05 April 2009

Baseball starts today (I think)


I don't much care for baseball. Can't sit through it (too much inactivity), and can't deal with how horrendous the broadcasts and announcers tend to be (with the exception of Vin Scully - even though I have less use for the Dodgers than almost any other franchise except the Yankees and Angels). When Vin finally retires I don't know if I'll ever watch another baseball game again. Fox works really hard to make the game "exciting", to perpetuate the illusion that something is happening. It's a shame, because the pace of the game is what makes it unique.

What I do enjoy is reading about baseball, and sabermetric analysis. Really this is true. No idea why nerds love baseball so hard but it brings out the geek in people. I mean people besides me.

So this article was a nice kickoff to the-part-of-the-year-I-ignore-the-sports-calendar that we will henceforth refer to as "baseball season". It led to this. And then to this interesting summary of historical home runs. And that hitting a baseball is really, really hard.

Not mentioned in any of the analysis: Bud Selig is a milquetoast d-bag. I think it was implied a few places but not stated explicitly.

In related baseball news, I think we need more guys throwing the eephus. Seriously. I heart the eephus. RJ is throwing for the Giants now and he's got it in his arsenal. Wakefield throws the eephus and the knuckler, and it works for him.

Photo courtesy flickr and the wonderfully-named Waldo Jaquith.

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