One thing about the search results not showing up in Google is I see that as Google’s responsibility and not mine. Think of the average user who adds a search script to their site, but isn’t an SEO and perhaps doesn’t know about adding noindex to a page. I agree it’s annoying to see a search results page within a search results page, but to me it’s still Google’s problem. They shouldn’t be relying on webmasters to take care of the problem If they do then I want Google to take care of my ranking problem.

I think your dating metaphor is a better one. There really isn’t any public risk to poor search results. In fact all search engines could disappear tomorrow and the web will still survive quite well. For all we know in 20 years there will be a better way to find websites and web pages anyway.

Is having a web site like driving a car, where the risks to the public ( or some other reason ) are so great that you shouldn’t be allowed do it until you’ve been trained and licensed? Or is it more like dating, where you put your best foot forward, and if you do a bad job, the punishment is failure instead of law?

I can understand thinking that of Josh Hamilton, but everything I’ve seen makes me think he’s different than Steve Howe. Hamilton seems like he was a naive kid who had never really been on his own. He found himself injured and bored and with a lot of money on his hands. He also fell into the wrong crowd. I can’t write the story for him, but he does seem different than many before him.

GO JAYS GO!

As far as Hamilton goes, he’s a great spring training story but for some reason, I’ve got the bad feeling it won’t have a happy ending. He’s got that Steve Howe vibe happening. Just a hunch.

Thanks for the link. I just finished the article. I remember a lot of it from the ESPN story. I think they interviewed his grandmother or at least covered it since I remember that part clearly. What’s amazing is after all he’s gone through he’s still only 25. He can still get the 15 years in the majors like he originally wanted.

That must have been interesting being at the mdway point in 83. I lived in Connecticut for a time and where I was you’d get a mix of Yankee and Red Sox fans. The good part for me was getting local tv from both New York and Boston so I could get more games.

I don’t remember that specific game between the Yankees and White Sox, but I’ve see my share like them.

I’m definitely a stat-head. My friends and I taught each other about the game by looking at the back of baseball cards. Someone would lay down a half dozen or so random cards and ask the other to place them in the order of career doubles. After awhile you just knew what the career stats were for just about every player in the game.

The Washington Post has a great writeup on Josh Hamilton – New Life at the Plate. It’s long, but a great story.

I was at the University of Delaware during the ‘83 series – the exact halfway point between Philadelphia and Baltimore. There were a lot of reporters hanging around to see which way the sentiment of the fans swayed, and hundreds of folks littering mainstreet after the last game of the series celebrating.

We lived in New Jersey after moving from Cincinnati, and there was always a ball game on, between the Mets, the Phillies, and the Yankees. One of the best ball games I’ve ever seen live was a Yankees – Whitesox game, with a final score of around 11-9, and six or seven lead changes. The Yankees lived up to the Bronx Bombers nickname in that game. I seem to recall that it was Lou Piniella who won the game with a home run.

Baseball can definitely turn you into a stat-head.

You picked a good team to root for. If I’m not mistaken the Reds were the first professional baseball team, though they were the Red Stocking back then. Which manager was it? I haven’t been following all the spring training news, but I have heard mention of Josh Hamilton. I saw a story on him last summer on ESPN. I think he was with the Devil Rays organization had all the talent in the world and then got hooked on drugs. I think the story came out just after he’d cleaned himself up and applied for reinstatement. It’s a pretty amazing story.

The Series in 1983 was my freshmen year of college and I was going to Drexel University in Philadelphia. We were in the dorm watching the NLCS and it was clear by the 5th inning that the Plillies were going to win. A bunch of us took the subway down to the Vet and waited a couple of hours for the tickets to go on sale. We sat way out in right field and if you can believe it the tickets only cost $25 at the time.

My grandfather grew up watching Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and later Joe Dimaggio. He passed his love of the Yankees on to his three daughters who grew up watching Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford and they pass the tradition on to me back in the mid 70’s.

All the baseball stats come in handy for looking through web analytics don’t they?

I’d like to tell you I feel sympathy for the bad weather, but we had so much more snow this winter than usual for here that I’m just enjoying the nice weather. It’s not unusual for us to get a big storm in Boulder as late as early May so I’m still expecting to wake up to a few feet of snow one of the next few weeks.

My little league playing days were spent in Cincinnati, and the sons of some of the Reds were in the same league as me. The manager’s daugher was in the same grade, and classes, as my sister. I’ve tried to follow them since, and the Web makes it easier. (If you’ve been following along with spring training news, you’ve probably seen the Josh Hamilton story unfolding. The Cincinnati Reds blogs have been referring to him as Roy Hobbs. Be something incredible if he were to have a good year.)

I’m exactly halfway between Baltimore and Philadelphia, and have been to a few Phillies games (they play the Reds). People were dancing in the streets of town during that world series game you mention. I’ve been meaning to catch an Orioles game, and I’ve vowed to do that sometime this year.

No biking out here this weekend.

This isn’t shaping up to be a good weekend to be outdoors on the east coast.

I’m going to try to guess you’re team. You’re in one of those areas though where it could be a couple. I’m going to guess you’re a Phillies fan, but you might also be a fan of the Orioles or Nationals given where you live. Then again you really could be a fan of any team. If you are a Phillies or an O’s fan I was at the last Series game they played in 1983. Saw the O’s clinch in game 5 at the Vet. Only World Series game I’ve been to.

I’m originally a New Yorker with a long family tradition of rooting for one team, which should tell you which team that is.

I have heard about the weather out East. A friend of mine in Boston is probably out plowing right at this very moment and I saw there have been more canceled flights at JFK. Here in Boulder we’re finally getting some nice weather after a long winter so I think I might be able to get out on the bike this weekend and get some exercise for a change .