Baseball Toaster Catfish Stew
Help
STOP CASTING POROSITY! An Oakland Athletics blog.
Frozen Toast
Search
Google Search
Web
Toaster
Catfish Stew
Archives

2009
02  01 

2008
12  11  10  09  08  07 
06  05  04  03  02  01 

2007
12  11  10  09  08  07 
06  05  04  03  02  01 

2006
12  11  10  09  08  07 
06  05  04  03  02  01 

2005
12  11  10  09  08  07 
06  05  04  03  01 

2004
12  09  08  01 

2003
12  11  10  09  08 
Email Us

Ken: catfish AT zombia d.o.t. com
Ryan: rarmbrust AT gmail d.o.t. com
Philip: kingchimp AT alamedanet d.o.t net

Ken's Greatest Hits
28 Aug 2003
12 Jan 2004
31 May 2005
11 May 2005
29 Jun 2005
8 Jun 2005
19 Jul 2005
11 Aug 2005
7 Sep 2005
20 Sep 2005
22 Sep 2005
26 Sep 2005
28 Sep 2005
29 Sep 2005
18 Oct 2005
9 Nov 2005
15 Nov 2005
20 Nov 2005

13 Dec 2005
19 Jan 2006
28 Jan 2006
21 Feb 2006
10 Apr 2006
16 Apr 2006
22 Apr 2006
7 May 2006
25 May 2006
31 May 2006
18 Jun 2006
22 Jun 2006
6 Jul 2006
17 Jul 2006
13 Aug 2006
15 Aug 2006
16 Aug 2006
20 Aug 2006
11 Oct 2006
31 Oct 2006
29 Dec 2006
4 Jan 2006
12 Jan 2006
27 Jan 2007
17 Feb 2007
30 Apr 2007
27 Aug 2007
5 Sep 2007
19 Oct 2007
23 Nov 2007
5 Jan 2008
16 Jan 2008
4 Feb 2008
7 May 2008
20 Jun 2008
4 Feb 2008
How I Learned to Stop Analyzing and Love the Game
2007-09-05 23:49
by Ken Arneson
"Baseball analysis is dead."
-- Gary Huckabay
"Well, he was an ugly guy. With an ugly face.
An also-ran in the human race.
And even God got sad just looking at him. And at his funeral
all his friends stood around looking sad. But they were really
thinking of all the ham and cheese sandwiches in the next room."

--Laurie Anderson

I went to the A's-Tigers game on Sunday, the one where the A's came back from a 7-0 deficit to win, 8-7. I got home and couldn't think of a single intelligent thing to write about it. It was only when I read the obituary after the weekend that I realized why.

"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases.

"For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?"
--Douglas Adams

So I turned off my analytical mind, stopped thinking about why the game turned out the way it did, and just let whatever seemed interesting lead me wherever it would go. I ended up with this, a montage of a bunch of batted balls that fielders failed to catch:

Don't try to understand what this means, you unsophisticated ape-descendant. Just relax and enjoy your Catfish Stew.

Comments
2007-09-06 13:03:04
1.   Bob Timmermann
Is that baby life-sized?
2007-09-06 13:35:02
2.   Aaron in RF
I succeeded in turning off my analytical mind at the game last Wednesday- it helped that we skated out of work early for baseball under the late summer sun- and managed to remain in that state through the weekend. As a direct result the A's won all three games I attended.

Analytics are shut down for the remainder of the schedule.

2007-09-06 15:45:44
3.   Ken Arneson
1 I don't know. What size is life?
2007-09-09 19:51:11
4.   fordprefect
I may be ape-descended but at least I'm wearing a digital watch!
2007-09-11 15:41:17
5.   Ravenscar
Is this where I can admit to having 42 tattooed on the inside of my left wrist?

Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.