Statistical Pornography, I Mean Baseball

When the Angels signed Albert Pujols, it was like the perfect bonding of two things, our love for Angels baseball, and the best statistical pornography the league has to offer, Pujols.

Every baseball fan, everywhere, has been tracking Pujols like a giant two seam comet....we open the sports section anywhere in the country and his name is on the page, no matter how small the section...he is the anomaly, and we live for that...we live for someone that chips away at the very frontier of stats, every fan does, it transcends.

Do you remember where you were when McGuire hit 62...I worked at a restaurant bussing tables in college, every McGuire at bat would cause a news breakthrough on the tv's in the bar... the nation watched every at bat until the record fell... we live for numbers, records.

Barry Bonds......he sold his statistical soul to the devil, and got an asterisks inserted into his hall of fame. We watched in horror and fascination as he flew ever higher with his waxy wings of roid, melting in the backseat of history like an analgesic suppository...the collective upholstery of MLB statistics ever stained.

Still I have to admit, it was quite a show. I got off on it actually, I was living in SF, I was experimenting with numbers, the local tv coverage showed every at bat, if it was a strike, it was gone, period. It was amazing, and unreal...the numbers involved... I was addicted to the juice too...I watched like a statistical voyeur...damn these numbers...(hands being washed, scrubbing) It was like crack, another homerun...

It seems like mOre and m0re the math is creeping int+0 it...the game...life..

So we find new ways to quantify every element, new stats, new math, new systems of calculating the worth, even the potential, the heart, the skill, the merit, the hustle, the joy, every player brings. The math becomes the judge... did you see how many errors he had, not many....but his bobble factor is off the chart...look... he double clutches above replacement on his chew spitting... shoot this changes things...

But why stop there, when we can bring every baseball decision down to an algorithm, when will the day come... when will the day come when we let a computer manager a team for a season....like Big Blue playing chess... The Robot Manager.... i'd say the chances are good we will see that... run the math...it sells = $

So back to Pujols... it sells...wherever it goes... our team won't sneak into town and slip away with two out of three in front of thin crowds, we are going into a decade with more noise, more attention..more math...more heads turned towards the Angels series, box score, clips, the spice...the stats...

Pujols is a player that the baseball collective consciousness watches, we watch as he climbs Stat Mountain. To me, Arte picked up the deal of the century, because what kind of a baseball conversation do you really want to have in life, is the greatest player of our time, on my favorite team going to break records and win championships?

Each year is a siege on math...10 years.... those were the terms of being a contender, like putting a man on the moon, laying down the gauntlet, yes will take then entire Pujols career window, put it on credit, deferred with no interest please, thanks. And as we watch our rivals, the Russians, I mean, the Rangers... and their sputnik of a season... we can feel some degree of comfort knowing....our eagle is capable of landing, we've actually been all the way. To the Moon.... to the moon with this rag tag pack of numbers.