Baseball
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Baseball and DNA
The New York Times has a piece about MLB’s use of DNA testing to confirm identity, as fraud and falsifying documents have been common with prospects coming from Latin America.
The use of DNA for identity isn’t debated all-too-much, but there are major concerns over what else can be learned by DNA testing. What diseases a person may be genetically-disposed could affect who is signed (and for how long and how much).
It seems pretty obvious that a team would be hesitant to sign a player who may not stay healthy, until you think of this:
Mark Rothstein, a professor of bioethics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, said: “The funny thing about this all is that the most famous baseball player with a genetic disorder was Lou Gehrig. Would they have signed him if they knew he was predisposed to A.L.S.?”
Who wants to be the scout to take a pass on the next Lou Gehrig?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Bringing Wang’s ERA Down
After getting shelled the first three games of the season, Chien-Ming Wang has an ERA of 34.5 in just 6 innings. 23 earned runs will get you there.
Before the season started, Wang’s career ERA was 3.79. Now it’s 4.08. That’s over a 7% increase in 6 innings of work.
If Wang pitched at 3.79 the rest of the season, he’d wind up with an ERA of over 4.5.
Wang would need two complete game shutouts to average less than one run per inning, bringing his ERA below 9.
To bring his 2009 ERA down to his ERA going into the season Wang would need to pitch 48 2/3 innings of shutout ball. That’s 5 consecutive complete game shutouts and change.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Switch Hitter vs Switch Pitcher
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Semi-Private Eyes
Report: Clemens’ attorney hires private eyes to study McNamee
Roger Clemens’ lawyer has hired private investigators in an attempt to challenge the credibility of Brian McNamee, who has claimed to have injected Clemens with steroids, a lawyer familiar with the matter told The New York Times.
How effective can a private eye be if the whole world knows what they’re doing?
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Best Fantasy Analysis You Can Get
Sportsline’s fantasy analysis update for Jorge Julio:
Julio is awful. Cut him in all leagues. He is no closer to being the Marlins’ closer than you or I.
Thanks to Mike for the tip.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Love Those Blackout Rules
Blackout rules, those rules which don’t allow you to watch away broadcasts of your favorite team’s games or view them online have once again proved how useful they are for some NY Time Warner customers.
Time Warner Cable in Manhattan doesn’t have a set station for Yankees broadcasts. They have a couple of specials channels, and whenever there’s a game in HD, the channel changes from “Off Air” to the game. They generally include the pre-game and then a 7.5 hour block for the game afterwards. I’ve seen some people who are able to watch this specials channel all the time (it’s always YES), but I’m not one of them.
The Yankees and Red Sox are playing a double header today. The first game, 1pm start, was broadcast on Fox. For some reason the HD Specials channel had the game scheduled on the guide, but if you went to it, you saw nothing but a gray screen. So, even though it doesn’t look like Fox actually broadcasts the game in 720p like they do for their primetime shows, it’s still nice to watch it widescreen and I do.
Fast forward to 8pm. The second game is about to start and it’s not scheduled on the HD Specials channel - but the channel is still active from the first game, scheduled to go off at 830pm. A few seconds after my cable box blinked 830 the broadcasts freezes and the screen goes gray. I call TW and explain the situation to the person on the other end. They might have understood the situation in full at first, but after I’m put on hold and told others are calling in I know they do now. Doesn’t help any, it’s 1h20m later and the channel’s still not accessible (chances are someone just scheduled the wrong game for the specials channel).
Here’s where the blackout rules come into play: INHD has the game on. If that channel weren’t also gray right now, I’d be able to watch it, even if it’s just a simulcast of NESN HD, but MLB won’t let that happen.
I’m not completely in the dark. I do have the standard broadcast of the game, but the HD setup wasn’t free. This game is on three channels, and the two I want to watch aren’t available, one due to my cable company’s mess up, the other due to MLB “protecting” the local broadcaster (the same reason why I can’t watch the game online).
Sports • Baseball • Television • 0 Comments • Permalink
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Sling Your Baseball
I’m not sure when these ads were made, but I just saw a 300x250 flash ad for the SlingBox - it has someone driving and holding up a phone watching a baseball game. The text is “Now there’s something more dangerous than simply talking on your phone while driving.” (I caught it on Gizmodo’s Rover TV post)
There’s a skyscraper ad that also has a baseball picture on a laptop which reads “watch your home tv on your laptop”.
Both ads, along with an additional cube, point to Sling Media.
I wonder when these were made due to a little feud between Sling and MLB and if Sling planned on going after the baseball/sports fan market a while back, or if there’s an additional little dig in there.
Sports fans have to be big potential “slingers”, especially with some of the asinine blackout rules that are in place.
I also wonder if we’ll see basketball and hockey themed ads in the fall (NFL games are pretty accessible, although the college market could be in play).
I don’t have a SlingBox, but if I did, I’d be sure to check out the mobile player. I am curious how the quality is (and I do realize it will depend on multiple network conditions), it’s a product many have been waiting a while for. You’ll notice the screenshot on the mobile player page is of a soccer game.
I guess if Sling Media stops by here, I should remind them I have a massive hockey audience they might be interested in.
Update Jun 25: Sports Law points us to a Sports Business Journal article (subscription needed) which says MLB plans on seeking licensing fees from Sling, but Sling says they haven’t heard anything yet.
Tech • Sports • Baseball • 0 Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
MLB: Only Watch on Our Terms
Major League Baseball takes swing at Sling Media
Sling enables TV viewers to access their set-top or TiVo boxes from anywhere in the world via any device that connects to the Web. MLB says that’s fine, but if viewers want to watch on multiple devices, they have to pay multiple times.
MLB Advanced Media is taking issue with people paying to watch games on cable, and then watching them outside their homes.
I’m sure no one is shocked. After all, I never heard from MLB.tv after multiple complaints, have you?
It is unbelievable how anti-consumer and completely control-hungry this division of MLB seems to be. Forget about building and sustaining fanbases, it’s about getting money as quickly and frequently as possible. “Long-term” must be a theory they don’t want to test.
I am an MLB.tv subscriber, I don’t own a SlingBox. I think MLB.tv is a decent product. Quality still has a little way to go and their new MLB.tv Mosaic is truly a great step in the very cool direction (definitely still classifies as beta though). This is what’s frustrating. MLB is giving fans what they want, but with way too many strings attached.
Thanks to both Reemer and paidcontent.org for the heads-up.
Tech • Sports • Baseball • 0 Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Sportsline Offers Fantasy Player Updates by RSS
I must have missed an announcement, or maybe there wasn’t any, but anyone using Sportsline for fantasy baseball can now get their player updates via RSS.
I was getting mine by email, but found it a bit rough to keep up with or pay attention to. Subscribing to a feed is much nicer than email updates for me as I can let them sit there a bit without cluttering my inbox.
I found it by seeing the little RSS icon appear in Firefox while browsing in my fantasy leagues’ websites. I was wondering if they offered the standard Sportsline feeds, or if it was something more. Turns out it was a little of both.
If you’re wondering what your feed for player updates is, the url would look something like this:
LEAGUEABBREVIATION.baseball.sportsline.com/xml/rss/updates/TEAMID
You can find your team id by mousing over your team name on the “Teams & Owners” page and seeing what that last number is.
Update before I even hit submit on this post: I went to my hockey league, and of course the feed is active for that too. Simply replace the word “baseball” with “hockey” in the url above and that’s it. Have an update for my football pool as well, but I’m not sure what I’d get out of that since I don’t actually pick players - it’s a big feed, perhaps it’s just a lot of them. Goes back to mid-March.
Tech • Sports • Baseball • 1 Comment • Permalink
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Non-Existant MLB.tv Support
Shortly after I signed up for MLB.tv I realized I wanted the All Access package. I tried calling that day, but the offices were closed.
So on Monday I tried calling again and received a busy signal over and over again. I filled out the contact form on MLB.com. I hope it went through, but after I hit send the page just sorta refreshed. No confirmation message.
On Tuesday I received an email (two actually) with the subject “Information regarding your MLB Subscription”. It was a bulk email and had this lovely paragraph inside it:
RENEWALS: For your convenience, your 2007 MLB.TV subscription will automatically renew, without interruption, before the start of each subsequent MLB season at the rate then in effect unless you cancel your subscription by sending an email requesting cancellation to customerservice@... or by calling Customer Service at (866) 800-1275 before the first game of the applicable MLB regular season (subscriptions cannot be canceled, refunded, or credited (in part or in whole) after the season starts).
Great to know that the day after the season started.
I tried calling the number again. More busy signals until, finally, I get through! Awesome! Now I can change my subscription (hopefully). I figure at worst they will cancel my subscription and I just sign up all over for All Access. I’ll even do it reverse order if necessary. All I have to do is talk to somebody now. I’m on hold 10 minutes, then 20. 20 minutes turns into an hour. Then another hour goes by. Good thing I can work during this, huh? A third hour goes by and I barely notice the fourth. Five and a half hours go by and it’s time for me to leave the office. I hang up and go home. I’m not staying late to remain on hold.
I am absolutely shocked that I was on hold for five and a half hours. What sort of customer service allows this to happen? Where was the option to leave a message? Why wasn’t I ever given any sort of time estimate? What I heard was a random mix of music interrupted by this message every so often:
All agents are still assisting other customers. Please remain on the line and the next available representative will be with you shortly.
“Shortly” apparently equals more than five and a half hours according to MLB.com.
MLB Advanced Media is listed as being on 9th Avenue. I could have walked over there and settled this in a fraction of the time, but I’m assuming they don’t take walk-ins. Perhaps I could call up from my cell phone and put it on speaker and just sit in the office so they find out how their customers feel.
There are others going through something similar, so I know I’m not alone. Major League Baseball isn’t a BBB member, but there is a page on the BBB website for them if you’re interested.
As I wasn’t sure my first email, sent through the website, was actually delievered, I sent another using good ole fashioned “normal” email. I didn’t use the address above, as this was also in the bulk email I received from them:
Thank you for your order. If you have any questions about your order or about the MLB.TV subscription service, please contact the MLB.com Customer Service Team at Customerservice2@...
I used the “2” address as that segment was about support while the first seemed to be for cancellations. I’m sure they’re receiving many because they porn-website-scam-like automatically renew it every year. No option for you.
I’ve received no response yet. No auto-responder even. I’m extremely bitter. Obviously, I’m not in the mood to give my money to MLB right now, but the original reason I wanted this was to enjoy the product and I’d still like to do so… at least for now.
Tech • Sports • Baseball • 4 Comments • Permalink