A Different Take on Hall of Fame Voting

By Blaidd Drwg

To become eligible to vote in the annual Baseball Hall of Fame election, you need to be a member of the Baseball Writers Association. To become a member of the BBWAA, you need to cover baseball and be voted in by a committee (which is why some of the more brilliant baseball writers out there, like Rob Neyer, are not part of the BBWAA). Once you are a member of the BBWAA, you are a member for life, even if you stop covering baseball.

This causes a ton of issues during the Hall of Fame election process since there are a large number of the 575 ballots that are in the hands of “writers” who either no longer cover baseball or no longer follow baseball. Most of the articles that you will read about the Hall of Fame voting process are about why someone is or is not voting for a particular player. Espn.com recently posted an article by T.J. Quinn about the election process. This one was slightly different – Quinn is no longer turning in his ballot for what I think is a very good reason. It is a bit of a long read, but I recommend it.

Quinn questions whether he is qualified to vote, and it isn’t just about steroids:

Even before the issue of performance-enhancing drugs overwhelmed the annual conversation, I questioned my capacity to evaluate a player’s fitness for immortality. My only qualification, like all voters, was 10 years’ service as a BBWAA member. But nothing in my years as a beat writer covering the Chicago White Sox and New York Mets, and nothing in my years covering doping as an investigative reporter since has prepared me to evaluate the effect PED use should have on a player’s legacy.

He also makes a point that I think few who argue that the steroid players should not be in the hall consider:

The argument hits a serious roadblock, however, when it is applied retroactively. Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and countless others have admitted they used amphetamines during their careers. If they used today and were caught, they would be suspended under baseball’s rules. I don’t know anyone who wants to think about pulling those beloved players out of the Hall, even though one of the few studies ever done on PED use showed that amphetamines clearly enhance athletic performance.

I have asked this question before, where do you draw the line? Do you take out the guys who admitted to cheating if you make the argument that you won’t vote for Barry Bonds because he cheated? Can you prove that Cal Ripken never took anything, despite him claiming he did?

Quinn also sums this up nicely:

I’ve heard other writers say they couldn’t wait for certain players to make the ballot so they could leave their names unchecked. Eddie Murray’s name came up that way more than once. I voted for Albert Belle because I thought he was one of the most dominant players of his era. He didn’t get enough votes to stay on the ballot, in large part because of the way he treated reporters. He cursed me out a handful of times, but he also asked me how my grandmother was years after she had a stroke. I tried hard not to let either element influence the way I evaluated his career; and to me, he belonged. Robin Ventura might have been my favorite player to cover, both with the White Sox and the Mets, but that wasn’t reason enough to vote for him.

But at the end of the day, the game, the Hall and journalism would be better served if voting was limited to a select group of veterans, historians and even journalists — if they’re the right journalists. Columnists and national writers who have devoted their careers to the game, not dabblers. That wouldn’t solve the problem of how to evaluate players in the age of modern chemistry, but at least the right group would be making the call.

I have to agree with him. The process has too much bias in it, which has led to a good number of substandard guys getting elected to the Hall because of poor evaluation of their careers and they were “liked” by the media.

I don’t know if there is a better system, but the one we have isn’t very good. Heck, I would be happy if the BBWAA changed its procedures so that if you have not been covering the game for 5 years, you don’t get to vote for the Hall of Fame. I will be honest, that is about as likely to happen as pigs flying.

Gears Of War: Judgment Releases Today

by A.J. Coltrane

Gears of War: Judgment releases today!

Here’s an interview with Senior Producer Alan Van Slyke:

Looks awesome!

I Suppose This is Fair

By Iron Chef Leftovers

If you are a pig and eat a cobbler, I suppose you should offer the cobbler some bacon too.

From Pearls Before Swine on January 1.

Beer of the Week: Hale’s Ales Cascade Mist Wet Hop

One of the great things about where I live is that I have 5 (and soon to be 7) breweries within walking distance of my house. It makes for a regular rotation for me to stop in to each of these places and try the new and exciting stuff that they have on tap, and, in the case of Hale’s Ales, try the beers that they don’t bottle. A recent trip to Hale’s yielded such a treasure – the very last of their fresh hop beer. I unfortunately can’t find any stats on the beer (I did find a single reference to it being 5.5% ABV), so you are just stuck with my description.

The beer is very pale yellow in color with a snow white head. I took one look at it and thought to myself that this was going to be a major letdown. It wasn’t helped when I took a whiff of the beer – faint notes of grain with very mild hops, if you did not know what you ordered, you would possible be thinking pilsner. It is a good thing that I did not judge a book by its cover. The first sip delivered a very crisp and refreshing beer with lots of hops flavor up from with notes of orange and lemon lingering for a short time before giving way to citrus peel, grain and hop resin. A slight bitterness hides in the finish on this beer, but it is not particularly pronounced and it provides a nice counterbalance to the citrus notes. It is also just enough to remind you that this is a fresh hop beer but not off-putting to the point where a non-IPA drinker would hate it. There is great balance between the citrus and grain and it is a nice change of pace from the fresh hop IPA’s that tend to dominate the market in Seattle. When this beer makes a comeback, you should belly yourself up to the bar at Hale’s and knock back a few of them.

Hale’s Cascade Mist was an unexpected surprise when I went in the brewery and it made for a very happy Iron Chef when I left.

Hale’s Cascade Mist Wet Hop wafts in with a cloaking 4 cloudy days out of 5.

Baseball Card Vandalism

By Blaidd Drwg

Ok, so the person who did these is no Picasso and some are crude but some are actually funny and could be great if someone with photoshop skills got a hold of them. These kind of remind me of Wacky Packages or Garbage Pail Kids. My two favorites:

zFaNl — The art may actually be a slight improvement over the actual face of Rick Rhoden, who isn’t nearly as unattractive as Julian Tavarez

Another Six Minute Pizza

by A.J. Coltrane

I saw this idea on Serious Eats. I’d imagine it’s not an original thought.

The heart-shaped meat is sopressata.

I’m not sure what happened to the one in the lower left hand area. They must have shifted around in the oven a bit.

I’m Sailing Away…

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I happened to catch this in passing:

PALE ALE SAILS AWAY: Full Sail Brewing has discontinued its mainstay pale ale, Scoop has learned. The Hood River-based brewery needed to free up brewing capacity for seasonal beers, and found its pale was going stale. “We’re in the business of freshness and looking at trends,” says head brewmaster Jamie Emmerson. “It’s not that the pale had volume problems, but it was the softest of our regular beers. Other people just keep those around forever. But, for us, focus matters. It’s not like we don’t have other recipes lying around.” Most of the six-packs are gone, with the final kegs soon to run out. Instead, look for six-packs of previously pub-only Full Sail brews like Nut Brown Ale and Wassail.

While I am sad to see what I consider an iconic beer go (it was the first type of Full Sail I ever tasted), it is a style with a ton of competition, so replacing it with their seasonal stuff makes much more sense. Besides, as Oregon pale ales go, my preference is Deschutes over Full Sail anyway.

The Worst Food Trends of 2013

By Iron Chef Leftovers

James Beard Award winning writer, Josh Ozersky, recently wrote a piece in Time Magazine about the 5 worst food trends for 2013. I usually just ignore these lists, but a friend of mine sent this one to me and since it was written by someone with credentials, I decided to read it. I should make the qualification that most of his books have been written around the fast food culture in the United States, so take that for what it is worth. If you read the whole piece, he does come across as a pompous ass that seems like he would only happy at Applebee’s. I will give you his list, his comments (that I generally disagree with) and my comments.

1 – Rock slime as food

We haven’t seen much of this, I’ll grant you; mostly it’s appeared in a few avant-garde restaurants. Let’s hope, for the love of God, it stays there. Born out of the intrepid, terroir-crazed cauldron of the new Scandinavian cuisine, where nearly anything on or under the ground is considered fair game for foragers, the use of lichens, moss and other primal organisms functions, I believe, largely as shock value. If lichens taste like anything, it is something bad; that’s why the stuff is more often the dinner of snails and bark lice than of people. It’s not as revolting as the equally ostentatious bug-eating movement, but I believe it’s more obnoxious for being more high-minded.

I actually copied the whole section since I had issues with all of it. Ok, I have never tried lichen but I would be willing to bet you it is super nutritious, just like another odd primal organism that is foraged out of the forest – the mushroom. He violates my first rule of eating – you can’t say anything bad about it until you have tried it. As for bug eating – it is common in most of the 3rd world since bugs are an abundant and healthy protein. I figure if a couple billion people are eating them, there has to be something to it. I have tried many species of bugs and I can tell you that they are tasty. The issue here is they are considered high cuisine in America, so he immediately labels them as ostentatious. Funny since the rest of the world sees them as low class peasant food, just like offal used to be.

2 – Pro-am charcuterie.

Here’s the thing about salumi, charcuterie and all the other forms of cured meats that we have come to know and love: they were always the province of experts. And there’s a reason they were the province of experts: they are hard to do well. Now every other restaurant has its own in-house cured-meat program, and the results are often nasty: leathery hams, moldy sausages, and industrial-strength lardo, just for starters.
…
Most beginners don’t aspire to any ideal, any more than do their customers. Google “bad salumi.” You won’t find a single negative review anywhere on the Internet. That’s bizarre and says something about how uncritically the stuff is eaten these days. Leave it to the pros!

Ok, so if you are not an expert, you shouldn’t make charcuterie. That is just bullshit. I have had plenty of great charcuterie from “non-experts” and I know what the good stuff tastes like. Guess what, most of those “experts” were once people who didn’t know how to make the stuff. Laurehurst Market in Portland make killer stuff and have only been doing it for a few years. Just about every French restaurant makes a good pate. Boccolone, which he sites as an “expert” was created by Chris Constentino, who, if memory serves, taught himself how to make cured meats.

3 – Fake smoke

A recent trend has been the use, or rather overuse, of artificial smoke as a flavoring agent or even as a theatrical effect.
…
I realize this may seem like a peevish quibble, but it bothers me nonetheless, because it is frequently used in conjunction with equally unnatural modes of cooking like sous vide. You take a piece of pork or duck, cook it for 10 hours in a tepid bath and then try to impose a sham smoke flavor at the last minute with another equally ludicrous tool.

All meat should be cooked over open fire on big spits, right? Seriously, the liquid smoke thing is exactly how BBQ potato chips are made and how most of the chain restaurants make their food taste wood grilled. Sous Vide is anything but unnatural – it is an offshoot of poaching and is actually based on a very sound scientific principal – you cook the food at the target temperature you want it to be and therefore you can’t overcook it. It is much more precise than heating a pan over a flame and guessing when it is done. There is a reason why so many Thanksgiving turkeys turn out dry. I am starting to think this guy is really out of touch with how food is actually cooked and eaten in the rest of the world.

4 – Postmodern desserts.

As David Kamp observed in The Food Snob’s Dictionary, pastry chefs are “the most perverse of food-snob subcultures,” and boy, was he right. Who in their right mind wants to eat an enormous meal, replete with bread, wine or liquor, meat, pasta, vegetables, the inevitable charcuterie and God knows what else, and then have to face a $14 plate of tiny mountains, swooping smears and little heaps of powder. What am I supposed to do with this? I’m not hungry at this point. It adds empty calories and a not-insignificant sum to the bill. And really, the only satisfaction derived from it by anyone at all is the chef who called it into being (and who never actually eats it). If I could have one wish come true for 2013, it would be dessert reform. A single scoop of sherbet is all any human being wants or needs at the conclusion of a big meal. It’s time to take a step back from our gastronomical excesses. And this is the place we ought to start.

Once again, I include the whole section. Look, no one is holding a gun to your head and making you order dessert at the end of the meal. If you don’t want the calories or aren’t hungry, DON’T FUCKING ORDER IT, DUMBASS! I can tell you that I have never wanted or needed a single scoop of sherbet at the end of a meal, hell; I don’t even like the stuff. Oh, and I am pretty sure that sherbet is empty calories since it primarily consists of milk and sugar.

5 – Optional tipping.

And when you consider how much diners spend on some of the items mentioned above, their cheaping out on the staff is one of the grossest acts of impudence in modern society. I don’t know what monster first conceived of the laws by which restaurateurs are allowed to pay sweatshop wages to their employees on the assumption that guests will do the right thing and make up the difference, but until the laws are repealed, we need to pay the people who serve us. I believe there should be a fixed percentage, a rock-bottom minimum of 15% that every diner has to pay. If we don’t want to pay it, we are all welcome to eat cold cuts at home.

Mr. Ozersky, I have news for you – tipping has always been optional. Tipping is a reward for good service, which in a good number of places, is hard to find these days. If you have an issue with wages that servers make, take it up with the state legislators, which is where that issue is coming from. The restaurant industry would die if you automatically tacked on 15% to a bill (although many places will sneak that in on the check), and it would give even less incentive for servers to do a good job. Hell, why should I have to kick in 15% if I received poor service? In most cultures, servers are paid a reasonable wage and tipping, if it does occur, is a relatively modest amount. I don’t care if it Applebee’s or French Laundry, if you want me to give you an outstanding tip, give me exceptional service in the process. I do agree about the wages (In Washington, servers are paid the state minimum wage, which is just over $9 and hour). Once again, America lags behind the rest of the world.

The Next Knuckler

by A.J. Coltrane

This looks like a fun watch:

On Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET “The Next Knuckler” will premier on MLB Network. The MLB Productions reality series will show just how difficult it is for even the best athletes to learn the knuckleball. Wakefield will teach the pitch to a group of former NCAA quarterbacks who will compete for an invitation to spring training with the Arizona Diamondbacks It’s an eclectic group: Doug Flutie (Boston College), John David Booty (USC), former major league infielder Josh Booty (LSU), David Greene (Georgia) and Ryan Perrilloux (LSU and Jacksonville State).

I’ll be recording that for sure.

I’m a little surprised that teams don’t run mass tryouts for knuckleball pitchers. What’s the worst thing that happens? A pitching coach and a couple of interns are out an afternoon? It seems like a really low-risk high-reward proposition. Heck, I’d go try out, and my arm makes weird noises when I try to throw overhand at this point!

Maybe that’s why teams don’t do it…hmmm.

The Rabbit is Correct

By Iron Chef Leftovers

On several fronts actually. From Pearls Before Swine on 11/21: