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Sunday Links and a preview of the next week

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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:

  • Projections for Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic
  • An argument that Moneyball is a book that has shaped modern America
  • Thoughts on the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game
  • The first episode of this season of The Franchise airs (including the debut of the Continuum’s Ozzie Guillen swear-word scorecard)
  • A review of The Amazing Spider-Man
  • And who knows what else?

Mini-Bizarre Baseball Culture- Tony Stark: Baseball Fan

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction. This is a smaller installment of that.

In the trade paperback entitled The Five Nightmares (by Matt Fraction), Tony Stark AKA Iron Man has traveled to the Congo to investigate a genocidal supervillain organization that may have replicated his technology.

He also is tracking a few other things. Y’know, R&D meetings, messed up satellites….

… and Josh Beckett throwing a no-hitter.

Iron Man = Baseball Fan.

(The use of this low-quality photo of a very small portion of a larger storyline qualifies as Fair Use under US copyright law.)

Want more Bizarre Baseball Culture? Check out after the jump.

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Humorous musings: Things from the first half that prove the Mayans are right (and wrong)

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As we near the All-Star Break, it is time to remember that, according to the Mayans, this is the last MLB season we will see, as the world as we know it is due to end this December. After all, the Mayans are well-known for their predicting knowledge. As noted comedian-newsman Jon Stewart once pointed out: They have never been wrong in predicting civilization-ending events.

Well, except once. They totally didn’t see Cortez coming.

Now, never mind that technically the change in the Mayan calendar is not that different from the change of how we move from December 31 to January 1, or that there is little to no evidence that they were predicting anything other than the end of one cycle of their calendar happening. Clearly, by looking at what has happened in the first half of the baseball season, we can see that, truly, the end is near. We’re talking real Old Testament stuff: fire and brimstone, 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, and cats and dogs living together. As the esteemed Dr. Peter Venkman points out, that is what can be classified as MASS HYSTERIA!

(after the jump)

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2012-2013 WBC Projections: Panama

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Of all the teams that have failed to win any games over the first two WBCs, the Panamanians probably are the best of the bunch. So it isn’t really a surprise that they will be hosting a qualifying pool in November. That pool is going to be brutal: Panama will be joined by Nicaragua, Colombia and Brazil. All four teams have at least one player active in MLB this season. Thankfully for Panama, their qualifying tournament will be in November and not September, meaning they will be able to call upon some of their major leaguers (as opposed to Canada, which will have to try to qualify without the aid of Joey Votto, Brett Lawrie and friends).

So, anyway, with all of this in mind and after much research, I’ve put together a possible roster for the Panamanians after the jump:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

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July 4th: The Luckiest Man

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It was July 4th, 1939. Lou Gehrig was a dying man. Earlier that year, he’d ended his 2,130 consecutive game streak, taking himself out before a game in Detroit for the good of the team (he was hitting .143 with an RBI). A visit to the Mayo Clinic in June confirmed the worst: he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, the disease that now carries his name. Although his mind would remain intact, his body would slowly betray him. Although his wife had told the doctors to try and withhold some of the more horrible details of the diagnosis from him, there is evidence to suggest that Lou knew, somehow, that he was on his way out. He announced his retirement from the game he loved.

So it was on Independence Day that the Yankees held a day in his honor. They retired his number 4- the first in baseball to be so honored. Some of his most famous teammates, including Babe Ruth, joined delegates from across the country in Yankee Stadium.

Everybody knows how the speech began, and many know how it ends, as can be seen below:

However, that was because, as amazing as it sounds, no media outlets had recorded the whole thing. That is partly why Gary Cooper’s speech in Pride of the Yankees is occasionally played instead, although it moved the beginning of the speech to the end for artistic reasons and was more of a paraphrase of the actual words Gehrig gave on that day.

Since Gehrig’s death in 1941, he has remained an inspiration and a rallying-cry in the fight against ALS and similar diseases. What had been before Gehrig a little understood disease is now studied across the world.

Progress has been made. A few years back, a report came out that suggested that people who have a history of concussions may be more likely to develop an ALS-style disease (Gehrig, it should be noted, took plenty of beanballs during his career, and also had played football at Columbia), and there is also some evidence that genetics and mutations may also play a role. Despite this, however, there remains no cure.

The possibly upcoming resurrection of the Home Run Derby

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Perhaps it was because I was still basically a kid, perhaps it was because we had no idea what was really fueling those moonshots, but the Home Run Derby once was a time where the baseball gods came down to earth and took human form, sending balls deep into the night. Over the Green Monster! Into the highest decks of Turner Field! Through the windows of roofed stadiums! Coors Field!

And then, over the years, it has seemed to have been changed into baseball’s version of the Super Bowl: lots of hype, and a good streak of installments here and there, but usually just overhyped. For every year where Josh Hamilton or Bobby Abreu make the night their personal playground, there’s a few years like the one where McCovey Cove shuts out the best hitters who showed up.

Now, however, we might have a lineup and a location to bring the Home Run Derby back to it’s glory.

(jump)

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The Cape Cod League: Pure Concentrated Americana

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Over the last week, I’ve been vacationing in Massachusetts. And, of course, I made sure to see all of the sites: the USS Constitution, Quincy Market, the Old North Church, the JFK Library and Museum, and, of course, Fenway Park. I even went to a restaurant that is a replica of the bar on Cheers. I’ll write about all of that later, but first, I must tell you about a few innings in what might be the purest baseball this side of an old neighborhood pick-up game: The Cape Cod League.

(JUMP- note that this post is image intensive)

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Projecting the Puerto Rican 2013 WBC Team

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Puerto Rico isn’t the baseball factory it once was. Once Puerto Rico was included as part of the draft, it ceased to produce as many prospects and as a result the entire culture of baseball on the island has suffered. Thankfully, this might be changing as MLB has helped set up baseball academies on the island, and it appears to be working: Carlos Correa was the top pick of this year’s draft, and he was an alum of the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy.

However, despite this, Puerto Rico still has some advantages in the tournament. For one, many of the players will have also played winter ball, so will be more fresh and ready than some of the other teams. For another, it’s possible that the Puerto Ricans will be hosting a part of the tournament- they have the past two times- and if so they will no doubt have a rabid fan base behind them. And, finally, they will have Carlos Beltran, who is still a good enough player to be able to turn a game around single-handedly.

So, anyway, with all of this in mind and after much research, I’ve put together a possible roster for the Puerto Ricans:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

More after the jump.

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An act of unnecessary baseball research: Miguel Tejada and Aaron Sorkin

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During the pilot episode of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom (a good show, if a little soapboxy), newsman Will McAvoy is reminiscing with his old flame/new executive producer MacKenzie McHale and remembers that he once went to an Orioles game with her father, which ended with Miguel Tejada hitting a double to win the game 4-3, driving home runners who were on first and third.

However, either McAvoy’s memory isn’t as sharp as he’d like to believe, or the universe of The Newsroom isn’t just different because there is a fictional news network around… because no such thing ever happened. From 2004 (when Tejada joined the Orioles) to 2007 (it’s said the two of them haven’t seen each other in three years, so presumably that’s the latest such a game could have happened), Tejada didn’t hit any walk-off doubles for the Orioles.

However, just for the sake of argument, here are some possibilities of what he actually was talking about:

The only time that Miguel Tejada ever had a walk-off double with men on first and third was when he was with the Athletics. Given the fact that McAvoy so clearly remembers it being an Orioles game, and the fact that all of these characters appear to be based on the East Coast, he probably didn’t mean that.

He hit a walk-off home run against the Tigers in 2004, but the men were on 1st and 2nd, it ended the game by the score of 7-5, and, let’s face it, it’s hard to believe somebody would think it was a double.

Personally, I think it was likely this game from August 2006. The Orioles, like in the game remembered by McAvoy, won by one. Two men were on when he had the hit (a single). It’s entirely possible that, in the madness that so often follows a walk-off hit, that McAvoy would think that Tejada had gone to second. As for all of the other inconsistencies in McAvoy’s memories, well, he mentions that he and Mackenzie’s father had been drinking a lot that day, so, well, there you go.

So, there you go, the answer to a baseball question nobody asked.

Other baseball movies that need to happen

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After Moneyball drew widespread acclaim and pretty good box office, baseball movies seem to be having a renaissance.A movie on Jackie Robinson is in the works (with Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey and Chadwick Boseman starring as Jackie). Disney is working on a movie about the two Indian pitchers that the Pirates signed after they came over to the states after winning a reality TV show. Ben Affleck is trying to make a movie on the infamous Mike Kekich/Fritz Peterson “wife swap” (Kekich isn’t happy). And now his brother, Casey, is apparently trying to make a movie about Josh Hamilton.

Hamilton’s tale, of course, is perfect for a movie, as it could draw so many different types of people in. Every baseball fan would go to it just because it’s a baseball movie, everybody loves an underdog story, the struggles with substance abuse would play well with critics if done right and Hamilton’s faith would bring in church groups. Of course, there’s the slight problem that the story isn’t done yet: how do you end it? With him winning America’s hearts (but not the trophy) in that Yankee Stadium home run derby? With the 4-home run game? Had that home run of his in Game 6 last season won it for the Rangers, that would have been perfect, but then the Cardinals made their comeback.

But anyway, I’m getting off-topic. The thing with baseball is that there are so many stories that would make great movies. Here are some that should be considered (after the jump):

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