Even as a Red Sox fan, I can appreciate everything about this video. Well, ALMOST everything…
Hoping to get some longer posts out soon; I hate to keep using the ankle as an excuse but it makes any extended effort or focus near impossible.
In the meantime, we’ve got Tiger in the hunt at the US Open (coverage starts at noon on ESPN; Tiger&Co tee off a little after 4), group play continues in the Europa Cup (All games on ESPN2, Ukraine/France at noon, Sweden/England at 2:45), and the NBA Finals shifts back to Miami on Sunday with the series tied 1-1 (8PM on ABC).
That video proves it was only apple pie and mothers our president missed out on as a boy.
Go Thuuuundaaaaaaaaah!
Fear the Beard!!!!
“There is no place in this whole damned country that people don’t point at me and make jokes. Fish it, I’m moving to Kenya.”
“I hope your a libertarian, Mr. Buckner, as Somalia remains the only viable option left.”
The last time I flew somewhere that had one of those Skymall Catalogs in the plane, they had a framed, signed copy of the picture of Buckner missing the ball. It was some gawdawful price (probably to soothe the ego of Mr. Buckner).
I imagined some executive somewhere for whom the price was negligible purchasing this as a gift for someone in his golfing foursome.
And I hated him.
Buckner actually handled it all like a champ and wasn’t nearly as tortured as many believed. If anything, he was more upset about how he became scapegoated. He was featured heavily in the ESPN documentary about Steve Bartman and fans’ need to blame failures on individuals.
Also, for anyone looking to waste more time, Google the RBI Baseball recreation of Game 6. AWESOME! And a nod to the gamers amongst us! I’d post it, but don’t know how to embed in the comments here.
Buckner’s appearance in Curb Your Enthusiasm immediately raised him to demi-god status in my book. I already had a soft spot for him due to the whole “my boyhood idols were Mookie Wilson and Keith Hernandez” thing, though. Hell, I’ve spent the last 26 years trying to convince people that the speedy Mookie totally would have gotten to the bag first even if Buckner, with his terrible knees, had fielded the ball cleanly.
I’ve not had much success with that.
Wasn’t the pitcher covering first?
I haven’t seen that “Curb”, but will look for it. Do you remember which season?
I believe it was last season. It was actually the only episode I’ve watched the last few years since I don’t get HBO anymore. I just happened to be staying in a hotel the night that episode aired.
Also, can I just put in a word for how Vin Scully is the best play by play man ever and how Joe Buck is Satan? Vin Scully, despite his magnificent voice, did not say a single fishing word for three full minutes after Nancy Lopez’ husband crossed the plate. He respected the audience enough to know that anything he said was just going to make things worse for Red Sox fans and cheapen the moment for everyone else. He let the moment speak for itself. I cannot underestimate the number of moments Joe Buck has ruined by insisting on opening his piehole.
Oh, and Mookie’d have beaten any mere pitcher.
When Barry hit number 715, the radio guy’s mic went out mid-sentence:
“Three-and-two. Finley runs. The payoff pitch, a swing and a drive to deep cen …”
and after that all you could hear was the crowd going nuts. It just goes to show that God exists and He’s a Giants fan.
I think I get it.
It’s the thing from the thing with that guy. Remember?
Helpful, thanks. So what’s the big deal? Why are the children reenacting this particular game?
Really? OK!
The Boston Red Sox are a baseball team. Back in the teens, they sold Babe Ruth, generally regarded as the greatest player ever, to their archrival the New York Yankees, so they could fund the team owner’s play (“No No Nanette” or something). This happened in 1919. To that point, the Red Sox had won 5 World Series, the final one in 1918. After trading Ruth, the Red Sox would not win a world series for another 86 years (2004) while the Yankees would win 27, after having previously won 0. This came to be known as “The Curse of the Bambino” (The Bambino was one of Ruth’s nicknames). Not only did the Sox not win the World Series, but they had some heartbreaking loses.
One of these occurred in the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets. In Game 6, they lead 5-3 in the bottom of the 10th inning. If they kept that lead, they’d win the game and the series for their first title in 68 years. But the team collapsed. Mistake after mistake, the final one being a slow roller that got past Bill Buckner and allowed the winning run to score. The play was immortalized and Buckner became the scapegoat for their eventual World Series loss (they lost Game 7 and the series). Though Buckner’s mistake was simply the final one in a long string and was really not as much his fault as has been made, he became a symbol of the Red Sox futility.
This video re-enacts one of the most famous plays/sequences in baseball history. AND. IT’S. AWESOME!
Oh. Cool. This actually helps explain some things from the movie The Sandlot, so thanks. I kind of remember the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 because it was my senior year of high school and my boyfriend at the time (cute guy with a hot car) enjoyed baseball very much. Your explanation helps me understand why he was so excited at the time. You are very helpful, Kazzy. Thank you. It’s seems like you know a great deal about sports.
My wife probably wishes I knew a little bit less. Or, at least, that I put some of my memory and analytical skills to use for things other than sports. But alas…
Happy to help! And if statements such as, “The Boston Red Sox are a baseball team,” are overly pedantic and patronizing, let me know! Not my intent, but I never really know where to start.
Since you’ve seen “The Sandlot” and will understand the reference, I think it is fair to nickname you Smalls… at least ’round these parts.
I admit to rolling my eyes at that particular sentence, but quickly realized a like statement may be needed if you were referring to most sports teams, so I can’t complain.
I can live with Smalls 🙂
Wait until we discuss less well-known teams whose names make no sense: Memphis Grizzlies (because Memphis is full of bears), Utah Jazz (because Utes love themselves some jazz, yes?), Kansas Crabs (because when I think of crab boils, I think of Kansas), and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (because Los Angeles is in Anaheim, right?).
Note: One of those teams is completely made up. Three Kazzy Kool Points if you can figure out which.
I have to guess?! I can’t just google?
Fine, I’ll play. I think I’ve heard of some sports team called Angels and the Grizzlies sound reasonable. Why would anyone want to be the Crabs? And in Kansas, that can’t be right. The Jazz? I’ve never heard of a team that is named after music. I pick Utah. Final answer.
@Kazzy: You left out the Lakers, because LA is known for its many bodies of water.
That’s helpful context. I know little about sports that are played in my own country, let alone obscure foreign sports like baseball.
Mary-
Ooooo, tough luck. The Utah Jazz are indeed a real time; the franchise originally started in New Orleans and kept the nickname after moving. Same thing goes for the Grizzlies, which started in Vancouver, which I can only assume to be a magical place entirely populated by bears. The Angels play in Anaheim but thought that incorporating LA into their name would make them more marketable in the broader region. The Kansas Crabs are completely made up.
Unrelated, but are you out on the West Coast? Or are you just nocturnal? I believe you said you had a young son, which I would imagine making staying up into the wee hours of the night difficult. I had drank a giant Starbucks thingy so I could stay up and watch “Prometheus” since I have the unfortunate habit of falling asleep at every movie I ever go to. It worked! But kept me up until 2:30AM.
Mike-
I thought about the Lakers, since they certainly have a name that makes no sense. But I figured they were well-known enough that there wouldn’t be much confusion.
James-
I’m glad it was helpful. I need privilege-checks every now and then!
I live in Oregon. I had a rough week, both work and home, and didn’t get to read much, so I stayed up to check out some of the inequality posts. Jeez, Dad, I was asleep by 11:30, give me a break.
Where do you live?
I was just asking… JEEZ! I was happy someone was still up to indulge my caffeine-fueled rants. Sorry to hear it was a rough week. Funny posts of kids doing awesome sports stuff is the perfect antidote!
I live about an hour outside Manhattan.
Yes, your post and Russell’s one about pet peeves have proven to be delightfully amusing.
I actually bummed about the Crabs. I was so close!
A for effort!
Plus, there is this: http://stonecrabs.milbstore.com/store_contents.cfm?store_id=70&dept_id=861&product_id=3910
Minor League baseball teams tend to have really fun, quirky mascots and cool logos. Negro League teams did as well, though I’ve always wondered about the appropriateness of someone like me rocking Negro League gear.
You do know about the Negro Leagues, right?
There’s an HBO special you can find on Netflix called “The Curse of the Bambino” that dates back to before the Red Sox won their championships, that explains all of this in a very entertaining way.
What I don’t understand is why no one talks about the Cubs and the curse of Bonehead Merkle. The Cubs were an extremely successful franchise that had won two of the five modern World Series, and one of the older ones. Since then, over 100 years of futility. And all because they cheated the Giants out of a pennant.
Kaz, I’ve heard of the Negro Leagues, but just the name. I assume it was a segregation thing and we grew out of it. Is there more?
That is an intimidating looking crab. It is extremely difficult for me not to use Google and find the correct answer in seconds. I’ve been using search engines any time I need information since middle school. That is a tough habit to break.
My head is swimming with questions now, Mike. I’m going to start with, what do you mean modern World Series? What is the difference between the old one and the modern one? When did it change? How can a team go for 100 years of sucking?! Wouldn’t someone put them out of their misery? I would let them keep trying, but I imagine someone somewhere was losing money.
“Modern” baseball began in 1901, when the American League came into existence. For 60 years, things were extremely stable, with two leagues of 8 teams each, largely in the same cities (no teams moved between 1904 and 1952.) Starting in 1961, new teams began to be added, so that today there are 30 instead of 16.
The modern World Series began in 1903, when the older National League finally accepted the newer American League as a peer, and their respective winners played each other for the world (that is, American) championship. There was no Series in 1904, but it began again in 1905, and there’s been one every year since except for the strike year of 1994.
Back in the 19th Century, there was another major league called the American Association. It wasn’t very stable, with weaker teams going out of existence and stronger teams moving to the more successful National League, and it died after the 1891 season. Between 1884 and 1890, the winners of the National League and American Association played each other for the championship, though in much less organized fashion than nowadays: the number of games and where they were played differed from year to year, and some series ended in ties.
The Cubs haven’t sucked uniformly for 100 years — they’ve had some quite good years, but not won the championship. And they’re immensely popular among local fans, so there’s never been any threat of their going out of existence or losing money. In fact, some people will tell you that if they weren’t so beloved, they’d be more successful, since they’s have to put a better team on the field to draw attendance.
Next post, I’ll explain the infield fly rule 🙂
“What I don’t understand is why no one talks about the Cubs and the curse of Bonehead Merkle”
Coastal media bias. And I’m not entirely kidding. (but actually, since the BoSox won it all, everybody does now talk about the Cubs. Just like everyone should start talking about the Padres.
Maybe the curse of the ’69 teams in general? Only the Royals have won a Series, compared to 3 of the 4 ’61 and ’62 teams, and 3 of the 6 teams added since ’69.
Only 2 out of 4 ’61/’62 teams (Angels and Mets, yes; Rangers and Astros, no).
Most importantly, Miss Mary needs to know that that Yankees have been highly successful, highly douchey assholes for the near entirety of their existence. If there is one thing you learn from us, it is that the Yankees are pure evil. 😀
Thank you for the information, Mike. It may take me a while to digest it all. I’m not sure that it makes much sense for them to call it a World Series if only Americans are playing. They should just call it the championship because sports already has an over abundence of confusing concepts.
In addition, thank you for waiting to explain this “infield fly rule”, if this really is a thing (it sounds untterly rediculous). My brain can only take so much of this gibberish at one time. I suspect there is a special gene or area of the brain that must be activated to understand sports.
Yankees = douchey assholes. This I can remember.
There really is. 99% of baseball rules make perfect sense; the infield fly rule is the only once that makes you say “Huh?”. I could probably get a whole MD post out of it, if The Powers That Be are amenable.
Mike-
Do you think that the point and objective of the infield fly rule is silly? Or the actual writing and enforcement of the rule? I’d be curious to read that post!
It makes sense. It’s just that you have to work though the consequences of not having it to see why. Almost all the other rules are way more intuitive. Take the force rule: If the runner is forced to go to a base, a defensive player can tag the base out instead of the player. I’ve never heard anyone question the logic there.
How can a runner be forced to go to a base? Why doesn’t he just stay where he is at?
On the subject of team names, I just don’t know why we don’t have a three-way trade: Give the Jazz back to New Orleans, the Hornets back to Charlotte, and name Utah something else.
I actually think that team names should stay with their cities more generally. Most of the time.
You can’t have two runners at the same base. Say Pete is on first base when Keith (the batter) hits the ball. Keith will now run to first, so Pete is forced to run to second to get out of Keith’s way.
(I trust it’s clear why they’re called Pete and Keith.)
It’s often true in baseball that a team moving to a city that has a traditional team name takes that names For instance:
Milwaukee Brewers -> St. Louis Browns
Seattle Pilots -> Milwaukee Brewers
St. Louis Browns -> Baltimore Orioles
Montreal Expos -> Washington Nationals
Mary-
I should say that of the four major American sports (footall, baseball, basketball, amd hockey), baseall might be the hardest to learn. Froma procedural standpoint, it has a ton of rules, many of which come into play every play. When I used to coach kickball, which basically has all the same rules as baseball, we spend weeks going over basic rules (Little League isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as it once was, especially among rich hippy families). Football also has a lot of procedural rules, but many of them don’t come into play on a regular basis. Hockey is probably the “purest” game, followed by basketball… Try to put the puck/ball in the goal/hoop without doing a handful of illegal things. Most goals/hoops win.
Mike/Will-
On reason they don’t always change mascots is because that essentually re-boots the franchise. So Peyton Manning (Indianapolis Colts) is considered to be part of the same franchise as Johnny Unitas (Baltimore Colts) in a way that Joe Flacco (Baltimore Ravens) is not considered to be part of the same franchise as Jim Brown (Cleveland Browns). The new Browns actually inherited the legacy of the old Browns, to the point that if you read up on team history, there is simply a gap in the 90’s/00’s where they didn’t exist.
I don’t know why this is, to be honest, or how “official” it is (a quick online perusal indicates that there isn’t consensus on the matter). I guess it is easier to connect the Balt Colts with the Indy Colts since at least they have something in common than it is to connect the Montreal Expos with the Washington Nationals. If you change both cities and mascots, you become a new team it seems.
A couple years ago, the Utah Jazz played the New Orleans Hornets in the playoffs. Some felt that they should have been playing for the right to use the the Jazz moniker. And while I agree that the Jazz makes 100000000x more sense for NO than Utah, I personally hate all the team names that don’t follow basic rules of pluralization. It is weird to refer to Paul Millsap as “a Jazz” or LeBron James as “a Heat”. You can’t be a Jazz or a Heat. It just makes for awkward phrasing that is incredibly unnecessary and also points towards a weird 80s/90s trend when people thought that was awesome (that time period gave us the Heat, the Magic, the Avalanche, the Lightning, the Wild, and pretty much all of the MLS and WNBA). That period also gave us a lot of teal on uniforms. As I said to my wife when we were picking out wedding colors, I have a highly negative visceral reaction to teal.
I don’t know why this is, to be honest, or how “official” it is
The NFL allowed the Browns to move to Baltimore only on the condition that they give up the team name, colors, and logos, and not represent themselves as the Browns in any way, to allow the Browns franchise to be recreated at a later date. To the best of my knowledge, all other name changes have been unofficial.
Only 2 out of 4 ’61/’62 teams
You’re right — I was thinking of the other other Senators.
Speaking of the Senators… what a curious name for a team, especially nowadays.
This is getting ridiculous. I Googled the Senators because I wanted to find out what kind of mascot a team named that would have and am sick of bothering you nice boys with pesky questions. I couldn’t figure it out because there is more than one team called the Senators and they don’t all play the same type of game. I had to stop searching out of frustration. How is anyone supposed to keep all of this stuff straight?
Mary-
Most folks who understand the various games have come to do so over long periods of time, often though playing, watching, and studying. You’re attempting to learn the history of the game, the rules of the game, strategies, etc. It’s a lot. Don’t be discouraged. If you really are interested, I think the best way is to watch the game with someone knowledgeable and patient, who won’t mind answering endless questions.
The infield fly rule is one that even diehard fans don’t always understand.
The Senators aren’t even the worst name out there. I’m pretty sure every team to have that moniker was in their nation’s capital and was playing off the political position. You have a number of racialized and offensive names (e.g., Washington Redskins), the aforementioned anachronistic names (Utah Jazz), the stupid (Orland Magic, I believe named after Disney World’s Magic Kingdom), commercial (Anaheim Mighty Ducks, created in conjunction with the movie), the boring (Cleveland Browns, named for the founder of a prior franchise Paul Brown), the obscure (Baltimore Ravens, named because Edgar Allen Poe lived their once and wrote “The Raven”), the really stupid (Brooklyn Nets because basketball hoops feature nets), and the just plain silly (New York Knicks, short for Knickerbockers, which I think were a strange pair of pants that I guess people in New York might have worn once?)…
At this point, we just tend to stop asking questions and secretly pray that the Indians do away with Chief Wahoo… http://rnishi.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mlb_cle_chief_wahoo.jpg
The Nets because they originally played in New York and it rhymes with Jets and Mets. There used to be a World Team Tennis team called the Sets.
Knickerboxer is an old metonym for New Yorker, going back to the days of Washington Irving.
Dodgers came from “Trolley Dodger”, because Brooklyn was full of them. Now it’s attached to the least transit-friendly city in the world.
Oh, and the Washington nicknames?
There was a 19th Century National League team called the Senators. They were contracted away in 1900, but in 1901 the American League introduced a new team called the Washington Nationals. Except that everyone called them the Senators. They finally officially changed it to “Senators” in the late 50s, but in 1961 they moved to Minnesota and became the Twins. A new team replaced them and was always the Senators. They moved to Texas in 1972. In 2005, the Montreal Expos were moved to Washington, and became the Nationals. They’re still there, and this time, people call them by their intended name (or “Nats” for short.)
I didn’t know that about the Nets, which is sad since they actually started their franchise in my hometown, albeit under the name “New Jersey Americans”.
“I think the best way is to watch the game with someone knowledgeable and patient, who won’t mind answering endless questions.”
Endless questions?!
OK, point well made. It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t have any friends who know about sports who will humor me like that.
Oh, please don’t read that as an insult. I only meant that there is a ton to learn and it would take a lot of questions to help learn it all. Obviously, Mike and I have demonstrated no qualms with answering and continuing to answer. But some folks don’t like to do that. I’m happy to be your e-memtor… It combines two of my favorite things: teaching and sports. Bring it on!
Yes, you and Mike have been wonderfully patient and kind. Thank you for tolerating my inane questions. I appreciate it.
On the slight chance that anyone but me cares:
16 original teams: all have won both pennants and championships.
’61-’62 teams: 4 altogether. All have won pennants, half championships.
’69 teams: 4 altogether. Half have won pennants, only one a championship.
Post-’69 teams: 6 altogether. All but one have won pennants, half championships.
So the pennant is not the prize you get for winning the championship?
Traditionally, the pennant was awarded to the team that won it’s League (as in winning the National or American League); this team went on to represent its League in the World Series. Back in the day, there were simply two leagues and the winner of each league got the pennant and then faced off. Now, there are still two leagues, but they are broken up into divisions. Division winners plus wild card teams play a playoff to determine the League/pennant winner. I do believe that some have taken to calling even division winning teams “pennant winners”.
While I do believe that there is an award and/or trophy given for winning the League, I believe that “pennant” is more of a turn-of-phrase based on teams flying flags (or pennants) to represent the number of times they’ve won their league.
It should be noted that, as time has gone on, different sports seem to give out more and more awards for more and more things, with increasing silliness (at least in my opinion). Everyone loves a trophy, no?
You will also hear people talk about the “pennant race” which is generally the last few weeks of the season when teams jockey to make the playoffs. It is a hold over from when there was no playoff and having the best record guaranteed you the pennant. Nowadays, you still have to win the playoffs to secure it, but the phrase lives on.
In the seventh game of the 1973 (I think) world series I had the number for a 250 dollar pool when in the ninth inning a player dropped a ball that Helen Keller could have caught. In 1973 that was 3 months rent. The other team scored a run and I have hated baseball a little and the A’s a whole bunch since then to the point that my definition of baseball is where 30 seconds of action is jam packed into a 4 hour game.
I live 60 miles west of New Orleans and have to laugh uproariously every time I hear something about the Jazz. I do not think of hip, cool, or Jazz when I think of Utah, I think Canyon Lands and Moab.
The Osmonds may not have been jazzy, but they were hip and cool.
I understand that such a statement may make your head spin but here is (are?) some “Crazy Horses” to help you face the front again.