Get Rid of the Pro Bowl

Yesterday, I wrote a bit about why the Pro Bowl doesn't matter (but I would watch anyway). Then, I made a big mistake. I actually did watch the Pro Bowl. I watched every awful minute of it. I wasn't alone -- the Pro Bowl drew its best ratings in a decade. As expected, more people watched it than watched baseball's All-Star Game, which not too long ago was a big day in sports television. Perhaps unexpected, more people watched it than watched Game 3 of the World Series.*

*As my buddy Michael Rosenberg tweeted: "Our country is doomed."

Turning Back Time

There were no poetic words written for Babe Ruth's final game at the stadium he built. Nobody mused about Gods and letters. The game was Sept. 23, 1934. It was well known before the game even started that this would certainly be his last home game as a regular, and probably his last home game as a Yankee. About 2,000 people showed up to see it. Ruth walked for the 104th time that season -- one thing the man could still do was draw a walk -- and then he came out of the game for what the papers called a "charley horse." Ruth did finish off the season on the road, playing three games in Philadelphia and Washington, and he went to Boston the next year to play 28 sad games as a gimmick for the Braves. This proved, in the reverse of those immortal words by John Updike, that Babe Ruth did not know how to do the hardest thing: Quit.

The Pro Bowl Doesn't Matter (But I'll Watch)

I was thinking the other day about ABC's Wide World of Sports. There was a time in America -- and not so long ago -- when the concept of a show like Wide World of Sports made sense to all of us. The concept was best described in the famous lead-in, read by the incomparable Jim McKay:

"Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports. The thrill of victory. And the agony of defeat. The human drama of athletic competition. This is ABC's Wide World of Sports."

Angels in the Outfield

In the next few days, I have a post coming on hitting at home and on the road. It is based on the fun new book Scorecasting by my colleague Jon Wertheim and his lifelong friend Tobias J. Moskowitz. More on all that soon ... maybe even a conversation (a Pozcast?) with Jon himself.

In any case, the book has re-energized many of my questions about why players generally hit better at home than they do on the road. Why? In the cases of players like Jim Rice or Dale Murphy or Todd Helton, it is fairly obvious that they spent (or spend) their home games playing in great hitting ballparks. So, obviously they hit better at home. Chuck Klein is in the Hall of Fame largely because of the absurd dimensions of his home ballpark, the Baker Bowl. He is not the only one in the Hall of Fame based on perception and context (and a liberal veteran's committee).

Podcasting and Ken Tremendous

There has been a concerted effort by friends and loved ones to get me to start a podcast. As you might know, I have successfully avoided this. I have nothing against podcasts as entertainment or art form or however people see them. I have something against ME doing a podcast. I suppose this goes back to my brief but still tragic time as the co-host of a radio show. I clearly remember one time when I was arguing with my my co-host whether football was better indoors or outdoors. But that wasn't the bad part. The bad part was that I was taking the "outdoor" point of view ... and I was STILL utterly unconvincing. If you can't go on radio and make a pretty air-tight argument that outdoor football is better than indoor, you probably don't belong on the radio. And I did not. I quit within days. That was 13 or 14 years ago. I haven't come back and will occasionally get a thank you letter for that.

The Most Beautiful Word

I'm out on assignment which might explain the slight lag between posts -- well, there's the assignment and there was the awful case of stomach flu I endured the other night. I thought about giving you a blow-by-blow account of the stomach flu but decided that might be stretching our writer-reader relationship a bit. Several posts -- about NFL players, about the Pro Bowl, about the Angels outfield -- are lining up. For now, a quick post about writing ... and a single word.

* * *

Lately, it seems, quite a few people have asked how I became a writer. It is an awkward question to answer because the premise is that I became a writer, and there's something about that word that still feels a little bit distant. Am I a writer? Me? It reminds me of when I was 24 or 25 years old, and I was a columnist at The Augusta Chronicle, and a little boy walked up to me at a ballgame to ask for my autograph. I was entirely sure he had me confused for someone else, and I said (gently, I thought), "Oh, you don't want my autograph." Of course, the boy broke out into tears -- suddenly I had turned into one of those jerks would wouldn't give a little kid an autograph -- and I think I gave him an autograph, bought him some cotton candy, gave him a piggy back ride, put money into his college education, anything I could think of to make up for my own stupid self-awareness problem.*

*It only now occurred to me that this was probably 20 or so years ago, and the boy was probably 8 or 9 years old ... which would obviously make him 28 or 29 years old now. So there's a 28 or 29 year-old man out there somewhere who remembers the time that he asked for a simple autograph from the nobody local sports columnist and was initially rebuffed ...

RIP Rosalia

Tony Pena's mother Rosalia passed away at the age of 79.

This is the story I wrote about him ... and her.

Trading walks for hits

A few people have written in to ask about the methodology behind the 500 walks for 325 singles ... which is kind of tragic because, of course, this is ME which means there IS no reasonable methodology.

But since people have written in, here is my thinking about the basic concept.

Behind the Back Page

Every now and again, someone will ask how I choose what to write for Sports Illustrated. It's not an easy process to explain. It's rarely a linear thing. Stories tend to come out of good conversations with editors and openings in the magazine's space and sudden turns and good pitches and interesting twists of thought and a lot of passion. It's kind of a magical thing, or at least it still feels that way to me. I have a list of story ideas in my computer that probably takes up more memory than Microsoft Word. And I know that 95% of them will become blog posts or will disappear into the ether. A few will somehow become magazine stories.

Snow Day

Well, you voted for "Snow Day." So here's a Snow Day post. I have no idea what it's about.

* * *

My favorite kind of snow days were always the kind I didn't know about when I went to bed the night before. That goes along with a theory of life I came up with when I was about 11 years old -- you never, ever are more comfortable than when you need to be doing something else. I have since come to realize that this is not a theory but fact, and that I did not come up with the theory anymore than I came up with the miraculous concept of changing my team's sporting luck by shifting into a different watching position.*

The Mom Perspective

I wrote about our daughter's first goal. Well, so did Margo. Leave a message, she'd appreciate it.

Also ... have to pass along our good friend Tommy Tomlinson's latest contribution to JoeWords.

Comflict (n): A stupid, silly argument that almost never happens in real life but happens all the time in sitcoms.

You can leave your own comflict suggestions in the comments.

Trading 500 for 325

In Bill James' epic series on this year's Hall of Fame ballot -- today he posted the third part of the four part series (subscription required) -- he makes a statement that is a little bit different from what I had heard before. He wrote this: "500 walks, according to people who study this, have almost the same value as 325 singles."

I suppose I HAVE heard things along this line -- I have heard, for instance, that, walks are worth .6 or .7 of a hit, and this is really just a different mathematical way of showing the same thing. But I had never quite heard the conversion rate put plainly like that: 500 walks = 325 singles. When it is put plainly like that, I think it makes a lot of sense. Ask yourself this: When is a single significantly better than a walk? Or maybe it's better to first ask: When is a single NO BETTER than a walk.

I'd say a single is no better in these situations:

-- With nobody on base, a single and a walk are exactly the same -- no difference whatsoever.
-- If you have a runner on first who moves to second on a single -- no difference whatsoever.
-- If you have a runner on first and second, and a single loads the bases -- no difference.
-- If you have a runner on third, and a single somehow doesn't score him (infield single, maybe) -- no difference.
-- If you have the bases loaded, and a single scores one run -- no difference.

The Retirement of Meche

From the start, I thought the Kansas City Royals got a bad rap when they gave Gil Meche a 5-year, $55 million contract. That was before the 2007 season, and up to that point Meche's career numbers were 55-44 with an unimpressive 4.65 ERA, an equally unimpressive 96 ERA+, and a penchant for giving up walks and home runs. He had just turned 28 years old.

These numbers, and others like them, strongly suggested the Meche was not worth anything close to $11 million a year ... strongly suggested, in fact, that the cash-poor Royals might have been out of their minds. Many people said this out loud. A few -- like then-Toronto GM J.P. Ricciardi, who had been trying to sign Meche -- also took some shots at Meche for lacking the fortitude to play for a team that had a chance to compete. It was a open season on the Royals and Meche. And, like I say, from the start I thought it was unfair.

The First Goal

Not long ago, I wrote a little piece about our 9-year-old daughter Elizabeth and her experience at Harry Potter World and Katie the Prefect. I have been assured by a couple dozen people that word has gotten back to Katie, which makes me happy. In any case, I don't want to bore you with too many family stories -- I feel like one of those people who tries to get you to watch my home movies -- but I did come across a little basketball revelation watching nine-year-old basketball the other day that I wanted to jot down. Feel free to skip this one. I have ANOTHER baseball Hall of Fame post coming in the next day or so.

* * *

Years ago -- quite a while before I had even met my wife -- I was talking with the father of a fifth grade girl. This father was a friend of mine, and he was a pretty conservative guy. I don't mean politically. I mean he was pretty conservative in the way he acted in public. He was an eye-roller. I associated with that. I'm an eye roller too. If I ever went to a Karaoke Bar -- something I would never do except by accident -- I would not sing no matter how much people tried to guilt me or bully me or bribe me. I just wouldn't. I would sit there and roll my eyes. It's just the stuff we're made of.

But this guy was telling me how he had taken his fifth-grader to the father-daughter's dance at her school. And the band started playing The Chicken Dance.*

The Payoff of Playoffs

We, as American sports fans, like endings. I think that speaks a little bit to who we are. We tend to think of September baseball games being more important than April games. We tend to think of sports heroics in the fourth quarter being more meaningful than heroics in the second. We tend to put more stock into great Sunday finishes in golf than great Thursday opening rounds. I think the vast majority of us believe in the fairness of playoffs over the fairness of extended excellence, the value of single elimination games over the value of many weeks of consistent winning. Like I say: I think that speaks a little to who we are.

SI Sports Fact of the Day

For the holidays, I was given a Sports Illustrated desktop facts calendar -- it is one of those that you tear off a page after each day. I have gotten these sorts of calendars before -- Today in American History; Today in Birthdays; Today in New Wave Music; Today in Golf Tips -- but they have been pretty useless because I would forget to tear off the pages for, oh, seven or eight months. It would be August 27th, and my calendar would still show "January 23." And then I would remember about the calendar and tear away months and months of pages at one time, and I would never look at the facts, and then I would forget for another three or fourth months, and by that time the year was almost over, and the whole thing was just kind of pointless.

Whose Game Is It Anyway?

Gene Chizik said something interesting on Monday night after Auburn won the national championship. This, in itself, is news, methinks.* I mean no disrespect: Chizik is obviously a terrific football coach, and I have no reason to believe he's anything other than a fine man, and Auburn had a marvelous football season -- but, I don't think even Chizik's most fervent supporter would confuse him with Oscar Wilde.

*I am getting involved in the campaign to bring back the useful word "methinks," which methinks is MUCH better than the unappealing abbreviation "imo" or the even more unwieldy "imho." Methinks has a grand Shakespearean flair, and even a 2-year-old can use it and know what it means, and it's just time to bring it back, methinks.

Chiefs vs. Ravens: Live

OK, so the last live blog didn't quite work ... I think I messed up the time slot. Let's try it again.

Katie The Prefect

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about our plans to take our daughters -- particularly our nine-year-old Elizabeth -- to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Orlando. I worried, I suppose, that nothing surprising and magical would happen. Well, as it turned out, something surprising and magical did happen.

The Willie Mays Hall of Fame

Bob Costas on Wednesday said something I've heard a lot of people say through the years. But because he's Bob Costas, and I think the world of the guy, his words inspired this post. Bob thinks the Baseball Hall of Fame is too big. He did not go into detail, but he made it very clear -- and I believe the reference point was Bert Blyleven-- that the Hall of Fame was supposed to be for the "great" and, over the years, it became for the "very good." He did not elaborate out of respect for the very good players who are already in the Hall of Fame. But I suspect that if it could be done clandestinely -- that is to say if it could be done without anyone noticing and without hurting anybody -- Bob and a lot of other people would throw a lot of players out of their Baseball Hall of Fame.*

*I think we could probably throw out a bunch of Franklin Pierces and Chester Arthurs right now without anyone noticing because nobody knows they're actually in the Hall of Fame. Doubt the Jesse Haines', Freddie Lindstrom and High Pockets Kelly fan clubs would storm the gates.

The Hall of Fame Recap

Well, for the most part, Hall of Fame day went as expected. Roberto Alomar didn't just go into the Hall of Fame, he received 90% of the vote, a higher percentage than Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle, Frank Robinson and Bob Gibson among most others. This seems to solidify the perception that last year (when he felt short of election) a bunch of voters (more than 100 of them) thought Alomar deserved a year's penance for the spitting incident that marked his reputation. This seems churlish to me, but it has become clear that Hall of Fame voters like to make their points.

And Bert Blyleven, finally, made it into the Hall of Fame. This should cut back my writing work load by about 10% in 2011. There has been quite a bit of discussion, it seems, about how Blyleven's Hall of Fame percentages could have risen from 17.5% his first year of eligibility down to 14.1% his second year all the way up to 79.7% and election on Wednesday. There has been talk about how big a role the Internet played, how big a role our amazing access to statistics played, how a big a role intelligent lobbyists like Rich Lederer made and so on.

A Basketball Carol

Red Klotz points out the sliding glass door at the ocean just 100 yards away.
Red:: Look out there.
Me: Yes. It's beautiful.
Red: You know, every day it looks different. Every single day.
Me: Because of the weather?
Red: Because of the ocean.

* * *

The Washington Generals always lose: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. They lose on indoor basketball courts and outdoor courts. They lose on ships, they lose on aircraft carriers,they lose in prisons, and they lose on the back of trucks. They lose in front of popes, in front of kings, in front of queens, in front of dictators, in front of presidents. They lose in Beijing, and they lose in Moscow, and they lose in Rio, and they lose in Mumbai, and they lose in Tulsa. They lose as the Washington Generals, mostly, but they also lose under different names like the Boston Shamrocks or the Atlantic City Seagulls or the Baltimore Rockets or the Chicago Demons or the New Jersey Reds or New York Nationals or an all-encompassing name of losers: The International All-Stars. In the end, aren't we all International All-Stars just trying to win one time? They even lose on ice. Last year, the Generals played the Harlem Globetrotters in a basketball game on an ice pond in Central Park, and before the game their coach and founder Red Klotz, perhaps rashly, boasted: "We excel on ice." They lost, of course. The Washington Generals always lose.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Ed Price and I have been great friends for almost 20 years now -- ever since we worked together in Augusta, Ga. -- and I have great respect for him as both a person, a baseball writer and a thinker. He wrote something on Monday that I thought was heartfelt and thoughtful. I also happened to disagree with it.

Twitter Expansion #2: Seahawks

@JPosnanski Gotta say I'm not bothered that 7-9 team made playoffs. I'm bothered that a spectacularly crappy 7-9 team is in the playoffs.

Twitter Expansion #1

Twitter is a not a great thing for me. I have a lot of unformed thoughts -- some of them dumb but many of them vapid -- and Twitter makes it too easy to type out a quick sentence and send these unformed thoughts out into the world. Because these thoughts are unformed, and because clarity isn't necessarily a 140-character trait, I often find myself thinking: I should explain that more. I usually don't. But today, I will. Today, I'll post a few Twitter Expansions. "Why?" you ask. I have long stopped asking why when it comes to this blog.