Monday, November 03, 2003
The Other Ozzie
No, not that Ozzie. Ozzie Guillen was just named the manager of the White Sox. Yikes. As a player he had no strike zone judgement - he never took a walk:
Year Games Walks 1985 150 12 1986 159 12 1987 149 22 1988 156 25 1989 155 15 1990 160 26 1991 154 11 1992 12 1 1993 134 10 1994 100 14 1995 122 13 1996 150 10 1997 142 22 1998 95 25 1999 92 15 2000 63 6
It's true that he didn't have many strikeouts, but this is because he rarely was at the plate long enough to see strike three. He put the ball into play as soon as possible. "I didn't strike out much" isn't worth a lot when you have a lifetime OBP of .287.
On the other hand, Ozzie has great people skills, a lot of goodwill with the local media, and is a native Spanish speaker. When fellow countryman Gus Polidor was murdered, Guillen stepped in and took care of Polidor's family.
Tony Phillips knew the value of a walk, milked pitchers for extra pitches because he knew they became less effective at higher pitch counts, and was the posterboy for patient hitting. On the other hand, he got into some crazy fights with both players and fans, and liked to hit the crack pipe now and again. I'd much rather have him at the plate, but not running the show. But I do wish that the White Sox would hire somebody with Tony Phillips's knowledge to act as bench coach.
Deadwood on the Internet
According to this article on Cnn.com, "deadwood" websites are becoming a real problem. Two-thirds of blogs in a recent survey haven't been updated in over two months, and there are thousands of websites out there that haven't been updated in years.
And I can understand why. This takes a fair amount of work, even for only a change or two a day. It's one thing if it is a site like The Diamond Angle where a thousand people or more might drop by on any given day, but for low readership sites, sometimes it is just not worth the trouble.
posted by David 11:45 AM
