Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
A few thoughts on bernstein and his views on baseball.
First, it's difficult for he and Terry to have a discussion about the game because respective their thoughts on it are so far apart. Terry mentions a guy's batting average and I can hear dan rolling his eyes. For dan, batting average is mainly a function of luck and has no bearing on whether a guy is "good at baseball".
That leads me to my next point which is illustrated by bernstein's thoughts on Connor Gillaspie. dan decides who is "good at baseball" and who isn't based upon what he reads on Fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus. Or perhaps by who Theo drafts. And once that decision has been made on a guy's ability to play baseball, his performance is incidental. He admitted as much to a caller just now. dan has decided Baez is good. So even his ineptitude in AAA isn't evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, similar ineptitude by a Matt Davidson clearly shows he is "bad at baseball".
Finally, he has repeated his mantra "ALL. THAT. MATTERS. IS. WINNING. CHAMPIONSHIPS." so much that many of his listeners have come to believe such foolishness to the same degree that he does. For people who actually follow a team, watch most of the games, and yeah, pay to get into the park more than a time or two each season, there is a vast difference between a .500 team and one that loses 99 games. If all that matters is winning championships is really true, the Cubs haven't mattered in 104 years. I don't think bernstein really believes that. You're not going to win a championship every year. Not even if you're the Yankees. Winning 80 games is better than winning 75 which is better than winning 60. Only someone who doesn't really give a shit would suggest otherwise.
One thing Dan does to piss me off lately is carry on with his crusade against the Hawkeroo. Catching some of those vintage early 90s sox games on CSN recently I got to hear some vintage early 90s Hawk, and wow what a difference. Not only was his voice higher pitched, but he was way more positive (going out of his way to repeatedly complement the day's umpire) and generally way less preachy during the broadcast. I'd conjecture to guess that nowadays Hawk realizes that he's well along the back-9 of his career and thus he's more prone to endlessly wax nostalgic about the good ol days back "when it was a game" and all that.
Dan's on a mission to gentrify our minds with these complex acronyms and algorithms and just about anything else out there that dehumanizes the game. Meanwhile Hawk's prone to scoff at #s and simply say "you gotta go up there and make yourself dangerous at the plate" which makes total sense to you, me, no doubt JORR, and countless others here who have ever played the games at a competitive level. I mean who here hasn't ran 4s at a local basketball court and said "oh fuck" when that guy from the UIC baseball team shows up and you know he can dunk on you whenever he sees fit, so that fucks up your mindset like "I ain't getting wangwhipped today" which makes you play a step back paranoid of the posterization, so that's when dude reveals he's got a lethal 3pt stroke and you still look like a damn fool.
Dan prolly doesn't have many experiences like that since he's been more on the reporter side of things (unless you buy the Dan Bernstein: Rec League Basketball Assassin history. Personally I picture him being the white guy in the goggles trying to call out offensive plays while the rest of the team looks at him like "are you serious?") and to a certain extent he's envious of the athletes of the world who got to play against his BIG. BLACK. WANGWHIPPERS. and go out and do the modern equivalent of gladitorial combat, therefore he has to demean their world by breaking it down into a bunch of soulless #s that tell the story cuz comeon dude, those jocks were ALWAYS meatheads/meatballs unlike Dan, they're utterly replaceable in an age where you don't have a personnel dept you have a human resources dept... cuz to dan and his supply-side/ownership-group friends the players are just a human resource... a machine on an assembly line of printing profits.... They're imminently replaceable because the game > the players and, of course, the game can be better explained by a series of complex acronyms and/or algorithms than simply relating to human feelings instincts and gut feelings.
That said, I hope you show up early on sundays to get a front row seat at the Church of BABIP.
_________________
Curious Hair wrote:
Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?
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