The World Series is over, the clean up after the celebrations is completed. All the awards have been given out. Spring Training is months away.
What is the dedicated baseball fan to do?
Fortunately, it’s not hard to stay in shape.
Tag Archives: Baseball
Thoughts on Major League Baseball
The World Series
The Fall Classic. No other team sport has anything like it. The Super Bowl? Started in 1967. Basketball? The NBA didn’t have a championship until 1950. The first World Cup? 1930. While I admit that the Stanley Cup can trace its roots back to the 1890s, the format for determining the championship of professional hockey didn’t take its current form until 1927, after the last rival league to the NHL folded. Baseball’s World Series debuted in 1903 (and if you’re going to be picky about the beginnings of the Stanley Cup, the first baseball “Championship of the United States” was in 1884). There’s well over a century of legends and lore.
The World Series magnifies everything. The great players are greater. Bob Gibson strikes out seventeen Red Sox. Reggie Jackson hits home runs on three straight pitches. The fielding is more amazing: Wille Mays. Ron Swoboda. Al Gionfriddo. Unheralded players turn into heroes: Howard Ehmke. Dusty Rhodes. Edgar Renteria. And the errors and mistakes (Fred Snodgrass, Bill Buckner) are more painful.
There’s been a heck of a lot of drama in the hundreds of World Series games. I’ve got a list of the eight most exciting (in my opinion) games; and it’s not your ordinary list…
World Series Hopes
While there are still a couple of games left, and the wild card spots are still being decided, it’s pretty well set which teams are going to the playoffs. So very soon, you’ll start seeing odds on the World Series. I’m not so dedicated a fan (or bettor) to really care about that sort of thing. I’ll be watching anyway.
But I am free to muse on which teams I would like to see (anyone but the St. Louis Cardinals, essentially) in the World Series. Rather than run down the various pluses and minuses for each team, I thought I’d instead look at possible W.S. pairings according to what I suspect FOX would like to see.
Pitchers and the MVP Award
This year, the National League has two solid contenders for their Most Valuable Player award: Right fielder Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins and pitcher Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Just as three years ago when Justin Verlander won the AL MVP, there’s a lot of the same old debate as to whether or not pitchers should even be allowed to be eligible for the Most Valuable Player award.
Derek Jeter
Some years ago, American Heritage Monthly had an annual “Overrated – Underrated” where they asked writers and historians to write brief essays on things that were Overrated and Underrated in categories within their areas of expertise. From “Fictional Detective” to “Philanthropist” to “Ad Campaign”, they were all fun and informative. I’ll probably write my own essays in that format soon.
But with Derek Jeter retiring at the end of this season, online comment boards are filled with arguments insisting that he is overrated – and underrated. Is this possible? Can the same thing be both at the same time?
A Visit to Nationals Park
On Thursday the 31st, I drove down to D.C. to see the Nationals host the Phillies. Not giveaway day, but another first-place team (the Nats). A fairly straight drive down Route 295. ON the way down, you pass a lot of exits for government and military facilities. Including – maybe (grin) – the “Employees Only” exit for the NSA.
Unlike Camden Yards, Nationals Park is off in the fringes of D.C., on the Anacostia River waterfront. Despite the stadium’s presence there for six years, there hasn’t yet been any significant development in the area. Still a lot of vacant lots and miscellaneous industry. One hopes that will change in the future.
A Visit to Camden Yards
Baltimore loves its Orioles (And presumably ravens too, when they are in season). This year marks the 60th anniversary of the team’s move (and name change) from St. Louis to the city, and signs are everywhere. Especially on the main streets downtown, where Southwest Airlines is paying for some street light banners…
There are also plenty of orange shirts to be seen, especially around the stadium near game time. In cities like New York or even Philadelphia, the number of pro sports teams creates divided loyalties and a diluted fan base. So there, you don’t see a city truly rallying around a team like Baltimore does with the Orioles.
I was able to attend two games during my visit
July 30, 2014: Orioles 4, Angels 3:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL201407300.shtml
August 1, 2014: Orioles 2, Mariners 1:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL201408010.shtml
On the 2014 Baseball All-Star Game
Once again, in the voting before the game, we have seen the eternal conflict between fans who want the absolute best players at each position (based on some unspecified criteria) selected to start and the fans who think it should be the players that fans in general want to see (i.e. the most popular). In most cases, the two are the same. People usually want to see the best players. The discussion gets most wordy when it comes to the reserves and bench players. Who has been snubbed? Who doesn’t really deserve to be there? Why must each team have a representative? Meanwhile, they overlook the fact that a lot of these reserves aren’t going to get into the game until the late innings, might never come to bat, and probably won’t even be mentioned in the broadcast unless and until they are involved in a play. So it doesn’t really matter that much – at least not to the level of debate on the matter.
On Pitcher’s Wins
You really have to feel for Cubs’ pitcher Jeff Samardzija. He’s been pitching great so far this season, with an ERA (as of this writing) of 1.62 and 51 strikeouts in 61 innings pitched over 9 starts. But thanks to essentially no offensive support and crappy defense behind him, he’s stuck with an 0-4 record.
This, along with a few other unusual situations (e.g. Chris Sale in 2013 (who, by the way, was ROBBED of the All-Star Game MVP that year), Felix Hernandez in 2010), has led a number of fans and writers to argue that the “pitcher’s wins” stat is irrelevant, or at least vastly overrated. First, they argue, it is too dependent on factors outside the pitcher’s control – like run support and defense. Secondly, they note that the assignment of a Win is often arbitrary, as it can depend on the whim of the official scorer. Other stats, such as WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched) and ERA+ are far better at showing the quality of a pitcher.
That might be true. But those stats, being derived from odd and occasionally arcane formulae, can have similar problems. If we accept that these new, advanced metrics can accurately describe the “quality” of a pitcher, how does the “old school” stat of Wins compare?
Fortunately, there’s a way to tell. But you have to step away baseball stats for a while, and dive in to the mathematical field of Statistics….
Pitching, Pine Tar, and Philosophy
The big fuss in baseball this week is not Albert Pujols’ milestone 500th home run, nor the Cubs celebrating the 100th birthday of their stadium by losing. It’s a blatant smear of pine tar on the neck of Yankees’ pitcher Michael Pineda.
There’s a whole lot of discussion about the use of pine tar and other substances, about the logic of having a rule in place that practically no one follows, and about such “cheating” in general. It’s rather a fun discussion, especially since it seems that most commenters are being civil about it. But also because it touches on some important philosophical issues.
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