Haven, you'll love this

Perusing the always Pulitzer-quality Chron baseball coverage in lieu of doing actual work this morning, I came across this thoroughly well-researched article by Richard Justice: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/bb/1373978

Here's the best part (discussing Bonds' place in history w/ Larry Dierker):

"I would say without hesitation that he's the best hitter I've ever seen," Dierker said.

Dierker speaks with the perspective of having pitched to Hank Aaron and Willie Mays during a 14-year career, then having watched most of Bonds' career as a broadcaster or manager.

Historians crunch the numbers of players from different eras; Dierker has a simple formula. He takes a player's slugging percentage, adds it to his on-base percentage and comes up with a raw number.

"I think that's the best way to judge the quality of a hitter," he said. "That tells you about his power and how often he's on base to give others a chance. If you take other things, like home runs and RBIs, the totals can be skewed by the people around him and his place in the batting order."

Using the Dierker formula, Bonds is one of eight players in history with a total score of more than 1,000. Babe Ruth is the all-time leader with an on-base percentage of .469 and a slugging percentage of .690 for a Dierker total of 1,159.

He's just ahead of Ted Williams (1,117), Lou Gehrig (1,074) and Jimmie Foxx (1,034). The surprise in these numbers is that Chicago White Sox designated hitter Frank Thomas is tied with Hank Greenberg for fifth place with a total of 1,014. Bonds is right behind at 1,007.

This is abso-freakin-lutely pathetic. The f~ckin' baseball beat writer for the Houston f~ckin Chronicle doesn't know what OPS is. He thinks Dierker is some sort of new-age statistical genius. A "Dierker total"??? WTF is that? Also, those f~ckin commas are killing me: .469 + .690 DOES NOT EQUAL 1,159 Richard, you friggin moron. Where has this guy been for the last few years? Does he read about baseball at all, or is he content to just interview players/managers/front office people & just recycle the same ol' cliches week after week? AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH.

Rant over.