The Futility Infielder

Hey, remember me? I'm the guy that used to type words into complete sentences and coherent thoughts and then post them on this page -- writing, they called it. I've been told I was a pretty fair country writer, but I'm still trying to piece together exactly how I managed to do so much of it; the last few weeks have left me very little time to do so.

The catch is that there's been a baseball element to the reasons I've been MIA here. Over the past month I've had three graphic design projects involving the game. One is the website banner for 247baseball.com, which is the site of Gary Gillette, who along with Pete Palmer just put out a massive 1,700-page remix of the game's history and statistics, The Baseball Encyclopedia. Another is a series of banner ads for Baseball Prospectus which should be coming to you at a nearby website, featuring catchy quotes from the likes of Billy Beane, Michael Lewis, and Peter Gammons. And the third is a streamlined program-like product for a startup venture called GameCard Enterprises which is currently being sold at Red Sox spring training games in Fort Myers, Florida. It's always a pleasure to get paid to work on something baseball-related whether I'm writing or designing, so as much as I miss the former when time is tight, I take great satisfaction in the latter, and it sure does help keep a roof over my head. (Sadly, it looks as though my banner for baseball-reference.com may be on its way out -- and nobody told me. Boooooooooooo!)

The irony of my timing is that with the exception of the steroid issue, not much is happening on the baseball front, even as the spring training games have started. The usual slew of March non-stories about irrelevant position battles and the early optimism of backup catchers on cellar-dwellers appear to constitute the major relief from BALCO, Bonds, and blustering politicians. Here in New York, Gary Sheffield's thumb and Reggie Jackson's mouth get the ink, which is at least more entertaining than hearing that Enrique Wilson is hitting above .500 before the Ides of March.

Thursday night brought a much-needed jolt of energy to my outlook on baseball in the form of the Pinstriped Bible/Baseball Prospectus Pizza Feed, which was held at John's Pizzeria in Times Square. Fueled by gooey but mediocre pizza and too many glasses of Coke, I spent over four hours talking baseball with fellow bloggers, writers and readers. Steven Goldman (the lynchpin of the BP/PB connection now that he's got his own column at the latter, Chris Kahrl (who writes the awesome Transaction Analysis pieces), and intern Chaim Bloom (who I met at the Winter Meetings) flew the flag for the sponsors, while fellow area bloggers included familiar faces Alex Belth and Alex Ciepley, plus Cliff Corcoran, Derek Jacques, Steve Keane, David Pinto (down from Massachusetts), Repoz, and a number of readers of our various sites. Also among the group was my mentor, Jim Gerard, who taught me in a writing class at the New School several years ago that in a roundabout way led to this here endeavor.

The Yankees were of course a hot topic. Goldman regaled us with stories from his peek behind the pinstriped curtain, most of them involving the tyranny of George Steinbrenner. "Take the worst stories you've heard and multiply them by a factor of five," he said. Our table of Belth, Ciepley, Corcoran, my pal Nick Stone, and a couple of others kicked around some Willie Randolph/Don Mattingly coaching and managing questions which Belth covers at his site. Kahrl entertained us with stories of phone calls from Billy Beane over tart assessments of obscure middle-relief transactions. Ciepley brought up some Dusty Baker-anti-sabermetric foolishness. Avid record-collector Repoz rewarded this fellow music fan with a tiny piece of his collection -- a Chu-Bops miniature bubblegum album of Foghat's Tight Shoes. Sweeet.

The get-together was a blast, and I'm hoping that more of its kind will follow (if you're an NYC-area blogger or local reader intering in mixing with those who are, let me know, because I've got a little something I've organized called Big Apple Baseballists). Baseball Prospectus is doing a bookstore tour that lands in Brooklyn in a couple of weeks, with Joe Sheehan, Dayn Perry, and Nate Silver in tow. See the BP site for details, and come out and see the cool kids on Thursday, March 25.