Successful, Amusing, and Awesome Failures

The Common Man's not going to lie, after a long and busy day at the new gig (and not wanting to anger the new overlords by blogging in the office), and choir practice tonight, The Common Man doesn't have it in his heart to throw down with anything resembling a lengthy, engaging argument. But given that the benevolent Rob Neyer drove boku traffic to The Common Man's realm on Monday (and thanks to Lar at Wezen-ball for attracting Rob's all-seeing eye),
The Common Man feels inspired to keep giving. So in celebration of a terrific couple days here at TCM.com, here's a bunch of awesomeness:

-Speaking of Lar, that man seems to have an unending list of fascinating questions. His latest is, by far, the most interesting to date. Lar's search for a twin holy grails of baseball was, spoiler alert, ultimately unsuccessful in that no two games proved remotely identical. But his brilliant idea, execution, and explanation made the trip entirely worthwhile. And The Common Man can't wait to hear about more adventures with the Retrosheet database, and will gladly ride along as Sancho again.


-Speaking of quixotic quests, Gary Matthews Jr received permission to leave Angels came for a day after learning he was being demoted to the team's 5th outfielder. He was presumably off looking for his lost talent (or, perhaps more accurately, luck).

Anyway, his AWOL adventures led to the following IM debate between The Common Man and loyal reader, commenter, and occasional guest poster Bill:

TCM: I love that Gary Matthews essentially needed a personal day because he didn't see the writing on the wall
Bill: heh. yeah
TCM: umm...Gary? everybody was saying the same thing last year, and you haven't gotten any better and you didn't need a day off then
Bill: right
Bill: so the Pierre deal has to be considered worse than the Mathews one, doesn't it?
TCM: Matthews: .242 .319 .357, 77 OPS+ last year
Pierre: .283 .327 .328, 72
given position, yeah I'd say you're right but it's closer than I'd have thought
Bill: I guess I'm thinking from the perspective of the time they were made. Both have pretty much been zeroes since. But Mathews was coming off an all-star year. The BABIP data and all of that would've told you it wouldn't happen again, but at least it happened. Juan Pierre had lucky-empty-batting-averaged his way to two good years three years BEFORE the one he signed in, and had been consistently terrible in the two seasons between that and the contract. And Mathews was (wrongly, apparently) perceived as a good CF, while Pierre's defensive shortcomings were well known
TCM: you're probably right that the idea was worse to sign Pierre but the outcome has been the same and ultimately, that's what we tend to be judged on
Bill: I mean, they were both terrible signings at the time. But the Pierre one was shoot-yourself-in-the-head terrible, while the Mathews one was only you'll-never-work-in-this-town-again terrible
TCM: I suppose I have trouble distinguishing between degrees of terrible. When something is terrible, it simply shouldn't be...case in point: the new Knight Rider and, um...yogurt flavored Pepsi. Both bad ideas for different reasons but it doesn't change the fact that neither should exist
TCM: I should point out I'm talking about the contracts, not the people I have no problem with the existence of either Juan Pierre or Gary Matthews Jr
Bill: that's an important distinction
TCM: right, I don't want to take away their right to exist. just their right to exist in an undeserved opulent lifestyle of self-delusion I wish someone would sell them on the idea of flood-proof furniture

-That last joke (which you probably didn't get) would have been funnier if you had read Pablo Torre's fascinating article in this last week's Sports Illustrated, where he recounted the reasons professional athletes end up on the skids. Torre reports,

• By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.

• Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.

• Numerous retired MLB players have been similarly ruined, and the current economic crisis is taking a toll on some active players as well.

Because athletes tend to be painfully ignorant of financial systems, overly trusting of friends and family members (many of whom mean well) who care for their money or have "investment opportunities" to share, have high rates of divorce (especially after their playing careers end), and far too eager to own businesses rather than invest in mutual funds or common stock they are vulnerable to rapid financial decline when their careers end (and sometimes before). Perhaps the best story Torre spins is the shortest, and comes from Matthews' teammate (and replacement), Torii Hunter:

"About five years ago, Hunter says, he invested almost $70,000 in an invention: an inflatable raft that would sit under furniture. The pitch was that when high-rainfall areas were flooded, consumers could pump up the device, allowing a sofa to float and remain dry."

What would happen when the sofa reached the ceiling is, of course another matter. But The Common Man kind of would root for the couch to find its way out of the house somehow. He would love to watch Torii Hunter shoot the rapids in his La-Z-Boy, wouldn't you? It's amazing this didn't catch on. If anything could cheer up those poor people along the Red River, it's Torii paddling by on a Hide-a-bed.

-Finally, to celebrate Rob Neyer's visit, and those of you who followed the gentle song of his pipe, The Common Man feels like something needs to get blown up. After all, it's been a while since there's been a good explosion around here. In the spirit of things, however, The Common Man has found the following Mythbusters clip, where Adam and Jaime try to knock the cover off a ball. The Common Man thinks this will suffice:

Random Awesomeness

You know what doesn't get nearly enough attention on The Common Man's site? Awesome stuff. Here's a bunch of awesome stuff The Common Man thinks (nay, knows) you need to be aware of:

1) This Is Why You're Fat, a website full of terrifying and awesome food monstrosities that are at once tantalizing and off-putting. Thusfar, The Common Man's favorite (as in, the thing he would most like to eat) is The Giant Breakfast Burrito:


Described as "A seven pound breakfast burrito stuffed with potatoes, eggs, onions, and ham bits, lots of cheese on top and smothered in red chile," it elicits but two questions 1) can The Common Man get jalapenos in that? and 2) Do you mind bringing some Tobasco or Tapatio with you when you come back? Of course, The Common Man couldn't eat all of it in one meal. However, as long as you keep getting coffee or soda or what have you, most diners will let you hang around until they close, giving The Common Man ample time to make it three (or four) full meals.

And for dessert? Clearly the mega double-stuff.

2) Change Blindness. In this article on Cracked.com, Brian Watson explores five ways that your brain is messing with you. First and foremost on his list is change blindness, which "is usually related to something called inattention blindness. If you tried to process everything in your visual spectrum you would go insane, so your mind picks and chooses what to focus on." This means that, as long as you do not see a change occuring in front of you, you are not likely to notice it. Watson describes it thusly:

"It's like your brain is sitting in class, staring out the window at a cloud that sort of looks like a boob. When you call on your brain it does the same thing you do when a teacher calls on you in those circumstances: Start bullshitting. It doesn't really know what [whatever you were looking at] looked like a second ago, but it's not going to tell you that. Since it has no visual memory of the image, it just tells you it's always looked the same. Even when that's a lie."

Watson backs up his description with a couple of really impressive videos, neither of which The Common Man can embed here. Also mindblowing is Watson's description of saccadic masking, in which The Common Man learned that he is effectively blind for approximately 40 minutes a day.

3) Batman is inherently awesome. He has no superpowers, but has crafted himself into a one-man anti-crime task force through a freakish dedication to martial arts, a keen mind (Batman doesn't suffer from change blindness, The Common Man bets), and really wonderful toys. But perhaps the most wonderful toy of all is this Batman squirt gun The Common Man found on the Daily Scans Journal:

That's right, you fill Batman's bum with water and squeeze his naughty bits to get him to shoot water (God, let's hope that's water). Insert your own Robin joke here.

4) The Common Man has given Ron Rollins at Baseball Over Here his due. Ron's site focuses on baseball from an international perspective (and such was his dedication, Ron picked up and moved to England. America's loss...). Anyway, Ron's got a couple killer posts up right now, first and foremost picking winners from all four brackets of the WBC (The Common Man isn't ready to let go, yet). He also profiles the top European prospects in the minor leagues. Ron counts four players from Curacao, and The Common Man thinks that's probably cheating, given that Google Earth tells The Common Man Curacao is just 45 miles north of Venezuela (speaking of which, Google Earth is pretty freaking awesome too). Then again, if he didn't include the four players, it'd undoubtedly be a disappointing list, and The Common Man vows not to complain about the methods of a man willing to do far more leg work than himself.