Short Baseball Predictions

Roger is really into his latest read, Moneyball. The book is about how the Oakland A's consistently have one of the winningest records in baseball despite having one of the smallest budgets in the Major Leagues. It examines the GM skills of Oakland's stats geek extraordinaire Billy Beane. Why is his baseball different, and why is it successful? How does he know which players to pick, to keep, to trade away?

In the flimsiest of segues, I turn now to my list of players to watch for 2005. I know very little about baseball, so I'm going on gut here, and a little on what I've seen in the past nine months.

Danny Haren - This is the player that I really wanted to post about. He has "Billy Beane" written all over him. An under-the-radar kind of guy, he's a young, hard-throwing right-handed pitcher. In this year's World Series, playing for St. Louis, he was one of the Cardinals' best relief pitchers. I just watched him again in Game 4 when he came in to relieve Jason Marquis. He had some good heat. People in Redbird Nation are happy to have Mark Mulder, but most feel they gave up a lot to get him when GM Jocketty traded away pitching tandem Haren and Kiko Calero.

Wade Miller - I enjoyed watching Matt Clement in Chicago, and I hope he does well (better) in Boston, but I really want to see what happens with Wade Miller. I think he could be another great Theo Epstein find. Released from Houston because of his season-ending injury, Miller, if he returns to full form, is said to be one of the best righties out there - with 20-win potential. We have him for one year, with an incentives-laden contract. Let's hope it's a good year.

Javier Vazquez - I just want him to succeed some place outside New York so George Steinbrenner can squirm with regret for trading him away. People think he still has good stuff. Maybe he'll play for the Orioles - although we hate the Orioles, they would be AL East and/or AL Wild Card competition.

Side note: Learning to speak baseball is like learning to speak another language - there are all these shorthand phrases, funky acronyms, and colorful metaphors. There are etiquette and context rules too. To me, it's a more eloquent language than football or basketball (although I do like the phrases "in the paint" and "full-court press"). For a good baseball dictionary, click here.

No Camera

December 27, the day after the day after Christmas. The evergreens outside are heavy from last night's snow. There is a winter brightness outside - it is early in the morning - and when I look out my window the world appears black and white, like an Ansel Adams photograph. The snow is a true white, not a blue white or a warm yellow white. The sun is nowhere to be seen, yet. The trees outside, bigger than the one that sits in our living room, lurch forward somewhat, occasionally bending their tops when a wind passes by. I sit in a living room artificially lit from the stove light in the kitchen. Although there are colors here - the red from the potted pointsettias and the ornaments on the tree, the blue swivel chair in the corner, and the oranges and yellows from the spines of the paperbacks on our bookshelves - the room is dark and flat compared to the beautiful, stark country on the other side of the glass door.

I have no camera this morning. Roger has probably put it away in the guest bedroom where our guests are rightfully sleeping. If I had one, I still might not have taken a picture. I can't work the flash correctly. And I would be afraid to push open the screen door behind the glass one; it has a bad habit of falling off its track. And who wants a picture of the outdoors with a screen interrupting the vast whiteness?

The trees look as if they are in conversation, discussing whether to approach our porch.

It's not a very welcoming porch. Fallen snow has piled about two inches above the wood. It is a barren porch, with only a broken pot in the corner. The pot had once held a dying spider plant. We had put it outside in late August hoping it would get more sun. We left it there through fall and early winter. When the plant finally died, we emptied the pot and pushed it into the corner. Rain came, filling the hole, and then the temperature dropped, turning the collected rain into ice. Then even colder days came to pass and the ice expanded and the pot started to crack. The uneven pieces of ceramic fell away from the short column of ice like wilted petals. Eventually the ice itself will melt away, leaving only the broken pot. The whole thing, a months-long story, seems like the saddest poem.

It is snowing again. The lightest snow. You can only see it falling when you look at the dark patches in the trees.

Mini Nostalgia

I remember collecting these plastic mini Strawberry Shortcake figurines back in the early 80s. Perhaps they were the girl versions of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. The above are pictures of four minis that I definitely remember owning, Strawberry Shortcake with watering can, Cherry Cuddler on rocking horse, Blueberry Muffin with hoe (my favorite), and Apricot with her bunny, Hopsalot. (I never really knew what kind of food-fruit reference Hopsalot was meant to be.) I used to keep them all together in this plastic house-cum-storage bin. Of course, this meant the scented minis all started to smell the same. Nevertheless, they were cute and fun to play with.

It's kind of weird to see Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bear stuff being peddled at stores like Hot Topic. And then on eBay, some of these minis go for $50 each!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow

The above is a picture of Baker Hall, the entrance to Baker-Berry Library (where Roger and I spent several hours on the computers last spring looking for houses and condos for sale). The hall, with its famous green tower, sits at the top of the Dartmouth Green (sort of like the Stanford Quad).

We had our first big snowfall yesterday and it has left the trees and the grounds all pretty and white. It is a clearer day today, no wind or drifts, so we can appreciate the pristine winter blanket. Hopefully it will stay this way through Christmas, although I hear that we are due for warmer weather, which unfortunately begets wetter snow.

I like the crunch-crunch that you hear when you trudge through freshly fallen snow. I can appreciate the fluffiness and can remember Syracuse winters that weren't so frightful when my brother and I would go out fully snowsuited and roll around in the front yard, getting snow in our ears and mouths and watching our cheeks turn bright red from the cold.

Driving in snow is another matter. I am worried about my tires getting caked with the white stuff. And I don't think I drive far enough for most of it to melt away. I can only hope the sun comes out during the day so that I don't have iced tires when it's time to go home.

There was a funny scene pulling into the parking lot the other day. It seems the regulars here, after they park their cars, pull up their windshield wipers. This is so the falling snow won't pile up over the wipers, freezing them to the windshield. For some reason, all of those wipers sticking straight up remind me of the windmills in Livermore, CA along the 5. Maybe a little less majestic, but uniform in shape and similiarly pointing in different directions. They also look like the limbs of fallen snowmen.

The Greatest Stolen Base

This week Red Sox Nation says good-bye to utility man extraordinaire Dave "The Greatest Stolen Base" Roberts. He is headed to his hometown of San Diego to start at center field in Petco Park. Go Padres! Everyone on the team praised Roberts for his classy, selfless contribution during the last months of the regular season and especially during the postseason. The faithful can recite the play from memory: bottom of the ninth in Game 4 of the ALCS against the Yankees, Roberts pitch-ran for Millar, stole second base against Mariano Rivera, and from second base ran all the way home to score the tying run. He will be missed.

Also gone, but not forgotten, is shortstop Orlando "Hand Jive" Cabrera. A great character in the clubhouse. He's off to the spirited, wealthy Anaheim Angels.

Shawn Green, Please Stay in LA!

That's about all I'm going to say about the possible, not-yet completed Big Trade.

Edgar Comes to Town!

I think it was around the time of the All-Star game ... Roger and I stayed up to watch Baseball Tonight, and they were rattingly off the names of players on the NL team. And I said, "I like that name, Edgar." Or maybe Roger said it first. But we both agreed it was a mighty fine name.

Edgar Renteria ... Welcome to the Red Sox!

After a morning filled with confusing and disheartening posts - both ESPN and Dirt Dog were saying that Renteria was sure to sign with his old team, the St. Louis Cardinals (one Cards site guaranteed their story about his staying in St. Louis that they would raffle off $100 if they were wrong) - I checked on my computer around lunchtime to find the tables had turned! Happy day!

Although we will miss our beloved OC. Orlando Cabrera, what a great clubhouse guy he was. Maybe he can play for St. Louis and we'll all meet up again in Game 7 of WS 2005.

The One-L Lama

This is a poem posted on the Boston Dirt Dogs site about the Red Sox's new relief pitcher, John Halama.

With apologies to Ogden Nash:

The one-L lama,
He's a priest
The two-L llama,
He's a beast
But I will bet
A silk pajama
They don't throw strikes
Like John Halama

Waxing on Sideways

An excerpt from Roger Ebert's review of Sideways: "Miles [l. in the above picture] is not perfect, but the way Paul Giamatti plays him, we forgive him his trespasses, because he trespasses most of all against himself."

Major Snow Flurries

This is a picture of my mom, which we took when we visited California last month. Doesn't she look happy and sun-kissed while riding in the back of our rented Chrysler Sebring? This was her first time in a convertible!

Ah, to be in 60-degree weather ... and to see the sun.

Right now, outside my window, we have some major snow flurries. Snowflakes are dropping straight down in medium-sized clumps. I'll be fine as long as it stays dry and fluffy. It'll definitely be a white Christmas!

Update: Appliances and Tools

Remember when your essential kitchen utensils and appliances consisted of forks, spoons, and a pizza wheel? Ever since we moved to Vermont, I have found myself spending more and more time in the kitchen - and it's not as if it's the biggest or most beautiful part of the house. It's a pretty small kitchen, not even a galley. It's more like a cut-out, a pass-through between the dining room and the living room. Because of it size, we've had to make it efficient. Anything that we didn't use on a semi-regularly basis stayed in its box and lives in the attic. And counter space is precious, so I've only kept out things that would be too heavy to haul in-and-out. In two earlier posts, I had professed my adoration for my food processor and a stovetop espresso maker, both of which are prominent residents near the stove. Now that love list has to make room for some new additions.

THE RICE COOKER
Roger's mom bought us a Panasonic Fuzzy Logic Rice Cooker for our birthday/anniversary. It's the best thing ever! No more messy, encrusted stovetops from water boiling over in a pot, or burned bottoms. The rice cooker is also very cute. It's egg-shaped with a pearl-white texture - it reminds me of Mork from Ork's spaceship. But the best part about it is that it performs so well! Perfect rice every time, and it keeps it warm without making it dry. Easy to clean too. I recommend it highly.

THE ROLLING PIN
Second best thing ever! Christmas time means Christmas cookies. As most of my friends can attest, I like to bake. I'm not necessarily a good baker, but I love the smells and the manual labor that are associated with baking. When I was younger, I didn't cook much, but I did like to make cookies with my mom. I really got into baking when we were in Chicago. At the ABA, I participated in the holiday cookie swap. One year I made peanut butter cookies. Not very Christmas-y, but I liked their taste, and the criss-cross pattern you make with the fork tines. (Roger was impressed by this, too. It's like magic!) Anyway, this year I wanted to try more rolled cookies, formerly I trusted myself only to do drop cookies. So I needed a decent rolling pin, one that I could manage with just one hand.

In addition to King Arthur's Flour, there's another great kitchen store in the Upper Valley, Board and Basket They have all kinds of stuff, high-end and budget. They're locally owned and the staff is very helpful. I went down there with my problem, and they were so nice, letting me try out different kinds of pins, traditional wooden ones (with and without handles), silicone ones, and this beautiful marble one. Another customer said that the best thing for baking, pies and cookies, is a marble rolling pin: it stays cool so the dough doesn't stick, and the weight helps keep the dough flat and even. The above link links to a picture of the kind I bought, although mine has lighter veins in its marble. It wasn't expensive, either: it actually cost less than the silicone and the bigger wooden ones.

THE CAN OPENER
The Kuhn Rikon's Safety Lid Lifter deserves honorable mention. Unlike conventional openers, the Lid Lifter cuts into a can below the rim of the lid, so there are no sharp edges, and the final turn doesn't drop the lid into your soup. We needed a new can opener, because our big, bulky "ergonomic" OXO one got rusted (I left it too long in the dishwasher). Not so ergonomic anymore. So I found this inexpensive one, that's actually easier for me to use. It's designed for both lefties and righties, unlike the OXO one, with which I had to twist my wrist in an awkward position to crank. It's also pretty light.

All three items are functional, beautiful, and economical!

Where's Carl?

This funny post went up yesterday on the rumor-laden, and Curt-Schilling-and-Peter-Gammons-favorite, web site The Boston Dirt Dogs:

[Free agent and Florida Marlins pitcher Carl] Pavano sightings are more frequent than Elvis appearances. Boston, New York, Baltimore, Detroit, and Seattle are just a few of the destinations on his whistle stop tour. Really, if John Kerry had gone to as many cities as Pavano, he might be president-elect. Although his agent intends to talk to Anaheim, Carl passed on a trip to Disneyland. After all, after a tour with the Marlins, and the superior Disney World, what would Carl want out there? ...

Let’s review the major reasons why Pavano should choose the Boston Red Sox. First, John Henry will promise to invest your money. We’re not talking about bringing chump change to Foxwoods, Carl. We’re talking about a guy who is as close to a modern Midas as they come. Second, we really want to solidify Fenway as the destination of choice for residents of the Nutmeg State. Third, we acknowledge Connecticut as the college hoop capital of the universe, and want Boston to be known as the Baseball Hub of the universe in this century, the one that counts. Fourth, we’re talking mega run support. With any luck, you could be getting seven runs a start. Ask Derek Lowe. Maybe not. Fifth, we know what you really crave isn’t money or respect, but professional development. With the tutelage of Monsieur Schilling and maybe Pedro Martinez, you can take your game to the next level, drug free. Besides, if you won’t come here, we know some unnamed guys who’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.

Hee hee, they said "Nutmeg State".

Author! Author!

As most of you know, I'm out here in Vermont trying to make a living as writer. My day job at the business school is a nice hybrid of production-editorial stuff, as I get to reshape (regurgitate) content and put it up on the web or drop it in the form of brochures and (hopefully, soon-to-be) newsletters.

I'm also keeping in touch with my summer contacts at the med school and the engineering school, freelancing for their respective magazines: Dartmouth Medicine and the re-vamped Dartmouth Engineer. For the former, I tend to write short pieces about the intersection of medicine and the arts. This intersection manifests itself in a number of different ways: an artist dealing with disease, or a doctor using art to teach about medicine. The DMS office just put up their Fall 2004 issue on the web, so now you can read my interview with Cynthia Huntington in the article Dartmouth poet explores illness and self. I also wrote a story about massage and cancer in that same issue.

The engineering magazine isn't up on the web yet. For that, I did a short retrospective on the school's founder, Sylvanus Thayer.

My next project is for the engineering magazine's spring issue. I'm researching start-up companies founded by and/or currently run by faculty at Thayer. In addition to a survey of current companies, I'll be asking professors for tips on how they got started, what kinds of challenges they ran into, and also about the attitude towards entrepreneurship and education in general at Dartmouth. It should be neat. I'm also hoping to sign up for this six-week evening entrepreneurship course that will be open to Dartmouth staff this coming semester. For personal enlightenment as well as story ideas.

Speaking of entrepreneurs, you should check out my brother Jeremy's blog. He gets way more hits (and, ahem, comments) than I do.

Freezing Rain

We had our first batch of "severe winter weather" two days ago. Freezing rain is rain that freezes when it hits the ground, creating a coating of ice on roads and walkways ... and cars! Not very pretty, people. Freezing rain is harder than rain, not as big as hail, and probably the worst of the three. A lot of scraping and defrosting and scraping some more.

Today we are back to normal weather. You know, highs in the low 40s. At work we have an ornament swap, and then we get to decorate the Tuck tree! Last week they put up a huge Christmas tree in the middle of the Dartmouth Green (sort of like the Stanford Quad). It lights up at night and makes for a nice picture on the drive home.

More holiday news ... I created my first html message yesterday. The Center is sending out html holiday cards in lieu of real cards. Less waste, more technology-oriented. I can send one to you if you email me. You can also get a preview here. I was having trouble sending it through Outlook at first because I didn't want to send it as an attachment (people would think it was spam) and sending just the link was eh. When I first tried to import the file into Outlook, I lost the embedded link, or I kept losing the graphic and only getting the alt message. In the end, I browsed the html page in Explorer, "selected all" and then pasted it into my Outlook message. That seemed to work. It kept the graphic and link.

For tips on sending your own html message, click here.

Sideways

A wonderful new film about two guys traveling up to the Santa Barbara wine country, the last week before one of them is getting married, to wine taste, play golf, and more. In the flavor of such understated brilliance - touching, funny, self-deprecating - found in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, You Can Count on Me, and American Splendor (the last also starring Mr. Giamatti). What hits the spot is the great story. And characters.

After Roger gave a kick-ass presentation today, and after I missed my shuttle bus to pick up my car (because I was mad-Homesiting the CDS web pages, trying to clean up every graphic and table construction, making them look more consistent), we decided to stay in Hanover for the evening, pick up dinner at The Wrap and catch a movie at The Nugget.

The movie, which follows its characters from San Diego to Solvang (ah, Grace, do you remember your trip to Solvang?), was just the exhale-and-laugh that we needed to cap three weeks of frenzy - six hour flights, family gatherings, thrown back into the spotlight at work. I'm sure the 24+ hours we spent in a car driving up and down California made us sympathetic to the characters' meanderings, and not a little nostalgic for the coast we just left behind.

Check out the SIDEWAYS website for great clips, and great drawings by Slate.com illustrator Robert Neubecker. His drawings kind of remind me of a scruffier Peter Sis. He has a new children's book out called Wow City.