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steinthal
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steinthal
The PGA Tour season starts today in San Diego with the Buick Invitational. It is great to have the tour back.
What?
There have been other events already?
Where?
Who played in them? Certainly not Tiger Woods.
Oh, that explains it…
Let me start again…
The PGA Tour season, entering its 4th week, finally gets off to a real start as Tiger has decided to play. If you doubt me, check out the numbers. Yup, just by having Tiger play improved the TV ratings by 111%. Not to shabby Tiger.
This got me thinking of the FedEx Cup, which is entering into its second year, and, IMHO, is in dire need of improvement. Tiger skipped the 1st playoff event, and still won. Phil Mickelson skipped the second event, and still came in third. Seriously. What gives?
The PGA is angry that Tiger skipped the first event, and might move that tournament as a result.
Isn’t that the wrong way to fix the problem? Moving the tournament is no guarantee that Tiger will come. After the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills, Tiger will likely want several weeks off to recuperate. He’s certainly set that precedent.
Why not fix the FedEx Cup by changing it in some way? I have two proposed changes that with some tweaking in the numbers addresses the ratings problem the PGA has when Tiger does not play, and puts some teeth in the FedEx Cup:
(1) Skip a regular season event, and lose some FedEx points. For argument sake, let’s use 1000. So, Tiger would be at -4000 today instead of at 0. If he skips tournaments as he normally does, he’ll face some hefty consequence in the standings. There will be an increased cost to not playing beyond the loss of the opportunity to gain points.
(2) Skip a playoff event, and you are out of the playoffs. Right now, the only penalty for skipping a playoff event is not getting any points. The point system for the playoffs could be structured that if you miss a cut or skip an event you are out, and then if you are not in the top X players (144, 70, and 30 as the events proceed), you are out.
Will the PGA do this? No chance. Why? Quite simply, if they will move tournaments to fit Tiger’s schedule, as they have proven they will do, they wont risk him simply saying he’s not interested in their playoffs. The FedEx Cup will become a complete joke if the world’s best players are not part of it. If Tiger thinks the FedEx Cup isn’t worth his bother, there will be no FedEx Cup…
So, enjoy the PGA Tour season starting today in San Diego with the Buick Invitational. It is really great to have the tour back.
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steinthal
My wife asked me an innocuous question last night, that ruined my commute both this morning and tonight! She asked, “name your 10 favorite songs”. I tried off the top of my head to rattle off 10 songs, and I could not stop at 10. We decided after a minute or so to stop the game… As I commuted into NYC this morning, I played with my 60 gig iPod for a few minutes, and gave some real thought to this question. For someone with over 20,000 songs in his library, picking 10 is next to impossible. So, I cheated and put 20 together in an e-mail to her (well, 25 if you count the 4 extras below and the fact that I had 2 songs numbered 8 on the list).
As I sent the list, I immediately doubted myself. Did I pick the right Nylon’s song (what about Up the Ladder to the Roof or Please?). For someone who loves Disney movies how come I don’t have any of their songs on the list? What about Barry White? U2? REM? What about Route 66 by almost anyone? What about the songs from Broadway that were on the list for a few minutes until being bumped by Squeeze and Prince, was that a good decision? And what about the songs I’ve just come to know and love by groups like Five for Fighting, KT Tunstall, and John Mayer? Or the songs from Hairspray? All of these songs dominate my iPod’s Top 25 Most Played playlist…. Well, this is clearly not a perfect science, but I decided that to make this list, the songs should be one that have stood the test of time. Maybe 10,000 Years, Black Horse and the Cherry Tree, or Come Back to Bed will make the cut in a few years, but then maybe not as For the Sake of the Call and Galileo aren’t getting the cycles they did a few years ago….
Okay here is top 20 in alphabetical order by artist…
1. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Comedy Tonight – the perfect start to any list or any show
2. The Beatles: Across the Universe – so hard to pick one song, but this song is the one I pause and replay a few times on my iPod when it comes up on shuffle
3. Billy Joel: You’re My Home – so simple, so sappy
4. Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star – gotta have Bing, and this is great even if Danny Aiello and Bruce Willis sing it
5 & 6. Bruce Springsteen: Rosalita & Thunder Road – two classics. I could not choose, so both.
7. Ella Fitzgerald: Night and Day – one of my favorite songs to sing or to hear. Really I could have picked anyone singing it, but Ella had to make the cut.
8. Elton John: Your Song – so simple, so sappy, part II
9. Eric Clapton: Layla (both versions, but I’m only counting as 1 song) – how can one song be so good twice
10 & 11. Frank Sinatra: Our Love Is Here to Stay & I Get a Kick Out of You – like Bruce, picking one Sinatra song is a joke. Here are two of 100. The former is probably the #1 song on this list. My 4 year old can sing Our Love Is Here to Stay. Enough said.
12. George Winston: Variations On the Kanon by Pachelbel – I love simply this song. Seeing it live was amazing.
13. Gladys Night and the Pips: Midnight Train to Georgia – just a classic
14. Godspell: By My Side – I remember seeing this in college, and I still can hear the song in my head
15. The Nylons: Romance (If I Can Get It) – a fun a cappella song. If the Georgetown Phantoms could be on this list (and as I proofread this, I’m wondering why they can’t!), I would pick the Devil Went Down to Georgia from Hmmm… Sounds Like Moose Country.
16. Prince & The Revolution: Let’s Go Crazy – pure fun.
17. Rent Soundrack: Seasons of Love – when I heard this, I did the math, now I just play it over-and-over
18. Squeeze: Pulling Mussels (From a Shell) – pure fun, part II.
19 & 20. Suzanne Vega: Marlene on the Wall & Queen and the Solder – I heard Suzanne Vega in the 80’s in NYC, and I still put these songs above many others.
21. The Who: Baba O’Reilly – nothing needs to be said on this one…Three more – I grew up singing these, and I love them regardless of the performer…
* Add a Riff – I had never heard a recording of this until my brother tipped me off that there was a version for sale on iTunes done by an all male group. I own this now. I still like the top two riffs being done by sopranos and altos, but this one is great.
* Carol of the Bells – any version works for me. If our old group got together from 20+ years ago, I’m sure I could still do the bass line.
* Lo How Our Rose Er Blooming – a fantastic madrigal that we sang back in the day, and I sang to our children as a lullaby when they were little. -
steinthal
Congratulations to Goose Gossage for his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the voting members Baseball Writers of America (BBWAA). It took over 75% of these voters (85.8%) to give Goose the well deserved nod. Jim Rice came just 16 votes shy this year for a 72.2% up from an 63.5% last year and 64.8% in 2006. The article on the Hall of Fame’s website states:
Jim Rice, the former star of 16 seasons, all with the Red Sox, barely missed by 16 votes as he fell 2.8 percent (72.2) below the necessary 75 percent to gain admission to the hallowed red-brick Hall on Main Street in Cooperstown. Voting trends suggest he could very well break through next year which will be his 15th and final year on the ballot.
So my question is this… What happened between last year and this year to justify Rice’s 8.7% increase and will he be 2.8% better next year? In the past 24 hours I’ve come across several articles (here and here for a couple) which are discussing whether he’ll get in next year, his 15th and final year on the ballot. In the last year, did he play any more games? Hit any more home runs? Drive in any more runs? Catch any more balls? Throw out any more runners? Rice retired almost 20 years ago (1989). His record was cemented then. It has not changed. Yet, every year he gets a different vote tally, and it appears to be trending up.
Clearly, some part of the voting members of the BBWAA are changing their votes each year. Are there any reasonable reasons to do so? Well, I can actually think of a few:
1. Each year a voter can only vote for 10 players. So, if in a certain year there are 10 better players eligible in their mind, they could not vote for Jim Rice in that year. That works for me, and I can see it happening once in a while when there is a very strong ballot. However, I can’t see how this is driving the growth in Rice’s vote percentage. If this were the driver of the change of voting, Rice’s vote tally would dip and spike.
2. The voting community does change each year. Some writers retire. Others are recognized as being a baseball writer for the 10 years necessary to be a voting member by the BBWAA. So, the group of voters year-to-year is different. However, this one also can’t explain the growth. Do you believe that the Rice detractors are retiring, and the Rice protractors are now becoming eligible? I think not…
3. There is new news regarding the player and their career. Baseball people are always figuring out new statistics on regarding the game we love. So, it could be that people realize some new statistic is a better measure of players careers, and when applying it to Jim Rice, they realize that he compares favorably to Babe Ruth. Okay, I’m clearly stretching to even suggest this… I can barely believe I wrote this!
Okay, so what is happening? We’ll if you are a voting member, post an answer, I’d love to know.
My guess? Some writers look at first year candidates and only vote for clearly obvious “first ballot Hall of Famers” like Roger Clemens, oh, I mean like Roger Clemens was last month, and like Cal Ripkin and Tony Gwynn were and Rickey Henderson likely is… These writers then vote for the not so obvious Hall of Famers when they spend more time and consider the player over subsequent years. I’m postulating that for these writers, the 5 years between the end of the player’s career and their name appearing on the ballot was not enough time. And as the years go by and someone is on the ballot and is getting more votes, these voters finally take a look and say, “alright, I’ll do it and I’ll vote for him…”.
Is that rational? I can’t see how it is. Help, please answer and let me know what you think!
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steinthal
I’ve started a personal blog. What am I going to do with it? Well, anything that has nothing to do with work that I think it is interesting and or fun.
So, it is January and my NY Mets are keeping me depressed for their late season collapse. They have done nothing this offseason to rekindle my faith. Then I come across this awesome video on MetsBlog.com….
Enjoy
