Baseball

[noddy]

https://youtu.be/uB5Lj_anzPU

Interesting analysis on this event.

Super parochial! Which is great.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Eh, he gets the few things wrong and the hostile subtext (as a proxy for the fight between the so-called 'analytical' and 'traditionalist' crowd) is really unappreciated and irritating, as so much baseball talk has become bitter.

Sal Licata is infamously a stupid man on radio. I think that's his official job description. He has a good radio voice for the New York market but his takes are so dumb, most of his audience is "hate-listening" and it took years for WFAN to give him his own show- the middle of the night time slot.

Something similar could be said about Keith Olbermann-- whose had a much bigger media career that is too far afield for this discussion-- and no one would confuse Keith Olbermann's opinion on anything for the "everyman".

[noddy]

i guessed alot of it was hype - i usually watch american things with filters for such things !

having the NBL fight it or not, its good to see the international game grow.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

It's hype and not hype.

The patriotic spirit among the foreign (har har) teams appears real and I think there are television metrics and merchandising etc. to prove that.

I do wish more American baseball fans were interested in it; just as much as I'd like to see more baseball fans in general. What I don't like is the use of it as another opportune truncheon to beat the fans they don't like over the head for not enjoying baseball in some imaginary right way. There was a lot of that this week.

There are some opinions floating out there that want to have it both ways, the tournament is in no way for Americans but Americans mustn't ignore it. It's an abusive double-bind.

The sport can survive the Sal Licata's of the world spouting off from the mouth, God help it if it is completely turned over to the nerdy snobs and fandom culture.

-----------

And not being for Americans is accurate. People pick up on that, whether they can articulate it or not. This was the first tournament wherethe MLB attempted to push a bit more marketing for it stateside.

One may think I'm exaggerating but American parochialism scares the executives-- the original hook for the American audience was "dream team" assembly with all sorts of names now in the Hall of Fame (never mind the team was largely over the hill by that point). Then it became celebrating national pride of the other teams and celebrating that Team USA was a reflection of national pride of others...

[noddy]

the parochialism is almost dead now in cricket - its a real shame that has sucked alot of the spice out of the competition.

all the guys play together in the leagues so much, all the mystery and urgency has gone out of it, its just another game.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

the parochialism is almost dead now in cricket - its a real shame that has sucked alot of the spice out of the competition.

all the guys play together in the leagues so much, all the mystery and urgency has gone out of it, its just another game.

Keep in mind you're explaining water to a fish here. That remnants of that sort of mystery died in my childhood when the leagues were folded into one entity and made gradually made uniform. Now, as the best players from Japan are increasingly moving over to compete here as soon as possible, there is literally no possible mystery pool of players out to compete against. It would have to be a sudden wellspring from europe or india or somewhere where the players get very good very quickly yet won't be plucked for the American market straight away.

[noddy]

all of this is new to us cricket folks - the leagues have risen fast and furious in the last 5 years or so, tho people were worried about it a decade back.

America is miles ahead on all this , as with all things commercial.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

September 9, 1858: The New York rules in New England

Baseball before the Civil War was very much a regional game, focused in the Northeastern United States around local clubs that played by local rules. In 1845 the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York devised one of the first set of codified regulations, which became known as the Knickerbocker rules. Meanwhile New Englanders played a version of what we now know as the Massachusetts Game, a descendant of Town Ball and Rounders. Though similar, the two versions had substantial differences.

Fifteen New York area clubs convened in early 1857 and adopted almost all of the Knickerbocker rules as official, making what we call the New York rules. Later that same year, a young baseball enthusiast named Edward G. Saltzman moved from New York to Boston and began promoting this style of play. A former second baseman for the Gothams of New York, a rival of the Knickerbockers, Saltzman soon formed the first club in New England dedicated to playing the New York game — the Tri-Mountains of Boston (named after the three hills that dominated the early Boston skyline).[fn]Brian McKenna. “Edward G. Saltzman, Baseball Pioneer.” http://www.baseballhistoryblog.com, July 1, 2010.[/fn]

On May 13, 1858, ten Massachusetts clubs met in Dedham, Mass., to form the Massachusetts Association of Base Ball Players and to codify their regulations. The Tri-Mountains advocated the adoption of the New York rules but were voted down, and the rules of the Massachusetts Game became official in the region.[fn]Ibid.[/fn]

The Tri-Mountains could not find another club to face them on the field, so they spent more than a year practicing and playing intrasquad games. No one else in the area played by the New York rules, and no one from New York would make the trip to Massachusetts to oppose them. At last the Portland Club, Maine’s first organized team[fn]Harry Gratwick. Hidden History of Maine. (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2010).[/fn], agreed to travel to Boston for a match. On September 9, 1858, the two teams met on Boston Common in the first recorded game played in New England under the New York rules.

The following day the Boston Herald ran this account of the contest:

An Interesting Game of Base Ball on the Common –
The Portland Club of Portland, Me., vs. the Tri-Mountain Club of Boston

A very closely contested game of base ball was played on the Common in this city yesterday afternoon, between the Portland Club of Portland, Me., and the Tri-Mountain Club of Boston. The game was that known as the New York game, and the Portland boys won by five runs. The rules of the New York game differ materially from those adopted by the Massachusetts Association of Base Ball Players last fall. The bases are placed at the angles of a rhombus instead of a square, the home base being the position of the striker; provision is made for “foul hits,” and the ball is caught on the “bound” as well as on the “fly.” The game consists of nine innings instead of one hundred tallies, and the ball is pitched, not thrown.

The playing commenced about three o’clock, the Tri-Mountain Club having the first innings, and the ninth innings of the Portland Club was finished at a quarter to six. … The playing was witnessed by a large and interested crowd of spectators.[fn]“An Interesting Game of Base Ball on the Common—The Portland Club of Portland, Me. Vs the Tri-Mountain Club of Boston,” Boston Herald, September 10, 1858, reprinted in Troy Soos. Before the Curse: The Glory Days of New England Baseball, 1858-1918, rev. edition. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2006), p 163-164.[/fn]

A half-century later, the New York Times republished an account of the game and added this note about the contest’s final runs:

The finish of the game was highly sensational.

It should be borne in mind that, at that time, a “home run” counted two.

When the score was “tied” for the last time, in the last half of the “ninth,” “Capt. Sidney” (who was then thirty years of age, weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, and was a steam-boat captain, in active service, between New York and Portland) went to bat with the bases full and two men out.

The fates allowed him to “knock a long fly,” which let the four of ’em around, scoring the five extra runs.[fn]“A Baseball Story of Long Ago—The Oldest Ball: Note The Difference Bteween the Account of This Game in 1858 and the Victory of the New York Americans Over Washington Yesterday.” New York Times, April 25, 1909.[/fn]

More at the link above

[noddy]

all that happened long before cricket hit my country, its nice to see it all documented.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I would've thought cricket was already started there.

If that's the case, there is a chance baseball was played first in Australia. There are records of games down under in the 1850s among American prospectors.

google says the first game in australia took place in Feburary 1857. An article from 2014:

A Brief History of Baseball in Australia

Baseball in Australia has come a long way, and now Major League Baseball has come a long way to open its season there. On March 22–23, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks will be staging their Opening Day games at the historic Sydney Cricket Ground — the same venue where, 125 years ago, Spalding’s Chicago White Stockings played three games against the All Americas, top-flight opponents (including three future Hall of Famers) selected for the voyage.

Also like America, Australian baseball has a creation myth with little or no basis in fact. The Aussie equivalent of Abner Doubleday and his Cooperstown pals of 1839 would be a bunch of expat miners playing baseball in the goldfields of Ballarat in 1857. There’s no point in burying Abner Doubleday again, although he has proven to be a lively corpse. But the Ballarat tale is preceded by evidence two years earlier, in the Colonial Times [Hobart] of September 22, 1855:

Sabbath Desecration. — A correspondent requests us to call attention to the practice of a number of boys and young men, who congregate in Mr. Wilkinson’s paddock, near Patrick and Murray Streets, on Sunday afternoons, for playing at cricket, base-ball, &c., making a great noise, and offending the eyes and ears of persons of moral and religious feeling.

Far from the goldfields where Americans tended to congregate, Hobart is on the northern coast of the island that since 1856 has been known as Tasmania. And interestingly, like most of the many recent finds of baseball in the U.S. before Doubleday, this first Australian mention of baseball comes in the form of a complaint, of the sort that generally leads to a prohibition.

Australia’s first recorded game, as reported in Bell’s Life, was a February 28, 1857 three-inning match between Collingwood and Richmond. Though named “baseball,” it was a hybrid game in which it seems a run was recorded for each base secured. The final score: Collingwood 350, Richmond 230. Another significant report of baseball play (labeled the “first trial in the colonies”) survives in Melbourne’s Argus of June 5, 1869:

The first match of the Baseball Club will be played on the old Lonsdale Cricket ground, near the Botanical-gardens-bridge, at half-past two o’clock this afternoon. This game is as popular in America as cricket is here, and as to-day will witness its first trial in the colonies it will no doubt prove attractive to lovers of out-door sports.

Another baseball club was formed in Sydney in 1878. On June 17 the Argus reported: “The Base-ball Club formed here opened successfully at Moore-park on Saturday.” A month later the Gippsland Times reported the formation of another Sydney club: “The New South Wales base ball club has fairly started; practice matches have commenced.”

But the most important early Australian baseball club was the St. Kilda. On May 12, 1879, three days after an organizational meeting at Jewett’s Hotel in Clyde Street, the club conducted its first intramural game:

The first practice of the St. Kilda Base Ball Club took place on Saturday, on their ground, at the corner of Chapel and Argyle streets. After a little desultory practice sides were chosen and a scratch match played, the teams being captained by Messrs Jewett and Campbell. It resulted in an easy victory for Campbell’s side, by 16 runs to 3.

More at the link

[noddy]

thats cool.

i actually badly, and quickly meant to type "that stage of crickets development" .. which is largely lost to folk lore and happened centuries before my country existed.

baseball being more modern, has it all documented.

t-ball is quite popular over here as a kids game, like soccer, it removes much of the danger of the proper games , which is a feature for modern helicopter parents.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Yes, I know helicoptering was turned to the max but I do have endless respect for the parents who have the patience to run those leagues.

[noddy]

yeh, one of my mates does it for his kids and its a weekend consuming commitment.

speaking of safety - the baseball helmet is a real anachronysm to the cricket world , that style got banned many years ago and every death, they bring in new features and even more coverage.

bbhelmet.jpg (1.58 MiB) Viewed 7092 times

the current cricket one has a mandated face grill, and the new addition is the back of the neck protection.

12d2293674f25d8cda1ff4e9a9a3cea3.jpeg (21.99 KiB) Viewed 7092 times

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Death is much more part of your game where it's legal to launch projectiles at a human target.

While that is still the base model that plenty of players use, in the last few years many players have gone to a slightly thicker option and close to a majority now deploy a flap that covers the mouth (like this:)

[noddy]

Death is much more part of your game where it's legal to launch projectiles at a human target.

true - I would have thought mishits off the top of the bat showed up , but the angles must be in your favour.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Players are more likely to ground the ball into their legs and break something below the knee; or hit the ball into the face mask of the catcher or home plate umpire. There have been some once in a blue moon scary incidents from that. As those positions are fully helmeted & masked it usually amounts to concussion worries; the lightning strike incident is usually when everything aligns so that the ball is fouled directly into an exposed neck.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

https://youtu.be/COns3r6VNmY

COns3r6VNmY

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Speaking of being hit in the face, Rangers outfielder Josh Smith took an 88 mph pitch to the face a few days ago:

https://youtu.be/bl70kt84tQ0

bl70kt84tQ0

With six sutures in his face, Smith entered the Rangers’ clubhouse Tuesday afternoon and spoke to the Dallas Morning News about the aftermath of the incident:

“I definitely thought it would be worse,” Smith said. “When I got back to the clubhouse after being hit and the shock wore off, I just started crying because I thought it was bad and I was going to miss a long time. This is really the best outcome possible. It’s basically a cut.”

quote sourced from this NJ.com article

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Right now the Pirates and the Rays have the best records in baseball.

Q2kk3AOrd08

I don't know if Pittsburgh can keep it up, but it sure would be a fun summer if they could play like this all summer.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Haven't checked it in a few days but Luis Arraez of the Miami Marlins is batting .398 this far into the season.

The last player to bat at least .400 over a single season was Ted Williams in 1941. The last player to break the .390 mark was almost 30 years ago with Tony Gwynn.

Josh Hamilton hit over .350 about twelve years ago, and has been the highest average since.

Now a few players have hit .400 over a 162 game span over multiple seasons. I know for certain Gwynn did it as well as Wade Boggs. I think George Brett did it in the early 80s. Maybe Ichiro in the early 2000s? I'll have to look it up. Ichiro, the year he broke the single season hits record, hit over .420 for half a season.

The thing is though, all these high batting averages also tend to correlate with higher league averages. When Gwynn last hit <.390, the league average was .270.

Right now, the league average around at .247.

What is going on with Arraez is crazy, and as it's getting late into the season, that he maintains even a sliver of a chance is unbelievable in itself.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Last night Domingo German of the Yankees threw the 24th perfect game in mlb history, here's the final out:

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

View of a Freddie Freeman home run from a camera attached to the home plate umpire.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

It has been a rough year in New York for major league baseball.

Both teams have so underperformed that the Mets traded away several star players (eating their contracts to get better prospects in return) and are talking about a rebuild/retooling period.

The Yankees own general manager called the season, "a disaster," and the front office & manager may lose their jobs. As things currently stand, this would be the Yankees first losing season since 1992. The Yankees as an organization dating back to 1903 have only had 14 losing seasons in their history.

A sliver lining remains in Aaron Judge, last year's American League MVP and home run record champ*, who despite missing two months of the season due to a freak injury which he sustained running through the screen fence at Dodgers Stadium, is having a season comparable to (and before the injury better than) the historic season he had last year.

The sad news is that he isn't getting any younger. Judge will be 32 next year, traditionally looked upon as the far end of a baseball players prime; and at his size, no one knows how he will hold up.

No MLB player over 6'6" has ever hit a home run in the major leagues after the age of 35. Granted, there haven't been many that size but knee problems, back problems, all sorts of things can crop up. Lingering pain from the toe injury is a possibility as the ligament has not completely healed (but he wanted to forego surgery) and may never be the same. Suddenly a guy that is 6'7" 282 lbs. has a foot injury. He was pretty fast for his size before the injury, right now he's running around like Babe Ruth at 39 after a lifetime of whisky and cigars.