Tags
"Managers Are Playing Less Small Ball Than Ever", "The Dead Ball Century", 2014 Baseball Contests, Brian Curtis, Deadspin, Grantland, Ross Benes, Washington Nationals
2014 MillersTime Baseball Contest #3: What will the Washington Nationals’ record be this year? Tie Breakers: Will they make the playoffs, and how far will they go?
Six contestants were close — Ed Scholl, Peter Shimm, Tiffany Lopez, Nick Nyhart, Steve Begleiter, and Nelson Romerez — missing the Nats’ regular season record by one game. Not bad.
However, four contestants got the season record, 96-66, exactly: Dan Fischer, Elizabeth Tilis, Nick Fels, and Bill Trost.
Dan said they’d lose in the NLCS. Elizabeth said they’d lose in the 1st round. Nick said they’d lose in the World Series. Bill said the Nats would lose to the Dodgers.
So, Elizabeth Tilis (that’s a ‘familiar’ name, someone, no doubt, who benefited from good parenting) wins and gets two tickets to a 2015 Nats’ game of her choice.
For the other two contests, we will have to await the conclusion of the World Series.
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Meanwhile, two more terrific articles to draw to your attention, particularly for those of you whose teams are no longer in the WS chase. MillersTime readers tipped me off to these articles:
The Dead Ball Century: Why Is Baseball Always Dying? – by Brian Curtis, Grantland/The Triangle, Oct. 7, 2014 (Thanx MWK)
Managers Are Playing Less Small Ball Than Ever – by Ross Benes, Deadspin/Regressing, Oct. 6, 2015 (Thanx BT)
Tiffany said:
She cheated! I just know it. Just kidding… Get that girl to Vegas!
Land Wayland said:
So baseball is still dying? Does the soon-to-be-corpse know this? Me thinks the rumors about its demise are a bit overstated. Stories about the looming doom are an example of the adage, When you have nothing bad to say about a man, criticize his dog.
Well, I like stories like this because they confirm that time travel isn’t necessary, we have already seen the future and most of it (except the technology) is the same.,
You can only use a headline for a new audience of readers so these stories can only re-cycled about every 20 years. I guess we are at a high point in the pessimist’s or a low point in the optimist’s cycle.
Baseball (for thinking and execution), basketball (for lightning quick acrobatics), football (for displays of strength and controlled violence) and soccer (for speed and never ending action) are all popular for different reasons and because no one game will ever combine all of these characteristics.
Each game has its season in the year and then both the spectators and the player are tired until the weather changes and it time for the sport to return for its Opening Day.
If baseball has any problem holding its position in the sports pavilion, it will be because there is too much of it (eight months) because it is played every day and it starts too early (March 1) in the year and (just like this sentence) it goes too long (November 1) and it always seems to be in the sports pages and it takes too long for the pennant races to actually start to have any meaning and there is always a game next week that we can go to see and by the time the World Series is finally played, basketball and football are actively competing for the sport fan’s attention. NOTE TO BASEBALL OWNERS: Your ideas about creating a longer season and a much longer play-off season may be good for your bank accounts in the short run but they are very bad for them in the long run. When the season is over, you want your fans begging for more, not wiping their brow and whispering “I’m tired” or “I’m glad that’s over”
Land
Richard said:
Me thinks, in return, that Land, in the above Comment, has much wisdom to offer, as long as he doesn’t take his concern about too long a season too far. Baseball is doing just fine. Some tinkering is OK, but let’s don’t get carried away. After all, baseball is far from dead, as the good article indicates.