Boog and Buzz

Links (7)

Friday Night Links
Published 6/2/2007 by Dan Agonistes at Dan Agonistes
... regarding an article that will come out this weekend in the New York Times magazine on pitching featuring Kerry Wood. Bissinger says that pitchers have been coming to the big leagues younger and younger. Turns out that's not true (although his point was really more about the number of minor league innings today's pitchers throw) and the questioning of that point takes the interview on a bad turn (hat tip to Will Carroll). I certainly agree with the interviewer's primary point (that we needn't take someone's word for what is in the end an objective question for which there is data to definitively answer) but it could have been handled better. Bissinger seemed to lose control himself a little which hastened the badness.

Friday Night Links
Published 6/2/2007 by Dan Agonistes at Dan Agonistes
... and the article is excellent with the caveat mentioned below) on pitching featuring Kerry Wood. In the interview Bissinger says that pitchers have been coming to the big leagues younger and younger. Turns out that's not true although in Bissinger's defense his underlying point was really more about the number of minor league innings today's pitchers throw which as far I know has not been studied. The questioning of the "younger and younger" statement then takes the interview on a bad turn (hat tip to Will Carroll). While I certainly agree with the interviewer's primary point that we needn't take someone's word for what is in the end an objective question for which there is data to definitively answer, it could have and should have been handled better. Bissinger seemed to lose control himself a little which hastened the badness.

Buzz Vs. Boog
Published 6/2/2007 by GC at Can't Stop The Bleeding
... (UPDATE : A bit of actual research on the topic, as provided by Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll)

Buzz Bissinger, Boog Sciambi and “My Right Arm”
Published 6/4/2007 by R.J. at Snobs vs. Slobs
... ble. To ask him how to stay healthy is to ask Ted Williams how to hit. He s superhuman. Those guys aren t taught, they re born. Same thing with Greg Maddux or Tom Glavine. They re two of the 20 best pitchers ever. To compare them to Kerry Wood or Phil Hughes is ludicrous. And to use their opinions is foolish when you can get numbers on the subject. Again, it s not like the NY Times doesn t have people around to fetch those numbers. It s not like he had to do the research. Get an intern to do it. It s hyperbolically lazy to just ask a bunch of old guys about that sort of thing. You re looking for a certain quote and you re getting it ( These whippersnappers are coddled today! Get off my lawn! Stop stealing my newspaper! ). L-A-Z-Y. - That s not to say it isn t a good piece. It is. It s pretty well-written and the parts specifically about Wood and the way the Cubs treated him are great. Any and all Cub fans should check it out, if only for that. ( Thanks to Will Carroll over at

Let's Hit Rewind on Buzz Bissinger's Play Article
Published 4/30/2008 by Junior at FIRE JOE MORGAN
... economics, La Russa knows that has become an untenable luxury. Buzz's stance is clear: leave 'em in the minors longer! Wood, Prior, Liriano, King Felix -- they've been picked while still unripe. Big Bad Economics, Modernity, Progress -- whatever your boogeyman -- that's who's to blame. Buzz is wrong. And had he done a modicum of research, he would have found this out immediately. I know this because people did that research for him here, here, here, here, here, and here. Good people on the Internet. Blogging. ...

Hit and Run
Published 5/1/2008 by Jay at The Futility Infielder
... the medium down to a single, controversial site. As Fire Joe Morgan inimitably put it, that's akin to "picking a random romance novel off an airport bookstore shelf and saying, 'This book sucks. Fuck you, Tolstoy -- your medium is worthless!'" Having recently said my piece about these battle lines, I don't have much else to add to the fray except a pointer to the always-thoughtful Jon Weisman's column on this melee, another pair of pointers to Bissinger's own dishonesty , and my own dedicated bit of cruelty in recommending that ol' Buzz have a ...

Clearing the Bases -- Late Friday Dead Horse Flog Edition
Published 5/2/2008 by Jay at The Futility Infielder
... distance." But let's not let facts get in the way, right, Buzz? "It seems to me," Bissinger continued, "what you're saying is, 'I don't want facts to inhibit me. Facts get in my way, so I'm going to sit in my little room and I'm going to give this nebulous fan's voice.'" Pretty rich coming from a guy who sometimes -- for instance, in this very comment -- takes only a nodding interest in facts. Here, courtesy of FireJoeMorgan.com, are links to a bunch of smart people finding fundamental errors in a piece Bissinger wrote for ...