Random Notes from a Crank

If you like baseball, if you appreciate statistical analysis, and if you value data-driven arguments, the show Clubhouse Confidential on MLB Network is the show for you. Watch it if you're so inclined.

I really dislike it when a major league ballclub builds a brand new stadium, and then a few years later the organization brings in the fences to boost offensive output. They did it with Comerica Park years ago. This season they're doing it to Citi Field. If anything, some parks--such as Coors and Minute Maid--need to push their fences outward if possible. I doubt David Wright approves this post, but as experts suggest, he's getting fooled by breaking balls and missing fastballs more often. It's not the field's fault, Mets executives.

The most common sentence I hear in my life is this one: "Daddy, I'm hungry."

I read a bureaucratic report a while back that used this word as a verb: "incent." If you thought "incentivize" was bad, now the forces of administrative-speak have adopted incent as a verb, as in "You need to incent..."

I was talking to an educator last week, and she used the phrase, "working in the trenches" to describe what she does. Equating teaching to warfare in WWI is a troubling metaphor.

That are a lot of words that aren't used enough in the English language. One of them is hokum. In fact, it's one of my favorite words.

Here's a word that is used way too often in everyday conversation: "like." "Cool" is a close second. I need to eradicate that word from my vocabulary except for when I refer to the temperature of something.

Lately, my synapses don't seem to be firing as quickly as they should be. This could be the sign of a steady decline of something - I forget what - but I hope not.

Since I stayed at a Disney resort last week, they sent me a survey to evaluate their compound. I started to   take the survey because I had some things to say. However, after about ten minutes into it, I was only about 24% done. The number of questions was astounding. Really, couldn't they make a bit more simple? My main complaints were these: the poor selection of food and the horrible ironing board and iron that was in my room (1227 of the Coronado Springs Resort if you ever have to stay there). The ironing board wouldn't stay up, and the iron leaked water. If I'm having to drop a couple of c-notes a day on a room because that's where the conference is located, I want a good iron and ironing board, damn it. What they had in that room was Motel 6 quality. Kneeling to iron one's shirt because the iron board won't stay up is not a good thing. It's aggravating as hell.

I'm looking forward to Todd Snider's new album. It titled Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables. Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell played on it.