Come on out and talk some baseball
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Jun 29, 2008 
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If you’re in the New York area and you’re a Baseball Prospects fan, come out to Foley’s NY tomorrow night at 8 p.m. for one of their Pizza Feeds.
Our man Will Carroll will be on hand along with Joe Sheehan, Steven Goldman, Jay Jaffe and Derek Jacques. Will Leitch of Deadspin fame is reportedly on the guest list. I’m planning to be there myself.
Foley’s is at 18 W 33rd in Manhattan, right across from the Empire State Building between Fifth and Sixth. Shaun Clancy, the owner, is a tremendous baseball fan.
Check out the Baseball Prospectus events list for more details.
Baseball Prospectus is for Math geeks, not baseball fans. Not that I’m against statistical analysis. I just like being able to talk baseball without my calculator. Plus, they’re wrong just as often as the scouts and sportswriters who watch the game and go with their gut. I prefer the good old days when baseball lent itself more to poetry and literature than a list of numbers run through a computer.*
If anyone wants to get together to discuss the writing of Jimmy Cannon, Grantland Rice, Al Stump, Gay Talice, Ring Lardner, or Damon Runyan I’ll be there. By the way, jus finished David Halberstam’s “Summer of ’49″. I highly recommend it.
* Of course, I failed high school algebra yet got a perfect score on the English portion of my SATs, so I may be a bit biased.
I’m a baseball fan AND a math geek, who happens to work on 33rd street….
I might have to see about making this, but I’m not sure how easy it’d be for me (I live 2 hours west, in NJ, and have to get up at 5 for work, ugh).
If there’s a computer there, I’ll go. I’d love to meet you Peter and talk baseball with you but I have blog work!
Great screen name, Sean. Also, really nice blog; good info, well laid out, easy-to-read… nice job.
Someone ask Sheehan about his article on Melky Cabrera. He projected Melky to slug .500 “very soon” for an entire season.
The Melk Man is in a terrible, terrible slump, and it’s at like 170 AB now. I think we need the reassurance, LOL!
http://baseballprospectus.com/.....cleid=7053
This is the quote from the article you linked:
“I’m reminded of Alex Rios, who doesn’t look a thing like Cabrera. Rios was largely disappointing in 2004 and 2005, hitting just 11 homers in more than 900 at-bats, with an isolated power of 117. The problem: Rios was hitting the ball on the ground too much, a 1.82 G/F in those two seasons. Starting in ’06, Rios put the ball in the air more than half the time, and became a star. When you look at Cabrera’s body, his established control of the strike zone, and his ability to hold his own at a young age, you recognize that all it’s going to take is for him to start elevating the ball. Cabrera may not get there in 2008, but he’s going to pop 80 extra-base hits and slug .500 in a season very, very soon.”
He showed some of that ability in April, but has since regressed a bit. The ability’s there, though.
lol. For whatever reason my son went to New York and a Foley’s postcard was one of the treasures he brought home. It’s got a picture of a the porcelain urinals on it (??)and they offer the “Empire Sundae”.
Have a good time, Pete.