It's Major League Baseball opening day. One of the more nerdy things I do (at least according to Dani) is rotisserie baseball. Before fantasy sports took over the internet and spread to everything from golf to cricket, baseball stats fanatics began trying to out duel each other in a yearly prediction-off. The idea is that 10-13 friends all start with a fixed budget of imaginary money, bid against each other on real players, acquire enough to fill the standard positions on a baseball team and track their stats in multiple categories. I've been playing this game for the past 12 years with a group of guys I met in University.

Other baseball nerds.

Two weeks ago we held our league's auction (referred to by one of the participants as "the best day of the year") which led to this exchange between my family members:
From Dani to Jack (our 2 year-old son): "Daddy owns a baseball team. Not a real one, a fake one. With real players who he doesn't actually know. Isn't that silly"
Jack:"Daddy's silly".

I sort of am.

So are all the baseball superstitions that players subscribe to. When I played real baseball (before my rotisserie days) I tried to avoid stepping on the foul lines for a while (I think I saw that in a movie) but most of the time I forgot. My movie emulation never went as far as a couple of Texas high school players who, according to reports were kicked off of their team for sacrificing chickens in a "bid to boost performance".

The duo, who remained unnamed, were suspended from playing for the rest of the year and disciplined by the Western Hills school officials amid claims they slaughtered the baby birds on a baseball field during spring break.

The pair could face greater recriminations after police in Benbrook, Texas, began investigating the reports of animal cruelty.

Western Hills baseball coach Bobby McIntire said he did not know why the students would behave in such a way, but guessed they were influenced by similar scenes of sporting sacrifice in baseball films "Major League" and "Bull Durham," in which the bloody ritual was referenced as a way of beating a slump in form.

Sure there are lots of pathogen risks associated with handling those chicks but live animal slaughter in the name of high school baseball slump busting isn't cool.
 

Why are production standards marketed in grocery stores, but microbiological safety isn’t?

As reported by William Neuman of the New York Times, “shoppers in the supermarket today can buy chicken free of nearly everything but adjectives. It comes free-range, cage-free, antibiotic-free, raised on vegetarian feed, organic, even air-chilled.

“Coming soon: stress-free?

“Two premium chicken producers, Bell & Evans in Pennsylvania and Mary’s Chickens in California, are preparing to switch to a system of killing their birds that they consider more humane. The new system uses carbon dioxide gas to gently render the birds unconscious before they are hung by their feet to have their throats slit, sparing them the potential suffering associated with conventional slaughter methods.”

With so many options, why isn’t someone marketing microbiologically safer chicken – chicken with fewer of the bugs that make people barf?

With the slaughter system, David Pitman, whose family owns Mary’s Chickens, said,

“Most of the time, people don’t want to think about how the animal was killed.”

And retailers will say, you can’t market food safety because that would imply other foods are unsafe.

But as a shopper, I want to reward companies that pay attention to microbial food safety issues, and shun companies that are sloppy.

Americans are good at marketing, so why not get the Mad Men geniuses on the case and figure out how to brag about microbiologically safer food.

Anglia Autoflow, the company that is building the knock-out systems for the two processors, calls the process “controlled atmosphere stunning,” but Mr. Pitman said his company was considering the phrase “sedation stunning” for use on its packages. Also on the short-list: “humanely slaughtered,” “humanely processed” or “humanely handled.”

The trick, he said, is to communicate the goal of the new system, which is to ensure that the birds “not have any extra pain or discomfort in the last few minutes of their lives.”

Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a prominent livestock expert, consulted with Bell & Evans as the company worked with Anglia to design its system. She said it was better because the chickens were not aware of what was happening to them. “Birds don’t like being hung upside down,” Dr. Grandin said. “They get really stressed out by that.”

Scott Sechler, the owner of Bell & Evans, said the system was designed to put birds to sleep gently, in the same way that a person undergoes anesthesia before surgery.

To evoke that image, he wants to put the words “slow induction anesthesia” on his packages and advertising, which already tell customers that the birds are raised in roomy conditions with natural light and given feed free of antibiotics or animal byproducts. Customers who want to know more will be able to go to the company’s Web site.

Dr. Dan Upson presented ‘Efficient Use of Earth’s Resources: Providing Food for the World’s People’ last night at the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine. The presentation brought the production of food back to the basics of biology, from the basics of photosynthesis and fertilization of the soil to the formation of glucose to make energy. Dr. Upson explored the properties of energy sources like starch and cellulose, pointing out that ruminants are the only ones able to utilize the energy contained in cellulose. This emphasized the importance of the ruminant animal in our growing population and the need to continue research to improve beef production.

These topics highlighted the current state of the agriculture industry, which has come under attack in recent years for utilizing technology to improve production methods.

There’s no ice hockey in Manhattan (Kansas) but we do get the NHL channel, and a hockey game can make some fine background while editing.

Saturday nights around 6:45 pm (CST), if I remember, it’s off to Hockey Night in Canada for seven minutes of Don Cherry, the 75-year-old former coach and commentator know for his “outspoken manner, flamboyant dress, and staunch patriotism.”

Cherry also lended his trademark staccato yelling to the Quiznos sandwich chain in Canadian ads, and the “Toasted tastes better” tagline.

So I thought of Don today, as I pined for hockey and read that Quiznos has adopted a new animal-welfare policy regarding its purchases of eggs, pork and turkey, developed in conjunction with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

That’s sweet. I wonder if Quiznos modified its buying patterns after tomatoes on its sandwiches in Rochester, Minnesota, sickened at least 10 people with Salmonella in 2007. Maybe Quiznos modified its policies on raw sewage on the floor in its restaurants after a Chicago outlet was closed in 2008. And maybe Quiznos has instituted sensitivity training for its managers after a Toronto spokesthingy said in response to the Canadian listeria outbreak in deli meats which killed 20 last year that, “People are hypochondriacs.”

This video is aptly titled, Don Cherry is crazy.