Saturday, December 10, 2011

Minima IV Online Baseball Scorecard - Colour Menu on Top

Minima_IV-Colour_Menu_on_Top.html
Originally published at Blogger Baseball Scorecard - http://internetbaseballscorecard.blogspot.com/2011/12/minima-iv-colour-menu-on-top.html.

Cross posted at Michael Holloway's FilterBlogs - http://filter--blog.blogspot.com/2011/12/minima-iv-online-baseball-scorecard.html.

This is a new "Minima IV" at-bat box design which renders four Colour Notations Scoring Menus along the right side of the At-Bat box --- instead of in four pop-up menu, as in my last post on this latest version in the Internet Baseball Scorecard.
( http://internetbaseballscorecard.blogspot.com/2011/12/minima-iv.html )

'Minima IV' AB box Image - rendered in Google Chrome


The colour notation 'Selection Menus' open by clicking on the appropriate 'base' icon. When you click on the First Base icon ( the furthest right black triangle on the peach coloured, infield icon ), the First Base menu opens, indicated by the 1 in the bottom white box. In this coding the colour notation menu remains live until you choose another menu by clicking on a different Base icon. Click on any of the colours in the menu and an appropriately coloured triangle will appear on the chosen side of the infield.

In My scorekeeping universe: red means Out, pink means Error, yellow means Fielder's Choice, lime green means Base Hit, forest green means the runner advanced via ball put into play by another batter, blue means Stolen Base, navy blue indicates the route by which a Run was scored and RBI awarded. The bottom two boxes are field green and white - for fixing mistakes.

The Miima IV At-Bat (AB) box is less than half the size of the "Minima III" baseball scorecard AB box - but it has many hidden functions that provide for lots of customization for the individual user. Each quadrant of the AB box has text areas for recording scorekeeper notations - five lines high that allow for "Project Scoresheet" scoring notation protocols - but instead of room for 13 characters as in the Minima III scorecard, there are 7 in this sleek version. All text areas have hidden scroll bars which allow for any amount of text - but to keep the look of the card clean, I suggest limiting your notations to 5 lines. By clicking the button a "notepad" is available for any extra notations you wish, or for notes. The notepad closes by clicking on the "notepad" button again.

All the elements discussed above are Live in this example:



notes:
Valid HTML 4.01 Strict

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Day by Day and Start Time Schedule - MLB Championship Series

2011 MLB Postseason - Day by Day



ALCS, NLCS
Updated: Wednesday, October 12th @ 5:01 PM EST

2011 MLB Postseason Schedule**

Saturday, October 8
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	 
Gm 1	DET 2 @ TEX 3	Sat	Oct.8		

Sunday, October 9
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	 
Gm 1	STL 6 @ MIL 9	Sun	Oct. 9		

Monday, October 10
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	 
Gm 2	DET 3 @ TEX 7	Mon	Oct. 10		
Gm 2	STL 12 @ MIL 3	Mon	Oct. 10		

Tuesday, October 11
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	 
Gm 3	TEX 2 @ DET 5	Tue	Oct.11		

Wednesday, October 12
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	Time ET 
Gm 4	TEX @ DET	Wed     Oct.12	4:19 PM	
Gm 3	MIL @ STL	Wed     Oct.12	8:05 PM	

Thursday, October 13
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	Time ET 
Gm 5	TEX @ DET	Thu	Oct.13	4:19 PM	
Gm 4	MIL @ STL	Thu	Oct.13	8:05 PM	

Friday, October 14
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	Time ET 
Gm 5	MIL @ STL	Fri	Oct.14	8:05 PM	

Saturday, October 15
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	Time ET 
Gm 6*	DET @ TEX	Sat	Oct.15	8:05 PM	

Sunday, October 16
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	Time ET 
Gm 6*	STL @ MIL	Sun	Oct.16	4:05 PM	
Gm 7*	DET @ TEX	Sun	Oct.16	8:05 PM	

Monday, October 17
Game 	Matchup 	Day 	Date 	Time ET 
Gm 7*	STL @ MIL	Mon	Oct.17	8:05 PM	


** subject to change

Data via "2011 MLB Postseason Schedule" at MLB.com


mh

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Day by Day Baseball Postseason game start time Schedule

2011 MLB Postseason - Day by Day

ALDS, NLDS
Updated: Wednesday, October 6th @ 11:41 PM EST 

Friday September 30
Game 	Matchup 	  Day 	Date 	Time ET
Gm 1	TB 9 @ TEX 0	  Fri	Sep. 30 5:00 PM 
Gm 1	DET 1 @ NYY 1     Sat   Sep. 30	8:37 PM (suspended)

Saturday October 1
Game 	Matchup 	  Day 	Date 	Time ET
Gm 1	ARI 1 @ MIL 4	  Sat	Oct. 1	2:00 PM
Gm 1	STL 6 @ PHI 11	  Sat	Oct. 1	5:00 PM
Gm 2	TB 6  @ TEX 8	  Sat	Oct. 1	7:00 PM
Gm 1	DET 3 @ NYY 9     Sat   Oct. 1	8:37 PM (continued)

Sunday October 2
Game 	Matchup 	  Day 	Date 	Time ET
Gm 2	DET 5 @ NYY 3	  Sun	Oct. 2	3:00 PM
Gm 2	ARI 4 @ MIL 9	  Sun	Oct. 2	4:30 PM
Gm 2	STL 5 @ PHI 4	  Sun	Oct. 2	8:00 PM

Monday October 3
Game 	Matchup 	  Day   Date  	Time ET
Gm 3	TEX 4 @ TB 3	  Mon	Oct. 3	5:00 PM
Gm 3	NYY 4 @ DET 5	  Mon	Oct. 3	8:30 PM

Tuesday October 4
Game 	Matchup 	  Day 	Date 	Time ET
Gm 4	NYY 10 @ DET 1	  Tue	Oct. 4	8:30 PM
Gm 4	TEX 4 @ TB 3	  Texas wins series 3-1 		
Gm 3	PHI 3 @ STL 2	  Tue	Oct. 4	5:00 PM
Gm 3	MIL 1 @ ARI 8     Tue	Oct. 4	9:30 PM

Wednesday October 5
Game 	Matchup 	  Day 	Date 	Time ET
Gm 4	PHI 3 @ STL 5	  Wed	Oct. 5	6:00 PM
Gm 4	MIL 6 @ ARI 10	  Wed	Oct. 5	9:30 PM

Thursday October 6
Game 	Matchup 	  Day 	Date 	Time ET
Gm 5	DET 3 @ NYY 2	  Detroit wins series 3-2 

Friday October 7
Game 	Matchup 	  Day 	Date 	Time ET
Gm 5	ARI @ MIL	  Fri	Oct. 7	5:00 PM
Gm 5	STL @ PHI	  Fri	Oct. 7	8:30 PM

Hope that helps. :)


Data via "2011 MLB Postseason Schedule" at MLB.com



mh

Friday, September 30, 2011

Anatomy of a Meltdown - Red Sox: 2nd Greatest Crash in History



Boston Red Sox September Schedule via ESPN
(Re-bigulates on click)
The Boston Red Sox did not win two games in a row in from August 27th to September 28th,


I went back over the Boston team schedule looking for series wins and loses; there's nothing in those columns that foreshadow September.

On Sun, June 12th the Sox  completed a season high 9 game win streak with a 3 game slaughter of the Toronto Blue Jays (5-1, 16-4, 14-1) - they were playing .600 ball and held a 2 game lead over the Yankees for 1st place in the AL East. The team was scoring runs like crazy - in two series that month they put up similar 14 run blow-out tallies.


Searching for Indicators

Inter-league play didn't go so well for the Bostons in the second half of June...

Fri, Jun 17 vs Milwaukee W
Sat, Jun 18 vs Milwaukee L
Sun, Jun 19 vs Milwaukee W

Mon, Jun 20 vs San Diego W
Tue, Jun 21 vs San Diego L
Wed, Jun 22 vs San Diego L

Fri, Jun 24 @ Pittsburgh L
Sat, Jun 25 @ Pittsburgh L
Sun, Jun 26 @ Pittsburgh W

Tue, Jun 28 @ Philadelphia L
Wed, Jun 29 @ Philadelphia L
Thu, Jun 30 @ Philadelphia W

..but everything went back to normal as the calander flipped to July. Before the All-Star break the Sox swept the Astros, beat the Blue Jays and then swept the Orioles in a 4 gamer. After the All-Star break things continued to go as expected - the Bostons continued to play .600 ball.

In mid August another hiccup:

Fri, Aug 12 @ Seattle W
Sat, Aug 13 @ Seattle L
Sun, Aug 14 @ Seattle L

Tue, Aug 16 vs Tampa Bay W
Tue, Aug 16 vs Tampa Bay L
Wed, Aug 17 vs Tampa Bay L

But then the ship righted and all seemed correct again in bean town - Boston beat both Kansas City and Texas 3 out of 4, and then won a series over Oakland losing the first and winning the last two. The date was Saturday, Aug 27th - Boston had just won 4-0 over the Oaklands and had a record of 82-51 - 15.5 games over .500. They held a 2 game lead over the Yankees - and a 9 game lead over Tampa Bay Rays for the Wild Card with 28 games to go

This would be the last time the Boston Red Sox would win 2 games in a row in 2011.


September can be a cruel month

Boston went to New York on Tuesday, August 30th and lost 2 out of 3, the first of 7 more series loses in September. The Sox went from a club playing .617 ball to a club playing .276 ball - from the first division to basement dweller in the blink of an eye.

There was no warnings, no sputtering - no injury(s) to account for a sudden change in fortune... . The Boston Red Sox just all of a sudden became a bad baseball team!


The Numbers

In an article by Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus from September 27, 2007 - titled, "Lies, Damned Lies Blowing It", Silver (with the help of an earlier article by Clay Davenport) works up the 13 worst collapses of all time,
"...defined by the teams that had the highest percentage chance to reach the playoffs at some point during the regular season who then failed to do so."
The percentage point, starting point 'A' on the time line, is a variable that makes it hard to compare over the different collapses that have happened in history - so I broke down the losing using ironically, team 'Winning Percentage' - from the beginning of the collapse until the end of the season: Below I chart 5 chokes from history that Nate Silver lists in his worst 13. I choose them based on lowest winning percentage during the collapse. To determine what is the best kind of collapse I feel that 3 qualities define a truely great collapse:
  • winning percentage on the dive
  • lead squandered
  • quickness of the about-face
The number of games over which the dive happened is important - the longer you play with a low winning percentage the further you fall against your rivals - but we're talking collapse here, which entails a sudden catastrophe. So in ordering this list I gave a low winning percentage and the size of the lead they squandered more weight than the number of games in the collapse:


Top 6 Collapses of All Time

#EpicFail   Team   D-Day    Peak     Situation        Games(W-L)  W%


#1    1964  PHI    17/Sept  89-58    6.5 up NL        15(3-12)   .200
.................................    No Wild Card
#2    2011  BOS    27/Aug   82-51    2.0 up AL-E      29(8-21)   .276
.................................    9   up WC(TBR)
#3    1995  CA     20/Aug   66-41    12.5 up AL-W     38(12-26)  .316
.................................    12   up WC
#4    1969  CHI-NL 19Aug    77-45    8   up NL        40(15-25)  .375
.................................    No Wild Card
#5    1921  PIT    22/Aug   76-40    7.5 up NL        37(14-23)  .378
.................................    No Wild Card
#6    1983  ATL    10/Aug   69-45,   6.5 up NL        48(19-29)  .396
.................................    No Wild Card



mh

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

1-6-5-3-4 Where's 2?

Squaretender is a blog devoted to baseball scorekeeping.

As you may know, I like keeping score (- in a good way). I found Squaretender through visits I was getting in my StatCounter account - after they published a piece about my "Blogger Baseball Scorecard" - "A Scorecard in HTML".

As their Welcome page says,
"Our aim is to explore the technique, history, passion, quirks, and simple joy of keeping score. Nothing else brings you closer to a baseball game, and our purpose is to bring you closer to how and why it’s done." 

They regularly cover complex plays that happen around the Leagues, and write about how one might score them. I love a challenge too.  Tonight at Squaretender I learned what the scoring, "Fielder Choice, out" means. For the full explanation see the Squaretender post, "Boxified: Stay in a rundown as long as you can".

It's a fairly short notation for a play in which so much happens (see the video embed below); it's 'just':
FC out
1-6-5-3-4
#1 RS

You just have to keep track of which infielder is where, and when - just like Braves' lead off hitter Michael Bourn did - as he reaches 3B after a dropped ball, and as the run down is continuing on the 1B side of the diamond, he notices nobodies covering Home!





Embed courtesy of "Squaretender".

Squaretender article about Blogger Baseball Scorecard - "A Scorecard in HTML"



mh

Saturday, September 24, 2011

More on... Colby Rasmus - Blue Jay CF 'Par Excellence'

In a post here yesterday entitled, "Colby Rasmus is batting .191 - the Mendoza Line for this Great Centre Fielder", I took a couple of guesses as to why Colby Rasmas said the hings he said before Thursday's last home game of the 2011 season. (You should see the original article by Andrew Stoeten - here - first.)

Several people at the Drunk Jays Fans post (where I originally wrote the article, then blogged it) followed with some excellent links to video and articles that I'd like to share here - from St Louis and from the Cardinals AAA affiliate, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats - where Colby Rasmus spent some time late this season just before the trade to Toronto. This first link from the "Drunk Jays Fans" commenter 'Chris3173' gives us a good take on how Colby Rasmus does interview - laid back, honest, forth right and introspective.

Via graymatter11's Youtube post, "Colby Rasmus on playing with Fisher Cats".

"Blue Jays center fielder Colby Rasmus talks with New Hampshire Union Leader reporter Kevin Gray about playing in the 2011 Eastern League Championship Series"




Screenshot of the River Front Times article by Larry Borowsky
"Drunk Jays Fans" commenter 'purplehaze89' pointed to this nice piece on Rasmus's father who coached him all his life, until professional ball - published at the Riverfront Times, "Shit Colby Rasmus' Dad Says: The father of the St. Louis Cardinals phenom is never at a loss for words. But what he says might surprise you" written by Larry Borowsky from Thursday, Mar 31 2011.

And, also pointed to by 'purplehaze89', "A very different Colby Rasmus coming in 2011" - an article posted at "The Cardinal Nation blog" (December 9th, 2010) written by Brian Walton. Interesting piece. Not only did the Cardinals - and his father, who was allowed by the Cardinals to help coach him - pile all kinds of expectations on him with-in a systematic off season coaching regime designed to turn him from a 23HR, .276 hitter into a .300 spray hitter - but his father also talked about it in the media!


BATTING Regular Season Career Stats (via MLB)

YEAR TEAM    G   AB   R   H  TB 2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS 
2009 STL   147  474  72 119 193 22  2 16  52  36  95 .251 .307 .407 .714 
2010 STL   144  464  85 128 231 28  3 23  66  63 148 .276 .361 .498 .859 

2011 STL    94  338  61  83 142 14  6 11  40  45  77 .246 .332 .420 .753 
2011 TOR    31  119  14  22  40  9  0  3  13   5  33 .185 .216 .336 .552 
2011 total 125  457  75 105 182 23  6 14  53  50 110 .230 .304 .398 .702 


By the looks of these numbers his father is trying to make himself more than he is by turning a 'good' major league player (.276) into a 'great' major league player (.300) - in order to get himself a major league coaching job one wonders?

One could posit that there are very powerful forces at work here: his son as a mirror of himself, the failings of the father's baseball carrier heaped upon the son - or perhaps he was just carried away by the dream of becoming a major league coach? In either case it would appear no one was looking out for Colby, every one got caried away with making the club better by moulding the player at hand into the player not on the roster - never thinking of listening to the soft spoken young man, or allowing the young centre fielder from a small town to find his way at his own pace.

Ah, the weight of a million dollars bonus - too much for any human I expect.


As I said later at Drunk Jays Fans,
Read the article, great link. So now we get the Canadian Border Authority to place a ban on the father entering Canada.  :)

No really, don't call.



mh

Friday, September 23, 2011

Colby Rasmus is batting .191 - the Mendoza Line for this Great Centre Fielder

This reminds me of what's wrong with baseball - baseball mass media.

I refer to a story in The National Post by John Lott published Sep 22, 2011 entitled "Rasmus ready to start fresh in 2012".

The root of the story as I read it, is that he contradicts his Manager who says he working on spraying the ball, while Rasmus says he working on nothing, needs a break from it all, playing out the string, waiting for the off season.

Seems like a reasonable thing to say just before the last home game of the season. It's a sentiment the Jays' GM is echoing a few hours later in a fifth inning interview with Pat and Buck - that they're out of the wild card race -  it's the general feeling around the organization in the midst of a multi year rebuild.

But it seems we'd rather have some pre-phrased, macho formula response to our questions from players, rather than honest, off the cuff responses.  The guy just told us some very personal things - it sounds to me like he's depressed - and has been so for a couple of years.

But our self obsessed response:  'What'da mean Toronto is depressing?'.  The phrase, "Enough about me - what do You think about me?" comes to mind.

It's a typical neurotic knee jerk that typifies those who seem to need to find heroes and gods in ordinary men - perhaps to make up for their own misunderstanding that they themselves are surely no better than the proverbial pile of shit.

You're right though Mr. , he's not doing himself any favours. *

The popular press will run with the childish reaction the piece has engendered so far I am sure. We'll collectively drag him down, here with us and kick the shit out of him till he stops breathing. Perhaps Rasmus thought he was talking to a reporter from a publication with a readership that liked to think about things - a place where honesty would be appreciated. 

Wrong-o Buck-o.

Mr. Rasmus. Watch Bull Durham and take note of the bus scene where Crash Davis gets 'Meat' to write down several quotes to help him give good sound byte to the media - as well it's a movie with a lot of spiritual lessons and some pretty funny moments - it'll help cheer you up - for moments anyway.


As someone who has suffered from depression all his life - find a good friend you can talk about these things with - and always err on the side of human goodness, the darkness I find, comes out of systems of human organization, where the heart gets lost in the machine (like in the mass media).

And something that I haven't seen here in this thread, or mentioned in the article at The National Post - and as I said at the Blogger Baseball Scorecard just after the trade - Colby Rasmus might be the best CF the Toronto Blue Jays have ever had.  The way I described it:  'He takes clean lines to the hardest catches.'

With that kind of fielding a Mendoza Line BA keeps him a starter in the majors. Anything more is bonus.



*  Originally published as a comment at Drunk Jays Fans - Friday, 23 September, 2011 "You're Not Doing Yourself Any Favours, Colby Rasmus".

"Bull Durham - Cliches" via mcmillke Channel at Youtube.



mh