to J.S. Bach. Now playing on WFMT: his Magnificat.

I'm not sure exactly what this is, but I had an idea, and so I ran with it. Non-baseball fans may not find this of very much interest, but hopefully there's someone out there who cares.

1. The Barry Bonds

The Barry Bonds is a superstar. His grades lead the class, his comments in class are a home run every time... he's setting records, no one else is in his league. It's ridiculous, really. He's going to be a Supreme Court clerk and everyone knows it. He's also kind of surly to the media.

2. The Pedro Martinez

He doesn't show up at every class, and sometimes when he shows up he leaves early, but when he's there, he's almost perfect. He poses hypotheticals no one can figure out. He makes leaps of reasoning no one can follow. He's brilliant. But fragile.

3. The Albert Pujols

He was aces from day one. Shocking, really. Came in knowing way too much about the law. There are rumors he attended some other law school beforehand, and he's not as inexperienced as he says, but no one's been able to prove it. In any case, he's unbelievable. Just can't find a specialty. First it was Con Law, then they needed him to study Criminal Law. Then Property. Now maybe back to Criminal Law. But anywhere he goes, he's awesome.

4. The Todd Helton

He's good. But not as good as it seems. He cheats. Well, not really. It's just circumstances. His casebook has 40% more answers than everyone else's. His papers take up 40% more pages. It's weird. People have said they should make him take harder exams, or at least curve his performance in a different way. But his raw numbers look tremendous. And he's good. He's just not that good.

5. The Roger Clemens

You thought he graduated, but it turns out he's coming back for another year. He's only going to take classes he's really interested in, and maybe part of the reason he's come back is because his best friend just transferred to this law school, and he wants to hang out with him. All of his children have the initials J.D., like the law degree, except for his adopted foreign child, who has the initials L.L.M.

6. The Derek Jeter

All the girls want to date him. And he's definitely a solid student, his grades are up there, his moot court team keeps winning the championship, year after year after year -- they just do what it takes. But he's not as perfect as it seems. He has weaknesses. In-class exams, not that strong. It appears he is sometimes, but the results don't bear it out. Little range to think outside the box. And his speed is leaving him. He doesn't always finish on time. But, aw, isn't he adorable?

7. The Barry Larkin

He's been here forever! He took a leave of absence last year to deal with a computer virus, which ended up being worse than they thought. He could have transferred a bunch of times, but hasn't. Sacrificing career opportunities to stay at his hometown school. He's outlived his welcome, but there he is, every fall, signing up for classes, talking about how this will be the year he goes to class every day and takes his exams... but then, lately, something always seems to happen, and it doesn't work out for him. He's not getting any younger. But he won't leave!

8. The Eric Gagne

Phenomenal. Just don't ask him any follow-up questions. Another student's having trouble answering the professor's question, he steps right in and takes over. Right answer, almost every time. But the professor sticks with him, and then you get problems. 1, 2, 3 questions he's fine. More than that and you start exposing weaknesses. But he'll answer 'em every day, day after day without fail. Also wears funny glasses, and rumors are he may be Canadian.

9. The Randy Johnson

This student is really not a particularly attractive fellow, and impossibly tall too. But even though he started out kind of erratic, never sure whether he'd be even close with his answer or what, he's really blossomed into quite a performer. His legal analysis moves quicker than anyone else's, can blow an argument right by a judge, and it seems like no one's ever going to catch up with him, no matter how long he goes. He'll talk for nine hours, ten hours, eleven hours if the situation calls for it, and still be right on his game. But he kind of looks like he needs a shower.

10. The Joe McEwing

Aw, he tries so hard. He'll do anything you ask. He'll write a brief, he'll outline the cases, he'll memorize a long list of names for no reason at all. His notes are color-coded, he always shows up to class, he sits right in the front, he listens so carefully. But all that effort is the baseline for him -- it's what he needs to do to survive. He can't speed-read like the guy in the third row, he can't articulate his argument like the girl in the back. But he tries. He really tries. He'll end up a partner in five years, too, because he'll put in the hours.

11. The Jason Giambi

He's gotta be on something. Ritalin, maybe? Drinking too many Red Bulls? Maybe speed? Not sure, but something. Rumors are flying. He was named in the big bootleg-study-guide scandal. He's always been a powerhouse contributor, but now people are starting to wonder. Is it all him, or is he getting help from somewhere? Will we ever really know?

12. The Ben Grieve

First year he made the honor roll. And then something happened. Did he stop trying, sit in his dorm playing video games all day? Did the material just get too hard? Is he not as driven as his classmates? They had such high hopes... and now he's transferred to Thomas Cooley and they're not even sure he'll graduate. Gosh.

13. The Manny Ramirez

Everybody hates him, but you've gotta admit he's smart. Gotta admit he's one of the most talented students in the school. But his scholarship is way too big, he doesn't treat the professors with respect, and he won't come to class if he's got a paper cut. No one wants to be on his mock trial team, even though they'll probably win. The school tried to sell him to Yale, but they didn't even want him for free. They said it was the scholarship, but that's not really it. He just needs a better attitude.

14. The Curt Schilling

He thinks he's the Dean of the Law School. And one day he probably will be, but for now he's got an opinion about everything, and goes onto all sorts of message boards and writes it. He's good but he's a 3L now and time is running out for him to make his mark. He'll do fine, but he wants more than that. He's hungry, even as a 3L. He wants a job at Wachtell. Badly.

15. The Mo Vaughn

He goes to too many law firm receptions and eats all the food he can find. Yes, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here and resorting to fat jokes. I'm sorry. Twenty is a lot.

16. The Mike Matheny

He's going to be a professor some day. He's practically a teacher's assistant as it is. He never really helps anyone out in class but apparently he goes to office hours and... well, he must be doing something right or he wouldn't still be around. It seems like he's failing all his classes, but someone must like him... he'll be teaching before we know it.

17. The Joe Mauer

He's not even here yet! But his reputation precedes him. The star 1L, everyone's sure he'll make law review, even before seeing his first exam answer. Expectations are high, no one knows if he'll really be able to live up... but everyone's trying to get in his section, just to see.

18. The Josh Hamilton

He's not here yet either, but probably won't be coming. Keep hearing about him, but the train keeps getting derailed. Study guides are the problem now they say. One-year suspension for using study guides. Also has 26 Supreme Court opinions tattooed all over his body.

19. The Ramon Castro

He may have raped a fellow student. Trial soon. We'll stand clear of this one for a while.

20. The Alex Rodriguez

Superstar. Once "The Barry Bonds" is gone, it will be even more undisputed than it is now. Just transferred to the best school around. Rumors are that he gets his own honor roll, just for him, but we'll see about that. Not only is he on law review, but he has the hardest position. Or at least he did until getting to the new school, where he's agreed to go from Editor in Chief to Executive Editor just to spare someone's feelings. But if they knew what was best they'd keep him as Editor in Chief. He'll probably be there by next year anyway.

(apologies to girls. i didn't mean to use "he" as the only pronoun. girls are just as good as boys at this whole law school thing anyway. and probably at baseball if they'd sign you.)

Matthew Yglesias has some thoughts (in response to this Brian Weatherson post I meant to post on earlier) on foul trouble. The basic dilemma is why taking people out who are in foul trouble is helpful-- if the biggest risk you run by leaving them in the game is the possibility that you will lose floor minutes for them, giving up floor minutes intentionally by benching them pre-emptively seems like unnecessary surrender.

Several of Yglesias's commenter cite some vague "clutch" effect (whereby the harder shots, taken at the end of the game, are where one wants one's best players; of course, if shots when the game is known to be on the line are difficult, it might well be rational to use your best players early on so as to keep things from getting to that point. Yglesias has a (better, I think) thought-- that players who are nervous about their fifth foul are likely to play suboptimally timidly.

I offer a data point. Back in the days when I lived in Bloomington and watched a lot of IU Basketball (and back in the days of Bob Knight rule), Coach Knight had a reputation for being brilliant at managing his players' fouls. As I recall, the idea was that he benched them for a bit not when they earned their fourth foul, but often simply their third. If it's the case that players play worse upon receiving their 4th foul, and that bencing them is an optimal strategy there, then Knight's strategy might also make sense (since presumably players with 3 fouls who didn't want to get benched would also play sub-optimally to avoid reaching 4). Of course, the regress can't go on forever.

I suspect, but can't currently prove, that coaches in the NCAA let their players foul out a sub-optimally low amount, presumably because of perceived "clutch" effects, and also media pressure. When you lose a game with a fouled-out player you get stories like this. When you lose a game because you benched a starter for two minutes too long between 8:35 and 6:35 to go-- it doesn't make for simple analysis or good reporting.

Ahh, Trader Joe's. When I was in Santa Barbara my first year of college visiting a then-girlfriend, I thought that Trader Joe's, along with right-turns-on-red (which we also have in the midwest), and lemon trees growing in your backyard, was one of the major cultural advantages of the west coast. Recently stores have opened in Indianapolis a quick day trip from my parents' house, and now in Chicago at my favorite refuge of yuppie shopping-- North and Clybourn.

Apparently they've reached Ann Arbor, too. Heidi Bond rightly notes the "two buck chuck" (which costs 3 dollars), which is well worth its modest price (I retract some long-ago dubiousness) if money is tight or standards are low. But if your Trader Joe's is like the one in Chicago (and my understanding is there's some heterogeneity) I recommend grabbing some bottles of "La Boca" from Argentina-- it's also three dollars, and tastes a little bit less like 3-dollar wine.

I don't mean to disparage expensive alcohol-drinking at all; but we can't always walk ten thousand miles.

I agree with Rice Grad that we need more poker-blogging (c.f. Toby Stern). Long-time readers may notice that the poker-blogging that graced this website in the fall and even at new years has gone. If you're in Chicago and have a game that's looking for a tight/confused player of dubious merit, please let me know.

[Note to the relevant authorities-- I in no way mean to suggest by the above that I will be playing poker in violation of the state laws of Illinois. We might be playing just for fun, not for money. And Heidi Bond might be cooking with her wine.]

If you're wondering, I'm now happily ensconced in New York for the week,and connected to the internet, if sporadically. But I'm glad to see that my more-than-capable co-bloggers have been keeping things busy.

Anyway, I spent a few hours (longer than I should have) at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Most of the stuff was depressingly modern-- not Georgia O'Keeffe modern or Mark Rothko modern or Alexander Calder modern, nor even Dale Chihuly or Louise Nevelson modern. There were lots of weird movies (including one strange one of some folks stacking hay), a sculpture of a fox-head choking on some carrots, and a tape of people singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow (badly!) in the stairwellplaying through some sort of plastic tube.

Now, I know I'm not a sophisticated scholar of modern art, but I like a lot of abstract 20th-century stuff. Still, my question is-- are there people somewhere who are moved by this stuff (esp. the Somewhere Over the Rainbow tape or the hay-stackers)? If so, I would like for them to contact me, but preferably not in person until I have assured myself of their sanity. Many thanks.

Anyway, tea at Fauchon and a restorative stop at the Met convinced me that Western Civilization was not headed to Hell in a handbasket, but for a few hours I was beginning to become worried.