“Not that they want to see any prospect fail, but old-line major league scouts everywhere stood up and cheered last week. Jeremy Brown, the Oakland Athletics announced, had retired.” – Murray Chass, The New York Times, February 19, 2008
Not that they would ever wish this upon their worst enemy, but sports bloggers everywhere gave each other virtual high-fives and loads of Diggs last December. Stuart Scott, wonky-eyed ESPN broadcast personality and spoken-word maverick, was diagnosed with cancer.
Not that they’re sad and cranky old men milking their fleeting moment of fame for every photo op or press clipping they can scrounge up, but members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins popped yet another champagne cork on Februrary 3rd. The undefeated New England Patriots, supposedly the best NFL team of all time, lost the Super Bowl to the New York Football Giants.
Not that he doesn’t love the game any less than he did when he was one of the greatest players to ever lace them up, but Isiah Thomas harrassed unsuspecting women with an easy mind last night. The 15-37 New York Knicks, owners of the 3rd worst record in the NBA, had the day off.
Not that their myopic brand of misery and misanthropy hasn’t already been well established, but Rush Limbaugh and his cadre of “dittoheads” breathed a little easier yesterday. John McCain, presumptive Republican presidential nominee, inched another day closer to his impending death.
Not that enjoying the comedic stylings of a sub-literate redneck stereotype suggests anything about one’s own mental faculties, but a throng of upright feces-flinging morons are licking their chops and scratching their genital areas in breathless anticipation. Witless Protection, the new comedy starring Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy, opens in theatres this Friday.
Not that he was one for demonstrative shows of emotion, but Freidrick Nietschze performed the chicken dance with unforseen exuberance in 1882. God, creator of the universe, was dead.
Not that they’re not in some circle of Hell suffering a misery no mere mortal could hope to understand, but former Senator Joe McCarthy and his witch-hunting cronies managed to crack a smile today as barbed whips rent their tired flesh and their innards boiled upon the hot blades of endless plunging knives. Fidel Castro, long-time Cuban president and the most visible Communist figurehead of the late 20th century, announced his retirement.
Not that he’s flipping over couch cushions for pennies or cold-calling acquaintances for hand-outs, but friends and family exhaled a sigh of relief last Friday. Rickey Henderson, the greatest of all time, got paid.
What Andy said. See also Kevin Goldstein’s post on Baseball Prospectus’ Unfiltered blog about Brown’s unfortunate status as Moneyball whipping boy.
That said, if “new-line” scouts hoot & holler if David Eckstein’s forced to retire for “personal reasons,” then it’s open season.
Why the knickers twist? Chass is reporting what many scouts and mananegement people felt.
The application of business practices to baseball is great, but at some point the teams that want to win will ignore pure economic data and consider the value of winning a title at all costs – an externality, if you will, that cannot be numerically quantified.
rmt: I’d be stunned to learn that “old-line” major league scouts actually stood up and cheered upon hearing the news that Jeremy Brown had decided to hang ’em up. The article rather clearly reads as Murray Chass projecting his undying (and misread) antagonism towards “Moneyball” (and Beane in particular) onto the fate of a young man who probably couldn’t give two shits about the rapidly diminishing gap between old and new methods of analysis.
Look at the players drafted around Brown, none of them really made it either. Of course scouts are threatened by Brown, if he panned out their jobs might go away.
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/draft/2002/Round-1-1.shtml