US Baseball World Series

In a little over an hour, the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros are going to start game 1 of the US Baseball World Series (I phrase it that way because "they" call it "The World Series" even though the Rest Of The World is not invited and that annoys me).

However, this is the 1st time the Washington Nationals or the team they came from (the Montreal Expos) have ever appeared in the World Series.

I am a pessimist when it comes to local sports teams.  When they have a good year, they struggled.  Even when one occasionally wins some championship, it is "just barely" and certainly not repeated the next year.  Some cities have sports dynasties that last a decade.  On rare occasions, we get "a year".

I am accustomed to seeing the local teams choke.  But The Nationals have gotten this far and hope springs eternal...



Midnight update:    ------  We won...

Baseball

All my life, I have preferred to play sports rather than watch them.  I too old to play now, and when I watch sports, it is usually baseball.  So I've been re-watching the Ken Burn's series about the history of baseball on DVD.  I love the history of the development of the game.

The original players were all amateurs, and (being one) I enjoyed that.  Later, the first professional teams arose.  Those guys were rough men, miners, farmers, construction workers.  As one said "I wanted to escape those damned cows". 

There were only still pictures back then, but they were amazing.  One showed a closeup of a guy gripping the bat.  His skin was like leather and he had knuckles like walnuts!  Another picture showed a player shirtless (for the point of the picture, I assume).  His arms were like things.  I would almost bet he could have crushed a weightlifter.

That's not my point here, just saying those guys were amazingly strong, and very determined not to go back to the mines or cows.

What struck me was that so many of them were completely illiterate and couldn't do simple math.  Money paid to them was sort of a mystery that they could only understand as "spending money".  If I understand it, a farmer got a loan from the bank which went directly to the seed company who delivered the seed.  No bank would trust the farmer to actually manage the money even briefly.  Many did and could manage money, but I'm talking about the many ones who couldn't.

So I wondered, what was it like to look at a written contract and not be able to make any sense of the symbols, depending on some manager to tell you what the terms were, and knowing you got cheated by such people all the time?  What a difficult way to live...

Which brings me to the Black Sox scandal in the 1919 World Series.  The Chicago White Sox were one of the best teams ever.  They were all horribly underpaid (about $3-5,000 each) compared to other teams at the time getting 5-10k),  they were mostly illiterate, and a Big Time gambler came after them with promises of wealth. 

Long story short, some of them went for the money.  The smarter of them demanded their money up front.  The others trusted to the honesty on the gambler (simpler souls).  The gambler (he is mentioned in 'The Great Gatsby') got away with it and got lots.  The players got little.  As Shoeless Joe Jackson said afterwards that they promised him $20,000 and he got $5,000.  Some got less and some got nothing.

All the players involved were banned for baseball for life.  Consider THAT Pete Rose...

Sad story:  Jackson was reduced to working in a liquor store.  One day Ty Cobb came in and recognized the player he had modeled his swing after.  Cobb said "Don't you recognize me Joe"?  And Jackson said "Sure I recognize you Cobb, but I didn't think you wanted to recognize me".

And then there was Babe Ruth, one of the best pitchers ever and the best hitter too.  When he wasn't pitching, he playing outfield so that he could hit.  The Red Sox owner was more interested in arranging Broadway plays and was not very good at it.  So everytime he had a failed play, he sold one of his star players to The New York Yankees.

Eventually, he sold Babe Ruth (well technically, he sold the contract).  The 1920s Yankees were build on Boston Red Sox stars.

But I mention that to say this... Some people say the home run ers started because the ball was made "livlier" which is true in the sense of the ball.  But in20, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs and that was more than any other whole TEAM but one.  So it wasn't just the ball. 

Another thing I like about the Ken Burn's series is that he related the past to the present.  One thing about baseball is the consistency of player statistics.  Not what one did today as opposed to 80 years ago, but as ythey did against each other.

And I think I will stop here...

Baseball

The Washington Nationals have been having a fabulous year so far.  They had a winning percentage of over .700 going into a road trip against 3 of the best teams in both leagues.  They went 5 and 1 against the 1st 2 teams.  So they went to play the Chicago Cubs.  Apparently, that was the first time to teams both playing over .700 had met in decades (50 years, 80 years, something like that).

The Nationals lost all 4 games.  Hard-fought games are nice, but splitting them would have been nicer.  Sometimes, a team plays well and just loses.  The Nationals hit slashing line drives - directly to fielders.  They hit long right to the outfield walls - just within jumping reach of the outfielders.  When they hit to the corners of the outfield where no one could catch them, they were a foot foul.

The Cubs were so afraid of Bryce Harper, they walked him 6 times in one game.  It would have been 7 ( a record), but one pitch hit him on the foot.  He got on base 7 of 7 times in one gamne and not a single one counts as an official "at-bat"!  He was walked 18 times in a 4 game series.  The Nationals lead several of the games, but lost in the last inning of each.   Hey, that's what WE normally do to other teams.

Those Cubs are GOOD!  I won't deny that at ALL!  But that's a harsh way to lose a series.  Can you imagine having a 19-12 record and being in 2ND PLACE?  This is going to be one HELL of an exciting season if things keep up like this!

Better news.  One of our pitchers, Max Scherzer, struck out 20 Detroit  Tigers tonight, tying the record...

Baseball Season Starts Soon

I love baseball.  I understand it better than most other sports.  And I just finished re-watching Kens Burn's 'Baseball' PBS production. 

It "nicer" than most sports.  Many people have decsribed it, but to MY mind, none better than George Carlin.  I won't post the whole statement here, but it's HERE.

I'll paste SOME of it though: 

"Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death."

"In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!"

"
Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium."

And I'll add some gleanings from the Ken Burn's production...

Baseball is the only game where the Defense has the ball.

The is no clock in baseball.  The batter comes to the plate, the pitcher steps off the mound.  The pitcher returns to the plate and the batter steps out to wipe his eyes or adjust his grip on the bat.  The umpire sweeps the dirt off the home plate.  The pitcher begins his delivery, the batter swings.  Or doesn't.  Theoretically, a game could last forever.  And some seem to.

A batter who only hits the ball safely 1/3 of the time is a hero!

Batters "hit safely" and if they round the bags they come "home".  In football (American), they battle their way into the END zone leaving fallen players scattered around on the field.

In baseball, if you hit a home run, you get to trot around the bases at a leisurely slow speed, assured that the fans and teamates know it was YOU who did that.  In football, no one ever really knows who did what to cause a play to work.

And while where is some contact in baseball, it is not routine.  In football, basketball, hockey, boxing, and wrestling, players are pounding each other, throwing elbows, slamming each other with equipment, etc. 

Baseball players have most of their original teeth.  In other sports, teeth are just temporary things.

I can't wait for baseball season to start again!

Baseball

I love baseball.  I understand it.  You hit, field, catch, pitch.  You stand around and watch a lot. 

I tried other sports.  As soon as I reached minimal competence, I was bored.  In some I was simple unable. 

The minimal competence ones were tennis, golf, and soccer.  The unable ones were basketball, football, and rugby.  At 5' 7" and 135 pounds out of high school,  I was too short for basketball, too light for football, and I never figured out the "scrum" in rugby. 

I could play tennis a bit.  It was basically ping-pong on a larger field.  And the phy ed teacher had us doing some skill exercizes of bounces the ball first on one side of the racket then the other.  When he saw me bouncing the tennis ball on the edge of the racket, he dragged me off to more detailed play.  But I never could serve the ball hard or accurately, so off I went. 

Golf was similar.  I could hit the ball, and putt well enough, but I actually got worse the more THEY tried to teach me.  Went from a soft hook to a wicked slice under high school coach "help". 

But baseball always made sense to me.  And I mention all this only because I just finished re-watching Ken Burns' PBS Baseball series.

I started off bad! 

The pictures there are fake.  Well, "posed".  Truth be told, I kept my bat on my shoulder in play and the one time I recall swinging, I hit it just over 2nd base.  Dad cheered that I finally got a hit.  I usually got a walk though and was a demon on the base paths.  I stole 2nd base a lot.  But my team was so bad I seldom got any further. 

I was a good 2nd baseman.  I knew how to drop on any ball near me and get it to first base.

I even got an unassisted triple play once!  I jumped up high to catch a line drive,  touched 2nd base to catch the runner going to 3rd thinking it was a hit, and tagged the kid running from 1st to 2nd who also thought it had gone into the outfield.  My high point in little league.  Also my last year playing because the pitchers got much better and I couldn't even get walks.

And I tell you that to tell you THIS:

I got a lot better years later after college.  I had a temp Summer job with the navy and they had a softball team needing "anyone" and I became catcher.  Not much of a respected position in softball, but hey, I was on the team.  I there I was among big tall strong navy guys.

But I discovered I could hit the ball!  Pretty much anywhere I wanted...  I had completely changed from 12 to 22!  I became a fearless swinger.  My specialty was hitting between 1st and 2nd basemen, but when they shifted for that, I just hit between 3rd and shortstop.  And when they pulled the shortfielder (there were 10 players in that league), I just stepped into the plate and hit it over the right-fielder.  The right-fielder was always the worst player on any team...

What mattered to ME was that it DIDN'T matter that I was smaller than the navy guys because I could hit the ball wherever I needed to.

So all this is going through my mind while I watched 'Baseball' on DVD.  And there comes some celebrity saying that every fan thought they could do as well.  The difference in hitting between pros and "wannabees" was really only about 40'.

And then they showed close-ups of the pro hitters.  Their arms looked like my legs!  Only with more muscles.  LOL!

I'm sure glad I went to college and got a degree in something that demanded I "think" instead of "hit"...

To this day, I am "competent" at nearly anything sportswise, but not "good" at anything in particular.  And I'm satisfied with THAT!  So, don't worry, nothing profound here, I'm justunspooling some memories I guess.

You ever do that?

Baseball

Well, The Washington Nationals season is effectively over.  It was a real crash...

Baseball can break your heart.  It just isn't like other sports.

In American football, a team can go 14-2 or 2-14.  The better team just always seems to win over the season by quite a bit and every time.  The good teams win and the bad teams are horrid.

In Basketball, the best teams are so far above the worst teams that you can predict the winners ahead of time easily.

Baseball just doesn't go like that.  The best teams only reach 60% wins; the worst, well, let's say 33%.  On any given series, the same teams will have games of 14-2, 5-6, and 1-2.  There is almost no sense to it.

And the sad part is that so many favorite players will be traded away as a result.  And some new ones will arrive.  

It drives me crazy. 

An Interesting Week

I don't do well in the shortest darkest days of the year, but with the lengthening days, I have gotten more active.  It's nice to start accomplishing things again.

1.  I got The Salvation Army out here to pick up stuff I never used or no longer needed.  Mainly, I had a dining room table and chairs that I bought at their local showcase store 8 years ago.  It had some dings and scrapes, and I intended to completely refinish it as a Winter project.  Realizing I would never get around to doing that, I wanted to give it back.  I was also cleaning out closets and accumulated 8 boxes of miscellaneous household goods in good condition, a telescope (I have a newer better one now), an unopened flat screen wall mount (I decided to use a TV table instead), a nearly unused upright vacuum cleaner (I have wood floors now), etc.

It was all picked up last Wensday (I have decided to change the spelling; "Wednesday" is just medieval).  The new open space in my basement workshop is appreciated.

2.  I decided my cooking habits were in a rut.  20 years ago, I used to make pizzas from scratch.  I relearned how.  The first was bad.  The 2nd and 3rd were very good.  A pizza stone helps.  So does a bread machine with a pizza dough setting.  And leaving the dough sit overnight in a covered bowl helps.  I made my own sauce from crushed canned tomatoes too.  I do that for my spaghetti sauce anyway, just let it get a bit thicker.  Sliced commercial pepperoni, hot italian sausage, green bell peppers, mushrooms, and onions.

And I made chicken cordon blue, my own breaded chicken nuggets, ground hamburger from top sirloin (I have a manual grinder), pancakes from scratch, and egg rolls.

My efforts to make decent hamburger buns continue to fail, though.

3.  Rearranged and vacuumed the entire basement wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling.  The guys who filled the walls with insulation last September left such a mess (even though they did a lot of cleaning).  But I moved EVERYTHING and vacuumed.  I vacuumed some spots that may have never been vacuumed in 28 years.  When's the last time you pulled out the washer and dryer and cleaned behind there?  LOL!

4.  Reorganized all the stuff from the attic that I had to move down into the cats' room and stored them for returning to the attic when I replace the flooring up there.  The cats are thrilled to have more space for toys, exploring, and scratchers.

5.  Took almost everything out of the computer room, threw away lots of old stuff, and returned little.  And there is more to get rid of.  Why should I keep the boxes and disks from the apps from Windows 98?

6.  Emptied out 3 closets and most of the stuff went to a new pile of stuff to go to charity.  It is amazing how much unneeded "stuff" ends up on closet floors.  "Out of sight, out of mind".  For example, 30 years ago, I became the manager of an office softball team.  I had bases, gloves and balls in a box.  I'm keeping the ball and gloves, but the bases can go.  One thing charities can't say is that I have boring stuff to give.

7.  I had boxes of newspaper articles clipped out for "information".  Computer articles, gardening articles, cooking articles.  That stuff is all on the internet now.  So those are going into the recycling bin.

8.  One box was half full on fanfold perforated-edge computer paper!  That goes back to the days of dot-matrix printers.  But I'm not recycling THAT.  I now have a lifetime supply of note-taking paper!  Some old stuff is worth keeping.

9.  The weather today was GREAT.  It reached 67F!  I went outside to do some gardening work.  Mostly, I needed to dig level spots for the 6th of 6 framed garden beds.  Unfortunately, the ground was still frozen 2' down, so I did some work, but not as much as I hoped.  Still I did some work and the next warm day I can get another 2' deep.  That will be enough to build that 6th bed before Spring arrives.

10.  Haircut time!  Ever 2 months.  And I love the feel of heated shaving cream around my ears and neck when the barber does that razor cut!

11.  Visited the bank.  Got 6x higher interest rates on my savings with some creative transfers.   3% interest is better than .5%

I may have had a more productive week sometime, but I can't recall when exactly.  LOL!

Baseball Again

I am pleased to announce that the Washington Nationals baseball team just won the National League East Division Championship!

Even better, they did it in an away series against their closest competitor, the Atlanta Braves (and last year's champions.

Washington, DC, does not have a storied baseball history.  The previous team here (the Washington Senators) won only one World Series and played in only 1 other IIRC.  In fact, they were famous for their ineptitude.  The snarky saying about the Washington Senators was:

"First in War,
First in Peace,
And Last in the American League."

The Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972, and Washington DC, the Nation's capital, was without a major league baseball team until 2005, acquiring the Montreal Expos.  They started slowly, and have become a truly "capital" team.  Their strong points are power hitting, aggressive base-running, balanced pitching and creative double-play fielding. 

Many successful teams are lead by 1 or 2 future Hall-Of-Famers (not to say that some of the current Nats won't be someday).  But the Nats are more of a collection of many really good players who work together well.  The fielding is excellent, the starting pitchers are all close in success, the bullpen is superb, and even the bottom of the batting order is dangerous. 

The 1st half of the season didn't look very promising.  They were around .500 at the All Star Break.  But they had almost half their starters out with injuries at one point and back-ups and minor league players filled in "well".  Everyone was back for the 2nd half, and they just exploded!  I can't find the stats, but they have to have played about .600 since then and that is rare.

It is an amazing change of experience for old Washington DC baseball fans.  I an SO looking forward to the playoffs...

Baseball And Other Sports

I've been interested in baseball on and off my whole life.  I played Little League baseball at ages 9-12, but was poor at it.  Well, I was a small kid.  I got put at 2nd base (which was where you put the 2nd worst player - the worst got put in right field) because I was quick "enough" and could manage to throw the ball to 1st base.  I couldn't hit.  My recollection is that the bat seldom got off my shoulder (the one hit I recall was a "Texas Leaguer" just into the outfield where no one was and Dad went wild with joy that I actually made a hit).  So I was no natural at the game.

I did make an unassisted triple play though.  Bases loaded...  I somehow snagged a line drive over my head (jump high, stick glove up, ball finds glove),  and the runners didn't know it.  I stepped on 2nd base(force out) and tagged out the runner coming from 1st base.  My one claim to baseball fame and obviously I will never forget. 

I quit the next year.  Some kids had gotten so much bigger and stronger.  I couldn't even see a pitched ball, and it wasn't that I needed glasses!  They were just too fast for me. 

Forward to when I was 18, working in a Navy office before entering College.  I had had what passed as my "growth spurt" (reaching a whole 5'6" and 135 pounds), but I had played 3 years of golf, tennis, and soccer in High School.  So I had gotten a lot more coordinated and wiry.  All the offices had slow pitch softball teams in the Navy Base league, and the Directors were always begging for employees to join the team.  Well slow pitch softball is an entirely different game!  And I discovered I had a TALENT.  With a slow pitch, I could hit a ball wherever I darn well wanted to (between short and 3rd, between 1st and 2nd, over the right fielders head, etc).  And amazingly, those "splendid physical specimens of young Navy guys*) couldn't. 

Because they were all 6' tall, 180 lbs, and they just smashed the ball blindly...  Usually straight up, or to the shortstop who always caught the ball.  And the one thing I HAD gotten out of playing 2nd base in Little League was how to manage the game itself.  I played both 2nd base and catcher in the Navy softball league, and I instinctively understood where everyone should be.  I knew when to run out to catch a relay from the outfielders, and where to throw it afterwards.  And the same when playing catcher.  It just seemed so obvious.  That's probably the only reason I played 2nd base in little league.  THAT part, I understood.


* I'm not being sarcastic.  The actual Navy guys on the team were years beyond me in growth and strength at my same age.  They had to be to be accepted into the Navy.  Any 2 of them could have tossed me around like a dodgeball. 

I mention all this only to explain that I have suddenly started watching professional baseball again.  I watched pro football on and off; the Washington team had some good years.  It hard not to admire the skills of coaches like Vince Lombardi, George Allen and Joe Gibbs.  But I don't watch football with much understanding of the game.  Same with basketball.  Both are just chaotic, as far as I can tell. 

Baseball is different.  Each player has a position.  Each player has a responsibility to act individually, but for the good of the team.  Each player has an individual at-bat against an individual pitcher and not ONE of his teammates can help him in the least.  When yous are at bat, you are basically ALONE.  You, vs 9 guys in the field trying to catch anything you hit...

I LIKE that!  In baseball, you can like hitting, fielding, or pitching.  My brief moment of time in the game, I came to like hitting best.

So...  The Washington Nationals baseball team seem set to get into the playoffs as (possibly) the best team in baseball right now.  Its been a journey.  At the All Star break, they were about .500.  They are at .574 today.  Which means they are playing above .600 since. 

The Nationals are surely going to enter the playoffs.  And I am thrilled with that! 

So why do I care?  I care because they field spectacularly.  I care because they pitch wonderfully.  I care because they hit amazingly.  But mostly I care because they seem to be the savviest players on one team since before my time!  They always seem to make the right choices on the difficult plays.  I admire that most of all!

I've never had a home baseball team to like.  I left Boston just too young to care about the Red Sox.  We lived in Virginia, which has no professional baseball ream when I was 13.  We moved to MD too far away to like the Baltimore Orioles  (my friends did, I didn't).

And in Washington DC, there was no professional MLB team between 1969 and 2004.  So I'mnew to this Home-Team stuff.  I just like the Washington Nationals because they play REALLY GOOD!!!  And I admire THAT.

So I am LOVING this season for the Washington Nationals.

Baseball

I've never been one to sit and watch sports on TV.  When I was younger and more active, I would always rather play than watch, and now that my joints creak a bit, I generally neither play nor watch.  The local professional teams have always had a habit of folding when the going got tough, which is frustrating to watch.

But the Washington Nationals baseball team has been doing really well this year and they have a tendency to WIN those tough close games at the end, so I've gotten a bit more into a watching habit.  It also helps that they play most of their games at night just as I'm sitting down to dinner (when I'm going to watch "some" TV anyway).

They've won 7 games in a row, something like the last 6 of 7 games have been won by 1 run late in the game, and the last 3 games were "walk-offs" (which I think means that, as the home team, they score the winning run in the bottom of the 9th inning and don't even have to complete the inning).  So they just "walk off" the field in the middle of the last inning.

And their fielding is a delight to watch.  They make plays I never even heard of a decade ago.  Say there are runners on 1st and 2nd base.  The batter hits a ball to the 1st baseman.  Traditionally, the 1st baseman would just run to 1st base with the ball and force 1 out there while the runners advanced.  But no, the 1st baseman throws to 3rd, who throws back to first and its a double play!  I even saw a double play from a ball that went into the outfield!

I'm amazed!  And a fan who is becoming more knowledgeable with each game I watch.