Summer Baseball
Check out the Mustangs website to see how we are doing this summer. Off to a slow start but we are picking it up. This is my first season on this team since I just moved to Chicago last August. But it's also the team's inagural season - it's a brand-new team. Good stuff.

My phone
The phone I have here at work is a marvel of technology. It looks like a regular phone but when you pick it up you realize that it doesn't have any kind of mechanism to hang up on. There's just nothing there. So the way I figure it must have some sort of proximity device so that, when you put it down and actually "hang up," the phone can tell it's back in it's place and actually hangs up.

I think it's pretty cool.

Chicago
Chicago really is a great city. You have the whole metropolis aspect to it, yet it's inextricably conjoined with that midwestern "niceness." It's very refreshing: think New York but without all the hate and animosity. It's great. Plus the lake gives it the mandatory "body of water" that you have to have if you want to call yourself a great city (be it a river, an ocean, a lake, etc.).

So, yeah, I love it here.

The only knock is the winters.

The visual
Interesting article on the importance of the eyes on hitting. Plus, the new ways players are training their eyes.

Patriotic Asshole
I won't even say anything.

Money = $
The T. O. Situation:

"It doesn't matter what people say about me, whether it's in Philly, or in San Francisco, all across the world," he said. "They can believe what they want to believe, but I know in my heart what I'm doing is right.

"I don't have to play football. I don't have to play for the Eagles. It doesn't matter what any of my teammates have said about me. That doesn't matter to me. All that matters to me right now is my family."

Your family? Fucking idiot.

Ana and Anorexia
This phenomenon is scary, but it's also very old. I did a report on this in college way back in 2000 - there is nothing new about the data in this story though.

I guess people don't care.

Lee vs Choi
I won't do this one because I love Choi. All you need to know is that, as of today, Derek Lee would win the triple crown if the season ended today:

.366, 16HR, 46RBIs

His OBP? .462 Also the elague leader.

Burnitz vs Sosa
This is head to head, the Cubs replaced Sosa with Burnitz, who makes around six million I think. Let's look at the numbers:

Sosa Burnitz
.254 AVG .266
4 HR 8
16 RBI 30
.314 OBP .313
.413 SLG .473

Again, Sosa was out for a while with injury, so he has fewer at bats, but that actually makes the move even better for the Cubs. Again, the number you want to look at is slugging. Cubs take this one.

Alou vs DuBois (it's pronounced du-BOYCE)
Ok so here we go, let's compare what the Cubs had in LF and what they decided to go with this season (all numbers are for this season):

Alou DuBois
.282 AVG .259
8 HR 5
24 RBI 17
.406 OBP .308
.530 SLG .529

Looks like a blowout but not really. I think Moises is making around ten million bucks while DuBois is making the minimum. Yes, his OBP sucks and I won't even show the KK/BB rations, Alou KILLS DuBois in this category. Alou does have about 50 more ABs, and that brings me to the slugging percentage. Even. So despite the lower average, DuBois is getting extra base hits, which is what they want him to do. Plus it's his first season in the bigs.

Not bad, I think.