Theo's back

Theo's back. To paraphrase his relatives' famed words: Lucky, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

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Are stats copyrighted information?

For fantasy baseball fans:

A company that runs sports fantasy leagues is asking a federal court to decide whether major leaguers' batting averages and home run counts are historical facts that can be used freely or property that can be sold. (Link)

I have resolved to give up most fantasy baseball this year, as it is enormous, enormous fun for a stat geek and therefore a giant timesuck. But MLB's defense sounds iffy to me:

Major League Baseball has claimed that intellectual property law makes it illegal for fantasy league operators to "commercially exploit the identities and statistical profiles" of big league players.

Is a stat profile protected under IP law? I'm no lawyer, but surely if theoretically I could compile a player's BA by sitting in each game and actually counting the hits and ABs it seems like public information. Sure, it's nice that MLB sells the info nicely wrapped up, but that's a service, no? Oh well - perhaps someone could educamate me...

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Julian Tavarez signs

Yeah, yeah, yeah - I'm still behind. Let me enjoy the offseason! Anyway, on the news: Sox getting Julian Tavarez means a lot of good things I must say: the bullpen now looks overstocked, which is always good; Manny gets an old friend back; and the ugliest member of the team contest has been settled even before Spring Training.

For some reason I can't find the Manny-and-Tavarez-buying-motorcycles story online except in this old cached page - must have read it in the GQ story on Manny last year. But here it is:

In '93, Manny and best friend Julian Tavarez decided they wanted to buy a motorcycle. So they asked two writers who covered the team if they could borrow $64,000. It was quickly explained to Manny and Tavarez that No. 1, motorcycles don't cost $64,000, and No. 2, people don't walk around with that kind of money, especially sportswriters.

Although, strangely enough, Manny seems to have really wanted a pricey motorbike in his Cleveland days:

''He asked me if he could borrow $35,000," Hargrove, now managing the Seattle Mariners, recalled yesterday. ''I said, 'What for?' He said, 'I want to buy a motorcycle.' Just busted my chops. (Link)

Meanwhile, scouting around the Intanet for the motorbike story brought me to this random excerpt from a Sox-hater:

I despise Manny Ramirez. The little scumbag tried to bed my girlfriend (at the time) back in his Cleveland days. I'm not going to go into detail here, but I know some things about Manny and his frequent roommate Julian Tavarez that would make for excellent tabloid fodder. (Link)

Anyway, you know the way George Steinbrenner collects players from teams who beat the Yankees in playoff games? (Bellhorn, Embree, Womack...) The Sox seem to be trying to always keep someone from the 2004 Cardinals around... heh. Man - if you asked me my favourite moments of the 2004 World Series, they would include: Card-turned-Red Sock Renteria grounding out to end the Series; and now Card-turned-Red Sock Julian Tavarez giving up the 2-run homer to Bellhorn in Game 1. Hopefully things work out better for Tavarez.

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Hall of Fame 2006 edition

Good article by Bill Gilbert evaluating the Hall of Fame Class of '06 based on Win Shares. I agree that it's a weak class, and am hoping Bert Blyleven gets in. As well as Ron Santo, through the VC.

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Manny boning any?

I think the funniest part of this non-revelation of the Manny rumour is how it just degenerates into a trolling battle. Well, that and how it gets all excited even though it's late to the party...

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Happy New Year!

Yeah, so it's a new year without a shortstop or a center fielder, but hey, from across the Pacific, I wish all Sox fans a very happy new year!

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