Random Musings of Questionable Value

Reports of the 300-Game Winner's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

2009-06-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

With Randy Johnson’s 300th win on Thursday night, sports columns and radio shows are rampart with the speculation that he may be the last 300 game winner for the foreseeable future, if ever. At first glance, they seem correct – 46 year old Jamie Moyer is the next closest with 250 wins. Other prime pitchers seem too old with too few wins: Andy Pettitte (220 wins; 37 years old); Pedro Martinez (214; 37); Roy Halladay (140; 32); Roy Oswalt (131; 31); CC Sabathia (122; 28)

But, when looking at the history of 300 game winners since 1982, when Gaylord Perry became the first to reach the mark in nearly 20 years, hope begins to emerge. Even Andy Pettitte and Pedro Martinez, who may seem near the end of their careers at 37, has more wins than Randy Johnson did at that age, and also more than Phil Niekro.

To be sure, Randy Johnson and Phil Niekro were quite a bit behind the power curve compared to other 300 game winners of the era, but they made it. Their careers also started later than other 300 game winners, perhaps allowing for them to pitch further into their 40s as well. But, when one looks at some of the younger pitchers, there are a few promising candidates. Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt both are on pace with at least 3 other 300 game winners, as are Mark Buehrle, Johan Santana and Barry Zito.

Just from the perspective of wins vs. age, the best candidate is CC Sabathia, who has 122 wins at 28 years of age. That would put him ahead of the pace for Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro and Gaylord Perry. Indeed, the only recent 300 game winners he is not ahead of are Greg Maddux and Tom Seaver.

To be sure, he, and any of the others are still a long way away from the mark, need to stay healthy and need continued success. It may seem like a long shot for any of these pitchers to reach that mark. But it most have seemed like a long shot in 2000 when 36 year old Randy Johnson wrapped up his 13th major league season still more than 20 games short of 200 wins.

Language Foul of the Day

2009-04-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

I just read an article about a man who "organized an impromptu pillow fight." Really? It wasn't very "impromptu" then, was it?

Best National Anthem Renditions

2009-04-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

I just saw on the Time website that they had a list of the 10 worst performances of the National Anthem. I don't have quite the readership of Time, but I felt compelled to make a list of my favorite National Anthem performances. It's amazing how many of them are Super Bowl performances.

I've only listed 8, but it's getting late. They're in no particular order, except Whitney Houston, who is at the top.

- Whitney Houston

- Marvin Gaye

- Jimi Hendrix

- Faith Hill

- Beyonce

- Mariah Carey

- Carrie Underwood

- Combined Choirs from the US Naval Academy, US Air Force Academy, US Military Academy at West Point and US Coast Guard Academy

Whither Language?

2009-02-22T18:20:00.000-08:00

I'm no Henry Higgins, or any sort of student of language, but I have been wondering lately what the English (or American) language will sound like in a hundred years. I recently got a Twitter account, which is an amusing little service (though of minimal use to me personally, some, like Gary Vaynerchuk, seem to be using it to great effect). The thing about Twitter is that one is limited to messages of 140 characters.

That got me thinking about the other pressures we have to compress our messages into the fewest words. Cell phone text messages are similarly limited; TV sound bites force public figures to over simplify their message; and the sheer volume of information available to people on the web reward those able to get their point across quickly and efficiently, if not comprehensively.

So, what does that mean for language structure? Our language patterns obviously change fairly rapidly, and to a more significant extent than just the shift in popular slang. Backed up by no research whatsoever, it seems to me that 50 to 75 years is about the length of time it takes for significant style changes to occur. Movie dialogue and political speeches from the 40s and 50s is decidedly different than today, to say nothing of the 1860s or 1770s.

It seems that the pressures of information flow will force us to strip language down to its bear bones, ensuring the essential meaning is communicated quickly as one may not have the opportunity to get further. Americans in general have the reputation of going straight at the heart of a topic, compared to other cultures who approach issues more leisurely. It may be that those cultures may have more of a language adjustment in the near term than we will. (a sampling of the latest Twitter messages often reveals at least a couple posts in Japanese and Chinese, and sometimes in languages I don't even recognize)

In all, I hope that we will find some sort of balance between the need to quickly share information with the benefits of being able to fully explain context, and the beauty of well written or well spoken words.

P.S.- For those disappointed in my lack of posting lately, I would like to highlight the "no periodicity" clause of my blog introduction. Sure, I'd like to be inspired more often, but such is life.

Trivia for the Night

2008-10-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

Going into tonight's game, the Cubs and Dodgers have met 2,024 times. The series is tied 1,012 - 1,012. They had never met in a post season game.

They Don't Do Nostalgia Like They Used To

2008-09-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

I’m not a Yankees fan by any means, but as I am sitting here watching the final game in Yankee Stadium, I must say I am very disappointed that ESPN failed to show any of the pregame festivities. It seems like it would have been easy to shift SportsCenter over to ESPN2 and get a nice ratings boost from all the baseball fans looking to relive a little history. (Or perhaps I would be extremely disappointed once again in the stark realities of America’s collective taste and find out that they did do that study and found that people would prefer to watch highlights from NFL week 3 rather than highlights of 85 years of baseball’s most prestigious venue)

Without even thinking too hard, I come up with Ruth hitting the first home run at the stadium, Gehrig’s farewell speech (not to mention his consecutive games streak only recently broken), the only perfect game in the World Series, Jackie Robinson stealing home on Yogi during the World Series (though Yogi would argue), 26 Championships (plus however many World Series that the Yankees lost), the first time in baseball history where a team came from three games down in a seven game series (against the Yankees, but the final drama played out in Yankee Stadium) and the emotional World Series after 9/11.

So, I think it would have been worth and hour of ESPN's time to let baseball fans around the country share in the pregame ceremonies.

To come full circle, here are some of the first and last stats for Yankee Stadium. Hopefully Wrigley and Fenway will stay around for many years to come.

(Firsts shamelessly copied from Dugout Central)
First Game: April 18, 1923
Score: Yankees 4, Red Sox 1
First Pitch by: Bob Shawkey (Yankees)
First Batter: Chick Fewster (Red Sox)
First Hit: George Burns (Red Sox; no, not that George Burns, but he could have been, the late actor was 27 at the time)
First Home Run: Babe Ruth
First Error: Babe Ruth

Last Game, Sept 21, 2008
Score: Yankees 7, Orioles 3
Last Home Run: Jose Molina (Yankees)
Last Run Scored: Brett Gardner (Yankees)
Last Hit: Jason Giambi (Yankees)
Last Pitch by: Mariano Rivera (Yankees)
Last Batter: Brian Roberts (Orioles)

China Olympic History

2008-08-12T16:29:00.001-07:00

One thing I really enjoy about my family is how intellectually curious everyone is. In a comment to my last post, my ever-inquisitive sister-in-law asked "Say, here's a question, why did China not participate in the [Summer] Olympics during the 30+ years prior to the 1984 LA Olympics??"
Wow, here I am, someone who eats up all sorts of China stuff and I had no idea there was such a gap. That, of course, instigated a spate of internet research to find out what the history was. Which is a fascinating thing in itself when you're researching the history of regime that controls things as tightly as the Chinese. You can go for the official version with the usual biases, random articles that seem helpful, but you're not really sure of the quality / accuracy, if they have an agenda or what it is, wikipedia entries that could use a little grammar help, the Americanized version (i.e. many pictures and few words), etc..
It's a muddled history, depending on which source you read. Ah, if I only had primary sources! But, I'm not quite up to that level of research on this topic tonight.
Anyway depending on which source you read, here are some Chinese Olympic highlights

1896: The IOC either does or does not extend and invite to the Qing dynasty to participate in the first Olympics. If they do get an invite, the Qing dynasty does not reply.

1932: The government in Manchuria was going to send two athletes, but one of them(Liu Changchun) refused to represent the Japanese puppet regime, and was then sponsored by the Chinese nationalist government. The other athlete (Yu Xiwei) either was arrested by the Japanese or also attended the games. I go with the first option, as he is not mentioned in the official version of the history, and if a 2nd Chinese athlete had spurned the Japanese, I'm sure the PRC would mention it.

1952: China attends for the first time as the "People's Republic of China" (though arrives too late to compete due to political disputes as to whether to invite Taiwan or China) A cut from the "official version" shows you why I love reading propaganda: "With the overthrow of the Kuomintang government, which was rotten to the core, the People's Republic of China was established in the next year. Paying great attention to the people's health and the cause of sport, the new regime adopted a positive attitude toward the global Olympic Movement."

1956: Versions of this are pretty darn muddled, but suffice it to say that the whole "one China" question raises it's head. It appears to me that the PRC boycotted the games since they included athletes from the Republic of China (Taiwan). PRC-slanted histories say the IOC banned them from the games or kicked them out of the IOC in favor of Taiwan, but my impression is that their logic is that since the IOC tolerated the presence of Taiwan, they "forced" the principled PRC to withdraw, which is in their view, being banned.

1980: The PRC rejoins Olympic competition at Lake Placid following a compromise where Taiwan will compete under "Chinese Taipei", using a special flag, rather than their national flag. However, they boycott the Summer Olympics in the USSR, along with other countries, due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

1984: The PRC rejoins the summer competition. Actually, since the 1952 team was the first PRC team, and arrived too late to compete, and the 1956 team boycotted on the eve of the games, this is really the first team from the PRC to compete in the Summer Games.

Anyway, there is a brief history of China in the Olympics for everyone. It may even be mostly accurate! ;)

Fun With the Press

2008-08-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

One thing I am endlessly fascinated with is how the press chooses two things. The first is story placement and how long to run a story. The second, and subject of this blog is pictures they choose to use, especially for really well known people that must have hundreds of file photos. I remember when Condeleeza Rice was in the middle of the controversy as to whether she would testify before Congress or not. While she was refusing to testify, cnn.com had a very dour looking picture of her, with her arms folded across her chest. But, when they ran the story saying she had just agreed to testify, suddenly it was a much more genial picture of her. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so I'm not going to accuse cnn.com of putting politics into their picture-choosing, I just think it's interesting. Is real thought put into it, is it random, a subconcious choice by the picture-person, two different people choosing the pictures, etc, etc, etc..

So, with that background you may understand that I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw the picture cnn.com put up for the lead story of Sen. Edwards admitting his extramarital affair:

See what I mean? I'd say it's a pretty darn good picture of him and about the worst picture in the world of her. I imagine there are not nearly as many pictures of her, but there are other pictures. How the heck did they decide to place those two pictures together?
Whatever the reason, keep your eyes open when perusing the news sites. It's pretty interesting!

The Third Kind of Lie

2008-08-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Benjamin Disraeli

My uncle sent me an article from the Wall Street Journal by Bruce Gilley entitled "The Beginning of the End". The article itself describes the author's view that Tiananmen Square forced the Chinese Communist Party along a line that will eventually lead to democratization. I may follow up in future posts that take issue with that portion of it, but I haven't the time to craft that piece tonight.
I would like to throw something out there about one of his arguments, namely that economic development causes a change in population's toleration of authoritarian regimes. The two paragraphs are quoted below. (I have been unable to find a free copy of the article, so cannot link it right now)

" Second, as China develops, so will the preferences of its citizens. Given its current low level of economic development ($4,660 GDP per capita in 2006 according to the latest revisions to the World Bank's price-adjusted data, about one tenth of the OECD average), it is completely normal that those preferences are not strongly democratic at present. Most countries with similar income levels – Angola, say, or Azerbaijan – are also authoritarian.

The Chinese Communist Party's successful incorporation of the new middle class and of private business leaders is also wholly normal for a country at its stage of development. In Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines, not to mention throughout Latin America, the middle class and business sector were no less co-opted by authoritarian regimes until the very eve of democratic transition."

Assuming he is correct about the basic argument, which I am not convinced he is, there are two flaws that I see. First, that there is no guarantee that China's economy will continue to grow. There are many serious concerns as to how long it can sustain its growth.
The second formed the topic for this post. I do not pretend to be an economist, but Prof. Gilley is not one either, apparently. I got on the handy World Bank website and checked out some of the figures myself - as I am wont to do - and found several flaws:

- It is apparent he is citing per capita Gross National Income (GNI) vs. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Maybe an innocent mistake, but when something like that happens, I immediately become suspicious that the person citing the numbers is not familiar with what they are really citing.

- After citing the Philippines as an example of the middle class rising up do overthrow the authoritarian regimes, one would think their per capita GNI is in the same ballpark as the other countries he listed - it's actually lower than China's - $3430.

- When you have 1.3 billion people, the big problem with raising per capita GNI is the "per capita" part. To raise the GNI to the OECD average mentioned in the article ($35,586), China would have to raise its GNI to $46 Quadrillion. That's over 3/4 of the WORLD's gross income for 2006. But, assuming no ceiling and that large population gives you equally large workforce, and a 12% GNI growth rate, which China has been maintaining for the past 5 years or so (which even the Chinese agree has to slow down sometime), it would still take 18 years. And that's assuming the aging population, male-to-female ratio, environmental, urban-rural, and energy consumption problems don't slow them down further.

China may democratize, and I hope they do, but I'm not holding my breath.

PS - If there are any real economists out there, please feel free to comment. I'd love to hear what you think.

BoooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggggg!

2008-07-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

For baseball fans, this is the most boring day of the season. The only day from opening day to the playoffs when there is no baseball going on. (ok, the day before the All-Star Game doesn't have a game either, but it has the home run derby and the general anticipation of the All-Star Game)

So, for those bored baseball fans, you might want to check out the "UniWatch" column over at ESPN.com. This is an interesting column if you haven't seen it before, going into all sorts of interesting history of uniforms and noticing minute details that no one else ever would. They go a bit overboard today in their description of seemingly every single incident in All-Star games where someone wears the wrong team's helmet to bat, but overall it's an interesting and fun column.

Great Story and a Bad Format

2008-07-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

Every time I'm ready to give up on the Home Run Derby something like this happens. For those who didn't catch the action Monday, I recommend reading accounts from those more eloquent than me (like Jayson Stark or Peter Gammons), but here is the reader's digest version:

- Josh Hamilton, derailed from a baseball career by drug and alcohol addiction, gets himself straightened out and re-instated in baseball. His second year back, he makes the All-Star game and is invited to hit in the home run derby

- Each player brings their own person to pitch to them. Josh decides to bring a volunteer coach Craig Council from his home town who pitched batting practice to him in his hometown. Josh had told him when he was a teenager that if he made it to the home run derby he'd have Council be his pitcher. Council is now 71. (and by the way, the one other time in his life Council was at Yankee stadium, it was for Don Larsen's perfect game in the World series)

- Josh then proceeds to hit 28 home runs in the first round alone, including 3 500ft+. He hits 35 home runs total, but loses out in the final round.

It is a great story and was fantastic to watch. But that last sentence highlights what is so annoying about the home run derby. Hamilton hit 13 more home runs than the winner, but lost because he tired out hitting so many in the first round and the total is wiped clean for the final round.

This three-round set up has got to stop. I imagine the score is reset going into the finals is meant to build the tension, but I've never seen tension build. The best part of the derby is the first round when everyone is fresh. By the time the final round comes, everyone knows the guys are tired and someone who can squeak out 5 home runs will win. Since 2000, only half the time is the person who hits the most home runs actually the winner.

Perhaps the format is also supposed to introduce some "strategy" into the competition. Please. This is a home run derby - people want to see it belted out and belted often and far. Fans don't want to see players ease up in the first round so they can hit more later. If Josh had stopped at 15 when he was safely in the next round, he would have gotten booed.

So, Baseball: split it up however you like, different rounds based on outs or number of home runs hit, eliminate players as you go along or don't. I don't care. Just make one rule very simple: He who hits the most home runs wins.

P.S. - Oh, and get rid of the State Farm people injecting themselves into the middle of the thing. I'm glad they're sponsoring it and helping the Boys and Girls Clubs out. Plaster the logo, hand out the trophy, whatever, but don't have a State Farm guy "hand out the first ball" to Reggie Jackson to "throw out the first pitch" (of a home run derby???) and don't have a dippy fan-participation promotion before the final round. OK, I'm done. Really.

Public Personalities: Please Practice Pinyin Pronunciation!

2008-07-12T19:04:00.001-07:00

Why is it that professional sports announcers seem to work at pronouncing American and European names correctly (or at least approximately so), and yet butcher some of the simplest Chinese names?

The tennis player Zheng Jie the most recent example. For some reason people want to pronounce her name "Jang Gee". I'll be the first to admit that pinyin isn't strictly phonetic (better than Wade-Giles, though!), but you'd get closer with a phonetic pronunciation of Zheng than somehow substituting a hard "a" sound in there somehow. Plus, one would think large sports and news agencies like ESPN or BBC would have the resources to ask someone knowledgeable. Heck, if you ask her, she's happy to tell you! (skip to 0:35)

Honestly, if we can research how to pronounce "Krzyzewski", Zheng Jie and Yi Jianlian shouldn't be too hard, right?

For those interested, here is a nice web page with some .wav files to help pinyin pronunciation. The single biggest hint I can give to anyone: no hard "a" sounds!

Introduction

2008-07-12T18:29:00.001-07:00

So I've finally decided to start a blog. Basically it's an excuse to rant about various things that I personally find interesting. So, that means it has no theme, no periodicity and no agenda.

I have no idea what I will end up writing about most, but there's a good bet many posts will involve China, baseball, or possibly my attempts at solving the Millennium Prize Problems. (I may wait 50 years or so on that last one, just to give others a fair shot first...)