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Belief

Bret Sabermetric May 16 2006 10:40 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on May 16 2006 10:45 AM

Belief seems to be important around here. I think people should be free to believe whatever stupid shit they like, including "My Mets can do no wrong," "My Mets can do little wrong," and "My Mets, right or wrong." But I have a little problem with the general attitude towards criticism of the Mets: There's simply no good time to point out specific things that one believes to be fundamentally wrong with the Mets. If you point out that the Zambrano trade is a horror at the time it's made, you get reassured by those who believe that, even if it looks bad, the Metsies know what they're doing and DO YOU KNOW that Zambrano is more than 10 minutes from turning into Cy Young and that Kazmir is ever going to pitch well in the MLB? Of course one can't know what hasn't happened yet, so most readers (who share the belief that the Mets can do no wrong) gladly defend the "I hate the trade but it may work out so LGM!" position, which essentially requires one to develop Willful Amnesia. Besides, even if it's an awful trade, and gets proven so within remarkably little time, it's only one trade and doesn't really address the issue of whether the Mets are run by evil-minded omnivores from Mars. When the Mets trade Mike Cameron for Xavier Nady (who?), who is probably half the ballplayer they could have gotten for Cameron the previous June, my friend Papa Jon Dickshot mildly opines that the only rational explanation he can justify the trade by is that the Mets are clearly positioning another deal, in which Nady will go somewhere, preferably far away, accompanied by a small dungpile of minor league never-will-bes and net the Mets a decent ballplayer. When this doesn't happen, Papa Jon reconciles himself to the trade, because he likes to believe the Mets are a well-run organization. i have no quarrel with this definition of "belief." I just don't share it.. I believe the Mets are a horribly run organization, and have loads of decisions on which I can discuss my reasoning: Zambrano, Nady, Piazza, Matsui, Randolph, Wagner, Heilman, Seo, Wigginton, Keppinger--the list goes on and on, and that's only the current team. I go back quite a ways in identifying mismanagement, ineptness, cluelessness, corruption, stupidity, nepotism, sloth and poor personal hygiene. There's good points too, even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then, but the bad far outweighs the good, and if you doubt me, please consult the Mets' W-L record for the past half decade. But do you know why I'm not mentioning the old bad stuff? Because nobody cares. When the Mets drop a card, all you need to do is wait a week and it's all sunshine and macaroons here in Met-land. Rey who? Izzy never pitched for this franchise, are you nuts? What are you going on about Piazza for? So what he wrecked this franchise, he's gone, and he was great when he was here anyway and I don't wanna talk about it anymore. (Edgy's "Put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and pretend Sal isn't posting anymore" policy.) Again, Willful Amnesia, heavily influenced by your freedom to believe in any silly shit you like. It just makes for a difficult conversation, is all. You can't complain about the Mets while things are still in flux and you can't complain about them after the dust has settled. You know what? It looks like you can't complain about them at all. If your belief system is predicated on "Don't Complain about the Mets" then it's pretty groovy, but if analysis is your thing, if you enjoy examining something closely to improve your understanding, then you're out of luck.

old original jb May 16 2006 10:44 AM

I don't care what people believe, but when discussing those beliefs gets to the point where it is visibly more about people's personal beefs with the site administrators, I lose patience. And when my loss of patience is greeted with insults on the level of comparison to a Nazi concentration camp doctor, I stop caring altogether about everyone involved.

Bret Sabermetric May 16 2006 10:46 AM

Nah, you just don't care about the points I'm making, so you wisely counsel me to shut up. I'm on to you, Herr Doktor.

old original jb May 16 2006 10:51 AM

Well, I don't care enough about the points you make to wade through all the abusive bullshit in which they have been wrapped lately--that's true. Any relatives of yours spend time in the camps? If not, then you still ought to know better. If so, then you really ought to be ashamed.

Bret Sabermetric May 16 2006 11:16 AM

old original jb wrote: Any relatives of yours spend time in the camps? . Many, many relatives. Their awful experience has made me sensitive to the need for tolerance of minority views in a society where I was (usually) in the majority, even on subects as trivial as baseball. If someone complains that he's being persecuted in my presence, I usually try to sympathize--if he's completely loopy in his paranoid beliefs, I try to show him how his "oppressors" are perhaps less focussed on his persecution than he thinks they are. But, unlike you, I don't interject myself into the problem by posing as a neutral arbitrator and then procede to heap my biases and personal prejudices on the poor suffering sap, and attempt to settle the conflict by suggesting that he simply button up and bow to the will of the majority for his own good. That comes perilously close to acting as an agent of the state and a willful suppressor of minority views, You know, kinda llike a doctor who works in a crematorium, and soothingly explains to his patients that this whole process is for their own good. Do you understand the analogy? Do you understand the concept of analogy? Sorrry if I had to indulge in bad taste to communicate that point, but apparently even that shocking degree of bad taste was insufficient to get my point across. I don't want to listen to nutjobs and cranks and lunatics and monomaniacs all day long either, but if they're annoying enough I try to ignore them (move to another car in the subway, PC their threads on the CPF, like that). You seem to think that by acting as a suppressive agent for the majority, you're indulging something other than your own selfish desire to have a more Met-friendly CPF You can fool some people that way, Herr Doktor (is that less funny than mockingly calling me "Professor"?), but not quite everyone.

old original jb May 16 2006 01:53 PM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: Herr Doktor (is that less funny than mockingly calling me "Professor"?) A lot less funny, and given the family history you describe you should know it more than most. As an English professor, you ought to be sensitive enough to the nuances of language to see that things may be analagous on some distant level, but orders of magnitude different to the extent that the use of your analogy constitutes the worst kind of (pardon the mixed metaphor) mixing of metaphors. At least you've started putting "opressors" in quotes. Good lord--this is an internet baseball forum. You're not going to save the Weimar Republic here. Bret Sabermetric wrote: Sorrry if I had to indulge in bad taste to communicate that point. Probably as close to an apology as I should expect to get for insults far more vicious than I will ever accept from anyone, insults way out of proportion to the situation at hand and my involvement in it, Godwin's Law notwithstanding. At least you acknowledge that what you are doing is in bad taste. No matter what analogy you want to use, on a personal level you crossed (and continue to cross) a line with that "Herr Doktor" crap. Bret Sabermetric wrote: but apparently even that shocking degree of bad taste was insufficient to get my point across You have it all wrong; that shocking degree of bad taste detracts from your point, every time you exhibit it and is the highest example of why many people are not more sympathetic to many valid points that you have to make. Bret Sabermetric wrote: But, unlike you, I don't interject myself into the problem by posing as a neutral arbitrator.. I have no intention of "posing as a neutral arbitrator" here. I'm afraid things are much simpler than that. I was just (and am still) fed up with the manner in which your battle with the administrators "interjects" itself into almost every thread. If you can take up half the forum with your personal battles, I think that others have a right to complain about that on occasion. If you want to fight your personal fights in public, be prepared for interjections. And if you shout the loudest and stoop the lowest, be prepared for the interjectors to focus mainly on you. If you fight at home and your voice is the one loud enough to wake up the neighbors, it is you about whom they will complain to the landlord. It's not necessarily because they want to suppress your side of the argument--it's because they're tired of the noise, regardless of its content. Bret Sabermetric wrote: You seem to think that by acting as a suppressive agent for the majority, you're indulging something other than your own selfish desire to have a more Met-friendly CPF. I'm not in cahoots with anyone here, so I think this "suppresive agent for the majority" thing is a bit exaggerated. My posting has no effect on your posting anyhow, so there is no chance for suppression from me. I have no "selfish desire" for a more Met-Friendly CPF. Just a selfish desire for a more people-friendly CPF. That means private disputes should get settled in private. Criticism of the Mets doesn't bother me, provided it is not in the form of aiming personal attacks at people for the act of being Met fans. You're right that the Mets make lots of dumb decsions. You're right that Piazza declined every year since 2002, and the only reason I will regret the end of his tenure is that I'm reasonably certain, given the way of all things Met, that if they make it all the way to the post season, it will probably all end with a San Diego victory on a Piazza walk off home run, an inning after he throws Reyes out at second. But being right about baseball shouldn't give you license to be personally insulting to practically everyone who disagrees with you. Maybe you feel others have insulted you as well, but having read through the forum, your insults are--well---insultinger. More frequent, more relentless, more below the belt. Look, this an internet baseball forum. I come over here for light entertainment, not melodrama, and certainly not to be called a Nazi. Edgy and KC probably owe you a lot of appologies. You probably owe them a lot of appologies too. That's for the three of you to work out privately. But at this point, if you apologize for going way over the line, I'll apologize to you for being insensitive to your sense of unfairness and be willing to leave it at that. And I really hope that all involved will find a way to keep the vituperative and digs out of the baseball threads.

Bret Sabermetric May 16 2006 03:01 PM

old original jb wrote: Good lord--this is an internet baseball forum. You're not going to save the Weimar Republic here. You think I really have any hopes of saving the Weimar republic? It's an analogy. I tried raising the whole concept of toleration for minority viewpoints for a good long time before descending to a scurrilous level that finally got some acknowledgment. Sorry you happened to be on the receiving end when we reached that point. ]. No matter what analogy you want to use, on a personal level you crossed (and continue to cross) a line with that "Herr Doktor" crap. The way I see it, when you get personal and mean, you run a risk of escalating things well beyond the point where you're comfortable, especially if you;'re dealing with someone who has lower bounds of good taste than you do. I didn't think the "Professor" stuff was remotely relevant to the issue at hand, and I decided to show you how it felt to have irrelevant issues introduced gratuitously and obnoxiously. Didn't care for it much , did you? I'm sure you'll think a little further before getting all arch and superior with someone next time. ] You have it all wrong; that shocking degree of bad taste detracts from your point, every time you exhibit it and is the highest example of why many people are not more sympathetic to many valid points that you have to make. I've stopped expecting sympathy here a long time before that exchange. I'm rooting for the wrong baseball team to get sympathy around here, haven't you heard? ] private disputes should get settled in private. Kinda tough when one of the participants in a dispute refuses to acknowledge the existence of the other one, innit? One of my issues with Edgy is that, in a very cowardly fashion, he stopped responding to me in any form, basically said to me "I'll throw you to the wolves--if you argue with anyone on the CPF, I'll do nothing to keep the attacks off you but if you dare attack anyone, I'll harass you with any device I can think of, short of banning you, which will just make you into a martyr." (Notice how the rhetoric of martyrdom--which some would say is even more extreme than the rhetoric of the Holocaust --was both encouraged and widely indulged in with zero sense of inappropriateness?) ]You're right that the Mets make lots of dumb decsions. You're right that Piazza declined every year since 2002,...But being right about baseball shouldn't give you license to be personally insulting to practically everyone who disagrees with you. Thanks for conceding the point that I' may have been correct once or twice in my time here. You and CF have (in the last few weeks) conceded that some of my points might have been motivated by something other than Met-hating irrationality, If you'll recall, that was pretty much Edgy's position (I can get you the quote, from my sig-line file if you like). Instead of stopping acknowledging my existence after I had been correct, I think it would have gone more smoothly for Edgy and his website if he'd graciously conceded that his attacks on my character were out of line, but apparantly, he felt otherwise. So I've been trying to show him that tactic was unwise. He may get my point in a few more years, I don't know. He seems pretty obstinate to me. ]Maybe you feel others have insulted you as well, but having read through the forum, your insults are--well---insultinger. More frequent, more relentless, more below the belt. That's why it's unwise to start being insulting in the first place--you might discover that someone is more gifted at dishing it out than you. ]Look, this an internet baseball forum. I come over here for light entertainment, not melodrama, and certainly not to be called a Nazi. You didn't deserve being subjected to my absurdly inappropriate and deliberately insulting rhetoric, for which I do apologize, sincerely. I'm particularly sorry that this insult struck close to home--I know that must have felt very hurtful to you. ] Edgy and KC probably owe you a lot of appologies. You probably owe them a lot of appologies too. That's for the three of you to work out privately. Probably not going to happen. Probably should happened years ago, but that's why it's unwise to declare people, especially your friends with whom you're having a disagreement about baseball, unworthy of your acknowledgment. I hope you realize that edgy had stopped talking to me for over a year before i ever acknowledged that iwas ware of what he was doing. That's a year in which all he needed to do was to begin speaking to me again. But since I would have gloated a bit about having been right, he never came around to seeing how maybe he might need to acknowledge that a little bit, which many people choose to do when as wrong as he was. But our little Edgy has his pride, and all it's cost him has been a little peace and quiet on his fine website. I can't tell you how sorry I am to have gotten so many wonderful people involved in our private dispute. ]But at this point, if you apologize for going way over the line, I'll apologize to you for being insensitive to your sense of unfairness and be willing to leave it at that. . Very generous, in light of your having been far more offended by me than I was by you, and gratefully accepted.

old original jb May 16 2006 04:04 PM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: You didn't deserve being subjected to my absurdly inappropriate and deliberately insulting rhetoric, for which I do apologize, sincerely. I'm particularly sorry that this insult struck close to home--I know that must have felt very hurtful to you. Bret Sabermetric wrote: Very generous, in light of your having been far more offended by me than I was by you, and gratefully accepted. Thank you for those acknowledgments, for your apology, and for accepting mine. Here's to a somewhat more peaceful Pool.

Elster88 May 16 2006 04:19 PM Re: Belief

Bret Sabermetric wrote: Belief seems to be important around here. I think people should be free to believe whatever stupid shit they like, including "My Mets can do no wrong," "My Mets can do little wrong," and "My Mets, right or wrong." But I have a little problem with the general attitude towards criticism of the Mets: There's simply no good time to point out specific things that one believes to be fundamentally wrong with the Mets. If you point out that the Zambrano trade is a horror at the time it's made, you get reassured by those who believe that, even if it looks bad, the Metsies know what they're doing and DO YOU KNOW that Zambrano is more than 10 minutes from turning into Cy Young and that Kazmir is ever going to pitch well in the MLB? Of course one can't know what hasn't happened yet, so most readers (who share the belief that the Mets can do no wrong) gladly defend the "I hate the trade but it may work out so LGM!" position, which essentially requires one to develop Willful Amnesia. Besides, even if it's an awful trade, and gets proven so within remarkably little time, it's only one trade and doesn't really address the issue of whether the Mets are run by evil-minded omnivores from Mars. When the Mets trade Mike Cameron for Xavier Nady (who?), who is probably half the ballplayer they could have gotten for Cameron the previous June, my friend Papa Jon Dickshot mildly opines that the only rational explanation he can justify the trade by is that the Mets are clearly positioning another deal, in which Nady will go somewhere, preferably far away, accompanied by a small dungpile of minor league never-will-bes and net the Mets a decent ballplayer. When this doesn't happen, Papa Jon reconciles himself to the trade, because he likes to believe the Mets are a well-run organization. i have no quarrel with this definition of "belief." I just don't share it.. I believe the Mets are a horribly run organization, and have loads of decisions on which I can discuss my reasoning: Zambrano, Nady, Piazza, Matsui, Randolph, Wagner, Heilman, Seo, Wigginton, Keppinger--the list goes on and on, and that's only the current team. I go back quite a ways in identifying mismanagement, ineptness, cluelessness, corruption, stupidity, nepotism, sloth and poor personal hygiene. There's good points too, even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then, but the bad far outweighs the good, and if you doubt me, please consult the Mets' W-L record for the past half decade. But do you know why I'm not mentioning the old bad stuff? Because nobody cares. When the Mets drop a card, all you need to do is wait a week and it's all sunshine and macaroons here in Met-land. Rey who? Izzy never pitched for this franchise, are you nuts? What are you going on about Piazza for? So what he wrecked this franchise, he's gone, and he was great when he was here anyway and I don't wanna talk about it anymore. (Edgy's "Put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and pretend Sal isn't posting anymore" policy.) Again, Willful Amnesia, heavily influenced by your freedom to believe in any silly shit you like. It just makes for a difficult conversation, is all. You can't complain about the Mets while things are still in flux and you can't complain about them after the dust has settled. You know what? It looks like you can't complain about them at all. If your belief system is predicated on "Don't Complain about the Mets" then it's pretty groovy, but if analysis is your thing, if you enjoy examining something closely to improve your understanding, then you're out of luck. Bret, it's possible that everyone else that has ever posted on this forum in its entire existence has misjudged you and been unfair to you. It's also possible that your "general attitude" is what needs changing.

Bret Sabermetric May 16 2006 05:26 PM

So start my re-education. Actually, I don't think either option is true. I think plenty of people have treated me well here, better when I was still a loyal Mets fan than now, but some people have been quite decent and accepting of my lunatic-fringe views, including you most of the time. I just think that the one fundamental malicious misunderstanding of me looks like angry and bitterly disappointed Mets fan = contemptible lying person and stems straight from Edgy's characterization of my grim speculations about Piazza's future productivity. To say he didn't agree with them (I wasn't totally sold myself) would have been one thing, but to turn those speculations into an attack on my sincerity, my objectivity, my intelligence, etc. was quite another. And then to turn me into a non-person after those speculations came true, right on the money, was just incredibly cowardly and weak. But I don't blame people for taking the impression that delivering personal attacks would be condoned and subtly encouraged. That was the correct interpretation. But I don't deceive myself that everyone indulged in it, nor that I was blameless. If you want an argument on those terms, you'll have to get it from someone other than me. So what's wrong, in your view, with my general attitude?