Well, I was going to do it by OPS and ERA (league and park normalized) but that’s a chore. I figured that (certainly prior to the unbalanced schedule a few years ago) the pluses and minuses should balance themselves out.
I stand by my (admittedly first order) analysis. The playoffs are essentially random and the data supports it.
Bibliovore, you REALLY should read “Moneyball” by Lewis (as previously mentioned). It is a great read, will answer many questions you may have not yet even thought to ask.
The Yanks are successful based on a combination of money and tradition. Simply put, they play in the largest market, giving them television revenue that is more than many other team’s COMBINED payroll. But you say, the METS are in New York, and although they did play the Yanks in the World Series just three years ago, they aren’t a powerhouse of a franchise because they lack a successful tradition and dedicated following (I believe they were an expantion team in the 1960’s).
I love your original post, and agree that you definitely need to see more live games in different cities/venue’s. It’s one of the best things about baseball, the different parks, summer, outdoors (mostly) and the game can be as “deep” as you want it to be. I’ve followed the Cubs since I’ve been 4 years old (thanks to my mother mostly) and although I’m 26 now, played alot, and have coached at the high school level and follow the game closely, still learn things ALL THE TIME. Others I know are more casual fans, but point is, the depth is there if the interest is there too!
Ha! Or any OTHER team, for that matter. One year I went to opening day at Yankee Stadium, and knowing better than to wear my Sox cap, I wore a St. Louis Cardinals cap, who aren’t even in the AL and didn’t play the Yankees in interleague. To make matters worse, I sat (stood) in the not so family-friendly right field bleachers.
I miss that cap…
Ah, the sausage guy. The Sausage guy (there are actually 4 or 5 of them, with names like Sausage King and Joe’s Italian Sausage) has a cart in front of the stadium (NOT in the stadium. The sausages served inside Fenway are ok…but they can’t touch a pre-game one) with a simple griddle on it. He serves one thing: sweet italian sausages. You can get them with, or without, roasted peppers and onions. You’re a fool to get it without, though.
You walk up to the cart. A man standing in front says “Yeah?” You say “One.” He says “Five bucks”, and you hand over your money. He repeats your order, for some reason, to the guy behind the grill, and takes a sausage that was just taken off of the grill from a little stand, wraps the sausage, bun, and peppers in wax paper, and hands it to you, and you walk off with what is simultaneously the sketchiest street food and most delicious pre-game meal in the history of the world. It’s a must have, if you ever make it to Fenway.
As for the condition of the park: Yes, it’s dirty. Yes, it’s kind of cramped. And yes, the bathrooms suck. But I assure you, having the love of the game that you seem to have, there is no place, with the possible exception of Wrigley (And I’ve been to both. They are both palaces to everything that is good in the world.) that you would rather be on a thursday evening in July at 7pm. Everything is so lush and green and peaceful. Your knees will hit the seat in front of you, but you won’t mind.
Fenway Park is a bit run down. But it’s the greatest run-down place on earth.
Fenway Franks: it’s your standard lips and assholes dog. You can buy them in grocery stores, and they’re mediocre. But again, the atmosphere makes it a must get.
Try your best to get to Boston, it’s worth it.
And finally, if you’re just looking for live baseball, MLB.com has the MLB.tv package, for only $50 a year. Very decent coverage of every game, if you have a broadband net connection.
Eh, I dunno. I wore my Angels cap to Yankee Stadium RF bleachers earlier this year - which was especially risky given the bitterness that some Yank fans feel towards the Halos but nothing happened to me apart from a bit of verbal abuse. The guy talking on his cellphone got it much worse than I did.
That said, it’s a lot safer to wear a BoSox cap into the Yankee bleachers than to wear a Yankee cap into the Fenway bleachers.
Jim Caple had an entertaining article about it a while back.
So you’re saying Mattingly will never make the Hall of Fame? Did you ever even see him play? He was Amazing. He was proof to me, however, that one man can’t carry a team. And that a lesser team that works well together will always beat a team of outstanding players who don’t work well together.
I’m not going to dis Ernie Banks. But you’re wrong to dis Don Mattingly. The words ‘Bad Player’ and ‘Don Mattingly’ don’t belong in the same sentance, and if you can strip away your Yankee hatred for 2 seconds, you’d agree.
Ack… Just saw this, and had to correct it. Fenway Park was constructed in 1911-12, and opened on April 20, 1912, the same day as Tiger Stadium. The two would have recieved more coverage in the news, but the Titanic sank the same day.
Weeghman Park opened on the north side of Chicago on April 23, 1914, as the home of the Chi-Feds, later Whales, of the Federal League. It did not host a Cubs game until 1916. In 1920, it was renamed Cubs Park, and then Wrigley Field in 1926.
I’m sorry. Same WEEK that the Titanic sank. That tragedy, of course, occured on April 15th.
(I say of course in order to cover up for my woeful ignorance of the actual date, and to make myself look smarter, not because it’s obvious.)
I stand corrected. Knew they were 1 and 2, and I got them backwards. Fenway 1912, Wrigley 1914. Gotcha.
I never said he will never make it to the HOF and I never called him a bad ball player. However, if he was “one of the greatest to ever play the game” he would have been a shoe in on the first ballot.
First ballot HOF inductees are usually the cream of the cream of the crop. A few lower level HOFers sneak in every now and them.
Mattingly was very good. But not Hall of Fame good. He’s a 1B that only hit more than 30 HR 3 times in his career and never more than 35. He didn’t reach 250 HR or even 2500 hits, even though he hit for a pretty decent average. Moreover, his power really dropped off his last 6 seasons. And he doesn’t even crack the top 100 in career RBI.
Yeah, that’s why he said that he wasn’t saying Mattingly was a bad player. He wasn’t, he was a very good player. Just not Hall of Fame good except to deluded Yankee fans.
Fine, just that I want Mr. October to have his jersey yanked out of Cooperstown.
Mattingly (7,003 AB): Reggie Jackson (9,864 AB):
B/A: .307 - - - - - - - - vs - - - - - - - - .262
OBP: .358 - - - - - - - -vs- - - - - - - - - .356
SL%: .471- - - - - - - -vs- - - - - - - - - .490
Reggie Jackson also hit almost 350 more HR in his career, averaging one home run every 17.5 ABs, while Mattingly averaged only one home run every 31.5 ABs.
Plus, Jackson was a 14-time All-Star compared to Mattingly’s 6 meaning that for 2/3 of his career he was considered one of the best at his position while the same could only be said of 40% of Mattingly’s career.
Plus, Jackson was top 10 in the league in OPS 10 times compared to Mattingly’s 4 and led the league twice compared to Mattingly’s once. Jackson also led the league in runs twice, which Mattingly never did. While both earned the RBI title once in their careers, Mattingly finished in the top 10 only 5 times (or 1/3 of his seasons) while Jackson did it 10 times (or 1/2 of his seasons). And Jackson finished top 10 in OBP 5 times compared to Mattingly’s twice.
The only thing Mattingly ever did better than Jackson was batt for average. So you keep on believing there’s some sort of equivalancy between the two careers. I might listen to an argument that Jackson doesn’t belong in the HOF, but he’s definitely more worthy than Mattingly. Jackson was better for longer.
That’s just plain stupid, John.
Reggie had almost 3000 more AB than Mattingly and he had them for a reason.
Hits: RJ: 2584 DM: 2153
HR: RJ: 563 DM: 222
RBI: RJ: 1702 DM: 1099
SB: RJ: 228 DM: 14
Total Bases: RJ: 4834 DM: 3301
All Star Selections: RJ: 14 DM: 6
Top 10 in MVP voting: RJ: 7 DM: 4
Black Ink: RJ: 34 DM: 23
Grey Ink: RJ: 175 DM: 111
In all ways RJ outperformed DM. The only way to make the comparison is to pick and choose your targets very carefully.
DAMN YOU NEUROTIK!!!
Casey1505:
Wow, I’m surprised. I’ve worn my Royals cap and jersey to Royals-Yankees games at Yankee Stadium, even in the bleachers, and only got friendly comments (lots of Yankee fans reminiscing about George Brett’s great moments, so many of which came against the Yanks).
Chaim Mattis Keller
I think this sums up the Billy Beane thing entirely. They’re a good team, but without 3 aces (potentially more) who don’t have anything to do with him, they don’t amount to anything. If they lose those guys to free agency, they won’t go anywhere with the team they have.
Something about Billy Beane annoys me- I think it’s the way SaberMetrics have made baseball even MORE of an exercise in arithmetic. 
It was already the most statistical game by far, the last thing the sport needed was more numbers.
i haven’t been to fenway since the strike. the clams and other yummy treats were next to the huge sporting good store. i can’t remember the name.
red sox books are:
the great rivalry, ed linn
the curse of the bambino, dan shaughnessy
at fenway, dan shaughnessy
the red sox reader, don riley
amazon has a wonderful new search engine. one of the test phrases is “curse of the bambino,” there are red sox reading lists available on the page as well as books that have the phrase in them.
going to fenway is fun, there is a very old time baseball feel to it. people hang out on the street and watch the big screen, some hang out at the green monster hoping for a ball to go over. some people can maintain a small country on what they charge you to park on their driveway.
And of course, the best book about the Red Sox - Yankees rivalry is Summer of '49 by David Halberstam.
This Beane/Moneyball stuff is highly reminiscent of the discussions surrounding George Will’s Men at Work a decade ago. Will gave Tony LaRussa a tongue bath for pretty much the same reasons Beane is getting one now - his obsession with stats, running every move through a computer, and so forth. The more credulous, or similarly stat-happy, happily joined Will in proclaiming LaRussa a prophet of the new era. Remember that? Well, how good a manager has he been without Mark McGwire in his lineup? How good a GM will Beane seem to be without Miguel Tejada next year, and with the Big 3 starters gone later? I think we all know.
But notice who the Final Four managers were this year. Torre, Little, McKeon, and Baker are all “people persons”. They’ve been successful by treating their people as people, working with each of them to help them maximize their own performance. That’s how sports coaches have always been successful, and always will be. Cold egotists like LaRussa and Beane, and many others, can’t sustain success and can’t provably even create it.
Isn’t there a story going around about how Beane threw a nutty when he couldn’t get Jeremy Bonderman in the draft?