Author Archives: Ted Berg

No one buying Mets stuff

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According to the New York Times, as of midafternoon Friday the Mets Clubhouse Store on 42nd St. hadn’t sold any of the team’s new home jerseys, released just in time for the biggest shopping day of the year.

Not good.

Ad sales in the offseason make up a big part of the Mets’ annual revenue, and so a complete lack of interest among fans — foreboding, presumably, less interest from advertisers — is the type of thing that could prompt the front office to push to make a “splash” this winter.

That could be a good thing, for sure. Some of the potential cannonballs in the offseason pool — Matt Holliday, for example — are great players who could help the Mets in the upcoming season and those to come.

But making a splash for the sake of making a splash, especially for a team shrouded in uncertainty, could turn out terribly.

I’m not saying that fans should buy more jerseys to keep Omar Minaya from doing something silly, nor am I saying one day’s worth of bad merchandise sales will affect the Mets’ offseason outlook. But the team competes for advertising dollars in the market with the reigning world champions, and that creates a lot of pressure to grab headlines and fan attention this offseason.

Sometimes it seems like Mets brass are more concerned with improving the perception of the team than with improving the actual team, and more concerned with winning airtime on talk radio in March than winning games in October.

But offseason headlines, lucrative though they may sometimes be, are short-lived and unsustainable. Even if it means taking a one-year hit in offseason revenue, the Mets need to focus on creating a perpetual winner, something that will eventually earn them a whole lot more than a new look or a rash move.

What they’re (theoretically) building in Willets Point

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According to an article in today’s Daily News, a Brooklyn judge tossed out a lawsuit against the city by property owners in Willets Point, the “neighborhood” across from Citi Field.

The suit alleged that the city was purposefully neglecting the area to drive down property costs to make the planned redevelopment there less expensive.

Eminent domain is a sticky issue, and I have far from all of the facts in this case. But to Mets fans, this is pretty clearly a good thing.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit 23 Major League stadiums, and I can attest that the ones with places to go in the immediate vicinity before and after games make for a much, much more pleasant experience. You can get delicious green chili across the street from Coors Field and tasty microbrews around the corner from Safeco.

You can’t even see a bar or restaurant from Citi Field.

I’ll believe that Willets Point will have all the things the city is hoping to put there as soon as I see it. The area doesn’t even have working sewers yet, so I imagine it’s a good ways off. But man, it’d be pretty great to have someplace to go for a meal before the game or a drink afterwards that didn’t involve a trek or a subway ride.

Happy Thanksgiving: Cake or pie?

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Over at the Perpetual Post yesterday, I threw in my two cents in a multi-part discussion over the relative benefits of cake and pie.

To me, cake is clearly better than pie. As I wrote:

Cake, at its best, is spongy and moist. It features, almost by design, a rich blend of amazing flavors: the cake part of the cake, and the frosting part of the cake. Both parts are excellent. It’s not like sweet goo in boring crust, like pie. It’s synergy, that’s all.

My colleagues over there all have interesting and funny takes, but several of them are downright wrong.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t enjoy your pie this Thanksgiving, of course. You should. But just do it while considering how much better cake is.

I quoted a friend in the article, actually the fellow who introduced me to the merits of on-base percentage when I was in 10th grade. He is responsible for one of my favorite sayings of all time:

“I’m going to die someday, and when I’m on my deathbed, I’m probably going to say, ‘I should have had more cake.'”

So if you’re looking for something to excuse your gluttony today, say that.

Happy Thansgiving, and enjoy Adam Sandler:

Long-feared monkey uprising underway

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This is only tangentially related to sports, but it’s far too important to ignore.

South African baboons can now open car doors and have taken to raiding unlocked cars for food. Experts fear it will get worse when the World Cup hits Cape Town in 2010.

The most baffling quote in the article:

“The perception is that the baboons are harmless and they’re not. They’re wild animals.”

Wait, who perceives baboons as harmless? It’s not like they’re cute little monkeys. Lock your damn doors.

A Sugar Ray more musical than the band

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Good review in the Times today about a new biography of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. Alex Belth also weighed in over at Bronx Banter.

The Times review mentions how jazz music influenced Robinson’s style in the ring, which I had never heard before.

But it neglects to mention how it was reciprocated.

In his awesome autobiography, Miles, Miles Davis explained how he tried to play his trumpet like Sugar Ray Robinson boxed.

I’ve always thought that was awesome, influence across forms. Long before I ever read Davis’ book or even heard much of his music, my high-school music teacher told me I needed to play less tentatively and more like a linebacker, my position in football. The guy taught me most of what I know about music, but that was by far the best advice he ever gave.

But that was just about playing with confidence, really. The Robinson thing, and the Miles Davis thing, are about style. I touched on this last week in regards to Allen Iverson; some athletes just have some indefinable quality that makes their game feel almost artistic.

What would it sound like if someone could make music like Johan Santana pitches? What if someone could write like Carlos Beltran plays baseball? Does that make any sense?

Things I’m thankful for

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‘Tis the season for giving thanks. I’m thankful for all the usual stuff, of course, like my family, my friends, Taco Bell and the fact that I’ve got a job in this economy.

I’m also  particularly thankful for these things:

Albert Pujols: El Hombre won one of the least surprising and most deserving NL MVPs ever distributed yesterday. It was his third, and I’m still not sure the guy’s adequately appreciated.

Albert Pujols is historically awesome. He’s placed in the top 3 in his league in OPS+ in each of the least seven seasons. He plays outstanding defense at first base and he’s yet to miss any significant time due to injury.

Many claim, for whatever reason, that Pujols must be older than he purports to be. But Pujols has posted his two best offensive seasons at ages 28 and 29, precisely when he should be expected to hit his peak.

I have no reason to doubt his birth date — almost exactly one year before mine, depressingly — and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter; he has shown no signs of deteriorating, and so should be expected to keep this up for the next several years.

And that’s amazing. We’re privileged to be able to watch Albert Pujols hit home runs. He alone makes the MLB Extra Innings package a justifiable and worthwhile investment.

Plus, Pujols is the rare transcendently awesome athlete who has managed to avoid off-field controversy, meaning we don’t even have to suffer sanctimonious journalists taking shots at his reputation.

Pears: Everyone’s all up in apples, and apples are pretty delicious. But pears, apple’s less-attractive cousin, never get their due.

Pears are great. They’re juicy, and they’re sweeter than most junk foods, and yet somehow they count as healthy. I’m still not certain on how that works, but I support it wholeheartedly. People might judge you for chowing down on Snickers all day, but people see you eating a pear and they’re all, “hey, there’s a guy who has his priorities straight.”

Why don’t we have more pear-flavored stuff, anyway? Candy and soda are available in a wide variety of fruit-like flavors, but never pear. I’m calling B.S. on the whole sweets industry. Give me more pear-flavored things, and maybe I’ll buy more of your product and less of these fantastic pears.

Spelling Bee Faint: The Internet has given us so many tremendous and hilarious videos to watch, and yet only Spelling Bee Faint has maintained a permanent spot on my desktop for the last seven years.

Watch this video. It’s not just funny that the kid’s eyes bug out and he falls down. People fall down all the time, and it’s almost always funny. That’s nothing.

What makes this moment so great is all the other stuff that happens. The moderator guy is the only person involved who shows any emotion whatsoever. A disembodied woman’s voice icily says, “Stop the clock,” because, obviously, all that really matters about this kid wiping out mid-Spelling Bee is how it will affect the rest of the Spelling Bee.

And only one of the kids behind him even pretends to help him out. Check out contestant No. 41. I’m pretty sure she’s yawning. The rest of them are pretty clearly trying to hide their excitement that this kid might not have the muster to outlast them in the Spelling Bee competition their parents have obviously been preparing them for since birth. Contestant No. 45 makes a vague, token gesture in his direction, but it’s about the least earnest display of sportsmanship you’ll ever see.

Then, against all odds, the kid just gets up and spells “alopecoid.” And he doesn’t even need the derivation of the word that literally knocked him over just seconds before. He doesn’t want it in a sentence. He just gets back up, collects himself, and calmly spells some word I’ve never even heard of.

You, contestant No. 25, are an inspiration to us all. Spelling Bee Faint is not just a web video about a kid falling down. It’s a web video about redemption and tenacity and the triumph of the human spirit. Also, the kid falls down.

Tolstoy digs the longball

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This piece on strikeouts and the Anna Karenina principle, from David Roher at something called the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, is an interesting read.

I’m not certain exactly what Roher is concluding, and I wonder if he’s not either misstating or overstating something that is merely common sense. He notes that hitters who strike out more at the Major League level statistically produce more offensively, and writes:

For a hitter to be good enough to get at least 3.1 plate appearances per game in Major League Baseball, he has to possess some skill that prevents him from being unduly penalized by strikeouts. … hitters who are too vulnerable to the strikeout will get weeded out and thus won’t move up any further than that level.

I definitely see how selection bias, as he suggests, would produce the situation he demonstrates statistically: That strikeouts are inversely correlated to offense in the low Minors, and directly correlated to offense in Triple-A and the Majors.

His conclusion is shrouded in some loose (and perhaps forced) connection to the Anna Karenina principle, but all he seems to be saying is that strikeout-prone players are more likely to put up big offensive numbers in the Majors than they are in the low Minors.

And that strikes me as plain common sense. To get to the Majors and stick around while striking out a ton, a player almost has to be adept at hitting home runs and earning bases on balls. No one’s going to abide a slap-hitter who strikes out a lot, because slap hitters need to put the ball in play frequently to succeed.

So in most cases, the guys with the highest strikeout totals are mashers like Mark Reynolds and Ryan Howard. Then, naturally, high strikeout totals correlate to offensive production.

Also, Roher cites wOBA but doesn’t even mention how walks factor in. Players who strike out a lot at the big-league level are most likely taking more pitches than their less whiff-prone colleagues, and so they’re not only more likely to swing at a pitch they can drive when they do swing, they’re also more likely to end up ahead in counts and earning free passes.

So in other words, it’s not that strikeouts are a good thing. They’re not. It’s just that, to make it to the Majors while striking out a lot, you have to be very good at other important aspects of hitting. And that seems like it could be the cover story on Duh! Magazine.

H/T to Baseball Think Factory.

Items of note

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The New York Post fires another shot in its feud with Mike Francesa. I don’t know that I can think of any two institutions that deserve each other more. It’s like Phillies-Yankees all over again.

Mets Today asks you to rate the Mets’ potential free-agent targets.

Kerry Rhodes is getting benched. Good. He stunk on Sunday and Eric Smith played well.

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.” The New York Times demonstrates how breathtakingly awesome evolution can be.

The Mets named their coaching staff yesterday. I don’t know enough about any of these guys to have a strong opinion, though I was kind of hoping Eric Wedge would be involved.

Culture Jammin’: Pop-pop gets a treat

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I’ve just been made aware of this wonderful news:

Apparently IFC is showing two episodes of Arrested Development every Tuesday night.

DVR set.

Arrested Development, if you’re unfamiliar, is the best thing that’s ever been on TV. I know the popular thing among people with good taste is to say it’s The Wire, and I absolutely loved The Wire and think it’s almost certainly the second best thing to ever be on TV.

But Arrested Development is a special, special show. It’s like what would happen if James Joyce wrote a sitcom, only more comprehensible. Honestly, watch it tonight and pay attention: Every detail matters. Every joke is funny in isolation and in the larger context of the show. If you don’t laugh in every scene, you’re almost certainly missing something.

It’s downright perfect. All the performances are stellar, the pace is right, everything.

The second episode IFC airs tonight will be “Pier Pressure,” arguably the masterpiece in a series chock full of masterpieces.

I took a screenwriting class once and the teacher told us he kept two scripts at his desk. I forget which they were, but one was to remind him that there were produced screenplays that he was capable of writing to keep him confident, and one to remind him that there were screenplays he was incapable of writing to keep him working to get better.

Arrested Development is that second thing. But it’s so tightly crafted, so overwhelmingly well-planned, that it’s way more depressing than it is intimidating. No one could ever hope to create anything so awesome.

We’re still better off for its having been made, though.