Over the weekend, the White Sox continued their winning ways by taking two out of three games from the Seattle Mariners. That makes 14 wins in 16 games for the surging Sox, who now sit atop the AL Central by 2.5 games.
However, in the one game the White Sox lost weekend, Mariners pitcher Tom Wilhelmsen made them – and one player in particular – look absolutely silly.
Here is White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez, on a 1-0 count with the score knotted at 8 in the 11th inning, attempting to decipher at Wilhelmsen pitch.
The Mariners won the game 10-8, with Wilhelmsen getting the W. He pitched three pivotal innings, giving up just one hit while striking out four batters. Alexei, who has been red hot of late, went 0-5, so he clearly was not seeing the ball well no matter who was pitching.
As for Wilhelmsen, he does have a rather interesting story, as told here by Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times (hat tip to Redditor johnadreams). He was out of baseball for six years, but is now back buckling the knees of American League hitters.
Q: I was walking my dog and like every other Asian-American in America, watching every Jeremy Lin youtube clip I could get my hands on and realized that Jeremy Lin sounds EXACTLY like Matt Saracen. Then I started to delve a little deeper into this half-baked thought.
Both were thrust from outsider status into the spotlight under unexpected circumstances and subsequently thrived.
They are both quiet, humble leaders, and their teammates love them.
Both became instrumental to their team's success and turned around what seemed to be hopeless seasons.
Seriously, have you listened to JLin talking? It's uncanny!
Jeremy Lin has given me hope as a young Jewish athlete from the suburbs of New Jersey. Although he has recently come out as Taiwanese American by nationality, Christian by religion and a native of Northern California, it is clear he is Jewish by spirituality and, according to my uncle who works near Madison Square Garden, studying at a Rabbinical school in Paramus.
The arrival of Jeremy Lin in the city is the closest we'll get in our lifetimes to witnessing a superhero's origin story outside the pages of a comic book. Just as Superman, Spider-Man, and Batman before him, Jeremy Lin is someone that could not have been anticipated — I think that ESPN was able to dig up a scout that spoke warmly about Jeremy Lin three years ago, but that's it. Jesse Eisenberg rewrites his personal history above; schoolyard bullies are sent away in favor of geeks, a school play is cured of it's awkwardness, kidneys being donated in a time of need. If a point guard, the first Asian-American starter in the history of the NBA can lead the Knicks on a six-game winning streak and break NBA records (both scoring and oops, turnovers, for a player's first five starts), anything is possible. This same spirit inspired me to use Mixel to replace fictional heroes with Jeremy Lin on the covers of their respective debuts.
New Yorkers know the Knicks are not one of the elite teams in the East (I'm not even a true Knicks fan, I save my rooting energy for the Mets), although they may finish as high as fourth. I see the model minority myth creep subtly (and not-so-subtly) into every corner of the sports & city sections and I wince a little bit. But for today, I simply want to appreciate Jeremy Lin, who has not only brought hope to Knicks fans, but also expanded the imagination of the city, a rare feat indeed.
In the greatest Ted talk of all time, Erin McKean said "the Internet is actually made up of words and enthusiasm."
To this I would add "and pictures!" but I think she pretty much nailed it. Despite blogs dying every three months or so since 2002, I still read a few hundred of them (using Google Reader, and now also stellar), and I try to follow enthusiastic bloggers regardless of their expertise. Dayf, the Cardboard Junkie, is one such blogger (and conveniently I also love baseball cards). I was taken with his comparison of Topps' 2012 "Heritage" Card set, inspired by the 1963 Topps set, and the actual 1963 Topps Card set. Compare the uncut sheets from 2012 (on the left) and 1963 (on the right):
I know this entire post makes me look like the baseball card version of Jack Nicholson washing his hands 47 times an hour in As Good As It Gets, but it's just bad process. Aligning the page in the '63 style would have cost absolutely nothing extra and could have saved a whole lot of potential quality issues with the product. And it didn't even take a genius to figure it out, it would just take someone who was actually familiar with the history of the original set to copy the idea. If the new photo is actually how the uncut sheets are aligned, then I'll be very interested to see some of the inevitable Heritage ripping posts upcoming in the card blogging community for any weirdly cut cards with little slivers of color where they shouldn't be.
….
I just think that in a Heritage product celebrating the days of yore, it might be helpful to actually understand how it was done in the olden days when designing the product… Then again, just because your ship is unsinkable, it doesn't mean that it's a good idea to not bring enough lifeboats on your maiden journey. If you're gonna create a retro-styled set celebrating your Heritage, at least have one freaking person on the design staff, paid or unpaid who actually knows the history of the product and can use that knowledge to improve the new release.
I agree! But the problem is that Topps is actually the only company currently licensed to make cards, so we end up with a lot of (to borrow NBC's headline) "crappy baseball cards." I recommend Gary Cieradkowski's Infinite Baseball Card Set. Since he only produces cards of players from the past, or from fiction, there's no licensing involved. His work captures, better than Topps ever will, the spirit — not to mention the enthusiasm and heritage — of baseball cards. And blogging.
The Mets have officially announced the return of Banner Day.
The format will be slightly different. Banner Day will return Sunday, May 27 prior to the Mets playing the San Diego Padres at 1:10 p.m. at Citi Field. In its original incarnation, Banner day was often a doubleheader, with the parade of posters and bed sheets occurring between games.
My friends and I did participate in one Banner Day. It was 1985, the season after a young prospect named Ross Jones came up, had a couple good games, then disappeared.
We went to banner day with two banners. One said 'Bring Back Ross Jones.' The other banner was really just a sandwich board that said 'Or Die.' We did not win any prizes. If you were at any banner Days between 1963 and 1996, Loge13 would love to see some photos or hear some tales.
Legend has it my Dad went to banner days in 1964, 1965, and 1967. I may be misremembering. Uncle Daniel went too. Our seats are actually in a great spot to bring back the K corner (first row upper deck between 3rd & home). We may bring that back this year!
The knuckleball is probably the most mysterious of baseball pitches, surrounded by a great deal of mystique. It is usually thrown at a speed significantly lower than that of “ordinary” pitches and with very little spin. The lack of spin means that the knuckleball does not experience the Magnus force that is responsible for the movement on ordinary pitches. Very early in the PITCHf/x era, we learned that the spin-induced movement of ordinary pitches bunches into relatively small clusters, with the size and location of the clusters—along with the release speed—serving as signatures for a given type of pitch thrown by a given pitcher.
Alan Nathan uses PITCHf/x to "Distinguish Perception from Reality" while answering the question — Does the Knuckleball flutter? I would actually challenge the word "perception," because even sitting very close to the field it's difficult to see a knuckleball moving.
It's the journey, not the destination, so I will go ahead and reveal the answer. Knuckleballs are "free to flutter and zig-zag" within the confines of a smooth arc, and that movement is rarely more than one-tenth of an inch in any direction. But the combination of the mystique of the pitch and the tenth of an inch is enough.
"Timing is everything. Chemistry is something that you don't just throw in the frying pan and mix it up with another something, then throw it on top of something, then fry it up and put it in a tortilla and put in a microwave, heat it up and give it to you and expect it to taste good. You know? For those of you who can cook, y'all know what I'm talking about. If y'all can't cook, this doesn't concern you."
You've reached the personal blog of David Jacobs. I live in New York City, and I'm eating two hamburgers a week on doctor's orders. When you're done with the front page, you can read the archives.
You can keep up with me elsewhere on my reblog, my vox blog, randomWalks or flickr, and last but not least, my Typepad profile.
Testimonials
"Always literal... can make me [a] spreadsheet as fast as he can favorite a tweet." — Carey Jones, editor of Serious Eats.
"Fine, i'll subscribe! But this is going to increase my number of RSS subs by like 10%." — Jake Dobkin, publisher of Gothamist.com.
"... some of the best reblogging I've ever seen" – Michael Frumin, Master of Science and Transportation
"kottke.org's patron saint" – Jason Kottke, friend and great blogger.
"How does David maintain such a celebrity-esque allure?" – Byrne Reese, friend and developer.
"My son's blog is a little political and techie, but it is rather stunning in its construction." – Erica Jacobs, Mother.
Recent Comments