The Long Ball

One of the most well-recognized idioms in all of sports is the home run: the tater, the long ball, the big fly, the bomb, and the four-bagger. Everyone knows the great home run hitters, like Roger Maris, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Albert Pujols, and (if you're a Diamondbacks fan) Mark Reynolds. (Okay, so Mark doesn't exactly belong up there yet... but someday....)

Well, even though you might be familiar with the highlight reels of the best of the best - Reynolds long ball into Friday's Front Row at Chase Field, Hank Aaron's Opening Day #714, or the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" for example - what you might not know is just how far those baseballs traveled. It's very, very hard to judge a baseball's true distance, since you can't exactly run out onto the field with a (very long) tape measure and get an accurate distance. Or what about those that fly out of the stadium, or hit a wall and never go their full potential distance? Well, last year I found a website that, using mathematical calculations and taking into account various environmental factors, gives a "true" distance for every home run ball hit over the course of a season going back to 2005 (and a few notable homers from the past). That website is http://www.hittrackeronline.com/.

How does it work? Well, I'm no mathematician, but the website's owner uses factors like wind speed, temperature, and altitude (all of which contribute to the force of air slowing the ball down in flight or helping it along) combined with the exact (or very near exact) location of the ball's landing point and the time of flight to calculate the "true" distance of the baseball from home plate. The true distance, in this case, is the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not struck some other object (i.e. bleachers, light poles, foul poles, railings, what-have-you). The spreadsheet tool also calculates a "standard" distance for each home run - the distance the ball would have traveled if it had been hit in a zero-wind, 70-degree, sea-level altitude situation. This makes it nice and easy to compare home runs from different players on a level playing field (Albert Pujols to Augie Ojeda, for instance).

Then, using some fancy trigonometry and calculus math, one can calculate the height of the ball in flight, the speed at which it came off the bat, the angle of elevation of the ball as it flew, etc. Not that the average fan is going to care or need that info, but it is interesting. For example, the true distance of the homer that Mark Reynolds hit, which was the second-longest in the majors last year, into Friday's at Chase Field was 481 feet. If it had been 70-degrees out, at sea level, that distance would have actually been shortened by about four feet to 477'. That ball, while it would have still been a home run, got a boost of four feet from the conditions inside Chase Field with the roof and the heat of the day (it was a day game, and I was there!). The ball's speed off the bat was 118.6 miles per hour, about 10mph faster than Reynolds' average, and he hit it at an angle of 25 degrees reaching an apex of only 98 feet off the ground. That's what you call a line drive home run!

Anyway, while most people are only going to care about the true distance number, if you're a fan of the big fly, you need to check out http://www.hittrackeronline.com/. I know I check it on about a nightly basis because I write in the distances of each DBacks homer on my scorecards. (If you're looking for a specific homer, say, Jason Heyward's blast from last night, the website will usually have all of the info plugged in a day or two after the hit, as it takes time to do all the calculations and such, so be patient!)

Internships

If you ask me of my opinion on internships, as many of my closer friends know, you'll probably get some sort of long-winded rant about the stupidity of unpaid indentured servitude for people who are no longer in college and using the internship to gain credit. (If we're talking a PAID internship, I'm less likely to rant.)

First off, is it just me, or am I crazy for subscribing to the notion that a person should get paid for his or her work? Yes, getting coffee and filing papers or answering telephones is not exactly a glamorous mode of employment, but it should still command at least minimum wage. Employers expecting a prospective employee to have years (in some cases) of internship requirements before they can be hired for an actual, paying job are in my opinion absolutely cheating new graduates out of their time. Don't get me wrong, I worked for two years as a congressional district office intern, answering phones, getting coffee, shuffling papers, cutting news clippings, faxing, copying, and otherwise earning my way into some valuable experience - in college. Now when I need a paying job, most places are telling people like me to get internship experience first.

This brings me to what I consider the biggest crock of the 21st century: Ryan (of Ryan Beck's Communications Commentary fame) recently sent me an article from the New York Times all about the latest job hunting craze - paying services to find you unpaid internships. SCREECH! Stop the car right there: paying a service to find an UNpaid internship is about as stupid an idea as putting metal in a microwave oven. Or smoking at a gas station.

In the case of the kiddies mentioned in the article, parents are shelling out sometimes THOUSANDS of dollars to use these services. One kid's parents paid a service $8,000 to land him at an internship in New York City with Ford Models.

For the services, it's just business: "Students don't have problems finding internships, students have problems getting internships," said one representative of an internship-placement service. Apparently, the employers like the middlemen, as it saves them the time and expense of actually looking for qualified candidates to pour steaming hot mugs of coffee and fax paperwork. Some people worry that it's not letting the kiddies or graduates fend for themselves and develop great life rejection skills.

Unpaid internships are unfair to begin with, weeding out potentially stellar talent by forcing only those who can afford to stay with their relatives for years on end while working menial jobs trying to sock away a little money until an agency gives them a transition from intern to paid worker. Whatever happened to the philosophy of John Locke: you reap what you sow? If I am going to do work, I damn well better be getting paid for it.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

American Idol 2010

If I may, for a moment, digress from the seriousness of politics and the fun of baseball for a post here, today I entered a contest among nine of my other friends to attempt to predict the winner of this season's American Idol contest. Every year, I promise myself I won't get sucked into watching it, and every year I fail miserably. This year, I figured why not make it interesting if nothing else. Ten dollar buy-in, winner take all... $100.

Problem is, this year's group of contestants is really nothing special. Sure, there've been flashes of stardom, but no one candidate is really poised to be "that one" - like Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, Kelly Clarkson, Jordin Sparks, or (as much as I hate to admit it) Adam Lambert.

That said, these were my picks for our little contest:
Winner: Michael Lynche
Runner-up: Lee DeWyze
Top Male: Michael Lynche
Top Female: Crystal Bowersox
Final Four: Lynche, DeWyze, Bowersox, and Aaron Kelly

Statistically speaking, I was in a severe minority with my picks. The votes among our group of ten (with one not yet picked because of extenuating circumstances):
Winner: Crystal Bowersox (4), Siobhan Magnus (3), Michael Lynche (2)
Runner Up: Siobhan (4), Crystal (2), Aaron Kelly (2), Lee DeWyze (1)
Top Male: Aaron (4), Michael (2), Lee (2), Andrew Garcia (1)
Top Female: Crystal (5), Siobhan (4)
Top 4: Crystal (9), Siobhan (8), Aaron (5), Lee (5), Michael (5), Tim Urban (1), Andrew (1), Katie Stevens (1), Casey James (1), Didi Benami (0)

After watching tonight's performances though, I feel pretty confident in my picks. Aaron Kelly was good enough to stick around. Michael Lynche was again impressive, though not his best performance. Lee DeWyze hit one out of the park, and Crystal Bowersox looked less-than-confident on stage without her guitar-crutch, but the judges loved her performance, so she'll stick around.

Before you ask, yes, I do like some reality shows. It's a sad existance, I know, but it's like the cliche of watching a car wreck: you can't look away when you start watching. The Amazing Race, American Idol, Survivor, and (for God only knows what reason) Solitary are shows that, if they're on, I'll watch.

Thanks for the digression. Now, please continue with YOUR regularly scheduled programming.

StateBrief: The Drudge of Arizona

Over the past couple months, I've been tracking a relatively new Arizona news resource called "StateBrief." If you are familiar with the Drudge Report, you'll understand when I say that StateBrief.com is basically the Drudge Report compendium site for Arizona politics and news information.

The site links users to articles from places like Politico.com, AZCentral.com, FOX News, The Economist, the East Valley Tribune, and a variety of blogs and other notable places. And the news itself is very user-friendly, being split up into national headlines (right now the John McCain/JD Hayworth/Rodney Glassman trifecta is all over the place, along with Senator Kyl's recent remarks and Jeff Flake's endorsement of California Senator-hopeful Chuck DeVore), statewide headlines (look here for the McCain-Palin rally stories and a bunch of articles on recent developments in the state legislature), and "Misc." headlines - everything from the Phoenix Coyotes up for auction again to the troubles with Phoenix Councilman Johnson's arrest.

And (while I think this could probably be more prominent) there is also a link to the "Brief Blog" - StateBrief.com's opinion-editorial page, which showcases some well-written editorials on everything from EM Pulse attacks on the US to Bart Stupak's sellout over healthcare reform to "Rep. Kirkpatrick's Image Problem" on EPA issues.

As a bonus, if you're on Facebook like me all the time, by joining the StateBrief.com group there, site operator Neil Rosekrans sends out updates on the latest AZ-related headlines. This Facebook update thing he's got going on has actually been really helpful in keeping me apprised on some of the more interesting news articles out there, including the HCR vandalism that I posted about just recently.

No, I'm not affiliated with the site itself. I just think it's too nice a resource to not let more people know about. The articles focus heavily on Republican stories, but there is a good mix of Democratic information in there as well. Check it out if you want to stay informed on AZ politics... it's better than trying to pick through stories at AZCentral.com!

Civility

In yet another side to the healthcare arguments, following the vote on HR3590 over the last couple of days, members of the public have been reasonably and rationally discussing their views on proposed changes to the legislation and its possible consequences.

Just kidding, many of them have been issuing threats of violence against both Democrat and Republican members of Congress and vandalizing members' offices and Democratic Party offices. In a not-so-shocking turn of events, unknown perpetrators have broken windows, spray painted doors, faxed death threats, and made vitriol-laced phone calls to at least ten Democrats and two Republicans. A short summary:

The AGs' New Suit

If the plural of Attorney General is AttorneyS General, would the plural of the abbreviation "AG" be A'sG? Sorry... random thought as I was typing my title for this post....

Anyway, if you haven't heard the news, now that President Obama has signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act (HR3590) into law, already 13 states' Attorneys General have filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court alleging that the law is unconstitutional and asking for it to be immediately struck down. This morning, I read through the .pdf file of the lawsuit, and wanted to express some thoughts.

First, a summation. The principle plaintiff in this suit is the Attorney General of the State of Florida, along with the AGs of South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Colorado, Michigan, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Washington, Idaho and South Dakota. The defendents are the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Secretary of HHS Katherine Sebelius, US Dept. of the Treasury (Treasury) and Secretary Timothy Geithner, and US Dept. of Labor (Labor) and Secretary Hilda Solis. For purposes of this blog post, I am going to call the AGs the Plaintiffs and the Depts and Secretaries the Defendents just so we can keep track of everyone.

Jump Breaks

Due to the length of some of my more recent blog posts, I have decided to now use jump breaks in my posts to more adequately fit posts on this page. To continue reading any post, you now simply need to click the "read more" button at the bottom of any topic. Thanks!

A Step Toward Socialism?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations. As of tonight, the Democrats in Congress, save for 34 of them, have given the country healthcare reform. A nationalized healthcare plan that requires every American citizen to have health insurance by 2014. If you cannot afford health insurance, a government subsidization plan will be set up for you to purchase it at a substantially reduced cost. If you choose not to purchase and maintain health insurance, you will be fined and policed by the Internal Revenue Service.

I watched the entire debate, from beginning to end today. From the debate on two points of order on the resolution to consider the debate on the rules for debate on the Senate bill and reconciliation bill to the Senate bill all the way until the 216th vote on the vote to pass the reconciliation to the Senate bill. A short(ish) summation:

J.D. Hayworth

Those of you who know me personally know that I enjoy hearing all kinds of different perspectives on current events. That's one reason I went to hear President Obama at Dobson High School back last year, went to the McCain-Palin election night event at the Biltmore resort in Scottsdale in 2008, and my reason for attending last night's Red Mountain Tea Party meeting at Legacy Charter School in Mesa where former congressman and radio personality J.D. Hayworth was scheduled to speak about his campaign for US Senate against incumbent John McCain.

I was actually a little apprehensive about getting into a meeting like this, because the only real dealings I've had with Tea Party members have been of the confrontational sort, like the Freedom's Phoenix incident at Congressman Jeff Flake's town hall meeting back last July. When I arrived at the school, I had my doubts about the organization of the event, given that they were starting to turn away cars to park in other lots across the road, but I "snuck" back into the back of the school, and parked there without a problem.

Common Sense

Okay, so I caved. I went out and picked up a used copy of "Glenn Beck's Common Sense" from the half price bookstore at the mall for $2.00. I don't know why I wanted to read it, considering I'm not really happy with that tea party-esque mentality right now, but I figure I need to read even the crazy works out there in order to be as good a political scientist as I can.

I also found a copy of a book on the US Secret Service from 1942 with an actual page from a 1942 letter to banks, shopkeepers, and merchants on how to spot counterfeit $5 bills that were being passed in San Francisco. Very cool! The book was vintage, though, and the store wanted thirty bucks for it... too bad for me.

But anyway, it'll be nice to read something new while I heal my sunburn from my hike on Saturday. Granted, the scrapes, scratches, and sunburn were totally worth it because it was a beautiful hike, but the aftermath is not really fun.

As soon as I finish that book and a couple others, I plan to post reviews on them here... so stay tuned!