Calorie Labeling

Ezra has an anecdote about how a restaurant labeling its menu items with calorie counts would have changed his lunch order. At the Mets game Saturdy we noticed that the roving food vendors now wear buttons advertising the calorie counts of their wares. It was a welcome bit of information, and did lead one of our number away from the fallacious "not sure if I could eat a whole hot dog, maybe just a soft pretzel" line of thinking.

The game, by the way, was great, and we all had a blast on our first visits to Citi Field. Santana was amazing, and though for the most of the game he didn't leave the rest of the Mets defense with much to do (probably a good thing), we did get to see a double play in the latter innings. And though rain threatened from about the seventh inning stretch on, it held off until we were on the way home.

Balk Like an Egyptian

So Mike Pelfrey balked thrice against the Giants last night? Weird. I am fuzzy on what even constitutes a balk...the first one is obvious, I can see the second one, but the third one is just a mystery to me.

Mets!

It's hard not to feel optimistic coming off the two wins in the mini series against Philly.

My ignorance of the sport of baseball means I'm not really aware of the psychological impact something like, say, pulling a pitcher out of the rotation, can have on the whole team, but it sure seems to have had a good effect so far. It's not so much the string of recent wins, but that they seem to be more like whole team affairs, rather than Johann carrying them or just getting lucky when an opposing pitcher blows it.

Looking forward to seeing how Jon Niese does tonight. I don't think I remember him from last season.

Putting the "Erm..." in Sabermetrics

Particularly absurd post on Mets Geek charting each team's bullpen's average fastball speed against strikeouts. Don't even try to wrap your mind around what it might even mean to average the pitch speeds of an entire bullpen together, the results are random noise, not "a slight trend."

The Physics of Balls

I got a sort of demi-spam from some science organization who put on an event that Sarah and I attended last year. I would have ignored it, but it was Mets-related, so I clicked through to view a weird video about the physics of baseball. Science professors and professional athletes are pretty comparable in terms of awkward comedic timing.

Frustrations With Consumer Capitalism

It always annoys me when I can conceive of a product that I would gladly pay for, but I can't seem to find anyone who makes it.

For example, when my old cell phone died, I wanted to replace it with a similar "bar" (as opposed to flip) model, but with a few more up-to-date features like Bluetooth and support for mp3 ringtones (i.e., only two years out of date instead of six). But such a device did not appear to exist, at least not among the couple dozen of phone models offered by my provider.

Similarly, after I left my favorite winter hat at the opera, I embarked on a months-long, and ongoing, quest to find a replacement in a similar vein. This out-of-stock item is the closest I've found, though the one I lost was this completely non-stretchy wool felt that I really liked.

I've temporarily suspended my search for a basket and metal chainguard that will work on my blue bike.

The latest of these frustrations derives from the idea that I should get a table-top radio so I can listen to Mets games this summer. I had some idea in mind about the kind of radio I'd want, and what I read about this model sounded good at first. Some more investigation left me disappointed, though: the reception is apparently no good, the components are cheap and poorly assembled, and the advertised impressive sound quality is evidently reliant on the kinds of trickery used to make Bose products sound deceptively good.

The Tivoli Model One definitely seems like it's supposed to appeal to people who like the idea of a simple, elegant device that does a limited number of things well. But then instead of actually being such a product, it instead conveys those values through its visual aesthetic, and then relies on cognitive dissonance to convince consumers that they're satisfied with it.

Anyway, I've probably spent too much time on this topic (though not nearly as much time as I've wasted looking for felt caps on the internet), but I do think it's an interesting way that capitalism fails consumers on a pretty regular basis. The markets for many types of products are flooded with virtually indistinguishable offerings that change capriciously in response to fads and trends without ever responding to the needs and desires of sizable minorities of consumers. The result being that large numbers of people are constantly underwhelmed by many of the products in their lives for reasons that should have been easily corrected.

Meet the Mutts

Long before having a dog I would talk about how I would get him or her Mets gear. Specifically, I wanted them to have both home and away jerseys, though I was undecided on which player to get. But now I've discovered that the only dog jersey they sell is the black "alternate" design, and it comes only as number 00 with no player name. Boo.

Meeeeeeets

:(

Late in the Game to be Making Adjustments

I didn't watch the game, but the recap of yesterday's win over the hated Yankees mentions that Oliver Perez had been trying a new delivery:

In his second week as the pitching coach, Warthen had allowed Perez to change his position on the rubber -- he moved from the third-base end to the middle -- and he also had adjusted Perez's delivery, so he would use his legs more and move from the rubber to the plate with greater force.

Doesn't that seem crazy, that a starting pitcher in the big leagues would still be tweaking things that fundamental at this point? But I guess it worked, so what do I know.


Anyway, I of course would suggest that Perez widen his stance on the rubber.

Mariners @ Mets

Following such a brutal first three innings on Wednesday, I didn't realize how good the Mariners defense actually was for the rest of the game. Batista gets the biggest share of the blame, but Beltre's throwing error in the third led to a four-run inning. 0-8 looks a lot more insurmountable going into the fourth. And so it was.

The silver lining is that the Mets go into their series against the hated Yankees coming off a win. I wish I'd had it together enough to get tickets to both games today. How cool would it have been to bike to Yankee Stadium at 2, come home, and then bike to Shea at 8, for the last regular-season subway series in the old stadia? But alas! I shall instead have to be on the ball (on the baseball!) next season for a double-header in the New Yankee and Citi parks.

Ah, Jeez

Dickey pitched a great game last night, shutting out the Mets for seven innings. But tonight should still be exciting as the M's try to complete the sweep.

Also, I just learned that the Mariners fired their manager two days after Willie Randolph was fired. So competing managers Jim Riggleman and Jerry Manuel have two weeks of experience between them at their present positions.

They have both managed before though, including two years of overlap at the Chicago Cubs and White Sox, respectively. In 1998, the Cubs went 3-0 hosting the White Sox in interleague play, and each Chicago team finished second in its division. In 1999, the Cubs went 0-3 against the White Sox at Wrigley but then 2-1 at Comiskey. Weird.

Willie's Demise

I wasn't really following the minute-to-minute of Willie Randolph's departure as the events unfolded, though I did know about it as my lover and I bought a newspaper in a vain attempt to find a movie theater near the storm-threatened campground showing anything besides Kung-Fu Panda. But Sunday someone on WFAN said something about Willie's comments regarding SNY and racism, which I hadn't heard about, so I went looking for info on that.

It happened a whole month ago, and his actual comments weren't that bad (or very coherent, actually) and were more about the hate he gets from the fans than about SNY. And even just glancing at the comments beneath the Daily News story on Randolph's apology, it's hard to deny that he has a point: the only question in the minds of some fans seems to be the extent to which Randolph's status as a lazy Negro blaming his personal failures on nonexistent racism might be mitigated by his being given the hopeless task of leading a team of lazy Mexicans to victory with his scheming Mexican boss undermining his authority at every turn.

Anyway, I don't know what to say about the firing itself. I do think that the phenomenon of players going over Randolph's head to Omar Minaya (in any language) was symptomatic of problems rather than causal, which is also to say that who knows what the root issues even were, let alone whether they were resolvable. But in any case it's not like the owners or GM could have just ordered unhappy players to listen to Willie and have things work out, so it's at least not a terrible decision.

And at the same time, Omar and the ownership did give Randolph the opportunity for redemption rather than (as some predicted) axing him after last year's collapse, which demonstrates faith in the organization. So I think they handled it about as well as could have been hoped for.

Deep Thought

Carlos Delgado has a very gray beard.

Bike to Shea Day Addendum

Oops, forgot to link to the other pictures I took, and Blogger won't let me edit the other post. Some pics along the ride and then some at the game, including some 3D anaglyph ones.

Bike to Shea Day

Bike to Shea Day was a blast! Peter changed two flats, Nate spotted a couple warblers, I only almost drove us on to the Grand Central Parkway once, we all got All-Star ballots, and the Mets won 12-6!



Johan Santana was good, but I don't think at the top of his game. The game started out with a goofy error and a good old-fashioned pickle, and there were a lot of other fun moments. You know, as baseball tends to have. Emma and her friend Jose both know their baseball, so it was fun talking to them.

Nate had his "field glasses" (bird-watching jargon for "binoculars") with him, and took advantage of Shea's location in former wetlands to try to spot some birds. He'd been birding earlier that morning, so he had his field guide with him as well.


View Larger Map

As Andrew had predicted, it really did turn out to be "Bike to Shea Day," with the emphasis on the "to": the TransAlt tent wasn't even up anymore when the game let out, there were no cue sheets for the return trip, and people were kind of just clumping up to try and blaze a trail home together, post-apocalyptic road warrior style. I believe one pair even said they were taking their bikes on the 7 train. We muddled our way home without too many missteps.

Overall, a great afternoon. The ride isn't as scenic as the trip up the West Side bike path to Yankee Stadium, but you do go through some neat different areas, including some crazy industrial parts of Queens, and it's all nice and flat with no grueling climb at the end. Really it's not much farther than the Cyclones, though the beers are a lot pricier when you get there.

Bike to Shea Day Tomorrow!

I slept on this last year, but tomorrow I'm totally going to Bike to Shea! I'm totally psyched. I'm not the baseball cap or jersey type (though a fitted t-shirt could tempt me), but I did have to grab some kicks:



It looks like Johan's going to start. I'm psyched to see him strike out Ken Griffey!

I'm A Petty Jerk

The picture of John McCain watching Arizona host my Mets drove me to go check on the results of that game. It warmed my heart to know that he watched his wretched D-Backs suffer a dramatic 9th-inning defeat. In your face, Insane McCain.

No symbolism should be implied by New York's righteous defeat of Arizona on that day, however. Clinton is a fan of the unholy Yankees.

Mets @ Cubs

I turned it off after the grand slam. :(

Ron Darling Catches Himself

Reflecting on Japanese players in the US following a Kosuke Fukudome at-bat in the fourth:

When I played, nobody thought Japanese players would ever be able to compete in the US, because they just weren't as big, couldn't throw as hard. But now today, with their level of schooling—

Pause, no doubt while Ron is berated by his producer via headset.

—and with new training techniques, they're now just as big as some American players.

Whew, nice save.

Mets @ Marlins

Yay Johan! Way to get out of the fifth, and then eight K's. Not bad a first showing at all. I miss Moises, as usual. Watching baseball rules.

Also it's my centennial post. Word up.