Crushed that pitch: Announcer goes yard with pre-game homer prediction
Ruth 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...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the curveball fools you: Illusion of the Year
Koufax, bringing the four-seamer. God save the guy at the plate. Author’s note: In honor of Koufax Day (anniversary of the day he skipped a World Series start b/c it was Yom Kippur), I repost this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Tight Collar: The New Science of Choking Under Pressure
The Collar Late in May 2008, perched in superb seats a few rows behind home plate at Chicago’s Cellular Field, I took in a White Sox-Indians game with Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Pope’s Balls, Nagel’s Bats, Barthes, Baldwin, and other pleasures
I’ve been head-down on a complicated piece of writing this week; an enormous pleasure, but it steals you away. Forgive the quiet. Below is what broke through. The week’s upper-deck shot was hit by...
View ArticleSwitch Hitter v Switch Pitcher
This is splendid. Pitcher who can pitch both ways switches up on a hitter coming to bat — then the batter does same. Rules chaos ensues: As far as I can discern, the batter is within his rights here to...
View ArticleHow Box Scores Are Like Gene Sequences: The Geek Path from Baseball to Bio
How is a box score like a genome sequence? This starts a wee slow, but go with it: Noted computational biologists James Fraser (UCSF) and Michael Eisen (Berkeley) explain how obsessions with baseball...
View ArticleAstronaut Plays Baseball by Himself in Space
As a child I watched Bugs Bunny once play tennis with himself, hitting from one end of the court and zipping down to return his own stroke. Wished I could do it. Now I have a new hankering: I want to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cruel Curveball Science; Nasty Koufax
Koufax bringing the four-seamer. God save the hitter. No pitcher ever body mechanics better: His hips, sideways almost till the instant his front foot landed, have just this second completed most of a...
View ArticleMoneyball Takes the Field: Gold Gloves, Team Positioning, and the Pittsburgh...
A friend sent me a nice post by a fellow named Pat Lackey, at the wonderfully named Pirates site “Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke”. Lackey lightly laments baseball’s failure to award any Pirates a...
View ArticleBaseballs Unwritten Rules Are Bullshit, Says This MLB Pitcher
When David Ortiz hits a home run, his leisurely trot around the bases is just shy of a professional wrestlers ring entrance. The crowd goes wild, his bat is raised for the first three steps,...
View ArticleWhat happiness looks like – Jake Marisnick’s catch in deep center
Is anyone having more fun at anything that Jake Marisnick is having playing baseball right now? Make sure to watch after the catch for a) Marisnick’s smile as he runs back to the dugout and b) the...
View Article
