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November 20, 2009

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Most Recent Comments

Great Moments in Championship Celebrations (4)
My Morning in Exile (13)
Your Thursday afternoon tizzy (34)
My Morning in Exile (9)
Lincecum takes the Cy Young (24)

Shyster's Daily Circuit

Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Great Moments in Championship Celebrations

This has nothing to do with baseball at all, but this story sent to me by MooseinOhio is so cool that I gotta post it somewhere.*

After the Celtics won the 1986 championship, [Bill] Walton sat alone in Bird’s kitchen drinking Wild Turkey until after the sun came up.

I told Bird I didn’t believe the Walton story. Simply too good to be true.

“Yeah, it happened,’’ he said. “After we won, me and Dinah went out to K.C. Jones’s restaurant. He had a rib place. I had two beers. Remember how we stopped drinking that year?’’ - the ’86 Celtics swore off alcohol for their playoff run - “Well, I had two beers and they didn’t even taste good. I was tired, anyway, so I went home an hour later.

“Bill came over. It was late. Doorbell rang and Dinah answered and she was like, ‘Hey, Bill. Larry’s in bed.’ I heard him, so I go out and I said, ‘Hey, man I ain’t doing this tonight. I can’t.’ He goes, ‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t even need you. I’m just going to sit down here at the table.’ He had a bottle of whiskey. And he said, ‘I’ll be here when you wake up.’ And he was.

Drinking Wild Turkey in a kitchen until dawn > spraying champagne all over sweaty guys in a locker room. Though, yeah, I suppose those things aren't mutually exclusive activities after cutting down the nets.

*As an FYI, after the switchover to NBC, I'm probably going to revive my old dead personal blog for stuff that I can't really post over there, non-baseball stuff, and what have you. As of now there's only some old remembrances and a road trip diary. It might serve as a nice hangout going forward, though.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:00pm (4) Comments

My Morning in Exile

So I get to take the kids for their H1N1 vaccinations today. That should be a barrel of laughs. On the bright side, they're spending the night at my folks' house, so I'll only have to hear their complaining about it until I drop them off around dinner time. After that, Mrs. Shyster and I grab some fabulous Columbus cuisine and sample the hot Columbus nightlife. Well, what else are we gonna do? We're all through with "The Wire" DVDs.

On the heels of his Cy Young ballot yesterday, you won't be surprised to learn that Keith Law has Carl Pavano at number one on his annual list of Top 50 free agents.

Tim Lincecum's agent, employer and publicist are very, very sorry for his actions.

Gammons and Edes break down the Red Sox' offseason. They'll return to pretending to be national as opposed to local columnists later today.

Aaron Heilman will definitely be coming out of the pen in Arizona.

Stephen Strasburg hurts his knee; Matt Wieters called to lay hands.

Paul Lo Duca: he may be old, he may have been a steroid creation, he may have messed around behind his wife's back with a teenage girl and he may have been caught up in gambling allegations, but . . . wait, I lost my train of thought here. Anyone wanna go get a sandwich?

As for "The Wire," the best thing I got out of it is the certainty that my recent decision to stop watching any non-ballgame-related television was a good one. Unless they bring back "Barney Miller" or something, there's no way any show can top it, so why waste my time?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:10am (13) Comments

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Your Thursday afternoon tizzy

There is some brewing discontent over the NL Cy Young vote, as two members of the webby portion of the BBWAA -- our friends Keith Law and Will Carroll -- did not include Chris Carpenter on their three-man Cy Young ballots. Keith voted Javier Vazquez second (Lincecum first and Wainwright third) and Will voted Wainwright first, Lincecum second and Danny Haren third. They were the only ones who included Vazquez or Haren on their ballots.

A comment about this from reader Ron in the thread below my earlier post:

“Two voters, Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus and Keith Law of ESPN.com, did not include Carpenter on their ballots.” Nice. Leave the best pitcher in the NL off of your ballots to insure the saber-metric favorite wins. The BBWAA guys might not be the best at voting, but the saber friendly guys don’t have the right to accuse them of manipulating the vote anymore.

Ron, I love you. You've been reading this blog longer than just about anyone and I always appreciate your input. But you're factually wrong here inasmuch as even if Will changed his vote for Haren to Carpenter and and Law did the same with his Vazquez vote, Lincecum still wins. And really, if Will was really trying to throw it to Lincecum, wouldn't he have voted him first?

But I don't mean to single out Ron. I posted his comment simply because it stands at the somewhat extreme end of the discontent I've read at a few message boards. There really are people out there scratching their heads at this, and I imagine there will be at least a little grousing about their votes over the next couple of slow news days.

For my part, I wouldn't have voted the same way Keith and Will did -- neither Vazquez nor Haren would have made my ballot -- but they explain their rationale and I understand why they voted the way they voted even if I disagree with it. At the very least I understand docking Carpenter based on innings pitched, and that seems to be the point of controversy here. I'm a bit more of a romantic than Keith and Will are, I think, so I'd probably have included him on my ballot for reasons associated with his comeback from injury and all of that, but it's certainly legitimate to not include him.

I predict that some people will use Keith's and Will's votes in some argument that statheads shouldn't be given the franchise over the next couple of days. Such an argument, if it comes, should be rejected out of hand. At most this is some down-ballot curiosity, the sort of which we see on the votes for every award.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:24pm (34) Comments

Lincecum takes the Cy Young

I don't have a link yet, but people are talking about it already. He's a fine choice. Great year. I probably undervalued the fact that he had more innings than Carpenter, so no arguments here.

Given that he has a court date on a controlled substance thing coming up soon, be prepared for the most boring celebration party of all time.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:54pm (24) Comments

My Morning in Exile

I know it's basically just been a string of MMIE's lately, and for that I apologize. Wrapping up one's legal career and preparing to jump right into a new one really has a way of taking up the afternoon. Still, six new posts a day ain't exactly chopped liver as far as baseball bloggers go. You can still complain in the comments, though. Heck, I'm not happy with it myself. I feel like I'm watching baseball from 1000 yards right now. Anyway:

A guy I know up in Flint tells this story about life at GM in the 80s that may be total bullshit, but I hope to God is true (it's certainly truthy). Goes like this: GM used to give out cash awards to engineers and designers who came up with particularly innovative ideas, redesigns, etc. that ended up being adopted in production cars. One year, this fellow suggests that the radiator caps and windshield washer fill caps and stuff be painted and color coded so that morons don't confuse them with one another and, I dunno, quit putting oil in the radiator. Great idea! Here's your $1000 or whatever. After it's put in production, the paint started to burn and bubble under the heat of the engine and caused a terrible smell. Same guy proposes that they cease painting the caps and gets another $1000. I bring this up only because Bud Selig now has the bright idea to tighten up the playoff schedule he loosened up a couple of years ago. I can't wait until this dude's Hall of Fame induction speech.

The Nats hire Davey Johnson. Maybe they should call Howard Johnson about their opening at shortstop.

Hideki Matsui pays for himself. You can't afford not to buy!

Scott Boras is allegedly living in fantasyland. I wish it were "Fantasy Island." I loved that show. I even liked the Malcom McDowell remake from a few years ago. Smiles everyone, smiles.

Lincecum or Carpenter? I dunno. Lincecum was probably better, but I'm finding myself sort of leaning Carpenter. If this whole blogging thing takes off I suppose it's not crazy to think that I'd become a BBWAA member someday. In light of that I should probably man-up and make a case for one of them.

The Yankees and Jays are talking Roy Halladay. If that happens, they may as well just suspend baseball because it will guarantee the Yankees the championship. You know, like how signing Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi and Randy Johnson guaranteed them all of those championships a few years ago.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:16pm (9) Comments

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

My Morning in Exile

In the wake of my many threats to grow the greatest Grizzly Adams beard the world has ever seen once I start blogging full time next month, my wife emails me this post written by famed blogger Heather Armstrong and says "you married the wrong woman!" Which, while I see her point, is totally not true. Armstrong may have a thing for guys at computers with beards, but she's a stay at home blogger too. If I had married her, our kids wouldn't have health insurance. So, no worries Mrs. Shyster, I still love you and all of your fabulous benefits . . .

Mike Scioscia and Jim Tracy are almost certain to win the Manager of the Year Award today.

The Nats are interested in John Lackey. I'm interested in expensive stuff that I can't really use too, but neither of us is going to get it.

Are the Dodgers going to go after Keith Lockhart too?

Joba has no idea if he's gonna start or come out of the pen next year. He doesn't strike me as a live-in-the-moment guy, so the Yankees should probably tell him their plans eventually.

Rosenthal says that Mark DeRosa is going to sign with the Phillies. He also had the story on my breakfast before I even woke up this morning. Dude's good at what he does.

Attention Omar: there's a guy out there who doesn't suck who actually wants to play for the Mets. You'd better get on this before he changes his mind.

Parent-teacher conference at ShysterDaughter's kindergarten at 1PM. I have this feeling that the fact that I've been calling her "Mookie" lately is going to come up.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:31am (17) Comments

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Great Moments in Transparency: Christina Kahrl’s Rookie of the Year vote

It's too much to ask every writer to be as thorough as Christina Kahrl is in explaining her Rookie of the Year vote, but how nice would it be if every voter actually explained the thought process behind their awards choices?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:59pm (6) Comments

It’s Greinke

Not a big surprise. Two writers voted King Felix first. One voted for Verlander. First place votes for Sabathia would have bothered me. Overall nothing to complain about here.

He's getting married on Saturday too, so all in all it's a pretty good week for Zack.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:41pm (7) Comments

My Morning in Exile

Slow day, so I scan the news. Great (Captain Robert Falcon) Scott! Or was it Shackleton?

AL Cy Young today. Greinke should get it, but the writers once gave the damn thing to Jack McDowell for cryin' out loud, so who knows?

For relaxing times, make it Takahashi time.

Cancel the candlelight vigil: the ballplayers who had money with Allen Stanford aren't going to get sued.

The Mets want to be in the Joel Piniero business.

Caveat Emptor on Pedro.

I take a second pass at the Twins' new uniforms.

Roald Amundsen: the Chase Utley of explorers. Discuss.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:48am (11) Comments

Monday, November 16, 2009

New Twins uniforms revealed

New house, new duds:

Plans for the new uniforms and logos unveiled today include:

Primary Home Uniform - The "Twins" script has been slightly altered and updated for 2010 and beyond.

Secondary Throwback Uniform - Twins players will wear a circa 1961 throwback uniform on Opening Day as well as every home Saturday during the 2010 season. The uniforms are modeled after the wool version worn during the team's first season in Minnesota.

Primary Road Uniform - Twins players will wear new solid grey road uniforms (no pinstripes) in 2010 featuring a "Minnesota" script inspired by the team's original "Minnesota" script found on the players jackets from 1961-1986.

Some pics available here. Some others here. Personally, I like the elimination of pinstripes on the road, which I think looks impossibly lame. Pinstripes = sharpness. Sharpness demands white. Pinstripes on gray looks terrible.

I also like the near elimination of the "M" cap (it's still available in an alternate cap). The TC is one of the coolest logos around. The more of that the better. And of course, as I've mentioned many times in the past, the M logo gives me flashbacks to 1987 and 1991, and those Twins teams bummed me out pretty terribly.

If they really wanted to be cool they would have eliminated the solid blue home alternate which never, ever, ever, ever, ever looks good. On any team. Anywhere. at any time. Solid jerseys that don't match the pants ought to be banned.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:28pm (13) Comments