Daily Archives: November 17, 2009

Yeah, this is really cool, isn’t it?

World Series Time-Lapse by Robert Caplin from Robert Caplin on Vimeo.

“My idea of a tough guy is a guy who can wear a wool suit with no underwear.”–Lenny Bruce

I know it is a classic and all, but I don’t love all of the classics. John Huston’s directorial debut, however, is as perfectly realized a movie as has ever been made, don’t ya think?

Your American League Cy Young Award Winner.

Good story, better pitcher. Congrats to Zach Greinke.

(Photographs via Sports Illustrated.)

Over at Fox, Dayn Perry writes about ten off-season moves that need to happen:

5. The Yankees should worry about Johnny Damon and not Hideki Matsui.

The reigning champs have some decisions to make. They need to coax Andy Pettitte into pitching one more year, and they need to re-sign Johnny Damon. Damon — when not throwing the ball — gives the Yanks plus defense in left, and he has maintained his offensive skills quite nicely. Damon needs a platoon partner, but he’s still a valuable regular against right-handers. So long as he’s willing to settle for a two-year deal or two plus a team option, the Yankees should make the necessary overtures. Matsui, meanwhile, is replaceable. Plenty of DH types on the market — Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, Russ Branyan, Vladimir Guerrero — can come close to Matsui’s numbers at perhaps a lesser cost.

What about Jermaine Dye as a replacement for Matsui? Does that make any sense? Or is that crazy talk?

Billy Martin proved what a powerful strategic tool paranoia is. He believed that everyone was against him. And so he spent every waking moment figuring out how imaginary enemies could be defeated in their nefarious plots. And sometimes he not only created strategies to defend against things that would never be done against him. but he realized that those attacks were in themselves novel and he would then try those attacks that he had already dreamed up a defense for. That’s why he was so wonderful at suicide bunts and double steals and any way that you could humiliate or psychologically defeat the other team, he was sure that’s how the world reacted to him. He was sure the world hated him. And so he turned that really raw, frightened paranoia into wonderful strategic intelligence.

Tom Boswell

Chris Jaffe, a regular at The Hardball Times, has just written a book about baseball managers. Here is an excerpt on one of our own–Billy the Kid.

Billy Martin was the most fearless manager in baseball history. In 20 years of managing, he never backed down from a challenge. As has been well documented by others, Martin consistently caused dramatic improvements to his squads immediately upon arrival by pushing them hard. The A’s went from losing 108 games to fighting for .500. The Rangers, who had posted back-to-back seasons in which they had played .350 ball, suddenly won half their games when Martin arrived. The Twins and Tigers improved by 18 and 12 games for him respectively. The Yankees won their first pennant in a dozen years under him. The Birnbaum Database gives him high scores for every stop along the way: +64 runs in Minnesota, +199 runs in Detroit, +91 runs in Texas, +142 runs with Oakland, and +219 runs in his various New York stops.

Martin’s approach had its downside. He pushed his teams so hard they could not keep up with his pressure. Hiring Martin was like pushing too much voltage through a light bulb: for a brief while it burns brighter than otherwise possible, but it soon shatters unless the excess electricity is removed. Despite his impressive starts, Martin never lasted longer than three years in any managerial stint.

Though Martin is most famous for piloting the Yankees, his first managerial stint running the 1969 Twins best reveals his method and madness. The gutsy bravado and intensity to win that highlighted his career amply demonstrated themselves that year. Martin approached his rookie managerial season the same way a tough convict handles his first day in prison—determined to prove himself immediately as the cellblock’s most dangerous man.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, Christina Kahrl takes a look at the American League Rookie of the Year:

Being invited to help select this year’s American League Rookie of the Year as a new member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America was an unexpected honor, and one I took seriously. By way of process, I started off with a day spent digging up data to inform my sense of who to rank, and where, and why. Then, I spent a day or two caucusing with a quartet of colleagues, inside Baseball Prospectus and out, and putting various arguments through the ringer, and using a variety of tacks, from devil’s advocate to fully faithful, and everywhere in between.

In the end, I wound up finding myself in a somewhat complicated position, ironically thinking back on a Rookie of the Year Award that coincided with my arrival in Chicago 24 years ago, sorting through my own predispositions against the relative value of a certain type of player, assessing a crowded field of starting pitcher candidates, and thinking even further back to a rookie who won despite not playing anything close to a full season. Finally, I was guided by a critical criterion: electors are supposed to vote on present-season success, not on anticipated greatness.

According to the New York Times:

Joe Kubert, a comic book artist since 1938, has little interest in the accumulated work of his last seven decades; his focus is on new projects, he said recently. But comic book fans who feel differently about this celebrated illustrator will have a chance to peruse and even own some of that older work this week, when 18 covers and interior pages, published from the 1940s to 1990, are put up for sale.

I am always interested by artists who don’t take time to reflect on their accomplishments because they are too busy with what is on their plate now. When I worked for the Coen brothers, they won an Oscar for best original screenplay–Ethan’s statue remained in his backpack, which he kept in the trunk of his rental car, for days. Recently, I listened to an interview with them and they said that they don’t go back and watch their old movies. They just keep making new ones.

Once it is done and out in the world, it doesn’t belong to you, the artist, anymore. At least not completely. For some, there is nothing to be gained by looking back. The only cherce is to look ahead.