Nice work by Jon Bois at SBNation.com rifling through the baseball-reference archives for the funniest names. He’s got my personal favorite — Bris Robotham Lord, the Human Eyeball — but he left out Buzz McWeeny. Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Emma Span’s been unearthing great baseball player names for years, at Bronx Banter and elsewhere.
The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art have agreed to a Super Bowl bet! Even better: The museums have put major works by major artists on the line. The bet continues an annual tradition begun last year when MAN instigated a wager between the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Both museums are offering up significant impressionist paintings: The Carnegie Museum of Art has wagered Pierre Renoir’s playful, fleshy Bathers with a Crab (cicra 1890-99, above) on a Pittsburgh Steelers victory. The Milwaukee Art Museum has put on the line Gustave Caillebotte’s serene Boating on the Yerres (1877, below). (Coincidentally, the Caillebotte was one of the paintings I suggested here. I completely whiffed on the Renoir.) Milwaukee is the nearest city to Green Bay (pop. 100,000), which does not have an art museum.
– Tyler Green, Modern Art Notes.
As a snobby New Yorker, it’s easy to mock a bet between art museums in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh. So let’s do exactly that:
Oh how sophisticated, an art bet! And two works of impressionism, no less! Man, this type of thing makes you really glad the Jets didn’t advance to the Super Bowl, because how could anything from the MoMA or the Met or the Whitney or the Guggenheim or the Frick have possibly matched up to the offerings from the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art? We are all philistines compared to the fine-art connoisseurs of Green Bay and Pittsburgh.
As for the paintings: No disrespect, but I find ’em both kinda boring. I feel that way about a lot 19th-century painting for that matter. If it was a Jets-Bucs Super Bowl and we could put up a Magritte against a Dali, that’d be a pretty exciting bet. Of course it would also mean the Jets were in the Super Bowl.
And furthermore, my father’s interpretation of this classic Jack Handy quote is not for wagering:
Hat tip to Tom Boorstein for the link.
Terrifying.
There was a lot of snickering — by me, among others — after the Mets’ announcement that they’d hold a press conference to introduce Chin-Lung Hu. But Adam Rubin suggested, accurately I imagine, that a press conference to accommodate the Taiwanese media made sense.
Anyway, this vaguely brings me back to something I got at earlier this offseason: I wonder if there is any advantage, in picking between two all-field no-hit utility infielders, in picking the one from Taiwan instead of the one from California (or the Dominican Republic or anyplace else that typically produces Major Leaguers).
Could Hu’s presence have any impact on the team financially? I believe revenue from international broadcasts and merchandise sales are shared among the MLB teams, but will members of the Taiwanese community in New York be so much more inclined to show up to Mets games to have a noticeable affect on ticket sales? Did anyone chart turnout by demographic at Chien-Ming Wang’s starts?
Does it benefit the team’s “brand” internationally, and does that matter at all? Does it help them with amateur scouting in Taiwan?
Obviously, like Alderson says, it must be first and foremost a baseball move. But is it weird to wonder if there’s any real, identifiable added value derived from Hu being Taiwanese? Has any of this been studied? Should I just keep asking open-ended speculative questions?
I have a feeling this is the type of thing that deserves to be seen in Blu-ray.
Earth to Fred Wilpon: This is what a strict adherence to slot recommendations will buy you. Parsimony has its price.
– Keith Law, ESPN.com (insider only).
Obviously the Mets’ adherence to slot recommendations has cost their farm system; I wouldn’t dispute that. But I’ll add that it probably doesn’t help that they graduated Ike Davis, Josh Thole and Jon Niese to the pros in 2010 and that all look like viable Major League contributors.
The other bad news, for Mets fans, is that the Braves’ system is ranked third and the Phillies’ is fifth. The Braves, in particular, seem like they could be on the brink of another dynasty. Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, not-terribly old Bryan McCann, cousin-of-Hanson Tommy Hanson, and a bunch of young arms coming up the pike.
But there’s a small glimmer of sunshine peeking through the clouds that you can only see if you really stare and squint at it: The Mets, I’ve heard, secured the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field. If it was really ownership preventing the team from drafting over-slot and not simply mismanagement and misallocation of resources, then the upcoming Midsummer Classic presents hope it could change soon.
My understanding is that selection of the All-Star Game venue, for better or worse, is one of MLB’s best items of leverage to coerce big-market teams into drafting to slot. I don’t know how often it actually works — the Yankees got an All-Star Game despite frequently spending overslot — or if that really has anything to do with why the Mets would play nice with the league, but it should no longer be a concern either way.
Maybe that’s nonsense though. Not about the Mets securing the game — that part I’m almost positive is true and done and will be announced soon — but about MLB using it as leverage for the slot system and the Mets caring and all that. Seems vaguely like a conspiracy theory, and there are a lot of moving parts in play.
I reserve the right to change my mind on my “Take ’em or Toss ’em” picks, especially since they were pretty much formed on the fly:
“Eikrem said he was able to drive away the wolves by
playing the song ‘Overcome’ by the American hard-rock band Creed. ‘They
didn’t really get scared,’ Walter said. ‘They just turned around and
simply trotted away.'”
Free-agent right-hander Justin Duchscherer, considered one of the best starting pitchers still on the market, said on Tuesday evening that physically he feels “pretty much 100 percent” and shot down the notion that his previous depression issues would prevent him from playing in New York….
“For me, it’s black and white. I want to start; that’s the whole mind-set I have. I haven’t even thought of being a reliever. I want a team that’s going to be honest with me and say, ‘If you’re healthy, you are going to start.'”
Duchscherer has thrown two full bullpen sessions off the mound already this winter, with favorable results, and is quick to point out that despite his “injury-prone” label, his arm has proven to be durable.
It’s going to be hard to shake that “injury-prone” label when you haven’t had a fully healthy season since 2005, but injury concerns aside, Duchscherer is a guy the Mets should probably consider taking a flyer on. I’ve had a number of readers email me suggesting as much, and they’ve got good points: Duchscherer has pretty much always been good whenever he’s been on a Major League mound.
Unlike Chris Capuano and Chris Young — both of whom finished 2010 in their teams’ rotations — Duchscherer’s five starts in 2010 came at the beginning of the season. He’s coming off hip surgery now, which I imagine means he’s less likely to be fully healthy and full-strength by Opening Day.
Still, if by some chance he is healthy and can stay so, he’s probably as likely as anyone on the Mets’ staff to pitch like the ace everyone’s clamoring for: Duchscherer has a career 139 ERA+ (a number, granted, likely aided by his time working a relief role).
Point is, pitchers get injured. Some — like Justin Duchscherer, for example — do a lot more often than others. But it’s not really possible to have too much starting pitching depth. Starters that can’t crack the rotation can count on an opportunity when one of their teammates gets hurt or proves ineffective, and usually can serve valuable roles in the bullpen in the interim.
Provided the Mets don’t know something we don’t about Duchscherer’s current health, if he can be had on a cost-effective and incentive-laden contract like the deals for Capuano and Young, he seems like a good risk to take.
Link via Aaron Gleeman.
Wow.
Tedquarters 