Banny Log 050608
Posted: May 7th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 63 Comments »
Start No. 7: Vs. California Anaheim Los Angeles Halos
Innings: 6 2/3
Earned runs allowed: 5.
Strikeouts: 3
Walks: 2
Homers: 1 (3-run shot)
Decision: Loss (3-4)
Number of pitches: 103
Number of strikes: 64
BABIP: .449 (13 for 29 — yikes!)
Season BABIP: .303 (43 for 142)
Well, I didn’t get to see this messy game because I was driving back to Kansas City.* It’s probably just as well. Banny’s getting hit pretty hard these days — Tuesday, it was Garret Anderson who was giving him the business — and it is again a reminder how sharp and how smart he has to be in order to get outs.
Let’s take a quick look at the critical third inning using MLB.com’s Pitch FX:
Lead off: Casey Kotchman. Gets ahead 2-1, and then Banny throws him an 84-mph fastball (really? A fastball? Maybe a changeup?) up. Kotchman rips it to right for a single.
Second batter: Torii Hunter. First pitch swinging, gets an 85-mph fastball (Maybe a cutter? A slider?) up and yanks a double down the line.
Third batter: Garrett Anderson. First pitch swinging, gets an 85-mph something on the outside corner and he pulls it over the right field fence for a three-run homer.
And there you have it. Five pitches. The Angels obviously came into this game ready to swing early and ready to swing at anything up. And the fact that they all hit pitches in that brutal 84-85 mph range tells me that Banny really did not have his stuff. He can’t get Major League hitters out at 85 mph (the only way you can is if your fastball is 97 mph and that’s your change-up or split-fingered fastball). Banny can get them out at 81 mph. He can get them out at 89 mph. But a Banny 85-mph fastball is no-man’s land.
*OK, so you will love this story. Well, maybe not, but I love it. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that I’m doing this book on the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. Big Red Machine. Did I mention that? Anyway, so I’m driving back home from Cincinnati Tuesday night as mentioned, and I really don’t think I’m speeding — I realize this has become something of a trend on this blog — and suddenly I see the red flashing lights behind me. I am just one of these people. I have friends who consistently drive way over the speed limit, and they never get pulled over — it’s like they’re driving Wonder Woman’s invisible plane or something. Me, if I go a few mph over the speed limit even for a moment, I will inevitably get pulled over. I’m really not complaining, I live a charmed life. Flashing red lights must be my penance.
Anyway, the officer comes over and taps on the window, asks for the license and registration and all that, and he asks me if I know why he pulled me over. Now, why do they ask that? I probably have a pretty good idea. But I say something like, “I didn’t think I was speeding, but I guess I was.†And he said, yes, he caught me at 76 mph, which would be pretty bad in a school zone but doesn’t seem all that bad for a major interstate. Maybe it was in a 65 mph zone, I don’t know.
He says: So, where you going? I tell him I’m going back home, and he says, “what were you doing in Cincinnati?â€
Well, I have to take my shot here, right? So I say: “Yeah, well, I’m doing a book on the 1975 Reds.â€
And he just stops. And he says: “Hold on. Rose. Bench Morgan. Perez. Uh, Foster. Right? Concepcion. Um, hold on here, Griffey? Yep and uh, centerfield, sure, Geronimo.†He’s naming every member of the Big Red Machine. He has this huge smile on his face. Trucks are rumbling by. The car is shaking. The wind is whipping. This guy is back 33 years, when he was a kid, when the Reds were the best team ever.
Then he says: “Wow, sure wish we could have another team like that one.â€
Then he gives me a warning ticket. This book has already made me money. I love America.
Back to the game. Banny got in more trouble in the fifth. He walked Vlady,* Then gave up a single to Kotchman (on a 1-0 count), got Hunter to fly out on a high fastball, and then from what I can tell on Pitch FX, Bannister threw Anderson a pretty good slider on the outer half of the plate. Anderson singled and scored Vlady. I think Bannister just got beat there.
*You know, Vlad Guerrero has this reputation as a free swinger in the Roberto Clemente mold — and there’s no question that he swings and hits some crazy pitches just like Clemente. But he really has a lot more plate discipline than Clemente ever had. Clemente never walked 60 times in a season, and his career OBP was .359. Clemente struck out about twice as often as he walked. Vlady, meanwhile, has a .390 OBP and and has walked 629 times while striking out 757 times. I think the Clemente comparison is apt in some ways, but Vlady’s reputation as a hacker is not really right..
Then finally in the seventh, Vlady drilled a double on an 84 mph slider that caught too much of the plate. Then Kotchman swung at the first pitch (out), Hunter swung at the first pitch (out), Anderson swung at the first pitch (88 mph cutter way up) and banged it to center for a single. Brandon Wood then swung at the first pitch too (an 85 mph slider — Banny’s slider was obviously not sliding) and hit an infield single. That did it for Brian. He allowed five runs and all five came on Garrett Anderson hits.
So what’s the lesson? I’m not sure — I was in the car driving through Indiana at the time — but I’ll take a guess because, hey, this is Banny Log. It seems to me that the league has made a couple of adjustments. They’re swinging early in the count. They’re pouncing on pitches up. And for the moment Banny does not have enough definition on his pitches — the slider, cutter, fastball and even change-up all seem to be going about the same speed. You know the guy will learn from this*, and I’m betting here he has a few wrinkles his next start. We’ll see.
*Yep, we’re linking again, this time to Buzz Bissinger’s really good interview with The Big Lead. It is really good even if I am mentioned briefly in it. Ignore that part. In summary, Buzz regrets how he came across, and regrets that he threw all blogs into one pile, and regrets yelling at Will. He also regrets that his point got lost. Really, if you care about this, you should read the whole thing, it’s very good stuff.
It also cleared up a couple of things for me. As I mentioned in my original post about Blog-gate, I really respect and admire Buzz. I don’t know him, but I’ve read quite a bit of his work — even beyond Friday Night Lights and the La Russa book — and I think the guy is one heck of a reporter, one heck of a journalist, one heck of an author. I just think the world of his work.
His performance on Costas Now did not make me think any less of him as a journalist … but I just didn’t get it. I try hard to not only hear what someone is saying but to figure out what someone means. I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I had this horrendous six-week radio show — I remember I would say stuff on the air, and I would constantly think, “What did I just say? Did I mean it? Could I defend it? How far would I go to defend it?â€
It’s bad when the first part of that thought is “What did I just say?â€
So, I understand that people sometimes rush their words or they misspeak or they get all fired up about a subject and go much closer to the edge than they would if the lights and microphones were off. But I just didn’t GET what Buzz was trying to say. He started with that bit about W.C. Heinz, and he read that one story from Deadspin, and he just seemed all over the place. He was angry, but I was not quite sure why. He was screaming at Will Leitch, and I didn’t get the point.
But now that I’ve read his interview — which is sensible, well-meaning, apologetic, all that — I think I get it. Buzz is upset about how shrill and profane the tone has become in sports these days. And he wanted to speak out against that. I think that when he was yelling at Will, he was really lashing out at EVERYTHING that’s shrill and profane these days — lashing out at the worst of talk radio, the worst of the Internet, the worst of mainstream media, the worst of athletes behavior, the worst of everything. I don’t think he meant that blogs were bad. I think he meant that there’s a lot of bad stuff out there.
I think that’s why he brought up the great old writer W.C. Heinz, who was, above all, a gentleman. He was class. He wrote with grace and dignity, and I’m sure that’s what Buzz feels is missing out there. He wanted to speak out, scream out against the viciousness in the air. And I get that. Now, I don’t know that we’ve changed as much as a society as people believe — I’m reading all this stuff about 1975 now, and man, fans were pretty nasty and angry back then. In LA, they threw so many bottles and batteries and stuff at Pete Rose and called his mother so many names that he admitted for the first time in his life the game wasn’t even fun. In Cincinnati, Bob Watson crashed into a wall, broke his glasses, was on the ground in pain … and some fans poured beer on him. And for all the talk about the nasty political blogs these days, in 1975 it seemed like every other day there was another assassination attempt at President Ford. And so on.
So, no, I don’t think people have changed all that much — that’s good old days talk. But now after reading I think I have a much better understanding of where Buzz is coming from. You could call it ironic that Buzz came across so much better on a blog than he did on television, but I don’t think it’s irony at all. It’s just this crazy thing we call the future.
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Sat right behind homeplate last night for the game. If I remember right, the Kotchman single was more of a flare than a “rip”. Anderson’s HR was completely ripped. Interestingly, the 1st pitch HR to Anderson came right after the pitching coach came out to talk to Banny. Not sure if the chat threw Banny off, or if the coach told him to just throw a ball 85 mph right down the middle of the plate, but that’s what happened.
Outside of a couple hits by Anderson and a couple of hits by Vlade, Banny didn’t get hit hard last night. He just got hit a little. The problem is that for this Royal’s staff right now, there is no margin for error because they’re not scoring runs or hitting for power — and Banny has less room for error than most because he doesn’t strike people out.
I see your point about Buzz and his dissatisfaction with tone, but after reading that interview, I got the distinct impression that he was simply blog ignorant.
This is not really a knock on Buzz, he just didn’t seem to know until now what is really out there, and only seemed to notice negative stuff or personal criticisms.
OK, maybe it’s a knock on Buzz for going batshit crazy out of ignorance, but he conceded that fact, so let’s all play nice.
Joe,
I’ve read everything you’ve written on this blog for about 6 months or so. I’ve even read extremely long posts about Brian Bannister, a guy I couldn’t pick out of a lineup of two. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of it. I’m a lifelong Reds fan and I have to say that I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited for a book to come out as this 75 Reds book.
Keep up the great work.
When did H. G. Bissinger become “Buzz”? When I read Friday Night Lights years ago he was H.G. Shouldn’t he be required to change the spelling of his last name so that he is now Buzz Bizzinger? Also, the name reminds me of This Week In Baseball’s Buzz Brainard (or whatever his name is.)
Sorry Joe, gotta call you out on that one. On the surface it looks like Vlad walks a lot more than Clemente (9.04% of his PA to 6.08%), but that’s largely due to all the intentional passes that Vlad receives. If you ignore the free passes that they each received, their walk rates are a lot closer: 5.78% for Vlad, and 4.45% for Clemente. That’s still a difference, but it’s almost negligible. Also, if you ignore IBBs, Vlad never walked 60 times in a season either. The most unintentional walks he earned was 52 in 2002.
I think I agree with #2, Ryan, but would like to adjust it slightly. I think Joe’s right in that Buzz was/is upset with the state of things nowadays–the nastiness and whatnot. But, I think it’s just as true that he directed that at blogs because of some kind of blog-ignorance. Either way, it’s good to see that he’s taken a deep breath and that he has an actual, reasonable opinion underneath his anger.
Oh, and regarding Vlad Guerrero’s hackery, Joe:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=4&season=2008
That O-swing refers to the percentage of pitches outside of the strike zone that Vlad swings at. He, easily, swings at more would-be balls than anyone else in baseball, and he’s easily a better hitter than the majority of the players beneath him on the list.
Vlad is, I think, one of the biggest hackers in baseball history. It’s just that when he swings at a pitch outside and in the dirty, instead of nubbing it to an infielder, he ends up with a double. It’s incredible. Yeah, he’s walked more than he’s struck out a few times, and, honestly, I don’t think he walks because he thinks the pitches were balls. I don’t think he thinks of pitches as Strikes or Balls. I think he considers whether he can hit them, and if he thinks he can, he swings really, really hard. So, his personal swing zone is significantly larger and different than the strike zone.
Could I love Vlad any more than I do? No, no, I couldn’t.
5 beat me to it… extending a little more:
If you ignore IBBs, Vlad has a career OBP of .369, and Clemente is at .349 (Vlad loses 21 points, Clemente 10). Baseball reference gives the park-adjusted league averages for each guy as .341 for Vlad and .327 for Clemente, which leaves about 6 points of difference between them after adjusting for league context. So yeah, they’re really similar.
My favorite Vlad statistic is that he struck out looking one time last year (link in name, I hope). Makes me wonder what happened on that third strike. Maybe a bird pooped on him as the pitch was coming in.
One of the things I really like about the cerebral approach Bannister takes to his craft is that I’m eagerly awaiting the adjustments he will make now that the league has made some of their own. It’s pretty much a certainty that he’s going to change things up a bit (my personal guess – he’ll try to slow down his off-speed stuff, a la Mike Mussina, to give the hitter a bigger disparity between his pitches). What exact changes he makes, and how he explains them, will be fascinating.
Bissinger is clearly a smart guy, which is why I’ll never understand how he missed the irony in screaming about how the world has lost civility. I’ll never get that part.
I can’t believe Banny was throwing strikes to the Angels. That crap works against the Tigers and Yankees, but the Angels are up there hacking.
Re: Vlad
I think one of his tricks is that he is a completely different hitter with 2 strikes. Before he gets 2 strikes he’ll hack at anything he likes and most likely reach it. But with 2 strikes he waits for one in the zone. I think most pitchers don’t expect this and continue to throw waste pitches with 2 strikes, but Vlad usually recognizes them.
I love how Bissinger dismisses your comment with a “well, he doesn’t want to piss off the bloggers” rationale. Who knows if you’re right on Heinz’s blogging, but your account makes a lot more sense than Bissinger’s non-explanation.
Wow. If you had run into a spleeny Sox fan cop with a long memory, you’d still be trying to navigate the Indiana court system while sitting on your hard bunk and eating from a cafeteria tray. I’m a Kansas City Royals fan living in Maine. I know, man. I know.
“Vlady’s reputation as a hacker is not really right..”
It’s a different kind of hacker though. Vlad has plenty of plate discipline, but I think if Vlad sees a pitch that he likes (maybe he’s just insanely good at recognizing a fastball, or sliders, or whatever), he’ll swing at it no matter where it’s thrown.
Vlad and Soriano are the only two guys I’ve ever seen hit a homerun on a pitch that would have hit their shoelaces. And ofcourse, Vlad also hit a homerun on a ball that bounced in front of the plate. So he’s more of a “Oh yeah baby!” hacker who’ll go after that one pitch he’s sitting on, even if he has to climb a ladder to get to it.
“Buzz is upset about how shrill and profane the tone has become in sports these days.”
And because you’re upset about that, the first thing you do is shrilly scream semi-profanity at a blogger on national television. That makes perfect sense.
Now that he’s gotten to spew his gall, Buzz is suddenly very apologetic and blablablabla. I say the guy is a hypocrite. If that’s how he really felt about it, he would have thought about it beforehand and that’s what he would have come out and said. Instead he just sat there and ranted.
His apology feels just as real as an athlete’s “prepared statement” that’s read by his lawyer.
Now that Buzz has been skewered up and down all over the Internet, suddenly he regrets what he said, because obviously he never expected such a backlash. Whatever. He’s a fake.
Welcome to the modern world, Buzz Bissinger. Try not to let it kick your ass too many times.
Great story about the cop. See how many would have done that if you’d mentioned a football team. Sorry NFL, you’re just not the national passtime, no matter how hard you try to be.
Sorry NFL, you’re just not the national passtime, no matter how hard you try to be.
“What were you doing in Cincinnati?”
“I’m writing a book about the 1990s Bengals.”
“Step out of the car, sir.”
Suddenly the preseason projections of Banny don’t seem too far off line. In 21 1/3 IP, he’s given up 19 ER and 33 H (including 5 HR) while his ERA has jumped up two full runs.
And because we all know that wins is far and away the most important statistic used to judge pitching performance, he’s 0-4 in those 4 starts as well (sarcasm intended).
I love your blog, and I feel guilty that the first time I’m going to comment is to complain, but what can I do. I know it’s an easy joke, but calling them the “California Anaheim Los Angeles Halos” or other variations is not really funny any more, if it was ever funny. You do know the history of the team, right? They used to be the Los Angeles Angels, and Moreno, the owner, wants to go back to that old name. The “of Anaheim” part is due to a legal clause in their contract with Anaheim. It’s not crazy to call them the Los Angeles Angels because, really, who says “I’m from Orange County” when speaking to someone from out of state. You _always_ say “I’m from Los Angeles”. LA has become a metropolitan designation. It’s a better designation than “California Angels”, because they don’t represent the entire state, and better than “Anaheim Angels” because their market is bigger than one Orange County city. They pull fans from three counties in the LA area, so the LA name is appropriate.
If all that fails to convince you, at least consider this: the Angels were every bit as downtrodden as the Royals until they won their only World Series in 2002. There ought to be some sense of kinship there.
Alex (#11) makes a great point about how dismissive Buzz was about you Joe and your supposed need to keep we who read you happy. Can’t say as I believe that to be true about you Joe, as I think the quality and integrity of your writing, here, and in the KC Star, and in “The Soul of Baseball” is part of what keeps me coming back. (I suspect that any of the “regular” readers of this blog feel at least somewhat the same. ) And that intergrity would mean that you would indeed say things that might piss us off sometimes, but you would express it in a thoughtful, non combative fashion, and ellicit the kinds of comments this blog already engenders. Whereas if you blustered and profaned to make your point, you’d get much the same in the comment field. Or if you blustered and profaned to make your point that bloggers are all morons who bluster and profane, you might just come across as Buzz did on the Costas show.
I’d say too that Buzz’s reaction to your thought that W.C. Heinz would very likely blog is pretty dismissive to not only you, but also to Heinz himself. I would think that part of being as good a writer as you are, as Heinz was, and as Bissinger is, is that what is written is researched and informed, and to ignore the wealth of information, the common and not so common opinion of “the people,” and the background that is available through blogs (and yes, Buzz, weeding out the extraneous, the untruths, the half truths, the bluster and the profane) would be folly. It would also seem a great way for a writer to practice his/her craft, and have instanteous critique from his/her target audience.
I think I’ve just “Salisburied” this.
I just want to throw in my 2 cents about Bissinger. If you go here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/sports/playmagazine/0603play-wood.html?_r=1&em&ex=1180756800&en=5f5dad5ba7f64c01&ei=5087&oref=slogin
you can read Bissinger’s article about Kerry Wood published in last year’s New York Times. And if you go here:
http://www.790theticket.com/audioplayer.php?mp3=2016550200Bissinger31.mp3&show=The%20Boog%20Sciambi%20Show&id=2543
you can hear Boog Sciambi question some of Bissinger’s assumptions, and you can hear how well (cough, cough) Bissinger takes this criticism. My guess about what happened here? Bissinger took a lot of heat for that article last year in the blogosphere, and has been pretty much waiting for the opportunity to hit someone (anyone) about the head with that umbrella.
And by the way, trying to figure out someone’s motives for going totally bats–t crazy is next to impossible… But it sure is fun!
Speaking of bat–crazy… Here’s an analogy for you:
Buzz Bissinger: Recent Interview With Big Lead::
Tom Cruise: Recent Interview with Oprah
Neither would be doing it if they’d “got away” with the big mistake. Both had pretenses to authority that ended up with them being publicly humiliated, and brought up past embarrassments that did (Cruise) and might (“Buzz”) damage their careers (in the case of “Buzz,” the whole internet bringing up the how blogs (including one by Mr. Posnanski, wonder if this is why he’s so dismissive of Joe in the interiew?) took apart his beer-soaked piece and revisited the Sciambi interview, where a respected broadcaster exposed his lack of real research, and he responded in a way that now seems typical.
I don’t know him, and maybe his books are good. But there’s a clear pattern of a lack of critical thinking, a pretense of assumed (and undeserved authority), and unability to withstand criticism. He’s an authoritarian jerk who only backpedals when forced.
Noah, TC, and Eric J beat me to the punch, but yeah, Vlad does swing at a lot of balls outside of the strike zone while still making hard contact with those balls. It’s why pitchers don’t like facing him too much.
Also, the pitch f/x data makes errors fairly often, mostly with cutters/sliders. It’s still relatively new though so hopefully they’re in the process of refining it.
You know what? I’m not willing to concede the fact that the majority of blogs suck. I’m not even willing to concede that half of them suck, or some of them suck. As a whole, the vast majority of them are great. And if some of them do suck, who cares? What does “suck” even mean? If it’s about a topic you’re not interested, don’t read the blog. I don’t complain about the History Channel being in existence because my 7th grade social studies teacher turned me off of history. And if it’s a poor writer, writing about obscure things, that no one either knows about or cares about… what’s the friggin deal? Do I complain about sportscenter because the high schooler doing the sports update on the local channel is TOTALLY just reading off cue cards?
Mainstream writers have to manufacture false interest/outrage/whatever, because they have to go on at 6pm every night, or have their article in by 1am every morning, and sometimes it’s just not there. Bloggers just take a day off. I’ve never found myself nearly as disappointed in a blogger as I have with radio or newspaper personalities. Even (gasp) Gammons has said some ignorant, foolish things over the last few years.
Hey Daniel Z (#17) No offense but your team plays in the middle of the largest parking lot I’ve ever seen. Acres upon acres of concrete. I once parked in section 1,149C. It is an entirely manufactured destination with no natural cityscape, riverscape, shoreline, bridge, mountain, ravine, Fenway – nothing, And though they may draw people from the urban sprawl of L.A. that location is about as representative of “Los Angeles” as the tarmac of LAX and I sure wouldn’t want to see a game there.
Whew… Pardon me. I had no idea how much I detested Anaheim Stadium. Funny thing is I like the team – whoever they are.
As far as the Bissinger interview goes, I haven’t seen someone eat that much humble pie in quite some time.
Firstly, it’s not completely impossible to get big leaguers out with an 85 mph fastball. Moyer and Maddux can both do it. But, other than pure velocity, I think they have better pure stuff than Bannister.
Secondly, kudos on the reference to Wonder Woman’s invisible plane.
Great points about Vlad vs. Roberto from commenters above.
I’ll ask a different question: what if you compared Vlad’s BB/PA to league average versus Clemente’s to league averages at that time? You would have to exclude IBBs to make it fair.
My suspicion is that compared to norms of their eras, Vlad is the bigger hacker.
Joe,
the reason they ask you thst question is that if you admit you know why he pulled you over, and you later tried to contest the ticket, the cop can use your own confession against you. (Shouldn’t he read you a Miranda warning or something?) Anyway, the next time you get pulled over, just play dumb. (I know it’s not hard for me either) But don’t mentio the ‘76 Reds if you get pulled over in NYC. I’d throw away the key.
mcgatman(26) Miranda is not required, long explanation but the general rule is that you have to be in custody, sorry I just had a criminal procedure final and couldn’t let that go, my own personal neurosis. Joe I love the Banny log. I wonder if Banny has had trouble with the Angels in the past. As mentioned above they seem to be a bunch of hackers. If you get the chance (while on a break from The Machine) I would like to see something from you on the friendship that Banny and Grienkie have developed.
#17, I live near the border of LA and Orange County, and I’d wager about 90% of the people in Anaheim would say they’re from Orange County or “The OC” rather than from “Los Angeles”. Nobody in LA considers Anaheim part of LA. Every baseball fan I know, and I do mean every. single. one. mocks the ridiculousness of Moreno trying to capture the LA market by calling them the LA Angels. So lay off Joe making fun of them.
That pitch that Banny threw to Garret Anderson that he singled to right was a good pitch. He maybe missed his spot a little high, but it was still well inside and Garret turned on it just enough.
I don’t know that Vlad has a reputation as a hacker so much as he puts a lot of garbage pitches in play, a la Ichiro, because he can cover everything within about fifteen feet of the plate.
I do get a little bothered with the ill-tempered yelling on ESPN (Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti just to start) or on sports radio, like Jim Rome (anytime he’s not blowing whoever he’s interviewing) or 90% of local shows, so I understand where Bissinger is coming from on that, but holy hell did he miss the mark on Costas.
That being said, I still cannot stand Elway. Add Howie Long and Peyton Manning to that list. They were all too good, especially against the Chiefs. And with Peyton, it’s even worse because he seems like a nice guy. Where the fuck does he get off?
Also, I seem to remember Buzz as coming off as slightly dickish on Dinner for Five a few years back. He was interesting, to be sure, but didn’t strike me as a kind soul then.
“The Stupids” is on. Got to go.
And before I leave you for a Tom Arnold star vehicle, I’ve gotten pulled over three of the four times I’ve driven through West Texas for doing 10, 7, and 5 mph over. I got ticketed for 10. I’d never been ticketed for anything less than 15 over before that.
I second Daniel Z.’s comment. Can we please declare an end to the lame Los Angeles Angels of Orange County jokes? It’s been three years–time to move on.
‘I don’t know that Vlad has a reputation as a hacker so much as he puts a lot of garbage pitches in play, a la Ichiro, because he can cover everything within about fifteen feet of the plate.’
This is the thing about Vlad. At some point, he realized he can smack the bejesus out of anything remotely near the plate. He must have the longest arms and biggest shoulder muscles in major league history. Why not swing? He’s one of my favourite players too.
The thing about the “old” Los Angeles Angels is that they actually played in… Los Angeles. They played in Wrigley Field LA in their first expansion season, and then shared Dodger Stadium for the next four years (including one as the California Angels). So the name made sense back then.
Go to Google maps and get directions from generic “Los Angeles, CA” to Angels Stadium in Anaheim. It comes out at 38 minutes driving time. Then do the same thing from generic “Boston, MA” to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. It comes out at 36 minutes driving time.
As soon as the Patriots start calling themselves the “Boston Patriots” again, I’ll stop making fun of the Angels trying to pretend they’re in LA.
Joe when are you going to stop teasing us about the six week radio, and tell us about it? Was it recently? Was in KC? Was it in Charlotte? Does your radio voice not work? do you stammer or hesitate too much? Come on- tell us. Please. I bet you have a ton of great stories about guests and callers and the your evolving thought process about radio shows and your bosses at the radio…please Joe please. Also- have you noticed that ‘about the head’ is getting quite a bit of play on the blog since you mentioned it the other day.
Old Man Duggan- Perfect use of the F-bomb. I love swearing. It makes me feel good inside.
Re #12 – I also am a KC Royals fan living in Maine and if you’re who I think you are, you’re an author and I used to work with your mom in Waterville.
And now looking at Mark’s link, I am sure of it. Say hi to your mom for me!
#35 – by that logic, I expect you to refer to the New Jersey Giants and New Jersey Jets, since their stadium is 31 minutes from New York City and in a different state.
Geography fight!
“#35 – by that logic, I expect you to refer to the New Jersey Giants and New Jersey Jets, since their stadium is 31 minutes from New York City and in a different state.”
Gladly. I think it’s sort of ridiculous to attach an inaccurate geographic name to a team. The Nets play their home games within about 500 yards of the Giants’ and Jets’ stadium and (properly) call themselves the New Jersey Nets. When they move to Brooklyn, I sincerely doubt they’re still going to associate themselves with Jersey. The Giants and Jets gave up the rights to “New York” when they left the state.
Along these same lines, the Pistons gave up the right to be associated with Detroit once they moved out of the city. If they don’t like “Auburn Hills Pistons” as their name, they could go with “Michigan Pistons”. When the A’s move to Fremont, they’d look pretty stupid still calling themselves the Oakland A’s, and Fremont is CLOSER to Oakland, by both distance and drive time, than Anaheim is to LA.
i’m sure everyone knows, but just in case, Slate has some really great stuff going right now w/ the DR league.
btw, i support calling the Jets and Giants NEW JERSEY since thats where both teams play. but i’m crazy like that.
the angels should just go back to California Angels and try to sell tickets to people all over the damn state. might not get as many of the LA bangers wearing their caps, but they might make up for it in t-shirts/caps w/ kids in other cities (fresno, bakersfield, san jose) if it said CA rather than LA.
I prefer a system where a team that is a mere 26 miles from the center of a major metropolitan area can name itself after that area.
What’s with the dorks on this board getting all huffy about a joke Joe made about the Angels? You would think someone tore up their Doug DeCinces and Bobby Grich cards. The Angels are not in LA and I know no one in Orange County that considers themselves to be in LA. People that live in Ft Worth or Arlington, Texas don’t say they are in Dallas. The Dallas Rangers sounds about as goofy as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
The most interesting comparison between Vlad and Clemente to me would not be their walk totals but their throwing arms.
Which guy had a better arm? Vlad used to have a pure cannon (maybe he still does, I haven’t seen him throw in a few years) and of course Clemente did as well. Just from very vague memories it seems to me that Clemente’s arm was more accurate than Vlad’s, but that might just be due to seeing highlights of some of Clemente’s famous throws over and over again.
There must be something about Kansas City; people there know their baseball. And they’ve given the sport Bill James and you, so there’s that.
This whole Buzz Bissinger flap (I liked him better when he was H.G.; mebbe if was still H.G., he’d have conducted himself with a little more dignity and class) had, for me, the single redeeming fact of tipping me off, through Deadspin, of your blog. Your posts are first rate and your commenters are worthy of your posts. I’ve never been a Royals fan, and I’d have probably been a Grays fan, and not a Monarchs fan, back in the day, but I thoroughly enjoy this blog.
PS #35? They’re still the Boston Patriots to me.
I think Clemente had a better arm than Vlad, as another RF from Pittsburgh, Dave Parker.
Speaking of arms, did you see those 2 throws by Ankiel the other day in Denver? WHOA BABY! That guy has a GUN!
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is a ridonculous name, and I never get tired of making fun of it. I guess I’m easily amused and shallow.
It’s kind of funny to me that the Expos kept him in AA Harrisburg so long. Mebbe they thought he’d get patient or something. It gave me the chance to see him play in the minors, and he stood out even then.
#44 – Using your criteria, how does the Providence Patriots grab ya?
For those of you who weren’t required to take Mindreading 101 to get a degree, by ‘him’, I mean Vlad! (Of Course!)
I don’t really care that much about minute geographical accuracy, more the silliness of changing the name to *intentionally make it innaccurate*. The Giants, Jets, A’s and whatever examples that might keep innacurate geographical names at least they never switched them to accurate one in the first place.
*If* the G-men changed their name to “The New Jersey Giants”, then changed it to “The New York Giants of New Jersey”, it’s ridiculous, and I would mock them as much as I mock the Anaheim Angles, not of Los Angeles.
Call me shallow, but I think sports blogs are great. Where else do you see words like ‘Posterisk’, ‘craptastic’, ‘Hankenstein’, and ’swellicious’?
In Europe, teams go by names like ‘Arsenal’, ‘Rangers’, and ‘Queen of the South’, and no one gets confused. Who’d rant if the A’s went by something like ‘Athletics’ when they open their new digs? We’ll probably never know.
What I find funny about Buzz dismissing Joe’s comments due to him being worried about backlash from his readers is that in saying that he misses the whole point of a blog.
When writing a blog you’re not thinking about what other people are going to think, you’re simply just saying what you think. Changing your views and opinions in a blog based on what other people might think really destroys the reason you write a blog in the first place.
I’m sure Joe would writes this blog regardless of how many people read it and what they think of it.
Keep up the good work Joe
how about the California Athletics?
Sidd;
Vlad was only 20 when the Expos did bring him up for Sept. 96 “call up.” I’m guessing they were thinking even that may have been pushing it, but he was just too damn good to keep down anymore. (Plus it allowed them to keep him a while longer before they had to get rid of him, while MLB screwed Montreal over.)
Sidd;
Vlad was only 20 when the Expos did bring him up for Sept. 96 “call up.” I’m guessing they were thinking even that may have been pushing it, but he was just too damn good to keep down anymore.
Joe,
I respect your work very, very much, but your previous comment that if W.C. Heinz were 25 years old today he’d be writing a blog is wrong on about 13 different levels. Heinz would most likely be writing long narrative stories about the Iraq war, ala George Packer to Steven Coll. He was a reporter’s reporter, one who loved dialog, and felt there was a lot more truth to be unearthed in observing and recording history than there was commenting about it. He would have had a lot of outlets for his work beyond just the Internet. All due respect, but those who knew Heinz found your statement to be quite the reach.
KVV,
I think you miss the point, Joe didn’t say that Heinz would *ONLY* write a blog. As you said, he would have looked for numerous outlets for his work, and it is not a stretch at all that a blog would be one of them.
“Heinz would most likely be writing long narrative stories about the Iraq war, ala George Packer to Steven Coll”
And you can’t do that on a blog? A blog is a medium, nothing more. Just as a newspaper or a magazine or a movie is.
For every bad blog out there, there are two Bill Plaschkes and Hatguys. Buzz Bissinger obviously does not understand this simple truth.
#58, I generally agree with your point — a blog is exactly that, a medium. Just like when the Internet was new and hot and people were talking about “e-commerce” as if it was a different animal — for retail, the Internet is a channel, albeit a very powerful one.
On the other hand, your statement about the relative quantity of poor blogs vs. sportswriters is almost certainly false. By the nature of the zero cost, the number of blogs is so enormous as to be almost beyond comprehension. Let me be clear that I love many blogs, but while that may be true if we’re talking about blogs with significant readership, there is more crap on the Internet than anywhere else simply because there’s more stuff and the marginal cost to produce it is nil. None of which, in the end, matters. If you lie it, and there’s lots to like, read it, if not, don’t. The self-righteous attitude of some bloggers as to an inherent superiority of their medium is, to me, as repulsive as the ignorance of Plashcke, Lupica or whoever your least favorite newspaper gasbag is.
I know little about Buzz B., but I’ll offer this opinion anyway: He is always confident that he is right. He was right when he was screaming at Will, and he was right when he was apologizing. I read the La Russa book, and it’s written with a greasy confidence that’s not quite a swagger, but does say “I am writing, and it is good.” It’s generally okay, because he is in fact a very good writer. I’ve recommended Three Nights in August to a few people, but I always feel the need to add in that it’s overwritten, so they know that I didn’t get too swept up in the romance of it (even though sometimes I did).
I read the Bissinger book on LaRussa and while it had some worthwhile stuff in it found it laughably melodramatic. I also thought that an ulterior motive throughout was to attack advanced statistical analysis by indirection and with no real understanding of what it was. The implied arguments were always against straw men.
Joe, I think you are channeling Buck O’Neill in your willingness to grant benefit of the doubt to everyone. Bissinger and Costas may be good and talented people, and they may have done excellent work in their careers. But they have both been talking nonsense for quite a few years now and should be called on it.
don’t post comments , they usually are negative and mean.
[...] Decision: Loss 3-4 Number of pitches: 103 Number of strikes: 64 BABIP: .449 13 for 29 ?? yikes! Seashttp://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2008/05/07/banny-log-050608/Rockland AM Report The Journal News- Today: Right lane Rockland-bound closed for bridge maintenance [...]