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Friday, January 18, 2008

Jaffe: An Open Letter to Paul White (Apparently Not the USA Today Reporter)

We all remember…“Dear Mr. Jaffe, Kiss My Ass. Regards, Everyone Whose Intelligence You Just Insulted”.....well, Jay’s lip savvy smooch follows.

If you feel that I’ve somehow crossed the Mendoza Line of decorum in making my point, well, I’ll leave it to the public to decide which of us has been more indecorous, me with the occasional stridency of my arguments (a charge to which I’ve already copped), or you with your ad hominem attacks and gratuitous, juvenile references to the size and/or location of your targets’ testicles (which you mention three times). Nonetheless, I wish to thank you for the kind words, the superlative (“the most condescending remark I’ve ever seen on the subject”), and the open-letter suggestion on behalf of “everyone whose intelligence you just insulted”—an angry mob that apparently doubles as a silent majority, judging by the dearth of emails I receive to that effect—that I should be engaging in some ass-kissing. I’ll be sure to put all of that in my scrapbook or on my to-do list as merited.

In closing, I’m well aware that there are millions of baseball fans and hundreds of voters out there who have never heard of me and who get along just fine without my efforts to shine a bit of light into this particular corner of the baseball world. Yet to hear you tell it I’ve practically enslaved the guardians of Cooperstown in an effort to prevent the necessary supermajority from electing Jim Rice. In fact, the concerted efforts on the part of myself and the aforementioned nefarious conspirators have been so successful that Rice garnered 46 more votes than in 2007, and 116 more than when my system debuted at BP in 2004. Clearly, you have pinpointed the reason why my ego is so huge.

I just wish you weren’t so obsessed with my balls.

Sincerely,

Jay Jaffe

Repoz Posted: January 18, 2008 at 09:45 PM | 24 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
  Tags: hall of fame, history, red sox, sabermetrics

Reader Comments and Retorts

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   1. North Side Chicago Expatriate Giants Fan Posted: January 18, 2008 at 10:08 PM (#2671441)
White is never going to understand Jaffe's post.
   2. Infinite Yost (Voxter) Posted: January 18, 2008 at 10:26 PM (#2671456)
I'm sure lots of people are obsessed with Jay Jaffe's balls.
   3. Famous Original Joe C Posted: January 18, 2008 at 10:32 PM (#2671464)
I'm sure lots of people are obsessed with Jay Jaffe's balls.

They're breathtaking.

What?
   4. dingo powered war machine (CoB) Posted: January 18, 2008 at 10:35 PM (#2671467)
there really is nothing like a shorn scrotum ...
   5. flournoy Posted: January 18, 2008 at 10:42 PM (#2671477)
I'd hope not.
   6. salvomania Posted: January 18, 2008 at 11:47 PM (#2671527)
Without getting into the details of the argument either way, I think White's point about the arrogance and condescension in a lot of the "stathead" commentaries is spot on.
   7. Guapo Posted: January 19, 2008 at 12:14 AM (#2671547)
There's a lot of arrogance and condescension from the "If you had ever watched a game and left your mama's basement you would understand why Jim Rice is a Hall-of-Famer" crowd too.
   8. Vaux, A.B.D. Posted: January 19, 2008 at 12:30 AM (#2671556)
Quite a bit more, because the former crowd actually has reasoning, explains its reasoning, and makes sense in doing so. It also argues politely.
   9. robneyer Posted: January 19, 2008 at 01:04 AM (#2671568)
I'm ready to approximately cut Everyman some slack after his latest post:

http://theeverymanblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/lets-try-this-again/

He actually comes across as a friendly, reasonable fellow. Everyman.
   10. ValueArb Posted: January 19, 2008 at 01:44 AM (#2671580)
There is little that is arrogant or condescending in Jaffe's reply to "everyman's" insults
   11. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: January 19, 2008 at 02:44 AM (#2671598)
I'm still trying to understand what nefarious schemes and machinations these rapscallions Rob and Jay created to derail Jim Rice's candidacy.
   12. salvomania Posted: January 19, 2008 at 03:19 AM (#2671614)
There's a lot of arrogance and condescension from the "If you had ever watched a game and left your mama's basement you would understand why Jim Rice is a Hall-of-Famer" crowd too.

Just cause CHB and Conlin are ########## doesn't mean that their "opposition" has to employ the same tactics, especially towards those who are taking pains to be earnest, or even towards the general populace who may not have staked out a side but who are instantly turned off by arrogance and condescension and thus unable to parse whatever embedded logic may be present.

Unless you're in favor of suspension of habeus corpus and torture. In which case, you go, man, go.
   13. salvomania Posted: January 19, 2008 at 03:21 AM (#2671615)
What, you can't say #########? A receptacle for holding the fragrant contents with which one irrigates and cleanses their vaginal canal and adjacent pudenda?
   14. StHendu Posted: January 19, 2008 at 03:54 AM (#2671629)
I also have received nasty insults from this 'everyman' when I favorably compared a player to Jim Rice. He may actually take it as a personal insult if one doesn't believe Rice belongs in the Hall, regardless of the evidence, and lashes out. I do not know why the Hall gets some people so worked up.
   15. scareduck Posted: January 19, 2008 at 05:39 AM (#2671651)
Hell hath no fury like a scrotum shorn. Or something like that.
   16. Devin has a deep burning passion for fuzzy socks Posted: January 19, 2008 at 05:55 AM (#2671655)
I just wanted to post this in a Rice-related thread. From Baseball's Even Greater Insults:

Two Close Observers Tell What It Was Like to Be Around Jim Rice Towards the End of His Career

"A bloated Brando/Elvis who could do nothing but sit in a corner of the dugout or clubhouse and snarl."
[See Below], Boston Sportswriter

"Team unity never existed from what I saw around the Sox clubhouse. Much of this problem results from the many years of the Jim Rice reign of the clubhouse. Rice is an evil, envious, jealous person. You can see it in his eyes, all you have to do is walk past him, and you can tell he is thinking nasty thoughts, and if you look back when you pass him, you see him whispering things behind your back to one of his allies. Rice's locker mate in 1986 was Don Baylor, and it didn't take Baylor long to figure out what kind of guy Rice was, because by the end of the season, it was obvious the two didn't care for each other. Rice was so hateful of Baylor."
Longtime Red Sox employee, as quoted by [See Below]

So who was the source of these vicious character attacks? Oh, come on, you've already guessed. CHB himself, Dan Shaugnessy. Now, I haven't been reading his columns, so I don't know how he's finessing this point when arguing for Rice. But I just found this an amusing turn of opinion.
   17. Jolly Old St. Neck Wound, Moral Idiot Posted: January 19, 2008 at 02:47 PM (#2671707)
Reaching base via forceouts. You could theoretically go 0 for 31 and score 31 runs.
   18. StHendu Posted: January 19, 2008 at 03:18 PM (#2671716)
Or errors. A quick box score count shows 8 errors by the Angels in that series.
   19. The importance of being Ernest Riles Posted: January 19, 2008 at 05:42 PM (#2671810)
Hell hath no fury like a scrotum shorn. Or something like that.

Michael Lewis agrees with you.
   20. McCoy Posted: January 19, 2008 at 05:49 PM (#2671813)
Rice scored via one ROE and one FC plus his 5 hits and 1 walk.

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