Before you read any further, I should probably give you a general smattering of what this blog will encompass, a few ideas, philosophies, etc. After you’re done reading this, you can decide whether to come back to this site or leave screaming (if you’re a sadomasochist, you can repeat this process on a regular basis):
1) This column will pretty much be about baseball. Occasionally, it may veer into football and/or politics (depending on what Ray Lewis or Michael Irvin wear, or Dick Cheney says), but hardball is mostly where it’s at here.
2) As a baseball fan, it seems that there are two fundamental schools of thought. There is the Ken Burns/George Will school, which tends to wax Yeatsian as to how the game is a pastoral land of wonder, without defined space or time – basically, those folks who automatically get aroused by the smell of rosin and fresh grass seed. By contrast, the Bill James/Rob Neyer school is statistically based, and taken to its extreme argues that everything in baseball can be defined and predicted with great certainty by statistical analysis. These are the folks who take facts out of context to argue that David Ortiz is not a “clutch” hitter because he only hit .278 with runners in scoring position last year. Unfortunately, the most extreme of these sabermetric geeks bring down the entire group and allow anti-sabermetric geeks (like Joe Morgan, who when “Moneyball” is mentioned to him gets more crimson than Chrisopher Molisanti after Adriana tells him that she’s talking to the FBI) to write off the whole science. Folks, you can have it both ways. You can enjoy the game in a loving, quasi-religious sort of way while learning to understand the game and make predictions based on statistical analysis. Can’t we all just get along?
3) I hope that my tongue will mostly be planted in my cheek. I hope to be irreverent and amusing, but there’s nothing worse than someone saying “Hey, I’m irreverent and amusing!” when the truth is that one is anything but irreverent and amusing. Let’s see where it goes.
4) I am a Red Sox fan. Now please come back to the computer. My father took me to my first game in September 1982, an otherwise meaningless Red Sox-Yankees game (during the dark 80’s, when Dave Stapleton and Jerry Mumphrey played prominent roles for their respective teams). We had great seats, Rudy May threw my uncle a ball, and a youngster named Boggs was just breaking in for the Sox (before Margo-gate and the hair treatment, you know, when we thought he was just a quirky dude who liked chicken). I was hooked from the start. So, if you detect some pro-ed Sox bias and anti-Yankee bias in my writings, feel free to respond in kind. However, I can cut up the Sox too when it’s appropriate (which is fairly often). However, I may return to a few themes in the coming months when writer’s block overcomes me, such as (1) A-Rod is an android not equipped to handle failure, (2) Johnny Damon is a great player but an even bigger phony, and (3) under any standard, Randy Johnson looks like a very tall and grumpy troll (I realize that he’s now back in Arizona, but hey, facts are facts). Also, this shot will be my computer wallpaper until the end of time:
5) This site is named in honor of former scrappy Red Sox infielder Lou Merloni, a.k.a. “Framingham Lou.” Lou (who is now in Oakland) is my ultimate type of player – a scrappy overachiever (who appeals to the emotional cogs in my bran) who always put up surprisingly decent statistics for a backup middle infielder (thus appealing to the rational parts of my brain, if they indeed exist). Plus, Ben Affleck once picked a fight with him, and anyone who hits back at Ben Affleck has my immediate respect.
As always, suggestions are welcome. Let’s get this started.
No comments:
Post a Comment