An Apology for Irrational Rooting

Quick bit of housekeeping before I get on to the actual post. Here is the link to the last opinion I wrote for NESN a little more than a month ago - a glowing piece about the historic season of Mike Trout, in which I suggested he had a good shot to win the MVP. And while I agree with Joe Posnanski in thinking that if Miguel Cabrera wins the Triple Crown, he'll win the MVP, I also agree with him in thinking that Trout has been the better all-around player this year. Cabrera's season to-date (Triple Crown stats of .332/42/131) has been done or bettered 26 other times in MLB history. Trout's of .323/28/122 runs/46 stolen bases? Once. I'd tell you who it was, but I don't have a subscription to Baseball-Reference - so all I can tell you is the guy had 29 homers. And that's not even mentioning Trout's defense. I rest my case. Did I mention he turned 21 in August? Anyways, the real reason I'm writing...

Abstract Story Concept Album #1: Continuum

A quick note on how this is going to go down - although I've obviously heard the albums before, I'm going to present thoughts on each song as if I were hearing them in order for the first time. That way, I'm not retroactively applying what I know to be a theme on a later track to earlier tracks. Also, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the link to the post wherein I explain what I'm attempting to do.

Without further ado, I give you the first of what will probably be several attempts at seeing if my thought holds up under some level of imagined critical scrutiny - one of my favorite albums of all time, John Mayer's Continuum.

The Abstract Story Concept Album, or How I Made Up a New Thing in Music Because I Was Curious

*Disclaimer: I don't pretend to be either a music critic or a great interpreter of lyrics. Go figure I'm about to try both.*

I've long been fascinated with music. It's always seemed to me to be the most expressive of the art forms, coming far closer to allowing you to experience emotions rather than merely observing them. Plus, a bit less snobbily, I simply really like listening to it. I've been described as having a very eclectic taste in music - although, as has been proven by at least one of my close friends, not eclectic at all compared to some people - or at least, a wide-ranging scope of interests. To prove it to you, here are the first 12 songs to come up on iTunes when I hit Shuffle:

Editor's Note

If you've been playing close attention, you'll notice that two posts just disappeared into thin air. If you were none the wiser about that, well then, now you are.

Anyway, the two posts in question were Parts 1 and 2 of my new attempt at figuring out why fantasy baseball head-to-head standings are the way they are. I was in the middle of finishing off Part 3 when I discovered a rather glaring error - I had been unwittingly been using the wrong standard deviation formula.

Happy Valley Doesn't Need the Death Penalty

Never in the NCAA's wildest dreams could they have imagined a scenario as horrifying the one that unfolded at Penn State. 

It's for precisely that reason that, despite Jerry Sandusky's 45 counts of child sex abuse convictions and a preponderance of evidence that Joe Paterno and high-ranking university officials withheld information on his crimes, the NCAA cannot and should not punish the Nittany Lions football program -- much less hand down the death penalty for which many are calling.

Bud Selig Wants to Do WHAT to the Home Run Derby?

The answer, if you've been paying attention the past few days to the furor sparked by Robbie Cano's being booed viciously by the Kansas City partisans during the Derby on Monday, is possibly institute a mandate that says the host team must have a representative in the event.

Okay, okay, so Selig isn't all of a sudden off on a wild crusade to change the rules of the Derby yet again - he merely said that Major League Baseball would "talk about this [potential rule change]."

The mere fact that there would be any kind of discussion on this, however, is simply ludicrous.

Roger and Me

I was at a Sox game two weeks ago or so with a buddy of mine when the subject of Roger Clemens' recent return to Fenway came up. For those of you who missed his appearance in the Monster Seats mere days after his acquittal on charges of perjury, check it out here. I'll wait until you get back.

...

Okay, so his reappearance at Fenway was the subject of a brief discussion, and we were talking about the reception the Rocket got - a mixture of cheers and boos, with the boos seemingly a little louder. I was about declare that I too would have booed Roger...but a funny thing happened on the way to my statement. I thought honestly about how I would react to seeing the guy in the same ballpark, displayed on the videoboard. And I realized something that I had never really given much thought to before.