What did you research today?

[Brian McKenna]

just thought it would be fun to hear what everyone has been working on

[janduscframe]

Digging through my playhouse (a place where a guy can get away from everything complete with tv,radio,vcr,dvd and lots of old paper)which is actually a refurbished granary and looking for old newspapers... The mice have attacked another pile I see and I also found a dead mole.. How did a mole get in there? Part of the price you pay for living in the country....Our fifteen cats are too well fed. I found a story from 43 or so where the Reds have hired a personal trainer.(sounds like a crackpot to me) I'll post it later.. Found another story about the Babe having to give up his 15 cigars a day and quit the booze.

[Brian McKenna]

i believe clark griffith may have had the first full time trainer - mike martin - traveled with him from new york to cincinnati to washington

[mordeci]

Designing a solution that will let our remote servers dial in to existing routers and pass through our firewall to the Internet to access a 3rd party database. Oh, did you mean baseball-related? Then nothing.

[Blackout]

Hack Wilson stories

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Building a new and improved version of the flux-capacitor, a project started by Dr. Emmit Brown. My research has to do with the social ramifications, more or less. Ok, maybe not, great scott....

Just read something new on Babe of course, nothing special :D

Actually, learned from somewhere that Elvis died on August 16, the same day as Babe. So I was looking up all the similarities of the two.

[runningshoes]

I've been researching Ferdinand Marcos for a possible project.

[RuthMayBond]

I've been reviewing Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs for which would be the most suitable ones for straight use or minimal modification for a possible Christmas cantata at my church. Yeah, that would be for NEXT year :laugh I also researched some Christmas present options for my wife :D

[runningshoes]

I've been reviewing Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs for which would be the most suitable ones for straight use or minimal modification for a possible Christmas cantata at my church. Yeah, that would be for NEXT year :laugh I also researched some Christmas present options for my wife :D

You bugger..you haven't bought her a gift yet?

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Reminds me of one of the greatest sports movie scenes of all time. Bull Durham, mound conference. CANDLESTICKS ALWAYS MAKE A NICE GIFT ;)

[RuthMayBond]

You bugger..you haven't bought her a gift yet?These were additional gifts. I'm not an idiot . . .
. . . well, not completely . . .
. . . maybe you're right :laugh

[Captain Cold Nose]

Extensible stylesheet language transformation. And the company I'm auditing for state-level Baldrige accreditation.
In regards to baseball, I was trying to find wheher Billy Hamilton actually batted lead off. (Couldn't find a box score.)

[cjedmonton]

Southpaws, southpaws and more southpaws (Did I mention southpaws?;))

The to-do list on my tribute site has made my head spin, but for now, I'm refining the last bit of my "all-time great" evaluation criteria.

[pretorius]

Population trends to try and guess which state's will gain (lose) electoral votes in 2010.

Active polls on all upcoming 2006 Senate races.

Something to somewhat explain the movie Primer to me.

In my life I have never been really confused by a movie(that didn't admit to being plotless or open-ended). I have heard people state how confusing certain movies were like Jacob's Ladder, Identity, Basic, Pi, 12 Monkeys, The Matrix movies....whatever. All movies I coasted through.

Primer is a different kind of animal. It is the one movie I have seen that I think makes sense but that I am either not intelligent enough to get or lack the concentration to fuly grasp. Very confusing and hard to follow. This is from a guy (me) who never has problems with a movie.

[SABR Matt]

Methods for makinig this flu I have go away as fast as possible (it's making my entire face swell up and it hurts to swallow...plus I have a roaring headache.

Oh...and ways of numerically interpolating to determine how much rain has fallen in areas where we don't have recording equipment in recent years so that I can then project geographically based patterns onto earlier seasons where precip data is harder to come by based on a smaller sampling.

[Biggtone23]

Trying to complete a database of all minor league managers since the 1963 reorganization.

[wamby]

Going through the play by play of the Indians 1948 season.

Also, the evolution of Sunday Baseball in the Major Leagues.

[RuthMayBond]

Working on my all-decade teams for a thread in History

[SABR Matt]

Now I'm honing my career ranking index and trying to figure out just which neurological disorder ElHalo has that causes him to not believe in the existance of Joe Morgan and spout off about the lack of star power in the 1900-1909 NL line-up I produced. :)

Also working on my 50s line-up.

[Brian McKenna]

i really don't get all this who is better, who is best stuff - there just seems to be so little substance to most of the arguments and really very, very little new ground is ever broken that the exercises, to me, seem like a waste of time - joe morgan is joe morgan - rogers hornsby is rogers hornsby - comparing each other, again to me, doesn't diminish or enhance the other - it just seems like an exercise for the speaker to bide his time like a crossword puzzle

an example of my dismay - most threads on baseball fever concerning negro league history spark little in the way of informative and well-researched responses - not that i have a host of informative and well-researched responses on the subject but i surely would like to read them and possibly get involved in the discussion and add to it if possible - however if someone starts a thread about best negro leaguer - the lists will fly - little discussion but a lot of lists - it's almost like people know the names and that's it and they tweak their list as they see how others rank those names - again, i don't see where a lot of substantive information is imparted on anyone - just another crossword exercise

my two cents

[SABR Matt]

Have you actually READ the Morgan/Hornsby thread recently? The sabermetric discussion has moved through a LOT of very interesting topics in recent days that have not been discussed here at Fever before to my knowledge. It's not about the rankings to me...it's about coming to a good understanding of what types of players we're dealing with..how best to define concepts of value and skill, and what the other Fever members see that I don't see that perhapsI should be seeing.

[Brian McKenna]

all that is just scrutinizing hall of famers and near hall of famers - the game is so much more than that - serious work needs to be done, for instance, in the areas of 19th century, minor leagues, negro leagues and the international game - many on the field matters in the major leagues 1901 to present have already been covered ad nauseam - which brings to mind another area sorely in need of research and publication - off the field matters - too much time is spent on hashing and rehashing the same old topics - oh well seeing the lack of interest on bbf for the history of the above i get it - too much time needed - too little interest - too little familiarity with the topics - too hard to learn something new - too overwhelming - i guess we all have our areas of interest - i hope some from sabr or elsewhere embrace the challenge - good luck with your statistical challenges

[538280]

Bkmckenna,

All this debating over players over who's better than who is worth something because we may start off debating Morgan vs. Hornsby, but it always branches off into intelligent discussion about what makes a player valuable. This sort of discussion is very helpful in the present day because it can help people who have a real position of power to build a team with the most valuable players possible.

If we understand what makes players valuable, we can use that for many, many things.

And on top of all that it's a lot of fun.

[SABR Matt]

all that is just scrutinizing hall of famers and near hall of famers - the game is so much more than that - serious work needs to be done, for instance, in the areas of 19th century, minor leagues, negro leagues and the international game - many on the field matters in the major leagues 1901 to present have already been covered ad nauseam - which brings to mind another area sorely in need of research and publication - off the field matters - too much time is spent on hashing and rehashing the same old topics - oh well seeing the lack of interest on bbf for the history of the above i get it - too much time needed - too little interest - too little familiarity with the topics - too hard to learn something new - too overwhelming - i guess we all have our areas of interest - i hope some from sabr or elsewhere embrace the challenge - good luck with your statistical challenges

Your concern over off-the-field matters is your own...I salute you for taking an interest in the game of baseball...but I frankly don't care in the slightest what players do off the field. That's not my job. I'm a sabermetrician...I love the GAME...not the players' hobbies when not playing it.

As for the 19th century game...I couldn't agree more...Bill is doing that work...he's encouraged me to take a much closer look at the available statisdstics of that era...

And as the data becomes available to me...Iwill be studying the Negro Leagues, the Japan Leagues, the Cuban League etc.

I personally would *LOVE* to get my hands on data from the old Pacific Coast League, because I am convinced by the anechdotal evidence that that should be considered a major league. Those were some good teams and good players and the western towns that have extensive PCL histories have all turned into great baseball cities.

[Brian McKenna]

i'm not talking about players' fetishes and names of their dogs and what kind of toilet paper they use - i am talking about the administration of the game and the events off the field that have shaped the history of the game - i.e. the formation of the american league or any other host a subjects

[SABR Matt]

I bid you good luck with such research...notreally what I'm interested, but obviously it has significant value to contribute to our understanding.

[It's Over The Wall!]

Deviseing A Way To Do Historical Head-To-Head Without A Sim Or A Computer. :atthepc


Almost Done To!:clapping


I'll Post It Somewhere On Here Soon

[digglahhh]

bkmckenna,

Couldn't agree more. I don't really do the list thing either. It seems contrived to quibble about who should be the 16th or 17th best player of all time, or 9th best second baseman, etc.

Is there much honor in that distinction, I mean 16th or 17th, or the 8th best secondbaseman as compared to the 10th best?

I'm not knocking the people who have put together their lists, its just not my cup of tea. I like to read them though. Many times they do act as a springboard to provoke discussion though.

I like to ask a lot of questions in those threads and try to provoke some more abstract considerations.

I think what deserves a lot more attention is baseball's relationship to society. Labor issues, financial imbalance, methods of "mining" talent, the fascination with the homerun, these are things that are reflected in our culture, not endemic to the game of baseball. It is interesting to presume what skills sets would be revered and what statistical measures would be assumed to be more important in a society with a drastically different economic and value system.

Why does the most of the rest of the world really enjoy soccer, but we don't? Soccer doesn't really refelct our values like baseball does. More work analyzing the relationship bewteeen sports and the societies in which they are played needs to be done.

[Chisox]

Population trends to try and guess which state's will gain (lose) electoral votes in 2010.

Hey, I've been doing the same thing!

I compared the Bush states vs. Kerry states after the 2004 election and made some findings. (Like the Bush states growing incredibly more rapidly than Kerry states.) Anything else/new on that?

I just finished a project that I spent about 50 hours (of actual work) on from Thursday to Sunday adding season by season leaders of G, AB, PA, CS, GIDP, IBB, (PA+SH+SBA), Outs, (R-HR), SF, SH, 1B, and SBA to my totals list.
I also added GIDP/AB, IBB/PA, Outs/(PA+SH+SBA), (R-HR)/PA, SF/PA, 1B/AB and SBP to my percentages lists. I did both of those for league and majors lists.

I'm in the process of making a 100 question test (split into four quizzes of 25 each) and have the players section filled, and ten each of everyone else and events sections and am going to fill the rules section now that I have access to them again (once I download them.) I'm desperately looking for suggestions on the Everyone Else and Events quizzes and am going to post in the Trivia forum for this.

Now that I've got the 2005 updates, I'm going to be very busy the next weeks. I've gotta review taking boxscores, too.

Good to be back.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Jessica Alba vs. Jenna Jameson

Still "researching." :cool:

[Chisox]

Jessica Alba vs. Jenna Jameson

Still "researching." :cool:

What "conclusions" have you made?:D

[runningshoes]

Bruce Sutter, Michael Barrett and Juan Pierre for player bios.

[Brian McKenna]

comparing stats between bert blyleven and enshrined hall of famers and trying to figure out why he is not -- i guess it's because he didn't play for the star-studded teams - oops, wait, wouldn't that make him better?

is the alba-jameson question for real? the former is young and hot and the latter is dirty and nasty and best suited for turning tricks in the back alley next to a reeking chinese restaurant dumpster at high noon on a 101 degree day

[runningshoes]

Jenna Jameson?

I'm gonna have to go with Brian on this one, although I think she's better suited for.....never mind. :D