I think with the whole Angels-signing-Pujols-and-Wilson thing going on today, Lookout Landing could use a little extra levity. Since I know a number of you all are fans of the cartoon Phineas and Ferb, I will pass along the rules I've put together for the Phineas and Ferb drinking game.

Each player taking part in the drinking game chooses a character to play along with. So far I have conditions for Phineas, Ferb, Candace, Perry the Platypus, Dr. Doofenshmirtz, and the Field.

Continue reading this post »

It's been a while since we've had any kind of meet-up or get-together, so how about this?

Saturday, November 12 on the east side of Garfield High School (in between Cherry and Alder on 25th Ave, Seattle) at 1:00pm. I haven't reserved the field or anything, so it may be in use. If that is the case, we'll hang out until 1:15pm before we move to another field. I can be reached by cell phone or email to give you directions to where we wind up. My email is listed in my SB-Profile, so you can reach me there.

Who's in?

A lot of discussion has gone on this season about the probable expansion of the MLB playoffs from 8 teams to 10 teams. Right now, of course, that discussion has been around the events of Wednesday; that if the teams with the top two non-division-winning records had a playoff automatically then we wouldn't have had the ridiculously insane drama of that night.

I think the key to the playoffs is really deciding what teams deserve to make it, so I did a little research.

Continue reading this post »

Okay, so we've got a group of guys -- semi- and not-quite athletic people -- to play Flag Football from Lookout Landing in the past few years, and we're going again on Saturday, 12/18.

The game(s) will be at Garfield High School at 1pm. The field is on the east side of the school. Sometimes when we go play the field is taken by youth soccer and we have to go elsewhere. I'll give you my phone number if you need and you want to try to find us. Flags and field cones are provided.

I figure some of you all are college types who might be coming back to Seattle for the break, and maybe you'd like to get out and be active. Let me know in the comments if you're coming.

A group of us last year got together every couple of weeks to play Flag Football. It got to the point last year that we clogged up the FanPosts a little bit with frequent game announcements, so we created the Seattle Baseball Flag Football Group (Facebook Link) to manage the events and send out emails. We haven't played very much this fall yet, but you're invited to join us on Sunday.

Here's the plan:

We're going to watch the Seahawks game and as the game ends we will go out to play FLLag FootbaLL in a park close-by. We have yet to select a place, but we frequently play football up at Garfield High School or over on Capitol Hill, so we'll probably find a place near there. If you have a favorite place to watch games that's near an available park, we may be flexible, though, so throw it out there.

Anyway, if you're interested but can't play, go ahead and join the facebook group if you like and I usually send out a message every couple weeks or so when we have another game.

***

Update

I didn't receive any thoughts about where we might go instead of our regular sites, so we'll have some food over at Piecora's Pizza (1401 E Madison St / Seattle) during the Seahawks game, probably in the back room. From there we'll head out to play flag football. I expect that we'll reconvene behind Garfield High School (400 23rd Ave / Seattle) for our games. If you can't come to one, feel free to go to the other. Email me for my phone number in case you get lost or don't find us where you expect to.

Judging from people I've talked to and the facebook event, it appears we have about 8 players, which makes for a pretty good game. Come play!

In a manner of speaking, any counting stat is a team accomplishment. Of course, it often takes a lot of individual skill to reach milestones, but if you give major league players enough opportunities, they will succeed enough to do things that we wouldn't expect. The opposite is also true; if a player is injured or otherwise never has the opportunity to do things like drive in runs, he never will.

Ichiro may be denied the opportunity to reach 200 hits this year because of the futility of the Mariner offense.

Ichiro is hitting .309 according to Fangraphs, recording 134 hits in 473 plate appearances and 105 games. That average is pretty low for Ichiro, though not unheard of -- he hit .303 in 2005, just a season after breaking George Sisler's record for hits in a season. To break it down, in 2005 he had 206 hits in 162 games and 739 PA's.

2005 basically represents the line that Ichiro must pass in order to get to 200 hits, and he collected hits in 27.9% of his plate appearances. He's actually doing better than that in 2010, getting hits in 28.3% of PA's this season.

However, the lineup turned over more in 2005, as he got up to bat 4.56 times per game. This season he's coming up to bat 4.50 times per game.

To put this in some perspective, take a look at last season. Last year's offense allowed Ichiro to come up to the play 4.64 times per game. If Ichiro were to hit at his current rate and have that many times up per game, he'd reach 212 hits. As it is, he's only on pace for 206, and between how Ichiro has looked at the plate and how ineffective the Mariners offense has been over the last road trip, that seems pretty optimistic.

*Note: this is written mostly for non-sports fans, but I think you'll probably get something from it too, dear LL reader*

We had a family friend who once said my first words were "Ken Griffey Junior."

I can't exactly explain why I love the guy as much as I do. In a way it's dumb. Or at least, on the surface it is. Why should I really care if someone can take a thin stick of wood and hit a ball 400 feet? All I can say is that for some reason, we allow athletes to transcend their sport and give them figurative powers as well.

Major League Baseball has done a really good job recently with some of their promotions, and they get to the heart of the matter. An advertisement shows some slides of Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia -- who at 5'9" and 180 lbs doesn't exactly fit most of our models of world-class athlete -- and makes mention of the adversity he faced as an undersized player, concludes, "This is beyond perseverance. This is beyond baseball." (link here.) It may sound a little silly, but they are exactly right.

When we watched Griffey in the late 1980s into the middle 1990s, Ken Griffey Jr. was potential incarnate. He was the power and wonder of youth. He was completely without limit. He could have hit 800 home runs or more, and shatter the records of generations past. He could make us, Seattle, champions. He could make us relevant. He was OUR potential. He was the sign that yeah, things might be bad now, but there are good things to come. You could even say he was hope.

Ken Griffey Junior is why I am a baseball fan. As kids growing up, we all have potential. They tell us we are the future. Those of us who were baseball fans in Seattle in the late 80s and early 90s were also watching the future unfold before us on the diamond. It was really easy as a kid to identify with Junior, his thin frame and is freakishly bright smile that virtually everyone mentions when speaking about him. He was one of us. Hell, we called him "The Kid." He was out there playing the game and having fun, doing things adults never thought possible, perhaps just because he didn't know it was impossible in the first place.

Not a week seemed to go by where he didn't put a beautiful swing on a pitch and turn it into the right field stands, or take one step into the fence before jumping a second time to steal a home run, or even do both in the same game like he did in the final game of the Kingdome in 1999.

I stayed up late and had the radio on in my room the night that Griffey was traded to Cincinnati. I can't say for certain that I knew it was coming, but I'm pretty sure I did. I cried. I don't cry much, but I do cry about some sports things once in a while. My future was going away. The future wasn't ours anymore. It belonged to someone else now, all the people in Cincinnati who bought up "Griffey 24" jerseys only to find that he wasn’t going to wear that number at all.

I went to Chicago in the summer of 2005. Part of that was to see the Mariners play the White Sox, and part of that was to visit a friend from college who was running a club with me. I wanted to do both of those things, but the reason that I simply had to make the trip was because the Reds were coming to town right after the M's, and they were going to play the Cubs. I recall seeing Junior send two balls over the fence. At that moment, I felt, I had closure. Of course, it helped that the Mariners somehow managed to reach the playoffs in 2000 and win an unprecedented 116 games in 2001. Maybe our future wasn't entirely gone.

If you read up on this over the next couple of days, you’ll read a lot about how Griffey "saved baseball in Seattle."  I'm not sure what to make of that exactly. Had Griffey not been a Mariner, there probably would not have been that much of an interest in maintaining a Major League ballclub, and owner Jeff Smulyan may have never sold the team to Hiroshi Yamauchi of Nintendo who kept the team in Seattle in 1992.

That the Mariners play in Safeco Field today is largely because of the 1995 Mariners team, which Griffey was a part of, but Junior was injured for much of the season with a broken right wrist after making an incredible catch in the right-centerfield corner. The fact that the Mariners made the playoffs in 1995 is mostly due to pitcher Randy Johnson and designated hitter Edgar Martinez, who turned out an historically impressive season not terribly unlike Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox in 1941. By the way, many people still consider Williams to be the greatest hitter who ever lived.

There are still players like Junior today who embody the concepts of future and hope, though perhaps there is not a single player who truly embodies that youthful fun attitude of Griffey. Today I look at Felix Hernandez, Mariners pitcher who is but six months older than I am, and when I see him dominate opposing batters, I wonder why I can't be that good at what I do. But still, when I see him dominating, I see me doing the same thing.

For kids in Washington D.C., perhaps the pitcher Steven Strasburg will be their future and their hope. In Atlanta, 20-year-old outfielder Jason Hayward could be that guy. In Tampa Bay, third baseman Evan Longoria is that guy. For me, regardless of Felix Hernandez or Ichiro or whoever is next, that guy is Ken Griffey Junior, and now that he's retired, I just started feeling a lot older.

Hey everybody,

I have just secured a couple of lanes at West Seattle Bowl for Friday May 28, starting at 7:00pm. I would say that if you bring about $10 or so it should cover for the bowling, although I may be able to work out a deal for even less depending on how busy we're going to be.

I can answer questions as needed. For example: where is it?

The street address for W.S.Bowl is 4505 39th Ave SW / Seattle 98116.

How do I get there?

Take WA-99 South or I-5 in either direction to the West Seattle Bridge. Stay in the left lane through the Fauntleroy Way exit, be ready to get in the right lane. The third light upon exit from the bridge should be Oregon St. Take a right on Oregon, go up the hill past the auto shop and the church and turn left. You should see a sign here.

I know that several of us are going to be in Oakland for Opening Day, and there seemed to be interest in an earlier thread to have some kind of meetup. I've got plans and tickets on the actual Opening Day, so I have a suggestion:

How about the exhibition game on Sunday the 4th against the Giants? We could get seats in the bleachers in section 138 for $10 each. Then maybe we can catch up afterwards at a bar or other nearby establishment. What do you think?

It's been a couple of months since I've posted about this. A group of us who post here (and/or used to post here) have been playing Flag Football on a weekly basis, and we could use a couple more players.

Come on down to the backside of Garfield High School (25th Ave and Alder St) at 1:00pm on Saturday and we'll have a game. There is a facebook event here if you'd like to look at more details. We usually play for two or three hours and then go have some food either at the Elysian or at Piecora's Pizza on Capitol Hill where we discuss the game we played, baseball topics, beer, and anything else. Under 21-ers are welcome.

We are not a terribly athletic group; we ran 40-yard dashes last week before we played, and our average time was probably about 5.6 seconds. Our top time was 5.0, and our low time was about 6.4 or something.

Also, if you can't come play but you want to hear more on facebook about future games, events, and things (we might join an Underdog League this fall if we determine we're not gonna get creamed every week and we're looking into designing t-shirts), check out our facebook group page and add yourself.

I'm not even sure if these warrant a FanPost anymore since they are so regular, but the LL Flag Football players invite you back out to Garfield High School on Saturday, February 6 for the next edition of FootbaLL.

I must say that the games have been more fun when we get between 12-14 people to play, since that allows us to play with unlimited rushing of the quarterback, which seems to decrease the frequency of the long bomb play and make for more sustained offensive drives. Also, we get to utilize the entire 100-yard field, which is always good times.

In short, come to Garfield HS at Noon on February 6. RSVP in the thread here and we'll get a good idea of numbers.

Let's meet the players! So far, we've got 11. We could use one-to-three more...
Kirk
Jaejo
Brett
Daniel
two_hands
Lanterman
Gomez
Max
Baker
Johnbai
Seattle_Since_81

I keep running into Kingdome-related material online. Mostly pictures on Facebook or links on wikipedia that work their way back around to the Dome, but it's definitely helping me get a big dose of nostalgia recently. If you have a Mariners nostalgia itch, you can get this Mariners cap patch crest on ebay.

Or you can play along with a Uni Watch Blog favorite, "Guess the Scoreboard." I will provide you a picture (this one from the wikipedia page on the Kingdome) and you take a shot at guessing what day that game was played. I don't have any prizes, though, so that's mostly a timewaster for those of you who are looking for one. I actually found the picture to be pretty challenging, but I am about 95% confident I have the right answer.

When do pitchers and catchers report? I've already reported for the PSSBL season. Let's get on that guys. BASEBALL SEASON. IT'S COMING.

And also, it's an off-topic post because we need a new one, so come up with stuff.

Since we have the USSM/LL Event over at Benaroya Hall on Saturday, I suggest pushing back our every-other-week FootbaLL event to Sunday the 10th at Noon again at Garfield High School in Seattle.

I have some extra thoughts to keep in mind for this one. For those of you who are regulars, I recommend purchasing your own flags for FootbaLL in the near future. In particular, I recommend "Triple Threat" flags WHICH HAVE ALREADY BEEN BOUGHT, SO BRING $5 IF YOU WANT TO HELP DIFFUSE COSTS. THAT'D BE REALLY NICE OF YOU.

As far as rule changes are concerned, FootbaLL Competition Committee has decided that kickoffs will be held at midfield in future full-field games, and point-after-touchdown conversions will be a one point free kick from the soccer penalty spot, a one point conversion from the 10 yard line, or a two point conversion from the 15 yard line.

Competition Committee has yet to set rules regarding the spotting of the ball in relationship to the pulling of a player's flags, but may revisit the subject prior to play on Sunday.

Who ya got? (9 plus 2 part times/unsures)

DC (me)
Johnbai
Max
Kirk
Lanterman
Baker
Gomez
Brett
JaeJo
Fuzz (early)
MarinerJohn (75% certain)

Finding a field is a little bit like filling out the roster for a baseball team. You've got to figure out what your needs are, what your constraints are, and then act to the best of your ability to find the right fit.

We tried playing at Cal Anderson Park in Cap Hill but found it to be overrun by female soccer players, so we moved over to Seattle University's Championship Field, only to find that it was a mud hole.

Failing this, we attempted a game at Lynnwood High School, only to find out that Lynnwood High School is not actually in Lynnwood but instead in Bothell (18218 North Road / Bothell WA 98012). We had an excellent game there followed by good food, however the game started excruciatingly late (my bad) and required a jump of a fence in order to get on the field.

Our last two events have been held behind the newly turfed field at Garfield High School. The long trip into the city for some of our northern friends is less than ideal, however field conditions are on the whole pretty good, it is not too far from good post-game food, and we were able to utilize all 100 yards of the field, including kicking field goals, without the danger of trespassing.

But I found a potential third option. Loyal Heights Playground, positioned at 20th Ave. NW and NW 75th St. in Seattle, has a turf football field that does not have a reservation for 12/26. It is located near Golden Gardens, sandwiched between Greenwood and Ballard. If the field is in use anyway, we could schlep ourselves to Lower Woodland Park and see what's available there.

DETAILS BELOW MAY CHANGE, BUT WILL NOT CHANGE AS OF 12:00AM DEC. 24:

Saturday, December 26

We will start at Noon

We will play at Garfield High School, on 25th Avenue between Alder St. and Cherry St., Seattle

IN (10):
Me (Daniel)
Johnbai
Brett
SeattleBruin
KirkHarbaugh
abender20
ningwers
tootthekazoo
JamMasterJesus
Mr. Baker

QUESTIONABLE:
Scruffy Lefty
Robert
Jaejo
Matthew??

OUT:
Chris Lanterman

I have an extra pair of BLUE flags now, so we have something to give the person who is taking the role of "always offense." I would also like to suggest that if we manage to get 12 people, we should consider playing with no rule against rushing the QB, requiring that there be an offensive and defensive line. When you've got 11 receivers/DB's, it starts to become an INT-fest, it seems, anyway.

With the regular season gone (with the exception of the Twins and Tigers on Tuesday), I figured it would be fun couple of moments to see how we all ended up for the Steve Phillips Challenge.

In case you missed it, the Challenge was to pick the ending records of all 30 MLB teams prior to Opening Day and seeing if we could beat the famously bad predictions of one Mr. Phillips. As far as I know, his choices aren't posted anywhere, so it became something of an internal competition with a few of us.

Link here for how we were each doing at the All-Star Break, and here for the original post.

For the final, rather than screw with win percentage, I simply used predicted wins, with the formula being the absolute value of predicted wins minus actual wins. For example, I picked the Braves to go 82-80. They actually finished 86-76, so the absolute value of 82 - 86 is 4, which was my score for Atlanta. Add 'em all up and get a total, lowest total wins.

Sironz 228
cwel87 231
Two Rs And Two Ls 236
Poochie 245
Benne 245
Jack Moore 247
Trenchtown 253
hcoguy 257
vivaelpujols 262

A null prediction of .500 would have netted a score of 285.

Sironz accurately picked the Royals, A's, and Cubs on the way to victory. Strangely, three of us accurately predicted the Reds' 78-84 record.

Our average score was fewer than 5 on the Blue Jays, Twins, White Sox, Mariners, Phillies, Braves, Brewers, and Reds, and way the hell off on the Mets and Indians (more than 20 on each). Good job, everybody.

I started playing MLB.com's "Beat the Streak" recently as a statistical project. The way I figure it, there are a number of factors that can influence whether or not a player will get a hit in the coming game. Without going into too much detail, I'm trying to find any factor that can positively influence the number of at bats that my hitter-of-choice will have, decrease the potential for strikeouts against my hitter-of-choice, increase the probability of solid contact against either the starting pitcher or the opposing bullpen, and (depending on the hitter) either increasing the probability of a home run or a bloop single.

I figured a potential factor for this would be whether or not the game was played at home or on the road. After all, the home team doesn't bat in the 9th if they've got the lead, so that can potentially decrease the amount of PA's a batter has. However, what I found does not seem to agree with that hypothesis.

In 2008, Ichiro Suzuki started in 80 road games, averaging 4.775 PA per game, with a standard deviation of 0.7287 PAs. He also started all 81 home games, averaging 4.667 PA per game, with a standard deviation of 0.7583 PAs. I plug these into the old TI-83+ and I find that the difference in average is not statistically significant (p value of .179).

So I figured that maybe, because Ichiro is a leadoff hitter, it wouldn't be as big a difference as it might be for someone who hits deeper in the lineup. To that end, I went and looked up Alex Rodriguez.

Rodriguez had 4.4203 PA/G over 69 road games last year, with a standard deviation of .8118. At home, he averaged 4.3088 over 68 games with a standard deviation of 0.7966. Interestingly that's even less significant (p value of .209). Rodriguez batted fourth a great majority of those games (a couple games in the 3-hole).

So it looks like I'm overblowing the home/road situation in terms of plate appearances. After all, it would only come up if the home team is ahead. The Mariners and Yankees lost 46 and 33 home games respectively, suggesting they were probably behind in the 9th in virtually all those games.

It's interesting to think about, anyway.

Edited on 8/5, 1:10pm... I just went around to do some more research, comparing Ichiro to Ian Kinsler of Texas. The Rangers last year scored 901 runs last year, the most in the league. The M's on the other hand, scored 671 runs. There were only a handful of teams that scored fewer runs than that (SF, OAK, WAS, SD).

I would expect that a team that scores more runs would bring more men to the plate and ultimately inflate each player's PA/G. Kinsler batted first for Texas in 120 games last year, and had 4.8167 PA/G with a standard deviation of 0.7445. Ichiro's totals were 4.7205 PA/G over 161 games, with a standard deviation of 0.7434. The p-value for this one is the most significant of the three so far in this test, but still doesn't pass most significance tests (0.1423). Still odd.

Before the season, nine intrepid LL'ers went on a mission to call the records of all 30 teams in MLB. The picks can be found in this post. I have put all the predictions into a spreadsheet, converted them to win percentages, and compared them to the standings at the all-star break.

Functionally, what I did was take a predicted win percentage, and multiply it by the number of games that the team in question has played, rounding down all games (So by your percentage, Cleveland won 46.9 games? I'm only counting it as 46). I then took the absolute value of the difference between each commenter's predicted wins and the actual wins at the break. For example, I predicted the Dodgers would only have 46 wins at the break. Instead, they have 56, giving me a score of 10 for that team. I added those scores together for all teams; low score wins.

The Standings:

Benne (116 off)
Two Rs And Two Ls (123 off)
sironz (124 off)
vivaelpujols (126 off)
cwel87 (128 off)
Jack Moore (129 off)
JI / Poochie (129 off)
hcoguy (132 off)
Trenchtown (135 off)

As a group, we were shitty at picking Cleveland (an average of 12 off), but good at picking all the teams in the AL East (no team an average of more than 3 off), and great at picking Minnesota, the White Sox, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Houston (all an average of just 1 off).

With the Minnesota Twins in town this last weekend, much of the talk about the visitors was about Chairman Joe Mauer hitting a ridiculous .410 average. Mauer's average got me thinking about what it would take to hit .400. Here's what I got:

No batter has a true talent level of a .400 hitter, which requires that a batter get lucky to get there. Because it is easier to get lucky over the short-term, a .400 average is more likely to occur if a player has fewer at bats. A player can get fewer at bats due to manager trickery like batting a great hitter in the 8-hole, but what manager is going to do that? In the player's control, however, is the number of walks he takes and how frequently he takes them.

In 1941, Ted Williams walked 147 times in 606 PA's, having a .243 BB/PA average. Almost a quarter of the time that the Splendid Splinter came up to bat, he got a base on balls. That's ridiculous. The only player I'm aware of who has ever reached a level higher than Teddy in this category is Barry Bonds, who has .376 BB/PA in 2004 and .324 in 2002. Babe Ruth equaled Ted Williams' 1941 output once, and that was in 1923.

Williams also led the league in HR's in 1941, hitting 37, 6.1% of the time he came to the plate. Bonds did better on several occasions, but Williams did beat out Ruth's 1923, where he hit a homer 5.9% of the time he came up. Home runs are quite obviously always hits, so it would make sense for a high-average hitter to have a not-insignificant number of HR's.

By the same token, the high-average batter will also limit strikeouts, since they are never hits. Williams struck out 4.5% of his PA's, better than Bonds in his higher average/OBP seasons ('96, '02, and '04, where he K'd 11.3%, 7.7%, and 6.6%, respectively), and also struck out less than half the time as babe Ruth (13.3% in '23).

But what about some of the other players who have chased .400? How do they compare? In 1995, Edgar Martinez struck out at a comparatively fast rate, 13.6%, but he also walked more than anyone not named Bonds, Ruth, or Williams, checking in at .182 BB/PA. In Tony Gwynn's 1994, where he hit .394 before the strike, he had a BB/PA of .101, HR% of 2.5%, and K'd only 4.0% of the time. When George Brett hit .390 in 1980, He had .113, 4.7% and 4.3%.

So does Mauer have a chance?

I checked out BB-ref this morning and pulled up his stats. He's walking better than Gwynn or Brett, up at .154 BB/PA, and he's striking out like Bonds did in '96 (11.4%), but his HR numbers are ridiculous. Right now, Joe Mauer is hitting homers 8.1% of the time that he steps in. That's better than Bonds' 2002 by 0.6%, and Bonds' '04 by .8%. Nobody on my high-average list not named Bonds (including Williams, Ruth, DiMaggio, Brett, Edgar, Gwynn, Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Ichiro, and Wade Boggs) was even within 20% of what Joe Mauer is doing right now.

On the other hand, Mauer is probably positively influenced by playing in the Metrodome, where turf will help baseballs skid through the infield for hits more than they would outdoors. I don't think it'll make the difference for him, since he's played there his whole career and never batted above .350, but if you're looking for reasons why he might do it, I think that's your big one.

 

I find the Mariners' bullpen confusing. The TV keeps telling me that the bullpen is a team strength, but we've seen Morrow blow three games, we've seen a lot more Denny Stark than any "good bullpen" should be showing, and Mark Lowe has been awesome at times and rather hittable at others.

I wanted to disprove the TV a little bit, so I thought about the bullpen's job. It seems to me that Priority One for any bullpen is, when given the lead, maintain the lead so that your team wins. Priority Two would be something along the lines of, well, when you're not in the lead (or tied), give up as few runs as possible so that your offense has a chance to climb back in it.

I thought what I'd do is take a look at the WPA charts for each game so far and see if the M's have been reasonably successful in games where their WPA reached above 90, 80, and 70. Unfortunately, I think this is some pretty noisy data, because you have games like May 18, when Washburn blew the game and it had nothing to do with the bullpen, or games like the 15-inning affair on May 3 where we never had the lead when we came up to bat (and the bullpen surrendered 3 runs in extras... it's hard to give the 'pen credit for a good job when they do things like that).

What I end up with isn't exactly a good proxy measure for team bullpen usefulness, but I still find it interesting.

The Mariners have won 22 games so far. By definition, their WPA reached above 70, 80, and 90 in these games.

The M's are 22-3 in games where WPA was at one point 90 or above: April 7, May 14, and May 26.

The M's are 22-9 in games where WPA reached 80 or above, including the games listed above and also April 29, May 2, May 5, May 13, May 18, and May 23.

Finally, the M's are 22-11 in games where WPA reached 70 or above, including the games already mentioned and April 16 and May 9.

Now for some math. The M's played 25 games where WPA > 90.We'd expect them to win 90% of those games. 90% of 25 is 22.5, so we're only .5 games under that. That strikes me as okay, but nothing special.

31 games where WPA > 80, and 80% of 31 is 24.8, which is 2.8 games more than actual. Looks like we've been having a little trouble here.

33 games where WPA > 70, and 70% of 33 is 23.1, just 1.1 games more than actual, so again, looks like we're okay in this area, but we don't have it on lockdown.

I'm not sure where to take this information from here, especially because the data seems really noisy, but I thought I'd at least put it out there for public consumption.

Okay, so I have set up a time at West Seattle Bowl for March 31 at 7pm. We have at least two hours of bowling time reserved. I have also set aside two lanes but I could set aside more if we need them.

Cost is league rate, $17 per lane per hour. I'll probably put an estimated "money to bring" total when we get closer, but I'll figure that $10 would be plenty and if we have enough people it might get you a drink.

I never rent shoes, so I forget how much they're going to cost, but it'll probably be $2 or $2.50 for that.

By my count here we have 10 people:
Two Rs And Two Ls
tootthekazoo
James F'n X
kevin_ess (+2)
Thingray (+ Jeanuts)
Sec 108
Eyebrows

Assuming everybody shows and we bowl 2 hours, it should be approx. $7 per head for the bowling itself, then I'll talk the guys at the counter into giving me $2.50 on shoes for y'all if you tell 'em you're with me. Turns out I was pretty good on the $10 estimate early on. I figure we might bowl a little longer, or some of us might, since I always have to bowl three games when I go and with 5 on a lane that might take us a while.

I occasionally go back and try to do research on old Mariner games to come up with interesting moments, reasons to start a rivalry with another team, and stuff that amuses me.

Today, I'm reaching back to April 3, 1977, the Minnesota Twins taking on the expansion Seattle Mariners, the third game of a four game series.

Pitching was on display as the game went 8 innings until the first score. Catcher Bob "Scrapiron" Stinson began the Mariner 8th with a double, and was replaced by a pinch runner. A sacrifice bunt moved him to third and a groundout scored the run, thereby cementing the concept of "productive outs" for an entire fandom.

In the ninth, however, it was Twins Catcher Butch Wynegar who sent one over the fence, redeeming himself from having lined into a double play in the 7th. With a runner on, the Twins took a 2-1 lead going into the bottom half of the ninth. Ruppert Jones started the inning with a triple, but Steve Braun could not score him on a flyout to left. Bill Stein, the Mariner third baseman, grounded into a fielders' choice; Jones was out at home, which left the situation looking bleak with a runner on first, two outs, and down a run. Jose Baez came in to pinch run, moved to second on a Dan Meyer single, and scored to tie the game on a Tommy Smith single. With two on and two out, however, the M's would not score again and the game went into extras.

The M's had some tension in the top of the 10th when the Twins put a runner on second with nobody out, and moved two runners into scoring position with two out, but they could not come away with a run, leaving the score tied, but the Mariners went down quietly in the 10th, 1-2-3.

Again the Twins threatened in the 11th, loading the bases with one out, but the M's induced a pop up and a ground out to retire the side. The offense still would not wake back up for Seattle, though, and again went down in order. It would happen again in the 12th, Twins pitchers filing away 9 Mariner batters in a row.

Larry Milbourne, M's second baseman and leadoff batter in this game, led off the bottom of the 13th with a single, and moved into scoring position on a balk, creating a golden opportunity for Dave Collins and Ruppert Jones, but they were both retired.

With two outs, Steve Braun singled to center field off Minnesota pitcher Tom Burgmeier to score Milbourne and give the M's a win in their first-ever extra-inning contest. The 13-inning affair between the Twins and Mariners would also be the M's longest game (in terms of innings) all year, however it was only the second longest game by time.

When people ask me who my favorite band is anymore, I never have an answer. But what I have figured out is what my favorite band WOULD be, if I could make it happen. I want Fred Schneider from the B52's:

 

And then I want the two guys from The Proclaimers:

 

And then I want Sean Paul.

 

And I want them to sing a capella.

Say what you will about that band, but it would be just about the most vocally distinctive band ever.

I'll get up early
so I can grab the paper
and start sending clues

'til then, I'll provide
some links for your enjoyment
to keep you busy

Apparently, this
was the first published crossword
in 1913.

Back in '96,
the New York Times published this
was Will Shortz' fav'rite.

And with that I leave you
I'll be back by 9 a.m.
to serve the puzzle

The birds and the bees:
What do all the women want?
I hope it's haiku

All right, so I am leaving town on the 16th for Salem to work on a Masters, but I want to get one more softball out of you guys.

Play begins at 6pm and will end when we deem that it has been completed.

CHANGED LOCATION: Thursday's games will be played at Cal Anderson Park (Corner of Pine & 11th, 6 blocks North of the Seattle U. field. map here. There is parking on 11th Ave.)

I hope y'all who didn't show up on Saturday get a chance for Thursday, we're supposed to have weather in the low 80s and sunny, not the somewhat rainy crap we had to deal with on Saturday.

Sat. Aug. 9 Recap: We were a bit short on people on Saturday, so we mostly spent time taking batting practice. We also could not use the regular softball field since the groundskeepers there must have been Team Tractor fans and dumped a load of dirt at the second base position and put other tractor-like devices on the field. That's mostly the reason for the move, we're likely to get a field we can use at Cal Anderson.

In the meantime, Luke, who posted below, absolutely beasted softballs in batting practice from the southeast corner of the field over the fence on the southwest side, into the parking lot of the Seattle U. building, as the ball rolled into the lobby of said building, roughly 320 feet away. That was probably the highlight of the day; hope to see you on Thursday!

Thu. Aug. 14 (Total: 8 + 1)

Two Rs And Two Ls
Baker
Brett
Fuzz
Wlad-o-matic
J.W. Pezzino (+1?)
Smith18
Gomez
Mariner John (+1)

Smegmalicious and his friends (whose names I do not remember, I am sorry) showed up a full hour early to LL Softball. I got there at 1pm and the rest of the crew slowly but surely rolled on in. When ten of us had made it there, we decided it was time to try a game, but we knew we had to adjust the rules.

Special Rules for 5v5 Softball:
1. All balls hit in the infield are outs; balls must land on the outfield grass on-the-fly to be considered hits.
2. The fielding team must furnish 4 outfielders and 1 catcher. If the ball lands in the outfield for a base hit, the fielders complete the play by throwing the ball to the catcher at home plate. All runners who are NOT standing on a base when the catcher receives the ball and steps on home plate shall be considered out.

We attempted this in the first game and got an uncharacteristically low 1-0 score for the first five innings, in favor of the Cones. After five innings, we switched from hitting softballs to hitting baseballs. Smegmalicious bombed a homerun in the bottom of the 7th inning to tie the score at 1-1 and send it into extras.

Neither team scored in the 8th inning and we went to the ninth. With two runners on, I hit a long fly ball to the wall in center that I didn't think had enough power to get over, when to my surprise, it bounced off the CF's glove and over the wall for a three-run homerun, making the score 4-1. Team Tractor would come back in the 9th and score another on a homer to make it 4-2, but they would get no more.

We tried to mess with the rules again, but it just didn't go, so we continued with the rules described above and tried another game. This time, the Cones would be the home team, and I thought to grab a digital video camera I happened to have on hand. I wasn't able to get it set up in time for the top of the first, but I did get the rest of the game.



A group started playing some softball across the way in the park, and we asked them a couple times if they wanted to join us. Finally, once they had a quorum, we got to play LL'ers versus... um, I'm not actually sure who they were. Hopefully we'll catch up to them again and we'll get the chance to play another game.

So we've taken one week off, and I missed getting the chance to play this weekend. Friday's Felix Bobblehead Night, Saturday's Turn Back the Clock Day (to the '80s!), and Sunday's the traditional softball day, so let's play ball!

Who: LL crew

What: LL Softball

When: Sunday, 7/20, 1pm

Where: Seattle U. Softball Field on 12th and Cherry, we'll probably jump the fence again if we have to.

Why: Because the LL Softball All-Star Break is over.

Who's in?
8 Absolutely Confirmed Humans, Likely in the neighborhood of 12+ if the questionables come through, AND ONE UNSTOPPABLE FIELDING MACHINE

Two Rs and Two Ls
Baker (For the last time IT'S NEVER the last time!)
Brett (+1, possibly 2)
The Gomez
LantermanC
Jaejo
España
AtomicGarden (?)
Camomilk (+1?)
Smegmalicious (+2)

At LL Softball last Sunday, we switched to baseballs because there were very few softballs around to actually be had. It turns out that although Gomez hasn't historically gotten much oomph behind a softball, he can drive a baseball around. Also, if Bedard can have Burke as a personal catcher, why can't Gomez have Jaejo as a personal pitcher? It says that I'm shy of 75 words, but I think I'm going to claim youtube video immunity, especially because I had to put this together myself.

Thanks to everyone canceling at the last minute, there were only six of us out there to play at the Seattle U Softball Field. Also unfortunate is the fact that the field itself was locked up, so we did not have the pleasure of the dirt infield.

We also did not have a significant number of softballs, and so we just used the several hardballs that I keep in my bat bag for the event. The upside of this is that three of us hit longballs over the far fence, far enough that we felt the need to measure.



And then feel dumb for measuring.



I didn't get any (good) pictures of Gomez (or myself), but there will be a nice tasty little treat for you guys after I get home and figure out how to work my camera again.