The bitter cold of winter

I could probably title this post "Confessions of a dangerous mind", but at the moment it's in the teens outside, with snow having fallen just about every other day for the past week, so I'll just stick with what you see above.

If your above the age of 16, you may want to sit back and reflect on these questions:
"Who do I seem to live my life like?"
"What events have impacted how I see the world?"
And the most dangerous question of all..... "Why are things the way they are?"
A recurring spat of bitterness led me to these questions about my own life, and if the following reflection helps you in any way figure out something about your life, then thank the Lord, not me.

I can pinpoint the day I became an angry man. The date is irrelevant, but the events are far from that. Sophomore year of college is typically a year when after getting your feet wet the year before you start to dive in and see how far you can go, and thus set your sights accordingly. I had been a very involved resident in my dorm, which conveniently was attached to the campus Newman center, where I was also involved in a lot of different activities. I was also maintaining my usually high GPA (not a 4.0, but still good), and I had my sights set on 1 simple role: Resident Advisor. When it came time to apply, I knew that the going would be tough, as there were others, many whom I had befriended, who also made good candidates. There was also a dearth of available positions, as only 2 would even be brought on as RAs. unlike the 5 of the prior year. I realized I wasn't a shoe in for one of the open slots, but figured with my record that I'd at least receive an interview.

Sophomoric folly #1: Assume something will happen and have no thought about the alternative result.

The interview list gets posted, and I'm overlooked without an interview. Worse, I see a name of someone who I know won't make a good RA, but happened to be good friends with one of the current female RAs, and wonder how on Earth he was chosen over me. I'm pretty sure people could see the steam spewing out my ears when I was in this rage. It was bad enough I even bitched about it to one of the RAs that it was ridiculous. My rationalizing of events to try and soothe things didn't do much either. Passed over because of RAs trying to help friends when recommending candidates to the hall director. Directors keeping me out and trying to trap me into a box that I may not want to be in. Someone thinking I would overextend myself with all I was involved in. Nothing I came up with could ease the pain, as it was all conjecture with no solid evidence. My thoughts over how my college life would go suddenly vanished. I became an insecure 19-year-old who had to figure out what next.

Sophomoric folly #2: Carry emotional baggage around and try to ignore it.

This was something I should have learned already. It took me 3 years to fully grieve after my grandmother died, though part of that was the whole trying-to-be-a-macho-man-at-15 thing. Still, it was a lesson I learned, but insanely repeated in this case. The semester was capped off with my tanking on a linear algebra final after having things come pretty easy for most of the course. The next semester I land myself on academic probation. To top it off, my search for someone to open up to became a rebellion against an attempt to back away from the dating scene for the year, which then lead to my realizing I missed out on one girl who was really interested in my quirky self. Talk about a harsh wake up call that you're human and flawed.

Sophomoric folly #3: Just because time moves on doesn't mean things move away.

Earlier this month, I received a donation request from the aforementioned Newman center that actually runs the dorm too. It was the first contact I had received from the dorm since I graduated, found a job and moved out on my own. And I was pissed that it took them this long to finally send me something in the mail. Now, they also have this newsletter, which I never received a copy of, so that's a part of it. But the bulk of it was the feeling that I poured myself into that place for 4 years, not only as a resident, but as someone who was involved in all aspects of the Newman center to some degree, and never received a whole lot of recognition for it. Sure, I led the Knights council, but I was never rewarded with the leadership positions elsewhere that I thought I could handle. The RA ordeal was the just first of the perceived slights from there. Each slight left a chip on the shoulder, and while they're easy to ignore since I'm hundreds of miles away, they've refused to go away.

In one of my interviews, I was chided for asking for more money from the employer who ultimately hired me. I was told I was part of this "Generation of entitlement", where one thinks if he/she does x, y, and z, then the equation will lead to whatever it is he/she wants. He/she realizes that x, y, and z are variables that have a number of possibilities, but feel as if those actions in general have merited something that may not have necessarily been earned merely by those efforts. It's like being a pitcher who throws what appears to be a flawless sequence of pitches to a batter that has him struggling, only to watch that final pitch of the at bat be one that will most likely result in a strikeout, only to watch the ball get smoked for a home run. What's a pitcher to do? Learn from the previous misstep, grab the baseball and make pitches to the next batter to get him out.

So what do I need to remember about myself that in my pressing to prove something I cannot I have forgotten? That leaders first start as good soldiers. That you can't always get what you want, but you might just find what you need. That trying to prove something in the past only means you're missing out on trying to prove what you can do today.

Carpe diem. New batter. Time to pitch.

Some least favorites of mine

Things that annoy me on multiple levels at the moment:

• Maroon 5, "Makes Me Wonder" - Most of their songs have been decent and worth listening to. This one is where they take the leap from good band to manufactured garbage. If there is a more overproduced song out there now, it's probably because the name of the artist is a tabloid fixture (e.g. Spears, B.; Lohan, L.; etc)
• Buster Olney - A fine writer and baseball reporter, but he makes me want to smack him sometimes for acting like the crowds in Jerusalem who demanded Pilate to "Crucify Him!" His blog is a joy to read, but he moves to judgment to swiftly, (typically) prognosticating doomsday for baseball rather than letting history unfold. Thank goodness I never was exposed to him during the 1994 strike, because I'm certain he never thought baseball would recover from that either. So, Mr. Olney, please let the perjury trial of Barry Lamar Bonds run its course and report on it, don't speculate.
  
• Bush tax policies - It is extremely difficult to point to any single reason why our economy is regressing back to the days of Carnegie and Hearst. Increasing international demand for key commodities and an ever present desire to not be satisfied with $10B quarterly profits (looking at your, ExxonMobil) are probably just as much to blame. But the Bush tax cuts plus the massive spending on keeping an active military force in Iraq are the ones most prominent on the political stage, and with New Hampshire and Iowa just around the corner, it is likely something that will end up meaning a Democrat takes the White House in November. Remember, after all the political analysis is through next November, you'll have heard someone say "It's the economy, stupid!" as a reason for the Republicans not holding the top executive office (and Congress too, while we're at it).
  

Random month-end musings

A few thoughts as October ends.....

• A wise man today reminded me it's Reformation Day for the Lutheran Church. While Luther's 95 Theses have brought about many goods, the most impacting legacy is the fracturing of the Christian Church. As any good Bible Christian should know, Christ founded only 1 Church, not 500. While some may argue which is the True Faith, today should be more of a reminder that we all are seeking the Truth, even though our human condition may inhibit us from seeing it in full. We have been blinded in some ways by upbringing and the aesthetics of religion rather than looking into the theology and studying it for understanding. Let us work to change this.
• Why do I read more about Alex Rodriguez as a 3rd baseman signing rather than a shortstop signing? I think he's worth more at his natural position, and will be of more value there as well for whoever ponies up the ridiculous amount of dough he will ultimately get. While the White Sox could use him in this capacity, he is a long shot signing for purse pincher Jerry Reinsdorf. The Red Sox could sign him, solidifying their place as the "New Yankees" (especially if they resign Mike Lowell), but won't because Theo Epstein and Bill James are smarter than that to let Boras try to negotiate them like he did Tom Hicks. My wager is on the top free agent this year signing with...... whoever is stupid enough to pay him more than he made last year.
• The best player in MLS is not named Beckham, but Blanco. Watch tomorrow as he helps the Fire upend the top team in MLS, DC United, in the tournament for the MLS Cup.
  On another football note (soccer to my fellow Yanks on this side of the Atlantic), will anyone beat Arsenal this year? We'll find out this weekend when they face the famed club of Manchester United. Gunners Forever!
  

Why the Cubs shouldn't win the World Series..... Ever

DISCLAIMER: The author is a die hard fan of the Chicago White Sox, and still smiles at the thought of their 2005 World Series victory even after a year where they played bad baseball.

With the greatest time of year upon us, that being the month of October and the Major League Baseball postseason, it is a time of nothing but outstanding baseball night after glorious night, with a champion crowned at the end of it all. With the exception of spoiled Yankee fans, the supporters of the team that wins experience a joy unlike any other, the product of a daily grind met with penultimate success for the year.

Some teams, however, have managed to have this joy elude them and their paying customers for multiple generations. While some have sated their fans thirst (Boston in 2004, the aforementioned, beloved, and properly colored Sox in 2005), others have yet to achieve this. Remarkably, this year's edition of the playoffs features the longest drought in both the American and National League. The Cleveland Indians, champions of the American League Central division, fought tooth and nail with the Detroit Tigers for 5 months before galloping away like Barbaro's final quarter in the Derby in the final month, have gone since the 1950s without this taste of glory, coming tantalizingly close in 1997. The other is what many believe to be the most accursed team in professional sports, the crosstown brethren of my beloved team, the Chicago Cubs.

For 99 years, Cubs faithful have routinely attended the world's largest beer garden to drink Old Style and watch a team that for many years was middling to poor, with the occasional year or two of success, but none ending with a World Series victory to end the season. Naturally, many Cub faithful desire this to occur, and, since 1945, when the Curse of the Billy Goat has reared its horned skull, their despair has mutilated a number of individual lives (see Durham, Leon or Bartman, Steven). Yet, in this humble author's opinion, a World Series could be the worst thing to ever happen to that organization.

First, and foremost, Cub fans would lose their identity. The author has been lectured by his friends who belong to said group of Cub fans on how being a Cub fan is a microcosmic teacher about life. Not coincidentally, this is the same tune that Red Sawx fans were singing prior to 2004 as well, and now they have become like those spoiled Yankee fans, thinking its their birthright to be atop the AL East and challenging for a championship each and every year. So too, I fear, would this be the fate of Cubdom. A fan base that was raised up on things other than winning won't know how to act after the culminating joy, and it will act in a despicable manner after the euphoria fades.

Second, too much success will make the Cubs have to market like every other team. I mean, what other team can go 64-99, and yet sell 90% of its tickets? It's because the Cubs have done an impeccable job of marketing Wrigley Field as the historic baseball shrine that it is, creating a culture in and around the ballpark that goes for a party more than for a winner. However, winning will decrease the number of party goers who attend the beer garden as the victory bandwagoners climb aboard and buy out their seats. This in turns makes Wrigleyville less desirable for John Q. Partyman, and he goes to other areas instead. When the Cubs return to the mismanaged state that they are accustomed too, the ballpark will look like Comiskey during its lean years.

Finally, and perhaps most important in the author's opinion, the nasally dialect of the Wrigley denizen would become excruciatingly unbearable, particularly for my Pale Hose brethren. I would not wish this fate on anyone; some may argue it'd be hellish.

The prosecution rests its case. The Cubs should never win the World Series. Ever.

P.S. Note to those who are Cub fans: The Curse will die when you let it. And I'm not sure that's possible.

Being overwhelmed in the information age

It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much. - Yogi Berra

Chance
ESPN
Columbia
By the Numbers
rogerebert.com

And that's just a sampling of what I try to keep track of by reading them on a regular basis.

I keep finding that anytime I read something, there are 10 other things that I feel like I have to read in order to understand where this discovery, reference, or insight is coming from. It's enough to drive a man bonkers. And with my information appetite, it often does.

However, this chase for knowledge has left me wondering to what end does it go. Can a renaissance man exist in the age of Google? Can trying to know something about everything lead to knowing nothing about anything? In other words, can you try to make yourself so smart you just make yourself dumb?

While the advent of the blog has given millions a public voice they never had, there are times when it comes to be a disservice. To be honest, I have no clue how on earth scholars 2 centuries from now (provided the human race isn't consumed by the expansion of the Sun at that point in time) will be able to study this age like we were able to study early American history. There is just so much information to go through that it'll take years for something meaningful to define our society to be discovered from it.

At the present though, I believe all this information does need to humble us all to accept this fact: We may all know something about everything, but nobody knows everything about anything. If you think you do know everything about something, please feel free to say so. I have a bludgeon right here to knock some sense into and arrogance out of you.

So, why did some of us get like this? Let's look at the story of one Martin Luther, perhaps the patron saint of the blog. He sure had some ideas, and decided to list them on a piece of paper and post it for public viewing. Boy, he sure created quite a stir, the legacy of which is the numerous denominations of Christianity beyond the Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. Were these multiple churches what Luther had in mind when he wrote his 95 theses? Most certainly not, but others felt embolden by his actions to speak out against the Catholic Church, and felt they could start their own church. Remarkable how one idea, whether confirmed right or wrong, can lead to such a fragmentation of society when reaction takes precedence over reason.

Baseball Analysis.... dead?

When I was a wee lad, I collected baseball cards and poured over the statistics on the back side, creating a fascination with numbers and numerical calculations that has propelled me into a statistics degree and a job as a statistician. But even as I work in a retail setting, my first love of numbers always will be baseball statistics. It is why I joined SABR, and why I have continued and growing interest in sabermetrics.

With this in mind, one can imagine what my initial reaction was to reading these words: "Baseball analysis is dead." Now, I need not detail my direct disagreement with the statement made by Mr. Huckabay, as it does not add to what has been stated by many a person already (see Rob Neyer's ESPN blog if you have access or the response by Dave Studeman on Hardball Times). Rather, I feel that it is not a funeral march that was written, but a challenge to the entire sabermetric/baseball analysis community.

Mr. Neyer and Nate Silver of Mr. Huckabay's Baseball Prospectus, as noted by Mr. Studeman, both cite that sabermetrics is an analytical science, albeit covering a much more finite realm than a more traditional science like biology. As with any science, discovery can be classified into two broad groups: ideas with practical application and ideas that foster new ways of thinking about the subject. Mr. Huckabay's view is focused almost exclusively on the former, and it is to this end he is challenging the sabermetric community to reach for. He is mindful that baseball organizations have far more data than is available publicly (even on his own website), particularly scouting data, and while the use of sabermetrics like WARP, Pythagorean records, and FIP is informative to the fans of the game, it is the organizations who stand to profit the most from the science. If a sabermetrician does not strive for discovery which can immediately impact or lead to another discovery that impacts front office thinking, then the practice of the science is in vain.

Perhaps my favorite example of this latter idea is only double Nobel laureate in physics, and a genius by any standard. John Bardeen, while at the University of Illinois in Chambana, IL (that's Champaign-Urbana for those unfamiliar), made two extremely important discoveries that modern society now takes for granted as a part of everyday life. He invented the transistor and, later on, the superconductor. Both of those discoveries are enabling the PC you are currently using to read this to even be in existence, as they are the fundamental building blocks of the computer, like protons and nuetrons in chemistry. Now, did he know then what his discoveries would lead to? Not in full, I'm sure. But his discoveries lead to a revolution in how society interacts and operates. This is what sabermetrics must do as well: make discoveries that lead to impact, directly or indirectly.

Going back to BP or Hardball Times or any other publication that includes sabermetric articles, and this much is clear: those meta-discoveries that can lead to the discoveries of direct impact are still being made.

Welcome to my Jungle!

Hello! Bienvenidos! Valkommen! My last name is Mitchell, and since random strangers will be free to read this, I'll stick with that or my screenname as a moniker for these pages and posts.

For those who know me, perhaps the first questions are "Why start blogging?" and "Don't you have enough to do?" The answer to the latter question is "Yes, but...". The "but" is the answer to the first question.

My primary reason is because I don't have time to maintain my own web page, but still desire to have a venue online where I can post some things that need to be posted. However, this does not include any personal information. If you want that, you best know who I am. My postings here will vary from commentary on current events and society to interesting findings or other forays into research. Specifically, though, you can look for the following types of posts:
- Essays about my research in baseball statistics (another primary motivator for creating the blog)
- Commentary on a broad variety of topics, primarily (but not exclusively) politics, religion, society and sports
- Musings on statistical topics, as I hold a degree in statistics and am seeking to obtain a higher one.

My posts will be sporadic as I deem them necessary, so check back often.

Good night, and good luck.