Thursday, September 15, 2005

Picture of the Day

Thanks to Dagny for sending this priceless Bush pic over...

r2587077477.jpg

Original image on Yahoo!, with the following caption:
U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005.


My favorite part is the question mark, like he's not sure if he has to go to the bathroom or not.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Vin Scully and Sandy Koufax

"29,000 people and a million butterflies"

On the scoreboard in right field it is 9:46 p.m. in the City of the Angels, Los Angeles, California. And a crowd of 29,139 just sitting in to see the only pitcher in baseball history to hurl four no-hit, no-run games. He has done it four straight years, and now he caps it: On his fourth no-hitter he made it a perfect game. And Sandy Koufax, whose name will always remind you of strikeouts, did it with a flurry. He struck out the last six consecutive batters. So when he wrote his name in capital letters in the record books, that "K" stands out even more than the O-U-F-A-X.


Thanks to Rich Lederer for the link from his post, It Was Forty Years Ago Today... which also includes his father's original article about Koufax's perfect game from the Long Beach Independent, Press-Telegram.

So much great stuff in there - Koufax's pitching, Scully's call and two generations of quality Lederer writing. Though the game is well before my time, I can listen to Scully's call in my head as I read it -- and it's fantastic!

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Scooped by Stone?

stone: Baseball price-performance

Marc points us towards a "nice graphic on how teams are performing relative to their payroll." It is a nice graphic, but it's certainly not perfect. What would be more interesting to me is a graph showing marginal payroll vs. marginal wins for 2005.

... a major league team could probably win 40 games by only spending around $7.5 million (25 roster spots times $300,000). Dividing the numbers, this would only cost about $187,000 a win ... How much did major league teams pay for each win above replacement-level wins? About $1.5 million each.
-Dave Studeman


So, here are the six AL playoff contenders, ranked by cost per marginal win.

Cleveland -- $650,766
Oakland -- $946,600
ChiSox -- $1,142,177
Anaheim -- $1,743,072
Boston -- $2,103,034
Yankees -- $3,916,836

The Indians, A's and White Sox are all outperforming the $1.5M cost per marginal win while the Angels, Red Sox and Yankees are all spending too much. (Big surprise there!) I wonder if anyone in the history of baseball has ever overpaid for wins as eggregiously as the Yankees.. Does anyone know?

Thursday, September 1, 2005

Oh No!

Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Athletics place SS Crosby on DL with fractured ankle

"The Oakland Athletics will have to win the American League West Division without shortstop Bobby Crosby."

The A's really struggled when Crosby missed the first two months of the season. I hope they're able to stay hot without him this time.