Beaneball

For those of you interested in my experiences as a teacher in a Bronx public high school, here's an Onion story about Teach for America that's highly amusing.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Education at 07:04 | |

The Frank Thomas health stories will likely come fast and furious during spring training (and the regular season, but that's another matter). The update in today's Chronicle is that Thomas has been cleared to do a little soft-toss, some tee work, and maybe, eventually, some jogging. This isn't all that exciting. What's more exciting is Jerrald Goldman's comment:

"I think he looks good for Opening [Night]. That's certainly no guarantee but if he keeps going the way he's been going, it would be hard to keep him from playing.''

Story. That said, I'd be perfectly happy bringing him back slow, essentially giving him an extra month of spring training (or whatever it takes) and have him in a position where the risk of reinjury is minimized. Of course, I'll also trust the doctors on this one, because I certainly don't have the expertise or information to make any kind of judgments on whether the way the team and Thomas are handling the situation is right or wrong. Another amusing note is that the A's are looking for some orthopedic shoes that might help Thomas. I knew Thomas was old, but I didn't know he was that old! ++++++++ Juan Cruz is having some trouble eating because of some issues with the roof of his mouth. That could be a serious problem for a guy who doesn't have a lot of weight to lose. Joe Roderick at the Mercury News reported the same thing, but added that Cruz is a long shot to make the team anyway. Oakland apparently has room for seven relievers. I count Huston Street, Kiko Calero, Joe Kennedy, Jay Witasick, Justin Duchscherer, and Kirk Saarloos in the pen. That's six, leaving room for Cruz to pop on as the seventh. However, that group only has one lefty, and Ken Macha apparently wants two, so I guess that means Ron Flores or somebody on the team instead of Cruz. That strikes me as a bad idea. Handedness seems entirely less important than the ability to get guys out. On the other hand (no pun intended), Cruz didn't show the ability to get guys out at the major league level last year. He did dominate AAA, and he has performed well in the majors before, though, so I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since he's the kind of power strikeout pitcher that always puts people at ease. If Macha insists on a second lefty, I'd let Saarloos be a AAA starter and put Cruz in the pen. With Kennedy, Duchscherer, and Cruz not too far removed from starting, the A's shouldn't be hurting for a long man or emergency starter. And if Flores is on the team as a second lefty, Macha shouldn't be shy about using Kennedy in that long role sometimes. These kinds of decisions are what drive fans batty about any manager. It seems like they're always picking the wrong guy, and for the wrong reasons. +++++++ A cute note from Josh Suchon at the Oakland Tribune:

Jeremy Brown accidentally hit fellow catcher Kurt Suzuki in the head with his bat, but Suzuki's helmet was pointed in the right direction, and he was unharmed — but that naturally led to some jokes about Brown trying to take out the competition.

The callous joke would be that this is the only way Brown will ever get to the majors. But I won't make that joke. Story.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 14:26 | |

Thank the lord! Jay Payton is apparently ok with being the fourth guy in the outfield.

"At first I was unhappy,'' Payton said Wednesday. "But I realize being a fourth outfielder here is different than being the fourth outfielder in Boston (in 2005).''

Story. And he's right, I think. By my recollection, Ken Macha does mix and match in the outfield more than some managers. That said, I think Macha could be hard pressed to do a lot of rotation this year. Milton Bradley and Mark Kotsay are locks to run out there every day that they're available. Nick Swisher probably won't sit too much, because I don't think Billy Beane likes to see the young guys rotting away on the bench. If I were Payton, I'd be worried about my playing time, too. However, he does have the inevitable "Kotsay's creaky back" days to look forward to. Also, when ('cause it's not an if) Frank Thomas is hurt, someone can slide to DH, whether that's Dan Johnson, Swisher, Kotsay, Bradley, or Payton himself, freeing up more playing time for the benchies.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 23:09 | |

The Raiders have hired a guy whose last two jobs were "bed-and-breakfast operator" and "mayor of Swan Valley, Idaho" to be their offensive coordinator. Wow. The NFL may be unawesome in a lot of ways, but in terms of pulling random coaches out of its collective ass, they're the greatest. Story here.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Football at 16:27 | |

With the start of spring training come the barrage of puff pieces, injury reports, and all kinds of other news that makes this time of year so exciting. Here's a little roundup for the past few days.

• This Mac Suzuki profile is notable only because it mentions the Salinas Peppers, from the town where I lived when I was in 5th and 6th grade. I played in the Peppers' stadium once. I was impressed at the time, but later, when I played in high school, I got to see some prep fields that were nicer than this semi-pro ballpark.
• Milton Bradley is freezing out the media, which is awesome. You can't get quoted saying something bad if you're not quoted, right? On the other hand, a large part of the perception of a given player is how they're written up in the local media. Not giving writers access could backfire on Bradley. Hopefully fans are smart enough not to care if he produces.
• Ken Macha is making noise about 12 pitchers, which would leave Antonio Perez off the roster, assuming Marco Scutaro is the backup infielder. If Perez is left off, I'd rather he be left off for a bopper rather than for a second lefty in the bullpen. On the other hand, the A's don't have any obvious pinch-hit candidates in their lineup (except Jason Kendall, and if he's not in there for his offense, what is he in there for?), nor do they really have any Roberto Petagine-types hanging around, so I guess the choice between Perez and Rheinecker (or Ron Flores) isn't really that important.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 10:30 | |

I finished Kembrew McLeod's Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity. There's a lot to recommend it, including the fact that McLeod is a UMass-Amherst grad (his PhD, anyway) and that he's generally very angry about the continued legal sanctioning of the stifling of creativity in America (and beyond). That said, I don't know if I'd call it a good book. I sort of felt while reading it that he didn't say anything you couldn't go find out in Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture. That's not entirely fair, because there is lots and lots of interesting material cited as examples of what our culture could be if the muffling effects of intellectual-property law could be re-lessened. For example, McLeod writes about sampling in hip-hop, collage in subversive art, and Todd Haynes's (in?)famous Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. Each story is compelling, but I never really felt it all come together. Which is not to say his point isn't clear. It certainly is. But is it clear because it's obvious from the first five pages what his point is, or is it clear because he's structured his book and his anecdotes in such a way that each one makes his argument a little clearer, a little more convincing? I'd say the former. Then again, I'm biased. I did read Free Culture. I'm predisposed to agree with these ideas, and I'm already more familiar with them than McLeod's intended audience might have been. Could this book, then, serve as a primer, a gateway to Lessig's books (which themselves could be gateways to more technical work by other lawyers and academics)? Maybe. If I were making a personal recommendation, though, to someone interested in finding out a little more about, say, the file sharing arguments, I'd advise skipping straight to the head of the class with Lessig's work. I ought to note, also, that McLeod has done an interesting thing and made his work freely downloadable (as a PDF) at his website (linked above). The book is licensed under a Creative Commons license (the same license, actually, that I use on this site).

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Books at 18:15 | |

On Thursday night, some friends and I went to a panel at Cardozo on Trademark in Fashion. Knowing that I'm one of those free culture types, it should have been predicted that the panelists would piss me off. All four were industry insiders, lawyers either for firms that do IP work for the big fashion houses, or for the big houses themselves. Predictably, then, the panelists were proponents of strong IP protection and vigorously going after infringers of their "rights." You'll never hear an argument out of me that counterfeiting is good or right. I don't disagree that companies like Chanel should take steps to shut down people who are producing copies of their bags and selling them on Canal Street. That said, the blind adherence to a strong IP-protection regime and the justifications for that regime were a little ridiculous. The panel made mention of the reports that terrorist organizations are being linked to profits from counterfeiting of all types, clothing included. I'll let the jury still be out on that, because the links sound a little sketchy, and I thought we'd learned our lesson about taking action against terrorism based on sparse evidence. I was also amused by the revelation that counterfeiting clothes has really taken off ever since the companies moved their manufacturing to Asia. So now the companies are pressuring countries like China to create more stringent IP protection. My reaction is that these companies are just being whiny bitches. They made the choice to take their manufacturing to Asia, and they have to face the consequences of that. Quit making it a moral trip, quit pressuring other sovereigns to change their laws, and just deal with it. If you're losing that much money, then it'll make economic sense to bring the manufacturing back to the U.S. If counterfeiting is so awful, then make your Murakami bags in Cleveland. Even better, perhaps, was the panel struggling to come up with other ways in which we harm ourselves when we buy counterfeit goods. The best they could come up with were, "A lot of the counterfeit sunglasses don't actually have real UV protection," and, "If you buy fake perfume, you could get an allergic reaction." Yeah? Well, I get a reaction to my very-much not-fake deoderant (which is why I use Tom's of Maine now), and I'm sure I could easily get a reaction from a real bottle of Chanel No. 5 just as much as I could from a fake one. The real problem I had with the panel, though, was not on the counterfeiting front. As I said, there's no justification for counterfeiting. Really, it was just a general unwillingness to address the other side of the debate. Scratch that. Call it a general unwillingness to even acknowledge that there is a debate. I suppose that's not why they were there, but I don't know if they recognized the inherent contradiction in some of what they were saying about trademark. For instance, some of their talk was aimed at giving advice to up-and-coming designers and businesspeople (there were a number of New School and FIT students in the audience for whom this was more appropriate than the future-lawyers) that they aggressively pursue trademark, patent, and copyright for their work. At the same time, they explain how they, in their capacities representing the established companies, go very aggressively after anyone who might be infringing on their copyright or diluting their trademark. There doesn't seem to be a recognition of the need for innovators (of all types) to innovate without fear that some multinational behemoth is going to come along and shut them down with a multi-million dollar lawsuit because of some minor, accidental infringement. This is what drives my reluctance to even bother with IP in law school.

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On a totally unrelated note, I'm right now watching Eugene Mirman, Hampshire College grad and comedian, working as a correspondent on Cheap Seats. I loved that show before, but I love it so much more now. Hampshire love, baby!

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Law at 16:20 | |

So, uh, how about Tony Kornheiser playing the 3rd man in the booth on Monday Night Football next year? Kornheiser? Really? If ESPN really wanted a Dennis Miller character, they should have just gone back to the real thing. Kornheiser. Wow.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Football at 20:22 | |

I saw this quote today in a CNN story:

"It was 'Lord of the Flies' with adult supervision," said William Smith, spokesman for Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan[.]

Excuse me? Isn't this one of those "Hamlet, but without the Prince of Denmark" situations? You can't do that!

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 15:27 | |

Here's CNN's story about Norwegian and Danish embassies being burned in Syria in the ever-increasing furor over depictions of Mohammed. I don't know if I can capture the indignance in text, but here was Austen's reaction: "You can't just burn embassies because you don't like cartoons!"

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 21:21 | |

I attended a little event at Cardozo today that I thought I'd share. Peter Lattman and Ashby Jones from the Wall Street Journal Online came to talk about blogging, online journalism, and the law. The attendance was pretty good for an evening session on a relatively niche topic, and some of the questions from the audience were pretty good. Both men are former lawyers (Jones: Michigan; Lattman: Fordham) who moved into journalism after really disliking the law-firm life. A lot of what they cover at the Journal's Law blog (Lattman) and generally on the law page of the Journal's online presence (Ashby, who edits that section) is the law firm life and, in some sense, legal culture. They do, of course (because it is the Journal), a lot of business stuff, from two perspectives: the legal aspects of business as well as the business aspects of the law. They both seemed like they really enjoyed their jobs and enjoyed working at what's in a lot of ways the front of a wave in journalism. It made me not feel so despairing of what might happen to me if I don't like the lawyer's life after law school. Some of the issues that were interesting to me (What does being on the web mean for journalists in terms of pressure to get stories up before they can really verify them? What about the possibility of a completely opaque editing process, where we don't even have to know that you've made corrections?) were discussed, as well as the nature of blogs (which I think is overblown - a blog is not a blog because it's independent, or because of it's style of mixing opinion with reportage), the question of whether blogs are "just a diversion" (question coming from an old dude in the back, which clearly made Lattman and Jones really uncomfortable), and the more mundane points like, "Do you link to pay sites?" One question I wanted to ask of Jones personally, but decided against eventually, was what effect he thought the move to online journalism might have on magazines and long-form journalism. People hate clicking "next page" online, after all - can you imagine if Gay Talese or Truman Capote had tried to write for an online audience? I shudder to think. Perhaps most of all, I enjoyed considering how many people were probably blogging this when they got home.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Law School at 22:36 | |