Bambino's Curse

Nixon: For the Future

This'll put a nice hitch in your I can't wait for '04 to start cowboy gittalong:

Nixon's signing is a symbol of what the Sox want -- players who want to play here for a fair wage and win a championship, a philosophy not unlike the Patriots.…

Nixon said he didn't mind giving up his free agency and the opportunity to earn more money in the open market, saying his desire to stay with the Red Sox … (Edes, Globe).

Meanwhile, from the always growing collection called "Why blogs are fun," I present the following.

Regarding the Pinto/SoSH milieu from yesterday, blogger Jay Jaffe writes,

Sons of Sam Horn, consider this a Roger Clemens fastball aimed right between the eyes …

And in the comments to his post, a short time later "jmcc5400" injects,

More like a Jamie Moyer change-up to the ass.

Heh heh … freedom of expression in action.

When There's No Baseball To Discuss, We Talk About Each Other

Well, if you didn't pick up on the snowballing controversy among baseball bloggers and the SoSH/Schilling "you can't quote anything here" policy, you probably won't miss it today.

The back story:

1. Dave Pinto at Baseball Musings uses a piece of a SoSH thread attributable to Curt Schilling in a post titled "Schilling on Neyer."
2. Eric/Lanternjaw, founder of SoSH, objects to Pinto's use of the quotes and calling it a "a poor display of ethics."
3. Pinto agrees to pull the quotes out of the post; the links to SoSH remain.
4. Popular Yankees blogger Alex Belth of Bronx Banter publishes a post critical of Eric and SoSH titled "The Schilling Rules."
5. A contingent of other baseball bloggers and writers, including one of the shining stars of Baseball Prospectus, Will Carroll, become incensed after learning of the incident.
6. E-mail discussions among a group of baseball bloggers (including myself) ensues. The notion of an "open letter" and/or quasi-uniformed group statement on the issue is floated.
7. This morning, Steve Silva of Boston Dirt Dogs, a site with explicit permission to use any SoSH/Schilling material, calls Will Carroll a "megalomaniac" and writes "hurry up with that letter, we can't wait to hear what you have to say."

Whoa. Guess this is what happens when there isn't enough baseball news to keep us busy!

And I'll admit I feel totally conflicted and uneasy with the situation (which of course is why you find me discussing it here … this is my "diary" after all). My uneasiness stems in part from guilt. If you recall I've used Schilling quotes from SoSH before here and again here.

The first posting is especially pertinent for two reasons. First, I speak directly to the SoSH policy:

… am I the only one who gets a queasy feeling over the whole off the record and this can only be used by SoSH and DirtDogs? Does that mean we aren't even supposed to link to it? And if it's off the record yet exists on the mother of all public spaces, the web, can it really be off the record?… What happens if a reporter does lift a quote? Is that game over? Does Mr. Schilling stop posting and thereby stop going directly to the fans? (Have I already violated the unwritten rules by linking to the SoSH post and pulling out a quote as well?)

Secondly, I wasn't asked to remove the quotes; instead, quite the opposite happened. Curt Schilling himself (identity confirmed, trust me) responded to the post in a comment he left.¹

From that point on I've assumed a certain degree of implied permission to quote. I mean if Schilling himself never mentioned it, must be OK, right?

Maybe not, though, maybe it was just an oversight and Lanternjaw is getting ready to lower the boom on me right now?

Or maybe it's a judgment issue, i.e., maybe because I'm "in the fold" so to speak as Red Sox fan and SoSH member that I'm cut some slack?

If so, I'll admit that I like that.

The main reason I started this blog was to reconnect with the ties to Red Sox Nation I'd so deeply missed after leaving the region. And when I read the SoSH threads (I rarely post, since I spew enough words here), I feel part of something special. And since Schilling has started using SoSH ever more frequently, I'll confess to feeling a degree of self-importance and smugness. (Like we Red Sox fans needed another reason to be accused of thinking we are the greatest, most important fans in the world!)

So I'm feeling very contrite this morning. I don't at all like that Dave Pinto was labeled "unethical." It pisses me off quite frankly, as I consider Dave not only someone I really respect and admire, but I think of him as a friend as well. Yet I do feel that it's Dave's fight, if he chooses, not mine.

Moreover, I do understand the SoSH attitude expressed by Lanternjaw.

There's a reason I've referred to BDD and SoSH as "the jihad of Red Sox Nation." It's not a tea party over there; it's serious, fanatical Red Sox fans. They don't need no stinkin' pleasantries. Indeed, this blog (because of its title) has been dragged through the mud at SoSH more than once. Comes with the territory. Red Sox fans can be nasty and mean. (Remember my AM radio experience last fall?)

Finally, I'd like to close on a less emotional basis with the following question. Does SoSH have a legal right to say you cannot quote their material?

I'm no legal expert, but I think they can. Here's two important points related to fair use copyright law:

• Don't compete with the work you are quoting or copying from. If the use diminishes the market for the copyrighted work (or portions of it), including revenues from licensing fees, it is probably not a fair use.
• If permission is denied and you feel use is essential to your own work, seek legal advice.

One could argue that taking quotes from SoSH diminishes the value of the original, i.e., if you can find Schilling's words on other baseball blogs, that dilutes the worth of SoSH. This is especially true if one need not even ever visit SoSH because enough of the quote is mirrored in the competing website.

And since permission has been explicitly denied up front by SoSH, the suggestion is to seek legal advice before quoting which I know I haven't done.

Meanwhile, we'll have Spring Training to occupy us all soon enough.

¹ Note: The comments related to that post are broken such that no one else can respond to what Curt Schilling wrote. This is unfortunate since he specifically asked for a response from several readers on a couple of different points. My comments system is not a great one, and somehow it became non-functional when I went in, per a request, to remove Curt Schilling's email address.

More White Space, Please

I love the blogging revolution and how effortless it is for anyone to publish to the web. As both Aaron Gleeman and Will Carroll have pointed out recently, baseball blogs are particularly cool.

But while so many baseball bloggers and bloggers in general have the goods, i.e., witty, informative, excellent writing, superb analysis, etc., just as many lack something else that is a potential readership killer — a lack of white space.

If you are now a blogger or have any intention of becoming one in the future, I ask you to please read these dated but still very relevant articles on writing for the web:

• Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web) by Jakob Nielsen
• Writing for the Web by Jeffrey Zeldman

Some of the best baseball bloggers cum writers are the worst lack of white space offenders. I won't name names but if you're unsure if I might be thinking of you, go back through your archives and see how many times you've forced your readers to endure a block of text more than 100 words or so in length.

It makes sense, too, that the better writers tend go all dense with ne'er a line break in sight, as good writers most often get their talent from reading lots of books. But the web is not like print. On the web you need to chunk that text.

Chunk it, chunk it (OHH OH). C'mon, lend me some white space. (I am your neighbor.)

A Leopard Never Changes Its Spots?

I greet the news that Ellis Burks will once again be wearing a Red Sox uniform with a feeling of satisfaction. It's great that he has the potential to be one helluva pinch hitter off the bench, but, just as importantly, I am contented that Burks of all players is willing to give Boston another chance.

As Gordon Edes reminds us,

Burks, who was an All-Star and Gold Glove outfielder with the Sox in 1990, three years after making his big-league debut, left the team as a free agent after the 1992 season, the Sox electing not to sign him to a long-term deal because of questions regarding his back.…

"I enjoyed playing there, but at the time, there were a lot of issues brought up with me in Boston about my injuries," he told the Globe in 2001. "There were questions about whether I was really injured. My back was really jacked up at the time, but my credibility was questioned (Globe).

And while Edes doesn't bring it up in his piece, there were always the rumors that latent (or not so latent) racism played a role in Burks departure as Howard Bryant touched on in his book Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston:

If Jim Rice would not speak to anyone in public about the racial climate of the team or the city, he privately expressed concerns with Ellis Burks.… he gave Ellis Burks a telling piece of advice that provided important insight into Rice's feelings about Boston and his years with the Red Sox. They were words Burks would never forget. "Get your six years in," Rice told Burks, "and then get the hell out of Boston."

The new owners made not only a commitment to winning, and we are seeing proof of that commitment for sure, but Henry et al also made a commitment to "demonstrate that [the team's] attitude on race has changed" (NPR). And now with Burks' return, I feel we are seeing further proof of that change.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

In a recent Tech Central Station column, forensic psychologist Dr Helen Smith writes,

… I don't work with terrorists but I do work with violent people. I used to believe (as many of my colleagues still do) that empathizing with my patients and increasing their self-esteem would help them on the path to self-actualization. Of course, for some anxiety-ridden patients who need faith in themselves, the technique of empathy and support works. However, for those patients with serious violent tendencies, just the opposite is true. With those patients, I've found that setting clear boundaries and making judgments about their immoral behavior works like a charm.

My own wife who is a special education teacher at a regional magnet school for children clinically diagnosed as "emotionally disturbed" says exactly the same thing.

I bring this up here because I also feel this is something a good manager or coach has to do as well when dealing with athletes as bizarre as a Carl Everett or a Manny Ramirez to name but two that come to mind.

Despite Grady Little falling out of favor with most fans, myself included, for the infamous decision to leave Pedro in during the seventh game of the ALCS, it's worth remembering how perfectly Grady Little handled the attitude/emotional problems of Manny Ramirez last season by choosing to bench the star player.

The biggest knock on the newest Red Sox manager, Terry Francona, is that he tends toward the so-called "player's manager" style with the implication being he may not be tough enough to play bad cop when he has too.

So as the season progresses, it'll be interesting to see how Terry "I'll pick four or five guys every night and call them, or leave some voice-mail. I'm just excited to meet all of them and getting to know them." Francona will fare when Manny's mom contracts a case of the shingles right around the time of the All Star game.

Supernatant XXXVIII

Spinning the karma wheel …

In a classy gesture, the Red Sox had a congratulatory commercial already filmed and edited long before Adam Vinatieri's 41-yard field goal soared through the uprights and made the Pats champions for the second time in three years.

The commercial by the Red Sox was first televised a little less than an hour after the game, once network programming of the Super Bowl gave way to the local postgame show on WBZ-TV (Brown, MLB.com).

The commercial is available for viewing on the MLB site.

Of course, as much as it's a great a thing to do, the logistics of filming the commercial before the Super Bowl was ever played is like fingernails on a chalkboard to those of predisposed to the irrational, non-scientific, medieval belief in jinx. (Pardon me while I go perform a little bloodletting. My humors need adjustment.)

Meanwhile, I was as buoyant as one of the goat-footed man's helium balloons yesterday, flush with the afterglow of the Patriots victory and thinking this surely bodes well for the Red Sox when I suddenly remembered something.

Refer to the table below.

Do those years hold any significance to you?

Yep, those are all years the Boston Celtics won the NBA Championship. So much for my own trickle down theory.

Yet I remain Super Bowl supernatant, don't you?

Hats Off to the World Champs

Does the New England Patriots heroic, courageous, thrilling, epic, [insert your favorite adjective] victory in Super Bowl XXVIII help to heal my broken Red Sox heart?

You bet your sweet ass it does!

Wow. Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio? Who cares when you've got Tom Brady-o and Adam Vinatieri-o? A Red Sox Nation turns it lonely eyes to those two. Woo woo woo.

And, as a fan, I tip my cap to the Carolina Panthers and all their fans as well. I was one of many morons who went with the conventional wisdom that the Panthers didn't stand a chance. Man, I'm left feeling like Joe Trippi misreading the Iowa Caucus voters on that one.

Delhomme? Holy crap! As Bill Simmons writes,

Delhomme had transformed into a cross between Fran Tarkenton and Dan Marino. … no matter what happens from now on, he's permanently removed from the "Shaky QBs" group. The guy wouldn't let the Panthers quit. Seeing him slap pads on the sidelines and improvise broken plays was downright inspiring, and three times more improbable than James Van der Beek leading the way in "Varsity Blues" (ESPN).

But the Panthers playing so well just makes the victory all the sweeter. So sweet in fact that I can laugh off the Levitra commercial with celebrity spokesperson Mike Ditka metaphorically suggesting that baseball is a flaccid penis while football is four hour (Levitra induced) hard on. C'mon, that's all the ad agency can come up with for a Super Bowl commercial, tired old cliches that date back to the has been George Carlin?

Yes, and the victory induced good feeling is enough to make me shrug off the fact that the biggest dink in the Survivor: All Stars series is that guy Rob from Boston who is never seen on camera without his Red Sox cap on. When people say they hate the Red Sox and their fans, it's guys like Rob Mariano that they are thinking of I imagine. Ah, well, the dude is probably OK in real life when he's not on a reality show in which being an a-hole is a strategy to winning.

Winning is a good thing, after all. I can go for some more of it.

A Perfect Holiday. Super Size It.

This says it all:

You take an event centered on TV, lubricated by beer and junk food, add the gambling element, drop it in a perfect spot on the calendar, and you've got the perfect American holiday. — Bob Thompson, professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University.

And to all of you who are watching this evening's XXXVIII on your own flat screen plasmas in full HDTV glory, I hate you. (My HDTV envy is starting to take manifest itself dangerously. I am sick with jealousy. It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. As the HDTV owner responds, "And how clear that monster looks in high def! Why I can see …" Foh! Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.)