Posted on: April 2, 2010 by admin
Baseball bloopers can be a great thing to watch and laugh about over the years. They can start out with kids in little league. Watching young kids that are new to the game can bring about a few surprises when they play. Some of those may be running around the bases the wrong way, playing in the dirt during a game, hitting the ball and not running afterwards or not realizing how many strikes or outs there are. If you have been to a little league game or two then you know what we mean.
As kids get much older, the bloopers will certainly lesson, yet will continue. In the pros we see them rarely but thanks to the media they play us the bloopers for a season, catching them all at once. Many never forget Jose Canseco running to the wall on a deep pop fly that was hit, only to miss catching it, having the ball them bounce off of the top of his head for a home run. It was a painful and quite embarrassing blooper for him, but for us, a nice comic relief in the middle of a long season. Looking for some bloopers now, head online and do some searches, there are bound to be tons of videos with some of baseballs not so finer moments.
Posted on: April 1, 2010 by admin
Whether you know it or not, statistics play a huge role in the operations of an MLB team. This goes well beyond the normal stats like ERA and batting averages. Sure these are huge in how the line ups are done or how players may be paid and so on, but players are sometimes recruited based on statistical analysis. How tall they are, how old, how big, how much they weigh and more. These can be critical when recruiting.
After playing ball for tons of years, they have compiled so many stats on players. These stats may show for example that players under the height of 5’8″ do not do as well as taller players. Now we made that up but we think you get the point, statistics are very important.
Posted on: March 26, 2010 by admin
Off the field lives can really end up in the press more often than on the field lives when it comes to some players. Why is it that some players just seem to be in the habit of showing up front page of the news with some big off the field moment. Without naming names of course, players tend to be watched carefully by the media for starters. Once they do something that seems a little off, the press is all over it. If that event were to happen to most people nobody would care. But because these guys are in the news and sports celebrities, they tend to get a ton of attention.
They key for players really seems in balancing their off the field life with their on the field life. The season is very long and there is tons of time there for the two to clash at times. For most fans it is distracting. These guys get paid a ton of money and for fans they expect them to carry their team to the championship. There can be nothing worse for a team to have an odd man out when it comes to trouble. The more gelled a team is the better chance they have in winning.
Posted on: March 18, 2010 by admin
Just recently in the news was the announcement of John Smoltz heading to Turner Sports to become an announcer. Smoltz just recently retired and has played in the MLB as a pitcher for over 22 seasons, which is quite amazing for any player, much less a pitcher. His love for the game certainly continues off the field as a reporter. Not all players are cut from the same cloth though. Not every player will end up in the sport in the same way. Some may end up reporters or announcers like Smoltz; some may end up business men owning restaurants or some other sort of business. Many players do like to remain in the game though. Some end up team owners and some even end up head coaches themselves. Even Mark McGuire ended up a hitting coach in the MLB despite his past drug use. Once you find you have a love for the game, you have trouble leaving it.
Do you think Smoltz will make a good announcer? Many people seem to think he is just right for the position. Only time will tell how he performs and equally how he enjoys it. But after 22 years pitching, I would not expect to see him back on the mound.