Baseball
Birds of a Feather: The Flannel Years
By Stephen Turk
Uniforms are pretty subjective. I think most people, sports fans and non-sports fans alike, can agree on a handful of basic generalities when it comes to what is nice, what looks good, and what works when it comes to uniforms. But those little details, the nitty-gritty things can really draw some deep division lines.
And so the discussion on the recently revamped Orioles uniforms inspires a good bit of healthy discussion amongst fans. Everyone has a perfect uniform in their head, that dream look that goes woefully unfulfilled. Indeed, I’ve spent many a worrisome hour thinking “why can’t the team just know what I want and do it?”
My perfect idea is a combination of some older designs and some things pulled from other places. I think most people have a similar situation, never feeling like any one set was ever absolutely perfect.
So here is a brief uniform history of the Baltimore Orioles. Oddly enough, though they’ve changed uniforms a good number of times, their basic design has yet in the 54, going on 55, year history of the team to really change drastically. › Continue reading
Fun with Money: Part I
As a fan, I have no problem extolling the importance of the fan in sports. It is the most important role. The fan is the heralder, the bookkeeper, the archivist, and the backbone to the whole system. But in today’s world of sports, with huge contracts, expensive tickets and merchandise, and greed all around, there is much talk about the average fan being priced out of their pastime.
So let’s look at the institution of free-agency in baseball, arguably a big piece of the inflating contracts bubble. › Continue reading
What’s in a Name?
By Stephen Turk
As the baseball playoffs go on, it’s got me thinking about the names of the team s involved. We have the Boston Red Sox, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers, Red Sox, and Phillies have all been around for a long time, and as such their team names came about in different ways than teams that came about later. The Rays, of course, are one of these later teams, and looking at the stories behind the names, yields some interesting stories, as well as tracks some of the changes that have occurred in sports.
Let’s look at the three old time teams first. When pro baseball started up, there weren’t official team names for many of them. They would be the baseball club from Hyannisport or wherever. Nicknames often came about from sportswriters making an alliteration of the coaches name, relating them to a popular trend, or merely pointing out a common element of their play or uniform detail. › Continue reading
Thermodynamic Spectating
I remember in elementary school the many motivational posters that hung on the wall. One inf
ormed the class that math was not a spectator sport. While the poster didn’t make me any more enthusiastic about math, it did teach me what a spectator was. However, somewhere between reading sports blogs, posting on sports blogs, jumping up and down at games, buying merchandise, and generally getting way too into something that I have no real impact on, I realised that indeed spectating was not a spectator sport.
As a result, I often wonder why. I frequently wonder, “what is that thing that makes sports so engaging?” To this end, one of my more recent interests in sports, and indeed the focus of this blog, is sports history. By nature of statistics and records, history is always relevant. So when a game has occurred, when it is all said in done, there are endless comparisons (justified or not) that can be made. After the fact, you can look back and pick out all the moments which proved pivotal in the game.
Draft Ty Cobb On Your Fantasy Team Part II
By Stephen Turk
When I think of fundamental baseball, I think of the old style of play. And when I think of the old style of play, I think about hard nosed grinding. I think of going out there and getting it done any way possible, stealing bases, railroading guys in the base paths, getting whatever foreign substance on the ball that can be gotten away with. I certainly don’t think about hitting the ball over the fence and keeping the uniform clean. Down and dirty was the way Ty Cobb played the game, and he was the best.
Draft Ty Cobb On Your Fantasy Team Part I
By Stephen Turk
Here at the end of the regular season for baseball, we get to see all the season stats! I’m not much of a stat head. Indeed, the longer I follow sports, the more I learn and see, the less I can really be absolutely sure about. So when an interesting stat comes about, like how a recent AP article ( http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/09/29/leaders.season.ap/index.html) reports that home runs are down at a 15 year low, my mind goes in about a million different directions to try to explain it. The article quotes a couple of big leaguers blaming everything 
from steroids, bigger stadiums, and squishy baseballs.
First and foremost, it could be an aberration. There definitely needs to be a few more years of lower home runs to think of it as a trend, but as with anything in sports, it’s fun to speculate. Steroids of course are mentioned, but my favorite quote comes from Torii Hunter mentioning that the game is being played in the old style (he says as a result of the ballparks, but I’m not so sure about that).
As someone with an interest in sports history, I really like that idea, but looking at the stats, which anyone can do at www.baseballreference.com and likely understand more than me, this season has shown that hitting in general is down. Does this mean that pitching is better? That steroid testing is taking effect? That guys are trying to do different things at the plate? Are the minors different? Is coaching different?