SB Nation User Blog: hunter

Is anyone going to the Tampa Bay series?

hunter — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:46:29 -0000

OK, gang, I'm making this trip from Atlanta down to see the A's games against the Devil Rays this weekend. If anyone from AN is going to be there, it'd be pretty cool to meet up and introduce at some point. I've never met anyone from the site before, so putting faces to names (even lurkers) would be neat.

Also, just to make you jealous, check out the giveaways on the schedule. Saturday, May 5th, is sombrero and maracas night, and Sunday is this baseball pillow, but only for kids. Maybe I can buy one from someone.

Anyway, anyone who's going should respond here and let me know what's up. I'm gonna be wearing the green Athletics Nation shirt, some pair of jeans, and the all green A's hat with the yellow "A's" on it. I'm by myself tonight, but I'ma get as close to the home plate side of the dugout as I can to holler as much nonsense in support of our boys as possible.

Here's hoping they can beat up on Fossum tonight. Who knows what Snelling will bring for us...

A couple of screenshots of drummers during the Tuesday night Red Sox game

hunter — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 23:20:57 -0000

Hey, word got around that the NESN announcers were dogging the drummers a little bit, and Saint said that he wanted copies or screenshots or something. Well, I suck, sort of. The best I could do before I got really frustrated with my Linux and MythTV skills was to take a picture with my damn camera phone whilt the video was playing back on the monitor. Well, whatever, here they are. I'll see if I can capture the video later and get proper screenshots or video from it.

Also, I've never met an ANer in person, so I don't exactly know who's who in these. So, someone help me out.

Also, as a bit of an apology for that, we can have a CLOSER FIGHT!!!!!11!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!oneuno

Huston:

Justin:

Poll

Who's the cooler cat on the bullpen bench?

Hunter

4 votes

Huston

12 votes

Justin

13 votes

29 votes | Poll has closed

Holy Crap!!! Look what I just found in my baseball card collection!!!

hunter — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 22:05:45 -0000

OK, I've got to move to a new house soon, and I was doing some packing. Thank god I kept my baseball card collection through 5 moves in 7 years. Because I just found...

... this in my collection. I was sure that I'd lost it years ago, as I hadn't randomly run across it in quite a while, but here it is, going into the baseball card box that it belongs in.

Wow! Rock over London! Rock over Chicago! Kodak, see what develops!

(Note: This is Frank Thomas' Topps rookie card, without the name on the front. I pulled it out of a pack a long time ago.)

Poll

What do I do with this?

Keep it, I've got a piece of treasure on my hands that's worth more than money!

26 votes

Use it to spice up the stir fry that I'm making for dinner tonight.

5 votes

Write a note to Macha on the back to tell him to get bent!

16 votes

Sell it, it's worth, like, real money!

25 votes

72 votes | Poll has closed

WBC Game 2 Open Thread, I guess

hunter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 09:40:53 -0000

So the WBC is on, as of earlier tonight, and, unfortunately, we have to deal with crappy ESPN commentators.

Oh God, Darnell Coles is talking. I don't think that that guy has anything good to contribute. I mean, really, he just said that the reason the Chinese pitchers don't throw hard is because they are just now learning the game of baseball.

Nice one, Darnell.

Where do you think the Chinese Taipei is?

hunter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 08:02:39 -0000

Welcome to politics, kids. The WBC bracket that's playing now... China, Japan, Korea (South Korea, not that bastard axis of evil country, as they say), and, what do I hear, Chinese Taipei is on television right now.

Ladies and Gentlemen, people who aren't total jackasses understand that the Chinese Taipei is in fact, Taiwan. Guess what, kids? They aren't part of China, unless you believe what the U.S.has to say. Taiwan is a totally different country.

I'm so terribly sorry so bring this up, because I believe that this is a political issue which is more or less shunned here at AN, however, it is totally inappropriate to consider Taiwan a part of China, no matter what the dumbass State Department wants to say.

Am I an idiot? I've been accused of such things before. Am I making a big deal out of nothing? I personally don't think so, but I'm willing to wait for the vote to come in. Calling the country Chinese Taipei implies that they are still a part of China, but, you know, different, while we let them.

Honestly, I may have a totally incorrect idea about the relationship between China and Taiwan, but as far as I've interpreted, it's taken a long time for Taiwan to "gain" their g*d d**n independence from China.

I say again... am I speaking out of turn? I just think that it seems typically American to call the country Chinese Taipei. I eagerly await your opinion.

Poll

No actual poll, don't vote at all

Vote for meeeeee

11 votes

11 votes | Poll has closed

Job Ad for Stats Stringer in Sacramento

hunter — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:45:41 -0000

It seems like Major League Baseball wants someone to write the play-by-play copy for the Gameday website for the Sacramento River Cats. I only thought that they did this for MLB teams, and not minor league teams too. Does this mean that they'll be offering Gameday webcasts for all AAA teams or what?

Anyway, to do the job, you basically go to all the home games in Sacramento, sit in the press box with your little laptop, which they provide, and take note of each ball, strike, hit ball, stolen base, result of plays, substitutions, etc., and that information drives the Gameday website. So you'd basically provide the information that gets displayed for everyone else who goes to the site for the Cats' games.

This seems like a really cool job, as you get to see all the games for free, but there's no cheering in the press box, and you probably wouldn't be allowed to bring anyone along for the view. Also, this job has been pretty impossible to land in an MLB city, as I and others have sent in resumes for various cities. (I have applied to di for the Atlanta Braves, and didn't get anything more than a cornfirmation that they received the resume, and nothing else.) But since I've never seen this in a minor league city, you never know quite what your chances are.

In case you missed the link up there, here's the URL for the monster.com posting: http://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=39998908

What you can learn from quotes

hunter — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 20:18:40 -0000

I've been browsing amazon.com for stuff I can blow a gift certificate on, and I decided to check out Baseball Prospectus 2006, which comes quite lauded by many prominent baseball people, which most us would recognize. Most say that the knowledge in the book should be common knowledge for people who want to be able to understand the game fully, and others, well, others betray their lack of competence with what they have to say.

Here are the quotes that amazon.com has for Baseball Prospectus 2006:

“Baseball Prospectus is one of the first things I read every day.”—Theo Epstein, Boston Red Sox General Manager

I.e., I rely on this information to do my job, and do it well.

“Baseball Prospectus has become the standard by which all scouting guides should be measured.”—Billy Beane, Oakland Athletics General Manager

Read this: I have judged a few scouting guides and informational articles, and this is the best one I've seen.

And the outsiders who know:
“If a general manager hasn’t read Baseball Prospectus, he should be fired for incompetence.”—Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball

Paraphrased, If you don't know how to use this information, then you aren't fit for your baseball job.

“The best book of its kind.”—Rob Neyer, ESPN.com

Generic quote.

“I never cease to be blown away by the geniuses at Baseball Prospectus.” — Jayson Stark, ESPN

Holler at your boy. Nice one Jayson. Basically, he says, I don't know if I understand much if it, but they seem smart. Go team!!

I don't think that this is too surprising, and I might be going too hard on the guy, but he hasn't much of a track record of illustrating interesting baseball information, at least, not in the moneyball vein to which we are accustomed. Anyway, take that for what it's worth... probably nothing. Here's a poll that won't tell us anything about anything.

Poll

What's your favorite color, or, what's your favorite day of the week?

Black, Saturday

8 votes

Red, Sunday

6 votes

Orange, Monday

1 votes

Green, Tuesday

44 votes

Blue, Wednesday

13 votes

Brown, Thursday

2 votes

White with Navy Pinstripes, Friday (Take off, you hoser!!)

2 votes

76 votes | Poll has closed

Commonwealth Club

hunter — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:31:21 -0000

The Commonwealth Club of California seems to meet every week, but I'm not sure about that. They usually have a speaker, most of whom are particularly famous. For example, Bud Selig will be speaking before the club tonight at 8 PM maybe. At any rate, it will be hella interesting to hear what he has to speak about. It's going to be on at 8 pm on KQED-FM, 88.5, if any of you are interested.

I originally heard about the club because the local college radio station in Atlanta, WRAS 88.5 broadcasts one of their speeches with the QA session afterwards on Wednesdays at 10 a.m., and today was Frank Deford talking about how the 1905 New York Giants had an effect on modern baseball, between crafty John McGraw, and Christy Matthewson. I never realized that they had speakers talking about baseball, but when I checked the homepage, lo and behold, Bud Selig, Mr. Baseball Games Can Too End In A Tie himself is there tonight.

Take that and run with it... I hope they have the archive audio up pretty quickly after the talk ends.