all things baseball. if you swing that way (1 Viewer)

Olbermann did a great piece on Jeter that put his stats into perspective. In some ways he was the anti- A-rod, and it is rare to spend 20 years in the same uniform, but the hero worship of athletes by anyone over the age of 12 seems sad. Except for Lance Armstrong, of course.
 
Come on boys and speak up... I liked the news articles that showed the stats about where Jeter really ranked and it was not good...
Jeter has been very good to excellent at just about every aspect of the game; something that can't be said about even some of the greatest players. But above and beyond all, he has some of the best baseball instincts I've ever seen.

That play he made against Oakland in the ALDS in 2001 was something no shortstop would normally do. He did it because he sensed the throw might miss the cutoffs (it missed both of them) and he went into foul territory some 100 feet from his normal position to make a skill play that made me step on my tongue when I saw it in real time. Plus, he was clutch. I know there are those who dismiss the clutch factor. Generally, these are people who never need to perform in clutch situations, so they have no concept of what it means.

I'd still take Roberto Clemente over any player ever. The howitzer is nearly a lost art in baseball and he had the best.


To boot, he hit .414 in the '71 WS against what is probably the best rotation in the history of the game.

I remember being at a New Year's Eve Party in 1972 at friends of my family. I was nine years old and I considered Clemente to be a hero because I didn't know much beyond grammar and baseball at the time. My Father was talking to their Father and he turned to me and said that Clemente had gone down in that plane on the way to aid the earthquake victims in his home country of Nicaragua. As the details came out over the next few days, I came to better understand what the term hero meant.
 
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I love that he got to exactly 3,000 hits. When I was a kid I had a Topps card of his that had his name as "Bob" Clemente. He did have the best outfield arm of his era. Dwight Evans also had an amazing arm, though (arguably) not HOF material.
 
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Derek Jeter #6 all-time in hits. That is pretty special. I'm a Yankees fan and even I got sick of the Jeter worship. But let's admit that the man deserves every bit of it. I think he's at .310 career batting. And that's after this last few seasons of sub .300 batting. The thing about Jeter is the post season numbers. When it really counted his numbers rise in every category. Home runs, hits, average, range in the field...all the new moneyball stats, he was not just clutch - he lived for the big moment. Having Jeter on the field plugged a huge gap. Look at "the play" in Oakland, as mentioned before; look at "the other play" against Boston at the stadium. He saved two runs by making that catch when he crashed into the seats. People had begun to turn on him that year. He was in a huge slump and it looked like the public was tired of the worship. He was actually getting boo'd pretty regularly at that time; after that play which kept the bombers ahead of Boston in the east, one of the TV guys said, "never boo this man again." and he was right. That was the day Jeter became the elder statesman instead of the young hot-shot. I was never comfortable with the whole "Prince of New York" thing, but he was rare and I think he created his own luck. Look at that finish in NY the other day. When he came up in the ninth I was certain he was going to get the walk-off hit. It's almost like the whole twenty years was a work of fiction written by some baseball romanticist. Looking back on it now... It was nice.
 
what is baseball? It is that game with bats or is that just called assault? Kidding, of course, don't follow it as closely as some but yes much congrats to Jeter on going out on top. Seemed like a classy guy. Oh, I'm from Blue Jays country but no fan of the Jays.
 
Love that clip of Clemente. I remember waking to the news on New Year's Day and going from one friend's house to another to spread the news. Each kid came along with me and by the time everyone got the news, we were about 7 or 8 kids strong. A kind of spontaneous wake for 9 year-olds. Everybody loved Clemente.
 
If the Giants win, at least they don't have to play the Dodgers, who consistently made them look like bitches all season. Good for St. Louis, good for the Giants if they win. Big time Giants fan, but also impressed with the Nat's season ...
 
I am not the guy who hitches himself to a team that somehow becomes part of his identity. I may have been a little bit once, but now I just feel a little disappointment and move on.

I feel bad on national "wife beaters day" when the girlfriend or the wife finds herself on the losing side on Super Bowl Sunday... It may not be as popular, but baseball is a more dignafied sport by comparison...
 
That's good to know MJP. A fellow journalist told me that before AOL existed and for some reason I believed it -- even after Richard Gere sent back my little sister's gerbal and the bonus size Vaseline jar.

If you were born before 1970 you experienced this very special thing. There was no internet, so things got passed on the wind. Dirty jokes, bad rumors, Hollywood dirty pics... Somehow this stuff made it across the country with one person spreading it to another. For example, did you know that they had to pump Rod Stewart's stomache and he puked up a gallon of sperm? It was a true fact, even without the internet... By the way, that frozen hot dog thing and the hospital? Complete bullshit, my sister was framed...
 
That's a myth, for what it's worth.

It isn't the case over here with football, especially in Glasgow re domestic violence incidences.On one occasion in 2011, the reports of domestic violence; physical, sexual and emotional abuse doubled after a game. Biggest offenders city rivals (old firm games) of Rangers and Celtic. With Rangers going bankrupt, it's gone down.
Th report below does cite important studies done in the U.S by Card and Dahl (2011) on incidences there, where a 10% increase is quoted during unexpected losses in American football games ( I think?), to almost negligible in comparison to ourselves. The scottish study was done with stats from Strathclyde Police over the period 2003 - 2011.
I mentioned this only because it may be a myth that it is a myth, but the problem is certainly not on the same scale.
http://personal.strath.ac.uk/gary.koop/dickson_jennings_koop.pdf
 
Even if the Giants lost, I would have considered this one of the great series ever. KC fought until the end. These boys (on both sides) came to play and gave it all.
 
The ironic thing is that those weird bounces off the wall happen all the time on the Giants home turf. And the Giants know that and the visiting team usually does not and are not prepared. That ball on the wall last night (which probably should have not even been there to begin with) was so fitting in a weird way. It 's like the ballpark had its say against a rival ballpark...
 
Hoist one for Ernie Banks this weekend, boys.... Let's drink TWO !

The Washington Post republished a piece here by Thomas Boswell that he wrote for a biography of Mr. Banks some years ago. He was a walking goodwill ambassador for the game of baseball and all things hopeful and positive. He was also one of the first local professional athletes to participate in the Chicago Gay Pride parade - a man who felt the sting of exclusion and had empathy for others in the same situation. God bless ya' Ernie

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The DH rule made sense in '72 and still does. Selfies are nothing more than a vehicle for folks with no life, no clue, no motivation, and no direction other than to communicate to others that they did something other than take a shit today.
 
Yes - AZ Diamondbacks fans MUST concentrate on their own phones, rather than a .500/sub.500 baseball team. Life at their ballpark sucks otherwise.

Regardless, I like the dark-haired girl, lower-right screen, eating a waffle cone sundae while being kinda weirded out by all her friends taking selfies.

And yet... too hungry for ice cream right now to ponder it too deeply. Nom...nom..nom....
 
A pitching exhibition for all time tonight. Scherzer vs. Harvey. If you weren't there, you just don't get it, man.

Scherzer - 9.0 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 17 K

Harvey - 6.0 IP, 11 K
Mets Bullpen - 3 IP, 7K

Nats won 2-0 thanks to a HR by Dan Uggla (yes, he's still playing!) and a sac fly by Catcher Wilson Ramos.

So, fuck the batting heroics - I'll take a pitchers' duel any day of the week. And this was about the best I've ever seen. Hope you saw it too.
If not, search online. It's worth it.

Scherzer probably stymied the batters with his crazy eyes:

ScherzerCrazyEyes.jpg
 
Missed it, but what a great game it must have been. Baseball is dead to me; I can only watch NHL, Premier League, NFL, women's collegiate volleyball, or the Bundesliga these days.
 
I'll take a pitchers' duel any day of the week. And this was about the best I've ever seen.
Too bad you never got to see the Pittsburgh Pirates at the Milwaukee Braves on May 26, 1959. Harvey Haddix of the Pirates threw 12 2/3 innings of no-hit baseball and lost in the bottom of the 13th on an infield throwing error, a bunt, and a no-hitter-busting double by Joe Adcock. Meanwhile, Lew Burdette of the Braves scattered 12 hits over 13 innings and earned a 1-0 victory.
 

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