- 07:18 AM
- 11/21/24
| Location: | NYC |
|---|---|
| ZIP: | 11105 |
| Gender: | m |
| Member since: | September 23, 2002 |
| Last visit: | October 14, 2015 |
languagehat has posted 3 links and 25 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 0 comments to the Locker Room.
Lies, damn lies, and baseball.: This book about the 1903 World Series calls it "baseball's first World Series." Once upon a time I would have taken this ignorance for granted and just muttered a little, but with the increase of interest in nineteenth-century baseball in recent years there's no excuse for it. There's even a whole book about the World Series between the National League and the American Association, played beginning in 1884 (the Providence Greys vs. the New York Metropolitans). At first I thought "well, the publisher picked a dumb title," but I looked through the book and there was no mention of the earlier series, or even the existence of the American Association. Lies, all lies!
posted by languagehat to baseball at 04:09 PM on July 02, 2003 - 3 comments
In Defense of Defense.: "Surprisingly, fielding statistics have been a much better predictor of playoff success over the last three decades than perhaps any other aspect of the game." (SpoFi NY Times may have missed this because it was in Week in Review rather than Sports, for some reason.)
posted by languagehat to baseball at 06:17 PM on October 20, 2002 - 0 comments
This pisses me off.: I've come to accept, if not love, the wild card (especially after it helped the Mets), the excess of homers, and other features of modern baseball. (Not the DH, though -- one reason I'm an NL fan.) But the fact that batters are such sissies they charge the mound on an inside pitch, and pitchers are now afraid to throw them -- that destroys the balance of the game (and is one reason for the glut of homers.)
posted by languagehat to baseball at 11:42 AM on October 10, 2002 - 4 comments
I'm a Mets fan and a Redskins fan. Pity me.
posted by languagehat at 03:59 PM on November 06, 2003
I was watching the Series to see the Yankees lose. I never get tired of seeing the Yankees lose. If the Yankees break the all-time single-season losing record next season, I'll be disappointed about the 41 games they won. Ah, sweet music! You and me both, brother.
posted by languagehat at 04:02 PM on October 28, 2003
Yes!! And Beckett gave one of the best performances I've seen in a long time. First complete-game Series-ending win since Jack Morris in '91 (for my nostalgically beloved Twins). I wish it had been the Mets, but I'm just glad somebody beat the damn Yankees.
posted by languagehat at 10:13 PM on October 25, 2003
Marlins win! Marlins win!
posted by languagehat at 10:06 PM on October 25, 2003
we prop up our celebrities only to smash them down we hold athletes to higher standards then we hold ourselves I don't think expecting athletes not to rape women is "holding athletes to higher standards then we hold ourselves." If a jury eventually decides that he did rape her (and none of us has any idea whether he did), he'll go to jail (I hope) for rape, and that will have nothing to do with celebrity culture or "smashing down" our idols. The massive publicity is another matter, of course, but let's not confuse the flashbulbs with what they're illuminating.
posted by languagehat at 01:32 PM on July 22, 2003
9/10, baby! *high-fives grum@work* I guessed on a couple and missed the "wasted 30 years of his life" quote.
posted by languagehat at 08:14 AM on July 04, 2003
Yeah, sorry about that, I was too indignant to post clearly. What I meant was the increased interest among that tiny segment of people who care about baseball history prior to their own early memories. There's no particular reason anyone here should be aware of 19th-century baseball at all, let alone the World Series of the 1880s, so I should have spelled that out. But the fact is that in the last 15-20 years there's been a lot of research on it (mainly thanks to the good folks at SABR), and as I said there's been an entire book on the earlier Series, so it's unconscionable that somebody would be able to write and publish a book in 2003 that completely ignores it. The average reader won't notice or care, but come on, if somebody wrote a book about the Model T called "The First Auto," don't you think somewhere along the way someone would have said "Uh, you know, there were cars before that"? [/rant]
posted by languagehat at 08:05 AM on July 04, 2003
From the Lansche book:
Finally, Macmillan's claim that the 1903 games were the first to be called the World Series is nothing but semantics. The New York Clipper called the 1884 Series the "United States Championship", The Sporting News called the Providence Greys the "champions of the world" and referred to the Series itself as "the world's championship"; the Boston Journal, another impartial observer, called the series the "championship of the country". The New York Clipper referred to the 1885 St. Louis Browns as the "world's champions" and Spalding's Official Base Ball Guide 1886 called the series "the United States championship". The Reach Baseball Guide called the 1886 games "The Great World's Series" the first such use of the modern phrase I was able to locate in an objective source.... By 1887, there wasn't a newspaper in the country that didn't use the phrase "world's championship", and by 1886, The Sporting News was, for the first time, referring to the games as "The World's Series".Long live the nineteenth century!
posted by languagehat at 04:11 PM on July 02, 2003
Brilliant stuff. The overuse of sac bunts and lefty-righty switches has driven me nuts for years. Thanks, grum. I'm going to keep reading this guy.
posted by languagehat at 09:49 PM on April 02, 2003
... doe-eyed closer Calvin Schiraldi I love it! (But then I'm a Mets fan, so I can read about all this in equanimity.)
posted by languagehat at 03:22 PM on October 17, 2002
I didn't think it was that bad either. I can enjoy college football, but the fact is, college players aren't as accomplished as professionals (and how could they be?). Nothing wrong with that, and conditions are similar in the baseball minor leagues -- but the difference is that nobody takes the minors seriously, or cares when some prospect drops an easy fly or throws a ball over the first baseman's head. College football is taken so seriously it's scary. I had a great time watching football at my alma mater, Occidental, because our team was lousy (the only team we could beat was Cal Tech, which was even worse, though they had great cheers) and nobody cared about football anyway (it was Vietnam time), so you could sit with a few other onlookers and enjoy the game in peace and comfort. I shudder to think what it's like being crammed into the stands at, say, Ohio State. But that's just me.
posted by languagehat at 03:19 PM on October 17, 2002
Well, according to one doubtless dubious account: "The origin of the competition is based in Finnish history. A 19th century notorious character, Rankainen the Robber imposed strong physical standards on men he considered for his band. To qualify, the men had to complete a difficult course with a heavy sack on their backs. It was also not uncommon for men to steal women from neighboring villages."
posted by languagehat at 03:11 PM on October 17, 2002
Great stuff. I'm not much of a football fan either, but to the extent I am, I'm a Redskins fan (just as I was a Senators fan back in the day), and I'd totally forgotten those yellow "Vince Lombardi" helmets!
posted by languagehat at 01:02 PM on October 16, 2002
I laugh through the pain. Go Halos!
posted by languagehat at 04:09 PM on October 15, 2002
SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle
I don't seem to have commented here since 2003 (and yet Sportsfilter remembered my login!), but I had to drop by to say that in over half a century of watching baseball that was the wildest inning I've ever seen. I admit, through gritted teeth, that the umps made the correct ruling, but I'm sure glad the Blue Jays won.