February 2, 2011

Wezen-Ball

Greetings from Wezen-Ball

by Larry Granillo

Printer-friendly

"Hi, everybody!"
"Hi, Dr. Nick!"
-- every Simpsons episode, ever

As you may have noticed, I'm new to these parts at Baseball Prospectus. With that being the case, I thought it would be worth spending a few minutes to introduce myself. For those of you who recognize the name "Wezen-Ball", you can rest assured that nothing will change now that I'm here at B-Pro. The same wide array of topics will be covered, including, yes, the Tater Trot Tracker. I'm excited to be here.

And for those who are wondering what the heck a "Wezen-Ball" is... well, I do my best to write about interesting and unique baseball topics. Of course, in the heat of the season, there will be plenty to say about whatever's going on at the time, from the Brewers and Prince Fielder to whatever the McCourts are doing out in Los Angeles to the Yankees crisis-du-jour, but I never limit myself to that. After all, there are about 17,354 blogs devoted to covering that kind of thing (believe me, I counted). Instead, I like to tackle topics that I find interesting but that aren't really written about much.

A perfect example of that would be the complete statistics - wins, losses, home runs, etc. - of Charlie Brown and the gang in the Peanuts comic strips. That link takes you to the first twenty years' worth of stats; I followed that up with all fifty years' worth of statistics at last summer's SABR national conference. The Tater Trot Tracker, where I timed the length of all 5,000 home run trots last season, is another great example, as is this (outdated) list of baseball's best statues and this look at the history of the "highest paid player in baseball". You also might see the occasional chart make its way across Wezen-Ball, like this periodic table of Hall of Famers or this Major League Baseball stadium timeline.

As I said, there's a lot of random—but, I hope, interesting—stuff that makes its way across the Wezen-Ball pages. I'm honored to have this chance to bring my perspective to Baseball Prospectus and to work with such a great community. Now when does this darn baseball season start?!