Today’s random find from the Library of Congress Flickr feed: A picture of Grover Cleveland Alexander.
Picture of the Day: Grover Cleveland Alexander
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Tag Archives: baseball
A reminder: Tip Jar
A friendly reminder: you can help keep the Baseball Continuum up and running and with plenty of fresh content by donating to the Tip Jar, which can be found on the side of the front page.
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Cool Link: What if sports team territories were actually done by proximity to the stadium?
Today’s link is of sports team territories. It is basically based on the idea of what the “territory” of each sports team (they have NFL and NBA in addition to MLB) would be if it was actually based off of proximity to a team’s stadium. It’s an interesting contrast to the haphazard, unfair and antiquated television territory maps that exist today.
Picture of the day: Morrie Rath
Today’s random photo from the Library of Congress Flickr Feed is of 1910s second-basemen Morrie Rath.
Picture of the day: Orval Overall
Today’s random picture from the Library of Congress Flickr Feed is of Orval Overall, who has one of the most fun-to-say names in baseball history.
Florida Gulf Coast University Basketball vs. Fresno State Baseball: What’s the bigger Cinderella?
Florida Gulf Coast University is the darling of the NCAA basketball tournament, becoming the first 15-seed to advance to the Sweet 16. It is already being called one of the greatest Cinderella stories in college history. But I had to wonder: how does it compare to perhaps the greatest Cinderella story in baseball, the 2008 Fresno State baseball team?
If you aren’t familiar with it, I can’t blame you, as I’ve mentioned before, not many people pay attention to college baseball, especially outside of the College World Series. So I’ll refresh your memory: in 2008, the Fresno State Bulldogs, who only was able to qualify for the baseball tournament thanks to winning the Western Athletic Conference tournament. They were placed into their initial pool as a 4-seed (early rounds of NCAA baseball tournament are double-elimination pools), the equivalent of being a 13 seed or lower in March Madness.
But, a funny thing happened, not only did they advance through their regional and then super-regional pool, but they ended up winning the College World Series, defeating Georgia. They became the lowest seed ever to win a NCAA championship.
So, is FGCU more impressive than that?
Well, no. Mainly, this is because FGCU hasn’t won the tournament, and it probably won’t. However, should they continue on, that answer could change. The reason for this is because of the differences between baseball and basketball.
You see, unlike baseball, basketball doesn’t have any real “equalizer” position. While having a dominant player like a Lebron James or Kevin Durant definitely can help, there is no pitcher who can shut down the opposing offense or hockey goalie who can stand on his head. That means that, usually, the entire team more or less has to play above expectations if they intend to pull off an upset, or have their opponent have a bad day on the same day they have a few players have a good day. So to pull an upset in basketball is far more impressive and rare than an upset in baseball.
However, as I said, FGCU still has a long way to go. Fresno State, after all, won the whole thing- and that means that the Gulf Coast players will have to win four more games if they aim to take the overall crown of the greatest Cinderella in college sports history.
Bizarre Baseball Culture: Dash Dartwell’s PED use for justice
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.
Steroids and other performance-enhancers are, to sports, a plague. They provide some players an unfair advantage, threaten the integrity of records, and could also endanger the long-term health of the user. The great struggle of 21st century sports has, in many ways, been the struggle against PEDs.
But, as today’s installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture shows, the the view that PEDs are bad goes against human nature and human fantasy. The human experience, the human dream, has always been about becoming better. It is one reason why, for example, that larger-than-life heroes have been popular since ancient times.
So it is perhaps not surprising that fictional superhumans (who by their nature are better than human) have often gone hand-in-hand with PEDs (which by their very nature make the user better than the average human). Steve Rogers, for example, became Captain America after being given a Super-Soldier Serum by the American government. Bane, the villain who once broke Batman’s back and appeared in less-steroidy form in The Dark Knight Rises, got his great strength from a drug known simply as “Venom”. Even Popeye, with his spinach, could be said to be using some type of performance enhancers.
But few stories actually have an athlete using a PED… but I have found at least one, featuring the obscure hero Dash Dartwell (sometimes called “The Human Meteor”), a college athlete who has gotten “Metabo-tablets” from a biochemistry professor that make him superhuman until the pill’s effect wears off.
Amazing Man Comics #22, the issue from May 1941 which contains this story (it starts on page 41), can be found here. Go below the jump for the rest of this installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture.
2013 MLB Preview, Part 1: First Things That Pop Into My Mind
Okay, time to play a bit of a game with myself: For every team in Major League Baseball, I type out the first (printable) thought I have on them. Sometimes they will actually have to do with the coming season, other times they will just be random observations or the name of their best player. This is acting as part 1 of a series of unknown length that will constitute my preview of the 2013 season.
So, here we go:
Arizona Diamondbacks: Kirk Gibson likes guys who are gritty.
Atlanta Braves: No Chipper but 2 Uptons.
Baltimore Orioles: There’s no way they can do it again, right?
Chicago Cubs: Will trade Alfonso Soriano sometime.
Chicago White Sox: Won’t be better than the Tigers.
Cincinnati Reds: Could win the division again.
Cleveland Indians: Terry Francona.
Colorado Rockies: Carlos Gonzalez. Todd Helton is still playing.
Detroit Tigers: World Series favorite.
Houston Astros: Welcome the American League, enjoy last place.
Kansas City Royals: Better but not going to be nearly good enough.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California: Great lineup, suspect pitching after Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson.
Los Angeles Dodgers: Magic, Money, and Matt Kemp.
Miami Marlins: Pity poor Giancarlo Stanton.
Milwaukee Brewers: Major League Baseball is coming for Ryan Braun.
Minnesota Twins: Rebuilding in progress.
New York Mets: David Wright.
New York Yankees: Robinson Cano and some old guys. Also: Mariano Rivera‘s last stand.
Oakland Athletics: The beard of Josh Reddick.
Philadelphia Phillies: Is Roy Halladay over the hill?
Pittsburgh Pirates: Andrew McCutchen.
San Diego Padres: Chase Headley.
San Francisco Giants: The defending champs.
Seattle Mariners: Felix Hernandez.
St. Louis Cardinals: Albert who?
Texas Rangers: Not what they have been.
Toronto Blue Jays: I need to get a passport so I can go watch them play.
Washington Nationals: The other World Series favorite.
Come back in the coming days for more thoughts and previews of the 2013 MLB season.
Picture of the day: Chris Sale, FGCU
Before last night, the main athletic claim to fame for Florida Gulf Coast University was that it produced White Sox pitcher Chris Sale. Y’know, this guy:
This picture, taken by Keith Allison, is used under a Creative Commons license.
Random Video of the Undetermined Amount of Time: Who’s on First?
An oldie but a goodie:
The Baseball Continuum 
