Some civil servants are just like my loved ones.
My friend Andy is a Cubs fan. A huge Cubs fan. I am a Cardinals fan. A huge Cardinals fan.
We agreed that if the Cubs won the weekend series that has just concluded, I’d have to hang a framed photo of former Cub Brian McRae in my office. Since the Cardinals took two of three games, Andy will be putting this photo up, framed, in his office. That is, at least until the Cubs and Cards meet again in July.
Update: Andy now has Willie McGee on his desk (photos included).
Daniel has a few predictions about the upcoming baseball season. I am less sure about a Cardinal NL Central division victory, but a guy can hope.
Anyone want to go to opening day with me in D.C.? That is, if we can get tickets.
Just a friendly reminder. It is 16 days until the major league baseball season opens.
Train accordingly.
Actually, toast with whatever you like, but please, at 8PM tonight, engage in a toast to former St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster Harry Caray. He ended his career with some other team that won’t be named here.
Perhaps you should toast like they will in Chicago: with a 100-gallon glass of beer.
A base has been stolen in the World Series. Your free World Series taco is now locked up.
Here’s the bad news for most of you:
The “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” deal by Taco Bell, part of Yum Brands Inc., will allow customers at any of the chain’s participating 5,800 outlets to cash in on a free crunchy seasoned beef taco — valued at 77 cents. Of course, with any free lunch, there’s a catch: Customers may only collect on the promotion between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. local time.
That’s right. Most of us will be at work.
Still, a coworker of mine had a great idea: Load up a car full of friends, pick out half a dozen Taco Bells and roll around town snacking on yer tacos. Try it. You’ll like it.
My co-blogger Caleb has an amazingly efficient way of doing complicated statistical analysis. He mentions them to me in an interesting way, then waits for me to do the analysis.
We were discussing his post on the Taco Bell offer to buy everyone in the country a taco if there is a stolen base in the World Series when he mentioned that there aren’t that many stolen bases and they might not have to give away the yummy tacos after all. After all, Taco Bell has done baseball promotions for the last five years, and no tacos have been given away yet. (The conditions have not been met.)
So what are the odds of a stolen base in the World Series? Well, thanks to ESPN’s wonderful Baseball Statistics Page we see that the American League teams have averaged 97 stolen bases this year to the National League’s 98. That’s 97 stolen bases on average for teams in the majors this year.
Of course a baseball game takes two teams to play so if we do some math on the 162 game season and add it up we get 1.19 stolen bases per game this year.
If we only consider the stolen bases of the two teams playing in the World Series (Sox,96; Rockies, 100) the stolen bases per game go up to 1.2 per game. The chances are excellent that we all get tacos.
We also mused about the halcyon days of our youth, when runners were faster, bolder, more honest, more charitable and all around better people. (Men always romanticize the baseball of their youth.) Were more bases stolen years ago?
Yes. In the last six years MLB teams have stolen an average of .55 bases per game. In the six years between 1985 and 1990 the average was .80 stolen bases per game. This is a very significant difference.
But what if we go back even further? Between 1935 and 1940 (there were only 16 teams playing 154 mobile games then) each team had an average of only .38 stolen bases per year.
What can we surmise about this? Maybe runners have slowed down in the last 20 years? Have catchers gotten more accurate at picking off runners? Maybe base running is no longer as important to the game as it once was? I don’t know. But these are the questions baseball fans can argue over, and that’s one of the reasons we love the game.
So will we get our tacos this year? Yes. Absolutely. The chances of NOT having a stolen base are incredibly small. How many people will redeem them, and what will this cost Taco Bell? Excellent questions. Luckily for me Darren Rovell has already answered it for me.
Where are Ricky Henderson, Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee and Vince Coleman now that we need them?
The Mets finished a surprising collapse with a lackluster performance in a loss to the Florida Marlins that eliminated them from postseason contention.
What’s most interesting about the Mets’ collapse is that it places the Phillies in front. Most interesting about that is the fact that the Phillies were the last team to melt down in such a manner 43 years ago.
