B-Log: Newspaper edition
16
Well, I wrote a fairly long piece about Brian Bannister for the Star on Sunday — it’s all about how he prepared for perhaps the most gut-wrenching start of his career — so I figure there’s no real point in repeating myself for Banny Log. You can read the piece here if you like.
And also, I ran across this on YouTube … it’s video-game Banny pitching his heart out for an inning against the tough Detroit Tigers lineup. I’m sure it’s just me, but I found this to be shockingly hypnotic. Plus it offers a chance to see Tony Pena play again (though, not to give anything away, he seems to lose concentration. I think it makes sense to make him a video game pitcher too.)
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I can’t believe I just watched a video game for four and a half minutes. I have to ask myself “why?” Does Brian Bannister even have a cutter, by the way?
The crowd seemed pretty excited about Magglio coming to bat.
“That Soria is a beauty. Bannister has asked him countless times this year to explain how he throws that wicked curve; Soria’s the only guy Bannister has ever seen who throws it with his fingers running along the seams rather than across them.”
Am I misunderstanding? Doesn’t everyone throw the curve with their fingers running along the seams?
What game is this?
I’m pretty sure its MLB Baseball 08: The Show
Actually, the crowd look pretty excited for everything, even when the virtual Banny attempted to pick off the virtual Polanco…
It’s an unfortunate omen that the only way to ride a banister is backwards and down.
But I like this kid. Whoever said (Yogi gets the credit, but Yogi always gets the credit) “90% of this game is half mental,” nailed it for me as to why this silly game is so wonderful.
Bannister’s approach to the game reminds me of the George Brett Legend; that he took batting practice ’til his hands bled to become, y’know, George Brett.
It’ll be fascinating to see if Brian can figure it out.
I’m in awe that Banny earned an 800 on his math SAT. That’s got to be a major league first.
This column kind of reads like Roger Angell’s book about David Cone. Always interesting to read a smart pitcher talking about pitching.
Although I know a lot of readers here would hate it, I hope Banny ends up getting dealt to the Yankees. It would be fun to see him pitch in NY and deal with the NY media.
Great piece, Joe. I love stats, perhaps too much, and can feel numbed to the joy of the game after a few hours’ immersion in them. Writing like yours and Roger Angell’s always brings me back to the humanity, to the flesh and blood of these young men who come and go. And for that I thank you.
“Mikey” –
The thought of Brian Bannister and the NYC media is, indeed, interesting.
Nobody can deal with this story better than Joe, of course, and the NY media would steal all of Posnanski’s stuff. But a New Yorker piece on “Brain Bannister” would, most certainly, raise the stakes of Brian’s quest.
There’s a Readers’ Digest piece up ( at http://tinyurl.com/5tc88c ) where fat ol’ Sal Fasano comes off as a whiner that the only reason he didn’t become a superstar was “other guys used steroids.” It’s not far to Sal, I think, but one of those Readers’ Digest-y paeans to those of us who didn’t live up to our childhood dreams. It’s dreck, actually.
And maybe that’s what’ll become of the Banny-Log. I dunno.
In another era of baseball, writers praised the “blue collar” approach. “Charlie Hustle,” and all that.
Society seems to be moving to a different approach to life: the number-crunchers. It’s in the mortgage crisis, it’s in the devalued dollar, it’s what made Budweiser the King of Belgian beers.
Brian Bannister may turn out to be the prototypical “wonk-collar” ballplayer.
It’ll be interesting to see how it works out.
Oh, please not the Yankees. Please!
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As for an 800 on the math portion of the SAT, you’ve got to understand what that test includes. It just about stops at algebra II, so there is not any really advanced math. But the test is designed so that just under. The test is designed so that about 4000 of last year’s 1.5 million (0.27%) examinations would come up with an 800 math. 4000 is a lot of people, so we know that is far from a miracle. In fact, the odds are that someone at your local high school got an 800. So, how do you score an 800?
1) You’ve got to be quick enough to get through all the questions without rushing. Smart and quick are not the same thing; brilliant and quick are not even related. If you’re quick, you’ve got a big advantage. And if you end up rushing, you lose.
2) You can’t be a careless mistake person. This is about getting an lot of easy or medium questions right. So, you can’t accidently fill in the wrong circle, or skip a question, or forget to carry a 1. If you are the kind of person who doesn’t ever make the kind of mistakes you usually don’t make, you’re set. But if you are the kind of person who just slips up sometimes, you lose.
3) Don’t guess. Some questions are designed to totally screw with guessing (i.e. an particlar incorrect answer is really attactive/obvious) If you don’t know, skip it and come back to it later when you know you can spend a ton of time on it. And if you really can’t get it, skip it. YOU DO NOT NEED TO ANSWER EVERY QUESTION TO GET AN 800. So, don’t risk thing with a wrong answer, which actually is far worse than a skipped question.
4) Take the SAT after 1995. That is the year they “recentered” the scores. You see, because more people were taking the test, the average was going down. The kinds of student who never went to college in previous decade were going to college. It’s not that kids were getting dumber, it’s that the college pool was getting bigger. So, the average score score since 1995 has been boosted by about 100 points total, compared to the exact same performance. At the high end, the old 780 is now reported as an 800.
Obiously, #1 gets a lot of poople. But #3 is what really gets people. They think that the test is harder than it is, or they stress and think that they have to guess. They fall of the too obvious answer and lower their score when they shouldn’t have. (Yes, wrong answers actually lower your score.)
So, there’s nothing awesome about an 800 math. It’s just one day’s careful work. Students and athletes all have far more impressive accomplishments than an 800. 5’s on AP exams demonstrate something a lot of more meaningful. 800’s on Achievement/SAT II/SAT Subjects are far more meaningful. Working your way up from JV bench warmer to starter on the varsity is much more impressive.
Banny was traded from the Mets. So I think he has already dealt with the New York media- no need to do that again.
As someone who got a 780 on the pre-’95 math SAT (and, more interestingly, perfect scores on two of the three GRE sections), I think I can give a substantially shorter path to good standardized test scores.
One: inherit fill-in-the-bubble test-taking ability. My brother and I did, and trust me, that makes things a lot easier.
Two: practice. Practice, practice, practice.
Three: stop worrying about “right” answers per se. Fill-in-the-bubble tests are games. Learn their rules, then play to win.
And yes, wrong answers lower your score. But don’t skip. If you can eliminate a single answer as obviously wrong, guess. If you can’t eliminate a single answer for every question as obviously wrong, you didn’t practice. I mean, even a little.
Still, if you work on my #s 1 through 3, where lots of #2-3 helps those who missed #1, you will never have to guess.
As someone whose day job is as a math professor (at least until I can retire and read Joe’s blog all day), I agree with Alex: getting an 800 on the SAT is overrated. It’s impressive, certainly, but far from the touchstone of mathematical ability that people seem to think it is.
That said, Bannister obviously knows a lot more mathematics than probably any other major leaguer. How can I not root for the guy?
Joe, I just wanted to compliment you on this article. It ranks up there with the best ones I’ve read in quite a while. It probably helps that I find Bannister’s story as interesting as you do (his brother goes to school with me). You know, I can absolutely see Banny’s major league career being made into a movie…
Banny appeared in 8 games with the 06 Mets. So while he has literally dealt with the NY media before, it’s quite different from being traded to the Yankees in the heat of a pennant race.