• Welcome to BellGab.com Archive.
 

What a crazy year for baseball...

Started by pate, October 01, 2014, 04:09:40 PM

pate

C'mon.  Royals players JUICING?  Maybe the raw veg smoothies, but not any kind of injectables...  I'll believe the Chi-town Sox or Oakland A's, but I refuse to believe that my beloved Royals need that "edge,"   look at the data...  BTW good game last night, got a bit scary (but not really, more dramatic effect) when the Twinkies went up 5-3 in the 6th or 7th.... 

No batters on EITHER team HBP, btw.  It was good solid back-to-basics MIDWEST style baseball.  Nunya Left/Right coast thuggishness needed to be addressed by either team...

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on April 21, 2015, 09:54:12 PM

   I find myself reading about baseball more than watching it.

I might have already posted this here:
"His interest lies not in how fast a given pitch travels, but how fast it appears to a hitter â€" a factor that hinges upon not just its speed, but its placement in the strike zone and the spot in the sequence in which it is thrown â€" and how many milliseconds it can shave off the time a hitter has to react to it. "


http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2014/6/18/5818380/effective-velocity-pitching-theory-profile-perry-husband

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on April 22, 2015, 03:21:01 PM
I might have already posted this here:
"His interest lies not in how fast a given pitch travels, but how fast it appears to a hitter â€" a factor that hinges upon not just its speed, but its placement in the strike zone and the spot in the sequence in which it is thrown â€" and how many milliseconds it can shave off the time a hitter has to react to it. "


http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2014/6/18/5818380/effective-velocity-pitching-theory-profile-perry-husband

I enjoy articles like that about the science of the game, thanks for posting it.

Meanwhile, Jose Bautista keeps on owning the Orioles.  Will they ever learn? http://deadspin.com/jose-bautista-cant-stop-clowning-the-orioles-1699429671

Zetaspeak

In the same game he injured himself by whipping the ball from RF to 1B on a single .

Orioles are upset because he stared them down after hitting a homer. Wait you threw behind him and THEY act like the victims.

A strange baseball "code" I don't get. I pitcher can pump his fist after a big strike out all the time, but a hitter can't show off when he hit a homer.

I did notice this season, everybody is on edge and flipping out and it's just April.

Eddie Coyle


   Orioles and White Sox played their game in 2 hours and 3 minutes. Clearly, to speed up the pace of the game-get rid of crowds.

    Baltimore now travels to an equally empty park in Tampa.

albrecht

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on April 29, 2015, 04:02:01 PM
   Orioles and White Sox played their game in 2 hours and 3 minutes. Clearly, to speed up the pace of the game-get rid of crowds.

    Baltimore now travels to an equally empty park in Tampa.
Will there be a display in Cooperstown? This is an historic event in baseball, made possible by the contributions of many youths and gentle-giants African-Americans. Unfortunately, not a good one- unlike all the famously great black players already there.....

ps: I didn't watch it but was curious what they did to make it so short? Cut National Anthem, etc? Still have announcers and organ music, 7th inning stretch, etc.? Did the players hustle or lackadaisical (game still counts afterall).

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: albrecht on April 29, 2015, 04:11:03 PM
Will there be a display in Cooperstown? This is an historic event in baseball, made possible by the contributions of many youths and gentle-giants African-Americans. Unfortunately, not a good one- unlike all the famously great black players already there.....

ps: I didn't watch it but was curious what they did to make it so short? Cut National Anthem, etc? Still have announcers and organ music, 7th inning stretch, etc.? Did the players hustle or lackadaisical (game still counts afterall).

      I didn't see the game in Harare, I mean Baltimore today, but I figure some of the above was probably skipped and the conditions were so unique that even Latin players hustled to get out of there.

     Be proud Baltimore! Images of a dystopian wasteland are no longer just from Sci-Fi films.

albrecht

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on April 29, 2015, 04:23:10 PM
      I didn't see the game in Harare, I mean Baltimore today, but I figure some of the above was probably skipped and the conditions were so unique that even Latin players hustled to get out of there.

     Be proud Baltimore! Images of a dystopian wasteland are no longer just from Sci-Fi films.
Soooo my local AM guy just took a caller who had a friend who went. According to his friend's claims (as he related, and I think I caught most of it):
1) there was no announcing for at bats
2) there was music
3) there was National Anthem (but nothing else, Take me out 7th inning stretch, races, antics)
4) there were some season-ticket holder fans there (in the right field and could be heard singing the National Anthem and cheering, but barely heard and only around 100.)
5) one gate was open and one vendor (into that right-field area that had fence or something around it)
6) there was lots of press there (and he thinks that's why one concession open)
Not verified- but the caller seemed legit and told some other stories (going to a White Sox game and staying during a 4hour rainout for resume play with only 50+ still there and described the experience as being "like a softball game" and "surreal" being able to hear players talking to each other and like "playing in a church league" cause nobody there except players.

ItsOver

Maybe this will start a trend.  Who needs the fans anyway?  Just have The Guberment pick-up the tab for MLB.  Look what it's done for the city of Baltimore.

coaster

The game sure did go quick as hell. I caught the last few innings on a stream I found online. No one looked like they wanted to be there.

albrecht

Quote from: coaster on April 29, 2015, 04:55:06 PM
The game sure did go quick as hell. I caught the last few innings on a stream I found online. No one looked like they wanted to be there.
I didn't see but fast game. It still "counted" though, early in season, I wonder about player hustle. So you think it was elimination of commercials, in park antics, etc making it quicker or the players/umps speeding things up?

coaster

Quote from: albrecht on April 29, 2015, 05:27:13 PM
I didn't see but fast game. It still "counted" though, early in season, I wonder about player hustle. So you think it was elimination of commercials, in park antics, etc making it quicker or the players/umps speeding things up?
The stream I watched broke for commercial, but it was around a thirty second break. The players were definitely playing fast. I don't blame them though, seeing as there were protestors right outside the gates.
edit-NOw that I think about it, the commercial break was probably for the stream itself, not the game. I'm a derp.

albrecht

Quote from: coaster on April 29, 2015, 05:38:16 PM
The stream I watched broke for commercial, but it was around a thirty second break. The players were definitely playing fast. I don't blame them though, seeing as there were protestors right outside the gates.
edit-NOw that I think about it, the commercial break was probably for the stream itself, not the game. I'm a derp.
Haha, streaming is a mixed bag (though similar phenomena can happen between radio, Sat, cable and apps) watching hockey in a tense game the other night I get an APP 'alert' over 30secs before the official NBCSports streaming app had the game being over. My team won, n I didn't check app, so not that mad but still....thinking of ways of arbitrage betting in some of these circumstances (with others not bookies or Vegas since they know about the "live" aspect being not real) ;)

Quote from: albrecht on April 29, 2015, 04:32:49 PM
... 4) there were some... fans there... only around 100.)...

I've been to a few A's and Giants games that seemed like they had about that many, of course the 'official' crowd was announced as being more.

(That was back in the mid-80s when the A's were commonly referred to as the 'Triple A's', and both teams were horrible)

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on April 21, 2015, 09:54:12 PM
...   I find myself reading about baseball more than watching it...

Just today I was in a used book store and discovered an organization called The Society for American Baseball Research puts out various publications.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the original sports 'tell-all' book Ball Four...

Quote from: Paper*Boy on April 29, 2015, 07:06:37 PM
(That was back in the mid-80s when the A's were commonly referred to as the 'Triple A's', and both teams were horrible)
Oh, man, but the A's team that emerged after that in the LaRussa years - the Bash Brothers Canseco and McGwire, Dave "Smoke" Stewart, "Eck" - Dennis Eckersley, etc., etc.  That was such a fun team to watch!  It's crazy that they didn't win more World Series titles than they did.

Quote from: Open Lines Gerry on April 29, 2015, 07:18:06 PM
Oh, man, but the A's team that emerged after that in the LaRussa years - the Bash Brothers Canseco and McGwire, Dave "Smoke" Stewart, "Eck" - Dennis Eckersley, etc., etc.  That was such a fun team to watch!  It's crazy that they didn't win more World Series titles than they did.

You mean more than one.

Trivia question:  Q:  which team in their division (AL West) won more WS during that era than they did?  A:  Twins

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: Paper*Boy on April 29, 2015, 07:06:37 PM
I've been to a few A's and Giants games that seemed like they had about that many, of course the 'official' crowd was announced as being more.

(That was back in the mid-80s when the A's were commonly referred to as the 'Triple A's', and both teams were horrible)

     The Giants and A's of 1983-85 were really bad,. That '85 Giants team was horrific. But '86 turned the tide for both teams and by 1989 that was the World Series. The Oakland Mausoleum still in use is pretty pathetic.

     
Quote from: Paper*Boy on April 29, 2015, 07:14:08 PM
Just today I was in a used book store and discovered an organization called The Society for American Baseball Research puts out various publications.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the original sports 'tell-all' book Ball Four...

         Wrote book reports for Ball Four and The Bronx Zoo in fourth grade. I left out the "beaver shooting" instances and still regret it 30 years later.

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on April 29, 2015, 08:51:06 PM
... I left out the "beaver shooting" instances and still regret it 30 years later.

Haha, I wasn't even there and now I regret it too.  What DID you include?

"I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally"  was a good follow up, although a book like Ball Four is in a class of it's own, especialy when read as a kid (I must have been in Jr High, although there were several re-readings of it the next several years)

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: Paper*Boy on April 29, 2015, 11:12:22 PM
Haha, I wasn't even there and now I regret it too.  What DID you include?

"I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally"  was a good follow up, although a book like Ball Four is in a class of it's own, especialy when read as a kid (I must have been in Jr High, although there were several re-readings of it the next several years)

     Thankully the book report was only two pages so I basically could outline his career and that covered it. My teacher had never heard of him or the book, so she would have naively believed pretty much anything. I expected confrontation when I presented that book as my choice, but her ignorance of it(this was 15 years after it's release) pleasantly surprised me.

      It took 20 years for me to finally track down the follow up, and it is quite good. Got it at a used place(first edition from '71) for about 3 bucks.

3OctaveFart

The Coliseum was not that bad before Al Davis destroyed it.
For baseball, you once could smoke out in the upper deck and no one cared.
Its current decrepitude hides what are pretty great baseball fans.

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: 3OctaveFart on April 29, 2015, 11:38:14 PM
The Coliseum was not that bad before Al Davis destroyed it.
For baseball, you once could smoke out in the upper deck and no one cared.
Its current decrepitude hides what are pretty great baseball fans.

   I recall an afternoon game during the August, 1995 "renovation", where every home run to left(this being '95, there were at least 4) sent hard hatted construction workers scattering. The left field bleachers were basically an active construction project as the game was played. It was quite amusing to see. McGwire's home run sailed over the Budweiser sign with ease. 39 homers in 317 AB that year was an augury of what was to come.

Nick el Ass

Quote from: 3OctaveFart on April 29, 2015, 11:38:14 PM
The Coliseum was not that bad before Al Davis destroyed it.
For baseball, you once could smoke out in the upper deck and no one cared.
Its current decrepitude hides what are pretty great baseball fans.





The ghost of Al Davis still haunts the Raiders.


Quote from: albrecht on April 29, 2015, 04:32:49 PM
Soooo my local AM guy just took a caller who had a friend who went. According to his friend's claims (as he related, and I think I caught most of it):
1) there was no announcing for at bats
2) there was music
3) there was National Anthem (but nothing else, Take me out 7th inning stretch, races, antics)
4) there were some season-ticket holder fans there (in the right field and could be heard singing the National Anthem and cheering, but barely heard and only around 100.)
5) one gate was open and one vendor (into that right-field area that had fence or something around it)
6) there was lots of press there (and he thinks that's why one concession open)
Not verified- but the caller seemed legit and told some other stories (going to a White Sox game and staying during a 4hour rainout for resume play with only 50+ still there and described the experience as being "like a softball game" and "surreal" being able to hear players talking to each other and like "playing in a church league" cause nobody there except players.

I saw some photo and there were a few fans trying to watch the O's and the gate attendees would not let them in.

Zetaspeak

Quote from: Nick el Ass on April 30, 2015, 12:04:17 AM
How about that Orioles game?



Reminds me of a Tampa Bay Rays game ;D

Edit in: Ooops Eddie made the Tampa joke first. Still a funny line  :)

pate

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on April 29, 2015, 04:02:01 PM
   Orioles and White Sox played their game in 2 hours and 3 minutes. Clearly, to speed up the pace of the game-get rid of crowds.

    Baltimore now travels to an equally empty park in Tampa.

bump to politics, hehe.  Yep a first...

3OctaveFart

Say what you want about ESPN but Sunday Night Baseball is the best presentation in the game, from camera angles to announcing. Dan Schulman deserves a bigger gig.

Gd5150

Quote from: 3OctaveFart on May 03, 2015, 05:05:17 PM
Say what you want about ESPN but Sunday Night Baseball is the best presentation in the game, from camera angles to announcing. Dan Schulman deserves a bigger gig.

They could trying showing someone besides Red Sox and Yankees every single week. It's really become a joke how worthless ESPN is these days. If it doesn't happen inside the northeast it doesn't exist to the northeast media. And no everyone doesn't want to see the Red Sox and or Yankees 3x a week. Not even playoff teams. Pathetic.

Also Gary Thorne should be doing the games. He's outstanding! 2nd only to Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow who are simply the best TV/Radio announcers in baseball.

3OctaveFart

They're going up against NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs, on a jam-packed sports weekend. I share your disgust but they have to go with a game they think they can sell. I watch as little ESPN as possible. All a baseball fan needs these days is MLB.tv.

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod