Category Archives: MLB

2013 World Series Game 2 in one gif

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Holy cow, that Carlos Martinez slider is beautiful. And it also shows how much trouble the Red Sox found themselves when they ended up down after their disastrous defensive inning in the 7th: the Cardinals grow nasty relievers on trees, and that puts a monkey-wrench in the usual Red Sox strategy of working up the pitch-count of opposing starters and then going after the bullpens.

“Mr. Octobers” and “Headlines” are coming up in the coming hours, and by the end of the day, we have a very special edition of “Bizarre Baseball Culture”.

Headlines from around the Continuum: October 24, 2013

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(Note that I try to copy the style of the paper as well, hence why some are in ALL CAPS while others aren’t. Also, I ignored extremely basic headlines like “World Series Preview”)

Story: Red Sox beat Cardinals in Game 1, 8-1

Hartford (CT) Courant: Hot Start On A Cold Night

Belleville (IL) News-Democrat: Rough start for Wainwright, Cardinals

The News-Gazette (Champaign, IL): FOR PETE’S SAKE (with image of Pete Kozma’s error)

Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, Ky.): RED SOCKED

Boston Globe: Red Sox are the whole show

The Herald News (Fall River, Mass.): Coming out swinging

Cape Cod Times: Red Sox bring it

Taunton (Mass.) Daily Gazette: STRIKING EARLY

News Tribune (Jefferson City, Mo.): CARDS SOCKED

News-Leader (Springfield, Mo.): FENWAY FIASCO

(The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a large ad at the top talking about a poster giveaway tomorrow, and a small cartoon at the bottom depicting a Cardinal having a ball hit it’s head with the caption “Beantown Bash”.)

Concord (NH) Monitor: Strong opening statement

Texarkana Gazette: LIVING THE DREAM (on how Texarkana natives Will Middlebrooks and Michael Wacha are both in the World Series)

El Universal (Cartagena, Colombia): Los Medias Rojas pegaron primero (roughly “The Red Sox strike first”)

Vanguardia (Saltillo, Mexico): !PEGA BOSTON PRIMERO! (Roughly translates as “Boston hits first!”)

(Most others, including those from other countries, are either extremely similar to the above ones or are extremely boring.)

Mr. Octobers of Yesterday (October 23, 2013)

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While some could argue the MVPs for the Red Sox yesterday were the Cardinals’ defense in the first three or so innings of the game, in reality the Mr. Octobers are Jon Lester (who pitched 7.2 shutout innings) and David Ortiz (who had 3 RBIs and would have had 4 more if not for Carlos Beltran sacrificing his ribs stopping a would-be grand slam).

We’re in the World Series now, so that means a 10-point addition for each of them! And that is good enough to shoot “Big Papi” to the top and place Lester above every “eliminated” player except for Justin Verlander.

Standings (PP= Position Player, P= Pitcher):

PP David Ortiz– 18

PP Carlos Beltran– 16

P Koji Uehara– 16

P Justin Verlander– 14

P Michael Wacha– 13

P Jon Lester– 13

P Clayton Kershaw– 11

P Max Scherzer– 11

PP Shane Victorino– 11

P Zack Greinke– 10

P Adam Wainwright– 9

PP Jhonny Peralta – 8

PP Matt Holliday– 8

PP Adrian Gonzalez– 8

PP David Freese – 6

PP Miguel Cabrera– 6

P Anibal Sanchez – 5

P Hyun-jin Ryu– 5

PP Yasiel Puig– 5

P Carlos Martinez– 5

P John Lackey– 5

PP Austin Jackson– 5

P Doug Fister– 5

PP Mike Napoli– 5

P Sonny Gray-3

P Gerrit Cole– 3

PP Pedro Alvarez– 3

P Mike Minor– 3

PP Hanley Ramirez– 3

PP Yoenis Cespedes– 3

P Jason Grilli– 3

PP Carl Crawford– 3

P Chris Capuano– 3

PP Seth Smith– 3

P Dan Otero– 3

PP Jose Lobaton-3

P Jake McGee-3

PP Juan Uribe-3

PP (Position Player) Russell Martin– 1

P (Pitcher) Francisco Liriano– 1

PP Desmond Jennings– 1

P Alex Cobb– 1

Game 1 of the World Series summed up in one GIF

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It was that kind of night for the St. Louis Cardinals. Look for more tomorrow, including the “Mr. Octobers” of tonight. Spoiler alert: Both of them were members of the Boston Red Sox.

Headlines from around the Continuum: October 23, 2013

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Baseball-related headlines from the Newseum:

(Note that I try to copy the style of the paper as well, hence why some are in ALL CAPS while others aren’t. Also, I ignored extremely basic headlines like “World Series Preview”)

Story: World Series starts tonight

Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT): RED TIDE RISING

Honolulu Star-Advertiser: WORLD SERIES FACE-OFF/THE PRIDE OF HAWAII (no doubt referring to Shane Victorino)

The Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL): Plenty of history in Cardinals-Red Sox matchup

Portland (Maine) Press: All eyes on Fenway as Sox host Game 1

The Sun Chronicle (Attleboro, Mass.): Wait until this year

Boston Globe: ONE BIG TEAM/Red Sox and bombing-scarred Boston rise together

Boston Herald: WELCOME TO OUR WORLD

Metro- Boston Edition: THE HUNT FOR THREE

Cape Cod Times: It’s hitting home

Standard-Times (New Bedford, Mass.): ALL EYES ON SOX

(The St. Louis Post Dispatch didn’t have a headline- just a big picture of Fenway Park above the fold.)

Buffalo News: Boston rises above horror

Providence Journal: LIVING THE DREAM

USA TODAY: CLOSE SHAVES IN THIS SERIES? NOT LIKELY (with pictures of bearded Red Sox players)

National Post (Toronto): ACES WILD (on the starting pitchers and others to watch in the series)

El Universal (Cartagena, Colombia): ¡Play ball!

El Informador (Guadalajara, Mexico): Retoman rivalidad (roughly translated as “Rivalry renewed”)

Vanguardia (Saltillo, Mexico): ¡Chocan los mejores! (roughly translated as “The best collide!”)

El Expreso de Campeche (San Francisco de Campeche, Mexico): QUE INICIE LA FIESTA (“Let the party begin!”)

De Volksrant (Amsterdam, Netherlands): Big in the U.S.A. (on Aruban/Dutch Xander Bogaerts being in the World Series)

El Nuevo Dia (San Juan, Puerto Rico): Choque de titanes en Boston (“Clash of titans in Boston.”)

El Nacional (Caracas, Venezuela): Fiesta mundial en Boston (Either “Global Party in Boston” or “World festivities in Boston”)

The 2013 World Series Preview/Prediction Spectacular

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It’s time to preview the 2013 World Series!

…After the jump, of course:

Continue reading →

UPDATE!

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I contacted Ben Blatt, who wrote the subject of yesterday’s post, and it turns out they are going to try and update it.

Huzzah!

The “Slate” tool to find out the connections between Athletes is WRONG!

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You’ve probably seen this page pop up on your Twitter feed today. It’s a cool thing from Slate in which you can find how sports players are connected. For example, they use the example that Tom Brady and Kevin Garnett are within six degrees of each other, due to playing with people who had played with multi-sport athletes.

However, it is far from perfect. For example, it treats Jim Thorpe as two people (a baseball player and a football player), a grave error considering that he is one of the greatest athletes of all time. For another, there is an outright false statement that is seemingly also built into the tool. And I quote:

Hockey is the opposite, as there has never been a pro hockey player who also played top-level basketball, football, or baseball. As a result, hockey is a closed system. But once you get off the ice, it’s possible to link every pro baseball, basketball, and football star.

This is, of course, completely wrong, as there has actually been one player who played both baseball and hockey on the highest level. In fact, I wrote about him at one point: his name was Jim Riley.

Sadly, as of this writing, author Ben Blatt and Slate have yet to fix this. But, I can’t blame them, can I? I mean, Jim Riley is very obscure, and if not for the fact that he is the one person to play in both MLB and NHL, he would have been completely forgotten.

Still, I hope that they fix it. After all, I want to see how all of the ProStars connect together.

In which I sum up the retirement of Jim Leyland in one tweet:

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Headlines from around the Continuum: October 20, 2013

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Baseball-related headlines from the Newseum:

Story: Red Sox win Game 6, advance to World Series

Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT): A GRAND VICTORY

Honolulu Star-Advertiser: VICTORINO GRAND SLAM SENDS BOSTON TO THE WORLD SERIES

Boston Globe: The improbable dream team soars into World Series

Boston Herald: VICTORINO LAP!

Herald News (Fall River, Mass.): WE’RE BACK, BABY

Metro West Daily News (Framingham, Mass.): AIN’T IT GRAND

Cape Cod Times: GRAND FINALE

Detroit Free Press: SLAMMED SHUT

La Prensa (Managua, Nicarauga): Del sótano a la Serie Mundial (Roughly “From the basement to the World Series”)

(There were also plenty of other front page headlines, including some from Mexico, Venezuela and Asian countries, but they were all either rather generic or in a script that I can’t put into a Google translator. Oh, there was also some headline from Mexico that seemed to be about how a government official was in Boston watching the playoffs, but I wasn’t sure enough to include it.)