Category Archives: Non-Baseball

Wherever they end up, the Athletics better keep their name

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For seemingly the last decade or so, the Athletics have tried to escape from Oakland (home of the infamous Oakland Coliseum, where the crowds are small and the foul territory is the size of the Titanic) and find their way to San Jose (BTW, the way is available on Google Maps). The Giants, who own the territorial rights to there, have basically told the Athletics to take a hike. And so, some have begun to wonder if the Athletics will move out of the Bay Area entirely… Selig has said that MLB would approve the move, depending on where it was (i.e. so long as it didn’t annoy any of the other 29 teams, like San Jose would the Giants).

Wherever the A’s end up though (Las Vegas? San Antonio? Charlotte? Mexico or Puerto Rico?), there is one thing that should happen: They should remain the Athletics. It is too old a name with too rich a history to be abandoned. The A’s nickname has been with that franchise since 1901, and dates back to previous clubs that go back all the way to 1860! Philadelphia, Kansas City or Oakland, they have remained the Athletics. Very few other names in sports have survived so two or more moves: the Boston-Milwaukee-Atlanta Braves (which, contrary to popular belief, was not derived directly from Native Americans, but rather on the notorious Tammany Hall political machine, which had used chiefs as a symbol. Not like that matters) are the only ones from the MLB.  The NFL has had the Oakland-LA Raiders (who don’t really count, since the second move was back to Oakland), the Chicago-St. Louis-Arizona Cardinals and the Cleveland-Los Angeles-St. Louis Rams. The NBA has had the New York-New Jersey-Brooklyn Nets, the Milwaukee-St. Louis-Atlanta Hawks and the Philadelphia-San Francisco-Golden State (i.e. Oakland) Warriors. The NHL hasn’t had one.

And, in honor of the long tradition, the Athletics should keep that name. No matter where they end up.Same for most of the other above teams.

The Return of Costas to Postseason Baseball?

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News item: TBS will air the two Wild Card play-in games. In addition, MLB Network will air two games of the Division Series.

Comment: Besides the fact that this makes MLB Network even more important (it already was getting close to eating and breathing), this also could mean that Bob Costas, one of the signature voices of sports broadcasting, will once again be calling October baseball, if only for two games. Costas has done select games on MLB Network since the station started, as well as hosting various shows and calling in to give analysis whenever a extremely major story happens. Sadly, due to the stupid MLB TV blackout map, I haven’t been able to see that many of them, as the games he’s covered usually have the Yankees or Mets (after all, Costas still needs to be close to 30 Rockefeller Center once football season starts). But with MLB Network now having some post-season play, not only will Costas possibly be calling baseball for the entire nation (blackout be damned), but he’d be calling postseason baseball. I only have the vaguest recollections of his postseason work, with the exception of the occasional MLB Network classic game, but I’m sure most would agree that the possibility of him calling postseason baseball can only be a good thing for all parties involved.

ADDED LATER: The NY Times confirms that Costas will do one of MLB Network’s games. Matt Vasgersian will do the other.

Rockets Rigby’s baseball career was only the beginning…

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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.

Great Bats in History

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Josh Hamilton’s bat is dead.

No, I don’t mean his hitting ability, I mean his bat. Literally. It cracked a bit over the weekend. But this was no ordinary bat. It will go down in history as one of the great bats of baseball lore. It hit eight home runs, including four in a game, during one of the greatest weeks in hitting history. Such was it’s reputation that, before being sent to Cooperstown, the Rangers let people pay $5 (to charity) to pose with it on Monday. 

A few things about the bat:

-It’s a H359 Louisville Slugger. It was made to Hamilton’s specifications after he signed an exclusive deal to use the company’s bats. It’s made of M9 maple and is 35 inches long.

-Befitting Hamilton, who credits his religion with helping him defeat the substance abuse that nearly killed him, he has a Bible notation emblazoned upon his bats: Jeremiah 29:11. I looked that up, and here it is-

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

So now that we know of this great baseball bat, what about some of the other great baseball bats in history? Read on to find out about some of them.

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Baseball in the Year 2044: A look at “Rockets on the Mound”

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The internet is a great place. Really, it is. And one of the reasons it is great is that you can find practically anything on it. Take, for example, short stories. There are countless stories that are in the public domain, either because they are really old, or because nobody bothered to renew the copyrights on things from cheap pulp publications. It’s from one of those that “Rockets on the Mound” comes from. First printed in 1954 in Super Sports magazine, and written by one Jim Moore, it is the tale of a baseball team in 2044 and it’s star, Rockets Rigby, who is in a horrible hit-and-run flying car accident. Seriously.

But before all of that, check out this picture that goes with it:

First, let’s note the field itself. It has a lot of space, almost circular in appearance. I mean, look at all of those players practicing to the left of the diamond, where they are conducting warmups as the umpires descend with their jet-packs from the stratojet. As this huge amount of foul territory can show, Moore was foreseeing the rise of multi-use facilities, and the Oakland Coliseum in particular. Either that, or whoever was hired to do this image hadn’t seen a baseball field in their lives. Also notice how the fans are dressed. Apparently, in the 2040s, women will all wear pointed witches’ hats and gigantic collars, while all of the men will wear space-cadet helmets. Nobody wears plain-old baseball caps, nor even the hats men wore in public before President Kennedy made them go out of style. Also, the “stratojet” used to bring the umpires in seems to be powered by a rocket and has swept wings. An F-16 flyover it isn’t…

Anyway, a few things to keep in mind before we start:

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Random Thoughts (Mainly on movies)

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And now, time for some random things. I don’t mean things like suddenly typing out random numbers and letters like, I dunno, CHJCSKSUTX4M or something. I mean, just a few things that are on my mind that aren’t baseball-related.

  • Go see The Avengers. It is very well done and a ton of fun. One of the most entertaining movies in years, especially if you’ve seen all of the other Marvel movies.
  • That said, I wish Marvel and Disney had the rights to Spider-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, etc. Marvel had sold the license to make movies of those characters before making superhero movies became big, so now they find themselves being able to have only some of their superheroes in their movie universe.
  • I mean, how awesome would a Spider-Man/Daredevil or Hulk/Wolverine movie be? Extremely awesome, that’s what.
  • Now, to Warner Brothers and DC Comics: I want my Justice League movie. Now. And it had better be as good if not better than Avengers. If it isn’t, you will have failed us all.
  • The NBA playoffs take too long and have too many teams in it. Also, it has all the parity of a seesaw with an anvil on one side. Only way any upsets ever happen are when people like Derrick Rose get hurt.
  • It’s getting hot up here, and that means air conditioners are coming out of storage. Good thing too, I’ve always found it harder to sleep when it’s hot than harder to sleep when it is cold.
  • I like the move by the Buffalo Bills to get Vince Young. Always good to have somebody experienced as a backup.
  • Happy Mothers’ Day to all the moms out there, including my own mother!

A little thing about Sexism, Racism, Anti-Semitism and Bigotry in general

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A few days ago, there was a news story that Our Lady of Sorrows, an Arizona high school run by a breakaway sect of the Catholic Church, had forfeited a game against Mesa Prep due to the fact that Mesa’s second baseman is female, citing religious beliefs. This is, of course, something that goes against every bone in my and most Americans’ bodies. It also is shameful in how it echoes past prejudices held in sports. Continue reading to see what I mean:

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