South Capitol Street

Endgame.

There are five candidates in the race, but let’s face it: As far as most readers are concerned, this is a contest between Steele and Not Steele. After three rounds of balloting, with 85 votes needed to win, the ice beneath his feet has already begun to crack. He pulled 44 votes in the first […]

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With the announcement that the Philadelphia Phillies had signed Cliff Lee late Monday night, the baseball world began to contemplate whether a starting rotation consisting of Lee, Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt was perhaps the greatest in the history of the game.

When most of us think about the best pitching rotations, we tend to point to the Oakland A’s of 2001-2003, the Atlanta Braves of the 1990s, the New York Mets of the 1970s, the Los Angeles Dodgers of the 1960s, the Cleveland Indians of the 1950s, or maybe the 1971 Baltimore Orioles if you’re into wins.

In the Greatest Starting Rotations of All-Time, Andrew Johnson of Fanhouse writes, “Only 25 pitching staffs since 1901 have ever boasted four or more pitchers who qualified for the ERA title with an ERA+ equal to or greater than 120, according to Baseball-Reference.com.” He highlights six rotations and includes a link to his Play Index findings.

At the Baseball Reference blog, Steve Lombardi ups the ante a bit, creating a post on teams with four starting pitchers with at least 30 GS and ERA+ of 130 or above. It’s happened just once: the 1997 Atlanta Braves with Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Denny Neagle, and John Smoltz. He includes a link to his Play Index results as well.

Dave Cameron of Fangraphs uses Wins Above Replacement (WAR) totals for the past three years to determine where the Phillies Big Four stacks up in Best. Rotation. Ever? Halladay (21.5) ranks No. 1, Lee (20.9) No. 2, Hamels (11.9) No. 16, and Oswalt (11.2) No. 21 for a cumulative total of 65.5. The 1993 to 1995 and 1996 to 1998 Braves featuring Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, and Steve Avery/Neagle totaled 56 and 66.8, respectively. Maddux’s three-year totals exceeded Halladay’s, Smoltz’s ’96-’98 run fell just shy of Lee’s, Glavine’s ’93-’95 is slightly worse than and his ’96-’98 is superior to Hamels’, and the fourth starter of Avery or Neagle is worse than Oswalt’s totals.

With respect to Avery and Neagle, Cameron adds, “That was part of what made that Braves run so spectacular. They kept swapping out guys behind The Big Three and getting high-level performances even with all the changes. There were times where they got equivalent production to what we might expect from Philly’s rotation in 2011, but they never had four guys who had established themselves at this level going into a season.”

In conclusion, Cameron says:

If there’s a four-man rotation that has ever looked this dominant heading into a new year, I can’t find it. It is almost certainly in the discussion for the greatest four-man rotation of all time.

Taking a slightly different approach, my brother Tom forwarded to me the following table from Baseball-Reference’s Play Index. It is a list of all the teams with four starting pitchers in the rotation generating at least four WAR while qualifying for the league ERA title. Seven teams made the cut, including the Braves in 1991 (without Maddux) and 1997. Aside from those Atlanta staffs and the 1967 Cincinnati Reds, you have to go back almost 100 years to find a 4×4 rotation.

Note: Pitching WAR differs between Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference in that the former uses Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and the latter uses Sean Smith’s defense-adjusted Run Average.

Wanting to drill down deeper to look at the individual and cumulative totals produced the next table.

There are several interesting observations:

1. The 1912 Pittsburgh Pirates had four pitchers with at least four WAR but none with five. A very solid 1-4 but no real ace.

2. The 1909 Philadelphia A’s had four pitchers with at least four WAR but none with more than five. These four starters, including Hall of Famers Chief Bender and Eddie Plank, had ERAs of 1.76 or below. It wasn’t known as the Deadball Era for nothing. The league average ERA was 2.47. The league-wide run average was 3.44. Lots of errors back then. Despite the smaller gloves, the official scorekeepers held the fielders to a high standard.

3. The other five staffs all had at least one starter with a WAR of six or more. Of those five, two had three pitchers with at least five WAR.

4. The Braves, in a couple of different renditions, had the best starting four as measured by B-R WAR since the early part of the last century.

5. Led by Joe Wood, the 1912 Boston Red Sox had the most productive staff among those teams with 4×4 since 1900. With 9.6 WAR, Wood had the highest single-season total among all the pitchers on this list. Furthermore, the Red Sox had the highest four-man, single-season cumulative WAR at 24.1.

How does the Phillies staff compare to these all-time great rotations? Last year, the foursome produced 21 WAR (although not on the same team). Halladay had 6.9, Oswalt 5.1, Hamels 4.7, and Lee 4.3. Oswalt split his WAR among the Houston Astros (2.3) and the Phillies (2.8) while Lee split his among the Seattle Mariners (2.6) and Texas Rangers (1.7).

If these Philadelphia starters can repeat their 2010 performance, the Phillies could surpass the Braves and become the greatest four-man rotation since Smoky Joe and the 1912 Red Sox, at least as measured by Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement.

Baseball Analysts

Can Your Car Run On Four Loko?
What’s Going On At Uproxx

Ramik Wilson had 92 tackles and 18 sacks for Tampa's Jefferson High last fall but also started at tight end and handled kickoffs and punts for the 3A champs. (Photo from TBO.com)

Ramik Wilson, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound linebacker from Tampa, Fla.’s, Jefferson High School, committed to the Georgia Bulldogs  while on an official visit in Athens on Sunday.

“I just liked it all,” said Wilson, back home in Tampa Sunday night. “The coaches, Coach [Todd] Grantham and Coach [Mark] Richt, being around those players. It’s a good enviroment, they’ve got a good recruiting class and are building a good defense. I want to be a part of turning the program back around.”

After going more than four months without a commitment, Wilson represents Georgia’s third pledge in four days. The Bulldogs got commitments from Lee County wide receiver Sanford Seay on Thursday and from Grady cornerback Damian Swann on Saturday. They are now up to 18 commitments for the Class of 2011.

Wilson said he hung out …

AJC College Sports Recruiting

Fox News

Matt Hasselbeck throws four TDs as Seahawks stun Saints ESPN Were you at the game? Did you attend another game recently? Check in with ESPN Passport for iPhone, or check in online to archive your memories, photos, and your personal win-loss record. SEATTLE, WA – JANUARY 08: Quarterback Drew Brees #9 of the New … Seahawks impress, but Saints fail — notably on fateful runCBSSports.com Drew Brees, Saints revert to old road woes in loss to SeahawksUSA Today Pete power: Carroll coaxes Seahawks to soar beyond limitationsSportingNews.com Reuters –Seattle Times –FanHouse all 2,027 news articles »

Sports – Google News

One priest told The Weekend Australian that “the nation’s Islamic leaders need to speak out against the threats.”

Indeed. They’re really slipping if they haven’t even come out yet with the usual sound bytes against “terrorism” and the assurances that Islam is “peaceful.” Perhaps they have by now, or eventually they probably will.

And that’s all they’ll do, continuing with the pattern of half-measures for public consumption that characterize Muslim groups’ responses to crimes committed in acts of jihad: just enough to take the pressure off until the next crisis, when the same response will appear once again. If things get at all uncomfortable, they’ll shift the focus to playing up fears of “backlash,” casting themselves as equal victims of whatever act of jihad has transpired, and accusing those who still pursue the matter of Islam’s role of being hateful, racist, xenophobic, and so forth.

We know how vigorously Islamic scriptures and tradition have denounced heresy and innovation of any kind, but the persecution of non-Muslims — always publicly passed off as “un-Islamic” — curiously escapes that level of outrage.

That, of course, is reserved for cartoons and Christian women in Pakistan. “Terrorism threats against Coptic churches,” from the AAP, January 8 (thanks to James):

Four Coptic churches in Sydney have been threatened by an international terrorist group.

The threats have struck fear into the Australian Orthodox community and prompted police bomb-squad searches of religious sites.

The Weekend Australian says it understands the four churches were among a list of more than 60 Coptic Orthodox churches worldwide that were targeted by the unnamed Islamic extremist group.

NSW police contacted Coptic church leaders in Sydney to warn them of the threats, which came ahead of Coptic Christmas celebrations on Friday.

The threats follow an attack that killed 21 people in a New Year’s Eve bomb blast at a Coptic church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria.

Police officers from the dog and bomb squads searched the four Sydney churches on Thursday night before the popular Christmas Eve services that can attract hundreds of people.

Father Gabriel Yassa, of Archangel & St Bishoy Church, at Mt Druitt, in Sydney’s west – one of the targeted churches – told The Weekend Australian the nation’s Islamic leaders need to speak out against the threats.

The other three churches on the hit list are St Mary & Merkorious at Rhodes in Sydney’s west; St Demiana & St Athanasius at Punchbowl in the city’s southwest; and St Mark Coptic Church at Arncliffe in Sydney’s inner south.

It was not known why these four churches were targeted as there are 17 Coptic parishes in Sydney.

Jihad Watch

Unity. Plus: CBO says repeal would save $ 540 billion in spending.

This wasn’t the vote on the final bill (that comes Wednesday), merely the vote to proceed to consideration of it, but it’s still significant as a barometer of how many Dems might be willing to defect next week. Result: 236-181, with just four Blue Dogs joining Republicans in the majority. How can that be, you […]

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Washington Post

Preds halt losing spell against Kings, hike win-streak to four AHN | All Headline News Patric Hornqvist scored for the fourth straight game, pacing the Predators with two goals in Nashville's 5-2 dismantling of the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center Thursday night. The Predators stretched their winning streak to four. … Kings continue to sink at home with 5-2 loss to PredatorsLos Angeles Times Kings Hunted by Preds 5-2LAist Predators extend winning streakThe Tennessean Washington Post –CBSSports.com –NHL.com all 239 news articles »

Sports – Google News

It was a whirlwind 24 hours in New York City on the eve of the blizzard that brought the Big Apple to a screeching halt the day after Christmas: Decamping from the mountain retreat to a friend’s walk-up in Chelsea, a long stroll around the Lower East Side in the pre-snowpocalypse wind and cold, a dinner to die for at a French bistro in the West Village, and a cab ride up Broadway through the canyon of brilliantly lit neon and huge-screen advertising to 51st street and the Iridium, the venerable jazz club made famous by the late great electric guitar innovator /wiki/Les_Paul”>Les Paul, who played there weekly practically forever.

Before I get to the main event, a few words about the Big Apple at Christmastime: It just keeps getting better and better.

As the 1990s dawned, the city was adrift in a sea of trash and crime, but in the next few years the trash was exorcised and crime dramatically reduced. All the world began flocking to Manhattan and its nonpareil attractions, and on our Christmas visit and a two-day return engagement after the city had begun to dig out, sidewalks everywhere were thronged with visitors from England, France, Russia, Japan, China and a myriad of other lands. The locals were welcoming, seldom was heard a discouraging word, and everyone seemed to be having a really good time.

There are tribute bands and there are tribute bands. Then there is Mike Stern’s Four Generations of Miles quartet with Sonny Fortune on alto sax, Buster Williams on double bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.

Stern played with Miles Davis in the 1980s, while Fortune, Williams and Cobb were sidemen with the jazz trumpet legend in the 1950s. This included Cobbs’ appearance on Kind of Blue, considered by many to be the quintessential jazz record. The four have an extraordinary 200 years of playing experience between them, and at 57 Stern is the baby and 81 Cobb is the father figure of the group.

The Iridium was packed to the rafters, a jazz-loving couple from the former Soviet republic of Georgia on one side of us and a group of Japanese more interested in text messaging on the other.

The quartet kicked things off with an up-tempo “There Is No Greater Love,” then slowed things down with “I Love You.” Next came the evening’s high spot (for me), a worshipful “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” with Stern, Williams and Cobb trading interpretive riffs on the melody of the Davis-covered Charles Mingus classic, followed by “Blue in Green,” “Freddie Freeloader,” “Oleo” and concluding with “Straight, No Chaser.”

Stern, who is the half brother of actress Kyra Sedgwick, made his nut playing hard bop and fusion in Davis’s mid-1980s comeback band, but his demeanor this evening was more relaxed in keeping with the music and his blues-based solos had an organ-like sound. He kept it simple, and his rhythm playing when Fortune soloed was incredibly tasty.

At age 70, Fortune still has chops and then some. While it would be easy to say that he dominated the band with blowing reminiscent of John Coltrane, his raw power just made it seem that way. Williams, whom I had never heard live, was a revelation with his warm sound, while Cobb was rock steady. His solos, if anything, were much too short.

This is the third year that the quartet or versions of it has played at the Iridium during Christmas week. You can be sure that we’ll be there next year. If you love jazz, then you should be too.

The Moderate Voice

Well, that didn't take long.

AP reporters Calvin Woodward and Andrew Taylor answered the bell and came out swinging at the Republican House within hours after John Boehner was sworn in as Speaker, accusing the GOP of supposedly breaking a number of core promises.

As usual when the wire service covers Republicans, there's no shortage of inconsistency bordering on hypocrisy coming from AP's alleged journalists.

Here are selected paragraphs from this morning's report ("PROMISES, PROMISES: GOP drops some out of the gate"):

read more

NewsBusters.org blogs

Well, that didn't take long.

AP reporters Calvin Woodward and Andrew Taylor answered the bell and came out swinging at the Republican House within hours after John Boehner was sworn in as Speaker, accusing the GOP of supposedly breaking a number of core promises.

As usual when the wire service covers Republicans, there's no shortage of inconsistency bordering on hypocrisy coming from AP's alleged journalists.

Here are selected paragraphs from this morning's report ("PROMISES, PROMISES: GOP drops some out of the gate"):

read more

NewsBusters.org – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

There are four myths about the filibuster that you will hear over and over again. These myths are needed to justify any attempt to change the Senate’s rules with a simple majority vote. This is a power grab, pure and simple.

The fact of the matter is that the explicit words of the Constitution, the Senate’s written rules, and the history of the Senate show that the filibuster was created for good reason. Extended debate and unlimited amendment is part of the fabric of the institution.

Myth #1: The filibuster is unconstitutional.

The Constitution empowers the House and Senate to establish rules of procedure. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution states that “each house may determine the rule of its proceedings.” This provision in the Constitution empowers the Senate to make rules governing debate. The Senate in 1917 established the cloture rule requiring a two-thirds vote of all Senators present to shut down debate. Senate Rule 22 today states that “invoking cloture on a proposal to amend the Senate’s standing rules requires the support of two-thirds of the Senators present and voting.” The clear letter of the Senate’s rules mandate a supermajority vote to shut down debate on any change to the Senate’s rules.

Myth #2: The filibuster was created by accident.

On numerous occasions, the early Senate rejected rules changes that would have limited debate. According to John Quincy Adams’s memoir, Vice President Aaron Burr advised the Senate in 1806 that the rule was not necessary for the Senate. The Senate nonetheless adopted the rule after a discussion of the issue by the Vice President. The opponents of the filibuster would like to characterize this as an oversight by the Senate, yet future attempts to eliminate the filibuster were resisted by Senators. According do Senator Robert C. Byrd’s The Senate, 1789–1989, “Henry Clay, in 1841, proposed the introduction of the ‘previous question’ but abandoned the idea in the face of opposition.” Byrd also wrote that “when Senator Stephen Douglas proposed permitting the use of the ‘previous question’ in 1850, the idea encountered substantial opposition and was dropped.” According to Byrd, “An effort to reinstitute the ‘previous question,’ on March 19, 1873, failed by a vote of 25–30.” Byrd cited the following: “Between 1884 and 1890, fifteen different resolutions were offered to amend the rules regarding limitations of debate, all of which failed of adoption.” It is clear from the early history of the Senate that the filibuster was not merely an accident of history; it was a design by early Senators. Senators had numerous opportunities to change the rule. They did not.

Myth #3: The Senate is not a continuing body.

The Senate’s rules memorialize the fact that the Senate is a continuing body. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson’s (D–TX) compromise proposal in 1959 memorialized the idea that the Senate is a continuing body. Rule XXII was amended to reduce the required vote for cloture to “two-thirds of the Senators present and voting,” and, in order to assuage the worries of Senators who opposed the constitutional option, a new clause would be added to the Senate Standing Rules: “The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules.” The Senate’s rules confirm that the Senate is a continuing body and that it takes a two-thirds vote to shut off debate on a rules change. A strong case can be made that the actions of liberals in the Senate to do away with the filibuster are unconstitutional.

Myth #4: The Senate can change rules only on the first day of the new session by a simple majority vote

The Senate can change rules with a simple majority vote but only after shutting debate down on a rules change by a two-thirds vote. As the Senate Web site explains: “To foster values such as deliberation, reflection, continuity, and stability in the Senate, the framers made several important decisions. First, they set the senatorial term of office at six years even though the duration of a Congress is two years. The Senate, in brief, was to be a ‘continuing body’ with one-third of its membership up for election at any one time.” Senator Leverett Saltonstall (R–MA) argued in 1957 that “there never is a new Senate; there is merely a change in one third-of its members.” The Senate’s Rule 5 states, “The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules.” The left claims that new rules are not adopted until the Senate operates under new rules. This claim is simply not true, because the Senate is a continuing body.

A Simple Power Grab

We are going to hear many convoluted arguments to justify the extraordinary actions of Senators to change the filibuster rule with a simple majority vote. But don’t buy it. This is a power grab, because the act ignores the constitutionally authorized strict rules of the Senate.

The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

61 percent of French and 67 percent of Germans see Muslims as refusing to integrate. 18 percent of those in France and 15 percent in Germany blamed the Muslims’ lack of integration on “racism and lack of openness by certain French and German people.” But even though that is only a minority of respondents, that is the interpretation that the mainstream media will retail: that these results demonstrate a wave of “Islamophobia” that has nothing to do with the threats, arrogance, and supremacism of the Muslims among them, and everything to do with the alleged racism and xenophobia of French and German people.

“Muslims seen as threat by 4 in 10 French, Germans,” from AFP, January 4 (thanks to Islam in Europe):

Four in 10 French and German people see Muslims living in their country as a “threat,” according to a poll published Tuesday by French newspaper Le Monde.

Forty-two percent of French people and 40 percent of Germans questioned by pollster IFOP said they considered the presence of a Muslim community in their country “a threat” to their national identity, Le Monde said.

The findings of the study “go beyond linking immigration with security or immigration with unemployment, to linking Islam with a threat to identity,” said Jerome Fourquet of IFOP, quoted by Le Monde.

Of the sample of people questioned for the survey in early December, 68 percent in France and 75 percent in Germany said they considered Muslims “not well integrated in society.”

Out of these, 61 percent of French and 67 percent of Germans blamed this perceived failure on “refusal” by Muslims to integrate.

Eighteen percent of those who said Muslims were not integrated in France and 15 percent in Germany blamed it on “racism and lack of openness by certain French and German people.”…

Jihad Watch

Actually, it was Islamic jihadists again, oddly enough. “Gunmen open fire in mosque of Afghan capital, killing four,” from Arab Times, January 4 (thanks to Twostellas):

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan 3, (Agencies): Gunmen opened fire in a mosque northwest of the Afghan capital, killing four civilians, while a fifth was killed in a bombing outside a butcher’s shop in the western part of the country, officials said Monday.

The shop in Herat supplies meat to the Afghan army, and officials think the bomb targeted security forces, said Noor Khan Nekzad, the spokesman for Herat province’s police chief. At least four other civilians were wounded in the explosion, Nekzad said.

A day earlier, gunmen entered a mosque in Baghlan province’s Markazi district, killing four civilians and wounding two, the provincial governor’s office said Monday. Officials said they did not know why the mosque was targeted. Past mosque attacks have targeted government officials….

Jihad Watch

I just live for connections like this; they fill me with delight!

“Woman’s Constancy,” by JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)

NOW thou hast loved me one whole day,
To-morrow when thou leavest, what wilt thou say ?
Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow ?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons which we were ?
Or that oaths made in reverential fear
Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear ?
Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,
So lovers’ contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death’s image, them unloose ?
Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true ?
Vain lunatic, against these ’scapes I could
Dispute, and conquer, if I would ;
Which I abstain to do,
For by to-morrow I may think so too.

“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” by Gerry Goffin and Carole King (ca. 1960)

Tonight you’re mine completely,
You give your love so sweetly,
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes,
But will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure,
Or just a moment’s pleasure,
Can I believe the magic of your sighs,
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Tonight with words unspoken,
You said that I’m the only one,
But will my heart be broken,
When the night (When the night)
Meets the morning sun.

I’d like to know that your love,
Is love I can be sure of,
So tell me now and I won’t ask again,
Will you still love me tomorrow?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Believe it or not, back when “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” was first recorded, some radio stations would not play it because it was too “sexually charged.” One could laugh at such “antiquated” concerns about lyrics like these, but after reading “Woman’s Inconstancy,” written four centuries before “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” that word seems rather ironic, doesn’t it?

The Moderate Voice