Did you read the first part of the 162 things yesterday? If not, you should. Go below the jump for today’s things:
2013 MLB Preview part 3: 162 Things Guaranteed to Happen in the 2013 MLB Season (Part 2)
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Tag Archives: baseball
Picture of the day: Photographers
Today’s random find from the Library of Congress Flickr feed: Lots of photographers at the 1912 World Series. Look at those old cameras!
Random Video of the Undetermined Amount of Time: Manny Ramirez in Taiwan
Here is video proof that Manny Ramirez is now playing in Taiwan:
2013 MLB Preview part 2: 162 Things Guaranteed to Happen in the 2013 MLB Season (Part 1)
What’s going to happen in this, the 2013 Major League Baseball Season? Well, I have 162 ideas- ranging from the serious to the sarcastic. At the end of the year, I’ll look at what my record was. Hopefully I will do better than the Astros.
This is a big and long post, so it can be found UNDER THE JUMP.
Picture of the Day: Grover Cleveland Alexander
Today’s random find from the Library of Congress Flickr feed: A picture of Grover Cleveland Alexander.
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.
All donations would be greatly appreciated, and all proceeds (barring me somehow getting thousands of dollars) would go towards the Baseball Continuum in some way (server costs, domain name, promotion, products for review, and so on).
Thank you!
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.
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