Usually I reserve Tuesday for the biggest new album release for the week except all the “new” releases happen to be old. Headlining the new releases this week are greatest hits packages by Destiny’s Child, *NSync, and Angie Stone and live albums by Aerosmith and the re-release 2 CD set of George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh. Also in the old is new philosophy is a Christmas album by Faith Evans. No wonder why the record industry is failing, we are exactly two months away from Christmas and the biggest new album with actual new songs is by Fefe Dobson. That can’t be a good sign of what’s to come.
Next week continues the onslaught of greatest hits with albums by Blink182 and Nivana’s Sliver: Best of the Box slimming last years With the Lights Out into one single disk with a few new unreleased tracks so they can squeeze even more money out of the diehard fans. But next week does have an actual marquee name with the release of Santana’s third all-star outing, All That I Am featuring vocals from Mary J. Blige, Big Boi of Outkast, Will.I.Am, Sean Paul, Joss Stone, Steven Tyler, Anthony Hamilton, Los Lonely Boys, a return appearance of Michelle Branch, and some dude named Bo Bice (didn’t he lose some karaoke contest or something?). There will also generational battle of the guitar virtuosos with Robert Randolph and Kirk Hammett appearing on the same song. But what I’ll be looking forward to next week is a pair a DVD’s that will be released, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 1-12.
Other notable releases in the next couple weeks include more greatest hits Limp Bizkit, Beastie Boys, Motörhead, John Fogerty, Alanis Morissette and even a re-release of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run and Mariah Carey’s The Emancipation of Mimi which I did a decent job ignoring the last time around hopefully I’ll do the same this time around. Also expect new albums with actual new songs by Neil Diamond, Madonna, Shakira, 50 Cent, a live album from the newly minted John Mayer Trio, and the debut of Jamie Foxx. And just when you think things can’t get any worse, the dude from Creed is releasing a solo album. God help us all.
My fall suggestions:
Aha, this response was obviously written before Yesterday’s game. I like that you don’t respond to my point about Iguchi. Ignoring an argument and pretending it will go away is not good policy.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as an umpire, you ought to know that it is outside the realm of possibility to deliberately fix a series, at least from the umpires point of view. Teams can throw series, but even then they are caught. Umpires throwing a series one way or the other in an organized and consistent manner would be immediately detected by anyone watching the game. This is not the case here. What we have are poor umpiring crews that have made individual calls that have favored the Angels over the Yankees (But not the White Sox over the Red Sox) in ALCS play. In ALDS play, we have calls that the Cardinals have hated, and three calls especially that went against the angels: A.J. Pierzynski to first in game two, catcher’s interference in game three, and Scott Podsednik getting picked off. By my tally, those three calls gave the white sox two additional outs and baserunners, respectively, over the course of the 45 innings of the ALDS. In addition, the call against catcher’s interference in game three cost the angels one baserunner and two outs. So the total ledger stands like this: Over the course of 45 innings, the White Sox gained two outs and two additional baserunners, while the angels lost one baserunner and two outs. If you include the safe call on Scott Podsednik at second base—when he was out—that gives the white sox an additional baserunner and out. However, it was a bang-bang play where podsednik got a bad jump, but the throw was off. Exactly the kind of play that is impossible—yes, not possible—to fix. And often, the team that looks better on a play (i.e. the team that didn’t screw up the throw and tag) gets the call: this is true in all levels of baseball.
So the final tally: Sox had two additional baserunners and two more outs to work with than normal over 45 innings, and each of those bumps up to three if you want to include the Podsednik safe call. Over that same period of time, the angels had one less baserunner and two fewer outs to work with to score runs. Is this difference significant? You bet it is. Are these three calls the result of an organized and consistent campaign on the part of the Major League Umpires Association and the commissioners office orchestrated over thousands of calls over the course of 45 innings? No. Simply put, it is impossible for umpires to fix a game subtly. Either they call ‘em like they see ‘em, or every call is shifted one way. There is no in between.
Your theory that they could change between innings is plausible: it wouldn’t arouse suspicion, it would just look like even but incompetent umpiring. However, it would affect both teams equally during that inning. While the commissioners office did decide to keep the roof of Minute Maid park open during the series, that has precedent: They did the same thing in the 2001 world series in Bank One Ballpark. However, including the playoffs, the Houston Astros have played ~.800 ball at home with the roof closed, and about ~.530 with it open. My contention is that home field advantage lies in sleeping in your own bed, having the crowd cheer for you, and knowing your own field. Domes and stadium’s with roofs give a well documented additional advantage to their home teams, which learn to play in them. This includes knowing which sections of the ballpark are prone to having foul balls off the roof, learning the changed circulation patterns inside the stadium when the roof closes, and most importantly learning to follow the path of fly balls against the background of the roof, which is distinctly different from the sky.
My belief is that the dome should be closed or opened based on weather conditions at the time, and that there ought to be a standard to this effect. If temperatures fall below a certain point, if rain is in the forecast, or wind, smog, lightning, extreme sunlight…then yes, the roof ought to be closed. But there needs to be a standard system voted upon and approved by the 30 MLB teams, because, as the winning percentages above show, domes and roofed stadiums in baseball do confer an advantage on their teams in addition to home field advantage. The temperature at game time was 60 degrees and the sky was clear. Should the dome always be closed under such conditions?
So Bud Selig didn’t take away their home field advantage. He let the weather decide whether to give them an additional advantage. Also, the decisions at the BoB in 2001 and at Minute Maid in 2005 both have their grounding in a ruling affecting, ironically, the White Sox. Bill Veeck, the late owner of the White Sox, wanted to move the fences in old Comiskey in when the Yankees came to town. Additionally, he wanted to move the fences out when other teams were at bat, and move them in when the Sox came to bat. Understandably, MLB vetoed the second proposal, but they also outlawed the first. Though the fences were Veeck’s fences, and he owned and maintained them, he could not alter the conditions of his ballpark in that manner. It gave him an additional advantage.
Also, the White Sox may play in a larger market than Houston (Chicago is the 3rd largest city in America, Houston is the fourth) but they also share that market with the Cubs. Two teams to the 3rd largest city and one to the fourth? Anyone who’s taken basic economics knows that the potential for growth is greater in Houston than Chicago with those factors. Additionally, why wouldn’t Bud Selig have favored the Angels, who hail from America’s second largest city, in the ALDS?
And finally, all ideas are objective, regardless of who offers them. In the one of the pillars of logic and reason that human thought processes rest on—that anyone can have a good idea. My allegiance has no bearing here, look at the facts of the case which I have laid out for you.
In the end, this discussion is academic, as your model failed in game three of the world series. Houston not only received two additional bases and an additional RUN from a blown home run call (Note: The White Sox never received a run from any blown call, only additional baserunners.). Also, when Oswalt hit Crede in retaliation for his homerun, the umpires not only didn’t eject him, they didn’t even issue a warning against him.
As a current student and future doctor, I advise you take your foot, and insert in firmly into your mouth, and repeat as necessary regarding this issue. This ought to settle this matter: while I wouldn’t put it past Bud Selig to do something like trying to fix a series, this is not the case here. I think I’ve laid the idea that this series is fixed firmly to rest. Just thought I'd let you know that.