Tom Scoccatag:www.tomscocca.com,2008-02-01://12011-10-02T02:58:17ZMovable Type Personal 4.1Introduction to Civicstag:www.tomscocca.com,2011://1.2072011-10-02T02:55:26Z2011-10-02T02:58:17ZTom
[July, 2011]
The information you have provided is as follows:
Form: Customer Comment
Topic: Street and Highway Signs
Message:
please put on the 65 and 64 street signs. on riverside blvd. 63, 62 street signs the street signs.they are missing.thanks.sincerly, 4 year old mack.
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Dear MACK
Thank you for contacting the City of New York. Your message has been forwarded to the appropriate agency for review and handling.
For future reference, your service request number is 1-1-664568869.
Sincerely,
The City of New York
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[September, 2011]
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Milestonetag:www.tomscocca.com,2011://1.2062011-09-07T12:41:18Z2011-09-07T12:42:11ZTom
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Fresh From the Printer: Beijing Welcomes Youtag:www.tomscocca.com,2011://1.2052011-06-29T02:02:00Z2011-06-29T15:02:58ZTom
OK! Here begins the social-media campaign. Buy this book, please. Recommended by Gay Talese ("revealing and well-written") and Gene Weingarten ("brilliant insights about China, the United States, and the audacity of empire"). "He excels at straddling the line between the personal and sociopolitical," says Publishers Weekly. "Fun," says Kirkus Reviews.
On sale August 4, but feel free to pre-order it from your favorite bookseller. Reading events are planned for Manhattan, Brooklyn, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. Tell a friend. Or five. Beijing Welcomes You!]]>
Slumberlandtag:www.tomscocca.com,2011://1.2042011-04-07T09:34:26Z2011-04-07T11:29:49ZTom]]>
Perspective, 2011tag:www.tomscocca.com,2011://1.2032011-04-07T09:02:38Z2011-04-07T09:29:02ZTom]]>
367 Pages, Typesettag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.2022010-10-18T14:24:15Z2010-10-18T14:30:36ZTom
Galleys soon! Books next year. ]]>
Wolf Troubletag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.2012010-10-04T07:01:08Z2010-10-04T07:02:32ZTom]]>
tag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.2002010-09-23T06:37:43Z2010-09-23T06:37:53ZTom]]>
tag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.1992010-09-23T04:49:28Z2010-09-23T04:49:49ZTom]]>
Crosstowntag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.1982010-09-03T13:25:35Z2010-09-03T13:29:11ZTom]]>
Three Little Pigstag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.1972010-09-03T13:22:07Z2010-09-03T13:25:18ZTom]]>
After Bedtimetag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.1962010-08-22T05:38:28Z2010-08-22T05:42:56ZTom]]>
Markakis Defends Terry Crowley, Makes Case for Firing Terry Crowleytag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.1952010-06-19T07:11:27Z2010-06-19T07:38:04ZTom
an interview grappling with the question of how a club that looked solidly mediocre and due for improvement on paper has become the worst team of 2010 and potentially the worst team of modern times:
"You need guys in there who have a plan, who have a clue and who know how to execute that plan and get on base. We don't need every guy in this lineup trying to hit home runs. We're paid to get on base and figure out how to score and drive in runs. You look at the Yankees. They have guys who can hit home runs, but everybody in that lineup can get on base."
Markakis said the team's offensive woes shouldn't be attributed to longtime hitting coach Terry Crowley, who is known for advocating an aggressive approach at the plate.
Crowley "has 110 percent nothing to do with the way we are going about our business at the plate or on the field right now," Markakis said. "You can have anybody come here, and you still are going to have a couple of guys who are not going to change their approach and fix it. It's worthless. You can point your fingers here and there, but it is what it is. You're in the big leagues. You have to change your approach on your own. This is the best of the best, and if you go up there clueless, you're going to come back [to the dugout] clueless. It's that simple.
This is nice and diplomatic, but the Orioles are a stain on baseball, and Markakis' defense of the hitting coach makes no sense. Bless Terry Crowley for his years of service to the club as a player and coach, but he needs to have been fired weeks ago. The team is full of players, and especially young players, who are doing everything wrong at the plate, and are getting worse.
Yes, the players are at fault. But if Terry Crowley is not also at fault, then what is Terry Crowley's job, as hitting coach?
The Orioles are awful hitters. No one wants a baseball team to hit the way the Orioles hit. Suppose Markakis is right, and Crowley "has nothing to do with the way we are going about our business at the plate." That would mean Crowley is completely useless. ]]>
Not Good Enough: The Dave Trembley Eratag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.1942010-06-05T16:55:00Z2010-06-05T17:10:00ZTom
It was not Dave Trembley's fault that the Orioles are a lousy team this year. They are a lousy team because they have a lousy collection of players. A little over a week ago, this finally sank in, when they fielded the following lineup:
Corey Patterson, LF, .267
Julio Lugo, 2B, .229
Ty Wigginton, 1B, .281
Miguel Tejada, 3B, .260
Matt Wieters, C, .261
Adam Jones, CF, .259
Garrett Atkins, DH, .220
Lou Montanez, RF, .146
Cesar Izturis, SS, .226
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Five players in that lineup ended the night with on-base percentages below .300. Three players had slugging percentages below .250. (The designated hitter was slugging .305.)
Because baseball is a funny game, the Orioles actually scored 5 runs that night. But the pitchers coughed up 5 runs in the eighth inning, and they lost 7 to 5.
So it is true that Dave Trembley never got any real talent to work with. He took a beating with teams that were supposed to be terrible, after the front office had cleared things away for a long-term rebuilding process. Then, this year, he took a beating with a team that was supposed to have been improved, but wasn't. The winning percentage says he was the second-worst manager in Orioles history, which is almost certainly unfair--not next to guys like Phil Regan and Ray Miller, who butchered potentially decent teams.
What he was was a good company man for a bad company. The Orioles are three years into what they are pretending is an investment cycle, another one, in which they have been trading "present-day value" for "future value." Case by case, this is a reasonable thing to do. I was appalled when the Orioles got rid of Erik Bedard, but they knew more about his shoulder than the Mariners or I did, and they got multiple players back for him. Then they flipped George Sherrill, the overrated three-out closer they got in the deal, for even more players. The franchise is stronger for that.
The difference between baseball talent and investment assets, though, is that baseball talent gets cashed in, whether you want it or not, 162 times a year. The games count. The Orioles lost 99 games in 2009, games that were every bit as real as the games they will play in 2011, when they were hoping the young players would be all grown up and ready to play. They were losers.
It would have been possible to have made a better team last season, with no harm done to the future. Old pitchers like Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez were sitting around, waiting to be signed to short-term, moderate-priced deals. They would not have blocked any of the budding pitching talent from reaching the majors in 2011 or 2012. Front-office boss Andy MacPhail decided to build a rotation out of junk-heap pitchers instead, inviting a few dozen failures to spring training in the hopes that enough of them might turn into successes. They all stayed failures, leaving the Orioles with the worst pitching staff in baseball.
This past offseason, MacPhail seemed to be doing something a little different. He picked up Kevin Millwood and Miguel Tejada--adequate veterans to fill gaping holes, the kind of additions that should be a baseball executive's minimum professional responsibility. I almost began to suspect MacPhail had tanked 2009 on purpose, so that by adding a few practical pieces, he would get a bounce in the standings in 2010, whether the young talent was truly improving or not. (Signing a player as obviously broken-down and useless as Garrett Atkins, on the other hand, suggested MacPhail might simply have an honest addiction to investing in penny stocks.) The team was so sure things would be better, it introduced a surcharge on day-of-game tickets, to squeeze extra money out of fans who might notice the sudden success and make an impulse trip to the ballpark.
Then Brian Roberts got hurt. This is where the future-value model of baseball goes most wrong. All the while the Orioles organization was trudging toward some distant promised tomorrow, Roberts was out on the field playing baseball, in the here and now. He hit 50 doubles, 54, 56--all in seasons that management treated as write-offs. By the time the Orioles had rounded up a catcher, an outfield, and corner infielders to keep Roberts company, the wear and tear had caught up with him. Now the games were supposed to be for real, and he couldn't go.
Everything counts, all the time. The job the Orioles originally gave Dave Trembley to do--keep one end of the dugout bench warm, and watch a team built to lose go through the motions--was an insult to baseball. And Trembley was not good enough to make up for it.
That is, Dave Trembley's Orioles couldn't help but look like they were going through the motions. They were sloppy. They were unfocused. They tailed off into losing spells that lasted for weeks.
If you dug into more esoteric numbers than wins and losses, looking for a sign that your eyes were fooling you, nothing good ever turned up. The Orioles were bad at preventing unearned runs. They were bad at turning their own hits into runs, bad at getting from first to third, bad at keeping the other team from taking the extra base--bad at every little thing that might have made a difference in a game.
Did that make Trembley a bad baseball manager? Heaven only knows. He might be fundamentally a decent manager. Maybe he's a bad one. Maybe he's mediocre. The only thing he was able to prove was that he was not a great one.
A great manager, at some point, would have wrung a pleasant surprise or two out of his roster. At no time did Trembley's Orioles overachieve, or show any hint of being more than the sum of their parts. He did not noticeably hide anyone's weaknesses or showcase anyone's special strengths; he showed no knack for getting his hot-and-cold-running hitters into the lineup for their hot spells or out of it for their cold ones. He did not stymie other teams' rallies with a cleverly chosen pitching change. Given bad players, he got bad results.
With him gone, at least, the bad players are the front office's direct responsibility. Dave Trembley was probably not the problem, but he wasn't a solution, either. Finding a solution is Andy MacPhail's job. ]]>
Three Statements From a Not-Quite-Three-Year-Oldtag:www.tomscocca.com,2010://1.1932010-05-26T02:55:42Z2010-05-26T03:08:31ZTom
2. "Woodpeckers don't peck on the Dongzhimen. Because woodpeckers peck on wood."
3. "When I was little, I ate a glass table in Silver Spring."
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OK! Here begins the social-media campaign. Buy this book, please. Recommended by Gay Talese ("revealing and well-written") and Gene Weingarten ("brilliant insights about China, the United States, and the audacity of empire"). "He excels at straddling the line between the personal and sociopolitical," says Publishers Weekly. "Fun," says Kirkus Reviews.
On sale August 4, but feel free to pre-order it from your favorite bookseller. Reading events are planned for Manhattan, Brooklyn, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. Tell a friend. Or five. Beijing Welcomes You!]]>
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