Haruko’s 2013 baseball extravaganza … for Steve Lardy

Ichiro Suzuki, overrated or one-dimensional?

We have a friend who is a huge Mariners’ fan who hated Ichiro Suzuki as a player. He kept telling us Ichiro was overrated and he was part of the reason the Mariners sucked offensively. His gripe was that for a guy with speed, Ichiro didn’t use his speed and was a very passive baserunner for a guy who stole 30+ bases a year, who often didn’t take an extra base when he maybe could’ve nor did he come home on shallow flies when he likely could have scored. And that Ichiro didn’t do a lot of the little things to help the Mariners win, like move guys over or hit sac flies, etc.

I decided to take a look at Ichiro’s stats, and I found out, he does put up some very weird (and even freakish in some ways) numbers. I don’t think I would use the word “overrated,” but “one dimensional.” Ichiro is a very good example of how batting average is a very overrated statistic. Ichiro started in MLB at the age of 27, but he will easily get to 3,000 hits. He has also won numerous Gold Gloves, steals a lot of bases, is the best Japanese-born player in the history of baseball and will easily and deservedly make the Hall of Fame on his first ballot, but he is also a very good example of how batting average isn’t the most important statistic. Ichiro is the anti-Moneyball.

Plainly put, Ichiro is a lifetime .322 hitter, but he doesn’t do nearly as much damage offensively, especially for a leadoff hitter (though he doesn’t bat leadoff anymore, but did bat leadoff for the bulk of his career), as you would think — for two reasons. 1) He doesn’t hit extra base hits and 2) he doesn’t walk. For a .322 hitter, his on-base percentage is an above-average but unspectacular .365.

For an example of how “meh” .365 is … that is ranked No. 348 all time in MLB history. Ichiro’s career on-base percentage is lower than guys like Steve Kemp, Mickey Tettleton, Phil Bradley, Jeff Cirillo, John Jaha and Brian Downing. It’s even lower than Adam Dunn’s on-base percentage. Yeah, that Adam Dunn, the guy that bats .200 every year.

In Ichiro’s rookie season in 2001, he was second in the AL in runs scored, but since then, he has never finished higher than 6th and has not been in the top 10 in runs scored since 2008. This is a guy who averages 670 at-bats a year and 215 hits a year hitting leadoff … never higher than 6th in in the AL in runs scored since 2001. That pedestrian on-base percentage is part of the reason. His preponderance of singles is the other.

The other odd thing is, Ichiro does have power. He averages just under 9 home runs a year, which is decent for a leadoff hitter. But, he doesn’t hit doubles hardly at all, and he doesn’t hit a lot of triples for a guy with so much speed (about 6.5 triples a year). He simply seems content to slap the ball through the infield for easy singles. It means he has a really high batting average, but he isn’t doing that much harm to the other team.

Let’s compare Ichiro to other Hall of Fame leadoff hitters. I should stress that these are SINGLES hitters. Guys that didn’t hit a lot of home runs. But you can see that other than one guy, Ichiro’s numbers are not as good, when you add on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS (On base + slugging). Again, to reiterate, none of these players are home runs hitters and they batted leadoff for much of their careers.

.                            BA          OBP       SLG        HR (career)          OPS

Wade Boggs       .328       .415       .443       118                         .858

Tony Gwynn       .338       .388       .459       135                       .847

Rod Carew          .328       .393       .429       92                          .822

Pete Rose            .303       .375       .409       160                       .784

Ichiro                    .322       .365       .418       104                       .783

Lou Brock            .293       .343       .410       149                       .753

Wade Boggs is the best of this bunch. An incredible hitter who walked more than 87 times 9 times in his career. He also hit more than 40 doubles eight times (playing in Fenway helped). Tony Gwynn didn’t walk that much, but hit more than 760 extra-base hits. Pete Rose hit 40 or more doubles 7 times and walked 86 or more times 6 times (and his OPS numbers declined dramatically his last five years in baseball because he hung around until his mid 40s trying to catch Ty Cobb’s hit total — Rose only hit 6 home runs in his final 7 seasons, which really hurt his overall career OPS.). Lou Brock played in a deadball era in the 60s and early 70s and didn’t have an especially great batting average (.293), 29 points lower than Ichiro’s.

Ichiro has never hit 40 doubles, in fact, he’s never once even hit 35. He average 25.6 doubles a year and 41 extra base hits a year (Ichiro will assuredly get to 3,000 hits, but will barely crack 400 doubles — Craig Biggio has more than 600 doubles and Pete Rose more than 700). This is from a guy who averages an astonishing 670 at bats a year (and that is a freakish number), so that means Ichiro is hitting an extra base hit (double, triple or home run) about once every 16 ABs. Roughly … twice a week. Ichiro also averages 43 walks a year and has only walked more than 51 times once in his career. This is a leadoff guy, whose job it is to get on base.

Let’s look at Ichiro’s numbers now compared to some other good leadoff hitters, some of whom didn’t hit for average. Guys that walked and hit with some power (ie, did a lot of damage offensively).

.                                         AVG.      OBP       SLG        HR          OPS

Derek Jeter                        .313       .382       .448       255        .829

Rickey Henderson             .279       .401       .419       297        .820

Paul Moliter                       .306       .369       .448       234        .817

Craig Biggio                       .281       .363       .433       291        .796

Ichiro                                   .322       .365       .418       104        .783

Rickey Henderson wasn’t an especially great hitter (.279 career), but he walked an incredible amount (16 seasons 80 or more walks) and hit with power, and thus caused a lot more damage than Ichiro, as weird as he was as a player. Biggio for a .281 lifetime hitter scored an incredible number of runs (6 times 113 or more runs). Some of that was because of Jeff Bagwell hitting a ton or home runs behind him, but some of that was because Biggio hit more than 1,000 extra-base hits. By comparison, Ichiro has 492 extra-base hits.

Here’s Ichiro’s weaknesses illustrated. Look at these numbers. Difference between batting average and on-base percentage and percentage of hits that are singles. None of these players are even especially close to Ichiro.

.                                          Batting average/On-base percentage                      % of hits singles

Craig Biggio                                                     .82                                                               66.9%

Paul Moliter                                                     .63                                                              71.2%

R. Henderson                                                   .122                                                            71.4%

Lou Brock                                                         .50                                                              74.3%

Derek Jeter                                                      .69                                                              74.4%

Wade Boggs                                                    .87                                                                 74.9%

Pete Rose                                                         .72                                                                 75.3%

Tony Gwynn                                                     .50                                                               75.7%

Rod Carew                                                       .65                                                                  78.7%

Ichiro                                                                 .43                                                                81.1%

Wow, a whopping 81.1 percent of the time Ichiro gets a hit, it’s a single. None of these other players are even close. Only 18.9 percent of his hits are a double, triple or home run.

So, our friend had a point. Ichiro was likely part of the reason the Mariners were not a good offensive team the last few years. He fits a style of baseball that appeared prevalent in the 1880s, and probably fit Japan well, but in modern American baseball, he seems out of place. What I would call Ichiro is the greatest singles hitter in Major League Baseball since maybe Wee Willy Keeler. But, I would take Wade Boggs, Paul Molitor or even Craig Biggio as my leadoff hitter over Ichiro any day.

Last year, I missed a couple of guys who could get to 300 wins

Tim Hudson

A few months ago, I wrote an article about four players who conceivably could get to 300 wins (after Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser said it was IMPOSSIBLE — IMPOSSIBLE — for any player today to get to 300 wins). The four I mentioned were CC Sabathia (191 wins, age 32), Justin Verlander (125 wins, age 29), Roy Halladay (199 wins, age 36) and Mark Beurhle (174 wins, age 34).

There were two guys I should have mentioned. I missed them because they both had way more wins than I realised.

The first is Tim Hudson. I can be forgiven for forgetting him, because he had a six-year stretch in which he only won 68 games. But, in the last three years, Hudson has won 49 games (16.3 wins a year) and sits at 197 wins at the age of 37, within range of 300. Hudson has won 16 or more games 8 times, so he is a workshorse. He would have to average about another 17 wins a year for the next six years (retiring at age 42) or he would have to average 14.8 wins for another seven years (retiring at age 43). He is a longshot to get to 300, but he is pitching for a good team in Atlanta and has been healthy for four years, so it is not impossible. In fact, I would say Hudson has a better chance than Halladay, who appears to be injured and breaking down.

Felix Hernandez

The other pitcher I should have mentioned is Felix Hernandez. Hernandez is only 27 and has already won 99 games, which surprised me. He has only won more than 14 games in a season once (19 wins), but he is a workhorse and doesn’t have a lot of injuries and pitches a lot of innings.

I would say he has a legitimate shot, except Hernandez pitches for Seattle, which is one of the worst offensive teams in baseball.  In fact, over the last five years, Hernandez’ ERA is under 2.90 and he has only won 68 games (13.6 wins a year), pitching for a bad team, and in particular a bad offensive team. In fact, the year Hernandez won the Cy Young, he only went 13-12, with an ERA of 2.27.

Honestly, I do not think Hernandez can possibly get to 300 continuing to pitch for the Mariners. Like I said, he has won more than 14 games once in his career and he would have to average 16.8 wins a year for the next 12 years to get to 300. He will simply lose too many 2-1 and 3-2 games pitching for that team. I was shocked he signed a seven-year extension to stay with them because they’re not going to be any good offensively any time soon, I don’t care if they moved the fences in 15 feet. (The dimensions of the park isn’t why the Mariners hit .234 as a team last year.)

Will Jeter catch Pete Rose?

When Jeter was one of the youngest players to 3,000 hits in 2011, a lot of people talked about him perhaps catching Pete Rose at 4,256. At the time, I thought it was impossible, but then Jeter had a great year last year, hitting 216 hits and putting him at 3,304 hits at the age of 38. I thought he had a valid chance of catching Rose.

However, Jeter badly broke his foot last October and will likely be out until May this year, perhaps even June. I think that puts a serious dent in him attempting to catch Rose, because who knows how well he will be able to play when he comes back?

Jeter needs about 950 hits to catch Pete Rose. To do that in five years (retiring at the age of 43), he’d have to average 190 hits a year. If he averaged about 155 games a year, he’d have to bat about .317 (190-for-600 average per year). I think that’s impossible, for a guy 41, 42 and 43 years old to average 600 at-bats a year and a .317 average. The 2013 season, I seriously doubt Jeter will reach 500 ABs.

To do it in 6 years (retiring at 44), Jeter would have to average just under 160 hits a year. If he averaged about 145 games a year, he’d have to bat about .286 (160-for-560 AB average per year). Again, that’d be pretty difficult. And this is all assuming that his ankle will be OK. I predict Jeter will reach 4,000 hits, but he will come up a couple of hundred hits short of Pete Rose.

To get to 4,000 hits, say Jeter plays another five years. He’d have to average about 140 hits a year, and perhaps a .280 average (averaging about 130 games a year and 500 AB  a year). Very, very doable, I believe, if he is healthy.

Here comes the Scruffy Sox

I’ve been having fun making fun of the Scruffy Sox. Almost all of their players have beards and even though the Red Sox have a fairly big salary, their team seems to be full of scrappy underachievers. I’ve been told the beards and long hair thing is some tradition that goes back to Bill Lee.

No matter how well they do (and who knows, they’ve started 3-1, which is encouraging), they should be fun to watch this year at least, especially considering the miserable season they had in 2012 with bigmouth Bobby Valentine and having to dump bad attitude Josh Beckett. First of all, the Sox seem to have gotten rid of all their jerks. Lackey has a history of being a bit of a jerk, but maybe being a lousy pitcher for two years, then spending another year on the IR has humbled him.

Jackie Bradley Jr.

I would like to see Jacoby Ellsbury stay with the Sox, but I suspect they will trade him. He and Sox haven’t liked each other for a while, ever since Jacoby broke his ribs in a collision with Adrian Beltre, then left the team to rehab. I’ll cheer for him no matter where he plays!

The Sox’s new guys are (and I love this name) Jackie Bradley Jr. It totally sounds like a made-up name. But, he was their best player in spring training and played himself right into the everyday line-up. Remember that name … Jackie Bradley Jr.

Imogen and the Pigeons in Second Life

That’s me wandering through Imogen and the Pigeons

I initially began in Second Life to see if I might want to start a music club. I found out that would cost upwards of $400 a month for the “land” (bandwidth), and that would mean raising money and then that would mean looking for advertisers and then … it would become a JOB!

So, other than playing in some dance clubs, I haven’t gotten too involved with Second Life, but one thing I’ve found which is pretty neat. Second Life is pretty good at advertising unusual “sims” (usually an island).  I’ve checked out a couple of these sims and found them kind of interesting, but none really affected me until I came across “Imogen and the Pigeons.” The sim was created by Bryn Oh, and she is the author of the poems, as well.

Imogen and the Pigeons is an amazing multi-discipline art/poetry exhibit in Second Life. It’s also a fun little maze and game to find all the poems in the sim. The poems and images are both very powerful and sad. I came to realise of what kind of art could be possible in an interactive platform like Second Life.

When I first showed up at Imogen and the Pigeons, I wasn’t sure how it worked or was supposed to work. You arrive on a beach with a lot of old junk lying around — old mattresses, washing machines, etc. I wandered around and found a statue that played a sad little tune if you clicked on it. No clues about what Imogen and the Pigeons were about.

The beginning of Imogen and the Pigeons

After a while, I found a flying chair. I kind of flew around in circles for a bit, but still didn’t come any closer to discovering the secret of Imogen and the Pigeons.

A very helpful person then told me to fly the chair up higher, as high as I could. So I took their advice and did it, and sure enough that’s when I saw, curling around a couple of cooling towers, some stairway up into the sky.

I thanked the person for their help, but I wanted to do the sim without cheating. So, I headed up the stairs. This was HARD. I must have fallen and gone “Splat!” a half dozen times. I felt like Lara Croft. (In Second Life, you can fall from a 1,000 feet and go “splat!” but then your avatar simply dusts herself off and is fine. Still, it sucked to keep falling. Also, in Second Life, you can usually “fly,” but in the Imogen and the Pigeons sim, flying had been disabled. No cheating allowed.)

Me climbing up the stairway to the sky

I finally figured out the way up the stairs is by using the arrow keys on your keyboard, rather than the movements arrows within the Second Life screen. By using my keyboard arrows, I was finally to get up the monstrous stairs without falling. You finally come to a bright red platform high above the beach … hundreds of feet up.

You go through a portal at the red platform and enter a receptionist’s office. Here is your first poem, posted on a wall of the office:

The red platform at the top of the stairs

The receptionist looked up

        her eyes rezzed so blue,

        do you have an appointment?

        to which you replied yes I do

Being met by the receptionist

Simple enough poem. But, the poems quickly become darker and more sad. Sad, oftentimes broken characters inhabit each room. Always alone, always seemingly isolated from the rest of the world in their dark rooms.

In the next room, you find a man pinning insects to a board. A lot of Oh’s poems are about insects. On the wall is this poem:

Inside the room

        lay a mind’s haute couture

        with a butterfly board

        and pins to cure

        

        He was the type of man

        who felt he saw much clearer

        from the darkened side

        of a one-way mirror

       

        His patients were pieces

        within a game

        which when molded correctly

        would bring him acclaim.

The man and his insects

After this first room, you enter a creepy hallway with a series of doors . The next room was my favourite.  A young boy is drawing a chalk drawing on the floor. As you step nearer, the chalk drawing suddenly comes to life. This poem:

Chalk fingers sat

        for hours engrossed

        his fingertips tracing

        things he longed for most

       

        he would stay with each

        but for a day

        then at night

        wash them away

       

The little boy and his chalk drawing

        so they’d not fasten

        to his heart

        because so many things

        do depart

       

        and all his lies

        were really dreams

        come apart

        at the seams

In the next room, a figure is huddled under her blankets. You never get to see her. There is nothing else in the room but a television playing static:

Under a blanket

        with holes throughout

        nobody sees in

        but Juniper looks out

 

The girl under the blanket

         she whispers

         come under with me

        and together we’ll hide

        hold me in the darkness

        there’ll be no outside

       

        where people are cruel

        and winters are cold

        where I don’t fit in

        and everything’s sold

       

        climb inside

        we’re two hands in a glove

        fingers entwined

        because you are my love

See? These are not happy poems. The next room is a sad little girl again lying on a bed (there are beds in all the rooms). In the middle of the room is a boat sailing on the floor:

The little girl and the boat

I wish I were

        a paper boat

        far out to sea

        I would float

       

        To breathe the wind

        and feel the spray

        while my body

        slowly decayed

       

        absorbing the chaos

        body asunder

        closing my eyes

        to descend down under

       

        Into the dark

        and swaying peace

        my tears diffused

        upon release

 

The next room has another poem about insects:

Elliot was shy

        and very soft spoken

        he loved moths

        because they fly like they’re broken.

       

        He dreamed of amber

        housing ants suspended

        in sienna coffins

        tarsus extended.

       

This is Elliott

        He would sit on a step

        in the middle of the stair

        where none would stop

        a place neither here nor there.

The next room is another person lying on a bed. This time it’s Imogen, and she is hooked up to IVs. She is ill. Is she dying, I wondered? You can hear pigeons cooing outside a window. This begins a series of poems about Imogen and the maze gets a little tougher.

Imogen sat

        quiet on her bed

        the books on her mattress

        one hundred times read.

       

        Eyes to her friends

        huddled out on the wire

        cooing softly

        it was her one desire

       

This is sick Imogen, dreaming of joining the pigeons

        to join with them

        out past her bars

        where no one could test her

        with Monarchs in jars.

       

        She rose from her bed

        tube fallen aside

        and determined to join

        her pigeons outside.

 

        But will they fly

        off to the skies

        unless I wear

        a clever disguise?

       

        I must approach

        like a whisper in moonlight

        so they’ll not startle

        so they’ll not fright.

       

        And we’ll make a family

        warm shoulder to wing

        they’ll coo softly

        and I’ll learn to sing.

Here, the sim gets tricky. There’s a couple of little clues about needing to pick up a pigeon’s feather to continue on. I picked one up and discovered that while holding a feather, you can walk up the walls. I walked up the wall to a window high above the floor, then I had to walk sideways along a curled path (sort of like a roller coaster). The first time I tried this, I dropped the feather and then I plunged 1,000 feet and went “Splat!” on the beach down below and was forced to start over from the beginning back up the stairs to the sky (Grrrr…!). I figured out not to drop the feather until I was sure I no longer needed it.

This is me walking straight up. It took me a while to get the hang of this.

Eventually, you enter a room full of mannequins and Imogen sitting in a corner sewing.

Imogen arrived

        upon a scene

        of mannequins

        and sewing machine

       

        the lights revealed

        fabric pigeon grey

        dusty and torn

        its edges frayed

       

        and from there she sewed

        her pigeon dress

        that enveloped her body

in a gentle caress.

Here, you enter a tough part of the maze. You have to walk along a ledge and you find Imogen down at the end of the ledge.

Imogen on the ledge

She stepped through a window

        and onto the ledge

        the wind in her hair

        and pigeons on edge.

       

        She found on the stones

        a loose feather

        then gathered up more

        and sewed them together

       

        to fashion some wings

        for her disguise

        to join her flock

        within the skies.

After you find Imogen, you can drop down to a lower ledge. There is a rope to another ledge on the other side of an alley. I tiptoed across the rope (it looked hard, but you actually have an inch or so of leeway on each side of the rope.). And if you are successful, you are rewarded with a little Bryn Oh doll. I carried the doll with me through the rest of the sim.

Me and my Bryn Oh doll

The next room is a creepy hair salon with a curved roof.

Imogen mused

        that she was more pigeon than swan

        as she climbed down the walls

        to the Beauty Salon

       

        She entered a room

        surrounded by chairs

        lowered the curlers

        and singed feather to hair

       

        Her disguise now complete

        she walked to the ceiling

        and saw a vision emerge

        in her dream revealing

       

        a future suppressed

        like fading notes to a song

        that we desperately grasp

        yet can not prolong.

You have to pick up another feather and walk up the curved wall to the ceiling, through a hole in a ceiling and into another room.

She climbed up the pole

        that rose like a spire

        and attempted to join

        her pigeons on wire

       

The beauty salon. See my doll?

        but startled they flew

        so Imogen leapt

        spreading her wings

        and silently wept

       

        missing her dreams

        by seconds and feet

        she soared for a moment

        then fell to the street

Through a blindingly white room you find another poem.

Static emerged

        like cracks in a road

        and her minds construct collapsed

        which housed her binary code

        that was preserved for the day

        when it could be rewired

        into our human cells

        once we were expired

       

        but her memories were a virus

        that corrupted the core

        of her archived life

        preserved at the Rebirth Store

 

One of the rooms where you have to “take the plunge”

Sure enough, here the maze gets bloody impossible. I think you are supposed to hop down a series of ledges, but I was never able to do it and plunged, “Splat!” 1,000 feet back down to the beach (I felt like Imogen failing to join the pigeons). Here, on the beach where you started your journey through Imogen’s world, there is one final poem:

Zeroes and ones

        created a two

        in the form of a child

        from memories accrued

       

        through her books and dreams

        realities and fever

        reborn for Imogen

        never again to leave her

       

        and the computer slowed

        as the sand did rise

        but eternity waited

        within her child’s eyes.

Imogen and the whale

Just past this poem is an image of Imogen reaching up to a giant blue whale hovering in midair. That is the end of Imogen and the Pigeons.

 

 

Health Care Reform penalizes smokers

A little-known provision in the Health Care Reform law passed in 2010 is that it can penalize smokers — by a LOT.

Beginning in January 2014, for a 60-year-old smoker, the surcharge could be up to $6,000 a year. That surcharge gets bigger and bigger for older smokers. Ouch. Boy, that’s incentive to quit, especially tacking on the other $2,000 a one-pack-a-day smoker spends just on the cigarettes. Especially considering that the majority of smokers now are low-income.

Now the plan does allow smokers to avoid the surcharge if they agree to join a smoking cessation program; however, that option is not necessarily guaranteed to people attempting to buy individual insurance, according to this article quoted here.

Is this fair? $6,000 is a lot of money. I’m sure it drives the smokers nuts that the law specifically says surcharges for people being overweight are not allowed.  I can tell you many insurance companies already charge higher premiums to smokers (ours does, in fact), for a very simple reason. Smokers cost them more money. They get more diseases at a younger age than nonsmokers and cost more to insure and end up raising everyone’s rates as a result.

Here’s a quote from this article about it:

Here’s how the math would work:

Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama’s law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.

But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can’t be used to offset the penalty, the smoker’s total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That’s considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.

Like I said, it seems as if a balance could be found. Put more emphasis on smoking cessation programs, make sure they are available to everyone.

Meet Bill Hannegan, a blast from the past

Was kind of perusing Tobacco.org the other day and saw an interesting story that there is still a lot of bickering going on about smoking bans in St. Louis. Man, it’s been at least two or three years this has been going on.

I don’t get too worked up over smoking bans anymore because I tend to see it as a dead debate. There’s very few places left where you can smoke in bars or restaurants — mostly the Deep South, and mostly in smaller towns and cities in the South.

Anyway, in St. Louis, the big debate is over whether they should allow exemptions to an existing smoking ban. Missouri is one of the places in the country still fighting smoking bans. The only reason this story even caught my eye is I remember from the old toxic Topix days a Libertarian guy from St. Louis who was vehemently against smoking bans — Bill Hannegan, and I figured, “Oh, I bet ol’ Bill is in the middle of this spat.”

And sure enough, not only is he in the middle of the spat, this newspaper even did a sidebar about Bill. Hah, an article about this guy I remember from Topix five or six years ago, with his photo. So, this is ol’ Bill Hannegan from the Topix days. You still see Bill Hannegan’s name pop up all over the Internet, commenting on stories about smoking bans.

This article calls Bill “perhaps the staunchest defender of smoking rights in the region.” I read that and thought, “Christ, he might be one of the staunchest defender of smoking rights in the whole country, from how often I’ve seen him involved in stories about smoking bans.” It’s nice to see who the person is behind all those hundreds of comments I’ve seen over the years from him.

Bill, as much as I almost never agreed with him, and frankly got offended when he claimed there is no proof secondhand smoke is harmful and he kept comparing smoking bans to Nazism (Sorry, Bill, you cannot with a straight face compare having to go outside to smoke to the murder of 20 million people in the name of ethnic cleansing), usually managed to keep it pretty civil on those boards despite being the target of a lot of personal attacks, unlike this scary-ass Tea Party nut named Conferederate76 or HarleyRider76 (don’t care if I never see that guy again online). You could say Bill is obsessed with smoking bans, but it’s probably kinder to say he is very driven and passionate about it. Like I said, I will probably never agree with him.

(Speaking of Topix, I recommend staying off it. The links are full of malware and the threads downright nasty. There was this epic thread about the smoking ban in Ohio that began way back in November 2006. It got downright vicious, just nasty, threats, etc. It looks like that thread finally petered out in July 2012 after 75,000 comments — most of which came from probably fewer than a couple of dozen commenters.)

Jack Klugman — 1922-2012 — “the only stupid thing I did in my life was to start smoking”

I remember watching the Odd Couple when I was a kid. It was one of my favourite shows.

Jack Klugman had a long life, but he had myriad health problems the last 30 years, mostly caused by his heavy cigar and cigarette smoking. In fact, in both the Odd Couple and a number of other characters he played, he was usually seen chomping on a cigar. Later, he spoke out strongly against smoking being depicted on TV and in movies.

In the 1980s, he was forced to retire from acting because he got throat cancer from his smoking. He was first diagnosed with cancer of the larynx way back in 1974, and ended up suffering multiple bouts of cancer over the next 20 years.

According to his obituary:

“In 1974, Klugman was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. Like Oscar, his most notable character, he always had a cigarette in his mouth. “I saw John Garfield smoke. He was my idol, so I smoked. I even smoked like him,” Klugman explained. With surgery and some treatment, he was able to continue acting, though he refused to give up smoking. In 1989, he underwent surgery again to remove the cancer, but this time his right vocal cord had to be removed, which left him without the ability to speak. Eventually, he regained it, though in a small, raspy voice.”

He  gave an interview in the 1990s about smoking, saying:

“The only really stupid thing I ever did in my life was to start smoking,” he said in 1996. He said seeing people smoking on television and films “disgusts me, it makes me so angry – kids are watching.”

Jack would be glad to know smoking is gone from TV, and nearly gone from movies now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/dec/25/jack-klugman-obituary

 

Longtime HuffPost poster Bill Loney, victim of emphysema

Bill Loney’s avatar

I never interacted that much with Bill because I took a hiatus from HuffPost about the same time he showed up, but I know Haruko got to know him better than I did.

I think something should be said about Bill.

I seem to remember Bill had a different avatar when he showed up. Some generic cartoon of a man. But, a long time ago, he went to an old photo of a grumpy-looking John Cleese from his “Ministry of Silly Walks” days. And he stuck with that avatar. It fit him perfectly.

We heard through the grapevine that Bill Loney apparently died a few weeks ago, apparently after a long battle with emphysema. He last posted on Huffington Post in August. He was one of the HuffPost regulars, on the site almost every day, battling trolls and sometimes battling people that mostly agreed with him. Some people loved him, others just hated him. I think some of the people who disliked him simply didn’t understand him. Yeah, he could be a grouch, but he was a lovable grouch who cared and didn’t suffer fools lightly. I can tell you Haruko adored him and got along with him great. Bill was always kind and respectful to Haruko on HP.

Bill had hinted that he had health problems; he had made comments to the effect that he was on some kind of disability, which is why he was able to spend hours on HP every day. Finally, several months ago, he told Haruko directly he was gravely ill with emphysema. On some thread about marijuana laws. That’s how we knew what was wrong with him. Haruko certainly felt it was a profound moment they shared online.

Bill could be ornery and combative, like I said, he would fight with anyone he thought was wrong. He had a very dry and sometimes bust-up hilarious sense of humour. It didn’t always show through, but when it did, he was funny. Bill was also very bright and articulate and did a masterful job of breaking down inferior arguments, especially if it was an ignorant troll. Sometimes, he got too angry and caught up in feuds (even with fellow liberals, he had some epic battles with a couple of other regular posters); but I did too which is why I stopped posting on HP.

Perhaps Bill’s health problems made him that much grouchier. I don’t know. Like I said, I think he simply felt very strongly about progressive issues and got sincerely angry to see falsehoods and dishonesty about liberals being posted online.

Bill was on HP for about four years. He had become an institution at HP (Holy crap, he made 74,000 comments in four years), very much like Hume Skeptic and other longtime posters that have moved on, either because of life circumstances or because of changes at the site. I don’t think it’s widely known that he had died because HP has changed a lot in recent months and isn’t nearly as cozy as it used to be. HP will be lesser without him.

Emphysema is a bitch.

My 35-year romance with the San Francisco 49ers

“The Catch” January 1982

What do the 49ers mean to me?

I totally understand not giving a damn about sports, and I totally understand a sports team being a big part of one’s life. I know a guy who just goes crazy if his team gets in the baseball postseason; you literally cannot even speak to him about his team. He throws chairs when his team loses, he refuses to watch them in a bar because there might be people cheering for the other team.

I find that a little nuts. But, one team that has always meant a lot to me through good times and bad are the San Francisco 49ers.

I grew up in Fresno, about three hours from San Francisco. We got all the Niners games on TV as a kid, most people in Fresno were either 49ers or Raiders fans when I grew up there.

Maybe because they won their first Super Bowl the year my dad died. It was a few months after he died that they won. See, dad actually hated the 49ers. He was a big Rams fan. I asked him one time why he hated them so much and he said it was because San Francisco was full of queers and liberals (seriously, this is how his mind worked). I couldn’t believe that. I couldn’t believe you would hate a sports team over politics (or the sexual orientation of some of its residents … never mind the fact that L.A. has its own rather large gay community..?)

Yeah, Jim Plunkett actually played for the 49ers. Look at the crowd!

I think that was when I began cheering for the 49ers, to spite dad. I always cheered for the teams that he cheered for until then. The first year I remember getting excited about the 49ers was 1976. They got off to a hot start — 6-1 — and looked a sure playoff team after three straight losing seasons. Their quarterback was Jim Plunkett (that’s right, Plunkett played a year or two for the Niners), but then the team finished 2-5, ended up 8-6, still a winning record, but out of the playoffs.

What followed was an atrocious stretch of football. The 49ers because the worst team in the NFL, going 4-28 at one stretch. They became a joke, a laughingstock.

My dad died in July 1981. I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about it, Mom slipped off into a dark hole of depression that she didn’t pull out of for years. I didn’t talk to my friends at school about it. I just sort of internalized it all.

The 49ers didn’t start out anything special that season; they got off to a 1-2 start, then won a couple games in a row to go to 3-2. I didn’t start taking the 49ers seriously again until their next game when they destroyed the Dallas Cowboys  45-14. The Cowboys were the most cocky, obnoxious team in the NFL; they were the most dominant team in the NFC and had been for 10 years, winning two Super Bowls and going to three others since 1971, and the 49ers had just annihilated them. It was probably the team’s biggest win in a decade.

Super Joe

I started to believe in them again, and started looking forward to the next week’s 49ers game. They rattled off a bunch of mostly close, exciting wins over the rest of the season and went into the playoffs at 13-3. It had been their best season since 1972, and of course, their new star, Joe Montana, was the toast of the entire NFL. He was doing things no quarterback had ever done in the NFL. The entire offence centered around him. The 49ers had virtually no running game.

The 49ers easily won their first playoff game against the Giants and then faced the hated, cocky Cowboys again. I remember Butch Johnson boldly predicting a Cowboys win before the game. Wait a minute, the 49ers killed them last time, where did he get off, I remember thinking.

It was a very tense, back and forth game. Montana actually didn’t play well; I think he threw three interceptions, but it came down to the final drive and of course, everyone knows “The Catch.” I was watching it at my brothers’ house. I couldn’t believe it when the 49ers blew the kickoff and gave the Cowboys the ball at the 40, with almost a minute left. Oh, here we go. The 49ers never win, they’ve never won anything, here comes the choke. But, the defence held and the Niners were off to the Super Bowl. I couldn’t believe it. The 49ers NEVER won. They never won anything, they had never won a single championship, nor even played in championship game in their entire existence.

The next week was almost an anti-climax. The 49ers steamrolled the Bengals 20-0 in the first half, but then let them back in the game in the second half. The Niners held on a goal-line stand nursing a 26-14 lead and that was it. The 49ers were world champions.

And for a while, I forgot about my dad’s death. It didn’t sting so much, at least that year. The 49ers helped me get through that year.

I’ve witnessed almost all the highlights and lowlights of the 49ers over the past 30 years. They are all seared into my memory, even after all these years. Ronnie Lott severing a finger on a tackle — yeah, I actually saw that. Steve Young getting knocked completely out on a tackle. The wars with the Giants and Cowboys. Jim Everett curling up in a little ball because he was afraid of getting sacked … only no 49er was within 5 yards of him. I saw it all.

* The 1983 season. The 49ers made it back to the NFC championship after a down year, got steamrolled early by the Redskins, but Montana brought them back to make it close at the end. The 49ers got robbed by the refs, who made a terrible call late in the fourth quarter, calling Ronnie Lott for holding when a Washington receiver ran right into him. That call cost the 49ers a trip to the Super Bowl.

* The 1984 season, in which they went 15-1, but were actually underdogs going into the Super Bowl against an unstoppable phenom Dan Marino, who had thrown for 5,000 yards and 48 TDs. Well, the Dolphins had no defence, and the 49ers did and Marino was helpless as San Francisco won easily. What I remember about that game is Montana actually had 60 yards rushing.

Steve Young’s 50-yard TD run

* The 1989 Super Bowl against Cincinnati. I was living way out in the boonies and had no TV. There was no cable where I lived. So on a bitterly cold and snowy day, I drove out to a nearby golf course, which thankfully had the game on in their bar. I spent the day at the golf course bar with about four or five other people eating free mini-tacos watching as Montana again brought the Niners back and won with a TD pass to John Taylor with 30 seconds left. It was the first Super Bowl decided by a touchdown in the final two minutes.

1988 was a really weird year for the Niners. They were actually up and down all year, looked awful at times, went back and forth between Montana and Steve Young. One game they only scored 3 points. They won one game on a 50-yard run by Young in the final seconds and won another game on an 80-yard pass by Montana against the Giants in the final seconds. Roger Craig had an incredible 50-yard run that same season that helped win a game. Finally, they rattled off five straight wins near the end of the year to barely make the playoffs, then they completely dominated a 14-2 team in Chicago in the NFC title game.

The other “Catch.” John Taylor in the Super Bowl Watched this game at a golf course.

* The 1990 Super Bowl against Denver. Probably the most dominant team ever, at least the most dominant 49ers team. I’ll never forget the NFC championship game, watching it over at my boss’s house. The Niners had beaten the Rams, who were actually pretty good at the time, once that year with a pair of 90-yard touchdown catches by John Taylor.

My boss was a big Rams fan and gave me all kinds of shit all year about the Niners. That was the infamous “phantom sack” game with Rams quarterback Jim Everett. His entire career is defined by that one play. Everett had been sacked by the Niners four or five times already and late in the game, he went back to pass and simply curled up in a fetal position with no 49ers within five yards of him. Everett never got over that and in fact punched out Jim Rome for calling him “Chrissie Everett” on TV a couple of years later. The Super Bowl was actually pretty boring as San Francisco won 55-10.

What followed were a couple of frustrating seasons. The 49ers were the most dominant team in 1990 and seemed sure to go to another Super Bowl, but they actually got beat by Jeff Hostetler (Jeff Hostetler! WTF?) and the Giants. The 49ers dominated most of the game, but couldn’t score and had a lead of only 13-6 in the fourth quarter. Finally, Montana took one of the most vicious hits I’ve ever seen, getting hit from behind by Leonard Marshall and fumbling the ball. It was the last time Joe played for the 49ers. He left the game with a concussion and the 49ers lost when Roger Craig fumbled late in the game and the Giants recovered, drove down the field and won with a field goal.

After that came the big controversy over Montana vs. Young. Montana, who had reconstructive surgery on his elbow (I actually saw the game in which he hurt his elbow, it was in 1989 or 1990, it swelled up to the size of a grapefruit), was traded to Kansas City and Steve Young became the quarterback.

* In 1993, it appeared the Niners were headed to another Super Bowl, they had the best record in football, but got upset at home by the Cowboys. They just couldn’t stop them scoring. The Cowboys finally had their revenge for 1981.

* 1994. The 49ers got their revenge back with a pair of incredible wins against the Cowboys, who had become the dominant team in the NFC again and again were really obnoxious and cocky. They got behind the Cowboys early in the regular season game, but by running Steve Young, they turned the tide. I remember what really turned it was an unsportsmanlike late hit penalty against the Cowboy for drilling Young in the head after he was down. The 49ers came back later and beat the Cowboys in the NFC championship, getting up 21-0 on a bunch of turnovers, then 31-14 when Young hit Jerry Rice on a huge touchdown pass at the end of the half. They held on at Dallas tried to rally, winning 38-28, then again, another anti-climatic Super Bowl against San Diego, winning 49-26.

That began a long, gradual decline by the 49ers. Their owner Eddie DeBartolo, got in all kinds of legal trouble for trying to open up a casino in New Orleans and got busted trying to bribe the governor of Louisiana. The league took the team away from Eddie and handed it to his sister Denise York. Two years later, Denise and her husband John could have given the team back to DeBartolo, but chose to keep it. The Yorks promptly ran the team straight into the ground.

Jeff Garcia, scoring a TD against the GIants in the 2002 playoffs

The 49ers were still good most years, but they weren’t consistently good year in and year out and they weren’t good enough to get to the Super Bowl. They won a playoff game against Green Bay one year on a 40 yard pass in the final seconds from Young to Terrell Owens (what I remember about that play is earlier on the drive, Jerry Rice had an obvious fumble, but that was one of the years they had gotten rid of replay because it didn’t work well when they first tried it. With replay, Green Bay wins the game.). But, then Owens turned into a jackass after that year. Biggest primadonna in the history of sport, I swear. The 49ers seemed to hit rock bottom when Steve Young got completely knocked out, a hit that ended his career.

Jeff Garcia had a couple of good years for the Niners. I always thought he was kind of underrated. One of his problems was he was tiny for a quarterback, only weighed about 180 pounds. He had one incredible game  in the 2002 playoffs, bringing the team back from 38-14 to beat the Giants 39-38. The Giants had a chance for a game winning field goal, flubbed the snap, then actually got a pass off downfield to Jeremy Shockey. The 49ers, who didn’t know what to do, tackled Shockey while the ball was in the air, but the refs didn’t call pass interference (I think they literally didn’t know the rules on that bizarre play themselves). Giants fans are still pissed about that play.

Then came a long slowwww slide into irrelevance. The 49ers became just plain bad. The Yorks were inept owners, they were playing in a crummy stadium, and they kept hiring bad coaches and GMs. Dennis Erickson, Mike Nolan, Mike Singletary, all bad, bad coaches. People were literally begging the Yorks to please sell the team. The head of Cisco offered $1 billion for the 49ers to try and save the team from the Yorks. The 49ers went 46-82 over eight BAD years. It was hard to watch. There didn’t seem to be any hope with the Yorks owning the team.

Alex Smith, scoring a TD against the Saints in the 2011 playoff

Singletary was the worst of the bad coaches, bad play-calling, bad clock management, switching quarterbacks all the time. The nadir came one season in which the 49ers could have won a game against the Cardinals. They had time for a couple of plays, down 24-29 and decide to run the ball up the middle from the 4-yard-line. They gain two yards, the clock runs out, they lose. What were they thinking? It turns out Singletary didn’t realise they were on the 4. He thought they were on the 1-yard-line.  If San Francisco had won that game, they would have actually made the postseason. Instead, the Cardinals won the division and nearly won the Super Bowl.

The Yorks finally removed John York from decision-making duties and their son Jed was made president of the team. Oh, great, promoting their son, I thought. But, it turns out he is a really good executive, and the 49ers have been making all the right moves for three years — hiring Jim Harbaugh, getting a new stadium in Santa Clara, letting the football people actually run the football team.

I wasn’t sure if this latest incarnation of the 49ers was any good until their incredible playoff win over the Saints last year. The two teams combined for four touchdowns in the last five minutes of the game. I’ve never been a huge Alex Smith fan, but that was an outstanding game by him; by far the highlight of his 49ers career.

Colin Kaepernick is a beast!

I also wasn’t sure what to think when Harbaugh switched from Smith to Colin Kaepernick in midseason. My brother was a big Kaepernick fan, but I thought Smith, who somehow survived Nolan and Singletary to stick with the team through some very bleak times, was getting screwed. It turns out Harbaugh knew what he was doing, obviously he had seen Kaepernick in practise, and knew his upside was too high to ignore. I wish Smith well, whereever he ends up next year, probably the Jets or the Chiefs. He deserves a starting job somewhere.

But, for now, the 49ers are back. Back in the Super Bowl after an 18-year hiatus through some pretty dark seasons.

My 35-year romance with the 49ers.