3. “Why are we just hearing now about these aspects of Dickey’s personality?”
Well, I’ve alluded a few times to them, first in my column on July 10, the day of the All-Star Game and then a few times these last few weeks, particularly when Dickey showed up at the Winter Meetings claiming he needed to be there to see Mets trainer Ray Ramirez. [...]
4. “What other examples do you have of Dickey being self-absorbed?”
a) When he supported the idea of pushing to charge David Wright with an error so he could get a no-hitter in Tampa Bay. The Mets never should have initiated this idea, but Dickey, who needed Wright as a teammate, could have and should have put a stop to it. You think Wright was happy about being put in the middle of this?
b) In Dickey’s book, he wrote about Mike Pelfrey injuring his shin while kicking field goals on spring training of 2011, as part of a silly bet Pelfrey had with Wright. Is this a horrible action by Dickey? No. But it’s an example of him violating teammates’ confidences to boost his own cause; it’s a funny story, but it makes Pelfrey look bad. It’s why Dickey wasn’t a particularly popular teammate.
And as for that assertion of his clubhouse popularity…yes, it comes from anonymous sources. Such is the way of the world. Dickey knows this very well. My credibility, both within the industry and among readers, derives from not making up stuff. From acting responsibly with information gathered from anonymous sources.
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Yes. And your wife's knitting circle can hit lefties better, too.
good grief.
I don't know Harv, I would have bet your average Wisconsin farmer-woman was a damn sight tougher than your average MLBer.
This is what I should have said. I even added classical voice, which as a double was kind of like a suicide mission. I got work, though, so there's that.
it sounds like the mets are both more prone to hurt feelings and bickering than a bunch of old women
yowsa
Oh, I doubt it. This is just how it's being presented to make Dickey look bad.
My only issue with the humanities, is that I always felt I could have gotten everything out of most of the courses just by reading the books. As a lifelong reader of history, I felt I would get almost nothing out of a history major. In fact, in some of the history courses I did take, the professors made factual mistakes that I caught as a 18-22 y.o., and taught me very little that I didn't glean directly from the reading.
Now, I do believe every college should have a real "Core Curriculum", covering great books/thinkers, writing, world history, etc. No one should graduate college ignorant of the basic facts of our civilzation.
A Humanities PhD is a different animal, for a bunch of different reasons.
Well, not a whole lot of building going on right now. I'd guess, longer term, that's a pretty valuable degree.
Now I feel like I have to follow in BDC's footsteps in defending history majors!
I will say that this is more or less how I felt about history until the tail-end of my undergrad. Certainly for high school, and depending on the class for the first couple years of university, I did most of my learning at home with a book rather than in the lecture theatre. But in the third or forth year classes, where it's just six or seven students and a prof far out-stripped reading for value. Obviously you still had to do the reading, but the real benefit came in the back and forth of discussion. I suppose you could do that outside of class as well (if you know a history professor and several other people really interested in discussing history), but a university class just makes everything so much more convenient. Reading is always going to be a huge part of studying history, but I'm usually not entirely comfortable or confident in my analysis until I can bandy about the ideas with a group of peers. (Which is the great thing about BTF)
EDIT: Another point in favour of snapper's position is that I've done a BA with honours, MA, and am working on a PhD in history, and there are probably only one or two very specific areas of history I'd trust myself to be more knowledgable in than the non-history educated folks here.
I will say that this is more or less how I felt about history until the tail-end of my undergrad. Certainly for high school, and depending on the class for the first couple years of university, I did most of my learning at home with a book rather than in the lecture theatre. But in the third or forth year classes, where it's just six or seven students and a prof classes far out-stripped reading for value. Obviously you still had to do the reading, but the real benefit came in the back and forth of discussion. I suppose you could do that outside of class as well (if you know a history professor and several other people really interested in discussing history), but a university class just makes everything so much more convenient. Reading is always going to be a huge part of studying history, but I'm usually not entirely comfortable or confident in my analysis until I can bandy about the ideas with a group of peers. (Which is the great thing about BTF)
Good point. My Dad is a huge history buff too, that's where I got it, so I've always had a built in discussion group :-)
Exactly, and a point I've made before.
Yes, and it stands to reason - despite the laughable claims to the contrary here.
Exactly, and a point I've made before.
Your data point of one accountant's statement on the study of the humanities is noted.
Unfortunately Ray, I'd probably say the same thing about what 90% of law degrees are used for.
Your data point of one accountant's statement on the study of the humanities is noted.
Who's the accountant?
So would I. Do people think I say things because they are self-serving?
There's nothing Magical about being a lawyer. As long as you understand how to spot the issues and apply the law to the facts, you can succeed in the practice of law (which is much more than that, but the "much more" is not taught in law schools anyway). You can learn the skills taught in law school simply by reading/briefing cases on your own.
The difference is that because of the BS licensing of lawyers, lawyers can shut those who didn't go to law school out of the market.
He thinks it's you.
You're not? I thought you were. My bad. What are you? Granting your obvious extensive intellect, I'd consider the point the same.
Or using differing time zones to great effect.
Foreigners NEVER count!
What do you want me to "explain," exactly? When I listen to him speak, he sounds dumb to me. I've said the same thing many times about Clemens and Pettitte, and nobody has risen up to act all shocked and awed at the statement.
I don't have access to Dickey's SAT scores or his college grades, so if you have them in order to support your case, feel free to bring them forth. But since liberals think intelligence can't be measured, I don't see how you want me to measure it. Do you now feel that intelligence _can_ be measured?
I think this has been posted in this very thread.
I'll accept "He sounds stupid" as a reason, sure. But don't get your "Mets fan/people are silly for thinking he's smart" crap on when you were given multiple reasons why that you simply ignored.
So do you now feel that intelligence can be measured? If so I will bookmark the thread for the next time this subject comes up in OT/politics.
This is pathetic, Ray. I mean, seriously pathetic. If you can't have a conversation, just say so. You claimed people were silly for thinking Dickey was intelligent. When told why they think so, you can't acknowledge even one word of it, so you go with THIS? This... whatever it is?
Not sure why. I don't recall you beating back your liberal friends - Treder et al. - who continually insist that intelligence can't be measured.
As for Dickey's GPA, I'll grant it's evidence that he's intelligent (for as fat of a chance it was that Mets fans knew what his GPA was). I just don't see how you think it's evidence for anything, since you think that intelligence can't be measured.
If intelligence can't be measured, as Lassus and many of his fellow liberals claim, I should be able to make any claim I want about anyone's intelligence and not be challenged.
That you think this is somehow relevant to your statements on Dickey is very sad. That you can't do any better than this when once again confronted with the fact that you are incorrect on one of your assertions (thinking Dickey is intelligent is "silly") is all I need to know here. See #98.
And then this? I don't recall you beating back your liberal friends - Treder et al. - who continually insist that intelligence can't be measured. You're going with "You didn't DENY it!" Good god.
Careful, Ray. You're now lying, which I assume you don't actually want to do.
PF, it's just interesting to me that in a real world conversation about how intelligent a specific person is, Lassus pushed back on me saying Dickey is dumb.
And that you thought thinking anything else was silly.
Until a couple months ago I had never heard Dickey speak. He has a bit more of (what I assume is) a Tennessee accent than I realized. This may or may not (I'm guessing not) have anything to do with your perception, but in my bigoted way of perceiving the world that's usually a superficial point against someone's intelligence. Of course upon heroically pushing through my bigotry he seems fairly well-spoken, especially by baseball standards.
I'm not that familiar with Dickey, so I'm curious about someone finding him unintelligent when the vast majority of observers seem to come to the opposite conclusion. I think it's a fair question in that case to ask what specifically led to this impression. As they say, intelligence is in the eye of the beholder, so who knows. If a guy just sounds dumb, fair enough. But if you're going to deride a group of people for falling for his faux-intelligence I'd have thought you'd be going on a bit more than a gut feeling.
Am I incorrect that you've claimed this? Fair enough. I withdraw the statement and apologize. I thought you were in lock step with Treder et al.
But I'm glad to learn that you think intelligence can be measured.
I think this should probably not be in a baseball thread.
Probably not, but I started with a simple comment about how Dickey seemed dumb to me, and then Lassus pushed back hard, demanding an answer, demanding an answer, demanding an answer, and then there's just no way to discuss the specific issue without discussing the broader issue. It's telling that when Treder does his "What is intelligence? Intelligence can't be measured!" mickey the dunce dance, Lassus - otherwise active in the threads - stays silent.
Agree, I was talking about Dickey. I challenged Ray on his perception of him and his judgment of Mets fans regarding the same, which I consider all baseball.
Feel free to ask Ray what he's doing.
But talking about Lassus' personal beliefs (correctly or not) is just a way to avoid answering the original question. Even if he doesn't think intelligence can be measured, you clearly do, and the question was about your statement.
I don't know the exact origins of this, as I tend to stay out of most of the feces-flinging threads where this contention bone undoubtedly sprung from, but couldn't one believe that intelligence can not be measured to any degree of specificity while also believing one could determine through some combination of anecdotal observations (how a person speaks, how he reasons) and tangible signs (degrees obtained, school performance, etc.) on a broad level the difference between a reasonably intelligent person and a mo-ron?
There's nothing Magical about being a lawyer. As long as you understand how to spot the issues and apply the law to the facts, you can succeed in the practice of law (which is much more than that, but the "much more" is not taught in law schools anyway). You can learn the skills taught in law school simply by reading/briefing cases on your own.
The difference is that because of the BS licensing of lawyers, lawyers can shut those who didn't go to law school out of the market.
Glad to see you're not. It's a rare intelligent man who'll say what they do isn't rocket science ;-)
Edit: Just for the record, I believe that an MBA (which I hold) is a glorified union card. Far less academic/intellectual rigor than any decent college.
You're not? I thought you were. My bad. What are you? Granting your obvious extensive intellect, I'd consider the point the same.
Well, economics/finance education. Worked in consulting, real estate, and insurance.
Just call me a quant, I guess.
That's a common mistake to make, one that's a little too easy to make, and it begs the issue. On the political threads it's impossible not to notice that no one--including myself--objects to, for one example, Harvey's Wallbangers views on the grounds that he's right of center. Those views are welcomed and engaged even in cases where literally no one agrees with him.
Ray is a sour soul interested in scoring points, and that's about it (though compared to Joe K. he's William Buckley). He offers very little of substance, employs all the worst rhetorical devices in order to wriggle out of the consequences of his views, and rarely bothers with anything resembling policy; his input on the meaning of government is that it's stealing his money and by god he's going to tell us the same damned thing over and over and over again. It's one thing to post that on the political
It has nothing to do with his political leanings. I'd love to have more authentic conservatives, and especially small-government conservatives on this site. Those are the guys who do the best job of forcing lefties who believe in universal health care and expanded labor rights to sharpen their arguments.
Even in good times most grads with the professional degree don't end up as practicing architects. I think the number of buildings built in the US that use an architect is well under 5%. The huge homebuilders might build ten thousand houses, fifty of which are distinct from each other. You have maybe two architects on the payroll and that's sufficient. They might oversee a dozen draftspeople to tweak things, but that's about it.
Think about the thousands of chain stores--all essentially the same. You might adjust a building to s distinct site, but that's all the original work involved in thousands of McDonald's or Burger Kings.
Houses under 3000 sf don't even need an architect to sign off on them (a good thing, since the structure is so well understood architects and engineers aren't needed for safety reason), and why burden people with the added expense?
Architecture grads do okay in other fields, but even if they find work in the field itself, in boom times, in the last decade, the first three years is essentially an apprenticeship, with an average salary of 29k. In boom times. With a masters.
The last couple I know who got married during A school... let's see, she's an assistant curator in Chicago, and he does construction. Very neatly, but construction.
They blocked my access at work so I'm a nighttimer these days. But I'm not all that usefulto society myself.
Jesus Christ, talk about a strawman. For the record, I did not participate in that discussion, but I read it and Ray is egregiously mischaracterizing the views of his opponents on this one.
No, I am not. To sum up: Intelligence can't be defined. It can't be measured, certainly not with IQ tests.
You're doing it again.
There is a difference between saying that innate "intelligence", independent of environmental factors, is not precisely measured by IQ tests, and saying that it's impossible to tell the difference between a smart person and a moron.
Dickey does have a certain cadence that I think might lead a casual observer at one glance to underrate the extent of his intellect. It's also startingly unusual for a major league baseball player to be as deep a thinker as he is. It's like watching a dog play the piano.
Many of the smartest beat guys and columnists were captivated by Dickey. Teammates didn't quite as, well, metaphysical, to say the least.
"If I would have went back to school."
"I shooked his hand."
When I was at MIT, I knew people from the South and the West. They spoke with drawls or accents, whatever you want to call it, and I would put their raw intellect up against anyone on this board.
Ma nishtana halaila hazeh mikol haleilot?
He used to be a poster. Now, he is merely a piece of performance art
Holy crap, you just can't stop topping yourself.
So is this proper English?
"If I would have went back to school."
"I shooked his hand."
?
Something Other, at least Lassus has better things to do than to follow me around constantly lobbing personal attacks at me; unfortunately, we can't say the same for you and Srul.
Why thank you kind sir!
Begone, you lusterless gnome.
This place is fairly heterodox when it comes to politics, though the mix is a touch unusual with the main clusters being more or less squishy Obama type liberals on the center-left and Randroid style glibertarians on the far right. It's only on baseball subjects that it resembles a Stalinist groupuscle.
That's ok. In my bigoted way of perceiving the world, a northeastern accent is a profound point against someone's manners and a superficial point against their decency. Yay for our tribalist society.
I never pictured you as the brass rat type.
Could be a problem, though, when Dickey runs for president in 2024: "Dickey? Isn't he Canadian?"
As a product of backwoods Arkansas, every now & then I find myself lapsing into sheer rusticity in casual speech -- double negatives, use of "ain't," constructions like "everhow" & "everwho," the works. It makes me sound less than learned, obviously, matters of accent aside.
Even so, if I didn't think I was at least as intelligent as you, rest assured that I'd beg someone to kill me.
My college degree (whatever it was, can't remember) led directly to my awesome job of making love to sexy women and eating chocolate sundaes all day, for eleventy kajillion dollars an hour. Your degree, OTOH, only qualifies you to shovel sh!t at five cents per annum...if you can get a job, since people with your degree have an unemployment rate of 187% (seasonally adjusted). My degree proves I'm teh totally coolest guy in all of explored space, while yours proves just how much you suck. At. Life.
Carry on.
"If I would have went back to school."
"I shooked his hand."
My Goodness No Al. Here is how you say it proper like. "If I'd a never dropt out" and "His hand was shooken by me." Al I got a C Minus in English Grammer at Ivy Tech Kokomo and I'd of never wrote much on the Inner Net without my Traneing.
Where... did someone do this?
Too close to home!
Christmas in unruined!
(Or I guess that should be, given the context, "unrurnt" ...)
Where... did someone do this?
Isn't that what Ray was doing when he sniffed at an English Literature degree as if were a bad onion? (Remember, kids...if your job doesn't involve suing people, you suck!)
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