Why I Like Baseball

The scene is a conference room, shades drawn, coffee cups scattered across the table as the scriptwriters gather for a brainstorming session.

“Okay, how about this?” one of them says. “The kid, totally green rookie, gets a shot because a veteran player goes down, and then he hits a home run in his first game.”

“Yeah, okay,” another one says, “But then he also needs to hit a home run in the playoffs that year!”

“Too cliched,” a third one opines, “unless there’s a controversy about the homer. A fan reaches over, pulls it in, but…”

“But that just makes it all the more magical!” The first writer leaps to her feet, waving her pencil perilously close to the one next to her. (more…)

Went to three fascinating research presentations today at the SABR convention. Today’s topics I chose to attend were ballpark advertising and how it relates to branding, the influx of Cuban defectors, and William Hulbert. Presented respectively by the son and grandson of a former major leaguer, the current English-language expert on Cuban baseball, and one of SABR’s leading economists with multiple publications in the Baseball Research Journal.

Also today were the 1980 Astros panel, the Women in Baseball panel, the Media panel, and the trivia contest finals. Trivia gets more and more entertaining every year: they really have it down pat these days and the answers are just as entertaining for the audience as the questions are for the contestants.

Here’s the official description of the first presentation I went to: (more…)

Here are my notes on the SABR 44 keynote by Reid Ryan in Houston. If you’re not familiar with Mr. Ryan you might have thought you were about to hear a speech by a dull front-office wonk. Savvy folks however might have realized that Ryan is a pretty big name in Texas baseball.

Houston Chapter President Bob Dorrill introduced the speaker with a recounting of Reid Ryan’s career and accomplishments, which are significant. Among other things he pitched for the Texas Rangers after graduating from TCU, was the founder of the Round Rock Express minor league team, and of course more recently has taken the job as president of the Houston Astros. He left it to Ryan himself to reveal to anyone not in the know that he also happens to be Nolan Ryan’s son.

What followed was an anecdote-packed recounting of some of Ryan’s favorite memories of the journey through baseball that led him first as a kid following his Dad from major league city to major league city all the way to what he’s trying to accomplish with Houston today. (more…)

After only making it to one research presentation yesterday, I hit three in a row today. I was too fatigued upon waking this morning to make it to the Media Panel. Having made myself rather ill last year by pushing too hard and doing too much (at all conventions, not just SABR’s), I made the decision to go back to sleep and hope that the audio or video of the panel will be online later.

Including yesterday, here are four of the RPs I saw:

* What About Solly Hemus? (Mark Armour)

* Analyzing Batter Performance Against Pitcher Clusters (Vince Gennaro)

* Baseball in the Age of Big Data: Why the Revolution Will Be Televised (Sean Lahman)

* Statistical Predictors of MLB Players’ Proneness to Long Hitting Streaks (Alan Reifman and Trent McCotter)
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So I mentioned in my recap of the SABR convention this summer that I saw an advance screening there of the film KNUCKLEBALL! And that I loved it.

Well, I am happy to report the film easily stands up to a second viewing. Tuesday night I had a chance to attend a terrific event at the Regal Cinemas over by Fenway: a screening of the film followed by a live Q&A with Tim Wakefield, Charlie Hough, Phil Niekro, and Wilbur Wood, as well as filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern. (And then a VIP reception after that, but more on that later.)

First, let me gush about the film a little, because totally awesome as it was to have the players there, and to shake Phil Niekro’s hand and tell him I played women’s hardball and thank him for the Silver Bullets, the film itself is so superlative that it was still the best thing of the night. (more…)

So, some of you may have seen via the SABR newsletters and my other social media things, that I’m editing the Fall 2011 issue of the Baseball Research Journal, aka BRJ.

BRJ is SABR’s main research publication, and has become one of the premiere places to publish ground-breaking research into both baseball history and statistical analysis. (SABR = Society for American Baseball Research).

SABR was founded in 1971, and it’s probably not a coincidence that the society’s formation came about just as many other changes were coming to the game. So this special themed issue will have some (not all) of its articles focused on baseball from 1971 to the present. Consider the following upheavals & changes we’ve seen in our lifetimes: (more…)

Dangit. I just heard of Ryne Duren’s passing yesterday at age 81. I am supposed to be working on a biography of him for the SABR Bioproject, but he hadn’t answered my recent letter. I was going to try to track down a more recent phone number for him, but now I won’t get that chance.

The reason I took the Duren assignment for the Bioproject, honestly, is because I was hoping to have another great chat with Ryne like the one we had back in 2003 when I was working on The 50 Greatest Yankees Games. He winters in Florida like many people, and so I met him one February when I went down for pitchers and catchers. On that trip I interviewed a lot of former Yankees, including Tom Tresh (who also sadly passed as well) and Phil Linz (still kickin’). Ryne wanted to know if I could meet him at a greasy spoon near Lakeland. This wasn’t that near either his home nor where I was, but I readily agreed.

When I got there I found out why he wanted to meet there–because of the proximity to several large pawn shops. In his dotage, Ryne had become something of a junk connoisseur, and apparently it’s more fun to hunt for junk with company that without. I happily went with him to pick through piles of used lawnmowers, lamps, stereo equipment, etc. We found no gems, but it was fun, and then we settled into the little diner nearby to have a bite to eat and talk baseball.

At the time I was working on The 50 Greatest Yankee Games, so I had a bunch of questions about Duren’s teammates to ask him (he played with the Yankees from 1958-1961) but sometimes you never know what you’re going to find if you just let a fellow talk. And Duren was a talker, that’s for sure.

In our conversation he told me stories about how Lefty O’Doul helped him with his pitching control, how alcoholism probably hurt his control, meeting Marilyn Monroe, getting batting tips from Joe DiMaggio, how having an infected heart as a child turned him into a baseball fan, Whitey Ford, Ralph Terry, and much more. What follows is pretty much a verbatim transcript of that afternoon:

Ryne Duren: Did you know I just wrote a book, too?

Cecilia Tan: No, I had no idea.

RD: I’ll get you a copy. [goes out and gets one from the car] I’m going to go down and autograph copies at the museum in St. Pete [where the "Baseball as America" Hall of Fame exhibit was showing at the time]. I don’t know how much research you did about me but I’m known for two things, I have real bad eyes and I had terrible alcohol problem. Anyway, this is kind of a play off of both. [The title of the book is "I Can See Clearly Now."]

CT: Did you really hit a guy in the on deck circle in the minors?

RD: Oh no. That’s a myth. But what I did do was (more…)

Announcement of the winners of this year’s award winners!
Neal Traven, head of the judges, announces that unfortunately neither the poster winner nor the research presentation winner could be present. But he gives a recap of the winners and their topics. (And the poster, which was very beautifully done, was displayed in the back.)
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The Research Process: Seymour Medal Winners Panel
Dorothy Seymour Mills, David Block, Tom Swift

Official description(s):
Magnolia Chapter member Ken Fenster moderates a discussion with Dorothy Seymour Mills, David Block and Tom Swift about the ups and downs of the research process, from the formulation of original ideas all the way through to publication. The panelists will use examples from their own works to illustrate the difficulties researchers must face, and the strategies that were useful in meeting those challenges.
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Yesterday before dashing for the bus to the ballpark, I actually managed to see a little more than half of Robert Fitts’s presentation on Babe Ruth and Eiji Sawamura, the 17 year old pitcher who struck the Babe out and became a national hero. The young pitcher had forfeited his future in academia by taking the pitching gig, as “professional athletes” were not allowed to continue in school at the time, but the lure of facing Ruth was too enticing and he signed with the team Yomiuri was putting together.

This was during the same MLB all-star tour of Japan on which Moe Berg did some of his infamous spying. The MLB team played 10 games on the tour and won them all, but the game Fitts described, which the young Sawamura pitched, was a near thing. Sawamura held the big leaguers in check, ending up losing 1-0 on a solo homer by Lou Gehrig.

I ducked out of the room just as Fitts was reading an ironic quote from some optimistic observer of the baseball tour of Japan, claiming that these nations would never be wracked by war again. (World War II was just around the corner.)
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Okay, gearing up for the last five research presentations of the day. I might have to miss the last one in order to get the bus to the ballpark in time. I probably should have not paid for the bus and just taken MARTA instead, but when I was buying my tickets months ago it had seemed like a good idea. I actually went and took a nap instead of eating lunch, because my eyes were trying to shut during the last two presentations before it.

This afternoon it is really difficult to choose which presentation to see, but I decided to start with Vince Gennaro because every year he comes up with something very sharp and insightful. It means missing Gary Gillette’s presentation on disappearing Negro League ballparks, but I figure I can get Gary to give me the gist of it later if I see him in the bar or at the game.

The slate:

Vince Gennaro – Measuring the asset value of players: A framework for evaluating trades

Geri Strecker – Whose dream was it?: Revisiting the formation of the Negro National League in 1920

Ross Davies – Chinese-U.S. baseball diplomacy before the Great War

Will Dahlberg – A tool for diplomacy: Baseball in occupied Japan 1945-1952

Robert Fitts – Babe Ruth, Eiji Sawamura and war
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Revising Mantle’s Griffith Stadium Home Run
A Case Study in Forensic Physics
Alan Nathan

An intriguing look at one of the most iconic moments in the career of one of baseball’s most iconic figures. Lots has been written about the famous homer, as written about in the book CLOUT by Dan Valenti. The characters: Yankee publicist Red Patterson, Mickey Mantle, and Donald Dunaway. The places: Griffith Stadium and 434 Oakdale Place. But the claim that the homer carried 565 feet has been “debunked” before.
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SABR Liveblogging Day 2

I’m late to the Braves Player Panel. I would have been on time, but something I had at the breakfast buffet didn’t agree with me. I’m there now, though…

Phil Niekro, Mark Lemke, Bobby Cox, Ron Gant, and moderated by Pete Van Wieren

Recapped below!

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In this post:

Resting the Pitcher: How Useful are Pitch Counts and Days of Rest?
Sean Forman and JC Bradbury

Where have You Gone, Tony Lazzeri?
Lawrence Baldasarro

Pitchers As Fielders: A Quantitative Analysis or… Why Kirk Rueter is the best-fielding pitchers of all time
John Knox

21 Facts You Didn’t Know About 1921
Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz

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Liveblogging SABR 40!

Just wrapped up two more research presentations:

Sanctioned Post-Season Series by Marty Pankin and Mike Canton

Using Marcel the Monkey to Help Understand Different Eras in Baseball by Andy Andres

These are kind of raw reports, and I apologize for any typos. I’m typing as fast as I can most of the time. For those of you who have never been to one of these things, each research presentation is 20 minutes long, with 5 minutes for questions, and then bam, the schedule turns over to the next one.

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I’ve had no sleep so I could be on a crack of dawn flight to Atlanta, but here I am! Liveblogging what I can from the 40th annual convention of the Society for American Baseball Research. There’s wireless in the conference area! So I’ll try to post more than once a day.

First up:

A Heisman Trophy in College Baseball? (Karl Green)

Scranton Times Coverage of 1906 New York State League Championship Led by Moonlight Graham (Jim Frutchey)

Southern Baseball and Southern Gimmicks (Norman Graubart)

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It’s officially SABR day in America (America includes Canada, too, as there are chapters/meetings in Toronto and Montreal, plus Puerto Rico has a chapter and meeting today, and presumably Mexico would be included if there were a chapter there…). Many SABR chapters are having Hot Stove meetings today and other shindigs to celebrate. (Schedule).

I’m a member of the Boston chapter, but also one of the first “online chapters,” the SABR charter community of bloggers known as the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. Since I’m feeling a bit under the weather and may not make it to my Boston chapter meeting, I figured I’d offer this trivia quiz for seamheads everywhere to enjoy.

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Under the link, the answers to the SABR DAY trivia quiz! So don’t click until you’ve looked at the questions!

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Tonight corwin and I continued our time warp through history, watching the next three World Series films in order with 1945, 1946, and 1947. In my mind these three series’ were The Goat Curse Series, Slaughter’s Dash, and Jackie’s First.

As the 1945 film begins there is no sound, presumably because the soundtrack was lost or damaged, which only serves to intensify the feeling that what we’re watching is archival. It picks up quickly enough in the intro, though, and it’s clear that in this, the third World Series film in a row done by Lew Fonseca and crew, they are still pushing the envelope and searching for ways to make the film more entertaining and watchable. This time the key players on each club are introduced with little bios and accomplishments, and then the lineups are given. There are also some faces here that reinforce that notion that pitchers are greyhounds–made of long limbs and graceful faces–while catchers are pugs and bulldogs–embodiments of flat-faced, broadshouldered cragginess. The two examples that epitomize these standards, pitcher Hal Newhouser and Tiger’s manager Steve O’Neill (a former backstop).
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Roll the Newsreels!

I began watching the DVD collection from MLB, The Official World Series Film Collection, last night. My friends pooled their money together to purchase it for me as a Christmas gift and I’m finally getting the chance to watch it.

As determined by WILBB reader suggestions, I started at the beginning. The first film in the collection is the 1943 series, Cardinals versus Yankees.

Watching the film is truly like turning back time. (more…)