Now, with the baseball playoffs upon us and the Jewish High Holy Days about to begin, today seems a good day to talk about a recent DVD, "Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story." I found the documentary to be an eye-opener. The film claims that after the big Jewish immigration in the 1880s, the game of baseball became a way for the new immigrants to show they had embraced America to the core. Besides, the game spoke to them. It was a game of disappointments, but also one filled with hope. The Jews would say, "Next year in Jerusalem." Baseball fans would say, "Wait'll next year." Baseball became a value that Jewish families passed down the line along with stories and rituals. Baseball was a game of statistics, a game of strategy, hustle and overcoming enormous obstacles. - http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700183928/The-tenets-of-Judaism-also-found-in-baseball.html
In baseball, a small percentage of hitters reach and maintain .300, few pitchers come in with ERAs under 3.00, and a winning percentage of .500, of course, is average. "Moneyball" is based on a stat as well — a hitter's on-base percentage. As a player in the 1970s, I had no sense of OBP. Then into the '80s it became a focus stat, was always listed with the big ones in the paper everyday. I liked it because it affected the game, it was a relative number for judgment. But early on, it was tied to those hitters whose job it was to get on base. In my case, I walked a lot, 100 times a year, so I maintained a high OBP, combined with 30-plus home runs a year, scored 100 runs annually. Only a select few table-setters could maintain a high OBP, because pitchers challenged them, forcing them to swing. The more you swing, the more outs you make. This statement is the essence of the "Moneyball" theory. If you don't swing before two strikes, you can't make an out. Nothing is more true and yet more mismanaged, and maybe nothing has had a more broad effect on what we see with offensive baseball, at least in the last 20 years. - http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/mlb/2011/10/mike-schmidt-did-moneyball-brainwash-baseball#ixzz1ZXH4Iq5x
Albert Pujols, Cardinals. The defining moment, other than the Cardinals unreal September comeback, was him returning after breaking his wrist in a ridiculous 2 ½ weeks. He didn't have his usual statistical season, and though he did finish second with 37 home runs he didn't crack the 100 mark for RBIs (he had 99) or bat .300 (he finished at .299) after 10 straight years of 30 homers, 100 RBIs and a .300 batting average. His .366 on-base percentage was also well below his career norm. While he didn't make a case for anyone to pay him Alex Rodriguez money, he made it harder for the Cardinals to let him walk away by helping them to the playoffs. - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/jon_heyman/09/30/award.picks/index.html#ixzz1ZXJZfWKM
Surprise clutches a picture of Maris, and begins to talk quietly about that day 50 years ago today — Oct. 1, 1961 — when his godfather hit his 61st homer on the last day of the baseball season, breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season record of 60 at Yankee Stadium in New York. Surprise, 49, would be born a few months later. And for years, he says, he would hear stories about 1961. His parents, George and Margaret, had met Roger and Pat Maris at Nativity Blessed Mother church in Independence while Maris was playing for the Kansas City A’s. The Marises would put down roots and stay in town for the next 10 years, even as Roger was traded to the Yankees before the 1960 season. And the two young families would stay close for decades. George Surprise and Roger Maris played golf and took their young children on vacations together in Florida. http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/30/3177879/memories-of-maris-still-strong.html#ixzz1ZXMOsVfs
Arias is one of hundreds of would-be Dominican professional ballplayers caught up in a massive Major League Baseball crackdown on age fraud and identity theft. Nearly 10 years after MLB found some 500 players at all levels of organized ball had lied about their names or ages, baseball is still plagued by deception and now resorts to everything from fingerprinting to DNA testing to root out scams. Of the 500 prospects a year who are investigated, more than a third are rejected because they lied about who they are or when they were born, MLB Senior Vice President Dan Mullin said - http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/01/2434478/fraud-still-rampant-among-dominican.html#ixzz1ZdAl7FO0
No comments:
Post a Comment