Thank You, Mr. Byrd

Note: While I am a proud resident of Richmond, Va at the moment, and have lived most recently in St. Louis, Louisville and DC, I am a native Northeast Ohioan, and therefore eagerly await October, marking as it does the first appearance for the Tribe in the postseason since 2001 (and the first appearance in the postseason with a real pitching staff since 1954). Expect more like this, earned on all those drizzly April evenings on which you could count the crowd at Municipal Stadium.

Pretend you’re the Manager, part 1: Your lineup card has two empty spots remaining. Pick from the following three alternatives:

Player BA OBP SLG OPS+ HR RBI

Player A .300 .374 .507 133 25 111

Player B .293 .363 .489 126 21 61

Player C .253 .304 .468 103 7 30

Assuming you didn’t peek, the three choices are Victor Martinez, Ryan Garko and Kelly Shoppach, respectively. Unfortunately, when Paul Byrd pitches, the Indians braintrust benches Garko to make room for Byrd’s “personal catcher.” This greatly diminishes the offensive statistics of the lineup (although, to be fair, Shoppach is a better defensive backstop than Martinez, as the two CS in last night’s game will attest). Thus, Byrd’s latest effort, which likely solidified the #3 spot against the Yankees for Jake Westbrook, did the whole team a favor, even if it blew an opportunity to move up a game on the BoSox for the AL’s best record.

Byrd’s been an asset overall, of course, turning around the disaster of 2006. Given the complete meltdowns of Sowers and Lee, those 15 wins are huge. But he’s clearly wearing down and becoming less effective. Since his last good start, a complete game shutout of the hapless White Sox on September 1, here’s Byrd’s line:

W  L  IP  H  R  ER  BB SO HR   ERA
1  3  29  44 23 22  5  11 6   6.83

By way of comparison, here’s Jake Westbrook over the same 5-start period:

W  L  IP  H  R  ER  BB SO HR   ERA
1  2 30.2 39 17 14  13 26 3   4.11

Jake’s not all that great, either, but OK as a 3rd starter behind Sabathia and Carmona. And in a five game series, it means the Tribe can throw out quality starters for all five games, and need not bench one of their two most consistent hitters to do so.

Should have issued a DMCA takedown notice on himself

According to the Times-Dispatch, Dr. Esam Omeish, recently appointed by Gov. Kaine to a state immigration commission, resigned from the commission after a controversial video featuring Dr. Omeish was discovered on YouTube.

Online videos show Omeish at an August rally in 2006, shortly after Israel invaded Lebanon, condemning the “illegal and repugnant” occupation by Israel of Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza.

He condemns the “Israeli war machine,” the “barbaric, indiscriminate” attacks by Israel and accuses Israel of “massacres and genocides” committed against the Palestinian people. He says Congress is guided by an “Israeli agenda.”

I have no interest in turning this into a political blog, so draw your own conclusions about the good doctor. Several other things about the story are more interesting to me. I hadn’t seen Muslim-American as a demographic designation before. You don’t see Christian-American or Buddhist-American, so using Muslim-American suggests that we now consider adherence to Islam to have moved beyond the religious to the political – only Jews and (maybe) Sikhs are generally thought of this way. Not exactly a novel concept, but interesting. The T-D’s archives find 36 references to Muslim-American, most references to the Muslim American Society.

Also interesting is that YouTube will officially become part of the vetting process. Of course, it probably should have been part of that process already, but it’s nice of Google to provide such a useful government service. Finally, it’s interesting that the video was called to the governor’s attention by a caller on his radio show.  Those shows are generally beyond useless, but not this time.

170.9 (still)

More fatblogging – just keepin on keepin on. Yesterday was one of those days that makes the fatblogging train hard to stay on. I spent the day at an all-day CLE, at which lunch was provided. It was actually pretty healthy, a couple of small baked chicken breasts with salad, rice and green beans. Luckily the salad wasn’t loaded with cheese, both for calorie avoidance and other reasons. They did load the table with bread, but sticking to the One Piece of Bread and One Glass of Wine Rule handled that (and it was a work function sponsored by a quasi-state agency so there was of course no wine to be tempted by). Meetings and seminars are generally a minefield for fatties, but the VSB is too cheap to provide the usual continental breakfast/snacks/cookies one finds at these events.

All of that freed me up for Happy Fun Takeout from Relish, including some teriyaki salmon, some herb salmon, rosemary potatoes, roasted veggies, and even a sample of peanut butter cake. Kudos as usual to Mike. If you’re a Richmonder, you really should try it – here’s a link to the Relish on the Run fax order form (PDF).

170.9

Now entering the home stretch, at which point I won’t know what to do with myself. Last night was one of my new favorites – leftover Southwestern Bean Bake (a crockpot mix from Purely American Foods with beans, beef, corn and veggies) served in fat-free tortillas. Tasty and less than 500 calories.

On tap for today is the 8 hour Virginia State Bar Mandatory Course on Professionalism (catered convention food, blech). Thus the need for dinner to go from the wonderful Relish (teriyaki salmon with red rosies, not blech).

171.2

Blogging again means fatblogging again. This is my lightest weigh-in yet, and I’m within shouting distance of 170, at which point I’ll enter maintain mode. I was going to stop at 175, but I think I heard Jason is going for 170, so I will too. Here’s the story so far, a screengrab from The Daily Plate:

You don’t get scale when you stretch the date range out that far, but it’s essentially since the first of the year.

Just when I thought I was free…

I tried to quit you, Mr. Blogging Habit, I really did, but I can’t. No writing for more than six months, and it felt free. But in the end, I couldn’t stay away. So I’ve come crawling back for more abuse. But it will be different this time. No more politics, because it just depresses me. Just puppies. Or babies. Or Halo 3. That I don’t have a dog, that my babies are in school now, that I never did get around to buying that Xbox 360 – all irrelevant. The 360 would just be a RROD waiting to happen. I’ll just write about Calacanis’ dogs instead.

Hosting is cheap, and I’m lazy, so the old stuff is still around. Stuff from my St. Louis Period is at the Arch City Pundit site. Everything else is at fredochsenhirt.com.