What are you doing in anticipation of Irene?

There seem to be two trains of thought on this one.  The first is the people who are waiting in lines at grocery stores.  The second is those who are going to the not quite as crowded liquor stores, and trying to decide who's throwing the best hurricane party.  I am camped firmly in the latter.  Vote in the poll on the right, and then read my blog from yesterday below, cause I'm pretty proud of it and it's stats are underachieving.

And for those unfamiliar with bar terminology, both the drink, and the glass it's in, are called "hurricanes."

Is this Armageddon?

An earthquake and a hurricane on the east coast in the same week?  It's time to freak out.  People are stocking up on canned goods, and it's a damn good thing they are.  You think that box of cereal on the kitchen shelf will survive the storm?  No way.  Hurricane Irene will rip right through that cardboard and there'll be Cheerios everywhere.  Same thing with the eggs in your fridge, they're gonna be splattered all over the place.  But aluminum cans are tough.  After the storm has passed you'll still be able to eat that chicken soup once you pry it loose from the living room wall.

Almost exactly a year ago I was on Martha's Vineyard when an alleged "huge" storm was about to hit.  They made all the local businesses close, and imposed a curfew/no driving rule on the island.  Here's my facebook status from right before the storm:

filling up on gas, canned goods, and bottled water. cause when the storm hits the island all i'm gonna do is drive around staying hydrated while eating beans and tuna

September 2, 2010 at 3:35pm

And you know what happened?  There was a lot of wind and a lot of rain.  But the sun did rise the next day, and all the food in my house was still edible.

The real Adrian Gonzalez is back, and I'm taking credit

I bought a Red Sox #28 Adrian Gonzalez t-shirt before this season started.  I wore it to a few games in spring and early summer, as he dominated American League pitching and looked like the runaway MVP.  But then he suffered a mysterious power outage.  Over a span of 39 games and 155 at bats (roughly 1/4 of the season) he hit just one home run.  A while ago, at some point during his "slump," I left my Gonzalez shirt in my friend's car.  On Tuesday I got it back and wore it for the first time in months.  That night he hit 2 home runs.  Then yesterday he hit another.  And just now, while I was in the process of writing this, he hit 2 more.  That's 5 in 3 games since the recovery of my t-shirt.  So you're welcome Sox fans.

I'm taking a break today

Sorry.  No time to write, today may be the last Norton Point day of the summer.  Here's some sweet pictures I took yesterday.  The first is from upstairs at Lobsterville on the OB harbor.  The second is from a private dock at the house I had dinner at in the Edgartown harbor.  Good day.

Chinese Taipei and my favorite Nintendo game ever

I had an odd train of thought yesterday that led to this blog.  I'm going to write it in reverse like "Memento" or that one episode of Seinfeld, and by the end it should all make sense.

In my mind the greatest Nintendo game of all time was "Baseball Stars."  The in game action was pretty fun and easy to control, but the thing that made this game so cool was that you could create your own team.  You picked the names for your team and players, and anytime you won a game you got money to pay them.  The more you paid them the better they got.  Eventually you could have a near perfect and unbeatable team.  My best friend had the game, and we played it all the time.  But his team was always better than mine because he played against the computer and got more money when I wasn't there.

When "Little League Baseball" came out I went and bought it right away.  It was made by the same company as "Baseball Stars," so I knew it would be awesome too.  I figured this was my chance to finally get better than my friend.  Unfortunately, the new game was worse.  The on field play was basically the same, but they took out the "build your own team" option.  All you could do was choose from a bunch pre-made teams representing various parts of the USA and the world, similar to the actual Little League World Series.

One of the best teams in "Little League Baseball" was Chinese Taipei.  Just like in real life, as Chinese Taipei always seems to dominate at the LLWS.  But let me ask you this: does Chinese Taipei even exist outside of the Little League World Series?  I'm pretty sure I've never heard of it in any other context.  What makes them such masters of childrens' baseball?

While I was getting ready for work yesterday ESPN was showing a LLWS game between Canada and Chinese Taipei.  And Canada won too, which has got to be considered a HUGE upset.

"Wins" for a pitcher is probably the most misleading stat in sports, and the 2011 Red Sox are a perfect example

There is some slightly in depth statistical analysis here, so if you're not a baseball fan check out now and come back tomorrow.

Tim Wakefield's quest for 200 wins is what got me thinking about this.  In his 199th win, he gave up 7 earned runs.  That is incredibly rare.  He's had 5 starts since then, given up 3, 3, 3, 4, and 4 earned runs, but improbably managed to win none of them.  So of his last 6 starts, the only "win" he got was in his one bad outing.  Weird.

Then there is the curious case of John Lackey.  He has an ERA of 6.02, and a WHIP (walks + hits per inning pitched, basically average base runners allowed per inning) of 1.55, both really bad.  He's started 21 games, and has only 8 "Quality Starts" (a QS is 6 innings pitched with 3 or fewer earned runs).  But miraculously he has 11 wins.  More wins than quality starts is absurd.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Josh Beckett.  His ERA is less than half of Lackey's, 2.46, and his WHIP of .97 is spectacular.  He's started 24 games, and has put up 18 quality starts.  Yet somehow he has only 10 wins, one FEWER than Lackey.

And don't forget Alfredo Aceves, who's 4th on the team with 8 wins even though he's only started 4 games.

back to real life. maybe.

I've been on vacation all week.  It's been awesome.  Now I have to go back to work.  Yuck.  I need to figure out a way to make this my work.  I think if I can get about another 100,000 readers a day I should be fine.  Feel free to leave any suggestions.