The first legal, professional Sunday baseball game in Philadelphia featured a matchup between the Phillies and the A’s on April 8, 1934. 15,000 fans looked on as the Phillies won 8-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Up until this point, blue laws in Pennsylvania deemed Sunday games illegal, as Sunday was intended as a day of worship and rest.
I think about baseball when I wake up in the morning. I think about it all day and I dream about it at night. The only time I don’t think about it is when I’m playing it.
~Carl Yastrzemski
On April 6, 1973 at Boston’s Fenway Park, New York Yankee Ron Blomberg became Major League history’s first designated hitter. In his first at-bat, Blomberg drew a bases-loaded walk off Luis Tiant in the first inning. In the third inning, Blomberg connected with a single for the first ever hit by a DH. His efforts would not prove sufficient, however, as the Red Sox pummeled the Yankees, 15-5.
I really enjoyed reading this piece. It has a touch of the surreal, as most dreams do, and possesses the wonderful quality of poetically tangible, yet sublime, imagery that sends its reader on a mental acid trip, minus the acid. “Dream of a Baseball Star” first appeared in 1960 in The Happy Birthday of Death.
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I dreamed Ted Williams
leaning at night
against the Eiffel Tower, weeping.
He was in uniform
and his bat lay at his feet
— knotted and twiggy.
“Randall Jarrell says you’re a poet!” I cried.
“So do I! I say you’re a poet!”
He picked up his bat with blown hands;
stood there astraddle as he would in the batter’s box,
and laughed! flinging his schoolboy wrath
toward some invisible pitcher’s mound
— waiting the pitch all the way from heaven.
It came; hundreds came! all afire!
He swung and swung and swung and connected not one
sinker curve hook or right-down-the middle.
A hundred strikes!
The umpire dressed in strange attire
thundered his judgment: YOU’RE OUT!
And the phantom crowd’s horrific boo
dispersed the gargoyles from Notre Dame.
And I screamed in my dream:
God! throw thy merciful pitch!
Herald the crack of bats!
Hooray the sharp liner to left!
Yea the double, the triple!
Hosannah the home run!
A checked swing is a motion that a batter can make while at the plate. It occurs when a batter starts to swing at a pitch, but changes his mind mid-swing and attempts to pull the swing back. Usually, a checked swing occurs because a batter initially believes a pitch will pass through the strike zone, only to realize that it will not.
If the pitch crosses the plate through the strike zone without contact from the batter, it counts as a strike, regardless of whether or not the batter managed to check his swing in time.
When the pitch does not pass through the strike zone, however, a checked swing could prove the difference between a ball and a strike. If the umpire determines that the batter checked his swing in time (and assuming the batter does not make contact with the ball), the pitch gets called a ball. However, if the umpire determines that the bat broke the plane of the front of the plate, then the motion is considered an attempt to swing at the pitch, and therefore, the umpire may call a strike.
The home plate umpire usually makes the call on whether or not a batter checked his swing before it passed completely through the strike zone. In some cases, the home plate umpire or the catcher might appeal to the first or third base umpire for a call.
In 1966, University of Southern California pitcher Tom Seaver signed a contract with Atlanta’s Richmond farm team. Baseball Commissioner William Eckert voided the contract, however, due to Seaver’s having played two exhibition games already with USC. Unfortunately for Seaver, signing a professional contract also left him ineligible to play any longer at the collegiate level. When Seaver’s father threatened a lawsuit on his son’s behalf, a special draft was held, in which three Major League teams offered to match Richmond’s $40,000 contract. The Indians, Phillies, and Mets all participated in the draft, where one team would be drawn from a hat. The Mets won Seaver’s contract, and on April 3, 1966, Tom Seaver signed with New York with a reported $50,000 bonus.
I pitched 874 Major League games in twenty-two years, and I never had a sore arm until the day I quit. My arm went bad in when I was in spring training, and I guess it was about time.
~Cy Young
You may recall that, about a year ago, I posted this graphic of the United Countries of Baseball. While certainly an interesting infographic, I also knew it was a bit outdated (having been published in 2007). Yesterday, however, I found this treasure on Deadspin: a map created by the Facebook data team depicting the geography of teams’ Facebook fans. Check it out (click on the image for a larger view).
