baseball
oracknows | August 18, 2016I hate to do this to you guys twice in one week, but sometimes the situation mandates it. Basically, there’s no new Insolence today. I do, however, have an excuse. Because of a gift the Ilitch family gave to our department, a couple of times a year our department is invited to attend a Tigers game in the owner’s suite at Comerica Park. This was the third time I’ve gotten to experience a major league baseball game this way. I only have one thing to say. It is good to be in the owner's suite. There was everything from really tasty stadium hot dogs to even more tasty salmon and filet mignon…
oracknows | November 13, 2012Regular readers probably know that I'm into more than just science, skepticism, and promoting science-based medicine (SBM). (If they're regular readers of my other, not-so-super-secret other project, they might also realize that they've seen this post before elsewhere. I had to stay out late for a work-related event and decided to tart it up and recycle. So sue me.) I'm also into science fiction (hence the very name of this blog, not to mention the pseudonym I use), computers, and baseball, not to mention politics (at least more than average). That's why our recent election, coming as it did…
grrlscientist | July 11, 2010tags: Pitch Perfect, humor, funny, comedy, satire, sports, baseball, streaming video
Now this video is just sick, SICK, I TELL YOU! So of course, because it made me laugh out loud in an empty apartment, I have to share it with you. This video is a comedic look at a baseball game: a burned out pitcher who seeks advice from his wheelchair-bound coach during the biggest game of his life.
Starring Zach Anner, Chris Demarais & Brad Anner.
grrlscientist | January 27, 2010tags: Baseball versus Football, sports, social commentary, cultural observation, George Carlin, humor, comedy, fucking hilarious, streaming video
I despise baseball, but enjoy football (and futbol, too). My fellow NYCers were brainless drooling idiots when it came to the Yankees, and I reminded them of this as often as possible. The fact that I am still alive to talk about it means that all you religious wingnuts have yet another defensible "miracle" you can cite. (But that's another video). But here's George Carlin's commentary about baseball (which only serves to further elevate his status…
terrasig | November 1, 2009Miss Cellania is the very clever 'nym of a Kentucky-based full-time blogger, radio producer, and more-than-full-time mother. She consistently puts up very imaginative and insightful content at her home blog but in her other gigs at mental_floss and Geeks Are Sexy. I love mental_floss so that's where I first learned of Miss C. (She's also been very kind to link to us on occasion despite her reputation for
During my Sunday morning leisure reading and catch-up on my Twitter feed, I came across her post from Thursday on how small towns are affected when they are the setting for blockbuster…
ddobbs | October 5, 2009Ruth may or may not have called his. But former player and Mariners announcer Mike Blowers, asked before the game for his prediction of the game, predicted a rookie player would hit a homer -- his first in the bigs -- into the second deck in left-center in his second at-bat on a 3-1 fastball. Man did it.
edyong | August 26, 2009When sportsmen use rackets or bats, their best bet is to hit a ball on the "sweet spot", the point where various forces balance out to deliver powerful blows with only very small forces on the wielder's wrist. Engineers have the right tools and models to work out where this spot lies on their instruments. Now, palaeontologists have used the same techniques to study biological hammers that adorn the tails of giant prehistoric armadillos called glyptodonts.
At first glance, glyptodonts have little in common with the likes of Andy Murray and Roger Federer. These armoured beasts lived in the…
ddobbs | July 9, 2009Effect Measure alerted me to this very touching video, which shows the crowd at Fenway coming to the rescue of a kid who starts to lose it while singing the national anthem. Revere's set-up first, then some thoughts of my own:
I don't know what's going to happen with swine flu. I do know that if there is a nasty flu season we'll all get through it better if we help each other, not run from each other. It's national independence day in the US, so I thought this clip of the crowd singing the National Anthem (hat tip, Paul Rosenberg at Open Left) at Boston's Fenway Park (home field of the Boston…
ddobbs | May 19, 2009
Found some Koufax footage. About halfway through this short clip he Ks Mantle, looking, and a bit later, in the dark footage toward the end, is a good strip of him throwing the devastating curve. Note there the emphatic downward motion of his shoulder -- which brought down his hand the faster, which (along with big, flexible hands and fingers) helped him make the ball spin 15 times on the way to the plate instead of the MLB-standard 12-13.
Following up my curveball coverage of last week, faithful reader and Cognitive Daily maestro Dave Munger wrote in noting that Arthur Shapiro, one of the…
ddobbs | May 15, 2009
Koufax, bringing the four-seamer. God save the guy at the plate.
I always look forward to the Illusion of the Year contest, but this year brings a special treat: a new explanation of how the curveball baffles batters.
Just a few days ago, during BP, my friend Bill Perreault threw me one of those really nasty curves of his, and though I read it about halfway in, I was still ahead -- and still unprepared for the sudden slanting dive it made at that last crucial moment. The good curves do that: Even when you have that millisecond of curveball detection beforehand, they still seem to take a…
pontiff | May 8, 2008Two fans in Dodger stadium caught back to back fouls during a Mets game (and, almost as importantly, the Dodgers lost, woohoo!)
From the article:
But USC mathematics professor Kenneth Alexander used Wednesday's Dodger Stadium crowd size and game statistics -- 40,696 in attendance and a foul ball count of 48 -- to postulate the odds against Walker and Castro catching back-to-back fouls.
Calculating that only one of 18 pitches were fouled into the stands (other fouls stayed on the playing field) and factoring in the six fans sitting close by the pair, Alexander fielded the problem.
"One in…