SEAT LICENSE RENEWALS It's almost spring
when a young man's thoughts turn to... those expensive
seat licenses. An online cash advance can help relieve the anxiety.
• Friday night, we caught the opening of the long-awaited Simpsons Movie, and while it wasn't a gut-busting revelation, it didn't need to be. [Semi-spoiler alert; skip to next bullet]. Other than the expanded length, the movie didn't differ from the show spectacularly on a writing level. The main plot was engaging and amusing, the jokes were very funny, worth repeating even days later, the sappy moments were kept to a minimum, there were a few lines I missed due to the laughter that I'm sure will expand my appreciation upon another view. As the New York Times Anthony Scott wrote in his review, "In other words, I’d be willing to watch it only — excuse me while I crunch some numbers here — 20 or 30 more times."
The real treat was what a visual feast the movie turned out to be. The wider screen, larger color palette, shadows, and complexity of the large crowd scenes were all enough to remind you that this wasn't just another episode of the ultimate nuclear (powered) family. The common complaint among my friends was the minimal roles of secondary characters. Comic Book Guy and Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel -- two of my absolute favorites -- had prominent supporting roles, but Montgomery Burns, Smithers, Patty and Selma, Lenny and Carl, and numerous other favorites drew the short end of the script. And one of the key subplots, Homer's pet pig, went unresolved.
Still, that hardly added up to disappointment, even in the face of all the hype that's been building towards a movie that's seemed inevitable for at least the last decade and a half. I'm 37, and I've been watching the show since its inception; while I hadn't seen the Simpsons in their original guise on the Tracey Ullman Show, I was a fan of Groening's Life in Hell comic strip, and thus primed for the show's inaugural episode back in 1989. While I certainly saw a few people older than me at the theater, I was a bit surprised how young the audience ran. Kids as young as eight or nine could be heard giggling in the audience, though they probably had a leg up on their peers; one was even witty enough to offer "floor popcorn" to his fellow patrons as we exited the theater. Doubtless he'll be joining the show's writing staff in season 33.
• The Hit List had more than its usual share of Simpsons references in honor of the movie, but in retrospect it would have been far cooler if I'd thrown down the gauntlet and injected purple-goo Simpsons flavor into all 30 donuts, I mean entries. There's a brilliant article from a couple years back where each team was matched up with a Springfield character, so it's not like my idea would have been a first, but given the extent to which the column's warped humor has been influenced by the show, it would have been an appropriate homage. D'oh!
Anyway, the trading-deadline flavored Hit List found the Yankees ranked third, thanks to their feasting upon crappy Devil Rays and Royals pitching. What little baseball I saw this weekend reminded me that even as the Yanks work their way through the soft portion of the schedule, this remains an uphill climb. Eight games back in the AL East, a more reasonable four and a half back in the Wild Card, they still need to play .690 ball to get to 95 wins, a fact will temper any temptations to make a blockbuster and instead confine them to attempts to make Kyle Farnsworth an ex-Yankee, if not by burying him in the Meadowlands than by trading him to the Tigers for a bag of Gary Sheffield's hate mail and a one-legged batboy to be named later.
Trading Farnsworth might be the single biggest move to make the Yankees watchable again, particularly if highly-touted Joba Chamberlain shows up to take his spot. Regarded as the Yanks' second-best pitching prospect behind the soon-to-return Philip Hughes, Chamberlain was recently shifted to the bullpen at Triple-A Scranton in an attempt to provide the Yanks with an internal option for upgrade. As the New York Times notes:
In Chamberlain, the Yankees have a prospect with a refined repertory and, by all accounts, a solid makeup. The Yankees still view him as a starter for the future, but he has been scratched from his start Monday for Scranton and will work an inning of relief instead.
The plan is for Chamberlain to throw another inning Wednesday, but it is not a stretch to think he could be with the Yankees by then.
Asked when Chamberlain might be promoted, Manager Joe Torre said: “The only thing I know is he’s in Scranton, and that’s certainly something that’s going to be looked at. As far as what date, I don’t know.”
Promoting Chamberlain presents a health risk; it is late in his first professional season, after pitching in the Hawaiian winter league, and the innings in the majors will be intense. Chamberlain had triceps tendinitis at the University of Nebraska, an injury that caused some teams to pass on him in the 2006 draft.
Yet the benefits could be enormous. Chamberlain throws 98 miles an hour and could overpower hitters the way Francisco Rodríguez did for the Angels and Bobby Jenks did for the White Sox in their first seasons, helping their teams win the World Series. The Yankees, who are four games out of a playoff spot, do not have a shutdown bullpen. Their relievers allowed 9 runs and 16 hits over their last eight innings.
I've got tix to Wednesday's game. Perhaps I'll get to see one of the season's more anticipated debuts.
• Saturday, we went to go see Sonic Youth reprise their Daydream Nation double album in the delightful setting of Williamsburg's McCarren Park Pool, an empty 70-year-old, WPA-built public facility that's the size of three Olympic pools. Reproduced live in its entirety, Daydream Nation's soaring, interwoven guitars, chugging drums and alien melodies never sounded better -- appropriately huge given the album's landmark status. The 71-minute opus seemed to passed in about half that time even as I mentally followed along with every lyric, anticipated chord changes and shook in time to shifts in tempo that I've heard a hundred times. Meanwhile, the band careened around stage in a way that told the audience that they were enjoying the ride down this familiar road every bit as much as we were.
I've been listening to Daydream Nation since my Brown U. freshman roommate foisted it upon me by play the creepy, oddball and out-of-character track "Providence" on repeat about a dozen times in a row one afternoon in the fall of 1988. It took a bit longer for me to gain appreciation for the beauty and intensity of the band's oeuvre, but they became one of my favorites even as they broke out of the indie rock ghetto to infiltrate the incredibly boring world of early '90s mainstream rock. The handful of friends I saw at this show -- some who have been part of my life since college, others who I hadn't seen in five years or more -- evoked thoughts of even more distant friends who'd have given if not a limb then at least a couple fingers to see this particular show. Not for nothing is the album's title crucial to its following; we're all bonded together as part of a very large secret society: the daydream nation, indeed.
• In honor of the above (well, not the Yankees and certainly not Farnsworth), I present one of my favorite MP3 treasures: Sonic Youth playing the Simpsons theme from the "Homerpalooza" episode circa 1996. Enjoy!
It's a big day here at Futility Central. Those of you who are regular readers of the Hit List may have noticed that last week's edition weighed in a bit lighter than normal, which is to say that for once it was of manageable length. There's a reason for that. After two and a half seasons of ever-lengthening weekly roundups, the powers that be at BP have encouraged me to tame the unruly beast and channel my energy into a more traditionally organized (and less HTML-intensive) weekly companion piece. Consider it a 2-for-1 stock split, or maybe the variety-show spinoff.
In any event, the Prospectus Hit & Run debuts today, with a look at some of the trends and tools which help shape the weekly Hit List. In the debut edition, I look at team Support Neutral pitching rankings, the difference between BP's two flavors of relief stats (Win Expectation above Replacement, Lineup-adjusted and Adjusted Runs Prevented), team records in one- and two-run games and their relationship to the aforementioned reliever stats, hitting streaks, and a piece of reader mail. Here's a taste:
My customized team WXRL report reveals which bullpens have most of their oars pulling in the right direction. Rather than dissect those rankings in parallel to what we did above, we'll look at things a bit differently. When Keith Woolner introduced it a few years ago, WXRL pushed another fine stat, Adjusted Runs Prevented, into the shadows. Whereas ARP accounts for the base-out situation in which a reliever inherits runners by treating them equally regardless of inning or relative score, WXRL incorporates leverage and the team's expected chances of winning into the mix (once again, Derek Jacques has your brush-up). Often the two stats are more or less in agreement, but sometimes they're not; a team may be doing a decent job of dealing with inherited runners as a whole, but a few high-leverage failures can throw their WXRL out of whack. Here are the teams' respective rankings (1-30) in both categories:
For just about half of the teams (14 out of 30), the difference between the two lists is trivial; they're no further than three spots apart. What the list is saying for the rest is that relative to their overall bullpen performance, the teams at the top have done a better job of rising to the occasion than the ones at the bottom; they've especially taken advantage of their high-leverage situations. Note the lead here is held by the Diamondbacks, who are an NL-best 7.4 wins above their third-order projection, and that nine of the top 10 teams—all but the Braves—are ahead of their own third-order projections. At the other end of the scale, we've heard plenty about the bullpen failures of the Cubs and Yankees at various times this year, but the Giants? Between the minute-to-minute updates on Barry Bonds, the zombie lineup around him, and the solid but ill-supported rotation (including the fascinating Tim Lincecum), the bullpen has been pretty low on the list of things to pay attention to out by the bay. Then again, there's a reason Armando Benitez was banished to Florida, and it ain't the dominance of his replacement, Brad Hennessey.
You can expect a similar assortment of stats, analysis and Simpsons references when the piece rolls around next Tuesday, and of course, the regular Hit List will continue to run on Fridays.
• • •
Speaking of the Simpsons, not only have I already got my ticket for opening night of the long-awaited movie on Friday, but last Sunday we paid a visit to the 42nd Street 7-11, one of a dozen in the country which has been converted into a Kwik-E-Mart as a promotional tie-in. So I picked up a talking beer mug, a couple cans of Buzz Cola, and a box of KrustyO's (jagged metal prize not included), sampled a toothache-inducing donut, and cursed the failure to stock the Radioactive Man comic and the Dufffman bobblehead (to say nothing of the failure to produced Duff Beer). I resisted the call of the Blue Squishee, the giant PEZ dispensers, the Simpsons lunch box, and a few other items, but I feel sufficiently souvenired up.
The signage in the store was great. The trash can had a price tag, the hot dogs were touted as "rich in bunly goodness and were offered "3 for the price of 3," and an oversized visage of Grampa Simpson's friend Jasper Beardley was painted in the freezer in reference to the episode where he takes up residence there. "7 lb bag, Jasper extra," read the sign. Fun stuff.
Certainly better looking than the hideous Mind Game cover, at least. As to the contents, quoth editor Steven Goldman:
On August 13, the Baseball Prospectus family will proudly debut our newest book, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over: the Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book. For the first time, we’ve taken our nifty statistical tools and the insights gained from years of studying baseball and applied them to the pennant races of the past. Not only did we get to revisit some of the great players, personalities, and events of the past and look at them from a new vantage point, but in doing so we were able to find new insights about the game of today. As Shakespeare wrote, what’s past is prologue. That’s true even in baseball–you could look it up.
Using a method developed by Clay Davenport that compares the closeness and volatility of each pennant (or divisional) race, we ranked every race in history and wrote about the top 14 on the list, pausing here and there to explore related subjects from the greatest deadline-day trades of all time to what would have happened if Branch Rickey had been the general manager of the Yankees instead of the Dodgers.
Steve goes on to mention a couple of my contributions (Jay Jaffe on the Dodgers race to beat the Braves in 1959 and why a Milwaukee dynasty that had every reason to happen didn't") but he leaves out not only my favorite titled chapter of the book ("The Replacement Level Killers," on teams dragged down because of their failure to adjust their lineups)) but also my chapters on the 1967 race in which the Red Sox beat out the Tigers, White Sox, and Twins (oh my!), and the impact of Triple Crown winner Carl Yastrzemski and other superstars on their teams' pennant chances. Still, it's exciting that the book is just a few weeks away from hitting the streets.
Homer: Got any of that beer that has candy floating in it? You know, Skittlebrau?
Apu: Such a beer does not exist, sir. I think you must have dreamed it.
Homer: Oh. Well, then just give me a six-pack and a couple of bags of Skittles.
Scully has never been a guest voice on the Simpsons, though he's often been imitated to uncanny effect by Harry Shearer. Realizing the likelihood of the 80-year-old voice of the Dodgers making such a reference was slim, I decided to Google the phrase. As it turns out, it predates the Simpsons by several centuries:
Meaning
'Beer and skittles' is shorthand for a life of indulgence spent in the pub.
Origin
Skittles, also known as Ninepins, which was the pre-cursor to ten-pin bowling, has been a popular English pub game since the 17th century. The pins are set up in a square pattern and players attempt to knock them down with a ball. It is still played but not so much as previously.
The phrase was referred to in Footman's History of the Parish Church of Chipping Lambourn (1894), which reprints a piece from 1634:
"William Gyde... for playing at skittolles on Sunday."
Citations of beer and skittles and variants appear in literature from the 19th century. For example, Dickens' Pickwick Papers, 1837:
"It's a reg'lar holiday to them - all porter and skittles."
Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays, 1857:
"Life isn't all beer and skittles.
Several other sites back up this interpretation. So in the end, two of my favorite things have given me even more reason to appreciate their depth. Scully's added another fine archaism to his arsenal, and the genesis of a great Simpsons joke has been revealed. I'll drink to that!
Don't kid yourselves, Yankee fans--despite the high ranking and the upcoming soft schedule, it's all over but the shouting and pouting, not to mention the laying of bets on whether Joe Torre, Brian Cashman, or Alex Rodriguez will be around for the next step. The team's worst first half of the three-division era has left the Yanks needing to play .684 ball the rest of the way to reach the 95-win level of the last two AL Wild Card winners, not to mention a .737 clip to match Boston's 99-win pace. Injuries, age, and overpriced underachievement are the predominant themes here, and neither Torre nor Cashman deserve a pass for building a weak bench, forgetting first base, or the puzzling bullpen management which has contributed mightily to a 6-14 record in one-run games. For all the finger-pointing, Cashman's efforts to rebuild the organization's pitching depth may pay off down the road, and keeping his head at the trading deadline should merit sparing his neck come October.
Of course, even the news of the Yanks reaching .500 has been trumped by the fact that the team's overtures to extend A-Rod's contract have been rebuffed both by uber-agent Scott Boras and by Rodriguez himself; he'll exercise the opt-out clause in his contract and become a free agent at the end of the season. Say what you will about the odiousness of Boras, he's the best in the biz because he has the foresight to protect his clients with such loopholes in addition to prising the most money out of teams in the first place.
Rodriguez took the high road: "I think it would be selfish on my part to talk about my contract status when our team desperately needs wins... My goal is to win as many games as we can, focus on my teammates and really play at a real high level in the second half. That sort of thing I leave to the people upstairs. My only concern is to play baseball and play at a high level."
Of course, what A-Rod could have said is that the team and its fans deserve to sweat a bit for the shoddy treatment they afforded him last year; he owes them no discount for the times Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, unnamed front office officials (you think that Post cover happened naturally?) and a certain segment of the fan base (to say nothing of the rabid media) have thrown him under the bus. I'm reminded of the great Simpsons "Trash of the Titans" episode, where Homer's stint as sanitation commissioner ends with the re-election of the man he deposed, Ray Patterson. Upon returning, Patterson tells the crowd, "You know, I'm not much on speeches, but it's so gratifying to leave you wallowing in the mess you've made. You're screwed, thank you, bye."
As it is, even without the verbal dis, Rodriguez's dealing the team a painful enough blow by invalidating a contract to which the Texas Rangers are still contributing some $21 million over the next three years, plus another $3 mil a year (unclear for how long) in deferred payments. If the Yankees want to re-sign A-Rod, they'll be paying all the freight next time around. Payback is a bitch.
As for the rest of the Hit List, there's more Simpsons to be had, along with nutritional information, robot overlords, Harvey's Wallbangers and other fun stuff. Enjoy!
• • •
On a separate note, I just got word that the first copies of It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over: the Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book--to which I contributed six chapters, including the book's first two narratives, on the 1967 AL and 1959 NL seasons--have made their way into editor Steven Goldman's hands, which means I'll hopefully have my copies in hand next week. Both Basic Books and Amazon lists August 13 as the publication date, and the latter is pre-selling the hardcover for $17.13. It's never too soon to reserve your copy!
