Here’s the deal: I’ll be away from the blog this week, so I am leaving up this announcement so you will know that I have guest bloggers. Unfortunately, for reasons I have explained, I can neither add nor alter the names of co-authors on this blog, so both of my guest-bloggers will be logging in under the name of last year’s guest blogger, Mike Rogers of Mike’s Neighborhood. I promise I will fix this as soon as I can, but for now, that’sthe best option we have.
Confused yet? Hopefully not, and I’m asking them to say up front in each post which is which. One of the guest bloggers was once (so long ago I had deleted his account) a co-blogger here under the nom de blog “Kiner’s Korner.” The other, long absent from the blogosphere, is none other than Dr. Manhattan.
Give them both a big welcome, and apologies for any confusion.
10 thoughts on “Programming Note, 2007 Edition”
Comments are closed.
Uh-oh! This sounds dangerous for me. I could go from Liberal Met fan to Uber-Con Yankee fan in a matter of minutes.
To all my admirers (and more importantly, all my haters, who clearly outnumber the former at this site by a large margin), lose no faith in my blasphemous ways.
Sounds like a chance for Mike to come out of the closet and show his true Conservative nature!!!!
So, Mike things will be even more dead over at your place?
Quit wasting your time arguing about Jim Rice and the HOF and get cracking on your Crank posts…
🙂
I don’t come to this site to read logical, reasoned posts. I don’t know if I will be able to handle it.
This article ought to provoke discussion during the dog days of August.
OK Abe, you are right. What a stupid article. Arguing bias over one call a game is absurd, no matter what the race of the ump or pitcher is.
First, I recall Ron Luciano writing how he and other umps would be pissed, and try to make a call against someone who argued too much, and found he couldn’t. Their reflexes on calling balls and strikes were too ingrained.
Second, I can see a bias against Asian pitchers, but not because of race, but one of delivery. It does seem (does that make me biased?) that Asian pitchers are taught a different type of delivery. It’s one that confuses batters, and I’m sure it does so with umps as well.
Third, I wouldn’t be shocked if we found that pitchers like Jim Palmer and Greg Maddux always got the benefit of the doubt. Not only were they always near the strike zone, but their deliveries were so smooth, so easy to follow, with a bastard pitch coming, BTW, that a natural inclination is to go the pitchers’ way.
But Abe, you are right; it’s something to talk about.
The highest level I have umpired at is high school age, but I can tell you that when you start trying to even out calls, you will drive yourself nuts. Every umpire misses calls, it is part of the game. I found that I just had to try to make sure every call was the best I could do. Early on I tried to make up for calls that I had missed and about went crazy. Umpiring baseball is tough enough without making it harder by trying to even out calls. I finally learned that I just had to try to make sure the next call was correct.
Pinto has a related post up with discussion of Questec.
Offerman goes Marichal. I cannot imagine Bud is pleased.
Daryl-
Interesting…
I’ve also “umped” up to (and including) the HS level. While I can’t specifically talk about an “Asian” delivery (Living in Ohio…) , there are always pitchers who are just plain “hard to see”.
Being a “crafty lefty” w/ a 81 mph fastball who threw “3/4” (w/ an occaisional drop to “sidearm”) through a mediocre HS career taught me that much– my whole strategy was that no two pitches ever came from the same direction. :o)