Tag Archives: Continuum Classic

Continuum Classic: Jen Mac Ramos’ “Baseball Bonds”

Posted on by
Reply

As some of you active on Twitter may know, friend-of-the-Continuum Jen Mac Ramos’ family was involved in a horrific car accident this past weekend. A drunk driver struck their car, killing Jen’s husband Josh and leaving Jen with severe injuries. A GoFundMe site has been set up to help pay for Jen’s medical expenses and recovery, and anyone looking to donate is encouraged to head there as soon as possible.

I would not be able to claim that I know Jen, although I have often liked Jen’s Tweets and read Jen’s work, but In some way we can see a piece of Jen by reading the piece they contributed to the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon. Entitled “Baseball Bonds,” it was one of my favorite pieces of that inaugural (and ultimately only, as my real job forced me to cut back) Blogathon. You can find it with only minimal edits (removing things about the Blogathon and updating Jen’s bio to note this was written in 2016) after the jump:

Continue reading →

Continuum Classic- Bizarre Baseball Culture: Pokémon in “The Double Trouble Header”

Posted on by
Reply

Today, February 27, is the 20th anniversary of the release of the first Pokémon games in their native Japan. In honor of that feat, here’s the classic Bizarre Baseball Culture look at “The Double Trouble Header”, an episode about baseball fandom and the world of Pocket Monsters.

–

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.

In a first for Bizarre Baseball Culture, we’re going international to look at one of the more strange appearances of baseball in Japanese culture. To be more exact, we’re looking at an old episode of the Pokémon anime, entitled “The Double Trouble Header”.

…

Okay, are you done laughing/rolling your eyes? Good. Now go below the jump for this installment, which has been weeks in the making:

Continue reading →

(Blogathon ’16) CONTINUUM CLASSIC: 2007 AAA BASEBALL HEROES

Posted on by
1

This piece from the blog’s archives is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

Originally published June 19, 2013.

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.

I warned you. I told you it was coming. You could have gone away, but, no, you had to go and actually come here and read this installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture. This is a very special Bizarre Baseball Culture, as, for the first time, it’s something that I actually have in my very small personal collection of comic books. You see, in 2007, each Triple-A baseball team had a day celebrating superheroes, and as a giveaway, there was this comic:

2007GiveawayComic copyAnd, as you can probably guess, I was at that game and got the giveaway. And so, it sat in a drawer for almost seven years, ignored. Until today. Yes, true believers, tremble and prepare yourself for the 2007 edition of Triple-A Baseball Heroes, featuring the superheroes of Marvel Comics.

Now, a few notes before we get going here:

  • All of the images in this post were scanned by yours truly, and any problems with the quality of the images are my fault.
  • All characters and logos in the comic are property of their respective owners (such as Marvel Comics or Minor League Baseball). The excerpts from this comic used in this post are being used under fair use doctrine and are meant merely to support and enhance the opinions and facts stated in said post.
  • Click on any of the images to make them bigger.
  • To the best of my knowledge, the only way to get this comic nowadays is to find it on eBay or have gone to the games that had them released.

Now, go below the jump for the rest of the post:

Continue reading →

CONTINUUM CLASSIC: Why nobody pays attention to College Baseball, outside of the CWS

Posted on by
Reply

In honor of the College Baseball season starting tomorrow, here’s a post originally published on June 1, 2012:

In basketball, the NCAA tournament is in many ways a far bigger event than even the NBA Finals as the marquee event for the sport.

In football, the passions in some regions for college teams are larger than that of any NFL team. Okay, with the possible exception of Green Bay. Maybe.

Baseball, however, has it’s amateur competitions mostly forgotten. Yes, the draft is shown on MLB Network (at least the first round or two), and it isn’t too hard to find a college game on TV if you know where to look… but it is a afterthought unless it’s draft day (and even then, there usually are just as many high schoolers who are getting drafted) or the College World Series.

There are several reasons for this:

  • As I mentioned, lots of players are drafted out of high school, so the level of competition in NCAA isn’t quite what it is in football or basketball.
  • With the exception of the best of the best, it’ll be several years before you see a top college player in the big leagues, since they will go to the minors for seasoning. This ends any type of “hype” that can be built up around future pros, and why the MLB draft is so little followed beyond seamheads.
  • Aluminum bats. They may have been changed over the past decade or so to act more like baseball bats and not like trampolining home run machines, but there is still the PING! that, while tolerable when heard in Little League, seems to be grating when you see grown men swinging them around.
  • Lack of regional parity. If it seems like the BCS division of football is dominated by southern and western colleges, it’s even worse in baseball. After all, they can practice all year round, and don’t have to worry about the weather. A look at the winners of the College World Series over the years shows it. There hasn’t been a CWS winning team from above the old Mason-Dixon line (39 degrees and 43 minutes N) since Oregon State went back-to-back in 2006 and 2007. Before then, though, there hadn’t been one since (The) Ohio State University won it in 1966. Heck, there hadn’t even been a northern team that came in second place since Eastern Michigan lost to Arizona in 1976.
  • Baseball, unlike basketball and football, became a professional sport fairly early on, meaning the long traditions found in college hoops and gridiron aren’t as common in baseball, since they didn’t have time to form before the rise of the pros. The only big tradition it has that is known nationally is the fact that the College World Series is in Omaha, and ALWAYS in Omaha.

So what can be done? Well, MLB is apparently discussing helping fund scholarships and a transition to wooden bats in NCAA, which could be helpful. However, I think College Baseball will remain what it is: fun to watch come the College World Series, but generally ignored outside of that.