The SoapBoxers

When I discuss the differences between short stories and novels, the stark contract in setting scenes tends to come front and center.  I have launched Tip of The Iceberg and Other Stories, and have also sent in my submission to the Iowa Short Story Award.  I’ll continue to write short stories every friday, but a major focus in the next 3-6 months will be renewing focus on my novel, Casting Stones.

I’ll definitely need to alter my mindset and spend more time focusing on the details of a scene.  Today’s article is really more for my benefit than for yours.  The scene I am delving into could be covered in a single sentence in a short story – Kirsten spent the afternoon reading Moby Dick and ate a turkey sandwich for dinner. I’m going to take this one sentence and expand it into several hundred words that will allow you to gain greater insights into the characters and the scene.  Honestly, it’s not a very action-packed scene – and therein lies the challenge.

Warning: nothing of any importance happens in this scene – it is merely a writing exercise.

Kirsten

The daily assault of the sun’s gentle rays had long ago caused the curtains to fade from virgin white to a yellowed tint.  It was late afternoon, and the rays peeked through the window once again and flooded the living room in a gentle glow.

Kirsten sat down the glass of iced tea and took a seat in the antique rocking chair.  As it squeaked in response to the rocking, she opened the cover of a dog-eared copy of Moby Dick.  She stopped for a moment to ponder the first line – “Call me Ishmael.”  She found this to be an interesting name.  She had never actually known anyone named Ishmael.  She remembered Ismael Valdez with the Dodgers and remembered that her dad had mentioned Rocket Ismail returning kicks for Notre Dame.  But never an Ishmael.

Kirsten pushed her glasses back up on her nose and delved deeper into the protagonist of Melville’s classic.  A few of her friends were school teachers, and many of them held summer jobs – working retail, carpentry, and on farms.  Kirsten couldn’t imagine any of them spending time on a whaling ship.  Ishmael certainly had an adventurous spirit.

Kirsten was fully engrossed in the adventures of adventures of Ishmael, Ahab, and Queequeg when she suddenly realized that the room had grown dark.  It had been several hours since she had begun reading, and her stomach began to cry out in agony.  She rose from the rocking chair, slipped on her shoes and began her pursuit of dinner.

Kirsten’s scarlet stilettos drummed out a melodic series of clicks as she strode purposefully across the hardwood floor. When she arrived at the mahogany table in the dining room, she flipped the switch on the ancient lamp. The compact fluorescent bulb fluttered for a short moment before realizing its full potential and bathing the room in light.

Kirsten reached above her head and opened the cupboard door.  One of the screws from the hinge fell to the counter top with a clatter.  Kirsten sighed.  She loved the old house, including the beautiful glass-front cupboards, but it seemed that one thing or another was constantly in need of maintenance.  She grabbed a screw driver from the junk drawer, slid the foot stool into place, and fastened the screw.  She opened and closed the door several times, assuring herself that the screw was tightly in place.

Kirsten took a dinner plate from the lower shelf and had to step on her tip toes to grab a glass from the top shelf.  She wondered why she hadn’t gotten one down while she had been on the step stool.  Some of the features of this house were certainly not built for someone as petite as Kirsten.

To her great delight, she discovered that the breadbox still held a single croissant.  She thanked her lucky stars that she wouldn’t have to settle for the bland alternative of whole wheat bread.

When Kirsten ducked her head inside the refrigerator, she was disappointed to see that Sam had eaten the last of the ham.  She stuck out her tongue and resigned herself to turkey.  She was happy to see that Sam had at least left a single slice of Swiss cheese behind.  She inhaled the aroma of the cheese.  Kirsten could be frugal with many of her purchases, but not with cheese.  The difference in flavor between a high grade of Swiss cheese and a bargain basement substitute was incalculable.

Kirsten grabbed the carton of milk from the bottom shelf and filled the glass nearly to the brim.  She replaced the carton, closed the refrigerator door, and carried the plate and glass to the table.

She took a long drink of the milk before taking a big bite from the sandwich.  The house was quiet, except for the faraway sounds of crickets chirping and the occasional creak as the house continued the century long process of settling onto the foundation.  Kirsten missed Sam when he was traveling on business, but she didn’t miss the ever-present blare of the television set that plague the house when he was around.

Officer Graham Watkins grabbed the stale coffee, tossed the paper cup into the metal basket in the corner of the room, and turned to face the witness.  He plopped down a fresh cup of brew in front of him and took a seat.

“Good morning, Mr. Mills,” he started, reading the name from the page in front of him, “We believe that you may have information pertinent to an ongoing criminal investigation.  We – “

The other man cut off Watkins in mid sentence.  “I confess, I killed her.  Lock me up.”  Spencer Mills buried his head in his hands and began to weep uncontrollably.

The rookie officer was fortunate that Mills wasn’t able to see him as Watkins’ jaw dropped completely to the floor.  What the hell?  This was supposed to be a cookie cutter interview regarding an embezzlement case against one of Mills’ co-workers.  Now we were talking about murder.  Watkins hadn’t the slightest clue what killing Mills might be talking about.

Watkins wondered if it might be best to get a more seasoned investigator into the room to finish the interview.  Watkins decided against it, preferring to strike while the iron was hot.  By the time he tracked down a detective, Mills might stop talking.  Better to keep the ball rolling.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Mills.  Your confession will undoubtedly bring some closure to the family of the victim.  Before I go further, I should advise you that you have certain rights.”  Watkins pulled out his pocket copy of the Miranda rights and made sure that he recited them clearly and correctly.

“Now, do I understand that you wish to waive these rights and speak freely about this crime?”

Mills wiped tears from his face and nodded in agreement.

Watkins pulled a sheet of paper from one of the folders in front of him.  “This form is a waiver of your Miranda rights.  If you wish to waive your rights, read this carefully and then sign and date the form at the bottom.”  Watkins uncapped his pen and handed it to Mills.  Mills gave the document a cursory glance before scribbling his signature.

Watkins breathed more easily.  Sometimes the mere mention of Miranda could make criminals think twice about confessing.  He had cleared the first hurdle.

Typically, the interrogator has most of the pieces of the puzzle and needs just a few details from the perpetrator in order to complete the picture.  In this case, the situation was completely flipped.  Watkins had just a couple of pieces and needed to extract the other 498 from Mills.  He decided to get the ball rolling with an open ended question.

“Why did you do it?”

“I just got tired of waiting, you know?  I picked her up at a bar near the stadium.    Alex Brady had a good game, and we won, so everyone was in a pretty good mood.  Afterward, we went back to my place.  I just wanted to get in her pants, but she wanted to watch the Bombers game.  So we’re watching the stupid Bombers game.  The whole time, I’m just thinking about sex, but she keeps talking about baseball.  She just won’t shut up, you know?  Finally, she’s yammering on about the DH, and I just snapped.”

Watkins took a long sip of coffee from his cup.  He needed to tread very lightly.  It was critical to avoid tipping off Mills to the fact that he had absolutely no idea what murder Mills was confessing to.  Asking for the name of the victim was sure to make Mills clam up.  He decided on an indirect approach, hoping that useful information would spill out.

“This is my first murder case,” admitted Watkins.  “I’ve always wondered – what does it feel like?”

Mills grinned back at the rookie.  “It was the ultimate high, copper.  Like the perfect trip.  Better than blow, better than ice.  Feeling her neck snap was the best feeling I’ve ever experienced.”

Want to know what comes next?  It’ll cost you!

As you know, the vast majority of the content on The Soap Boxers is free.  A couple of times each year, I bundle up the fiction stories that have accumulated since the last publication, add in a bonus story, and tie them up in a nice bundle and attach a price tag.

How much will it cost you?  Well, you have 3 purchasing options:

• The 96 page PDF Tip of the Iceberg and Other Stories.  The PDF contains 31 stories consisting of about 27,000 words.  I’m pricing this at 15 cents per story – $4.65 for the collection.
• The title story is also available as an audio book with a run time of about 28 minutes.  Your cost is $1.99.  Note that this is just the one story, not all 31.
• You can also purchase the combo pack that contains the PDF as well as the audio book.  Normally the price is  $5.79 – but for the next two weeks, you can get it for $4.65.  That’s the same price as the PDF, so you might as well buy the combo pack.

You can find these products and many others, at the Hyrax Publications store.  I hope you think the pricing is fair and will buy a copy to support an independent writer.

As an added bonus, the first three people to buy the combo pack will receive a free copy of The Cell Window combo pack.  If you are one of the first three people, I will try to notify you within 24 hours.  If you aren’t among the first three, you can still get a good deal on The Cell Window Combo Pack – it’s currently on sale for just $3.65.

I will also allow you to share any product with a friend.  In reality, there’s very little I can do to prevent you from sharely freely, other than rely in the honor system.  However, in this case, you can share with a friend with no guilt whatsoever.  All I ask is that you tell the friend about The Soap Boxers.

Thank you for your continued support.

When Matt Holliday was traded away from the Rockies, I thought that perhaps the “product of Coors Field” factor was gone for good.  When Holliday was with the Rockies, he always had dramatic home/road splits, but his road numbers lagging far behind his home numbers.  Many observers missed a few things:

1)  While Holliday’s road OPS was lower than his home OPS, it nonetheless rose steadily over the years
2)  Holliday’s home/road differential dwarfed that of any other player on the Rockies. Doesn’t a high tide lift all boats?

Personally, I came to have the belief that Holliday would always outperform the home/road differentials of his teammates, regardless of which park he called home.  While there is no doubt that Coors Field was a factor, I felt that an equally strong factor was Holliday’s approach at home.  For whatever reasons, he was simply more comfortable at home than he was on the road.  Holliday put up strong evidence in favor of this in 2009 and 2010 – posting an OPS 150 points higher at home in 2009 and 90 points higher in 2010. 

Gonzalez replaced Holliday in left field and seems to have inherited his penchant for huge home/road splits – in spite of the fact that he hits from the opposite side of the plate and has a lot more speed than Holliday.  Let’s take a closer look at Gonzalez this year:

Home: .375 BA. 19 homers, 1.144 OPS
Road: .282 BA, 6 HR, .732 OPS

That’s a home/road split of .412 – it was around a .500 point differential before CarGo’s strong weekend series in Pittsburgh.  League wide, players post an OPS of about .030 better at home.  So it’s Coors, right?  The team does have a healthy +.185 at home.  But Gonzalez’s numbers skew this dramatically, since his stats are included in the team stats.  Throw him out and the team has about a +.140 differential, meaning that CarGo’s differential is 3 times that of the rest of the team.

Let’s take a quick look at differentials of CarGo’s teammates. I’m setting the cutoff point at 250 plate appearances.

CA Miguel Olivio (Righty): +.473 (310 PAs)
OF Seth Smith (Lefty): +.376 (287 PAs)
OF Dexter Fowler (Switch): +.359 (303 PAs)
RF Brad Hawpe (Lefty): +.373 (289 PAs)

{Oddly, nobody in this gap of .300 points}

2B Clint Barmes (Righty): +.070 (375 PAs)
OF Ryan Spilborghs (Righty): +.007 (259 PAs)
SS Troy Tulowitzki (Righty): -.025 (319 PAs)
1B Todd Helton (Lefty): -0.101 (305 PAs)
3B Ian Stewart (Lefty): -.104 (325 PAs)

What do we see? Lots of players with strong positive splits and some with negative splits (which isn’t really what you would expect with Coors Field. Clearly, the small sample size comes into play. Let’s take a look at some of the players who have thrived at Coors.

Miguel Olivio: This is Olivio’s first year with the Rockies, so there’s not a large track record to draw from. What jumps out at me is the fact that Olivio has a .485 BABIP at home and a .233 BABIP on the road. This statistic – measuring the batting average on balls that are into play (excluding strikeouts and home runs) is generally about .300 league wide. Some hitters have a higher BABIP than others, but most are in the .270 – .330 range. Coors boosts BABIP a bit, due to the large outfield, but a .485 BABIP is absurd – as is the .233 road BABIP. Is this the reason for Gonzalez’s differential? Nope – his road BABIP is actually higher than his home BABIP. And as a side note, watching for Miggy’s numbers to slide late in the seasons – the .485 is not sustainable (nor is the .233, but there’s more downside to the home stats than there is upside to the road stats.)

Seth Smith – A nearly 100 point BABIP differential again explains away most of Smith’s home/road split. Smith does have a +.281 OPS for his career, albeit with a relatively small sample size (805 career plate appearances).

Dexter Fowler – Chalk up a big chunk of this differential to a 7 game stretch from July 1 through July 8 during which Dex hit .500 with a homer, 3 doubles, and 4 triples – good for a 1.622 OPS. These were Fowler’s first game at home following a demotion to AAA, and I suspect that he was trying to show that he belonged in the majors. Again, Fowler is a young player without a lot of time in the majors.

OK, the veteran Brad Hapwe. This proves that Coors is friendly to lefthanded power hitters, right? Well, except for the fact that over the course of his career, Hawpe’s home OPS is just .052 higher at home – 2010 is simply an outlier.

While we’re on the topic of career splits, here are the splits for other Rockies who have played at least a few seasons as a starters (the Rockies have a very young team).

Todd Helton: +.205
Clint Barmes: +.178
Troy Tulowitzki: +.103

At this point, it should be pretty clear that Coors Field doesn’t push an OPS 400 points higher.  For Gonzalez, I’m going to assume that either:

1)  2010 is a fluke and future years will have a smaller differential
2)  He will have Holliday-esque split in future years – hopefully with  a Holliday-esque rise in road OPS each year

Some interesting notes:

• Gonzalez rarely walks (19 for the year) but has nearly 3 times as many walks at home vs. road (14 vs. 5).  As a whole, the Rockies walk about the same amount at home vs. road.
• Carlos has a high home run rate against pitchers who are groundball pitchers than pitchers who are flyball pitchers or have an average FB/GB mix.  That’s a bit weird, since groundball pitches tend to keep the ball down.
• Gonzalez is doing better against left handed pitchers than against righties.  In general, lefty hitters struggle mightily against lefty pitchers.

The takeaway from this?  Gonzalez is a hell of a player at age 24.  He has a few years to play before he gets to his physical peak (age 27) and should get even better.  Hopefully he begins to hit better away from Coors – but even if he doesn’t, there’s a ton of value in a guy who can post a 1.144 OPS in half his games.  Those sort of numbers help you win a lot of games.

Every time I have a bad customer service experience (which seems to be increasingly frequently these days), I am reminded of my worst customer service experience ever. We turn back the clock to the year 2000(ish), when I was set to ditch my 56K modem for DSL.  I contacted my local phone carrier, Verizon, to get the ball rolling.

Several days later, I had everything in place.  I fired up the DSL modem and … nothing.

I gave a call to tech support.  They couldn’t figure out the problem, so they gave me the number of someone else to call.  This cycle repeated itself for an entire weekend, at the end of which I had twenty different numbers for Verizon scribbled on a sheet of paper (I’m not exaggerating).  Once, someone referred me back to the same area that referred me to them – but used the acronym for that area instead of the full name and gave me a different number than the one I had.  I’m not sure if this was out of spite or incompetence.

This entire experience was frustrating for many reasons.  Some of the troubleshooters were apparently hired off the street five minutes before the shift began.  Yes, the DSL modem is plugged into the power outlet, just as it was when the last person asked me. I work in IT, so I wanted to bang my head against the wall in response to some of the possible root causes they suggested.

The most frustrating aspect was the obvious fact that they had no way to track problems.  Every time I called, I had to repeat every single detail of my experience to the new “customer service” rep – by the end of the weekend, this took a lot of time.  I work for a company that utilizes a tracking system for problems.  If I route your call to another area, the new person immediately has the entire history of the problem.  This is a very, very good thing.

At the end of a very long weekend, I told them to just forget it and cancel my account.  I was just going to stick with 56K.  I couldn’t even justify getting cable internet.  At that time, I received free cable in my apartment, and getting cable internet would have meant switching to a different provider – meaning that I’d be paying for cable TV in addition to cable internet.  Regardless, the joy of high speed internet was not worth the hassle of fighting with Verizon.

While I was on the phone, the customer service rep gave me two options to return the modem.  I could have them send me a postage paid box, or I could simply drop it off at my local Verizon Phone Mart.  In an attempt to make things easier for them, I said I’d drop it off at the Verizon Phone Mart.  Hey, why incur shipping fees when I could easily hand it back to a member of their organization?

Well, apparently the folks at the Verizon Phone Mart didn’t realize that they were being used as an outlet to return DSL modems.  They had no idea what to do with the modem.  I told them I’d call Verizon back when I got home and have those folks touch base with the brick and mortar store.  The Phone Mart people agreed to give this a shot.

When I called Verizon back, they assured me that they would touch base with the Verizon Phone Mart and process the return.  Wonderful – problem solved.

About ten days later, I got a call from the Verizon Phone Mart, wanting to know what to do with the modem.  I told them that a Verizon representative should have contacted them about the details of the return.  Unfortunately, the customer service rep hadn’t actually followed through and contacted them.  Again, this wasn’t a case of me randomly showing up at the Verizon Phone Mart with the modem – I had been given this option by a customer service rep.

I drove to the store and picked up the modem.  The people at the Verizon Phone Mart seemed to be as much of a pawn in this as me, so there was no point getting upset at them.  I called Verizon again and had them send me the postage paid box and finally sent the modem back.  Wonderful – problem solved.

Well, not exactly.  For about six months afterward, I kept getting charged for DSL service.  It took a lengthy phone call each month to finally get charge taken off the bill.  Each time, I was assure that the system showed that I did not have DSL service and would not be charged in the future.  Each month, the charge reappeared.

The story does have a happy ending, though.  One customer service rep managed to actually stop the charges from appearing.  However, even this was not mistake free.  When the representative applied the credits, she credited something twice.

At this point, I had an ethical dilemma.  I had money that rightfully belong to Verizon – around $20, I believe.  Should I call to inform them of their mistake, or just keep my mouth shut?

After six months of battling with them on billing issues, I decided to just keep my mouth shut.  I didn’t really want to waste more of my time arguing with them in an attempt to return their money.  Even worse, I feared that the process of reversing this credit would cause the whole mess to start up again.

To this day, I refuse to consider Verizon when I make purchasing decisions.  Over the past decade, I’ve also told this story to a great many people in order to explain my hatred for Verizon.

Malcom Newbury sat behind the great mahogany desk, waiting for the others to arrive for the meeting. The intern, Rachel Buxton, sat at Newbury’s right, pounding away at the keyboard as she answered the vast majority of emails that made it into Newbury’s inbox.

Buxton had been an intern at Newbury Industries for six months, but her ties to Malcom went back much further. Buxton’s parents had both been longtime domestic employees of Newbury.

Diana Buxton had been in charge of the inside of Newbury’s home. Among her chores were the cooking, cleaning, and trips to the grocery store. Where Diana’s realm ended, Thomas Buxton’s began. Thomas maintained the grounds, kept the two horses fed and exercised, fixed anything that broke, and served as chauffeur or butler when the occasion called for it.

When Rachel was fourteen, tragedy struck. Her parents were driving home from a rare night on the town when their car hit a patch of ice, slid off the road, and slammed into a tree. Diana and Thomas were killed instantly.

Diana and Thomas Buxton had no living family, so it was no great surprise that their wills dictated that Malcom Newbury be appointed as Rachel’s legal guardian. This was not a responsibility Malcom looked forward to. His own children had long since flown the coop, and he had no desire to raise another teenager.

Rachel was equally uncomfortable with the arrangement. However, she realized that remaining under the roof of Malcom Newbury was immeasurably better than landing on the streets, and she made every effort to ease the burden on him.

Over the years, Rachel had assisted her mother on many of the tasks around the house, and she quickly slipped into the role her mother had filled for Malcom – ensuring that the house was clean and that dinner was always ready on time. Malcom had hired a man to maintain the grounds, but Rachel took charge of the horses.  The fact that Rachel Buxton was able to maintain excellent grades with a grueling work schedule was a testament to the fortitude of the young woman.

Two years later, Malcom had suffered a heart attack while eating dinner. His trusty servant Rachel had immediately performed CPR and called 911. At the hospital, she maintained a vigil in his room, sleeping for only fifteen or twenty minutes at a time before resuming her watch.

It was during his convalescence that Newbury realized that he had taken the loyalty of Rachel and her parents for granted. This sixteen year old girl stood by him every step on his recovery, serving as his coach and urging him on. At the same time, not a single member of Malcom’s own family could be bothered to call or write.

Malcom decided that Rachel would have the opportunity to go to college, despite the fact that her parents had died nearly penniless. On her eighteenth birthday, Malcolm surprised her with the gift of a college education, completely paid for.

Three years into a stellar college career, it had been time for Rachel to embark upon an internship. She had initially balked at the prospect of an internship with Newbury Industries, insisting that she wanted to gain an opportunity on her own merits. Malcom had suggested that she analyze her resume more closely – her merits certainly qualified her for this opportunity.

For six months, she had been Malcom Newbury’s personal assistant. She had learned about the company from the founder himself. She was a natural, and was soon handling the majority of correspondence with minimal involvement from Newbury – allowing only the most complex issues to arrive at his desk. She was far and away the best assistant Newbury had ever had the pleasure of working with.

Rachel ceased her typing when the five vice presidents of Newbury Industries entered the office and took their seats. She sat with anticipation, waiting for the meeting of the power brokers to begin.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Malcom Newbury, “as you know, this young woman is Rachel Buxton, the intern. She has been doing an excellent job, and I would like to announce her promotion.”

Rachel broke into a broad smile at the unexpected news. Being promoted to a permanent position would be a great relief – no more running around trying to land a job before she graduated in May.

“As of this moment, Rachel will assume the title of vice president. Upon my retirement or eventual demise, she will become president of the company.”

Rachel sat in stunned silence. She noticed that she was the only one registering any shock – it was clear that this meeting was for her benefit.

Malcom turned and spoke directly to Rachel. “Over the years, I treated your parents very poorly. They put their very heart and soul into making me happy, and I rewarded them only with their wages. They gave me the great honor of raising their daughter, and this I also held in low regard. In my old age, I have come to realize that you are far more family that my own flesh and blood. I have enjoyed watching your successes over the years, and it is with great pride that I look forward to turning my life’s work over to you.”

When he finished speaking, Rachel saw a single teardrop land on his cheek. She stood to embrace him, the only living person that she could consider to be family. Their relationship had been forged by hardships – and as a result, was as strong as steel.

I’ve been juggling a few balls lately – so what is the status?

I am happy to announce that Tip of the Iceberg and other Stories is complete!  The 99 page PDF will contain copies of every of my fiction stories this year, as well as a 5500+ word story Tip of the Iceberg.  Tip of the Iceberg will only appear in this PDF.  The only bad news is that this is one of the rare occasions when we will be charging for content.  However, our most loyal customers will receive a price break.

How long did it take to write Tip of the Iceberg?  About six months, I guess.  I started kicking around ideas for the anchor story for the 4th volume of my fiction around the time volume 3 hit the shelves.  I generated and abandoned quite a few ideas along the way.  While I’m confident that I settled on the right story for this volume, it’s conceivable that some of the other ideas will become the capstone stories in future volumes or that scaled down stories will find their way onto the blog.

I also finished the audio version of Tip of the Iceberg.  This is the audio for just the one story – not the entire collection.  The audio runs about 30 minutes and features Kosmo as the reader.

I will be selling this collection in three different ways:

• The PDF of Tip of the Iceberg and other Stories
• The MP3 audio version of Tip of the Iceberg
  
• A combo version that contains the PDF and the audio, at a reduced price

The official launch date will be on August 12.  As always, I’ll provide a few hundred words as teaser in order to lure you in and fork over a few of your hard earned bucks.  I expect the pricing to be about 15 cents per story.  So I’m trying not to nickel and dime you too much.  Oh, wait – 15 cents is a nickel and a dime.  So I guess I AM trying to nickel and dime you.

I’ve also been working on Mountains, Meadows, and Chasms, my entry for the Iowa Short Fiction Award.  The mountains, meadows, and chasms are not literal but rather metaphors for life – the good times, the bad times, and the everyday experiences.  Entries for the contest must be 150 pages, and I had no trouble collecting enough of my work to hit that page count.  After removing some stories that I wasn’t particularly proud of, the page count stands at 236.  This could fluctuate slightly, but at this point, I’m pretty much set on those stories being included.

During the next few months, I plan to scale down to six articles a week in The Soap Boxers.  This should allow me to focus a bit more attention on my novel, but unfortunately has been languishing lately.  I’d love to get more written in the novel, but I simply haven’t had time in recent months.  Hopefully skipping an article every week will free up at least a bit of time.

Saturday marked the passing of baseball’s trade deadline.  From now through the end of the season, players must pass through waivers before being traded.  The waivers process is to complex to fully explain in the midst of this article – suffice it to say that others team can claim the players during the process in order to mess up a trade. 

The Houston Astros went into full dismantle mode, crippling their offense and pitching by sending Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt away in trades.  Berkman went to the Yankees, in a classic case of the rich getting richer.

The Oswalt deal was a head scratcher for me.  I don’t blame the Phillies for targeting Oswalt – lots of teams were pursuing the Astros ace at the deadline.  The aspect that had me scratching my head was that they had just dealt away Cliff Lee at the time they acquired Roy Halladay.  Why jumping through all the hoops of trading Lee away and then acquiring Oswalt when they could have just retained Lee.  At the time that the Phillies were rumored to be acquiring Halladay, I was very intrigued at the thought of Halladay and Lee in the same rotation, and was a bit puzzled when Lee was shipped out.  I wonder if this game of musical pitchers is going to end up costing them a playoff spot?  How many more wins could the Phillies have had in the first half with Lee in the rotation?  Having said this, I do think that Oswalt is the better pitcher.

The Yankees made a couple smaller moves, picking up veterans Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood for the stretch run.  Both are players who were once rising stars whose stars are now fading.  Nonetheless, the mention of Wood’s name always begs the question: How much wood could Kerry Wood carry if Kerry Wood could carry wood?  And that other question – did Dusty Baker ruin the acreers of Wood and Mark Prior by overextending them in games?

The Rangers were a team that pushed all their chips into the middle of the table.  Texas acquired the aforementioned Cliff Lee earlier in July to bolster their rotation.  At the deadline, they firmed up their infield by picking up Jorge Cantu and Cristian Guzman.  The Rangers might not play in the AL East, but look for them to be a tough out in the playoffs.

On Friday night, my Rockies hammered the Chicago Cubs 17-2.  The margin was just 5-2 entering the bottom of the 8th inning.  The first two Rockies got hits.  The next two hitters made outs.  Then the floodgates opened.  The Rockies got eleven straight, then two walks, before finally making the third out.  Eighteen batters came to the plate and the Rockies scored twelve runs.  The eleven straight hits were an all-time Major League record – and bear in mind that Major League Baseball has been around since 1876.

You may ask yourself – what are the odds of this happening in a game?  Well, with Kosmo in the house, you don’t need to ponder the answer.  Well, if you have a team consisting entirely of .300 hitters (which is virtually impossible), the odds of turning two consecutive at bats into hits is just 9%, or .3^2.  The odds of eleven straight hits would be .3^11 – or one chance in 564,503.  If your team consist of all .260 hitters (much more likely), the odds are just one in 2,724,540.

This does, of course, assume that each at bat is an independent event, which isn’t the case.  Subsequent batters may learn from the experience of the first batters, and pitchers may lose confidence in their breaking pitches and throw more fastballs.  This would cause these odds to shift a bit more in the favor of the hitters.

Of course, these are just the odds at bats turning into hits.  An at bat in a trip to the plate that results in either an out or a hit (statisically, a defensive error counts as an our for the hitter, which sucks).  The thing that made the Rockies hit parade even more unlikely was that it was not interrupted by any walks – the walks came later (a trip to the plate that results in a walk is not charged to the batter as an at bat, but is merely included in the more broad classification of plate appearances).  I can’t even calculate the odds of this happening – because the pitcher can easily stop such a streak by intentionally walking a batter.

On Saturday night, Carlos Gonzalez hit for the cycle against the Cubs.  This means that he had a single, double, triple, and home run in the same game.  Gonzalez completed the cycle in dramatic fashion – bashing a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th.

No, we’re not going to talk about the impact of discrimination on victims.  Nor or we going to talk about the effects of programs intended to level the playing field.

Instead, we’ll take a look from the other side – what is the impact of those doing the discrimination?

When you discriminate in the workplace, you are immediately throwing out qualified candidates.  Sometimes you might even be throwing out the most qualified candidate.  What does this cost you?  Money.

I really can’t grasp to concept of discriminating in the workplace.  I am a team coordinator for my company.  When we bring new people on board, the main focus is to add competent people.  There’s no hidden agenda to add only Caucasians, or men, or tall people.  It’s all about the skills.  And why not?  Competent people make your life easier, regardless of their gender, race, or sexual orientation.

For decades, the professional sports leagues were for whites only.  Then pioneers like baseball’s Branch Rickey realized that there was a large untapped potential.  Rickey signed Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier, and other teams followed suit.  Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947; the last team to integrate were the Red Sox when they added Pumpsie Green in 1959.

Even after the racial barrier were broken, stereotypes prevailed.  African-American players were not allowed to play the more cerebral positions (quarterback in football and pitcher in baseball) – with the reasoning that the race simply didn’t have the intelligence necessary for those positions.  Some teams were quicker than others to realize that this was hogwash (Bob Gibson?) – and those teams reaped the benefits of being a step ahead of the curve.

As pretty much everyone knows, I am a huge sports fan.  This really helped foster an idea of racial equality (or at least ambivalence) at an early age.  My first introduction to players was often on the radio.  The players were simply a name and a stat line.  I liked the players with the good stats and disliked the bums with the bad stats – race had nothing to do with my decision.

Not even writers have been immune from discrimination.  British novelist Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name of George Eliot to make sure that her works were taken seriously.  More recently, a female writer on Men With Pens used the pseudonym James Chartrand for the same reason.

The world of politics in the US has long been dominated by white men.  Inroads have been in recent decades, but minorities and women are still under-represented in the federal government.  This, of course, defies all logic.  We’re not even talking about “haves” and “have nots” in these cases.  We’re often talking about people with impressive academic credentials.  Why would an African-American woman with a law degree from Harvard be less qualified than a Caucasian male with a law degree from Yale?  (Unless, of course, you’re of the opinion that Harvard is vastly superior to Yale).  Certainly, they have are more alike than different.

Is there still room for a glass ceiling in the 21st century?  Certainly.  But it should be used appropriately – to keep the incompetent from rising to positions of power.

The ball sailed high into the air before smashing into the window of a house situated deep in right field of the makeshift diamond.

Jeffrey Snyder grabbed his glove and prepared to make a hasty exit to avoid the wrath of the homeowner.

“Wait a minute,” came a shout from over his shoulder. Jeff stopped in his tracks and turned to face his classmate, Ryan Green.

“It’s OK,” explained Green. “The old lady that lives there is really cool. She just gives us the balls back without yelling at us.”

Snyder hesitated. Could this be true? Any time an adult had caught one of his friends breaking a window, the whole group had been yelled at and forced to pay to fix the window. He decided that Green wouldn’t lie to him. He turned back around and joined the group and they walked toward the house.

Ryan Green took a step forward and rang the bell. A moment later, a woman answered the door.

“I’m sorry, Miss Marshall. We broke your window again.”

Kathleen Marshall looked at the group of young boys. “Which of you boys hit the ball?” she asked.

Jeffrey Snyder hesitated for a moment, and then spoke. “It was me, ma’am. I’m very sorry.”

“You a righty or a lefty?”

“Uh, I’m righthanded, ma’am.”

“That’s a good piece of hitting, then,” she remarked. “You took the ball the opposite way. You can’t expect to succeed by pulling everything.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied a dumbfounded Snyder.

“Go back to your game, boys. Don’t you worry none about this window – I can get it fixed easily enough.”

The relieved group muttered thanks to Kathleen and they raced back toward the diamond to continue their game.

Kathleen Marshall made a note to call her handyman to get the glass in the window replaced. She could expect to replace the glass at least a couple of times each year, as well as suffering several dents to her siding.

Marshall put the cost of the repair out of her mind for a moment as she watched the boys continue the game. It was a beautiful day in June, and these were the true boys of summer – the kids who played the game for the sheer enjoyment.

Kathleen thought back on her own son, Edward. Edward’s favorite toy as an infant had been a plush baseball, and he spent countless hours swinging away at a ball on a tee in his younger days. When he was finally old enough to play with real bats and balls, he spent summer days such as this playing baseball from sun up to sun down. Many times, Kathleen had to walk down to the diamond to drag him home for supper.

Kathleen also remembered the last year. Edward fighting the leukemia that ravaged his body. Every day, he listened to baseball games on the portable radio next to his bed. His love of the game gave him the strength to continue his fight.

The she remembered that long ago fall day. The baseball season had wrapped up, and there was no baseball to listen to on the radio. Edward managed to stumble across The Natural playing on one of the movie channels. He drifted off the sleep as Robert Redford smacked the mighty blast that froze the clock at a moment in time.

Frozen in time, too, was the smile on Edward’s face. It was the final time that he would drift off to sleep.

Kathleen looked back toward the boys playing baseball and took a moment to dab a tear from her eye. Some of her friends said that she allowed the kids to take advantage of her and that she should make them pay to fix her window when they broke it. Kathleen knew that she could never do that. She would never do anything that would chase away these boys – the boys who kept alive the memories of her Edward with their joyful baseball games.

The Soap Boxers, as well as other domains within the realm of Kosmo, is hosted by Dreamhost.  I stumbled across Dreamhost quite by accident.  When I began blogging, my friend Lazy Man took me under his wing and provided my with free hosting under his own Dreamhost account.

So, what do you get with Dreamhost?

Domain Registration – First, you get one free domain registration with each hosting account.  This is something that a lot of web hosts charge extra for.  As a bonus, you can opt for anonymous registration for no additional cost (which, again, many hosts charge extra for).  Additional domains can be registered for $9.95 per year with no strings attached.

Unlimited everything (well, most things, anyway) –

• You get unlimited space for your web site’s files.  Additionally, you get an additional 50 GB of backup space for non-site files.
• You can host as many domains on one account as you wish.  For example, I host The Soap Boxers, Hyrax Publications, and a personal web site – and it’s the same fixed cos for hosting (although there is a registration fee for each domain).
• You can created unlimited MySql databases.
• Unlimited bandwidth

Essentially, this means that you won’t be charged overage fees for exceeding space or bandwidth limitations – since there are no limitations.

Email – You can set up email in a variety of different ways.  I have mine configured to use Google as the email provider.  I have my own custom email address (kosmo@observingcasually.com), but use Google’s POP server to check mail through my desktop email client.  I can also choose to go to Google’s web site to check my mail.  The web-based mail through Google is just gMail customized to use your own domain name.

One-click installs – Dreamhost has “one click” installs for a variety of software packages.  I have used the one-click install for WordPress a number of times, and also have used it for Zen Cart on the Hyrax Publication site.  That’s the tip of the iceberg, though – the option also exist for these software packages: Gallery, PhpGedView, Pligg, dotProject, Moodle, Joomla, phpBB, MediaWiki, WebCalendar, Advanced Poll, and Trac (note: I don’t use any of these other software packages, so I can’t vouch for how well they are integrated).  You still have to configure the software, of course – so you may need more than one click to get started.  It’s a good feeling knowing that you’re not going to run into a weird installation error when you try to install a software package.

Overall ease of use – I’ve used a lot of web hosting services over the years.  Most of them tend to use CPanel.  I’m really not overly fond of CPanel and was happy to see that Dreamhost doesn’t use it.  You can use the Dreamhost panel to use FTP and MySql, but you can also access these functions natively.  It’s also a cinch to do things like add sub-domains (blog.mydomain.com, photos.mydomain.com, topsecret.mydomain.com, etc).

Social responsibility – Dreamhost offers free hosting to non-profits (501(c)(3) organizations) and also touts being a green organization.  Some of the environmental friendliness they claims is a result of purchasing renewable energy credits or offsets.  Of course, this doesn’t really reduce the energy a company uses (which Dreamhost admits), but does provide funding for green projects.  Beyond the purchasing of credits, Dreamhost does make an effort to use power-efficient processors and take other steps to reduce energy usage.

Upgrades – In addition to the base plan (which costs $9.95 per month if you sign up for one year, or as little as $5.95 monthly if you sign up for ten years), you can purchase upgrades such as private servers and static IP addresses.

Surely there are some problems with Dreamhost, right?  A few months ago, there were some issues with a few outages.  They weren’t particularly long (an hour or so), but could be frustrating when they occurred.  This is something that every hosting company is going to experience at some level, of course – nobody has 100.00% uptime.  On the bright side, there hasn’t been an outage in quite a while.

Interested in signing up with Dreamhost?  Sign up using this link (or by clicking the ads), and you’ll get the first year of service for just $3 per month ($36 for the first year).  Yep, I do get an affiliate commission if you sign up.  If you’ve been waiting to jump in the water and create your own blog (or other site), take this opportunity and take the first step toward success!