evil solrac v3.0
Member
they get a lot hate but this is why the Cards always stay competitive.
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MLB Offseason '13-'14 |OT| Where the best fans live
- Thread starter Corran Horn
- Start date
they get a lot hate but this is why the Cards always stay competitive.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
it's gentlemen, learn to spell troll.
Little Green Yoda
Member
Does Buxton really have 80 grade speed?
BFIB
Member
Well, its going to be interesting in a few years to see how development goes. Lunhow was a big part of a lot of those names on the list.
DUFFMCWALIN
Member
Please let baseball start. Please.
Mr. Enigma
Member
The Phillies have avoided arbitration with Ben Revere, agreeing to a 1-year, $1.95 million deal.
Dmncnby2k9
Banned
Yes Parks has a 8 run for him.
Mr. Enigma
Member
Tigers GM Dombrowski: Justin Verlander may begin season on DL
Mr. Enigma
Member
.
which is a shame, he makes a ton of sense for them. they should be all over him. the infield right now is a mess too.
Agreed but who knows what could happen.
Mr. Enigma
Member
The Brewers just announced that Ryan Braun is attending the "Brewers On Deck" fan convention tomorrow. It will be his first official fan interaction since the suspension.
HarryDemeanor
Member
That should be interesting.
Finished Ken Burns' Baseball last night. Overall it was a pretty great production, but I found it disappointing how much time they spent in the Extra Innings episodes talking about steroids and Barry Bonds being on steroids, rather than actual baseball events. I wasn't shocked that they focused on it, just disappointed.
Also, I would love to watch similar series about football or basketball if anyone has any recommendations.
Also, I would love to watch similar series about football or basketball if anyone has any recommendations.
Shake Appeal
Member
As a European who's fallen in love with baseball but still doesn't understand it, I'll probably watch this. Thanks for the rec.
Dominican Power
Member
What's so hard to understand about baseball? Soccer is a lot harder to get into.
Little Green Yoda
Member
The rules of baseball are pretty complicated if you're learning them from scratch. OTOH, one could explain the rules of soccer in a handful of sentences.
I think they announced that like two weeks ago. More interesting is that for the first time in a decade Weeks will not be there.
Also Braun has attended other stuff. Charity signings, charity golf and softball and some hospital stuff. I imagine this year will be his loudest cheers at On Deck.
I'm terribly sorry that you're mad.
Little Green Yoda
Member
It takes at least a few sentences to explain the offsides rule lol.
No bickering between council members, stop.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
he's not part of the council and actually this whole getting chummy with Red Sox fans needs to stop. have no idea why it started in the first place/
evil solrac v3.0
Member
of the highest order.
Dmncnby2k9
Banned
Hell yea the rivalry is back!
captmcblack
Member
wtf, we actually consort/fraternize with Red Sox fans?
Nothing wrong with talking baseball civilly with them...but fuck the Red Sox.
Always.
Forever.
Nothing wrong with talking baseball civilly with them...but fuck the Red Sox.
Always.
Forever.
They couldn't. You can't give a QO to a player that was acquired during the season.
They are just mad that I'm a better Yankees fan than they are.
Shake Appeal
Member
Seriously?
There are a lot of subtle distinctions and rules (and unofficial rules/traditions/etiquette) that are hard to pick up just by watching the game. How would you know why some runs count and some don't based on whether an out on the play was forced or not if you didn't grow up playing the game? I had watched quite a few games before I twigged what "tagging up" meant, and I still didn't know that it wasn't a force out (even though it looks like one) until I carefully read the rules. How would you know that someone is allowed to overrun first base safely, but not any other, unless it was explained to you? How would you know that fouling after two strikes leaves the count unchanged, but that a bunt fouled off is a third strike? I never knew that there was an uncaught third strike rule until it happened in a game I was watching (and yet the pitcher is still credited with a strikeout!). A lot of the umpiring is still opaque to me. There are like a hundred different things to learn.
Outside the actual playing of the game, the finances, contracts, and salaries are byzantine compared to soccer. Soccer also has no draft system. And no European sport requires any kind of understanding of statistics to appreciate, so a basic baseball statline is a terrible thing to behold as a newcomer. Let alone advanced sabermetrics.
As sports go, I think American football is probably much more complicated for the players on the field (or people with a deep understanding of its tactics), but it's reasonably intuitive for a first-time viewer with a minimum of explanation. Baseball is really, really not.
Dominican Power
Member
At its core it's still a basic game. Everything you've mentioned you pick up through out the years. It's no different than the other sports, except for it having a large emphasis on statistics, but that's also the fun part of following baseball.
Shake Appeal
Member
Right, you pick it up throughout the years. So if you're 28 and spent 28 years as an American immersed in American culture, playing baseball in the back yard with your dad and on little league teams from the time you were knee-high, you easily and quickly internalize concepts in a way you don't when you move to America for the first time at 28 and have to learn everything any American watcher of baseball takes for granted and learned just by cultural osmosis.
Baseball has many more rules (and informal practices) than soccer does. I mean just compare the word count of the respective rulebooks.
Tennis is the only major sport around that's easier to pick up the rules on than soccer.
Even then Tennis has an odd as hell scoring system that takes awhile. Soccer might be the easiest game overall to get.
Baseball and Cricket have a ton of weird, weird ass rules. Don't get me started on Rugby and American Football.
Even then Tennis has an odd as hell scoring system that takes awhile. Soccer might be the easiest game overall to get.
Baseball and Cricket have a ton of weird, weird ass rules. Don't get me started on Rugby and American Football.
That's not even getting into the fact that there's obscure ground rules unique to each ballpark.
Lose a ball in the ivy in Wrigley and it's two bases. Various things you can hit and the balls are in-play or a home run depending on where they land. Houston's got a hill in center field. All the parks are different-sizes.
I both hate and love the difference between parks in baseball. On the one hand it means there's a subtext to every cause because the effect may yield different outcomes (short porch for lefties in NY, short porch for everyone in CIN) but at the same time it's kind of a bitch when it isn't working in your team's favor.
St. Louis's new Busch plays like a pitcher's park to some degree and thus you have to hope for RISP miracles all season when no one on your team is cracking 20 HRs.... It's definitely an extra layer that most sports (read: almost all) don't have, which makes it unique but still it gets to me that some guys' stats don't shine because they're stuck in huge parks, etc.
Blackace
if you see me in a fight with a bear, don't help me fool, help the bear!
I have lived in Japan for over 10 years and still don't know what offsides is in soccer
Blackace
if you see me in a fight with a bear, don't help me fool, help the bear!
Not something that really makes getting into to baseball difficult if you know the core rules...