Pernell Roberts RIP

Here's a story about it, with a video clip! He played the oldest brother, Adam Cartwright, on the "Bonanza" TV series. I always liked the episodes with him the best.

What about the Cleveland Indians' young lefties?

"... members of the Tommy John family of pitchers can't pitch effectively with a bad team. Why? Too much pressure on the defense. Without strikeouts, there are a lot of hard-hit balls in play. A bad team can't get enough outs from those to save the pitcher's ass -- but a good team can. Thus, members of this family tend to be valuable to good teams, but useless to bad teams. If you know that, then maybe once in a while you can make a judgement you can't otherwise make." -- Bill James, "The New Bill James Historical Abstract," p. 893.

I have been pondering for a while why it seems like some junk-balling lefties develop into good starters and some don't. Some, like Jamie Moyer, find themselves in mid-career.
Bill James' statement above does as much as anything to explain the difference.
Where am I going with this?
The Cleveland Indians have a number of young lefties who don't throw exceptionally hard and would be classified as Tommy John-type pitchers: Jeremy Sowers, David Huff and Scott Lewis. The Indians also had the recently-traded Zach Jackson, who was in the same boat.
They all had good minor league records. But, it seems as though a soft-tossing lefty with good minor league numbers will fail at the big league level more often than not.
They get touted as prospects, throw a half season in the big leagues, get creamed and disappear forever. Sometimes, like Brian Tallet, they come back and put together a career.
So, is this the trick? If you are young and left-handed without a great fastball, you may succeed if you pitch with a good team?
If this is true, none of those guys on the Indians would seem to have a chance.
Clearly, they all have talent.
Sowers was awesome in the second half of 2006. The Indians were good that year, as evidenced by their 90-plus win seasons in 2005 and 2007. However, he never recaptured that form, and the Indians have collectively gotten worse.
Huff led the team in wins last year, but with a ERA of nearly 6.
Laffey has always been the most consistent of the bunch, and announcers and writers always seem to think he is a great pitcher, but his records have never been more than mediocre.
Lewis just has some great numbers in the minors, and got a brief shot last year before getting hurt.
You have to feel for these pitchers. The 2010 Indians don't promise to be very good. Their defense, not including Shin-Soo Choo, Grady Sizemore and maybe new shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, doesn't look like it will help prevent a lot of runs. The offense doesn't inspire much confidence either.
To follow what James said piece by piece: My guess is the Indians pitchers won't strike out a lot of batters. There will be lots of hard hit balls in play, and the team just won't be very good.
It follows that one way for the Indians to improve significantly in 2010 is to concentrate on upgrading the defense to make their group of young pitchers better. It would not only help the young lefties, but it would make Jake Westbrook, Carlos Carrasco, Justin Masterson and Fausto Carmona better, too.
The other piece to this, of course, is that good teams not only catch more balls in play, they hit better than their opponents, too. A good offense takes a lot of pressure off a pitching staff. It's easy for a pitcher to look good when he gets six runs a game to work with.
The 2010 Indians don't look to have offensive players who are so good they will make up for a weak defense anyway.
Here's the bottom line: The Indians aren't going to be very good this year, unless something unforeseen and drastic happens, and it will be very difficult for their young lefties to overcome the team's lack of offense and defense.
It probably won't be long before the Indians are starting hard-throwing righty Hector Rondon in the majors and the entire starting rotation at AAA Colmbus is left-handed.

Still no heat downstairs

And today, the open oven is up to 400 degrees.

One of the more interesting news stories I have seen in a long time

This is fascinating. President Obama went into a Republican event and took questions. It's not the first time a president has gone into the lion's den, so to speak, but I think it's fascinating to watch what happens. It almost seems like our politicians may be capable of dignified social intercourse.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For what it's worth, on a side-note, I think if I had to pick my current favorite newsman/anchor, I think I'd pick Brian Williams of NBC. I say this having no justification other than I enjoy his newscasts and he seems like a serious, credible journalist, of which there are far too few these days.
Here's the wikipedia entry which has a few interesting things about him, like his appearances on Sesame Street and The Simpsons.
Here's his NBC bio, which has a few more interesting things about him, like he used to be a volunteer firefighter.

Still no heat downstairs

... but I have really learned how to make a great fire in the fireplace!

Great small moments in television history

This is more than worth a few minutes of your time.

Brrrr ...

This morning when I got up, Hallie had the oven set at 250 degrees and wide open.
Needless to say, our downstairs doesn't have any heat.
The heat pump serving the ground floor of our palatial estate was over 20 years old and gave out the other night.
Thank Heaven for zoned heating, because the upstairs is still warm.
Also, thank goodness for fireplaces. Our fireplace has been keeping the downstairs family room and kitchen warm.
Sadly, however, this computer at which I am furiously typing is not upstairs and on the other side of the house from the fireplace. So I can't sit here and blog too long without being cold.
Hopefully, we may get the heat fixed tomorrow. Apparently, our landlords will have to put in a whole new heat pump for the downstairs.
I asked myself why doesn't this happen when it's warm outside? The answer: because you don't use the heater when it's warm. Even if it is broken, you'd never know.

For those of you who remember the comic "Akiko" ...

Creator Mark Crilley has started a new series on MySpace Dark Horse Presents (which I don't like to nearly as often as I used to ...).
It's called "Brody's Ghost," and you can view it here.
It appears to be very different than Akiko, the story of a little girl who travels to a far away planet called Smoo.
"Brody's Ghost" starts out very differently: The story begins with a mugging in the subway. But, there is a twist ending, so enjoy!

(Interestingly enough, that issue of DHP also has a story by another favorite, Jill Thompson. Enjoy, enjoy!)

Serial cereal blogging

I guess this is as good a heading as any to use for this topic.
Has anyone else noticed that "Simply Orange," and its family of fruit juices are way, way better than their counterparts?

Is "electrosmog" hurting our health?

I read this article yesterday, and I thought it was very interesting. The main point:

Chronic exposure to even low-level radiation (like that from cell phones), the scientists concluded, can cause a variety of cancers, impair immunity, and contribute to Alzheimer's disease and dementia, heart disease, and many other ailments. "We now have a critical mass of evidence, and it gets stronger every day," says David Carpenter, MD, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany and coauthor of the public-health chapters of the Bioinitiative report.

They include not just cell phones but all the appliances and electrically-powered gadgets that are so pervasive in modern life.

Another interesting passage:

That research commenced at a time when energy-efficient devices — the major generators of transients — were beginning to saturate North American homes and clutter up power lines. A telltale sign of an energy-efficient device is the ballast, or transformer, that you see near the end of a power cord on a laptop computer, printer, or cell phone charger (although not all devices have them). When plugged in, it's warm to the touch, an indication that it's tamping down current and throwing off transient pollution. Two of the worst creators of transient radiation: light dimmer switches and compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Transients are created when current is repeatedly interrupted. A CFL, for instance, saves energy by turning itself on and off repeatedly, as many as 100,000 times per second.

Serial cereal blogging

'Nuff said.

Serial cereal blogging

I know Kellogg's added more fiber to Fruit Loops, but I didn't think that would happen.

A bunch of mediocre guys or one Garrett Atkins?

I read in the Plain Dealer today the Cleveland Indians had an off-season budget of $3-5 million to spend on players.
So far, they have aded Austin Kearns, Mike Redmond, Jason Grilli, to contracts that would total almost $3 million if they all play at the major league level.
Now, compare that with what the Baltimore Orioles did. They signed Garrett Atkins to a one-year deal for $4.5 million, with an $8.5 million option for next year.
Atkins, 30, is a career .298 hitter over seven major league seasons, all with Colorado. He has a career .811 OPS.
In 2006, Atkins set career highs with a .329 average, 48 doubles, 25 home runs and 120 RBI. He helped the Rockies to their first World Series appearance in 2007, where he homered in Game 4 of the Fall Classic.
However, last season, he struggled, hitting only .226 with 9 home runs and 48 RBI.
I am going to assume that last year was a fluke, even though the Rockies declined to offer him a contract, essentially dumping him without getting anything in return.
Signing Atkins is a little bit risky because of his poor showing in 2009.
But I would much rather take a $5 million chance on someone with a career OPS of .810 than on Kearns, Grilli and Redmond, who probably won't reach that number in 2010 unless you add their totals together.
Atkins' average season, from baseball-reference.com, is .289, 21 home runs and 100 RBI.
Now, if the payroll issue alone wasn't bad enough, there's a baseball piece to this discussion, too: Who will the Indians play at third in 2010?
Probably either Jhonny Peralta or Andy Marte.
Peralta's average season is .266/19/80. He had a horrible 2009 and he has always been prone to long slumps.
Marte hasn't played a lot. In a total of 668 major league at-bats, his totals are .215/15/77.
So, here are your choices:
Atkins or Marte or Peralta at third or;
Atkins or Kearns, Grilli and Redmond on the payroll.
In both cases, I say Atkins.

This one will put them over the top for sure!

Today, the Cleveland Indians announced they signed catcher Mike Redmond to a one-year deal for $850,000.
Why on earth would they spend that much money on another catcher when they already have Carlos Santana and Lou Marson and Wyatt Toregas? Why on earth would they sign Redmond but trade Kelly Shoppach?
I am sure this is another one of the "veteran guys with great character," who will hit .237 and take at-bats away from one of the developing young catchers.
If they had to being in a guy like this, they could have brought back Sal Fasano (pictured).
At least he has a cool mustache.

Serial cereal blogging

I have been eating Kellogg's Corn Pops lately.
We just got a big box from Costco with two bags of Fruit Loops and one bag of Apple Jacks. I have not opened any of them yet.
Just thought you'd like the update.

Twelve Sturgeon volumes only took me eight years and I'm still not done?

I just wanted to say that a couple of weeks ago, I finished reading the 12th and final (as far as I knew) volume of The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.
I started reading them in September, 2001 when I got a couple softcover versions of the books for half price at (where else?) Half-Price Books in Columbus, Ohio.
I got stuck on Vol. 3, "Killdozer," sometime in 2002. I didn't pick it up again until late 2004. I remember having to shove myself through the story "Killdozer," which has caused me to pause reading several Sturgeon collections. Strange how you remember some things: I finished it in a bed and breakfast in Ireland during my honeymoon.
I started buying some of the rest of the books in 2005-2006 when I still lived in Ohio. I remember ordering them from Amazon.com, and being unhappy because I had to pay more to get hardcovers. I really just wanted to read the stories, not keep the collectable, and more expensive, versions of the books.
I finished buying the first 11 books sometime in mid-2008, when I got Vol. 8, Bright Segment, used.
For some reason, at the time, Amazon had them all new, except that one. It's still not in stock, and a used copy costs $249 now.
(If I were you, I wouldn't pay $249 for that book. I'll sell it to you for half.)
I paid $35 from a used bookseller through Barnes and Noble's Web site. To date, I think it's the only volume I paid cover price for, and that one was used. Is that irony?
While reading Vol. 8 I got stuck on a story called, "To Here and the Easel," for something like a year and half. When I finally got through that story and that volume -- during my two-week stay at Fort Dix, N.J. in September -- it was only a matter of months before I finished them all.
Vol. 12 was delivered to my house in October, shortly after it was published. That caused me to finish reading Vol. 10, which by then I was half-way through. (I wasn't very good at reading them in order even when I had a run of consecutive volumes.)
After that, I started and finished Vol. 12, which I thought was the last one. I read that last page just after Christmas.
When I got to the end, I was very satisfied to have finished them all. I felt like I had accomplished something. However, I also felt like people often feel after Christmas: Nothing else to look forward to.
Reading that series was a long process, during which I always knew I had a book I should be reading sitting on my shelf.
I thought I had read them all. I was left with a question I could not answer:
Now what?
So, today, just goofing around, I went to the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust Web site. I discovered that I was not done after all.
From the news section of that site:
Volume 13, which will be the last volume in the series, will be titled "Why Dolphins Don't Bite" and should appear in October, 2010.
Now I feel like I am at a concert waiting for the encore.

Cosmetic surgery is bad

I think I have linked to something like this before. It's images of celebrities then and now with a discussion about whether or not plastic surgery does anyone any good.
As far as I am concerned, plastic surgery for vanity's sake usually just makes someone look worse. Take a look at Kenny Rogers and Priscilla Presley. Yechhhh.

What will the Browns do with Eric Mangini?

My prediction, based on nothing substantive at all, is as follows. The Browns will:

* Keep head coach Eric Mangini
* Keep defensive coordinator Rob Ryan and the 3-4 defense
* Fire the entire offensive staff and bring in someone from a west coast offense background
* Find a mediocre veteran quarterback who can run the west coast offense
* Draft, sign or trade for a young quarterback who will be the understudy
* Pancake teams with their defense next year
* Use a run-heavy version of the west coast offense and play a lot of close, low-scoring games
and
* Finish something like 8-8

Indians signed *Yawn* who?

The Indians signed Austin Kearns and International League MVP Shelley Duncan today.
Ho-hum.
Other teams do things like sign Matt Holliday to a $120 million contract.
The Indians get a guy who hit below .200 last year and a guy who, at 30 years old, was the best player in the IL.
The Plain Dealer said Kearns has a chance to start in left field next year. If he does start ahead of all the young players who need those at bats, we'll know the Indians are headed in the (completely) wrong direction.

You can find a lot of stuff on the Internet

The other day (don't ask why) I wondered if there was such a thing as a paleo-oncologist. If so , what does one do?
Here's an answer. Only took one Google search.

What's the point? The same site tells us:

Future archeological discoveries and the application of improved diagnostic techniques may enable paleo-oncology to make further contributions to our understanding of cancer.