Jackie Robinson In 3-D

With perhaps days/hours to go before the baby, I’m doing a big push on Jackie Robinson to see how far I can get before my life changes so much.  I had a big day in the shop yesterday and took these stereo photos.

Together, they can be viewed in 3-D.  If you were one of those who could left your eyes relax and see those old 3-D, computer-generated drawings, then you SHOULD be able to do this the same way.  I can do it.  But it takes a few moments to get it.

The trick, for me, is to get far enough away from the two photos, so that they are a little smaller than a postcard, held at arms length.  Then you stare, allowing your eyes to relax and not truly focus.  When your eyes are relaxed correctly, you should see double–that’s 4 images.  Keep trying different pressures on your focus until the two center photos become 1 photo and it will be 3-D.  It’s eerie.  When you get it, you will KNOW, so if you are wondering, then you don’t have it.  Remember: Try and make the middle two images merge into one, so that overall, there are 3 photos, and only concentrate on that middle photo–that’s the one that will become 3-dimensional.

How did I take this photo?  With a 3-D camera?  Nahh, with my own camera.  Since I’m working with a tripod, and nothing is in motion, the time lapse between photo1 and photo2 can be ignored.  You couldn’t do this trick with live action, because p1 and p2 would not match.  But in the studio, you just take one photo and then move the tripod 80mm to the right and take another one.  80mm is about the distance between people’s eyes.  The “interpupillary distance”.  Actually, in the population, it’s much smaller for most and is smaller for women and bigger for some ethnic groups.  It runs between 65 and 83 mm.  At 25.4 mm per inch, you do the inch-math.

With the two photos of EXATLY the same thing and yet from two slight different (80mm apart) vantage points, they are about what your brain takes in and processes into one, 3-D image.  The slightly different perspective means that the right eye sees a little further around Jackie’s left side, than the left eye can see.  That info is used by your wonderful brain to give you all sorts of depth and distance information.  Imagine trying to golf without it!  “How far to the pin?”  “Where’s the 150 yd marker?”

And for you Liberals out there, remember, the beauty of the eye and the brain and the depth is pure chance–we’re talking NO INTELLIGENT DESIGN, right?  Don’t even think those words in a public school.

Before you go thinking I’m some kind of techy person, realize that 3-D cameras and looking at “stereo-images” like we are here, originated at about the time of the Civil War.  Stereo view photos were all the rage from about 1870 to 1910.  They looked like this:

They were viewed in a viewer that looked like this:

The slides were available as canned, commercially produced photos of current events and famous places and landmarks.  Think GAF-viewmaster from the 1970’s:

I’m not sure why they fell out of favor.  Perhaps WWI, which destroyed so much of what good was happening in the world around 1914.

Anyway, they did commercially produce stereo cameras for the home-gamer and here is one:

All you need is the ability to take TWO images simultaneously, one interpupillary distance apart.  Now if you search for these things, you will only find, I believe, film cameras from yesteryear.  There doesn’t seem to be any digital stereo cameras available.  There are a couple of guys who have hacked together two digital cameras, but the hack is never simple and the mounting and alignment is never easy.  Both lenses have to point at the same focal point out in space, or the pictures will look hokey–like mine!

What I want to know is why doesn’t SOMEone produce a decent digital stereo camera?  WHY?  With PC’s bringing down photography prices and giving us all sorts of exotic ways to display them, it’s a perfect marriage!  I have searched, but not recently, so it’s possible that there is something out there now.  If anyone knows of a product, comment in please.

For Jackie fans, Jackie may be getting his first paint today on the lower legs and shoes and pants.  It’s always the single biggest, quickest change in the statue and for a medium that goes crawling by in the hundreds of hours, this is a welcome thing.

Your crazy old uncle

Heard yesterday that Tommy LaSorda was going off about the steroid guys and how they should be banned for life and their records expunged from the book and so on and I thought to myself, “…when does LaSorda cross that line and just become your crazy old uncle who everybody just kind of laughs off, you know?  Like, ooh, that’s just Uncle Blabby–don’t really pay attention to him, he’s crazy as batpoop…”

Has he crossed that line already?

Although, to be fair, he is outspoken about things that are taboo.  Take this snip of a Hannity interview:

HANNITY: One time you said about Darryl Strawberry, it’s a character flaw because he was using drugs.

LASORDA: Absolutely. Anybody that takes drug and they try to pass it off as a sickness, that is a lie. They take drugs of their own free will, put it in their body of their own free will, realizing that: No. 1, it’s against the law, No. 2, it’s harmful to their body and No. 3, all it will do is lead you down the path of destruction.

Or these gems from a Pepperdine speech:  “There are three types of people in this world,” Lasorda said. “The person that makes it happen, the person that watches it happen and the person that wonders what’s happening.

“I hope that by talking to you today, you will all become the people that want to make it happen, or else it was a waste of time for me to battle the last hours of traffic to see you today.”

“I don’t know why kids take drugs,” he said. “They don’t make you smarter or prettier. Darryl Strawberry could have been one of the best players ever in this game, but he let drugs take over his life.”

Double Vision

Here is the output of a program I wrote in VB dot net.  It’s a slap-together program but it does what I want it to do and it’s not for sale, so I don’t care about the polish or lack thereof.

Among other things that it can do, it allows me to resize and overlay and most importantly, fade the opacity of photos, so that I can compare.  Compare what?  Compare a photo of a person in the position I’m sculpting with a photo of the work to-date.

It does in actuality, what sculptors do in their heads.  While most sculptors would love this for helping them “see” what to take-away, because of how I work,  it helps me save time and material in knowing how much wood to ADD before I do the take-away thing.

I’m still going to measure like crazy; and squint; and visulaize and draw on the piece with pencils and sharpies, but to have a static record that I can measure OFF of, without repeatedly posing and measuring myself (don’t laugh, it happens all the time), I can be quicker and more precise.

The unsettling part is that the overlays reveal errors that I have made that annoy me.  Hopefully, we can correct for them and the viewer will be blissfully, unaware and no, I never say specific, negative things about my work because that would prejudice the viewer and if they don’t find the faults that I find with the piece, are they really there?  And also remember that my standards are a lot higher than the typical, casual viewer.

Back to work.  –Fog

A Jackie Robinson tree grows in Brooklyn

And this is what we did with the tree:  (Sorry about the load times for those with slower connections).

A photo of the early going: just get that head shape down and begin to draw on the nose location and start to dig down and define it.  Until the nose is perfect, and there’s enough meat to do the other stuff in the right places, nothing else matters.

Everything looks too big and too thick because it IS!  But you have to start defining and establishing the features.  Remember, it’s take-away, so you always err on the side of BIGGER.

Somewhere around here I started to “recognize” “The Man” and not just “A Man”.  It’s a big moment.

Never touch the ears until the very end.  Last.  Because I said so.

Still a long, long way to go from here.  I have 3 other photos still in the camera, that are beyond this point.  The whole head came down and narrowed in size 10% at least.  The hat was re-worked to lost about 30% of its volume.  The ears, etc.  Come back and I’ll have the newer photos in here.  Merry Christmas!

How to argue with Yankee fans

[sigh] I have to go over this one more time, because I just heard it again.  I was lamenting the Yankees (and to a MUCH lesser extent the Mets) just spending ridiculous amounts of cash and rendering MLB a joke on a lot of levels.  Anyone who reads The Pinetar Rag is well aware of this, and probably tired of it too.

So a guy I know accuses me of being “Socialist” because I complain about the bigger market teams out spending the small market teams by 10-1 at times.

Here’s the correction:  “Socialism” is the situation when GOVERNMENTS heavily tax their population under the guise of providing goods and services that would otherwise be provided by the private sector.  So instead of choosing the item and paying for it out of your pocket, the government takes the money out of your pocket, in the form of taxes, and provides their government version of the service.  You no longer make the choice–the politician and the voters who stamp it, make that decision for you.  Once it’s made, you have no other options.

Now in baseball, it’s a professional sports league.  The league is holding out to the public, the concept that their contests will be fair contests among the teams.  If the contests were not viewed as “fair”, by the paying public, they would not pay money to see them–would not waste their time.  This is the concept behind the anti-gambling stance of Major League Baseball; to keep the game’s on-the-field-fairness-and-integrity sacrosanct, because everyone’s lively hood rests on that cornerstone.  A guy mixed up in gambling might be willing to “sell” games, as Hal Chase of the Yankees did with abandon in the 19-oughts and teens.

When I advocate that the league do something (salary cap) to prevent the Yankees from just buying up players and spending over 200 million while the lesser clubs have to get by on 30, 40 and 50 million, I advocate it because I don’t think the on-field contests are fair anymore.  How can they be?  I think the integrity of the game is compromised when the Yankees can do what they have been doing with all that money.  The Yankees’ spending is antithetical to fair contests.  It SHOULD be viewed with great alarm, but somehow, it isn’t.

The person who called me “Socialist” for wanting to cap or curb the kind of spending the Yankees do, is mixing up the contexts.  I don’t want the government to steal my freedom (taxes) and force me to take or leave their sub-par “services” whether I like it or not–with no “opt-out”, like with Social Security.  I’m not a Socialist.  That’s governments, got it?

But when I invest my time in a baseball game, I want some assurances that the deck isn’t just RIGGED with CASH, like it is now!  I want the league to address it themselves so I don’t have to think about it; so I can just enjoy the game.

The league is an artificial contrivance; a closed system.  By limiting the Yankees’ cash-sledgehammer, they are not being “Socialist”, they are actually delivering the product that they promised me; a fair product.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can look at a demographic map of the USA and see plainly, that all metro areas are not created equal, and thus, teams in those areas are not on equal footing with regard to generating cash!

Kansas City has 1.9 million souls.   Click here to bring up numbers in a new window

NY/NJ/CT metro area has about 19 million.

Only an idiot would set up a system where these two areas are considered “equal” in terms of cash generation.  You’re supposed to have a fair contest on the field but you are going to ignore these numbers?  My goodness.

So don’t advertise a “fair” fight on the field, when anyone who thinks about it knows it isn’t that way.

By this time in the fact-pattern, (usually from Yankee fans) I hear the talking points recited from memory, as if the Steinbrenners sent out a memo from their war-room, deep in the bowels (or the vault) of Yankee Stadium.  I’ll address the more common ones:

(1)  Money isn’t everything: look at the [names most recent high spending team that didn't win]

It doesn’t invalidate the Yankees’, cash-sledgehammer model if some other team wastes a lot money.  My goodness; anyone can blow through money!  Just because a fool squanders his money doesn’t decrease the VALUE of money, and the mountains it can move, for everyone else!  All it does is prove that one team and its management, was foolish that particular season, and no more.

The thought process is because the 1997 Orioles blew a ton of money, the Yankees can spend 100% more than the league mean, every year, and no one is supposed to notice?

Guess what?  We noticed.  The Orioles were stupid, but we’re not!

(2) The Yankees pay lots of luxury tax, and the “cheap” owners just pocket it

They do pay this but it is a pittance.  This money can not lift a Pittsburgh, KC or Cincinnati out of where they are: in small cash markets.  What it amounts to, in my opinion, is a line item on the MLB (and Yankees’) Public Relations Income Statement.  It is MLB’s way of fooling it’s customers (remember the fans?) into thinking, “see, we have addressed the spending disparity in our sport).”

No you haven’t!  Not even close! Since this thing went into action in 2003, the Yankees have paid out about 20 million per year.  During that same time, they outspent the league by an average of about 110 million PER YEAR!  So, even if you gave the FULL Yankee luxury tax to ONE average team spending 90 million dollars, the Yankees would STILL have outspent them by a whopping 90 million dollars, or, about DOUBLE.

Does that sound like they addressed it to you?  Me neither.  I’m not buying this.  But be fair, it’s wonderful PR, because many, many fans buy in 100% to this nonsense that the system is somehow fair.  And the media aids and abets the deceit, as they usually do in cases such as this.

(3) Owners like Pollad of Minnesota are billionaires who could easily write some checks and keep up with the Yankees.

This is my favorite because of it is the most “Candyland” of them all.  The premise is, “…the guy’s rich, so what if his team is in a small market, if he wants to compete with the Yankees, he can write checks out of his personal bank account!”

Listen closely to what’s being said. The owner, because others feel he “has the money”, should just DONATE his own PERSONAL money to his business, to keep up with the Yankees, otherwise, he is, somehow, not a “sport”.   This concept could be the height of Yankee-fans’-arrogance and stupidity.  For the honor of spending like a lunatic Steinbrenner, owner-X should PAY.  Pay for it himself.  Even if his business LOSES money in the process.

They want to tell another man how to run his business, and, basically, that he should run his business AT A LOSS, so that the Yankees and their fans don’t have to feel self-conscious about out spending the league by over a 100 million dollars every year!  I guess the Kool-Aid is: It’s ok that we spend like pigs because Pollad has untouched money in the bank.  [shaking my head] My goodness…

(4) The Yankees won with home grown guys like Bernie and Jeter and Posada.  It wasn’t money!

Because George Steinbrenner was banned from baseball and couldn’t trade them all away (he tried very hard to dump Bernie–read “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty” by Buster Olney), they DID have a home-grown nucleus, I’ll grant you.

But why did they win 4 titles in 5 years?  MONEY.  They payroll was the highest in baseball EVERY ONE of those championship years.  And the nucleus was young and not making the obscene money yet, so SOMEONE must have been paid to come in and help, and they were.  Mostly the big ticket pitchers.  The Key’s and Cone’s and Clemen’s and so forth.  So while yes, there were home-grown guys on the roster, don’t be fooled: the dynasty was resting on cash; lots of it.  Cash that towns like KC and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati don’t have access to.  Make no mistake.

(5) See?  Small market teams CAN win. [referring to 2003 Marlins]

Yes, it’s true, in 2003 the 150 million dollar Yankees lost to the 49 million dollar Marlins.  It can happen.  That’s because home field in baseball is only a 4% edge and the biggest edge you’re ever likely to see in the post-season is only about 65%, which means that 35 times out of 100, the lousy team will beat the juggernaut in a series.

But let’s examine what’s really behind this talking point.  Yankee fans throw this one out there as if to say, “sure we spend a lot, but you don’t have to spend to win…”  This is supposed to deflect attention from their massive cash outlays each year.

But there are 30 teams in MLB.  And the mean payroll in 2007 was 80 million. [click to see numbers] So let’s call 10 of them, the bottom third, truly “small market”.

Here are the last 10 world series winners:

2008 Phillies, 2007 Red Sox, 2006 Cardinals, 2005 White Sox, 2004 Red Sox, 2003 Marlins, 2002 Angles, 2001 DBacks, 2000 Yankees, 1999 Yankees

I can really only call the Marlins truly, “small market”.  So let’s double it and say that twice every 10 years, a small market team scales the heights.  So you might be tempted to think that, “…sure, about every 5 years, we have a puncher’s chance to run-out in the postseason”.

But not so fast!  There are 10 small market “trials” EVERY season!  That’s 10, different small market teams placing their small bets and spinning the wheel every year!  And out of all 10, only ONE of THEM scales the heights every 5 years or so.  But if you are one particular small market team, then you might have to wait longer.  You might have to wait 10 times 5 years = 50 years for your number to come up.  That’s the difference between referring to the population, and a given team IN the population.  Neat trick there, Yankee fans, but we ain’t buying it.  Being a fan in a small market stinks.  We watch our good players hit arbitration and then end up on the Yankees and coming back into town to kick the snot out of us.

Sure PNC park is the nicest place on Earth to watch a ballgame, but don’t blow the Yankee smoke up our bippies.  Please. –Fog

Just because I can…

And  because it may not last very long.  Since I’ve been following, just after the Sunderland FA Cup win in 1992 was it?  I haven’t seen them top that I can recall, this late in the season (and it’s not even really late).

Mrs. Pinetar and I are going over possible names for the March baby and last night I suggested “Steven Gerrard xxxxxxx”.  She didn’t like that one.

The other approach has been to go through a big-old copy of the 1984 Baseball Encyclopedia.  Names like Tristram Speaker (she didn’t like that although wasn’t so against Tristen-bleah~!), or Hall of Famer Eppa Jeptha Rixey (not even I like that one).

Some things become apparent while thumbing the BBencyc.  Like Cy Young’s real name is “Denton True Young”; the “Cy” is for Cyclone, because, apparently, he blew apart a guy’s fence with his fastball.  Why would you heave a fastball at a wooden fence?

Then, there is the famous Hall of Famer who has the exact, same name as my grandfather.  Due to cyber stuff, I think it’s best not to go into that one.

You have these great, old names like “Grove Cleveland Alexander”, who went by “Pete”, yea, go figure.

My favorite’s are deadballers like “Ice Box Chamberlain” and “Piano Legs Hickman”.  There’s the dead giveaway “Highpockets Kelly”.

You look them over and you get to “Harmon Killebrew” and you wonder, “WHAT were the Killebrews THINKING!?”

Mostly though, the book is filled with Joe’s and Mike’s and John’s and Bob’s, which is probably how we’ll handle it.  And we are not sure it’s a boy, either, so that could be a curveball in the deck.

You look at names that go out of fashion and stay that way.  Look at your Western-themed names: You don’t meet any “Bat”s, as in “Bat Masterson”.  Cody made a comeback, but due to Kathy Lee Gifford, we’ll stay off that one.  Come to think of it, “Bat” is a cool name.  It’s like “Rod”, which has also lost favor, as has “Chemical”, for obvious reasons.

The trend now is for last names to become instant first names.  My wife recently met a little girl named, “Kennedy”, at one of Tommy’s playgroups.  I’m waiting for one these uber-moms to just up and name their kid “pretentious”.  As in, “…and here’s our boy, Pretentious Affected Smith”.

Liverpool go top

They drew at Anfield, with a team that hasn’t beaten them there since 1963.  Chosee was just HANDING them the EPL and saying, “take it”, and they said,”we’ll only take a little…”

So that’s it.  They are “clear”, if you can call it that, 1 pernt.  No Torres.  I didn’t watch the game, but it was nice to see Hyypia’s headers (3 I think) from right around the 6.  Gerrard and Alonso bombed with aplomb from outside.

Glass half full?  I see them top in calendar December and I should be happy. I guess I am (but I wanted those 3 points baaaad).

***

I know it’s been covered to death, but I have to comment on one aspect of the Plaxico-shoots-himself; besides the lame joke that he ougtta know more about SAFETIES making a living, like he does, in NFL secondaries.

But no, the greatest thing to come out of this was his cover-lie to the hospital workers: That he got shot at Applebees!  That is absolutely hilarious!  And I can picture it too–you are ordering the apple cobbler and blam-blam-blam…it’s like Chicago in the 1920’s in there.  Heck, we all KNOW that Applebees are bullet-riddled, snake-pits of danger!

I would loved to have seen the Applebees Director of PR’s face, when he read that gem!  Was he thinking that they could find an advertising angle on that?  Capaigns like, “you think of shooting, you used to think of Spark’s Steakhouse, where they rubbed out Big Paul; now you think Applebees”

***

Countdown to Shatner: Tomorrow night at 10pm is the prem of the new William Shatner TALK show!  Oh baby!  That’s must-see on any level.  You put a live mike on this guy and I’m there.

***
Leftover Thanksgiving Day pie: Do you microwave it?  Or eat it cold from the fridge?  I say you microwave it.  20 seconds and you have (plausibly) steaming hot pie…why WOULDN’T you nuke it?  Still, many do not.  I don’t understand that.

Chosee Lose Again at Stamford Bridge

Jack-in-the-Hood

What’s the edge in baseball for Home team?

Everyone knows that in baseball, the home team has an advantage.  They have “last licks” which is an advantage of sorts and they are home, which we all know in sports, gives us an edge.  But how much?  You ever wonder that? What is the exact number?  In 100 games, will the home team win 65 of them?  More?  Less?