Uncle Milty wrote:Think plate discipline would be better. The ball has to appear huge after swinging at a milk cap.

Really.

speaking of which, I saw a game on Anthony Bourdain the other night in which they would cause a small stone perched on a larger stone to bounce into the air and then hit it with a thin, whip-like bat. But I can't seem to find the name or anything about it (and I can't remember the country). It also seemed to require great hand eye coordination, though no running afterward, so mainly an older persons game.

Edit: closest I've come so far is it's closely related to gilli-danda, but played with a small stone or ball rather than the small stick you find in this game.

after heyman tweeted something like "hey that dumb ass zack hample has me blocked"

I can’t stand that idiot. He has written books? Kids are more excited to see him than the players? I don’t care if he gives away the balls he catches, just by doing what he’s doing he’s a douche.

Sticking with Heyman, he’s reporting that Ausmus (and Ventura) do not want to manage the Mets. Lol

https://www.fanragsports.com/heyman-aus ... continues/

the talk of expanding by two teams is heating up. i thought this was an intriguing proposal with some kinks to be worked out.

Our division is boring as fuck in that article.

So no AL/NL? I don't like that.

ReadingPhilly wrote:the talk of expanding by two teams is heating up. i thought this was an intriguing proposal with some kinks to be worked out.

In what universe do the Indians agree to go back to being in a division with not only the Red Sox and Yankees, but also adding the Mets for good measure? Can't imagine the Twins being overly excited about that either.

I've had the idea for years of having four "conferences" with two four team divisions each, and only division winners making the playoffs (no wild cards):

Eastern Conference: Northern Division - New York, New York, Boston, Toronto ; Midatlantic Division - Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Montreal
Northern Conference: Midwest Division - Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee; Heartland Division - St. Louis, Chicago, Chicago, Detroit
Western Conference: Mountain NW Division - Seattle, Colorado, Portland, Minnesota; Pacific Division - LA, LA, SF, Oak
Southern Conference: Southeastern Division - Miami, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Houston; Southwestern Division - Arizona, Texas, San Diego, KC

Schedule: 22 games * 3 divisional foes, 12 games * 4 conference foes, 2 games * 24 out-of-conference foes (66+48+48 = 162)

Not perfect but better I think.

Bill McNeal wrote:I can’t stand that idiot. He has written books? Kids are more excited to see him than the players? I don’t care if he gives away the balls he catches, just by doing what he’s doing he’s a douche.

No kidding. But that's what he wants to do, go for it I guess. I think it's pretty weird. But to each his own.

i would like not playing the same damn teams over and over again

John Manuel left baseball America after 21 years to join the twins pro scouting department.

pacino wrote:i would like not playing the same damn teams over and over again

I had to do my numbers really quick there, you probably should do 18 vs. Division x 3 = 54 plus 9 vs. Conference x 4 = 36 plus 3 versus everyone else x 24 = 72

54+36+72=162

Feel like part of the problem is that to play each team 6 times per year in a theoretical 32 team MLB you would need 6 x 31 = 186 games, which they ain’t doing, so you either need to do what they do now (not have every team play every other team every year) or limit the number of games any given team plays outside of its “conference” or “division” or “league” to a very small number.

If you could work out a schedule with less travel, then maybe 4 games against each opponent outside a “league” or “conference” or whatever, on a home and home basis, would be doable. The 3 game set became a standard in part to limit travel, I would think, and so I don’t know about anyone else, but I continue to think in terms of 3 game sets when thinking about the ideal number of games for any two teams to play. Maybe you could break the mold on that a bit. Maybe you wouldn’t do home-and-home 4 game sets, to cut down on travel instead do 4 games here one year and 4 games there the next, sort of like the NFL does with out-of-division play (last time the Eagles played the AFC West, they were at Denver and Oakland and home to KC and SD, so this year it is reversed).

But, in general, I do think division titles, especially if you adopt my system with no wild cards, should be settled on the field, so an unbalanced schedule in that regard makes sense to me. And, if you are dropping even the vestigial existence of the NL and AL - which any radical realignment scheme would do - there becomes less justification for not having every team play every other team at least once every year. In football, where teams don’t play each other every year, you still have vestigial pre-merger NFL and AFL in the NFC and AFC. In the NBA and NHL, which are organized purely regionally and shadows of past mergers all but stamped out (especially in the NHL), every team does play every other team every year.

If you want a large variety opponents, you have to settle for fewer games against any one.

I think I would just as soon see baseball re-adopt a strict league division and eliminate interleague play entirely - it was a very distinctive thing about baseball growing up that it did not do that, and made spring training, the all-star game, and the World Series all much more inherently novel and therefore interesting - but the train don’t move that way, and all things being equal, if they are adding two teams, I think they might as well go for unbalance but play everybody and emphasize regional matchups, itself a nod to the reality that baseball is in its essence a regional rather than national sport at this point.

This caused me to look up and confirm what I always suspected but had never - uh, confirmed. The 154 game schedule came from each team playing every other 22 Times: 22 x 7 = 154. The 162 game schedule came from the expansion to 10 teams, and each team playing every other 18 times: 18 x 9 = 162. 162 was obviously kept as each league expanded to 12 teams, and in 1977, the AL expanded and the NL did not, and it remained that way through much of my childhood. But the AL still played 162 games, just like the NL.

But in 1961 - the year the AL expanded from 8 to 10, while the NL remained at 8 until the following year (1962) - the AL played 162 games while the NL still played the old standard of 154. Only year where the two leagues played a different number of games I believe.

EDIT: Now looking at the REALLY early days, seems that 154 game season didn’t become the MLB standard until about 1904, and even in that year teams were all over the map. Detroit played 162 in 1904, although their official record was 62-90. I take it the teams playing a varying number of games over 154 from 1904 on had to do with games ending in ties because of rain, darkness, etc. They used to count those As completed but start over so each team would have 154 games that reached completion with a winner.

Uncle Milty wrote:Guess the extra 8 games didn't tire the Yankmes out to much.

No, but my father always likes to point out that the Yankees did something the Phillies never did, and never will - they finished 10th one year.

Another random baseball/football thought I had today readin through some Wikipedia stuff. I am interested in the history of the growth of baseball, and all sports to some degree. So I found this sort of fascinating:

1949 purchase price for the Philadelphia Eagles: $250,000 (with 100 investors putting up the money!)
1954 purchase price for the Philadelphia Athletics: $4M (although supposedly Arnold Johnson really only needed more like $3M)

1969 purchase price of the Philadelphia Eagles: $16M (what Leonard Tose paid)
1973 purchase price of the New York Yankees: $7M (Steinbrenner)

I know the NFL really hit the big time in 1958, but that is a major jump. 5 years before the Athletics were purchased for $4M or something like that, and they were pretty moribund at the time with basically no farm system, the Eagles fetched only 6% of that price. By 1969, fully four years BEFORE the marquee sports franchise in America went up for sale, the Eagles brought in more than 200% of what they would sell for. If there were any doubt about how long ago already it was that football left baseball in the dust, this clears it right up.

mozartpc27 wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:Guess the extra 8 games didn't tire the Yankmes out to much.

No, but my father always likes to point out that the Yankees did something the Phillies never did, and never will - they finished 10th one year.

Interesting club. Pythag record was 79-80. They only allowed one more run than they scored. That was 1966. In 1967 they were worse but finished ninth. Thanks K.C A's.

More like Safeco UNsafe, Ken Griffey Jr.'s bat was stolen off his statue!

Tony LaRussa is leaving the DBacks

BigEd76 wrote:Tony LaRussa is leaving the DBacks

Dbacks are losing their Dbag?