all adam sandler movies are crappy.

I read Moneybull here or somewhere else a week ago. Although I’m not much for sports I went to his website to check him out. http://www.robertsgriffin.com

What I found was a very simple site, not commercial at all, and hundreds of writings from a remarkable man. A professor of education for 50 years, now retired for a couple of years at 77. Suffers poor heal including acute deafness.

He taught his students to think for themselves. In this day and age, that is definitely not the role of the University. He suffered greatly for his independence and clear thinking. But tenured, he was not ousted. This week I have been reading his works several hours a day and feel the rush of a breath of fresh air. I hardily recommend you check him out. Here is a simple quote to his students that you don’t find these days.

The pursuit of greatness involves the intention to live an exemplary and true life. An intention is more than a goal, more than a hope; I will make this happen. Those with this intension seek to experience and manifest the finest, the best, the very highest quality, in every dimension of their existence: In physical health and bodily perfection and grace (I think of the closest possible approximation of a Greek statue or a great dancer). In self-understanding. In self-value and self-importance. In character: morality, ethics, courage, autonomy, integrity, responsibility, willfulness, dedication, persistence. In relationships—parents, siblings, friends, mates, children, racial and ethnic and religious kinsmen, humankind, animals and nature. In love and sexual expression. In art and literature and historical understanding. In grooming, fashion, and surroundings—home architecture and furnishings, work place decor. In work. For these individuals the various aspects of their being and lives reflect and give expression to their uniqueness, their singularity, at ever-increasing levels of development. And all that they do and become occurs within the context of a deeply felt awareness of their mortality–death will come and eternity will begin, and all one has is the time between now and then.

Beane’s approach doesn’t generate long-term fans because the championship rush that makes casual fan little boys wear your cap long into old age is never present.

Yes. The A’s don’t have an Eric Hosmer, an Evan Longoria, or a Jose Altuve to whom the fans can look at as the face of the franchise.

He concludes by saying “I wonder how Luther broke the spell.” The entire letter is much more sympathetic than the excerpt you have presented above.

And
the lies by weasel are true and happened.

tried watching moneyball.
lasted 20 minutes give or take a few.

A short vid with open disparagement of the Pawnshop TV show genre. Mediated by our entertainment elite.
Now, I guess, Middle America depends on pawnshops.
Har har hardy har har!

This whole scenario (a Jewish character forced into a narrative that has nothing to do with Jews) reminds me of the fun Futurama cartoon, where a character obviously based on the Three Stooge’s Curly is thrust pointlessly into a story line that has nothing at all to do with those amusing but anachronistic characters from the 40’s. The same thing, by the way, for the fabulous Simpsons and the intrusive, nonsensical character Crusty the Clown.

This Jewish humor has its place (e.g., Seinfeld) but stay away from forcing yourself into places that owe nothing to you.

WTF?

Did you mean to post this to a different article?

I am not sure the articles take on either the movie or the book is accurate. Nothing about either critiques: Christianity, color dynamics . . .

I have watched this film several times and listened to a three hour C-Span interview with the author. In short the story is about how less profitable teams can compete against teams with much higher incomes, who can afford a string of top performing players and who are able to buffer their noneffective players or management .

Now the angle that might have been helpful would have been an examination of how “free agency” made it possible for less profitable teams to field teams that made them more competitive by reevaluating a players value to performance, regardless of star power based on hit percentage etc. now there are other factors beyond re-evaluation. A teams teal needs motivated players, consistent play, etc. but becoming more competitive, against more profitable teams that could afford to stack the decks with the best (named players) is the real story – leveling the field — it is not a guarantee to win playoff games or a sure bet to the world series.

but what the film is not about: critiquing white western values or whites in general.

Competitiveness? They were under .500 (and thus non-competitive) for 5 years (2007-2011). That’s pretty pathetic.

Beane may be the good at year-to-year bean-counting, but his process doesn’t look at the overall picture. The Royals’s World Series run made them popular with local fans, who aren’t going to drift away in the fallow seasons to come; they’re willing to wait now that their lust has been temporarily satiated. Beane’s approach doesn’t generate long-term fans because the championship rush that makes casual fan little boys wear your cap long into old age is never present.

Give me the Royals or Devil Rays championship run every 5 to 8 years over Beane’s “never be in the red, occasionally make the playoffs” any day.

I was making a better and more interesting reply to yours, but am agreeing with you on US pro-sports, there is no *sports* left, and very boring. Would excepting ice-hoctkey.

If you want to seeing the high-school koushien, just cut and paste this into, perhaps, utub. 甲子園 (koushien)。As said in my earlier post, which I was deleting from erroneous button press, the ‘park’ part is only from ‘ball-park’.

Will leaving it that, excepting that the reason Japanese teams are often beating USA teams in the very occasional international games of baseball, it is so obvious one, spirit

We can look directly at the people pushing something and ask: Who are these people? What’s their agenda? What’s in it for them and theirs if we buy what they are selling?

Speaking of Hollywood and agenda, what’s the real agenda behind trashing Harvey W., et al. all of a sudden? Everyone has known of his and other’s behavior for decades, and suddenly there’s a great media frenzy about it. What are they really pushing?

After the 2002 season the Mets fired Bobby Valentine as their manager and wanted Art Howe to replace him. However, he was still under contract to the A’s.

Beane thought so little of Howe that he just let the Mets have him. The Mets didn’t even have to send the A’s a minor-league or washed-up major-league player in return. When the Mets wanted Gil Hodges as their manager 50 years ago they at least had to send the Senators Bill Denehy, as well as $100,000.

I am sure the film was not cut diferently for different places, but thank you for the reminder of the original title.

Reading it (the original title), you are also reminding me that there was a remake, and that I have watched it (or parts, I recall losing interest after five or so minutes, glancing at the screen, then leaving it on in the background, think I was switching it off before the end), and that I hated it so much that I was even forgetting that it existed.

Repressed memory from psychic trauma.

Thx again CJ.

Anyone who read the book knew this movie was going to be a very hard sell to the youth market and women in particular. Hence the strong casting of Pitt and Hill (for obvious reasons). I never expected a documentary or anything close really. I thought the screenplay was a good one though.

The best scene in the movie for me–near the end–was when Beane/Pitt drove down Yawkey Way –in Boston– and moved through the green walls of Fenway Park on a tour of the field, with mist giving off an aura of magic. There Beane had to confront the fact that Oakland could never really compete with the luxury ballpark across the water in San Francisco (Giants) and he was about to get a mega offer from John Henry (Red Sox owner), in this New England shrine called ‘Fenway.’ The contract was to make Beane the highest paid GM in sports. He turned it down. And yes that was for real: it isn’t Hollywood.

Here’s an July 2014 article that shows how a team’s payroll can be translated into expected wins. It makes the claim that between 2000 and 2014, the A’s actual win total exceeded their expected by $1.37 billion, compared to the Royals underperforming by $783 million.

Three months after the piece was published, those two met in the AL Wild Card game. The Royals beat the A’s 9-8 in 12 innings, and went to the seventh game of World Series, losing with the potential winning run at the plate. A year later, they win it all.

The difference? The A’s are simply interested in buying competitiveness and staying very good year after year. The Royals built a team designed to win, just like the Cubs and Astros later did. Develop a core of stars, find the right role players around them, and let it gel.

Maybe the only stat for GMs is rings.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/billion-dollar-billy-beane/

Why didn’t anyone notice this? Turns out that more than a few did. Here is a survey article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/09/the-many-problems-with-moneyball/245769/

As a long, feel-good story in the September 26 Sports Illustrated details, the team that seems to have benefited most from the study of sabermetrics is the Boston Red Sox, who hired Bill James as an advisor in 2004. It was, of course, long overdue that major league front offices should recognize James’s genius, but surely Red Sox GM Theo Epstein, a James aficionado, would have made use of his talents with or without Billy Beane’s relative success in Oakland. And it certainly must be acknowledged that the Red Sox, with enormous resources at their disposal, had the money to pursue and sign high-pried free agents who the A’s and other low budgets teams could not.

With James on board, the Red Sox finally broke the so-called “Curse of the Bambino” and won two World Series in 2004 and 2007—though they won in 2004 in the most improbable of ways, coming back from a 0-3 deficit to the Yankees in the ALCS, just as they had lost the ALCS to the Yankees in the most improbable fashion the previous season when their ace, Pedro Martinez, melted down and lost a sizeable lead in the deciding game.

Too much detail is hell on storytelling. How many people have actually made it all the way through Moby Dick? Eliminating nuance is a core competence of Malcolm Gladwell.

As much as I like the article, the weakness of Lewis/Moneyball’s thesis was discussed and recognized at the time. But not on the Big Screen.

And then we have steroids.

And even that he couldn’t do better than an average non-Moneyball GM.

Is there a wins above replacement stat for GMs?

Also, that quote by Beane shows what a loser he is. No truly great baseball mind would think that.

You guys would also like Jefferson’s letter.

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.”

Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 11 June 1807 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5737

Mark Twain also said similar things.

“There are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.”

“It seems to me that just in the ratio that our newspapers increase, our morals decay. The more newspapers the worse morals. Where we have one newspaper that does good, I think we have fifty that do harm. We ought to look upon the establishment of a newspaper of the average pattern in a virtuous village as a calamity.”

“It has become a sarcastic proverb that a thing must be true if you saw it in a newspaper. That is the opinion intelligent people have of that lying vehicle in a nutshell. But the trouble is that the stupid people–who constitute the grand overwhelming majority of this and all other nations–do believe and are moulded and convinced by what they get out of a newspaper, and there is where the harm lies.”

“That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.”

– Mark Twain “License of the Press” speech, 1873

If the mainstream media have arrived at a consensus on anything, it is almost certainly the opposite of the truth.

This goes for what passes as history as well.

What’s commonly taught as history is shockingly almost always 180⁰ from the truth and it often takes an incredible effort to get even close to it.

Joey Stalin summed it up well.:

“Blame others for your own sins.”
J. V. Stalin, Anarchism Or Socialism ? December, 1906 — January, 1907

Then we have this…from a former bureaucrat no less!

Romans 2:1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

As a result, I believe virtually nothing put out by any of the media.

Not to try to outdo you, but having been around the block a time or two, I extend the sentiment to practically all “authority.” I do make an occasional exception here and there, but even then I look for a proven track record.

There are ineffable amounts of bull droppings extant everywhere.

Just to add to the professor’s thorough debunking of the Moneyball thesis: Jeremy Brown, the pudgy catcher from the Univ. of Alabama that Beane and company were so pleased with themselves about drafting in the first round, over the strenuous objections of the scouting department, because of Brown’s gaudy on-base percentage in college — a major plot line in the book — got all of 10 at-bats in the majors. No injury to speak of, he just didn’t make it.

But the thesis has cut a swath through Major League Baseball. Now at least half the teams have a terribly, terribly bright Ivy League Jew sabremetrician as general manager, a wizard of Oz manipulating the mystical world of numbers in his ivory tower while the retrograde baseball people fumble along with only their eyes and ancient superstitions.

Sir, Thanks for your kind response. You’d probably enjoy Jefferson’s letter which contains several other excellent quotes regarding the press. The gentleman really knew what he was talking about and the letter only takes a minute or less to read. Link below. Enjoy.

I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time;

Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 11 June 1807 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5737

In my opinion, Hollywood’s entertainment products are all just a waste of useful irrecoverable time.

I have never had a TV and never will, I subscribe to no media printed or otherwise, listen to no radio have seen maybe 5 movies in my life, the last one about 40 years ago, and am happy about it.

Every time I catch a glimpse of any of the stuff I’m amazed at what cerebral rot-gut it is. How anyone can listen to that sewage for more than 15 seconds at a time every few years is beyond me.

Same goes for a large percentage of the books published after 1950 or so. Thank goodness for used book shops and a myriad of things to do otherwise.

Regarding Hollywood, everyone should read “Supermob” by Guy Russo. Considering what owns the place, it’s no wonder the stuff is utter offal.

Most notable is Sidney Korshak, known as “The Fixer,” who was called the most powerful lawyer in the world by the FBI. A force behind the careers of numerous celebrities, and with connections to politicians from Henry Kissinger to Ronald Reagan, Korshak brokered some of the largest and shadiest deals in Hollywood from his private table at the Bistro restaurant in Beverly Hills. As point man for the mob he oversaw a land grabs from interned Japanese Americans during World War II, helped create the casino monopolies in Las Vegas and facilitated mob domination of the film and music industries. With a colorful cast of characters and more clandestine activity than a spy thriller, Russo delivers some of the juiciest Hollywood details unearthed yet.”

–Booklist
http://www.lukeman.com/Titles/supermob.htm

Amazing article.

To begin, it’s important to keep in mind that a great percentage of our contact with the world is mediated rather than direct (thus the term “media”).

This is such a simple yet profound nugget of wisdom, it really gets to the heart of the matter.

I started noticing the whole (analytics in sports as an ideological weapon to delegitimize conservatism/realism) thing a few years ago through basketball. Charles Barkley would often use his platform as a commentator on TNT to downplay the effectiveness of analytics, and would instead rely on the “folk” wisdom he obtained by being in the NBA and talking to other players. In particular, he was often unimpressed with the Golden State Warriors, because he believed jump-shooting teams, although they often do well in the regular season, almost always get exposed in the postseason when teams play harder defense and getting easy buckets in the post becomes paramount.

Anyway, the vitriol the media showed towards him was really eye-opening. They couldn’t just respectfully disagree. A lot of writers began to obsessively vilify him. There were endless articles calling him out-of-touch, ignorant, hopelessly behind the times etc. On top of this, many writers started to engage in cheap-shot psychological analysis (Oh he is just jealous he is out of the limelight now and says these buffoonish things just to stay relevant). It was very obvious that these journalists had a deep-seated vendetta about this issue, and absolutely had to demonstrate that analytics was not only the best way, but the ONLY way to properly understand sports, and anyone who thought otherwise was like a flat-earther.

To his credit, Barkley did not back down, and actually was very insightful about some of the psychological motivations of his critics (he said they were just dorks who were jealous they couldn’t play sports and that the girls in high school liked the jocks). Barkley even had a spat with Darryl Morey, the GM of the Rockets and one of the pioneers of the analytic movement (whose teams had a propensity to self-destruct in the postseason due to chemistry issues, one of those intangible things that analytics downplays).

Anyway, when the Warriors won their first title, the schadenfreude of many sports journalists was off the charts, a new era had dawned, absolutely proving that the old received wisdom was garbage. But Barkley refused to concede, and opined that the main reason they were able to win was the insurmountable injuries of their opponents. Then when the Warriors won 73 games the next season, there were endless articles crowning them the best team in history before the playoffs even started. But Barkley refused to join the bandwagon. When he picked the Cavaliers to win the Finals, he was painted like he was insane. He was eventually vindicated when the Cavs won in thrilling fashion, much to the consternation of the sports media as a whole. Then the Warriors added Kevin Durant and destroyed everybody the next year, which ruined what could have been an epic rubber-match.

Anyway, the whole Barkley thing illustrates the same things as this article (the media reviling received wisdom/ believing one’s lying eyes in favor of ‘objective’ new-fangled theories devised by a technocratic elite, nerds enviously attacking jocks, etc.)

The whole thing is so devious, as the political implications are never clearly stated, but the readers who naively think they are just discussing sports are being bombarded with left-wing/elitist propaganda. Luckily sports media let the mask slip soon after with all their BLM/Caitlyn Jenner/anti-Trump nonsense.

It is sad, all this SJW moralizing has turned me off of sports, I was looking forward to watching with my boy and teaching him all the rules and making him a fan of my favorite teams, now I avoid all this because I don’t want him indoctrinated in this nonsense. Liberals ruin everything.

P.S. To the moderator- I post under the handle Qasim, but it suddenly stopped working several months ago, when I press “Publish Comment”, the comments just vanish, do you know why that is?

However, during this time another small-market team built itself into a very strong franchise/perennial playoff contender and made the World Series and was in one of the richest divisions in baseball: the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Yet for some reason, no one talks about their long-term success; I guess they don’t have a Moneyball-like book to boost them, or perhaps they’re just too smart to reveal all their secrets and don’t court that kind of press coverage.

This probably won’t get made into a movie, but you might want to see if your library has a copy.

No intelligent baseball fan, and I would think that sabermetric buffs are intelligent, would deny the usefulness of scouts. Scouts can pick up stuff that numbers can’t. Even Bill James agrees with that.

For instance: if a high-school kid has a full beard, it means he’s stopped growing and probably won’t get any stronger than he is now. If a young pitcher has short fingers, even if he’s effective in the low ranks, he ain’t making The Show. And so on.

“My shit doesn’t work in the playoffs. My job is to get us to the playoffs. What happens after that is fucking luck.” – Billy Beane (1)

(1) Michael Lewis, Moneyball, (New York, W.W. Norton & Company) 275

http://theweek.com/articles/458933/why-doesnt-moneyball-work-playoffs

In short. Brad Pitt is a career Zionist shill (World War Z, The Inglorious Bastards, Fury).

As Yogi Berra said, “you can observe a lot by watching.”

Great article. As a baseball fan I liked the Moneyball movie when it came out. As an Astros fan, though, I hated its treatment of Art Howe. He was a clutch, overachieving 3rd basemen in the late 70’s/early 80’s on some contending Houston teams and just a great guy. He was, and is, the polar opposite of the moody crank played by PSH. In retrospect, that should have been enough of a red flag for me to question the rest of the assumptions in the movie. Kudos to the author.

Billy Beane’s “small-market success” in Oakland has always been massively overhyped, mostly by Beane himself. He was in the only 4-team division in baseball for years, yet almost never won it or put up big win numbers. he never made the World Series, and each fall of he did make the playoffs, he would get crushed by the other teams, which Beane was always quick to blame on those teams being “big market” and thus being able to afford good players.

However, during this time another small-market team built itself into a very strong franchise/perennial playoff contender and made the World Series and was in one of the richest divisions in baseball: the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Yet for some reason, no one talks about their long-term success; I guess they don’t have a Moneyball-like book to boost them, or perhaps they’re just too smart to reveal all their secrets and don’t court that kind of press coverage.

Anyway, Beane has shown he’s just a huckster by his career choices. He’s been offered jobs numerous times at big-market franchises (notably, the Red Sox), but always turned them down, because with such teams he’d have to achieve results rather than press hot air. He’s ensconced himself in the A’s front office and then just whines about being small market/low attendance numbers to cover up his failures to produce anything beyond a few playoff appearances that, statistically-speaking, his team would have accidentally gotten so long as the franchise didn’t do everything too backwards.

N.B. The A’s, despite being one of the MLB’s oldest franchises, have always been also-rans in terms of fan interest. Besides the Connie Mack heyday, they were always second fiddle to the Phillies in Philadelphia; then had their bizarro time in Kansas City, and finally became ensconced in…Oakland, which went from the violent home of the Hell’s Angels to the violent black ghetto (but I repeat myself) it is today.

(2) in my comment above is important to me because, while I was not a member of the crew of USS Liberty, I an a veteran and, thus, I very well could have been. So, for me, I am honor-bound to discuss the true story of USS Liberty. The USS Liberty movement has done everything possible to make it clear that it is anything but anti-Jew. but it now appears that if not all Jews, then all Zionists have made it impossible for anyone who in any way supports the USS Liberty truth movement. Whatever happens, Zionists have brought it on themselves, and cannot expect any patriot to be anything but critical of Israel and Zionism.

Posts that keep UR followers linked up with independent alt-right media (“independent” meaning undercapped and smaller than Alex Jones’ Infowars) are appreciated. In this case — Luke Ford — I am less attracted than I have been to America First’s Nick Fuentes, but I don’t say that I won’t watch any more of Luke Ford.

Be that as it may, about this particular thing about Jews and US politics, the interviewee seemed reasonable enough until he said that any and all Jews should be pro Israel (would be crazy not to be) even though he also said that any American Jews should or must put America first. Since I am a gentile, maybe I’m getting in over my head, but I have two objections:

1. I recall seeing a news foto some years back showing orthodox Jews formed up to march in a protest that Israel should dissolve because it was opposed to Jewish prophecy and counter to Jewish scripture. The foto was carried nationally by AP or UP, and the anti-Israel protest march was held in Manhattan. So, if I had been the interviewer, I should have asked the interviewee about that and about his (the interviewee’s) statement that any Jew would be crazy not to support Israel.

2. For me, as a gentile who has had Jewish friends that I would describe as wonderful and beautiful, it’s sad that I have lost Jewish friends because of the current Zionist position apparently forced on them, as follow: (a) anyone who criticizes Israel is an anti-semite, and (b) any snti-semite should be physically assaulted.

2.

Its scary that “fizzy sugar water” is cheaper then plain water, and (other then the insane amounts of suger and color additives) probably better for you then water sold by the same companies.

I can buy a liter of pepsi for one (1) US dollar, but i cant get a 20 oz bottle of water for under a buck fifty (1.50). We live is a broken time…..

Hey che guava,

Professional sports in america are for idiots. Professional football games last about 3 hours but less then an hour is actual live play. The rest of the time is used to advertise cars, beer, garbage food and show “instant replays” of a play that already has been shown multiple times.

Basketball isnt as bad (atleast they play the whole 3 hours), but its still a platform thats used to sell useless trinkets and garbage to the masses.

Baseball is only slightly better then football when it comes to being a waste of time. A 4 hour game with, maybe, 30 minutes of action. The rest of the time its sitting around, waiting to be told to buy a new car or jewelry or something useless that real americans can barely afford.

Most of the athletes in the major leagues are not deserving of their position, prestige or fame. Most are overpaid jerks who are too dumb to do anything else except hyper-publicised physical activity.

(as a side note, there are some exceptional people that play profesional sports, but they are NOT the majority, or even a large minority)

Thats a strange name for a park. “koushien”. The word sounds nice, but the translation would trigger a lot of americans.

High school sports are usually more enjoyable to watch because the people playing *want to play*. Its not a career move or anything like that. They play because they love what they are doing, and it shows, usually.

https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/271

One kind of scenario that one would not see on the big screen is one in which nothing unusual happens until all of a sudden we are all dead and then the Earth is turned into a big computer that performs some esoteric computation for the next billion years. But something like that is far more likely than a platoon of square-jawed men fighting off a robot army with machine guns.

I have heard that sentiment expressed more than once.

Wasnt that also a crappy adam sandler movie?

Boy, I don’t often read anything really eye-opening any more, but this qualifies. Fascinating. It seems like life in the age of mass communication is one giant epistemology problem. What can you believe? Now sabremetrics joins the growing pile of canards. There does seem to be one fairly reliable rule of thumb, though: If the mainstream media have arrived at a consensus on anything, it is almost certainly the opposite of the truth.

Well done, Professor.

Yes indeed, recall:

“Some stories are true that never happened.”

– Elie Wiesel

http://www.codoh.com

Classic case of BAMMAMA. Blacks are more muscular and more aggressive.

https://twitter.com/OnlineMagazin/status/937653293538512896

France decided Africans can be French too. These Negriques would come to France, be dazzled by the glory of French culture, and read Racine and Descartes and etc.

But they come to listen to rap, eat burgers, beat up scared white cucks, and colonize the wombs of white women.

Steve Sailer:

http://www.unz.com/isteve/sabermetrics-is-making-baseball-worse/#comment-460519
Williams never struck out more than 51 times in a season while Ruth struck out 93 times, led the league in strikeouts five times, and was the all time strikeout leader until maybe Reggie Jackson. So, Ruth is more interesting strategically/historically because he willingly accepted striking out in return for homeruns, which simply wasn’t part of the game in 1919

There was no AI , just a man with a big belly back then. I see Griffin’s most important point as that the mediators are typecasting as idiots those who use any criterion of success other than the one their programs is predicated on. There is no doubt that the programs are getting better

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/25/deep-learning-baseball-analytics-top-statcast/
MLB Advanced Media, contains what is likely the world’s most detailed sports database. Each play has detailed textual descriptions, video clips, outcomes and positioning of player movement.

These programs will be able to beat not just beer bellied baseball scouts at their own game, but the media corporation string pullers will be going the way of traditional gemeric whites before long.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/texas-holdem-ai-bot-taps-deep-learning-to-demolish-humans This is a huge deal beyond just bragging rights for an AI’s ability to beat the best human poker pros. AI that can handle complex poker games such as heads-up, no-limit Texas Hold’em could also tackle similarly complex real-world situations by making the best decisions in the midst of uncertainty. DeepStack’s poker-playing success while running on fairly standard computer hardware could make it much more practical for AI to tackle many other “imperfect-information” situations involving business negotiations, medical diagnoses and treatments, or even guiding military robots on patrol. Full details of the research are published in the 2 March 2017 online issue of the journal Science.

Incipient AI is slowly but surely showing that no area of human endeavour will remain as humankind’s sinecure. For any particular goal, people can be bested by computers. We all know that profit is king in business so adios biological workforce and (eventually) many of the executives pushing AI with be paid to go and watch ball games.What’s in it for anyone “if we buy what they are selling?”

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/13/growing-children-for-bostroms-disneyland/

We could thus imagine, as an extreme case, a technologically highly advanced society, containing many complex structures, some of them far more intricate and intelligent than anything that exists on the planet today – a society which nevertheless lacks any type of being that is conscious or whose welfare has moral significance. In a sense, this would be an uninhabited society. It would be a society of economic miracles and technological awesomeness, with nobody there to benefit. A Disneyland with no children.

Even if it isn’t true …. its a good story.

It could have happened.

Since when has that been not good enough.

I’d love to see a debate between Robert S. Griffin and Steve Sailer. Both are baseball fans. Steve Sailer is a big fan of Moneyball and sabremetrics.

So now you understand, now you know what is meant by:

“The ‘holocaust’ storyline is one of the most easily debunked narratives ever contrived. That is why those who question it are arrested and persecuted. That is why violent, racist, & privileged Jewish supremacists demand censorship. What sort of truth is it that denies free speech and the freedom to seek the truth? Only liars demand censorship.”

Face it, sooner or later the impossible ‘6M Jews, 5M others & gas chambers’ will be seen in the mainstream for what it is, impossible anti science, Jew serving propaganda that became a laughable religion.

Don’t die stupid. Stop being a “toy goy”.

Cheers.

http://www.codoh.com

Wow. Truly great article.

A lot of the ‘discoveries’ of sabermetrics were recognized and used by Earl Weaver. Notable quote: Strategy is a three run home run. And baseball is all but unwatchable now except using fast forward on a DVR.

I’ve always disliked Michael Lewis — since Liar’s Poker. As if fessing up to his oleaginous character when he was collecting material for the book gets him off the hook. He never lets any inconvenient facts get in the way of a story.

One film that is bifurcated and actually outstanding is American History X. Edward Norton’s finest role. It is all very believable until his necessary 180 degree enlightenment in the last 15 minutes.

During my long life, from time to time, I have had direct experience or involvement with subject matter covered by the media. Every single time, the characterization of the events by the media have been grossly incorrect. As a result, I believe virtually nothing put out by any of the media.

The Mean Machine (if there has been a remake, the original, I recall remake was announced, US title is different, but the American football in prison movie, with Burt Reynolds)

The original is The Longest Yard.

I concur with you that “Hollywood’s entertainment products are all just a waste of useful irrecoverable time,” as are all forms of “Jews First!” Entertainment, as this American Founder noted:

This Afternoons Entertainment was to me, most awfull and affecting. The poor Wretches, fingering their Beads, chanting Latin, not a Word of which they understood, their Pater Nosters and Ave Maria’s. Their holy Water—their Crossing themselves perpetually—their Bowing to the Name of Jesus, wherever they hear it—their Bowings, and Kneelings, and Genuflections before the Altar.

-John Adams, to his wife Abigail
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0111

Interesting review but it did not address another tacit message or dramatic conflict: Billy Beane and Stanford; The Signing Bonus Worth a House vs. College; Tail End Boomer/Nascent Gen X’er and College: Worth it?

Billy Beane: Would you have drafted me in the first round?

Peter Brand: I would have picked you in the 9th round. No signing bonus. I think that would have convinced you to accept that scholarship.

IMBD.com quote.

Look, college costs have outpaced inflation (or skyrocketed if you like that term) basically over the course of Beane’s adult life. And the character in the movie even mentions being able to pay for his daughter’s college as one of his major motivations or life goals. Why that instituation became so important is an interesting question.

How the hell does Griffin still have a job?!

You’d think that he’d be run out of any university in the country for noticing this type of truth – even with tenure.

Good for you, sir.

Indeed, Christians have sold their natural birthright—that a People regard themselves as Chosen and their own Land as Holy—to a linage of professional Deceivers for a mess of afterlife pottage, storytelling that the Jews themselves do. not. believe.

Great quotes, by the way! In regard to the latter, I feel pretty good now not subscribing to a single vapid newspaper.

Thank-you Robert Griffin, for “ ‘Moneybull’: An Inquiry Into Media Manipulation.” This article is one of the most well written pieces of truthful journalism, that I have ever encountered.

As a kid growing up in Burbank California, at around the age of five, I lived in a small apartment about a block away from the “Warner Bros. Studios.” I’d peak through their chain-link fences, to witness a fake reality of two-dimensional buildings and actors in costumes with painted faces.

Since then, no mystic or mystery has remained. To this day it’s almost impossible for me to sit by a noisy television or even watch a feature film to completion. There is simply nothing real about any of it. In my opinion, Hollywood’s entertainment products are all just a waste of useful irrecoverable time.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Studios,_Burbank

…

I’m only halfway through the article (it is good), but it’s important to point out that, since we are being honest about race and all, attendance is less the fault of the GM and more the result of the stadium’s geography. The people that go to baseball games are white. Oakland is a minority white city, with a very large black (and Hispanic) population. The A’s are also competing with the SF Giants for a fan base, which comparatively has a much larger white population.

There is a similar situation in Chicago. The Cubs are on the north side (where most of the white people live) and the Sox are on the south side (where 1/2 the blacks in the city live) Even when the Cubs are bad, they have excellent attendance. Even when the Sox are good, their attendance is poor. Again, much of this is due to the stadium’s location relative to surrounding demographics and competing (for fan base) stadiums.

“Like life, baseball is not just a destination, this and that outcome; it is also, and most basically about, a moment-to-moment experience. The quality of the moments of our lives, including the time we spend playing and watching baseball, needs to be taken into account.

Nicely said.

“Why did people accept the ideas in Moneyball so uncritically?”

All of what the author offered, plus the fact that when said with such authority, most peole will accept even the most absurd statements as fact. The US sells the world billions of dollars of fizzy sugar water and Hollywood fantasy, and Lewis is one of its premiere artisans of this schlock,

Yeah, it just had to be a rabbi, of course, who came to give us dumb goyim all the answers and grant us eternal salvation, the everlasting good life. All we have to do is have faith and do as we’re told, and the goodies will come flooding in. Typical..

As for the article, the moral of the story was spot on, but the only thing more tedious than watching some sappy movie (which is all of them) is attempting to slog through a detailed description and dissection of the damned thing.

I wonder what the author would say about the schooling systems we have. As far as propaganda’s concerned, schooling is far worse. They call it “education,” but that itself is a fraud fraudulent. It rarely rises above mere training or indoctrination, and what the author sez about the movies providing their versions of reality applies as well to mass schooling.

Note the dates.

“… a story of a powerful and wealthy newspaper having enormous influence… And never a day out of more than ten thousand days that this newspaper has not subtly and cunningly distort the news of the world in the interest of special privilege.”

Upton Sinclair, “The crimes of the “Times” : a test of newspaper decency,” pamphlet, 1921

https://archive.org/stream/crimesofthetimes00sincrich/crimesofthetimes00sincrich_djvu.txt

Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.

-Walter Lippman, A Preface to Politics (1913), quoted in The Essential Lippmann, pp. 516-517

“I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.”

“He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.”

Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 14 June 1807

So a review of an old sports movie is an interesting article?

Not that I was not enjoying Mr. Griffin’s second half, exposing the differences between a Hollywood ‘true story’ and reality.

Have only seen a few U.S. sports movies, but thanks to time in a film studies group, a couple of old monochrome ones.

Saw Jerry Maguire [sp?], Cruise is making the big effort to looking *very serious* about his deals, but I was finding it hard to be attentive.

Three Hollywood sports movies I was liking:

Raging Bull

Rollerball (the original)

The Mean Machine (if there has been a remake, the original, I recall remake was announced, US title is different, but the American football in prison movie, with Burt Reynolds)

Since this article will be attracting baseball fans, I am not much, but recommending those who have not, watch games from the two main leagues in Japan, much fan frenzy, much to whip it up.

Also, entry is not crazy expensive, drinks and junk food are only about one-third above the prices outside.

The koushien, which literally means ‘child-pressing park’, the high-school competition, seriously recommended, all of the major matches are on broadcast TV in summer, many people watching,

In the end though, baseball is rounders, plus big bats and gloves, odd unifnrms, modified as so by the Spalding company, to sell those things.

Surfing, according to mother nature and the planet Earth.

Surfing, according to fiat money and the Hollywood movie studios.

Exactly.

it is straight up propaganda disguised as “free press”.

When I saw the headline, I said to myself, “manipulation? The primary purpose of the media is to manipulate.”

Even profits are secondary.

Comments #2 & # are correct as well. Can’t wait to read the other comments, then the article.

A “smart Jewish advisor representing enlightenment and progress on one side” is the very first thing I learned about in Sunday School.

“We can find better” examples to follow than a Rabbi who demands we abandon our own blood and soil.

Lest we forget the documentarians. A certain Kenneth Burns comes to mind.

I do enjoy Robert Hughes though.

Great article.

On a similar subject, Dryden’s Essay on Dramatick Poesie:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69377/an-essay-of-dramatic-poesy

Thank you.
Almost every Corporate-funded film and advert tries to pull these kinds of stunts on us. We are under attack from an enemy within.

Robert Griffin delivers a great article – a professor from the Uni of Vermont, whoda thunk it? I thought they would have purged clear thinkers like yourself by now?

In terms of the substance of the article, I agree strongly and even in terms of the film, I found myself constantly thinking of Henry Clay’s line: “Statistics are no substitute for judgement”. Clear thinking requires you to find patterns, predict outcomes, and survive. In this vein, clear thinkers are often labeled anti semites for finding patterns which are undeniable (media manipulation, ideological propaganda through mainstream bodies such as film, television, news, academia, deep state etc).

This is the struggle for the old school intellectuals who either have to deny reality to maintain their jobs or reputations, or come out and answer the JQ and receive death threats, potential prison time, and at the very least, lose their livelihoods.

Still, good luck to you Robert and a great essay indeed. Down with the Sorkins and onward with the Griffins of the world!

You actually follow this crap?

It is hoped that in the future Americans will learn to trust the evidence provided by their senses over the propaganda they absorb from television and movies. We can only hope and pray.

In the meantime, essays such as this should be propagated as widely as possible. This is a classic piece. It should be required reading for all who aspire to independent thinking.

I wish there was such a great teardown for the Liars Poker as well, all more so because I read it while visiting the trading floor of Deutsche Bank branch. Crazy characters were there as depicted in the book allright, but what about the underside?

My God, what a brilliant article. I’m most glad to have read this one.

it is not manipulation when you have editors picking, choosing, telling writers what to write 🙂

it is straight up propaganda disguised as “free press”.

Interesting article. I suppose that apart from Fake News we also have Fake History, propagated in part by Hollywood. Probably best to avoid movies supposedly based on true stories – or at least view such movies fully expecting to be bamboozled.

An excellent essay. I hope it encourages more people to forsake mass media in general, and Hollywood in particular.

The most radical change would be to dig up the outfield and resod them, sloping the outfields downward away from home plate, kind of like at the Lord’s Cricket Club in London.

Dunno about that being The Most Radical Change.

Howbout playing only night games with no illumination other than that provided by the claymores buried in the outfield at locations marked by the pooping of a duckling following a cat wearing a shark suit riding a Roomba.

The M18, not the sword. I imagine it something like this:

do white parents of tall girls deliberately steer their athletic daughters away from basketball and toward (expensive, exclusive, etc.) volleyball instead?

A black female coworker recently lamented to me that her 13 y/o biracial daughter (private school, academically-oriented, feminine, and pleasant) loves basketball and isn’t half bad at the fundamentals and the jump shot, but the mom is worried that the more aggressive, public school, black girls are too big and rough for her baby. Volleyball will be a likely alternative.

It’s a daily fee course. Not much to brag about.

More like Montaigne, Addison, Mencken, and Sailer.

The swing angle story is interesting but there could be more to it. Maybe players are better at increasing testosterone legally now?

Hank Azaria is an old-school baseball broadcaster who has a melt-down during a game after discovering his wife has been swinging. He left his job in ignominy, wandering the earth broadcasting whatever he could wherever he could, figuring that after a decade things would have blown over and been forgotten.

He is unaware that his meltdown was the first “viral video” and the show begins when he takes a gig at a Podunk independent minor league team as the first step of “working his way back to the Show”. He has to deal with being an internet celebrity on top of everything else going on in his life (scrappy, promotion-oriented team owner, oddball locals, retread players, etc.).

It has its moments. Azaria as Brockmire calling games, especially homers, is pretty funny (“Well, that ball won’t get buried in a Jewish cemetery … it just got TATOOED!!”)

Interested in your take, check it out…

Sorry Bryce but that 500 foot home run you just hit is an out

If Steve keeps up his current pace for another 15 years it’s going to be Edison, Da Vinci and Sailer.

I’m f’n serious.

Humble brag of the century Hodar

If you want your young son to have a chance to play (someday) on a decent high school varsity baseball team, then as a father you have to get him out of Parks and Rec league and into Travel Baseball (Club, Fed, etc.) by no later than age 11. Most dads today know the game well at that level, and are reasonably good at teaching it.

In 2017, there is no way that a decent varsity team is going to keep kids who don’t have a long history of travel ball.

To a lesser extent (for now), the same is true for girls volleyball. If you have a tall, athletic (white) daughter for whom you think volleyball may be a good fit, then you need to have her in travel ball by 7th grade. Parents aren’t the coaches – knowledgeable volleyball coaches do the teaching, and in my experience, they know what they’re doing.

Which is another I-Steve variation: do white parents of tall girls deliberately steer their athletic daughters away from basketball and toward (expensive, exclusive, etc.) volleyball instead?

I’d say yes.

Today’s travel volleyball tournaments are both very well-played and (almost) entirely white.

Those long at-bats with runners on base are often a prelude to a big bust-the-game-open hit; in a big situation it’s baseball at its most riveting.

Yes, exactly: in a big situation, i.e. in the late innings, and in the LCS or the World Series. Not in ordinary regular-season games.

I understand why teams pursue this pitcher attrition strategy. It works. I wish there were better ways to disincentivize it without altering something fundamental in the structure of the game.

That’s often done purposely to wear out a pitcher and drive up his pitch count. It’s also psychological warfare, the batter saying “you can’t get one past me.”

Those long at-bats with runners on base are often a prelude to a big bust-the-game-open hit; in a big situation it’s baseball at its most riveting.

As long as you’re on a baseball kick of late, Mr. Sailer, when may we expect a review of “Brockmire” on IFC … ?

I wrote a post in 2014 about how they could greenskeep the outfields so that the ball would roll faster on the grass so that line drives would be more likely to roll between the outfielders to the fence for a triple, the most entertaining kind of hit (other than the rare inside-the-park homer).

Fans love hearing the crack of the bat and watching to see whether the ball clears the fence. However, that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be even more excited to watch a long ball that could be a home run but is not as quickly recognized as such.

If I designed a ballpark, I’d include an inside-the-park-home-run alley in left- or right-center, or maybe dead center.

Really interesting comment; thanks.

One related observation: would this shift to a more upwardly-angled swing, i.e. “trying to hit the lower middle of the ball with the upper middle of the bat”, also tend to increase the number of balls fouled back? It seems these days the number of at bats that include anywhere from 5-10 balls fouled off has also increased.

Foul balls that go out of play really, really slow down the game, because you have the tedious routine of the ump handing the catcher a new ball while the batter wanders off, then the catcher throwing the new ball the pitcher, who must then engage in a lengthy sequence of new ball inspection and massage. Once the pitcher finally gets back on the rubber, the batter needs to be retrieved from his peregrinations and reinstalled in the box, and finally there can be another pitch.

When this happens multiple times in a single at bat, I find it excruciating to watch.

“The most radical change would be to dig up the outfield and resod them, sloping the outfields downward away from home plate, kind of like at the Lord’s Cricket Club in London.”

I’ll go one better than that. Pave the outfield, make the outfielders play barefoot and let the fans throw beer bottles on the outfield.

Readers please advise if you want to hear my proposal for a new NASCAR event.

I’m impressed that Steve has ever heard about Lord’s. I’m all for more cricket talk on iSteve.

This site has it all:

http://www.baseball-reference.com

Warning: You will spend hours page-hopping.

Someone said if he had his way a home run would just count as another foul. As a fan I agree, they’re the least interesting kind of extra base hit, they have fewer variables and take defense and baserunning out of the play which is why the corporate accountants running the game today love them.

Don’t be too quick to write off bloop hits as flukes. They’re what lineups with less power sometimes rely on and they take skill – simply making contact is a skill. They seem to work better too against pitchers who are “on” on a given night. Smart teams get those types of hits rather than swinging hard and going down in order by strikeout. The Cardinals bloop-hit Clayton Kershaw to death in the playoffs in 2013-14. It was death by a thousand flared singles.

The awfulness of white man’s money sports is they take forever. The fundamentally unsportsmanlike like stalling.

And the solution isn’t a simple shot clock, but some sort of cumulative time over pitches. Don’t simply penalize the slow, incentives for speed.

Golf has failed and this has been an observe and discussed problem for decades.

There is a a huge monetary payoff as well. The only compelling live television is sports. But the slower the action, the less it is watched live.

Tigers or Giants?

“Baltimore chop” heard this week–of course it was a game played in Baltimore–discussed among broadcasters that included former Oriole Ken Singleton.