One (DH) rule to bind them all?

As a long-time baseball fan, though not as ardent of a fan as I used to be, I want to weigh in on this one. The designated hitter (DH) rule is probably one of the most controversial topics among baseball fans, next to the steroid scandal that rocked the sport almost a decade ago now (2007). One of the things that makes baseball at least semi-interesting is the fact one league allows the manager to designate another player to bat for the pitcher, and one does not.

But that might be about to change. Among other sources, this article on stltoday.com notes St. Louis Cardinals’ GM John Mozeliak’s comments on the movement to apply the DH rule in the National League. (It has been applied in the American League since 1973.) John’s comments state in part (from quotes in the article):

I do feel like there were times I could look all of you in the face and say it’s a non-starter, it’s not being discussed at the owner level or GM… But over the past year it has. I’m not suggesting you’re going to see a change but I definitely think the momentum (has changed).

As a Houston Astros fan, I get a bit of a different look at this than fans of other teams around the league; the Astros switched leagues in 2013, joining the American League West after 51 years in the National League. I have never been a huge fan of the DH rule, even though I’ve never been alive to see an American League game without it. Every Astros game from the era when I was a hardcore baseball fan was without the DH rule. I’ve seen a couple of Astros pitchers hit home runs over the years–always a spectacular sight when it happens, as usually pitchers are considered the worst batting players on the team. Thus the argument for the DH rule, that pitchers will almost always be lousy hitters and the game is more interesting if we let someone else bat for the pitcher all the time.

I feel very strongly that we will have lost something if the DH becomes universal at the major league level. If anything, I would like to see the AL dump the DH rule. According to the Wikipedia article, the main criticism of the DH rule are that it introduces asymmetry in the game: the players in the batting order are not entirely the same players that take the field. Pitchers who bat are, in general, less likely to hit batters with a pitch, knowing there’s the possibility of retaliation when they step up to bat. The DH takes this out of the equation; it’s just not the same when someone who bats for the pitcher gets plunked or beaned. This by itself is enough reason to call the DH rule a bad idea.

I wish the Astros were still in the NL. Not only do I hate the DH rule, I miss the old rivalries (Cardinals, Cubs, Brewers, Pirates, and Reds–yes, there were six teams in the division), even though it’s obvious the Astros can hold their own in the AL West. (There was concern about this when the Astros had over 100 losses in each of their last two NL seasons.) Yes, there’s a chance AL pitchers injure themselves running the bases when forced to bat. However the solution to this is not to introduce an asymmetry to the game that simply doesn’t belong. The solution is to make sure pitchers get at least some time running the bases and a decent amount of batting cage time.

In summary, it’s time to dump the DH and dump it now. The experiment has run long enough, and it’s time to call it a failure and move on. The same nine players on the field should be the same nine players come to bat. As a corollary to this: too old to field (usually) means too old to play (it is exceedingly rare for a player to stay on the roster just to be a pinch-hitter in the NL, though once in a while it happens).

A school that did something that was just not cool

Rawstory.com recently reported on a situation in Cartersville, Georgia, where the mother of a fifth-grader found herself in opposition to her son’s school participating in giving Bibles to the students, and particularly how they handled it.

From the story:

Jessica Greene considers herself a Christian, but she doesn’t think Cloverleaf Elementary in Cartersville should allow Gideons International to hand out Bibles to students, reported WXIA-TV.

Greene’s son, Leo Butler, said his teacher told the class that the evangelical group had volunteered to distribute Bibles, and the students formed a line in the library.

Students were not required to take a Bible, the boy said, but children who did not wish to receive one were told to walk ahead of the line and stand on the other side of the room.

The reaction from other parents is just alarming, and as stated later in the story included comments like “You’re outnumbered here” and “I stand by Cloverleaf.” Whether or not Jessica is outnumbered is irrelevant. The government has no business in religion, and it’s of highly questionable appropriateness to allow the Gideons to use the school as a Bible distribution point. Even setting that aside, singling out the students who either didn’t need a Bible, or just didn’t want a Bible for whatever reason, is just not cool. I’d find this method of distribution abhorrent even if a private school did it.

(I remember my fifth-grade class at such a private school quite vividly. While I unfortunately did not have the experience of transferring to a public school in the middle of my fifth-grade year, I did attend public school from sixth grade on and I can say that not a whole lot really changed other than I didn’t have to go to Bible class anymore. The private school I went to never handed out Bibles, but I would like to think if they did even they wouldn’t have done it the way Cloverleaf Elementary did.)

Free rides: Portsmouth, NH, versus Fort Bend County, TX

This recent post on truthvoice.com was a bit difficult for me to read and comprehend. I would really like to think that our law enforcement officials are in the business of keeping people safe, and reducing crimes such as driving while intoxicated (DWI), driving under the influence (DUI), drink-driving, or any of the other myriad names it goes by. People who try to drive home after consuming alcohol pose a danger to themselves and the other drivers on the road.

Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that fewer drivers drinking and driving means fewer arrests to make. Free Uber (no direct relation to the private driver service of the same name, other than the fact some of the drivers are part of both) was offering free rides on New Year’s Eve in the Portsmouth, New Hamphire, area, and in fact still is if the website is up to date. From the website:

Starting New Years Eve, we’re going to offer “limousine” rides by donation. Not stretch limos or anything… it just so happens that Portsmouth doesn’t regulate “specialty vehicles” like limos. Teehee. These “specialty vehicles” will have some fun games inside, so definitely not your typical car service! Definitely special! (Leave us alone please!)

(There are plenty of other gems on the freeuber.org website, like how every attempt to get the transportation law amended so that Uber can operate in Portsmouth without its drivers

However, this apparently wasn’t enough to keep the Portsmouth government happy. It’s weird the way the laws are written: giving someone a ride for free isn’t regulated, but according to the city, giving them a ride and accepting a tip–even if tipping is completely voluntary–is regulated and prohibited by the city. From the truthvoice.com post:

The Portsmouth gang is threatening the charity drivers with fines of $500 to $1,000 if they are caught accepting money for rides. How police will catch them is another question entirely. With UBER, police could use the UBER app to monitor the locations of the UBER cars (whether they have, I don’t know). However, UBER is not involved at all with the New Year’s Eve charity, so police would have to run a sting operation by scheduling a ride, then pouncing on the driver when he or she accepts a tip from the undercover cop.

If this sounds absurd, like the cops in Portsmouth really have nothing better to do if they have to resort to this kind of blatant government-sponsored thuggery, that’s because it is. There’s no way the cops would have time for this nonsense in just about any other town, even a town of a comparable area and population to Portsmouth (16.8 square miles and 21,233 as of the 2010 census, respectively). There’s no word on whether or not Portsmouth police actually ran a sting operation. I would like to think even if they considered doing so, they eventually thought better of it and decided not to.

Consider instead what Fort Bend County Constables did. This story from ABC 13 (KTRK-TV) is about a free ride program offered by the deputies, which 15 intoxicated and potentially dangerous drivers took advantage of. Three deputies from the civil division actually handled the rides themselves, meaning that the patrol division was not short any deputies.

So that’s fifteen fewer DWI arrests, safer roads, good PR for the agency, and positive rapport between the agency and the community. Everyone’s a winner. Contrast this with Portsmouth, where almost everyone loses in the pissing contest with Free Uber.

In memoriam: Ian Murdock, founder of the Debian project

I was saddened to learn of the recent death of Debian project founder Ian Murdock at the age of 42, per the blog post on Bits from Debian (bits.debian.org).

Without Ian’s work, neither Debian nor its many offshoots, including Ubuntu and Linux Router Project (discontinued), would have existed, and the landscape of the free software community would be radically different. I have used all three of the aforementioned projects and a few others based on Debian as well. I speak from experience when I say Ian’s contributions are some of the most far-reaching and helped set the pace and the tone for the free software community as a whole.

I appreciate Ian’s contributions to the free software community, in not only the technical sense, but the ethical and moral senses as well. The Bits from Debian post refers to the project’s stances on release engineering and software freedom as “the gold standards” in the community, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Ian leaves a substantial legacy to the free software community, and this despite the fact he has left us way too soon.

Rest in peace, Ian. You will be sorely missed.

A budget snafu in Las Animas County

This story out of Las Animas County, Colorado, is really disheartening. This recent news story from KRDO details the decision by County Administrator Leeann Fabec to refuse to pay any additional costs incurred by the sheriff’s department for the remainder of the year after December 15, stating that the department was over its budget by some $12,227. What this does is put sheriff Jim Casias on the hook personally for the department’s payroll, and raises the real possibility that his deputies will not get paid for the final two weeks of the year.

I haven’t found anything either way to indicate how this was resolved, this being a good week and a half after the December 15 cutoff. Some of the larger cities and towns may have their own law enforcement agencies, but what about the rest of the county? Either way, it could be a really bad deal for somebody: the residents who are without law enforcement officers for two weeks, the deputies who work with no guarantee of getting paid and who still have obligations to meet despite that, or sheriff Jim Casias being out personally for the deputies’ payroll.

I have nothing specifically against law enforcement officers working in a volunteer capacity; I do have a problem with those who have not specifically chosen to volunteer, being stuck working for free for whatever reason. The screw-up by the county’s bookkeepers who did not notice the sheriff’s department ran out of money, should not be a reason to stiff the deputies doing their jobs and expecting to be paid for them. Deputies on the payroll should be paid, the same as any other business that depends on paid employees to get the job done.

Yes, I’m taking the side of the deputies here. But I really approach this as more of a labor issue than a law enforcement issue. With a population barely into five digits (14,052 estimated in 2014), I doubt there are any major crime problems in Las Animas County. After a news report that the sheriff’s deputies may not get paid for working the last two weeks of the year, though, that’s always subject to change.

Now, I don’t fault KRDO for breaking the story, as this is in the public interest, and it was in fact their duty to break this story as soon as the facts were confirmed. This snafu is Ms. Fabec’s fault, either directly or indirectly. I’m not sure of the exact responsibilities of the county administrator, but it stands to reason that if Ms. Fabec can tell the sheriff he’s out of money, then she also had the ultimate responsibility to stay on top of it before the department actually went into the red.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this, and hope to post a follow-up with the resolution soon.