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Circling the Airport and Bert

All of us returned home on Tuesday afternoon. My wife, son-in-law, and I had so much fun that we decided to extend our trip by an extra day. Well, not exactly. We had a lot of fun, and we stayed an extra day. But not by choice.

Instead, our flight out of Albany International Airport on Monday was delayed to the point where we were going to miss the last connection out of Newark, where inclement weather was preventing departures and arrivals for most of the day. If we stayed overnight in Newark, the first available flight to LAX was at something like 5:45 p.m. ET, meaning we wouldn't have returned home until about 9:00 p.m. PT on Tuesday. By staying in Albany, we were able to book a flight at 7:00 a.m. We boarded the plane on schedule but sat on the tarmac for about 45 minutes before returning to the gate for another 45 minutes to refuel and get clearance for takeoff. While we arrived in Philadelphia nearly two hours behind schedule, we walked directly onto our connecting plane and arrived at LAX at roughly 12:45 p.m. PT.

All's well that ends well, especially when one can hold his beautiful granddaughter (the gift of my daughter and son-in-law) once again.

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I plan to share more photos and stories of my trip to Cooperstown, including the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the private reception on Saturday night, and the induction ceremony on Sunday. Check back on Thursday and Friday for additional posts.

Source: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2011/07/post_12.php

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Talking Ball: Phil Roof on Bert Blyleven

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Chief witness to Blyleven's curveball.(Icon/SMI)

Phil Roof didn?t hit much over his 15-year career with the Twins, Angels, Indians, A?s, White Sox, and Blue Jays—he batted .215 with a mere 43 home runs—but he did play a role in the development of a Hall of Famer. Roof was one of Bert Blyleven?s early major league catchers.

Joining the Twins in the midst of the 1971 season, Roof would catch Blyleven from that summer through the middle of 1976. Known for his defensive prowess, his rapport with pitchers, and his ability to throw out base stealers (at a rate of 38 percent over his career), Roof came to know the Dutchman?s pitching tendencies better than most.

I talked to Roof, 70, prior to this year?s induction ceremony in Cooperstown, as he eagerly anticipated the entrance of his former teammate into the Hall of Fame. A longtime coach and minor league manager before retiring in 2005, Roof discussed his relationship with Blyleven, along with his unexpected return to coaching in 2011.


Markusen: Phil, you?re here for Bert Blyleven, a man that you caught early in his career. You saw that curveball first hand. Tell us a little bit about being Bert?s teammate.

Roof: Well, Bert was a fierce competitor at a very early age. He wanted to win in a bad way. He knew that he had enough stuff to get out there and put the opposition down. And I tip my hat off to him. He should have been in the Hall of Fame years ago. What a great career he?s had. I am honored that I was part of that.

Markusen: Now, we know the curveball was awfully tough to hit, but how about from a catcher?s perspective? Because of that extreme break, was it a difficult pitch to catch?

Roof: No, not at all. You knew that it had tight spin, and he threw it hard. You can always anticipate a breaking ball; you put more weight on one leg than the other so that you can shift. What was good about that in all those years that I caught him was this— I knew that when we got to two strikes, that guy was in trouble. You could throw that curveball almost any time with two strikes, and he?d get the batter out if he threw it over the plate.

Markusen: So well known for the curveball, but pretty underrated in terms of his fastball.

Roof: He had an above-average fastball to go along with the curve. His command early in his career was a concern; he couldn?t locate as well as you?d like to see. But he had that big hammer. Any time there was any doubt in my mind, then I called for the curveball.

Markusen: Was he a guy that you could talk to during a game? You always hear stories about pitchers like Gibson not wanting the catcher to come out and talk to them. Was Blyleven different from Gibson in that way?

Roof: He was always different in that way. He wanted input. You didn?t try to overload him with information, but you gave him enough input to get through that inning. And then you worked on the next inning. He was very receptive to that.

Markusen: We hear a lot about his pranks. Was that something he did right from the start of his career, or did that come later?

Roof: I was one of the older players, and I didn?t see too much of it until later on, in the middle of his career. And then when I became a coach, on the other end of it with Seattle, his pranks were big time. By then he?d really established himself, and his mind was constantly working on doing something, or to somebody. He had a great career in that, too, when it came to pranks.

Markusen: Phil, let?s talk about you. What are you doing these days?

Roof: I?m retired [from managing]. I go to spring training every year, but this year [Twins bullpen coach Rick] Stelmaszek was out with an eye injury and Jose Marzan [a spring instructor] was having back trouble. Rick Anderson, our pitching coach, saw me throwing some batting practice in the early part of February, and he said, ?Gardy [Ron Gardenhire] needs you. He?s in his office. Go in there.?

So I went in there, and he said, ?I?ll talk to [general manager] Bill Smith,? and four or five days later, they asked me to join the team. I stayed with them all of spring training, and then three weeks into the regular season.

Markusen: One of the other events here in Cooperstown is the Hall of Fame Classic. We see the former players come out and play. Old-timers games, is that something you do?

Roof: Oh, I?m too old for that. I have a fantasy camp with the Twins in January, and I tried to hit. I mean, I was awful when I played, and way worse now! It?s fun to be there, and I still throw batting practice to the kids at fantasy camp. Now, if they asked me to coach again in the big league camp, yes, I would. Yes, sir. It?s a joy. It had been 20 years since I?d been up there in the major leagues as a coach. I had the same thrill this year as I did 20 or 30 years ago.

Opening Day at Target Field this year, I had the biggest goose bumps I?ve ever had. When Joe Nathan came out of that bullpen in the top of the ninth inning to close that game—he was out all of 2010, and this was his first appearance ever at Target Field—and the crowd gave him a standing ovation. I watched from the bullpen, and said to myself, ?There?s nothing better than this."


Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.

Source: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/talking-ball-phil-roof-on-bert-blyleven1/

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The Declaration of Independents

Thanks to Google Alerts, I was made aware of an interview conducted by David Mark, a senior editor at POLITICO, with Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, the co-authors of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America in Arena Chat.

My Hall of Fame "campaign" for Bert Blyleven was the subject of part of their conversation. Check out the 10-minute video and accompanying article. If you're pressed for time, fast forward to 3:30 and play it through the 7:00 mark.

Baseball fans, for example, may recall Bert Blyleven, a solid and durable major league pitcher from 1970 to 1992. Hall of Fame baseball writers shunned Blyleven for years, never giving him more than 30 percent of their votes (75 percent are needed for entry to the baseball shrine.)

Then a California investment manager, Rich Lederer, took up Blyleven?s cause.

?By penning a series of convincing articles and debating individual voting writers (face-to-face, in many cases), this outside dabbler pulled off the unthinkable: he changed a doomed candidate into a 2011 inductee into the Hall of Fame,? Gillespie and Welch write.

?It shows that you can move around the traditional gatekeepers and centers of power,? Welch said.

Welch, who is the editor-in-chief of Reason magazine, a leading libertarian publication, is perhaps better known around these parts as a diehard Angels fan, astute sabermetrician, and part-time baseball writer. It's hard to believe that his outstanding guest column at Baseball Analysts on Dave Hansen is now more than six years old. Be sure to check out the accompanying photo of Welch singing and Hansen jamming on guitar.

Matt and I grew up on the same block in the Lakewood Village area of Long Beach. While an age difference separated us, our brothers played on the same Little League team, which was coached by Mr. Welch. Unaware that I was the Rich Lederer from his childhood years, Matt linked to my website in 2004, then interviewed me for his inaugural "Infrequently Asked Questions" series in 2005 after discovering that we were not only neighbors but fellow bloggers with a passion for baseball and the Bill James Baseball Abstracts. Most recently, Welch wrote "How a Part-Time Blogger Changed the Face of Baseball's Hall of Fame."

Courtesy of Google Books, here is an excerpt from The Declaration of Independents in a chapter titled "The Democratization of Just About Everything...":

Fred Eckhardt is living proof that the American tradition of impactful pamphleteer activism is more than alive and well. Four decades after publication of the Treatise, it has never been easier for self-publishers and other outsiders to build their own seats at the table and elbow the deadweight aside, forcing the top-down cultures of industrial media (and politics and music and beer and a thousand other sectors) to confront their own banal inadequacies and acknowledge (only after kicking and screaming) the newcomers' contributions. Forget Bill James and pollster Nate Silver—consider the case of Rich Lederer, an investment manager by day and sabermetrics dabbler by night at his Baseball Analysts website.

Lederer, beginning in December 2003, spearheaded a one-man campaign to convince the famously stubborn and insular Baseball Writers' Association of America to elect underappreciated 1970s pitching great Bert Blyleven to the Hall of Fame. At the time, Blyleven had never received more than 30 percent of the vote (you need 75 percent to get in). By penning a series of convincing articles and debating individual voting writers (face-to-face, in many cases), this outside dabbler pulled off the unthinkable: He changed a doomed candidate into a 2011 inductee into the Hall of Fame. In a conference call with reporters after his January induction, Blyleven went out of his way to repeatedly thank Lederer, a California investment banker whom he had never met.

Irrespective of your political interests or leanings, I believe you will enjoy The Declaration of Independents. The book is as much about decentralization and democratization taking market share from "the forces of control and centralization" as anything else, and it has applications beyond politics.

Source: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2011/07/the_declaration.php

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Flu sidelines Giants ace Lincecum against Phillies (CBS SportsLine.com)

San Francisco Giants right-hander Tim Lincecum was scratched from his scheduled start on Tuesday against the Philadelphia Phillies because of the flu.

Source : CBS SportsLine.com

Explore : Baseball Players, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants, Sports, Tim Lincecum

Source: http://wik.io/info/US/279490064

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