The litter in littérateur. » Baseball

President Obama on baseball

Ricky — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:43:08 +0000

Why this video doesn’t have more views, I have no idea. How fun it is to hear President Obama talk about the sport.

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Why should underdogs take big risks?

Ricky — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:24:26 +0000

For the answer, see Jack Hirshleifer’s article, “The Paradox of Power.”

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Reactions to the iPad

Ricky — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:20:50 +0000

Adam Gopnik and other New Yorker staffers responded to Apple’s iPad announcement.

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My favorite things of 2009

Ricky — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:23:02 +0000

Here’s a list of things from 2009 that I particularly liked. The list has no order to it. And so:

Leica M9 — A full-frame camera that not only is not an intimidating SLR but also comes from the greatest line of cameras—the Leica M series—but is also a gorgeous rangefinder, but also gives you access to the best glass in the world. In short, it’s my dream camera—the one that leaves me short of breath and utterly destroys my syntax when I attempt to write about it.

New York Yankees — There’s something about this team that I really liked more than any Yankee team since the 2001 group that lost the World Series to the Diamondbacks. Teixera, Sabathia, Damon, Matsui, Melky, Burnett, a beautiful new stadium, and the Core Four! What fun they made October and November.

Albert Stash — A laptop bag with a handle that you can actually use to carry it for long periods of time—score!

A Gate at the Stairs — Lorrie Moore’s first novel in I don’t know how long is ambitious and acutely observed and flawed and wonderful. It made me relive, for the first time in years, one of the most intensely felt periods of my life. It reminded me what it felt like then. Can I ask any more of a novel, of a work of art?

Changing My Mind — Many of the essays in this collection by Zadie Smith have appeared in the New York Review, the Guardian, and the New Yorker, but reading them in sequence gives you a greater appreciation for the intellect and wit behind them. Smith’s new essay on David Foster Wallace alone is worth the price of admission.

Too Big to Fail — Andrew Ross Sorkin set out to write a book structured like the film Crash and as thrilling as the business classic Barbarians at the Gate. I haven’t seen Crash, but his book is every bit as thrilling as Barbarians and full of choice quotes and anecdotes from the people at the top of the financial world.

Hiroshi Sugimoto at Gagosian Gallery — I walked across town in nine inches of snow to see this show. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Sag Harbor — Colson Whitehead’s latest novel should be read on summer evenings on Long Island. Funny and nostalgic with language that is full of vitality and of the 1980s, its effect on me was similar to that of Lorrie Moore’s book, but the world it gave me access to was entirely imaginary—Whitehead’s not mine—and altogether enjoyable. Dag!

Lamy Noto — Okay, so this pen really came out in 2008, but I didn’t see it anywhere in the U.S. until the summer of 2009. A well-designed Lamy for $10? Yes, please.

Dehumanized — Mark Slouka’s essay in the September issue of Harper’s was, perhaps, the most refreshing thing I read all year—someone standing up, for all the right reasons, to the wrongheaded bias toward math and science (and away from the humanities) that has come to pervade everyplace from the university to the corporation to the op-ed page of the New York Times.

Ellipse — Imogen Heap’s first album in four years is awesome and her live show is even more awesome. The leadoff track on Ellipse, “First Train Home,” was my favorite song of the year, and I challenge you to not like it.

iPhone 3GS — I’m still using the original 2g version of the iPhone, but this year’s update brings more storage, video capability, and faster speeds. It’s great to have a product that delivers both Apple’s design sense and a large library of applications. (The Macs I’ve used for the past 15 years have always delivered the former but never the latter.) Listening to baseball games wherever I am? Check. NPR shows on demand? Check. The New York Times in a format that’s easier to browse than NYTimes.com? Double check. Now, if only it was available on a network other than AT&T.

Panasonic GF-1 — It’s no M9, but it’s sort of a poor man’s, i.e. my, rangefinder. When paired with Panasonic’s 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens, it’s the closest thing to a great compact camera that I’ve ever used. See sample photos from others here.

Unibody MacBook Pros — These things look solid!

Range — Was this San Francisco restaurant new in 2009? I don’t know, but it’s good.

The President — Our country got a new one in January, and it was a glorious moment. The man can play basketball and speak and write in complete sentences, and he seems to have a genuine intellect and conscience and sense of ambivalence.

San Francisco Panorama — A very well-done one-time newspaper for a city that has no good regular publication.

Economic Recovery — The Dow and I are both lower than we once were, but we’re certainly better off than we were a year ago.

Cape Cod — I had never been before this year and now I hope that there won’t be a year when I don’t go there.

Empire State of Mind — Maybe this isn’t a new anthem for New York but Jay-Z’s new single is certainly fun. Sinatra needs a break now and then, anyway.

Some things that I haven’t yet gotten around to that came out this year but that I think I might like when I do: The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Wild Things by Dave Eggers and Where the Wild Things Are by Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze, and Wes Anderson’s film adaptation of the Fantastic Mr. Fox.

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Run This Town (New York Yankees Version)

Ricky — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:03:33 +0000

Before the Yankees game on Friday night, the stadium’s PA played a special Yankees version of the Jay-Z song “Run This Town.” Is it just bad or is it so bad it’s good?

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My favorite iPhone and iPod Touch apps

Ricky — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:48:43 +0000

I’ve been playing around with these devices for most of the year and have come to some conclusions about my favorite applications. Because Apple’s App Store is a bit of a mess, I’ve picked up most of my recommendations from other blogs and forums. So, here’s the list of apps that I wish I hadn’t had to spend time discovering because my iPod is better with them than without them, in no particular order:

The New York Times – I previously posted about this application and how I would be willing to pay a fair amount for it. The only things I can fault this application for are that it’s not always clear when it’s finished downloading the day’s paper and it runs sluggishly on the iPhone 2g. Otherwise, the ability to save and email articles is great, and the interface makes browsing the paper easy. This is probably my favorite app, in part because it downloads the paper for offline reading and because I love the New York Times.
MLB At Bat 2009 – This app costs $9.99, but it’s awesome. You can watch two live games a day and listen to any broadcast of any game live. I remember when I was a kid, I could barely get reception on the AM radio at night to listen to Vin Scully call the LA Dodgers games. Now I can listen to the Dodgers and the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Giants whenever I want. This app also features in-game video highlights from almost all games, which are nice, but the key feature is being able to listen to live broadcasts.
Byline – This is another paid app, an RSS reader that syncs your folders from Google Reader. If you don’t read Google reader, Byline is a decent reason to do so, as it downloads complete items from Google Reader for offline reading. You can even star and share items from the app, and your selections sync with Reader when you’re online.
WordPress – It’s not perfect, but you can write posts offline and then post them when you have an Internet connection again. I’ve used it for multiple posts on this and other blogs.
Instapaper – Instapaper lets you save text from webpages for offline reading from your mobile or desktop web browser. I use it to read any articles of length from sources such as the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the New York Review of Books. For me, this app ranks right up there with the New York Times and MLB apps and has saved me much paper, as I often use it in place of printing stories that I want to read later or on something more portable than my computer.
NPR Addict – This application lets you listen to stories from several NPR shows, including some that don’t have podcasts, such as All Things Considered and my personal favorite, Weekend Edition. Unfortunately, this app doesn’t always seem to work when I click the “Listen” button and it has some shortcomings. The most significant is that you can only select individual stories to play, and you can’t create a playlist or choose to listen to an entire show with all the stories playing consecutively. For some shows with long segments, such as Fresh Air, this is fine, but for others with short segments, it’s not acceptable and really limits the use of this application.
Stanza – This e-book app is not bad at all. With the help of its online store and the Stanza desktop app, I’ve loaded in several of my favorite books and a few that I’m waiting to read. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do the best job of handling PDF files.
eBay – If you can’t be at your computer when an auction is ending, this is the next best thing.
Google – These guys run some sort of internet search engine and offer many of their products optimized for the iPhone, including said search engine with voice search capabilities.
Bloomberg – This is another good news app that caches stories for offline reading. Another great feature of this app is that it lets you email the complete text of its stories, rather than just links to them.
TwitterFon – There are several Twitter clients available for the iPhone, and Tweetie seems to be the best, according to user opinions. However, I don’t yet feel the need to pay for a Twitter client, and so I’ve stuck with TwitterFon, which does pretty much everything I need. It searches for both text and location and shows my direct messages, @ replies, and friends’ timeline. I do recommend using an older version of this app because the more recent ones show ads, unfortunately.
Public Radio Tuner – This app allows you to stream live several public radio stations from all over the country.
Pandora – You’re probably familiar with Pandora’s custom streaming online radio service, so imagine it in a portable edition. That’s what this app is, and the quality isn’t bad, even over 2g.
WeatherBug – I’m not entirely sure why, but I prefer this app over The Weather Channel’s, which I also use.
FlickIt – Take pictures with your iPhone and upload them directly to Flickr.
WiFinder – Have you ever been somewhere and wanted to know if there was a WiFi network you could use? This app searches for local, open WiFi networks that you can connect to.
Easy Wi-Fi – I believe that OS 3.0 has made this app obsolete, but I haven’t confirmed that yet. If you access Wi-Fi networks with web-based authentication pages, Easy Wi-Fi will automatically log you into the networks. It’s a great time saver if your school or company uses these sorts of authentication pages.
Wattpad – This is another e-book app, but this one gives you access to Wattpad’s online library of user-uploaded content. My favorite feature of this app is one that more developers should implement: auto-scrolling. You set the speed and the text scrolls for you. It’s nearly impossible to get it entirely right, and you’ll probably have to adjust my manually scrolling every so often, but, for the most part, this feature rocks.
Skype – Skype’s iPhone app offers text and voice chat—only video conferencing is missing.
Shazam – Ever hear a song and wonder what it is? Open Shazam and it’ll identify it for you. Awesome.
WSJ – The Wall Street Journal’s iPhone app doesn’t have a huge amount of content, but it’s fairly responsive and contains some good editors’ choices.
Yelp – Yelp’s iPhone app works amazingly well with the phone’s location services, making searching near your location one of the most useful features in any app.
Files lite – Store and read .doc and .pdf files on your iPhone, and a pro version even allows you to attach them to emails.
StopWatch – This app is self-explanatory, but just looks too good to leave off this list.
Textfree lite – Cell phone carriers are artificially keeping SMS text message prices high, but here’s a solution. This app allows you to send up to 15 text messages a day for free. Unfortunately, it appends a bunch of junk to your texts, but otherwise has worked fine for me.
Amazon – Finally, we have Amazon’s app, which I, admittedly, don’t actually use to purchase anything from Amazon. What I do use it for. however, is looking up books when I’m in bookstores. If I can’t remember a title or an author, I often use the Amazon app before any search engine. I’ve had mixed results with the Amazon Remembers feature, which allows you to take a picture of a product and have Amazon automatically identify it in its catalog. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t work, it often gives you products that are completely wrong but match how its software might have identified the photo. For example, a blurry photo of a Patti Smith book produced a song called “Blurry” by a musician who is not Patti Smith.

Anyhow, there’s my list. I know that I’ve left off some apps that commonly make these sorts of lists, such as Evernote, and some apps that I want to like but just don’t use, such as IndieBound. If you want to dispute those omissions or suggest other apps, the comments section is the place for you.

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Analyzing baseball statistics

Ricky — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:38:24 +0000

I recently started using the free statistics software package, R, and stumbled upon an excellent primer for using it to analyze baseball stats. So, if you’re looking to calculate win-shares or anything else, head over to O’Reilly and check out their introduction to the software.

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Moneyball comes to the NBA

Ricky — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 04:18:13 +0000

I feel like every time Michael Lewis talks about Moneyball, someone asks him if Billy Beane’s approach to fielding a team based on statistical analysis has taken hold in other sports. Although people have calculated win shares in basketball based on other statistics, i.e. through regressions, no one has really told a Moneyball-like story of the sport. That is, until today when Lewis himself published an article about Shane Battier and the Houston Rockets in the New York Times Magazine. It’s highly recommended to anyone who enjoyed Moneyball.

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Briefly, Roger Angell on voting

Ricky — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:41:09 +0000

Perhaps, lost among all the post-election analysis is Roger Angell’s beautiful post, Rite, over at NewYorker.com about his experience at the ballot box, which concludes:

A cloud of smugness enfolds me as I hit the street, exactly the kind of feeling that’s pretty well kept me out of churches. But why resist? I believe in this. It’s been said but I’ll say it: for a nanosecond I am important; infinitesimally I have done good. Feels great.

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Hemingway’s baseball field

Ricky — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:45:48 +0000

The Times has a story about Ernest Hemingway’s baseball field in Cuba, which I somehow didn’t even know about before.

Hemingway rounded up a dozen boys from the barrio to play baseball with them. And just inside the black and white gates of the farm, Hemingway set up an odd little ball field where he would pitch for both teams as they whiled away the hot afternoons.

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