Chass on Bill Lajoie

Crusty Murray Chass has been oft-criticized for his anti-statistical analysis stance and “I’m not a blogger” platform, but what Chass does best is tell stories about some of the legends of the game. Chass has been around this game for a very, very long time and that’s afforded him a great perspective on some of the characters in baseball history. So while I vehemently disagree with his “get off my damn lawn” attitude towards guys like me, I am always happy to read something like this, where I learn a little bit about a player from baseball history who I knew little about prior:

For [Fred] Lynn to be eligible to play in the post-season should the Tigers make it, he had to be in Detroit by midnight that night. The Players Association later challenged the rule, but in the end the matter became moot because the Tigers finished a game behind the Red Sox.

But in the immediate aftermath of the trade, when the Tigers were still in first place, Lajoie had a decision to make. He knew that Lynn technically had not arrived in Chicago on his chartered jet from Anaheim, where the Orioles were playing, by midnight. He knew that the plane had not entered Chicago air space until 10 minutes after midnight.

Lajoie could have said that Lynn had beaten the deadline and, an official in the commissioner’s office said, the office would have accepted his word. But Lajoie chose to be honest.

“He didn’t get there,” Lajoie admitted the next day. “They were over the city limits about 10 after 12.” Asked why he didn’t fudge the time, Lajoie said, “I just felt a rule’s a rule. There’s no sense playing with it. That’s the rule and we’ll live by it.”

Good story about a man, Bill Lajoie, who I knew very little about. Nice work, Murray. Thanks for sharing that with us.

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Thoughts For The New Year

?Did you ever wonder why the word ‘play’ is used to describe practicing an instrument? As a child after coming home from school and finishing my snack, I would tell my mother that I was going to ‘play the piano’. I would then sit down at the piano often practicing scales for a good half hour until I felt that I had given my fingers and brain a good work out before even beginning to play music. So what was it that I was doing all those years and continue to do on my cello today? Working or playing?

We tend to think of play as the domain of children and animals. Of course that’s not true!? As I discuss in my book ?Digging Deep: Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Garden?”Play is creativity at work. It is an attitude, a spirit, a point of view, and, most of all, a way of living a life. It is a commitment to finding true joy in any act, with little or no concern about the outcome. In its purest, most unadulterated form, play is the expression of who we are when we can let go of who we are trying to be.”

So, how about if we gardeners coin the phrase ‘I’m going to play in the garden’ rather than ‘I’m going to work in the garden’ this coming year?? I don’t know about you but after a great day of gardening when I have to push myself to put the tools away and close up shop, I’m happy and content, having had a grimy, sweaty, fun-filled day.

As far as what’s on deck?at GGW as we begin 2011..

We are EXTREMELY excited about the following:

?Tovah Martin and Noel Kingsbury have joined our roster of Contributors. If I started writing about all of their accomplishments; the books that each has authored, their multiple areas of expertise, and the inspiration that they bring to the gardening world, I’d be at the computer for a long time. Suffice it to say that you’ll be hearing alot more about and from them on GGW in the coming months.

?David Perry,?a rare jewel in the gardening world,?is returning to?judge January’s Picture This.?His?topic? is Macro In A Mason Jar.?As always, David is offering a thought provoking, compelling and?out of the ordinary challenge.

As I finish another year at the helm of Gardening Gone Wild, I want to thank my colleagues at GGW. I’m in awe of how Nan, Saxon and Debra continue to write such inspirational, informational, thoughtful and often times fun pieces.?

My partnership with Nan, as a co-creator and manager of GGW, has been a wonderful one; filled with creative problem solving, fun, laughter, and many times just hard work…ooops…I mean play. This coming year, Nan will be focusing on her own blog Hayefield and will no longer be a Regular Contributor (or my co-manager) at GGW. I certainly plan on grabbing her to make a Guest Appearance from time to time on GGW.

And finally, a big thank you to all of you for reading, commenting on and participating in Gardening Gone Wild. Wishing you a magnificent 2011; one filled with health, beauty, laughter, meaning….and play.

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Are the Yankees Losing Plate Discipline?

Seven of the eight regular position players saw their O-Swing% increase by over 4%, and Brett Gardner, who made an obvious attempt to draw more walks, increased his by exactly 1%. This obviously isn’t good as more swings at pitches out of the zone leads to softer contact, if any at all, and more outs. It’s also troubling for the older players because it could be a sign of decline—as players age and lose bat speed, they start their swings earlier to catch up to hard fastballs, making it more difficult to stay back on breaking balls and pitches out of the zone. Aging doesn’t seem to tell the whole story, however, as this seems to be a team-wide problem, which indicates that the hitting philosophy has changed.

But I’m not sure that’s it, either. Kevin Long has been the hitting coach since 2007, and it seems unlikely that he would switch his philosophy now. If being more aggressive was his philosophy, you would imagine that the Yankees would have seen an increase before this past season, but as you can see, it just happened this past season. Granted, perhaps it has taken this long for the players to buy into his philosophy, but I doubt it. So I decided to look at their overall Swing% (the percentage of times they swing at any pitch; table is below), and there was not a corresponding increase in the number of swings they were taking (if he wants them to be more aggressive, then everyone should swing more). In fact, the only major change is Nick Swisher, but his new approach has been widely examined. We knew he would swing at more pitches, but everyone seems to be swinging at the same rate as always (Gardner is another exception, but his patience has been addressed as well, though he shouldn’t be more patient if the team philosophy is to be more aggressive).

Let’s look at this a different way. Why would you be more aggressive? One, you don’t want to strike out so much, and two, you want your guys to hit. Therefore, we should see a drop in walks (because they’re swinging at pitches out of the zone) and strikeouts (because that’s the whole idea). I looked at the same players’ BB and K rates (table below), and that isn’t happening. Their total team BB rates are essentially the same, and they are actually striking out more often. So either the philosophy isn’t working out, or something else is going on.

After all this, what do we have? The Yankees are swinging at more pitches out of the zone, but they aren’t swinging any more than normal, aren’t walking anymore, and are striking out a bit more. One explanation is that the Yankees hitters have simply lost track of the strike zone. They are expanding their zone and limiting their swings at a similar rate within the zone (to have a similar Swing%, something has to work against the increase in O-Swing%–in this case, Z-Swing% or percentage of times a player swings at a pitch within the strike zone), which is happening as the Z-Swing% decreased 1% from 2009 to 2010 (the percentage decrease is smaller because there are more pitches in the zone). If the reason was a team philosophy or the results of aging, we would expect all swings to go up, but again, that isn’t happening. So, WTF?

Finally, I looked at the plate discipline statistics for every team in 2009 and 2010, and it all finally made sense. You’ll be happy to know that the Yankees have had the best plate discipline (lowest O-Swing%) of any team in baseball for at least two years running, which doesn’t surprise those who lament the 3-hour, 8-minute games (that seems low). You’ll also be happy to know that the entire league’s O-Swing% has increased, which tells me that the Yankees aren’t swinging at different pitches but the pitches are being classified differently. Only 1 team topped 30% in 2009, but 11 teams did in 2010 with 7 other teams with 29+% (no team in 2009 had an O-Swing% between 28.3% and 31.2%). But why didn’t the highest total increase that much, Mark?! The percentage looks the same, but I’d argue otherwise. The Giants were notorious for their lack of patience in 2009, but in 2010, they added Buster Posey and Aubrey Huff, who take their share of walks (Posey, at least, in relation to Bengie Molina). If they had the same team from 2009, it may have been much higher.

What this tells me is that there’s something screwy in the data. I’m not sure what the problem is (or even if there is one. The entire league may have just started swinging at more pitches out of the zone, but that doesn’t really make sense to me. However, they could also have just changed the classification of certain pitches on the borders and didn’t do it for previous seasons), but I’m guessing that wherever the strike zone data is coming from is having issues, which happens while trying to calibrate data from park to park. Listen, all the new stats and technology is great. We know so much more now than we ever have, but we also have to remember that there will still be problems on the margins, where the innovators are still working out the kinks. Hey, at least it’s on the margins.

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Picture This Photo Contest – January 2011

As we kick off the New Year, what better way to start off our first Picture This Photo Contest of 2011 then with David Perry as our judge. As many of you may remember from our August 2009 Picture This, David is a phenomenal, multi-faceted photographer whose work is inspirational.? His website and blog, A Photographer’s Garden Blog are both feasts for the eye and a testament to David’s depth, creativity, and talent as both a garden photographer and writer.

“Ok, my point-and-shoot-camera-lovin’ friends, you’ve all heard of time in a bottle and a tempest in a teapot, but (unless you’ve been following my blog, A Photographer’s Garden Blog at least November of last year, I’d be willing to bet you’ve never heard of “Macro in a Mason Jar” until now. And that is the theme for this month’s “Picture This” photo contest: Macro in a Mason Jar. Unlike some assignments where the kids with the bigger, fancier cameras have a distinct advantage, I’ve designed this contest just for you, point-and-shooters, but you will need to think small and get close, and you will need to find that nifty little close-up button on your camera, the one that looks like a flower symbol.

So here’s the dealio. This is a technique so simple, that anyone, even nervous types with coffee jitters, can get razor-sharp close ups of beautifully lit subjects without a tripod, and have a really good time doing it. Follow along with me for a minute while I show you what I mean. Then you can fire up your cameras, round up your repurposed jam, mayonnaise and peanut butter jars and start making a new kind of macro-photo magic.

What you’ll need:

1: A point and shoot camera with close-up capabilities or an SLR camera with a macro lens, or extension tubes. (Point-and-Shooters, look for the little flower symbol on a button or dial on the top of or back of your camera, and press it to turn on the close-up feature. Many little digital cameras will focus down as close as a half inch from the subject.)

2: A Mason jar, a peanut butter jar, a mayonnaise jar, a jam jar, a pickle jar . . . or all of the aforementioned.

3: A willingness to play both with the subject you put in the jar, but also with the direction, quality and hue of the light pouring into the jar.

And here (below), are some of the exquisitely simple types of shots that you can get by shooting straight down into jars just like these. These are great practice type shots to help you get warmed up, but I’d encourage you, once you’ve got the hang of making shots like these, to try to shoot even more complex shots visually. Pictures with mystery and story.

Now, for a quick primer on technique:

Once you’ve made any desired adjustments and framed up your shot, press your camera body downward, onto the rim of the glass jar while you depress the shutter button. The rigidity of the glass will keep the camera precisely distant, relative to the subject during your exposure, meaning that your pictures should be extra crispy sharp.

You can also add a plastic cutting sheet (as I have below), or enlist the white envelope that that latest piece of junk mail came in to serve as a reflector, softening the shadows by placing it either behind or beside the Mason jar to bounce light back into the image from another angle. Or, if you decide you need to diffuse the light from your table lamp or the window to soften the shadows, place the diffuse cutting board between the light source and the jar. You’ll be able to see the effects right away in the screen.

I’d also encourage you to try to create and use “weird” light. Try shining a lamp through another jar filled with ice tea, or ice cubes and water and lemon slices right next to your shooting jar. Or bounce light off of a makeup mirror and into your shooting jar, or spritz the outside of your jar with a spray bottle, or use the want ads from the newspaper beneath the jar and wrapped around it. See how those elements can add background and shadows and other interest to the scene you’re shooting.

Notice the yellow plastic cutting board that I’m holding above the jar to color the light and give the scene an even warmer glow.

And here’s what the camera recorded.

Here’s another example. An oyster on the half shell, a bit of hot sauce, and a bed of rock salt.

Backing away a bit, now you can see the simplicity of the setup I used to get the shot. Note the rock salt on the outside of the jar, as well, and that I set the shot up on a white plate to help give the entire shot that high key, icy look.

So, this month, I’m asking you to think small and get in close . . . to show me some essential aspect of a subject that simply cannot be seen or appreciated from a distance. The point of this contest is to encourage you to look and see from new perspectives, to learn more about your camera’s amazing capabilities. For your entries I want to see pictures that take me into the depths of a subject and that leave me feeling that I’ve seen something in a completely new way. I want to see pictures that record the play of light and shadow, and texture, and that set the table for an intriguing story while looking downward into a glass jar.

Your pictures can be of nearly any subjects for this contest, but I really want photographs that allow me to see seeds, feathers, plants, flowers, insects or textures in ways that are fresh and unexpected. The images should be about seeing first and the subjects second. They need to evoke mood, and they should strive to elicit some sort of emotional, poetic, or “Wow!” response.

Here (below), I shot to the edge of the jar, instead of trying to avoid it. Note the dry grass outside the jar. After shooting this one, I made a mirror image of it in Photoshop, merged the two and then made a typographic wordplay on the “self-sealing” words that had been cast into the glass during the manufacturing process.

Consider shooting through the bottom of a jar and into a mirror for an unusual self-portrait.

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?RULES FOR ENTERING THE CONTEST

1.? You must have an active blog in order to participate. To be eligible for judging, you need to leave us TWO links – a direct link to the image, and a link to your blog post that includes the image – in a comment on this post.

2. Your photo must be able to be copied from your site. That makes it possible for us to collect all the entries in one place for easier judging.

3. The deadline for entries is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Monday, January 24, 2011.

Entries that meet the above rules will be added to a separate gallery page. If you enter but your photo does not appear in the gallery within 24 hours, please review your entry to make sure you followed the rules.

All photos courtesy of David Perry.

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Is The Gap Shrinking Between Baseball’s Rich and Poor?

1.????? Teams That Made (and did not make) the Playoffs.? As we’ve already noted, the 2010 baseball season was a bad year for money.? ?Of the top ten revenue teams in baseball, only three (the Yankees, Phillies and Giants) made the playoffs.? A large number of rich and (usually) successful teams missed the post-season in 2010: the Red Sox, Angels and Cardinals were replaced in the playoffs by the lower revenue Rays, Rangers and Reds.? We’ve discussed it before: there’s substantial revenue to be earned in the post-season.? When only three of the top revenue teams make it to the post-season, that shifts revenue from baseball’s rich to baseball’s poor.

2.????? Financial Reverses At The Top.? When we say that 2010 was a bad baseball year for money, we’re not only thinking about results on the field.? The Red Sox saw their TV ratings drop, which probably hurt their bottom line.? The Mets, Dodgers and Cubs saw declines in home attendance, which certainly hurt their bottom line.

3.????? Success In The Mid-Market.? 2010 was a good year for teams in the middle tier of baseball revenue earners.?? The teams with the 16^th, 17^th, 22^nd and 24^th highest revenues (according to Forbes) – the Rockies, Rangers, Reds and Twins — enjoyed the 4^th, 2^nd, 3^rd and 1^st highest increases in home attendance.? Other mid-market teams enjoyed sustained success at the box office.? For example, the Milwaukee Brewers had a mediocre season on the field, but still managed to draw the 11^th best home attendance in baseball – 2,500 more fans per home game than the New York Mets.

If you want to point to one reason why revenue sharing declined in 2010, point to the Minnesota Twins.? Just nine years ago, the Minnesota franchise was close to folding; the team is now one of the most successful in baseball, and not just on the field.? With the opening of new Target Field, the Twins enjoyed the highest increase in baseball attendance, up an average of more than 10,000 a game in 2010.? In fact, the Twins are in danger of being classified as a “rich” team!? Their 2010 attendance was 6^th highest in baseball, and their 2010 end-of-season payroll was 10^th highest in baseball – ahead of traditional powers like the Cardinals and just $7 million behind the big-market LA Dodgers.

So, 2010 was a down year financially for many big-market teams, and a relatively good year for baseball’s middle class.? But there’s no reason to think that we’re seeing a trend.? Sure, the Twins should continue to do well, but their financial fortunes should decline a bit as the excitement over their new stadium begins to wane.?? Sure, we should continue to see small market teams make it to the post-season, but big revenue teams like the Red Sox and Cardinals are likely to crowd out small-market teams like the Reds and Rays.? Moreover, big market teams like the Cubs and Mets cannot underachieve forever.? The Mets’ hiring of new GM Sandy Alderson may signal an end to the team’s recent stretch of mediocrity.? That might prove to be bad news for mid-market teams like the Braves.

In order to shrink the gap between baseball’s haves and have-nots, we’ll need more sustainable trends than the ones we saw in 2010.? For example, we’ll need continuing increases in centrally-shared revenues, such as those generated by Major League Baseball Advanced Media.? ?But more importantly, we’ll need to see improvements in the ability of baseball’s financial bottom-feeders to generate revenues.? Small-market teams like the Twins and Brewers are showing how this can be done.? Teams like the Rays, Royals, Pirates and Marlins need to follow suit.

No, the Pirates will never generate the kind of local revenues earned by the Yankees.? But if the Pirates could earn money like the Brewers, or the Rockies, or even the Reds, this would go some way to narrow the gap between baseball’s rich and poor – and would permit the gap to be narrowed more meaningfully by a reformed system of revenue sharing.

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