Friday, January 4, 2008

POTPOURRI FOR $200: Everybody in these here parts must be sleeping off the Opening Day (of political season) festivities, but I can't let a full day go by without original, or at least unoriginal, content. So here are some random thoughts, grouped into three categories for ease of reference:

Sports: Some time in the next few days we'll find out that Bert Blyleven has yet again been denied entrance to baseball's hall of fame. There are basically two reasons for this: (1) many voters think that Blyleven just doesn't have enough wins, and in particular 20-win seasons, to qualify; and (2) baseball has an institutional bias against Dutchmen named "Bert." While I agree with the latter, I decided to do some lazy-assed research today, and I found out that during Blyleven's pre-injury period (1970-1980, a period that included his peak), Minnesota, Texas, and Pittsburgh combined to lose an astonishing 50 games where Blyleven pitched at least six innings and gave up two or fewer earned runs (and an additional 36 games where he pitched at least seven innings and gave up three or fewer earned runs). With a better offense and less bad luck, he probably should have won 20 games five times (adding wins for either all of the 2-run 6-inning games or most of those games and some of the 3-run 7-inning games) -- every year from '71 through '75. And then even the idiots who value only W-L records and don't pay attention to run-prevention would put Blyleven where he belonged.

Music: Do you ever wonder what Elvis Costello's first album would have sounded like if he hadn't been stuck with Huey Lewis's awful, noodling, song-ruining backup band?

Apocalyptica: Holy crap, is it ever raining right now.

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