Yes, I Was "Jim From Mass." on XM175 This Morning

Holden and Billy at about 7:40 AM were having a conversation about now-free agent Jason Varitek and Holden was talking all about that the Red Sox will cut players when they feel the player's contract demands are too, well, demanding, listing DLowe, Pedro, Nomar and Johnny Damon and then was going on about that his offensive output has dramatically declined this year & can't throw people out yada yada yada and what was his value to the club?

Well, that's why I called in - his value to the club is measurable. When he got injured in 2006, the Sox team ERA ballooned while he was out - so, I relayed that. Holden seemed to dismiss it since it wasn't in his meme of "Red Sox cut players when it suits them and they don't care", but Billy immediately said "Yes, I remember what the caller was talking about." My two minutes of fame broadcast across North America - yippee!

But as you can see, more people are thinking about this stuff besides me regarding Tek's value to the Sox...I found this article, from the NYTimes about the details of Varitek's pitching value to the Sox in 2006, and here's the paragraphs with the numbers:

Varitek’s absence has been detrimental to the entire pitching staff, but especially to the younger arms the Red Sox have injected into their pursuit of the postseason. Before Varitek was placed on the disabled list, the Red Sox were 63-41 and their pitchers had a combined earned run average of 4.65. That was one of the highest E.R.A.’s in the American League. Still, since then, the Red Sox were 6-12 with a 6.30 E.R.A. going into Sunday night’s game.

When one A.L. talent evaluator who has scouted the Yankees and the Red Sox extensively this season was asked why Boston had fizzled recently, he said: “Varitek, Varitek, Varitek. No Varitek. That’s huge for them.”

Varitek is so crucial to the Red Sox that he basically runs their scouting meetings before each series. Most teams have a coach disseminate the scouting information and review it with the pitchers and catchers, but Varitek embraces that role for Boston.

Here's a rotoworld.com forum thread that talks about Varitek refering to catcher's ERA and I took a cut from some poster's data (sorry, I can't link just to the post):

Josh Beckett [5.01 ERA in 2006], August, 2006: 1-4, 6.38 ERA.
Curt Schilling [3.97 ERA in 2006], August, 2006: 1-3, 5.22 ERA.
Jon Lester [4.76 ERA in 2006], August, 2006: 2-1, 7.66 ERA.
Kyle Snyder [6.56 ERA in 2006], August, 2006: 0-1, 8.44 ERA.
Jonathan Papelbon [0.92 ERA in 2006], August, 2006: 2-1, 2.40 ERA.
Mike Timlin [4.36 ERA in 2006], August, 2006: 0-3, 7.42 ERA.
Varitek definitely influences their ERA, so i think CERA is fairly valid.

A poster named "Anna" [ED.Note - link fixed - tks Anna!] at this blog says this about 'Tek:

In fact, though, I’m keeping my hopes high that Varitek will be back in Boston. Not because of the whole ‘team captain’ thing and the leadership angle — though that’s surly a factor, however large or small — but because the team and especially the pitchers are not ready to loose him. To dispute JP here, Tek is a far, far better defensive catcher than Cash, and frankly better than most other catchers in the American League. His catcher’s ERA is the lowest in the league, a huge asset to the team. He tied Mauer for fewest passed balls, had second fewest errors, second highest fielding percentage, and highest range factor. He’s astonishingly good at blocking the plate, and as every pitcher on the staff will tell you, calls a game like no one else. They’ve come to rely on that, too. I keep remembering what happened when Varitek was injured in ‘06 and the team ERA instantly swelled. For the defense and game calling the Sox get from Tek, I’d hardly care if he couldn’t get his swing back.

So, I'm not the only one that remembers that Varitek's value to the team goes way beyond taters and ribbies and OPS+ ratings and Win Shares. And I don't count myself as a Sox fanatic - I just married one ;o)

Holden? Thoughts?

Verizon Redirect Nonsense

I got this last night for the first time, probably because I type so few URLs into the brower (we use ie and forefox at home). You have to, in essence, find a website that does not exist (actually tough these days, since the big names like yahoo and google own the websites "near" theirs, like typing "yaho" instead of "yahoo". In techie terms, this is called a "404 error". Also, there are phishing sites out there that prey on bad typists as well.

I found this link about this very same thing - the verizon redirects - while typing to figure out what I had typed in the first place. Today at work, I remembered that a writer for an economics blog (his new updated one is here) that I read daily had the same problem and had to "opt out", but they made it pretty hard for him to do it.

I'm encountering the same problem. I have to click on about this page (far right button), then click on the hi-speed user opt-out link, and then pick one of the linksys routers to figure out how to fix the issue - it's not a simple opt out thing and you really need to know a little about this stuff - I know enough that I can do it. But how many people can follow this and then this?

Fishing

Some of you may have seen this picture before. But I couldn't NOT post it.
I figure I'm not going to be high on her happy list as a teenager anyways - so I might as well have my fun now.
Jim says we can only show this picture to her fiance AFTER she has the ring on her finger!


By the way - Caroline had been talking about going fishing and we were trying to tell her all the fish were asleep for the winter. And JUST so you know - there was NOTHING in the toilet and she's "fishing" with the toilet brush. If you look closely you can see a very large puddle of water on the floor.
I think she got a live one on the line.

That's the last time I let her go to the bathroom with distant supervision!

Catching Up

What a weekend.
Both Caroline and Sam have been sick. We thought that Caroline was getting the brunt of it when she had a fever of 102 on Friday afternoon. Turns out she got off easy.
Sam has a wicked case of croup and an ear infection. He sounds like a barking seal when he coughs or tries to "talk". It was bad enough to land us in the doctors office on Sunday morning and then in the ER later on that afternoon. He hasn't had any more trouble breathing, thank goodness. Not that I didn't love staying up with him most of the night Saturday (I got a big kick out of Weekend Update and the Frontline on Lee Atwater was pretty interesting)...I'll be grateful for a better night of sleep tonight.

Sam has his own version of shushy-face:

We went to the Ecotarium earlier in the weekend and Caroline just COULD NOT stay out of the puddles (big surprise, I know):


The kids are starting to play together more and more and it really is pretty cute:

CJ and Dada had a lot of fun on the train:

Samuel, however, was less than thrilled with all the attention from Mama:

We came home to find Junior more than comfortable on the couch:

Everyone is getting enjoyment from the new-to-us ipod. Who knew Caroline was such a Linda Ronstadt fan? I think it comes from here.
Her favorite songs are currently: "Sweet Caroline" (there's a stretch), "Carolina on My Mind" (didn't see that one coming, either), "Blue Bayou" (the Linda Ronstadt version) and "Cry Baby". Hopefully we can get video of her singing Janis because it's a hoot. She gets really into it. Wonder where she gets that from.

Writer for Cheers Talks About Old Scripts

Found this link randomly this morning when talking to a colleague about kale (he brought it up!), and of course all I can think of is Woody Boyd's famous line, "You can really taste the kale!" So, I googled it...

XM-Sirius Merger Step Two: Complete

They've messed with the dial now, whereas before, they offered the "Best of Sirius" to us XM'ers, for an extra $4 a month. Feh. Didn't need Stern (yes, yes, I get the joke that is Stern - it does not mean I want to pay to listen to him - he's not that compelling) and paying for Martha Stewart, Playboy Radio (what's the point??), NASCAR and NFL games on the radio.

Sadly, they did mess with two of our favorite stations, Chrome (nay XM83) and POTUS'08 which originally, was not tagged to stay around past election day anyways, but they've smashed it up with a Sirius station and now just call it POTUS. Sadly, they have let go Scott Walterman and it appears Rebecca Roberts, too, with the next phase of the merger, which appears to be Sirius being the senior partner, since the press releases are "tagged Sirius XM". But, Ron Silver on POTUS? Again, feh. The POTUS lineup is now remarkably thin. At least they could have put the POTUS Press Pool on for the evening commute. At least I get Morning Briefing for the morning commute.

Election Day

I am officially burned out.
I can handle no more.
I have done my research.
I have cast my ballot.
And now I'm ready for this whole thing to be OVER.

But I can't complain too much because Jim worked from home today so we could all go out and vote together.
And BOTH kids are napping AT THE SAME TIME.
I DO believe in miracles. =-)

Voting this morning was an interesting experience.
The level of organization at our new polling place was less than ideal. The lines for each precinct were not marked well. People couldn't figure out where to go and there weren't signs or people to direct us. The poll workers did not seem to be distributed appropriately between precincts (that might account for why the line for Tatnuck was going down the street and there was NO LINE for the West Tatnuck polls). BUT everyone was exceedingly patient and I heard minimal grumbling. All in all it took us about an hour to get in and out.

Time well spent, if you ask me.

I saw something today that I had never seen before. Some new citizens were voting for the first time and they were so excited. They actually asked the poll workers to snap pictures of them handing over their ballots. It helped me to appreciate what a privilege we really have to be able to voice our opinion.
I resisted the temptation to slap our MA State Representitive across the face as I walked by him. My skin crawls when I think about the stuff he has done.
A local celebrity was in line behind us. It was nice to see what he looked like off the radio.
The chocolate bars that the Tatnuck School were selling helped things go more smoothly, too.
Especially the ones with caramel.

The weather was so nice today that we went outside to play after lunch.

Sam's First Haircut

It's the morning after Halloween - so both kids are down for naps already (and we're not complaining). Caroline had an utter meltdown this morning, which is really unlike her. We asked her what the matter was and she said, "I'm tired." I thought it was pretty impressive that she had that much insight. Lots of times when I'm grumpy I don't have a clue as to why.


We took Sam for his first haircut today. We had to - his hair was down to his eyebrows and well over his ears and collar. Jim and I had visions of us having to hold him down as someone had a trimmer to his head. But that wasn't the case at all. He just sat there and held onto Moosie and kept himself together astonishingly well. The only time he came close to loosing it was when his head got sprayed with water.

Now Mommy, on the other hand, was choking back tears through most of the affair.
Because her baby doesn't look like a baby anymore.
But he's the most handsome little boy she's ever seen.

Here are some pictures.
Before:


During:


After: