Random thoughts of the week

Our Netflix queue has 497 "movies". I put movies in quotes because I'd guess 1/4 to 1/3 of the items are TV show discs. The strange part is that the queue has consistently grown since we signed up, it never really goes down. I watch plenty of stuff, but add at a faster pace. How long can that continue? Keep in mind that I almost never put something on the queue that I've already watched.
UPDATE: I think the queue has a maximum of 500, so I now know where the growth will stop.

Why are people incapable of putting food in the microwave at my office and waiting for it? Almost every single time I use the microwave (maybe twice a week) I need to remove the food from the person before me. On Monday, I walked into the kitchen a split second after someone else, who grabbed the microwave before me, which is fine. The person realized I also wanted the microwave and apoligized profusely. Then this person left. Her food finished, I removed it, microwaved mine and only after mine was done did she return.

I received a jury duty notification yesterday. The form has a questionaire that must be filled out and returned. The first question says "Can you read, write and understand the English language?". It then repeats the question in Spanish. Thats the only Spanish on the entire form.

2 new restaurants

I figured I'd get myself ready for lunch by talking about 2 new restaurants I've recently tried.

First is the Belgian Cafe at 21st & Green. This place is owned by the people who own Monk's, so the Belgian theme is fitting. The decor of the place was simple, lots of wood giving the bar area an old feel to it, even though the place opened this year. I got a mussel dish that was very tasty, lots of spices and a little bit of some (garlic?) sausage. The mussels were served with bread which was not great, but was perfect to soak up the juices from the mussels, and frites, which were good, but thicker and not as good as the ones served at Monks. To drink I had the De Ranke Pere Noel, which was tasty but a bit more subtle that I was looking for in a holiday ale.

The second place I tried was the Roadhouse Grille in Skippack Village. I went there for a holiday dinner with work and the place impressed me. I started out with a crab bisque that was excellent. It had large chunks of crab and was also a very large amount of soup. For my entree I had the rack of lamb with gnocchi. The lamb was also excellent, perfectly cooked and seasoned. The gnocchi were a little heavy, but not bad. For dessert I had a white chocolate cheesecake that was very good. I also had an espresso that was not good. It was very light, and only warm, not hot. Overall, the place had good food, and good service. Just don't get the coffee.

Best of Craigslist

Every so often I love to peruse through the Best of Craigslist. Here are some interesting posts:

M&Ms

SEPTA

Car for sale

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?

If a football game is on the NFL network and no one sees it, did it really happen?

The answer in both cases is obviously yes. But there has been a lot of complaining lately about games being shown only on the NFL network which some cable companies do not carry and some (like Comcast in Philly) carry, but on a special sports tier that most people do not have.

So is this such a bad thing?

Well from the NFL's perspective I think its brilliant. It gets people to subscribe to their channel who otherwise would never subscribe. But the publicity is not great. In the long run though, I see it as a positive for them. In 10 years if lots of people have the channel and can watch the exclusive games, who will remember the games from 2006 and 2007 that they missed?

From a diehard fan's perspective it depends on if your cable company offers the channel. A diehard will not care about the $3 or $5 a month for the network. They will care a lot if its not available.

From my perspective (as a casual fan), I just don't care. Over the course of the season, the NFL network may show 10 games, of which 2 or 3 will be of interest. For those I can head over to a friend's house or to a bar (which I did last night).


The NFL network is also a great lead in to my next topic, ala carte cable. My cable package includes a lot of channels, probably close to 300, even without counting the 100 music stations. Of all these channels I would say 95% of my TV viewing comprises:
ESPN & ESPN2
Network channels (Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC)
Comedy Central
Turner Classic Movies
TNT
TBS
Comcast SportsNet & CN8
Versus
The Encore suite of movie channels
MOJO
G4
Other movie channels (IFC, Fox Movies, Flix, etc)

I will also occasionally watch A&E, Bravo, USA, Travel Channel, AMC, FX, Spike,
Food Network.

This totals roughly 35, maybe 40 channels. The rest I completely ignore. So why should I need to pay for them? The real reason is that Comcast and other cable providers say so. Well what is stopping a new cable company from offering channels ala carte?

I suspect that the networks are part of the problem. If one company owns 10 different channels, they may require that all 10 be included together.

The advantages to ala carte are that the consumers will likely save money, choosing only the channels they are likely to watch. In addition this forces networks to put out better products. Right now a lot of channels know they're included in all cable packages, so there is less incentive to improve.

The one disadvantage I see is the possibility that start up channels will have more difficulty breaking through. I started watching MOJO and G4 because we had them and now I enjoy a few shows on the channels, but I'd never have seen them if they weren't automatically included. Of course, if a channel promotes itself correctly, this may not be an issue (example: if the major league baseball network ever gets off the ground I would order even without seeing it because I know what the product would be.)

Overall, I'd like to see ala carte choices. However, I someone doubt this will be happening any time soon.

And the award goes to ...

The baseball awards have been handed out so now its time for some fun facts. I'm not going to delve into whether or not voters made correct choices, there are enough people doing that already.

Rollins won the MVP a year after Ryan Howard pocketed the award. How many times have different teammates won the award in consecutive years? Well its happened way more than I orginally expected, 20 times including this year. But then I realized with only 8 teams in a league, this would happen more often. 4 times, we had 3 different teammates win in consecutive years. A full list is here:

Walter Johnson and Roger Peckinpaugh for the Senators in 1924-25 (although AL MVP rules at the time allowed a player to only win the award once, so Johnson was ineligible in 1925)
Rogers Hornsby and Bob O'Farrell for the Cardinals in 1925-26
Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx for the A's in 1931-32 (Foxx won again in 1933)
Mickey Cochrange and Hank Greenburg for the Tigers in 1934-35
Ernie Lombardi and Bucky Walters and Frank McCormick !!! for the Red in 1938-40
Joe DiMaggio and Joe Gordon and Spud Chandler !!! for the Yankees in 1941-43
Mort Cooper and Stan Musial and Marty Marion !!! for the Cardinals in 1942-44
Phil Rizzuto and Yogi Berra for the Yankees in 1950-51
Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle for the Yankees in 1955-56 (Berra also won in 54, Mantle also won in 57)
Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe in 1955-56
Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle and Elston Howard !!! in 1961-63 (Maris also won in 60)
Maury Wills and Sandy Koufax in 1962-63
Orlando Cepeda and Bob Gibson in 1967-68
Johnny Bench and Pete Rose in 1972-73
Joe Morgan and George Foster in 1976-77 (Morgan also won in 75)
Dave Parker and Willie Stargell in 1978-79 (Stargell tied for the award)
Rollie Fingers and Robin Yount in 1981-82
Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez in 1998-99
Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds in 2000-01 (Bonds also won from 02-04)


Chase Utley will have a lot of pressure on him next year to get the three-peat.

Also note that this has happened 7 times with the Cy Young.
And lastly on this topic, the Dodgers once had 5 consecutive rookies of the year. I did not confirm, but I assume this is a record

For an award that voters seem to just vote for last years winners, the gold glove had 10 first time winners, by my count. It doesn't mean much, but I thought it was interesting.

Eating in Philly

We spent a lot of time in center city over the weekend, so I thought I'd review some new places we visited.

On Friday night we went to Marathon Grill on 16th & Sansom. The place was not too large, but we had no trouble getting a table. The service was a little slow, but it was a Friday night. The menu sounded really good and I had a tough time deciding. The seafood bisque did not impress me, it was really just some shreded fish, almost like what you'd get out of a can of tuna. I had a turkey BLT with guacamole for dinner. Unfortunately, you couldn't really taste the guacamole, so it was just a BLT. The meal came with a side of potato salad that was good. The beer selection was nothing impressive, I believe a Flying Fish, Yuengling, and one other decent tap I can;t remember. Overall, an ok place, but not one that I'm in a hurry to get back to.

After dinner we went to Lucky Strike to bowl. Again I'd never been there before, so I didn't know what to expect. It was fairly posh for my normal drinking nights. I drank Sam Adams Octoberfest, which isn't my favorite octoberfest, but is still good. The bowling was of course fun, albiet a bit pricy.

On Saturday we started our night with a pre-dinner drink at Zot on Lombard between 2nd and Front Sts. The place is a beer bar, specializing in Belgians. They had 4 beers on tap, Karmeliet Triple, Blanche de Bruxelles, Delirium Tremens and I can't remember the other one. I had the Karmeliet which was very tasty. The wife had some wine, their wine selection didn't look too bad. After dinner we returned here and I had a few other Belgian beers, Gouden, Brugse Zot and of course more Karmeliet. Interesting fact, they run a happy hour with 1/2 priced drafts from 10-midnight. We of course took advantage of this. Overall, the place had a good Belgian beer selection, mostly in bottles, and was not nearly as crowded as a place like Monks or Eulogy (possibly because it is much newer). The food menu looked good, including about 20 kinds of mussels, but we did not eat there.

Between Zot visits, we eat next door at Bistro Romano. The restaurant runs some dinner theaters, although we didn't participate. We were seated downstairs at a booth. We had a bottle of Nero D'Alova which was good, and priced around $30. The wife and I split a smoked mozzarella appetizer which was very good, even though there wasn't much to it besides the cheese. I had a glazed duck for my entree. The portions were very large, and my duck was tasty, although maybe a touch overdone. The only thing I didn't like were the peppercorns. I like when things are flavored with peppercorns, but I hate actually biting into them. The wife had a fusilli pasta dish with chicken and peppers. The toppings were good, but the pasta was way past al dente. Overall it was a good place and other things on the menu looking interesting to try as well.

And to close out the new restaurants post, we got take out from Alex's pizza last night. They are a little hole in the wall pizza place on the corner of Pechin and Leverington. The pizzas are smaller than some, a large fed 2 people well, but not too pricy ($9.50 with 1 topping). The pizza is fairly thin crust, a bit too crispy for my taste. The sauce was ok, could have used some more spices and the cheese was ok, but slightly lacking in quantity. Not a great pizza, but better than most of what you'll find around Manayunk.

hockey stats

The NHL has gone through several somewhat major rule changes over the years, which makes it somewhat difficult to compare players and teams across eras. So here's my attempt at rectifying this.

From the beginning of the NHL up to and including the 1998-99 season, points were awarded as follows:
Win in regulation - 2 points
Loss in regulation - 0 points
Win in overtime - 2 points
Loss in overtime - 0 points
Tie - 1 point

This meant that for every game, 2 points were awarded. So the number of points in the standings was (# of teams) * (# of games in the season)

From the 1999-00 season until 2003-04 season, points were awarded as:
Win in regulation - 2 points
Loss in regulation - 0 points
Win in overtime - 2 points
Loss in overtime - 1 points
Tie - 1 point

The difference is the point for an overtime loss. The idea was that teams were playing for a tie in overtime rather than risk earning nothing, so they gave both teams a point going into overtime, then if someone scored they got another point. What this did was increase the number of points in the standings, making it (# of teams) * (# of games in the season) + (# of games won in overtime). More than adding points, this also added variation to the number of points each season, leading to different playoff qualifying situtaions each year.

Since 2005-06, the scoring is:
Win in regulation - 2 points
Loss in regulation - 0 points
Win in overtime - 2 points
Loss in overtime - 1 points
Win in shootout - 2 points
Loss in shootout - 1 points

Ties are eliminated, so every overtime game will yield 3 points. Since shootout wins and overtime wins are identical from a points perspective, I'll just refer to both of these as OT wins. So the number of points in the system is (# of teams) * (# of games in the season) + (# of games going to overtime). We still have variation and an even larger number of points than the other two settings.


So who was better, the 05-06 Red Wings with 124 points, 01-02 Red Wings with 116 points, or 97-98 Stars with 109 points?? (These are arbitrary comparisons)

One option is to look at the ratio of points earned to the average # of points a team earned in those 3 years.

97-98 teams averaged 82, ratio is 1.33
01-02 teams averaged 86.03, ratio is 1.35
05-06 teams averaged 91.47, ratio is 1.36

We can alternatively look at the number of standard deviations each is away from the mean:
97-98 Stars - 1.71
01-02 Red Wings - 1.995
05-06 Red Wings - 1.976

The 109 points is clearly not quite as impressive, but the 116 and 124 look very close. The ratios are nearly identical, with the 116 being more SDs away from the mean, largely due to the increase in variance in points under the current system. Of course, the evidence is really telling us that 116 in 01-02 is roughly equivalent to 124 in 05-06 (or any year in today's system). So always be weary of comparing team points without acknowledging the system under which it was obtained.

So what does it mean for this season?? Well last year 22.8% of games went to OT. So far a sixth of the way into this season, only 13.9% of games are going to OT. So instead of 2741 points last year, we're on pace for 2631 points, which is only slightly more than we saw in the previous points system. If this keeps up (I don't have game by game data to see if this is possibly a typical early season trend), expect teams to need fewer points to reach the playoffs. Instead of 93.75 (the average in the past 2 years), a team might need only 90.

Of course if Ottawa keeps hogging all the points, things could change.

The other implication of the new system is on goalie stats, but that will need to wait for another post.

At a loss for words

As of yesterday, the writer's guild is officially on strike. While I'm not a person who will automatically side with unions, I am definitely on the writers' side here. The main reason for the strike as I understand it is the negotiations over newer forms of media including internet content. The studios (and probably most management) tends to try and create the rules or carry over old rules when new forms arise. Similar instances occurred when the home video market took off.

The last writers strike was in 1988 and lasted 5 months. I have no idea how long this will last, but hopefully it will be quick.

Supposedly reality shows will be unaffected by the strike, but I hate most reality shows, so this does not bode well for me. Two of my favorite shows, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report are already on re-runs. I've read that the Office and Scrubs have a few episodes written that they can shoot, although it must be somewhat confusing for the office when half their stars are also writers. (See this site for more Office discussion). The other rumor is that Scrubs will not have a series finale.

I'm also curious how other shows with continuously running themes such as 24 will handle the strike. Ignoring the fact that the premise of 24 is that a season is 24 episodes, I would imagine that no more than a third of the season is written. If the strike could last until spring, then they might be better off delaying the start of the season (scheduled for January).

I'm guessing movies will be least effected since writing takes place far earlier in the production timeline. Plus if you watch TV and movies you get the impression that Hollywood has billions and billions of scripts floating around.

So I guess I'll be spending the next few months catching up on movies and shows I've missed over the past few years and watching more football and hockey. If anyone has heard info on other shows, please comment.

Mad Dog

One of my favorite pitchers of all time, Greg Maddux, re-signed with the Padres for another year. Obviously at 41 he's no longer the pitcher he was in the mid 90s, but he's still a slightly above average start who stays healthy. Since 1988, the fewest starts he's made in a non-strike shortened year was 33!! For comparison's sake, Pedro Martinez has started 33 games 3 times, but thats the most he's ever started.

In fact, as scary as this sounds, if Maddux pitches 3 more seasons and gets 100 starts (I know its a big if, but a pitcher of his style can last), he'll be only 8 starts shy of tying Cy Young.

Since we know he'll pitch in 2008, lets look at some numbers.

He's 7 wins shy of Clemens at 354, which he should get easily (assuming Clemens actually retires). He's 14 shy of Kid Nichols and 16 shy of Spahn. Last year he had 14 wins, so this range is possible.

If he stays healthy, he'll end the season in 4th for all time games started, passing Clemens (they are tied), Carlton and Niekro

He's currently 16th in innings pitched and could pass Clemens, Bobby Mathews (who??) and Blyleven.

He never was much of a strikeout guy, but still sits at 11th all time. He should pass Niekro.

I can't say how long he'll pitch, but I'll be rooting for him.

random thoughts

The Gmail inbox always has a link on top to some random website. The title of the website is related to whatever emails you've recently been reading. These are quite humorous to me, especially when the keywords in the email they read have multiple meanings.

Our neighborhood (Manayunk) has lots of college students and other young adults, so weekend parties are common. Walking around on a Saturday or Sunday morning will show you the evidence of the parties such as beer bottles sometimes with a little beer still in them. Usually the beer is crap, but yesterday I walked by an empty bottle of Flying Dog Dogtoberfest and I smiled.

Daylight savings time ended this past weekend, which gave us an extra hour!! This year the switch was made a week later than usual, but many people had calendars printed before the change was implemented and possibly got confused. My parents very nearly would have missed a flight if I didn't mention it to them. Is the change in DST worth the potential confusion? I say no.

My DVR is set to record a bunch of series, but it won't record them in HD. Even if I set the recording on the HD channel, it will resort to the regular version of that channel. Anybody else encounter this problem?

My office instant message program has a feature where you can select people and invite them to a meeting on the spot. However, if you don't select anybody it will invite everybody in your list, which can be quite long. I just got one of these invites. It doesn't bother me too much, I laugh at it, partially because I committed this error when I started working here.

The Sunday night football game yesterday consisted of the broadcast being "green". This does not mean people wore their Eagles jerseys, but rather that the broadcast was eco-friendly, including the studio being in darkness. Excuse me if I'm not impressed with an event that flies hundreds of people around the country and then turns the lights out. I hate these bullshit, purely symbolic acts.

When life gives you lemons ...

some people make lemonade.

I make limoncello.

For those unfamiliar, limoncello is an Italian liquor made from lemons (obviously) that is often served (chilled) as an after dinner drink.

I got a recipe from my parents and decided to make some. The process is fairly easy, although zesting lemons can be tiring. I finished it this weekend and had some last night. It was pretty good. I was very worried about the amount of sugar added. I didn't want an overly sweet or overly bitter drink, but it came out very nice. The good news is I have 5 1/4 liters (about 1.3 gallons), so it will last me a long time.

Stop by if you want to try.

Tennis update

Federer lost to Nalbandian again.

Did I just write that?

Anyway, we're down to 6 as Berdych loses missing out on Nalbandian's gifts and the 8th place holder heading into Paris (Haas) also loses.

Gonzalez can't like Federer going out, but he'll still advance unless Youzhny beats the Gasquet/Murray winner in the final OR Robredo plays the Gasquet/Murray winner in the final.

Robredo is in ok shape. He must win against Baghdatis (who is up 5-3 in the first as I write this). That could be enough, but may not be, we'll see.

Gasquet/Murray - Again these two are paired because the winner will make the semis. If Robredo loses, that will likely be enough, if he wins, they'll need to win another match as well.

Youzhny - Beat Nadal, beat the Robredo/Baghdatis winner, win in the final and he's in.

Baghdatis - Still needs to win, and also needs the Nalbandian/Ferrer winner to advance to the final. Much better chances than yesterday, but not fantastic.

Booking a flight from Paris to Shanghai

The tennis season is coming to a close. The final masters event in Paris is currently in the round of 16, and next week we have the masters cup for the top 8 players in Shanghai. 6 players (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Davydenko, Roddick, and Ferrer) have locked up spots in the tourney. The results in Paris will determine who will get the final 2 spots.

Going into this tournament, an amazing 18 people still had a chance at one of the two spots. (Hewitt would have made 19 had he played in the tournament). Well at this point, several have lost, or in the case of Nalbandian other results have hurt him and we're down to 9 (as of 10:00am in Philly). So lets handicap the 9, in the order they were entering the tournament.

Gonzalez - lost in the 2nd round, but had a decent hold on 7th place entering Paris. Needs to be passed by 2 people, which will only happen if the finals are between 2 of the following players. So he's got a very good shot at Shanghai.

Haas - In 8th place entering Paris, but has the daunting task of Nadal in his quarter. Needs to make the semis at least, I'm not liking his chances.

Robredo - Won earlier today to make the quarters and will face Baghdatis tomorrow. A win there could be enough.

Blake, Murray, Gasquet - These 3 I'm grouping together because they're in the same quarter and have almost the same number of points. They lucked out when Djokovic lost, meaning one of the 3 will make the semifinals. Dependent upon Robredo and Haas, that could be enough to get the winner to Shanghai. Blake plays Gasquet today and the winner takes on Murray tomorrow.

Berdych - Will need to beat Ferrer and then Federer (or Nalbandian) and even that will most likely not be enough, chances very slim

Youzhny - If he wins the tournament, he'll get enough points, otherwise no chance.

Baghdatis - Very slim chance. He needs to win, plus he needs to play Nalbandian, Federer or Ferrer in the final.

So other than Gonzalez, Robredo is possibly in the best position, especially since he's already won today. I'll be cheering for Blake, but I rarely have much hope when I do that.

UPDATE: Blake holds to form and loses. He is out and tomorrow Murray and Gasquet will play. Nadal also won, meaning Haas (or Youzhny) would need to beat him.

Everybody must get Stoned!

I'm a big fan of the Stone Brewery from California. They continuously amaze me with their beers, the Russian Imperial Stout, Arrogant Bastard (regular and oaked), the Vertical Epic series, etc. All tremendous beers. Last night, for the first time, I tried the Double Arrogant Bastard. This may be my new favorite Stone beer. Its quite hoppy (would you expect anything else from Stone?) but with a great caramelly malt flavor. And it packs a punch at 10%. Its not an easy beer to find (especially living in PA), but I will definitely drink this again and again.

Cheesesteaks or Chowder?

The Philly metro had a fun article yesterday comparing Philly and Boston as sports towns.

2 ounces of heaven

I attended a beer festival this past Saturday in New York City. I've been to several beer festivals in the past including the World Beer Festival in Durham, NC (several times), the Brewer's Jam in Knoxville, TN, and the Philadelphia Craft Beer Festival. For those familiar with the movie Bull Durham, the World Beer Fest is held annually on the field from the movie, which is the former home of the Durham Bulls.

We had a great time at the Brewtopia this past weekend. Got to try several new beers and brewers. Some quick comments:

1) The best beer at the festival (at least of the ones I tried) was the Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence, a 10th anniversary specialty of the brewery.

2) There was a stand selling beer chips for $1. This was brilliant.

3) I know Halloween is around the corner, but I was still surprised by how many people dressed up in costumes.


Anyway, I starting thinking about what would be my guide to beer festivals. So here goes. (For those who have never been, beer festivals generally consist of unlimited small samples (2-4 ounces) of as many beers as you want.) We're going to break this down into 2 sections, tips for festival goers and tips for a well run festival.

Participant tips:
1) Eat. This is obviously key to any drinking experience, but its the most important. I also recommend eating before the festival, because the food lines can be long. Who wants to wait in line when they can drink beer instead. I saw people with pretzel necklaces last weekend, this is also a good idea.

2) Try as many new beers as possible. If Sam Adams has a stand, I'm not going to drink their Lager, I've had it many times. If they have the honey porter, then I'm interested. My point is, this is the perfect time to be adventurous, its a small sample and if you don't like it, don't finish it. If you are at a beer festival that doesn't have at least 20 beers you've never had, well then I'm impressed because I've tried a lot of different beers (my current list is over 700) and I always find lots of new and interesting beers.

3) Take notes. Ideally, the festival will give you a list of the beers, but not all of them are smart enough. I try to write down all the beers I try with at least a basic rating of how much I like it. By the end you'll get a little drunk and won't remember every single beer, so trust me, write it down. These notes tend to get very sloppy.

4) Arrive early. All beer festivals are required to check ID, so its sometimes a slow process getting in and you never want to waste precious drinking time. I've seen lines that take 1 1/2 hours to get every person inside.

5) Choose your session wisely. Beer festivals often have an afternoon and evening session. The evening sessions tend to get a younger, rowdier crowd. If you're into that, great. If not, the afternoon session may suit you better. Another plus is that afternoon sessions are less likely to run out of a particular beer.

6) Drink water. This will make the next day more pleasant.

7) Talk with the brewers. If the head brewer or another brewery employee is pouring (and not just a festival employee), talk to them. They will share info on their beers such as where to buy them, what other style they make, etc. Also, some will occasionally have some special beers under the table that are not listed. I met with one of the heads of Sprecher brewery who was very nice and told me all about their operation, even if they don't yet distribute to Philly, its nice to keep in mind since they brew a tasty black lager.

8) Pockets. If you like coasters, bottle openers, stickers or other beer paraphenalia, then wear cargo pants (or shorts), because lots of breweries have free stuff. Alternatively, you can find a girlfriend or wife with a large purse.

9) Scope out bathrooms early. Lines can be long.

10) Courtesy. If there is a line at a stand, after getting your beer, move to the side. Nobody likes lines, this makes them move faster.

11) Strategy. Your strategy may differ from mine, but here are some potential tips. If you can get your hands on a beer list beforehand, scope out any "must try" beers. If lines are long, get onto a line immediately after getting your beer, don't wait until your glass in empty.


Wish list for a beer festival:
(Note, good beer is the first thing I look for but thats kind of obvious, this list is more for faults I've found at some festivals)

1) Bathrooms. If you're organizing a festival with lots of beer, please have enough bathrooms, even if they are of the portable variety.

2) Food. Drunk people love food. Please set up enough stands selling food (and water).

3) Space. Please do not overcrowd a venue so that I can't even walk between stands. Get a larger location or sell less tickets.

4) Entrance. Every festival waits until the official start time, then begins letting people into the location, which can take a long time. Why not start letting people in earlier, but tell the vendors not to serve before the start time?

5) Beer list. I know the brewers will often change their line up at the last minute, but it really helps to have a list of the beers. Its much easier to check off the name of a beer than it is to write it down.

6) Water. I'm referring here not to drinking water, but to water at the stands to rinse out my glass. I don't like to have someone pouring a hefeweisen into a glass that just had a triple espresso stout. It just messes up the flavors too much.

7) Pouring sizes. This refers to the breweries, not the organizers, but I feel pour size is key. As the title of this post indicates, 2 ounces is just about right. Any less and you're getting only a single small sip. Any more and you're getting too drunk off a single beer. Like any person, I have a limit as to how much beer I can have and if I wanted to drink a lot of a couple of beers I'd just go to a bar, not a festival. If I really want more than 2 ounces, I'll just return to that stand later.

8) Designated drivers. Too many festivals do not offer DD tickets. I know enforcement is difficult (the bracelet method is only somewhat effective). But since Mrs. Hot Dogs & Beer does not drink beer it can be expensive. Plus it encourages responsibility, even if the DD has a couple of samples.

The return of hot dogs and beer

If I had to name 1 day of the year when I'm least likely to be focused on work, it would probably be either of the first 2 days of the ncaa tournament. But after that, the wonderful time of october playoff baseball is a close second.

Now, its 85 degrees in Philly today, so the crisp early fall weather that I love has been put on hold, but the desire to watch 3 meaningful baseball games a day has not. Some recent work travelling has prevented me from posting recently, but I'm back with some thoughts on the first 2 days of the playoffs.

Before we even get to the playoffs, I need to comment on the amazing game the rockies and padres played on Monday. The game kept you on the edge of your seat like few sporting events can. One such event is a playoff overtime hockey game, and as fewer baseball games are on tv I'll slowly transition myself into hockey season. Please see my follow up post on the top 10 baseball games I've watched. Here are some general comments on the playoffs.

MLB needs to do a better job of schedulling. First, no 5 game series should have 3 off days. Second, they need to ensure that all teams have at least 1 game in prime time spot. The Phillies played 2 afternoon weekday games, they next two are weekend, but start at 10pm and only if they get to a 5th game will they get a good slot. Also, its clear that playoff games don't last 3.5 hours, they need longer time slots.

If I hear another announcer ask if Joe Torre will get fired if the Yankees don't win a world series, I'm going to punch someone.

***Note: this is the first, and probably last nice thing I will ever say about Comcast***. Comcast just started carrying TBS in HD last week, making my baseball viewing much nicer. Thank you Comcast.

Its scary to think, that a team thats been outscored by 14 runs (including playoffs) is on the verge of hosting the NLCS.

Can someone tell the Rockies its ok to lose more than once in 3 weeks?

Jose Mesa is just terrible this year. Please don't let him pitch.

And now my (worthless) predictions:
Phillies take the next 2 games, then lose in 5
Diamondbacks complete the sweep leaving Cubs fans to plan for next year's "celebration" of the 100th anniversary of their last world series win.
Anaheim wins tonight and they trade wins until Boston takes the series in 5.
Yankees win tonight and game 3, lose game 4 and wang comes back to redeem himself as the yanks advance.

Fun Monday trivia

Its Monday. I know this can be fairly boring and the next weekend is so far away, so here are some random interesting facts that I would like you share with you.


Do you know who leads the Yankees in doubles? Its Jorge Posada, with 37.

In the 4 grand slams this year, Roger Federer lost 9 sets. In 28 matches. Henin has lost 3 sets in Wimbledon, and none in the US Open or French Open (she skipped Australia).

The most innings pitched in a season without giving up a run is 18, by Karl Spooner for the Dodgers in 1954. He pitched alright in 1955, then retired due to arm troubles.

Philadelphia puts up lots of historical markers around its streets. Over the weekend I found one commemorating the first batch of girl scout cookies and one showing the home of longtime Philadelphia A's manager Connie Mack.

The Pennsylvania liquor control board had $1.5 billion in income in the 05-06 fiscal year on wine and spirits.

Google maps now has a feature that allows you to calculate the shortest distance between 2 points on the globe, taking a circular path. I haven't yet figured out why this will be useful, but I know it will be.

Football (the kind where you use your feet)

I heard this morning on Sportscenter that the Women's world cup is starting next week. Now that I think about it I knew it was supposed to be at some point in 2007, but I had no idea it was next week. This could be my own fault, but I watch and read plenty of sports news so its not like I was being beaten over the head with this news.

Anyway, the tournament is being held in China. If you recall, they planned to hold the 2003 world cup in China, but the SARS outbreak forced them to move the tournament to the US. In the 4 previous world cups, the US team has won twice and finished 3rd twice, so there is reason for optimism unlike with the US men's team.

Yesterday I discussed the state of women's professional sports in the US. My general conclusion was that besides tennis, golf and maybe WNBA (its a stretch), very few people watch women's sports. However, I feel that when it comes to international events such as the world cup or olympics, people watch. Or at least I will.

Is this because I'm a big sports junkie and love watching competition at the highest level? Possibly, but I'm going to lean towards a sense of national pride. Thats what leads me to watch women's track or beach volleyball during the olympics (And here you thought it was just for the women in bikinis). So I'll probably watch parts of the women's world cup, especially when the US plays.


Side note #1: I mentioned yesterday that at times women's tennis is more popular than men's tennis. Well I don't like TV ratings as a metric buts its all I can think of using and here are articles from within the past 10 years mentioned higher ratings for women's matches than for men's.
article 1
article 2

Side note #2: The Rugby world cup (men's) is also starting this weekend. I'm not that much of a rugby fan, although I did get to watch some Gaelic football and hurling while in Ireland and those were lots of fun. So I'll probably also try and watch some rugby, even if its just an excuse to go to an Irish pub.

Female sports

I got an interesting comment from Matt about the popularity of women's tennis in general compared to other women's professional sports. I'll focus my comments to US sports as I have no knowledge of how popular women's soccer is in Brazil or women's curling in Canada.

My research dug up the following women's professional sports:
Tennis
Golf
Softball
Football
Basketball (WNBA)
Boxing
Soccer (the WUSA apparently has plans to start again after disbanding)

There may be other professional leagues, but I didn't find any so even if they exist I doubt they are at a very high level.

Of these sports, I would presume that only tennis, golf, and maybe the WNBA could make a female athlete a "star". Now I don't have a well defined explanation for star, but lets just say that the women in the other sports are not getting endorsement deals and I cannot name any of them. I can name female soccer players, but thats just because I'll watch the US national team play.

I think its a safe statement that women's tennis is the biggest of these 3 based on the following criteria:

Money: The WBNA top salary is $100,000. In golf, 79 players have $100,000 so far this year with 5 over $1,000,000. In tennis, 114 women have earned $100,000 this year with 7 over $1,000,000. From these numbers tennis and golf are close.

Name recognition: I'm not a representative sample as I'm a very big tennis fan, but I'd imagine even the casual sports fan knew the Williams sisters and Sharapova and probably a couple of others like Henin or Hingis. For golf, Sorenstam is a big name, as is Michelle Wie, but I think it gets tough after that. If I tried hard enough I could come up with a few WNBA players, but I don't feel there is nearly as much name recognition. Of course, name recognition is very country dependent as the media focuses more on American athletes


So the question becomes why does tennis have the strongest women's sports program? Some possibilities:

1) Tradition: Women's tennis has been around longer than other sports and has gained a foot hold in the sports media.

2) Sex Appeal: Tennis players are more fit than golfers and more feminine (for lack of a better term) than many basketball players. I'm not sure how much of an effect this has but its certaintly something.

3) Similarities to men's game: In this regard, I think golf is more similar between the sexes, other than the distance they are hitting the ball. Tennis is somewhat similar between genders although the increases atheleticism in males has some effect on the playing styles.


Now if we compare the men's and women's version of any given game, tennis also has to be the closest in popularity. In fact, you could argue that at any given time women's tennis can be MORE popular than men's tennis, at least amongst people who consider themselves tennis fans. This depends of course on who the top players are, how deep the field is, blah blah blah.

So what does it all mean? I'm not sure, but the people at the WTA are definitely doing something right.

Kenny Lofton

A nice article, courtesy of the Onion.

32 and counting

There are 32 days left in the baseball season so I think its time to discuss the playoffs. We've got some heated races (or at least races that are heating up). Lets start with the AL

At this point the division races are looking fairly tame in the AL. The Red Sox lead by 6 with 4 games remaining against the Yankees. If the Yanks go 4-0 over those games, then it could get interesting, but even 3-1 leaves Boston with a 4 game lead. So short of a remarkable collapse (see Phillies, 1964), the division is over.

In the central the Indians lead by 4 1/2 over the Tigers and the teams play 3 more games. The Indians have a slightly harder schedule with 4 games against the Angels, but Cleveland is a better team and I don't see them blowing this lead.

The west is completely over. The Angels lead by 5 and Seattle is a .500 team playing way above their heads.

The wild card could be interesting. The Yanks and Mariners are tied and the Tigers are 3 back. The 3 game series next week between the leaders will go a long way to deciding the outcome. But of these 3 the Yankees are the best team (I'll admit a little bias here) and their schedule has enough Royals and Devil Rays games that they should earn the WC.

The National League is much more wide open at this point. Mets lead the Phillies by 3 with 4 games remaining against them. They are both decent but not great teams. If the Phillies play a little bit better than usual or the Mets a little bit worse, it will go down to the wire.

In the central we have a battle of who can suck the least. Last year the Cardinals finished 5 games over .500, the 3rd worst in a full season for a division winner ever (1973 Mets at 82-79 and 2005 Padres at 82-80). The Rangers "won" the division in the strike shortened 1994 season 10 games UNDER .500. Its possible we'll see the division winner below .500, we can only hope. In reality its a crap shoot between the Brewers, Cubs and Cardinals. The Cubs are probably the best, but not by much.

The NL West is techincally a 4 team race with everyone except the Giants within 5.5 games. But in reality, San Diego is the best team and is tied with Arizona which has the same issues as the Mariners, playing way above their head. I expect them to regress towards 0.500. So can the Dodgers or Rockies catch the Padres? I doubt it.

Given that I think the Padres with the division, we have the Diamondbacks, Phillies, Braves, Dodgers and Rockies as serious WC threats. The Diamondbacks will go away shortly. The other 4 are all close at just like last year, it will go down to the final weekend.

So get ready for some exciting baseball in the next 4 1/2 weeks.

Serves and Volleys

Its a grand August day as the US Open begins. I won't be able to make it to Flushing this year, but I'll watch plenty on TV and will be following the ticker when away from a TV. So without furhter ado, here are some things I expect or hope to see:

1) Federer should cruise into the finals. Roddick, Blake and Davydenko are not incredibly tough foes.

2) Now that electronic line calling (at least for challenges) has been around for a year, we're seeing players use it a little bit better. I think the challenge system is a good thing for tennis, even with its potential for abuse.

3) Even with Djokovic's strong early draw, I like him to go far, at least to the semis.

4) This point has nothing to do specifically with the US Open, but I think mixed doubles is a strange event. I couldn't think of any other professional sport where men and women played together. I'm not saying they should have the event, just that I won't be wathcing it.

5) Watching tennis in HD is fantastic.

6) Keep an eye on some of the young American men's entries. Sam Querrey has already shown he can beat decent players and could advance a couple of rounds. Donald Young (18) and John Isner (22) have shown some potential. I doubt either will go very far, but they'll be fun to watch. (UPDATE: Young dropped the first set in a tiebreaker, but is up a break in the second).

7) If you're looking for a place to discuss tennis or compete in a wide range of contests, I recommend this website, although its too late to enter for this tournament.

8) Blake has the potential to reach the semifinals. I say potential because there is a lot of variance in how he plays from day to day. But there is no one in his 1/4 of a bracket that he couldn't beat. He's played well this summer saving his ranking a bit.

9) A lot was made of the fact that Wimbledon began paying its men's and women's players equally, something the US Open has done for a while. The payouts should be based on how much revenue the draw earns. This is impossible to accurately calculate, but I'd imagine that the men's matches being best of 5 rather than best of 3 for the women should last longer and earn more money. Of course, there is a huge PR benefit of keeping the pay equal that is more important than a few hunderd thousand dollars.

10) And lastly I need to state that the US Open is my favorite tournament of the year. This is partly due to the fact that growing up, my dad and I would go every year. But its also driven by the fact that due to time zones (I live in Philadelphia) I get to watch more of this tournemant than any other grand slam. So for the next 2 weeks (or 1 fortnight if you prefer) I will sit back and enjoy some great tennis.

Frank's weekly rants

I've decided to start a new type of post, called Frank's weekly rants. It will mostly consist of me bitching about something that annoys me. Don't know yet if it will be every week or not. Do you have something that annoys you? Please share.

I am utterly amazed at the lack of office kitchen ettiquite. I bring in food to mircowave about twice a week. When I get to the microwave I put my food in (or wait in line if there are people already) and when its done I REMOVE THE FOOD FROM THE MICROWAVE. Of course, its common at my office for people to leave food in the microwave more than 5 minutes after its done warming up. Thats right, people will set the microwave for 2 minutes and then show up anywhere from 3-10 minutes later. Not only is this incredibly inconsiderate, its stupid. Your food will be cold.

You know what pisses me off? Ribbons on cars. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for people supporting whatever cause they want. But on my drive into work this morning, I was behind this truck. And how many ribbons did the truck have? Not 1, not 2, but FIFTEEN! There may have been more I couldn't see. This annoys the hell out of me. So I'm hereby instituting the Frank rule of ribbons. No vehicle may have more than 2 ribbons and if you have 2 ribbons they must not be duplicates.

I was listening to a concert announcement on the radio and heard the DJ explain that tickets purchased at the Wachovia Center are better than those purchased over the internet since they do not have a convenience charge. This seems very counterintuitive. Computer does the work, charge people. Person does the work, don't charge people. Apparently computers have a tougher job. Also, I'm starting to get really fed up with the blurred security letters that Ticketmaster makes you enter to ensure that you're not a computer. Its gotten to the point where I can only figure out about 1/2 of them.

Hip hip Jorge!!

If I asked 100 baseball fans who was the best catcher in baseball right now I bet very few would say Jorge Posada, but he's somewhat quietly having his best hitting season ever. His OBP is .415 and he's slugging .536!! This gives him a higher OPS that players like Vlad Guerrero and Ryan Howard catching. He's currently at 13th best in the majors (tied with David Ortiz for 7th if you look at OPS+).

Of course, he's been one of the best hitting catchers since he got the starting role over 10 years ago. The question is, does he have the credentials, given a few more years and a reasonable decline, to make the hall of fame?

There are 14 HOFers that were primarily catchers. 3 played in the 19th century, so I won't consider these since the game was quite different. The remaining 11 are Cochrane, Dickey, Hartnett, Schalk, Campanella, Berra, Ferrell, Lombardi, Bench, Fisk, and Carter. I'll go ahead an assume Piazza and Rodriguez get in and include them in the comparison.

First, lets start with games caught. I'll note here, that Ivan Rogriduez has caught a LOT of games, 2032 to be exact. If he plays until 2009 he could break Fisk's record of 2226 games caught. (I'm not 100% sure on this record, but I think its right). Of course, he's not playing well so that is no guarantee. Jorge has 1321 games caught, which means he'd need to catch until the end of 2010 to reach about a median level for a HOF catcher. This is doable, but he'll be 38 at that point and catching will eventually take its toll.

Second, hitting. In this regard he is right up there with the best hitting catchers with the exception of Piazza who is head and shoulders above everyone else. His OPS+ for a career is 125, right in line with Bench (126), Dickey (127), Berra (125) and Campanella (124). He's yet to hit a decline phase in his career, but given that he's currently having his best season, his decline may be later than some others.

The third issue is obviously fielding, which I don't want to go into because its very difficult to measure a catcher's defensive abilities because putouts are useless, calling a game is difficult to judge, passed balls are highly dependent on the pitchers, etc. I've heard talk about Jorge being below average for a catcher in terms of calling a game, but I tend not to listen to baseball announcers as most of them are stupid.

The 4th issue, in my opinion, deals more with whether he WILL make the HOF rather than whether he SHOULD make the HOF. That is of course postseason success. He's won 3 rings (only played 8 games in 1996 and not on that postseason roster), which is worth a little bit of boost to him.

So in conclusion, Jorge Posada is not currently a HOFer, but he could be. Besides catching for 4-5 more years, he needs a decent decline hitting wise since I don't think he's getting bonus points for fielding. As one of my favorite Yankees I'll be cheering for him.

UPDATE - Apparently Tom Verducci must read my blog because there is an article today on CNNSI about the great year Posada is having.

300 (not the Spartans)

We've recently had a lot of baseball milestones, as Bonds tied Hank Aaron in HRs, ARod hit his 500th HR (the youngest ever to do this) and Glavine notches his 300th win. This is a great convergence of accomplishments and is lots of fun for me as a fan.

But there is a problem. We now are forced to deal with lots of questions of "Will anyone ever get 300 wins again????".

This question bothers me. A lot. The answer of course is yes. And if the question sounds familiar its because this type of question is asked lots of times, but people don't learn. After Nolan Ryan reached 300, people wondered if anyone would ever reach 300 wins in the days of 5 man rotations and extended bullpen use. Well 3 players have done it in the last 5 years.

Even assuming the old guys who are close (Johnson, Mussina, etc.) all fall short, the next crop of young guys will most likely produce a 300 game winner. Consider that there are lots of pitchers on about the same pace as glavine. I'm talking about players such as Sabathia, Hudson, Santana, Oswalt, Zito, etc. Its probably a good bet that at least a couple of these pitchers will get close. Then if they are willing to play into their 40s, and with improving pitcher longevity this is highly possible, we'll see another 300 game winner. And if bad luck hits that crop of players, they next crop will get it done.

You can say that given the current state of baseball we will never see a 500 game winner or 35 wins in a season, but please please please don't say stupid things about 300 game winners.

Records records everywhere (part II)

Well, its been almost a month since I last discussed season records and lots has happened. Lets revisit.

AB & PA - Jimmy Rollins is still on pace for 710 ABs (705 is record) but only 772 PAs (773 is the record). The loss of Utely and Victorino from the lineup has probably lead to fewer chances, plus he has sometimes been batting 3rd instead of 1st since Utley's injury. He still has a chance though, but I'll lower it to 15%.

2B - Utley's injury has put an end to this chase. (pun intended)

K (batter) - Adam Dunn has for some reason, stopped striking out as much. But have no fear, beacuse Ryan Howard has picked up the slack. He is currently on pace for over 200, despite missing about 15 games earlier this season. Truly remarkable. Probability = 20%

SF - Well, I jinxed Carlos Lee, he has gotten ZERO SFs since my post. Sorry baseball world. Probability = 0%

GIDP - Orlando Hudson has also gotten exactly ZERO GIDPs since my post. Hmmm, this is strange. Anyway, Ryan Zimmerman leads the league with 24, but he's got almost no chance at the record.

SV - None of the leaders have kept up their pace, which was not good enough at the time, so I'll lower this one to 0% as well.

Well folks, its been a disappointing month for records, but Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins still have a fighting chance, so lets cross our fingers. Interestingly, their chances are highly correlated, since both need PAs for the record.

Return of the blog

I've been away from a computer a lot lately which has led to less blogging. Hopefully I will catch up soon. We recently travelled to Ireland. You can see some pics or a video of a traditional Irish session.

There are of course some interesting things I learned in Ireland.

1) Ireland is in fact very green. Our weather was mostly good, but a couple of days they had a misting sort of rain. This helps keep lots of green things growing.

2) While the Irish beers are very good, I was surprised to see crappy American beers (Bud/Miller/Coors) on tap in almost every pub. And even though I did not see many people drinking them, I cried a little on the inside.

3) This was my first trip to an english speaking country in Europe and I learned that what they said about the Irish being friendly and talkative is definitely true. When you bounce around (or crawl) from pub to pub, you meet a lot of interesting people.

4) I did not do any driving, but I was trying to navigate the Irish roads. And its very weird to sit in the passengers seat on the left side.

5) We ate a "full irish breakfast" in 4 hotels. They were good, but all exactly alike.

6) Irish cities are very small. Dublin is the only place where taking a cab could even be considered. You can pretty much walk from one end of Galway to the other in 15 minutes.

Steroids do not equal good baseball.

In case you wanted proof against the effect of performance enhancing drugs there is this article. I mean seriously, Neifi Perez?!?!?!

By the way, since 1901, for players with at least 1400 games played, Neifi Perez has the 2nd worst OPS+ of all time, at 63. The worst is 57 by Dal Maxvill. In addition, for a player with 4700 plate appearances, the worst OPS+ is our favorite crappy shortstop, Perez. He's had 5510 PAs. How has he managed to stretch out a career of 11 years and 5 teams. I mean, he did win a gold glove in 2000, so that must make him the incredible!!!! By the way, Ski Millelo had an OPS+ of 63 with 5536 PAs. We've found Neifi's equal.

Is Neifi Perez the worst player in baseball history??? No. But if we're considering players who have played in the majors for a significant amount of time, the debate starts (and possible ends) with Neifi. There are plenty of terrible players throughout baseball history, but how many can be very bad and last for so long (and earn $18 million !!).

Those who know me will know I've always disliked Neifi, so the fact that he's now suspended for drug use is really exciting for me. If this isn't proof that steroids are not magical pills that make you a hall of famer, I don't know what is.

Adventures in the Rockies

I just got back from a conference in Salt Lake City, which explains the lack of posts recently. Some interesting musings:

1) I got to check out the AAA Salt Lake Bees, an Angels affiliate. The stadium was nothing special. It was very hot, so almost everyone sat in the shade. They had a few local microbrews that I got to try. The biggest problem I had was that most concession stands were closed in the middle of the 5th when I went up to get food. I know sporting events cut off alcohol sales after a certain point, but food sales? The best part about the park was the beautiful view of the Rockies in the background. I'll post a pic when I get a chance.

2) Salt Lake City, at least the part that I frequented, seems to have a lot of homeless. It appeared to be more than Philadelphia, although by no means was I counting. Also, when asked for money from a homeless person, many people intuitively assume the person is just looking to buy alcohol. I often assume this myself. Well I passed a homeless person in Salt Lake City who specifically asked for money to buy whiskey. While I did not give him any, I applaud the honesty.

3) There is a brewpub in the city called Squatters Pub. Overall, their food and beer are not that great (another brewpub called Red Rock was better). However, they do have a beer called Polygamy Porter. The slogan on the tap handle was "You can't have just one".

4) The conference was on statistics and had a few sections on statistics in sports, the majority on baseball. I was only able to make it to one of these talks, by a UPenn professor trying to predict the number of HRs a player will hit by training his model on about 15 years worth of data. He claimed that if you assume that plate appearances are known (and therefore he's only predicting HR rate) his root mean squared error was less than 5. However, going into a season the PAs are unknown and would need to be modelled as well, he had not done this yet. An interesting talk, although I think his model left room for improvement. I need to find some free time to work on such a project.

5) I got to do some hiking up on some of the Alta ski resort trails. There is a small road only open in the summer that leads you to the top of one of the ski lifts and you can climb from there. The views were gorgeous, but we did not make it to the peak as the rain and lightning started. I did see a bolt of lightning hit on the mountainside facing us and lead to a big red flash. A little scary since it was not far from us, but very cool to see.

Phillies - Utley = no playoffs

Only a few hours after I postulated that Chase Utley had a 10% chance to break Webb's doubles record, he gets hit by a pitch and breaks his hand. So that record is obviously out the window. Dan Uggla and Magglio Ordonez both have 38 doubles which puts them at a much lower chance, maybe 1%.

On a more concering issues, especially here in Philly, is what will the team do without Utley. It seems from the reports I've heard that best case scenario puts Utley out about 3 weeks. If that happens AND Utley returns to his pre-injury form, then the injury probably only cost the Phillies about 1.5-2 games (I'm completely pulling these numbers out of my ass by the way). Of course, last season they missed the playoffs by 2 games, so that amount is significant.

More realistically, he'll probably miss 4-5 weeks. Remember when the Phillies told us how quickly Brett Myers would return from his injury? And while they're not eliminated from the playoffs, the rest of the team needs to play much better than they have been to make a serious run.

Additionally, the loss of Utley may affect Rollins in his quest for the AB and PA records. Without Utley's bat, he'll get fewer chances, plus Charlie Manuel may move him from the leadoff spot to the 3rd spot (that is pure speculation on my part, I have no evidence of this).

the strange world of the knuckler

While looking through some random stats I noticed that this season Tim Wakefield has started 20 games and is 11-9, meaning he has had 0 no decisions. In the age of 6-7 inning starters this is remarkable. Wakefield has pitched 8 innings once and 7 innings six times. Nothing shocking there. It seems that when he has the lead, his bullpen holds it and when he doesn't have the lead his hitters fail to score.

So I decided to search for the most starts in a season without a no decision. Obviously, this would lead me to some 19th century pitcher who pitched the entire season. And if you're interested, Pud Galvin had 75 starts and 75 decisions in 1883. But he had a relief appearance, so there was 1 game without a decision. The most games with a decision in all of them was Tim Keefe in 1883 with 68.

But thats not too interesting since the usage of pitchers was much different. So I limited my search to 1901 - 2007. This leads me to Dummy Taylor with 45 in 1901. Again, much different pitcher usage. So I'm further refining the search to 1941 - 2007. Our new leader is Lum Harris with 26 in 1942. Who was Lum Harris you ask? I have no clue. He pitched for 5+ seasons and managed a few years, but nothing major of note.

And the next highest season with G = W + L is Wakefield.

Other seasons of note:
Gaylord Perry had a decision in all 40 of his starts in 1972. In his 1 relief appearance he got a save.
Dontrelle Willis had 32 decisions in 34 starts in 2005. The Marlins bullpen blew leads in the other 2 games.
John Smiley had 27 decisions in 28 games in 1997.

So if you're a fan of random, meaningless numbers, root for a decisions every time Wakefield starts which includes tonight.

I also learned in this process that Maddux started 37 games in 1991. Thats a lot of games for a 5 man rotation.

Who wants to be a commissioner?

Being a commissioner seems like it should be a great job. You're in charge of a sport that you presumably love. You get to attend any game of that sport, and probably most of any other sport as well. You know all the owners, players, etc.

But then there is the downside, summed up as public relations. Right now we have Bud Selig dealing with the unpopular Bonds, David Stern dealing with crooked refs, and Roger Goodell dealing with troublesome atheletes. Then you have Gary Bettman dealing with a lack of media attention, but thats a whole different problem.

Steroids are a problem, but I don't want to go into that topic in this post. Also, the majority of people only seem to care when it comes to records. No one pays any attention when Matt Lawton or Jason Grimsley get suspended. The Michael Vick and Pac Man Jones problems in the NFL are stupid individual players and to the NFL's credit, they are quick to suspend players for off-field activities. The NFL as a business is such a juggernaut that they will not be affected as long as they don't let people like Vick play.

The worst of these is obviously the ref betting on basketball games. If there is one thing any sport needs its impartial judges/refs/umps. A ref who does this once is impossible to catch, but those who are consistently altering point spreads can be monitored to some extent. First, if the spreads for games by one ref change more than expected, this can be a problem. Secondly, if the final score (in relation to the spread) does not follow the pattern of other refs, this should also be flagged. Here's a link to an article talking about an example of using data to watch a ref. Warning: its an ESPN article written for the layman, not a statistical article. There is a link to some data for games he reffed, but without the same data for other refs its kind of useless. If I find that data anywhere, I'll be sure to post it.

Of course, basketball is not the first sport to have issues with refs (recall the figure skating fiasco from recent olympics). And if this is truly the only ref involved, the league will be ok, but if not they better have some great PR guys.

I think that basketball is probably one of the most likely sports to be victim to this corruption. Primarily because calling a foul leads directly to points, the amount depends on who shoots the free throws. In baseball, the home plate ump will affect balls and strikes, but other umps have maybe 1 or 2 close plays a game, which is not reliable enough for someone trying to fix a game. Plus, betting in baseball is not nearly what it is for basketball or football. In football, refs can throw flags, but this does not directly lead to points. Plus the point system in football makes games harder to control. If you help the offense, they may score 3 or 7, but you can't necessarily control which one.

Overall, I'd probably still want to be a baseball commissioner, I'd just need to drink more to deal with the stress.

UPDATE - I rarely ever trust online polls, but there is currently a poll on CNN-SI's website asking people to vote for what they think is the worst form of cheating in sports. Option 1 is gambling/point shaving and option 2 is steroids/drugs (steroids are drugs, so I don't entirely get that one) and option 3 is other. As of about 1:15, option 1 has 65% and option 2 has 33%. This is somewhat surprising to me that drugs is getting that many votes. Doing steroids may be cheating, but fixing a sporting event makes it an exhibition, not a sport at all. I wonder how the poll results would differ if the HR record was not in the forefront of the media.

Records records everywhere

A while back I had a post about career records that will likely be broken by current players. Now that we're 60% through the season, its time to look at potential single season records. Note that I'm using the terms record loosely, it does not always mean a positive outcome.

AB & PA - Jimmy Rollins is in a perfect situation to break both of these records. He's curently on pace for 719 ABs (705 is record) and 778 PAs (773 is record). He's leading off for a team that scores a lot of runs, he's healthy (always plays >= 154 games), and his team will likely be in a playoff hunt for the next 5 or 6 weeks. Also, he doesn't walk much allowing him the possibility to break both records. Probability of falling: 30%.

2B - Chase Utley is sitting atop the leaderboard with 41 doubles. This puts him on pace to tie the very old record. Will he? Well, he's also been quite healthy and like Rollins, gets lots of plate appearances. But keeping up the doubles pace is tough. There's a good chance he'll crack 60 for the first time in 70 years, but I put his chances of reaching 67 at 10%.

K (batter) - Adam Dunn holds the top 2 season ever with 195 and 194. As of today (with 120 Ks) he's on pace for 192. With the negative stigma attached to this record, managers have in the past sat players to prevent breaking the record (see Jose Hernandez in 2002). But since Dunn already owns the record, who cares. I'll put his chances right now at about 35%, but we'll keep a eye on his pace as the season progresses.

SF - A less heralded record, Carlos Lee has 13 SFs this year, putting him on pace for 20. The record is held by Gil Hodges with 19. We'll give him a 50% chance.

GIDP - Orlando Hudson has 20 so far, putting him on pace for 32. The record is 36 by Jim Rice. Not too much chance right now, maybe 5%.

SV - A couple of pitchers (Cordero, Valverde) are on pace for about 50-52 saves. This puts them several off of the 57 record. Given more opportunities its possible, but I'd say less that 5% that anyone reaches the record.

If you trust my numbers, and there's no reason for you to do that, the chance that at least one of these records is broken is just over 80%. Maybe I'm a little optimistic here. Of course, Utley's and Rollins' records are correlated since they both need the rest of the team to hit to get plate appearances, but you get the idea.

Dirt

I was having a conversation with my dad recently about the dirt on a baseball field. For those unaware, the largest patch of dirt in the infield extends out from the 1st - 2nd and 2nd - 3rd basepaths. See the picture on this page.

We came to the consensus that the original fields would have had no dirt at all, just grass. Then certain areas would have gotten worn out. Worn grass leads to bad hops and its difficult to maintain, so gradually they replaced those areas with dirt (or stopped reseeding the areas as grass died). Our rationale was that there is no reason for the dirt to go back towards the outfield as much as at does, except that the infielders spend the most time there, which would kill the grass.

Also, this dirt theory explains why the path between 1st and home and the path between 3rd and home is dirt (and in the old days the path between home and the mound).

I'd be interested to hear other theories.

Yankee stadium

I went to the Yankee's game on Saturday night. They scored 17 runs on 20 hits. The last Phillies game I went to, the Phillies scored 13 runs on 23 hits. I see a trend here. And if you're wondering, 23 hits and only 13 runs seems inefficient but its not a record. The Royals in 1990 scored only 11 on 23 hits as did the Pirates in 1970. The biggest difference (H - R) was 15 in 1980 when the Mets scored 7 runs on 22 hits. (All this data is 1957 - present)

So my game of baseball roulette was altered, as the Yankees swapped the day and night pitchers. I watched Matt DeSalvo instead of Kei Igawa. He wasn't pitching well, leaving after 4 2/3. How's that make you feel when your teams scores 17 and you can't earn a win? Of course this is all due to the somewhat arbitrary definition that a started must pitch 5 innings for a win, but its possible (and has happened) that a reliever throws ZERO pitchers and earn a win. BJ Ryan did this in 2003 by picking off the runner at first, then having his team take the lead, and being replaced. (Its difficult to find more instances since a pitcher can retire a baserunner without offically facing a batter, but its hard to tell if he threw any pitches to the batter.)

Another side note. Vizcaino is the pitcher who got the win in the night game of the doubleheader, but he also got the win in the first game which must be a rare feat. In fact, he has 4 wins this year against the Devil Rays (3 in the last 8 days). No other pitcher has more than 2 wins against TB.

Also of note was the I got to see some construction of the new Yankee Stadium. Its obviously very early, but there is a bit of a skeleton of a stadium. Pretty cool.

US Open

So I read an article today that there are currently 6 former women's US Open champions slated to play this year at the Open. The list is Sharapova, V. Williams, S. Williams, Henin, Kuznetsova, and Hingis. This seemed like a lot, so I investigated.

NOTES:
I only went back to the early 80s, since the data is harder to read through prior to that. Also, I am only considering past champions in the draw, not future champions. And I'm only considering singles here, so although Navratilova entered mixed doubles last year, she does not count.


On the men's side, the most in a given year was 6 in 1992, which has Sampras, Lendl, Becker, Edberg, McEnroe and Conners. This year should be 4 assuming Federer, Roddick, Safin and Hewitt do not get hurt. The fewest in a year was 2 in 2003 (Agassi and Hewitt) and 1999 (Agassi and Rafter)

On the women's side, 6 would set the record (at least for recent years). I found 5 instances with 5 former champs (2006, 2005, 2002, 2001, 2000). In 2003, there was only 1 former champion, Lindsay Davenport. This is of course just a freak occurrence, because Hingis had "retired" and if I recall correctly, both Williams sisters were hurt.

I'll replicate this for the other grand slams when I get a chance.

Baseball Roulette

Any time you buy baseball tickets months or even weeks in advance, you have no idea who you'll see pitch. As someone who enjoys a great pitching duel, I'm always hoping for a great match-up.

Then a few days before the game, you go online and see that instead of watching Clemens or Wang, I get to see Kei Igawa. You see, I'm going to the Yankees game saturday night. Now, they are playing the Devil Rays, so the only pitcher worth seeing is Jamie Shields. Instead I get to watch JP Howell. The good news is that the Yankee bats should have a field day. The bad is that the Devil Ray bats will as well and the game could push 4 hours.

So while I didn't luck out this time, I look forward to my next game of baseball roulette with as much excitement as I did this time.

HRs by position

First, a trivia question. Who holds the record for most HRs in a season by a second baseman (at least 50% of games at 2nd)? Answer will follow later.

I was thinking about AROD's season and how many home runs he's on pace for. Then I realized he already has the most single season HRs by a shortstop (57). It turns out the record for most HRs by a third baseman is 49 by Killebrew. He'll very likely pass that and own the record for 2 positions. Obviously I realize most players don't switch positions in their prime, but its interesting anyway. Maybe he wants to learn to play catcher for next year.

So the remaining positions, since I know you're curious. I'll list these in order of how easy they were for me to figure out:

Left - Bonds (73)
First - McGwire (70)
Right - Sosa (66)
Center - Griffey (56)
DH - Ortiz (54)
Catcher - Bench (45)

Pitcher I would have thought to be Ruth, but the most he hit as a full time pitcher was 4. He hit 11 in 1918 and 29 in 1919, but was mainly an outfielder at that point. The correct answer is Wes Ferrell with 9.

For 2nd base, my thought was Hornsby, who maxed out at 42. But the most ever was Davey Johnson with 43. I was quite surprised at this, especially since his second best season was only 18. The most games anyone has played at 2nd with more than 43 HRs was Hank Aaron who hit 44 HRs in 1966 while playing a grand total of 2 games at second. Nobody else on the list is at all a surprise or a fluke season except this one. Very strange.

Summer clay

Recently I posted about the possibility of Federer losing the number 1 ranking at one point this year. Well since then 2 things have happened.

First, Nadal entered the Stuttgart tourny, a rare summer clay court event. Its an International event, so it will replace one of Nadal's current low scoring events. Winning the tounrament will net him 250 - 20 = 230 points. Is he desperate to keep playing on clay? It seems like a strange event for him to play, I would assume he would rather start preparing for the summer hard court events. But maybe he's doing it solely for the points, which for him are virtually guaranteed on clay.

Second, I actually did some further calculations. Even if Nadal wins Stuttgart, and then wins the two masters events (Canada and Cincinnati) and Federer defends none of his masters points, Roger enters the US Open ahead by 500 points. So no chance to pass by then. Now more realistically, lets say Roger loses in the final of both masters events. He would then GAIN points (recall he lost early to Andy Murray in last year's Cincinnati). Then even if Nadal wins both masters, Federer still has a 1200 point lead.

And for the Djokovic fans, he's currently slated to play Umag again, he was finalist there last year so not much chance to gain points. He'll skip Amersfort which he won last year, but he has another international event to replace and he'll only lose about 60 points. But he'll also enter both summer masters events. Last year he only played Cincinnati and lost in the 2nd round. He could easily gain 500 points and put some distance between himself and Roddick for 3rd place.

How to fix ERA

Every baseball game you watch, pitchers are described by the "pitching triple crown" stats, W-L record, ERA and strikeouts. Saves are also used when dealing with a closer.

The problems with W-L record are fairly obvious, they are highly dependent upon the number of runs your team scores. It is very difficult to win when your team scores only 2 and impossible if they score 0.

Strikeouts are of course a useful tool to evaluate pitchers. They measure your ability to get batters out, without the use of fielders. But strikeouts are most informative when combined with walks and innings pitched data.

The third stat is ERA, which has been around for a long time and is highly flawed. Thats what I want to focus on today. ERA is of course 9 * earned runs / innings. They multiply by 9 to make the scale 1 regulation game, although the concept is the same if you only consider earned runs per inning. In fact, in the early days of baseball, complete games were very common and ERA would be very close to earned runs per game for a starter.

My problem comes in the definition of earned runs. Hypothetical (and quite stupid) example. Pitcher gets the first 2 outs of an inning. Next batter reaches base on an error. Next 40 batters hit HRs. The pitcher is charged with 0 ER. Clearly he did not pitch well, but the order of events leads to 0 ER. If he gave up the 40 HRs, then the guy reached by error, he would be charged with 40 ERs. The the top of the 4th for a more realistic example involving 3 HRs.

In case you're curious, since 1957 (the baseball-reference game index only goes back that far) the most runs given up by a pitcher while recording 0 ER was Andy Hawkins in 1989. The Yankees made 6 errors that day. Oddly enough, the following year, Hawkins pitched a no hitter (8 innings, not an official no hitter) while giving up 4 runs, which is also the most in the same time span. I remember watching that game and the fielding was very bad. The Yankees didn't lead the league in errors either year, but when you clump them all in 1 game, bad things happen.

So, my proposed definition would make any runs scored by batters that reached on an error unearned. Batters advancing on errors would be subject to some scorers discretion. All other runs are earned, even after the total number of outs plus batters reached on error is 3 or more. (Other finer details still exist of course. If batter 1 reaches on error, and batter 2 grounds into fielders choice, the pitcher is not responsible for batter 2)

Will this make ERA the greatest stat since sliced bread? Not even close. But it would make it more useful. The big problem, is that to go back and recalculate earned runs would require play by play data which is available for all recent games, but can be difficult to find for earlier baseball. And even with play by play data, automation would not be very easy. By the way, I know that there are many better pitching stats than even my new ERA (should I call it NERA??), but I'm trying to propose a fix for mainstream use. To add a new stat to mainstream use can be excrutiatingly slow and painful.

Also, if I want to evaluate a pitcher's entire defensive baseball ability (pitching + fielding), shouldn't an error by the pitcher have no effect on whether a run is earned or not? If we're interested only in pitching skills, then these should be treated just like any other error, but I think its more informative to hold pitchers accountable for their own mistakes.

Google maps gets better?

Amazingly, the folks at google have done it again. You can now get directions and "customize your route" by changing any of the directions that google recommends. By dragging and dropping to the road you want to take, google will instantly recalculate the route, travel time and distance.

Have an alternative route you want to compare, you can do that.
Want to avoid the game or shore traffic. No problem.
Want a new way to waste 20 minutes at work, well you get the idea.

They also have a relatively new feature called "Distance measurement tool" under the "My Maps" section that allows you to click any number of times on the map and they will calculate the straight line distance between these points. Its not as precise for road travel, but fantastic when considering walking or biking routes. For example, we can learn that from Chickie's & Pete's to the left field entrance at Citizens Bank Park is about 3482 feet (2/3 mile).

Now all they need to do is allow my to imput details as to how fast I drive, when I plan to start my journey, and it can give me a distribution of the length of my trip.

Get ready for the 1190 game winning streak.

That what it would take for the Phillies to get back to .500, now that they have loss number 10,000!!! After holding off the Cardinals on Friday and Saturday, the momentous day arrived yesterday with the 10-2 loss. The Braves will almost certainly be the next to reach the milestone, but we should also watch the Cubs, who are only 53 wins away from 10,000. I get the feeling the organization will do more to embrace this event than the Phillies did for their event.

By the way, towards the end, they were losing 10-0 and I was hoping that would be the final score because it matches the 10,000 number. (Yes I understand 1000-0 would match better, but the Phillies bullpen isn't that bad. Is it?)

270 feet

In case you have noticed, Curtis Granderson is up to 16 triples this year. He's also at 13 HRs, giving him a very good chance to reach 20 2Bs, 20 3Bs and 20 HRs in a single season, joining Mays, Brett, Frank Schulte, and Jim Bottomly.

In this baseball era, 20 triples is rare. Christian Guzman did it in 2000 and Jance Johnson in 1996 and the only 2 in the past 20 years. Granderson is currently on pace for 29 triples, which would be an amazing feat, but not really close to Chief Wilson's record of 36. No one has reached 23 triples since 1930 and no one has gotten to 22 since 1945.

But I've noticed quite a few mentions of him breaking the AL record of 26 set by Sam Crawford and Joe Jackson. There has also been mention of ARod challenging Roger Maris' AL home run record. These records may be broken and they may not, but the it leads me to ask, why bother with AL/NL records? The days of separate leagues are gone and while I think there are still league presidents, they have little authority and the league offices have merged.

So should we even consider these as records? Lets discuss. I'm considering individual records, although most arguments extend to teams.

Is the record meaningful? I vote no since the playing environment is not any different between the leagues. The only possible exception could be the use of a DH in the AL. But this does not effect hitting records and could only effect a few pitching records such as BA against, or ERA. (The AL in recent years scores .25 - .5 more runs per game).

Do the fans care? Off the top of your head, who owns the NL record for doubles? Don't worry if you didn't get it, its Joe Medwick with 64. Who has the NL record in hits? (Lefty O'Doul and Bill Terry). Typically we only know the league records when they were by someone who previously held the major league records, such as Roger Maris.

How do we handle switching leagues? In 1997 (I think), Mark McGwire hit 58 HRs which was not enough for the major league record, but he did it playing 1/2 the season in Oakland and 1/2 in St. Louis. If he had though, he would have set the major league record, but neither league record. This makes very little sense to me, on top of the fact that he was not considered a league leader in 1997.

What about league leaders? Every year there are league leaders that are declared for many categories. But are these really necessary? If I lead the NL in HRs, but finish behind 3 AL hitters, I didn't really lead at all. This also applies to MVP, Cy Young award, etc.

So why keep it this way? Well the obvious reason is tradition. Baseball, like many old organizations, are very slow about change. I'd even suspect that the players association likes having seperate league leaders, which gives twice the number of players that can go into negotiations with these awards.

Baseball is the only league I know of that makes this distinction, and I think its antiquated. When the leagues were really two seperate entities, when most players stayed in one league their entire career, this approach was ok. Now I think we need to change.

The British are coming, the British are coming

Well at least 2 of them.

In case you haven't heard the hype, David Beckham and his possibly more famous wife arrived in the US. Beckham recently signed to play with LA in the MLS. The US sports media is making a big deal about how huge this is for US soccer. Maybe I'm missing something here, but a player thats past his prime and barely playing for his national or club team in Europe is suddenly going to make Americans love soccer??

The truth is that soccer will never be a major spectator sport in the US. The size of its niche will fluctuate, but it will always be a niche sport. The one thing making soccer more popular is the number of Mexican immigrants for whom soccer is number 1 (have you seen the crowd distribution when the US plays Mexico in the US?).

As far as our players, too many people have the attitude that "the US should dominate soccer like it dominates other sports". But all sports are becoming more and more international, which hurts us. We're no longer the dominant basketball country, or even baseball. American tennis had its greats, but now our hopes lie with the Roddick who serves hard and shouldn't step on clay and Blake who just forgets how to play tennis every 3rd match. Hockey has never been our best sport. In fact the only thing we're still clearly the best at is American football, but we're pretty much the only ones playing.

Our national soccer team will never dominate the world scene (unless the government decides to ban every other sport), but we can strive to be consistently one of the top 15 countries, capable of beating anyone on a given day. We're obviously not there yet, but its doable, and in my opinion, David Beckham's presence will have little to no effect on this.

Is Friday the 13th unlucky for the Phillies?

We have tickets for tonight's game against the Cardinals. Will we witness the 10,000th loss? I'm kind of hedging my bets here, if the Phillies win I'll be happy that they started their second half well. If they lose, well then the city can have its "celebration" (I'm using the word very loosely).

Looking back throughout history, the Phillies record on Friday the 13ths is 45-44-1. Yes, that is one tie. This is an improvement over their actual overall winning percentage. But its not that crazy. If we throw out all ties and sample 89 games randomly from the Phillies history, we'd expect to get 45 or more wins about 27.4% of the time. Obviously this has no bearing on tonight's game, but is a fun frivolous stat. And in case you're curious (I know you are), the Phillies lost on Friday April 13th of this year.

In case you're not from Philly or didn't catch it, a local radio station (WMMR) decided that to "honor" the possibly loss, they would get 10,000 marbles (red and white) and throw them down the steps of the art museum (aka "The Rocky Steps"). I'm at work, so I can't go looking for the video of this, but from the sound of it, marbles went EVERYWHERE, including into the road. The inspiration for this was of course the inspiration for a lot of stupid things, Animal House.

UPDATE: Got back from the game. Phillies avoid the loss with 23 hits!!! It was fun and I had my first Schmitter (a tasty sandwich with roast beef, salami, cheese, onion, tomatos and some kind of sauce). Won't be at tomorrow's game, but I'll definitely catch part on TV.

UPDATE #2: I found the link for the dropping of the marbles.

Franchise futility

The Phillies don't play tonight, but this weekend will likely be their 10,000 franchise loss. The city is buzzing.

So what are the marks of futility in other major sports? Keep in mind that no league plays as many games in a season as baseball.

In the NBA, the Golden State Warriors have 2562 losses. The Sacramento Kings are next with 2427

In the NFL, the Arizona Cardinals have 658 losses. The Lions are next with 544.

In the NHL (according to wikipedia), the Maple Leafs and Blackhawks BOTH have exactly 2391 losses, the most in history!!! This is remarkable. However, due to recent rules, we now also have overtime losses, and Chicago takes that tiebreaker 44 - 37.

So congrats to Philadelphia, Chicago, Phoenix, and Oakland. Your teams lose a lot.

Other records to fall

As the HR record is about to fall (see other post for more about this), I began thinking about what other career records could be broken by current players.

Saves - Since Hoffman has the record, he's breaking it with every save he gets, so that doesn't count. Depending on when Hoffman retires, Rivera or Wagner could possibly catch him. Also, watch out for Francisco Rodriguez, who's only 25 years old, on a good team and been a solid closer for 3 years now.

HBP (pitcher) - Not the most prestigous record, but Randy Johnson is only 21 away, and he's been averaging about 10/year. Possible if he keeps playing.

Thats all I can think of for major pitching stats.

Runs - Henderson leads at 2295. If Bonds plays next year as well, he'll likely pass him (currently at 2198). Next reasonable shot is AROD, who's at 1437 and averaging over 120 a year. Again, if he's healthy and plays until 40, there is a good chance he breaks it. Only 3 people have had more runs than him at his age, Mantle, Foxx and Ott. All 3 hit fairly early decline phases.

RBI - see AROD description above

Hits - Don't look at me like I'm crazy, but its possible for this record to fall. Pete Rose sits at 4256, Jeter (33) is at 2267 and AROD (32) is at 2168. Consider (starting with this year) for Jeter hits totals of 215,210,205,200,195,190,185 (a very linear decline). This puts 590 away from the record at age 39. It all depends how well he declines and of course if he wants to play until 42 to get the record, which is about as early as it could happen with any reasonable probability.

Total Bases - Possible for AROD, not likely.

Walks - Just like with saves, Bonds adds to his leading total. No one will catch him.

Strikeouts - Sosa could break Reggie Jackson's record if he plays 2 more seasons after this one. Thome could break it, but he'd probably need about 4 seasons but he's almost 37. If ARod hangs around to break the other records, he could very well take this as well. He's about 1100 away, which will take him 8.5 years at his current pace.

Extra base hits - Bonds will pass Aaron if he plays next season. Arod has a shot as well. This is starting to get repetitive.

HBP (batters) - Biggio is 2 away from tying Hughing Jennings. He should get this soon, although he only has 3 so far this season, way off his normal pace.

Let me know if you can think of any others.

And the new home run king is ...

Well it will be Bonds soon enough. He's 4 away from tying Aaron. So lets assume he passes him, finishes the season with 767 and retires. How long does he keep the title? Lets look at some challengers.

Sosa - Currently at 602 at age 38. Having a poor year, he won't get many more before retiring.
Griffey - Currently at 586 at age 37. He's having a very solid year, should pass 600. But even if he averaged 30 until he's 42 that would still leave him short. Obviously if he wants the record badly enough he may keep trying to play, but his injuries will eventually catch up to him again.
Thomas, Thome, Sheffield - All are about the same age (36-39) and around the same number of home runs (476-501). No chance.
Manny - At 481, age 35. Coming into this year, he's hit at least 33 HRs for the past 9 years, but this year he's on pace for about 20. If this is a true decline, then he's got no chance. If its just an aberation and he returns to normal for the next few years, well he still has almost no chance (although passing 600 is doable).
ARod - Now is where it gets interesting. He's at 494, and turns 32 this month. Lets say he cools off and finished this year with 50 HRs, putting his career total at 514. Lets assume the following number of HRs in the next few years. 40,40,35,30,30,25. I feel this is quite likely conservative, if he's healthy. That puts him (by my magical design) at age 38 with 714. Which means he'd catch Bonds about age 40. Of course, Bonds can make this more difficult by playing another season, but we'll come to that later. So if AROD is healthy, expect Bonds to have the title for about 8 seasons.
Pujols - The only other player with even a tiny probability right now. He's only 27 with 266 HRs. The problem is he's not hitting as well this year. If he keeps up the past few years pace, and not this years, we can talk some more in 5 years when he's AROD's age.

Dawson Street Pub

There's a great little corner bar a few blocks from our house called Dawson Street Pub. The have a very good beer selection with a lot of local stuff on tap, like Victory and Yards(including 3 rotating cask ales). Every year for the all-star game they host a baseball trivia night. This is our second year competing and once again I fell short finishing 4th out of 8 teams which is fairly good considering most team have about 3 people and I'm by myself (Andrea was there for emotional support).

There were some tough questions including several dealing with a player with the most RBIs/HRs/whatever in a given decade. I've always found these difficult since its always a guess, unless some people memorize decade leaderboards. For example, most RBIs in the 90s immediately lead me to think of Juan Gonzalez, but it turns out Albert Belle had about 30 more. Oh well.

Another tough question was to name the top 20 all time in hits. This is easy at first, but you tend to forget certain names (Eddie Collins for example) and assumes others are in the top 20 (Rod Carew) when they are not.

It was fun, but I'll need to brush up some more for next year.

Combining 2 great things ...

Google maps and baseball stadiums.

I've decided to map the ballparks I've been to using google. Blue placemarks are active, green are non-active, and yellow are ballparks I've been to but not for a baseball game (could be another sport or event).

Here's the link.

Tennis rankings

While watching the fantastic Wimbledon final on Sunday I noticed that the announcers kept mentioning the possibility of Nadal taking over the number 1 ranking this year, which would of course be huge considering Federer has been #1 for about 180 weeks in a row. Now I do think Nadal will eventually reach #1, considering he's about 4 or 5 years younger than Federer and also way ahead of the rest of the field (although keep an eye on Djokovic).

(As a side note for our less tennis inclined readers, the rankings consist of the points earned for tournaments within the past 52 weeks. All 4 grand slams and all 9 masters events count even if you did not participate. Then your best 5 international series results are added as well. More prestigous tournaments earn more points.)

So what would it take for Nadal to end the year at #1?

The total ranking points as of today are Fed 7290, Nadal 5225. If we take only the 2007 points earned, Nadal is ahead !!!! 4430 - 4005. The clay court season has obviously helped and there are probably no more clay events that Nadal will play this year. I doubt either will play again before the Toronto Masters in August. The remaining major events are:

Masters - Toronto
Masters - Cincinnati
US Open
Masters - Madrid
Masters - Paris
Masters Cup

The US Open is obviously worth the most points, but 500 for a win at a masters event is still a lot. Last year, neither of them played Paris (the only masters event on carpet). If Nadal improves his hard court performance from last year, I wonder if one or both of them decide to play this event to get an edge on the other. Federer has not played Paris since 2003 and Nadal has never played there. So unless the rankings have gotten very close by then, I don't envision either playing there.

Assuming that both play the other 5 events, it will likely come down to who wins the most of those 5, and with Roger's past success on the hard courts I feel he's got the edge. But if Nadal could pull out the US Open win and strong showings in the other tournaments, we could be looking at a very interesting Masters Cup to end the year.

Overall prediction, Federer takes the US Open and 2 of 3 master hard courts to keep the ranking, but Nadal will close the gap considerably and will pass him sometime during the clay court season in 2008.