Ask Rotoman

Punk Second Acts, by Lex10

Who knew CBGBs was the minor leagues?

Yahoo! Sports

Jeff Passan, as always, is much more interesting on the Elijah Dukes case than the headline suggests. There’s no reporter doing a better job of getting at the game, I don’t think.

As for Dukes, who is playing in the big leagues now because they wouldn’t have him back in Triple-A, it is a judgment call when to release him for his offenses. But it can’t be the right message to let him play after he sent those message to his estranged wife.

The Official Site of Major League Baseball

Underachieving pitchers, underachieving hitters, and underachieving teams are the subject of this week’s column. It seems that not many write in about their good fortune. Figure out how to measure your bad fortune in this week’s Ask Rotoman.

What Josh Hamilton Has

I got curious about the prognosis for gastroenteritis after it soundeed like he was ready to play Monday, but—as Rotowire put it—”suffered a set back during batting practice.” So, here are some disgusting detail to mull over as he heads to the DL.

Also note that a person with a long history of drug use and an impaired immune system is more likely to have a strong reaction to the virus than someone with a healthy immune system.

What is this page in Cyrillic?

I found this page because somewhere on it you’ll find a link to a full version of Michael Lewis’s influentual book Moneyball, which is clearly posted illegally. (Unless I’m wrong about Russian law.)

But what you’ll also find is a variety of Russian baseball love, not all of it IP impaired.

Feel free to comment on the good stuff. And the bad stuff.

Athletics Nation

I didn’t know about the Player to be Named Later rule, which is good reason to credit this story. At least we don’t have to worry about Brad Halsey being the guy named. Whew.

But I’m not being cranky about that. It’s funny that it’s Halsey, but it’s good to learn new things.

I’m not so sure about the notion of riding the hot hand between the major and minor leagues. While there has to be an advantage to roster flexibility, if only to rotate in the healthiest players you have, I have a hard time believing that anyone can predict that a hot minor league hitter should be promoted because he’s hot.

Hot streaks occur, I think it’s safe to say, generally because in small sample sizes players can get an inordinate number of favorable matchups. Or because in a small sample a player gets lucky. I believe Bill James showed early on that a player’s recent past results had no bearing on his immediate future results. Unless the next at bat, like the last two, is coming against Jae Seo or Jeff Weaver.

I still spend a lot of time in bars arguing this one, so there is money to be won and superstition to be debunked. Sure, there are hot streaks, but by the time you recognize one it’s probably over.

The Official Site of Major League Baseball

Who makes the weather, a reader asks, and I tried to find out. Plus an answer to the musical question, would you trade Maine for Weaver? And why it isn’t time to bail on Ichiro.

Today’s Ask Rotoman at mlb.com (with a weather related question) isn’t posted yet, but my editor sent along this press release from the Red Sox about tonight’s game:

 For Immediate Release

May 16, 2007

 

FENWAY AREA WEATHER UPDATE (As of 3:00 p.m.)

 

The current weather forecast (provided by the Red Sox private weather service, Meteorlogix)  in the vicinity of Fenway Park calls for the possibility of rain showers and thunderstorms in the late afternoon and evening hours that could possibly impact the play of tonight’s Red Sox-Tigers game.

 

The Fenway Park gates will open at the regularly scheduled time of 5:05 p.m., and the Red Sox will do everything possible to make certain that tonight’s game will be played. However, the Red Sox want to alert our fans to the current forecast for this evening.

 

This forecast is of course subject to change as the day progresses.

 
– RED SOX –

We’ll be tracking weather service stories as the season progresses. Somebody has to do it.

MilwaukeeWorld

It seems that Rollie Fingers is Milwaukee’s No. 1 tax deadbeat, though what he owed was only a lot of money. What he owes now with penalties (fair enough) and interest (blast it!) is daunting.

The lesson is if you make lots of money, make sure whoever “helps” you doesn’t leverage you in unbecoming ways.

Boing Boing

I really like boing boing (oh, this has nothing to do with baseball), and I think Digital Rights Management is a fiasco, so when I read this post about the DRM at iTunes being cracked I should have felt excited. But instead I felt a little dirty.

If you don’t like the license agreement at iTMS you can go someplace else. They’re a store, and to say that they’re “evil” for selling stuff is dopey.

And to set out to crack their defense because they believe you’re a sleazy person who doesn’t want to pay for what the creator would like you to pay for (so you steal it) is certainly immoral.

If you’re a cracker and want to beat the iTMS DRM more power to you. But the issue here is one of license. Buy some songs at iTMS and they own the encoding, buy them at eMusic.com and you own them. While that isn’t a solution, it does point to a solution that I think works pretty clearly and fairly:

If you make something you get to sell it, and you get to set the rules. If you really don’t want people to copy your digital stuff you better have some sort of DRM encoding. And they get to choose not to buy it because they think DRM sucks. Or only listen to it on the radio, or in clubs.

That seems fair to me.