no story? no problem

-Back in the day, a friend of mine and I made a fever-dream of a movie entitled "The Vaults Were Empty." The basic "premise" was that the narrator of a Masterpiece Theater-type show had simply run out of stories to tell. Sometimes I wonder if that was somehow prophetic on a global scale. Specifically when I read things like this. Seriously, a Marvin the Martian movie? About Christmas!?!? Wow.

-Speculation about VP picks is rampant, because there really isn't anything happening right now with the campaigns. Personally I don't think there is a home run pick for Obama. Clinton comes with a lot of baggage. Dodd, Bayh, Biden, Reed, Nunn may each have some upside, but none of them are particularly exciting, and they're all Senators. Sibelius and Kaine are at least Governors, but neither is very exciting either. None of those are BAD choices, I just don't see any of the possibilities as being a boon to the ticket.

-Now this is a story that I can't wait to watch unfold.

fantasy finds

Our fantasy baseball league is now about 2/3 of the way through the regular season, and I must say I feel good about my team. I currently have a 10.5 game lead, and my team is winning the HR, SLG, IP, and WHIP categories with consistency.

I wanted to take a look at the "steals" of our fantasy draft. There were 23 rounds, so I decided to try and find the best pick of rounds 13 and later.

Round 13 - James Shields, San Diego Sliders
Shields has been solid, throwing 122 innings with 100K,, 3.83 ERA and 1.15 WHIP. That's a really impressive whip to carry over that many innings.

Round 14 - Geovany Soto, El Birdos
No question that I got a great deal on this guy, taken 8 rounds after Joe Mauer and Russell Martin, both of whom he's leading in SLG%, HR, and RBI.

Round 15 - Kevin Youklis, Sabrmetrosexuals
I did really well drafting Ankiel just one spot ahead of "the Greek God of Walks", but Youklis has put up a better line, with 15HR/63RBI/3E/.381OBP/.552SLG.

Round 16 - Chipper Jones, TNT
Wow. Jones has a 1.086 OPS so far, and was taken 5 rounds after I drafted Edwin Encarnacion. Oops.

Round 17 - Joakim Soria, Fiscal '09ers
Soria's been a rock at the back end of the Royals' bullpen, and with 25 saves and a .74 WHIP he's been a valuable fantasy contributor as well.

Round 18 - Rich Harden, Sabrmetrosexuals
Yeah but he's a Cub now, so whatever.

Round 19 - Ian Kinsler, Biscuit Bombers
OPS-ing .945 as a 2B, not a bad deal.

Round 20 - None.
Round 20 was mostly a disaster. Adrian Gonzalez was drafted, but he's backing up Albert Pujols on San Diego Sliders. So he hardly qualifies as a valuable contributor.

Round 21 - Jack Cust, Sabrmetrosexuals
This round was pretty bad too. Cust is OPS-ing .816 which isn't bad for such a late round pick, plus he's got 18 HR.

Round 22 - Kosuke Fukudome, Biscuit Bombers
F&!*#$* Cubs.

Round 23 - None.
There had already been 176 baseball players selected at this point. My last pick was Gil Meche, who provided some value early on but has since tanked.

winner!

Well that was a hard-fought win, and it seems to me a psychologically important one too. After taking a 4-0 lead and a 5-4 lead, watching both slip away, resulting in, at best, a split with the Mets headed into a huge series with the Cubs, even this resilient team might have begin to show cracks in their psyche. Thanks to Mr. Glaus' heroics, however, we can try to take 3 out of 4 tonight, heading into the big weekend with the ability to sweep our way into first place. Or be swept into a more daunting 5.5 games back.

James has a list of his picks for the All-Star teams up over at Sense From Center. Its a fine list, and I especially agree with Ludwick being deserving of an NL outfield spot. It won't happen, but what would an All-Star Game be without a few flagrant ommissions?

Non-baseball related writings are coming soon, I promise.

ridiculous

Well the Cardinals lost a tough one last night. Its sad when you take a 2-0 lead in the first inning and your pitcher fails to throw strikes that aren't right down the middle of the plate. Sigh.

Since they only lost 7-4, however, CNN might just call that a tie. That article from yesterday really baffles the mind. Obama has a lead outside the margin of error, and you call it a dead heat? Other people found this confusing as well, see here and here.

The latter of those two links has become a daily read for me. There's so much garbage written about the presidential horse race, and its "momentum" that it can be difficult to maintain a grip on the mathematical realities of the race. It made perfect sense when I read today that the author also writes for Baseball Prospectus.

And with that, the post comes full circle. Ta-da!

a little bit of everything

Happy May Day everyone. Its an important time to remember the days when we had 24 Hour Filmmaking Contests.

Music! I've had the new single from a group called The Submarines stuck in my head for many days now. Its catchy. Also the Flight of the Conchords finally released their full length album, and although it was too crazy at Amoeba last week for me to catch their show, I still highly recommend their album (and their HBO show).

Movies! Forgetting Sarah Marshall is, to me, the most endearing of the onslaught of Apatow-produced comedies. Of course he only produced it, leaving the writing to star Jason Segal and the director to rookie Nicholas Stoller. The movie feels a lot more similar to Apatow's TV shows than Knocked Up or 40 Year Old Virgin. Also, Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis are, um, easy on the eyes.

Sports! I love Rick Ankiel. He went on a tear these last few days which has my fantasy team off and running. Cardinals are off to a great start, although they haven't really played any really good teams, except for 3 against the Brewers. This weekends series against the Cubs should tell us a lot.

Books! I don't really read comic books, but I have a lot of friends who do. Every now and then I get into a good graphic novel, and the other day I borrowed a copy of the Batman: The Killing Joke. Its a very quick read, and a great story that offers some insight into the background of the Joker.

There's a whirlwind tour of the various entertainments in my life. The rest of it is just keeping the house clean and getting ready for some travelling. Life is good.

fantasy week wrap-up

Well my team, despite taking a commanding lead early in the week, decided to just stop hitting on Thursday and so I took a tough 3-7 loss. That leaves me at 11-9 for the young season, and tied for second place, 2 games out of the lead. Two weeks down, twenty to go.

Here are this week's "awards", starting with the undesirables...

Goat (hitter): I thought Prince Fielder was taking up space on my roster, but what kind of world are we living in when David Ortiz posts a .190OPS? Ouch.

Goat (pitcher): CC Sabathia continues to suck. 3.1IP and a 24.30ERA and 4.20WHIP.

MVP (hitter): Prince Albert woke up, with 3HR, 7RBI, and a 1.392OPS. Carlos Pena was a close second.

MVP (pitcher): Cole Hamels was kind of insane, going 14IP with 9K, 0.64ERA and 0.79WHIP, helping Biscuit Bombers counter my really good pitching week with an awesome pitching week. Damn you!

The Cardinals had a decent road trip, although it was discouraging to see Piniero struggle so much at the end of it. The Brewers are up next, which means hopefully I'll get to do some gloating to the brother-in-law.

baseball things

You've been fairly warned: this post is about baseball. Sorry, everyone.

My fantasy team managed to go 8-2 in Week 1, good enough for a 1.5 game lead. I drafted a late round steal in Rick Ankiel, who posted a 1.226 OPS with 3HR and 6 RBI. He was easily my team MVP. My team's biggest letdown? Adam Dunn managed a meager .176 Slugging %. The only reason to have Adam Dunn is so he'll hit home runs. He did not do this. Hopefully he comes around soon.

Speaking of MVP, here are the league "awards" I gave out for Week 1...

MVP (batter): Derek Lee, posting a 1.303OPS with 3HR and 4RBI

MVP (pitcher): Ben Sheets pitched 15.1 innings with 15K, 0.00ERA and a 0.59 WHIP...ridiculous.

Of course, these awards are probably little consolation to The Beer Runs, who went 3-6.

GOAT (batter): Robinson Cano, who committed 2E while only managing a .391OPS. Hard to call a player on a winning team a 'goat', but this was just bad.

GOAT (pitcher): If Pedro Martinez had done any better than a 10.8ERA (or just not pitched at all), San Diego Sliders would have gone at least 5-5 rather than 4-6...oops!

In the real world, the Cardinals are off to a pretty solid start, although last night's loss was disappointing. We just have to accept that our bullpen, which has been so good for a while, is just not that solid this year, and we're going to blow some close games as a result.

opening day

I really could care less about the games in Japan, or the game last night (MLB couldn't schedule a better Sunday night opener than Braves-Nationals?)...today is opening day. The beginning, for Cardinals fans, of a long hard fight to return to relevance. A fight that we don't expect to finish this season, but hopefully we can play some entertaining baseball in the meantime.

With the understanding that of the few people who read this, probably only one is actually a baseball fan, I'll be trying to offer an accessible view of the sport for the uninitiated. Sometimes, at least.

The starting line-up for your 2008 St Louis Cardinals...

1. Skip Schumaker, Left Field
2. Ryan Ludwick, Right Field
3. Albert Pujols, First Base
4. Troy Glaus, Third Base
5. Rick Ankiel, Center Field
6. Yadier Molina, Catcher
7. Cesar Izturis, Shortstop
8. Adam Wainwright, Pitcher
9. Aaron Miles, Second Base

Personally, here's what I'm excited to watch this season:

• Prince Albert's pursuit of yet another 30HR, 100RBI season...continuing his record streak
• Rick Ankiel's stunning transformation from stud pitching prospect to stud power hitting center fielder
• LaRussa's batting the pitcher 8th
• Can Izturis play his way off the team (please?)
• Same for Aaron Miles
• Will Wainwright be able to crack the top tier of NL pitchers?
• Will we see a healthy Carpenter or (more interestingly) Mulder?
• Most importantly, can we keep the Cubs from winning the division again? (I'm looking at you Milwaukee)

Any number of unforeseen storylines will develop over the course of the season. That's one of the beautiful things about baseball. Today is just the beginning.

one down, 2,429 to go...

Baseball season got started in the wee hours in Japan this morning. Joe Blanton and Huston Street didn't do my fantasy team any favors, with the former lasting only 5+ innings and the latter getting tagged for 2 runs in 1.2 IP for a lovely 16.20 ERA. Thanks, guys. One more game tonight and then we wait a week for everyone else to start playing.


If you've never discovered the joy of Threadless, you should head over and check them out. They have a very broad range of stuff, so its hit at miss for me but sometimes they have t-shirts that are just gold. This one here is entitled, "I love the (eighteen) eighties" and I just think its so clever that I had to share.

living in a fantasy

James really stole the best title for this post, just like he stole Ryan Braun. Sunday was the draft for my fantasy baseball league. My team, El Birdos, drew the 7th spot out of 8 teams, although the order reversed every other round. I'm rather pleased with how things went. My starting lineup is:

1. Prince Fielder, 1B, Brewers
2. Jimmy Rollins, SS, Phillies
3. Carlos Lee, OF, Houston
4. Adam Dunn, OF, Reds
5. Dan Uggla, 2B, Marlins
6. Chris Young, OF, D'backs
7. Edwin Encarnacion, 3B, Reds
8. Geovany Soto, C, Cubs
9. Rick Ankiel, OF, Cards

Ankiel is slotted as my "Utility" player. On my bench:

1. Chris Duncan, OF, Cards
2. Mike Lowell, 3B, Red Sox
3. J.R. Towles, C, Houston

Heavy on the NL Central, it seems, although that wasn't a goal. A quick lineup analysis of those players using their PECOTA projections shows that they would be worth almost 6 runs per game. Of course, they're not functioning as a single line-up. Carlos Lee was probably an overdraft, but if Adam Dunn stays healthy he could be a steal. I took a flyer on Soto, a green catcher on the Cubs but all reports are that he will be the starter, and PECOTA pegs him at a .921 OPS. Ankiel was a sentimental pick. I can't help but root for him, now I have another reason to.

My pitching staff:

1. Josh Beckett, SP, Red Sox
2. Joe Nathan, RP, Twins
3. Dan Haren, SP, D'Backs
4. Aaron Harang, SP, Reds
5. Huston Street, RP, A's
6. Francisco Liriano, SP, Twins
7. Jason Isringhausen, RP, Cards
8. Ian Snell, SP, Pirates
9. Adam Wainwright, SP, Cards

For pitching depth:

1. Joe Blanton, SP, A's
2. Gil Meche, SP, Royals

I think Blanton could end up being a steal for as late as I got him. Beckett's been having back stiffness, and I may have to sit him on weeks where they play 4+ games against the Yanks. Liriano won't do me any favors for my IP count, but for the 13th round could be a big boost for K's, WHIP, and ERA. PECOTA puts my pitching staff at a 1.28 WHIP and 3.72 ERA, collectively. We'll see how that plays out.

One of my favorite things about fantasy sports is getting to know players to whom I would otherwise pay little or no attention. It helps you develop a broader understanding of the league and the talent pool available. So in the coming weeks before the season opener, I'll be posting individual player profiles from my fantasy team. I feel good about how I drafted, and I think I'm in a position to do well. All I need now is a little bit of luck.

diversions

I was looking forward to listening to the radio broadcast of the Cardinals' Grapefruit League opener today, but alas MLB.com pulled the game from their listings at the last minute. So instead I followed the game on their live game tracker, and was pleased with what I "saw" in a 7-0 win over the Mets. Its nice to have actual games again, even if they don't count.

The game was a pleasant diversion on a day that really called for such a thing. The weather here in Los Angeles today is just like the weather we would get back in Illinois right before school let out. There must still be some sort of Pavlovian response to it because I've just been antsy all day. Its a certain kind of youthful restlessness, one that I hope never leaves me completely, that made me wish I was out there PLAYING baseball instead of listening to it. There is a component of optimism too. Summer is around the corner, and days of endless freedom are soon to come.

Except for those of us, like my sister, smart enough to become teachers, the grown-up world offers no such extended summer reprieve. Yet there's still something special, even in sunny SoCal, about that day the weather starts to signal that its almost time to clean up the BBQ and break out the lawn chairs.

This blog is becoming a nice diversion. I like feeling compelled to write something, even if nobody's reading. I've been thinking about building a little more structure into the posting schedule, in order to give it a little more focus. If the reader(s?) of this here site have any suggestions, I'm open to them. Otherwise I'll just keep rambling and see if anyone notices.

february filler

I've said it before and I'll say it again...is February over yet?

It hasn't been a particularly BAD month, its just been a lot of filler. Sadly this year we even get an extra day of it, which will just be annoying.

There have been a few nice things about this month. Its good to be working again, we celebrated the birthday of the greatest President, Spring Training is underway, and the Oscars happened. Lets discuss.

Working is good, for lots of reasons. Today I enjoyed getting a little historical perspective from my boss. He's a good ol' 'SC alum, and it was interesting, if not a little sad, to hear how little had actually changed in the time between his tenure there and my own. One things I love about my business is that people who have been it for a long time have some of the best stories, and they love to tell them. Which works well for me because I like stories about which Producers or Editors liked to sneak of to whichever watering hole and get plastered before, during and/or after a mix/edit session/shoot day. Ahhh Hollywood.

Lincoln's birthday was a couple of weeks ago now. Since he and I share a hometown (he's still there) I feel a particular sense of pride in his Presidency. He was a complicated and troubled man who was, quite possibly, the only man for his time. He was more concerned with preserving the Union than with freeing the slaves, which is sometimes glossed over in History class. If you're ever in my old stomping grounds you should make it a point to check out his house, and the new Presidential Library and Museum there.

Spring Training is underway, and while we won't get a real sense of what the 25 man roster will look like until after the exhibition games get underway, I find this news of Anthony Reyes' newfound command encouraging. I'm a fan of Reyes, despite his awful season last year. He's had a series of obstacles including a manager and pitching coach who've tried to tinker with his pitching style, and undermine his confidence. I was pretty surprised he wasn't traded, but I hope he finds his way into the rotation. It doesn't hurt in my book of course that he's also a fellow Trojan. Scrimmage today, exhibition against SLU tomorrow..."games" start Thursday.

And finally, the Oscars were this past weekend, a mere two miles from my house. They really mess up traffic for several days by closing Hollywood Blvd, but thats just life in this town. I thought the show was really well done. Stewart did an admirable if not spectacular job of hosting, the show was brief, the winners were deserving, and the speeches were mostly short and heartfelt. The feel good moment of the year is seeing Stewart bring Marketa Irglova back out after the commercials to finish her acceptance speech, and her making good use of the extra time. I was rooting for There Will Be Blood and PTA, but I won't complain much.

Its a beautiful sunny day in Southern California. And, for February, life ain't bad.

in recovery

I begin by giving some respect to Andy Pettitte for giving a forthright account of his use of HGH, and at least something of an explanation and apology. I'm done with the whole "steroids in baseball" carnival, and I can't wait for there to be actual games to watch. In the meantime, however, it was refreshing to see a player speak openly and honestly about his errors in judgment. Public figures in general seem extremely reluctant to do this, and anytime one of them does I believe they should be applauded.

I also have to give much love to the City By the Bay. I spent the weekend in San Francisco to help a friend celebrate her 30th year and it was just a really good time. Every time I'm in that city I love it more. I don't need to list the reasons. You either know, or it will be self-evident when you visit. Its a gray, dreary day in Los Angeles, and I wish I were still up north.

Side note: Catchiest song about San Francisco? Written and Performed by Libbie Schrader, who is pretty great.

Well, results from WI will be coming in soon, and we'll see if Krysta's home state can keep the Obamarama going.

start me up

I started a new job today, which is exciting. Its a pilot for FX with a solid script and some good people working it, including some familiar faces for me. Its good to be working again, especially so soon after the strike ended and so many shows aren't coming back until late summer.

Valentine's Day yesterday was marvelous. Krysta and I made a delicious dinner together: Arugula Salad with sliced almonds and orange pieces, home made Spanikopita, Fettucine with a mushroom Gorgonzola cream sauce, and dairy-free chocolate mousse. It was fantastic.

Finally, Spring Training has arrived. Pitchers and catchers have reported, the Cardinals seem healthy aside from the expected recoveries of Carp and Mulder, and baseball season is just around the corner. Krysta is soooo excited.

Now I'm off for a long weekend after a tough one day work week!

idle thoughts

I'm not sure if blogging should be easier since I have a lot of free time, or harder because there's just not a lot happening with me right now. Most likely its just going to take me a little while to get into the routine. Writing something everyday does not come naturally to me. So please just bear with me for a bit.

But enough about me. Let's talk about March. March is the Best Month, and not just because of my birthday. Two other things happen in March: The Madness and Spring Training. I suppose more happens than all that, but I probably won't be paying attention.

The Madness, like Christmas, seems to start earlier every year. Kansas lost tonight, and I'll never shed a tear for a Bill Self loss. Texas lost to A&M, and really I've got no love for the Longhorns. Tomorrow night is USC v. Arizona, which I would call a key game but it seems like every Pac 10 game is key this year. Our conference is so good this year. I just watched the Illini fall flat against the Spartans. Tough year for the Illini, I hope they're still enjoying their football success.

Spring Training should be quite interesting for the Cardinals. The absence of Edmonds and Rolen will certainly give the team a different look this year. I don't expect them to be any more than marginally better than last year, but Spring Training is the time when anything still seems possible.

So lets just skip over February and get straight to the good times that await us in the Best Month.