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In the second part of my three-part breakdown of the Hall of Fame ballot, I look at eight players for whom I would vote "deserves more consideration" if such a thing were an option. As of right now, such a thing is not an option, of course, so the empty box next to their names on my ballot look very much like the empty box next to Todd Walker's name. So it goes.
Here are eight players -- really good players -- who didn't make my final cut on the most loaded Hall of Fame ballot since 1936:
* * *
Julio Franco
Length of career: 10 million years.
Place in game's history: He played so long (23 years, actually) that the great Negro league spokesman Buck O'Neil once went up to him and said, "I remember you from the Negro leagues" … Franco was the oldest position player in baseball history when he went out on July 31, 2007 and went 1 for 3 against Houston with a single off Matt Albers and a sac fly against Chris Sampson. On that day, he was three weeks shy of his 49th birthday (assuming he was actually born in 1958, something that has always been in question). He did play four games as a 49-year-old, but he pinch-hit in all four … Oldest player ever to get caught stealing, hit into a double play, draw an intentional walk, hit a home run or a double, and hit a sacrifice fly.
Personal thoughts: I very clearly remember when Julio Franco as a rookie. I was 16 years old, and Franco had been the key player to come back to Cleveland in the then-famous five-players-for-Von-Hayes trade. Franco hit reasonably well for a rookie shortstop -- a pinch of power (eight homers) and a dash of speed (32 stolen bases, though he was caught 12 times). He finished second in the '83 Rookie of the Year voting to Ron Kittle, who mashed 32 home runs for the surprising Tony La Russa White Sox.
You will remember his odd batting stance, of course. Franco kept his legs wide apart, and he held up his right elbow so high that the bat would actually point over his head and toward the pitcher (or the toward the third baseman, or toward right-center field -- this odd way he held the bat evolved over the years). Bill James has pointed out that major league players with strange batting quirks -- Mel Ott's huge leg kick, of course, but also more minor characters such as Tony Batista's crazy open stance or Hal Morris' feet-shuffling dance in the batters' box -- can usually hit. Julio Franco could hit. His batting average progressed a bit each year -- from .273 to .286 to .288 to .306 to .319. His on-base percentage, slugging percentage and runs created improved at a similar pace.
At 32, for Texas, he won the batting title with a .341 average. He had a .408 on-base percentage, scored 100 runs, put up what could reasonably be called an MVP season (he had a 6.8 offensive WAR, behind MVP Cal Ripken but well ahead of MVP runner-up Cecil Fielder). After some injury issues, he hit .319 in 112 games for the White Sox in 1994 and .322 in 112 games for the Indians in 1995. Like I said, the man could hit.
Then, he declined as guys in their late 30s usually do. He did not play in the big leagues in 1995, returned for the 1996 and 1997 season, was gone in 1998, got one at bat in 1999 and was gone in 2000. That seemed to be the end of it. If it had been the end of it, Julio Franco would not be all that interesting to talk about.
But then came the amazing third act of his career. He joined Atlanta as a 42-year-old player and hit .300 in 25 games. So they brought him back at 43, and he hit .283/.357/.372 with 51 runs scored. Well, that was good enough to bring him back at 44, and he was even better: He hit .294/.372/.452 with 19 extra-base hits in 223 plate appearances.
Well, that meant bringing him back at 45 … and he was better still. At 45 years old, Julio Franco hit .309/.378/.441. Think about that for a second: A 45-year-old man hitting .309 in the big leagues. At 45, the great Rod Carew was retired for six years. Same with Al Kaline. Tony Gwynn was in his third year as coach at San Diego State. Robin Yount had already been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
A year later, at 46, Franco mashed 12 doubles and nine homers. At 47, he still hit .273. It was, needless to say, unprecedented.
From age 44 on, Julio Franco hit 23 home runs. The next most for a player that age: Carlton Fisk with 4.
From age 44 on, Julio Franco hit 55 doubles. The next most: Pete Rose with 20.
From age 44 on, Julio Franco had 286 hits, scored 117 runs and drove in 172 runs -- nobody else is even in his world.
This doesn't necessarily make Julio Franco a Hall of Famer, of course. It's more of an oddity than a hallmark of greatness. But it's a fascinating part of baseball history. Julio Franco -- like Satchel Paige -- was an ageless wonder.
Of course, we can't move on without a few Julio Franco fun facts.
• The first pitcher Julio Franco faced was Bob Forsch … Franco singled to center. The last pitcher Julio Franco faced was Lee Gardner … Franco singled to right. Lee Gardner (b. Jan. 16, 1975) is almost exactly 25 years younger than Bob Forsch (b. Jan. 13, 1950).
• Franco was the sixth batter to face Roger Clemens … he grounded to second. At 48, Franco homered off Randy Johnson. He was two-for-two against Greg Maddux, and got hits off Pedro Martinez, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Goose Gossage, Phil Niekro and Steve Carlton.
• Franco faced every pitcher on this year's Hall of Fame ballot. Every … single … one.
vs. Roger Clemens: 19 for 96 with 14 strikeouts.
vs. Roberto Hernandez: 1 for 14 with 5 Ks and no walks.
vs. Jose Mesa: 7 for 20 with a homer.
vs. Jack Morris: 25 for 102 with 18 strikeouts and 10 walks.
vs. Curt Schilling: 2 for 10 with two strikeouts and two walks.
vs. Aaron Sele: 5 for 14 with two doubles.
vs. Lee Smith: 3 for 7 with a double.
vs. Mike Stanton: 2 for 8.
vs. David Wells: 18 for 56 with 6 doubles.
vs. Woody Williams: 1 for 4 with a double and three walks.
• If that doesn't impress you, then try this one: Franco also faced every single pitcher on the 2004 ballot, except Bruce Sutter:
vs. Tommy John: 9 for 28.
vs. Bert Blyleven: 6 for 35.
vs. Dennis Martinez: 11 for 28.
vs. Jimmy Key: 25 for 65.
vs. Dennis Eckersley: 7 for 25.
vs. Dave Stieb: 23 for 64.
vs. Fernando Valenzuela: 2 for 3.
vs. Danny Darwin: 8 for 28.
vs. Doug Drabek: 1 for 3.
vs. Bob Tewksbury: 3 for 8.
vs. Randy Myers: 0 for 3.
vs. Goose Gossage: 1 for 6.
* * *
Kenny Lofton
Length of career: 17 years, 9,235 plate appearances.
Place in game's history: Has a strong case as one of the 10 best center fielders ever… One of only six players in baseball history with 100 homers and 600 stolen bases. Four of the other five were first-ballot Hall of Famers (Rickey Henderson, Joe Morgan, Lou Brock and Ty Cobb) and the fifth, Tim Raines, is a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate … Led the league in stolen bases five consecutive years, beginning with his rookie season.
Personal thoughts: Here's a thought I've been having lately about sports and narratives: It seems to me that most players only get a brief chance to be viewed nationally as stars or superstars. I suppose this is obvious -- you know, that whole "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" nonsense. But I had never really thought about it in sports terms. The window of time in which a player gets to earn "superstar" status is short, and, when it closes, most players are seen through the prism of "underrated" or "underappreciated" or "quiet star" or whatever.
Kenny Lofton should have been viewed as a superstar after his amazing 1994 season. He got a late start in the big leagues, you know -- he wasn't an every-day player until he was 25 because he was mostly a basketball player at the University of Arizona and people seemed sure that he would never hit in the big leagues.
Oh, he hit. In 1994, his third full season, he hit .349/.412/.536, scored 105 runs in 112 games, and led the league with 160 hits and 60 stolen bases. He also won a well-deserved Gold Glove as a center fielder. You will recall that '94 was the strike season, so he never got to finish things off. But, even though Frank Thomas was named MVP, WAR suggests that if you look at the whole package, Lofton was as good, and perhaps even a touch better.
Consider that Lofton was on pace for 221 hits, 145 runs, 44 doubles, 12 triples, 17 homers, 79 RBIs, 83 walks ...
And yet, I don't think Kenny Lofton was viewed as a superstar after that amazing season -- a season that would fit nicely in the best of Derek Jeter's seasons. Baseball was in the dumps with all its labor problems, the game already had a superstar center fielder named Ken, and even Lofton's Cleveland Indians had more noticeable players like Albert Belle (and, in time, Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome and so on). And -- slam -- I think Kenny Lofton's window closed.
The next year, Lofton hit .310/.362/.453 in 118 games, again led the league in stolen bases, led the league in triples, won another Gold Glove and was the leadoff hitter for the first Indians team in four decades to reach the World Series ...
… and I think everyone thought: Yeah, you know, Kenny Lofton's a nice player.
The next year, he hit .317/.372/.446, stole 75 bases, scored 132 runs and won a Gold Glove.
… and I think everyone still thought: Yeah, nice player.
The year after that, in Atlanta, he played only 122 games … but he hit .333 and had a .409 on-base percentage. Nice player. He came back to Cleveland and at age 32, he hit .301/.405/.432 and scored 110 runs. That was his last All-Star season. And he was forever labeled as a "nice player."
But he was more than a nice player. From 1992 through 2000, he was a great player. He hit .308/.385/.431, averaged more than 100 runs per year, more than 50 stolen bases per year, and he won four Gold Gloves and might have deserved one or two more. After 2000? That's when he devolved into a "nice player." He got more than 3,500 plate appearances for nine different teams after 2000 … and he was a pretty good player (.277/.354/.415), but nobody could really keep up with where he was playing and he sort of disappeared into the ether of "pretty good players who age out."
If this weren't such a loaded ballot, I'd vote for Kenny Lofton as a Hall of Famer … because I think he will fall off the ballot after one season, and that's just wrong. He's absolutely one of those guys who deserves a full conversation. His career WAR (64.9) is actually higher than those of Edgar Martinez, Craig Biggio, Mark McGwire, Mike Piazza and Sammy Sosa, among others on this ballot whom many consider Hall of Fame-worthy. He offers, in many ways, a slightly less-exciting version of the Tim Raines Case, though Lofton wasn't as good offensively and was better defensively.
I wonder if he had won the MVP in 1994 … would that have changed the narrative a bit? Would people have viewed Lofton as the superstar he was, shining a whole different beam of light on the rest of his career? I don't know. I do know that I'm looking at Kenny Lofton's name on the ballot, and I'm thinking that if I were allowed to vote for 11 players, I'd probably choose him. I'm also thinking that the BBWAA really should think long and hard about adding a "Deserves More Consideration" option in the voting.
* * *
Don Mattingly
Length of career: 14 years, 7,722 plate appearances.
Place in game's history: One of the 30 or so best first basemen in baseball history … After his age-28 season, he had a career .323 batting average, had led the league in doubles three times, in batting average once, in RBIs once, had won an MVP and finished second in the voting as well and won five Gold Gloves … From 29 on? He hit .286, hit .300 only once (in 97 games), never played in an All-Star Game or hit 20 homers or scored or drove in 90 runs. He retired before his 35th birthday.
Personal thoughts: Like so many people my age, I loved Don Mattingly. I despised the Yankees. I individually despised the Yankees players. I despised the Yankees uniform, Yankee Stadium, the Yankees owner, the Yankees traditions. But I loved Don Mattingly.
Why? I have always appreciated Bill James' short but utterly complete entry for Mattingly in the Historical Abstract: "100% ballplayer. 0% bulls---." That about sums it up. Mattingly was the very essence of 1980s cool. He had that great left-handed batting stance -- perfect crouch, perfect balance -- and he was superb at scooping bad throws out of the dirt, and he hit the ball so damned hard, and he almost never struck out, and he rocked the cool caterpillar 'stache when he felt like it and, no, it didn't hurt that the Yankees were mediocre and then lousy, a bloodied superpower, and he was forced to go it alone, not unlike Superman. If the Yankees had been good, it might have been harder to love Mattingly. But they weren't good, and his greatness seemed heroic somehow.
Even at his height, Mattingly might have been overrated as a ballplayer. It's hard to tell. He won Gold Gloves every year because he looked so good fielding the ball, but his defensive numbers aren't much to look at (Defensive WAR, for instance, has him minus-6.8 wins for his career). He hit for great averages, but he didn't walk much, so he never had a .400 OBP in his career. He was an adequate base runner, but slow. He essentially stopped hitting for power at 27.
But for four years -- 1984-1987 -- he was the sun and the moon. He hit .337/.381/.560 when those numbers boggled the mind. He drove in 110-plus runs each year when the RBI was how you measured a man. He hit 30-plus homers in three of the four years, led the league in doubles in three of the four years, won Gold Gloves in three of the four years and posted a 155 OPS+. He was Donnie Baseball. He was the very essence of what a ballplayer looked like and acted like.
This year, he will have a fight to get the 5% vote that will keep him on the ballot. I think he will get there, even though his career was too short and his back didn't hold out. Donnie Baseball created enduring memories.
* * *
Fred McGriff
Length of career: 19 years, 10,174 plate appearances.
Place in game's history: One of the 25 best first basemen in baseball history … Led league in homers twice and hit 30-plus homers nine times … Tied with Lou Gehrig at 493 career homers. Gehrig's career obviously was halted by a debilitating illness now named for him, which explains why he did not reach 500. What about McGriff? He played only 113 games after he turned 39 and only managed 15 homers. He tried, at age 40, to get some at-bats with the then-dreadful Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but he hit only two homers in 27 games.
Personal thoughts: It strikes me that no nickname in sports history is more stuck in time than Fred McGriff being called "The Crime Dog." Unless you are of a certain age, you would have no idea why he was called Crime Dog, and any explanation would leave you entirely befuddled.
See, um, there used to be a bloodhound cartoon dog called McGruff the Crime Dog. I guess, looking at the always accurate Wikipedia, McGruff the Crime Dog still exists in some form or another. But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was pretty much ubiquitous -- especially his commercial in which he would remind everyone to "Grrrr … take a bite out of crime. (Chomp)."
McGriff apparently sounded enough like McGruff to the rest of us. So, he was the Crime Dog.
Yes, it's the dumbest nickname in baseball history. And, at the same time, it's the most awesome nickname for exactly that same reason.
McGriff has two other notable career features. One is that he was the spokesman for Tom Emanski baseball training videos -- and for a while there on ESPN those commercials were at least as ubiquitous as the McGruff the Crime Dog. McGriff wore this awful blue truckers cap and pointed at the camera and told viewers "I'm Fred McGriff …" I have spent the last half hour (it seems) looking for the video of McGriff talking on that commercial. It's apparently nowhere to be found, which is a shame because McGriff's performance was, in my memory, comparable to Brando in "On the Waterfront."
The second feature: McGriff had this crazy finish to his swing, in which he sort of whirled the bat over his head like he was a rodeo rider. It seemed utterly certain that at some point he would hit himself in the back of the head with his bat. As far as I know, he never did.
Here are McGriff's numbers compared to those of first-ballot Hall of Famer Eddie Murray:
McGriff: .284/.377/.509, 2,490 hits, 441 doubles, 24 triples, 493 homers, 1,349 runs, 1,550 RBIs.
Murray: .287/.359/.476, 3,255 hits, 560 doubles, 35 triples, 504 homers, 1,627 runs, 1,917 RBIs.
By rate stats, McGriff wasn't just better but markedly better. He had 18 points of on-base percentage on Murray and slugged 33 points higher for a career. He also was better in the postseason. But Murray was good a lot longer than McGriff -- not great, but good -- and so he reached 3,000 hits and 500 homers and he had much better career counting stats. I think Murray, taking defense into account, was a better player than McGriff, but if McGriff had put up two more good seasons, gotten 500-plus homers and, say, 2,750 hits, I think he'd be in the Hall of Fame. If he'd even hit just seven more home runs, there's a pretty good chance he'd be in in the Hall of Fame too.
* * *
Jack Morris
Length of career: 18 years, 3,824 innings
Place in game's history: Pitched one of most memorable games in baseball history, throwing a shutout against Atlanta in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series … His 254 career wins rank him 42nd all time, though judging him beyond wins he's only on the border of the Top 100 starters in baseball history … Won more games than any pitcher in the 1980s … Made an incredible 515 consecutive starts.
Personal thoughts: Well, the man was indestructible. From 1980 through 1988, he made 34 starts every single year (except the strike year), pitched 235-plus innings every single year (except the strike year) and won 15-plus games every year (except the strike year, when he led the league with 14 wins). To pitch like Morris -- fastball, fastball, fastball, slider, fastball, splitter/forkball, fastball -- and stay utterly healthy for 18 years, it's pretty remarkable.
I've said way too much already about Morris as a Hall of Fame candidate. I admire the career, but I think there are many other better pitchers who are not in the Hall of Fame. But that's an old story now. What I do want to talk about here is not my personal vote but whether or not Morris will get elected to the Hall of Fame.
I was almost entirely certain that Morris would get voted in this year. Last year, he jumped to 66.7 percent of the vote (up from 53.5 percent) and Bert Blyleven finally got into the Hall of Fame, ending that annual comparison. I grew convinced that the addition of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and the like would only help Morris, because I figured he would remind the voters of better times, when men were men, when the baseball drugs of choice were cocaine and amphetamines and alcohol, when a pitcher finished what he started, when you could still believe in the power of a man with a mustache pitching to the score.
But … I'm now coming around to the conclusion that Morris will not get elected this year. I think it will be close, but in my thoroughly unofficial count, I see Morris finishing right around where he did last year in the percentages. I cannot say for certain why he is not getting the expected bump (if, indeed, he is not). But, of course, I have a theory …
I think this year's ballot is overwhelming people. Well, you can read about it every day. Some are sending in blank ballots. Some are not sending in ballots at all. Some are giving up their vote. I get it. These are confusing times. This ballot has so many players on it, and there are so many issues with PEDs and suspicions and whispers … I think many people are looking for answers.
Meanwhile, the price of induction is still 75 percent of the vote. That's an extremely high percentage. There are few issues in America where 75 percent of the country agrees. I was convinced that Morris and at least one other player, maybe two, would get elected this year. Now I'm wondering if anyone will get elected.
The good news for Morris is that if he doesn't get elected this year, he does have one year left on the ballot. And I have to believe that, even though next year's ballot will be even more stacked than this year's, that the "last year on the ballot" thing will get him to 75 percent.
* * *
Lee Smith
Length of career: 18 years, 1,022 appearances.
Place in game's history: Retired with 478 saves, which was the record at the time … Led the league in saves four times and had a better than 100 ERA+ every single season except his last … Smith's 169 saves in which he pitched more than an inning ranks fourth all-time, behind Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter -- those three are in the Hall of Fame.
Personal thoughts: When it comes to Lee Smith's Hall of Fame candidacy, it really comes down to this: How much do you value the save? Is the save a complete enough statistic that -- like home runs and wins and strikeouts and hits -- there should be an unofficial Hall of Fame benchmark? Should 450 saves be like 3,000 hits? Or 300 wins?
When Lee Smith retired, he had the saves record with 478. He still held the record when he first went on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2003. I have written this before … Smith's best shot at getting into the Hall of Fame was when he first got on the ballot. I liken it to NFL wide receiver Charlie Joiner, who retired in 1986 with the career record for most receptions. He was passed by Steve Largent pretty quickly and then, in the next few years, passed by Jerry Rice, Art Monk, Henry Ellard, Andre Reed, James Lofton … but the Hall voters understood that the game changed and Joiner was one of the people who made it change. He was elected to the Hall of Fame. Joiner is now 35th on the all-time receptions list, and, before long, he will be passed by Donald Driver, Santana Moss, Antonio Gates, Roddy White and Brandon Marshall. But Joiner is securely in the Hall of Fame, where he's celebrated for being a star in his time.
Lee Smith was a star in his time as well. He was a hulking man -- 6-foot-5, 220 pounds -- with an overwhelming fastball and enough breaking stuff to give you just a little pause. Mostly the breaking stuff stayed in the barn. Hitters braced themselves for the fastball, which rushed in each year of the Reagan and Bush era though the first Clinton term.
His consistency was so staggering, you can actually track the game's usage of closers through him. He began as a 100-plus inning fireman like Dan Quisenberry and Bruce Sutter, the sort who would pitch two or three innings, the sort who would come into games in the sixth or seventh, if needed.
He gradually became a Tom Henke, Bobby Thigpen-type reliever who wasn't quite as versatile as the previous generation, but still pitched between 80 and 90 innings, finished a lot of games and struck out a ton of hitters.
And finally, he became a Dennis Eckersley kind of closer: one inning, ninth inning, 40 to 50 times a year, get the save, go home.
In other words, for almost two decades Lee Smith was whatever kind of relief pitcher managers asked him to be, whatever the time demanded. The shorthand for that has been 478 saves. But, again the question emerges: Are saves a complete enough statistic to simply count? The save can be so many things. You can get a save pitching one inning up three runs -- and that's simply not an impressive feat. You can get a save by coming into a game with the bases loaded with nobody out in the ninth and up only a run -- that's a fantastic thing.
So you can break down the best relievers one way ...
Outs recorded per game in relief:
• Hoyt Wilhelm, 5.5
• Rollie Fingers, 5.0
• Goose Gossage, 4.8
• Bruce Sutter, 4.7
• Dan Quisenberry, 4.6
• Lee Smith, 3.7
• Dennis Eckersley, 3.4
• Mariano Rivera, 3.4
• Trevor Hoffman, 3.2
Or you can break down the best relievers another way ...
Save percentage:
• Mariano Rivera, 608 for 681 (89%)
• Trevor Hoffman, 601 for 677 (89%)
• Dennis Eckersley, 390 for 461 (85%)
• Lee Smith, 478 for 581 (82%)
• Dan Quisenberry, 244 for 305 (80%)
• Hoyt Wilhelm, 227 for 290 (78%)
• Rollie Fingers, 341 for 450 (76%)
• Bruce Sutter, 300 for 401 (75%)
Or you can go with the all-popular Win Probability Added, which measures, well, the win probability added.
• Mariano Rivera, 54.0
• Trevor Hoffman, 34.1
• Goose Gossage, 32.4
• Hoyt Wilhelm, 31.1
• Dennis Eckersley, 30.8
• Lee Smith, 21.3
• Dan Quisenberry, 20.6
• Bruce Sutter, 18.2
Yes, you can always find a stat that flatters your favorite candidate.
When Lee Smith first came on the ballot, he clocked in at 42.3% of the vote, a very high percentage, a virtual guarantee that he would get elected. Then his percentage staggered a bit. Trevor Hoffman passed him in saves. Mariano Rivera passed him in saves. John Franco saved his 400th game and so did Billy Wagner. Nobody seemed entirely sure what these career saves numbers mean.
But now, it's stabilizing. Though Rivera and Hoffman are each more than 100 saves ahead of Smith, there seems to be no one on the horizon who will come close to him -- only one active player (Francisco Cordero) is within 150 saves of Smith, and he's only barely active. Jon Papelbon is more than 200 saves behind Smith and will need another six years like the previous six to catch up. He seems, by far, to have the best shot at catching Smith, and I'd say he's more likely not to catch him.
Smith's support is growing. Last year, on his 10th ballot, he passed 50% support for the first time. Players who pass 50% on the ballot usually get in. It will be fascinating to see how Smith maneuvers through the choppy waters of the next few Hall of Fame ballots. I predict that his percentage takes a step back this year and perhaps next because of the overcrowded ballots, but he will reemerge in 2015 and will get elected on his 14th or 15th ballot.
* * *
David Wells
Length of career: 21 years, 3,439 innings
Place in game's history: One of the 75 or so best starting pitchers in baseball history … Won 54 games after 40, 10th-most in baseball history … Says he was a bit hung-over the day he threw his perfect game, but was not "half-drunk" as reported elsewhere (elsewhere being his autobiography) … Played for nine different teams, and pitched for six of them in the postseason.
Personal thoughts: I always thought if you were a major league ballplayer, David Wells would pretty much be the perfect guy to have on your team. He seems like a pretty funny guy. But, more to the point, the guy took the mound and he threw bleeping strikes. Four times he led the league in fewest walks per game and he was annually near the top. The guy threw strikes and put the ball in play and kept things moving. I know that if I were on his team, I'd appreciate that. Those guys that nibble and walk guys and kick the dirt a lot … they'd drive me nuts.
David Wells offers the other side of the steroid ea. By that I'm not referring to body type, though that's true too -- I always appreciated Wells looking like someone who belonged up in the press box with us. What I mean is: Everyone knows about the huge offensive numbers of the steroid era. But few seem as interested in how those numbers affected pitching.
For instance: David Wells' career 4.13 ERA looks quite lousy when put out there naked. Of the 107 pitchers since 1900 to throw 3,000 innings, Wells' ERA is sixth-worst.
But if you look at David Wells' numbers in context, you see just how good a pitcher he really was. He had a 108 ERA+ -- compare that with some pitchers with lower ERAs.
Mike Torrez: 3.96 (98 ERA+)
Doyle Alexander 3.76 ERA (103 ERA+)
Rick Wise: 3.69 ERA (101 ERA+)
Lew Burdette: 3.66 ERA (90 ERA+)
Joe Niekro: 3.59 ERA (98 ERA+)
Mickey Lolick: 3.44 ERA (104 ERA+)
Claude Osteen: 3.30 ERA (104 ERA+)
Catfish Hunter: 3.26 ERA (104 ERA+)
Rube Marquard: 3.08 ERA (103 ERA+)
George Mullin: 2.82 ERA (101 ERA+)
And … yes ...
Jack Morris: 3.90 ERA (105 ERA+)
This is a fairly simple concept … and yet people make it hard all the time. If you are an average pitcher pitching for the Dodgers in 1966 or for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1913, you will have an extremely low raw ERA and it will be natural for people to think you are great. If you are an average pitcher pitching for the Colorado Rockies in 1999 or the Philadelphia Phillies of 1929, you will have an extremely high ERA and it will be natural for people to think you stink. This is context in baseball.
Let me try to prove to you that David Wells' 4.12 ERA is about as good as Catfish Hunter's 3.26.
Hunter pitched most of his career in an extreme pitcher's park when teams were averaging a touch under four runs per game. Wells pitched the bulk of his career in all sorts of parks when teams averaged almost five runs a game -- some years they did average five runs a game. That's almost a full-run difference per game.
Take a look at home runs: Catfish Hunter was a gopher-ball machine in an era when guys didn't hit a lot of home runs. Eleven times in his career, he finished in the top 10 in home runs allowed -- twice he led the league. Wells was not especially home run prone -- only four times in his career did he finish in the top 10 in the league in home runs allowed and never higher than fifth. But despite that, and despite the fact that they pitched almost precisely the same number of innings, Wells gave up 33 more home runs in his career than Catfish Hunter. That's the era.
Wells struck out almost 200 more batters than Hunter and walked more than 200 fewer. So, he was better at those skills. Wells, for his time, was more adept at keeping the ball in the ballpark than Hunter was. So why is Hunter's ERA so much better? Well, pitching in a great pitcher's park in a low-scoring era with a great fielding team behind him, Hunter was in about as good an environment as you can be for a pitcher.
Baseball Reference has a really cool tool where they try to neutralize the numbers to an average baseball season (that is a season where the average team scores 716 runs). Take a look:
Hunter's neutralized stats: 175-181, 4.10 ERA.
Wells' neutralized stats: 184-186, 4.12 ERA.
Jack Morris' neutralized stats: 195-218, 4.28 ERA.
Hey, you don't have to buy it. This is just something to think about.
* * *
Bernie Williams
Length of career: 16 years, 9,053 plate appearances.
Place in game's history: It's interesting to try and rank Bernie Williams. If you believe that he was a huge liability as a defensive center fielder -- WAR has him as 10 wins below replacement for his career -- he ranks about 25th among center fielders in baseball history. But if you rank him as a good-to-great defender (he did win four Gold Glove awards) he's pushing hard for the Top 10. … Hit 22 postseason homers and drove in 83 postseason runs. He was one of the first to really take advantage of the extra playoff rounds.
Personal thoughts: Here's something interesting about Bernie Williams' playoff performance. In his first three playoff series, he hit .455 with 7 homers, 19 runs and 16 RBIs. After that he hit .251 in 22 postseason series.
Bernie Williams is one of those wonderful players who was truly great until his early 30s and then, rather suddenly, wasn't great. We all have our favorites among the statistical-cliff guys, right? … Maybe it's Dale Murphy, who I will have more to say about it the final installment of this series … Maybe it's Tony Oliva, the three-time batting champion, who hit balls harder than just about anyone who ever lived, but was essentially done at 32 … Maybe it's Will Clark, a lifetime .303 hitter with power, who had his last 150-game season at 26, who missed 50 or so games a year after he crossed into his 30s … Maybe it's Reggie Smith, a heck of a player, who hit 32 homers and led the league in on-base percentage at 32, hit 29 home runs in 128 games at 33, and was never a full-time player again … Maybe it's Rocky Colavito, who had 358 homers at 32, more than Ernie Banks or Mike Schmidt or Reggie Jackson or Ted Williams, but hit just 16 more as he tumbled over … Maybe it's Dick Allen, one of the greatest power hitters the game has ever known up to age 32, and then a .246/.334/.410 hitter his final three years.
Bernie Williams up to age 33 was a .308/.392/.498 hitter with a 133 OPS+. He had won those four Gold Gloves. He had led the league in batting, he'd had five seasons with 100 runs and 100 RBIs, he was a perennial All-Star … and there was something magnetic about him. Let's be honest -- whether you like the Yankees or despise the Yankees, either way, centerfield for the New York Yankees means something. It's DiMaggio. It's Mantle. It's Mickey Rivers. Bernie Williams is a musician, he's a classy guy, he was a heck of a ballplayer.
And he's coming on the ballot at exactly the wrong time. With all the PED talk, with all the new players on the ballot who have supernatural numbers, with deserving leftovers like Tim Raines finally getting a bit more support (I think), there just isn't much room for Bernie Williams. His career was too short. His peak didn't quite soar to MVP heights. And his defensive production is widely disputed. I don't think Bernie Williams was quite a Hall of Famer, but I also don't think he will get a fair hearing this year. And I suspect next year, he won't be on the ballot. One more plea to the BBWAA: Add that third voting option.
Want more of Joe's HOF thoughts? Click here for Part One of his series. Click here for Part Three.


text:
International Baccalaureate Policy
The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) is a nonprofit educational foundation based in Switzerland that works with secondary schools throughout the world on programs for students between the ages of 16 and 19 years. Designed as a comprehensive, two-year curriculum that allows its graduates to fulfill requirements of various national education systems, the diploma model is not based on the pattern of any single country but incorporates the best elements of many. Beyond intellectual rigor and high academic standards, strong emphasis is placed on the ideals of international understanding and responsible citizenship. The table of IBO equivalents summarizes Ithaca College's policy on interpreting the IBO standards. This policy is in effect for students entering Ithaca College in the 2005-2006 academic year and is subject to change at any time. This table reflects credit awarded for higher-level subjects. No credit is awarded for subsidiary-level subjects. A limited number of IBO credits may be applied toward general education requirements; see "Advanced Placement Policy."
All other International Baccalaureate Organisation examinations will be reviewed on an individual basis after the student provides a course description or syllabus. For additional information about Ithaca College's international baccalaureate policies, please contact Charlotte Richardson in the Office of the Registrar, 220 Job Hall, 607-274-1210.
International Baccalaureate Policy Equivalents
A. Ozolins, Office of Creative Services, 15. July, 2005

subset: commoncrawl


text:
News long anticipated arrived Wednesday, with the announcement that THQ Inc and its subsidiaries have filed voluntary petitions for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. It also announced its plans to sell the company entire.
Affiliates of Clearlake Capital Group have agreed to act as the "stalking horse" by submitting a $60m bid for the troubled game manufacture under an Asset Purchase Agreement. Other potential buyers will be able to submit bids once the court has approved.
gChairman and CEO Brian Farrell said of the announcement:
The sale and filing are necessary next steps to complete THQ's transformation and position the company for the future, as we remain confident in our existing pipeline of games, the strength of our studios and THQ's deep bench of talent.
Which is to say, THQ is worth more to its creditors alive.
Section 363 - didn't they do Halo 4?
This is a standard "Section 363" procedure - essentially allowing the assets of a stricken company to be purchased free and clear of the debts attached to them. Clearwater's offer is an aggregate totalling $60 million, including $10 million in consideration for THQ's existing creditors.
If the court agrees - which seems likely - there will follow an auction process, with the assets going in all probability to the highest bidder. The ultimate owner will be decided by the court, although the high bid, as long as it is in the interest of the creditors, is likely to prevail.
The expectation is that this figure will provide a guide to other possible buyers of a bottom level for acceptable bids - Clearlake will not be expecting actually to buy THQ. Given that the company's market capitalization is currently hovering around $8.5m, this suggests that there is a sense that THQ has more value whole and functional than its current share price, which has been badly affected by its financial instability, suggests.
The devil in the details
Interestingly, THQ's press release says that there are no plans to reduce workforce during the period covered by Chapter 11, and working schedules will be maintained - again, the subtext of this statement is that THQ has value as a going concern. The pipeline of games will also, THQ claims, be unaffected. Clearlake and Wells Fargo are providing $37.5 million of "debtor-in-possession" funding during the period before any sale, which THQ are hoping can be concluded in 30 days. Wells Fargo had already declined to exercise its right to take action after THQ could not comply with the covenants of its credit agreement earlier this year.
In practice, this petition is an argument that the best hope for its creditors is some sort of negotiated solution, with THQ whole, competent and able to create and sell video games, rather than have it reduced to a collection of expensive computer equipment and reassignable IPs.
About those games
THQ's problem and its resolution are in many ways the same. After a disastrous experiment in hardware with the uDraw drawing tablet, THQ wrote off large amounts of unsold inventory (uDraw tablets are now available for pocket change) and lost the confidence of many investors and customers. This was not helped by middling sales and the loss of the UFC franchise to EA, itself announced during a 2012 E3 event which also saw layoffs at THQ San Diego. The underperformance of Darksiders II, which received positive critical notices but failed to meet sales targets, may also have been a significant factor.
Speaking at THQ's Q3 earnings call, President Jason Rubin said:
Observing this and other recent industry releases, one is left with a firm understanding that in the current marketplace, only the absolute top tier of releases is making impact on the game consumer. I now have an opportunity to start impacting our next slate of products and positioning them to compete in this marketplace.
This remains its challenge. THQ has promising games upcoming - in particular Metro: Last Light and South Park: The Stick of Truth. Neither is likely to do Call of Duty numbers, but both represent opportunities for profit by a new owner. Also in the pipeline are Company of Heroes 2 and the next game in the WWE franchise, which tend to be steady earners.
Some see THQ's plight as a simple case of overreach - with the uDraw, and also with a series of games of wildly varying quality based on TV and children's entertainment licenses. THQ's Jason Rubin declared a return to focusing on core games on his appointment as President, but some of these retained projects retain a dubious scent; a sequel (in name, at least) to the underperforming Homefront planned for 2014 may find its prospects being scrutinized by any potential buyer, although Crytek's involvement as developers may help its chances.
Others, however, question whether THQ is ultimately well-designed for the current financial climate of games. Whereas EA and Activision have scale and reliably profitable franchises, THQ has been badly affected by its recent bad run - not least reflected in a market cap that has fallen from a high of $2 billion in 2007 to its current level. A major games company could step in at a relative bargain price, and the licenses still held by THQ make a tempting package. Alternatively, private equity could seek to work its promising portfolio for profit - but the long-term future of its studios would be open to question.
Nicholas Lovell, Founder of Gamesbrief and video game consultant, sees THQ'S fall as an inevitable consequence of the narrowing AAA market: with EA and Activision (and to a lesser extent Take-Two Interactive) having franchises guaranteed to sell, THQ simply could not compete.
[THQ] owns no 'must-have' IP, just some 'nice-to-have'. If the market is coalescing around 10-20 major titles a year, does THQ have any contenders?
This is a problem - Saint's Row is a reliable money maker for THQ, but in a year with a new Grand Theft Auto game it may find its thunder stolen. Homefront was supposed to be THQ's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, but did not reach those heights. Metro 2033 was a surprise hit, and its sequel a subject of high hopes. And South Park is a great license, with a fine studio attached, but is not proven in the market. Arguably, THQ had to made a play for the AAA space, and could not absorb the costs when it fell short without the scale or market power of its larger rivals.
THQ risked delisting from the NASDAQ in July, but its ticker will now almost certainly be delisted within the next nine days.
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text:
September 29, 1916
Mr. R. B. Bernheim,
Charleston, West Virginia.
My dear Bob:
I am in receipt of yours of the 23rd this morning on my return to Welch.
I do not recall very much I have heard with reference to the trial and execution of John Hardy. It is my recollection that he was executed in February, 1894, which was before I came here. I do not remember whom he murdered, but he was a colored man. Judge Herndon and Walter Taylor defended him. I have heard Judge Herndon say that Hardy gave him his pistol for his fee. I once heard John Effler telling about making the arrest. It seems that Hardy was on No. 12 and Effler got on looking for him and found him on the rear of the train just about the time the train entered the tunnel at Coaldale. Hardy attempted to push Effler off of the train and Effler pulled him off with him while the train was running. Effler was badly hurt but held on to Hardy until someone came to his relief. I have understood that special trains were run here on the day of his execution and that the crowd was the largest that had ever been in Welch up to that time.
If Prof Cox is interested in the matter and will write to Judge Herndon, no doubt he will recall enough about the case to give him a detailed account...
Very sincerely yours,
James French Strother
Welch, West Virginia
Crime and Punishment


text:
Twenty months after becoming second-in-command for the city of Rochester, Leonard Redon is increasingly proficient at navigating governmental work.
Hired as deputy mayor in July 2011, Redon has needed some time to get used to public service.
"The thing that's really challenging here is what we're expected to do with very few resources," says Redon in his City Hall office.
As an example he mentions information technology infrastructure. "Most of the systems we use here in the city are truly legacy systems that, for a variety of reasons, we really need to replace," says the former Eastman Kodak Co. and Paychex Inc. executive. "But our resources to do that are very, very lean. As a result, that's one of the most challenging areas that I'm trying to deal with."
Redon also is required to document his comings and goings at the beginning and end of each workday, despite his role as the city's head of operations and acting mayor in the absence of Thomas Richards.
"One of the first things I realized when I came here was they still use time cards," Redon says. "I still have to sign a time card. I hadn't signed a time card in over 20 years. But it's still very much how we do things here in the city."
And Redon is now familiar with the bureaucracy attached to government.
"It's just how hard it is to get things done, how long it takes to get things done here," he says. "You'll be sitting in a meeting, talking about a project, and everybody agrees we're going to do the project, and then six months later you're asking people, 'When are we starting?' It just takes a long time.
"Working in the corporate world, I'm not used to that. I'm used to be able to move things much faster. … So that's a challenge."
After most initiatives wind their way through the system, they must be passed along to City Council for its approval.
"The biggest change here is dealing with council," Redon says. "Almost everything we do ultimately has to be approved by council. It's how you go about learning to work with council.
"They have, in some ways, a different agenda than perhaps we have in the administration. They also don't always have the time to put in to really understand some of these things we're trying to implement. So how do you explain fairly complex solutions such that they can support it well enough to vote on it?"
A recent example is an agreement with the city's union workers on health care coverage.
"We probably worked on that for nine months, and then you get a 45-minute work session with council to try to get them to understand all the nuances of that," says Redon, who has a background in health care. "It takes a while to figure out how to do that.
"And you have to understand the council members well enough such that you know how to communicate with them in a way that they can absorb the information."
Then, when a task finally is completed, Redon and other city leaders prepare for the inevitable backlash.
"You have to recognize in this world that no deed goes unpunished, good or bad," he says. "There's always someone who's probably not happy with what you've done.
"You may have satisfied 90 percent of a need out there, but that 10 percent, in whatever way they can, makes you pay. You just have to deal with that. It's the reality of the game."
Those are not necessarily negatives, says the 61-year-old native of Cleveland. But they are different from what he was accustomed to during a 28-year executive career at Kodak followed by 10 years at Paychex.
He retired from Paychex at the end of January 2011 as vice president of western operations. He was approached by Richards some 10 weeks later about becoming deputy mayor.
"When I retired, I knew I wasn't going to not do something," Redon says. "I put together a bucket list, and No. 2 on the bucket list was to be a part of something significant. That kept going around and around in my mind when I was considering whether or not I really did want to do this.
"Ultimately, I said it's the right thing. It's an opportunity to give back to the community, learn some new things, find out about a new environment and work with someone I think very highly of, Tom. I think he's built a pretty good team here."
David Fiedler, president and CEO of ESL Federal Credit Union, has known Redon for nearly 40 years—dating back to when both worked at Kodak—and is a close friend.
"His wealth of executive management experience at both Kodak and Paychex, combined with his well-developed ability to evaluate complex issues from multiple perspectives, made him an ideal choice to become deputy mayor," Fiedler says.
"Len is one of the more recent savvy and experienced executives, all of whom would have many alternative ways to use their skills, who have chosen to apply their talents to the challenges and opportunities the city of Rochester faces at this critical inflection point in its history."
Joining the city team
Redon and Richards are among several in the city administration with experience as private-sector executives.
Richards was recruited by former mayor Robert Duffy to be the city's corporation counsel in 2006 after seven years as general counsel at Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. and four years as chairman and CEO of RGS Energy Group. He was an attorney for 20 years with Nixon Peabody LLP before that.
Redon first met Richards when they served on the board of the Industrial Management Council.
"I was working at Paychex when he came to the city, and I was, like, wow, what a big change that he would do that," Redon recalls.
Richards was appointed deputy mayor by Duffy in October 2010 and became mayor in January 2011 after Duffy's resignation to become lieutenant governor.
"When I finally retired from Paychex, Tom was looking for another business type to be a part of this," Redon says. "My experience has primarily been in operations. That's what I did at Paychex. That's what I did at Kodak. He needed what he would call a chief operating officer."
Duffy initiated the private-sector concept in city government. In addition to Richards, he convinced retired banker Carlos Carballada to come aboard in an economic development capacity.
"One of the things we're trying to do is bring some of the techniques and approaches that you would use in a business world to city management," Redon says. "The city is not a business, but there are techniques that you can use that actually are very valuable."
Monthly reports from each city department are now a staple of operations.
"We can look at their budget performance and then look at how they're doing against their key measureables, their key result areas," Redon says. "We now have a set of reports we go over every month, Tom with his direct reports and me with my direct reports."
The city's senior management team meets each Tuesday.
"We have what we call an all-city review, where we look across the city in terms of how we're doing financially and what are some of the issues we might be facing," Redon says. "We also have two of the departments do a more in-depth report. That has started to change some of the way we look at how we go about doing what we're doing."
In a news conference after hiring Redon, Richards said he planned to ease Redon into the position by not involving him in meetings and paperwork.
Redon's initial responsibilities included the Bureau of Human Resource Management, the Department of Recreation and Youth Services and the Rochester Public Library. He has since taken on the Department of Information Technology and the Department of Environmental Services.
"I think he just wanted me to learn the city well enough before I took that on," Redon said of environmental services. "That's water, that's refuse, that's plowing, that's parks, maintenance, buildings, etc."
Redon also oversees the city's space planning and its Bureau of Parking.
"When I came in, the city had just embarked on installing a new finance system," he says. "One of the first things I had to do was crawl into that project. And we were having some problems. It took us a while, but we got that on track.
"There are still elements of that, though, that we're still working on. From my perspective—I know our IT director wouldn't agree with this—we're a year behind where we thought we would be."
Redon says he was comfortable with his new job within three months, and most of his responsibilities are operational.
"There are some policy things there, but for the most part that's not stuff that the mayor should have to be involved with day to day," he says. "Having someone like me in this role lets him focus on the more important policy issues."
Redon manages capital planning, working closely with the city's budget office.
"Capital planning here is different than capital planning in the corporate world because generally in the corporate world your capital planning is year to year," he says. "Here it's really stretching over a five-year span, so you have to think about it differently.
"You might be investing $500,000 here, but five years later you might be investing $5 million. Once you put that plan out, council looks at that and says, 'OK, this is what I expect your future spending to look like.' So as you change that, you have to go back to council and make sure they understand it."
Redon has had to adapt to fund accounting, in which money is separated into different streams to identify its source and intended use.
"Just moving money from fund to fund requires council approval, so you spend a lot of time lining up where the funds are coming from," he says. "You really do have to understand that reasonably well to effectively operate here.
"I've been on the boards of a number of organizations that had fund accounting, but never to the extent you have here and never with the level of approvals that's required to move $1 million from here to here. In the corporate world, it's all fungible to a certain extent, but not here."
Redon is involved in the redevelopment of the Midtown Plaza site and the Sibley Centre on the east end of downtown and in growth strategies for the Eastman Business Park, which he once managed as a Kodak executive.
"I'm optimistic," he says of the business park, "because they do have some really good resources there that, if you can position them properly, really do create a very attractive environment for someone to come in in certain types of manufacturing.
"We've got a lot going on out there right now that isn't Kodak. Our challenge is to make sure that we're able to settle down the utilities and some of the environmental issues such that a company will say, 'OK, that's a good place for me to go.'"
The city is working with the state to get the support needed, he says.
His family
Redon has been renting an apartment at Corn Hill Landing since coming to City Hall. He and his wife, Denise, recently sold their home in Perinton and are looking for a city home.
Their son, Jason, 35, lives in San Diego. Their daughter, Jennifer, 28, lives in Fairport.
Redon was born and raised in the Cleveland area, and his parents also had urban roots. His father grew up in St. Louis, his mother in New Orleans. His dad worked for the U.S. Postal Service, and his mom was a nurse.
His father also was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, an organization of African-American fighter pilots in World War II, but was injured during training and never deployed. He met his future wife while recuperating.
Redon spent his early years as a city resident, worshipping the Cleveland Browns and legendary running back Jim Brown during the 1960s as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by Congress, bringing a legal end to segregation and giving Redon's parents hope for their children's future.
"They were African Americans who realized that new doors were opening up and wanted to make sure their kids (were) ready to walk through those doors," Redon says. "That was really their focus."
The Redons left the city for the Cleveland suburbs when their son was in seventh grade.
"My parents moved us to what would be the equivalent of Brighton," Redon says. "That had an enormous impact on my life because they ripped me out of the African-American community and thrust me into a very different world.
"Now, that has served me very well in a lot of ways. And the reason they moved when they moved was for the schools. That predicated the fact that I was going to go to college, one way or another."
He became interested in science because a friend of his parents was employed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"He got me interested in astronomy," Redon says. "I had this telescope, and he would come over and we'd find planets and stuff like that."
Redon received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts in 1973.
Community involvement
Redon's civic activities have centered on health care and education. He is chairman of the Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency board of directors until next month and chairman of the agency's 2020 Performance Commission, designed to help support a patient-centered health care system.
"A lot of the issues that the HSA is working on relate to what's going on in the city because of the poverty, the African-American community and its issues, the Hispanic community and its issues," Redon says. "The HSA has been focused on those.
"My work there, I think, relates very well to what I do in the city. In some ways, the fact that I've stayed involved with those in this role, I think, has helped those organizations."
FLHSA executive director Fran Weisberg has worked closely with Redon for the last six years.
"He is an inspiring leader, he's very wise and he's incredibly helpful," Weisberg says. "He will take a very complex issue, like the 2020 Commission, and understand it.
"He will break it down to its component parts, clarify things and move things forward, and get all of the stakeholders around the table to find common ground and do great for the community."
Redon also is a member and past chairman of the Monroe Community College Foundation board.
Since becoming deputy mayor, he has added city programs such as the Pillars of Hope initiative to his list of involvements. The initiative recruits African-American and Latino professionals who adopt a city school and provide support to its students.
He has done similar work with youngsters at the Hillside Family of Agencies.
Redon places a priority on interaction with city residents of all ages.
"The perception that people have around people in my type of position is really interesting, particularly in the African-American community but on a general basis across the city," he says. "'You're 'the deputy mayor, and you're going to talk to me?'
"I'm human like you. I like to try to break those barriers down. That's always been a part of my own personal success in whatever I've done. I've always been able to have that open door and have a style that encouraged people to actually talk to you."
Redon claims three hobbies: music, boating and golf.
"Having crewed for Len for a few years, I can attest to the fact that Len is quite an accomplished sailor, not to mention playing a pretty mean guitar," Fiedler says.
"However, I would also add, based on a number of rounds of golf I've played with Len over the years, that I think just a little less focus on honing his business, management, sailing and artistic skills might have been good for his game."
Redon admits life as a public servant has hurt his golf game and restricts the time available for sailing.
"That's one of the challenges of the job," he says. "I don't get as much time to use my boat or get on the golf course. The one that's been good, though, is my music.
"I was traveling a lot in my other positions. Now I'm around. I've actually hooked in with some guys here in the city and have done a couple of gigs with them."
The blues ensemble is called the BureauCats. It performed at Ease on Down Thurston last May and at a city-sponsored Christmas event.
"I did a lot of singing for that, more singing than playing," Redon says. "I've been working on some singing lessons."
He has done some composing and recording as well.
"I've been working on a couple of tunes I'm going to have some of these guys play," Redon says. "I've never done it before where I've had somebody else play. That's added to the whole thing because I have to get mixes out to them so they can practice."
He plans to take a break from the music after he and Denise find their new home, then go back to it.
His job as deputy mayor occupies much more of his time than he originally thought, Redon says. As he nears his second anniversary in July, his job's future is dependent upon Richards being re-elected in November.
"I'm honored to be offered the job and glad I took it," he says. "I thought this would be a 50-hour a week job, but it's 70, 80, 90 hours a week. But I'm really glad I've done it. I've learned some new skills. I've had the opportunity to have some new experiences. I've met some really good people.
"There are some great people working here in the city. Our challenge is to give them the resources to be as effective as they possibly can be."
As for whether he wants to serve a full four-year term if Richards is re-elected, Redon responds uncertainly.
"I don't know the answer to that yet," he says. "First of all, it relates more to Tom and how he does, and I'll do what is appropriate for me to do to support him in the election.
"Assuming he wins, I'll sit back and, first, ask if he wants me to stay. And then, second, do I want to stay. We'll see. My wife and I have talked a little about that recently. There's a lot about this that I enjoy, and there are a few things I don't, like most things in life."
Leonard Redon
Title: Deputy mayor, city of Rochester
Age: 61
Home: Rochester
Education: B.S. in chemical engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, 1973
Family: Wife Denise; son Jason, 35; daughter Jennifer, 28
Hobbies: Music, sailing, golf
Quote: "I grew up a Browns fan. That's my problem."
3/15/13 (c) 2013 Rochester Business Journal. To obtain permission to reprint this article, call 585-546-8303 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
UFC®122: Open Workouts
novembre 10, 2010
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UFC 122 open workouts at the Hilton Hotel on November 10, 2010 in Dusseldorf, Germany. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
Getty Images reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this image or clip. If you violate our intellectual property you may be liable for: actual damages, loss of income, and profits you derive from the use of this image or clip, and, where appropriate, the costs of collection and/or statutory damages up to $150,000 (USD).


text:
Dental Hygienist
Oasis Dental Care have a fantastic opportunity for a part time Dental Therapist to join a well-established practice in Wells.
Working days available are: Monday 2pm-7pm, Thursday 8am-7pm, Bi-weeklyFriday 8am-5pm and Saturday 9am-1pm- please let us know how this role can work for you.
It's a fantastic time to join Oasis as wehave recently been welcomed to the BUPA group making us the largest dental provider in the UK.
Our practices pride themselves on providing clinical excellence with an exceptional level of patient care. We can offer modern working environments. You will be supported both operationally and clinically by professional team members including Registered Practice Managers, Dental Nurses and Reception Teams allowing you to focus on 100% dedication to your patients care.
If you are asking yourself the question 'why join Oasis' allow me to highlight just some of the incentives:
- Excellent Working facilities
- Most enjoy modern equipment such as digital X-rays
- Opportunities to develop your personal career
- Opportunities to relocate to other practices, with an easy transition process.
Oasis Dental Care can provide a long and fulfilling career with continued training, support and development that includes structured on-boarding programmes, corporate inductions, central support and annual company events and conferences.
If you or someone you know would be interested in working with a dynamic and expanding healthcare business we would love to hear from you! Please contact me directly for a confidential and informal discussion on 07587 132131 or to apply just forward your CV to [email protected]


text:
Germantown Friends (PA) High School has this 6'5" 235-pound LHP named Jesse Biddle. And the Astros have been at a lot of his games.
He has noticed four teams in attendance at his games most regularly: the Phillies, Angels, Yankees, and Astros:
"I think those teams are the most interested in me."
Unnamed scout:
"He's a 6-5 lefthander. He's got the size everybody is looking for. He's a very genuine and competitive kid who has tremendous poise and maturity for a player his age. When watching him pitch, it's easy to see he's a team player and is willing to do whatever it takes to help his team win."
He has hit 94 on the radar gun, and threw a no-hitter last month with a mid-70s curve.
He has signed with Oregon, but could be projected as a 2nd-4th rounder, according to the article.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Keep an eye on this Jesse Biddle
Labels: June Draft, Rumors
3 comments:
Very cool. Sounds like a target at 33 if they really do like him.
- May 12, 2010 at 6:43 PM
- Kelsey said...
Does he play any other sports? Because if he does that is exactly what Bobby Heck likes to see in pitchers (athleticism). Both Lyles and Bushue played two sports in high school. One concern would be project-ability due to the fact that he already weights 235.
- May 13, 2010 at 11:05 AM
He played basketball and made varsity as a freshman before he became an all-year round baseball player
- May 24, 2010 at 5:13 PM
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text:
2017 - 2018 Catalog
Virginia College
488 Palisades Boulevard
Birmingham, Alabama 35209-5154
Phone: (205) 802-1200
Fax: (205) 271-8225
Publication Date: October 5, 2018
Birmingham 2018-10-05
The catalog is the official announcement of the programs, requirements, and regulations of Virginia College. Students enrolling in the College are subject to the provisions stated herein. Statements regarding courses, fees, and conditions are subject to change without advance notice. The contents of this catalog are for informational purposes and are not to be considered a contract between a student and Virginia College.


text:
SALT LAKE CITY — In just one month, a recent BYU graduate has made a big splash — and a nice chunk of change — by developing an online course accessed by virtual students via a popular Internet learning platform.
Rick Walter, 25, graduated in April with a degree in information systems. Just two months later, he launched a class on Udemy.com, a marketplace for online learning.
Udemy (pronounced YOO-demee) provides a platform for experts of any kind to create courses which can be offered to the public, either at no charge or for a tuition fee, said Shannon Hughes, the company's senior marketing director.
The company offers massive open online courses — or MOOCs — aimed at open access via the Internet.
"It's a marketplace for teaching and learning," she said.
Launched in 2010, the San Francisco-based company offers more than 18,000 courses with about 10,000 instructors teaching an estimated 3 million students worldwide.
Walter, a native of Wilsonville, Oregon, said that in school he considered himself "the village idiot" and never thought he would ever be a teacher.
However, his fortunes changed when he developed an online course on Apple's new programming language, Swift. Within just three days of Apple announcing Swift, Walter had studied the 500-page programming manual and understood the content enough to develop video lectures to teach the language to others.
"Since it was brand-new, I thought nobody was an expert so I didn't have to be the smartest," he said. "But if I was the first to do it, I could probably pick up on an opportunity."
Indeed he did, when during his first month he was able to make $45,000. He posted 79 videos online regarding Swift, ranging from 20-second snippets to 11-minute, detailed monologues.
The videos were an explanation of what was written in Apple's e-book version of its Swift manual, Walter said. Approximately 5,600 people signed up for the class, he added.
"I want to be a resource for people who read the documentation and need more help (to understand it)," he explained.
Instructors who attract their own students who purchase their class earn 97 percent of the revenue, Hughes said. When Udemy brings students to the course, the revenue is split 50-50.
Walter said he was using the money to give himself the freedom to work on projects, such as developing two apps that were not yet generating regular income. Fortunately, he will receive income as long as people continue to sign up for his teachings.
For the time being, he is focused on helping others learn the basics of creating and developing new mobile applications.
"I would love to make a class for beginners that teaches them how to make simple apps," Walter said.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: JasenLee1


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Blog Archives
A beautiful video dedicated to the Internet trolls
Isabel Fay wrote this delightful little confection about Internet trolls. Chris Lince directed. Mark Roberts composed the music.
Choreography by Gavin Harrington-Odedra & Julia Cave
Dancers: Nathan Clarke, Natalie Coverley, Stephanie De Whalley, Joseph Fletcher, Alim Jayda, Chris Kayson, Lucy Mills, Lauren McGloan, Zoe Nicole, Georgina Smith, Aaron Tonks
Featuring: Misery Bear, Noel Clarke, Steve Furst, Richard Herring, Jocelyn Jee Esien, Helen Lederer, Josie Long, Dawn Porter, Tom Price, Isy Suttie


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== Sorrow Pants ==[[Image:
== Sorrow Pants ==[[Image:.jpg]]
Sorrow Pants is the love child of four different zinesters who felt the need to join forces on their mission of world domination.
Sorrow Pants is the love child of four different zinesters who felt the need to join forces on their mission of world domination.
Revision as of 11:11, 10 May 2012
Sorrow Pants is the love child of four different zinesters who felt the need to join forces on their mission of world domination.
Tina Armstrong has considered Tacoma, WA to be her writing womb since she began to write at the tender age of eleven. What started out as romantic fiction about boys she had crushes on in her neighborhood turned into poetry in her teen years, creative non-fiction in her 20's, and a mishmash of micro-fiction, prose, and all the aforementioned in her 30's.She was the creative force behind such projects as The F-Bomb, Loco Pantaloons, and Kismet Said... Her greatest passions in life include writing, zine-making, cooking and baking, and raising her brood of four unruly and amazing children. She believes that day without laughter is a wasted day. You can contact her and tell her all about your problems at firstname.lastname@example.com
Deirdree Prudence is a Los Angeles based artist, writer & zinester. She produces Gag Me With A.... (a quarterly zine in it's 6th issue), various one shots (Elliot Smith Stabbed Himself In the Heart, The Good Times Are Killing Me, Bisous Petillants, Doo-wop GIrl Groups of the '60s, Happy Holidaze, etc), is the force behind Peter Lorre Is Dead Productions & contributes art & words to other zines as much as she possibly can (Every Reason, The Filth, The F-Bomb, Dainty As Fuck, Cadillac Girl, Feminism Is Not Dead zine, amongst others). A Pisces with a penchence for everything New Wave, kitsch, '80s pop culture & retro yearbooks for sure, she speaks like a Valley Girl & dreams in black & pink cupcake-vision. (email@example.com) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gag-me-with-a/137943892936858 http://www.gagmewitha.blogspot.com/
Keith Landrum writes and makes art inside of a beer can in Chattanooga, TN with his wife and two daughters. He can generally be found moving the earth in graveyards, thrift stores, and graffiti covered alleyways. Keith's words have been published in Mad Swirl, Paraphernalia Quarterly, Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), Electric Windmill Press, and the Desperanto poetry collection "Bound By The Secrets We Trust" among others. His 'zine "Every Reason" can be found in bookstores, 'zine libraries, bars, and mental wards all over the world. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Every-Reason-Zine/130201593702612
Karley Bayer, from Baltimore (county, I mean I don't want you to think that I've got some super hardcore mentality because I live in the city where they filmed "The Wire."), is The Filth Zine Queen. She is handicapped and uses a wheelchair, so she lives a double life. She would much rather live in her short stories. She started the Filth (www.wix.com/the_filth/zine) a year and a half ago, and hopes to take it far into the future. Karley Marie has been published in numerous zines, wrote for her middle school (and college) newspaper, and wrote copy for her high school yearbook for four years. As raging Scorpio lunatic, she turned 35 last November. She could give a fuck about the American Dream, and hopes to die of a drug overdose in the street of some South American town, with no ID on her body. "She went off, and never came back." Contact her at firstname.lastname@example.com
Need an increase of derangement in your life? Find us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/SorrowPantsZine


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cd8 cells
Feb 24, 2013
Is there anything wrong if my cd8 cells are high while my cd4 count is over 1700. Or is there anything to be worried about? can you explain why??
Response from Dr. Holodniy
With HIV infection you will see the CD8 count increase as response to the infection. CD8 cells are the major cell involved with control of HIV infection.
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text:
Driving carries extra risk for them.
Teenage drivers have the highest crash risk per mile traveled, compared with drivers in other age groups. Young drivers tend to overestimate their driving abilities and underestimate the dangers on the road. Graduated driver licensing (GDL) laws reduce this risk by making sure teens gradually build up driving experience under lower-risk conditions as they mature and develop skills. That means limiting nighttime driving, restricting teen passengers and making sure teens get lots of supervised practice. Graduated licensing has reduced teen crashes 10-30 percent on average.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia have a three-stage GDL system. The United States doesn't have a national GDL law. State lawmakers decide what provisions to adopt and how to enforce them. Institute research has show that states with the strongest laws enjoy bigger reductions in teen driver deaths than states with weak laws. Some states make teens wait a little longer before they get their learner permits and full-privilege licenses. This also saves lives.
The table and maps below show licensing requirements and restrictions on intermediate license holders for every state and D.C. In many states, the law doesn't set a specific age at which restrictions are lifted. In those cases, the table reflects the lowest possible age at which someone could hold an unrestricted license, given the minimum time periods required for the learner's permit and intermediate stages. To look up a specific state's requirements, use the "By state" tab above.
Use the "Calculator" tab above to see the estimated effects of strengthening or weakening five key GDL provisions in any state or D.C. The projections are based on research showing what matters most when it comes to preventing fatal crashes and collision claims among teen drivers.
In most states, the initial license issued at this age is probationary with restrictions limiting unsupervised driving in high-risk situations (e.g., at night or with teen passengers). In some cases the minimum age is statutory; in others it is derived from the minimum learner's permit age and associated the minimum requirements.
Click on map for more detail.
©1996-2018, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute | www.iihs.org
IIHS-HLDI in the Classroom
An educational resource for students and teachers


text: On Wed, 4 Feb 2009, John Hearns wrote: > 2009/2/4 Bruno Coutinho <coutinho at dcc.ufmg.br>: >>> >> Each compute card could have a octa core processor and some memory chips. >> Like Blue Gene/P, each node card could have 16 compute cards and each card >> will be 2U high (but they will put two sideways like older Blue Genes). >> So they can pack 100 cores in a 1U space without magic! :) >> >> But cool this thing will now be easy. >> Probably they will use something like refrigerated doors (or walls). > > Special packaging? Engineering effort and expertise given to cooling a > system which would otherwise melt? > Systems cabinets arranged in rings or squares? > Seymour Cray is laughing out loud on his personal cloud of freon > vapour right now. Immersion in liquid nitrogen. Siting it in the artic ocean (where it can contribute to the plight of the polar bears by melting their ice). Recycling its waste heat to warm all of the houses in northern Chicago in the wintertime. rgb > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf > Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb at phy.duke.edu


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Chasing the Whale: Examining the ethics of free-to-play games
July 9, 2013 Page 1 of 9
This story is being highlighted as one of Gamasutra's best stories of 2013.
"I'd use birthday money, I'd eat cheaper lunches, I'd ask my wife to pay for dinner so I'd have a spare $10-$20 to spend in the store. Which does mean, I guess, that I was thinking about it even away from the game."
Chris was in his mid-20s when he began spending a few dollars here and there on Team Fortress 2. All of his friends had recently moved out of town, and his wife was now working a nighttime job, leading him to take solace in an online TF2 community.
At first he'd simply buy some TF2 "keys", use them to open some item crates, then dish some of the contents out to players online and keep the good stuff for himself. He enjoyed the social interactions that came with these giveaways, and it seemed worth it for the money he was paying.
But soon Chris discovered his first "unusual" item, marked with a purple seal. "I had this unbeatable rush of adulation and excitement," he says. "For someone who didn't get out much I was on cloud nine. And at that point things changed -- I started chasing that high."
For around six months following this discovery, Chris found himself draining his bank account until he didn't have a spare dollar to his name -- all for a selection of pixels that would hopefully be wrapped in a purple glow.
"My savings got wiped out pretty quickly -- although it should be noted that at the time I didn't have much put away to begin with," he explains. "The real trouble wasn't that it cleaned out my bank account, but that it put me in a really delicate situation. With no savings and every dollar not spent on food, shelter, or utilities going to digital hats, any unexpected expense became a really big deal."
Chris even had a few health scares along the way, and found that he couldn't afford to pay the medical bills because his savings account had been stripped for TF2 money.
"It got so bad that at one point Steam actually blocked my credit card, thinking I was some sort of account scammer, and I had to open a support ticket to tell them, 'No, that really is me spending whatever savings I have on this stupid game with fake hats.'" he says. "And like any addicted user, my social element didn't help -- most of my outside-of-work contacts were people I just played TF2 with. At work I just wanted to be uncrating things, and when I was uncrating things I just wanted to see better results."
It was when his out-of-control spending began to have an effect on his relationship with his wife, that Chris finally realized that this needed to stop.
"I've never really been addicted to anything else, so I can't say for certain whether a 'real' addiction would be stronger," he notes. "I would say that it felt akin to what I'd expect a compulsive gambling addiction would feel like -- social pressures reinforced a behavior that kept me searching for an adrenaline rush I'd never be able to recapture, even as it kept me from making progress in life."
"There were nights where I'd be up until 3 am drinking beer and playing Team Fortress and chasing those silly hats with purple text, ignoring the gambler's fallacy and swearing that if I dropped another $50 I'd be sure to win this time," he adds. "Then I'd wake up the next morning and see that I'd not only spent over a hundred dollars on digital hats, but failed my only objective by uncrating a bunch of junk."
Those were the mornings that felt the worst -- when the reality of what Chris was doing hit home the hardest. He'd feel hugely depressed and worthless, and swear to himself that he wouldn't be back again... and yet, the moment another paycheck came through, it was gone as quickly as it came.
Chris' behavior during this time is how people in the video game industry would describe a "whale"-- someone who spends large amounts on free-to-play games, and essentially makes the business model viable by balancing out the 99 percent of players who don't ever fork out a dime.
And while Chris is happy to admit that a portion of his addiction was no doubt down to his own silly mistakes, he reasons, "I have to question whether a business model built on exploiting 'whales' like me isn't somewhat to blame. Free-to-play games aren't after everyone for a few dollars -- they're after weak people in vulnerable states for hundreds, if not thousands."
Page 1 of 9


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SolidSnake wrote:Fandango is on with butter face.
skullman80 wrote:SolidSnake wrote:Fandango is on with butter face.
Ha I feel the same way about her. Her body is Her face is rough. Not that I have the option of being that picky in the first place haha.
SolidSnake wrote:I can't wait till WrestleMania 30 where Cena takes on God and Cena wins.
Spangler wrote:Judging by the way Reigns and Bray Wyatt went toe-to-toe, I wouldn't be surprised if the WWE is focusing on Reigns being the main guy to push.
I may be looking too much into that showdown, but Reigns has that look that Vince loves so much.
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text: Jersey City was named the most ethnically diverse City in the United States again in 2019. Jersey City truly represents a melting pot of nations, ethnicities, and cultural traditions. The City maintains it's celebrated reputation as America's "Golden Door," serving as a gateway for all walks of life fittingly nestled in the shadows of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Linguistic diversity also sets Jersey City apart, with 75 different languages spoken in City schools. Feel free to explore the variety of services available to meet the vast array of needs of our community.


text: On Jun 23, 2008, at 9:12 PM, Mark Hahn wrote: >> "how sure are we that a process (or thread) that allocated and >> initialized and writes to memory at a single specific memory node, >> also keeps getting scheduled at a core on that memory node?" > > numactl --cpubind=0 --membind=0 > >> It seems to me that sometimes (like every second or so) threads >> jump from 1 memory node to another. I could be wrong, >> but i certainly have that impression with the linux kernels. > > you can always tie a thread to a core. for non-bound threads, > the question is really how long the kernel should leave a runnable > thread "on" a busy cpu before running it on another (idle) cpu. > the kernel > does try to avoid this, but how hard has in the past depended on > the kernel's guess about the cache footprint of the thread and its > "natural" > timeslice (how long it typically runs before yielding.) > ______ Mark, thanks for your input. I've tried that numactl several times to no avail. It kept doing wrong. Though this is from a few years ago, last time i toyed a few days with numactl, it could have been improved by now, maybe. It is in itself a very relevant topic that Michael Kuzminsky adresses, as when a thread allocates a lot of memory, it is really relevant. Now i assume what i'm doing is on paper the ideal situation. If an AMD machine with 2 to 4 memory controllers has say 4 GB of ram, i give each process (memory - 500MB) / 4. So that is quite a tad of RAM. This ram gets nonstop hammered upon storing better ways to achieve finding the holy grail. It's writing about 150k entries a second to RAM on each core to memory controller at my AMD dual opteron dual core 2.4ghz machine (probably by most of you considered nowadays as old energy wasting junk, but well). If a cpu has say 750MB ram that means to get a loading factor alpha of 0.5 into memory (ignoring the chaining that happens a lot by the way as taking the efficiencydecrease by chaining is faster thanks to how latency to RAM works) is roughly 0.5 * 750M / (20 bytes * 0.150M/s) = 0.5 * 750 / 3 = 125 seconds A game can last for an hour or 6. So even a single switch within that 6 hours to another memory node is very bad. I tried to lock with commands each process to a different core (4 processes, 4 cores). I still saw a flip sometimes. Now of course at big clusters/supers some software support from manufacturers allows automigration of nodes and memory, with good reasons. So i guess for this type of scheduling we speak at a different level. Avoiding latency of RAM over the network by scheduling nodes closer to each other is really important. Yet within 1 node it is a different story. Suppose we've got 4 search processes P0..P3 and we have 4 cores C0..C3 I am guessing this happens, please tell me it is wrong: some OS-service gets a timeslice at C1, searchprocess P1 gets pushed backwards in the queue. C2's timeslice at memory node 1 finishes. P2 gets pushed back in FIFO queue. P1 is before P2 in the queue, so P1 runs on C2. What i want is in fact that P2 starts to run on C2 and P1 still keeps in queue ntil the service timeslice finished. Note the above is based purely on guessing based upon a 100 assumptions from something i *thought* i saw this or that; i didn't look in kernel code for it. Compared to that Perry is not paranoia at all. When getting in a further state you only consider someone paranoia when a person is paranoia with respect to future occasions; seeing some sort of ghost or bottleneck will be there as "it has to suck". RGB don't give up yet! Do your public duty and take care that Perry speaks out on those subjects, as we all have to deal with it, some more than others! Maybe tempt him post on how he deals with potential nuke builders? Best Regards, Vincent > _________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf >


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Josh Scott picked up three fouls in the first half of the Buffs' dramatic 81-74 victory over the Racers in the championship game of the Charleston Classic on Sunday night at TD Arena.
During the worst of times for Colorado's bigs, head coach Tad Boyle gritted his teeth and tried not to look down at the end of the bench where Wesley Gordon was sitting but unavailable.
Gordon, the highly coveted freshman forward from Colorado Springs, will be missed at times on the court this season after deciding to redshirt.
Not that long ago, Gordon would have been the only talented big man on campus. Being able to let the 6-8 forward develop is an amazing turn of events for a program still expected to make its first appearance in the polls today since a brief appearance seven seasons ago.
"If you look at the games we played down here there were spots where we could have used a body like Wesley, an athlete like Wesley, a shot blocker like Wesley," Boyle said. "The decision that we kind of made together, which I support 100 percent, is a long-range decision."
Gordon still made the trip to the Charleston Classic and is allowed to practice with his teammates throughout the season.
Not having to worry about the pressure of games will allow the former Sierra High School star to adjust to the academic rigors at CU and add some more muscle to his frame.
That doesn't mean it's easy for Gordon to watch Scott, Xavier Johnson and other members of Boyle's top-25 recruiting class contribute early during CU's impressive 4-0 start.
"It was pretty tough just knowing I could play," Gordon said. "In order to help the program, I decided to redshirt."
Gordon isn't alone.
Chris Jenkins, a talented but super model-skinny 6-7 freshman from Detroit, is also redshirting.
The two will be spending a lot of time together in the weight room.
"It makes us get closer because we're both going through the same thing," Gordon said. "It's going to make him stronger and quicker. He's going to be a very dangerous player because he can shoot. Now he's going to be able to get to the rim without getting off balance."
Scott, the 6-10 freshman from Lewis-Palmer High School, has said his prep rival is the better rebounder of the two right now.
Boyle said Gordon's skill set on the offensive end is under-rated.
"Josh is for sure the better scorer. I personally think Wesley is the better talent," sophomore guard Spencer Dinwiddie said. "But they're both outstanding players, and I think they're both going to be fantastic for the university.
"They bring such a new dynamic to our team with the inside presence, the shot blocking and rebounding, that we've pretty much only had in (Roberson)."
Scott, who had 13 points and six rebounds in the win over Murray State, is off to a terrific start to his CU career.
Boyle will be able to play the two big men together the next three seasons and expects Gordon to develop into a dominant player by his senior year (2016-17).
"His ceiling is as high as he wants it to be. I think he can be an All-Pac-12 player," Boyle said of Gordon. "Those type of players usually end up playing basketball for money some day. Wesley is going to be as good as he wants to be."
Gordon, who played with the Buffs' during the five-game European tour in August, wasn't surprised by CU's championship run at the Charleston Classic.
"This team was focused from the day we started," Gordon said. "I knew the way we played in the summer together because everybody complemented each other so well."
Boyle's ability to redshirt a blue chip prospect like Gordon puts CU ahead of a trend that will begin in 2016 when the NCAA's strict new eligibility standards for prospective student-athletes go into effect.
According to NCAA statistics, 43.1 percent of men's basketball players who enrolled in 2009-10 would not meet the 2016 academic standards that increase the number of core courses and grade-point average required for eligibility.
"You're going to see a lot of kids not be able to play basketball their first year and they're going to have to do what Wesley and Chris did this year," Boyle predicts. "Wesley and Chris just did it on their own. ... It says volumes about them as a young men."
Gordon said coming off the bench and playing limited minutes this season also played a factor in his decision. If Roberson leaves early for the NBA there is going to be a large void on the roster that he will be able to help fill.
"For a guy like Wesley to have that year of to adjustment, get his body developed, get his mind developed, understand our system, and then have four years going forward starting next year is huge," Boyle said. "It's not only huge for Wesley Gordon, it's huge for our program."
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text:
It's been a very tough sales year for American Honda. And it still could get worse.
Let's be clear. The problems of a U.S. sales arm and its dealer network cannot begin to compare with the horror and tragedy of the Japanese parent company and its network of Asian suppliers this year.
But American Honda's situation is hardly rosy. Short on inventory since the March earthquake/tsunami in Japan and more recent flooding in Thailand, American Honda has lost share and volume since May. Auto sales are down 5 percent in the first 11 months, and the status of being No. 4 on the U.S. sales list is gone.
A resurgent Chrysler has already blown by American Honda. Last November, it was up more than 100,000 units on Chrysler. This year, it's almost 200,000 behind.
And December could bring fresh humiliation. Hyundai-Kia is breathing down Honda's neck for the No. 5 spot.
The Korean automaker outsold its Japanese rival by 2,692 units in November and now trails Honda by just 5,000 units through 11 months, 1,042,055 to 1,037,028.
This year, Hyundai-Kia is on a roll, up 27 percent. American Honda has lost volume for seven straight months and announced this week its Thailand-caused supply woes won't be solved until next year.
Analyst Jesse Toprak of TrueCar.com notes that Hyundai-Kia traditionally closes out the sales year with a strong December.
"At this point in this race," he says, "it's advantage, Hyundai."


text:
Cameron vs Europe
Date created : Latest update :
The UK spoils for a fight over the EU's budget as pressure grows on David Cameron from within his own ranks to opt out of the EU completely. François Picard's panel engages in heated debate over whether it's all about money or political posturing.
- Graham WATSON. UK Liberal Democrat MEP (from Brussels);
- Douglas CARSWELL. Conservative MP for Clacton, UK (from London);
- Valérie RABAULT. Vice-President, National Financial Commission, French National Assembly (from Montauban, France);
- Christophe ROBEET. Europe Editor, France 24 (from Brussels).
- Melissa BELL. Foreign Affairs Editor, France 24;
- Markus KARLSSON. Business Editor, France 24;
- Yves BERTONCINI. Secretary General, Notre Europe think tank.
Produced by François Picard, Anelise Borges, Mary Colombel, Christopher Davis.


text:
Meyer Lemon Chess Pie Recipe
The humble Chess Pie gets a seasonal update with floral Meyer lemons.
Note: Make sure to use a regular, not a deep dish pie plate for this pie.
Read more: Pie of the Week: Meyer Lemon Chess Pie
- Yield:serves 8
- Active time: 20 minutes
- Total time:60 minutes plus 3 hours chilling
- Rated:
- One half recipe Easy Pie Dough, shaped and chilled in a pie plate
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups (about 10 1/2 ounces) sugar
- 1/2 cup Meyer lemon juice from about 5 Meyer lemons
- 1 tablespoon cornmeal
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 10 ounces (1 1/4 cups) heavy cream, chilled (optional)
Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer until light and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add sugar and beat another 2 minutes. Add lemon juice, cornmeal, butter, and salt and beat until well combined. Pour into prepared pie shell.
Bake pie until golden on top and a cake tester inserted into the middle of the pie comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Check pie halfway through baking: If getting too dark, cover with tinfoil for remaining time. Let cool to room temperature on a wire rack, then cover and chill in refrigerator for at least 3 hours.
When ready to serve, place heavy cream in a small bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Dollop each slice of pie with whipped cream, if desired.
This Recipe Appears InPie of the Week: Meyer Lemon Chess Pie
This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.


text:
The City Mini GT Single captures the essence of urban mobility with all-terrain capabilities and deluxe standard features.
Be sure to check out the Product Detail images that display the customizable attributes available for this stroller.
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