{ Monthly Archives }

December 2007

FANTASYLAND documentary film

MLB Radio Fans Forum

We’re a fan of Sam Walker’s Fantasyland, about his year trying to beat the so-called experts in Tout Wars American League experts league, and so we can’t help but be a fan of the attempt of some filmmakers to recreate the magic in Fantasyland: the Documentary.

The link here is to a posting asking for those who might be interested in being the guy to walk in Sam’s shoes this year to respond. I can think of countless not-yet experts who can do the job. Whether or not that’s going to make a good movie is tough to say, but good luck out there.

2007 12 28

Art
Fantasy Sites
Video

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Steroid Use as a Graphic Timeline

bse-timeline-as-revealed.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

There is a benefit to this approach, which shows in broad strokes when major new information was revealed to the public, and in an alternative view when it was happening. Alas, there isn’t enough detail to use this as more than a cheat sheet, but for a quick summary it’s certainly useful. (If the text is too small make your browser window bigger, the text will get bigger, too.)

2007 12 19

Drugs

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Let Baseball Players Police Themselves

JC Bradbury – New York Times

Before the ill-fated War on Terrorism there was the more-provenly ill-fated War on Drugs. One of those drugs wasn’t deco-durabolin, or HGH, or some other performance enhancing drug. But our approach to stopping the scourge of PED’s in baseball and other sports has been more akin to our failed approach to stopping cocaine coming from Columbia and heroin coming from Afghanistan than any actual strategies contemporary thinkers might have come up with.

Whether those strategies might be successful remains to be seen, but JC Bradbury’s approach has the virtue of actual incentives and our knowledge that it hasn’t failed before. I used to believe that because it was impossible to control the use of illicit drugs sports shouldn’t outlaw them, but I’m pretty sure that’s wrong. But I’m totally sure that if you’re going to ban illicit drugs you better come up with effective ways of getting them out of the game.

If you don’t, the whole system will collapse. As it should.

2007 12 16

Drugs
MLB

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No Discipline

Baseball Musings:

I may have written about David Pinto’s story earlier, but I know that spent much of tonight arguing the same thing. Discipline in this case is futile, for the most part, and counterproductive. The right thing would have been to embrace the information anyone would have given without threat of punishment, the better to judge what happened.

We still want to know what happened, because so many players who feared punishment didn’t talk to Mitchell.

That was a mistake.

2007 12 14

Drugs
Legal
MLB
Players

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FireKennyWilliams.com has been taken – by Major League Baseball

Home Run Derby

Amazing. And they didn’t pay the extra couple of bucks to cloak the registrant’s identity.

2007 12 13

Blogs
Business
Funny
GMs
MLBAM

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Mitchell Report to Name Names

Newsvine

This post is mostly to express my weariness about the forthcoming Mitchell report. Since everybody else in the world seems to have an opinion, why not me? Mine is that all discussion before the report is released, including leaks of tantalizing tidbits that don’t actually include information, should be taken in the form of PR people spinning, since at this point none of us know anything real about the report.

My ears did perk up when someone leaked that there would be surprises. I’ll be surprised (but hardly shocked) if that’s the case.

2007 12 13

Business
Drugs
MLB
Owners
Players

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The Windup: The A-Rod Gamble

Portfolio.com

I’ve met Franz Lidz and I like him and his writing a lot. This happens to be an old story, but I still recommend it because the issues with A-Rod’s contract are huge. When Jose Guillen signs for $12M per year, doesn’t A-Rod’s new deal look cheap?

2007 12 09

MLB
Players

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Union-Busting at the Hall of Fame

New York Times

When I read that Bowie Kuhn was voted into the Hall of Fame, I yawned. Fay Vincent reminds me why I should have been mad.

2007 12 08

Business
History
MLB
News
Owners

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Yardbarker: Dontrelle Willis

welcome

I’m eternally dubious of enterprises like Yardbarker, simply because when I get there I can’t figure out what it is I want. But reading Dontrelle’s take on the trade, well, Nuthing Compares 2 It.

And I think there’s no doubt that Dontrelle wrote his stuff (no PR guy wrote it, though it was probably vetted), which changes the whole idea of news. Which, I think, is a good thing.

I say that as if news wasn’t already a version of PR.

Good stuff, Dontrelle, keep it up.

2007 12 06

Blogs
Players

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