things I learned about in baseball this week/how i learned to stop worrying and love baseball

This week has been rough and I’ve barely watched any baseball.

More things I learned specifically about “Surfin” Barry Zito from reading excerpts from
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61frVWPOc1L.jpg

- Barry Zito did meth in his teens
- the first chapter opens with a quote from someone saying “if San Fran wins the World Series, does Barry Zito get a ring?” (Ouch - though I am a fan of brutally honest sports autobios).
- Barry Zito’s grandfather started a newspaper with Mussolini (!)

I need to read this book, there’s nothing more boring than reading stories of endless success from people who go to bed early and never do anything bad.

watch game 5 2012 NLCS giants vs cardinals if you want some more zito lore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8S-PI7HZ8o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Meay49NgGXI
giants down 1-3 in the series and he gets the start despite a very poor showing in the series before. giants win the next three then zito wins game 1 of the world series vs verlander which you mentioned.

I was thinking about which game I would recommend watching and actually realised the games I got the biggest kick out of weren't necessarily epic important ones. Like any Greg Maddux 85 pitch complete game shutout with like 2 strikeouts and upward of a dozen groundouts + handful of weak pop flys is amazing viewing imo. Especially with how different baseball is now.

Or Tom Glavine locating his fast ball consistently just outside the outside edge the strikezone with such monotone regularity that the umpire starts calling it a strike.

(xpost) You've almost perfectly described Maddux's G2 win against the Yankees in the '96 Series:

86 pitches, 6 H, 2 K, 0 BB, 0 runs. He didn't pitch a shutout, though--Bobby Cox brought in Wohlers for the 9th. He didn't let Maddux finish his Maddux.

yeah those 90s braves pitchers were clinical, hated them of course.

For what it's worth, Maddux was more of a strikeout pitcher than he's generally remembered as (with some help from the umps): 6.1/per 9 for his career, 6.9/per 9 during his '92-'98 peak. My favourite pitcher then--travelled to Montreal to see him somewhere in the middle there.

I did get the chance to see Smoltz's 3,000th career strikeout in person, that was epic. Still much love for him in the ATL.

I was thinking about which game I would recommend watching and actually realised the games I got the biggest kick out of weren't necessarily epic important ones. Like any Greg Maddux 85 pitch complete game shutout with like 2 strikeouts and upward of a dozen groundouts + handful of weak pop flys is amazing viewing imo. Especially with how different baseball is now.

ALCS game 3 2003

One that I forgot to recommend, on YouTube in its entirety: Mark Fidrych vs. the Yankees, June 28, 1976, 48,000 people in Yankee Stadium (on a Monday), ABC's Monday Night game, Fidrych 7-1 with a 2.18 ERA going in, the biggest story in baseball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwGj4VfCreg

For style, Luis Tiant.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/tiant.jpg

Yes! I have been meaning to check out Fidrych as well!

xps
I'm glad!! He was my favourite player back when I first started watching baseball. used to love andruw jones as well. and in the non atlanta baseball players division it was tony gwynn and his incredibly flat no uppercut swing. then later i was all about ichiro.

(xp) I think you'll fall in love. I was so lucky to have watched that game (14 years old). It's just hard to convey today how one baseball player could so thoroughly capture the public's attention and imagination. It happened again a few years later with Fernando, although I don't know that there's one single game of his where it all coalesced so perfectly.

xp Parker looking cool af.

(Oops--the Fidrych game was in Tiger Stadium, which makes the 48,000 people even more remarkable. The mid-'70s Tigers were not good.)

I love they have the commercials too in that broadcast!

I’ll be honest, a thing I found - and find, tbh - really difficult about watching baseball both live and classic is the number of ad breaks! How does that not drive people mad?

“At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it.”

— Albert Camus

Fidrych throwing 250 innings and striking out 97(!) that season is always really amazing to me. 9.6 bWAR!

xp lmao

xp baseball as a tv spectator sport simply isn't designed to hold your attention 100% of the time, you gotta pair it with something else that can be done in fits and starts such as browsing the internet or chopping vegetables or playing a turn-based video game

Parachuting in to say that I am a 51-year-old American male human with exactly one sports allegiance. And that allegiance is to the 1982 St. Louis Cardinals. Not the Cardinals in general, not St. Louis teams in general. Pretty much just that one spectacular season.

I was exactly the right age to be excited by a baseball team. Especially, a locally beloved and long-storied team that suddenly caught on fire in a particular way. Was it slugfesty? No it was not. Was it Sabermetric? No it was not. Was it especially steroidal? No it was not. It was a style of play based on baserunning, stealing, speed, fielding, contact. It was called "Whiteyball" after the (in retrospect) rather unfortunately nicknamed manager Whitey Herzog.

Ozzie Smith. Lonnie Smith. Willie McGee. Keith Hernandez. Bruce Sutter. Joaquin Andujar. It's been 40 years and no sporting persons have dislodged those names from my memory. Nor will they.

Since then, I have watched a few other sporting contests, with varying amounts of interest. But none has matched the passionate intensity of being eleven years old in a red hat in terrible seats in that cranky old Busch stadium with a scorecard on my lap and a fire in my heart. Personally I am fine leaving it there: a whole life of fandom in a few humid evenings in 1982, eating ice cream from a novelty batting helmet.

xp baseball as a tv spectator sport simply isn't designed to hold your attention 100% of the time, you gotta pair it with something else that can be done in fits and starts such as browsing the internet or chopping vegetables or playing a turn-based video game

That's beautiful, YMP.

^

eating ice cream from a novelty batting helmet

i have one from every stadium i've been to in the last 8 years (4 total) and my kids love these. they were bath toys until my youngest recently decided to elevate the jays and yankees ones to the "display"shelf in her room that was normally reserved for her fancy in-the-box dolls.

ymp are you . . . me?

that would be a plot twist!

1982 cards ftw of course. the '85 version of the team is fun too. they didn't win the WS but they were even better and even faster and more exciting, a team tailor made to play on artificial turf. willie mcgee having his best season, the wizard ozzie smith doing his usual defensive stuff but also putting together his first above-average offensive season after being seen as a liability earlier in his career, jack clark looking like a bag of big league chew and the only power threat on a speedy team. mcgee stole 56, tommy herr and ozzie both stole 31, andy van slyke had an incredible name and stole 34, and vince coleman stole 110 bases (!) and hit one home run.

this is a fun thread, gyac, thank you for starting it

Very nice, YMP.

Truly amazing: the '82 Series matched up the Cardinals (67 HR, fewest in the majors) against the Brewers (216 HR, most in the majors). Surely that's the only time that ever happened. George Hendricks led the Cardinals with 19 HR, Darrell Porter had 12, and no one else had more than 8.

Oh yeah put these names directly in my veins please: Lou Brock, Gene Tenace, Tommy Herr, Andy Van Slyke, Vince Coleman.

I gave exactly zero fucks about baseball (or any sport) before that. And I pretty much haven't since!

When my St. Louisan nephews cared about the Cardinals, it was the Mark McGwire to Albert Pujols era and I just couldn't get into it. Huge guys hitting long balls is not a Cardinal virtue. Base-stealing and relief pitching are Cardinal virtues. (That is, if you were an eleven-year-old St. Louisan in 1982. Plenty of other ways to be, but I cannot change my nature.)

Here in DC there was a brief flash of potential excitement around the Ryan Zimmerman, Jayson Werth, and Bryce Harper Nationals teams, but that has dissipated and I am back to not giving a shit.

We’re you a fan of the 2015/16 era Royals?

Or the 2022 Guardians?

I have no opinion on those, so I will punt to my apparent doppelganger. Take it away, mookieproof!

i'm in the willie mcgee k-hole again, but this sabr.org profile on him has so many lovable moments: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/willie-mcgee/

Willie loved sports as a child and played baseball, basketball, and football, depending on what was in season. However, it was baseball for which Willie developed a true passion. Around the age of 10, he found out that one could make a living playing baseball, and for a while he slept with his glove and bat while wearing his ball cap and cleats. The most sensitive of the McGee children, he was shy and lacked self-confidence. His little league coach described his posture on the baseball field as that of a child who “spilled the milk.” He attended Henry Ells High School where his reserved nature initially kept him from trying out for the baseball team. He eventually joined the team in the 10th grade at the urging of coach Bill Erkkila. “I was his P.E. teacher when he was a sophomore, and he was tiny, scrawny, and very quiet. His outstanding athletic attribute was speed,” Erkkila later remembered.

The rookie was needled and teased by teammates, including Hendrick. This initially bothered him until he understood they did so because they liked him. Hendrick, along with coach Dave Ricketts and teammates Bruce Sutter, Bob Forsch, and Ozzie Smith, served as mentors. Smith took McGee under his wing more literally, allowing him to live in his home. It was months before the always respectful McGee called Mrs. Smith by her first name.

'85 Cards had five players finish in the top 11 of MVP voting (McGee, Herr, Tudor, Clark, Coleman) with Ozzie Smith down at #18. Andy Van Slyke was good that year too.

I didn't know STL had the revitalizing juice back then, an aging Cesar Cedeno (a mere 34 but he'd been around since 1970) came over during the season and hit .434/.463/.750 w/6 HR, 19 RBI, 5 SB in 28 games.

Andujar won 21 games (didn't have a *great* season but a pretty good one which was enough to get those wins.) Tudor didn't luck into his 21 wins though, i always forget he threw 10(!) shutouts that season.

2003 ALCS game 3 brawl DELIVERS. The commentary on this is killing me.

DON ZIMMER, A 72 YEAR OLD MAN WENT INTO PEDRO MARTINEZ’S FACE AND PEDRO MARTINEZ THREW HIM DOWN

I see Martinez mentions this as his only career regret but I’m sorry, it’s seriously funny. You’re an old guy involved in baseball and you go charging into a brawl, what did you think was going to happen?!

actually both knees have been replaced

Zimmer gets bundled over like a pile of rags

Commentator 1: THAT IS TERRIBLE
Commentator 2: I’d like to see that again
Me: ME TOO

Oh yeah that’s the good stuff…the way he rolls…
https://media.tenor.com/S5izgmPLdcEAAAAd/pedro-martinez-don-zimmer.gif

Postscript to this tragedy: I went out to change 3 litter trays and I was not adequately focused on the job at hand - I ended up splitting a bag of used litter and having to scoop it up because I was still thinking about Zimmer’s roll and the way he went down and so set the bag down on a sharp-edged tile…still worth it…

This year I did something I didn't expect; I got into baseball.

It started in the summer, suitably. I couldn't sleep.

Curiously this happened to my mum a few years ago. Channel 5 (I think) started showing baseball really late at night - actually early morning - and she was going through an insomniac phase and she got hooked on it. This is someone who had never shown the slightest interest in any sport ever - except if there was a chance of Scotland beating England at something.

I reviewed A Band of Misfits and Moneyball here: The (S)word in the Autumn Stone: What Are You Reading, Fall 2022?

Baggarly seems like a cool dude. 3 time Jeopardy champ.

What!

https://www.nbcsports.com/sites/rsnunited/files/styles/article_hero_image/public/archive/assets_article/bayarea/2012/07/25/825877.jpg

Going to IRL BEISBOL with users Sharivari and Tracer Hand in London next year ahhhhhh
https://cdn-vox--cdn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GBUfL4Ha6DhwK67pmCEhNVBafy8=/1400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11573119/XdDDeOn.gif

too bad it’s Cubs-Cards but you can’t have everything!Still! BASEBALL IRL!!!!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Cubs_win_World_Series.gif/640px-Cubs_win_World_Series.gif

Have fun! Maybe you can arrive early and catch a hr during batting practice.

I’m the shortest person of those three so I hope to duck out of the way and let them do the catching tbh

the fences are pretty shallow iirc

morton was called 'ground chuck' back in the day for his propensity to induce groundouts

i'm not aware of him specifically headhunting, but those pirates staffs of the early-mid 2010s were widely disliked for their insistence on pitching inside (and thus hitting more than their fair share of guys)

iirc when he went to houston they suggested that he throw more . . . i wanna say four-seam fbs rather than two-seamers, but it could be vice-versa. with the result that his strikeouts went up, but his HBPs were still high

Things I learned about baseball watching The Clubhouse:

- Being bilingual is nearly essential in the modern game. In the 2024 Red Sox clubhouse Cora is bilingual and presides over a roster that’s a mix of monoglots and players who are fully bilingual and who have mixed linguistic ability. Normally pitchers and position players don’t hang out but Brayan Bello spends most of his time with other Latin players and Spanish speakers, and most of them are position players.
- I still hate him but I gained some respect for Cora. There are two player’s problems that Cora handles sensitively that made me think more of him.
- The season is both short and long. An onscreen slider shows you at what point the season is in and it reminds you how brutal it is to commit months of your life to end up with nothing to show for it.
- A slump, which might only go for 10-30 ABs and is a drop in the ocean of the full season, is agonisingly long for the players. The day before Casas hits three home runs, they use a voiceover clip of his talking about slumping. “Being in a slump is the worst thing because I come to the field every single day and I feel like I’m doing nothing. There’s 45 minutes in between each at bat and you want it so bad that it feels like an eternity. It’s typically something that’s going on mentally that you just need to try to be able to flush.” It made me think of Raffy Devers, obviously, and Casas started the season almost as cold (and didn’t get to play in the statpad game to bump his numbers). When he hit a home run in Baltimore, the radio asked who he was talking to to try to get out of it and he said “Raffy Devers, because misery loves company.”
- players are close: you see them sitting on each others laps and huddled together in the dugout, but they spend so long together all day most choose to spend their scant few hours with their families if they have them.
- but players also understand it’s a business: they talk about themselves and their job security disparagingly and incredibly bluntly, and naturally this applies to players too. The way scouts talk about players is how players talk about players: bluntly, zero care for sensitivity, matter of fact.
- It’s a game that requires an incredibly tough skin to survive and thrive in.
- international players have more support now than they once did, and there’s some nice touches like English speaking coaches throwing in some Spanish endearments to encourage players but man, it must have been alienating before.
- the game makes it very hard to spend much time with a family during the season. Pedroia said that his oldest son resented baseball because it took his dad away from him so much of the time.
- most of these guys have daddy issues
- it’s not covered nearly enough but they’re fairly blunt about teams treatment of young Dominican players and how they’re essentially done if they’re not picked up by a team by 17.

I’m worrying about irl stuff atm that will come to a head one way or another this week and baseball isn’t giving me much joy/distraction atm as Triston Casas is in a brutal slump (.200/.279/.309 for April and his whole season totals are even worse due to starting the first four games of the season 1-18). So I thought I’d write about this and slumps to get this out of my head and in the hopes of somehow performing a reverse jinx.

Everyone slumps in baseball, though definitions may differ on what it is. Willie Mays told a group of Giants rookies in 2009 that he considered a slump 0-10. There this part buried in The Baseball Codes during a section about rookie hazing:

“The guys who make a big fuss about it, who get mad at it, they’re usually the ones who don’t last too long,” said Doug Mientkiewicz, who was forced into female clothing by his Twins teammates as a rookie in 1998. “If you can’t be mentally strong enough to wear a dress for one day when every other rookie is, too, then you’re probably not going to be mentally strong enough to handle an 0-for-35 stretch in four different cities.”

"David's fine," he said. "He's one of our teammates. It could have been me who hit into a double play. It happens to everybody. He's had 60 at-bats. A couple of years ago I had 60 at-bats and I was hitting 170 and everybody was ready to kill me, too. What happened? Laser show. I'm tired of looking at the NESN poll, why David's struggling. David's fine. He's one of our teammates. We believe in him. He came out of it last year, he's going to come out of it this year.
"I'm going to go online and vote on NESN.com: 'Papi's fine. Thanks for playing.'"

I know I'm like a broken record quoting Ball Four, but Bouton addresses the psychology of streaks and slumps a couple of times in the book (had to screenshot an Internet Archive copy--hope it's readable).

https://i.postimg.cc/nzgzr7fR/bouton.jpg

He was the professional athlete, not me, but I'm not sure I entirely believe him there--I've argued on this board before that I thought Kershaw probably fell pray to "I've failed in this situation before, and fuck, here am I again" thinking in the playoffs at some point. I don't see how that stuff can't get into your head at least a little bit.

Wow a year since an update!

Was talking to a few fellow ilxors last night and was explaining the appeal of baseball to an ilxor with zero interest in the game (henceforth known as Marlins Catcher Joseph Mack) and a fellow ILBB regular (henceforth known as Former Boston Braves pitcher Edward Brandt).

We got started talking ball in person (something I do very rarely outside the confines of my own home!) and I’d forgotten how great it is.

Me: You know, we haven’t actually talked (in person) since the post Cora era!

FBBPEB: oh my God, it’s like this bully is finally gone…but he’s cool too?

Me: (lifelong Cora hater) You know who doesn’t think he’s cool? Your boyfriend MARCELO

*later, we are discussing the mentality of being a baseball fan, specifically someone who is a weird obsessive, ie me*

FBBPEB: You see the thing about gyac is, is her mind is just full of these top of mind facts and trivia she just pulls out with zero effort. It’s honestly really impressive.

Me: omg that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me

MCJM: is that really a talent as such?

Me: well you have to understand a big part of the draw in taking an interest in baseball for me is opening up new avenues to fight with people online. I love arguing with people online about baseball.

(Later we are back to discussing the fortunes of the 2026 Boston Red Sox)

FBBPEB: There’s this player we both hate…

Me: Jesus Christ

FBBPEB: He’s just an incredibly MAGA person

Me: HUGE Trump guy

FBBPEB: every time they do some “personality” thing they ask him what he’d do if he wasn’t a baseball player…

Me: …and he’s like (adopts dumb sounding voice) “if I wasn’t a baseball player I’d be a U.S. marine!”

FBBPEB: I just hate that guy.

*it gets a little blurry here because i am not a good drinker*

Me (probably slurring and/or shouting): THE GREAT THING ABOUT FOLLOWING BASEBALL IS, FOR LIKE SIX MONTHS OF THE YEAR THERE’S ALWAYS A GAME TOMORROW

I’m not sure we managed to convert anyone new to the cause, but I know there was a point where we were discussing with some enthusiasm some attractive players in the game. And earlier today, a Mets fan of my acquaintance (who does not know any of you!) texted me the following:

https://i.postimg.cc/JnJ3MCbs/IMG-4290.jpg

Imagine the things I could do with my life if I didn’t spend my brainpower and memory on monthly splits and pitch movement and rolling .OPS and whether so and so is lucky or has a blood-red savant and the hits just aren’t dropping in. Imagine!

no you have chosen the right things i believe in you gyac

https://bsky.app/profile/backlinenurse.bsky.social/post/3mizao672gk2w

and/or

https://www.instagram.com/backlinenurse/reel/DVU1_YRk0zD

Correct