Snowflake League – Jan 31st
| Snowflake League | |||
| Away | R | Home | R |
| Bos | 2 | Cle | 3 |
| NYA | 7 | Pit | 1 |
| Tor | 2 | Bal | 1 |
| Was | 3 | Atl | 2 |
2008 Snowflake League (click to view website)
January 2008
Don't Run with Needles
Did you know . . . Jay Gibbons, named in the Mitchell Report for involvement with steroids, in 2004 gave up his Oriole uniform number 25 to . . . Raphael Palmiero.
Say it Ain't So, Rambo, Say it Ain't So
Stallone said there’s no magic potion to build the physique that has helped carry him to great wealth and fame. “If that were the case, everyone would be a superhuman being,” he said.
“You have to put in years and years and years of hard labor to stay in shape,” Stallone went on. “The most important thing about HGH — and I think more people should be aware of this — is it really takes off the wear and tear that your body takes. The power to recuperate is very, very limited. So all it does is expedite.”
Stallone discusses HGH, ‘Rambo IV’ - Today Entertainment - MSNBC.com
Stallone? HGH? Who would have thunk?
As I've said previously baseball is merely reflecting a much more complicated issue present in society. So should actors, who, after all, are as much role models as athletes, be tested? What about rappers, who have also been reported to be dipping into the fountain of youth? Who else? Who can say?
And who can say whether these substances are good or bad? Are they any worse than the genetically/chemically altered foods we ingest? Are there definitive long term studies? Are the risks worth the rewards?
What if HGH actually could, as Stallone and Canseco suggest, improve the lives of the aging? What if third elbows don't grow out of your head? What if an unbiased study revealed the long term detrimental effects were relative inconsequential? What would that mean for professional athletics?
So many questions, so few answers. This issue defies simplistic responses. Unfortunately, simplistic responses are more "commercially viable"--and are what are being peddled by our leaders.
Welcome to the HGH Era
Congress let the despoilers of our beloved game off light. Very few of the really tough questions anyone who actually follows baseball knows should have been asked were asked. Of course, most of us know how to pronounce Selig and Palmiero. If only Selig's approach to performance enhancing substances had been as brilliant as his selection of George Mitchell to head the investigation. Not that he actually produced much of consequence, but once I saw the Congressmen fawn on the former Senator, and the latter's smoother than smooth performance, I understood perfectly Mitchell's role. He got Congress off baseball's back.
That may or may not be a good thing. Congress probably has better things to do than meddle in Selig's sewer. After Selig and Fehr's curtsy before Congress, I'm curious as to the point of next month's Clemens extravaganza.
One thing is clear, though: these clowns are still way behind the curve. Letting baseball slide with a piddly three million dollar contribution to find a—catch this: "commercially viable"—test for HGH was flabbergasting. Steroids were becoming passé even when I was bodybuilding two decades ago. Anyone who could find it and had the bucks preferred HGH. Now, as Fehr pointed out, you can find it a million places on Google, and for millionaire athletes the price is quite "commercially viable". Even the Mitchell Report talks more about HGH than steroids.
So tell me how, again, has implementing a testing program for steroids ameliorated the performance enhancing substance problem in baseball?
Snowflake League FAQ
There have been a number of questions regarding the Snowflake League. I attempted to explain the enterprise in a previous post, but some may have missed it and others may not have understood it. Thus I decided to start a FAQ which will later be posted on the Snowflake League website, which I've discovered needs some real work from a navigational standpoint. Having developed professionally for the web since, well, there was a web (I was once in talks with a major publisher of computer books to do a book on HTML 1.1), that won't be particularly difficult. But for the purposes of this discussion it reveals a secondary purpose of the Snowflake League: to work out the kinks before doing something a little more substantial. The intent is to do some historical recreations which should be quite interesting, with historical reflections you might expect from someone who did The Jamestown Site. Just as the current "steroid era" baseball reflects a sports crazed society with a drug problem, so has baseball throughout its history reflected its culture. Baseball's labor problems, for example, could be predicted from a sport born in the Industrial Revolution. It is correctly pointed out that baseball is unfairly singled out for its current bio-chemistry problems, but baseball is merely at the forefront, as it has always been, of a much larger problem our society faces.
But I digress. For now it is all fun and games. The Snowflake League provides boxscores when the sports pages are devoid. There are "soon-to-be's", "never-was'es" and "who-the-****-is-that-guy's" and, if we're lucky, a "that guy is dead!". But it is baseball, at least as close as we're going to get while I look out my window and see my Jeep covered with snow.
Snowflake League FAQ
What is the Snowflake League?
The Snowflake League is a simulated league designed to prepare for and accent spring training (and consequently the season), which seems all too far away in the middle of winter, particularly in relation to our home teams here in Virginia, Washington and Baltimore.
How are the results generated?
Diamond Mind Baseball is used for the simulation. Diamond Mind Baseball is highly respected baseball simulator used by ESPN and other organizations to predict upcoming seasons and the post season.
The home games for Baltimore and Washington are played manually, inning by inning, at least until a game gets out of hand. The rest of the games are played with the computer managing both teams.
How were the teams selected?
A limited number of teams were selected for manageability and focus.
The eight teams in the league are the parent clubs of Triple A teams we expect to see in the 2008 season. The 2008 schedule for the Norfolk Tides, AAA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, was examined and the home series we will be likely to attend were selected as the basis for the teams in the Snowflake League.
How were the players selected?
The focus is intentionally NOT on the top tier players. You won't find much of Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, or any other starter for that matter (except pitchers, at the start). Even for those that follow along, the idea is to familiarize with the second, third and fourth tier players who, collectively, have every bit as much to do with the ultimate success of a franchise as the top tier players over the course of a long season and certainly across seasons.
Diamond Mind Baseball includes a fairly extensive compendium of players who have ever played in the majors with its season disks. Each is scrupulously analyzed for abilities and tendencies (can they bunt? How do they fare against lefties? etc., etc.). Of course since the focus is on secondary players, some players have had to be added manually. Since we don't have the hours to devote to the kinds of analysis Diamond Mind scrupulously provides with its supplied players, the ultimate results will not be as meticulously accurate as Diamond Mind is known for. But then it is, after all, the pre-preseason!
Rest in Peace, Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fisher passed this week. For a generation that didn't know the cold war, Bobby Fischer would be impossible to understand. The Russians were smarter than us--at least that was our great fear. The Commies dominated chess. Long before there was a "miracle on ice", i.e., the U.S.A. Olympic team's defeat of the Russians, Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky on a chessboard. It is impossible to comprehend now, but it was a cultural phenomenon. We followed the results daily in the newspaper, much as a generation before followed Joe DiMaggio's streak.
For a kid who wouldn't be And I learned chess from Bobby Fischer. given a chance in baseball until his Algebra teacher/coach figured out someone who could solve algebra problems could certainly solve pitchers, both as a catcher and a pitcher, chess was an outlet. I learned to compete in chess. Before the computer, there was chess. And even then, some of the first programs we worked on when the computer became personal were chess engines.
And I learned chess from Bobby Fischer.
Like Barry Bonds, Fischer was born to do one thing exceptionally well, and that proved to be his undoing. Single minded focus, while yielding exceptional results in the area of focus, does not produce a well-rounded human being, maybe not even a human being at all, which is the point. But those who view Fischer from the perspective of his ultimate insanity miss his monumental contribution. His victory in 1972 marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. For both cultures it was culture shock.
More than anything else he taught a whole generation of Americans that being smart was cool, and that we could compete with anyone in the world.
Rest in Peace, Bobby Fischer
Two Dues
In his comments on my previous post, Michael at Baseball as I See It raises a couple of interesting points. Both deserve much deeper treatment than I am going to provide here, but I wanted to lay them out on the table, as they really cut to the heart of the matter.
First, he notes that by comparison baseball now has the most stringent testing of any of the professional sports. The important implication of this statement is that all sports have a problem with performance enhancing substances, something which is aggravatingly ignored by our ignorant Congress. Taken further, we as a society have a major drug problem on our hands—and no, I'm not talking about recreational use. That, as well, is just a small part of a much bigger picture. Our sports are merely reflecting our society.
Second, Michael makes a distinction between amateur and professional athletics. He is quite right in doing so, but therein lies the problem: the distinction doesn't play out nearly as cleanly in reality as it does in our minds. In fact, more than anything else the current debate reflects precisely that confusion.
As I noted, both of these issues require far more attention than I am providing in this post. Indeed they are both issues I plan to pursue this season, particularly the latter. Stay tuned.
Enablers Guarding the Drugstore
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Major League Baseball and the World-Anti- Doping Agency exchanged barbs Wednesday, with baseball being accused of resisting former senator George Mitchell's recommendation of transferring its drug-testing program to an independent organization.
WADA President John Fahey said in a statement MLB and the players union are "essentially thumbing their nose" at fans for their refusal to give control over the testing of performance-enhancing drugs to an independent body.
MLB, WADA trade harsh words over drug testing - USATODAY.com
So...baseball has really reformed itself? And the Commish is following all of the Mitchell recommendations, too? Ask yourself this: why won't baseball give up control over testing to an independent body--and no, using an independent lab is NOT the same thing when the powers that be that got us into this mess still have the power to do with the results what they will. If memory serves, Palmiero's positive test was buried until after the got his 3000th hit, a question from the Congressional committee.
And speaking of Congress--are they taking notice?
Otherwise it was all just a show, while the foxes still guard the henhouse.
Snowflake League
Using Diamond Mind Baseball, I am simming a season based on performances from the 2007 season, something I call the Snowflake League. The premise is preparation for my 2008 season here in Norfolk. The participating teams were selected on the basis of Tides home series I expect to be able to attend, as well, of course, Baltimore, the parent club, and Washington, my team. I will be alternating managing the Baltimore and Washington teams, depending on which playing at home—like the major league clubs, they are never at home at the same time. The entire roster for each club will be included, sort of like spring training, although the emphasis will be not on the stars or starters, but the second tier players, especially those I anticipate seeing at some time during the upcoming season. The eight teams will play two four game series against each other, for a total of 56 games ending just before the start of the regular season.
So why should this interest you? Might not. But then if you are a box score junkee like I am, it will give you a fix until the real thing starts. The leaderboards and team stats will contain names you will probably be hearing this spring and perhaps even into the regular season. And I'll be interspersing the reports with observations on simming and borne of simming that you might have never considered.
This is a short season league designed to be a ramp up to some more substantial historical things I've been planning to do with simming for a couple of years now, to work out some of the logistics of working with Diamond Mind, a blog and a web site. In other words, it is something of a trial balloon. But, in any case, it should be fun.
Click on the title (2008 Snowflake League) for the league website.
2008 Snowflake League
1-15-2008
Bal 5 Was 7Cle 2 NYA 1 Atl 8 Bos 2 Pit 1 Tor 2
Can’t Recant
Something that seems to have escaped notice in regards to the much talked about phone conversation between Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee is that in foolishly recording and playing the conversation Clemens managed to slam the door on his only real chance at clearing his name. It is highly unlikely Clemens can raise enough doubts as to the reliability of McNamee's testimony. His only real hope was a recantation by McNamee. Ironically, by playing a tape in which a heartbroken McNamee repeats over and over again "What do you want me to do, Roger? I will go to jail. What do you want me to do?", any recantation at this point would be highly suspect. It would be hard not to believe a recantation to be motivated by McNamee's almost perverse loyalty to Clemens, as heard on the audiotape.
Instead of throwing fastballs at McNamee, Clemens should consider throwing them at his PR advisors. First he seriously damaged his case by delaying a response. Now he has eliminated his only chance to clear his name by playing a conversation which convinced nobody of anything. Except, of course, that Clemens is an idiot and a bully.
But we already knew that.
******' in a Vacuum
I wouldn't deign pretend to know who is right between Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee. The endless examination of what was said, and certainly what was not said, is ultimately inconclusive, an entertaining parlor game, nothing more. I don't know who is right, but I do know who is wrong: Selig and his **** Mitchell Report. By sensationalizing instead of producing a meaningful report on the use of PEDs during the last couple of decades, ultimately pointless scenarios like the Clemens debacle were inevitable and divert from the real issue.
Whether Clemens did or did not use steroids is really not the question. The real question is: what would it mean if he did? Think about this: what would your opinion of Clemens be if he did, indeed, use PEDs, but in an era when every other player was juicing? 95% of players? 80%? Brian McNamee, someone who would have been in a position to know, estimated fifty percent were using. Personally I find it difficult to assign much blame if usage was that prevalent. No one would accuse me of being a Clemens fan, but even I wouldn't be too terribly critical if he made that bad decision knowing half the players around him were gaining a competitive advantage through chemistry.
Was it that high? We don't know, and therein lies the utter failure of the Mitchell Report. The Mitchell Report, instead of naming names, should have provided us with context to evaluate the impact of steroids on the baseball of the era. It should have told us what percentage of hitters were juicing, what percentage of pitchers, and roughly during what years. Don't tell me they couldn't come up with such assessments. If archaeologists can ascertain the diets of men who lived 40,000 years ago from seeds found in their excrement, a diligent study could project with some reliability the percentage of players who were juicing during the last two decades. Of course that would necessitate a completely different approach to the steroid era than Selig has taken. It would require providing an environment in which players, trainers, coaches, GMs, owners—everyone in MLB—feels free to talk openly to investigators about what happened, in complete anonymity, without recrimination, without fear their name and/or the names of those they provide will be splashed as tabloid fodder. Did McNamee know that by testifying about Clemens that his hero's name would appear in the report? Or did he think it would simply be tallied, maybe lead to further investigations—in other words, be part of a responsible, legitimate study of the phenomena?
The general consensus regarding the audiotape played at Clemens press conference is it revealed nothing. Wrong. It revealed two people in a lot of pain. McNamee's suffering was palpable, Clemens' maybe a little less so, but he also noted the strain on his wife and family. And for what? What, exactly, are we going to know if we know for a fact Clemens performance was chemically enhanced? Nothing. Not without knowing how many hitters he faced were juiced. Not without some objective method of evaluating the extent to which PEDs affect a pitcher's effectiveness. Not without some concept of how many Cy Young contenders were abusing in the years Clemens won his Cy Youngs.
In other words, without knowing precisely the kinds of information the Mitchell Report should have provided.
Auto De Fe
It appears the entire sporting world is eagerly looking forward to the weekend, not because of the first round of the NFL playoffs, but in anticipation of the burning at the stake of one Roger Clemens. Grand Inquisitor emeritus Mike Wallace is expected to torch Clemens with questions forged from ****. We're going to get to watch Roger the Dodger's face as the fire gets hotter, watch the beads of sweat form, the fear in the eyes, the grotesque twitching of the wretched being tortured for a confession, all in High Definition.
On the sports boards I've been monitoring the virulence directed at Clemens, who, for the record, I despised and suspected of being a PED abuser long before the Mitchell Report, as anyone who reads this blog well knows. But the boorish curses ("I HATE YOU YOU CHEATER GO BACK TO **** I HOPE YOU DIE…") from the sporting public remind me of the primates in the stands who launch spittle, epithets and the occasional beer at the players—or the dirty crowds who gathered eagerly to watch the garroting and burning alive of a fellow soul for heresy during the Dark Ages.
There is no Dark Side of the Moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.
-- Michael Norton
More Baloney From The Wiener
We're now into our fourth different calendar year of MLBlogs, and I remember a lot of the skeptics who blogged in various places in April 2005 about how there never could be a business model for premium blogs. It's growing strong!
Add up the number of blogs and do the math and it is pretty obvious this business model isn't working. Even homeboy J.W. notes that fact. And independent web traffic analysis certainly doesn't support the assertion that "It's going strong!", which is why you don't see a whole lot of advertising around here--another part of the "business model" that isn't working. Of course there's always Alyssa Milano.
That isn't quite working out so well, either. Ask youself the question: if Alyssa Milano were really attracting traffic to MLBlogs, why does MLBlogs need to promote her so heavily? So heavily they are alienating many, many legitimate bloggers?
Whistling past the graveyard won't keep the Grim Reaper away. Censorship won't work, either. Why not try fixing the problem? Why not try growing a vibrant blogging community?
Why is that such a novel idea?
-- Michael Norton
