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I wanted to rant about the search feature on Baseball Reference, but it's such a small rant that is more of an inconvenience I thought "It's just a little thing". Then I realized there are a lot of "Little things" that get on my nerves as I'm sure there are for many of you, but aren't really thread worthy or rage inducing, but still annoying enough to mention. So I guess post those here? Mainly though I wanted to post this irrational rant that many of you will probably think is stupid, but whatever...

I hate Baseball Reference's search feature because of how unintuitive it is. Sometimes if you misspell a players name it will take you to that player anyways which is nice, but more often than not you need to spell the players name absolutely perfect or else it doesn't show up in the search results. Example: I just typed in Rick Porcelo on accident instead of Rick Porcello... did it take me to his page? No, it said "Player not found". Well who the hell else would I be looking for?

Also, I hate it when I type in the name of a super star and it brings up a list of other players for me to choose from. Yes, BR, when I typed in Adrian Gonzalez I was definitely searching for Rene Gonzales whose middle name happens to be Adrian and owns a .634 career OPS and played between 1984-1997. I couldn't possibly have searched for Adrian Gonzalez while wanting the page for the superstar baseball player named ADRIAN GONZALEZ. Thanks for recognizing the need for such results.

Rene Gonzales' last name isn't even spelled the same way. WTF, Baseball Reference?

Also, you can't search for J.P. Arencibia. I was thinking "Do I need to know what J.P. stands for to find it? Will it display his full name? Did I spell Arencibia wrong?" No, when you find it it displays it as J.P. Arencibia, but their antiquated search technology apparently doesn't pick up on abbreviations. Oh, but B.J. Upton works just fine. That's cool.

EDIT: You CAN search for J.P. Arencibia, but you have to type it J. P. Arencibia... with a space between the period and the P. Can't the "Arencibia" part of the search be enough to bring up a clickable result? GAAAHHHHH

Conclusion: I love Baseball Reference, but sometimes I want to punch them in the face. This rant brought to you by fantasy draft and trade panic research

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"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game."
- Jacques Barzun

Type the before entering a player's name and it will go to the most popular one. No more clicking through to prove you didn't mean Kerry Woodson.

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I never actually use their search engine. I just search the player's name on Google and BR is usually one of the very first results.

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You have no idea how often I plan on using this information.

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"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game."
- Jacques Barzun

Ditto. It's not exactly the easiest thing to develop an intelligent search engine that can always give you what you want. For every one of us that types the name as it should be (or "close enough"), there are dozens that can't even come close to spelling words like Gonzalez. It's really easy to tell your search engine to recommend both common forms of spelling Gonzalez in its results, and I'm OK with them not showing results if I spell a player's name (like Porcelo) wrong. Google has it pretty well mastered, but that's their gig. I doubt the folks at B-R want to be as good as google at the expense of what they do best.

Also, I hate onions.

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Yes, the little things.

On the topic of food... I hate it when the server assumes I want a [expletive] lemon with my water

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"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game."
- Jacques Barzun

Most places that put a lemon in the water do so because they're just giving you tap water and far more people complain over someone daring to serve them common tap water then a lemon in the glass or pitcher. I've checked out quite a few restaurants I've liked on Yelp where the reviews are almost uniformly stellar...and then there's a small cluster of people who give a place 1 star because they realized they were drinking tap water.

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Onions are lovely little additions to many dishes. The other day I just threw a whole one on the grill with the other food and it was quite good.

I hate getting non-tap water. I hate having a group order where somebody sneaks in a request for bottled water, especially if it's with gas. And why the F is the de facto water order at many places bubbly unless you request otherwise?

But a little lemon in the tap water can be lovely as well.

I understand that, that doesn't mean it's not annoying. This really just ticks me off right now because last time I was at a restaurant the waitress asked me if I wanted a lemon with my water and I said "No thank you" and was genuinely pleased she had asked and had intended on tipping a little extra for the mere fact of politely asking me when no one else seems to want to take the extra time to do so.

Then she brought me my water with a [expletive] lemon in it

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"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game."
- Jacques Barzun

an iPhone app for BR would be dope

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I can get on board with that

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"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game."
- Jacques Barzun

Raw onions I hate, sauted or grilled and they are great. Onion rings are good too, especially thin and crispy.

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Ditto! Throw in a lemon or cucumber and I'm golden.

Onion rings are just so hit or miss. At their best, they blow away the fries options, at their worst, crappy fries will win.

In the States? That's something I've experienced overseas, but not here.

I guess it's different depending on the area of the country...


Carbonated drinks are something I try to avoid, so this is annoying for me as well. In Europe one of the first things I learn is how to order "still water," since just ordering water results in the carbonated variety.

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If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, set it on fire.

Sin gas!!!!

Yeah, Spain is big with it. But some of the fancier restaurants in the states are the same way.

You guys don't like Carbonated Water? You guys are weird.

Rots thy teeth, stretches thy stomach...

I stopped dumping acid down my throat around about the time I started getting back into shape.

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If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, set it on fire.

I'll take sweet potato fries over onion rings most of the time.

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Seasoned curly fries dominate all.

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I hate sweet potatoes in any form. OTOH, onion rings are pure awesome. Well, at least as long as they're actual onion rings.

Curly fries are pretty damned good as well.

Tater Tots rule all.

Lettuce and tomatoes are the easiest way to ruin a good burger.

On the other hand, bacon is delicious.

Erroneous on all accounts.

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