umpire appeals on check swings

the only time i enjoy listening to knbr is when the giants play. i'm a cubs fan, but the giants announcers are quite good. usually, i'll choose to watch giants coverage during cubs-giants games.

i heard jon miller mention (yesterday?) an interesting weirdness in baseball:

on check swings, the defense can appeal when a BALL is called, so why can't the offense appeal when a STRIKE is called?

without going too far, mlb rules specifically deny this (9.02c):

The manager or the catcher may request the plate umpire to ask his partner for help on a half swing when the plate umpire calls the pitch a ball, but not when the pitch is called a strike. ... Should the base umpire call the pitch a strike, the strike call shall prevail.

doesn't make too much sense to me. it should work both ways. it makes no sense to make this a one sided appeal. the pathetic part of this rule continues with the next sentence:

The manager may not complain that the umpire made an improper call, but only that he did not ask his partner for help.

seriously? no whining to the umpire that he blew it, or you might hurt his feelings. caoch can't call out the ump for making a mistake, but the base umpire can. moronic sensitivities.

there are scenarios where this can get really ugly. in this umpire forum, they talk about a situation that happened in college where the plate umpire (PU) called ball-no swing on a passed ball with a 2-strike count. the batter, unsure, took off for first base thinking it might be a dropped third strike. then it gets worse in that forum. half the people think the base umpire (BU) should back up the PU's no swing call no matter what, so he won't look bad. integrity of the game, my ass.

in the mlb rule book, still in 9.02c, it clearly states:

The ball is in play on appeal on a half swing.

so that means chaos in this fairly typical scenario:

• 1 out, runner on 1st, 3-2 count. check swing on a ball in the dirt. plate umpire calls ball, both runners advance on the walk. catcher appeals, strike is called, and the runner advancing from 1st to 2nd can be thrown out for stealing now.
  

so what would have been two men on with one out now becomes strike-em-out, throw-em-out end of inning.

if the 1st base runner was stealing, and he glances to see the batter walking to 1st, he might let up to ease into second. but the catcher could immediately throw to second anyway (despite a walk called by the plate umpire), and then after throwing towards second, appeal to the base umpire who might call third strike, then the base runner can be tagged out.

anyway, all this to reiterate that bud 756 selig sucks.

sand is crazy weird

so i saw this article in wired about a fifth state of matter (really the sixth because they forgot about the bose-einstein condensate which was predicted 70 years before proven!). water droplets form as water falls because of surface tension. surface tension doesn't really work for something as "massive" as sand particles. apparently, sand "droplets" used to be explained as a result of sticky collisions, but this video shows that isn't necessarily the case.

according to the abstract from their publication in Nature, the authors believe the sand droplets form because of "a combination of van der Waals interactions and capillary bridges between nanometre-scale surface asperities." this video was shot with a high speed camera falling at a similar rate to the sand.

we talkin' bout practice remix

i found this at kissing suzy kolber. i've watched this like 10 times already.

us open 2nd place

look. i hate that his wife has cancer, and i hope nothing but the best for her.

but phil mickelson sucks. i don't know why i hate him so much, but i do, so tough.

watching the final round online, i'm so sick of hearing that phil now has more second place finishes than anyone else. who gives a crap?

mickelson was lumped together with other greats that had 4 second place finishes (fat fil now has 5, a record!!!). let's look at these great second place finishers...

who	number of US open wins	major titles	pga tour wins	number of us open 2nd places
jack nicklaus	4	18	73	4
bobby jones	4	13	9	4
arnold palmer	1	7	62	4
sam snead	0	7	82	4
lucas glover	1	1	2	0
phil mickelson	0	3	36	5

sam snead is the only other one to never have won it all, but he has won 7 major against fat fil's 3. so, i ask again, who really gives a crap?

beer holster? really?

seriously? if you have this, you are not my friend.

although, bug 756 selig sucks...

kick counts must be law!

according to this study (Noncontact Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries: Risk Factors and Prevention Strategies), there are 80,000 ACL tears a year, and most happen to 15-25 year olds. the study estimates ACL tears cost nearly a billion dollars yearly. an astounding 70% of these injuries occur in non-contact situations. so there is one clear conclusion to draw from this data:

all youth soccer players are hearby restricted to a kick-count rule. any youth cannot kick or attempt to kick a soccer ball more than 7 times per day (includes practice and warm-ups), and no more than 21 times per week. kicks longer than 35 yards carry a 1.5 multiplier. any coach that allows a player to kick more than this statistically sound rule will be fined and humiliated on facebook.

additionally, AYSO is considering a supplemental step-count rule, and to accomodate, they will be deciding on a 17-players-onfield rule for 13year and under leagues.

strasburg pitch count estimate

strasburg is some obscure college pitcher who pitches in a stadium named after his current coach... vain indeed.

so the kid has a good fastball, but apparently, it's his slider that will get him to the big leagues. i looked for his pitch counts online somewhere, but aghast, i couldn't find them (after 4 seconds of searching). so here's his game log for the past two seasons with pitch count estimate (using the basic pitch count estimator).

date	PA	BB	SO	basic pitch count
5/29/2009	30	0	15	121.5
5/20/2009	26	1	6	97.0
5/14/2009	27	1	10	106.3
5/8/2009	28	2	17	122.3
5/1/2009	29	2	12	118.1
4/24/2009	27	1	14	112.3
4/17/2009	34	1	14	135.4
4/9/2009	25	1	13	104.2
4/3/2009	24	2	6	92.6
3/27/2009	28	1	14	115.6
3/20/2009	25	2	15	109.4
3/13/2009	28	1	14	115.6
3/5/2009	29	1	18	124.9
2/26/2009	26	1	16	112.0
2/20/2009	23	2	11	96.8
5/22/2008	28	3	5	106.5
5/15/2008	27	2	3	98.0
5/8/2008	30	1	15	123.7
5/2/2008	31	1	11	121.0
4/25/2008	28	1	13	114.1
4/18/2008	25	0	13	102.0
4/11/2008	30	1	23	135.7
3/28/2008	27	1	12	109.3
3/20/2008	29	1	9	111.4
3/13/2008	28	2	8	108.8
3/7/2008	25	1	9	98.2
2/28/2008	27	1	5	98.8
2/22/2008	30	1	7	111.7

tony gwynn ain't no dummy, and he looks to be doing a good job protecting this kid, or as some would say, tony is protecting his own ass from the pitch count police

scrabble

words i can spell from friends' last names:

using the scrabble work builder:

name 1: petal, leapt, plate, pleat, late, leap, pale, peal, pelt, tape, tale... (total: 52)
name 2: dare, read, dark, rake, dear, ark... (total: 27)
name 3: chasm, clamp, clash, psalm, scalp, scamp, champ, clasp... (total: 68)

and my name: oh, ho (total: 2). apparently, "hoc" is not acceptable.

alert the pitch count police

i have a friend who's head will explode when he read this:

After throwing 13 innings and 201 pitches, Warroad pitcher Lars Anderson had enough Saturday night.

it's a high school pitcher, and the opposing pitcher threw 204 pitches.

i understand this is egregious - were it my kid, i'd be horrified. but here's what makes me angry: a journalist uses the phrase "201 pitches" and readership spikes. it's like a blogger tagging a story "erin andrews" - a cheap way to get site traffic.

this is an incomplete story. if the kid threw 200 sliders, yeah, that would be bad. but if he threw just fastballs/change ups, then that's less arm damage. has the kid proven he could throw this much before in the season? was he fatigued, or was he conditioned to throw a lot? did the other team suck at hitting?

i'm all for setting up general pitching parameters, which that league apparently has, to prevent selfish coaches, but let's not set definitive numbers for pitch counts when pitch counts are not necessarily the best indicator.

if you run the 400m, you don't prepare by just running 400m every day in practice. when we baby pitchers and don't condition them to throw a lot, no one should be surprised at elbow surgeries. nolan ryan (now president of the texas rangers) has recently commented on his hatred of the pitch count. it's about fitness, stamina and mechanical correctness.

protecting high school atheletes is important, but at some point, you gotta let them run. another friend's kid (11th grader - crap, i have friends that have kids who are in 11th grade?!?!) broke his foot in the finals in a volleyball game - stepped on a teammate. but the kid stayed out there. he served the last three points and they won their division finals against their rival. because we are concerned for kids' safety, should they have taken the kid out of the game? he was able to stay in there, stay active (he's a setter), and they won their championship. that's a sporting glory he may never achieve, and because he broke his foot, they should have taken that from him?

as they said in bad news bears 2, "let them play! let them play!! let them PLAY!!!"

300 wins attendance

so a 45year old man can still chuck 92+mph cheese, and he's gotten 300 wins. if i don't have to have knee replacement surgery by 45, i'll be happy.

sadly, the great fete of this feat had to happen in nationals park, the first game of a twi-night double header. they never listed the paid attendance for this game in the box scores, so i looked to the second (rain-shortened) game for the data. result?

16,787

so that got me thinking, how does this compare against other 300 game winning games...

who                date of 300th  attendance  % of capacity  H/A
Randy Johnson         6/ 4/2009      16,787       40%         A
Tom Glavine           8/ 5/2007      41,599      101%         A
Greg Maddux           8/ 7/2004      42,578      103%         A
Roger Clemens         6/13/2003      55,214       96%         H
Nolan Ryan            7/31/1990      51,533       97%         A
Don Sutton            6/18/1986      37,044       57%         H
Phil Niekro          10/ 6/1985      44,422      102%         A
Tom Seaver            8/ 4/1985      54,032       94%         A
Steve Carlton         9/23/1983      27,266       55%         A
Gaylord Perry         5/ 6/1982      27,369       46%         H
Early Wynn            7/13/1963      13,565       85%         A
Warren Spahn          8/11/1961      40,775       94%         H
Lefty Grove           7/25/1941      unknown                  A
Pete Alexander        9/20/1924      18,000       33%         A
Walter Johnson        5/14/1920      unknown                  H
Eddie Plank           9/11/1915      unknown                  A
Christy Mathewson     6/28/1912      unknown                  H
Cy Young              7/ 3/1901      unknown                  H
Kid Nichols           9/ 7/1900      unknown                  H
John Clarkson         9/21/1892      unknown                  H
Charley Radbourn      5/14/1891      unknown                  A
Mickey Welch          8/11/1890      unknown                  H
Tim Keefe             6/ 4/1890      unknown                  H
Pud Galvin            6/ 4/1888      unknown                  A

so, only three times in recorded history has the 300th victory elicited fewer than 50% attendance. to be thorough, i imagine i should pull the failed attempts at 300 also.


also, bud "756" selig sucks.

what?

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