Comments on: Dooke of Earl

By: Edwardian

Edwardian — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:43:36 +0000

[10] I just read in Verducci’s article that it’s Bill Haller.

By: Mr. OK Jazz TOKYO

Mr. OK Jazz TOKYO — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:27:51 +0000

Fantastic article, thanks for the link.

[9] Thankfully..would have been a terrible film..

By: Edwardian

Edwardian — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:09:45 +0000

Does anyone know who the umpire is in that clip? He’s great.

By: Chyll Will

Chyll Will — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:21:13 +0000

Btw, Moneyball has been officially relegated to development hell...

By: Cliff Corcoran

Cliff Corcoran — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:48:26 +0000

[6] Among many other things. Not a great book, unfortunately, but well worth the read as it’s a brief, but comprehensive history of more than a century of baseball statistics and analysis.

Branch Rickey (who hired Roth) and Earl Weaver are deities in the sabermetric community. I think one recent edition of the Baseball Prospectus annual quoted Branch Rickey in more than half the chapters.

One of the things I love about having Ken Singleton on the YES broadcasts, behind his smooth delivery and affable nature, is that he was/is an Earl Weaver man through and through. Walks and three-run homers . . .

By: monkeypants

monkeypants — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:47:31 +0000

[6] And I see from Wikipedia that Allen Roth was from Montreal!

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:41:37 +0000

monkeypants, check out “The Numbers Game,” by Alan Schwartz. It’s got a good history of Roth and the Dodgers.

By: Shaun P.

Shaun P. — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:30:20 +0000

[1] And as william implies, the funniest part of all is that Moneyball wasn’t about OBP and power and not stealing and anti-small ball at all. It was about finding market inefficiencies and exploiting them to Oakland’s advantage, because Oakland had fewer resources to work with.

That was the genius of Moneyball, not that OBP was good. It was nice to have OBP is good become widely known, though.

By: monkeypants

monkeypants — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:29:14 +0000

[3] I had heard or read someplace that the Dodgers basically invented OBP as an evaluation tool, back in the 40s or 50s.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:14:04 +0000

And Allen Roth was all about those philosophies when he was the statistician for the Brooklyn Dodgers years before Weaver.

By: monkeypants

monkeypants — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:10:55 +0000

[0] I watch that clip every few months, and it makes me laugh every time. Meanwhile, this catches the eye:

He would develop arms on the big league level by bringing up a young pitcher and putting him in the bullpen, mostly out of long relief.

By: williamnyy23

williamnyy23 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:06:21 +0000

The amusing part about Moneyball is what the MSM thinks are its main tenets have been advanced by baseball men since the game began. “A walk is as good as a hit” is probably as old as the game itself. Earl Weaver was pro-walk and power and anti-SB and small ball long before Billy Beane.