I think the Occupy Wall Street crowd picked impeccable timing. The Yankees and Red Sox are both out of the playoffs. Detroit's the only team left even in the Eastern time zone.
With flyover country carrying the baseball battalion this year, might as well do something else. I'm sure this was an integral part of the planning.
Maybe a Cardinal will do some PR for Veterans for Peace. We could call it learning geography by protest. The corporate media in places like NY and LA might be shocked to learn we Midwesterners despise fraud and inequality and warmongering, too. Red and blue are for sports teams, not the Constitution.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
10/11/2011
5/09/2011
beat the streak
Barry Ritholtz has made me think of baseball. He highlighted information from Zillow about housing prices, specifically, an interesting tidbit that prices have fallen for 57 consecutive months.
60 years ago, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio embarked on two of the greatest feats in modern sports history. Williams finished an entire season with a batting average above .400, while DiMaggio hit safely in 56 straight games.
No hitter has been able to approach 56 since then.
60 years ago, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio embarked on two of the greatest feats in modern sports history. Williams finished an entire season with a batting average above .400, while DiMaggio hit safely in 56 straight games.
No hitter has been able to approach 56 since then.
4/12/2010
woah, the royals put up 10 runs
Spread the love around guys. We need some runs the rest of the week, too.
11/17/2009
it's official
Greinke wins the Cy Young Award. How about that. Could you imagine if he was pitching in front of an outfield of, say, Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye, and Raul Ibanez? Baseball is an odd sport. It has good draft and trading systems that allow all franchises to develop star athletes. It just doesn't have the revenue structure to allow any but the largest TV markets to keep a nucleus of players for very long.
5/06/2009
is this really happening
A month into the season, can the stats really look like this?
All five AL Central teams in the top half of baseball? Two in the top five? And what's that? Is that the Royals leading the division, garnering spot #3?
This must be a misprint, a mistake, a misunderstanding. At least, it's May.
And that's kind of exciting. Maybe, just maybe, they can keep this up.
3/04/2009
9/28/2008
week 5 rankings
Well, a ranker this week of college football gets to do pretty much whatever they want after this past week.
So here's what I did. I've got 11 undefeated teams that I think have legitimate shots at their conference championships. Then I put 9 teams that are all good, but have already lost a game. Then I've got 5 teams I'm not sure what to do with. They're a combined 20-1, but when you look into the conference schedules, it's hard to see them maintaining that pace.
However, if they do, I'm certainly willing to jump them up the rankings. And for the ones that lose, I'm thinking teams like Boise State, Fresno State, and Florida State are primed to take their place.
1 B-12 Oklahoma
2 SEC LSU
3 B-12 Missouri
4 SEC Alabama
5 B-12 Texas
6 B-Ten Penn State
7 B-E South Florida
8 B-12 Texas Tech
9 MW BYU
10 MW Utah
11 B-E Connecticut
12 SEC Florida
13 SEC Georgia
14 ACC Virginia Tech
15 B-Ten Wisconsin
16 B-12 Kansas
17 P-10 USC
18 B-Ten Ohio State
19 ACC Wake Forest
20 P-10 Oregon
21 B-12 Oklahoma State
22 B-Ten Northwestern
23 SEC Kentucky
24 SEC Vanderbilt
25 SEC Auburn
And on a different note, is it possible that the Royals aren't even the worst pro team in Kansas City, let alone the AL Central? The Royals finally seemed to have decided they don't like being in the bottom third of the league, and they've now won more games than the season before for three consecutive years. Hmm, they tease us...
So here's what I did. I've got 11 undefeated teams that I think have legitimate shots at their conference championships. Then I put 9 teams that are all good, but have already lost a game. Then I've got 5 teams I'm not sure what to do with. They're a combined 20-1, but when you look into the conference schedules, it's hard to see them maintaining that pace.
However, if they do, I'm certainly willing to jump them up the rankings. And for the ones that lose, I'm thinking teams like Boise State, Fresno State, and Florida State are primed to take their place.
1 B-12 Oklahoma
2 SEC LSU
3 B-12 Missouri
4 SEC Alabama
5 B-12 Texas
6 B-Ten Penn State
7 B-E South Florida
8 B-12 Texas Tech
9 MW BYU
10 MW Utah
11 B-E Connecticut
12 SEC Florida
13 SEC Georgia
14 ACC Virginia Tech
15 B-Ten Wisconsin
16 B-12 Kansas
17 P-10 USC
18 B-Ten Ohio State
19 ACC Wake Forest
20 P-10 Oregon
21 B-12 Oklahoma State
22 B-Ten Northwestern
23 SEC Kentucky
24 SEC Vanderbilt
25 SEC Auburn
And on a different note, is it possible that the Royals aren't even the worst pro team in Kansas City, let alone the AL Central? The Royals finally seemed to have decided they don't like being in the bottom third of the league, and they've now won more games than the season before for three consecutive years. Hmm, they tease us...
4/03/2008
call the season
It's official. Let's just end it now. The Royals are in first place. In fact, they're the only undefeated team in baseball.
That can't last long. Can it?
That can't last long. Can it?
9/05/2007
excitement excitement excitement
Man, I thought the who will lose least NL Central was exciting. I'm checking baseball scores - why didn't the Royals play the Rangers earlier in the year - and discover that Apple released some updated iPods.
Cool beans.
Now, apparently they also dropped the price on the iPhone. But not retroactively. Needless to say, a few of Apple's best customers are a tad upset. Fortunately my phone is on day number 13.
And no, I'm not counting. I just needed to make sure I was in the magic 14 day window. As I'm writing from my iPhone as we speak, I'll keep the business analysis short. But if I were a betting man, I'd guess that Apple will end up doing something to appease half a million of its best customers and sales people.
Cool beans.
Now, apparently they also dropped the price on the iPhone. But not retroactively. Needless to say, a few of Apple's best customers are a tad upset. Fortunately my phone is on day number 13.
And no, I'm not counting. I just needed to make sure I was in the magic 14 day window. As I'm writing from my iPhone as we speak, I'll keep the business analysis short. But if I were a betting man, I'd guess that Apple will end up doing something to appease half a million of its best customers and sales people.
6/12/2007
can the espn curse affect even the royals
Imagine my shock when I saw the following on ESPN's preview of the Cardinals/Royals game this evening.
4/05/2007
annoyed baseball fan
(R) When ranting about sports coverage, it's hard to not address the wider problems we have with corporate control of the media and lack of competition and whatnot, not to mention disparities in how baseball distributes TV revenue. But, honestly, this is a very targeted complaint. There are lots of other opportunities to complain.
You've got a freakin' $100 million dollar pitcher starting his first major league game, and you can't watch the game in the state it's being played on a cable package that costs hundreds of dollars a year, not to mention funding from commercial breaks. It's absolutely ridiculous. What's on ESPN, ESPN2, and FSN? Reruns. Lovely. Don't even ask about the 40 other channels showing crap at 2 in the afternoon on a Thursday.
Oh, but of course, you can watch the White Sox on WGN. Whoopdeedoo.
And who would have thought the Royals and Cards would have started the season 1-5? Bleh.
You've got a freakin' $100 million dollar pitcher starting his first major league game, and you can't watch the game in the state it's being played on a cable package that costs hundreds of dollars a year, not to mention funding from commercial breaks. It's absolutely ridiculous. What's on ESPN, ESPN2, and FSN? Reruns. Lovely. Don't even ask about the 40 other channels showing crap at 2 in the afternoon on a Thursday.
Oh, but of course, you can watch the White Sox on WGN. Whoopdeedoo.
And who would have thought the Royals and Cards would have started the season 1-5? Bleh.
4/02/2007
opening day part 2
The good news is that the Royals were on ESPN today. The bad news is that they decided to have the game while I was working. Not very thoughtful.
So, I took a late lunch and hung out at Laclede Street Bar and Grill down by SLU for an hour. Of course, my waitress had to be a Red Sox fan. What are they doing in St. Louis, anyway? Got there just in time to see Schilling walk in the tying run. That's always smart to do. Something must have been wrong with the TV, though. That Royals pitcher actually looked like somebody who should be paid a fair amount of money to play baseball. I'm sure Bud Selig and David Glass are looking into it.
Lookie, it's day 2, and the Royals are still tied for first. I think I'm not getting a hair cut until they lose.
Note to Royals, I'm planning on getting a hair cut Thursday. Don't let me down.
So, I took a late lunch and hung out at Laclede Street Bar and Grill down by SLU for an hour. Of course, my waitress had to be a Red Sox fan. What are they doing in St. Louis, anyway? Got there just in time to see Schilling walk in the tying run. That's always smart to do. Something must have been wrong with the TV, though. That Royals pitcher actually looked like somebody who should be paid a fair amount of money to play baseball. I'm sure Bud Selig and David Glass are looking into it.
Lookie, it's day 2, and the Royals are still tied for first. I think I'm not getting a hair cut until they lose.
Note to Royals, I'm planning on getting a hair cut Thursday. Don't let me down.
4/01/2007
they're back
(P) I got a little caught up in the Missouri vote last year regarding stem cell research, which you may have noticed if you've perused my archives or visit regularly. Among other things, I became acquainted with the Vitae Foundation, and wrote this post in particular about an ad that I found most distasteful.
Well, Vitae is back! They are running an anti abortion ad with the tagline think about it. This time, unlike the tasteless anti stem cell ad, you can see the ad on their website. Like the stem cell ad, they're running it during a major sporting event (opening day for the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals).
It is quite interesting. It is in a classroom, with a black teacher asking a class of all black students what they want to be when they grow up. You see a child want to play professional basketball and fade away (a boy of course) and another child want to be an actress (a girl this time) and similarly fade away. The teacher/narrator explains that abortion has killed more of us than anything else.
Wow.
Not only is it offensive for what the backers of the Vitae Foundation support regarding public policy, opposing things that would actually help black children in this country like Headstart, universal daycare, more spending on public schools, universal healthcare (in particular better prenatal and neonatal care), improved mass transit, better access to family planning and contraceptives, ending the drug war, and so forth, but more topically to the focus of the ad, it raises a number of interesting areas of discussion which conservatives usually assail liberals for raising.
Basically, the ad suggests we should look to the effects of aborting fetuses. That is perhaps the strongest argument in support of keeping abortion legal, something that pro-choice people supposedly unfairly include in the argument. It's important to note that the ad doesn't say anything about the beginning of life or a soul being created or anything like that; only the future potential of what these fetuses could become is what's suggested. This is very important for the moral position they are staking out, as I'll get to later. Now that the cat is out of the bag from such an interestingly supported organization (among other people, the Iran-contra traitor Oliver North is offered on the website as one of many VIPs supporting the organization), let's delve into the consequences. The first place to start, perhaps, is the rather interesting correlation between the Roe v Wade decision in the 1970s and the dramatic drop in crime a generation later in the 1990s.
But that's just the beginning. We know from all over the world that as countries get richer, family size decreases. Across cultures, families recognize the value of planning for and limiting the number of their offspring. If you want to reduce the number of abortions among blacks, you should support a variety of policy options that make black communities better off, healthier, and improve access to sex education, condoms, birth control, and so forth. Vitae seems to want blacks to take responsibility for abortions while being in league with the very political thought that makes policies which impoverish and imprison and disenfranchise blacks all over the country, not to mention people who push for ridiculous programs like abstinence only education.
Perhaps most intriguingly for me, this touches on one of the major big picture moral problems we face, the massive explosion of the sheer number of people on the planet. To vastly summarize, basically there are enormous environmental, poverty, and destabilization issues related to the unprecedented increase in the global population. This is one of those moral positions where there is absolutely no middle ground with the way Vitae has staked out their position. Either it is ok to limit potential humans, or it is not. As they suggest, think about it. Every time a woman of child bearing age passes an unfertilized egg (or a fertilized one, called a miscarriage), a future potential human is destroyed, wasted, squandered, murdered, whatever word you want to use for the death of that egg, a living cell with the potential to create a new human being. Now, I don't think that China's approach to solving the very serious problem of overpopulation is the way to go. But not because it acknowledges a role for abortion, but rather because it forces the choice upon families. Rather, families should make those choices. But, it is important that China at least recognizes the issue and is doing something. I am curious what Vitae's solution for China would be. Is their ideal to have billions more people crowd into the massive cities on China's east coast? Or would they suggest to the Chinese to just stop having sex?
This was a fabulous way to cap a wonderful birthday week. Yay for excitement.
Now we just need the Cards to score a few more runs. Oh, and have you checked the standings? The Royals are tied for first right now. And they're on ESPN tomorrow!
While I'm at work.
Well, Vitae is back! They are running an anti abortion ad with the tagline think about it. This time, unlike the tasteless anti stem cell ad, you can see the ad on their website. Like the stem cell ad, they're running it during a major sporting event (opening day for the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals).
It is quite interesting. It is in a classroom, with a black teacher asking a class of all black students what they want to be when they grow up. You see a child want to play professional basketball and fade away (a boy of course) and another child want to be an actress (a girl this time) and similarly fade away. The teacher/narrator explains that abortion has killed more of us than anything else.
Wow.
Not only is it offensive for what the backers of the Vitae Foundation support regarding public policy, opposing things that would actually help black children in this country like Headstart, universal daycare, more spending on public schools, universal healthcare (in particular better prenatal and neonatal care), improved mass transit, better access to family planning and contraceptives, ending the drug war, and so forth, but more topically to the focus of the ad, it raises a number of interesting areas of discussion which conservatives usually assail liberals for raising.
Basically, the ad suggests we should look to the effects of aborting fetuses. That is perhaps the strongest argument in support of keeping abortion legal, something that pro-choice people supposedly unfairly include in the argument. It's important to note that the ad doesn't say anything about the beginning of life or a soul being created or anything like that; only the future potential of what these fetuses could become is what's suggested. This is very important for the moral position they are staking out, as I'll get to later. Now that the cat is out of the bag from such an interestingly supported organization (among other people, the Iran-contra traitor Oliver North is offered on the website as one of many VIPs supporting the organization), let's delve into the consequences. The first place to start, perhaps, is the rather interesting correlation between the Roe v Wade decision in the 1970s and the dramatic drop in crime a generation later in the 1990s.
But that's just the beginning. We know from all over the world that as countries get richer, family size decreases. Across cultures, families recognize the value of planning for and limiting the number of their offspring. If you want to reduce the number of abortions among blacks, you should support a variety of policy options that make black communities better off, healthier, and improve access to sex education, condoms, birth control, and so forth. Vitae seems to want blacks to take responsibility for abortions while being in league with the very political thought that makes policies which impoverish and imprison and disenfranchise blacks all over the country, not to mention people who push for ridiculous programs like abstinence only education.
Perhaps most intriguingly for me, this touches on one of the major big picture moral problems we face, the massive explosion of the sheer number of people on the planet. To vastly summarize, basically there are enormous environmental, poverty, and destabilization issues related to the unprecedented increase in the global population. This is one of those moral positions where there is absolutely no middle ground with the way Vitae has staked out their position. Either it is ok to limit potential humans, or it is not. As they suggest, think about it. Every time a woman of child bearing age passes an unfertilized egg (or a fertilized one, called a miscarriage), a future potential human is destroyed, wasted, squandered, murdered, whatever word you want to use for the death of that egg, a living cell with the potential to create a new human being. Now, I don't think that China's approach to solving the very serious problem of overpopulation is the way to go. But not because it acknowledges a role for abortion, but rather because it forces the choice upon families. Rather, families should make those choices. But, it is important that China at least recognizes the issue and is doing something. I am curious what Vitae's solution for China would be. Is their ideal to have billions more people crowd into the massive cities on China's east coast? Or would they suggest to the Chinese to just stop having sex?
This was a fabulous way to cap a wonderful birthday week. Yay for excitement.
Now we just need the Cards to score a few more runs. Oh, and have you checked the standings? The Royals are tied for first right now. And they're on ESPN tomorrow!
While I'm at work.
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