according to jeff

Last night, in a game between the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians, Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga threw the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history. Except he’ll never get credit for it. After recording 26 outs without allowing a base runner, Galarraga’s final and 27th out wasn’t recorded. Instead, Cleveland baserunner Jason Donald, racing Galarraga to first base, was called safe by umpire Jim Joyce. Naturally, the Tigers and most of the home-town fans thought the runner was out. Indeed, photographic evidence indicates that he was out. An incorrect call resulted in an official 1-hit shutout, rather than a perfect game.

Instant replay, had it been available, would have corrected the error, the out would have been declared, and the perfect game would have been recorded. This unfortunate incident will likely result in a renewed call to add more instant replay to MLB baseball games.

I’m here to tell you that it shouldn’t. “Just Say No” to instant replay in MLB.

Yes, it appears clear that an actual out wasn’t recorded and that the rare perfect game was unjustly erased because of an umpire’s mistake on the final out of the game. However, how many other umpire mistakes were made during the course of the game? How many strikes could have just as easily been called balls? How many other close plays at first base could have gone the other way? How many foul balls could have been called fair? How often was a batter or pitcher given extra time, rather than being urged to stop adjusting batting gloves, scratching, and spitting, and to play ball?

Baseball is a game of judgment that involves everyone in the drama: players, managers, umpires. Each make hundreds, perhaps thousands, of decisions during the game that affect the outcome. Some decisions are small and apparently irrelevant. Others (such a this wrong call) are more obvious. However, I suggest that some judgment calls were made early in the game that impacted the outcome as much as the judgment that being declared safe when he should have been out. It’s just that that mistake was both obvious and dramatic, and thus gets more attention, than other mistakes made earlier in the game that may have changed the outcome of the game as well.

Boil it all down, and baseball is a delightfully imperfect game. Embrace the imperfection, bemoan with your friends the unjustice of a call (1985 World Series, anyone?), and remember, it’s just a game.

Now, if you want to discuss allowing the official scorer to declare an error on the umpire, thus turning the hit that broke up the perfect game into an unrecorded out due to (umpire) error, resulting in a no-hitter, but not a perfect game, …

From the September 28, 2009 issue of the Sporting News:

On August 18, the Angels fielded a batting order unlike any in the past 75 years. They became the first team since the 1914 Tigers to finish a game with a lineup comprised entirely of .300 hitters. (Detroit had .302-hitting Schoolboy Rowe on the mound.)

1. 3B – Chone Figgins – .308
2. RF – Bobby Abreu – .310
3. LF – Juan Rivera – .310
4. DH – Vladimir Guerrero – .313
5. 1B – Kendry Morales – .303
6. CF – Torii Hunter – .307
7. 2B – Maicer Izturis – .300
8. C – Mike Napoli – .300
9. SS – Erick Aybar – .313

You gotta love a game where some one is paying attention enough to come up with these fascinating bits of trivia. And it doesn’t hurt that the game and it’s history includes people with names like Schoolboy Rowe!

As noted in my previous article, for several years I’ve played in a National League Fantasy Baseball League called the Iowa Farm League. (Get it?) My son Matt has been my partner, and it’s been a lot of fun. We’ve gone by several names, including:

• Two Wheelers
• Hot Wheelers

Our league plays with a full twelve teams, and every few years, an owner isn’t able to return, so a newcomer can join. Matt is that newcomer this year. So, instead of being my partner, Matt is now my opponent.

And I needed a new team name.

I chose Jeffnoson Airplane. (Get it?)

In our league, points are awarded for:

1. Runs
2. Runs Batted In
3. Homeruns
4. On Base Percentage
5. Stolen Bases
6. Wins
7. Saves
8. Holds
9. Strikeouts
10. WHIP (ratio of walks plus hits surrendered to the innings pitched)

Many leagues use batting average instead of OBP, and earned run average (ERA) rather than holds. However, we’ve come to determine that these two categories that we use requires a better balanced team.

This league uses an auction-style draft. Draft order is assigned and run serpentine style. However, instead of automatically acquiring a player, when it’s your turn, you put a player on the auction block with a minimum bid of $1. The highest bidder acquires the player and adds him to the roster. Each team has $260 to spend in order to fill the roster.

Fantasy baseball then becomes, not a sports game, but a sports-related strategy game.

Draft day strategy sets the tone for the balance of the season, and sometimes needs to be adjusted as the draft progresses. However, I opted to try a new strategy this year, and it held up through the draft. I won’t spell it out for you, but you may be able to detect it from my draft results. Our draft started at 8:00 AM and concluded about 2:00 PM. It was an intense, but very interesting, several hours. The result? Here it is.

* = a “keeper” player from last year. We use last year’s salary plus an automatic 15% increase to determine keeper value.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the results. I may end up in a constant struggle all year trying to find viable players at second and middle infield, but it’s possible that one or more of Velez or Antonelli will turn into a gem. (Likely not, but it’s possible!)

For several years, I’ve played in a National League Fantasy Baseball League with some great guys here in Cedar Rapids. A few years ago, my friend Otto joined us. He enjoyed it so much that last year the two of us started an American League fantasy baseball league, but with only five teams. Since the National League league uses an auction system, we decided to experiment with a draft system.

In a draft system, each player is assigned a draft position, and chooses the player of their choice when their turn comes up. A serpentine system is used, so with three players, the draft order is like this: 1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 1, etc.

Strategy is quite different in a draft than in an auction. Whereas in an auction, timing purchases and bidding can be very important, in a draft, one chooses the best remaining player to meet the team’s goals.

This year, in our second season with this league, we added three new players. So we have 8 teams playing with American League players. Since there are twelve teams in the AL in real life, since our league only has eight teams, there is still an abundance of players, but not so many that the draft isn’t important.

Here is my opening day roster:

A Cedar Rapids Kernel defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes in tonight’s Fiesta Bowl.

Leave a comment if you know what I’m talking about.

Baseball is a great game, it’s playoff season, and I’m on the Rays bandwagon.

Yes, I’d have preferred to still be rooting for the Cubs, I’d like to have seen the Angels beat the Red Sox, and I’d hoped that the Twins would best the White Sox.

But since I don’t have strong feelings about any of the teams that are still left, how can I decide who to root for? Well, I have a few guiding principles to help me:

1. Never root for a team with devil or demon in its name.
2. Never root for a team from San Fransisco.

And, what do you know, my principles came through! Until last year, the team from Tampa Bay was known as the Devil Rays. According to my tightly held principles, I was obliged to root against them.

But this year, the team has dropped devil from its name, and is known as simply the Rays. My principles not only allow me to now root for them, but encourage me to do so. Wouldn’t it be cool for the Rays to succeed in the year that they dumped the devil?

I previously wrote a trivia (not trivial) article featuring an amazing feat by Fernando Tatis. My coverage of this nearly forgotten player spurred additional attention. Tatis has lately been in the news again, and it’s a good story. Read about it in the New York Times or at Yahoo Sports.

I recently wrote about the loss of our St. Louis Cardinals radio broadcasts in Cedar Rapids, and my thoughts about buying XM Radio in order to listen to the Major League Baseball (MLB) games.

Shockingly, only one of the legions of faithful readers had any experience or advice to share. One reader wrote of second hand knowledge that signal repeaters did, indeed, allow a radio with a home to receive a signal.

Well, I decided that there were better things to do than buy an XM radio, several necessary accessories and a $12.95 per month subscription.

But I didn’t give up. Instead, I purchased the Gameday Audio package from Major League Baseball ($15.00). This service streams the radio broadcasts of all the MLB games, with my choice of the home broadcast or the away broadcast, to my PC. No, I can’t listen in the car, but I’m not in the car much. Yes, I co have to have a live Internet connection, but I almost always do (except when I’m in my car, I suppose).

It doesn’t yet work with my iPhone via WiFi, though I’m hopeful that it will by next season. And I had a few minor problems getting it to work on a Mac (I needed to download the latest audio application), but so far, I’ve been very happy with the reasonably priced service.

I wrote over a year ago about the diversity in baseball radio broadcasts available in our area. Today, I am sad to report that the corridor is not as diverse as it once was. And since we all know that a diverse community is a good community, our community is now a bit diminished.

AM 1360 The Fan, one of our local radio stations, inexplicably no longer broadcasts the St. Louis Cardinals baseball games. Previously a member of the Cardinals Radio Network, the station must find that local hockey and high school games are more profitable. While there might be those who listen to local hockey and high school football games, I’ve not yet met anyone that does (at least, not that does on purpose). While it’s not easy to imagine more fans of local hockey than of the Cardinals, it is easy to imagine that the broadcast costs of a local hockey game would be much less than the cost of broadcasting a Major League Baseball game. So, I assume that the decision was made not to attract more listeners, but to reduce the cost of the programming. If you’d like to see the Cardinals returns to AM 1360, I encourage you to do as I did and email the program director, Randy Lee.

As my faithful readers already know, I enjoy listening to baseball games on the radio. Though we’ve lost the Cardinals, I can still listen to many of the Cubs and White Sox games, with an occasional Rockies game. However, I do miss the Cardinals broadcasts.

So, I’ve been considering MLB on XM satellite radio. XM broadcasts all of the MLB games, making previously unavailable games available. This is very intriguing.

However, two things have held me back:

1. I spend most of my time indoors, not in my car. Satellite reception indoors is typically a problem. However, Delphi has addressed this problem with an antenna and signal repeater. If an indoor location can be found where the signal repeater can receive a signal from the satellite, it can then broadcast the signal to interior locations that do not receive the satellite signal directly.
2. Most of the XM receivers are intended for cars, which provide a sound system. I, on the other hand, want the receiver to be more like a portable transistor radio (as if there were still transistor radios). I’d like a sleep timer and battery power, so I can easily move it from room to room (as I do my AM radio). However, the best that is available appears to be a receiver and a sound system or boom box, none of which (yet) appear to approximate the ease of use of a portable AM radio.

Do you have any experience with XM radio, and especially with bringing XM radio into your home? If so, what has your experience been and what advice do you have for me?

As I’m working this afternoon, I’m also listening to Pat Hughes and Ron Santo call the Chicago Cubs baseball game on AM 800, KXIC. While my experience with radio announcers is limited to the Cardinals, the Twins, the Rockies, the White Sox and the Cubs, and even though I am a Cardinals fan, I freely admit that Pat and Ron are the most entertaining radio broadcasters of those who I have the opportunity to hear.

But that, as interesting as it no doubt is, isn’t the topic of this article.

One endearing feature of a Cubs radio broadcast is hearing the traditional Take Me Out to the Ballgame “sung” during the seventh inning stretch, often by a “famous” guest.

And as I listened today, it struck me just how few of these guests can sing on key. Most, though not all, go up and down in pitch at many of the appropriate places, but rarely get close to actually singing the actual melody in any actual key. Have you noticed that, too?