brainwagon

I haven’t had much of a chance to get to ballgames this year. I normally go to about a dozen or so A’s games during a typical season, but this year I basically haven’t made it to any. Life has just filled up with other things to do. But last night, the mystical forces of […]

Two years ago, I complained that MLB.TV’s black out rules basically robbed them of a chance to get $120 of my hard earned cash in exchange for a product which they supply to others in the U.S., but which they refuse to sell me. Fast forward to today, and nothing has changed: I still can’t […]

I was standing in Tom’s office, and asked him a simple probability question (and a timely one, given the World Series): If the odds of a particular team winning against their opponent is some probability p, what are the odds that they will win a 7 game series? If you had any probability at all, […]

Absolutely the most amazing World Series Game I’ve seen. I’m speechless. My words aren’t sufficient: I’ll post some links when I find someone better than me to put the game in perspective. Amazing.

For some reason, I never do much reading about baseball during the season itself. But as the World Series approaches its end (still hoping for a game seven) I have started to dust off some of my reading materials. A couple years ago, I mentioned this work by Lawrence Brown on this blog, but the […]

I must admit, I had my misgivings about the prospects of a movie based upon Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball. After all, Moneyball is a book about how Billy Beane took the Oakland Athletics to unheard of success on one of the most meager payrolls in the major leagues using a (then) unconventional view of baseball […]

Back in 2007, I was looking at the career total bases expressed as miles, mainly to demonstrate what an outstanding career Hank Aaron had. brainwagon » Blog Archive » Was Hank Aaron really that good? I expressed with certainty that Bonds would never catch (and indeed, nobody may ever catch) Aaron’s numbers for total bases. […]

Okay, I’m really more of an Oakland fan, but ultimately I’m a baseball fan, and the Giants provided one of the most compelling post-season runs in recent memory. Narrowly winning the pennant on the last day of the season, avoiding a potential three-way tiebreaker. Agonizing, one inning games in round one against Atlanta. A great […]

Wow, last night’s Game 4 of the NLCS was a real nailbighter, with the Giants ultimately prevailing 6-5 in a game which saw three different lead changes. I’ve begun to look at baseball-reference.com for play-by-play and statistical analysis, since it breaks down the outcome of each play and gives the change in winning percentage as […]

Okay, I’m currently reading The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball because I hate to see intentional walks. Case in point: last night’s 7th inning walk of Chase Utley with one out and pitcher Roy Oswalt on second. You’d expect him to score on a double, but he’s not a huge immediate threat. In any […]

Back in 2004, I blogged a short message about the game four performance of the Red Sox against the Yankees. brainwagon » Blog Archive » Red Sox 6, Yankees 4, 12 innings. I had turned off the game after 7 innings, missing Bill Mueller’s RBI single in the bottom of the ninth to tie the […]

Can someone (preferably somebody whose very keen on baseball, especially sabermetrics) answer me a question? Tonight I was at the game between the Athletics and Twins in Oakland. After trailing 1-3, the A’s score twice in the bottom of the eighth inning to tie the game up going into the ninth. Danny Valencia strikes out. […]

Yesterday was an intereseting day in baseball. In the last month, we’ve seen two perfect games pitched: the first by Dallas Braden, and the second by Roy Halladay. For those of you who aren’t big baseball fans, those were only the 19th and 20th perfect games recorded in Major League Baseball history. The last time […]

I’ve got opening night tickets for the Athletics/Mariners opener next Monday, and once again, baseball is beginning to creep into my brain. I’m an XM radio subscriber largely because they broadcast pretty much every MLB game, and I enjoy listening to the play by play while driving around. Last year I also had a lot […]

Thanks to Bob @ work for mentioning this to me. I think I appreciate this guy not just for his knowledge of batters and their stances, but for the self-deprecating way in which he presents his “least marketable skill”. That, my friends, is a baseball fan. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sPakL5On3Y