From the Library of Congress Flickr feed, here’s a public domain picture of Germany Schaefer hard at work taking photos for what are probably future pictures of the day.
Picture of the Day: Say Cheese
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Tag Archives: baseball
Random Video of the Undetermined Amount of Time: Snowball Fight!
From Big League Stew comes this video of Dayton and Gardner-Webb having a snowball fight during a weather delay:
Baseball players celebrating their birthday today
Just for those of you sick of the 50th birthday of Michael Jordan, I now present to you a list of five baseball players who were born on February 17:
Rod Dedeaux (who would later be one of the greatest college coaches in baseball history)
…
So there you go. Oh, and Red Barber was born on 2-17 as well.
Picture of the Day: Calisthenics
This image is from the State Library of Florida and has no known copyright restrictions. It’s of the Brooklyn Dodgers doing calisthenics at Spring Training in 1949.
Videos of the Undetermined Amount of Time: Old-Time IL Baseball
Somebody on YouTube has been putting up videos from the 1930s of the Rochester Red Wings. These are home videos, somewhat haphazardly edited but of good quality,
Here, for example, is a video (somewhat haphazardly edited) of games between the Rochester Red Wings and Newark Bears in May, 1932. A rare, close-up view of Minor League Baseball in a era long ago. Among the players in this game include Newark’s George Selkirk, Red Rolfe and Dixie Walker and Rochester’s Specs Toporcer (the first known position player to wear glasses on the field). Hall of Famer Billy Southworth was a player-manager for the Wings at this point of 1932 as well, although I don’t see him at all in this video (although I might have missed him during the various cuts).
Shortly after I wrote that previous paragraph, a video of Opening Day from 1932 was put up, between Rochester and the Jersey City Skeeters. You can see Southworth in this one, as well as Jersey City’s Clyde Barnhart, who had been a regular of Pirates teams in the 1920s, and Jo-Jo Moore, who would later be a 6-time All-Star with the Giants. As a Rochesterian, it was also neat to see a advertisement for the “Zweigle Bros.”, considering that they continue to provide the Red Wings their hot dogs to this day.
Picture of the Day: Early Spring Training
Is it a problem that I could identify Justin Verlander and I think Phil Coke based simply on Verlander’s profile and I-Think-Coke’s facial hair (unless Todd Jones is now a coach for the Tigers or something…)?
This image is under a creative commons license and was taken by Roger “HueyTaxi” Dewitt.
The Continuum Baseball Rankings as of February 14 (but posted on 15), 2013
The IBAF (International Baseball Federation) has a list of World Rankings for baseball, but that is a list for the production of national teams- not how successful a baseball country is at producing MLB players, or producing the best MLB players. Nor does it take into account how well teams from those countries do in competitions like the Caribbean Series.
The Continuum Baseball Rankings do that differently. Using an ELO rating system, the Continuum Rankings takes into account a few factors:
1. The IBAF rankings
2. The amount of MLB players produced
3. The amount of win shares of MLB players by country
4. Game results by both national teams and representative teams (such as a league champion in the Caribbean Series), as well as overall tournament performance (coming in first in a tournament, for example, versus coming in third or fourth).
Now, here’s how ELO Rankings work: each team has a rating (originally all the teams had their rating set as 0, but after running the first 3 parts of the rankings I used the rankings it produced for the first tournament covered with the Continuum Baseball Rankings- the Caribbean World Series). Based on how high or low one team’s ranking is compared to another, the winner or loser of a game is awarded anywhere from 0 to 15 points OR loses 0 to 15 points. The number of points awarded depends on the quality of the two teams. More impressive wins get more points, for example.
Note that the following rankings are just for fun, they are not scientific and are not meant to be definitive whatsoever. I have no background in statistics, and my knowledge on the ELO ranking system comes entirely from reading about it and such. Even the math itself was done using another website, not a personal calculator or spreadsheet.
Also, note that I counted just the Netherlands (and added together Netherlands, Curacao, Aruba. etc. into one for the Win Shares and Number of Players) for this, not each of the countries in the Kingdom of the Netherlands individually, just for simplicity.
So, go below the jump for the current ratings (calculated February 14, 2013 but posted on February 15, 2013):
A little bit of late WBC news for February 13, 2013
Go here for earlier news of the day on the World Baseball Classic.
Cuba’s national team roster has been confirmed completely for the WBC now. The only way it will now change will be if there is a last-second injury:
The roster is the following:
Catchers: Frank Camilo Morejon Reyes (IND), Yosvani Peraza (PRI), and Eriel Sanchez Leon (SSP).
Infielders: Jose Dariel Abreu Correa (CFG), Jose Miguel Fernandez Diaz (MTZ), Erisbel Arruebarruena Escalante (CFG), Yulieski Gourriel Castillo and newcomers Raul Gonzalez (CA), Luis Felipe Rivera and Andy Ibañez, both from Isla de la Juventud.
Outfielders: Alfredo Despaigne Rodriguez (GRA), Frederich Cepeda Cruz (SSP), Guillermo Heredia Molina (MTZ), Alexei Bell Quintero (SCU), and Yasmani Tomas (IND).
Hurlers: Odrisamer Despaigne Orue (IND), Freddy A. Alvarez Saez (VCL), Ismel Jimenez Santiago (SSP), Vladimir Garcia Escalante (CAV), Yadier Pedroso (ART) Norberto Gonzalez Miranda (CFG), Alexander Rodriguez Matos (GTM), Yander Guevara Morales (CAV), Danny Betancourt (SCU), Leandro Martinez (Gr), Diosdani Castillo (Vcl), Raciel Iglesias and Wilber Perez, both from IJV.
Victor Mesa will be the manager of the team.
What will Barry Larkin do before managing Team Brazil in the WBC? Why, he’s going to India to teach baseball as part of a State Department program. Between doing these while also doing work for ESPN and watching his son tear it up for the University of Miami basketball team, I must wonder: does he ever sleep?
More news tomorrow….
Picture of the Day: Fukuoka Dome
The Fukuoka Dome will be the site of the Pool A games of the 2013 WBC, and normally is the home of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. Here’s what it looks like during a between-innings celebration:
This image is used under a creative commons license and was taken by “toooooool“.
Early WBC News for Feb. 13, 2013
As we near the World Baseball Classic, I’ll be collecting news and notes about it. Due to length, it starts after the jump.
The Baseball Continuum 