Tweet of the Day (Joel Ingersoll, on Retail Printer Ink)

“I’ve crunched the numbers and it’s cheaper to start your own octopus farm than to buy retail printer ink.”— “@FlyoverJoel (i.e., Joel Ingersoll), tweet of Apr 3, 2013

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Yves Congar, on ‘The Patient Sower’ as the Person of Hope)

“I have often thought of the words of Saint Paul: ’Patience breeds hope’ (Romans 5:4). One would have thought that it was just the reverse, that a man could wait patiently because he had hope in his heart. In a certain sense this is true, but the order in which Saint Paul puts it reveals a more profound truth. Those who do not know how to suffer, do not know how to hope either. People who are in too much of a hurry, who wish to grasp the object of their desires immediately, are also incapable of it. The patient sower, who entrusts his seed to the earth and the sun, is also the man of hope.”— French Dominican friar, priest, and theologian Yves Congar (1904-1995), Dialogue Between Christians, translated by Philip Loretz, S.A. (1966)

Quote of the Day (J.J. Cooper, on the Prospect of Artificial Intelligence in Baseball)

“Baseball is a sport where dozens of professional teams around the world, hundreds of colleges, thousands of high schools and various other organizations are all looking for an edge. AI will be a tool in a savvy team's toolbox. Or more accurately, it will be a full tool shed. It's the next step in the revolution that has already transformed baseball.”—J.J. Cooper, “The Coming Revolution,” Baseball America, May 2023

As soon as I read Cooper’s article, I wanted to shout “No-o-o-o!!!!” with the same force as characters in the Star Wars saga do when they witness the violent death of heroes. Because I’m afraid that artificial intelligence (AI) will result in the demise of my favorite sport.

As Cooper notes, AI is the next logical step in the data-analytics disruption of baseball in the last two decades. You know: the one that gave us launch angle, exit velocity, spin rates, induced vertical breaks, vertical approach angle, and other terms too numerous and awful to mention. (Just typing these gives me vertigo.)

You know what followed after baseball handed the game over to Oakland A’s “Moneyball” wizard Billy Beane and the band of byteheads who followed in his wake: lower stolen base totals, fielding shifts, more sluggers with embarrassing strikeout totals, starting pitchers lucky to last five innings, more relievers inserted at will—in short, a longer, slower, duller game.

This past winter, the Lords of Baseball took the game back a step from the brink with new rules that encouraged base stealing, increased batting averages, and reduced the likelihood of interminable contests.

But now, I read in Cooper’s piece that AI has the potential to affect America’s Pastime in multiple areas on and off the field, including:

*biomechanics

*pitching coordination

*computerized vision models

*player valuation

*statistical projections

*draft interviews

*medical reports

*psychological testing

*marketing

*ticket pricing

*scouting

(With that last use, just think: In the not-so-distant future, if Hollywood remakes Clint Eastwood’s Trouble With the Curve, his cranky old scout will see his job endangered not by failing eyesight but by AI.)

Baseball is a sport in which men’s deeds create mighty myths. Do we really want all that replaced by machines?

(For more information on AI—including a groan-inducing, ChatGPT-created Q and A on player evaluation capabilities—see Adam Salorio’s February post from Medium.)

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on the ‘Idiotic Gibberish’ in Email Scams)

“Previously, scams from crooks trying to pass themselves off as marketers representing Amazon or Apple or Chase Bank were sleek and professional-looking, with no obvious typos or grammatical errors. Somebody out there in the darkest corners of the evilsphere at least used some form of spell checker before clicking the ‘Send’ button. The messages they crafted looked legitimate, making it easy for people to fall for them. As many did. But now all I get is idiotic gibberish from people who can't spell.”— Humor columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: You Should REELy ReaD Thiss Column!” The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 19-20, 2022

Quote of the Day (Randolph Bourne, on Friends as ‘Infallible Safeguards Against Misery and Poverty of Spirit’)

“A man with few friends is only half-developed; there are whole sides of his nature which are locked up and have never been expressed. He cannot unlock them himself, he cannot even discover them; friends alone can stimulate him and open them. Such a man is in prison; his soul is in penal solitude. A man must get friends as he would get food and drink for nourishment and sustenance. And he must keep them, as he would keep health and wealth, as the infallible safeguards against misery and poverty of spirit.”—Progressive Era essayist, social critic, and disabilities advocate Randolph Bourne (1886-1918), Youth and Life (1911)

Quote of the Day (John Ruskin, on the Distinction Between Science and Art)

“Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves; and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul. Her work is to portray the appearances of things, and to deepen the natural impressions which they produce upon living creatures. The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions. Both, observe, are equally concerned with truth; the one with truth of aspect, the other with truth of essence. Art does not represent things falsely, but truly as they appear to mankind. Science studies the relations of things to each other: but art studies only their relations to man: and it requires of everything which is submitted to it imperatively this, and only this,—what that thing is to the human eyes and human heart, what it has to say to men, and what it can become to them: a field of question just as much vaster than that of science, as the soul is larger than the material creation.”—English art critic and social commentator John Ruskin (1819-1900), The Stones of Venice (1853)

Quote of the Day (Poet Billy Collins, on Inspiration)

“In 19th-century English poetry, inspiration became a kind of pathology. There were metaphors for inspiration like flames, sparks and fountains. The trouble with the word inspiration in this context is that it suggests passivity—writers are people who write, but if you fall prey to this theory of inspiration, you're not acting, you're waiting….Waiting for inspiration is a way of ennobling procrastination. The trail of poets that has preceded you and affected your writing, those are my inspirations.  You’re never alone when you write. Your page is lit by the candles of the past.”—Former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, “Soapbox: The Columnists—WSJ. Asks Five Luminaries To Weigh in on Single Topic; This Month: Inspiration,” WSJ., June/July 2023

The photo of Billy Collins accompanying this post was taken May 13, 2007, by Marcelo Noah.