The SoapBoxers

I’m seriously trying to avoid making this blog “all Kosmo, all the time”. Nonetheless, I have been focusing so much on writing the end-of-quarter short story that this makes a natural topic for today.

I’m about 5000 words into the story. The story will likely be between 10000 and 12000 words when I’m done, meaning that I have about 1/3 of it written. Why the funny math? Because some of the words that have already written will surely fall to my editing scythe before I am done.

Writing a story of this length is really a fairly big undertaking. While I can sometimes crank out 1500 words in an hour, I probably average 500-1000 polished words per hour – meaning that this story will take between 12 and 24 hours of work. I really should put a stopwatch to it. Maybe next time.

What exactly is going on with the story at this point? Well, I don’t give away plot details, but I’ll share some insight into the process.

• Proofreading – When I get 3500+ words written, I start convincing myself that this would be a good time to read through the initial draft and correct some errors. Sure, a lot of the story still needs to be written, and errors will pop in the later work. Nonetheless, I try to make this an iterative process to avoid too much proofreading at one time, since the task kind of sucks. On the bright side, I get more of a feeling of accomplishment once the story has been printed – it feels more “real”.
• The plot – When I first beginning writing a story, I just start writing various bits and pieces, with just a basic high level plot. When I get to 3000 – 4000 words, I can start shaping the plot a lot more. I divide the story into “scenes” that each have a somewhat independent plot. I also begin to look more closely at the timeline. Are certain events in the correct location, or would they make more sense in a different spot? I also look for gaps in the plot and starting thinking of ways to fill those gaps.
• Character lifestyles – A basic foundation for fiction is that readers must suspend belief and allow themselves to be carried away by the story. However, I try to blend at least a bit of realism into my stories. Right now, I’m taking a look at the residences of some of my characters and comparing them to the income they would likely earn from their jobs. Are their inconsistencies? Is a character living in a place that would obviously be unaffordable? If so, something must change – either the type of apartment/house, or the occupation.
• Brainstorm – A substantial amount of the story has been written at this point, but I want to make sure to keep myself open to new ideas. I’ll agree that it is difficult to force brainstorming to occur, but I do try. Essentially, I try to take a step back from the actual work at time, and let things stew on the back burner. I turn the car radio off when I’m driving, to force my brain to go into an unstructured thought process. I’ll jot down some very brief ideas for the plot – or question about how certain situations will be resolved – and go to bed without making and effort to answer them. I’ll let the ideas kick around the next day, and waiting until some new ideas pop up.

Last Week:
Straight Up – 13-7 ATS: 10-10

For the Year:
Straight Up – 39-13 ATS: 25-27

 A decent week for Johnny G last weekend, I need the worm to turn on the ATS picks.  Thanks to Kosmo for filling in with a sports article on Monday as I had to head out of town for work …. to parts unknown to wireless internet providers …

 Here we go for this week

 College

Thursday

Ole Miss (-4.5) @ South Carolina – Nutt or Spurrier … it is that easy.  SC – 24- Ole Miss 21

Saturday

North Carolina @ Georgia Tech (-2.5) – The Wreck needs a “W” – GT – 24- NC 21

Michigan State @ Wisconsin (-2.5)- We don’t need no stinking badges … Mich St – 27- Wisc 21

California (-7.5) @ Oregon – Oregon is just really not good at all – California 35- OR 21

Miami (FL) (-1.5) @ Virginia Tech – Ouch … still hurting from the Huskers loss last week.  I predict a beatdown this week.  The only team more overrated in the top 15 than Va Tech is Ole Miss – Miami 35- Va Tech 14

Louisiana-Lafayette @ Nebraska (-26.5) – Huskers get healthy this week in the 300^th consecutive sell out in Memorial stadium.  Neb- 42- LFAY – 14

Army @ Iowa State (-10.5) – I have a bad feeling for Cyclonoe fans this week.  Army – 24- Ia St 21

Iowa @ Penn State (-10.5) Too Big of a spread here.  Iowa looks great at times and bad at others but … Penn St 35- Iowa 27

Notre Dame (-8.5) @ Purdue – Purdue is not good, thank goodness for that Irish Fans, as the golden domers continue to pad the schedule with easy wins over overrated bigger name weak big 10 teams … wait … wasn’t that also Michigan … nevermind … ND- 35- Purdue 17

Texas Tech @ Houston (-1.5)  I take the overs … dang … I have to pick someone …. ok … Houston 52- Texas Tech 49

NFL

Cleveland @ Baltimore (-14) –  Cleveland is just plain bad….no way around it.  Baltimore 28 – Browns 14

Tennessee (-2.5)@ NY Jets – The Jets crash this week in a close one.  Tennessee – 21 Jets 17

Green Bay (-8.5) @ St. Louis – The Packers lose a tough one last week…St Louis is not a tough one this week.  GB- 30- STL – 17

Atlanta @ New England (-4) –   New England finds a way to get Brady on track this week..and big.  NE – 31- ATL – 24

San Francisco @ Minnesota (-6) – The vikes have not been tested..Gore won’t go for 200+ this week.  MN 28-  SF 17

New Orleans (-6) @ Buffalo – The Saints are the best team in the league through two weeks.  NO 42- Buff 20

Pittsburgh (-4) @ Cincinnati – Pittsburgh is due for a rebound after a tough loss against the Bears last week – Pitt 21-Cin 17

Miami @ San Diego (-6) – San Diego is the better team in my opinion, and Miami is still smarting for letting one get away last week.  SD- 280 Miami – 20

SUNDAY NIGHT–
Indianapolis @ Arizona (pick em)– What an great matchup of quarterbacks.  Arizona has more weapons at receiver right now than the Colts do….AZ- 24- IND 23

MONDAY NIGHT–
Carolina @ Dallas (-9) – Dallas had four turnovers last week and still almost won.  Cowboys get er done this week.  Dal 27- Carolina 21.

There will not be a new fiction story today.  Oh, no.  Why not?  Is Kosmo running out of ideas?

Nope, nothing that bad.  I have begun work on the capstone story for volume 2 of “The Fiction of Kosmo” and want to focus all my fiction energy into that at this point.  The new story is intended to be a bit disturbing, in sharp contrast to the capstone story of volume 1, Key Relationships.  The tentative title is The Cell Window.   It wouldn’t be a surprise if a short fiction story popped up on Monday, though.  If you really must have some fiction, I would recommend one of my older stories, The Tale of the Wolf.  This was written was readership was much lower, so you might now be aware of it.  I consider this story to be one of my better works.  Note that it is a two part story (clickable table of contents is at the top)

So, what other topics of interest can we discuss?

Well, for me, of course, there is the Rockies chase toward the playoffs.  Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki hammered another homer last night – that’s 30 on the season.  Quite impressive considering how much he struggled in the first two months.  The Rockies face off against the Cardinals this weekend protecting a 3 1/2 game lead in the wild card race.  I’m hoping that the Cardinals will sit some of the better players to avoid allowing the Rockies a fresh look at them (in case we face off in the playoffs).

And switching gears completely, one of the hospitals in my area now posts emergency room wait times on their web site.  I think this is a great idea.  The next step would be to allow reservations, so that you could simply show up at a particular time and have a minimal wait.  Some trips to the ER can be serious, but non-life threatening.  

I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to be in the ER twice in the last two years – the only two ER trips in my life.  The first was a combination of dehydration and a stomach bug that happened to hit me on a Sunday.  Did I need to be seen on Sunday?  Yes – I needed fluids via IV and some anti-nausea medication.  But it would have been great to bide my time waiting at home laying on the couch rather than sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the ER.

The second trip was due to an adverse reaction to Demerol that was administered during a medical procedure.  The on-call doctor definitely wanted me to come in that night (not only to prescribe anti-nausea meds, but also to make sure that it was simply a drug reaction rather than a result of them having punctured my innards during the procedure).  Again, waiting at home would have been preferable.

There are some problems with this plan, of course.  Obviously, exceptions would be needed for people with life threatening conditions.  A gun with a gunshot wound is going to get in ahead of me, whether or not he has a reservation.  There is also the issue that the system would discriminate against people who don’t have an access to a phone.  I don’t have a perfect solution, but it would be nice to see some discussion in this area.

Make a note of this event – it is very rare that I am going to defend a player on a rival team.  All stats are prior to Wednesday’s game.

Mark Reynolds of the Diamondbacks is having a great season in an otherwise forgettable year for the Snakes (although he has been struggling quite a bit this month).  He has hit 43 homers, driven in 100 runs, and has a .919 OPS.  He has also struck out 206 times.  Reynolds is the only player in Major League history to strike out 200 times in a season – and this is the second year he has done it.

Reynolds gets some criticism from people who think that the strikeouts are hurting the team, because strikeouts are inherently worse than “productive” outs.  But are they?

Let’s delve into this a bit.  Let’s keep all of Reynolds’ stats the same, except that we’ll turn 100 of his strikeouts into other types of outs.  I’m not including bunts in the mix, because it isn’t likely that the manager would ask Reynolds to bunt.

First, let’s take care of a few basic questions:

• Why aren’t we turning some of the strikeouts into hits?  Because that would affect his batting average.  I’m not trying to ask the question of whether or not Reynolds would contribute more with a .300+ average and 100 strikeouts vs. his current .266 average and 206 strikeouts – clearly he would.  Hits are always better than outs – any sort of outs.  Instead, I am looking at the relative value of a Reynolds with .266 and 106 strikeouts vs. .266 and 206 strikeouts – determining the negative impact of the strikeout itself.
• Why aren’t we taking into account the fact that Reynolds could reach on an error?  Because  this is not statistically significant.  Against a .980 fielding team, this would mean Reynolds reaches on an error an extra two times.  This is easily offset by the extra occurences of double plays and runners being thrown out trying to advance

First, we must realize that not every non-strikeout out is a productive out.

• In 320 of Reynolds’ 621 plate appearances (51.5%) the bases have been empty.  In this situation, it is impossible to advance the runner, since there is no runner.
• In 220 of  Reynolds’ plate appearances (35.4%), there were two outs in the inning.  Regardless of whether you strike out or hit a lazy fly ball to center field, the inning is going to come to an end.

We can’t simply subtract these percentages from 100%, of course.  They double count the situation of 2 outs and the bases empty.  I don’t have the number of plate appearance for this situation (although I am able to derive a boundary of the estimate based on other data).  We’ll estimate the intersection of these two points by multiplying.  This results in an estimate of 18.2% of plate appearances with 2 outs and these bases empty.  I stress that this is an estimate, although it should be fairly close (and, if anything, is slightly higher* than the true result, meaning that productive outs are actually less prevalent that my calculations indicate).

Now we add 51.5 and 35.4 and deduct the intersection of  18.2.  This results in 68.7% of plate appearances where it is impossible for a productive out to exist.  This leaves 31.3% of plate appearances where it is actually possible for an out to advance a baserunner.  In our example of 100 strikeouts that we magically turned into other outs, this would mean 32 opportunities for productive outs.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Reynolds would actually have 32 more productive outs.  Even though the situation makes is possible, he would still need to execute.  An infield fly isn’t going to advance the runner.  Nor will a shallow fly ball.  Only a deep fly ball will advance a baserunner from first to second – because of the short throw to second base.  Runners will also have difficulty advancing from second to third on a fly to left field.  Many ground balls will result in the batter reaching first and the lead runner being retired.  Let’s estimate that Reynolds would be able to make a productive out 40% of the time.  (If you don’t think this is fair, watch a few games and pay attention to how many times a batter is able to advance the runner).  That’s 13 times advancing the runner.

Of course, not all of those runners are going to score.  If the guy batting next makes the third out of the inning, it really doesn’t matter if Reynolds struck out or if he advanced the runner with a fly ball – the runner is still going to be stranded (unless the runner was on third base, of course).  If the next guy hits a homer (or a rally ensues), it’s also academic, as the runner would have scored regardless of whether or not Reynolds advanced him.  Out of those 13 times advancing the runner, perhaps half the time (we’ll round up again to 7) the productive out makes a difference in whether or not a run scores.

So, do the extra strikeouts have a negative impact on the Diamondbacks?  Sure – perhaps 7 runs over the course of the season.  But are they really that much worse than other types of outs?  No, not really.  Not enough to make a productive hitter make a fundamental change to his approach.

*  Math alert – here’s more background at how we arrived at the intersection of the two outs scenario and the bases empty scenario. 

While I don’t have the statistics for the number of plate appearances with two outs and bases empty, we can chip away at this a bit by coming from the opposite direction of plate appearances with runners on base.  We know that Reynold had 95 plate appearances with two outs and runners in scoring position (second and/or third base).  We also know that Reynolds had some number of plate appearances with runners on first (but not second or third) and two outs.  We’ll assign this X.  With our estimate of the two outs, bases empty of 18.2%, we get this equation (35.4% is the percentage of plate appearances with two outs – we subtract the situations where there are base runners in order to determine the percentage of the time when there are not baserunners):

18.2% = 35.4% – (X + 15.3%)

18.2% = 35.4% – 15.3% – X

X = 35.4% – 15.3% – 18.2%

X = 1.9%

Thus, our estimate allows just 1.9% of plate appearance (12 PAs) to be two outs with single runner on first base.  This is almost certainly too low.  If we adjust this upward, it also pushes the 18.2% downward … meaning that the intersection of the two outs occurence and the bases empty occurence is smaller that we have calculated, and that those two numbers (51.5% and 35.4%) are double counting fewer plate apperances than originally thought – meaning that we can carve away more than bats than the 68.7%, resulting in even fewer plate appearances where productive outs are possible.  If this isn’t clear, play around with the math a bit and see what happens when you adjust X upward.

Over the years, St. Louis has become a favorite destination for my wife and me.  Many times in the past, trips to St. Louis have included a trip to the Edward Jones Dome to catch my wife’s favorite team, the St. Louis Rams.  Our most recent trip, however, did not include a Rams game.

My wife was the navigator for the trip.  She had programmed destinations into our Nextar GPS navigator, and also had printed information from Mapquest.  We have learned from past experience that the Nextar can be a bit quirky, although it generally does a pretty good job.

The first stop was at the Galleria Mall.  I’m not much of a shopper, so I made a beeline for the Apple Store.  The Apple Store is a great place to catch up on email and browse the web.  I have used Apple Stores for this purpose in 3 different malls (Mall of America in Minnesota and the Jordan Creek Mall in Des Moines).  In general, if you don’t make a nuisance of yourself or hang out for hours on end, the employees will leave you alone.  There are probably a couple of reasons for this.  First, Apple believes that their computers sell themselves – so that casual users in the Apple Store will eventually turn into buyers.  Second, it’s never a bad idea when there are a lot of people in a store – it makes the product look more popular.

After the Galleria, we checked into our hotel.  We like to stay at the Drury Inn by the Gateway Arch.  The location is great – walking distance to the Edward Jones Dome, Busch Stadium, the Arch, and lots of restaurants.  We hopped on the metro to Union Station.

We wanted to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe.  We were told that the wait was 15-20 minutes.  We patiently waited, and were eventually told that our table was ready.  The waitress began to lead us outside, and we politely mentioned that we preferred an indoor table (we hadn’t been asked for a preference when we checked in initially).  She told us that it would be “a few more minutes.”  Fine, we sat down to wait a few more minutes.  Ten minutes later, I asked if they knew how much longer the table would be.  About 15 minutes.  This seemed to be longer than the “few more minutes” we had been quoted.  It seemed like we were being jerked around a bit, so we left and ate elsewhere.

The next day, we went to Grant’s Farm.  The Busch family donated the property and Anheuser-Busch provides a lot of financing.  Admission is free, although parking is $11.  I don’t quite understand the logic of this, but it’s still a great bargain, so I’m not complaining.  The first part of the trip is a tram ride where you can see a lot of wild animals.  I had the digital camera handy and got a lot of shots – particularly of the bison and zebras.

The tram stops at a central area within the facility where you can see more of the animals up close.  There is a variety of animals from farm animals (you can feed the goats) to African elephants.  My wife loves elephants, so we rushed to the elephant area to catch the elephant show.  The first show didn’t actually have a large enough audience, so the trainers just had the elephants do some training exercises.  This was pretty cool.  After that, we took a look at the other animals, and caught most of the bird show (pretty neat) before going back to the elephant area for the next show.  This time, the audience was large enough.  Robbie (trainer) and Mickey (elephant – short for Michelob) put on a show.  The show was educational and entertaining (Mickey raced a couple of kids in a balloon blowing contest – she gave them a huge head start, and beat them easily with just one breath).  We did the VIP tour ($5 each) afterward.  We got to tour the bull barn – a massive building where Bud (male elephant) lives.  Then we got to meet Bud.  We fed him carrots and got pictures taken with him.

In the afternoon, I made a trip across the street from the hotel to visit the Gateway Arch.  This is, of course, the icon of St. Louis.  The Arch soars 630 feet in the air.  You ride to the top in a little tram car that has five seats.  I’m not sure if it’s actually possible to cram five normal sized people into one of the cars.  The cars have a bit of Ferris Wheel movement to them, since the trip to the top is not completely vertical (since it must travel along the curve of the arch).  I rode to the top with a guy from Pennsylvania and a happy young couple.  The woman had a very nice camera.  I coveted the lens, and told her 🙂

The top of the arch is a fabulous place for taking photos, and I took several dozen photos.  I took a quite a few pictures of Busch Stadium.  The game was over, but they were letting kids run around the bases.  Even though I’m a Rockies fan, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take photos of a ball park.  I also took quite a few pictures of the mighty Mississippi River.

As I have mentioned eleventy billion times previously, I am an aspiring novelist.  By “aspiring”, I mean that I have yet to produce anything long enough to be classified as a novel (although the story Key Relationships was a step in the right direction in terms of length).

Writing fiction for The Soap Boxers has kick-started my fiction writing, and the creative process in general).  Never in my life have I written such a volume of fiction is such a short time (roughly thirty thousand words since the advent of Fiction Friday back in March) – while also writing a significant amount of non-fiction pieces and balancing other life constraints (work, family, baseball).  I think there are a few reasons for this revival.

• First, this blog allow my work to immediately reach an audience.  Even when I don’t get feedback in the form of comments, there is an extra jolt of adrenaline that comes with knowing that anyone in the world could stumble across one of my stories.  It’s even better when someone actually leave a comment.
• I’m beginning to realize that I’m an aberration from most writers.  I’m really not a big fan of taking a pen and physically writing on paper.  I prefer to do my writing almost entirely behind a computer.  Not only do I prefer the physical aspects of typing to those of writing, but I appreciate the ability to make correction and restructure the story on the fly.  If I did my writing with pen and paper, my notebook would be a mess.  I do use paper to write ideas and very short segments (preferring a composition book rather than a spiral bound notebook), but I rarely write an entire story with pen and paper.
• Blog readers, in general, like to read relatively short blog posts.  This pushed me in the direction of writing pretty short stories, since I really couldn’t drop a ten thousand word story into a blog post (although I can serialize the lengthy stories at The Fiction Writers).  Writing a new short story every week forced my the write about things I hadn’t previously written about – there are a pretty strange variety of stories within Fiction Friday).  This has allow me to branch off into new direction and also refine a lot of my techniques – in particular, dialogue.

Onto another tangent … another way to I express my creativity is through “Instant Message Bombs”.  One particular friend seems to drift away from the keyboard and leave AIM up and running (I’m fairly certain that he’s not simply avoiding me).  Whenever I determine that he’s unresponsive, I leave him a few random comments, such as:

“Then there was this explosion.  Grapes and Cheerios everywhere.  It took hours for them to clean up the mess.”

“A horse.  Can you imagine that?  Why on earth would they pick a horse for that job.  A gerbil would be a much better candidate.”

I’m really not sure if these non sequitur comments serve any purpose in the creative process, but the reaction can be fun to watch 🙂

Story Time

The third quarter of the year is winding down.  With it comes the deadline for finishing up the work for volume 2 of “The Fiction of Kosmo”.  Consolidating the short stories into the document isn’t difficult – but writing the longer, capstone story is quite a bit of work.  I strive for a story of at least 10,000 words for this story.  The capstone story for volume one (Key Relationships) took more than a week of work (in various small pieces of spare time) to complete.  Hopefully I can finish the new story in a similar amount of time.  Currently, I have fewer than a thousand words written (just the ending), so I need to buckle down and finish the story.  This might result in me skipping a few article in the course of the next two weeks.  I’ll try to make the story worth the wait.

Rockies Update

Friday night, the Rockies had their wild card lead cut just 2 1/2 games.  With wins on Saturday and Sunday, couple with Dodgers wins over the Giants, the Rockies now stand 4 1/2 games clear of their nearest pursuers.  With just 12 games remaining in the season, this is a solid lead, but not insurmountable, especially with series left against the first place Cardinals and Dodgers.  It feels weird to be a fan of the team that is being chased.  In 2007, the Rockies were behind until the tail end of the season.  The other times my teams have made the playoffs (1984 and 1989 Cubs, 1995 Rockies) are too far in the distant past to remember the race with any clarity.

Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki deserves some MVP consideration.  After a dreadful start to the season, Tulo turned around his season at nearly exactly the same time that the Rockies turned around the season.  It is doubtful that this is a coincidence.  Tulo now stands just one homer short of reaching 30 for the season.

Annie Le

The authorities seem to be keeping a pretty good lid on the information in this case, but theories are being bandied about.  Apparently, suspect Raymond Clark had warned Annie Le that the cages that housed her mice were too dirty.  While I agree that cleanliness is a good thing, is it really possible that Annie Le was killed because there were too much mouse poop in the cages?

The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol, the latest book by Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, hit the shelves on Thursday.  My daughter loves the book.  She wanted me to read from the book.  I complied, and read the dust jacket and a few other short snippets.

Why didn’t I read more of the book to her?  Well, she’s only two, and the material might be a bit too mature for her.  Honestly, I think she likes the cover.

Lazy Man vs MonaVie

Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money is a friend of The Soap Boxers.  A benefactor, actually, as he is providing free hosting and invaluable technical support and advice.  Lazy has been critical of the MonaVie corporation, questioning whether or not the product actually provides the benefits that the company and MonaVie distributors claim.

Lazy has been sent not one, but two, cease and desist letters.  When The Consumerist questioned MonaVie, they agreed that the first letter was incorrect.  They subsequently sent a second cease and desist later.  The complaint?  That Lazy Man and Money was using the trademarked term (MonaVie) in the meta keywords for Lazy’s article on the company.  Considering how meta keywords are using by search engines (to create the blurb you see listed in the search results, but typically not used to determine the page’s ranking) it seems perfectly natural to use the company name in the meta keywords.  In fact, it would be a bit strange to NOT use it.

Lazy has written about MonaVie on several occasions (see the complete list here).  The original article has attracted a pretty incredible 3300+ comments in the course of the last 18 months (note the comment at the bottom about archived comments).  By comparison, The Soap Boxers sometimes gets 5 comments on an article …

Spam Comments

Lots of porno-spam in the comments lately (all of which have been caught by my spam filter).  I guess I should be proud of the fact that the blog is successful enough to attract spammers?

Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals is having a great season.  After teasing us with his potential the last few years, he has turned the corner and blossomed into a bona fide, unquestioned ace.  He leads baseball with a 2.14 ERA.  Batters are hitting just .231 against him, with an anemic OPS of .612.  He is second in the American league with 224 strikeouts (in 210 1/3 innings).  He has walked just 44 batters – resulting in a spectacular strikeout : walk ratio of 5:1.  He has also done a nice job of keeping the ball in the park, allowing just 11 home runs this year.

Every pitcher has some bumps in the road during the course of the season.  It is very difficult to spot Greinke’s speed bumps this year.  There are really only  two games that would qualify as “bad” – an August 3^rd matchup with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in which Greinke gave up ten hits and three walks in five innings and a June 5^th game against the Blue Jays in which he gave up seven runs (five earned) and nine hits.  There are only two other games in which he gave up more than three earned runs (including a game in which he allowed three homers, but just four runs).  In Greinke’s other 26 starts, he has allowed three or fewer runs.  Greinke also goes deep into games.  He has pitched at least six innings in 26 of his starts, including nine games in which he has pitched eight or more innings.

In short, when Greinke goes to the mound, the Royals can be very confident that he’s going to go six or more innings and allow three or fewer runs.  This means that Greinke puts them in a strong position to win every time he pitches.

What, then, is the problem?

The problem is the fact that the Royals are not winning.  They have the worst record in the American League, with just 59 wins and 87 losses.  The lack of run support has dragged Greinke’s numbers down.  He has just 14 wins and 8 losses, while also racking up no-decisions in many games during which he has pitched great.  After roaring out to a 10-3 start by June 28, he didn’t pick up his 11^th win until August 8^th.  During his six start winless stretch, he posted a 3.65 ERA with 48 strikeouts in 37 innings pitched – great numbers that should have resulted in a much better record than 0-4.  On a team such as the Yankees, Greinke would likely already have 20 wins in the bank, and would be clearing a spot on his mantle for the inevitable Cy Young award.

Greinke’s win total leaves him three behind AL leader CC Sabathia of the Yankees, although Sabathia has an ERA more than a run higher than Greinke’s.  If Sabathia reaches 20 wins, will the Cy Young voters (sports writers) hand him the Cy Young?  Or will they look behind the traditionally “sexy” statistic of wins and vote for the person who has been the most outstanding pitcher in the American League this year – Zack Greinke?

A rough week for Goodman last week as the spread took me behind the woodshed.

Last Week:
Straight Up – 15-2 ATS: 5-12

For the Year:
Straight Up – 26-6 ATS: 15-17

College

Georgia Tech @ Miami (FL) (-4.5) – Two Words…Hurricane Warning. Miami 31 – GT 24

Boise State (-7.5) @ Fresno State – Battle of two states that actually are not states at all. Fresno plays everyone tough but Boise gets the win. Boise St  35 – Fresno St 28

California (-14.5) @ Minnesota – The Golden Bears are good, but not this good on the road. California 31 – Minnesota 21

Louisville @ Kentucky (-13.5) – A much better basketball matchup. Lousiville 24 – Kentucky 21

Tennessee @ Florida (-28.5) – If you ain’t Gator … you’re Gator Bait …. Florida 56 – Tennesee 17

Nebraska @ Virginia Tech (-3.5) – I am not drinking the Kool Aid for the Huskers just yet. Va Tech 28 Nebraska 21

Michigan State @ Notre Dame (-11.5) – Lou Holtz finds a way to make another positive spin on a Notre Dame loss last week … did he go do a pregame speech for them? Notre Dame 35 – Mich St 24

Cincinnati @ Oregon State (-1.5) BearKats get a big road win here. Cincinnati 34 – Ore St 30

Florida State @ Brigham Young (-7.5) – When is the last time Bobby Started 0-2 … I don’t know but it won’t be this year. Florida St – 21 BYU 20

Texas Tech @ Texas (-16.5) – Longhorns get revenge in a big way this year. Texas 42 – Texas Tech 21

NFL

New Orleans @ Philadelphia – (Pick em) No Mcnabb…No chance. Saints 35 – Eagles 28

Oakland @ Kansas City (-3) The Chefs (yes I spelled that correctly), get on track this week. Raiders can’t hold it together outside of Raider Nation.  Kansas City 21 – Oakland 17

Cincinnati @ Green Bay (-9.5) A large spread. An emotional win last week against the Bears. The Bengals cover but lose. GB – 28 Cin 24

Minnesota (-9.5) @ Detroit – Lions get no respect. AP is even faster indoors. Minnesota 35 – Lions 17

New England (-3.5)@ NY Jets – Jets are talking big time about how good they are. New Enland will remind them who is boss. Patriots 35 – Jets 28

Seattle @ San Francisco (-1.5) I like the Seahawks. I like Singletary. This should be a good one. Sea 24 – SF 23

Baltimore @ San Diego (-3) – Last week Flacco looked like Johnny Unitas. San Diego made Jamarcus Russell look like Johnny Unitas. Bad combination. Baltimore 28 – SD 21

Pittsburgh (-3) @ Chicago – The Steelers are just too tough here. The Bears receiving corps needs a LOT of help. Steelers 24 – Bears 14

SUNDAY NIGHT:
NY Giants @ Dallas (-3)– How bout dem Cowboys! They get the Jerrytron the win in the home opener. Dallas 28 – Giants 24

MONDAY NIGHT:
Indianapolis (-3)@ Miami – Even with a depleted receiving group, the Colts are too potent here. Colts 28 – Dolphins 17

Cindy fidgeted nervously and applied lip gloss before finally knocking on the door of Professor Craig Rollins. Cindy had taken courses with the esteemed professor before, but always got a bit tingly in the presence of such an iconic academic figure. Dr. Rollins’ work on black holes was the basis of much of the current academic work on the subject.

Dr. Rollins’ head popped up at the sound of the knock.

“Oh … it’s Cindy, right? About your thesis?”

“Yes, Dr. Rollins,” squeaked Cindy. “My advisor, Dr. Miller, thought that you might be able to help me find some resources.”

“Could we possibly discuss this over a sandwich? I’m absolutely famished.”

“Sure, Dr. Rollins. Whatever works for you.”

“Please, call me Craig.”

“OK, Dr. Roll … Craig.”

Dr. Rollins quizzed Cindy on her thesis as they walked toward the student union. The professor seemed genuinely interested in her work. Cindy felt herself blush at the attention she was receiving from a man who was such respected member of her academic field.

Cindy ordered a ham and swiss sandwich, while Dr. Rollins got some sort of monstrosity that reminded her of the sandwiches that Dagwood Bumstead enjoyed eating. The conversation shifted to small talk, as they discussed current events and the weather in between bites of sandwich.

When they finished eat, Cindy explained the difficulty she had encountered when attempting to find research materials for one of the sub-topics of her thesis.

Dr. Rollins furrowed his brow and muttered to himself for a moment.

“I can definitely understand your difficulty, Cindy. There really isn’t much current research in that area. I’d recommend Knack’s work, and Atkins’s book could also be very useful. It’s a niche area, though, so I don’t think either of their books had a very large print run – they are hard to find.”

Cindy frowned at the news that she was likely to encounter further difficulties in her research.

“Oh, no need to worry, Cindy. You certainly won’t find their books at the library, but of course I have a copy in my own library.”
“That’s great news, Dr. Rollins! Could I please borrow the books?”

“Well, I’m actually leaving on a vacation tomorrow, so I wouldn’t be able to bring them in for a couple of weeks.”

Rollins glance down at his watch. “Actually, I have some time now. If you like, we could drop by my house and pick up the books. Maybe some other volumes in my collection would interest you, as well.”

“That sounds great,” gushed Cindy. At long last, she would be able to make progress on her thesis.

The library inside Dr. Rollin’s large Victorian home compared favorably to some municipal libraries Cindy had visited. There were rows upon rows of books on a wide variety of subjects. The largest area was reserved for astronomy, and Cindy naturally gravitated to that section.

“Cindy,” said Dr. Rollins, after a very brief search, “it doesn’t appear that those two books are in the library. I’m going to run up to my study to look for them. Make yourself at home.”

Cindy glanced at the hundreds of astronomy books before focusing on one – the memoirs of Dr. Craig Rollins. Cindy grabbed the book and settled down on one of the library’s couches.

She was looking through photos in the book a few minutes later when Dr. Rollins returned from the second floor with two books in his hand.

“Here they are, Cindy. They were on a shelf in my study. What book do you have there?”

Cindy held the book aloft and watched the professor’s face flush with embarrassment.

“I’m not overly pleased with that book, although there are some great photos. Let me point a few of them out to you.”

Cindy slid over on the coach to make room for Dr. Rollins. Cindy became engrossed in the book as Rollins described the academic work of the scientists who were featured alongside him in some of the book’s photos. She was so focused on the book that she didn’t notice when Dr. Rollins slid his arm around her. When he leaned toward her for a kiss, Cindy broke free from her trance and recoiled.

Cindy slapped Rollins across the face, jumped up from the couch, and raced out of the house.

It seemed that Dr. Rollins would not be any help with her thesis, after all.