SB Nation User Blog: LongTimeFan

Staturday Resource - Emerald Guide to Baseball -Free download

LongTimeFan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:41:56 -0000

The Society for American Baseball Research is making the Emerald Guide to Baseball, 2009, by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette, available as a free dowload from the SABR website. It requires an email registration.

From SABR:

"SABR is pleased to help baseball fans cut expenses this season by publishing and giving away the The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009. Yes, we said "giving away." The guide, which fills the hole in the baseball record left by the 2006 demise of The Sporting News Baseball Guide, contains detailed statistics for every player at every level of the professional game, team histories, and up-to-date team contact information and schedules.

Baseball fans anywhere in the world—both SABR members and non-members—can download the PDF version of the book free of charge from the SABR website at www.sabr.org.

Edited by acclaimed baseball historians Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer, The Emerald Guide distills the 2008 season down to 586 fact-filled pages that contain the pitching, fielding, and hitting statistics for each player active in the major and minor leagues in 2008. As with the classic Sporting News Guides, the Emerald Guide also features team-by-team daily results, a directory of important contacts, a synopsis of the just-completed season, and much more. A bound version is available via print on demand at Lulu.com for $23.95. Every page in the bound edition is in the PDF.

Why are we doing this? Well, part of SABR's mission is to disseminate the history and record of baseball, and that's exactly what we're doing. If you find this book valuable, please consider joining SABR if you aren't already a member. And feel free to send friends and family to www.sabr.org so they can get their free PDF of The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009. "

Where's the party?

LongTimeFan — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:31:52 -0000

Happy Birthday, Blez!

I hope that you and the family are celebrating your birthday. Here's wishing you a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY and that next year is a good one. Looking forward to seeing you more often next season at the ballpark, too.

Thank YOU for the gift of AN, cause we enjoy it everyday. I know we all appreciate the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.

Happy birthday to you!

(and if I missed another post saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLEZ!, well you can't say it often enough)

I am going to the A's Booster Club Holiday party tonight. I'll let you all know if I hear anything of interest.

Happy Birthday, BaseBallGirl!

LongTimeFan — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:15:04 -0000

Where's the party?

Hope you are celebrating all day/week/month! Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, and since you didn't get what you/we all wanted this year...(maybe you should've booked another cruise?) ...wait till next year or the next!

I am looking forward to celebrating many more BBG birthdays with A's playing October baseball. It was quite the thrill a couple years ago, wasn't it?

Here's love from AN and lots of love from me, too.

Happy Birthday to YOU!

Vote Daily ! Bill King for Frick Award

LongTimeFan — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:52:20 -0000

Fan voting for the Frick award has opened at the Baseball Hall of Fame website : Frick Award Voting .

"Once again this year, fans have the opportunity to be a part of the process for selecting the 2009 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually to a baseball broadcaster for major contributions to the game.

Three of the 10 names on the final Frick Award ballot will be chosen by fans throughout the month of September. Select up to three (3) candidates from the ballot below. You may vote once each day during the month of September. The final 10-name ballot, featuring the three fan selections, will be announced on Dec. 9, 2008."

Our votes have helped get Bill on the ballot in the past . Let's do it again.

I miss hearing Bill call the game and talk about baseball, A's baseball, road trips, restaurants, the weather. His stories were the best.

DLD 8.15.08 Wake Up! A's "might" stay in Oakland

LongTimeFan — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:02:02 -0000

Mayor Ron Dellums sees some renewed hope for the A's chances of staying in Oakland.

Two weeks after A's owner Lew Wolff said he wasn't sure if he would succeed in building a proposed 32,000-seat stadium in Fremont, Dellums told the Tribune he's prepared to do anything "within reason" to keep the A's in town.

Article in today's Tribune Dellums hopes A's stay in Oakland.

Long way to go, but as Skigurl was saying yesterday, Robert Bob is back in Oakland, and he has been very supportive of keeping the A's here. Now this is the kind of rumor I really like. Stay A's!

Ziggy in the news

LongTimeFan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:53:05 -0000

Ziegler’s route to the majors was tortuous, but he’s been wondrous since"

Joe Posnanski, in the Kansas City Star writes a good story about Brad. It is nothing we don't already know about, I am glad to see Ziggy getting some attention.

"Ziegler sounds a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. He credits his teammates. (“I’m not a strikeout pitcher, so they have to be really good behind me.”) He credits his family for helping him stick with this crazy game. And, this is funny, he says that he hopes Oakland won’t send him down when a couple of other pitchers come off the disabled list.

“I’ve learned,” he says, “that you never know what will happen in baseball.”

And that is really true in Oakland. Go A's!

AN DAY V - Tailgate 08

LongTimeFan — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:49:49 -0000

Since I can't seem to find the posts that recap the fun in the parking lot, I thought I would say a big THANKS to Blez - we sure missed you and hope you are doing well.

Thank you, thank you to BBG - you throw a great party and it always fun to welcome you and the SoCal crew to the Coliseum, you should come up again soon!

More thanks to ALL the folks who brought great food and drinks (the Jack Daniels was a nice touch), especially to Paradox for his delicious bbq in great abundance, and to the kids who decorated those green/gold cupcakes, and to Susan Slusser, who took the time to come out and say hello.

It is always fun to meet the real people behind those screen names, and GigglingOne, Pam of the numbers and Wes7, I especially enjoyed meeting you.

And I look forward to seeing the pictures..lots of folks had cameras and I'm sure they'll be posting before I even get mine off the camera.

Go A's!

AN Day Tickets

LongTimeFan — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:43:46 -0000

So, you waited too long and didn't get back to BaseballGirl and now you want to come hang out with your friends at AN?

And you really want to know who this year's special guests are?
Here's your chance.
I have a couple extra tickets - same price $34 for BBQ lunch and the game.
Post here and I'll get back to you.
I'm leaving for the tonights game at about 5, so it might not be until later tonight.
I can meet you in the morning or leave your tickets at willcall.

Symposium on Statistics and Operations Research in Baseball

LongTimeFan — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 22:52:57 -0000

This sounds interesting and I thought some of us might be looking for something baseball to do next Wednesday, July 11.

The Symposium on Statistics and Operations Research in Baseball will be a meeting of the baseball, industrial, and academic worlds.
The focus is on how Statistics and Operations Research methodology is used within baseball and associated businesses and on how baseball inspires the expansion of the frontiers of Statistics and Operations Research as scientific fields.
The Symposium will have a panel discussion moderated by Mike Siano of MLB.com's Baseball Channel in the morning, which will be edited for broadcast on MLB.com later in the week.
In the afternoon, there will be short seminars. After a brief introduction at 10, the panel will begin. An hour and a half break for lunch will follow the panel, at about 11:45. The Symposium is scheduled to end at 5.

General Information - http://mitch.watnik.com/symposium.html
Detailed program - http://mitch.watnik.com/abstracts.html

California State Univ., East Bay
Valley Business and Technology Center Presentation Room
Hayward, CA
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
more info : Mitch Watnik at symposium@mlbradiofans.com
$12 at door,

Speakers:
Cory Schwartz, Director of Statistics, MLB.com
Chris Long, Senior Quantitative Analyst, San Diego Padres
Sig Mejdal, Senior Quantitative Analyst, St. Louis Cardinals
Nate Silver, Columnist, Baseball Prospectus
Jeffrey Ma, Vice President of Research, and Mark Kamal, Statistical Analyst, Protrade.com
Hal Stern, Professor of Statistics, Univ. of California, Irvine
Joel Sokol, Associate Professor of Operations Research, Georgia Tech
Eric Bickel, Director of the Decision Analysis Systems Lab, Texas A&M Univ.
Mitchell Watnik, Assistant Professor of Statistics, CSU East Bay
Henry Reichman, Professor of History, CSU East Bay

Bay Area Baseball History - June 12 at SF JCC

LongTimeFan — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:30:13 -0000

I thought AN might be interested in some local baseball history.

Tuesday, June 12, 7:30pm at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center:

Bay Area Baseball: a history, up close and personal

The history of baseball in the Bay Area, from the Mission Leagues
though the Pacific Coast League (PCL), San Francisco Seals and Oakland Oaks,
will be explored on Tuesday, June 12 at 7:30 p.m. Hosted by Bruce
Macgowan, former sports reporter for KNBR radio and Dave Newhouse, sports
journalist with the Oakland Tribune/Alameda Newspaper Group.

Sponsored by the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society (SFMHS)
the lecture will be held at the JCC, in Kanbar Hall, 3200 California
Street. with a reception at 7 p.m. It is free to current SFMHS members, and
a $10 donation is requested from non-members, which may be applied
toward membership.

Jerseys from 1905-1957 will be displayed, as well as historical
baseball memorabilia, including photographs of the PCL.

Macgowan, a Marin native and resident, is a broadcast journalist who
has covered professional and college sports in the Bay Area for 30 years.
His enthusiastic style enlivened Giants and Oakland Aâ€™s games for
local and national broadcast media. Newhouse, who has authored several
books, will discuss how sports have changed over the last 40 years and
what some sports heroes were really like as people and athletes. He will
also discuss the antics of the Seals and other teams, including the
outrageous Walter "Seacap" Christensen and was voted among the nation's ten
best sports columnists by the Associated Press Sports Editors.

The Pacific Coast League developed into one of the premier regional
baseball leagues in the early 1900s. Although it was never recognized as a
true major league, the quality of play was considered very high.
Drawing from a strong pool of talent in the area, the PCL produced a number
of outstanding players, including future major-league stars Joe
DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Tony Lazzeri, Paul Waner, Earl Averill and Ernie
Lombardi.

CONTACT: Nancy Fox (415) 459-3434 gnance2@sbcglobal.net

For additional information, call 415. 775-1111x2 or log onto
www.sfhistory.org.