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St. Paul man doesn’t have any games to analyze or stats to crunch. In these desperate times, he’s creating his own.John De Vries loves doing the math. Baseball’s endless supply of statistics has led the local data analyst down pleasurable wormholes about launch angles, exit velocity, and win shares. MLB shutting down amid the COVID-19 outbreak prevents new inputs and has caused a minor crisis in the De Vries household. “Obviously, we’re all looking for distractions right now,” said De Vries. “And my main distraction has always been baseball stats. Those are gone, vanished.” The scramble to fill his extra free time proved fruitless. Abortive attempts at woodworking (“I keep getting splinters”), becoming a scotch guy (“expensive swamp water”), and understanding TikTok (“This feels like it’s actively harmful”) depressed him even further. At wit’s end, he found something different. Something far removed from the national pastime but one that still allows for analysis and modeling. “My wife and I were watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey one night, and one of the wives shoved another one for getting all up in her business, when she’d clearly been told she oughtn’t,” said De Vries. “We’ve seen this situation unfold a number of times in various iterations of the show. And that’s when it occurred to me: How often has this happened before? Are there patterns? Are there tendencies? And can we predict when it happens again?” De Vries got to work immediately, watching hours and hours of Real Housewives programming. The show, which claims to document the lives of glamorous, affluent women named Jacqueline or Nicole in various urban centers, soon revealed observable data that could be documented and, perhaps, understood. The project, tentatively called Real Housegraphs, has led to quantifiable metrics, including: Value Over Replacement Wife (VORW). This measures the quality, worth, and subtlety of the housewife’s attire/jewelry/accessories versus which marriage her spouse is on.Expected Friends Made While Not Here For It (xFM/WNHFI). If a new housewife is introduced to the show, she often says she’s not there to make friends. This attempts to gauge how many lasting friendships or enemies are made over the life of her story arc.Dousing Average on Champagne In Glass (DACIG). How much of the champagne in a housewife’s glass ends up in another housewife’s face due to perceived disrespect/giving her that look again, versus how much is consumed?Weighted Drama Created Plus (wDC+). Not just who is causing drama, but when and why? Is the conflict caused in high leverage situations like season finales or crossover specials? Is the perpetrator conniving due to financial considerations, potential spin-offs, vodka?“I miss baseball,” added De Vries. "Man." (Image license here.) Click here to view the article

Introducing Through a Child’s Eyes A blog about how kids experiencing winning Twins baseball for the first time connect and have fun without concerns of payroll, unwritten rules, or judgement. The Twins’s postseason run and World Series Championship in 1991 was the first time I really got into baseball. I remember the 1987 Championship, but not that well as I was only six at the time. But 1991 put me in the prime age range to catch on to a fun club for a magical season. As my mom tells it, I was up early each morning to flip open the sports page of the Duluth News-Tribune to read the game recap and check the box score. I hated games out west that missed the deadline. I’ve always followed the club, but with a handful of years as the exception they’ve generally been a pretty bad franchise. Like many of us, I’ve thought back to 1991 a lot this year. In part, because the team seems to have “it” this year, but mostly because my kids are, for the first time, experiencing fun, winning baseball. They are 9(girl), 8(boy), almost 7(boy), and 5 (boy). Fox Sports North is on in the evenings at our house most nights, year-round. We follow all sports and the kids have wide-ranging interests. Prior to this season, baseball has been something they play, something they’re aware of, but not something with which they have any connection. Now we’re doing math on batting averages, they think Buxton is the world’s fastest man, and we’re talking about “triple home-runs” and the “real deal.” I hear my left-handed throwing son (8) want to be a catcher (sorry, bud.) My daughter (9) loves Garv-sauce. They ask about the back of baseball cards and we discuss the history of the game. My nearly seven-year-old wants to be an Air Force pilot like Ted Williams. Let me share one story as a quick introduction- My eldest son recently hollered to me while I was in the bathroom, “Dad, Buxton just swung at a slider, now it’s the real deal!” Me: “The real deal?” Son: “Yes! You know, three balls and two strikes!” Me: “You mean a full count?” Son: “Yeah, but with two outs! The real deal!” We laughed about it, and now in our house, a full count at-bat with two outs is now a Real Deal. I intend to write once or twice a week and share stories as my kids learn the game from a different perspective- a winning one- and hopefully fall in love with baseball. I hope you’ll come along with us as it’s been fun to watch baseball again as many of us first learned it -Through a Child’s Eyes. The author, Tim Fredrickson lives with his family in Brainerd, MN. He can be found on Twitter @TimFredrickson.