I update themes, I have to copy the header images to keep them in the rotation and remove the default images. I must have forgotten to remove them last time I updated.
I thought it was meant to signify Rhu_Ru's allergies.
long as it's not Oak, I'm good to go
I read this as "plant-thingys in my head" and I thought you were replying to Twayn's comment on mental health issues.
I wanted to "weigh" in on yesterday's discussion on losing weight. This Fall will be the 4th year anniversary of my losing 40 pounds and keeping it off. While exercise is important, I think calorie counting is a key to any weight loss. I basically found out that I could be very satisfied with a 1,600-1,700 calorie diet. I basically try to limit myself to 500 or so calories during the day and then a nice 1000-1200 calories at dinner. Fortunately there are many on-line and smart phone apps to help you determine the calories you are consuming. I basically stayed away from fat and sugar and yes cut down on alcohol consumption.
It's well worth it as my health metrics are night and day what they were 4.5 years ago, including low cholesterol, low blood pressure, and a resting heart rate of about 60-65 (other nighttime activity performance issues also vastly improved as well!). Exercise definitely helps, but you can lose weight by just eating less, and better, food. I know a bunch of citizens have small kids and it's hard to fit in an exercise regime, but if you can improve how you eat, you can lose the pounds as well.
Congratulations. That is awesome.
I agree that it is tough to exercise while raising young kids. That is why I run 3 miles on tuesday and Thursday and either run or bike on the weekend. I can fit in a 3 mile run much better than other workouts.
Like Ubelmann mentioned, I have tried to focus on speed. I have been using an app on my phone to track the runs. It has really helped me to drop my times. I am not in his range for a 5k but I have 10+ years on him.
Re: apps. My wife and I use My Fitness Pal, and it's been great as a guide to better eating. Awareness of what you actually eat in a day or week is important. Also, my blood pressure after my cardiac rehab workout yesterday was 96/54 (about 140/70 during the workout) and my heart rate was 60 (between 90-115 during the workout). Meds are part of that, but a month of steady aerobic workouts is starting to have the desired effect, too.
Linds and I are sticking with Adroid OS phones because we love the free app "WW Diary" so much. We've been doing a sort of hybridized weight watchers points system for about a year and a half. I've dropped 25 in that time, and have managed to keep it off.
The summer months are,weirdly enough, harder for me. It's so nice out, and everyone wants to do cookouts and go out for drinks and stuff and I have a hard time staying the course when I'm out at a bar'n'grill and keep myself from having a beer and a burger. Once a month or two wouldn't be so bad, but during the summer, that number skyrockets sometimes to once or twice a week.
Regardless, overall, the diet has been a success, and winter's coming, and I eat like a bird during the winter.
Summer is definitely better for me. Yesterday's conversation inspired me to step on a scale for the first time in about a month. I've discovered that my diet and general increased activity level have me at my lowest weight in about 2 years. I also give some of the credit to having been on thyroid meds for about a year now.
My diet - except for soda and eating out a little too much - is pretty solid, especially with help from our CSA in the summer. I completely endorse Free's comments on how helpful diet can be. Adding exercise could be key.
I will throw in, echoing yesterday and free's comments above, that it's not about pounds per say. It's about fitness and feeling good about yourself. There is growing, credible evidence that standing up and walking around for two minutes a couple of times per hour and walking ~20 minutes per day cumulative has substantial health benefits. [also, chocolate milk!]
I'm one of those people who has always struggled mentally with la petit workout. I was a 4-hour workout marathon guy in high school, and even now I struggle to find satisfaction in my current routine, which takes about an hour before I start the stretching part. But a walk around the block in the middle of the day can do a lot for your mental and physical state.
Arya?
I intended to weigh in on this topic at some point in the future. But, since this has become a topic, I think I'll talk now. I will note that at the old site we had a feature run by GH about fitness that didn't gain the traction that it should have. If the powers that be are willing to set up a cup of coffee style post, I would be willing to maintain a fitness post for those who are into fitness or want to be on a daily basis from at least now until the end of the year.
I weighed about 215 pounds when I went to law school in 2001. After the first year, I started to put on weight rapidly and ballooned to nearly 300 pounds. I am a pretty tall guy and I can carry a lot of weight, but that's way too much.
Last summer, I joined a gym (Lifetime Fitness) in an effort to start losing weight. I worked out, but the weight wasn't coming off. I kind of lost hope and gave up, meanwhile still paying the dues (of course).
When I saw twayn's sorry-about-the-game-log-but-im-in-cardiac-arrest post, I was scared. I'm not much younger than him, I realized that I have to do something. On July 25th, I stepped on the scale: 284.5. Oy vey.
I found an 1800 calorie diet that is pretty well-balanced. I started on that diet that day. I have not felt hungry (much), despite a drastic cut back in the amount I have eaten. I started going to the gym every day that I am in Minnesota. As of this morning, one day shy of one month, I am at 268.8, a loss of 15.7 pounds. My goal is 200 pounds. I am going to make it.
If you want to join me in working on it, you can post on the post that I will set up, if sean and spooky are okay with that. This site and the previous one have given me so much. If you are up for it, I will try to help you come with me on this journey. And if you are already in the non-need-some-help class of folks, hey, feel free to join in.
congrats, Emeritus. And I heartily (see what I did there?) endorse the revival of a daily/weekly fitness post. Peer pressure is an important part of maintaining commitment to a fitness routine for lots of us.
i don't think you saw what he did there.
anyway, i'm all in favor of this. maybe seeing all of you fatties' progress will jostle me from my torpor.
what what?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vou51-755I
My contribution to the thread: today's lunch.
I was going to say that the best thing I ever did, both for my health and my financial wellbeing, was bringing a sandwich in to work 4 days a week. I'm not the type of get sick of a sandwich (ever), so it works out great.
I'm not the type of get sick of a sandwich (ever)
This. I get grief from all corners (my co-workers and my spouse) about my constant diet of sandwiches for lunch (and often, dinner). I don't understand it.
Huh, I never have. Wait, I did when I would eat grilled cheese almost every day while unemployed. Never got grief about anything else though. You're with friends here DG (and nibs).
that's why I love this place.
The WGOM - a safe place for sandwich eaters
eh, the can of corn quote is still better.
i think we need rotating subheads, like at the casa, and that would fit perfectly.
anyway, yeah, i'm totally with you guys. in a addition to a general love of sandwiches, i worked at big mike'smilio's/jimmy john's for about 4ish years total, and i ate literally thousand of sandwiches in that span. hell, i lived off them for a time (seriously, my fridge would only have one i made for the night, and 2 wrapped in saran wrap for the next day, and a couple random condiments (plus one in my belly from during my shift)). i love me some sammiches.
I usually make mine with bagels, but Runner daughter has discovered thin bagels at Target, which I used now.
mmm, jimmy johns. I do miss that about Chambana.
I like sandwiches just fine, but usually take leftovers for lunch. I'm always running late in the mornings; making a lunch is just one more thing to do in the morning.
butbutbut: Costco sells big packs of whole wheat sammich thins. A good alternative to the thin bagels for those interested in cutting down the carbs but still want a tasty sammich now and then.
me too. sometimes you feel like having a hole in your bread [hole wheat?], sometimes you don't.
Cherry tomatoes FTW.
Yeah, this might be the kind of kick in the butt I need.
That sounds like a great idea.
Boss, I would be happy to pitch and help with this. I decided in the hospital that I wasn't going to be quiet about what happened to me. I want people to know. I was looking again last night at the pictures from the angiogram they gave me, I hadn't really looked at them since getting home from the hospital. I'm no doctor, but from what I've read over the last month (and that is quite a bit), I'm damn lucky to be alive, and just as lucky not to have suffered extreme damage to a big chunk of heart tissue. They don't call an MI of the left main artery or the LAD (left anterior descending) artery the widow-maker for nothing. I had a long 90+% blockage pretty high up on the LAD. That's the one that feeds a sizeable portion of the left side of the heart, which is the side that does the main pumping. Damage that tissue too badly and your overall health is going to suffer for a long, long time, if you survive. That said, I'm not really out of the woods yet. I have another 70% blockage in the right coronary artery, and two 50% blockages in the right circumflex. I have a nuclear stress test scheduled for next Friday and that should tell us a lot more about additional risks and potential treatments. The hope is that with diet, exercise and meds we'll be able to manage it without another angioplasty/stent. There are no guarantees, but so far things seem to be going in my favor. I'm going to do everything I can to keep it that way.
Funny, stick, you and I are in the same boat. I just stepped on the scale this morning, sighed, and went make my diet plans. Over the last 5 months I've gone from working out every day (45 minutes of cardio, 30 minutes of lifting, and a 60 minute walk) to a near standstill, and have significantly worsened my diet. Yeah, time to eat healthy, get more bike rides in, and to stop commuting.
Got to be hard to control what you eat in your city, meat. So much temptation, so many things you don't want to say no to.
I'm all for this. You can create categories right? Please create one and a spot can be found somewhere to put the latest post in that category. I had already written some code for this before, so I will work on polishing that tonight.
Created "WGOM Fitness" category.
In anticipation, I even created a flickr account to upload pictures of lunch. Or food pr0n, as the case may be.
I lost a little over 20 pounds about two years ago. For me, the key was diet, much more than exercise. I gone on exercise kicks before at times, but got discouraged because I could not lose any weight on them. When I changed my diet (basically cutting back on sweets, breads, and potatoes, and adding more fresh fruits and vegatables), I started losing weight. After I lost some weight, I thought, "Gee, maybe I could actually get in decent shape if I exercised," so I started. Don't get me wrong, exercise is a good thing, but for me at least, the key to losing weight was changing my diet.
Being a big James Thurber fan, I once looked into creating a DVD release for the series "My World And Welcome To It." I thought it would be cool to have Windom do some commentary tracks. But the rights situation is SNAFU and I gave up.
yeah, I loved that one when it was on. it was a bit too ahead of its time, unfortunately
Wow, I hadn't realized the Thurbur angle on that one. My first TV crush was Lisa Garretsen.
(Sounds as though Klawitter might be sitting in the catbird's seat.)
Pocketa-pocketa! The cute Lisa Garritsen soon thereafter played Phyllis's daughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, bringing it all back home to Minnesota.
That's right!
(And I am thoroughly embarrassed that I misspelled Thurber.)
I'm cutting myself some slack on misspelling Garritsen, however...
What's funny is I didn't even notice your Thurber misspelling, yet I somehow caught Garritsen.
Even funnier how a TV actress from 40 years ago was easily recalled, and yet I couldn't remember if I turned off the lights at my studio when I left it fifteen minutes ago. (I hadn't, but I had to walk back there to confirm.)
httpv://youtu.be/B-Wd-Q3F8KM
Apropos to nothing, on the way home last night I stopped at an old guy's house because he had a little vegetable stand set up in his front yard. I bought 8 nice big garden tomatoes for 5 bucks, ate one as soon as I got home and had another with dinner. He also had a big bucket of gorgeous gladiolus for 6 bucks a bunch, so I grabbed one of those, too. Mrs. Twayn was surprised and thrilled and romanced that was the best six bucks I've spent in many a week. Buy your ladies some flowers, gentlemen. For no reason at all. You'll be glad you did.
A 14-year career in the bigs is nothing to sneer at.
and almost all suspension-free!
Wow. This is amazing. The Boston Public Library put a huge historical baseball photoset on Flickr. I'm sure we could do a CSI on a few of them.
Awesome. Me thinks someone should go through and queue up a bunch of CSI posts. Aim for the off days. Wait, that's every day now...
I had a look at one from c1925 and there was no Retrosheet data, so things could be very difficult.
Looks like they're roughly in chronological order. On page 40 I see dates in the '50s, so some of those might be possible if SABR hasn't already figured it out.
I think we can get those catcher collision ones down.
I like this one. Players out at home are uncommon enough that it might be possible to narrow it down to a few games. We get a good view of the unidentified player's face as well.
Edit: Crap, 1940 means no play-by-play. We would have boxscores, but that's it.
There might not be much research to do. It seems many of the in-game photos have detailed notes already from SABR.
touchdown!!!!!111
these replacement refs have been atrocious. If the NFL think they will have a quality product during the regular season with these clowns, they are wrong.
I have to wonder at this point if the Lance Armstrong saga will be more damaging to Armstrong or the USADA.
This. Armstrong may very well have used performance enhancers, but given the complete absence of procedural due process (USADA prosecutes the cases, controls the evidence to the exclusion of the defendant, and has established a "hearing process" that is devoid of traditional accuracy-providing safeguards (and, for that matter, Constitutional rights... 5th amendment anyone?)) we'll never have any reason to believe one way or the other. This whole thing disturbs me.
Even noted Fifth Amendment hater Jeff Novitzky couldn't dig up any dirt on Armstrong.
Yup.
Also this is probably worth noting: I'm pretty sure that Congress created USADA's authority, which should bring the 5th Amendment issues into play more specifically than some negotiated process (MLB/NFL drug policies).
I'm pretty firmly in the witch hunt camp on this one. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The fact is that there's no physical evidence that he did.
Ah, but USADA claims there's all sorts of physical evidence. They just won't let anyone see it, especially Armstrong and his defense team.
Physical evidence of a rule violation should not be a matter of faith. No transparency, no evidence.
You don't have to convince me.
They just won't let anyone see it, especially Armstrong and his defense team.
Maybe they're afraid he'd eat/inject the evidence.
Witch hunt or not, the end result is that LeMond is the only American Tour winner.
Arguably the USADA doesn't have authority over the Tour's award. They're claiming to have stripped him, but they don't run the Tour, so I'm not entirely sure that's effectively happened.
Sure. My point is that Barry Bonds retians the title of homerun king but nobody cares.
Point taken.
I thought you gave points. Hrm. This is confusing.
Oooh, nicely played, meat.
I still want Floyd Landis to get his back... I found that whichever day that was where he took over more inspiring than any time I have watched Armstrong.
(Note: have not had cancer, ymmv.)
Proof that USADA was worth the expenditure!!!!1111one111!!! [sorry, Forbidden Zone]
you should be apologizing for the excessive punctuation, if anything
In many ways, it seems like it doesn't even matter if they "catch" someone doping years and years after they've raced. IMO, it hurts the Tour more than anything else. If Lance was doping and not caught, and Landis was doping and not caught, how many other cyclists were doping and not caught? 10%? 25%? 50%? 90%? Doping seems to have a huge impact on cycling, above and beyond what you'd expect in, say, baseball, where even there it seems to be awfully effective.
(Note: I didn't watch the game last night.)
So Ron Washington says Nathan will only be used in save situations to save wear and tear. Then he warms him up and brings him in for 1 out in a 4-run game. To get a save. Stupid.
So in reality the save stat is more important than the whole wear and tear concern. Stupid.
(I suppose he may have had to warm him up anyway just in case, so pitching to one batter is a drop in the bucket. I'm not sold that he needed to warm him up given the game situation, though.)
That was the second time he warmed up though. He was going to pitch the ninth until the Rangers kept scoring. Then he pitched the ninth anyway because Scheppers had a little trouble.
Ha. So he probably put more wear and tear on Nathan by slavishly sticking to his "only put him in for a save situation" line. Of course, that quote itself is the indicator of stat-focused managing. Why not just say "we will only use Nathan 3 times a week" or something.
Nathan is a crysknife. Once unsheathed, he must be put into the game so that blood may be drawn.
Chekhov's Pitcher.
I really do not understand throwing out the second guy that throws at a batter. That really makes no sense to me.
It's the rule. Umpires have to toss someone who intentionally threw at a batter. The umpire couldn't be 100% sure Oswalt did it, in part I'm sure because it made no sense to hit Mauer.
That doesn't mean it makes sense. The Twins should throw the first pitch to the Rangers lead off hitter 10 feet behind him tonight. It is better to be first.
Right. Just like sprinters and swimmers(?) with bad starts used to false start intentionally when the rule was to charge the first one "to the field".
Actually, if they perceive it to be intentionally they can toss 'em out without warning, even if they're first.
Start Diamond and have him throw (well) behind/hit the first batter - problem solved!
I like it!
I also think they should just go w/ HBP instead of intentional walks.
That's the way I used to manage my Strat teams. IBB are for wusses.
You must adore this game.
Five pitch choices, three are different types of attempted plunking.
heh heh. Won my first game legitimately, and the second one by killing all their players.
But they almost never do. They almost always focus on the second guy getting hit.
Ten feet behind him? Nay. Plunk him square in the ribs. If the pitcher misses and gets tossed, bring in a new one and try again. Repeat until the message is clearly established. If we forfeit the game, what difference does it make? Not like we're heading to the playoffs this year.
Gardy will get fined to the point where he'll have to sell Superbowl tickets.
Also, check out same link.
If Mauer was a real leader he would offer to pick up the tab for Gardy.
Shades of Dock Ellis.
Dock be trippin'.
I read another account of that incident where Ellis explained how he was pissed at his teammates for being so intimidated by the Reds. It was his personal message that he was not intimidated.
there was some history there:
The beaning game was two years later, May 1, 1974. For his career, Dock had 17 appearances against the Reds, allowing 284/356/367 with 47 runs (3.73 ERA) in 453 PA (68:40 K:BB and, ahem, 6 Hit Batsmen), 101 1/3 innings. Overall for his career, Dock's slash line was 255/313/357 with 1136:674 K:BB and a 3.46 ERA in 2128 innings.
also, more Dock (bad words warning)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO281JqXQdc
That game was talked about for months and mentioned here and there for years in the part of Ohio where I grew up.
This.
Oh, and Oswalt should be suspended for 5 games.
He didn't have to throw out Diamond. He could've issued a warning at that point, even if he thought it was intentional. You see it all the time.
I don't know that he would have, if Diamond would've kept the ball about rib/back level.
I didn't watch the game last night either... why did they throw at Mauer?
Probably a combination of 3-0 count so why not? and Oswalt is jealous of Joe's contract/success/sideburns/awesomemess
Michael Rand asked the same question.
I think if you hit a guy on 3-0 count with a fastball, it's awfully suspicious.
A warning should have been issued after Oswalt threw at Mauer. When Bell did nothing about that, what did he think was going to happen next?
I turned on the game on the radio right as the Twins were out in the third. Dazzle was quite agitated. I knew Diamond would be plunking a Ranger, that he would get ejected, and that Gardy would get pissed and get ejected. I was just wondering if Gardy would let him simmer to get more innings out of him, but I found that unlikely. If I can get all that out of one announcer's tone of voice for 15 seconds and a mention that Mauer got hit by a pitch and Gardy's been as mad as he'd ever seen him, I wonder what Bell was thinking.
And I thought all that when I assumed that warnings had been issued.
Also: Dazzle apparently is a very good announcer when it comes to mood on the field.
Nine innocents and the gunman shot outside the Empire State building. Does anyone think we should do something about this?
Perhaps. But let's tread cautiously here.
It is a sad commentary indeed that this is a political topic, but I do recognize that it is.
As an Arizonan, I'm subject to politicos using this social issue to gain votes on a regular basis. I really, really want to relate a mind-bogglingly stupid oxymoron I heard on a political ad today, but I'll refrain.
First caucus + swing state = Iowa is the f***king worst.
And the worst part of the state, as far as that sort of thing is concerned, is the Sioux City area. You get the ads from Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
Awful, awful news.
It's also exactly 4,000 since 9/11. (Hat tip, as always, to Chris Jaffe.)
Yikes, apparently some of the victims were accidentally shot by the Police! (none seriously)
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/24/shooting-reported-outside-empire-state-building/?hpt=hp_t1
I will tread cautiously here since it is close to the boundary. This could be viewed as a gun issue or a public mental health issue or a combination of both. How you attempt to resolve the issue depends largely on how you perceive it.
Bad day in midtown Manhattan, normal weekend in Chicago.
Worse than that - 19 people were shot last night in Chicago. Funny ain't it, the things that get attention and the things that don't?
i remember a couple years back that not only was the radio noting the general murder rate for the year, but they were also keeping a separate tally of "school aged children that have died violent deaths". i'm pretty sure it topped minneapolis' total rate.
FWIW, the murder rate for the city of Chicago has declined from over 900 per year in 1991-92 to under 500 per year in 2004-2011. Lots of great data from the Chicago police department. That's a model for transparency.
progress?
nationally, violent crimes have trended down ever so slightly and property crimes more noticeably since 2000 at least.
Absolutely true. The world is a much safer place than when we were kids. Most people don't realize that.
Chicago still has a problem (murder rate much higher than NYC despite being 1/3 the size, etc.).
The difference is perception. When we were kids, we didn't have 24 hour news channels constantly detailing the world's violent vagaries and atrocities in high-definition video. If it didn't happen in our own back yards, we were largely and blissfully ignorant of it. Today there's a lot money to be made by telling people to be afraid, be very afraid. We have a biologically based affinity to fear that is rooted in evolution, fear reactions are survival mechanisms. Fear does really interesting things to brain chemistry and body physiology, adrenalin rushes and whatnot. It's why amusement park rides and horror movies are such popular forms of entertainment. But today we get too much fear fed to us far too frequently, and for no good reason from a survival standpoint.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Muok29bJA
It's this same reason that people fear flying, while I (rightly) am more worried about my drive to the airport far more than flying itself.
Hey, where did those plant-thingys in my header come from?
I've gotten them sometimes, too. The fresh plants hide the smell a bit -- I like!
it's one of the default banners that seems to have been added back to the rotation.
Yep. When I update themes, I have to copy the header images to keep them in the rotation and remove the default images. I must have forgotten to remove them last time I updated.
I thought it was meant to signify Rhu_Ru's allergies.
long as it's not Oak, I'm good to go
I read this as "plant-thingys in my head" and I thought you were replying to Twayn's comment on mental health issues.
I wanted to "weigh" in on yesterday's discussion on losing weight. This Fall will be the 4th year anniversary of my losing 40 pounds and keeping it off. While exercise is important, I think calorie counting is a key to any weight loss. I basically found out that I could be very satisfied with a 1,600-1,700 calorie diet. I basically try to limit myself to 500 or so calories during the day and then a nice 1000-1200 calories at dinner. Fortunately there are many on-line and smart phone apps to help you determine the calories you are consuming. I basically stayed away from fat and sugar and yes cut down on alcohol consumption.
It's well worth it as my health metrics are night and day what they were 4.5 years ago, including low cholesterol, low blood pressure, and a resting heart rate of about 60-65 (other nighttime activity performance issues also vastly improved as well!). Exercise definitely helps, but you can lose weight by just eating less, and better, food. I know a bunch of citizens have small kids and it's hard to fit in an exercise regime, but if you can improve how you eat, you can lose the pounds as well.
Congratulations. That is awesome.
I agree that it is tough to exercise while raising young kids. That is why I run 3 miles on tuesday and Thursday and either run or bike on the weekend. I can fit in a 3 mile run much better than other workouts.
Like Ubelmann mentioned, I have tried to focus on speed. I have been using an app on my phone to track the runs. It has really helped me to drop my times. I am not in his range for a 5k but I have 10+ years on him.
Re: apps. My wife and I use My Fitness Pal, and it's been great as a guide to better eating. Awareness of what you actually eat in a day or week is important. Also, my blood pressure after my cardiac rehab workout yesterday was 96/54 (about 140/70 during the workout) and my heart rate was 60 (between 90-115 during the workout). Meds are part of that, but a month of steady aerobic workouts is starting to have the desired effect, too.
Linds and I are sticking with Adroid OS phones because we love the free app "WW Diary" so much. We've been doing a sort of hybridized weight watchers points system for about a year and a half. I've dropped 25 in that time, and have managed to keep it off.
The summer months are,weirdly enough, harder for me. It's so nice out, and everyone wants to do cookouts and go out for drinks and stuff and I have a hard time staying the course when I'm out at a bar'n'grill and keep myself from having a beer and a burger. Once a month or two wouldn't be so bad, but during the summer, that number skyrockets sometimes to once or twice a week.
Regardless, overall, the diet has been a success, and winter's coming, and I eat like a bird during the winter.
Summer is definitely better for me. Yesterday's conversation inspired me to step on a scale for the first time in about a month. I've discovered that my diet and general increased activity level have me at my lowest weight in about 2 years. I also give some of the credit to having been on thyroid meds for about a year now.
My diet - except for soda and eating out a little too much - is pretty solid, especially with help from our CSA in the summer. I completely endorse Free's comments on how helpful diet can be. Adding exercise could be key.
I will throw in, echoing yesterday and free's comments above, that it's not about pounds per say. It's about fitness and feeling good about yourself. There is growing, credible evidence that standing up and walking around for two minutes a couple of times per hour and walking ~20 minutes per day cumulative has substantial health benefits. [also, chocolate milk!]
I'm one of those people who has always struggled mentally with la petit workout. I was a 4-hour workout marathon guy in high school, and even now I struggle to find satisfaction in my current routine, which takes about an hour before I start the stretching part. But a walk around the block in the middle of the day can do a lot for your mental and physical state.
Arya?
I intended to weigh in on this topic at some point in the future. But, since this has become a topic, I think I'll talk now. I will note that at the old site we had a feature run by GH about fitness that didn't gain the traction that it should have. If the powers that be are willing to set up a cup of coffee style post, I would be willing to maintain a fitness post for those who are into fitness or want to be on a daily basis from at least now until the end of the year.
I weighed about 215 pounds when I went to law school in 2001. After the first year, I started to put on weight rapidly and ballooned to nearly 300 pounds. I am a pretty tall guy and I can carry a lot of weight, but that's way too much.
Last summer, I joined a gym (Lifetime Fitness) in an effort to start losing weight. I worked out, but the weight wasn't coming off. I kind of lost hope and gave up, meanwhile still paying the dues (of course).
When I saw twayn's sorry-about-the-game-log-but-im-in-cardiac-arrest post, I was scared. I'm not much younger than him, I realized that I have to do something. On July 25th, I stepped on the scale: 284.5. Oy vey.
I found an 1800 calorie diet that is pretty well-balanced. I started on that diet that day. I have not felt hungry (much), despite a drastic cut back in the amount I have eaten. I started going to the gym every day that I am in Minnesota. As of this morning, one day shy of one month, I am at 268.8, a loss of 15.7 pounds. My goal is 200 pounds. I am going to make it.
If you want to join me in working on it, you can post on the post that I will set up, if sean and spooky are okay with that. This site and the previous one have given me so much. If you are up for it, I will try to help you come with me on this journey. And if you are already in the non-need-some-help class of folks, hey, feel free to join in.
congrats, Emeritus. And I heartily (see what I did there?) endorse the revival of a daily/weekly fitness post. Peer pressure is an important part of maintaining commitment to a fitness routine for lots of us.
i don't think you saw what he did there.
anyway, i'm all in favor of this. maybe seeing all of you fatties' progress will jostle me from my torpor.
what what?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vou51-755I
My contribution to the thread: today's lunch.
I was going to say that the best thing I ever did, both for my health and my financial wellbeing, was bringing a sandwich in to work 4 days a week. I'm not the type of get sick of a sandwich (ever), so it works out great.
I'm not the type of get sick of a sandwich (ever)
This. I get grief from all corners (my co-workers and my spouse) about my constant diet of sandwiches for lunch (and often, dinner). I don't understand it.
Huh, I never have. Wait, I did when I would eat grilled cheese almost every day while unemployed. Never got grief about anything else though. You're with friends here DG (and nibs).
that's why I love this place.
The WGOM - a safe place for sandwich eaters
eh, the can of corn quote is still better.
i think we need rotating subheads, like at the casa, and that would fit perfectly.
anyway, yeah, i'm totally with you guys. in a addition to a general love of sandwiches, i worked at
big mike'smilio's/jimmy john's for about 4ish years total, and i ate literally thousand of sandwiches in that span. hell, i lived off them for a time (seriously, my fridge would only have one i made for the night, and 2 wrapped in saran wrap for the next day, and a couple random condiments (plus one in my belly from during my shift)). i love me some sammiches.I usually make mine with bagels, but Runner daughter has discovered thin bagels at Target, which I used now.
mmm, jimmy johns. I do miss that about Chambana.
I like sandwiches just fine, but usually take leftovers for lunch. I'm always running late in the mornings; making a lunch is just one more thing to do in the morning.
butbutbut: Costco sells big packs of whole wheat sammich thins. A good alternative to the thin bagels for those interested in cutting down the carbs but still want a tasty sammich now and then.
I'm talking whole wheat
me too. sometimes you feel like having a hole in your bread [hole wheat?], sometimes you don't.
Cherry tomatoes FTW.
Yeah, this might be the kind of kick in the butt I need.
That sounds like a great idea.
Boss, I would be happy to pitch and help with this. I decided in the hospital that I wasn't going to be quiet about what happened to me. I want people to know. I was looking again last night at the pictures from the angiogram they gave me, I hadn't really looked at them since getting home from the hospital. I'm no doctor, but from what I've read over the last month (and that is quite a bit), I'm damn lucky to be alive, and just as lucky not to have suffered extreme damage to a big chunk of heart tissue. They don't call an MI of the left main artery or the LAD (left anterior descending) artery the widow-maker for nothing. I had a long 90+% blockage pretty high up on the LAD. That's the one that feeds a sizeable portion of the left side of the heart, which is the side that does the main pumping. Damage that tissue too badly and your overall health is going to suffer for a long, long time, if you survive. That said, I'm not really out of the woods yet. I have another 70% blockage in the right coronary artery, and two 50% blockages in the right circumflex. I have a nuclear stress test scheduled for next Friday and that should tell us a lot more about additional risks and potential treatments. The hope is that with diet, exercise and meds we'll be able to manage it without another angioplasty/stent. There are no guarantees, but so far things seem to be going in my favor. I'm going to do everything I can to keep it that way.
Funny, stick, you and I are in the same boat. I just stepped on the scale this morning, sighed, and went make my diet plans. Over the last 5 months I've gone from working out every day (45 minutes of cardio, 30 minutes of lifting, and a 60 minute walk) to a near standstill, and have significantly worsened my diet. Yeah, time to eat healthy, get more bike rides in, and to stop commuting.
Got to be hard to control what you eat in your city, meat. So much temptation, so many things you don't want to say no to.
I'm all for this. You can create categories right? Please create one and a spot can be found somewhere to put the latest post in that category. I had already written some code for this before, so I will work on polishing that tonight.
Created "WGOM Fitness" category.
In anticipation, I even created a flickr account to upload pictures of lunch. Or food pr0n, as the case may be.
I lost a little over 20 pounds about two years ago. For me, the key was diet, much more than exercise. I gone on exercise kicks before at times, but got discouraged because I could not lose any weight on them. When I changed my diet (basically cutting back on sweets, breads, and potatoes, and adding more fresh fruits and vegatables), I started losing weight. After I lost some weight, I thought, "Gee, maybe I could actually get in decent shape if I exercised," so I started. Don't get me wrong, exercise is a good thing, but for me at least, the key to losing weight was changing my diet.
Plus one... hahaha... (for heaven, that is)
wait, William Windom died?? crap.
Commodore Decker! Of course, he die
ds in 2267.Being a big James Thurber fan, I once looked into creating a DVD release for the series "My World And Welcome To It." I thought it would be cool to have Windom do some commentary tracks. But the rights situation is SNAFU and I gave up.
yeah, I loved that one when it was on. it was a bit too ahead of its time, unfortunately
Wow, I hadn't realized the Thurbur angle on that one. My first TV crush was Lisa Garretsen.
(Sounds as though Klawitter might be sitting in the catbird's seat.)
Pocketa-pocketa! The cute Lisa Garritsen soon thereafter played Phyllis's daughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, bringing it all back home to Minnesota.
That's right!
(And I am thoroughly embarrassed that I misspelled Thurber.)
I'm cutting myself some slack on misspelling Garritsen, however...
What's funny is I didn't even notice your Thurber misspelling, yet I somehow caught Garritsen.
Even funnier how a TV actress from 40 years ago was easily recalled, and yet I couldn't remember if I turned off the lights at my studio when I left it fifteen minutes ago. (I hadn't, but I had to walk back there to confirm.)
httpv://youtu.be/B-Wd-Q3F8KM
Apropos to nothing, on the way home last night I stopped at an old guy's house because he had a little vegetable stand set up in his front yard. I bought 8 nice big garden tomatoes for 5 bucks, ate one as soon as I got home and had another with dinner. He also had a big bucket of gorgeous gladiolus for 6 bucks a bunch, so I grabbed one of those, too. Mrs. Twayn was surprised and thrilled and romanced that was the best six bucks I've spent in many a week. Buy your ladies some flowers, gentlemen. For no reason at all. You'll be glad you did.
Who says waiver trade season isn't exciting?
JC Romero gets excused.
A 14-year career in the bigs is nothing to sneer at.
and almost all suspension-free!
Wow. This is amazing. The Boston Public Library put a huge historical baseball photoset on Flickr. I'm sure we could do a CSI on a few of them.
Awesome. Me thinks someone should go through and queue up a bunch of CSI posts. Aim for the off days. Wait, that's every day now...
I had a look at one from c1925 and there was no Retrosheet data, so things could be very difficult.
Looks like they're roughly in chronological order. On page 40 I see dates in the '50s, so some of those might be possible if SABR hasn't already figured it out.
Possibilities: one, two (same game as one?), three. Looks like many of them are limited to available time at this point.
I think we can get those catcher collision ones down.
I like this one. Players out at home are uncommon enough that it might be possible to narrow it down to a few games. We get a good view of the unidentified player's face as well.
Edit: Crap, 1940 means no play-by-play. We would have boxscores, but that's it.
There might not be much research to do. It seems many of the in-game photos have detailed notes already from SABR.
touchdown!!!!!111
these replacement refs have been atrocious. If the NFL think they will have a quality product during the regular season with these clowns, they are wrong.