Pozterisks from Beijing
56A lot of people seem to think the Olympics are over. I say this because I’ve been getting a bunch of emails the last couple of days with subject lines like “Welcome home!” and “Finally, you’re back!” and “Go back to China” and “Business proposition from Uganda, PLEASE RESPOND.” I can only guess that many people figured the Olympics ended precisely when Michael Phelps touched the wall for the last time. That’s when it would have ended had the Olympics been a movie … unless that movie happened to be AI*
*OK, did you ever see AI, that Steven Spielberg movie inspired by Stanley Kubrick, one where Haley Joel Osmont plays a Pinocchio-influenced robot that wants to be a real boy? I saw it years ago, and to be honest I don’t remember a lot about it except that it was longer than the Great Wall (Olympic reference!) and it had this haunting ending where Haley Joel Osmont finds the blue fairy and says, “I see dead people.”
No, wait, that’s not right. It has this haunting ending where he finds the Blue Fairy underwater. He begs it to turn him into a real boy, and the Blue Fairy just stares at him for thousands of years. Fade to black. The end. I thought this was a fascinating and shockingly sad way to end the movie, one that really left you thinking about the meaning of life and the depth of despair and the joy of having this impossibly long movie actually end.
In fact, there was really only one problem with this … the movie DID NOT actually end there, it went on for another 43 hours, and brought in futuristic beings and some sort of crazy “If you could have one more day with the one you love,” moment, and it also had dinosaurs and a couple trying to fix up a hopeless house and a man from a vague country getting stuck in an airport and face melting and Robin Williams playing Peter Pan and, well, I can’t remember it all. I just know that I had a dentist appointment just before I went, and when I got out I was already due for my next one.
The Olympics, though, are not a movie, and so they have gone on, and on, and also on, and I’m still here, I’m actually about to watch some boxing (Update: I watched boxing. The American lost. We stink at boxing now). I will be here for a couple more days until Sunday morning when I fly to Tokyo to Los Angeles to Kansas City to long hugs from wife and daughters to their bedtime story to, perhaps, a Bruce Springsteen show*. The last part is still very much up in the air, though I am fully aware of the polling numbers.
*I really, really want to take a minute and thank the two dozen people have contacted me with Springsteen ticket offers. You’re the best. I don’t know if Margo and I will make it to the show — I don’t even now if my plane will make it to Kansas City — but if we do please walk on over and accept my appreciation.
In any case, when you’re at the Olympics you tend to pretty much block out everything that is happening in the world. Someone the other day asked if I had any thoughts about Obama and who he will pick as his Veep candidate, and I remember thinking: “Obama. Obama. That name definitely rings a bell but I cannot quite place it.” This is because at this very moment my mind is overflowing with Cat Osterman, Michael Phelps, Deontay Wilder, the five events of the modern pentathlon*, Michael Phelps, the amazing Asain Bolt, the pomposity of the IOC, how to say thank you in Chinese (Yee-ha — which took some getting used to), Michael Phelps, Redeem Team, the math it takes to convert yuan to dollars, the history of the Great Wall, the scoring system for synchronized diving, Roger Federer, the five kinds of Olympic mascots, the one song they keep playing over and over here (which is sort of a Chinese version of a Celine Dion song) amd Michael Phelps.
*Air pistol, epee, 200-meter freestyle, show jumping, 3,000 meter run. Those are the modern pentathlon events. In order. I didn’t have to look that up. I’m optimistic that as soon as I get back home and settle back into an NFL preseason and the pennant race and lots and lots of Big Red Machine (did I mention that I’m writing this book) that this useless modern pentathlon information will be purged from mind, much in the same way that I do not remember the number of the hotel room where I stayed at last month or the time I asked Sarah Eisen out for a date to the extreme laughter of everyone around. It’s gone. Really.
I am not keeping up with hardly anything back home except for Elizabeth’s first week of school, Katie’s fascination with the time difference between home and China and the various quirky news items that manage to pierce through the five-foot thick wall of Olympic density that surrounds us at every turn — like I heard a couple of guys found Big Foot or something and that Brett Favre got traded somewhere and that John Edwards turned out to be a not-so-great guy. You know, the big guy might want take this down now right about now.
I’ve tried to keep up with baseball and other sporting news, but to be honest I’ve only managed to notice, in a very general way, the Royals really suck. Wow. Really suck. And I guess my guy Banny’s been having a terrible time. We’ll try to get him back on track. Anyway the Internet here is so temperamental, and the time difference so baffling that I haven’t seen much more than that.*
*I did post the other day the stunning comparison between Emil Brown and Jose Guilen. To remind you, the Royals released Emil Brown. The Royals signed Jose Guillen to a three-year, $36 million deal. I hope people ALWAYS keep that part in mind. Here are the updated numbers:
Emil Brown: .255/.303/.404 with 14 doubles, 2 triples, 12 homers, 55 RBIs, 46 runs in 361 at-bats, OPS+ of 92.
Jose Guillen: .251/.286/.429 with 32 doubles, 1 triple, 16 homers, 79 RBIs, 51 runs in 462 at-bats. OPS+ of 85.
Now, let me clear here — yes, I predicted before the season that, given the at-bats, Emil Brown would put up roughly the same numbers as Guillen. And though I joked about readers dropping grapes in my mouth for such a brilliant prediction, the truth is that I DID waffle tremendously on it because I made a classic mistake … I believed what my eyes told me.
This is like my own personal Moneyball vs. Scouting moment. Here’s what happened: It seemed clear to me after studying the numbers pretty closely and considering the situation that Guillen was likely to have a big drop off. He’s 32, he doesn’t walk at all, he’s not the most stable of sorts to begin with … and I figured Emil Brown, having been released again, playing for an Oakland team that would probably play him in a limited way, would have a little something to prove and might put up better numbers than he did in 2007.
Then I saw Jose Guillen hit during spring training. And I thought, “Damn, that guy’s got a quick bat.” He really did too, I mean he seemed to wait until the ball was about past him and then, whap, he unleashed that quick swing, it was impressive to watch, even if it was batting practice. That’s when I started to back off the prediction. A guy with THAT swing would have to put up pretty good numbers.
He started off terribly, and I thought, “Well, I was right the first time. Believe the numbers” Then he got incredibly hot, I mean he was about as hot as anyone I’ve seen, and for 44 games he hit .380/.391/.659 with 20 doubles, 10 homers, 45 RBIs, and even that doesn’t describe his hotness because he pounded into a lot of hard outs. And I thought, “Yep, quick bat, he’s going to make the Emil Brown prediction look ridiculous. You should believe what you see.”
And then, he fell apart again.
For those 44 games, he hit .380/.391/.659.
The other 75 games, he’s hitting .170/.223/.283.
And it just reminds me again: It’s a very long season. Sure, the guy’s got a quick bat. But he also has a 32-year-old body, a chip on his shoulder, a guaranteed contract and a going-nowhere team around him. Over a long season, more often than not, the numbers will win out. Moneyball wins again.
OK, now I’m going to finally get to a point here. I have not really been able to keep up with stuff, but on Friday morning I did get to read what has to be one of the ten most amazing baseball quotes I have ever seen. It’s so incredible that I cannot even believe it. This, of course, involves Royals shortstop Tony Pena, the Bobblehead Kid, who is having a year for the ages. Yes, he’s hitting .161. Yes, I have personally seen him blow four sacrifice bunt attempts which means he has to be in double digits in that category. Well, on Thursday — to add to the Tony joy — he apparently dropped a routine pop-up that ended up being a big factor in the loss. I really do like Tony personally, but I’ve got to say that he probably has had more “Would you send that guy down to the minors” moments than any player in the last decade.*
*Or at least since the great Neifi.
A dropped pop-up. Sheesh. It was a day game, so apparently he lost it in the sun. Hey, it happens. The thing is, Tony Pena was not wearing sunglasses at the time. I’m pretty agnostic about sunglasses, to be honest. I’ve actually had baseball players tell me that sunglasses are overrated, that in reality they don’t do much for helping you deal with a sun field. Still, you want to wear them, even if it’s only so you don’t look stupid when you lose a pop-up in the sun. This leads to the quote … someone asked Tony Pena why he wasn’t wearing sunglasses.
And here’s what he told our own Bob Dutton: “I ordered some. But we never got them in.”
That’s the quote. I want you to read that thing again. And again. And again. The Kansas CIty Royals have been battling Pittsburgh for the title of worst team in baseball for more than a decade now. I can, even in my Olympic stupor, tell you about the time Ken Harvey got hit in the back with a relay throw, the time two outfielders started jogging back to the dugout while a pop-up dropped behind them, the time Desi Relaford literally fell off first base, the time the Royals brought in a professional softball pitcher, the time an outfielder ran to the wall and climbed only to watch a fly ball bounce on the warning track in front of him, the time a an outfielder had a pop up hit him in the face when he wasn’t wearing sunglasses then wore sunglasses on the plane ride home, the time Tony Pena Sr. jumped into the shower with his clothes on to inspire the team, the time Tony Muser talked about how the Royals needed to be drinking tequila, the time Buddy Bell batted someone out of order, the time Neifi refused to go into a game and then said he was joking, the time the Royals decided to do away with their tradition of wearing Negro Leagues uniforms for a game because they didn’t want to pay for them … I’m telling you I could go on like this all day and all night and all the next day.
BUT … this might just be the topper. A shortstop for a Major League Baseball team played a day game without sunglasses. Why? Because the sunglasses he ordered never arrived. You have to figure that rock bottom is somewhere around here.
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Maybe this explains why TPJ is so bad at hitting and still playing. Think about it, he orders a pair of sunglasses*, they never come so he just plays without anyway. Likewise he turns up to play, can’t hit a lick but then plays without being able to hit anyway. Unfortunately I don’t think TPJ’s hitting ability is going to turn up in the mail (or anywhere else for that matter)
*Why are they called a pair of sunglasses when you only get one set? A pair would imply two.
On an Olympics note, how great are we (Great Britain) doing? Seriously our target* for 2012 is 4th in the medals table so we are currently four years ahead of schedule. It has been a real joy to watch without all the successful failure stories we normally get (paula Radcliffe doesn’t really count here) and instead have lost of success or to see kids with a real chance in London getting a first taste of what its all about.
*Does the target get changed now that we’ve performed so well because I can’t see how we get much better.
Did anyone see the farce that was the 4×100m relay*. Seriously I’m watching it on my lunch break and after the first heat I’m thinking USA out, Nigeria out, qualify and we have a great shot at a medal maybe even gold. Then what happens Craig Pickering on the final leg sets off too early! I mean I can kind of understand what happened with the Americans (why didn’t they just stop and hand it over, they were far enough ahead) the guy just couldn’t get it in the others hand (terrible mistake but I can understand it). Our guy however sees Malcolm Christie coming round the bend, sees we are comfortably in second place and just starts running way befoer Christie is even close to him. That for me is a worse error.
*Why is it so hard for athletes to pass the baton? Remember when you used to run the relay at school? Nobody ever dropped the batton that I can remember, ever. Ok we weren’t running as fast but relatively speaking we were running as fast as we possibly could but still didn’t make any errors.
If you hadn’t already guessed by now I am posting this while bored at work.
I’m guessing the reason they haven’t sent him down is more the “Oh man, we really need to send this guy down, but we already ordered those sunglasses… what are we going to do with them if he’s in the minors? Everyone will laugh at us and say, ‘Those dumb Royals, ordering sunglasses for the guy in the minors!’ We’ll be the laughingstock of the AL Central!”
Maybe TPJ needs glasses, not just sunglasses.
Sadly, Joe could have kept going in that paragraph about painful Royals memories. He could have made that thing it’s own little novella.
He skipped the time they shipped Mark Quinn to the minors in the middle of a season where he was 3rd in the Rookie of the Year voting because Tony Muser didn’t like the way he played corner outfield defense. He also skipped the game where Quinn got a standing ovation for taking a walk, his first in nearly 200 plate appearances. He skipped the tragic loss Quinn suffered in his karate fighting debut, when he was beaten up to the tune of some cracked ribs by a chair in his hotel room. (I’m thinking Quinn probably deserves is own chapter in this novella.)
And let’s not forget about Angel Berroa, who won the Rookie of the Year in 2003, signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract and then promptly revealed himself to be: A) Two years older than everyone thought, and B) Utterly incapable of either hitting or laying off any low, outside curveball ever thrown by any major league pitcher in the history of ever.
Joe managed to completely avoid any mention of the tortured managerial manipulations of Bob Boone, who is probably sitting in from of a Cray Supercomputer as we speak, trying to devise his 1,475th different lineup combination that could maximize the plate appearances of David Howard, Tom Goodwin and Craig Paquette.
He skipped their woeful recent draft history. These are the Royals actual 1st round draft picks from 1993 through 2003: Jeff Granger, Matt Smith, Juan Lebron, Dee Brown, Dan Reichert, Chris George, Matt Burch, Jeff Austin, Jimmy Gobble, Jay Gehrke, Mike MacDougal, Kyle Snyder, Mike Stodolka, Colt Griffin, Zach Greinke, Mitch Maier, Chris Lubanski. No, you’re not reading that wrong. There really is only ONE (Greinke) viable major league baseball player on that list, and he missed nearly an entire season with mental health issues.
Rock bottom? That’s been the Royals’ mailing address for a long time now.
I learned a long time ago not to assume rock bottom with the Royals. Everytime I thought we’d hit rock bottom, things got even worse.
Case in point: not only are the Royals absolutely sucking beyond suck right now, but then Mitch Maier gets hit in the face with a pitch and breaks three bones. Why are the baseball gods piling on???
Brian, I was going to say the same thing. Maybe Pena will next say “I ordered some prescription glasses but we never got them in.” Imagine his shock when he finally gets those glasses and realizes he’s hitting .161.
[...] Royals are too cheap to come through on their players request for sunglasses, no wonder they have been so bad for so [...]
With all due disrespect the two worst franchises are from Washington right now.
“The Kansas CIty Royals have been battling Pittsburgh for the title of worst team in baseball for more than a decade now.”
I have to second Ronnie’s take in that the Nats will settle the dispute between the Royals and the Buccos. The situation in DC is so bad that the Nationals’ official website boasts the headline, “Nats aim to ride momentum into series with Cubs.”
The momentum: a 5-4 win against the Phillies that snapped a 12-game losing streak.
Speaking of hilarious quotes, dig this one from my school’s provost during convocation this year: “You will graduate from college faster than a Chinese gymnast can turn 16.” Beautiful.
How can you mention AI and not mention the incredibly, insanely creep-tastic Jude Law Robo-Jiggilo character. Watching him and HJO interact was painful…I think I lost brain cells.
The movie came out in the Summer of 2001, and I didn’t actually see it until that Fall. The only other thing about it that I remember is that HJO is thawed out by the aliens after thousands of years trapped in the ice of a flooded NYC sky-line…which, thousands of years later, still included the Twin Towers.
-sad-
I noticed “Pixiefood” is gaining in popularity with it’s inclusion on the Pop Candy site on USAToday.
Joe - Notice the Mariners are well on their way to becoming the first 100/100 club member. This team, also apparently turned down Boof Bonser for Jarrod Washburn. It’s a dismal time here in the NW.
Those last two paragraphs are amazing. I’ll remember them the next time I see Justin Upton and Chris Young run into each other in the outfield. Thanks for the perspective, Joe.
I had a very wonderful friend give me the AI DVD and tell me exactly where to stop. If you do stop at the blue fairy, it turns into a pretty decent movie. UNtil today I had no idea what followed that scene, but I’m even happier now that I didn’t see it.
The Nats lineup is about as meaty as that Chinese diver, Xin Wang’s diet.
The Nats have fewer good pitchers than a Denver bar that only has Coors on tap.
Rock bottom would be the Royals leaving for Las Vegas and winning the World Series three years (OK, 12 years) later. Not trying to rub it in, rather to cheer you up!
“The time that …. the time that …. the time that … the time that …”
Each and every one of these made me giggle like an eleven year old schoolgirl.
Kansas City Royals Baseball everybody! Feel the Excitement!
Thanks for adding more of those memories Paul White. I needed a good laugh, now I got dozens.
“These are the Royals actual 1st round draft picks from 1993 through 2003: Jeff Granger, Matt Smith, Juan Lebron …”
Hey, LeBron is awesome! Are you not watching him the Olympics right now?!
What? Oh…
As a Red Sox fan… one of my memories of the Royals was a 2004 game in Kansas City. With the bases loaded and one out, the batter (Retrosheet says it’s Cesar Crespo; I remembered it as Mueller for some reason) hits a ground ball to Ken Harvey, who decides to throw to home. Unfortunately, the pitcher (Jason Grimsley) is moving to cover first, and Harvey ends up clotheslining him on the throw attempt, knocking them both to the ground.
Joe, to be honest, I think the Royals may have found a cave in rock bottom, and are currently spelunking their way to the bottom of that. I feel for you KC fans and want to encourage you not to give up whatever it is passes for hope in your neck of the woods.
“*Air pistol, epee, 200-meter freestyle, show jumping, 3,000 meter run. Those are the modern pentathlon events.”
Seriously? What is it that makes them modern? Did air pistol replace archery and the name “modern pentathlon” replace the name “Robin Hood auditions”?
I’m not criticizing, by the way. I’m actually more stunned by the awesomeness.
I’m a Nats fan myself, and that second-to-last paragraph actually reassures me that, even with a horrible team, I can expect some wonderful memories to be made in the future.
And speaking of the future, did you ever notice that the end of AI (which takes place some 2000 years after the already-futuristic time the movie opened in) features a shot of–frozen with the rest of Manhattan in an ice age glacier–the World Trade Center?
Another reason the movie doesn’t hold up well on cable.
@Geoffrey - I believe, and I could be wrong, it’s called a “pair” of glasses because each lens is considered a glass.
Damon had a rough go a couple games back. Dropped two easy fly balls. I could see the second one coming. Looked like he was on a beach somewhere when suddenly there’s this ball in the air and oh yeah, there’s a game on… And I dropped the last one, shoot, I better hurry up, got it… damn.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Mango mojito. Bahamas. New fairway wood…
True. Blue. Tradition.
As a Mets fan - thank you for helping me to achieve some perspective on my own team’s poor draft selections.
My guess is the sunglasses got shipped to Omaha.
TPJ needs to be sent to the minors or maybe needs to be sequestered. His troubles have gone from normal “I can’t play baseball at this level” troubles to “I am a curse to myself and those around me.”
Is anyone suprised Pena is not receiving anything he’s ordered through the club? I mean, why throw good money after bad. Do they still launder his uniform?
Joe,
Love the Royals bloopers paragraph….
Wasn’t Desi Relaford the one who climbed the fence, also?
Also, after a horrible loss that added on to a horrible losing streak, a reporter asked Buddy Bell if things could get any worse. He said things can always get WORSE!
What about the time the Royals renovated their stadium for 500 bazillion dollars, then 5 years later said they want to build a new one downtown. Oh, wait…
@geoffrey:
It’s a “pair of sunglasses” because it’s… two… glasses.
Now, someone needs to explain to me how it’s a “pair of pants.”
Juntos Podemos!
Thought you might get a kick out of this:
http://blogs.citypages.com/sports/2008/08/baseball_tonigh.php
wikianswers says:
It’s called a pair of pants because each pant leg used to be one separate item of clothing, and was belted in the middle. When they became one garment, I guess calling it a “pair” stuck out of habit.
I’m going to post a totally unsubstantiated rumor that has nothing to do with this thread just because I think a lot of you guys will dig it:
Bruce Springsteen rumored to be playing live at Invesco Field immediately following Barack Obama’s acceptance speech.
Check Bruce’s tour schedule. It makes a hell of a lot of sense. We’ll see…..
Seriously? What is it that makes them modern?
The event doesn’t go back to the original Olympics. The ancient pentathlon included a sprint, wrestling, long jump, discus and javelin.
Yeah, I looked it up after I posted that. The events were supposed to have been chosen to reflect the skills of an ideal cavalry officer.
Anyway, I wasn’t kidding about the awesomeness. It’s basically an action hero event, fighting with pistol and sword and then riding, running and swimming. I could see James Bond medaling if they let him compete in a tux.
Seems like “air pistol” should be to target shooting as “air guitar” is to guitar playing…
And if tin whistles are made of tin, what do they make foghorns out of?
Joe,
Your next book should be about the sad sack franchises of MLB history and the bad bad bad bad bad plays and meltdowns that accompany these AAAA teams.
I was at the last game the Royals won, last Friday night.. The Yanks brought in Rivera when the score was tied and the Royals scored a run. The Royals brought in Soria, The Yankees got two infield hits in the inning but Soria held on and got the save. Soria just out duels Rivera in Yankee Stadium! What better gift can a Royals fan get when visiting NY and taking in a game! The Royals had broken a 4 game losing streak, but surely such a dramatic win where their best player just beat his famous counterpart mano a mano will inspire the team to rip off 7 or 8 wins out of the next 10. Right….Since then, the team has completely tanked to the point to where everyone is now wondering if the whole Dayton Moore era is an exercise in futility. What a crazy week. One of the best wins in the last 4 years for the Royals followed by a stretch that is giving serious doubts as to whether they need to completely blow every thing up again and start from scratch.
Joe loves Springsteen and Ben Folds and hates AI. I think he might secretly be me.
The ending to AI makes the ending of Lord of the Rings look concise and absolutely necessary.
Brian and Noel,
TBJ does wear glasses. It makes his comment only slightly more excusable that they probably had to order prescription sunglasses for him.
I mean TPJ, not TBJ. I would have proofread my last message, but the reading glasses I ordered never came in.
Anent the modern pentathlon:
A friend and I came up with the postmodern decathlon, the events of which consist of thinking up the events of the postmodern pentathlon.
The Nats are worse. They are worse. They are worse, they are worse, they are worse.
I attended a game on draft day. The between-inning highlights were all shots of this kid from Missouri, I think, the first round draft pick. They weren’t able to sign them.
I swear, the Nats are fielding — literally — a minor-league team. I can’t even write coherently about them. They stink. Their GM stinks. Their medical staff is historically terrible. (I don’t believe their spate of injuries is simply bad luck. Someone is to blame.)
They are terrible.
While you’ve been in China fretting over the Bruce’s concert, the English Premier season has started. Your lovely new team has started off in “Fulhamish” fashion, losing their first game to Hull ( a team that’s never been in the premier league before) and then beating Arsenal (a top four club). Next up is Leicester City on Wed as they kick off the Carling Cup.
With mens basketball winning it all, your previous article ripping Coach K for one answer he gave in one press conference seems even more ridiculous. Trite, would be better. Try devoting an entire article to something more substantial. Or, continue your hyperbolic fluff.
A quote from the games:
“Mike brought class,” Colangelo said. “He brought dignity. He brought organization. He’s a hall of fame coach. He bled red, white and blue. He was the right guy at the right time.”
I’ll take Colangelo’s view over yours, thanks. But by all means, keep blogging about Bruce Springsteen, music bands, blah, blah, blah…..
If you had a problem with the ending of the movie “The Return of the King” (last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) then you should read the books. The ending took twice as long and the message was: wars abroad cause troubles at home. Or maybe it was: if you want to live forever with the elves, be a ring bearer. Or perhaps it was: never trust a guy nicknamed Wormtongue.
The Royals are proof that MLB needs revenue sharing akin to what the NFL has. Okay, so are the Nats. But the Marlins and the Twins have demonstrated how to be a successful small market team: spend all your money on scouts, and when you are certain you need to rebuild, trade everything worth trading. There are plenty of teams that would like to have the success of the Twins and Marlins even if it meant paying Dodger payroll levels.
as a note, whoever told you that “thank you” was “yee-ha” was pulling your leg. “thank you” is “xie-xie” (pronounced shi-shia) - and not even remotely like yee-ha.
Heh, Expat. I was about to ask what dialect Joe learned, although I bet “Xie Xie” would confuse most Americans.
Anyways, the Nats are terrible this year, but in order to be on the same page as the Royals and the Pirates, they’d have to maintain this level of mediocrity for a couple more years. Of course, if they fail to sign a long-term deal with Zimmerman and he leaves to go with another team, it’s possible they may fall to that level. But hey, what more do you expect from the team formerly known as the Expos?
I’ve been on the road with zero time to read anything online. I came back to the hotel after the KC Springsteen show, filed my report for Backstreets/brucespringsteen.net, finished my STL review, and the first thing I did after that was come here hoping to find that a decision had been recorded as to whether or not Joe made it to the show.
And it’s 3:36am.
I’m going to have to wait to tomorrow, aren’t I? God I hope he saw this show.
Going to see the Royals tomorrow night… provided I wake up in time.
Coach K got rich on the backs of mostly underpriveleged kids who are drastically and systematically undercompensated for their work.
No college basketball coach can be said to have class. The job is fundamentally tainted. The entire sport is the most corrupt legal business in America, bar none.
WELL, We’re waiting?!
The compensation package is stated as:
There’ll be pie
In the sky
Bye and Bye
I believe it originally referred to religion, however, not basketball.
On an old topic, Nate Silver has a ranking up of his top fifty players you would build a team around if you had an open draft today.
Nate’s top ten: Ramirez, Wright, Pujols, Longoria, Sizemore, Reyes, Mauer, Rodriguez, Sabathia, Santana
http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7976
Dear Royal Fans,
Wow, this is the best discussion I’d ever read from the JoeBlog.
“The Baseball Economics” actually pointed one very little thing, that I take it as a good advice even in the post-Moneyball era: Teams can win not only after exploited market inefficiency, but also good management.
What’s going on with the board members who should be opening up their checkbook year after year? What has been the management difference between the 1980-1994 Royals and the past decade Royals?
This sounds like another interesting topic in addition to the “Big Red Machine.”