New 2014 Hall of Famers

The Baseball Hall of Fame announcement has now occurred, and Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas have made it to the Hall! They are richly deserving, and they join the richly deserving trio of managers (Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre). Also note the distinctively Braves-themed set of inductees, and it is nice to see Cox, Maddux, and Glavine go in together.

It looks like Biggio didn't quite make it this year (despite estimates based on 'exit polls' that he would be just over the 75% bar). Lame. Incredibly lame. We'll see what the percentages look like once those are out. From the exit polls, I know that at least one person didn't vote for Maddux, which is also incredibly lame.

A couple of hours ago, I wrote the following comments on Buster Olney's most recent article that focuses on the Hall of Fame, performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), etc.

(1) The big increase for Bagwell (and others) from year 1 on the ballot to year 2 presumably includes a significant effect of many people distinguishing between a "first-ballot HOFer" and merely "an HOFer". People can argue about whether there should be such a distinction --- I think it's a reasonable one --- but many writers do seem to vote that way, so that is an important factor when considering subsequent increases in vote percentages. That effect can only occur once.

(2) I am fine with known PED users being in the Hall, but I would like a statement of it (if there is hard evidence) on their plaques. For example, McGwire's case (which would admittedly be more clear cut than most in this respect) could include a sentence "Admitted to using ... in [year he admitted it." That way, these people are in the Hall as part of history, and the uglier part of their history is _also_ being documented. Visitors to the Hall will read this and can judge the player for themselves. The Hall can --- and should --- be used to inform.


Update: As reported in this article, Biggio fell only 0.2% shy of being elected. Given the number of voters, this should imply that he missed by only 1 or 2 votes. I guess he'll get in next year, but (a) ouch and (b) he should already have been elected in his first year of eligibility. After Biggio, it looks like the next highest candidate was Mike Piazza with 62.2% of the vote (though he was projected to be in the high 60s based on an exit poll that had tabulated just over 1/3 of the estimated HOF ballots). Jack Morris was at 61.5% in his 15th and final year on the ballot. I'm glad he didn't make it, as he doesn't deserve to be in the HOF, and his tally presumably went down because the HOF ballot is exceptionally crowded this year. A crowded ballot is a continuing theme of HOF elections that won't go away any time soon.

Update 2: The website above now has the vote totals. It looks like there were 571 ballots in total. Based on that, Biggio missed by 2 votes. Jeff Bagwell, Tom Raines, and many others unfortunately saw their percentages go down (presumably due to the crowded ballot). Rafael Palmeiro failed to achieve the 5% mark to remain on the ballot next year. Sammy Sosa received enough votes to remain on the ballot in 2015. Next year will be Don Mattingly's 15th and final year on the ballot. I believe that his largest vote total was in his 1st year, and his support has been going down since then. He did have a few brilliant years, but injuries curtailed his performance and cut his career very short, and he doesn't deserve to be enshrined in the Hall.

Don't Box Them In

The current issue of Beverly Hills Weekly includes the following quote about fences and gates being added to my high school: "We’re doing some perimeter gates, perimeter fencing, motorizing some gates, putting some alarms on the inside of doors so kids don’t exit unless we allow them to," said Superintendent Gary Woods. "They can exit for an emergency but then the alarm goes off."

And this scary little thing is said in a matter-of-fact fashion as if it's perfectly normal and ok to do something like this. Pathetic.

Writers Don't Elect Anybody to Baseball's Hall of Fame

Well, nobody got elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame from the writers' ballot this year. Lame.

Well, at least I wore my 'Plunk Biggio' shirt in support. That doesn't make up for the additional 39 votes needed.

Anyway, lame.

Update: As I write this, the article above doesn't include the vote totals (though I am sure it will later). Rob Neyer's article has the vote totals among those who received enough votes to stay on the ballot next year.

Blackouts and Origins of Team Names

The Biz of Baseball has a nice picture of the retarded and confusing blackout map for Major League Baseball. This shows the regions in the US in which, e.g., I cannot use my MLB.tv subscription to get a given team's games. The picture is cool; the policy is lame.


Mental Floss provides nice synopses of the origins of the team names for all Major League Baseball teams.

Today I am ashamed to be from California.

Come on, people. This is lame. Let people live their lives as they see fit when it does no harm to anyone else.

A Brief Comment about Somerville's Website Blocking

Unfortunately, Somerville College in Oxford blocks certain websites. That's really annoying as a matter of principle, but I am especially annoyed by what I just found out: That websites are blocked if they are classified as "tasteless." WTF? That's not for them to decide!

(For what it's worth, what I wanted to take a look at was a webcomic that looked like it would be interesting. It wasn't my personal website that was blocked or anything, so I'll continue to happily make my snarky remarks.)

This is wrong on so many levels

Occasionally, I find interesting things with boredom-inspired google searches. Here is the latest curiosity. The page is an eBay listing for a yearbook from my sophomore year in high school.

I have a very good guess of who the seller is (given the user id). Part of me is amused, and part of me thinks it's kind of pathetic to attempt to hawk an old high school yearbook with a minimum bid of 10 dollars. (To say nothing of thinking that the phrase "Mason Porter, the famous Oxford University mathematics professor, is pictured in a sophomore portrait." will actually help sell the yearbook.)

The auction is apparently going to close within the next day (if it doesn't get recycled), so if the link doesn't show what I've described, I hope my words above will prove sufficiently amusing.

How to Interact with Airport Security

\begin{rant}

I think I am being uncontroversial in claiming that the following should be obvious: When at an airport (or dropping someone off at the airport), don't pick a fight with airport security. I'm not saying not to be annoyed with (or angered at, insulting by, etc.) some of the bullshit or to calmly ask for appropriate clarifications. I'm just saying that one shouldn't pick a fight when one isn't provoked. Simple.

OK, so one of my family members was dropping me off at the airport on Tuesday and our car was magically chosen for a very quick inspection (to open the trunk for a very brief look to make sure that we didn't have any dead bodies or counterfeit drugs in there). Fine. My reaction would be to have preferred not to be chosen but to take it in stride. The officer asked something like "Can I took a look in the trunk?" Notice the phrasing. It wasn't quite accurate because although he phrased it as a question, there wasn't really a choice involved (unless, of course, we were willing to just leave without my being dropped off). Now there are situations in which I might be anal if somebody phrased things this way (although in conversations I really only care whether I correctly understand the intended meaning), but this would not be one of them. My relative, on the other hand, decided to (a) try to answer no, (b) ask for a clarification and---in an extremely pissy manner---comment about the illusion of choice when there isn't any because of the inaccurate phrasing, and (c) be generally obnoxious. The officer asked very politely initially, so there wasn't any provocation with attitude, etc. (I have occasionally had interactions with rather insulting border patrol people, but my standard procedure even then is to suck it up and just do whatever action I think will get me through fastest. For such things, I am always attempting to do whatever optimizes how fast I get through---so not starting fights when they don't already exist is a good example of something I might do.) After the extreme pissiness, however, the officer was justifiably annoyed and was much less kind about things. We got through, and the look at the trunk took maybe 1/20th the amount of time as the unnecessary argument. Also, if one is going to express displeasure at such stuff (which I can understand), one can do it without picking a fight! Is it really so hard to be calm and polite when something doesn't quite go one's way? Sigh...

One of these days when I am at my parents' home, I swear I'm going to find the adoption papers that they've been hiding from me all these years...

\end{rant}

Rickey Henderson won't be a unanimous Hall selection

Why? Because at least one of the voters is really lame! That's why. Look at who that guy did vote for! Matt Williams?!? That's crazy talk!

Adventures in Olympian Lameness

My brother Adam pointed me to the following article, in which the Olympic version of baseball will be sodomized in its 2008 (and "temporarily final", as it's not in the 2012 games at all) appearance in The Games.

Here's how things are going to work for extra innings (after the first 9 innings are played normally):

Under the new format, the 10th inning will be played normally. At the start of the 11th, teams will have the option of beginning at any point in the existing batting order and placing the previous two batters on base.

For example, a team that opts to lead off with its No. 3 hitter would begin with its No. 1 batter on second base and its No. 2 hitter on first with no outs.

The 12th inning and beyond would begin where the previous lineup left off, with the two hitters ahead of the batter scheduled to lead off that inning being placed on first and second bases.


Comment: This is fucking lame. It reminds me of Jose Canseco's suggestion of occasionally using a yellow ball, and when a homerun is hit with that ball the team that hits it gets an extra run.