That baseball game of yours.

TomB · Post by **TomB** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:04 pm

Redwolf wrote:I agree...baseball is not at all boring when you have a feel for the game and for what's going on. I grew up with baseball...even played a bit in elementary school, before the girls got relegated to "softball" (sigh!). Our idea of a good time when I was a kid was to go out to our local minor league park and watch the Spokane Indians play! Minor league teams are a lot of fun. When we lived in NC, we loved to go to Durham Bulls games, and I still wear my Bulls cap around town, even though no one here's ever heard of them (unless they've seen the movie "Bull Durham," and even then a fair few think it's a fictional team!).

Redwolf

Yep, minor league games are a great bang for the buck. They offer lots of family entertainment. I encourage anyone who hasn't gone to do so, if they ever get the chance.

Tom

DCrom · Post by **DCrom** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:24 pm

I'm not a major-league (or Major League) baseball fan, really, but I like attending the San Jose Giants' games (our local minor-league team).

Much more real and immediate than a typical major-league park, where you need binoculars to see the player's faces. As nice as the San Francisco ballpark is (was Pacbell Park, now SBC Park - the major-league rule changes I'd like are eliminating the designated hitter rule and forbidding renaming ballparks - name it for the town, the team, or the team owner, damn it!), it doesn't have the impact of sitting close enough to the field you can listen to (and sometimes talk with) the players.

A lot more affordable, too!

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:31 pm

Speaking of Hurling. And check out the attendence: 60,000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3960261.stm

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:35 pm

Bloomfield wrote:Speaking of Hurling. And check out the attendence: 60,000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3960261.stm

I saw that article recently. That was a series of games that blend the rules of Aussie football and Gaelic football,a weird combination of skills if ever there was one.

Absolutely nothing to do with Hurling though...

Slan,
D.

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:37 pm

But weren't speaking about Gealioaustralic football. It's like looking for the key under the streetlight where you can see it (an not where you lost it).

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:41 pm

Bloomfield wrote:But weren't speaking about Gealioaustralic football. It's like looking for the key under the streetlight where you can see it (an not where you lost it).

Maybe so,but what if you lost it under the street light in the first place. Kind of a good luck after bad luck kind of a thing.

Slan,
D.

Darwin · Post by **Darwin** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:47 pm

Since I'll be moving eventually, does Dallas have a pro baseball team? (The Cowboys are football, right? --'Cause baseball doesn't have cheerleaders...but why not?)

rebl_rn · Post by **rebl_rn** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 3:48 pm

jbarter wrote:So when does it all start again and who should I cheer for next season?

Chicago Cubs. As I said before, since Boston won, there is hope for the hopeless, hapless Cubbies. You will not find more loyal fans anywhere. And I know Red Sox fans will disagree, but we've got the coolest ballpark. Of course, it's falling apart, but it sure is cool.

The Cubs haven't won the World Series since 1908, and haven't been in it since 1945. The Curse of the Billygoat is to be a hard one to break, even though many things have been tried.

Go Cubs!

Beth

chas · Post by **chas** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 5:05 pm

Redwolf wrote:I agree...baseball is not at all boring when you have a feel for the game and for what's going on. I grew up with baseball...even played a bit in elementary school, before the girls got relegated to "softball" (sigh!). Our idea of a good time when I was a kid was to go out to our local minor league park and watch the Spokane Indians play! Minor league teams are a lot of fun. When we lived in NC, we loved to go to Durham Bulls games, and I still wear my Bulls cap around town, even though no one here's ever heard of them (unless they've seen the movie "Bull Durham," and even then a fair few think it's a fictional team!).

Good onya, Red. Our town only had softball thru 12 years old. Our 13-15 team was practicing one day, and one of my female classmates happened by and complained about not being able to play baseball. Our coach asked if she wanted to join our team, which she did enthusiastically. She was a pretty good second basewoman -- not first string, but she came to all the practices, was a good fielder, never flinched at line drives or close pitches, and even got a few hits. Oh, and BTW, I'm proud to say the coach was my father -- he always supported her, and most often had to defend (to the opposing coaches) putting her in the lineup, long before any Title IX.

I also love minor league ball. I went to many a West Haven Yankees game growing up. (I'm a diehard Red Sox fan, still on cloud nine) They were a AA team, and it was always a crapshoot whether the teams would look like Major League or Little League teams. Hopefully, by next year, when our little one is 4, she'll be able to sit a couple of hours for a Frederick Keys or Bowie Baysox game. I haven't been to Bowie, but Frederick has GREAT beer on tap.

Does anyone know when the Japanese play their championship? I'm gonna be there next week.

rebl_rn · Post by **rebl_rn** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 6:14 pm

chas wrote:I also love minor league ball. I went to many a West Haven Yankees game growing up. (I'm a diehard Red Sox fan, still on cloud nine) They were a AA team, and it was always a crapshoot whether the teams would look like Major League or Little League teams. Hopefully, by next year, when our little one is 4, she'll be able to sit a couple of hours for a Frederick Keys or Bowie Baysox game. I haven't been to Bowie, but Frederick has GREAT beer on tap.

Minor league ball is great! So much cheaper than the big leagues, you get up close and personal with the players and everything. I don't get to the minor league games as much as I used to, but I saw Mark Grace, Greg Maddux, and Rafael Palmero, to name a few, all play in the minors.

The baseball, obviously, isn't up to big league standards, but sometimes that makes it more fun!

Beth

Will O'B · Post by **Will O'B** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 7:33 pm

susnfx wrote:
jbarter wrote:So when does it all start again and who should I cheer for next season?
The NEW YORK YANKEES. Otherwise you will be sorely disappointed next October.
Susan

I especially liked the Yankees back in the '60s. When I was a kid growing up in rural Missouri we used to get only three television stations -- two of which were CBS affiliates (the other was NBC). Saturday and Sunday summer afternoons were spent in front of the set watching Yankee baseball on CBS with Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese handling the color and play-by-play action up in the press box. Their down-home style banter combined with the playing of Mantle, Maris and crew made for a lot of enjoyable moments during my youth.

Then there were the warm summer evenings lying on the floor of our screened-in-porch while the moths and june bugs punched into the rusting wire mesh. Through the chattering static, my pocket transistor radio would bark, "HOLY COW - - IT LOOKS LIKE THAT BALL IS OUT OF HERE". . . Harry Cary on KMOX Radio broadcasting the Cardinals' games on weeknights. That was all about Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and the rest of their great team.

I have to admit, that I'm not as big of a fan now as I once was. The subsequent player/management strikes, the highly inflated player egos that more than occasionally match their highly inflated salaries, and the on and off the field violence committed by fans and players alike really jaded my perceptions of this game (and, indeed, most sports) as I grew older. Something inside of me, though, yearns for those lost moments of my youth when it felt, to that boy at least, that the game was being played for the thrill of it and not for some other less than honourable motive. My son is now of the age that he is collecting baseball cards as I once did. He has quite a collection of the current players, as well as many of the "old timers" that I used to watch and dream of becoming back then. He sees the game through the eyes of a boy that still believes in the value of the game being played for the game's sake. We go to Wrigley Field when the Cardinals come to town and sit a dozen or so rows directly behind the Cubs' dugout. The look on his face when Sammy Sosa appears to look directly at him is nothing short of priceless. That's the innocence that I long to recapture in my life . . . that's the innocence that I'm fortunate enough to relive through his eyes.

Will O'Ban

chas · Post by **chas** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:07 pm

rebl_rn wrote:
jbarter wrote:So when does it all start again and who should I cheer for next season?

Chicago Cubs. As I said before, since Boston won, there is hope for the hopeless, hapless Cubbies. Beth

"Your average Cubs fan is 90% scar tissue." -- Joe Garagiola

I sometimes felt like we Red Sox fans were 98% scar tissue. Remember the Far Side cartoon with the deflated person and the inflated mosquito about the size of a Buick? That was me in 1975, 1978, and 1986.

spittin_in_the_wind · Post by **spittin_in_the_wind** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:31 pm

PhilO wrote:Ok let's set this straight. Baseball is the only team sport with no time limit - you don't get 27 outs, you keep playing - infinite....timeless...

Philo

" Baseball's famous "Longest Game" between the Rochester Red Wings and the Pawtucket Red Sox lasted a record 33 innings and took more than eight hours over two different days to complete.

It began on a frigid April 18th evening at McCoy Stadium and was halted at 4:09am by order of I.L. President Harold Cooper. On June 23rd, Dave Koza, who entered the game as the best hitter in the contest at 4-for-13, hit a 2-2 curve ball from reliever Cliff Speck into left field to score Marty Barrett and give the Pawtucket Red Sox a 3-2 victory over the Rochester Red Wings. Koza's single came with the bases loaded and none out as the Paw Sox managed to end the contest on their first at-bat in the bottom of the 33rd inning."

Robin

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:35 pm

As I understand the game, a perfect baseball game would be a one-hitter vs. a no hitter. For the benefit of folks who don't understand the 'lingo', that would best be described as 60,000 people sitting in the hot sun for three hours watching two pairs of men play catch while a third man occasionall swings a wooden stick through the air. One time during the procedure, the third man would actually hit the ball with which the other two men were playing catch, knocking it a long way through the air and over a wall. After he trotted slowly around a square ninety feet on a side, the two men would return to their interrupted game of catch.

Ridseard · Post by **Ridseard** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:42 pm

Bloomfield wrote:
Ridseard wrote:Ridseard, could you let us know who "some individuals" are? I'd like to know if I've offended your American institutional sensibilities. And don't worry, I can handle it. I really don't like this ominous "I won't name names, but..." stuff. Thanks.

The Bloomfields of this world are basically okay. They just need a little tweaking.