Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Contender Finale Recap

ESPN's Bill Simmons has a tremendous running diary from the Contendor finale: Knocking out 'The Contender'

"For the past few months, my favorite show has been "The Contender," which has been on the ropes (I know, bad boxing pun) with NBC for weeks..."

As I was watching the finale, I was already looking forward to Simmons' take on Sly Stallone's monosyllabic color commentary -- and his article doesn't disappoint. If you followed the Contender at all, it's a must read.

And if you didn't follow the Contender, shame on you.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

De-Animator High Score

Two weeks ago, I posted a note about De-Animator. My high score at the time was right around 100.

The day after that post, my office-mate Adam started playing -- his high score is about 230. Convinced he was the greatest of all time, he emailed the creator of the game...
-----Original Message-----
From: Adam
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 9:29 AM
To: Andrew
Subject: FW: de-animator

Maybe I'm a little crazy. I emailed the creator of De-Animator to see what the high score is. Looks like I've got a lot of work to do...

-----Original Message-----
From: Bum
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 8:31 PM
To: adam
Subject: Re: de-animator

Stage 28, 534 zombies by a guy from Spain



--On Monday, May 23, 2005 1:41 PM -0400 Adam wrote:

>
> Bum,
>
> your game has become a cult favorite in my office. wondering what the
> highest score you've heard of is?


Monday, May 16, 2005

At Last

A's finally win one after eight straight losses. Thank goodness, and Matt Watson, too.

Recap Here.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Great Time Sink

De-Animator

UPDATE: My personal best is 94.

UPDATE: After a few *cough* minutes, my new high is 99.

Monday, May 2, 2005

Steroid Suspension for Rincon

"Minnesota Twins pitcher Juan Rincon was suspended for 10 days Monday, making him the fifth player disciplined under Major League Baseball's new policy on performance-enhancing drugs."
-Twins pitcher suspended for violating baseball's drug policy

That one comes as a surprise. He's the first major league pitcher to be suspended, and the Most Valuable Outted Steroid User to date. His 12 Win Shares in 2004 are almost double the combined Win Shares of the four previously suspended players.

Alex Sanchez - 5
Jorge Piedra - 2
Agustin Montero - 0
Jamal Strong - 0

His brief departure is not likely to affect the AL Central race in any substantive way, but it's certainly worthy of an eyebrow raising.

Sunday, May 1, 2005

Catfish Stew

Baseball Toaster : Catfish Stew : May Day!

"I am grateful the A's finished April with a 12-12 record and only one game out of first despite the injustice of Those Who Play Dice With The Universe." - Ken Arneson

I finally figured out how to get the RSS feeds from Baseball Toaster, and thank god. Ken's post today reminds us how badly the A's offense has underperformed so far in '05. Considering the meager offense and the craptastic performance from Zito (other than today and tax day), we really are lucky to be 12-12.

Dr. Barry Zizmor

If you're a New Yorker, you've probably seen this guy's ads on the subway. Whenever I see his ads, I think of Barry Zito, and whenever I see Zito pitch, I think of Dr Zizmor. Consequently, I now think of Barry as Dr. Barry Zizmor, Board Certified Dermatologist. And, interestingly enough, he's pitching about as well as the dermatologist might, if insterted into the A's rotation.

Zito's given up 22 earned runs in only 30 innings - that's an ERA of 6.60. But overall, the A's have only allowed 81 earned runs total, meaning that Zito's given up 27% of the A's total earned runs so far this year. Is that a lot? I had no idea, so I looked at all pitchers with over 22 IP to determine the percent of their team's earned runs allowed.

Turns out, Zito's number 1, or uh, dead f-ing last. Here are the pitchers that have allowed the highest percent of their team's ER:

Barry Zito - 27%
Jake Westbrook - 24%
Jeff Weaver - 23%
Brad Radke - 23%
Mark Buehrle - 22%

And the five lowest:

Rich Harden - 7%
Joe Blanton - 6%
Roger Clemens - 5%
Brett Myers - 4%
John Patterson - 3%

I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but as an A's fan, I certainly don't like seeing our supposed ace allowing 27% of the team's earned runs. The good news here, if you can stretch far enough, is that the team is 12-12 after April without any real meaningful contribution from their no. 1 starter. If Zito pitches even a little better, The A's have to be able to play better than .500 ball, right?