BASEBALL/BLOG/ Musings on Pinto

Congratulations are in order for David Pinto, who’s moving on to a job with Baseball Info Solutions, the publishers of the new Bill James Handbook. David’s been a great friend to this site, and I wish him well; he’ll apparently be moving his blog to their site.
I have to wonder if the Sporting News, which bought out STATS, Inc. and shut down its annual baseball handbook (which competed with TSN’s inferior publication), made a huge mistake common to arrogant baseball men by failing to consider that the key STATS employees, starting with John Dewan, might go and re-start essentially the same book with a new company. Had they thought about that, they could have (1) incorporated more of STATS’ elements in the TSN annual or (2) included contract provisions in the sale requiring that key employees not compete with TSN for a number of years. Looks like they whiffed on that one.
On another note, David has this amusing nugget from Peter Gammons:

Gammons and [John] Kerry played hockey against each other in prep school, and Peter told me once that Kerry was the dirtiest hockey player he ever saw.

2 thoughts on “BASEBALL/BLOG/ Musings on Pinto”

  1. Regarding Peter Gammons comment about john kerry and hockey;
    (1) I played lacrosse for six years in prep school before going to harvard, and I don’t know of a lacrosse player in prep school that DIDN’T play dirty if it would help his team win;
    (2) The Sixth Game is still one of my favorite baseball books, but the recent book on racism in Red Sox History does seem to cast some aspersions on Peter Gammons role as primary correspondent for the Red Sox in those years they were lacking in African American Players and could not attract African American free agents and the story went unreported; Joe Cronin, Eddie Collins and Yawkey were all portrayed as racists in that book and you might think a jab would have been taken by Gammons all those years. Don’t get me wrong; Gammons belongs in the Hall of Fame as a journalist; but he missed that story.
    (3) I’d rather have a mean dirty son of a bitch hockey player as our president than some rich man’s son who goes hiding in the bunker when all hell break’s loose in NY City to leave Richard Clarke in charge. I only have one signed athlete on my wall, and that’s Dave Schultz of the Flyers, probably the dirtiest, meanest hockey player who ever played. He only had one job; protect Bobby Clarke from other dirty players. Freddy Shero would send him out if he thought Bobby was getting roughed up, and within second, Dave was hammering some poor enforcer’s face to a bloody pulp. God we loved him in Philly. To meet him and have him personally autograph his photo for me years later was a distinct honor and privilege.
    (4) The Flyers who played dirty beat the Bobby Orr Bruins who player pretty, Peter Gammons. A lesson for presidential politics????

  2. I thought the Kerry hockey thing was pretty funny, but I’d agree that, all things considered, being a dirty hockey player isn’t a bad thing as qualifications for politicians go.

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