Jackie Robinson Statue Tour of Philadelphia

After 3 hours of sleep, it was up at 3am and driving down from NY with the Jackie Robinson statue to do the first of many interviews and appearances at Fox. Ably assisted by Kenny Johnson and Deb Rinaldi of the Phillies, we hit our marks out in front of Fox at 7:20am. A few teaser shots and then a short interview with Fox 29′s John Anderson. Click here to see the interview in a new window

Then it was immediately over to CBS3 for another interview with Uke Washington and Kenny and Deb of the Phillies. Click here to see the interview in a new window

Here’s a small clip my brother took from a little way away during the Uke Washington interview:

Then it was on to a community Jackie Robinson Event at the Philadelphia Stars Memorial at Belmont and Parkside Aves, in Philadelphia. That crossroads was the location of the Philadelphia Stars ballpark. The Stars were Philly’s entry in the old Negro League. Later this day, my family would get to meet two of the last surviving members of that franchise.

There were many groups attending and special promotions from the Phillies. The children were having a ball and posed for this photo.

There were several groups and this particular group did a dance number before posing.

There were many nice monuments marking the site and those who were a part of it. I really enjoyed meeting regular folks from this community and just listening to the older fellows tell me how much Jackie Robinson and Monte Irvin and Larry Doby meant to them growing up. You know, when you do an event like this, those dusty pages in a history book become real live anecdotes and recollections and it was amazing to take it all in. It was also very flattering to hear the very sincere compliments for the statue. When you spend that long covered with itchy sawdust, it is very gratifying to hear these things and see the sparkle in their eyes, as opposed to words on a page.

Here we are finally at The Bank. It’s early; well before batting practice and my amazing handlers with the Phillies (Kenny Johnson & Deb Rinaldi) lined up a couple of more interviews. The first was with John Mayberry, the man who’s hit won the exciting Phils opener. I don’t have any photos of that interview but it went very well and it was nice to see and hear John’s reaction to the statue. It was probably the first time I had spoken to someone who was directly in line with Robinson’s courageous work, so it was extra special for me.

After that piece, we did a short interview with Comcast out in dead center field. What a beautiful backdrop! I have been to 40 different major league ballparks in my lifetime and Citizens’ Bank Park is my favorite building. Everything about it just feels right.

All night it was the same thing: folks lined up in a semi circle around it, taking photos and asking questions. It never gets old. I met some really tremendous people and heard just an amazing array of stories and anecdotes about Robinson, Civil Rights, baseball, art and on and on. This part of it is easy and never feels like work.

By this point in the day, I’m feeling my 3 hours of sleep and nonstop itinerary pretty acutely, however, a great subplot was that my 3.5 year old son, Thomas, came to the game and it was his first time in a big league ballpark! What a way to break in! His uncle Bob, shown below, was holding him up to see the Phillies take batting practice and he caught a BP homer left handed while holding Thomas in his right hand! So on his first game day, Thomas gets a ball!

Later on this evening, Thomas got the ball signed by the last two remaining Phildelphia Stars and for that I am very grateful and want to thank both the Stars and again, my Phillies guardian angel, Kenny Johnson. Kenny is just a pro’s pro and he hit his marks (and kept me hitting mine) all day long with aplomb. He put on a clinic. It’s a pleasure to watch someone do something that they are so good at, whether it be art, or sports, or even business.

Below is Thomas showing off his baseball. How great is that?

Here’s the family; my wife Carol and Thomas (Jack Benny is too little and is spending the day with his grandparents). I’m looking a bit tired by this point and perhaps a bit cold as the temp dropped towards gametime, but on April 15th in the East, you are going to have that. I was just thanking God all day that there was no rain as that was the one thing that would have given us a problem.

Since my statues are 100% solid wood, they will not hold up to weather, so it was a concern. All around baseball, there are many life size statues that honor players but they are all bronze. Bronze is great for holding up to weather and can be outdoors permanently. But Bronze is one color. The great thing about the wooden statues is that I can show color and isn’t baseball a colorful thing anyway? Add to that the color component of the Robinson story and it makes a nice fit. There are currently no color statues such as this permanently residing in any major league ballpark. Wouldn’t it be nice (and somehow fitting) for this statue to be the first?

After a little breather, I did two more spots thanks to Deb Rinaldi and Kenny Johnson. The first was a spot right behind the statue that went very well. It was what they call a “talkback”, which means, I wore an earpiece and had to listen for a cue from an unseen host. It was hard to hear with the crowds and I was worried that I would miss the cue or not be able to make out what the host was asking me, but it turned out to be the best one all day just about. I think I was too tired to be nervous! I’ll tell you, I have new respect for anyone who makes their living with a mike and a camera. They make it look easy–it isn’t.

Here is a link to that spot: Click here to see the NBC interview in a new window

Here’s what it looked like. I sure look rigid in this shot, but I felt pretty loose, all in all.

After that, I had to run halfway around the stadium and do a pregame radio spot and that was fun and went really well. By then I suppose, it didn’t seem so strange to be doing this stuff.

On the way back to the statue from the plate area, I heard my voice on the PA and quickly ran down the tunnel to the seating area, so that I could see the Phanavision screen. They were showing my 2 minute video which I had narrated. It was the strangest sensation to hear my voice blaring around Citizens Bank Park like that, but there it was. It was a day of things like that and one that I’ll never forget.

Here is a quick video of the end of it:

Click here to see the full 2 minute video in a new window

I mentioned that two of the old Philadelphia Stars had signed Thomas’ ball and here are their names on the statue by their old stomping grounds which we had visited earlier.

The gentlemen who signed were Mahlon Duckett and Harold Gould. I also got a chance to meet some of the Tuskegee Airmen and that was a big thrill. My father and just about all of my uncles were WWII vets. Men of that generation shaped me more than any other and I have read a great deal about that war and so it was just tremendous to shake the hand of men who flew Jugs and P-51′s against the Germans in those dark days.

Guys like that gave us a lot of freedom and I think it gets taken for granted sometimes, unfortunately. The Tuskegee Airmen, not only had to deal with bombs and bullets, but the institutionalized racism of the day: a double whammy. They are great men for having done all of that and children should know their story.

And again and again, all night, folks stopped by to talk, take photos and ask questions. It was great.

April 15th 2011, a day in which the Jackie Robinson statue went many places and met many nice folks, hopefully, making them happy and spreading awareness of what went on, not that long ago. The statue is tentatively slated to visit the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City later this Summer but as of right now, there are no details.

I want to thank the Philadelphia Phillies for all of their support. I have worked with various organizations and baseball clubs through the years, but I have never seen the professionalism and can-do spirit that I did these past few weeks while working with the Phillies. As I have said, much of that was through the hard work of Kenny Johnson and Deb Rinaldi, who made it easy to do all of these things without one single hitch. As I look back at the itinerary and see all the marks we hit from 7am to 10pm, I am amazed that it went so seamlessly and that is a testament to their diligence. I hope to work with them again in the future.

Here’s my takeaway shot for the day: the first time my little buddy is at a big league game. It was filled with memorable things. I have to wonder, however, that at 3 and a half, will he remember it years from now? I hope he does. I know I will.

Thanks for all the kind words and stories! Enjoy the game.

This was the basic scene all night:

BABIP

That’s Batting Average on Balls in Play

This formula is somewhat controversial.  Here goes:

You remove Homers, because they leave the field and thus the defense has no chance to stop it once it leaves the pitcher’s hand.  You also remove Strikeouts, because again, the defense doesn’t have any impact on it once the ball leaves the boxman’s hand.  The Sac-Fly addback will be negligible.

Now why this is tracked is because it is strongly theorized that a pitcher has NO CONTROL over this number.  The average is somewhere between .296 and .302.  It is considered pure luck once it’s batted in play, as to whether the defense can make an out–and by some pretty smart people who’ve thought about it longer than I have.  While your intuition might tell you that a good pitcher can have a lower babip, the probability guys (math/stat heads) say “No”, it’s raw, blind luck.  A pitcher’s number may be above, at or below the mean, but it will return to the mean longterm–because it mathematically has to.

Where it leads is that if a pitcher is throwing a season-long babip of .240, then the law of averages is going to catch up to him with a vengence and he will come up to the mean and inevitably get hit around for a period.  That’s the currently accepted theory.

And I buy that, almost.  To me, this theory is more and more true, the more and more average a pitcher’s skills are.  But at the right side of the normal distribution, my intuition tells me that the pitcher DOES have SOME me control over how WELL a batter squares up a ball.

Take Cole Hamels.  If he’s getting folks out on a nasty changeup, chances are he’s got the big-swinging hitter off on his front foot and not squaring up the ball and driving it very well.  It stands to reason that if you are good at consistently fooling batters, they they will hit more balls weakly into play–balls which the defense should have a better chance at making an out on.

Take Jon Papelbon.  He’s low on the babip season list for two years now.  Is that a two year fluke?  Or is his fastball moving and hitting spots and are the batters taking weak, defensive hacks because they are worried about the splitter?

I play softball with some old men.  Some of these oldsters don’t throw very hard.  But they think and they are smart–and they often seem to sense where you want the ball and they know what you are looking to do with it.  It seems that if I want a ball low and middle out to drive to the right side–I don’t get it.  They feed me other things and I mostly get myself out.  That’s smart pitching.  I’m willing to bet that against the smartsters, my babip is way lower than the .301 average.  Conversly, with the hard throwing, young meathead, I tee off at a higher than .301 clip.

And here’s the real fault in the theory:  To me, if the theory were true, then every pitcher, if he pitched long enough, would settle into that .300 mean.  And that would mean that a guy like Tom Glavine would NOT win those 300 games, right?  There has to be something the pitcher is doing to batters longterm, to put up those numbers.

So I happen to believe in babip for the run-of-the-mill guys, but I think that for the top guys, a low babip is part of what you are SEEKING and PAYING FOR, and now I’m obviously talking about fantasy.  The only trouble with my theory is identification.  That’s right.  A guy with a ridiculously low babip for last season is either very, very good, or very, very lucky (or juicing, which might explain how JC Romero is there both of the last 2 years).  But how to tell which is which?

That’s where it crosses over from science to art, and that is also what makes fantasy baseball so much fun.  You are now in the position of looking at all the other factors: age, team, run support, how the guy did the year before that, in the minors…etc.

You put all that together and make up your mind.  And it’s important because if I’m right, then the most valuable pitchers might be undervalued and easy to pick off a list of low-babip from the year before.

And since luck is surely a part of babip, you can turn that around and look for blue-chippers who had bad babips the year before and figure that they will be undervauled and the law of averages will work FOR them this year, at a much reduced price.

This theory also works for hitters.  Hitters, once they bat the ball in play, have no control over out or safe.  It’s random.  So a hitter having a bad year with a .250 babip can be expected to more of those balls fall in soon, as the number climbs to where it belongs, circa .300.  Those hits are yours, if you subscribe to this theory and draft the guy.  And if it’s an older guy, you run the risk that he’s just “losing” it, and not driving the ball.

Good luck

Alex Rios Fantasy Draft

The legendary Alex Rios:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=neel/060406_qa&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos1

“One of the players I’ll always gamble on is Alex Rios. Not because of his numbers, but because of the following story: Back in 2003 when he was playing for Caguas in the Puerto Rican winter league, Rios had a day off. In the late innings of a close game, he plopped down in the dugout with a giant hunk of chocolate cake and, to wash it down, a two-liter of warm Pepsi. Rios had just about finished this meal when his teammates loaded the bases and his manager called him up to pinch-hit. Rios burped, grabbed a bat, put on a helmet, burped some more, walked to the plate and cracked a double. For some reason, this makes me want him on my team.”

***

And from the same article and since this is basically something I could have written (idea-wise, not funny wise) here is a great strategy for it all:

Having become something of an expert these last couple of years, what would you say are your top three fantasy tips? And don’t tell me to “do my homework” or “consider park effects.”

1. Don’t listen to tips. Ever. I know there’s a whole industry built around giving advice to Roto players, but the fact is that if anyone really knows something about a player from a credible source that’s clearly going to be useful, they’re not telling you. Other than building a solid team at the draft, the things that put you over the top in a fantasy league are avoiding injuries to big stars, picking up cheap players who have huge breakout seasons and knowing the other people in your league well enough to steal their ideas and exploit their weaknesses. Those “tips” have nothing to do with it.

The Babe Hits The Wall

Well, here he is.  This is pretty current.  I have hit the wall and taken a night off after a lighter day yesterday.  Sometimes the smartest move is to do nothing and hope that your batteries recharge quickly.  Right now, I should be fired up about it because he is just coming into that period where you see the biggest payoff in most compressed time.  So for me to be dragging indicates that I need to pause.

I spent almost the entire day painting and working out the airbrush kinks.  I found that the light in my shop is worse than I imagined.  Stinko.  And flourescents are worse for judging true color and subtleties.  I had a lot of trouble seeing the colors and got some nasty surprises after shining direct light on it.  But overall, I was pleased as he looks lifelike and the likeness is good. 

85% of the body is done and most of that is sanded to where I can seal and paint soon.  The next big hurdle comes in the form of the hands.  Technologically, the bat is heavy (35 oz.) so I want to have the hands looking good of course, but also able to deal with that weight.  Locking in the hands is never a picnic and it’s one aspect that I underestimated (forgot).

Thanks, everyone, for the nice words about the Babe. 

Jidge: George Herman Ruth

This is my life now.  I work in the sawdust after my day job and put in 11 or 12 hours per day, every day.  One day a week on average, I’m too tired to do the sawdust gig, so that’s only 6 of 7 days.  Is it worth it?  I don’t know.  Sometimes I wonder.  The payoffs are sporadic but powerful.  Usually at the end of a night, you look at the thing and you really can’t believe you did it.  It’s a moment that happens now and again and it’s really neat.  That’s the best I can describe it.

The head is NOT FINISHED!  The buyer is actually waiting for shots of it and this is premature so I have to say that.  It is mostly shaped but not painted at all.  It has just been installed atop the torso and the area around it needs to be done so that it can be airbrushed to look like skin/hair etc.  Before I can do that, I need to put on many, many coats of sealer and sand quite a bit.  You can’t have any joinery lines showing through on the head as touchups with an airbrush are not what I  want to be doing…ever.  So I do put a pink paint on the skin areas with a brush and I do white the eyes and color in an eyeball with a black sharpie so that I can “see” what I need to see to keep going, but it is by no means done.

Trust me, it looks like Babe Ruth.  It’s unmistakeable.  My focus groups have all liked it so I am confident.  Normally, I do the head last and plop it on and paint it very late in the project.  For this one, I am doing it earlier so that my customer can get an earlier look at it than typically.  The other thing to know is that it is very difficult to photograph these statues.  You have to work at it to get a good photo and I’ve yet to see the photo that is 1/10 th as compelling as seeing it in person.

What else is in the photo?  Well, the hands are sitting there on the top shelf on the right, almost ready to go.  The mask is now required and is darned uncomfortable.  The headphones are my newest innovation.  They are from The Sportsman’s Guide, a great cattle book that I like.  They are a universal, wireless headphone system.  There is a little transmitter that plugs into any device that has an audio-out or headphone jack.  It comes with RCA’s and 1/8th inch jack.  It broadcasts up to 8 meters but I tested it to further than that and through walls as well.  I use it to listen to TV, radio and MP3 while I sculpt and the phones are noise blockers for the chainsaw, sanders and die grinders.

Oh, and since someone will ask; no, you don’t put the arms on until you are done mostly with what would be underneath them.  Once the arms are on, you are not getting behind there very easily.  You do the easy stuff first, and eventually, the hard stuff becomes easy stuff.  If you look at the figure and see something that doesn’t belong, you take it off.  Usually, with the chain saw.  When I think I did my first two statues withOUT the chainsaw…grrr… 

Grand Ole Babe Ruth

I’m back after a pause of several months.  As I explained in my last comment, I was curtailing the blogging activities in favor or regaining some kind of time/impulse management for my life.  A lot has gone on in the past few months and many have written emails to me ask why I’m not commenting and what do I think of this and/or that?  I’ll try and cover the basics and also try to post at least 3 things per week, so those who got out of the habit of coming here, may want to swing by now and again.

The Tommy Show: Going strong and now in its 4th sold out month.  Tommy is getting bigger and smiling and laughing and grabbing things.  He looks around.  He likes to do the “assisted sit up” and he makes faces.  We love him.  He’ll be rolling over any day now.  And, he still has the long arms.

The Babe Ruth Statue: (This is one big reason I’m no longer posting) is sold.  I have a tentative agreement at this point to complete and deliver The Babe to the Gaylord National on the Potomac, Hotel in Washington DC by Jan 1.  This is the reason that I spend every night at my “second job” and get full of sawdust until midnight or 1am, if things are going well.

The photo above is from last Feb, about the time that I had halted work on him to coach 8U baseball with my nephew (and write this blog–but since the blog is apparently how the folks at the Gaylord found me, my lack of impulse control paid off in this case).   My point is, the statue is well beyond this point and per our discussions, I have concentrated on the head so that I can get that finished and send some photos down to the buyer so they know better what they are acquiring.   To that end, the head is 80% finished and it looks like a disembodied Babe Ruth head–a ringer.  And a bit unnerving due to the realism.  Already, it has freaked out Mrs. Pinetar and grandma.  Tommy doesn’t seem to register it yet.  In a week or two, I should have some shots of it fully painted and looking like The Babe.  I should also have some better progress shots up soon.  Stay tuned.  We’re excited and the further into this I get, the more convinced I become that The Gaylord Hotel folks are going to be floored by the finished Babe.  This thing will be turning heads for a long time.

A word about the Gaylord properties.  Click here to launch their site in a new window 

I had not heard of them prior to their contacting me.  Their original property is the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, or, Opryland.  This is a major, signature property in Americana.  Now I know that most of my readers are NorthEasterners who know nothing of country music, but trust me, this is baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and American music all rolled up into one.  They also have top shelf, first cabin properties in Dallas and Kissimmee, FL.  The newest property is the DC property and the hotel has 5 or 6 restaurants, one of which, is the sports bar in which The Babe will reside.  I’m excited to see it.  I’m also excited about the Nationals opening their brand new ballpark next April.

Which brings me to the next topic.  The Mets.  Most thought I was despondent when they lost in spectacular fashion.  Truth?  I was not bothered at all.  The older I get, the more I watch baseball for individual and team stories.  I do not just root for one team.  That worked great up until 1986 and then as I got older and realized the business side of it and what was really happening, it became less and less important to me that the Mets “win”.

I’m also annoyed at how the team is run.  I don’t feel any connection to the Mets of my youth.  When I go to the game at Shea with my 8 year old nephew, I am afraid of where they are going to park me (mostly a riddle inside a puzzle), annoyed at the $14 parking charge.  Then, when I get into my seats, the PA system literally deafens me.  I can’t even speak to my nephew in the seat next to me because the jackass marketing wizards at Los Mets think that I paid $75.00 to hear 25 year old Bachman Turner Overdrive music blared at pain-threshold levels.  After that, the Mets usually put on some type of Spanish-themed dance or musical act (also ear-splittingly loud), to the point where, I feel like I might be in Puerto Rico or the Caribbean.  Now I have many Hispanic friends, and I’m not prejudiced at all, but going to Shea now makes me feel like I’m in a foreign country.

And the players now dance, seemingly after every base hit.  I don’t want my little Tommy thinking that celebrating after every play is ok: It isn’t.  It’s unprofessional and it shows up the other team.  It is insecure.  It says to the world, “I’m so insecure, that I have to try and remind you that I just succeeded”.  To me, there is nothing cooler than just doing the bit on the field and letting the crowd cheer.  To do anything else is to be an a**.  But Los Mets would rather dance, at times, it seems, than play.  And don’t think the other teams and especially the umps, see this.  Think you saw the Mets get a lot of close calls down the stretch?  Hmm?  I saw them get jobbed.  I don’t blame the umps.

And now I hear that the Mets are looking at getting  A-Rod.  Nothing more needs to be said.  I’m not surprised.  He has no class and the Mets are long devoid of class.  He’s probably taking the dancing lessons from Reyes right now.

The Mets are also spending 120 million.  That’s the most in the NL, kiddies.  I don’t want to root for dopey Fred and Jeff Wilpon’s real estate wallet.  Face it, most of what people think of as pro sports is rooting for a non-sporting, rich (nothing wrong with being rich) guy’s wallet.  Kids might-as-well be on the playground taunting each other, “…my owner’s got more assets than YOUR owner…” Because that’s what it comes down to.  That’s why I like to see new stories each year.  Stories like the Rockies and Tulo and Braun and Fausto.  Great stuff.  And Cleveland.  Haven’t won since 1948 when they had the last, good, player manager in Lou Boudreau.  That’s exciting.  That’s fun.  Not the Yankees spending 220 million every year and pummeling everyone.  That’s pro wrestling.  That’s the Harlem Globetrotters. 

I’m this close to being a Washington Nationals fan.  Long live Joel Hanrahan!

Many asked me about Torre.  He turned down a LOT of money.  I never understood why the Yankees overpay for the manager.  The job is unique in all the world.  Geez, take a micro economics course.  The people who do that job are fetted by kings and emporers.  Why would you OVER pay a guy to hang out with McCartney and Rudi and get a table at LeCirque just for walking in the door?  All the endorsements and perks?  My goodness.  Why do they pay Joe Torre 7 million when the next highest paid guy is 2.5 or 3 million?  Collossal stupidity.  Joe should pay THEM to have that job.

And get this straight.  I don’t think Joe Torre is all that.  Look kids, he wasn’t Miller Huggins with the Mets and Braves.  Repeat after me Yankee fans: He managed the largest payroll in MLB EVERY SINGLE YEAR HE WAS THERE, with the exception of 1997, when Baltimore edged the Yanks by like a million or so.  I think 72 million to 71.  He ALWAYS had the highest payroll in the industry.  Winning with the 1996 Yanks doesn’t make you Houdini.  You SHOULD win with all that talent.  His biggest skill, for my money, was having the thick skin to take all of George’s insults and degradations over the years.  But George was stupid enough to pay him f***-you money and eventually, he had enough money to be the first guy to tell Big Stein, “Shove it”.

And that’s the beauty of Joe Torre (and old New York baseball Giants fan btw).  He was the only guy to tell George, “I’m not your boy…” and for that we love him.  And now that he has taken Mattingly out of moneystripes, I mean, pinstripes, and put him in the NL, in Dodger Blue, I love him even more.  Go Joe!  Win it all!  Ethier, Kemp, Loney, Broxton, Saito, Martin, Penny…win it all and laugh all the way to the bank that George has missed the playoffs without you! hoo hooo.

Last point that has been driving me buggy.  During the world series, when I was carving the Babe Ruth head hour after hour.  I kept seeing this advertisement on TV about how people wanted their cars to be more “green”.  They said that they wanted to “plug their car in” and have the car’s fuel “grown”.

Because the media is being completely slanted politically on this, people are being misinformed.  And now the car companies and oil companies are reinforcing the myths surrounding the hybrids and “green” fuels.  And folks like Al Gore are either too stupid (I know, a guy who invented the internet?) or just too calculating to set the record straight, so people continue to be misled.

While it’s admirable to drive a smaller car and look to curtail personal fossil fuel consumption, one glaring thing is missing.  Many folks think that is something is electrical, it is somehow non-polluting.  That’s nonsense.  It doesn’t pollute locally, where the machine is being run, but somewhere, to be sure, there is a coal or oil, or gas-fired generating plant that BURNS FOSSIL FUELS and converts the chemical energy stored in the fossil fuels to mechanical energy that turns dynamos to generate electricity.  ANYtime you are using electricity that didn’t come from a solar cell or a hydro plant, you are burning fossil fuels, genius!  The actual carbon emissions might be in Oshkosh, but they are there.

And we’re not done yet.  Anytime that you convert energy from one source to another form, you LOSE in the conversion.  Add to that they electrical engines are less efficient than gas, and what you have is that the “green” person is actually burning MORE fossil fuels than if he had a traditional, gasoline engine.  Now that doesn’t figure in the disparity between the huge SUV and the little hybrid and I get that, but how many people really understand, or are being told, what lays behind the phrase, “plug my car in”? 

Yanks Outweigh Opponents by 3.4 Billion in Sept 2007

Yankees fans always amaze me with the depth of their denial. They are right up there with the OJ jury. I keep hearing the Yankee-nation talking points: (1) the other teams just pocket the revenue sharing money (2) The Mets spend just as much (3) Most of the Yankees are home grown like Jeter and Posada. (For the record, the Mets currently sit at 120 million while the Yankees sit at 212 million — can Yank fans do math? That’s 8 million bucks shy of 100 million! Real close.)

With the Yankees turning MLB into a rigged deck, Globetrotter-like, pro-wrestling setup with their disgusting salary bloat, I thought I’d sit down and calculate just how much they outpay the teams they will be facing in their remaining “pennant race” games. Even I was astounded. It totes up to 3. 4 BILLION dollars. That’s BILLION with a “B”. Ooh, Yankee fans, I’m getting goose bumps watching these “contests”. How can you stand the suspense?

You know, 8 men on the 1919 Chicago White Sox were banned from the game for life for gambling on the games. Pete Rose, as we know, was also banned for gambling. Every major league clubhouse in professional ball has the anti-gambling caveat painted on the clubhouse wall for all to see. It’s THE core concept. Why is it so? Because baseball believes that if the public thought that the games were not on the level (fair contests), then they would not spend their time and money on it.

My question is, what is the difference between a game that gamblers may have rigged and ANY Yankee game when they outweigh their opponents by so much money? It’s as if you had a pickup game on your playground and gave the first 9 picks to one captain. Why are people so entertained by this rigged deck? The only thing remarkable about the Yankees is a game like last night, when the 23.8 million dollar Devil Rays ACTUALLY beat the 212 million dollar Yankees. –fog

* figures for salaries came from USA Today and Sportscity.com

The USA today salaries are from the start of the year.  The Sportscity ones appear to be updated to include things like Roger Clemens.  I find it interesting that the Yankees’ team salary increased 23 million from the beginning of the season to now.  23 million is the figure that the Devil Rays pay their whole squad.  Breathtaking gluttony.

Babe Ruth Grave Robbers

It used to be that if you were famous, you’d be buried in Westchester, NY.  The place is crawling with cemeteries.  Right across the street from my workplace is Kensico, where Lou Gerhig is buried and on the other side of the valley is the Catholic burial ground where Babe Ruth and Billy Martin are buried.  I was on the website for the place and noticed that even though they are Roman Catholic, Arthur Flegenheimer is buried in there.  Anyone know who that was?  That’s right, it’s Dutch Schultz.  Schultz was perhaps one of the worst mass murdering gangsters the USA has ever harbored, and, by the way, he was Jewish.  Go figure.

When I did my Yankee talk at the home, many were surprised that I hadn’t been to Ruth’s grave.  I’m not into graves, what can I say?  I DID carve a life size statue of the guy, however, and am carving another, so I thought that someday I’d go over there.  Yesterday was that day.  It took 5 minutes to drive over.  What fascinates me about this stuff (besides the unbelievable ornateness of the cemeteries up there) is what kind of stuff people think to leave at the grave.  We saw quite a few bats and balls and weird stuff at Gehrig’s grave and so I thought this would be no different.  It wasn’t.

This is the view as you walk up a sharp hillside from the access road.  Behind you is a fantastic view of the valley.  It’s a shame that they waste the view on the stiffs. 

At first, Ruth’s stone looks overblown, but it gets lost in the grandeur of the other monuments and mausoleums in this place.  We’re talking top shelf.  In fact, all in all, I’d say the Bambino estate has shown some restraint, believe it or not. 

 

The first thing that you notice is the flags.  Little Yankee flags.  Not too bad.  Go Yanks, right?  Then it gets better. 

 

I love this.  There were maybe 5 different of those little “helmet Sundae” helmets.  You know, the kind that the ice cream comes in?  The 9 dollar ice cream is great and apparently, they make a great tribute to the Babe.  The “K” hat?  I have no idea.  The stones?  Anyone know who does this or why?  Gehrig’s grave and Martin’s grave all have the little rocks on them.  I do not understand that.  DaVinci Code?  Harry Potter?  Col. Potter? 

 

I wonder if Cardinal Spellman knew how many professional girls that Babe took up with?

I love this one: Sunflower seeds!  Haha, as if the Babe can enjoy them!  Sure, he’ll love that.  I don’t think they even knew what those seeds were in the 1920′s, but hey, go for it.  Score some posthumous points with the Babe.  Another little sundae helmet. 

 

The baseball cards strew around were another puzzling one.  There were dozens of them.  And almost no Yankees of any kind.  Guys like Marcus Giles and Joe McEwing.  Guys who had NO POSSIBLE connection to the Babe or the Yanks or the Roaring Twenties or baseball greatness.  I mean, we’re talking Joe McEwing!

And there were all manner of balls left there.  Mostly baseballs but a few softballs and several plastic whiffle type balls as well.  Most of them were signed by the leavers.  Some just said things like “To: Babe From: Maria” as if Ruth would know and appreciate Maria’s gesture.  Some of it was kid handwriting, so you can give that a pass, but others were definitely left by adults. 

 

Here’s a good one: A Yankee Schedule and soggy.  Perhaps the Babe needs to KNOW who the Yankees are playing today?  Now, he can reach up and thumb through the soggy schedule.  How thoughtful.  And the Yo-Yo was a nice touch.  Maybe the Babe would get bored in there and need to “walk the dog” with the light up YoYo.  Note the sunflower seeds as well.  Hey, a guy can’t YoYo without some chaw, right?

 

The usual: balls, rocks and cards but I really love the Yankee beer-stand concession cup.  Only 10 bucks for a beer and wouldn’t George Herman love a beer about now?  Hoo Yea.

 

Here’s a mixed bag: A 1979 penny, deliberately placed there, no doubt.  No idea re significance.  A Rockies baseball card–because you know, Ruth played a lot of games in Denver.  The bracelet is one of those Lance Armstrong jobs but another color.  The Cigar is classic.  You KNOW he’d want to take a haul off of that, having died from oral cancer from smoking those things!  And the ticket on the right is apparently from the recent Hall of Fame inductions as it has Oriole/Ripken overtones and says Cooperstown Hall of…you know.  On the bottom is the ball point pen inscription, “Babe, you are better than Hank Aaron and [unintelligible]“  No words on Bonds but it’s a safe bet that if they didn’t like Aaron, they weren’t digging Bonds’ act. 

 

There you have it.  A snapshot of the flotsam and jetsam that people actually take the time to leave on the grave of a person that they have never met and do not know, although each and everyone THINKS they know him.  The lesson?  If you get mega-watt famous.  Really, really famous.  We’re not talking Paris Hilton, flavor of the month famous, but really, really Winston Churchill famous, people will leave odd things on your grave.

How about this for a measure of fame.  If, after everyone who you physically met in the flesh while you were still alive had passed away, and people were STILL visiting your grave, you were famous.  But even that if fleeting.  Mary Pickford was by far the most famous female human in the world for over ten years and she couldn’t get arrested now if she came back to life.  –fog 

The Baseball Booth From Hell

Liverpool has an away goal vs Toulouse. Rafa ran a lot of different guys out there. No Torres/Kuyt. Instead, Crouch/Voronin were up front WITH Ryan Babel. Three forwards? Hmm…well Voronin netted one and Gerrard missed on a set piece by inches. Later, Gerrard was kicked up pretty bad and came off later at 60 mins or so. You have to wonder: is he ok? We would like to get 3 points at Anfield courtesy of Chelsea on Sunday and wouldn’t you know it? My boy is being Christened while that game is on. VCR.

Wabbit Season. Duck Season. A-Rod Season.

Hard to post with Tommy now so you do what you can. Emailing Cincinnati Bill on the game he attended last night at Cincy and the hotdogs I consumed last time there reminded me of a story from another game in Philly: Story: We are leaving Citizen’s bank park in Philly and Kranepooligans and I hit the men’s room before the long drive home. On the way into the men’s room, there was a slight line. A guy put a big tote of hotdogs next to the line by the door and said, “free hotdogs”. I did not take one but I p’d next to many men who had their ****s in one hand and a frank in the other, happily chomping away at the “free”, old, raggety dogs….mmmmm…ambiance.

Chipper Jones has opened the season on A-Rod by being the first fairly credible guy (Canseco has said some ominous things) to speculate that A-Rod may break the record but get ready for the same speculation as to his “legitimacy” as well. I agree. He played in the rampant era of only a few years ago and as far as I’m concerned, once you take HGH, you are forever tainted, because your body fundamentally changes after that. I’m NOT SAYING that I know anything or that he did anything; just that the speculation will be increasing and it has to be entertained on he and really, all others. What they’re doing is superhuman so you wonder. That’s all.

Tony LaRussa is batting the pitcher 8th. Hooray! I agree, Tone. I used to do it in Strat-O-Matic and I used to do it in Earl Weaver Baseball. Of course in Earl Weaver, I was batting Christy Mathewson 8th and Frank Frisch 9th. It makes for an around-the-corner lineup. The first time through, the cleanup hitter is cleanup. Subsequently, there is another good hitter in front of the #3 hitter, who is really your team’s best hitter, power and average considered. Leadoff is over rated. The leadoff hitter is only guaranteed to hit leadoff, ONCE per game.

The difference between 8th and 9th isn’t going to amount to anything: perhaps a handful of AB’s lost per season. And in later innings, in the NATIONAL LEAGUE (real baseball), you are typically hitting for the pitcher after 6 anyhow. So for 2 or 3 cycles, you are putting a better hitter in front of your lineup meat. What’s wrong with that? Baseball is amazing in the stodginess and slowness to deal with new ideas. It has taken baseball 125 years to start playing the 2nd baseman in the outfield with no one on base. WHY? It makes too much sense? Look at Moneyball. Moneyball threatens so much of the baseball hokum that most just curse it rather than realize that it is sound. You know, it’s funny, because we laugh at ancient civilazations for doing dopey things like blaming the weather on the “gods” and throwing young girls into the volcano to “appease” the “gods”, but really, for many things today there is as much hooey as ever. Look at Al Gore. He won the popular vote for US Pres and he is mad as a hatter with the dopey, anti-West, anti-USA global warming nonsense that has more holes in it than Carlos DelGado’s swing. We are not immune to dopiness, is my point. Good job Tony LaRussa on the pitcher in the 8 hole. Wow. Long way around on that one, eh?

Luis Castillo was a great pickup for the Mets. The more I see of this man, the more I like. This guy has an IDEA out there. This man is a PRO. And maybe I can forget Jose Valentin, who looks like Snidely Whiplash of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. It has passed Valentin by mostly, and it was clear in the playoffs last year. Go Luis.

(Whiplash)

Great piece on some breathtaking “news creation” by the liberal, hate-Bush, hate-America media. Have a look. It is blatant. It is unabashed. It is sad. It is happening all the time. Click here to read