Take me out to the ballgame!

Post by **Frelga** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:53 pm

Awesome, V! That was one baseball game I wish I could see in person.

Here's a strange little story:

When Youkilis came up to bat in the 9th, Lufu and DH started chanting Shana Tovah (Happy New Year in Hebrew) whenever the pitcher wound up. The weird thing? Whenever they did that, Youkilis either got a ball or a foul, when they didn't, he got a strike. Weirder still, they finally talked me into joining the chorus, despite the

, and that was when he doubled!

Then, J.D. Drew comes up, and me boys decide to try Happy Halloween on him. Same thing happens and he drives Youkilis home when the three of us chant together.

So much for me fighting superstition at home.

Post by **Holbytla** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 8:30 pm

Whatever the Red Sox do, win or lose, they always seem to have a flair for the dramatic. I don't know if they have enough left in the tank to take the series, but I wouldn't bet against them if this goes 7. They just seem to find a way to win as opposed to a few years ago when they seemed to find ways to lose. Winning this series would make them one of the scariest teams in history.

Post by **Holbytla** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:04 am

Yes Virginia there will be a game 7.
Man there were some mighty long young faces in the Tampa dugout.

The Sox are not nearly as good a team as they were a year ago. They are pretty well banged up and are missing some key players. They haven't seemed to click on all cylinders for most of the year.

Yet here they are still. They are about as calm and cool as you can get. Their resiliency is phenomenal.

Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:10 pm

This is for Holby, mostly. But others might find it funny, too, so I'm posting it here.

******* Major, major language warning. Not family or office friendly. Not even borderline ******

Townie News Presents: Fitzy's Reencapment of Game 5 (Click on the youtube video on the top of the page)

Post by **Holbytla** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:40 pm

It is astonishing how many people around here are very similar to Fitzy.
And how many people around here are named Fitzy.
And how accurate that video is.
And funny unless you are from Noo Yohk.

Or any other place you frickin losahs are from.

Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:52 pm

I knew you would appreciate that, for those very reasons.

Beth stumbled onto that link by accident, and we were both in stitches.

Post by **Holbytla** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:56 am

Bah.

The tank rank dry.

Looking at the bench and lineup without Manny and Lowell, made it look a bit thin and that proved to be the case in the late innings when the Sox needed a timely hit.

Bah.

Five and a half months until opening day.

Post by **Holbytla** » Wed Dec 22, 2010 4:41 am

Well this thread has been all but dead, but just the same in case anyone is interested, here are ESPN"s Strange But True Feats from 2010.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/s ... id=5939646

I will add a few of the more notorious ones here.
And btw a belated congrats to the SF Giants for winning the WS.
Who btw had some weirdness on their way to the WS, ie.

• On the way to winning the World Series, the Giants had themselves possibly the weirdest five-game stretch by any offense ever. From Aug. 23-25, they scored in double figures three games in a row. And what they did do on either side of those three games? They got shut out, naturally. So how many teams have ever been bookended three consecutive double-figure scoring games with shutouts? That would be none, according to Elias.

The Seattle Mariners had quite a year of ineptitude. Here are a few mind boggling stats:

Again from ESPN....

• It took the Mariners 151 games to score 481 runs. That's as many as the Red Sox scored before the All-Star break.

• A total of 32 Mariners made it into the old batter's box last season. They combined to score a mere 513 runs. That wasn't just a record for fewest runs scored by an American League team, over a full season, in the DH era. It was even fewer than any National League team has ever scored, over a full season, in the DH era. The former AL record was 530, by Mitchell Page's 1978 A's. The NL record is 531, by Bombo Rivera's 1976 Expos.

• If you went to a Mariners game, there was a heck of a chance of a World Cup score breaking out, because this team scored three runs or fewer an astounding 103 times. No team in the American League was within 20 of that. And no team in the American League had done it more than 98 times in any full season in the DH era -- again (repeat after us) until now.

• This team was so incapable of scoring runs that Ichiro -- the guy who was first in the American League in hits -- still managed to score fewer runs (74) than Mark Reynolds (79), the guy who was last (among qualifiers) in the National League in hits. Friends, that just shouldn't be possible. But it was that kind of season for the Mariners.

And then there is the Pittsburgh Pirates

Strange But True Road Warriors Of The Year

If there's any team in baseball we hope stays home for the holidays, it's those Pittsburgh Pirates -- because they were MLB's version of the Griswolds. When they hit the road, nothing good seemed to happen. For instance:

• This team went 17-64 away from home last season. Yeah, 17-64. That tied the Buccos with Choo Choo Coleman's 1963 Mets for the worst road record by any team in the 50-season expansion era. Hard to do.

• After the All-Star break, the Pirates won exactly six road games. Six. That's the fewest by any National League team since Downtown Ollie Brown's '69 Padres went 6-26 after the break, and the fewest by a non-expansion team since Otto Bluege's 1933 Reds went 5-26.

• Want more? How 'bout this? The Pirates were swept in half the road series they played (13 of 26) -- including 12 sweeps just in their last 18 series.

• Or this: 10 different Pirates pitchers had road ERAs of 9.00 or higher. Yep, you read that correctly -- 10.

• And finally, there's this, courtesy of loyal reader Eric Orns: After May 25, the Pirates went 8-50 away from home. Right -- 8 and freakin' 50. The Cubs won eight games on one September road trip. The Pirates won eight road games in fourt months. And friends, it doesn't get any Stranger But Truer than that.

Strangest But Truest Inning Of The YearBottom of the eighth inning. July 30. Cubs-Rockies. Coors Field. (Where else?) The Rockies took a 5-2 lead into the inning. Their first two hitters in the eighth made an out. Now here's what happened next:

• The Rockies then got 11 hits in a row. Just to put that in perspective, the Diamondbacks went more than three weeks (and 20 straight games) without getting 11 hits in a game in August and September.

• The Twins made it from Opening Day until the last series of the season without allowing 12 runs in any game. But the Cubs allowed 12 runs with two outs in this inning.

• The Rockies had just come off a road trip in which, over the final six games, 223 hitters came to the plate and combined to score 13 runs. Then they headed home and, after making two outs in the eighth, 14 hitters came to the plate and (naturally) put up 12 runs. Gotta love that Coors Field.

• And how did the Cubs finally manage to stop that streak after giving up 11 straight hits? They walked the next two hitters. Of course.

In Other Strange But True News …

• What were the odds of this? In the first game Lou Piniella managed in 2010 (i.e., Opening Day), the Cubs lost to the Braves 16-5. And on Aug. 22, in the final game Lou managed in 2010, the Cubs lost to the Braves by a score of (yep) 16-5. Before that, no other team in the live-ball era had ever lost two 16-5 games to the same opponent in the same season.

Just a few highlights. The rest are for viewing by clicking the link.

Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:04 am

Holbytla wrote:• On the way to winning the World Series, the Giants had themselves possibly the weirdest five-game stretch by any offense ever. From Aug. 23-25, they scored in double figures three games in a row. And what they did do on either side of those three games? They got shut out, naturally. So how many teams have ever been bookended three consecutive double-figure scoring games with shutouts? That would be none, according to Elias.

I remember that sequence well. They even lost one of those double figure games (a wild game versus the Reds).

But the most remarkable feet that the Giants had during the regular season was going 18 straight games in September giving up no more than three runs per game, the longest such streak since 1920 (during the dead ball era). They gave up only 1.4 runs per game during that streak, but still only one 12 of the 18, due to their often anemic offense. Still, they got it done when they had to. It was an exciting, if often torturous, year.

Next year it will be the Red Sox again.

Post by **vison** » Wed Dec 22, 2010 6:23 am

I love baseball.

Fri May 06, 2011 8:22 pm

The greatest player ever to grace a ballfield turns 80 today.

Willie, and Say Hey!

Post by **Holbytla** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 11:50 pm

For all of you Dodger fans:

A fun one from ESPN Stats & Information’s Jason McCallum: J.D. Drew went 0-5 with four strikeouts Sunday. The last position player to go hitless with four strikeouts in a game where his team scored 14 runs? J.D. Drew in 2005 for the Dodgers.

Tue Jun 14, 2011 1:02 am

That was J.D.'s second "golden sombrero" in a little more than a week. On the bright side, he did follow his four straight strikeouts against the A's on June 4 by knocking in the winning run on a walk-off hit.

Post by **axordil** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 12:35 am

Des-tin-y! Des-tin-y!

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 1:00 am

No e-scaping dest-i-ny!

I saw only the last couple of innings of Game 6 (one for the ages) but saw pretty much all of Game 7 one way or another. Amazing!

Sun Oct 30, 2011 1:13 am

Congratulations to the Cardinals. They certainly never gave up, even when they were down 10 1/2 games in the wild card in late August, and even when they were down to their last strike twice in Game Six. A worthy champion. But I don't think that the Cardinals would have beaten the Rangers but for Bud Selig's idiotic rule giving home field advantage in the World Series to the team from the league that wins the All Star Game. That just makes no sense at all.

Post by **axordil** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 2:29 am

Well, the All-Star Game is either idiotic and pointless, or idiotic and...whatever it is now.

I understand the desire to make the players there interested in the outcome. Although the cosmic strangeness of C.J. Wilson (of the Rangers) giving up the game-winning HR in the All Star Game to Prince Fielder (of the eventually eliminated Brewers) to eventually help a team that was not in contention at the break is there, definitely.

I am astounded at the constellation of things that had to align for the Cards to end up where they did. Yes, they played hard in September and October. Yes, the Braves swooned. (As a side note...that last night of the season, with both wild card slots still open and four games going on at the same time bearing on them, three of which were nail biters, was surreal.) But when you talk about the number of individual plays, individual pitches, any number of which could have changed outcomes (of Game Six in particular, obviously)...not to mention the rain delay that meant Carpenter could pitch game 7...

Well it's statistically unlikely, to say the least.

I was happy just to SEE a game 7. It's been too long since the last one.

Sun Oct 30, 2011 2:36 am

Good point about the rain postponement allowing Carpenter to start Game 7. I was questioning how that was going to work out after the top of the first, but he sure did settle down and tame that dangerous lineup after that. As did the Cardinal bullpen. But I think the Rangers were spent after Game 6. Just as the Giants were in 2002 after blowing a 5-0 lead in the seventh inning. And the Red Sox in 1986 (after Bill Buckner).

Post by **axordil** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 3:04 am

My theory is that after they scored two in the top of the 1st, then the Cards responded by tying, they said "oh, we are NOT even going there again after last night."

A seven-game WS, especially on top of the extra playoff round, is a stamina test for the pitching staff in particular. If Selig gets his evil way and introduces MORE teams and MORE games into the playoffs, they'd better shorten the regular season if they want to avoid everyone getting Tommy John surgery.

Sun Oct 30, 2011 3:12 am

He's trying to ruin baseball. Look what would have happened this year if his plan had been in place. The Red Sox's and Braves's collapses -- and the Cardinals's and Ray's great comebacks -- would have been meaningless. The excitement of the last two weeks of the season would have been gone, and the teams would have played in a ridiculous one-game (e.g., meaningless) playoff to see who got to move on. And if the Rays and Cardinals had not caught up to the Braves and Red Sox and had remained far behind them, they still would have played that ridiculous one game playoff, negating the superiority over the grueling 162-game regular season. Ridiculous! But more money for him and his cronies pockets.

Now, if you really want to get me going, ask me would I think about the NBA lockout negotiations.