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| All contents of this web site © Jay Jaffe, 2001-2003 except where indicated. Please contact me for any questions or comments regarding this site. |
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A R O U N D T H E B A S E S |
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Welcome to my web log, published via Blogger Pro. Below are some links to recent baseball-related articles I found of interest, with my own two cents thrown in. Feel free to chime in via the comments link at the bottom of each post (powered by YACCS), or use my Contact page, or my email address, jay@futilityinfielder.com.Here are the weekly archives of this blog, assuming Blogger hasn't screwed up again. If an archive appears to be missing, you can try hunting for it via the subdirectory. Please note that because of repeated difficulties I've had with Blogger, I no longer recommend their service and will be taking steps to switch to a new one in the near future.
Thursday, February 13, 2003
After a couple weeks of publicly hemming and hawing, 40-year-old David Cone has decided he's not ready to hang up his spikes. Cone, who didn't pitch at all last season after an admirable comeback with the Boston Red Sox in 2001, has agreed to a minor-league contract with the New York Mets. Owner Fred Wilpon and fellow pitchers Al Leiter and John Franco have coaxed the man of a hundred arm slots into competing for a slot in the Mets rotation this spring.It's a page straight out of the Orel Hershiser Story. The best-case scenario has Coney taking the ball every fifth day at the back end of the rotation, giving the Mets some quality innings and notching the seven wins necessary for him to reach 200 for his career. The worst-case scenario has Cone laying all doubts about his remaining ability to rest and retiring in the colors of the team for whom he first became a star (unless, of course, the Mets are wearing those curious orange batting-practice jerseys). From the brash and reckless young punk to the grizzled vet hoping to eke a few more good innings out of his arm, Cone has come full circle. It remains to be seen whether Cone will still have a job waiting for him at George Steinbrenner's YES network should his comeback attempt fail. Reportedly the Boss is none too pleased that the neophyte broadcaster (Cone worked a few Staten Island Yankees games last season and made cameos during the two Yanks-Mets interleague series) thinks he's still a pitcher. According to the New York Times: Earlier in the day, Steinbrenner said in an interview that Cone had not contacted him to discuss his future and seemed miffed that Cone would consider pitching for the Mets. Steinbrenner said Cone should continue broadcasting for the Yankees on the YES network and added, "I don't know why he wouldn't want to be an instructor for us" in spring training.Cone's in good company on King George's ever-growing shitlist, right next to Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi's trainer, Joe Torre's coaching staff, the Yankee front office's dental plan, and innocent litle kittens. Paul O'Neill had better watch himself, too -- slinking off to Ohio to be with family... Here's wishing Coney the best. Given that I'm contemplating a trip down to Florida for spring training (and let us pause for a moment to join in hearty cheer for the arrival of the holiest day of the year: Pitchers and Catchers), I may just have to check out the Mets and see if the ol' guy has anything left.
Alex Belth, a relative newcomer to the blog scene, has been doing a good job covering the Yankees this winter in his Bronx Banter blog. This week, Belth came up with a nice little scoop, interviewing filmmaker Ken Burns, he of the 18 1/2-hour "Baseball -- a Film by Ken Burns"documentary. Belth served as a post-production assistant on Baseball for its final six months in 1994, and still keeps in touch with the filmmaker.In Part One of the interview, Burns explains to Belth the film's conception, and its link to his other major works: We had this nice, pleasant, short thing that would be after the "Civil War" on baseball. A celebration of the history of baseball. And it wasn't until we got into it that we suddenly realized, we aren't doing a short history of baseball, we're doing the sequel to the "Civil War"... I began to see, how particularly when you realize that Jackie Robinson was the first real progress in Civil Rights since the Civil War, that "Baseball" was the sequel to that series. During the production of "Baseball," we interviewed Gerald Early who said that when they study our American civilization 2000 years from now the only thing that we'll be known for is The Constitution, Baseball and Jazz. Those are the three most beautiful things that Americans have ever produced. We then realized half way through "Baseball" that we were actually involved in a trilogy that would require us to spend the six and a half years after "Baseball" to complete it by making the history of Jazz.Elsewhere, Burns discusses the Red Sox (of whom he's a fan), the Yankees, and how improved training methods have raised the quality of the game. Burns also mentions that he may update "Baseball" with a 10th Inning, with a possible focus on the various Yankee dynasties as well as outtakes from the previous nine innings. An interesting prospect, to be sure. Here's looking forward to the next part of Alex's interview...
Sunday, February 09, 2003
Defense Independent Pitching Stats for the 2002 season have been calculated using Voros McCracken's method and are posted at the above link. A discussion thread on Baseball Primer has begun. Enjoy!
--posted by Jay Jaffe at 11:56 PM LinkComments by: YACCS |
