Why is ripping paper so funny to babies? My baby is sophisticated, though; this is the only time it amused him — and, boy, did it amuse him! Every attempt since has resulted in a look that says, “Don’t play this out. Get new material, clown.”
Category: General
Happy Halloween 2011!
Happy Halloween from us!
Should MLB Expand the Postseason to 10 Teams?
My dad, RubyVader, recently sent me a link to an article where the head of the Major League Baseball players’ union discussed the MLB postseason. The union head expressed that players would be open to expanding the postseason party from the current format, which includes 8 teams, to a new one including 10. To be fair, the article does not imply an opinion from owners one way or the other regarding postseason expansion, although Commissioner Bud Selig seems interested in the idea. You could argue that his support alone is evidence that the idea would be terrible for the sport.
Anyway, RubyVader asked me for my opinion and I wrote him an email containing my arguments for and against expanding the postseason. He suggested I share the email and, since I haven’t updated since the Flyers defeated the Bruins in the playoffs, I decided to take his advice since I am not a teenager and understand that it is ok to do that. What do you think about the postseason expansion idea?
Season Length/Playoff Representation Ratio
Forget the 8 out of 30 teams in MLB vs 12 out of 32 in NFL stat. For me, the more important stat is the length of the season.
- NFL teams play a paltry 16 games, and then nearly 50% qualify for postseason play.
- NBA and NHL teams play 82 games, and then over 50% qualify for postseason play.
- MLB teams play a marathon 162 games, and then barely over 25% qualify for postseason play.
Sympathy for the outsiders
On one hand, I feel that it must be very disappointing to play 162 games and find yourself on the outside because you finished with one less win than another team (see: San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants, 2010) or because you lost a one game play-in despite winning 103 of those games (see: San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves, 1993). Baseball players must be so pissed when they win 90+ games and miss the postseason, and then watch an 8-8 NFL team qualify for the postseason. When looked at this way, it seems like it would only be fair to ‘reward’ more teams after the marathon season by granting them an opportunity to win a championship.
No love for the Boo-Hoo Jays (and other losers!)
On the other hand, the NFL’s 16 game season leaves a wide margin for error — one mistake, like a missed FG at the end of the game — has much more significance for playoff implications. The 8-8 playoff team may have been one or two plays away from being 10-6, and a 10-6 team may have been only one or two plays away from being 8-8. Because 16 games is such a small sample size to determine a team’s true worth, it almost becomes necessary to let more teams join the playoffs. By the same token, after 162 games, you know whether a baseball team is good or not.
The Phillies did not win 97 games this season because of a few lucky plays, just as the Pirates did not lose 105 games because of a few flukes. After 162 games, you can safely say the Phillies are a good team that deserved the #1 playoff seed, and the Pirates are a terrible team that deserves the #1 or 2 draft pick in 2011. It would be heartbreaking for the #1 seeded Phillies to lose to the St. Louis Cardinals, who would have entered the playoffs as the #5 seed and did not prove over 162 games to be a top contender in their league. This is in stark contrast to teams like the 2006 Steelers or 2007 NY Giants who won the Super Bowl as #6 seeds but, given the argument above, could have won one or two more games based on luck and ended up as a higher seed anyway.
It’s a Beautiful Day (or not) in your Divisional Neighborhood
Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
On the third hand, what about a team that plays in the “wrong” division? How many times has a baseball team missed the playoffs because they finished in 3rd place in their division, despite having more wins than a playoff team who qualified because they play in a weak division. This did not happen in 2010 because the eight playoff teams had the top four records in their respective divisions — all eight teams had 90+ wins (has that ever happened before?)! A team missing the playoffs because they play in the “wrong” division last happened in 2008, when the NY Mets (89 wins), Houston Astros (86 wins), St Louis Cardinals (86 wins), and Florida Marlins (84 wins) all had more or equal wins as the Los Angeles Dodgers (84 wins), but missed the playoffs because they did not play in a division as weak as the NL West.
Then again, Mr. Rogers is for toddlers and not adults
On the fourth hand, adding two more teams would take away much of the magic and stories of the past few years. Remember how awesome it was when the Phillies stole the division and playoff opportunity away from the Mets in 2007 and 2008, thanks to their epic and historical chokes? Well, in 2008 the Mets would have qualified as the #5 seed, eliminating that fun story. The Mets still would have missed out in 2007 (they had 88 wins against the Padres 89), but having a 5th seed also would have eliminated the craziness and fun that would have occurred if the Phillies, Mets, Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Padres had all tied with 89 wins. Remember when they were talking about their being a three-tiered post-regular season ‘tournament’ to determine the National League’s playoff teams? Using NFL-style tiebreakers, as the article discusses, would eliminate that fun as well.
My final word on the final herd
Overall, I’m against expanding the MLB postseason format to include 10 teams. I know that the thrilling pennant race still exists despite adding two more teams via wild card in the mid-90s, but I think adding even more teams would cheapen the system a little by making the races between even lower-quality teams. I also think 162 games is adequate time to prove you are a top team that deserves a playoff berth. If you can’t win enough games during that grind, you don’t deserve a chance at the World Series.
Just for fun…
By the way, if you added one more team from each league in 2010, the Padres (90 wins, NL West) and Boston Red Sox (89 wins, AL East) would have joined the postseason party.
A picture is worth 7 wins
I have a list of things I want to blog about, which will happen regularly throughout these next few weeks (I hope Sean’s RSS feeder heard that!). What makes it difficult to blog is when Philly sports teams do well in the playoffs.
With that in mind, here is an excellent screenshot of ESPN’s website after the latest playoff success:
Screenshot of ESPN.com main page
Living with Conflict
The Provost of Drexel University recently sent out a lengthy email that detailed his difficult situation as a native New Yorker living in Philly and cheering for the Phillies during the 2009 World Series. He used his situation as an impressive segue for introducing a new philosophy for Drexel’s different departments, which are now offering programs and courses aimed at general audiences. Or something like that. I was actually kinda mad to receive an email during the World Series that was boasting about the glory of growing up as a fan of the Yankees and skipped over those parts.
I’ll spare you his thoughts on the Phillies, Yankees, and Drexel in the interest of sharing an eloquent, interesting excerpt. It’s OK to think deeply on a Sunday…
“The great American poet Robert Frost writes, ‘Nothing in life runs unmixed.’ The challenge of living comes from its complexity, its multiple perspectives and possibilities for interpretation, its uncertainties. Solving an equation correctly is satisfying; it provides closure. A really good movie or novel or poem — or a complex scientific or engineering problem — prompts more questions than it answers, poses challenges that are not resolved easily or perhaps at all. Friendships and relationships do not run unmixed. Major life decisions do not run unmixed. The great art of living well involves learning to live with uncertainty, becoming comfortable with conflict, even becoming able to balance two competing theories or perspectives at once — or affiliations to two sports teams locked in fierce competition. That’s why it’s an art and not an exact science.”
— Mark Greenberg, Drexel University
Found: The Nearest (?) Payphone
I am pleased/shocked/amazed that I recently found a payphone (see picture below)! It is near Steve’s Prince of Steaks on St Vincent St. I can not vouch for the functionality of the payphone, but I am now prepared for my next encounter with Very Confused Looking Man.
The last remaining payphone?
The Nearest Pay Phone?
I know I should be posting my He Said / She Said about why it is better to have a summer birthday, but I had an encounter this morning that I wanted to share.
I dropped my wife off at work this morning and then headed to the neighborhood Wawa for a coffee during the busy morning rush hour. I was about three people deep in the cashier line when a very confused-looking man walked in. He removed his old fashioned sunglasses from a head covered with a full-blown mullet, and revealed an expression suggesting that whatever was on his mind was the most important thing in the world. It wasn’t so much a panicked look as it was a “caught up in his own situation” look.
The cashier was in the process of accepting payment from a customer when Very Confused Looking Man glanced at a paper in his hand, looked in her direction, and blurted out, “Can you tell me where the nearest payphone is?” My initial reaction was, “Huh? Did he just interrupt her to ask for a payphone?” I first obtained a cell phone for work purposes in 1998 and, without finding any definitive data online, recall them exploding in popularity about 2-3 years after that. I also recall reading and hearing news stories at that time that more and more companies were removing pay phones from public facilities since they were no longer producing enough income to justify the hassle of maintaining them.
The cashier, who appeared just old enough to legally work, had a blank look on her face as she handed change to the customer in line. Her quiet reply to Very Confused Looking Man was, “Honestly, I have no idea where that would be.” Since the cashier is young enough to have never even manually rolled up a car window, she could have just as easily said, “Honestly, I have no idea what a payphone is.” Very Confused Looking Man looked very disappointed and resumed a hurried pace through the store.
I was not the only person in disbelief of Very Confused Looking Man’s question. The customer who had just received his change was an elderly man, old enough to still have a ‘new’ rotary phone, but even he looked at the cashier and asked, “Did he just ask for a payphone?” The elderly man asked this in a hushed tone, careful to preserve Very Confused Looking Man’s dignity after asking such a ridiculous question. The cashier nodded and then let out a nervous laugh, which made me smile. We were all temporarily lost in our own thoughts when Very Confused Looking Man asked the question, but now realized that we had shared this moment of anachronistic realization together. Today, in this age of cell phones, someone asked for the location of the nearest payphone and none of us could provide an answer. 10 years ago, my answer would have been, “Gee, did you look right outside Wawa?” but obviously not anymore.
It wasn’t until I got home that I properly processed the details of the situation and realized the truth. Think about it: a preoccupied outsider, the old fashioned sunglasses, the full-blown mullet, the bizarre request for a payphone. This man was clearly a time traveler from the past! And we had all laughed at him, instead of recognizing the awesomeness of the experience!
I leave you with two very important questions:
- Why is Very Confused Looking Man here in the future?
- Do you know where you can find a pay phone?
He Said / She Said – Intro
As you may have noticed, the preceding entry was posted by my wife, Ali. The idea behind that entry was that we were looking for a way to promote a little creative writing between us, and the idea we came up with was to pick a topic and then take a “He Said / She Said” type of approach to the topic. The only rules, or guidelines, are that we cannot read the other person’s post before we upload our own, and that we limit our posts to 250 words or less. We are experimenting with the idea and format, so we wanted a simple topic just to kick things off. Since her birthday is in November and mine is in July, we decided our first topic would be “Why it is better to have a (Fall/Summer) Birthday.” Ali posted her entry on Friday, and I will add mine today. I promise I have not read Ali’s entry yet, and have only copied the URL for linking purposes.
Feel free to share your ideas for a topic you’d like to see us debate in this space. We plan on getting a little more philosophical and provocative than “Best time to have a Birthday.” We are also debating whether or not to adapt Twitter’s 140 character limit by limiting ourselves to 140 words instead of 240. If so, would this format be called Twlogging? Twentries?
LOST Thoughts, “Dead is Dead”
I finished last night’s LOST episode, “Dead is Dead” (04/09/09). I won’t post a recap/summary (unless necessary for a point I am trying to make) or any theories because there are enough blogs and websites dedicated to those topics, but here are some of my questions and observations from last night’s episode:
1. First of all, I was plagued throughout season 4 in noticing that Penny (played by Sonya Walger) bears a striking resemblance to some other celebrity, but could not figure out who. It was not until early in season 5 that I put my finger on it: John Travolta. I don’t know if it is the eyes, cheekbones, similar femine demeanor, or what, but every time Penny is on screen, I can only image her exclaiming “Sandy! in a British accent. I brought this observation up to some friends recently and even produced pictures of each actor, but I was dismissed as crazy.
Until today. My wife received this email from a co-worker who was involved in that conversation: “Ok, I can kind of see the Penny – John Travolta thing.” It is a small statement of pseudo-agreement, but a huge victory for my celebrity matching self-esteem.
2. Ben is certainly becoming more and more intriguing to me as we slowly discover his soft, compassionate side — particularly his mercy towards mothers with children. In last night’s episode, present-day Ben says to Jin, “Find Desmond Hulme and tell him I am sorry…he’ll know why.” This statement is then followed by a flashback of Ben walking on a dock to kill Penny, and I was disgusted by his savage disgustingness. Then, he is redeemed as we see that he reacts to Widmore’s daughter (and grandson) the same way he reacted to his ‘own’ daughter 20 years earlier — and that earlier move had terrible implications on Ben and Charles’ relationship. I wonder if this consistency and mercy from Ben will resolve some of the animosity between the two (assuming his phone call with Charles just moments earlier did not do irreparable damage already).
Either way, I find myself conflicted: is Ben a decent human being worthy of sympathy and compassion, or is he a manipulative monster who should be loathed and condemned? Or both? Just another example of brilliant writing from LOST’s crew.
3. I am very interested in seeing how Ben’s orders/threat from Alex the Smoke Monster (A the SM) to loyally follow Locke will unfold. He seemed genuinely shocked and in awe at the end of the episode, when Locke reappeared with the vine. His orders/threat from A the SM seem to have been set up by a statement from Locke earlier in the episode. I don’t remember the exact quote, but Locke, responding to a barrage of questions from Ben about where they were going, says something to the effect of, “It’s not easy to blindly follow someone on the basis of a leap of faith without knowing answers, is it?” Thanks to A the SM, it seems that blindly following someone (Locke) on the basis of a leap of faith is exactly what Ben must do from this point forward.
Questions from “LaFleur” that have been answered:
1. Horace and Amy’s son is Ethan. Ethan appears as a baby in one of the subsequent episodes, and as an adolescent in “Dead is Dead.” This raises a new question: Is Ethan more significant to the overall story of the island than we currently know, or, as my wife suggests, is he merely included in episodes to serve a reference for the time period of events so that viewers don’t get too confused.
Those are just a few thoughts / observations I have after watching last night’s episode, “Dead is Dead.” Please feel free to comment, respond, share your own thoughts or questions, or otherwise let me know you enjoy reading mine!
LOST Thoughts, “LaFleur”
I watched last night’s LOST episode, “LaFleur” (03/04/09). I won’t post a recap/summary or any theories because there are enough blogs and websites dedicated to those topics, but here are some of my questions from last night’s episode:
1. Why won’t the “sonic fence” keep Richard and his people out of the compound. He mentions to Horace that the fence “may keep somethings out, but not him and not his people.” Do the Hostiles know the code to deactivate its disintegration powers, or is there something special about them?
2. What happens on the island between the 1970’s (which is the current time for Sawyer’s Five and the Oceanic Six) and the present day that results in the death of women giving birth? Is it because the Losties are in the 1970’s and interfering with the natural progression of events, or is there some other event that happens?
3. Who is Amy and Horace’s son? Will he grow up to be someone we already know from watching the first four-and-a-half seasons , or is it an insignificant character shown only to signify that Amy gave birth without dying?
That’s all I’ve got for now. More questions (and hopefully answers) may pop up as I have discussions with my wife and friends, and listen to Preston & Steve’s LOST discussion!