Just a bit of house news: the website address of http://www.baseballcontinuum.com now redirects you here, to, well… The Baseball Continuum. You don’t need to update your bookmarks or anything like that, but it does makes it easier to navigate here, especially when you are using a mobile device.
UPDATED: Actually, it might not be working yet. But, rest assured, it won’t be long before you will just need to type “www.baseballcontinuum.com” to get to this page.
Some links that caught my eye and a preview of what will be on the Baseball Continuum in the week ahead.
On Friday, Miguel Gonzalez of the Orioles defeated the Angels for the first win of his MLB career. He did it while wearing a glove bearing name of his old friend and teammate, the late Nick Adenhart.
The bad news is that Giancarlo Stanton is out of the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby due to knee surgery, but the good news is that Bryce Harper will be the one replacing him in the game…
…and Andrew McCutchen, possibly the most underrated player in baseball, will be replacing him in the Derby. He’s no Stanton, but he can still drill the ball.
The United States National College Team and Cuba’s National Team have renewed a series that had been dormant since the 1990s.
The All-Star Game has been held in Kansas City twice before: 1960 and 1973.
Coming this week on the Baseball Continuum:
For those of you who want to see all of my projections for team rosters in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, here’s a list of those I’ve done so far, in order of when I did them, as well as what teams are coming up and I have begun researching and assembling (in a order that is subject to change):
?. Japan and Korea (will be up shortly after it becomes official that they will take part- the Japanese union is in a money dispute with the WBC, Korea is undergoing labor strife over the fact that the Korean League is going to expand by only one team instead of the two expected)
Another site I often visit is FanGraphs, especially it’s scoreboards, which show the probability of a team winning the game at any given point. For example, you can see just how much that three-run homer in the fifth helped, or just how much that strikeout with the bases loaded hurt the team.
For example, check out the win probability chart for Game 6 of last year’s World Series, which looks like a roller coaster it has so many ups and downs.
Nothing new today, folks, as I am busy putting together new stuff for the coming weeks. Here’s a preview of what will be up this weekend:
On Saturday, tune in to read another tale of Bizarre Baseball Culture, as we will see a story involving the rather bizarre superhero known as Doll Man faces off against baseball-themed crooks.
Also on Saturday, you’ll be able to read something on the Norfolk Tides, who just may be the most star-studded sub-.500 team in AAA baseball history, thanks to a confluence of former all-stars on rehab or minor league contract. It’s not every day that you see Brian Roberts and Miguel Tejada have long toss right in front of you, but it happened a few days ago.
On Sunday, we will once again see another Great Prediction in History from an old Baseball Digest, and also some thoughts on the hyper-close races in the AL and NL Eat.
And, of course, there could always be some surprises. This is baseball, after all, so you never know what could happen. There could be a no-hitter. Or a unassisted triple play. Or a 4-HR game. And if something like that happens, expect comment on it here, at the Continuum.
From the itself-good Seamheads site is the Baseball Gauge. Why is it a cool baseball site? Well, for one thing, it automatically calculates the best at positions based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For another, it also lets you customize how that shows up. Want to see what the all-time Canadian team is? Boom. How about the best players last year who weren’t All-Stars? Ta-da!
Potentially hours of endless fun. Okay, maybe not hours. More like some fun here and there.
Still, check it out.
A big thanks to Craig Calcaterra over at HardballTalk for having a story about the analysis of “Rockets on the Mound.” It’s brought a ton of readers to that post, which makes me quite happy, as it is a fun little look at a little-looked at part of baseball’s cultural history. (A very little-looked at part, but still a part).
So I’m going to return the favor: go to HardballTalk. It’s one of the best baseball blogs online, and is usually one of the first places I go to when I’m looking for baseball news, whether it be the usual or the eclectic (like, uhm, 1950s science fiction stories about baseball).
Okay, so out of curiosity, I did some googling as to whether anybody else had written about the bad-but-interesting tale of Rockets Rigby and baseball in the year 2044. They hadn’t. At least, not as of this morning.
I did, however, find a bibliography for Mr. Jim Moore, and listed is a story entitled “The Good New Days” from Super Sports in March 1953. The site notes that it is a Rockets Rigby story about “21st century football”.
Wait, there were more Rockets Rigby stories, and he was a multi-sport athlete? My far-overdone analysis of “Rockets on the Mound” is already the most popular post in the Continuum’s admittedly young history, so obviously there is some interest in it. So, to paraphrase Andy Samberg as Nicholas Cage: “HOW AM I NOT BLOGGING ABOUT THESE STORIES!?!?”
The reason, of course, is that they aren’t available online like “Rockets on the Mound” is. Or are they? If you know where more of Jim Moore’s sci-fi sports stories can be found, let me know.
As I mentioned, the Baseball Continuum is far beyond just the majors, it is everything baseball related. And, since the internet is so amazing, the world of baseball is more accessible than ever. Our forefathers may have been stuck with newspapers, ESPN and such, but the many niches available online mean we can follow almost any type of baseball league.
One such league is Nippon Pro Baseball (NPB), which, as the name suggests, are the Japanese leagues. And one of the best places on the internet for news about baseball across the Pacific is Yakyu Baka. It has up-to-date standings on their leagues, as well as updates on former major leaguers and possible future ones. As baseball becomes more international with things like the World Baseball Classic, international ball no longer can simply be ignored.
So, in honor of bringing Japanese baseball to English-speaking fans, Yakyu Baka is being added to the Blogroll.
The big block of text on the top of this blog says this:
“The Baseball Continuum is made up of every league, division, team, player and everything else baseball related, from the Majors all the way down to Little League. Ultimately, like a gigantic version of the Degrees of Kevin Bacon, everything in baseball ends up being connected to everything else. A player who you played in Little League might have played a person in High School who played a person in College who played a person in the Minors who then played somebody in the Major Leagues. And that person, ultimately, can probably then be connected in some way, shape or form to every other MLBer who ever played the game. And, of course, players sometimes go overseas, or play with people from overseas, expanding the universe of baseball beyond just the continent of North America to places in Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and even Europe and Africa. It all, in the end, is connected. And all of it is real. Some games might count more than others, some players may get paid more than others, and crowd sizes can be anywhere from zero to a hundred thousand, but in the end, it all is baseball. The greatest game in the world, a game as timeless as time itself. And, like time, we so often feels like we have too much but also too little of baseball. Some game can go on for hours upon hours, innings upon innings. But, yet, we want more. And more. And more. Those who complain should remember the words of Red Barber: “Baseball is dull only to dull minds.” So sit back, take a seat, and enter this, The Baseball Continuum, a blog by a young writer who has lived and breathed baseball since seemingly the day who was born, and who is fascinated by how everything in baseball is connected, no matter how different, no matter how popular or obscure. MLB, MiLB and anything below or to the side of it, this is The Baseball Continuum.”
Okay, so it’s a bit of a mouthful. But it sort of sums up what this blog will be about: baseball, baseball and more baseball, in all of it’s forms. While I will be the first to admit that there is probably no way I’d be able to truly cover everything that is baseball- apologies to the baseball players over in Iran– this blog will be one that isn’t just focused on one team, player or league, but whatever in baseball catches my eye.
So, welcome to the Baseball Continuum, I hope you enjoy your stay.
The Baseball Continuum 