The SoapBoxers

After a long off-season, players finally took to the field for baseball’s opening week. Good storylines were all over the place.
Yu Darvish of the Rangers had a perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning. The next batter lined a single through Darvish’s legs and past shortstop Elvis Andrus for a clean base hit. There have been a total of 23 perfect games in the long history of Major League Baseball. While they are never predictable, the matchup of a good young pitcher facing a young and very bad Astros team definitely created a good environment for one.

The Rangers starters in the three game series against Houston all set or tied their career high for strikeouts in a game. The Astros could make a strong run at 120 losses this year, and are a lock for 100 losses.

Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus himself made history earlier by signing an eight year contract extension worth $120 million. That’s a ton of money for a 24 year old, especially one whose game is predicated on defense and speed. However, teams now seem to be valuing up the middle defense, and Andrus is a good fielder. Also, as his body matures, he may add a bit more power. How long he will stay at shortstop, however, is an open question. He is currently blocking Jurickson Profar, the top prospect in baseball. At some point, second baseman Ian Kinsler is going to be forced to a different position and Profar and Andrus are going to be at second and short.

(What is this, A Rangers blog?)

On Wednesday night, Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay struck out 9 batters in 3 ½ innings. However, Halladay also gave up six hits, three walks, five runs, and threw 95 pitches. The Braves continued to whiff against the Philadelphia bullpen, striking out a total of sixteen times … in a game they WON 9-2. Halladay’s fastball velocity was down significantly during spring training, and it doesn’t seem that he has regained that velocity yet. Is this a bump in the road – or time for the Doc to hang up his stethoscope?

The Yankees have stumbled out of the block. This isn’t surprisingly, with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, and Curtis Granderson all on the DL. Oh, and did I mention that Sabathia, like Halladay, has lost a few mph from his fastball? As the veterans line up for their AARP cards, the window for the Yankees is closing … and if they allow second baseball Robinson Cano to leave as a free agent, the window will slam shut on Joe Girardi’s finger.

The low budget Marlins made new by adding 20 year old Cuban exile (and pitcher) Jose Fernandez to their roster. Fernandez is a bona fide top prospects, and he has maturity beyond his years, but many observers question the wisdom of bring him up, consider his lack of high level minor league experience.

There may be snow on the ground in your neck of the woods, but it’s time for baseball to begin!  Baseball is already alive and well.

Spring Training

Spring training began in mid-February, and games have been underway for a while now.  If you subscribe to MLB.TV, you can watch these games on various types of smart devices (not all games are available).  I’ve tried to connect from an iPhone (worked great), Roku (slightly awkward, but worked), Kindle Fire (didn’t work on the first day, but games are now available), and my Panasonic Blu-Ray player (still doesn’t have the Spring Training games).

I’m switching from MLB Extra innings to MLB.TV this year.  Overall, I think it’s a good switch.  MLB Extra Innings is $200.  The base MLB.TV package is $109.99 (for computers only).  It costs $20 more for connected devices (which includes the iPhone, Roku, and Blu-Ray player).  I opted to buy the minor league package for $20, which will allow me to watch some minor league games (only on a computer sadly).  That’s more value than MLB Extra Innings, for $50 less.

I won’t pretend that MLB.TV is perfect, though.  Each device I’ve used has a different interface, and the differences generally aren’t related to the technical constraints of the device.  In a perfect world, the experience should be nearly identical on every device.  Even worse, the fact that the spring training games are available on some devices and not others is unforgivable.  The availability of minor league games only on computers is also very perplexing – why not make these games more readily available instead of forcing people to their computers?

Fantasy Baseball

My fantasy baseball league draft is under way.  We have a very unconventional setup.  We can only start one player for each letter of the alphabet (last name).  The changes player valuation considerably.  For the draft, owners are randomly assigned 2 letters for each of the 10 rounds, and can pick any player from those letters.

I’m through the first twenty picks of the draft and at this point no major holes are evident.  I got my infield in order first, and then filled out the rest of the team.  I’ve tried to get a bit too cute in recent year – notably, last year trying to corner the market on good catchers to create demand – and it had generally bitten me in the rear.  This year I played it pretty much straight up.

World Baseball Classic

World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic is well under way.  Cuba and Japan have advanced from pool A and Chinese Taipei and The Netherlands from pool B.  Pool C and D (in Puerto Rico and the U.S.) begin play this week.  By the time you read this, Japan and Cuba will be near the end of their much anticipate game.  Both have already clinched spots in round 2, but the winner gets a better seed in the second round.

I’ve had the good fortune to watch bits and pieces of a few different games so far, and it’s definitely enjoyable baseball.  It’s nice to see fresh faces as a reminder that baseball in not just a sport in the Americas.

The WBC staggers the games, with two players from each pool playing the first day, before all the teams are in the fray on day two.  It might be good from a PR perspective, but it’s horrible from the standpoint of fair play.  For example, let’s look at pool A.  Japan and Brazil played on the first day, matching their aces.  On day two, they each played teams who hadn’t played yet – meaning that they also had to face that team’s ace – and obviously couldn’t match with their ace, who had started the previous game.  In the case of Brazil, they faced Cuba’s ace in the second game.  This setup creates an unfair advantage for the team that are idle on the first day.

Some states have have are making written driver’s license exams only available in English. This is clearly a method to deny licenses to illegal aliens. However, the advocates of this change often insist that this is a safety issue, and is unrelated to immigration. So let’s set aside the immigration issue and answer the basic question: must someone be fluent in English to be a safe driver?

The first thing we should do is look at the actual street signs you encounter over the course of a day. Some of them have no words at all and other signs have obvious visual clues. If you see an octagonal red sign, you don’t need to see the writing on the sign to know that this is a stop sign. Exclude street signs for a moment and count the number of different words you encounter. It’s a tiny subset of the English language.

Why are we excluding street signs? Because it’s not actually necessary to understand a street sign. You simply need to recognize the name. If I was in Paris looking for Rue Montorgueil, I wouldn’t need to understand what those words mean – I’d simply need to look for those words on a street sign.

Rue Montorgueil or Main street, it makes no difference. Comprehension is not required; only the ability to match a pattern.

So now we have this relative handful of important words. I could take someone who speak Spanish, French, or Italian and explain the concepts to them in their native language. After this lesson, they would know how to react to these signs.

So I would argue that the English fluency necessary to be a safe driver is relatively low. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to many people, as many of us probably know some functionally illiterate people who are able to drive without significant issues. Likewise, I’m sure that I could learn and understand Mexico’s traffic signs well enough to drive there, even though I know only a few words in Spanish.

Could I pass a Spanish language test on Mexico’s driving laws, though? Of course not. The level of fluency necessary to understand the test would be far higher than the level necessary to understand the signs. If I wanted to, I could create a test on your state’s driving laws that the vast majority of people would fail. I’d test simple concepts, but use words that very few people know.

The key takeaway here? A large vocabulary does not equal a better understanding of the laws.

There is actually a danger to denying licenses. If you look through the crime logs in your city, you’ll likely see a number of people cited for driving without a license. Lack of a license does not prevent many people from driving. However, it DOES prevent them from getting insurance – so they become uninsured drivers.

Last Friday, a gunman killed twenty kids and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut. From Columbine to Sandy Hook, there have been several tragic shooting at schools across the United States. Many parents wonder if they should pull their kids out of schools. Are schools a dangerous place for kids?

How dangerous are schools?

There are about fifty five million students attending the more than one hundred thirty thousand schools across the country. Add in three and a half million teachers and various other employees, and more than sixty million people could be in schools at any point and time. That’s nearly one in five Americans.

How safe are schools? Let’s look at some statistics from The Institute of Education Sciences within the National Center for Education Statistics. Between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009 (latest period for which full statistics are available) seventeen students were killed at school or school related functions. That’s seventeen too many.

During the same time, 1562 kids between the age of five and eighteen were victims of homicide (citation: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/crimeindicators/crimeindicators2011/figures/figure_01_2.asp). Wow.  That’s the equivalent of more than 50 Sandy Hooks in a year. As incredibly tragic as school shootings are, they tiny fraction of the total number of kids being murdered every year.  It’s the very tip of the iceberg.  A child is far more likley to be killed by a parent than by a gunman at school.

Veterans in schools

One suggestion I’ve seen from Republicans friends of mine is to employ 3-4 veterans as security at every school.  At first glance, that’s a very interesting idea.  Let’s take a moment to run the numbers.  Let’s assume four at each school.  Let’s assume an average salary of $25,000 with total employment costs (health insurance, FICA, etc) at around $35,000.  This would add  more than a half million people to government payrolls, at a cost of $18 billion.  That’s an interesting suggestion from the party that believes in smaller government.

I’m also not sure how effective it would be.  Would shooters just decide not to kill anyone?  Or would they just move on to softer targets?  If you take a moment to think of all the times when groups of children are in vulnerable situations, you may not be able to sleep tonight.  Would heavily guarded schools simply transfer the death toll elsewhere, with the net outcome to society the same?  I don’t have a good answer to that question.

Take away all the guns

Should we just ban all guns?  Even if we wanted to do this, it’s not feasible.  There are a huge number of unlicensed weapons in this country.  Weapons have always been a part of American life, and many guns have been handed down from generation to generation.  Tracking down all these guns would be impossible.

Of course, the criminals would keep their guns … and would probably employee some machine shops to manufacturer guns for them.  The manufacture of the most basic guns is not exactly rocket science.

Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people

This is true. 

However, guns make it easy to kill quickly, and from a distance.  In China last week, someone injured 23 people in a knife attack.  How many died?  Zero.  It takes far more effort to kill twenty people with a knife than with a gun.  First, you must get close to the victim, which allows them to fight back (or others to tackle you).  Second, it takes more time to perform the actual kill.  It’s not just a matter of pulling a trigger.

While it’s not practical to ban all guns (and would violate the 2nd amendment), let’s spend a moment discussing guns with high firing rates / high capacity.  I’m not a firearms expert, so I’m not going to give a specific definition for this.  A simple revolver won’t with this category, an AK-47 will.  At some point between those two weapons, there is a line of demarcation.

I’m not a gun expert, but my thought is that there are three basic uses for a gun:

• Defense – Includes self-defense and many law enforcement situations.
• Hunting/Sport
• Offense  – Includes military, extreme law enforcement situations (siege), and homicide.

My basic question is the purpose of high capacity weapon in these situations. 

In a self-defense situation, it seems a bit unlikely that one of these weapons would be more helpful than a more traditional weapon.  If you have to fire a hundred rounds in a defense situation, you have some very serious problems (such as being under attack by an entire regiment of the Canadian Army).  Maybe there have been real life situations where someone has needed this sort of capacity in a defense situation.

I also wonder about the need for such a weapon in a hunting situation.  If you have to fire a hundred rounds to kill an animal, doesn’t that diminish the skill aspect of hunting a bit?  I’d also consider sport uses of firearms to be secondary to safety concerns. 

So, then, is there a need for high fire rate / high capacity firearms in the hands of civilians?  And if so, what is that need?

Newtown, we grieve with you.

This story originally ran on May 8, 2009. It’s much different than most of my other stories – because nobody dies.

It was a beautiful spring day, but Ferdinand the Turtle was in a grumpy mood.  The kids at school were making fun of him again.  All the other turtles had normal names such as Bill, Tom, and Ann.  Ferdinand had a long name, and it sounded funny.  The other kids made fun of him and told him that his name was too big for such a small turtle.  Ferdinand felt sad and left the playground.

Ferdinand walked by the old warehouse.  The workers were unloading a truck.  There seemed to be some excitement with one of the crates.  Suddenly, something popped out of the box and came racing across the grass toward Ferdinand.  Ferdinand was amazed at the sight.  It was an animal, but it was not like any animal he had every seen on Turtle Island.  This animal was covered in fur and had a big, bushy tail.  The animal seemed to be a bit stunned, so Ferdinand talked to it.

“Hello?  Hello?  Are you OK?”

The furry animal scratched his head and looked toward Ferdinand.

“I’m OK, I gue – whoa!  What the heck are you?  You’re the funniest looking animal I’ve ever seen.”

“Hrumph,” said Ferdinand.  “I could say the same thing about you.  At least I don’t have a big tail like you.”

“That’s very true,” admitted the mysterious stranger, “but you do have that thing on your back.  What is that?”

“It’s my shell,” replied Ferdinand.  “I can pull my body inside my shell when it rains.”

“Oh, I see.  That’s pretty clever.  I should introduce myself.  I’m Bob the Squirrel.”

“Hello, Bob,” said Ferdinand.  “I am Ferdinand the Turtle.”

“Well, Ferdinand, I somehow got myself packed up in one of those crates and my legs are stiff.  I need to take a walk.  Maybe you could show me around town.”

Ferdinand agreed, and they started walking toward main street.  Ferdinand saw a rock on the groud and gave it a kick with his foot.

“Ferdinand,” gasped Bob.  “What are you doing?”

“I’m kicking the little rock down the street.  It’s fun.  You should try it.”

“That’s not a rock, Ferdinand.  That’s an acorn.”

“A what?”

“An acorn is a type of nut,” explained Bob.  “You can eat it.  Acorns are yummy for your tummy.  Try one.”

Ferdinand didn’t think he would like an acorn, but he decided to try it anyway.  He bit into the acorn and it tasted awful.  He spit the acorn onto the street.

Bob furrowed his brow.  “Pehaps,” he speculated “it is an acquired taste.”

“Ugh,” replied Ferdinand.  “If it’s an acquired taste, I have no plans to acquire it.”

The fiscal cliff is looming at the end of the year, and we will be hearing more about it as we get closer to the end of the year.

My predictions regarding the fiscal cliff.

• A deal will get done, but it might not be until early January.  The new congressional session begins on January 3rd.  This may result in congress having to re-do some of the earlier work, due to the changed in the membership of the congress.
• The payroll tax holiday will end.  Extending this long term would probably be a bad idea anyway, since this is money that goes into Social Security.  If we’re reducing the funds going into Social Security, we’re increasing the risk that Social Security will be a viable program in the future.  This may even be phased in over 2-3 years to allow families to slowly adjust to the lower take home pay.
• The Bush era tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 per year will remain in place.
• Rates for families making more than $250,000 will rise, but not quite to the levels they were at before the Bush era cuts.  Maybe slightly above the midway point between the old and new rates.  Yes, I am predicting an actual compromise.
• The capital gains rate will rise, perhaps to a maximum rate of 18-20%.  One misconception about capital gains is that they are a form of double taxation.  This can be the case, if the rise in a stock’s price is attributable to the company retaining/reinvesting earnings rather than paying dividends.  However, in many cases a stock price rises for other reasons.  Sometimes the company has never made a profit, but has a very promising future.  In this case, corporate taxes have never been paid.  Additionally, capital gains can arise from the ownership of non-stock assets (real estate and physical objects).

Up to this point, both sides have been hesitant to budge very much, although some Republicans have said they would support a tax increase on the wealthy.  Without action, tax rates for everyone will go up on January 1st.  In essence, this is a game of high stakes chicken.  It may even make sense, politically, to wait until 2013 to pass the legislation.  If the legislation passes this year, before the rates revert, it would just be an extension of the earlier cuts.  If the legislation passed after the rates have already reverted, it would be an actual cut of those new rates.  Very little difference in the grand scheme of things, but a big difference on the political trail in 2014.

The first time I encountered Lawrence Block’s hit man, Keller, I wasn’t overly impressed.  I finished the book, but Keller just didn’t see to resonate with me nearly as well as other Block characters like gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr or private eye Matt Scudder.  A couple of years later, I discovered that one of the Keller books, Hit and Run, took place in my home state of Iowa.  That was enough of a reason for me to give Keller a second chance.  This time, he quickly grew on me (much like a fungus).  I became fond of Keller and have read several of the Keller books since then.

Several months ago, Block announced that a new Keller book, Hit Me, would be coming out in February.  I pre-ordered it immediately, so that it would magically appear on my Kindle on the release date.

Then, last week, something appears in my inbox.  An advanced reading copy of the book.  Yes, Christmas came early this year …

Without further ado, let’s get to the book.

Hit Me, like several other Keller books, is broken into a number of shorter works.  In the case of Hit Me, these are five stories: Keller in Dallas, Keller’s Homecoming, Keller at Sea, Keller’s Sideline, and Keller’s Obligation.  While the stories mesh with each other chronologically, they can also be read independently of each other.  The final story ends rather abruptly, leaving you wanting more. 

The People

An important aspect of the Keller books has always been Keller’s relationship with Dot, the woman who lines up work for him.  Although Keller and Dot go long stretches without contact, she often knows him better than he knows himself.  In theory, their relationship is professional.  However, in reality, they are very good friends.  Their phone conversations often drift into fun trivial tangents.  However, other times they discuss the big question: is it morally acceptable to kill people for profit?

In Hit and Run, Keller was forced to abandon New York City.  He ended up landing in New Orleans in the typical “boy meets girl, boy kills girl’s attacker, boy marries girl” fashion.  Keller is now a family man, settled down with a wife and young daughter.  This makes him wonder if it’s time to leave his line of work behind – but he always seems to get drawn back in.  His wife, Julia, is aware of his secret, and she has to figure out what she thinks of a man who kills for a living.  The story Keller at Sea gives us a prolonged look at Julia.

I’m hoping there are many more Keller books in the future.  Keller’s daughter (inverted) Jenny is just three years old now.  At some point in the future, will she learn what her daddy does for a living?  Will she eventually join the family business?   

The Stories

The five stories in the book take Keller away from his New Orleans home to Dallas, New York, an ocean cruise, Cheyenne, Denver, and Buffalo (coincidentally, the author’s childhood home).  The people targeted by Keller’s clients include a wealthy criminal, a prominent member of the clergy, and a fourteen year old stamp collector (Keller wouldn’t kill a kid – would he?).  We also see Keller being seduced – by a lonely widow and a sexy widow-wannabe.  Will Keller give in to temptation, or stay true to Julia (come on, Keller, keep it zipped)?

Although Keller’s moral compass might be a few degrees away from true north, he still does have a basic sense of right and wrong guiding his life.  He always strives to get the job done with a minimal amount of collateral damage.  However, Keller’s killings never go exactly according to plan.  Some little wrinkle always pops up – sometimes organically and sometimes supplied by Dot – and Keller needs to determine the best way to handle it.  Even dream jobs aren’t without their challenges … 

Keller always attacks the situation in a matter-of-fact way.  It’s interesting to see a killer portrayed as a true professional.  Killing someone isn’t as easy as flying to a different city, shooting them in the head, and flying back home.  The killing is only half the job – getting away with it is the other half.  Proper preparation prevents piss-poor performance, as they say.

For those of your who are currently apprentices in the profession, the Keller books are a good way to learn some tricks of the trade.

Block is a master story-teller.  He managed to make even the most mundane details seem interesting.  Why would anyone really care what Keller eats for breakfast?  Well, I would – Keller’s thought process on the topic is pretty interesting. 

In terms of mood, the Keller stories fall somewhere between the Bernie and Scudder books.  Not as lighthearted as Bernie can be at times, but not as dark as the Scudder books can sometimes get.

The Stamps

Many years ago, Keller got into stamp collecting as a way to hide his ill-gotten gains.  The Keller books have always discussed philately.  If you’re a stamp collector yourself, you’re likely to enjoy Keller’s pursuit of various stamps and interaction with other collectors.  You may also learn a few things about geography and history along the way.  The author draws upon his own philatelic experiences for the Keller character.  In fact, Block has published a book about his stamp collecting experiences,  Generally Speaking, which is composed of columns he wrote for Linn’s Stamp News.  If you read Generally Speaking (which I, as a non-collector, found very enjoyable) you’ll note a lot of similarities between Keller and the author.

The killings, however, are purely works of fiction.

Probably.

Verdict

If you’re a Keller fan, definitely pre-order.  These are very interesting Keller tales that show our hero moving to a new phase of his life.  If you haven’t tried the Keller books yet, give Hit Me a chance.  You won’t regret it.
 

The 2013 baseball season is just around the corner.  At some point in the coming months, I’ll delve into each league in more detail.  Today, however, we’ll just take an overall look at things to watch for in 2013.

Players to watch

Mike Trout – Trout’s season was a historically great season.  He hit .326 with 30 homers and 49 steals in just 139 games, and also provided great defense at a premium position, center field.  It’s very possible that Trout will never again have a season as good as his 2012 season.  In fact, this is pretty likely.  If Trout averages .300 with 20 homers and 30 steals for 15 more years (he’d be 36 at the end of that span) while playing above average defense in center field, those numbers would most likely get him into the Hall of Fame.  Don’t engrave the plaque yet, though – a lot can happen in 15 years.  Some are worried that Trout’s body type (stocky) won’t be able to retain his blazing speed for very long.  This could be true, but it might also be true that he’s just a freak.  Trout still is several years away from a player’s traditional peak years, so it’s possible that he might actually get better …

Bryce Harper – Harper was a far more highly touted high school player, but he was completely overshadowed by Trout in 2012.  However, Harper still had a very good season, hitting .270 with  22 homers and stealing 18 bases.  He’ll need to kick those numbers up a fair amount to reach the potential people see for him, but the fact that he was able to hold his own in the majors at age 19 is extremely impressive – this is a rare achievement.

Jurrickson Profar – The top prospect in baseball was promoted by the Rangers at the end of the year.  He had a cup of coffee in the majors and put up fairly bad offensive numbers in the very limited action.  If Profar can hold his own in 2013 – and I think he can – this will create an excess of middle infielders for the Rangers.  The smart move would be to trade Elvis Andrus.  They could also trade Ian Kinsler and move Andrus to second base, but this would actually destroy value.  Shortstop is a more valuable position than second base, and converted Andrus to a second baseman would make him a less valuable player.

Shohei Otani – Otani announced that he wanted to sign with a Major League team out of high school rather than a Japanese professional team.  He was then drafted by the Nippon Ham Fighters, which could put a wrinkle in the plans.  The consensus seems to be that Otani is still free to sign with an MLB team, although this might straning relations between MLB and the Nippon Professional Baseball League.  Otani is 6’4″ and boasts a 100 mph fastball.

Josh Hamilton – Hamilton is a free agent and will get a lot of money from somebody.  There are a couple of things that should scare some teams.  First is the history of off-field problems, most notably with drug abuse.  Everyone is cheering for Hamilton to stay clean and sober, but realistically, Hamilton’s risk is greater than that of some random player (Peter Bourjos, for example).  A related concerns is whether the drug abuse in his earlier years have caused damage to his body that will cause him to break down in a few years.  Major League contracts are fully guaranteed, which means a team could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars if something bad happens.

Teams to watch

Toronto Blue Jays – The Blue Jays made a trade with the Marlins that netted them Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, and Jose Reyes.  This is a big influx of talent and I’d expect the Blue Jays to make a big jump in the standings.

Florida Marlins – The Marlins won just 69 games last year … and then dumped most of their good players (with the exception of Giancarlo Stanton).  This could be a historically awful season.

The 2012 playoff teams – The Yankees are getting older.  The Orioles have a great bullpen – but can they sustain their incredible record in one run games?  Can the Nationals close the deal with Strasburg pitching an entire year?  Are the A’s for real?  Can the Angels avoid digging a big early hole again and win the West?

James Patterson comes out with a new book as often as some people change their underwear.  I won’t name any names, but you know who you are.  Calling him prolific underestimates the scope significantly.  He released 13 books in 2011 and is scheduled for a total of 13 in 2012.  Don’t worry, there are already 5 books planned for release in 2013.  By comparison, Stephen King has released two books this year.

How does Patterson do it?  I’ve been aware of his secret for quite some time, but Parade Magazine spilled the beans to a broader audience yesterday.  Patterson collaborates with a number of authors to co-write most of his books.  Grab a random Patterson book – most likely you’ll see his name at the top and the other author’s name lower on the cover.

The breakdown of work is essentially this:

• Patterson comes up with the idea and generates an outline
• The other author fleshes out the outline into a first draft
• Patterson tweaks as necessary and hands off to the publisher

I’m not sure of the exact agreement between Patterson and the other authors.  My assumption is that Patterson gets the lion’s share of the money.  Is this a fair deal for the other authors?

It sounds like other authors are doing a lot of the work – and they are.  However, we shouldn’t underestimate Patterson’s contributions to the books.  Coming up with a good idea for a novel is hard, as is determining that path the plot will take.  Edison once said that genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.  It’s important to remember that both aspects of genius must be in place for it to work.  Just as inspiration without perspiration will fail, so will perspiration without inspiration.

Most importantly, though, is the value of Patterson’s name.  Putting his name on a book guarantees premium placement in book stores, a huge number of sales, and likely a top spot on best seller lists.  This is due to a strong reputation Patterson has built up over the years.  While Patterson’s collaborators are doing a lot of the work, they are also reaping huge benefits by associating themselves with him.  They may get a considerably smaller chunk of the pie than they would if they created the same book independently, but they are getting a slice of a much larger pie.

For whatever reason, Patterson is an author I like best in audio format.  I don’t often grab his books and read them.  There’s no explanation for this – there are other authors I enjoying reading and dislike listening to their audio books.  Probably my favorite Patterson book is The Jester, which he co-wrote with Andrew Gross.