I know it's easier to come in than go back on a fly ball, but Piscotty is playing so deep anything over his head is going to be over the fence anyway.

So much for the no-hitter.

When did Lynn start hitting left-handed?

Carpenter is such a liability.

All this happens because Carpenter can't catch a ball or throw it 90 feet.

artie_fufkin wrote:

All this happens because Carpenter can't catch a ball or throw it 90 feet.

Id like to see voit, dejong and wong make carp expendable.

artie_fufkin wrote:

When did Lynn start hitting left-handed?

http://m.cardinals.mlb.com/news/article/240401718/lance-lynn-shifts-from-right-to-left-as-hitter/

Although I think this "Launch angle" bit is really screwing up the game, my experience switch hitting was that, on those rare occasions when I made contact, I almost always hit line drives from the right side and fly balls from the left.  I also struck out more from the left.
 

Mags wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

When did Lynn start hitting left-handed?

http://m.cardinals.mlb.com/news/article/240401718/lance-lynn-shifts-from-right-to-left-as-hitter/

Although I think this "Launch angle" bit is really screwing up the game, my experience switch hitting was that, on those rare occasions when I made contact, I almost always hit line drives from the right side and fly balls from the left.  I also struck out more from the left.
 

I'm looking forward to the day when the sabremetricians make playing the actual game unnecessary. Fans could pay 40 bucks to watch Bill James, Keith Law, Brian Kenny and Paul DePodesta sit at a table and calculate WAR, FIP, WOBA and WRC+.  
 

"Ever notice how Jennifer Ramirez likes to talk about launch angles?  Reminds me of an off color recitation of a physics formula I heard about 68 years ago."

If you're referring to Jessica Mendoza, I think she does a lot of preparation, puts a lot of effort into her craft and is genuinely pleasant. Her presence in the formerly exclusively male domain of a baseball broadcast booth offends me not at all.
At the same time, I don't recall anything she's ever said that has informed me or entertained me, though that puts her in a group with 97 percent of her contemporaries, including the synaptically-deficient former MLB player who ordinarily sits to her right.
Maybe if she tried her hand at ribald physics jokes, I'd pay better attention. 

Last edited by artie_fufkin (7/05/2017 11:58 am)

If I recall my Vietnam War history class correctly, either Goldberg or Fortas was from the South, maybe even from Tennessee. I've always wanted to attend temple in the South, not because I care what's being said, but I'd like to hear someone with a Southern accent speak Hebrew. "Baruch et adonai hamvorach, y'all."
My wife's rabbi is the shortstop on my softball team, and the only thing I've ever been interested in hearing him say is "You take it" when someone from the other team hits a pop-up on the infield.

Did the "Jewish seat" start with Brandeis? He's revered here, but I don't know what his legacy is in other parts of the country.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Did the "Jewish seat" start with Brandeis? He's revered here, but I don't know what his legacy is in other parts of the country.

That's a difficult one to answer.  Although I'm much older than most of you, I entered this picture several years after the beginning.  But it was a topic of great interest to me for several years and I'll give you the impressions I formed.  Although the scholars and historians to whom I was exposed had their biases, I don't think they were nearly shallow and agenda-drive in their judgments as most of the young law profs are today.

Brandeis, whom I admire more than any other Sup Ct justice except possibly Harlan Stone, was the first Jew appointed to the Court.  He was a native of Kentucky and, according to what I recall, had very little immersion in Jewish culture and traditions until he was an adult.  He was a brilliant law student at Harvard and very close to several members of the faculty.  He went into private practice in Boston and was very active for many years in promoting legislative and social reforms, which I will discuss in a separate post or email if anyone is interested. [He actually practiced in St. Louis for a few months before returning to Boston.] These views, more so than his Jewishness, probably played a role into the controversy that surrounded his appointment by Wilson around 1916.  For whatever reason, 4 or 5 past presidents of the American Bar Association testified before the Senate that he was "unfit" to serve.  It took approximately a year for him to be confirmed.

Ironically, a couple of years earlier Wilson had appointed his AG, James McReynolds of Tennessee, to the Court.  I think it is pretty much undisputed that McReynolds was one of the most anti-semitic justices in the Court's history.  He & Brandeis then served on the Court together until Brandeis retired in 1938. 

In 1932,  Benjamin Cardozo, a Sephardic Jew from N.Y., was appointed by President Hoover.  Cardozo died in the summer of 1938 and Brandeis retired shortly thereafter due to poor health.  Felix Frankfurter was appointed by FDR to replace Cardozo and shortly thereafter he appointed William O. Douglas, son of a Presbyterian minister, to replace Brandeis.  By the 1950's, Frankfurter began to have health problems but hung on.  It was apparently during that time that they began to talk about a Jewish seat on the Court.  For many years, it was thought that Henry J. Friendly, a federal court of appeals justice from N.Y. and a close friend of Frankfurter, would be the ideal replacement.  Friendly, who had been a brilliant law student and former law clerk to Frankfurter, was Jewish and a Republican before going on the bench.  But by that time Frankfurter was more popular with Republicans than Democrats.  I doubt very much his unwillingness to retire had anything to do with partisan politics and certainly not to block Friendly's appointment.

Anyway, by 1962 FF was practically on death's bed and resigned.  JFK appointed his labor secretary, Goldberg.  By then, I think the notion of a Jewish seat had become more a matter of entitlement rather than some sort of quota or limitation, just as Justice Brennan's seat was thought of as the "Catholic" seat. For some years now, it has been pretty clear that neither label  carries any weight except to the extent that a person of strong religious convictions might be a target of the abortion lobby.