What we read while deciding not to publish our own story about not having sex with Christine O’Donnell…
- As New York baseball fans, we were stunned and saddened by the news of the passing of legendary scorekeeper Bill Shannon. Tim, who was fortunate enough to meet Bill, wrote a brief tribute on his Tumblr. The best tribute, not surprisingly, came from MLB.com’s Marty Noble, with others pouring in from fellow scorer Billy Altman, Wallace Matthews, Ed Coleman, and Tom Boorstein.
- As for some other sports links, David Schoenfield tries to answer who the best postseason pitcher in MLB history is (hint: it wasn’t Cliff Lee even before Game 1). In direct contrast to what Tim McCarver said during Saturday night’s Game 3, here’s statistical backing for using a three-man rotation in the playoffs. And in other counterintuitive statistical analysis, Peter Keating argues that it is possible to give 110 percent.
- Speaking of statistical analysis, the Mets hired sabermetrics-advocate Sandy Alderson as their new General Manager this week. Here is an extensive (and excellent) interview of Alderson back when he was CEO of the Padres. Rumor has it that he’s going to bring along Paul DePodesta to the front office, who was prominent in Moneyball (a book we’ve invoked a few times so far), and has his own blog.
- With Conan O’Brien’s new TBS show just a week away, Vanity Fair published an excerpt from Bill Carter’s book about January’s Tonight Show fallout. As usual, Jay Leno and NBC do not come off well. Also from Vanity Fair, a profile of the real Sean Parker, a/k/a Justin Timberlake’s character in The Social Network.
- In the spirit of Halloween, Tim and Josh posted about the best candies. New York City candy shops have some interesting selections. This is a good time to link to Candy Blog, which, you know, is a blog about candy.
- John S wasn’t the only one to take on Malcolm Gladwell’s social media bashing. The Hairpin did it this week, from the perspective of Gladwell.
- We don’t usually link to college newspapers/magazines that we may or may not have used to write for, but Kevin Lincoln’s feature on Mike Posner and what Lincoln calls “the college-white-boy rap phenomenon” in Duke’s Towerview is worth the read.
- We don’t think it should be too hard to interest you in the best cover versions of ’90s TV theme songs. If nothing else, this just made us appreciate the Duck Tales theme all the more.
- We’re against negative campaign ads — unless they reference Billy Madison.
- Speaking of campaigns, here are some of the signs from this weekend’s Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear.
