Month: April 2020

Quote of the day

April 14, 2020

In New York I learned quite a bit about baseball, as to many a Northerner it is his great love.  But what interested me about it was not perhaps the same thing that interested them.  I like how all the ball players have marital problems and personality problems and need sports psychiatrists, and especially in baseball, where you don’t have to be that athletic, or it’s not as strenuous in a way the players are all dissipated wrecks with drug problems, chain-smoking.

~Nancy Lemann

Nancy Lemann
jhu.edu

 

Quote of the day

April 10, 2020

Ah, baseball… pointless and circular and beautiful.  Nothing better than an afternoon at the ballpark — that most perfect of diamonds — where life’s as simple as a slow roll foul down the first base line, where anyone can be the star, the chosen, the hard-breathing champ.

~Elinor Nauen

elinor nauen
photo by Albie Mitchell

“Baseball Buddy,” Buckethead

April 8, 2020

Before I stumbled across this song, my only familiarity with Buckethead came from a mention in South Park‘s Guitar Hero episode.  While there are no lyrics, there’s no doubt this guy is one hell of a guitar player.  I’m not sure how, exactly, he goes about naming his songs, though I probably would’ve never taken the time to listen to this one if it didn’t have “baseball” in the title.  Buckethead just found himself a new fan, though, because I’ve listened to a couple more songs since listening to this one, and I’m hooked!

R.I.P. Al Kaline

April 7, 2020

Nicknamed “Mr. Tiger,” Al Kaline played the entirety of his 22-year Major League career with the Detroit Tigers.  Kaline won ten Gold Gloves as a right fielder and was an eighteen-time All Star.  He collected 3,007 hits, 399 home runs, and 1,583 RBIs in his career and finished with a lifetime batting average of .297 in 2,837 games played.

Al Kaline was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1980.  He passed away yesterday, April 6, 2020, at the age of 85.

Al Kaline 1957
Al Kaline in 1957 (Wikimedia Commons)

Quote of the day

April 4, 2020

I consciously memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve, and slider; then, I’d pick up the speed of the ball in the first thirty feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it had crossed the plate.

~Stan Musial

Musial_statue
Stan Musial’s statue outside of Busch Stadium (Wikimedia Commons)

What a fastball looks like

April 2, 2020

This is an interesting illustration that demonstrates the difference between what three different pitches look like as they hurtle towards home plate.  That four-seamer is quite the blur, and it seems you would need quite the discerning eye to distinguish between the two-seamer and the curveball.  Factor in how fast many pitches travel toward the plate, and it goes to show how much batters really need to be prepared for anything.

What a fastball looks like
ESPN the Magazine, 2014