Sure, Jose Reads Us
Posted: June 24th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 43 Comments »
OK, yeah, so here’s another new look for the blog … I’ve been intrigued for a few weeks now about trying to create a magazine look around here. I ran across this cool template — it’s called the “Massive News Theme†and it as created by Jason Schuller, who I obviously don’t know but he is apparently kind enough to give out his templates for free. I imagine your complaints will have already piled up by the time I wake up, but hey, I’m just trying it out. You know? We can always go back if this is a disaster. I’m just trying to learn what I can about this Internet thing. I hear it could be the future.
Also, we need to clean this place up a little because it has become quite clear we have a new reader … a red-hot hitter named Jose Guillen. Welcome Jose. You KNOW he’s reading this thing. You might recall that on Tuesday, in a blog item, I offered much praise for the Mean Guillen Machine who has been about as hot lately as any hitter I can recall. And, yes, in there I did happen to mention that Guillen had not walked in more than a month. His actually went 37 games and 156 plate appearances without a walk if you’re scoring at home … not that I minded. I made that very clear. I did not mind. The guy hit .359 over those 37 games, and he slugged .634, and he was just the man, that’s all. You hit like that, and you don’t have to walk. The mountain walks to you.
Still … I did make mention of the walk-free streak. Yep.
And then, Tuesday night, in the fourth inning, something very odd happened. First, Guillen took a called first strike. I don’t have an easy way to find out how many called first strikes Jose Guillen has taken this year, but I’m suspecting the number is somewhere around 0. The man goes up hacking. It’s a point of pride.*
*The opposite of this was one of my childhood heroes, the old Cleveland slugger Rico Carty, who apparently used carry his wallet in his pocket because he did not trust anyone in the clubhouse (and, because of this, Rico didn’t slide). But that’s beside the point. The point here is he took the first pitch EVERY SINGLE TIME. I remember Cleveland announcers talking about this … it became Rico’s trademark. I seem to remember that sometimes he did not even raise the bat to his shoulder for the first pitch — it was like “Casey at the Bat†come to life. The funny thing is that every pitcher in baseball knew that Rico did not swing at first pitches, and I remember they often STILL did not throw him first pitch strikes. It’s like they were sure this was all an elaborate trap that Rico had been setting up for five years or so. They just don’t make ‘em like Rico.
OK, so he took the first pitch strike. Then it got weirder. He took the second pitch. He took the third pitch. These were balls, but they weren’t terrible pitches — the third pitch in particular was close enough for Guillen to swat. But he let it go. He did foul off the fifth pitch, but then he let the fifth go by (it was way high) and then, extraordinarily, he let the sixth go by even though it was really, really close to a strike. And there was the walk that broke the streak.
I thought: Wow, what a coincidence that Jose would draw his walk on the day I wrote about his walk streak.
And I would still believe it was a coincidence except … yeah, the very next inning, Guillen walked again. True this time, the pitches were all over the place … there was no way he could have hit or even offered at any of the four balls. This was a Jorge De La Rosa special. Still, do you know how often Jose Guillen walks twice in a game? I’ll tell you … the last time he did it was June 26, 2007. That’s almost precisely a year ago. Solar eclipses happen more often. You’re telling me he just happened to walk TWICE in a game the day that I wrote about him not walking? No. I don’t think so. He’s proving a point. I respect that.
Of course, it could be a coincidence. Here, let’s try it out … You know, Jose Guillen has not hit two home runs in a game since 2006. Yeah. Let’s see if he can do that on command.*
*And while we’re at it, I don’t know if Judges People Ricciardi is a reader, so to find out, here’s his challenge: Let’s see if he can keep his mouth shut for one consecutive day about Adam Dunn. Just one day. That’s all anyone can ask right now.
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I love the new look. No matter what the other kids at school say, don’t change back to the old look.
I like the look, Joe, especially on the individual articles page. (ok, maybe only on the articles pages.. but don’t let anyone make you change the articles pages!)
Can you make the right side column narrower? The whole column is about 150% the width it should be.
Wait a minute. Didn’t Guillen pop two homers in that long game at Yankees Stadium? A grand slam and a solo shot, if I remember right. Not that I want to mess with whatever voodoo you’ve got going on. Forget I said anything.
Sweet theme. Now I’ll be playing with Wordpress all night. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
I like the new look with all the pretty pictures.
However, one thing you should change is the favicon.ico picture. . .I know that you are really proud of the fact that you use Host Monster, but I am sure that you can come up with something creative.
I like the new look too.
But hey, we played a great game last night, secured our fifth interleague series win out of five, have the best interleague record in all of baseball at 11-3, have won 9 of our last 10, the two guys at the top of our line-up are hitting over .300 and it’s not luck that they’re doing so….so I’ll agree to pretty much anything this morning. I’m wearing my Royals jersey with more pride than ever this morning, and sod the strange looks I get from the locals.
But seriously, I do like the new look. I liked the old one, but this one’s okay with me.
Joe,
Whatever you prefer regarding the look – just keep writing!
But… I find the new look “harder” more Moneyball less Field of Dreams.
I prefer the old style.
As a web designer/developer, I have to say I like the new WP theme you’re using here. I have to admit I’ve thought about ways you could improve this place. As a baseball fan, I have to say it is too coincidental that Guillen did that just when you talk about it. As a Royals fan, do you think KC will win the NL wild card? I think the Royals are about 11-2 vs NL clubs now. Amazingly the Royals almost made 5 walks….had 4 with three innings or so left. So now I’m watching for Guillen to hit 2 HR’s tomorrow night….he’ll be facing Aaron Cook, who’s given up 7 of his 11 HR’s on the road. Nice.
And hey, why aren’t you talking much about “Rolex” Aviles yet? And yeah, I’ve started calling him Rolex ’cause of his consistently timely hitting.
Hey, a calendar now for the archives! Thanks.
I like the new magazine look!
LaFlamme is correct. Gullen homered twice off of Pettitte on June 7, 2008, both to left field. The first one was in the top of the first with a Teahan on second, the second was in the top of the seventh with the bases full of German, Gathright, and Aviles.
Baseball-reference is pretty much the greatest thing ever at this point, isn’t it?
Really dislike it. I thought the old design was one of the better blog designs around. Plus, didn’t the old design put a timestamp on each comment? That was kind of cool.
One thing I really dont like is the graying out cross hatch on every other comment. Like this one. Very hard to read…
I agree, the old look was better– Great analogy from Moe (Moneyball vs. Field of dreams).
Perhaps most importantly, though, is that the italicized portion of the post looked pretty bad in the new format… And since you write in italics quite a bit… I think it would be smart to stick with what’s easy on the eyes. I Also agree with Moe’s point regarding the cross-hatching in the comments.
Does anyone else have issues with the polls section? The text is barely legible. I’m assuming it’s an IE issue.
Hey Joe,
I am writing to thank you for your blog. And to let you know I purchased your book from Amazon yesterday and I cannot wait to read it.
I’m using FireFox and the poll text is indeed barely legible. And others are right, the cross hatch on every other comment is disconcerting.
I can handle the website changes… just keep on posting!
Yes, I can’t really read the Poll listing very well either, but I can see Johnny Mac on the list. His insight during tennis matches is fantastic, and his brother Patrick is under-rated as well.
I like the look of the new design, but I don’t love having to click on an entry to read it — it feels less like a blog that way.
Maybe there’s just something about being a Guillen — Ozzie had 239 walks in 7133 career PAs. And Jose already has as many walks (nine) as Pudge Rodriguez had all of last season! I don’t know how that’s even possible.
I like the look, except for the top banner on the front page. Its animation is obnoxious.
I think I preferred the old look. Or at least the old way the comments were handled and the links to the individual posts from the main page. But what do I know? I have a rotary phone.
Joe,
I’m in the tank for you, you’re one of the reasons I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post. I’ve gotta tell you, you change formats like my wife re-arranges the furniture …
I agree with Nate, above: The animated top banner (at least in Firefox), does its little dance about every 3 seconds. This is a bit hard on the eyes. And another minor gripe: It seems that the type is smaller, both in point and pitch, than under the old style. Again, a bit hard on the eyes (especially for those of us with less-than-perfect vision).
I don’t have an issue with the crosshatching on the comments, though, nor with the polls — both look fine to me.
I preferred the old look, but I guess I can live with this, with 2 points – First, the column on the right is too wide, as someone said. It’s not that it’s bad, just unnecessary. More importantly, if you must make each post click-through to read, can we at least get “last post”/”next post” links, so I don’t gave to go back out to the main page each time?
For what it’s worth, the crosshatching on the comments doesn’t seem as bad in Internet Explorer as it does in Firefox.
That being said, I wouldn’t mind if the crosshatching disappeared altogether in favor of something simpler (and potentially easier on the eyes) like a light gray alternating comment background.
I was at the game and really did wonder if Jose read your blog! If not, it’s an amazing coincidence.
Joe,
The new look is good. I would however ad a time stamp back to each comment posted and would do away with the odd gray cross-hatch thing with every other post. Numbering the comments might be a good thing to go back too as well. Besides that, I think you’ve got a winner.
Also, Bump Bailey refused to slide because, as he told syndicated sports columnist Max Mercy, he had a cigar in his back pocket and didn’t want to break it.
The other fun sliding anecdote, of course, is the legend of Tim Raines only sliding headfirst, so that he could protect the vials of cocaine he had in his back pocket.
Nice new look. It scrolls more easily, for some reason.
I hate to bring this up, because you really are probably my favorite sportswriter, but you do realize the irony of your dubbing the Toronto GM Judges People, and particularly, the “keeping his mouth shut” with respect to him not being able to let it go, right?
I really liked the last “look” with all of the various images. Now I feel like I’m reading a work document, which is obviously not a good thing. This is supposed to be an escape from work.
Love the blog–preferred the old format, but I suppose it’s not a big deal. I just loved the way the old format seemed to wander and wind carelessly along posts. This format is too organized with its hard lines and it’s indexed one paragraph previews. Why such a hurry, page formatting? Let’s chill and have a Posterisk.
The new look is good, but if you really want to go with a “magazine” look, you need some pictures, video, maybe a chart or something. The content of these isn’t that crucial, they just break up the monotony. Find some volunteer who’s always on call and gets your stuff to put stuff up for you.
In the archived columns, whenever there’s a column that doesn’t have an accompanying picture the first paragraph of the post appears twice side-by-side. Click on the Media category, for example, to see what I mean.
I have a pretty strong preference for the old look, as long as we all seem to be voting.
To be perfectly honest, I like both the old one and this one!
Pick either, and I’m cool with both. There were others that I didn’t like, but really- this is fine. Maybe have more than one poll going at a time?
I vote old look! I liked the montage at the top of the page…
Hey Joe, love the new look, but is there any way to go back to the old font, or at least something bigger? This font seems a little small and condensed and hurts my eyes, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
Well, Joe, you’ve made some progress insofar as I’m ~not sure~ I don’t like this weblog look. In past cases I’ve known immediately I didn’t like the new look. And I do enjoy the montage feature at the top that recounts the joys of your childhood and adult life. Despite being mere pictures, it strikes me as quite personal. – TL
You know, Jose Guillen has not hit two home runs in a game since 2006. Yeah. Let’s see if he can do that on command.
Jose Guillen needs to catch a ball in his hat.
Hey, “Cleveland slugger”? Rico was a Brave for many years, and an astonishingly good hitter. He’s my argument for all those guys who say (for instance) Todd Helton — Hall of Famer. Rico was a hitter in a pitcher’s world. And is nearly forgotten…played for the wrong teams. If he had put those numbers up with the Dodgers or Mets it would be different, but the Braves and Indians were bad and very bad all those years.
What I like (as I liked about an earlier look that didn’t live long) is that if it’s been a few days since I came to your blog and you’ve been busy, is that i can now catch up and read the articles in the order they were written, easily. With the old look, I had to keep scrolling down, down, down, then up, then read down, then scroll up, up, up, and so on. This is so much more civilized. Just look down the list, click the oldest article I haven’t yet read, and proceed likewise for each newer article. “Magazine” – OK!
But if you can tweak it a bit by reducing the right column, as others have said, and adding some white space around the left column (text) so it doesn’t feel cramped, that would be even better.
Jose Guillen has swung at the first pitch of a PA in 36% of his plate appearances this season. His career average is 33%.
(Baseball Reference)
We sure do miss Jose Guillen out here in Seattle. Not signing him is another in a long line of Billy Bavasi mistakes….
I use an RSS reader to read your blog, so I only ever see individual articles, however, I definitely prefer the old design over this new one. The new one is too stale and corporate.