Ramblings
Because I’m sitting at home sick as a dog, I’m just going to ramble. If you know any miracle cures for the cold/flu, feel free to leave them in comments.
1. I’ve flip-flopped on the wild card ever since it was instituted, but this year is one of the strongest cases for it that I can remember. The last weekend in the NL should be one of the most entertaining in baseball history.
2. I’d pay good money to ride “The Michael Vick Experience”.
3. One of the worst parts of the 2004 season has been the systematic weeding out of the blogosphere. One by one, watching passionate M’s fans lose the will to write about their team regularly has been disappointing. I miss my daily Musings post from Peter, business management analogies from Steve, long-winded recaps from Jeff. Here’s to hoping 2005 provides the inspiration necessary to bring them back.
4. Am I the only one who thinks they should consider renaming the NL manager of the year award after Bobby Cox?
5. I saw this in the comments the other day, so I’m curious; how many Carolina readers do we have? And among those, any interest in organizing a gathering to watch the playoffs?
6. Would anyone be against a 24/7 women’s health commercial network, where all femine hygene products had to be advertised on that specific station alone? If you’re not sure which herpes medicince to buy, flip to channel 842 now and leave the rest of us alone.
7. I hope Ichiro breaks the record at home. The fans deserve it, and having him break it in Oakland with 20,000 people watching would be a shame. And seriously, A’s fans, GO TO THE FREAKING GAMES. That’s all.
Comments
40 Responses to “Ramblings”
Dave –
I haven’t been posting less because of lack of passion, but because of priorities and time committments. Due to personal situations, I simply have not been able to blog reqularly.
Zicam nasal spray (over the counter at grocery stores) reduced cold duration from 9 days to about 2 in a well done clinical trial. You have to catch it in the first day or two, though, or it doesn’t work. Zinc in the spray kills the virus that causes colds where it lives, in the nasopharynx between the nose and mouth. And it’s cheap!
Sorry, no miracle cause for the flu.
grandmas cold remedy
1/2 cup whiskey
1/2 cup rum
juice from 1/2 lemon
1-2 tablespoons tabasco sauce
1-2 cups water
combine ingredients in pot and bring to a boil
when pot is boiling add your favorite herbal tea
boil until there is 1/2 to 1 cup of mixture left
drink
rest
report back
continue posting
*raises hand*
Carolina reader here! Though I am down in the bottom one going to school at USC, which means I think we have a little distance between us =)
I’m with Steve. I haven’t stopped posting long recaps because I’ve lost my will and passion; it’s more due to the fact that I moved back to college, and games don’t end until 1 in the morning now. That’s a drag.
We shut down Sodo Ohno when I took a long vacation and I haven’t had the will to start it back up again. Mike and I both figure we’ll kick it back into gear when the Hot Stove heats up. The comments section of USSMariner has given me a place to express the occasional opinion. Thanks for leaving it up and thanks to everyone for the rational, civil, discussions.
anybody see this in baseball prospectus today? did i just not receive my decoder ring to unscramble the hidden message?
“How, exactly, does one spread one’s hits when one is getting the most ever in a season? Ichiro has done it like this:
0: 27
1: 51
2: 45
3: 23
4: 6
5: 4
I (for one) went to the game last night. It was great… except that they totally pitched around Ichiro, then plunked him in the 9th. Also, I sat in the best seats I’ve had all year. I forgot what a game looks like from behind home plate, close enough that you can actually see the players’ faces.
About the A’s fans… they’re a real mixed bunch. Some are quite sophisticated and patient (much like their organizational philosophy)… while others, well, not so much.
Overheard at the ballpark:
1. (after a couple of high and tight pitches that bent Chavez backwards) “You in Oakland now. You don’t do that here. No way. They thirty thousand of us here. We come down there and teach you. You don’t do that here…”
2. (after Mecir allows the 2 inherited baserunners to score) “Who is Mecir? Who is Mecir? How the hell can you put him it? You don’t know how long I’ve had to live through this. I’m 24. I’ve been watching the A’s for the last 12 years. Half my life! And we’ve only had the glory in ’89!” uh… if you ask me, it sounds like you missed the glory then too. Starting 12 years ago puts your little 12-year-old butt in the ballpark right around ’92. I looked at the Red Sox fan next to me and smiled.
Needless to say, A’s fans were a little upset.
I couldn’t help but be optimistic about upcoming years when I saw Ibanez, Reed, and Lopez scorching the ball, and Madritch making the A’s hitters look silly. Seriously, Durazo is one of the most disciplined, professional hitters in the game, and Madritch made him take some swings that wouldn’t have hit a tee ball out of the infield.
Bummer about those rookie mistakes though. Reed looked foolish getting picked off of first. And Lopez. Bases loaded, nice easy bouncing ball right to him in plenty of time for the third out. Why did he run to the bag and leave the ball behind him. OUCH!
D.A., it looks to me like Prospectus is giving Ichiro’s breakdowns by number of hits per game: four 5-hit games, six 4-hit games, etc.
Are there still rumors floating around that the A’s might be moving soon? They are my biggest hope for Portland MLB now. It really looks like they have zero fans every time I watch that game. But can someone tell me, what the hell is that tuba-like sound I keep hearing, is there a guy with a tuba that goes to all the A’s games or what?
uh… hits per game, yeah. need coffee……… brain broken………
hans, even when I see Ibanez get 9 hits in 9 straight at-bats it doesn’t do anything for me. it just reminds me that we have him under contract for 2 more years, and I don’t have confidence in him to get 9 hits in a week very many times in those 2 years. please prove me wrong, Raul!
in the 2 games I’ve actually watched that Reed played in (last night plus one Raniers game), he made both the best baserunning play and the worst baserunning play. in that Raniers game he took 2 extra bases on a single, all while the Beavers’ SS was holding the ball in shallow center. don’t judge him on the pickoff 🙂
I don’t know if I want an AL West team here in Portland. I really want an NL team so that I can root for them guilt-free!
Another Carolina reader here but much like the one above I’m in the bottom one.
Oakland, if they don’t get a stadium deal there, might move to Las Vegas. Given the DC resolution, there may also be a way to get them into San Jose now even with territorial rights issues w/r/t the Giants.
Moira,
The Coliseum has some kind of marching band section. They have these trumpets, noisemakers, and other stuff. I’m sure that’s where the tuba came from. A couple of years ago these guys started showing up with drums and just started beating them for the whole game. I’m sure everyone got a little annoyed at first, but the A’s marketing people decided to make it part of the “character” of the experience. (which is a much better idea than those dot races between innings, but I digress…). So they gave the guys with drums season tickets and put them in ads. Now the Coliseum has a drum section too. It’s like a little circus in the left field bleachers.
Well, Charlotte’s only an hour and a half from Columbia, and I go down to Charlotte quite a bit. If we get any interest, I may organize some kind of get together down there.
For the record, the Olympia Mariner is not really alive anymore due to a couple reasons. One, it was my buddies site and he got the password changes and never changed it back. so i can’t get in!
second… this whole school thing. my job gives lots of summer rambling time, not so much during the year.
third… when i do return, steve and i were planning on joining… or should i say i was planning on joining him.
but i do have to agree with the other bloggers… you’ve become such a “microsoft” that i just post here. you’ve swallowed me whole. i know that people are going to read it, and i’ve noticed a few “regulars” so it is more friendly than posting out in the wilderness of cyberspace.
DMZ,
If they can get a sweetheart deal like Angelos got the Giants may now want the As to move to San Jose!
Something tells me the boys from USSM won’t like being compared to Microsoft.
Dave, the answer is Thera-Flu. Down one toddy at night, then one in the morning, and you’ll be fine.
The best thing about getting a cold is – Hot Toddies:
1 slice of lemon studded with 6 to 12 whole cloves
1 to 3 teaspoons of sugar or honey, according to taste
1 cup of boiling water (that’s 100C/212F at a rolling boil, not the 190F bilge water you get from those hot pipe dispensers)
Combine all of the above in a pre-warmed glass then top off with:
2oz Power’s Gold Label Irish Whiskey (really any whiskey/brandy/golden rum will work, but Power’s is traditional and the best)
It won’t cure you, but it will make you feel better.
Colm
Just to nitpick, herpes isn’t a female only problem. I agree about tampon ads, but herpes drug ads need not be restricted to the women’s networks.
For the record, the reason why I don’t post as much on the M’s as David does at Sports and Bremertonians is because, well, I don’t get to see the games as much as he does. I do have Gameday Audio on AOL, but I haven’t had enough time to sit down and actually listen to the games on there. Basically, I get my Mariner news from the blogosphere. Thanks, fellas.
Anyways, I wish I could get more Arkansas readers to Sports and Bremertonians. But for some reason, that hasn’t been happening. Maybe it’s because they’re more worried about whether their Razorbacks will survive this deadly October (at Florida, at Auburn, home vs Georgia). Or maybe it’s just that they don’t like them damn yankees (me). Not that I consider myself a Yankee.
But don’t worry, we’re definitely still alive at Sports and Bremertonians. Don’t hate us because we’re Bremertonians (well, in my case, a former Bremertonian). Oh hell, go check out Pedro’s little friend at Sports and B’s. And click on the Mahow Mahow link. You won’t regret it.
in Oakland with 20,000 people watching would be a shame
Worse, with 20,000 people BOOING. Oakland’s fan base completely and utterly stymies me.
Ichiro should break the record on Friday night, since it’ll be Fan Appreciation Night, and his 258th should be a home run. Catching that ball would be a better souvenir than the Gamecube, the flatscreen TV, the Hawaiian Cruise, *and* much much more.
Dave, you’re right, Charlotte isn’t that far away from Columbia at all. I didn’t realize you made it there often. I’d be more then willing to travel up there to catch a game or two if you got something together.
Speaking of Fan Appreciation Night….pay attention to how many winners come from either the Luxury Boxes and/or club seats. Somebody pointed this out to me during the Kingdome days and sure enough a winner came from one of the miniscule luxury boxes located behind the 100 level. Not a new car mind you, but a “hey wait a minute” moment every year.
As Bob Dylan/Sam Shepard wrote: “”Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt.”
I was offered free tickets to an A’s game a few weeks ago on a Saturday night. I had no prior commitments, and plenty of time to get to the game.
But then I realized that the stadium isn’t exactly in the part of town you want to be walking around in at 10:00pm when the game is over.
As long as they stay in the reigon, so I can see AL games on TV, I’ll be happy, just don’t subject me to Giants-only on Fox Sports Bay Area.
Long time reader (I’m a displaced M’s fan no longer living in the NW–I really miss the NW btw), but first time posting. Zicam Cold Remedy products (nasal spray, throat spray, and cotton swabs) are the best at eliminating colds. I just wish I would have discovered them earlier. If you start using them within the first couple of days of a cold, you’ll be better in a couple days or so (instead of a week).
BTW, I love this site, just keeps getting better and better all the time.
Oh, and for the flu, a buddy of mine at work swears by Tamiflu. It also needs to be taken within the first couple of days of the onset of symptoms. (Funny, my first two posts are on colds/flus–but, I feel your pain wrt them.) Tamiflu is available only by prescription, though.
Might as well make a baseball-related post: I’m all for the wild-card. I wasn’t sure about it the first couple of years. But, it does make the end of many seasons more exciting and worth something more than without it.
Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) is indeed very effective at knocking down certain strains of influenza, but it needs to be started within 36-48 hours. My past few encounters with the flu lasted just a couple of days each thanks to this stuff, so if you want to give it a shot get thee to a doctor soon after you start feeling those full-body aches (the surest sign you’re coming down with the flu).
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the value of flu shots too, prevention being worth.. well, you know.
On the wild-card debate: It seems to me that there are really two issues lurking here, (1) the wild-card question proper (whether the advantage of a multi-team race for a spot outweighs the “impropriety” of a second-place team possibly winning a championship), and (2) the large-playoffs vs. small-playoffs question (whether it’s best to have more or fewer teams in the “second season” at the end).
The wild-card question itself is more or less irrelevant to me; having the ’03 Marlins win the title after a finishing 91-71 (10 games behind the Braves) doesn’t thrill me, but is better than having an 87-75 division winner do the same (like the 2000 Yankees).
What is more important to me, though, is the principle of sample size: that a 162-game season tells you more about a team’s quality than a 5-game series. Any system that places more importance on short series is to me an undesirable one. (In 2001, for example, I considered it regrettable that Seattle had to spend five games playing a Cleveland team that, regardless of short-term results, was clearly not as good as they were. In 2002 and 2003, on the other hand, I didn’t particularly care whether the M’s made the playoffs or not, because, win or lose, I knew well enough that we didn’t really have the best team here.)
Unfortunately, Bud Selig views the matter differently, and his opinion counts for more than mine. In particular, Selig wants as many cities as possible to have the hope that their team could come out on top; and it’s easier to hope that you’ll catch some breaks in October than it is to hope that your team will show itself to be of truly superior quality over the course of the season.
To put it another way, Selig and the MLB owners are profiting from, and therefore are choosing to promote, statistical ignorance: Because people believe in the meaningfulness of small samples, baseball owners make money; and therefore the owners have set up a system (the extended playoffs) that reinforces that belief.
(Really, the extreme logical conclusion of Selig’s “reasoning” would be to randomize the games as much as possible, with misshapen balls, uneven infields, hills in the outfield, and funny ground rules that keep changing– kind of like when you’re organizing a game for grade-school kids and don’t want the more athletic ones to dominate; or, for that matter, like Bill Watterson’s “Calvinball.” That way, each of the 30 teams’ fan bases could have a more or less equal degree of “hope and faith.” But I suppose that would strain to the breaking point even the American public’s credulity….)
Here is a summary of what the many A’s fans who have GONE TO THE
GAMES have seen over the past 4 years:
2000: Game 5 of ALDS. Terrence Long misplays an easy fly ball in center field, which leads to a 6-run inning for the Yankees. Yankees win. Yankees celebrate on A’s field.
2001: Jeter’s play. Seen at the game, and seen roughly 75 times a year ever since on ESPN.
2002: Game 5. A.J. Perzynski 3-run jack off Koch. A.J. taunts A’s players. Twins celebrate on A’s field.
2003: Game 5. Manny literally walks to first base after his 3-run jack. Derek Lowe pumps his crotch to the crowd after getting the final outs in the 9th. Boston celebrates on A’s field.
You tell me GO TO THE GAMES, and I tell you WHAT KIND OF A
MASOCHIST DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?
Carolina reader here
dont know but avaiibility tho
er, ABOUT (instead of but)
Cure for the flu:
A. Feel like crap for a few days.
B. Go back to work.
Alternatively:
A. Take some medicine or quaff some hooch.
B. Feel like crap for a few days.
C. Go back to work.
No thanks necessary.
I think you should check the attendance figures for the Mariners from 1977 to 1995. Pretty impressive, eh?
after you’ve done that, come back with your weak attendance insults.
Hey Greg (36),
Uh, the M’s weren’t competitive at all until 1995. In fact, they sucked. Bad.
The A’s, however, have been in contention for the division for the last 5 years or more and still can’t fill the seats.
There is a huge difference between a crappy team with crappy attendance and good team with crappy attendance.
Really.
1974 Oakland A’s (on the way to third World Series win) = 845,693 fans
April 17, 1979 Seattle at Oakland 653 fans
I totally agree about the Bobby Cox award. The man is a managing god. My dad, a 45-year Braves fan, was astounded by the team’s performance after the all-star break. He said that the Braves were winning because of Bobby Cox and “smoke and mirrors.”
Also, along with the feminine hygiene products ads on channel 842 should be the Viagra/Levitra/Cialis ads. Especially the one with that brunette who flirts with the camera and says: “My man uses Levitra!”
I totall agree with you Shannon! I hate the fact that during nearly every commercial break of a sports game there is a ED ad. I don’t need to hear about stuff like that. And they’re just annoyingly made. I think that any ad that has to do with that part of anatomy (on a male or a female) should get it’s own channel.