2007 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

The Baseball Hall-of-Fame sent out a nice press release recently in regards to the 2007 list of nominees. Tony Gwynn is quotes a few times.

Here is my take on this years nominees, with a few fearless predictions.

1. Only two will be nominated from this list of candidates. Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken. It seems Ripken could come close to breaking Tom Seaver's all-time record for percentage of votes cast, perhaps even be the first even unanimous selection. Gwynn will also get a very high vote total, no doubt.

2. Most pundits seem to think Mark McGwire will not only not get in on his first try, but that voters will punish him over the steroid scandal, and he won't even get 50% of the vote. That wouldn't surprise me, though many of those voters likely think he should eventually be in the HOF, so if he does poorly this year, I bet his vote total will go up a lot in 2008, perhaps enough to make it in.

3. Beyond those big three names, the next biggest new candidate -- and the only one that I think might one day make it in -- is Harold Baines. He finished with 2,866 hits in nearly 10,000 at-bats. He had 384 HR, 488 Doubles, 1,299 Runs, 1,628 RBIs, and a .289 average. He was an all-star six times, but never ranked higher than 9th in the MVP voting. He played a long time and was obviously a steady and good hitter, but never really exceptional. Despite his high career total, he only had 100+ RBI three times. He never had 30 or more HR in a season either. And he played a majority of his games at DH (1644) vs. the OF (1061).

For what its worth (from baseball-reference.com), his Black Ink rating is only 3 (average HOFer is around 27), his Gray Ink rating is only 40 (average HOFer is around 144), his HOF standards rating is 43.5 (average HOFer is around 50), and his HOF Monitor rating is 66.5 (a likely HOFer is over 100). His "most similar batter" rating is with Tony Perez (934) who is in the HOF, but it took him a long time to get there. Only two of his next nine most similar hitters are in the HOF or are likely to be (Al Kaline and Billy Williams).

So I doubt he'll get voted in for a long time, if ever.

4. Some of the other first-timers on the ballot were fine players, but not HOF material (in declining order of how good I think their careers were, not necessarily how I think they'll rank in the vote):

• Jose Canseco - 462 HR, 1,407 RBI, 1,186 Runs, 200 SB, but only .266 average. First ever 40-40 man, and had 6 100+ RBI seasons. All-star six times, ROY in 1986, and MVP in 1988. He was and is the poster child for the steroid scandal in baseball.
  
• Bret Saberhagen - 3.34 ERA, 167-117 record (.588 Pct), with 76 CG in 371 GS. Best season was 1989 when he went 23-6, with a 2.14 ERA to take home the AL Cy Young. Also took the trophy in 1985 with 20-6 mark and 2.87 ERA. All-star three times, and one gold-glove award.
  
• Paul O'Neill - 281 HR, 1,269 RBI, 1,041 Runs, 141 SB, .288 average. Like Baines, a good steady hitter, but not exceptional. Never had 30+ HR in a season, but had 20+ seven times. Four consecutive 100+ RBI seasons for the Yankees from 1997-2000. All-star five times, and led AL in batting in 1994 with .359 mark.
  
• Bobby Bonilla - 287 HR, 1173 RBI, 1084 Runs, .279 average. 6-time all-star. 4 seasons with 100+ RBI.
  
• Eric Davis - 282 HR, 349 SB, but only .269 average and struck out a lot. Injuries kept him from living up to his athletic abilities and the early hype. All-star two times, and won three gold-gloves.
  
• Tony Fernandez - 246 SB, .288 average with minimal power. All-star five times, and was an outstanding defender, winning the gold glove at SS four times.
  
• Jay Buhner - 310 HR, but only .254 average and struck out a lot. All-star only once, and won one gold-glove with his great arm. Was the subject of one of my all-time favorite lines from Seinfeld, when Frank Costanza is criticizing Steinbrenner "What the hell did you trade Jay Buhner for?! He had 30 home runs, over 100 RBIs last year! He's got a rocket for an arm... You don't know what the hell you're doing!"
  
• Dante Bichette - 274 HR, 1141 RBI, 152 SB, .299 average. All-star four times. Led NL in hits twice, and HR once. Had 100+ RBI five seasons in a row. But played his best years Colorado -- so while I don't have his home/road split data in front of me, I am assuming the rare air there padded his numbers a bit.

Then there are four others that I highly doubt will get enough votes to remain on the ballot for 2008:

• Devon White - 208 HR, 346 SB, but only .263 average and struck out a lot. All-star three times. Best attribute was his defense, where he won 7 gold gloves in CF. But played for small market teams, so I doubt he'll get many votes.
  
• Wally Joyner - 204 HR, 1106 RBI, .289 average. All-star only once, in his rookie season. He made a big splash early in his career, but then didn't live up to that early success. He also played for small market teams for most of years.
  
• Bobby Witt - 4.83 ERA, 142-157 record. Walked a lot of batters. Best season was 1990, when he went 17-10 with 221 K, and a 3.36 ERA. Obvioulsy not HOF material.
  
• Scott Brosius - 141 HR, .257 average. All-star once, and won GG award once at 3B. Obviously not HOF material.

Of those returning from last year's ballot, here is what they got in 2006 (75% of votes is needed):

• Jim Rice 337, 64.8%
• Rich Gossage 336, 64.6
• Andre Dawson 317, 61.0
• Bert Blyleven 277, 53.3
• Lee Smith 234, 45.0
• Jack Morris 214, 41.2
• Tommy John 154, 29.6
• Steve Garvey 135, 26.0
• Alan Trammell 92, 17.7
• Dave Parker 75, 14.4
• Dave Concepcion 65, 12.5
• Don Mattingly 64, 12.3
• Orel Hershiser 58, 11.2
• Dale Murphy 56, 10.8
• Albert Belle 40, 7.7

Given the big new names this year, I'll be surprised if any of these guys get the 75% needed for election. Some might go up a bit, but I bet many will go done some. Not surprisingly, I think the top four here might one day make it -- though I'd rank them Gossage, Dawson, Blyleven, Rice. I think Gossage should go in right after Sutter (last year), and Dawson is more deserving than Rice because of his better defense and speed. I think Parker and Murphys should be a bit higher in votes than they have gotten so far. And I am marginally against Lee Smith as a HOFer -- he certainly should not be elected before Goose is.

Remembering Stalin's Mass Murders

Mara D. Bellaby's brief AP article was picked up in my local Rochester paper. She describes a recent gathering in Kiev, Ukraine to mourn the 10 million Ukrainians "killed by a famine orchestrated by Soviet leader Josef Stalin" in 1932-33. As she describes it: "Stalin provoked the famine to coerce peasants into giving up their private farms and joining agriculture collectives being formed across the Soviet Union. Villages were ordered to provide the state with set amounts of grain, but the demands typically exceeded crop yields. As village after village failed to meet their quotas, officials seized all food and residents were barred from leaving -- condemning them to starve. Farmers in Ukraine, which was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, fiercely resisted and bore the brunt of the human-caused disaster."

It is bad enough when, centuries ago, bad weather caused famine and starvation. Or today, in poor countries, when bad weather in conjunction with poor government policies, corruption, and/or cultural/societal mistakes lead to famine and starvation. But when it is entirely orchestrated as it was by Stalin and his regime... the evil of that is barely fathomable.

There is debate in the Ukraine about whether to call this horrible part of their history "genocide" or not. Some there are siding with Russian leaders who don't want to "politicize" it, saying that it should instead be termed "a tragedy". But calling it merely a "tragedy" would -- I think intentionally by some -- obscure moral responsibility (by Stalin and those in his regime) for what occurred.

One dictionary definition of tragedy -- "a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair, a disaster" -- is certainly accurate, but doesn't imply anything about whether it is a natural disaster (and hence not open to moral evaluation) or a man-made disaster (and hence open to moral evaluation).

Another definition of tragedy identifies the ancient Greek genre of play: "a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction." So again, this sense of the word (while obviously used metaphorically in this case, since the slaughter was all to real and not merely a play) would obscure moral responsiblility because it leaves open that Stalin simply had a character flaw, or that the 10 million Ukranian dead was just fate, or caused by a complex societal conflict, and not something that can be blamed on the choices of Stalin and those in his regime.

That said, I'm not sure that "genocide" really applies either. The article notes that Stalin didn't specifically target Ukranians, and that numerous Russians and Kazakhs were also affected.

But the description that clearly does apply is "murder", in fact, "mass murder".

I'll note further that I don't see what is gained by classifying a mass murder as genocide or not. This is often politically motivated, and it usually seems to at least implicitly give merit to some form of collectivism -- as though membership in a group of some kind or other (race, religion, ethnicity, etc.), and being targeted because of that group membership, is somehow worse than simply being killed as individuals. In reality of course, only individuals exist and all forms of collectivism and collectivist thinking are, in the end, damaging and often deadly. Regardless of the intentions of the muderer, the act of murder is the murder of an individual person -- not the murder of a unit of some sort of collective entity. Individuals are alive and have the right to live, collective entities of this sort don't "live" and have no rights as such in this context.

So I say, lets just call it what it was -- what its essence was -- mass murder of individuals by evil people who had evil ideas.

And finally, while reading this article I couldn't help but think of the various people in the US in the 20th century, who argued (including while the mass murder was occuring) that communism, including the Soviet Union in particular, was the morally superior system to capitalism. From Hollywood to Academia to Politicians, that sentiment was widespread and argued for time and again. How horrible!

10-person Domino Donation at Johns Hopkins

I heard about this recently, and then was pleased to see Virginia Postrel commenting on the amazing 10-person "domino donation" performed at Johns Hopkins. This is amazing for many reasons. It is great to see this occur, to see five people's lives get saved in the process, and so on. But it is also amazing, because it amounts to a superb indictment -- a reductio ad absurdem -- of the current policies and laws that make it illegal for donors (or their families) to benefit financially from donating a kidney (either while living or upon death). If we had a regulated market for kidney donation, then the long and growing -- and utterly inhumane -- waiting list for kidney transplants would rapidly shrink, and without the need for 4, 6, or 10-person groupings of donors and recipients just in order to save lives and reduce suffering. As great as the 10-person donation story is, it shouldn't have been necessary!

Another great post on this topic from Virginia followed that one. She ends with this nice paragraph:

Most kidney patients--and the friends and relatives from whom they're likely to get organs--are of relatively modest means. Prohibiting organ sales doesn't "help the poor." It hurts poor kidney patients, by keeping them on dialysis and shortening their lives. It hurts poor relatives of kidney patients, by forcing them to choose between saving their loved ones and taking financial and health hits. It hurts poor, healthy would-be donors by depriving them of economic opportunity. If you don't want poor people to sell their kidneys, give donors with big income tax breaks or college-loan forgiveness, so that only the affluent will get the money. Let Ivy League grads sell their kidneys instead of their eggs. But don't just prohibit compensation.

Market for Kidneys... Guess Where?

I was both delighted and a bit surprised to read two items in the latest issue of The Economist (the Nov. 18-24 issue). The editorial on pg 15 is titled Psst, wanna buy a kidney? is available online.

As I've blogged before, the USA and the world desperately need to inject market forces -- including compensation for living donors -- to resolve the long list of people suffering and dying while waiting for a kidney transplant. The powers that be -- the federal government and the major Kidney organizations -- are against this, but their logic and ethics are horribly flawed.

Both of these items in the Economist are about a country that does have a kidney market... to an extent. And guess where that is? Yes, Iran of all places. So while there are few issues where I can say this, in this case I must say "Congratulations to Iran" for having something approaching a sensible, humane policy on the issue of kidney donations.

Here are a few interesting bits from the editorial and the article:

• Because people are living longer, the lines for people waiting for a kideny are lengthening fast -- 7% a year in America, where 4,039 people died waiting last year alone. The average waiting time in the US is now five years!
• In Iran, an officially approved patients' organization oversees transactions which pay $2,000 to $4,000 to the donor. The result is that the waiting list there has been eliminated.
• Having a kidney removed is as safe as commmon elective surgeries and even beauty treatments (it is no more dangerous than liposuction, for example). America already lets people buy babies from surrogate mothers, and the risk of dying from renting out your womb is six times higher than from selling a kidney.
• By keeping compensation for kidney donation (living or dead) illegal, there is no where near enough supply -- hence the long and growing waiting list. In addition, we see black markets with all the ills that often arise from them.

On Justice and Who to Thank

Craig Biddle has a brief but powerful essay about the tradition of saying "grace" at the dinner table, especially during the Nov/Dec. holiday season. He argues for justice instead of grace, and proclaims that we shouldn't be thanking a supernatural being but rather the men and women who have done the great deeds that have produced the great ideas, inventions, medicines, and other goods and services that improve our lives. Since my teen years, this has definitely been my (often silent) sentiments during this holiday season.

Mostly Fur

This cat must be mostly fur to accomplish what is shown in this video! Before seeing it, I wouldn't have guessed it was possible. (Thanks to Diana at NoodleFood for the link.)

Funny Student Analogies

I loved this list of funny analogies from students. (Thanks to GeekPress for the link.)

The Wonder that is iTunes, plus Three More Favorites

Since MSN Music closed shop recently, I've switched to iTunes. Like with MSN Music, I have so far just used iTunes to download single songs for 99 cents each -- songs that are favorites but that I don't want to buy the entire album CD to get. So I've been filling in the gaps in my music collection over the past week, and at this point I can think of very few songs that I know I really like and that I don't have on CD or computer. The iTunes collection is not perfect -- like competitors, it is missing some key bands like Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and others. But it is VERY extensive nonetheless -- and not just for music of course, as you can download thousands of TV episodes from a wide range of series for just $1.99 each. And the user interface is very easy to get used to. For many readers the above was no doubt quite boring, as I know I'm just getting caught up with the wonder that is iTunes -- I'm in that "kid in the candy store" phase. It'll pass soon...

One other thing I really like a lot about iTunes are the dozens of so-called Essentials collections. These are listings of the best songs from particular artists and groups -- across all genres. This is a great way to fill in the gaps in your music collection! And they also have Genre-based collections, with some top songs from various artists in each category. Also very useful, and good way to sample a new musical genre that you might or might not enjoy. As always, you can listen to 20-30 second clips of each song in each list.

Lastly on the topic of favorite music... I've added three more songs to my "Other Favorite Rock/Pop Music" page. This is an odd grouping, but here they are:

• The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers (1978)
• One Night in Bangkok, by Murray Head (1984)
• Call Me When You're Sober, by Evanescence (2006)

The first two here get a 3 rating out of 10, while the Evanescence tune gets the higher 2 rating. And it is the only post-2000 song in my list at this time.

Scambaiting

Here is something I had not heard of before... Scambaiting. You know all those spam emails that offer some scheme that will make you rich if you just help someone in a foreign country get around some law or whatnot to get money out of their country? Most infamous are the ones coming from Nigeria (or claiming to be), but not all of them are.

Well, now some people are fighting back. To learn more about it, you can read their Ethics of Scambaiting article. Or you can just view the often funny (given the context) photos of the scammers in the "Trophy Room", sometimes doing rather odd things or holding up rather odd signs in the hopes of a bick ripoff payoff if they comply. See also the letters archive and the audio archive they have.

This is a very creative way to fight back against con artists and scammers!

IM TXT OK IN NZ, LOL

For me, this falls under the "Nearly a laugh, but really a cry" category for sure: New Zealand students may 'text-speak' in exams.

As the article begins: "New Zealand's high school students will be able to use "text-speak" -- the mobile phone text message language beloved of teenagers -- in national exams this year, officials said."

Thankfully, English exams will be an exception. But apparently you can use the increasingly common cell-phone and IM abbreviation language in exams for history, government, science, math, and so on.

And for those who don't know, my subect line of course means "Instant messaging text is okay in New Zealand. I'm laughing out loud."

White and Nerdy

A few weeks ago I saw the hilarious Weird Al Yankovic video "White and Nerdy". This a must see. He manages to cram in so many great cultural references into one song, and it goes by so fast... if you're like me, you'll have to watch it a few times to get them all. It reminds me of Mystery Science Theatre 3K in that respect, as they too would pepper each movie episode with so many references, it was nearly impossible to catch them all (let alone understand them all).

My favorite line from this video isn't even one of his explicit jokes: "Although its apparent I'm just too white and nerdy". Just his use of "apparent" at that point in the song/video is excellent.

Great Fun for Lovers of Words

See these great puns and pun-like utterances. These are classic!

On Waterboarding

If you are like me, you've heard a lot about "Waterboarding" as a means used by interrogators to get information from those captured. It is usually described as invoking a feeling that one is drowning, without actually causing any real, lasting harm.

So I was glad to get a chance to see reporter Steve Harrigan voluntarily undergo waterboarding to demonstrate just exactly what is involved.

Assuming that this was an accurate portrayal of waterboarding and its "phases", I think it is essential to note that Harrigan admits that although it was not at all pleasant, he felt fine again a matter of minutes later. This technique uses fear and pain to try to get information, not permanent mental or physical harm (e.g., cutting off a finger). For me, this distinction is important in considering whether waterboarding should be called "torture" or not, and hence whether it should be allowed or not to get vital information from high-value prisoners.

Remembering Old Fears of Microsoft

The October 2006 issue of Wired had a good article about Microsoft, its future, and the direction that Ray Ozzie is likely to take them in. There is plenty I could comment on, but I'll just pick on one minor point towards the end that I found striking:

Ten years ago, the world was convinced that Microsoft would use MSN to control the Internet the same way it controlled the desktop: extracting tolls, blocking competitors, regulating which sites surfers could access. Back then, the world worried that Microsoft would take command of the entertainment business by using its cash reserves to buy the best programs and music and using its software in our cable set-top boxes to dictate what we watched. None of those fears came to pass. Instead, Microsoft has been outmaneuvered by faster, hipper competitors, from Apple and Google to Flickr and YouTube.

I remember the many articles and voices trumping up those fears against Microsoft back in the day. Hindsight is of course 20/20, but even back then I knew that this was insanity. There was no way that Microsoft was going to be able to dominate and control the Internet -- let alone television and music -- the way people were claiming it likely would. Having a massive majority of both the desktop and the browser on that desktop (90% or higher at its peak), and having lots of cash, didn't mean that Microsoft would, or even could, control what people created on the Internet, or had access to on the Internet, or had access to on TV or elsewhere. Not even close.

To be sure, Microsoft's browser dominance did mean particular bits of non-standard HTML or style tagging became more prevalent than they would have otherwise, but that is not what the anti-Microsoft people (e.g., almost anyone who used to write their name as "Micro$oft") were fear-mongering about. I was often a Microsoft defender back then (and in some ways, still am), in part because I am against antitrust legislation on philosophical grounds, in part because I use and gain value from many Microsoft products, and in part because the claims of the fearmongers were so insane and overblown.

I'll also note a certain similarity between the claims made back then about Microsoft and our impending doom, and those made by backers of "Net Neutrality" today. The issues are far from identical, but there are some similarities. I predict that -- assuming no laws are passed to protect "Net Neutrality" -- ten years from now I'll be able to reflect back with 20/20 hindsight and again note that the fearmongers were greatly exaggerating the potential power of their perceived foes (the cable and large telecommunications providers). Alas, Microsoft is now one of the fearmongers, something that I find rather sad.

A Minimum Wage Story

Lin Zinser offers a great story that speaks against the raising of (or even existence of) minimum wage laws. How would anyone in the scenario given be better off if they had followed the minimum wage laws?

But she also raises an interesting point regarding interns. People can work for free, but they can't work for $5 an hour in the US. Volunteers are one thing: they work for free out of charity or for some other reason. But interns are willing to work for nothing to earn skills and experience that will make them hireable in the future. So they are receiving value in exchange for their labor, just not in the form of money. But add to that value they are receiving, by paying them $5 an hour, and all of a sudden the business owner becomes a criminal who is breaking the minimum wage laws. Or fail to provide them benefits required by law, and the same thing is true: even though both parties are freely contracting to mutual benefit, you are breaking the law.

Coke and Mentos: Part 2

I just found a followup to the world famous Coke and Mentos video. Here they combine the same simple effect with domino theory, creating a very elaborate display using 251 coke bottles and over 1,000 Mentos. Wow...

Tetris Weight Training

As a long-time player of the videogame Tetris (something I am quite good at, though I don't play much any more), I was amused at this idea to connect weight-lifting to the game. This would be a good entry in any Geek Exercise competition. [Thanks to GeekPress for the link.]

Bill Nye on Astrology

Bill Nye ("The Science Guy") makes an interesting point about Astrology in this video available at YouTube. Although I haven't corroborated this with other sources, it seems the Earth has wobbled a bit since the original astrological assignments were made, thereby making them no longer accurate. Reminded me of a few weeks ago of the many jokes made at astrologers' expense when Pluto was de-throned as a full planet in our solar system: won't that mess up some astrology stuff that involves the planets? I'm not sure, as I don't know much about astrology (since I don't believe in completely arbitary things like that)... but that predicament gave me a good chuckle. [Hat tip to Stephen Hicks for the link.]

Self-Interest Helping the World's Poor

Check out this brief article in the Oct. 23, 2006 issue of US News and World Report: A Man With a Very Different Kind of Bank. I've read a few articles in recent years about the growing trend of "micro-lending", especially in third world countries, and especially to poor women. This particular article is about Muhammad Yunus, who along with his Bank was given the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in this area. Efforts such as this are having great results, pulling tens of millions of people out of poverty by helping them help themselves.

And it is great that this article correctly identifies self-interest as being at work here. Yunus' bank, Grameen, made a profit last year -- so that is clearly self-interest. But it is also an approach that relies on the self-interested actions of the person receiving the micro-loan: these people, often women, are entrepreneurial and use the money to start small businesses or otherwise improve their lives in ways that will lead them and their families to be self-sustaining in the future, and this then lifts them from poverty. I really like the final paragraph:

"Charity is not an answer to poverty," he writes of the company's business model, which last year helped Grameen log $15 million in profits. "It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away individuals' initiative to break through the wall of poverty. Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty."

Italy's Lawmakers Must Beware the Makeup Artist

Read this great little blurb in the October 23, 2006 US News and World Report. Scam interviews successfully highlighted "legislative hypocrisy after the parliament earlier this year toughened Italy's drug laws." It turns out that of 50 lawmakers who unknowingly had their perspiration tested for drug use in the past 36 hours, 12 were positive for cannabis, and 4 for cocaine. Oh the hypocrisy. LOL.

On Symptom Laundry Lists in Print and on TV

You've probably gotten a good laugh lately from TV ads that warn men that after taking particular drugs "If you experience an erection lasting more than four hours, consult your doctor." Thanks for the tip.

Other TV ads for new drugs give long lists of "possible side-effects" of the medication being advertised, ranging from serious issues to things that seem trivial, like the seemingly ubiquitous "dry mouth".

Now today I'm reading the latest US News and World Report. It has full-page drug ads, followed by the useless back page that gives info on the clinical trials used, the "possible side-effects", and other warnings and precautions. But this time I was stunned to see a one page ad (for Ambien, a sleep medication) followed by two full pages of such information -- and of course they are in 2-point font, making them impossible to read without a magnifying glass. These have to be the least-read pages of any magazine they appear in.

Two points I'd like to make here:
1 - I'm actually not sure what leads drug companies to provide so much information in both TV ads and print ads. I assume it is either government regulation and/or fear of lawsuits. If anyone knows for sure what the leading cause is, I'd love to hear it.
2 - It seems to be getting worse. The two-page small-print I saw today is one indication of this, but so are some commercials that rattle off warnings and "possible side-effects" with the verbal speed of an good auctioneer.