So what am I talking about anyway? A young pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, Armando Gallaraga, carried a perfect game into the ninth inning and got the first two outs. One more out and he would have the perfecto. He induced a ground ball to second, and the throw was in time to beat the runner, but the umpire called the runner safe. The ump apologized later and made a public statement that he had erred, but there is no recourse in that situation and that is no longer acceptable at the highest levels of the sport.

If we were inventing baseball now, in the 21st century, we would certainly be using some form of imagery to deal with disputed calls. The only reason that it isn’t there now is because baseball has such a strong sense of tradition. A more important tradition is getting the calls right, and for all their talk about self policing, the on field officials almost never overrule one another and rarely even ask for input from another umpire on close plays.

Baseball has gone from being top dog to third place among professional team sports in this country during the span of my life. If they want to keep from sliding further from the attention of the ADD generation, adding the right amount of technology to supplement the on field officials in crucial situations just might help.

In a related note, I saw that the most recent sales figures seem to indicate to some analysts that the iPad demand is affecting sales of iPods. Soooo, you’re selling a $500 device instead of a $200 device and the iPad has secondary sales potential of not only music but also applications? Another win. The hits just keep comin’ in Cupertino.

The PC revolution is almost coming to an end, and everyones trying to work out a strategy for surviving the aftermath.

via The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash – Charlies Diary.

the rise of cable TV has transformed politics in our country generally into just another spectator sport, like all-star wrestling. C-Span is just ESPN with only two teams. We watch it for entertainment, not solutions.

Unless your desired entertainment is to watch C-Span for debates on reforming health care.  There’s plenty of other unintentional humor that makes this worth reading once…once.  chuckles abound here

Cook: I’ve spent the last couple of days talking to some of the brightest Democrats in the party that are not in the White House. And it’s very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don’t lose the House. It’s very hard. Are the seats there right this second? No. But we’re on a trajectory on the House turning over….

read it all

venomous porridge – A conversation I have every month or so.