Opener

Let me start out by saying I am not a Boston Red Sox fan. I am a New York Yankees fan and I absolutely hate the Sox. However, I have a severe distaste for stupid decisions and calls. Josh Beckett was suspended for 6 games and fined for "intentionally" throwing at the head of Bobby Abreu. Heres the video, make your own call.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcdh7lRWWcA

Personally, I don't think there was any intention what-so-ever. Beckett was mid-way through his wind-up when time was called, and if you watch his follow through it is completely abnormal. Now I myself am a baseball player and have pitched in live games. When time is called midway through a wind-up it is distracting. This is universal, and the fact that he is a professional has no relevance. He was thrown off by the sudden called time, and the ball got away from him. The baseball can get away from players even under normal circumstances. Think of all the times pitchers throw the ball a good 3 feet over the catcher's head. Now imagine if there is the added distraction of time being called in the middle of a delivery. When this is considered, it starts to become apparent that Beckett had no intention of throwing at Abreu's head.

One may try to argue that Beckett walked towards home plate. However, he is not the aggressor here. Abreu's hands immediately went into the air as he said something to Beckett. It is a full 10 seconds later that Beckett begins to walk towards home plate, after an exchanging of words. We do not know what words were said by either party. However, the one person with an objective view point that did hear the words was the umpire. He himself described the Angels as the aggressors, and did not feel that Beckett was worthy of a warning had the benches not cleared. This would seem to make it clear that Abreu provoked Beckett.

Now, all this being apparent, why did Major League Baseball dish out the suspension? Well, heres the thing. There are many baseball fans out there without the knowledge of the game to put these pieces together. So, baseball being an entertainment business, the league found themselves requird to take some sort of action to avoid anger from their fanbase. That may sound a little silly, but keep in mind that baseball is experiencing dipping popularity. Basketball is huge, as is football. It is increasingly becoming a "cool thing" to dislike and badmouth baseball. Losing anyone that is currently in the fanbase is simply not an option for the MLB.

These are my thoughts on the matter, feel free to comment with your own. I enjoy an intelligent debate. However, refrain from trolling and trying to make arguments like "Beckett is an asshole so he did it on purpose," or "I haet teh red sux lolol." I'll just delete them.

Moving along.

There has been a lot of talk about these Somali pirates lately. Apparently they have hit four ships in the past 48-hours. Heres the link to an article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7997610.stm

The most obvious question is, what can we do about these pirates? The sad answer is that there isn't a ton that we can do. The best that we can do is patrol the areas that they likely hit. However, the open waters are extremely hard to patrol simply due to their vastness. Even if we increase the priority on these patrols, there is only so much that it will do. Sure, you will see more pirates getting caught. However, there will also be those that slip between the cracks and continue to do what they do. It could even provoke them further.

After the recent hostage rescues which left several pirates dead, the pirates have declared that there will be vengeance taken on behalf of those that fell. This seems to show a hostile tendency, especially when action is taken against them. We certainly can't just sit back and allow them to do whatever in fear of retaliation. However, we must weigh the benefits vs the deterrents. If we spend a lot of resources on further patrolling against these pirates, will the result be worth it? The answer is no, because the extra amounts of pirates caught would not meet the amount of resources used. Plus, the pirates could then become even more hostile, and could become even more of a problem.

This is of course assuming that my theory is correct. That the extra patrolling will only do so much to help catch the pirates.

Thats it for now.

Peace.