appleshampoo (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} appleshampooid) wrote,@ 2008-11-07 18:00:00 |
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The power of teh intarwebs (help me help a blogging friend)
One of the websites I read daily is USS Mariner, a great blog about the Mariners. One of the authors, Dave Cameron, wrote a blog post last year entitled An Open Letter To Rafael Chaves (Rafael Chaves was the Mariners' pitching coach at the time). The text of the blog regarded the pitch selection of Mariners starting pitcher and ace/phenom Felix Hernandez, how he threw too many predictable fastballs early in the game, and how that lead to opponents getting a lot of hits. The blog post itself might be pretty boring to non-Mariner fans or non-baseball fans, but the result of the post was epic.
An unnamed fan in the stands handed a printed copy of the letter to Raffy Chaves, who gave it to Felix. In an interview with Geoff Baker (Seattle Times Mariners reporter), Felix acknowledged that reading the report actually influenced his pitch selection (in a game in which he gave up 2 hits over 8 innings). You can read about the aftermath in Baker's blog entry and USS Mariners' follow-up.
The upshot is that the author of the post, currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in Economics, was nominated for a $10,000 Blogging Scholarship. You can vote for him here (Dave Cameron), which is what I'm about to do, and is what I'm encouraging you to do, if you find this story amazing.
This was the first time I had ever heard of anything remotely close to this happening. That a couple of fans, with no official connection to the club, could have this kind of influence and visibility to an MLB coach and player...unbelievable. In addition, Dave puts up quality work on USS Mariner on a weekly basis about Sabermetrics, the importance of defense in the major leagues and how it is underrated by pretty much everyone, how evaluating pitching by ERA is STUPID, how smart managers build good teams on the cheap, etc. I highly recommend it if you are a Mariners fan or a baseball geek in general.
I was given much more that $10K in scholarship money and gift aid in my years at Rose-Hulman, so I hope this amazing event can help out Dave with his college tuition.
One of the websites I read daily is USS Mariner, a great blog about the Mariners. One of the authors, Dave Cameron, wrote a blog post last year entitled An Open Letter To Rafael Chaves (Rafael Chaves was the Mariners' pitching coach at the time). The text of the blog regarded the pitch selection of Mariners starting pitcher and ace/phenom Felix Hernandez, how he threw too many predictable fastballs early in the game, and how that lead to opponents getting a lot of hits. The blog post itself might be pretty boring to non-Mariner fans or non-baseball fans, but the result of the post was epic.
An unnamed fan in the stands handed a printed copy of the letter to Raffy Chaves, who gave it to Felix. In an interview with Geoff Baker (Seattle Times Mariners reporter), Felix acknowledged that reading the report actually influenced his pitch selection (in a game in which he gave up 2 hits over 8 innings). You can read about the aftermath in Baker's blog entry and USS Mariners' follow-up.
The upshot is that the author of the post, currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in Economics, was nominated for a $10,000 Blogging Scholarship. You can vote for him here (Dave Cameron), which is what I'm about to do, and is what I'm encouraging you to do, if you find this story amazing.
This was the first time I had ever heard of anything remotely close to this happening. That a couple of fans, with no official connection to the club, could have this kind of influence and visibility to an MLB coach and player...unbelievable. In addition, Dave puts up quality work on USS Mariner on a weekly basis about Sabermetrics, the importance of defense in the major leagues and how it is underrated by pretty much everyone, how evaluating pitching by ERA is STUPID, how smart managers build good teams on the cheap, etc. I highly recommend it if you are a Mariners fan or a baseball geek in general.
I was given much more that $10K in scholarship money and gift aid in my years at Rose-Hulman, so I hope this amazing event can help out Dave with his college tuition.
