Small Sample Size Song (and Video)

This is funny but also true. Enjoy the video:

Before you tweet anything about Matt Harvey versus the Marlins, please consult this helpful video. http://t.co/662cjNRQwr
— Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro) August 1, 2013

If the embedded Tweet doesn't load, you can watch the video here too:

Saves are stupid | Tedquarters.net

Ted Berg doesn't like saves. His reasoning is actually pretty sound.

"SMOKE AND CHEW "YUM YUM" TOBACCO."

Ted Berg has a great blog post about Roger Conner, the player whose career home run record Babe Ruth broke to take over first place.

The whole read is a good one (as are most of Ted's pieces) but the part that stood out for me was the advertising at the bottom of the baseball card itself that reads: SMOKE AND CHEW "YUM YUM" TOBACCO.

It really was a different time when Roger Conner made his major league debut 132 years ago tomorrow.

Are the Mets good or lucky? (Or both?)

Ted Berg has an interesting way of looking at things. I think this line sums it all up nicely:

"What once seemed very unlikely now seems just unlikely."

In the Wall Street Journal, Brian Costa writes that the Mets may actually be this good.

Both are great reads to help you come up with your own opinion.

"Being a Mets fan is not an auto-immune disease, though it might sometimes feel that way."

Ted Berg writes a touching and courageous piece about his own health and being a Met fan:

"Here’s my deal: I have a pair of incurable but non-terminal auto-immune diseases -– multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease. I’m not seeking pity and I don’t want to bog this post down with personal medical history, but it turns out they can team up to be a real pain in the ass sometimes. I’m lucky in that I’ve avoided the worst of both, but I found out about the M.S. because a side effect of medication I was taking for Crohn’s amplified the symptoms. I went off that medication upon the M.S. diagnosis in 2008 and suffered a Crohn’s flare-up this summer. I went on steroids to calm it, started absorbing food again and gained a bunch of weight. The weight puts extra stress on my back that’s already aching from the M.S., but working out to try to drop that weight –- as I did this morning –- makes my back hurt more. And painkillers can trigger the Crohn’s disease again."

"Being a Mets fan is not an auto-immune disease, though it might sometimes feel that way. And being a Mets fan these past few years has been rough, at least relative to being a fan of most other teams or being a Mets fan back in the late 80s."

"Rooting for a team means emotionally investing in something, and that brings with it the risk of some pain –- not lasting physical pain, but pain nonetheless. But when that pain comes like it has the last few years, what’s the sense in wallowing in it?

Especially with baseball. It’s baseball. Baseball. For one thing, you can opt out at any time. If the Mets actually make you miserable, stop following the Mets. If you can’t or won’t, I suggest for the sake of your sanity finding whatever small shred of hope you have for the upcoming season and seizing it, rather than floundering about in so much Met-fan self-pity."

Well said Mr. Berg. Let's Go Mets.

Another thing to remind you how young Ruben Tejada is | Tedquarters.net

No need to elaborate on this. Very well said, Mr. Berg.

Today in Stuff Albert Pujols Does | Tedquarters.net

Ted Berg posted a great quote from Tom Verducci's SI article about Albert Pujols:

"Pujols is nearly done with the hitting session in the St. Louis cage, during which he will have hit 85 balls off a tee or thrown to him by Silvestri. (After one swing, in a baseball reenactment of The Princess and the Pea, he tells Silvestri something isn’t right with the ball he just hit. Silvestri fetches it and finds that it’s the one ball in the bucket that’s not regulation MLB issue.)"

If you've read Jonah Keri's "The Extra 2%" about the Tampa Bay Rays (nee Devil Rays), you might recall the following pieces about Tampa Bay giving Pujols a tryout while in junior college:

"[Tampa Bay area scout Fernando] Arango claims his prospect looked like Lou Gehrig. [Tampa Bay scouting director Dan] Jennings saw no such thing.

Arango observed a 60-yard dash in 7.1 seconds, a good time for a player that size. The Devil Rays tried him at his college position of shortstop, where Arango says he handled an array of sharply hit grounders and showed good instincts for a big man. Jennings looked at the player's body, then suggested maybe he should catch. He'd never caught before and was worried he'd make a bad impression. Arango told him to relax, put on the equipment, and humor everyone for a few minutes. His first throw to second base came in a flash: 1.89 seconds. That time was phenomenal for a high school catcher and solid for a college catcher; several big league catchers show similar times. Only this player had never caught at any level.

Then he got in the batter's box and started roping line drives all over the park. Growing up, his dad had taught him to hit the ball with authority to right-center. Do that consistently, his father told him, and he could one day hit .300 in the big leagues. Jennings wasn't impressed. "Where's the power?" he muttered. Arango got the message. "They'd like you to hit it a little farther," he told his pupil. On the very next pitch, the kid crushed the ball off the top of the left-field foul pole."

Add that to the list of things Albert Pujols has done.

You can't apply on Monster.com for a job as a Major League Baseball player.

Excellent and very well written blog post by Ted Berg, which starts off with:

"There’s a pitcher who’s in Mets Major League camp that’s staying at my hotel. It doesn’t seem appropriate to say his name and it doesn’t much matter for the sake of this weird and potentially off-putting post anyway, but I can say with some confidence that he’s very unlikely to make the Mets’ roster out of Spring Training.

And nearly every evening I see this guy sitting in his car in the hotel parking lot talking on the phone, and something about it makes me sad. I don’t know what he’s saying or to whom. For all I know he just spends an inordinate amount of time ordering pizza or engaging solicitors. But I assume he’s talking to his dad or his sister or his best friend or his old coach, someone or some combination of people who care about him a whole lot and want to hear about his progress and performance in Port St. Lucie."

You will be glad you read this post about the business of baseball and the individuals that play the game, which can also be written as 'individuals that work in this field'.