Talk Derby to Me

Nothing I have written in the last six months has generated as much response, site traffic, or “retweets” on Twitter as the piece I wrote last week about my plans to attend the Kentucky Derby. There are two ways to look at that development: On one hand, I’m not sure what that says about by baseball writing, but on the other hand, it probably bodes well for reader enjoyment of my forthcoming book. Unlike nearly all of the baseball pieces in the newsletter which are really commentary, the book is a memoir. It delves into data both in baseball and on Wall Street to be sure, but in tone and structure it’s much more similar to last week’s Derby piece than anything else in the blog or newsletter.

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Going to See about a Horse

One of the challenging aspects of being a parent is anticipating future problems your children my face before they arise. In the not too distant future my daughters, nearly 6- and 8-years old, will surely be confronted with the challenges of peer pressure. In anticipation, I’ll try to arm them with the confidence to think for themselves and stress the importance of responsible decision making. Still, I strongly suspect at some point I’ll be sternly lecturing one of them saying, “You knew your friends were pressuring you to do something you didn’t want to do. For years we’ve talked about thinking for yourself and not taking action just because all your friends were doing something.” And that’s when I envision my daughter looking into my eyes and replying “You mean like the time you bought a horse?”

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About Last Month . . .

The most absurd discussion I heard this baseball season occurred on Monday, April 16 the day after the Dodgers had won its sixth straight game to improve its record to 9-1. On the show Around the Horn, a discussion commenced among the four panelists as to whether they would “buy or sell” the idea that the Dodgers were the best team in the National League. Not the NL West, but the entire National League. All four “bought the idea” that LA was for real, if not the best team in the league. Although one or two acknowledged the Dodgers opponents to date, it was more of a “yeah but still” caveat. Here’s what I would have said: . . .

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Game Theory: Lee vs. Cain - For Fans, a San Francisco Treat

Despite the absence of throwback uniforms or a clever in-stadium marketing campaign, when the Philadelphia Phillies faced the San Francisco Giants Wednesday night in the rubber game of the three-game series, Cliff Lee and Matt Cain turned it into Turn Back the Clock night. The Giants and the Phillies played 11 innings of taut, 1-0 baseball in just two hours and twenty-seven minutes.

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Game Theory: Studying the Bard or Throws by any Other Name . . .

Thanks to stat heavy web sites like redsoxstats.com and the discussion forums at Sons of Sam Horn (which I believe pre-date the existence of FanGraphs and possibly even baseball-reference.com) Boston Red Sox fans have a well-earned reputation as a knowledgeable, statistical-savvy lot. (They have some other well-earned reputations as well, but in the aftermath of a gorgeous Patriot Day, let’s stay positive today.) Yet, I’ll bet those attentive, well-studied fans would struggle filling in the blank in this sentence:

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