Whew! It’s been a whirlwind week here at Futility Central, a week that’s seen me: • attend my first ballgame of the year, last Wednesday’s Yankees-Red Sox matchup, a/k/a Mariano’s Meltdown • drive up to Boston to be a guest speaker at Tufts University’s class on baseball stats • celebrate this site’s four-year anniversary • …
Still catching up on my reading from having been gone this weekend… • Dodger Thoughts blogger supreme Jon Weisman scored a real coup with this interview of Dodger GM Paul DePodesta. The young GM has spent the better part of his tenure walking around with a target on his back because mainstream media types, particularly …
Continue reading ‘Clearing the Bases — Protracted Opening Day Edition’ »
Andra and I returned from Milwaukee in time to catch most of Sunday night’s Opening Day matchup between the Yankees and the Red Sox. I’m happy to report that for all of the distasteful stuff that went on over the past six months — the Yankees’ blown 3-0 lead in the American League Championship Series, …
Capping off a rather intensive month of contributions to Baseball Prospectus, I’ve got a new piece today that’s part of BP’s Setting the Stage series. It’s a rather jaundiced look at the Yankee offseason, a shorter and more measured take on my “I’ll Tell You About the Damn Yankees” piece of a couple months back: …
Roberto Alomar, the gold standard of second basemen for the better part of his 17 years in the bigs, called it quits over the weekend. Like most fans, I’m amazed at how rapidly he declined from being one of the game’s best players. His most valuable season according to Baseball Prospectus’ Wins Above Replacement Player …
Thanks to my pal Issa, there’s a Quicktime clip of my MSNBC appearance here if you haven’t gotten enough of it/me already. It’s a rather large file, so if you don’t have broadband, you’re better off with the audio and the pictures. And wow, after Shays’ performance at Thursday’s hearings, I wish I could have …
After attending some half a dozen Baseball Prospectus pizza feeds and bookstore events over the past few years, this past week found me on the other side of the podium for three New York City appearances. Granted, I wasn’t the star attraction, not in a Murderer’s Row lineup that’s included Steve Goldman, Joe Sheehan and …
According to an entry from Aaron Gleeman, yours truly is now poisoning the minds of America’s collegiate set: There appears to be an actual class at Tufts University called “The Analysis of Baseball: Statistics and Sabermetrics.” Seriously, it even claims to count towards an American Studies major. If you’re a fellow college student, I defy …
In 1922, a young sportswriter named Paul Gallico made arrangements to step into the boxing ring for a single round against heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. Predictably, he got the snot beaten out of him, though he took pride in having departed the event in one piece, “knowing all there was to know about being hit …
Not that I’m complaining about the eventual outcome, which looks quite rosy, but if all the time that I’ve been devoting to wedding-related activities could be put towards my writing, I could have started a blog… or a book. But rather than kvetching, I’ll just offer a few quick hits for your reading pleasure: • …