jmf

There are many reasons to want A-Rod on your team. There are also many reasons I don’t want Arod on my team. I’ll keep this short. If you could have A-RoidRod for 27 million dollars in 2009, or you could have an excellent starting pitcher and proven postseason player, one of the best closers in baseball, first place in 2008 AL MVP voting, 3rd place in 2008 AL MVP voting, another excellent starting pitcher and proven postseason player, and the 2008 AL stolen bases leader, all for under 26.75 million dollars, which would you pick?

*Connecticut is only a provisional member of New England.

I now have 0 new messages in my Gmail inbox.

This is more exciting than it may sound; as of a few days ago I had upwards of 4000 new messages. These were mostly old messages from when I imported all of my @mit.edu email into Gmail. But I have now gone through every message (I refused to just mark all as read and be done with it) and either deleted or archived.

Up next: cleaning out the 1322 other messages in my inbox. I refuse to archive all, so I’m going to have to go through every one. More exciting Gmail inbox updates to come.

Some pretty cool sailing pictures from boston.com, more from the link.

Well I somehow royally messed up this site, and now I think I’ve gotten it all back. I still have no idea what happened, but I think everything is ok now. More posts should be coming sometime soon.

I want to have some sort of actual name for this site, but I haven’t come up with anything great yet. I’ve been trying to listen to the actual lyrics from songs more, to see if I can pull something out (easier than trying to be creative on my own). The only line I’ve heard that has interested me so far is

And there she was
Like disco lemonade

from “Sex and Candy” by Marcy Playground. What the hell is “disco lemonade”?

Finally, an America’s Cup challenger to root for:

The Sailing Anarchy Yacht Club (SAYC) today confirmed its entry in the 33rd America’s Cup to be contested in the waters off Valencia, Spain in 2010 or 2011. Known as Anarchy Challenge, SAYC’s racing syndicate will draw upon the immense resources of the world’s most popular sailing website, SailingAnarchy.com, the brain child of San Diego-based sailor Scot Tempesta.

Press Release

Sail World Comments

Sailing Anarchy

I really hope this happens.

For those of you who haven’t watched TV in D.C., these Eastern Motors commercials are…I’m not quite sure of the word….amazing?

Featuring John Witherspoon

Featuring Ray Lewis, Lavar Arrington, Clinton Portis and Brendan Haywood

And finally, Jason Campbell, Antwaan Randle El, Santana Moss, Jason Campbell and Willis McGahee

Thanks for that swing

Thanks for making us expect the unexpected from you

Thanks for being Manny

Thanks for the helmet flips

Thanks for the championships

Thanks for giving it your all (when necessary)

Thanks for making us smile

Thanks for the homers

Thanks

and thanks to various sources for the images, all found here.

link

So I banged my knee sailing back in May and it swelled up a bit, and eventually went back down. I went running a little while ago and it swelled up again, so I’ve been icing it. This proves pretty difficult to do at work while sitting at my desk. I first tried just some ice cubes in a plastic bag (all I had at work). It wouldn’t stay on very well because the cubes move around and all that, especially when I move my leg. I tried tying it on, but the only thing I had was my iPod power cable. That didn’t work very well either. So I tried something new. I filled a medium sized ziploc bag with water about 1/4 of the way. I draped it over a water bottle in the freezer, creating ice in this shape (inside a plastic bag):

With my leg extended, I can keep the ice on without holding it at all. I can rotate my leg a good amount and it won’t fall off either. After I’m done, I just stick it back in the freezer on the water bottle. Changing the amount of water could also lower the center of gravity, making it more stable on the leg. And changing the size of the bottle could make it possible to put on different areas of the body. Also, different sized bags can change how long the sides are.

Anyway, I thought it was a pretty cool technique that I had never heard of anyone using before.

So I was searching around on Wikipedia today. For some reason I ended up on the list of all the Baseball Hall of Fame inductees (can’t quite remember how I ended up there), which shows the percentage of the vote that each player received. Tom Seaver was the highest percentage vote getter, at 98.84%. Then I ended up reading his whole profile, and then finally made it to the List of pitchers who have struck out 18 or more batters in a nine-inning MLB game. And now I can get to the point. There’s a note at the bottom of the list that says:

The record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning game by a minor league pitcher was set by Ron Necciai, who struck out 27 batters in a Class-D game between the Appalachian League Bristol Twins and the Welsh Miners (May 13, 1952).

So I went to the Ron Necciai page to read about this. Necciai, 19, threw a no hitter, with one ground out, a walk, an error, a HBP, and a passed ball. The passed ball was in the 9th with 2 outs on a 3rd strike, which led to the batter reaching first, but still crediting Necciai with a legitimate K. He then struck out the next batter as well to finish with 27 Ks. And he did all of this while feeling like he might throw up due to stomach ulcers.

In his next start, Necciai threw a 24-K two-hitter (including 5 Ks in 1 inning - that’s one hell of a curveball!). Before the 27-K game, he struck out 20 and 19 in back-to-back games, and struck out 11 in a row in a relief appearance. He racked up 109 Ks in 43 innings with Bristol, for a rate of 22.8 K/9, and 172 Ks in 123 innings in Class B Durham (12.3 K/9). He didn’t do so hot when called up to the big leagues for Pittsburgh, but if not for a torn rotator cuff (a career ending injury at that time), who knows what he could have done?

I think that must be one of the amazing sports feats I’ve never heard of. There’s lots more information in an article here, too, if you feel compelled. Some of Necciai’s comments from the article:

“My fondest baseball memory is simply all the wonderful people I met, both fans and players,” he says.

“I got to know Mr. [Branch] Rickey in 1952 in Pittsburgh even though he was the general manager of the club and I was just a rookie. He treated me very well and was always a man of his word. He also paid me the greatest compliment I was ever given in baseball, saying I was one of the three greatest pitchers he had ever seen.”

Necciai says this with a hint of disbelief in his voice as he reveals the comparison.

“The other two were Christy Mathewson and Dizzy Dean, both in the Hall of Fame. Not bad company, huh? He was a wonderful man, and I cannot say enough good things about him.”

Anyway, you can find some pretty cool stuff by just randomly clicking on Wikipedia links. There’s even a “random article” link on the left sidebar. List of Rare Baseball Events is pretty cool too.