Comments on: M’s play two today, one disappears, other stuff

By: imissbluewave

imissbluewave — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 06:09:06 +0000

25 – FWIW, the Toronto Star had an AP bit about the K-Rod cheating incident in today’s sports section. It named you as the one who broke the story and also mentioned your book.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:44:46 +0000

Speaking of the old line media, it would seem to be progress when SI is doing features on players rated according to PECOTA projections (albeit on their website, not yet in print AFAIK).

By: joser

joser — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 02:27:18 +0000

35 — yeah, we got that back in argh’s answer in #14. It’s actually the modern, “derivative” usage that’s under discussion here, not the original meaning. There’s quite a difference between stuff you take by stealing/swindling someone else (an oregano-for-pot scam is still this original meaning), and stuff you are given as some kind of marketing ploy — there still may be a scam, and you still end up with the goods, but the role of “sleezeball” and “innocent” trade places.

All of which certainly enriches “swagger” too.

Man, the things we get up to when there’s no baseball to distract us….

By: davepaisley

davepaisley — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 01:39:01 +0000

#26 et al…

Swag is an old British term for: “Money or items, as taken by a thief or burglar, ill-gotten gains”. For instance, in cartoons, burglars would usually be depicted carrying a bag of loot with the word “swag” on it.

The later connection to giveaways, corporate or otherwise, is derivative.

By: LB

LB — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:15:19 +0000

In the 1980′s, swag referred to products such as oregano that were sold in public parks to people foolish enough to believe they were buying illegal drugs. (At least that’s what it meant back East.)

The profit margin on oregano sold in this manner is quite high, and the risk of jail time for selling it is quite low.

By: Tuomas

Tuomas — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:22:01 +0000

I’m most fascinated by the reactions of people who clearly haven’t looked at any of the video, especially the people who claimed that K-Rod was adjusting his cap.

Angels fans are much worse than the average Yankee fan (full disclosure; the Yankees are actually my favorite team. Sorry.).

The reactions of the mainstream media are to be expected, I think. When the major outlets miss a story (or choose to ignore it), only to have it surface elsewhere, they almost instinctively move to brush it under the rug, in order to keep their credibility. As ludicrous as it seems to us, the average fan, I think, doesn’t really care about the K-Rod thing because of the way ESPN and others reported on Derek’s observations.

By: darrylzero

darrylzero — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 22:45:46 +0000

#26, just a minor point here, but Barry Bonds’ head actually never was particularly big. At least, I read an article recently that make that case convincingly (I suppose I can’t say for sure). I wanted to link to it here, but I can’t find it. I think it was at the Hardball Times but I can’t find it.

I’m not trying to derail this any further or anything, and I think your comment is spot on (and I think the story about Bonds is pretty clear at this point, obviously). But assuming this phantom piece (that I hopefully didn’t dream reading about) is correct, it’s really interesting how often we’ve been comfortable using his increased head size as evidence, considering it doesn’t appear to be accurate (even if the point it was backing up is). Apologies if this is too OT, but it seemed worth pointing out.

By: Goob

Goob — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 22:05:31 +0000

I’ve got a seemingly random question about the Stone article. Why is it that on-line articles like his will provide direct links to certain sites in their story, like he does with MVN.com, but won’t link to USSM or even The Cheater’s Guide Blog, which is the center of the whole story? Is it just because they’re blogs and not “real” sites? That’s always bugged me about on-line articles.

It’s nice to see what F-Rod had to say about DMZ, though. It’s almost as kind as what Bouton had to say!

By: joser

joser — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:53:35 +0000

You know, the funniest thing to me about the whole K-Rod thing is this quote from the man himself: “I don’t even know who he is.”

That’s hilarious. Does he expect to know random bloggers for other teams? Of course he doesn’t know who Derek is. What does he even mean by that — only people who know him should point out when he’s cheating?

By: joser

joser — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:47:07 +0000

You know, if the M’s owners did reach into their corporate stockpile of consoles (which presumably includes both Wii and XBoxes, given the owners), wouldn’t that be the first step towards bringing USSM inside the bubble and neutering its independent voice? Derek should turn such a gift down on principle. (Of course, if some random Nintendo or Microsoft minion finds a way to ship one off and account for it as marketing swag, that’s a different thing entirely)