September 2, 2007
Cal 45, Tennessee 31
August 12, 2007
Excuse Me For My Voice
Ken Crawford, author of the excellent Bear Territory blog, has offered to join forces with myself and Phil, and we’re going to give it the old college try.
So for the foreseeable future, for your Cal Football needs, please keep up with us at Excuse Me For My Voice.
June 18, 2007
The Internet is neat (Part 6,443,296 in a series)
In order to hype myself up for the inevitable fall of baseball’s all-time home run record, I’ve begun reading “Game of Shadows.” The sixty pages or so I’ve gotten through have been a pretty interesting read, so far concentrating more on colorful BALCO proprietor Victor Conte than on Barry Bonds. Conte is portrayed as a highly effective snake oil salesman, successfully marketing a mostly bogus zinc and magnesium mineral supplement called ZMA while peddling steroids on the side.
Most interesting to a geek like myself is mention that Conte was a frequent poster — spammer is probably a more accurate term — to the Usenet group misc.fitness.weights. “Game of Shadows” inaccurately claims that the group is hosted by Google. Usenet groups aren’t really hosted by any central server or authority, instead residing on a bunch of distributed peers. What Google does provide, however, is an historical archive of Usenet traffic coupled with a search engine, which means that any random schlub with an Internet connection can freely dig through past postings at his leisure.
So I hopped onto groups.google.com and keyed in a quoted line from the book: “You sell a fucking mineral supplement. You groundbreaker you,” as stated by ‘roid guru Patrick Arnold. Sure enough, there in all its glory is an exchange from April 1999, replete with the usual newsgroup wankery, in which Conte and others debate the relative effectiveness of prohormone and magical zinc. From there, it’s but an HGH-enhanced triple jump to the complete list of all Conte postings, which reveals that Victor was not only a spammer, but a Grade A troll as well.
It’s also interesting to watch the tone of Arnold’s postings gradually transition from bitter acrimony to sycophantic agreement, as his real-world ties with Conte and BALCO deepen. By the time of Conte’s last Usenet post in September 2001 (under his own name, at least), the two seem to exist largely to back each other up.
Such a nifty modern world we inhabit.
April 10, 2007
Mark of Cain
Hoo boy, it’s going to be a long season.
Game 7 Summary: Padres 1, Giants 0
Your Pitchers of Record: WP — C. Young (1-0) LP — Matt Cain (0-1) S — Hell’s Bells (2)
Went Deep: Ha! Ho, ho. Hee hee. Waugh! It’s funny ‘cause it’s true.
Your Refrigerator Water Dispenser Water Star of the Game: Matt Cain. Six innings of no-hit ball that were wonderful to behold. Shame about him pitching for a team that can’t hit.
The Turning Point: Top of the 7th inning. Molina doubles to lead off. The Giants proceed to do absolutely nothing. Feliz grounds out feebly to short. Winn strikes out and looks bad doing it. This brings up Matt Cain. While Winn was batting, Bochy and his staff did their best to fake the possibility of Cain being pinch-hit for, sending Kevin Correia to get loose in the bullpen and having Ryan Klesko grab a bat and stand menacingly at the edge of the dugout. But who are we kidding? Rather than “ruin” the no-hitter, Cain batted and struck out. The next batter Cain faced doubled down the line to left, ending the no hitter and eventually scoring the winning run.
I’m not saying that Bochy should’ve pinch-hit for Cain, necessarily. Winn’s strikeout was really offensive, but Young was pitching well. Still, is the goal to get a no-hitter or win the game? Guess the former.
Wrapping Up: This is a game that will be deeply etched in my memory. I watched Cain take an no-hitter into the 7th last year, in person. And in that game he gave up a run even while the no-no was in progress! This year, he does this — and loses. Although honestly, you had the feeling during the game that even if he threw a no-hitter through nine, this was one of those games where the Giants would never score and they’d lose it in the 10th.
Or to put it more succinctly: Yuck.
April 7, 2007
Game 4 Summary: Dodgers 2, Giants 1
Stealing a page from Phil. What a weird game. I enjoyed it (and got to watch it from my company’s swanky Club Level seats in left), because I generally enjoy taut, low-scoring baseball games. But I’m not sure I’d call it well played, given the copious fielding and baserunning blunders.
Your Pitchers of Record: WP — Brad “Bad” Penny (1-0) LP — Noah Lowry (0-1) S — Saito (2)
Went Deep: Are you kidding me?
Your Coca-Cola Star of the Game: Jeff Kent. Remember the Game Winning RBI? A stat so useless that in a world full of useless stats that are kept around for more than a century (I’m looking at you, earned run) it managed only a decade or so before being run into the ground? Well, this is the sort of scenario where the GWRBI actually has some meaning. Kent got a hit, he drove in Nomar Garciaparra, and the Dodgers went ahead to stay.
The Turning Point: Gonna say it was Pedro Feliz fielding a grounder and throwing horribly home, pulling Molina away and allowing Matt Kemp to score. Let’s not forget how Kemp got on base: he chopped one in front of home plate, which Lowry fielded and shotgunned past Ryan Klesko futilely for that classic infield single/pitcher’s throwing error combo. Kemp then advanced to third base on a laughably high wild pitch.
Stop Running!: Much has been made of the story that Bonds has told Vizquel to go ahead and try to steal bases. Proof that the recalcitrant leftfielder might want to stop talking altogether. Vizquel was thrown out with Bonds at the plate. Never let this happen again! It was the first of three Giant outs on the bases. Next up was Ray Durham, who was thrown out trying to steal as Klesko struck out to instantly destroy a second-inning rally.
In the fifth inning, we had the runner-up for turning point of the game. Pedro Feliz, who had reached on a leadoff single, attempted to score on Randy Winn’s double to left. He was gunned down at home. I understand, in a taut 1-1 game, every run matters. But if Feliz holds at third, the Giants have runners at second and third with no outs. Even if Lowry strikes out, Roberts has a good shot to get Feliz in from third with one out. As they say, (Tim) Flannery will get you nowhere.
The Outmaker!: I really, really don’t like Juan Pierre. Wait a second (as Ron Fairly would say) — I take that back. I love Juan Pierre. Because he’s a terrible, terrible player, and he plays for the Dodgers. He bats lead-off because he’s fast, but he’s a prodigious out-maker. Last night Mr. Speed Kills actually managed to ground into a double play. And he let a hit drop in front of him due entirely to the fact that he ran an incompetent route to the ball. Macworld’s own Dan Frakes, who sat next to me and is a Cubs fan, hates Juan Pierre with the hatred that only be felt by someone who has seen Juan play for his very own team. So he can’t hit or field, but hey, he’s fast. Whoo. Let him run like the wind, Grady.
Wrapping Up: The Giants had plenty of chances and ran themselves out of most of them. The Dodgers win it largely because of two hits: Garciaparra’s double, and Kent’s RBI single that immediately followed. Thus are games won and lost in the National League West.
March 2, 2007
Murray Chass and Willful Ignorance
The other day I read the most astounding piece by Murray Chass of the New York Times.
Things I don’t want to read or hear about anymore:Statistics mongers promoting VORP and other new-age baseball statistics….
To me, VORP epitomized the new-age nonsense. For the longest time, I had no idea what VORP meant and didn’t care enough to go to any great lengths to find out. I asked some colleagues whose work I respect, and they didn’t know what it meant either.
Finally, not long ago, I came across VORP spelled out. It stands for value over replacement player. How thrilling. How absurd. Value over replacement player. Don’t ask what it means. I don’t know.
Leaving aside the obvious, namely that branding a statistic generated by an in-depth, dispassionate technical analysis of baseball as “new age” (a code word for flaky, phony, and half-baked), isn’t it ridiculous that the Times’ baseball writer should be so proud of being willfully ignorant?
Or to put it another way: Murray Chass gets paid to write about baseball for the New York Times. He sees a statistic called VORP, which has gained broad currency as a fairly simple representation of a baseball player’s overall performance compared to a generic, freely available replacement player at his position. Confronted with this statistic, does Chass show any level of intellectual curiosity? No, instead he allows “the longest time” to go by while he remains completely in the dark about what the acronym means.
Eventually, whatever scintilla of curiosity Chass had left allowed him to crack the acronym’s source code and learn it means Value Over Replacement Player. Was Chass, who presumably gets paid a lot of money to know things about baseball, intrigued enough about this information to find out what those words mean?
No. Instead, he still proudly doesn’t know. And is willing to write at length about his ignorance.
It’s one thing for a professional journalist to write a column that unfairly castigates the men and women who are working hard to give baseball fans a much more nuanced and interesting view of what makes good baseball players good and bad ones bad. It’s quite another for a professional journalist to profess his colossal lack of intellectual curiosity about his chosen area of expertise in public.
It’s an embarrassment, not just for Chass, but for the Times as well.
[Colossal tip of the cap to Fire Joe Morgan]
January 30, 2007
Like a Rolling Stone
“This is uglier than Mick Jagger at an 8 a.m. wake-up call.” — ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, during the Kansas Jayhawks’ 27-0 run against Nebraska Monday night
To: Fran Fraschilla
From: Mick Jagger
Coach Fraschilla —
Your American college basketball is not really my sport — I’m more into what you blokes would call soccer. So I wasn’t watching ESPN on Monday night when the University of Kansas varsity team played the Cornhuskers basketball squadron of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. But several of my friends were, and they immediately called me to tell me the most extraordinary thing.
“Did you hear what Fran Fraschilla just said about you?” all of them to a man asked me.
“Who? That bird who played The Nanny?” I asked.
But you are not The Nanny, are you, Coach Fraschilla? I think we can both agree that The Nanny never would have said something so terribly unfair. Because something ugly did take place in Lincoln on Monday night, Coach Fraschilla. But it was not the play of the Nebraska undergraduates. Instead, it was your hateful words about me that constituted the evening’s ugliness.
I gather from your statement that you do not find me particularly handsome. Well, here’s a news flash for you, mate, in case you haven’t glanced at my biography lately — I am 63 years old. Under the best of conditions, there are not many 63 years old running around who will be posing for underwear ads any time soon, and I have packed any awful lot of living into my 63 years.
Oh, I suppose I could have taken better care of myself these last few decades. But when you are leading the world’s greatest rock ‘n roll band on massive stadium tours around the globe, personal care can, sadly, fall by the wayside. Besides, who do you think is more likely to come up with songs like “Paint It Black” and “Sympathy for the Devil?” Someone who does some hard and fast living, wrinkles and age spots be damned? Or someone who’s in bed every night before nine after dutifully exfoliating his skin before bedtime. It’s called commitment to craft, Coach Fraschilla. Surely, that’s something you can appreciate.
Hmmm. I just glanced at your collegiate coaching record. Perhaps it’s not a concept you can grasp.
Oh, and another thing, buddy — I’m usually up by 6 each morning. That gives me time to get a little work in on the stationary bike and place my orders before the opening bell on Wall Street. By 8 a.m., I’ve usually finished my bath and am tackling the mountain of fan mail I receive — many of it from ladies, I hasten to add, who have no problem with how I look at 8 a.m. or at any other time.
Let me be even more blunt: I’ve gotten more tail by accident than you’ve gotten by design. Unless leading the Manhattan Jaspers to victory over Marist gets co-eds more excited than the opening chords of “Start Me Up.” I’m pretty sure it does not.
So back off, mate. The next time you want to make one of your “hilarious” observations, I suggest you leave me out of it. Besides, have you taken a gander at Keith Richards lately? Frankly, I have to avert my eyes whenever he strolls into view. Why not unleash some of that Fraschilla wit on him?
January 24, 2007
Goodbye, Mike Dunbar
Offensive Coordinator Mike Dunbar is leaving Cal to take an O.C. job at Minnesota.
As many readers know, the Dunbar family is close to my uncle and his family. We were lucky enough to be the Dunbars’ guests at the Big Game, and got to meet Mike and Linda in person. Really nice people.
It was clear at the outset that Tedford’s move to bring in Dunbar was an odd one — a spread-formation coach coming in to run the offense under Tedford, who clearly has some differing philosophies? We’ll never know the real reasons, though I suspect Tedford wanted someone who he could trust as playcaller and was intrigued by the idea of using the spread more. In the end, my guess would be (and no, I have no inside information) that Tedford wanted to use the spread less, Dunbar wanted to use it more, and in the end it wasn’t a marriage that was going to work.
Some of the more, um, colorful Cal bloggers out there have said “good riddance” to Dunbar. I suppose if you believe that Tedford is God, you’ve got to place all your blame on Dunbar.
As for me, I think it’s fair to call the Dunbar hire a reach by Tedford. Tedford wanted to try going in a different direction, but in the end it was clear that it wasn’t working. I don’t blame Tedford or Dunbar for wanting to resolve the situation. But let’s be clear — it was Jeff Tedford’s decision to bring Mike Dunbar to Cal. I’m not quite sure why we need to spread blame around about a year when Cal won a share of the Pac-10 championship for the first time since 1975. But if there’s blame to be placed, let’s not place it on Mike Dunbar for being exactly the person he was before Jeff Tedford hired him. Tedford took a shot, tried something different, and it didn’t work.
Now the Dunbars get to move on to Minnesota, where I have every expectation that they’ll do well. And Tedford will learn from this experience and go another route, presumably with an Offensive Coordinator who will be his playcaller but fit more clearly within Tedford’s established style.
So it goes in the football business.
January 16, 2007
Online Petitions are Dumb
I think online petitions are dumb. Nobody listens to them, nobody cares. It’s all a case of people patting themselves on the back for something, making them feel like they took a stand when all they really did was fill out a web form that will be ignored.
That said, I still signed it, and so should you. Feel free to call it dumb while you’re signing it — I know I did.
By the way, smelly hippies still suck.
January 1, 2007
On the Rose Bowl
That 23-9 loss to USC isn’t looking so bad now, eh?
Cal looked much better than Michigan looked today, I’ll tell you that.
