Throwback Thursday (aka, massive links dump, continued)

Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood that famous quote from Forrest Gump. If it’s a box of chocolate covered cherries, don’t you know exactly what you’re going to get?)

On the one hand, I’m happy to report that I’m catching up / running out of these old links (some are no longer “with us”). On the other hand, it’s been cool reminiscing.

I highly recommend Pocket as a way to hold onto links you come that you want to keep. Unlike bookmarks, Pocket keeps the entire page and makes it relative easy for you to find stuff you “pocketed.” I have keepers going back six years — more than 5,000 links — and I’ve decided it’s time to start cleaning house so here are some submitted for your amusement, perusal, and education. Some are not current, but in a sense, they’re timeless. They’re presented in reverse order (oldest first).

Haven’t seen a new book by Dirk Hayhurst in awhile. Hope he’s okay. This piece from 2010 came out as he was publishing his first book, The Bullpen Gospels: A Non-Prospect’s Pursuit of the Major Leagues and the Meaning of Life. Since then, he’s written Out Of My League: A Rookie’s Survival in the Bigs (2012) and Bigger Than the Game: Restitching a Major League Life (2014). He also published Wild Pitches as a Kindle-only book in 2013.

Staying with Hayhurst, here’s a 2012 piece he wrote about doctoring the ball from Yahoo. sports; an interview he did with SB Nation about the use of sabermetrics by broadcasters; and spoke with FOX Sports in 2014. Of course, you know you’ve really made it when you appear in The New York Times, as he did in this piece by Tyler Kepner in 2012.

Speaking of sabermetrics, I vote for this one to be implemented ASAP: STOOPID, or the “Subjective Triangle Of Originality Plus Irrationality Dividend,” “a new statistic to calculate the entertainment value of watching any individual player,” as devised by Susan Petrone, author of Throw Like A Woman on the It’s Pronounced Lajaway website.

There are lots of baseball-themed sites I wish I could keep up with on a regular basis. Pitchers and Poets is one of them. Here’s a sample on “Zen and the Art of Lineup Maintenance” from 2012.

I would add Bardball to that above category. A TBT link to the site happens to be a poem I wrote in 2012 when the Mets traded away Jose Reyes. It seems relevant again now that the Toronto Blue Jays recently did the same. Really don’t know anything about poetry, but if I recall, I was experimenting with a specific form/meter at the time.

I firmly believe the New York Mets, for all their faults, have one of the best broadcasting teams in the business (both TV and radio). Here’s a Fangraphs piece from 2012 ranking the TV side. I’m sure you can find the rest on the site somewhere. Of course, this needs an update.

Judy Lynn Johnson put up her Watching The Game site a few years before her book by the same name dropped in 2014. Not much since, but she’s a thoughtful fan you should get to know.

Fellow Author and baseball book reviewer James Bailey posted this piece in 2012 on “Why phoney ratings matter,” regarding ersatz critiques on sits like Amazon. It’s still valid. Frankly, after experiencing some titles and seeing the kind of glowing reviews they get makes me wonder if a) these are friends and family of the author, and b) whether we’re talking about the same book.

A number of fans think Yogi Berra was done an injustice when he lost out as one of the four greatest living players to Johnny Bench. as announced at the recent All-Star Game. This won’t make up for it, but here’s an NPR interview with Harvey Araton, author of Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift.