Beaneball

There's some weird stuff going on in the Yankees-White Sox game. First, Orlando Hernandez popped Alex Rodriguez with a pitch early in the game, resulting in a warning to both benches and a pissed-off A-Rod. A-Rod got his aggression out later by ripping a double to score two Yankee runs. A-Rod clapped his hands aggressively when he got to second base, apparently in the direction of Hernandez, but it's unclear. Then, El Duque got called for a balk that moved Rodriguez to third base, though it's unclear to me why it was called. It was one of those instances where he technically broke a rule despite his obvious lack of intention to mis-lead the baserunner, which is why the balk rule exists in the first place. Finally, Rodriguez was picked off of third by AJ Pierzynski, though, from my view, no tag was actually applied by Joe Crede at third base. Pierzynski, in his delight, dropped a couple of obvious f-bombs, and appeared to be dangerously close to actually aiming them at Rodriguez. There's a reason no one likes the guy, I guess, and it'll be interesting to see what happens in A-Rod's next at-bat. UPDATE: Robinson Cano just took a pitch on the shin from Duque, but it was clear there was no intent. It was a breaking pitch that Hernandez just lost track of and it hit him only a few inches off the ground. It's nice to see that hitting a guy after warnings isn't an automatic ejection, the way it seemingly used to be. UPDATE 2: The oddness continues and El Duque continues to have conflict with the umpires. On a ground ball to first, Geoff Blum tossed to Duque running toward the bag. Hernandez's gait was off, though, so he was set to go straight over the bag, never stepping on it. Duque's a good athlete, though, so he did what any good wide receiver does when trying to stay in-bound while making a catch: he dragged his back foot over the top of the bag while his front foot stepped over it. The back foot quite clearly hit the bag and should have resulted in an out, but the umpire completely missed it and ruled that Hernandez never touched the bag. Duque was charged with an error, his second of the game. This is significant because Hernandez, as the announcers have pointed out, has not been charged with an error in six years. Hernandez's first error wasn't really his fault, either. He grabbed a comebacker with a runner on first, wheeled and threw to second, only to find out that his middle infielders weren't sure who was supposed to be covering. Both of them made tentative stabs at the ball, but were clearly wary of colliding with each other and ruining the play for the other one. Thus the ball went into center field and Duque's errorless streak ended. UPDATE 3: Don't ask me why, but the local Channel 7 news was on TV, and the usual lame-ass sports person blamed the first Hernandez error (on the play at second base) on Duque, snidely remarking, "Maybe you should throw it harder next time." I guess I should expect nothing less in New York.

Posted by jason in Oakland A's at 16:01 | |

Susan Slusser does a nice job responding to my point from yesterday in writing about Jay Payton in today's SF Chronicle. She talks about he worked hard at his studies in high school, finishing top four in his class, and in college and how he worked very hard to come back from multiple elbow surgeries before his career even really got started. In other words, no, Jay Payton isn't just coasting along on some natural athletic ability. Also, as an aside, Payton actually has the same first two names as me: Jason Lee. Who knew?

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 06:25 | |

I want to watch the Mets game tonight. Unfortunately, that means I have to sit through the pre-game show, because I've got nothing better to do. That also means I have to deal with fun things like this: according to the graphic that's up on FSNY right this moment (I've got it paused on my DVR to make sure I'm not missing something), from July 3 to July 5, the Washington Nationals won 12 straight one-run games. That's right, in a span of three days, they won 12 straight one-run games. A typo's a typo, but the guy at the desk whose job it is to read this stuff to us just said, with no hesitation, exactly what it said on the screen. I guess it's some kind of skill to be that oblivious.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 00:10 | |

Heard on the Braves-Dodgers telecast on TBS tonight: "You want your signs to be hard enough that the smartest players on the other team can't pick them up, but easy enough that your dumbest players can get them." I should just leave that without comment and let us enjoy it, but there's a whole topic here of intelligence in professional baseball players, and how "smart" is, I think, mis-applied too often, reflecting more of a style of play than actual intellectual ability. I have no idea of Randy Johnson's intellect, but no one's ever going to think he's brilliant because he's huge, he throws really hard, and he's got redneck hair. On the other side of things, we'll assume forevermore that Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine are reading Dostoevsky and physics textbooks on their team flights because their fastballs don't top ninety and they're smallish (as athletes go, at least), unimposing, white guys. Perhaps the most important point here is the racial one. When was the last time a black or Latino player was described as smart? There's still the perspective in American sports culture, though it's much more under the radar than it was twenty years ago, that non-white players (in any sport) are there purely because of athletic ability, while white players are a more varied group: you get some big-time athletes, but you also get the "scrappers" and the "gamers" and the "guys who know how to play the game" and the "smart players." This works in, as I said, any sport. Shaquille O'Neal, you'll recall, just finished his MBA a few months ago. But does anyone describe him as a "smart" player? I realize there's some difference between outside-the-game smarts and game smarts, but I don't think non-white players get credit for either kind of intelligence.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 02:25 | |

As other people have mentioned, and I've been late in piling on, the Law Firm's been cancelled, which is of course the reason why I didn't post a review of episode three last Friday. I could watch the remaining episodes on Bravo, but it's not worth the effort to set up the TIVO, then watch them, etc. etc. I know, that makes me sound lazy, but I'd actually really not been looking forward to it as much as I thought I was, or as much as I wanted to be. Back to Law and Order, I guess, if I want solidly entertaining legal media.

Posted by jason in Television at 19:04 | |

Jayson Stark has penned one of the better articles about steroids I've seen from the mainstream media over at ESPN. It is, as usual for Stark, a bit unfocused, and it doesn't really answer any questions, but it certainly asks a few. Most importantly, "Why do we only seem to care about hitters who cheat?" and "Why do we only care about the sanctity of records? What about seasons and games and World Series results?" I'm glad there's somebody at a major media outlet who's not just caught up in the "by God, he cheated, so boot his ass out!" hysteria.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 15:15 | |

Seeing as how I've got a laptop now (I wanted one for law school) and a wireless internet connection (a wireless router was available for a discount with the computer) and a couch (we moved and we actually have a living room; the couch was found at a discount furniture store that was closing, so we got it on deep discount), I can sit here and write about the game as I'm watching it. Neat! That said, some of you might not find the prospect of a Yankees - White Sox matchup all that scintillating, so I'll put the rest of this below a "More" tag. 7:17: Some controversy already, as Derek Jeter may or may not have beat Scott Posednik to second base on a hit-and-run groundball by Iguchi up the middle. Podsednik was called out and argued vehemently. Ozzie Guillen came out to argue, but didn't seem to stay long; it seemed to be more the case where the manager comes out to take over the argument and make sure his player doesn't get thrown out. On the question of whether or not he was out, I think he actually was, and it looks like the umpire, Jerry Meals, really had the perfect angle on the play (which is why he's positioned there, isn't it?). Well done, Jerry. 7:22: Robinson Cano just stung a single to left field past Joe Crede at third. Cano, though he draws comparisons to Rod Carew from the YES network crew, is likely to be a very overrated player if he continues in this mold: .287/.313/.443. He's got nice power already, particularly for a second baseman, but he's a classic outmaker despite an above-mean batting average. With his power and contact hitting, I guess you'd want him somewhere down in the lineup, behind the real on-base threats, maybe fifth or sixth. The higher in the lineup you bat him, though, the more outs you'll give away. Cano, by the way, is 19th in baseball in VORP for a rookie, with eleven of those players in the American League. By VORP, the AL Rookie of the Year right now is Gustavo Chacin in Toronto. 7:33: The shift put on by the Yankees against Paul Konerko makes me wonder why it seems that the shift is only ever put on against lefties (with the obvious exception of the righty-hitting Konerko). 7:34: You know your offense is in trouble when Timo Perez is your DH. Perez enters this game with a .285 on-base percentage. As good as the White Sox have been this year, their adjusted record is significantly worse than their real record and their pretty bad-looking offense makes them seem vulnerable to the other good-pitching teams they'll meet in the playoffs. In other words, if the A's end up playing them in the post-season (assuming they make it, of course), I wouldn't necessarily be scared of them, gaudy record or not. 7:42: The YES guys are talking about "records that won't be broken" and cite Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak and Orel Hershiser's scoreless innings. Someone, probably Jim Kaat, said, "The records that are being broken today are home runs and saves" and mentioned "trends in the game." What people seem to not realize is that a better description of these "trends" is "cycles." Have they forgotten the speedy, slap-hitting '80's already? The styles in the game go back and forth as new ideas are tried, as the culture changes, as technology changes, and so on. The obvious recent cultural change, if I can call it that, is a crackdown on performance-enhancing drugs. 8:17: We're in some doldrums and my attention is waning. Iguchi hit a home run last half inning and the Yankees are threatening to tie the game now, but my focus is elsewhere. 8:21: Jose Contreras just got really lucky and saved a run. Jorge Posada grounded a ball hard up the middle. Contreras had no hope of getting a glove on the ball, but he managed to get a foot up and, of all places the ball could go, it went directly to his first baseman, Paul Konerko. The fielder picked up the ball and tagged out Posada, ending the inning. We'll see if that run is as important as one run would have been last night. 8:40: Well, this was essentially a disaster. I got bored and otherwise occupied. I'm leaving the game on, but I'm done with this post. It was a nice experiment.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 00:19 | |

On last night's episode of The Law Firm, we saw Anika and Elizabeth's dismissals. Anika's firing was completely predictable, as she'd done a poor job two weeks in a row, capped this week by deviating from the strategy her teammates had laid out for their trial. Elizabeth was a bit of a surprise. I wouldn't call it unjustified, since Roy Black correctly criticized her effort to prepare their witness for cross-examination. In light of Olivier's utterance of "Bullshit" in response to losing his case, though, as well as the willful misdirect perpetrated by Black at the dismissal ceremony, I may have gasped a little bit when Black said Elizabeth's name. As regards Olivier, I think Black likes his style; had it been Deep or Chris blowing up like that after losing, they would have been fired. Both of them are quieter types than Olivier, and I don't think Black sees much potential for great trial attorneys in quiet types, though from what we've seen of both Deep and Chris, they're certainly capable. Meanwhile, what was up with the judge in the arbitration (the dominatrix case)? Did he seriously ask to see the website? I could see why Olivier got a little upset, because (though I acknowledge how little of the actual proceedings we see due to editing) the judge seemed way more interested in the website than in the legal matters of what contract the two parties may have had between them. I'm curious to hear from some of the actual lawyers out there what they thought of this particular case, though the facts available to us are certainly scant.

Posted by jason in Television at 17:14 | |

Don't read this post if you've TIVO'd The Law Firm and haven't watched it yet, for spoilers abound. So Roy Black's dismissal last night of Kelly looked totally justified. She looked completely lost in something as simple as an opening statement and, whether the judge was being difficult or not (she wasn't, she just wanted Kelly to do what she told her to do), as Black pointed out, you have to get the job done, and she didn't. It's to Michael's credit, by the way, that he didn't out-and-out stab her in the back when Black asked him how she'd done on the case; his response was just as "lukewarm" as Black stated it was, but that's in shart contrast to the assassination that was going on at the other side of the table. I eagerly await Yin's sure-to-be-forthcoming post about the episode. Speaking of the other side of the table, Jason's dismissal disturbed me in more ways than one. Sure, he has my name, and I always want to see people named Jason succeed, but more importantly, it really seems like he got fired for a mistake that everyone tried to make a big deal out of but was really just a slip, the type of mistake that everyone (even the "legendary Roy Black," I'd wager) makes at some point in their life. Who should have been removed instead? The way the show was cut, it was hard to see the performances of anybody who wasn't eventually involved in the dressing-down ceremony at the end. That said, what did Anika do for her team? During every argument between Olivier and Regina, she just seemed to sit there, staring blankly, waiting for it to end. The personal disagreements probably affected their case, so didn't Black have the best case for firing one of those three? I think he wanted to make an example the first week by firing attorneys from the winning teams, to make perfectly clear his point that nobody is safe, even if your side wins. Speaking of dressing-down, what was up with Black's lambasting of Chris (easily my favorite on the show so far), who, at least according to the way the episode was cut, probably did the best job of any of the twelve players? Black's claim was that if he wanted a researcher who would sit behind the scenes, he would have hired a researcher, but he wanted a great trial lawyer. My question: if he doesn't want them to quietly and competently go about researching their cases, then why doesn't he hire researchers to work under the lawyers? Brash and loud obviously don't always get the job done, as Olivier showed, so a little more respect for the behind-the-scenes worker, please? By the way, the bios on the official web site give insight into why Olivier acts the way he does: perusing the US News and World Reports law school rankings for 2006, he went to, by far, the highest-rated school of any of the associates (George Washington), so maybe you can see some arrogance coming of that. Plus, he's easily the best dressed guy on camera (that includes Roy Black in his awful pinstriped power suit that he doesn't have the body type to pull off). UPDATE: The reviews are pouring in, including Yin's and, (via Yin), Eric Goldman's. Goldman brought up the point that most disturbed me about the show, but that I forgot to mention above: the three-legged dog. The plaintiff's lawyers in the dog case decided to bring the dog to court, in a transparent attempt at garnering sympathy from the judge. The defense argued that this was ridiculous and the judge agreed, saying that if this were not a TV show, he would have declared a mistrial and sanctioned those lawyers. Roy Black, on the other hand, showing his true (despicable) stripes, lambasted the defense for not being ready for the dog, saying that things like bringing the dog in are what good lawyers do. As Goldman says, "Ethical qualm? Not in Roy Black's world! Like any good plaintiff's lawyer, he wants the team to push the ethical limits, and sympathy-inducing stunts appear to be both fair game and perhaps required." In addition, of course, the argument that the defense wasn't ready for the dog, while it may be true, isn't really applicable because the defense did argue effectively against the dog and won that argument. The only reason the case was not dismissed was because this is a TV show. Black willfully ignored that detail, because it didn't fit his overall theme, and, at least to me (and Goldman), doesn't come off well for it.

Posted by jason in Television at 16:31 | |

I watched the first episode of "The Law Firm" tonight and I think it can become a regular Thursday evening event for the rest of the summer. I won't post details or my rudimentary analysis (complaints) because I don't want anyone to stumble across any spoilers, considering it hasn't even aired yet in the two western time zones and is just starting in Central. Suffice it to say that trial law doesn't appeal to me and that Roy Black, however talented he may be as a trial lawyer, isn't who I aspire to be. Again, more tomorrow.

Posted by jason in Television at 03:10 | |

I semi-extensively overhauled the backend of the site - ideally, the front end won't be affected at all (though you may have noticed the ugly green "blog" thing at the left - ideally, that's the start of a tab system that'll contain various sections of an expanded "Beaneball" that's more than just this blog). If your user experience is adversley affected in any way (or if your user experience sucks in the first place), don't hesitate to let me know.

Posted by jason in The Blog at 04:24 | |

Andrew Orlowski (on Polish brothers!), who was quoted by John Dvorak in the piece I criticized last week, commented on that post today. The first part of his comment talks about the meaning of the word "criticism":

" ... if you ask critics of the system to explain it, then of course they're going to give negative answers! That's like asking me to explain why George Bush's foreign policy is solid and then using my answer as evidence that it sucks." That's strange. The dictionary defines criticism as 1. The act of criticizing, especially adversely. 2. A critical comment or judgment. 3. a. The practice of analyzing, classifying, interpreting, or evaluating literary or other artistic works. b. A critical article or essay; a critique. c. The investigation of the origin and history of literary documents; textual criticism. So your simile is only true if you ignore meanings 2 and 3. The role of criticism is essentially positive - mine certainly is.

I'd like to quote the OED on "criticism" to supplement the definitions above: "1. The action of criticizing, or passing judgement upon the qualities or merits of anything; esp. the passing of unfavourable judgement; fault-finding, censure." This is basically the same as the first definition of Orlowski's, but more fleshed-out. The other definition that is applicable is: "3. (with pl.) An act of criticizing; a critical remark, comment; a critical essay, critique." That's a lot of use of "criticize," which is sort of circular. Let's look up "criticize":

1. intr. To play the critic; to pass judgement upon something with respect to its merits or faults. (Often connoting unfavourable judgement.) 2. trans. To discuss critically; to offer judgement upon with respect to merits or faults; to animadvert upon. b. To censure, find fault with.

To me, the key is in three places: the "especially" in Orlowski's first definition, the "esp." in the first definition of "criticism" and the parenthetical statement in the first definition of "criticize." In other words, yes, the definition of "criticize" allows for positive commentary, as noted by much of the text of all the definitions, but the connotation, which is at least as important as the denotation, is a negative one. Amusingly enough, Orlowski himself uses "critical" in this sentence in a piece he wrote for The Register, connoting exactly what I'm saying the word connotes: "The first point is made repeatedly by Dvorak's critics, but having digested 300 comments on Slashdot, almost of all of which are critical, I haven't seen a genuine attempt to answer his broader question." I feel ridiculous for having spent so much time on this, but in the end, given Orlowski's statements on his views on CC in his comment on this blog and in his article (that he linked to in his comment) here, Dvorak would have been better to use, perhaps, "commentator." Or, better, provide a link to something Orlowski has written that indicates his views on CC. Orlowski's view, as I'm understanding from his piece at The Register is, amusingly enough, best encapsulated by his quote in Dvorak's piece: the "It does nothing" line. I disagree with his premise, however, which is stated succinctly when he writes, "[W]hat we have is a compensation crisis, not a copyright crisis." (Emphasis in the original) Perhaps we do have a compensation crisis, but that isn't the point of the Creative Commons. The point is, directly from their website, "to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules." Lessig and company do see a copyright crisis when they see huge conglomerates of companies owning huge numbers of copyrights in many creative arenas and an American government only too willing to bow to the wishes of those corporations. Orlowski writes

The social contract that's endured for over a hundred years is really simple. The rights holders can't control the flow of culture - but they can make money off it, and this is willingly given with various provisos. As long as they don't get too greedy, and charge too much; as long as they continue to invest in the storage and transmission technologies that make it more accessible; and most importantly if they ensure that the money goes round fairly: then everyone's pretty much happy.

The CC people see, and Orlowski apparently disagrees, that the rights holders are moving toward a system where they do control the flow of culture. They believe that corporations are too greedy, and that the money isn't really getting around. A related point that Orlowski makes that I disagree with is that computers and networks are simply a "boundary case" in copyright law. His basic contention is that copyright law isn't broken just because the computer lobby says it is; it only seems that way to that lobby. Where we don't see eye-to-eye is apparently in the place of that computer lobby in society. I think digital networks and related technology is and will become so pervasive that this lobby only appears to be a fringe group because they're at the forefront of a wave, not because they're a bunch of weirdos who can't deal with the rest of us. Their life is rapidly becoming everybody's life. In the end, instead of all this exposition, I suppose I could have just left Orlowski's words in his comment on this blog alone: "[Creative Commons] is demonstrably absorbing a lot of people's time and energy. This may be better spent on more achievable and practical goals." Again, where the disagreement resides is in Lessig's belief (which I've been pulled around to) that the copyright situation is a problem and is only getting worse (thus that CC isn't a waste of time, since it tries to attack an extant problem), compared with Orlowski's belief that it's just a small segment of (nerdy) society that's worried about these things, to no good end.

Posted by jason in Computer at 02:49 | |

Ken Macha said it best: "You can't be perfect every night. It's not that easy." At least the Angels also lost, so, even though the A's lose the wild card lead, they remain five games back in the division. Tonight, Scott Elarton goes for the Indians against Dan Haren for the good guys. That matchup seriously favors the A's, so I'll be disappointed if they don't take advantage of it.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 13:56 | |

Oakland is now the sole leader in the wild card chase, having smoked Cleveland last night while Minnesota was idle. It's exciting to be a fan of this team right now. After 99 games last year, the A's were just one game better than their current record, but they were closer to second place, sitting a game and a half back of Texas, and two and a half up on the Angels. They were also tied for the wild card lead with Boston. With the exception of the AL West, the team that would eventually win each division was already in the lead, though Houston, which took the wild card in the NL, was five games back. In 2003, the A's were 56-43, two games better than their current record. They were four games back of Seattle and trailed the wild-card-leading Red Sox by three contests. Three division winners, including the A's, were not commanding their respective divisions at this point: the Cubs were 4.5 games back and in third place; and the Twins were 5.5 back and also in third place; in addition, the Marlins, who eventually won the NL wild card, were four games back of that lead and in fourth place. In 2002, the A's were 58-41, four games better than today, but they stood in third place, albeit just two games back of first (Seattle). They trailed wild-card leading Anaheim by just a game, though Boston was also ahead of them in that chase. In the other five divisions, the eventual winners were already in the lead. Two of those leads were commanding: Minnesota by 14 games and Atlanta by 12.5. The eventual AL wild card was Anaheim, who was leading that chase at this point (though the A's and Mariners swapped places around the Angels) while the Giants made their half-game lead over the Dodgers stand up, taking the extra playoff spot in teh NL. There were no close divisions nor even close wild-card chases at the end. In 2001, the A's were 53-46, a game worse than they are now, and they were already 19 games back of Seattle in the West. They were also five games back of Cleveland, which was in a virtual tie for first place with Minnesota, in the wild card chase. Cleveland ended up winning their division while the A's outpaced the next-best second-place team by a whopping 17 games. Thus, in a space of 63 games, the A's gained 22 games in the wild card standings, which is simply astounding. Five of baseball's six divisions were lead (or tied, in the case of Cleveland and Minnesota) by the team that eventually went to the playoffs. Chicago, though, blew a lead of three games over Houston and seven and a half over St. Louis, as the latter two teams finished the season tied (St. Louis was awarded the wild card). St. Louis had been 6.5 games back of the wild card at that point in the season. My point? There's a lot of baseball left to play. The A's lead the wild card, but it's not exactly a stranglehold, especially considering the quality of some of the teams chasing them (the Yankees could go on a crazy streak where they score 12 runs every day from here to the rest of the season; the Twins could have a team RA of about 2.3 from here on out; and Baltimore could get a new shipment of syringes for Sammy Sosa). On the other hand, a five game lead for the Angels isn't insurmountable, either. It would take continued hot play by the A's to make it up, but that's not out of the question. I don't think Anaheim is in for an epic collapse, but they're going to have to slow down a little bit if the A's want to catch them, because I don't think it's possible for them to play .833 ball from here on out.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 14:34 | |

Here's an article in the San Francisco Weekly about Joe Morgan and why he hates Moneyball. It's worth a gander. I picked up the link from Aaron Gleeman.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Magazines, Reading at 16:17 | |