"A Cockeyed Optimist"

INTENSITY

2009-04-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

As ashamed as I am to admit it, I confess that I only blog about the Mets when something goes wrong with the team.

Two weeks into the season, amidst the cries of bloggers and reporters that "The team still stinks with runners in scoring position", or "they've just got too many outfielders", or "the tickets at Citi Field cost too much", I have unfortunately seen something else that looks far wronger than anything I've seen in the Mets blogosphere.

It's the utter disrespect for management, and the deliberate disdain for fundamentally sound baseball, that is displayed perenially by the Mets center fielder, Carlos Beltran.

Yesterday's game in St. Louis, when Beltran was tagged out at home plate because he did not slide, demonstrates it completely. For those who didn't see the game, the situation ran thusly:

Beltran tagged up at second on a medium-deep fly to right. He beat the throw to third, sliding safely in -- and the Cardinal third baseman tried a flashy grab-and-tag at the throw, which bounced off his glove and headed for the pitchers mound.
Ignoring his third base coach (which he does an awful lot for a professional ballplayer), Beltran took off for home as the third baseman ran down the ball and snapped an accurate but high throw to the plate.
Beltran stepped on the catcher's foot, not the plate, almost exactly when the ball arrived, and was tagged out high up on his shoulder.

Interviewed after the game, Beltran lied outrageously. Said he to explain his bush-league gaffe:

"I didn't realize how close I was to home plate," Beltran said. "I was watching the ball and when I looked at home plate, I was too close to slide. Molina was on top of the plate and I tried to go over his foot, but I stepped on it and I wasn't able to touch [the plate]."

I watched the footage of the play at MLB.com and Beltran's head was pointed straight ahead at the plate for the last 45 feet. Had he followed fundamental baseball training, he would have slid instinctively. Heading into any base, sliding is always -- ALWAYS -- the thing to do for a ballplayer. Going in standing is a deliberate decision, perhaps to try and knock over the catcher and knock the ball loose, or if your teammate at the plate is standing upright with his hands over his head, telling you to come in that way and save yourself the effort.

Heck, even on the Discovery show Mythbusters, they proved definitively that sliding is indeed faster than running and slowing. (Though that was into second base, not home, but it's the same physics no matter which base you're going for.)

Beltran may be considered the world's best center fielder by the majority of the universe. Yet...

How many times can a player ignore his third base coach before he is chewed out in public?
How often can a "heart of the order" guy be allowed to bunt when his job is to swing away and drive home the runner?
How many times can an outfielder be forgiven for bonehead throws to the wrong base, or attempts to throw out a runner at third when the percentages say "hit the cutoff man"?
How can a professional player be allowed to disdain the fundamentals of good baseball at all, and be allowed to remain on the field?

I'm not holding Beltran to any higher or lower a level that my little league coach, Mr. Naughton, held me to in the 3rd grade. If I didn't slide for a close play at the plate, I would be yanked out before I got to the bench and ridden the pine for the next game or two or three. Or would have been told to do three more laps. Plus I would have been made into a living example of what NOT to do on a close play at home for the rest of the season.

Suppose we could swap Beltran for Ichiro?

Just Be A Manager, Mr. Randolph.

2008-05-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

In an interview with the (Bergen Record), Mets manager Willie Randolph has made race a primary element of his job.

Randolph excluded Ozzie Guillen from the conversation, but wanted to know why the traits often admired in the calm, cool and collected likes of Joe Torre are portrayed as flaws in Torre's former third base coach.

"Is it racial?" Randolph asked. "Huh? It smells a little bit."

In my opinion, this is a poorly executed diversionary tactic on Mr. Randolph's part. He may or may not be aware of doing so, but by dragging an instantly controversial issue into the arena, Mr. Randolph is diverting attention away from the REAL issue: his competence as a manager of a professional major league baseball team.

While I cannot speak for any other Mets fan, I have never booed or cheered Mr. Randolph because his skin is darker than mine. I have never looked up to him, or down on him, as a symbol of racial success in a White Man's world. And I have never once compared him to any other person based on his race, ethnicity, gender, height, weight, mustache thickness, eye color, hair color, or any of his personal physical attributes.

I simply believe that Mr. Randolph is a poor baseball manager. And that is the only real issue that he should be talking about in the newspapers.

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Instead of hiding behind a racial smokescreen, Mr. Randolph needs to be studying psychology to learn how to better handle his players. The Giants' John McGraw, for example, was famous for taking advantage of his players' superstitions to get them to play better.

Mr. Randolph needs to be studying acknowledged great baseball managers like Bobby Cox of the Atlanta Braves, or Gil Hodges of the New York Mets, or Casey Stengel of the NY Yankees, to understand their successful baseball tactics, and to either apply or adapt them to his own struggling team.

Maybe Mr. Randolph could even benefit from learning statistical analysis. Davey Johnson of the 86 Mets was famous for his computer printouts, and there is of course no shortage of baseball statistics available. Randolph could become the first manager with a laptop on the top step of the dugout.

But instead of doing any of this, or even talking about managing a ballteam, or even just talkin' baseball, Mr. Randolph accuses all of us of racism.

Racism doesn't win ballgames. Good managing does.

Be a baseball manager, Mr. Randolph. Don't be a black manager, or an African-American manager, or a white manager, or an oriental manager, or a left-handed manager. Just be a good baseball manager.

Let's go Mets.

Matsui's Anal Fissure

2008-04-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

I have not seen this medical term since reading an advertisement for the Flushing Colon and Rectal Center in The Queens Tribune back in '88:

Matsui, who signed a three-year, $16.5 million free-agent contract in the offseason, has been sidelined since March 21 while recovering from a medical procedure to repair an anal fissure. (source: MLB.com)

The Astros must have a policy of complete and unadulterated medical disclosure.

You gotta feel sorry for the guy. His new team has trumpeted to the entire world, "Hey, Kaz Matsui ... that's spelled M-A-T-S-U-I ... has got an anal fissure! Taht's right! An Anal Fissure!" It's nothing to be ashamed of, I'm sure anal fissures happen to many people many days. But it makes me wonder just how much the Astro management actually likes the guy.

See, if I ever got an anal fissure while in grade school, I would be utterly mortified and humiliated if anyone (like, my sister?) told anyone about it. If that happened to me while I was working at IBM, I would probably have been ENCOURAGED not to talk about it, and simply say something like "I don't know how I got this injury to my ass, ouch, I can't even sit down anymore. But thanks for asking."

And here I had thought that it would not be possible for Matsui to be treated any worse than he had been by Mets manager Willie Randolph. At least Randolph never said to the press, "He's out of the lineup because he's got an anal fissure."

Shame on you, Astros management! Where's your sympathy for a guy with an anal fissure? Honestly.

The Thrill of Reading

2008-03-19T00:32:00.000-07:00

Earlier this morning, I picked up the final book of David Wingrove's behemoth of an epic tale, "Chung Kuo". This last book is virtually impossible to find, but I was fortunate enough to buy a copy through Doubleday Canada in the early years of this millenium.

Now less than 24 hours and 332 pages later, I am once again within 100 sheets of the end of this magnificent series.

And I find myself both impatient to get to the end, and reluctant to do so.

Books have always been like that for me. As a child, I would read and re-read every book in the house, sometimes devouring the same book twice in the same day. An exhilaration comes over me as I approach any book's final chapters, forcing me to read ever faster, the worlds streaming through my eyes and into my head at greater and greater velocity, until I literally gasp and sigh as the final period shoots past and nothing is left but the blank endpage and the thump of the book's back cover closing the door on its self-contained universe.

It truly is a great, great pleasure. Yet, even as the times between my page-flips grow shorter and shorter, I do not want the experience to end. I want to stay in the book's world, to experience the emotions of the characters, to feel the physical elements written on the paper, to see and hear and smell and touch (and occasionally taste) what is going on in the pages.

I know it's just a product of a feverish imagination, taking in the results of another person's own fevered imaginings, translating them through my own personal filters and bringing it to life in the dark and squishy confines of my own head.

One hundred pages to go. I can get that done in a half hour, and then I can go to bed. And then I get to do it all over again with another book, another world, any time that I want.

It's great to be alive and literate.

Mets: No-Name Starting Lineup

2008-03-07T00:28:00.000-08:00

The Mets really know how to make things interesting. Maybe every team is like this, but our team just seems to find so much drama every single freaking spring training.

So as things stand now, the Mets are missing their first-string first baseman (Carlos Delgado, hip); second baseman (Luis Castillo, knee); catcher (Brian Schneider, something); center fielder (Carlos Beltran, both knees and legs); left fielder (Moises Alou, hernia); and while their front-line right fielder is apparently mostly recovered from the nasty collision sustained on saturday that gave him amnesia and a severe concussion, he has been transformed into a vampire that can neither tolerate bright light nor left-handed pitching. Oh, and a couple of their pitching staff are also down and out.

What's left to play? Running a team off of second-stringers and inexperienced minor leaguers is certain to cause some problems once the season begins at the end of the month. Seriously, there are only about 25 days left until Opening Day, and there is no viable major-league lineup available for manager Willie Randolph to use.

Who's actually healthy in Pt. St. Lucie? Well, the left side of the infield is fine with Jose Reyes and David Wright. The pitching staff is in good shape with Johann Santana, Pedro Martinez, John Maine, Oliver Perez, and Mike Pelfrey. The bullpen has closer Billy Wagner uninjured, along with Pedro Feliciano, Aaron Heilman, Jorge Sosa as the long man, and a collection of other healthy arms and bodies. Ramon Castro is not suffering any odd maladies yet, so he can do the catching.

And that's it for major leaguers.

This has got to be the most horrifying spring training I have ever seen. Cockeyed optimism is hard to come by when seemingly everyone in camp is either a re-tread, minor leaguer, or trying to keep important pieces from falling off of their bodies.

But I listen to what Keith Hernandez said on the spring broadcasts, along with Chris the SNY guy filling in for Gary Cohen these last few games. What looks like a potential disaster for those ailing A-teamers is a golden opportunity for these unproven, inexperienced, hungry young men in the minors. Suddenly, there are as many as SIX starting positions available on a team with the second- or third-largest payroll in the universe.

Which of these no-names will seize the opportunity and force Willie to bring him north and stick him in the opening day starting lineup? I've no idea, but I am hoping it happens.

Opinion: Helmets on the Ballfield

2008-03-03T23:51:00.000-08:00

On this past Saturday, I got to watch the first Mets CW11 broadcast of a Mets 2008 spring training game. Playing the Dodgers and their new manager Joe Torre, the most interesting bit came when the cameras focused on Joe and his new coaches, including base coach Larry Bowa.

The discussion moved to Major League baseball's new Safety Decree to all base coaches: Thou Shalt Wear Batting Helmets to Protect Thine Lives. This new rule was passed due to a terrible, horrible, freak accident last year, when minor league base coach Mike Coolbaugh was killed after being hit in the head with a line drive.

Bowa flatly declared that he would not wear a helmet on the coaching lines. When a reporter asked him about his receiving a possible fine by MLB for his actions, Bowa said something like "How much is the fine for not wearing a batting helmet in the coaching box? Multiply that by 162 games each year, and I'll them write a check."

I laughed aloud and applauded to hear that. Playing or coaching baseball is not, after all, a construction site, where steel and brick and stone regularly rain down upon people and where hard hats prevent injury every day. Nor is baseball anything like the inside of an automobile, where a secured seatbelt is a proven factor in saving lives in the hundreds of accidents that happen every day.

And statistically speaking, poor Mike Coolbaugh died in a statistical fluke. As far as I know, and that is very little when it comes to baseball history, Coolbaugh is the ONLY base coach that has EVER been killed by a batted ball in the history of professional baseball. That comes out to over half a million Major League games, and likely another three to four million minor league contests. One death in four million games, over 36 million innings, and thousands of first base coaches. One.

A helmet may have saved Coolbaugh's life. Or it may not have; he was apparently hit in the temple and barely had any time to react to the batted ball. But his death, tragic as it was, is clearly an EXCEPTIONALLY RARE EVENT in the history of professional baseball. I do not believe any other base coach has ever suffered Coolbaugh's fate. Ever. I bet that even if you add in all the amateur games, sandlot games, little league games, American Legion ball games, everything, you will not find a second incident of a base coach being killed by a batted ball.

MLB's decree that coaches must now wear helmets is an excellent symbolic PR move, but nothing more. It is based on fear and hysteria, not on good sense or intelligent analysis. Seeing Bowa's truculent response, the Coaches helmet rule has clearly irritated the players and coaches, who see that a helmet protects MLB's reputation far more than it protects their heads.

Mets: The Chubby 8-Year-Old Fan

2008-02-20T23:02:00.000-08:00

Ya know, I'm a native Noo Yawkuh, born in Queens, went to high school in Manhattan, worked in Albany for a while, went to school in various locations upstate, and am now working summers in Oneonta, NY, as one of the Directors of the New York Summer Music Festival. I can ride the subways without getting lost, can divert homeless beggar bums with a single glare, tell taxi drivers if they're going the wrong way, and find any open pizza joints even at 2am in the city.

All of that makes me a genuine, bona fide, tried and true, cliche-spouting New Yorker.

I have been a Mets fan since 1974, thirteen years into their existence. I attended as many games as I physically could from the time I was a chubby, bespectacled 8-year-old who brought a little blue baseball glove to every game. I hogged the TV for every single televised game, broadcast on WWOR channel 9. For some of the west coast games that started at 10pm, I would sit and fiddle with the radio well past midnight to hear Bob, Lindsay, and Ralph calling the games from an entire continent away.

I sometimes even cried when they lost a close game in the ninth (or eighth, or sometimes the first inning -- anyone remember Pete Falcone and his magic gopher balls?).

Just look at all that New Yorker and diehard Met fan stuff I've listed above. I consider myself the real thing. A NY and NY Met fanatic, and shall be until the universe collapses back into itself (if the Big Bang Theory is indeed correct, but sheesh, none of us will ever know for sure).

So why is it that guys like Fred Wilpon say nonsense like "New York is a real 'win now' mentality," or "NY is a total 'what have you done for me lately' kind of town"????

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I'm here to debunk all the nonsense that I hear about folk like me. From the mythical "fans" who supposedly demand the team "wins now" and screw the whole "build for the future" approach. It's total garbage, thought up by impatient General Managers and knuckleheaded owners who use the greatest city in the world - and the greatest fans in the universe - as excuses for their own screwups.

The team engineers the worst baseball collapse in history? Blame the fans for forcing the team to push their tired players too hard. Lose to the Yankees in the World Series? Fire the most colorful, annoying, entertaining, and baseball savvy manager in the league (Valentine) and scapegoat the city, saying NYC is tired of his antics and just wants to WIN. Etc etc etc.

While I love to hear about blockbuster trades that benefit the Mets, I certainly do not DEMAND them. Nor have I ever stopped watching/loving the Mets just because they sucked for many years.

From the post-Midnight Massacre years (featuring Dave Kingman, Mike Jorgenson, and other far from legendary ballplayers) through the world series win in 1986; from the Art Howe years (shudder), the Willie Randolph years (shudder), the Bobby Valentine Dynasty (yay yay yay) to the pathetic early 90s, I always ALWAYS was happy to drop everything to listen or watch the ballgame.

Just like any baseball fan, I want to see my favorite team win the world series every single year. But I also accept that will not happen -- even for Yankee fans (oh snap!) -- and that has no affect on the unreasonable love and affection and time and attention I slather upon my number one team, Da Mets.

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So please, to those zillions of readers who have been fooled into believing that we New Yorkers are the impatient, heartless, obscenely rich, and incredibly fair-weather buffoons that headline-hungry sportswriters and baseball execs have been selling you all these years ... please remember the chubby little 8-year-old who couldn't hold back the tears when reliever Bob Apodaca couldn't hold the lead in 1975 - and was right back in front of the TV the next night, cheering the team for the next 32 years and beyond.

Let's Go Mets. Even when you suck.

It's Finally Time for Cockeyed Optimism!

2008-01-29T16:34:00.000-08:00

Finally, something happened this offseason worth blogging about!

MLB.COM: METS LAND SANTANA FOR FOUR PROSPECTS

A bona-fide pitching ace is coming to our favorite team in exchange for four spare parts. With a modicum of luck, this is going to be the trade that balances the tear in the space-time continuum that sent Hall of Famer Tom Seaver to the Reds for four spare parts in 1977.

Baseball: Just Being a Met is Good Enough

2007-10-31T19:03:00.001-07:00

It must be due to the internet. Speculation about trades and free agent signings used to be the province of rotisserie baseball goofballs who spend their lives buying two sets of baseball cards: one for collecting, the other for endless riffling and reading and enjoyment.

When I was a young kid baseball Mets fan back in the 70s, I don't remember thinking about a single potential trade or free agent signing. I recall Linda de Roulet claiming that she was going to sign Pete Rose back around 1977 when he became the most desirable free agent in the universe, but that's it.

I never remember, either, ever even dreaming about forcing a player to change positions due to a potential free agent signing or a trade. It was out of the realm of thinking for an 8-year-old, of course. To kids like me, the team was already perfect. I never cared that Lee Mazzilli had the worst throwing arm in the majors. It didn't matter that Ellis Valentine couldn't hit. Or that Roy Staiger was Wayne Garret's replacement at third for a little while. They were MY Mets, and by definition, they were perfect. If the personnel changed from year to year, that was fine. I even welcomed the arrival of Claudell Washington for his two-month stint -- simply be being a Met, he was okay.

Aging creates a bit too much sanity when it comes to baseball. I was a little older when legendary sourpuss Richie Hebner joined the team in an offseason trade. He was the first Met I recall ever actually disliking, with his loud complaining in the newspapers about how much he hated being on my team.

As the years passed, I hardly noticed, but being a Met was no longer enough. Now, at age 40, I suddenly realized that I was finding fault in virtually everyone on the team. I had completely lost my youthful joys in loving my hometown team, in finding tears and frustration in each loss, and wild unrestrained joy at every win.

Now I unthinkingly analyze events, identify mistakes, praise the empty room at excellence.

Whatever happened to just enjoying the game? I must investigate my synapses for this.

BASEBALL: Ex Met Does Good

2007-10-07T00:55:00.000-07:00

Kazuo Matsui has nearly singlehandedly represented the Rockies' offense this postseason. The numbers are fantastic:

5 for 12 (.417)
2 runs
1 double
2 triples
1 home run (Grand slam)
6 rbi
2 walks
2 strikeouts
.500 OBP

I've always been an irrationally pro-Matsui Mets fan. Probably due to our genetic similarity ... yes, I admit humbly to being a little bit nationalistic/ethnic/racist in rooting for this Japanese man, solely because I myself am Japanese by genes.

However, there was never anything racist in my dislike of the Mets' organization's handling of this fellow. Sure, they paid him a boatload of money and had an equally heavy boatload of expectations for him, and in return he had difficulty adjusting to American baseball, was often injured and on the Disabled List, and didn't hit or field anything near to his Japanese career numbers.

From my uneducated perspective out here in LA, though, I saw a clear dislike of Matsui from both former Mets manager Art Howe and current one Willie Randolph. Or perhaps it was just the frustrating language barrier. Whatever the reason, Matsui found himself constantly in competition with the likes of Miguel Cairo and Ty Wigginton for his job as a starting second baseman -- while guys like Roger Cedeno and Mo Vaughn were continually run onto the field to hit for a lower average combined than Matsui.

Many other bloggers and professional sportswriters have noted this weakness in recent Mets managers. He plays his personal favorites at the expense of the team. Look at his unfathomable handling of the Mets bullpen this year, as well as his constant refusal to take control of his personnel. He's the MANAGER, for goodness' sakes; and he has been reported for allowing his players to dictate when they will or will not play.

It appears that he is unable to tell his obnoxious, pushy players "I'm your goddamn manager, you do as I say, because whatever I do is for the goddamn team." But to his weaker, less vocal, or mute (non-English-speaking) team members, he tells them "I don't like you, so I'm gonna lord it over you the whole season."

Fire Willie.

METS: Beating a Metaphor to Death, Zombiehood, Death again

2007-06-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

Manager Willie Randolph of the Mets plays favorites.

Fundamentally, there's no crime being committed. Everyone likes to see their favorites being favored: personally, my favorite food is genuine NY pizza; my favorite flavor of coffee is plain; my favorite toe is my second toe on my right foot, because I can make it wriggle and snap like a fat silverfish doing the limbo.

There always comes a time in everyone's life, though, where your favorite whatever suddenly loses its appeal. That watermelon-flavored Now & Later no longer tastes as good as when you were six years old, for example. Or a tall glass of cold milk that once went soooo well with a box of Chips Ahoy all at once begins to taste like rotten cheese and plastic.

Most people simply stop eating their favorites and find the next delicious favorite in their life. Eventually, the wonderful flavors of your favorites do return, and you can enjoy them anew.

With the horrifically slumping Carloses, Beltran and Delgado, Willie is refusing to believe that letting his favorites rest might actually be to his benefit. Both are in what may be the worst slumps of their careers, and are both actively hurting the team every night with their 0-fers and increasingly worse glovework, possibly caused by their distress over their lousy batwork, and spiraling them both into a pit of despair into which they are dragging the entire team.

The construction of this team, though, may make it impossible to bench these guys. With Endy Chavez, Lastings Milledge, and Moises Alou all on the disabled list, there's nobody to take Trannie's place should he go on the DL. Ricky Ledee in center? No thanks.

Similarly, Delgado sitting would mean Julio Franco would be the starting first baseman, and he's shown that his starting is no longer the best thing for him or for the team.

The bench would have Carlos and Carlos, but with their hitting and fielding woes, they are nearly worthless as pinch hitters or defensive replacements.

So despite the fact that the taste of Carlos and Carlos has soured over the last six weeks, there may be no choice but to keep taking them down off the shelf and desperately trying to make yourself still like their stale flavor.

Analogies stink. But right now, so do our favorite Carloses. I wish both were untrue!

FINANCE: car lease vs purchase?

2007-06-08T17:19:00.000-07:00

I have bought two cars -- no, make that three, in my life. Each time, I had to make the choice: lease, or buy?

Ironically, all the people who told me to LEASE were the same people who insisted that "paying rent is throwing your money away." How could they justify their attitude towards leasing a car, which is essentially renting a set of wheels for three years, desperately trying not to drive it more than a thousand miles a month?

When I looked at the monthly payments of a lease vs a purchase, I discovered that the payments were virtually identical: roughly $350/month, which meant after three years, I could either deal with getting another lease, or after 5 years, I could rejoice in not having to pay a bank for me to use my own car.

I chose to look forward to the days where I didn't have monthly payments. I have bought all of my cars, rather than leasing them. But I have wondered if I have actually saved any money by doing so? Are the rampaging republicans who insist on re-leasing new cars every three years actually SMARTER that I?

The thought was intolerable. So I finally did some calcuations on a chunk of scrap paper that I didn't want to lose, so here they are for all to share:

LEASE: ($25,000 Honda) $2200 down, $209/month for 36 months = $7524/year.
Total three year cost: about $25,000

BUY: ($25,000 Toyota) $15,000 down, $325/month x 36 months = $11,700
Total 3 yr cost: about $27,000

I kept my last car for nine years, so once I finished paying for it, it cost roughly $30,000, if you add general maintenance. What would have it cost me to lease a car for those same nine years? About $30,000.

CONCLUSION: Renting and leasing cost EXACTLY THE SAME, especially over the span of a decade. Finally a definitive answer to the question! So all you people in the situation of buying vs leasing a car, there's the hard solid fact.

(It's NEVER worth selling a car to a dealer, by the way, especially when trading one you own as part of purchasing a new one. The dealers will never give you more than a thousand bucks for a perfectly good old car; you could keep it and have a spare for the price of registration. So keep it on hand, you never know when a spare car will come in handy!)

Whew. Now I can throw away that scratch paper.

Baseball: Remember - DON'T BLAME THE UMP!

2007-05-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Nearly thirty years ago, playing little league ball for the "Jayson's" team in Forest Hills, NY, I struck out looking at a pitch that I kinda remember to have sailed past me at the height of my eyeballs. When I was punched out, amindst the clapping and cheers from the parents in the stands, I turned to glare at the ump in disgusted disbelief.

Of course, it wasn't like Strike Three was a Great Unknown to me; I think I struck out about 3/4 of the time. My hitting eye stank worse than Windows Vista. Or any version of Internet Explorer. Or an enormous pile of fresh donkey dung baking in 100% humidity and 95-degree fahrenheit temperatures. Or Windows Vista.

Getting back to that Little League game. After the game, I wrote a letter to my grown up friend Mr. Masaru Madate, a sportswriter covering the Yomiuri Tokyo Giants in Japan. He had recently written me asking how my atrocious Little League career had been going, and I thought he would be a perfectly sympathetic ear over this lousy, blind, useless umpire.

His letter back included the worst betrayal of my life. He said, "Don't blame the umpire."

Today's game brought back this ancient betrayal with, not a vengeance, but with an understanding of which I was incapable when I was twelve years old. Over the past few games, the legendary Angel Hernandez's umpiring crew had been tormenting the Mets with spectacularly blown calls, one after another after another. Missed tags, bad judgements, unbelievable check swing calls, the litany went on and on, and all of them against my heroically hometown team.

The fiendish umpiring seemed to continue today. Paul LoDuca's check swing in the bottom of the 10th was called a swing when I (of course) felt it was a check. Vizquel's slide home atop the 12th, apparantly juuuuuust ahead of LoDuca's sweep tag, giving the Giants the 4-3 lead.

I was grumbling about the filthy umps again. All set to blog and complain about them as bitterly as I possibly could.

Then the first base ump called Giants closer Armando Benitez for a balk, sending Jose Reyes to second base. Endy Chavez bunted him to third; Carlos Beltran grounded out to second in a drawn-in infield (2 out); Carlos Delgado came up to bat with the tying run on third.

And then the third base ump called Benitez for ANOTHER balk. Reyes skipped home, scoring the tying run, gleefully celebrating Benitez's screwup. The game was tied, and the crowd was going berserk.

Mr. Madate's words came back to me just about the time Delgado hit his second home run of the night, winning the Mets' fourth game in a row, and sending Benitez and his catcher Molina back to the dugout with furrowed brows and brimming tear ducts.

"Don't blame the umpire."

After all, those men in blue (or black, as they generally are these days) don't swing the bats, throw the pitches, steal the bases. They are human judges, paid to make up to 500 calls a night, trying to get each one correct without the benefit of instant replays, hindsight, or multimillion dollar endorsement deals.

If only I had actually played more than a couple of dismal little league seasons, getting a single hit (a triple) and a dozen walks and about 50 strikeouts, perhaps I would have learned the second half of Mr. Madate's words of wisdom as applied to baseball:

"The breaks will even out over time."

Especially with Armando "Meltdown" Benitez on the mound.

The Fraternity of Bad Broadcasters

2007-05-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

The television broadcast team of the Arizona Diamondbacks - Daron Sutton, Greg Schulte, and Mark Grace - have joined a very easy fraternity of broadcasters. The Fraternity of "Homers".

It's not a compliment. It refers to a professional sports broadcaster who considers cheerleading for their employers to be part of their jobs.

Here are some examples of what can generally be considered "bad broadcasting".

Sutton actually anthropormorphizes every pitch. "Oh, an ANGRY fastball," he called in the top of the 4th inning of today's Mets-Diamondbacks game.
Sutton also talks to the players just like any eight-year-old fan would, while watching the game in their living room (for example, "2 and 0 the count, be careful," he pleaded with the Diamondback pitcher).
"Oh, goooood pitch -- even though it missed and it's ball 1," said Mark Grace multiple times during this broadcast. and when Chris Snyder hit a two run homer in the bottom of the fifth, I actually heard what sounded like CLAPPING in the booth!
"Good breaking ball, nice block," said Sutton in the top of the 8th about a pitch by Diamondback reliever Brandon Lyon -- however, the pitch was in the dirt and nowhere near the plate. He said the same thing again to the next Met batter.

To my ears, listening to this broadcast was the same as listening to a couple of meatheads in a bar. The kind of guys who fancy themselves the ONLY experts on the planet, and are ready to argue vehemently with anyone who points out they're completely full of crap.

BASEBALL: The Curse of A-Rod

2007-04-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

Seven years ago, Alex Rodriguez became the most highly paid baseball player in the known galaxy when he signed a 10-year, $250,000,000 deal to play baseball for the Texas Rangers. He was arguably the best baseball player in history at that time and everyone in the sports business expected A-Rod to lead his new team to a Golden Decade of Dominance, to win World Series Rings by the fistful.

The Rangers proceeded to finish in last place every year he was there.

How could such a thing happen? While A-Rod was piling up home runs, RBIs, and other mightily impressive statistics, the Rangers were slapping together a starting pitching staff that would have been hard-pressed to beat the Bad News Bears. Perhaps the fact that they were playing a single player an average of $25 million a year had something to do with their inability to buy, trade, beg, borrow, steal, or exhume any semblence of a team to surround the poor guy.

The lesson: one ballplayer cannot win a World Series on his own. It really does take a complete team of 25 players.

A-Rod escaped the Pit of Arlington through a desperate trade a couple of years ago, ending his stint in purgatory, TX and sending him to the most successful ball team in history, the New York Yankees. This young 2007 baseball season has been a rebirth for A-Rod, and he has apparantly rediscovered his "Best Player Ever" credentials, setting a new April record for home runs, RBI, and all kinds of other batting stats for his current team, the NY Yankees.

And once again, his team features a little-league starting pitching rotation.

The New York Yankees have transformed into the Texas Yankees.

It is the Curse of A-Rod. With this guy on your team, your pitching will shrivel and die. Beware all baseball owners who would trade, buy, bribe, or otherwise obtain the Best Baseball Player Ever. You have been forwarned. Twice, now.

--Keisuke

MLB.tv VS MLBExtraInnings: Strike Three!

2007-04-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

Just last week, my irritating Practial Self has emerged victoriously in the hugest issue facing all baseball fans who have moved out of their parents' house. That issue? Whether Major League Baseball would allow all cable, satellite, and other TV services to carry their MLB Extra Innings package, or only allow DishNetwork the exclusive privilege of such. The cost that DishNetwork agreed to pay? A mere $700,000,000 (that's seven hundred million dollars) over ten years, plus part ownership in the upcoming Baseball TV Network.

Despite eleventh- and twelvth-hour negotiations from all parties, my television service (DishNetwork) turned out to be the biggest loser in the game. InDemand (cable) and DirecTV both were granted the right to carry ExtraInnings, by virtue of the fact that they are willing to give Major League Baseball several bank-fuls of money. Apparantly, DishNetwork isn't so willing to part with their cash reserves and pension funds, so as of the opening of baseball season 2007, I can't watch my Mets play on TV anymore.

But did I scream and cry? Heck no! Instead, my Practical Self very practically figured the following:

I can subscribe to MLB.tv and watch the Met games I want to watch over the Internet.
I don't have to switch from DishNetwork to DirecTV or Adelphia Cable.
I can subscribe monthly for $20, rather than paying up to $200 for the entire six month season at once.
I will be teaching at the New York Summer Music Festival (NYSMF) from June through August, meaning I would not even be at home to watch televised baseball games for three months
I will be able to watch the games anytime online - no more missing broadcasts because I've not set my VCR correctly

Two games later, I am ready to shoot my Practical Self with a potato gun and bury its body behind the fig tree in the backyard. The realities of watching MLB.tv are simply appalling.

The visual image from even the 700K MLB.tv feed is absolutely horrible. The picture looks just as bad as a UHF station on my childhood television set: lots of muddy colors, melted-looking edges, and even worse, digital artifacts surrounding every single pixel on the screen.
The audio quality is dreadful. It sounds like an AM radio heard through a cellular phone connection. Plus there is "drift"; the audio drifts out of sync with the video track after about 10-20 minutes. I have to click PAUSE and then PLAY to reset the drifting, and it returns after another half hour.
There's no way to "time shift": that is, if I arrive home in the third inning, there is no way for me to start watching the game from the beginning.
I cannot easily fast forward through the game. When I just recorded the game on a VCR, i could tap the FFD or REW buttons anytime, and shoot past all the uninteresting bits and bad broadcaster banter in any way I wanted. This allowed me to see a 3 1/2 hour game in under 80 minutes. Not so in MLB.tv -- even in an archived game, there is no fine control over FFD and REW.
I cannot see the archived games until 6am the next day. What genius thought of this? I've tried to watch a completed game an hour or two after its end, and I simply cannot get the feed to happen. The "Condensed Game" is available, but big whoop. If i wanted that, i would just read the newspapers.

The clear conclusion: MLB.tv is a terrible way to follow your favorite team during the baseball season. Especially after enjoying MLB Extra Innings for the past three seasons. No matter how bad the satellite feed may look (and believe me, "Digital Quality" means "low quality"), it is a 10,000% improvement over the headache-inducing, eye-squinting, postcard-size experience of watching TV over the internet.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see how much it would cost to switch to DirecTV or Adelphia Cable. My surgically repaired eyeballs and even my Practical Self are begging me.

METS: Absence Makes The Carlos Grow Fonder

2007-03-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

I finally understand why David Wright has been shoehorned into the number-2 hole in the batting order so often this spring. It's simply because the guy he's supposed to protect in the batting order, that gorgeous hunk o' monster Carlos Delgado, is busy being a gushing smiling new daddy back home in Puerto Rico.

It also reveals quite a weakness in the Mets lineup. If Delgado's absence is causing such a mess in the offense already, what will happen during the real season if he takes a day off?

Sure, manager Willie Randolph had been experimenting with Wright batting second even before Delgado took off to be with his wife, but I think the results so far have shown that it's not especially useful to do so. The team has had awful results in scoring runs these past five weeks, and a strong possibility to WHY can lie in the composition and layout of this lineup.

The team is already slugger-heavy like an American League team. Over the years, I've seen how lumbering lineup can rot away the manager's mind, having them constantly dream of Earl Weaver's "Three Run Homer" offense. So you get plenty of games where the team blasts a bunch of homers and wins by a dozen runs -- and plenty of games that are lost on the missed bunts, the wasted sacrifice situations, the romance and allure of swinging for the fences rather than building an attack batter by batter (anyone remember the ninth inning of last October's final game for the Mets?).

With Jose Reyes putting on daily exhibitions of "small ball", the rest of the team hasn't had to work very hard at anything but swinging as hard as they can. It's like Reyes is the only NL component of the lineup, while the rest of the hitters are pure AL.

However, upon further analysis: who else on the starting 9 actually is a prototypical #2 hitter? Nobody, and that's the truth. The analysis actually makes me, for the first time, feel great sympathy for manager Willie Randolph. On any given day, his catcher and 2/3 of his starting outfield could be in need of rest; his second baseman could be faced with hitting from the right side, which means he needs to be replaced with a platoon guy who CAN; and his first baseman might start feeling the pangs of age and might ask for a little rest (to be replaced with another first baseman nearly 15 years older than her).

In every case, the man being replaced is a power hitter. And in every case, his replacement is not (Julio Franco, Endy Chavez, Lastings Milledge, Ben Johnson, Damian Easley, Ramon Castro). The lineup is no longer as top-heavy as an augmented porn actress with home run threats, and suddenly, the entire team hitting strategy must do a complete about-face.

Poor, poor Willie. Maybe this is the year where he will have to come face to face with NL-style baseball. Nyahh nyahnn hyannn.

Mets: MLB.com = Lifetime

2007-03-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

I have figured out why I don't enjoy reading any articles on MLB.com anymore. They are written in a repeating formula, with every article padded with pointless metaphor and flowery simile, a writing style more appropriate to a women's fashion magazine. For example, check this story about Mike Pelfrey in today's MLB.com news:

Mike Pelfrey, hoping to secure the fifth spot in the Mets' rotation, allowed four runs in five innings on Sunday against the Astros. The young right-hander felt disappointed, but shortly after the game, his mood brightened markedly when manager Willie Randolph told him that he has made the starting rotation.

This reads like an old Hardy Boys mystery, or something out of my second-grade Weekly Reader textbook. And check out this tarnished gem of prose from another overwritten feature story about Tom Glavine:

As much as any starter, he knows his way around the delays, distractions and pomp. Some of the pomp this time will be a tad disconcerting.

There is a note at the end of every article written on MLB.com, that "this story was not subject to approval by MLB or any club." This is more and more translating to actually mean that these posts are not run by any professional editors or experienced sports writers.

Okay, I'm being kinda harsh, but I was raised on the stark journalism of The New York Times. Their editors strictly prohibited writing that did not stick to the story itself. Obivious filler phrases like the junk in the Glavine article would be redlined instantly. Amateurish storytelling as in the Pelfrey article would have gotten the writer an admonishment, a chewing-out, and perhaps even a dismissal from the Times writing staff.

What I am finding overall on the writing for MLB.com is a lack of polish and professionalism. There is more filler jammed in their articles than in a cheap hot dog. As a result, I am having a very difficult time reading anything on the site, because I am continually trying to skip over the drivel and read the actual NEWS and FACTS that I originally wanted to see.

And what gives me the right to criticize this pantheon of professional writers for unprofessional writing, sloppy reporting, and uninteresting work? The simple fact that I am their audience. Shape up, MLB.com writers! You've driven one reader away with your bad writing!

Mets: End of Spring Ruminations

2007-03-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

Another day, another mightily forgettable meaningly spring training game. Albeit the Mets got pounded 11-3 by the Astros' second string team today, I was dying of boredom by the third inning.

Up in the broadcast booth, Keith Hernandez, Gary Cohen, and Ralph Kiner were suffering right along with all of us. They ignored the game for innings at a time to chat about baseball memories, with the venerable Kiner telling two Yogi Berra quotes that I had never heard before:

Mets pitcher Tom Seaver was jogging past Yogi in the outfield during spring training a few decades ago, and called out, "Yogi, what time is it?" And Yogi replied, "You mean right now?"
At a funeral for someone that others were surprised to see Yogi attending, he explained, "Hey, if you don't go to theirs, they won't come to yours."

The highlight of the game was not anything that occurred on the field, either between the foul lines or outside of them. It was the Grilling of Omar Minaya by the Hernandez-Cohen broadcasting team. They were asking questions about the team, the philosphies, predictions, all the fun topics that are bandied about so irresponsibly on the Internet.

For once, Omar Minaya sounded defensive. He repeated the phrase "YouknowwhadI'msayin" over and over, and stuttered and struggled and stammered for words that would carefully keep the peace with his manager, his team owner, and his players.

He really sounded as if he were on an actual Hot Seat! Keith asked him about the logic of batting David Wright in the #2 spot. Gary questioned him about leaving Pelfrey in the minors until mid-April, and bringing along Lastings Milledge in his stead for that time. Now, I like Omar and respect his obvious baseball and business savvy, but I was also enjoying his discomfort.

Cruel, perhaps, but he knew what he was getting into when he accepted the job.

Mets: The Doggin' It Days of Spring Training

2007-03-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

It's the top of the 4th and the Mets are being pummeled by the Washington Nationals, 8-0, while wearing bilious green-and-orange hats that would look better on a softball diamond with some kind of cartoonish food creature serving as a logo.

The "Doggin' It" days of Spring Training are officially here. This long-established term (which I just made up one whole sentence ago) means the regular players are playing about half-speed, half-hearted, quarter-enthusiastic baseball; and the ones trying to make the team (rookies, retreads, and reprobates) are worn out from worry, not to mention being stressed out by the sleepwalking play of the guys who already have guaranteed jobs.

Good lord, it's gone up to 13-0 in the time it took to write this so far. Yah, that's definitely Doggin' Days defined.

Which begs the question as to just WHY Spring Training is still a full six weeks long every year. Every baseball book I've read, and every ballplayer who talks about Spring Training, all make the same complaint: it's just too long.

The players obviously lose interest after they are ready to go, which takes at most a couple of weeks. Just look at today's play: sloppy defense everywhere, indifferent at-bats from every Met at the plate.
Pitchers claim they need more time to "stretch themselves out", slowly building up their stamina by throwing one, three, five innings -- but most current pitchers don't pitch much further into games during the regular season, so once they hit 5 innings, why keep pitching?
Results in Spring Training seem never to translate into regular season performance. The 86 Mets were .500 during the spring, and won 108 games during the season.
Results in ST often do not translate into playing time. Remember Art Howe's brilliant decision to sit Timo Perez and Tsuyoshi Shinjo, who both hit nearly .400 during ST, in favor of Jeromy Burnitz and Roger Cedeno, whose averages remained around .200 for two full seasons?

Making all this contagious boredom worse is the horrible quality of DishNetwork's off-prime-time broadcast signals. I have concluded that "Digital Quality" actually means "crap": the picture is absolutely polluted with blocky digital compression artifacts, making the game look as if I am watching it through a thick, rusted screen door. If you are reading, DishNetwork, your product is LOUSY!!!!

Someone hit fast-forward please and let's get this season started. Cut two weeks off of spring training, move up the start of the season by that same amount, and hey, the playoffs suddenly don't take all of the month of November to finish!

Lets Go Mets already. Sheesh.

Mets: How to Enjoy a Spring Training Game

2007-03-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

Today's game against the Marlins featured a remarkable display of bad play in the top of the second. The net result: three very unearned runs, and a four run deficit for Mets leading pitcher Tom Glavine.

Were this the regular season, I would be all upset and swearing at second baseman Jose Valentin, at manager Willie Randolph for running him out there every day, at David Wright for making yet another throwing error, blah blah blah blah blah, undoing all the blood-pressure-reducing pillpopping that my doctor enforced on me this offseason.

Instead, I was amazed to find myself really enjoying the game. Each muffed play seemed funnier than the last. In fact, the last time I laughed so much at a sporting event was the last full-fledged softball game I was a part of, in which the score ended up something like 23-22 in six innings.

Spring training is the proball equivalent of Celebrity Softball. It's just great to be watching my favorite team, listening to my favorite broadcasting team, lying on the sofa with the promise of a good hot day just outside of my wide open front door.

Dreams of cheering the Mets during a postseason run are far, far from my thoughts. This is just good old entertainment for now. So I won't be feeling any intense thoughts or making any tough, darkly perceptive analyses of individual player performances. Instead:

I'll be laughing at the tip-toeing way Shawn Green goes after fly balls, looking as if he is practicing for the Balanchine Ballet company up until the moment he belly-flops for a routine pop fly -- in seeming slow motion, no less!
I'll be playing the part of Judge for the Jose Reyes Smile-a-Like contest, with Carlos Beltran actually lighting up the dugout with his shiny white teeth.
And doing impressions of Ruben Sierra's mincing in the batters box, combining it most logically with the Crane Style Fighting Technique from the original "Karate Kid" film with Ralph Macchio.

And of course, whooping and cheering at the majestic home run to left-center that David Wright just hit. I am, after all, a gen-u-ine Mets fan, and can't help but punch happily at the air when the boys do good. Zowie. That thing was HIT!

MLB Extra Innings -- Drama in Paradise!

2007-03-03T10:40:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted to be watching a Mets game on channel 11's feed out of NYC, arriving in my television way out here in Los Angeles at 10 in the morning! Who cares that these games don't mean a thing; that I'll only get to see my Mets favorites for only a few innings; that the game will feature a lot of shoddy play, indifferent performance, or that it'll still be nearly a month before my real knuckle-chewing, bug-eyed intensity for cheering on the Mets can begin in earnest.

Mets telecasts are just like an electronic passive babysitter for me. Turn on the game and you can leave me alone for the next three hours. Don't worry about me burning down the house or blowing up the kitchen or otherwise getting into trouble. I'll be focussed on those grown men standing around on that pretty green field.

MLB's pending deal of offering their Extra Innings package exclusively with DirecTV might take that all away.

Okay, that's being overly dramatic. Since I'm a grown man, I can easily call DishNetwork, cancel my subscription, and then call up DirecTV and have them install their system here. It's a bit of a hassle, sure, but it that's the only choice MLB will give me to watch the Mets from my home in Los Angeles, it's not too bad a price to pay.

There's really nothing to complain about, now that I consider this deal. The cost will be the same to me no matter which system I use, be it cable, Dish, Direc, whatever. Plus, much like Corporate America, the only way I can actually get more perks is by changing companies. Meaning that I will be treated better as a newcomer than I would as a loyal veteran.

See, although I have been a Dish subscriber for years, they refuse to give me anything more for free. When I request any of their "new subscriber" promotions -- i.e. additional receivers, HD, DVD recorders, hard drive recorder receivers, dancing girls, visits from Army Recruiters -- I just get sneered at by their telephone service reps.

Now, if I jump ship and head for DirecTV, they'll give me everything but a new TV set for free. Multiple receivers, a couple of months of HBO, digital recorders, HD capability, and heavy discounts on my subscription. Finally, if the MLB deal is actually approved by the FCC or whomever is currently standing in its way, this will be the only choice I would have to see my babysitting Mets games.

From my viewpoint, MLB and DirecTV can do whatever they want. It's not a matter of loyalty, nor a question of quality. I only wish they'd make a decision already, so I can be assured that I will not miss a game on my Precious TV. Precioussssssssssss.

More Orientals In Baseball!!!!

2007-02-01T13:42:00.000-08:00

Speaking for all Orientals all over the world, I hereby insist and demand that there be more Orientals in the front offices of baseball clubs!

Major League Baseball is over a century old and is branching out internationally. And yet, in addition to the 1,799 white (Caucasian-Amerian) employees of the major league front office personnel, and the few hundred black (African-American) and the scattering of latinos (Mexican-American, Domican-American, and El Chupanibre-Amerians), there is only one known Oriental (Asian-Amerian) employee in the front office of any MLB club (Dodgers) -- and the only press she got was when a Caucasian-Amerian employee from the Mets front office leered at her a couple of years back.

And where are the Oriental coaches? The Oriental managers? The Oriental minor league training staff? And even Oriental concessionaires meandering the crowded aisles of American ballparks? Where are they? Why isn't MLB doing more to help the poor, oppressed, ignored, waffle-stomped, repressed, pathetic Oriental Asian Amerians?

It's time to take a stand, Oriental America! We deserve parity with every other ethnic-American group. We have been been treated shabbily, yea, shabbily, I say, by all the employers of this country, especially MLB. Stand up and shake off the stereotype that we are short! Well, I'm only five foot six, but I'm standing!

MLB, stop wasting time talking about increasing opportunities to already-represented minorities. You've already GOT a few black managers, a bunch of latinos, a native american or two, and a whole stableful of lawyers. It's time to make a real difference in your Push for Diversity. It's time you made an Oriental woman a manager of a major league team.

If Art Howe can hold down such a job, there's no excuse for someone as qualified as Sandra Oh, Lucy Liu, or Michelle Lee not to be given a shot.

Orientals In Baseball. Catch Them. This Time It Counts.

Keisuke Hoashi
Oriental Since 1967
This has been a post dripping with irony and sarcasm. As if you didn't already figure that out.

Personal Finance: When is Renting NOT Wasting Money? Answer ...

2007-01-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

For a very long time, my concept of "Personal Finances" consisted solely of believing that if you wanted to BUY something, you absolutely, positively MUST have the money to pay for it. After all, that's how things worked when you went to the corner newsstand, the supermarket, or the to pizza store.

That mindset works wonderfully for credit card bills. Thanks to my sister and my mom, I have always made a point of paying off EVERY such bill IN FULL, every month, no excuses. They taught me that paying any kind of interest, finance charge, etc. is a shameful waste of money, and money should either be spent of saved, NEVER wasted.

Then I bought my first car.

Although I had a fine job at the NCR Corporation, there was no way I could consider buying $18,000 of automobile on a credit card, and paying for it in full at the end of the billing cycle. Nor did I have a checking account with that kind of money in it -- and even if I had, draining it would have made buying gas, groceries, heat, and rent impossible. So how is it possible for anyone to buy something so expensive?

That was when I learned about "financing". That you could borrow a huge chunk of money from a bank, and then pay it back a little at a time. The catch -- and it's a gigantic one -- is that you get charged a large fee for each payment. So instead of paying the $18,000 the car actually cost, you end up paying close to $25,000 for the privilege of borrowing someone else's money.

I hated the concept. It may be legal, it may even be fair and reasonable, but what it really means is that I wasted seven thousand dollars over sixty months.

My sister, and many people around the world, insist that renting an apartment is an even bigger waste of money. And there is lots of documentation to support this position:

If you rent an apartment for $1,000/month for ten years, you will have paid $120,000 in rent.
If you bought a condo for $120,000, you can pay it off for $1100/month for a 10-year mortgage (loan) at 6.25% and a 20% down payment of $24,000 (total payments of $155,000, which include $35,000 in interest costs.)

So at the end of thirteen years and $155,000, the condo buyer has been living payment-free for three years, while the apartment dweller has continued paying a thousand bucks a months and will continue until death. If that's another 40 years, that's nearly a HALF-MILLION DOLLARS total.

From this example, it looks like buying a home is unquestionably the most economical solution, right? Even with the $35,000 in interest payments, the homeowner could conceivably not have to spend another dime in home payments for the rest of their life.

However, look at what happens as the price of the house/condo rises:

$120,000 = $1100/month = $155,000 total payments (6.25%, 20% down, 10 yr loan) = $35,000 interest
$250,000 = $1700/month = $360,000 total payments (6.25%, 20% down, 15 yr loan) = $110,000 interest
$250,000 = $1250/month = $500,000 total payments (6.25%, 20% down, 30 yr loan) = $250,000 interest
$500,000 = $2500/month = $980,000 total payments (6.25%, 20% down, 30 yr loan) = $480,000 interest (!!!)

From this calculation, it looks to me that once your total homeowning payments EXCEED the $500,000 estimated cost of renting over your lifetime, the cost of owning a home is no longer worth bragging about to your friends.

This "sweet spot" number, according to my calculations, is around $300,000. Anything more than that, and you're spending more money on buying the house than you would just renting a place for a thousand bucks a month.

Here in Los Angeles, the median price for a home is $500,000 -- fully $200K higher than that "sweet spot". My rent for my wonderful 1-bedroom loft apartment, where I've been living for eight years, is right around $1100, so I've paid about $100K for this place. My rent paid during my lifetime to date is roughly $200K. And if I live another 40 years, that should bring my grand total up to, say, $650,000 in rent payments.

The whole point of this dreary post was purely selfish. I needed to figure out at what point it would make financial sense to stop renting an apartment and start paying for a townhouse. And my conclusions?

Well, fourteen years ago, when I arrived in Los Angeles and 1-bedroom condos could be had for $125K, THAT was that mythical point of Financial Sense. Today, that exact same tiny condo runs for $450K, which would translate into:

Doubled monthly payment (from $1100 to $2400)
Additional payments for Homeowner Association fees (appx $300/month)
Up to half a million dollars in money wasted in the form of interest payments to the bank

So much for buying a townhouse in this town. Now, of course, if I moved to, say, Oneonta, NY, I could buy a duplex for $145,000 ...

No. Los Angeles is my home. And that's a tradeoff that's worth the $650,000 Lifetime Rent Payments.

Second Base For Sale

2007-01-15T20:38:00.000-08:00

Second base has been an exciting turnstile over the last few years for the Metskis. I grew up in the era of Felix Millan (who never missed a game due to injury) and then Doug Flynn, who won a Gold Glove at the position on a team whose only goal was NOT to lose 100 games in a season. I of course remember Wally Backman of the mid-80s teams, and then Edgardo Alfonzo manning the position for the Best Infield in History in 1999.

I wonder if a great second baseman will be the fabled "final piece of the puzzle" for today's Mets to finally advance again to the World Series?

It's the only position with no clear frontrunner anymore on the team. Say you like about incumbent Jose Valentin, but I've seen better second sacker defense from kittens wearing oven mittens. (No wait, I think that was a cartoon. But you know what I mean.) I leave it to the other, purely statisician-blooded bloggers to point out his second-half collapse and deafening silence during the playoffs.

The Mets interesting recent history of second basemen runs along thusly:

Jose Reyes was the best second baseman the team has had for some time, but he's even better as a shortstop.
Kazuo Matsui was despised by Mets management and fanbase alike, and never managed to win either group over to his side. He can hit and he can field, but he could see that he would never get any love from his bosses and left. He now is the starting second baseman for the Rockies and apparantly loving it.
Jeff Keppinger was a favorite of Art Howe, which may as well have been the kiss of death. He also fielded like Mo Vaughn and has disappeared.
Ty Wigginton played a few games there, and was used to get a pitcher from the Pirates (who was used to get a pitcher from the Orioles) before signing with the Devil Rays as their slugging utility player.
Chris Woodward seemed to make an error every day he played at second. Really likable fellow, I actually met him at Dodger Stadium last year, but he had no shot at the daily gig when he was such a useful backup.
Anderson Hernandez looks like a chubby Jose Reyes, and is delightful to watch on defense at the keystone as well as dancing in the dugout with the Dominican. But hitting makes Doug Flynn look like David Wright, and Mets Manager Willie Randolph has no use for guys who can't hit home runs.

Watch for another spinning turnstile at the Keystone this season. There are no obvious frontrunners, so this means we can be in for a wonderful surprise. Maybe Anderson will learn what a curve ball looks like. Maybe Valentin will turn into Chuck Knoblach (or Steve Sax) and force Willie to use him as he should: as a backup and pinch hitter. Or maybe Felix Millan will resurrect his mustache and glove and show up for Spring Training, and fill the Mets last glaring weakness.

One month before Spring Training begins. I'm all atitter with anticipation.