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

I'm interested to know how you cam up with the pitch sequence

camE

Do you really think the hoodoo and the cake are batting 4-5? I'd always thought of them as the bottom of the order - like the last guys you'd expect to come up big. i suppose it is true that Casey is "mighty" - maybe not your archetypal leadoff hitter

If they’re batting at the bottom of the order making Casey the nine hole hitter then why would there be a stir in the crowd at the thought of Casey getting a chance to hit? Mudville clearly aren’t a good team, they can only muster a crowd of 5000 odd in the days before tv

I thought they were 8-9

But why would you put a guy who strikes out on three pitches as your leadoff guy? Casey has to be bad enough to do that but also relatively good enough that the crowd want to see him at the plate

The entire poem is about how even the greatest can strike out on three pitches!!!

“That’s baseball”

He’s the mighty Casey! Judge and Ohtani and Ruth rolled into one!

The entire poem is about how even the greatest can strike out on three pitches!!!

Cause they’re the bottom of the order? Cause their good guys have been on the IL for two weeks? Who knows

It was the first pitch! Guys like Wade Boggs pretty much never swung at the first pitch

I haven't read the poem in 35+ years, but isn't Casey the cleanup hitter?

I understand the logic of looking at the first pitch but bro’s like “I’m so good I can watch two strikes and then I’ll lock in”. Except he isn’t!

If Casey is batting cleanup, then that shifts everyone on my lineup up one place and then you’re looking back at the same problem (why is he batting behind these losers)

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

4-2 in the 9th isn’t a brilliant outlook no matter who’s on deck

Anyway why do you think those are their two best hitters?

at that point you’ve got nobody on, down 2, 2 out, and a hoodoo (I always remember this as “a lulu”) and a cake before it even gets to mighty Casey. A pall-like silence sounds about right

But shouldn’t the guys hitting in front of cleanup be good enough to get on base? The crowd should be cheering for them, but they don’t, cos they know they’re bad!

Maybe Casey has Tyler O’Neill disease, where it ain’t his style to drive in runners on base. Solo homers only!

Lol. Yeah that’s the part that doesn’t quite click into place - “mighty” Casey feels like an archetypal cleanup guy.

^^^
though, yeah, it doesn't make much sense that the two weak hitters are ahead of Casey

maybe 1888 analytics said bat your worst hitters early so they can rest and don't get rubella or something

Hahahaomg surely "Mudville nine" means the team. Baseball used to be a game played with 9 players!!

xp PBKR 💀💀💀

Yeah felicity that’s what I think I means as well - but they aren’t the best up for the team in that inning, like they aren’t meant to be guys that would give a good shot at getting on base. But it turns out they’re clutch and Casey isn’t!

I admit, haven't done my podcast homework assignment yet.

in my mind there are two possibilities - casey is leadoff or casey is cleanup. i like tracer's interpretation for casey as leadoff but casey as cleanup is how i remember it too.

i agree with gyac that mudville probably had the lead first. i do think that they lost the lead relatively late in the game, which is why the crowd is so volatile and calling for the umpire to be killed.

CASEY AS LEADOFF
-cooney and barrows are the sixth and seventh batters. not great but not spectacular. can be thought to reliably put the ball in play at least, maybe get some singles. and they both did put the ball in play. but they both 'died at first'.
-flynn the hodooo and jimmy the cake are eight and ninth. understandably there's a pall when they're due up. jimmy is also the pitcher and is despisèd for not only being a terrible hitter but also allowing 4 runs in the seventh and eighth, turning a surefire win into a probable loss. however, the fact that he "tore the cover off the ball" and legged out a double was totally unexpected. it adds to the crowd's excitement after "the dust had lifted" and the "men saw what had occurred" - the crowd needed a second to process - who would have thought the 8 and 9 guys would get on base, much less both be in scoring position?
-casey in this scenario is a nineteenth century kyle schwarber. guy who starts the game off with a solo home run. maybe both runs in the game are due to casey solo shots. mighty casey! but also bats under 200 and is on the verge of setting the single season strikeout record, so the end of the poem is VMIC.

CASEY AS CLEANUP
-cooney the pitcher bats ninth and barrows is leadoff. the poem isn't negative towards cooney because when he bats there are no outs, anything can happen, even if he gets out that's only one out, still plenty of life in the inning.
-but when barrows the leadoff hitter can't get on base - that's bad. two outs!
-biggest question here as has been pointed out is why flynn and jimmy are so bad and hated but still batting two and three. i think it's because they're both 0-4 in the game, four strikeouts each, 10 RISP left on between them (bottom of the order has been hitting well), and not only that but have been slumping in their previous games - and the manager won't shuffle the lineup yet because he doesn't want to mess with their heads (the other reason the manager won't change the lineup is because the manager also either flynn or jimmy). jimmy is also probably in year 2 of a 10 year/$3000 contract that he's drastically underperforming. so he's much depisèd. that said, he can still smack the ball occasionally - this is supported by blake "[tearing] the cover off the ball" and legging out a double.
-casey bats cleanup as most people assume and you know what happens next.

i don't like casey as cleanup because even if the two and three hitters are underperforming, they're still good and the crowd should still have some hope. i think casey as schwarber is the better read, even if it goes against how most people remember the poem.

Jesus Christ this is an absolutely superb analysis. I’m in awe here.

I prefer your favourite interpretation too! Plus it’s funnier.

Cooney and Barrows both grounded out and not just grounded out but died. Suggests they are both ultra slow and baserunning liabilities. Also I really like the idea of Jimmy Blake being the pitcher. I know he includes the first name to make it scan better but I like the idea of there being several Blakes on the team hence the need to specify.

“Blake, as in our best hitter?”
“No Blake as in the pitcher who gave up a grand slam to the nine hole hitter last series.”

Both very well argued positions. I can't choose between them!

Page 4 of the June 3, 1888 Sunday (morning) edition of the San Francisco Daily Examiner:

https://i.imgur.com/RWMJWDZ.jpeg

(if you are of advanced-age, you may need to open that jpg in another tab and zoom: 4th column, middle-bottom)

So many fun and random things on this page. I want to try Joy's vegetable sarsaparilla. That lynching in St. Helena seems super fishy "Wright, I understand hanged himself". Apparently the crowd threw the rope around his neck, argued whether he deserved to die, then Wright says "I'll be damned if I stay in this crowd another minute!" and jumps.

Also "Mr. Hogg, who recently died at Okton, Maryland, is said to have been the oldest railroad man in the world. He was certainly the most appropriately named". OUCH

rolling sabermetrics and statistics thread

WHAT

The video game Yakuza 0 contains a reference to the curse in the form of a statue of a chef floating underwater in the river of Sotenbori (a fictional version of Dōtonbori). The statue can be seen underwater in the cutscene where Majima enters the bed of Styx.

Didn’t really know where to post this, but this was so fucking upsetting.

https://t.co/MStgkIxESq pic.twitter.com/zoEadgZp4l

— Infield Fly Girl (@infieldflygrl) June 12, 2024

In 1992, Rockies outfielder Dante Bichette struck his pregnant 19-year-old girlfriend. The story was not public at the time and there was no discipline. "Although it was very wrong, we joke about it now," he said in 1999. One wonders exactly how often they laugh about it, and why.

2010 MLB Police Blotter

But yeah thats grim

Important to share, but yeah this is NOT the thread for it. I love this thread as a means of sharing pure unadulterated joy for the game.

Hope it stays that way moving forward... I usually am excited when this thread is bumped!

Sorry, to me this is unfortunately relatable :/ but yeah, in my mind that other thread is for arrests etc.

I feel like we’ve all just forgotten Pedro Martinez had a dwarf sidekick he would hang around with in 2004

Idk how to reply to that itt but I feel I should point out that the correct term is probably ‘little person’.

What I came here to say: Tim Lincecum turned 40 yesterday and KNBR did a thread of his best moments. The enduring love for him is something else.

Screw it, 40 Tim Lincecum moments for his 40th birthday

A thread: pic.twitter.com/qyags7tSXh

— KNBR (@KNBR) June 15, 2024

Hunter Pence & Tim Lincecum imitating each other's mechanics.

[From: https://t.co/Ka4bSeDscg ] pic.twitter.com/fKNaXeMesG

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) November 21, 2018

I looked it up actually before posting because I figured someone would say something. That term is apparently on par with “little person” or “individual of short stature”. “Midget” is the faux pas term to use.