On the Nature of Things | Forum

slider seems to be a yorker.

the second guy playing games with the timing is great - that is a huge part of how Shane Warne would operate, the theatre, never letting the batsman settle into a comfy normality, revving up the crowd, its what the game needs.

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is a changeup a slow ball or a general word for any variation ?

cricketers will huff and puff and do all the action of a fastball, but will use split fingers, or some other speed ruining trick to turn it into a slowball - it seemed to my uneducatd eye that what was going on in some of these changeups.

yes, the changeup is interchangeable with slowball but the word slowball dropped out of usage around the time of WWII. It's an example of language shift.

I don't know why exactly, I very vaguely remember the shift having something to do with softball terminology; though change-of-pace was used by newspaper writers very early on, so it's pretty natural to just shorten that.

The general catch all term would just be "off-speed".

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Pedro Martinez may have had the best circle-change in the history of baseball. He really popularized that circle-change grip but the more common grip is the straight-change.

You throw it like a four-seam (or cross-seam) fastball but instead of two fingers on top of the seams, it's three fingers and it's pushed deeper into the palm.

Another grip is more like a traditional split-finger fastball grip with slightly different thumb position or it being held on longer to slow the pitch down.

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https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/12 ... 0404di_ded

With bidding at 33 hundred dollars already, it's a bit much

Opening Day has arrived and the season has started

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Nestor Cortes pitched an immaculate inning on Easter Sunday:

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An immaculate inning is where a pitcher throws 9 consecutive strikes and records three strike outs in his half-inning of work.

There have been about 110 of them in the history of the MLB.

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The Yankees catcher, without thinking or being aware of the feat, toss the ball into the stands at the end of the inning which cause a little bit of anxiety on the part of his teammates.

Bill "The Spaceman" Lee pitched an inning in a collegiate summer league and at the age of 75 retired the side:

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Lee claim to fame was (initally) being an outspoken hippie who happened to be a decent pitcher.

But in '76 he was injured (torn ligaments in his shoulder) in what had to be one of the ugliest brawls ever to take place on a baseball field, and he became a cautionary tale about what could happen when teams let brawls break out.

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Hopefully the Catholic Yankees gave Cortez an immaculate reception after the game.

Free baseball!

https://www.techhive.com/article/702445 ... ernet.html

I've not wanted to jinx it but this season is shaping up as a special one in New York.

Both NY teams are in first place in their respective leagues; the Yankees are on a historic run through the American League and are on pace for a 116 win season.

That would tie the all time record in a 162-game season* set by the Seattle Mariners in 2001.

*The 1906 Cubs went 116-36; some consider the .763 winning percentage the number to beat (excluding the nascent 19th century leagues with their shorter schedules and sometimes dodgy competition).

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I don't think this Yankees team is poised to beat or tie the record. I don't think it is as good on the whole as the 1998 Yankees team which won 114 (and held the modern season record until the Mariners broke it).

I do think they have a shot of winning 110+ games or so, which is an accomplishment in and of itself.

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 3:27 am

So SpaceEx is into baseball now?

when he's not hitting home runs, he's robbing 'em:

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Aaron Judge has just hit his sixtieth home run of the season in game 147, putting him in a tie for second all time in the American League and one behind Roger Maris's 61 (still the AL record holder):



But not only that, as of tonight, he is now leading the American League in Batting Average, Home Runs and Runs Batted In, if the season ended today he would also be a Triple Crown Winner.

There have only been 18 Triple Crown Winners in all of MLB history, the last one was 10 years ago (Miguel Cabrera) and before that, Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.

The last Yankee to win a Triple Crown was Mickey Mantle in 1956.

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With sixty home runs, he joins an even more exclusive club: Ruth, Maris, McGwire, Sosa and Barry Bonds...and the last three are tainted by the steroids scandal of the last generation.