With Kurt Mensching from BlessYouBoys.com:
Mets-Tigers preview
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Author Archives: Ted Berg
Just acknowledging
You didn’t expect me to keep quiet about this, did you?
You don’t have to be a jerk about it
With a spot in the rotation no longer available, Maine is willing to pitch out of the bullpen. The Mets, however, do not feel that he is suited to relieving.
“He has trouble getting his arm ready before starts,” pitching coach Dan Warthen said. “I would worry about his resilience (in the bullpen). It’s one of the most difficult roles in baseball.”…
The sniping continued Saturday, when Manuel made light of Maine’s difficult situation, joking that he would “pitch him on off days.”
– Andy Martino, N.Y. Daily News.
Look: I don’t aim to complain that John Maine has likely thrown his last pitch for the Mets. Though I have always held out hope for Maine and suspect he’ll again pitch decently someday, it does not appear Maine will ever flourish in Flushing. I could argue that it would be silly for a team without much pitching depth to part with a pitcher and point out that Maine, as bad as he was this year, still posted a better K:BB ratio than Fernando Nieve and a lower WHIP than Ryota Igarashi. And it’s much easier to pitch in relief than in the rotation.
Whatever. I’m biased toward Maine because he seems like precisely my type of weirdo, but Maine has been pretty bad since the middle of the 2008 season when his shoulder first started acting up.
My quibble, in this situation, is not with Maine’s departure as much as the way Manuel and Warthen are handling it. I try not to put too much stock in the things baseball players or coaches say to the media since I can’t imagine it massively impacts much of anything, but at best the pair seem unprofessional and at worst like total jerks.
Why throw John Maine under the bus when he has been riding in the wheel-well for two years? I get and appreciate that Manuel’s a funny guy, but it seems patently wrong for a manager to make jokes at the expense of his players. I wonder how Jerry would feel if, during a losing streak, Omar Minaya went to the press with punchlines about all the ill-conceived bunts and overworked relievers.
And I wonder how Dan Warthen would feel if one of his bosses pointed out the way Maine’s career has taken a nosedive since the Mets replaced Rick Peterson with Warthen, regardless of whether that has mattered.
Again, I’m not sure it means much in the long run, and this has never been a place for moral judgments or sanctimony. But this sure looks like the Manuel and Warthen are again deflecting blame away from themselves, toward a player.
A victory for reason
By now you know that the Mets returned Jenrry Mejia from whence he came, dispatching him to Binghamton to start games.
Good.
All things considered, Mejia’s stint with the big-league club didn’t go as terribly as it could have. His 30 big-league appearances likely did not cripple his development, and it’s impossible to determine the value of some Major League experience. Maybe seeing how hitters caught up to his fastball will inspire him to hone his secondary arsenal in the Minors. Who knows?
Of course, Mejia likely would have been more effective, and those 30 big-league appearances more valuable to the team, if the Mets had started him out in the Minors working on his changeup and curveball and then — if they were absolutely desperate for a reliever — advanced him to the big club later in the season as he approached his innings limit.
But whatever. Past mistakes are in the past. Though the Mets’ front office should not be excused for starting the season with Gary Matthews Jr. and Mike Jacobs in the lineup and Mejia in the bullpen, it should at least be commended for recognizing those errors and moving forward. Baby steps.
Familiar face Bobby Parnell will join the Mets’ bullpen in Mejia’s stead. He heads to Flushing off a solid run in Buffalo; the fireballer posted a 4:25 K:BB ratio since May 1 while whiffing more than a batter per inning.
So that’s good too.
“Kramer, I never thought I’d say this, but that’s not a bad idea.”
Jerry Seinfeld will call a Mets game with for mer man-crush Keith Hernandez — 18 years after they paired for a classic “Seinfeld” episode.
Seinfeld, a diehard Mets fan, will join former Amazin’s star Hernandez, now an SNY analyst, and play-by-play man Gary Cohen in the booth for at least three innings during next Wednesday’s Mets-Tigers game.
I left the typo in the first sentence because it makes it look like “merman crush,” and that’s an entirely different thing — albeit, who knows, maybe appropriate when Keith Hernandez is involved.
ABC was on to something when they tapped a comedian for the Monday Night Football booth in 2000. Problem was, they picked the wrong comedian. Dennis Miller’s material is esoteric and tightly scripted, so it almost always felt forced when he interjected his jokes into otherwise interesting football games.
It’s a shame, then, that the experiment was such a notable failure that no one has ever thought to revisit it. A funny, improvisational comedian would probably add more to the enjoyment of a televised sporting event than 90% of the analysts employed by networks. Who would you rather hear dissect a baseball game: Tim McCarver or Bill Cosby?
I don’t think the addition of Jerry Seinfeld to SNY’s booth for a few innings represents anything more than the combination of this network’s effort to keep Mets broadcasts interesting and Seinfeld’s own vanity. But at the risk of sounding like a shill, I’m excited for it.
Subway Series preview video
With Cliff Corcoran of Bronx Banter, who insists he has never lost in Wack-A-Mole.
The Animal
Fun fact: When I was in 5th grade, my Little League teammates called me “The Animal.” I’m pretty sure it stemmed from one particular collision at home plate, but whatever. The important thing is that when I came up to bat, the boys on our bench would sing a commercial jingle attached to a badass toy truck of the same name.
It went:
The Animal!
The Animal!
Can anything stop (bum-ba-bum-bum)
The Animal?
I was frequently stopped, but it felt pretty awesome to walk to the plate with that accompaniment.
Anyway, as Chris Carter transitions from Quadruple-A slugger and Internet cause du jour to full-fledged folk hero, I think it would be cool to revisit the work started by the Halperin Shoes squad back in 1991. I don’t propose he replace “Real American” as his walk-up music since that’s part of his appeal, but the jingle should be used to celebrate his on-field accomplishments.
I don’t know how to make this stick since I’m certain I don’t have that type of reach. But after Chris Carter gets a hit, sing a round of “The Animal.” You’ll look crazy at first, but tell all your friends and see if you can get it to catch on. It’s catchy, after all, and a great way to celebrate the super-intense, Stanford-educated grandson of an endearing blind man.
It goes like this:
Maybe he just liked Euro Trip
Actor Matt Damon engaged in some lengthy good-friend hunting at Philippe New York on Friday – much to the amusement of former Knick Patrick Ewing. According to one eyewitness at the Madison Ave. restaurant, the hunky “Bourne Trilogy” star “shuffled around the dining room looking for” his dinner mates with a “confused” look on his face.
Unbeknownst to Damon, his befuddled performance was thoroughly enjoyed by Ewing, who watched the actor with a big smile “because he knew Damon was lost.” After a couple of laps around the restaurant, our source says, Damon finally realized his friends were in Philippe’s private cellar.
– Gatecrasher, N.Y. Daily News.
All my nightmares end with Patrick Ewing pointing at me and laughing.
And it begins
This particular clue appeared in a mock version of [Jeopardy!} in December, held in Hawthorne, N.Y. at one of I.B.M.’s research labs. Two contestants — Dorothy Gilmartin, a health teacher with her hair tied back in a ponytail, and Alison Kolani, a copy editor — furrowed their brows in concentration. Who would be the first to answer?
Neither, as it turned out. Both were beaten to the buzzer by the third combatant: Watson, a supercomputer.
For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have been developing what they expect will be the world’s most advanced “question answering” machine, able to understand a question posed in everyday human elocution — “natural language,” as computer scientists call it — and respond with a precise, factual answer. In other words, it must do more than what search engines like Google and Bing do, which is merely point to a document where you might find the answer.
– Clive Thompson, New York Times Magazine.
This article is far too long and fascinating to properly excerpt here, and I heartily recommend you check it out if you’ve got a half hour to kill.
The piece explains how “Watson,” I.B.M.’s supercomputer, determines the answers (well, the questions, but that’s semantics) to Jeopardy! clues. Plus it outlines the machine’s limitations and describes how it matches up with humans.
Because I’m a big fan of both Jeopardy! and information that forbodes a dystopian future, the story is important to me for obvious reasons. But on top of that, I happen to live in the tiny hamlet of Hawthorne, N.Y. where this is all going down. So I’m at ground zero for the inevitable robot uprising. That’s terrifying, but also kind of awesome.
Upon starting the article, I initially considered how perfectly it set up a Ken-Jennings-as-John-Henry scenario, wherein Jeopardy!’s folk hero hurriedly scribbles his correct Final Jeopardy! answer before collapsing at the podium, winning the match but losing his life in the process.
But it turns out the machine has pretty much no shot of beating Ken Jennings, which is even more awesome. A team of scientists can spend years working on a computer specifically designed to succeed at Jeopardy!, and it still can’t match the best human contestants. Also, Ken Jennings can walk and give lectures and, presumably, love. Suck it down, Watson.
Also, Ken Jennings probably wouldn’t do this:
In another game, Watson’s logic appeared to fall down some odd semantic rabbit hole, repeatedly giving the answer “Tommy Lee Jones” to several clues that had nothing to do with him.
Well that’s ominous. The machines have targeted you, Tommy Lee Jones.
To be fair, though, former roommate Ted points out, “that sounds like something I’d do when drunk and shouting Jeopardy! answers at the TV screen.” And he’s right. I’ve seen him while drunk and watching Jeopardy!, and that does sound like something he’d do. So maybe Watson was stewed.
In any case, the article suggests that Jennings himself will take on the computer in a forthcoming televised Jeopardy! exhibition. Smart money is on the humans. For this round, at least.
DC’s meathead fashion show continues as David Segui takes to the runway
The grand jury investigating Roger Clemens for perjury has already seen such delightful fashion choices as Brian McNamee’s bold mullet-with-sponsored-tie look and Jose Canseco’s daring bedazzled sportcoat.
David Segui went for a more conservative number, just a white button down and some khaki shorts, but he livened up his look with his accessories: a porkpie hat, terminator sunglasses and a manbag.
From the Daily News:
Tedquarters 