See, here’s an example of a low-content post that can serve also as an open thread for Phrog & Sphinxter to talk about them Yankees and them Angels and so on. I can even decorate it with an image:
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Latest on Mon, 12:11 pm
: A bit of mirroring, they actually created Hezbollah, out of elements of the Amal militia, with the Pasdaran.: So how does Riddick, go from Lord Marshall, to a planet, only slightly more inviting then Crematoria.
: Guess you're going to have to watch the movie to find out. Looks like a quasi-remake of PITCH BLACK.: 'faith is faith' you don't have to justify it, you can if you want to, but you don't need to, unlike strangelet's
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- How dare you call Hayek profound? (3)
- CK MacLeod:
Good stuff. - miguel cervantes:
About one of your favorite authorities http://www.nationalobserver.ne t/2003_spring_109.htm
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- Libertarianism as Core-Extreme Ideology of the Liberal Democratic State (6)
- miguel cervantes:
Libertarianism entails a minimal state, mostly those spelled out in the constitution, ‘negative liberties’ anarchism is about total demolition, which has almost... - CK MacLeod:
Thanks, bob. There’s more to explore here, including I think especially the differences between libertarianism and anarchism, whose impulses and expressions often overlap....
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- “the false notion of heroic self-made aristocracy” (3)
- CK MacLeod:
Could be, though it ain’t wut I writed. - miguel cervantes:
You’re right of course, we should all admit we are nothing without the sovereign, frankly that Magna Carta thing was a step too far.
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- A Global Force for Goods (5)
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fuster:
waddaya get from this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=DsNYR6XyZQk
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- Post-Theism (8)
- fuster:
Yeah, I’m Schrödinger’s Frosch
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- How dare you call Hayek profound? (3)
Last Five
I’m still wondering where the Angels are gonna get that one big hitter.
I would guess (if Kendrick is healthy and Trumbo can only play first base, that they’re looking for a 3B who bats lefty.
Actually read the article in the local fishwrap reviewing the Angels’ season, and, looking at their lineup, and comparing it statistically to the big boy teams, it was hard see how they even competed.
Great starting pitching. If Morales (broken leg) comes back and is productive, he’ll become the designated left handed hitter unless Trumbo can play 3rd. I think he could. He’s actually very agile and has a good arm. Catcher is a real issue. It seems incredible that Mathis was Scioscia’s choice over the Italian Napoli but baseball is strange. Maybe there’s something waiting to unleash inside Mathis? I recommend a trade.
The Angels don’t need a catcher to hit much. Hitting is last thing to look for in a catcher because catcher and SS are the two key defenders and because a catchers offense is never reliable due to the endless small injuries and the fatigue of the position.
Actually, Scott’s got it right IF Trumbo can play third and if Morales is ever gonna be able to field and be a big-time hitter after that bone graft on his left (plant foot) ankle.
All their big hitters are righties and they need the DH slot or they can’t play Trout and Bourjos and the two high-priced OFers.
Now back to the Yankees. I have to admit that I was okay with them winning last night. There’s just something not that appealing about the Tigers. They remind me of a softball team in a beer league. That could be their appeal if I let it be appealing, but I just can’t manage to go there naturally.
Also, about the best of 5 thing. It would make so much more sense to have the first series be best of 7 and the World Series be best of 5. Bad teams can get lucky. Any team could get lucky enough to win 3 out of 5 against any other team. So to prevent a really great team from getting beat early, the first series should be best of 7 and sense both teams are good if they’ve made it that far and make things more intense the WS should be best of 5.
Um… that’s insane in almost every way. Good job.
The best way to prevent a really great team from being beaten would be if they never played at all.
However, I agree that the DS introduce additional sets of semi-random outcomes in an already too-random/chaotic/irregular game. But no one wants to watch two more less-meaningful games, while losing two more of the games that a somewhat larger circle of people do find interesting.
Instead of team/talent parity, baseball depends on its own inherent randomness for an appearance of competitiveness. It’s closer to an endless series of coin flips than other pro sports already. Much more than in football or basketball, the fan of a horrible team knows that there’s a decent chance in baseball that his horrible team on any given day might end up beating the good team. The addtional playoff series introduce additional coin flips…
But the problem is the weird irregularity/semi-randomness/marginal probability factors inherent in baseball against any attempt to fit them into a system of theoretical justice.
Go Baseball Boy Go! I knew it! You sandbagger! Cat’s out of the bag! CK Hegelian baseball book here we come!
the cat may be out of the bag but it may also still be inside,
we’re uncertain of the state of the cat right up until the moment that the fat lady opens up and eats it.
The rules are the game. Whatever team wins a championship under a set of rules is the best team under those rules. There is no “best team”. Certainly not in baseball. Unbalanced schedule, different parks are different dimensions (could you imagine if each basketball team could set the dimensions of its home court, maybe the hoop height?), DH/-DH, All Star Game determining WS home field advantage….
Somewhere in my noggin is the remembered assertion by some announcer in some sport during some playoffs that the winner of the 5 game series within a 7 ame series is almost always the winner of the series. It might as well be true even if it isn’t.
Why shouldn’t bad teams be able to get lucky and win. What does getting lucky mean here. In sports the cliche is that one makes one’s own luck.
I’m not saying I disagree with your format. Maybe each round should decrease by 2 games, with the final determined by 1 game. The number of games in the first round determined by the number of rounds needed.
I mean apart form all that is that producing revenue will always trump determining the best team.
Good points, Bob. I especially am sympathetic to the question of why shouldn’t a bad team get lucky? Right on.
Isn’t the “teams that win in 7 also almost always win in 5″ statement kind of a pseudo-statistic, putting the number of all teams that have in 7 games by winning the last two against all other 7-game series winners?
And can’t someone come up with something for a new thread?
Pseudo stat? Well, yeah. I mean it is baseball, and then there the definitive and decisive way I phrased it.
here’s an idea for you. read and review ….
Data Clustering for Fitting Parameters of a Markov Chain Model of Multi-Game Playoff Series
Christopher M. Rump
or dial
1-800-PSH-ALEN
I didn’t get anywhere with your link. Is this it?
To the extent that I understood it, it has an undenialbe appeal, altho it reinforces the stat vs gut approach to the game, which while inevitalble makes me sad in a John Henry kinda way.
not always. In 1950,the Japanese Anarchist Federation had split-squad playoffs between the anarcho-communists and the anarcho-syndicalists that might well have been resolved by one squad or he other claiming the Black Flag had not the Federation dissolved in 1988.
Not having enough info on the particulars, it’s hard to refute. Did they have any rules. I mean the presence of the Black Flag implies someone claiming it, and there’s a crypto rule right there. Then there’s the possibility of no rules being the rule like in a death match thing where the ref says “The only rule is that ther are no rules.” which still defines the match. I mean discussing this could recapitualte either Hegelalism or Buddhism equally depending are one’s proclivities.
sometimes
some of them did
did they use a Markov chain to decide?
due to unjustified and unjustifiable oppression vis-a-vis Kalishnikovs, at one point they might have …..which, of course, doesn’t mean that they will
Interesting that there’s been all this talk about statistics and no one has mentioned Moneyball. I didn’t realize how much I had already decided the movie couldn’t be any good until a friend brought it up at lunch. He had seen it and liked it. By the time I was done criticizing it I think he realized he didn’t really like it. The friend is a writer so it was easy to ask him things like “how did a Hollywood movie–a thing that must move from supposed heartlessness to supposed heart filled realization–get past the fact that Brad Pitt’s character starts out with heart and love for the game but gives into an idea that took heart and love of the game out of the equation. Answer: B story. It’s about his daughter. I was, however, interested to hear that the movie does address how Beane’s failure as an athlete may have been the reason he was okay with a feelingless managerial approach.
Project never made any sense to me as a “big H-wood movie” either. Or even a small H-wood movie. Maybe a weird documentary or art film. With Pitt and PS Hoffman in it, and with Zallian and then Sorkin writing, it seems like just the kind of “line-up” that the theory would tell you not to invest in. Assuming I understand any of it correctly – far from a sure bet.
Supposedly cost “only” $50 MM to make, and it seems to be getting a good audience and critical response, however. Doesn’t make me even a little bit interested, however.
Any of these brilliant asides of mine could have been a new Aside, but this could just be the permanent baseball wall that goes on forever. That’s perfect because you think baseball games are endless. The key is to record so you can fast forward all the time. It’s a heartless modern way to watch, but oh well.
you get to post Asssides and should get a few out on the page
I’m just tired of the gal and her monkeys. I’ll find something since you guys won’t help.
I do have apostassides. Sorry, CK.
I think you must be an Iranian if you’re about to commit apostassside.
I prefer to be called a Persian.
don’t monkey with the monkey.
I was rushing to do your bidding
forgot the excerpting in the rush and now have been commanded to make up the third guest room because the niece and nephew who live here are too damn lazy to get ready for their mother’s arrival manana.
Maybe they should try a pitcher this time. I know you don’t think much of Pinero but the Angels will probably let him go and I think he might make a comeback. It’s also not like the Angels really believe in Santana either and he’s a strange one. Wouldn’t surprise me if the Angels let him go to Texas somehow so he could become a 20 game winner.
Are the Angels still trying to make that trade with Texas that Reagins was working on before the trade deadline in July?
the Michael Young/ Julio Borbon/Tanner Scheppers for Weaver ?
If the Yankees are gonna win this game, that was our break( Benoit’s whiff on Cano’s tap back to the pitcher) and this is the time
2 innings to get 1 more run is hardly impossible… you can take the baseball to the new post/thread if you want. Up to you. I can do 2 innnings and even maybe extras, since I’m making dinner…
That is – I’ll be watching… may not be immediately responding… I know Mr. Miller is watching.
you know because of some software application installed as part of the blog redesign?
Hey Valverde…you should