The Road to the World Series

Okay, girlfriend, you have been going along, watching baseball games, happily meandering through the summer, thinking that the fun will never end. Au contraire, my little reindeer sausage with sauerkraut! The baseball season is about to enter its final month of regular play and the fun is only starting. Let’s step back and look at the standings. After the All Star Game in July, the focus narrows on the teams who are contenders for post season play in October and ultimately the World Series.

This has been a wacky year. At the beginning of the season, all the players were fresh faced and healthy from spring training camp and every fan thought that this was going to be the year for her team. This year, the Seattle Mariners were supposed to be a shoo-in for the playoffs, and the Rockies, fresh from the series last year held promise in the West. But both of those teams are way back in the pack. The surprise of the season has been the Tampa Bay Rays (formerly the Devil Rays) who have finished last in their division every year but one in their existence and have never made the playoffs, but who this year are smoking the AL Eastern Division. The Arizona Diamondbacks have only recently risen above a .500 Win/Loss percentage and they are leading their division. And look out, here comes the Cubbies. Go figure. That’s baseball.

So here is how a team makes it to the World Series:

Opening Day happens the first week of April. (Mark your calendars!) During the regular season, teams play a season of 162 games, usually at a rate of six games a week with a regular day off. The American League has fourteen teams divided into Central, Western, and Eastern Leagues. The National League has sixteen teams divided into Central, Western, and Eastern Leagues. Here is the breakout:




Up until recently, teams from the AL never played the teams from the NL until the World Series, but in 1997 the rules were changed to allow “Inter-league Play” which allows NL teams to play AL teams, meaning the Chicago Cubs can play against the Chicago White Sox and the New York Mets can play the New York Yankees. Baseball is rooted thickly in tradition and is slow to move, but every once in awhile it will change in order to attract more fans and spice up the game.

The post season begins in October and the teams in the October playoff games are determined by the leaders in each Division according to their win-loss percentage. The League Standings are listed on your sports page. Here is a sample from my local paper on August 27, 2008



You can see that Tampa has a strong showing with a .608 Win/Loss percentage, and Los Angeles is coming in really strong at .611. (Don’t even bother looking at Seattle. It’s a sore point with The Girlfriend.) But The Boyfriend and The Sister Turned Red Sox Fanatic is still hoping that Boston will pull forward and erase the 3 ½ games they are behind or at least secure the Wild Card position if they can stay ahead of Minnesota. The Softball Diva and Terminal Yankees Fan is in despair because 9 games back is tough to over come, though if anyone can do it, it is those damn Yankees. And Steve, the Hopeful, Hopeless Cubs Fan is dizzy with joy with the chance that Lou Piniella and the Cubs are going to go all the way.

The last game of the regular season is usually played in the very first part of October. At that point, the three winners from each League Divisions and one “wild card” from the League play each other in a best of five series (all the other post game series are best of seven.) , The wild card is again a recent addition to post game play and I like it. The wild card is chosen by taking the team in each division (Central, East and West) with the second best win loss percentages and choosing the one with the best. Sometimes in a strong league, the wild card might actually have a better record than another Division leader. (Look at Boston versus Chicago White Sox.) Four wild card teams have actually gone on to win the World Series, (Boston, the Anaheim Angels and the Florida Marlins twice.)

In the Division playoffs, the highest Win/Loss percentage winner plays the lowest percentage winner, unless they are from the same division. This Division series is best of five which means that the first team to win three games wins. The winners of the first round play each other in the second round for the League Division championship or the Pennant in a seven game series (four games wins the series). And the Pennant winners from the American League plays the Pennant winner from the National League in the World Series. (Oh oh say can you see?....)

Home field advantage in the playoffs (that is, where the series starts) is based on the best Win/Loss percentage, except for the World Series. World Series home field advantage is determined by which League won the All Star Game played in July, which the American League just barely won this year. Unlike the Super Bowl, which is played in a predetermined city whether or not that city’s team is in the final championship, the World Series is played in the respective ballparks of the two participating teams. Wahoo for the hometown fans!

Are you still with me? Here’s a recap. All teams play until the end of September. Then the top teams in each Division (plus the second top team in that League) play until one team left standing in the American League and one left standing in the National League. Then those two teams play each other for the World Series title of World Champions. Right now, we still have a whole month ahead of us of the regular season and in baseball, it ain’t over until it’s over. Watch the close race between the New York Mets and the Phillies and the battle between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota. I still be watching the Seattle Mariners in September, but with a .379 Win/Loss percentage, even a miracle from St. Rita the Patron Saint of Baseball Players won’t make a difference now.

Hmmm, Red Sox versus Cubs? Rays vs. Mets? White Sox vs. Brewers? Angels vs. Phillies? Better start practicing hitting the high notes in the Star Spangled Banner.

Baseball By the Numbers

The other day, The Boyfriend wondered out loud if you could build a whole baseball team of players named Rodriguez in Major League Baseball. The Hispanic world, especially the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, are rich producers of some of the best players in Major League Baseball and Rodriguez is a common amongst Hispanic ball players. So I did some research and did indeed find that if you comb the expanded roster of the teams and you made some of the pitchers play catcher or right field. You can construct a complete baseball team out of Los Rodriguez. I also found that they could play against a complete team of Gonzales players with a complete team of Ramirez boys in the wings ready to play the winner.

So hang on to that thought because I’m coming back to our equipo fantástico to illustrate a point.

Years ago, The Boyfriend , The Baseball Buddy and I were in Seattle for a Mariners vs. Cleveland Indians game at Safeco Field. I looked over and saw The Baseball Buddy filling out a grid of boxes in the game program. He was following the game by filling out a scorecard. A scorecard is a shorthand method of recording the plays of the game. The official scorer of the game uses a version of this, but everyday fans can also fill out a simple scorecard to record and follow the plays of the game.

On the left hand side of a baseball scorecard, you write down all the players in the batting lineup and their defensive positions. Then you use the column of boxes provided for each inning to track the performance of each batter by tracing his journey around the bases, or noting how he got out and which out he made. You also note how runners advance based on the performance of the player following him in the batting order, and mark successful and not-so-successful steals. At the end of the game, you use the spaces at the end of the columns and the rows to add up runs, outs, errors and at bats. There’s also a place on the card to note pitchers’ performance as well, such as innings pitched and strikeouts. Just like the box scores in the paper. (See, my little paper cup of freshly squeezed lemonade, everything I’ve been telling you in this adventure all fits together.)

The Baseball Buddy obviously knew how to fill out a score card. I kept peeking over at the Baseball Buddy to try to figure out what those scratches and numbers meant. Being a MOFF growing up (More Of a Football Fan), I had never seen a spectator in the stands fill out a scorecard at a baseball game. Turned out he learned to do that watching baseball as a kid. He says that it really helps you understand and watch what is happening in a game.

At first, a scorecard markings look like some kind of hieroglyphics from an ancient Egyptian stone. But when you learn the basic system, you can actually recreate the entire game when you go home, just in case the highlights on ESPN are not enough for you. How someone scores the game will vary from person to person. Some use numbers for the players, some use position abbreviations. Some people fill in the diamond in each box when a run is made; some fill it in completely only when a homerun is hit. My favorite notation for a scored card is “WW”. Stands for Wasn’t Watching. That’s for when you need to go refill your beverage and you miss something.

I bring up the score card to illustrate a point. Sometimes, I’ll be watching or listening to a baseball game and I’ll hear the announcer say something like, “ 2-4-3 Double Play!” It’s confusing at first because you don’t know what he is referring to. But in scoring, each of the defensive positions (the team not at bat) has a number. So notations on the scorecard can identify the position by its abbreviation such as P for pitcher or 2b for second baseman, or identifies the position by number. The numbers themselves become a shorthand for referring to the defensive positions.

The numbers and the abbreviations are:

1 or P: Pitcher
2 or C: Catcher
3 or 1B: First Baseman
4 or 2B: Second Baseman
5 or 3B: Third Baseman
6 or SS: Shortstop
7 or LF: Left fielder
8 or CF: Center Fielder
9 or RF: Right Fielder
(Note: The Designated Hitter in the American league doesn’t play defense, that is, he plays no position on the field, so he is not assigned a number.)

Easy way to remember the numbers is to remember the Pitcher starts everything by throwing the ball, so he’s number 1. If you think of the Catcher, the 2nd Baseman, the Shortstop and the Center Fielder all standing in a line emanating out from home plate, they are 2-4-6- and 8 respectively (all the even numbers.) The guys on the outer bases and outer fields are all odd number.

So back to our illustration. Our announcer who shouted “2-4-3 Double Play!” just said the Catcher threw the ball to the Second Baseman who got the runner out at second, then threw the ball to First Baseman who got the runner out at First for the Double Play. Cool, huh? Listen for it, and you’ll start to hear the numbers. On a scorecard for that bat, you would write 2-4 in the box for the runner going to second (because that is how he got out) and write 2-4-3 in the box of the runner going to first to indicate the double play.

So let’s imagine the team of Los Ramirez playing the team of Los Gonzales.

Los Gonzales is up to bat. Gonzales is already on first due to a line drive to left field, and Gonzales gets up to bat. After two balls and a strike, Ramirez, the pitcher (P), throws Gonzales a change-up and Gonzales hits a grounder to Ramirez, the third baseman (3b), who rockets it over to Ramirez, the second baseman (2b), who tags the base thus putting Gonzales out (who tries to slide in a way that will throw Ramirez off balance). Ramirez isn’t falling for the old slide trick and gets a beautiful throw directly at Ramirez, the first baseman (1b), who just barely catches the ball before Gonzales reaches the base.

You could say, “Gonzales to Ramirez to Ramirez putting Gonzales out on second to Ramirez putting Gonzales out on first saving Ramirez from any more damage to an already shaky ERA.”

Or you could just say, “5-4-3 Double Play!”

See what I mean? ¿Es un sistema de excelente, verdad?

Blood and Guts

Baseball is usually not a contact sport, girlfriend, except for tagging the runner out and pushing past the other people sitting in your row to get to your seat. That being said, I want talk about blood and guts. There are moments baseball stops being “non-contact” and someone gets hurt. Here are the top ten blood and guts situations a ball game can generate.

#1: Late season injuries. Major League Baseball consists of 162 games, played six games a week. That makes for a Petri dish for injuries. After the halfway point in the season, you see lots of injuries, such as torn rotator cuffs (in the shoulders of pitchers) pulled hamstrings and groin muscles, torn Achilles tendons, jammed and sprained fingers and toes. These are so common that usually your local paper list who is on the DL or disabled list.

#2: Outfielders Crashing into the Back Wall. This is as close to NASCAR as baseball ever wants to get. You know those spectacular plays where the center fielder goes back, back, back, and almost seems to climb up the back wall and reach over the fence and pluck out the ball from the other side to rob the batter of a spectacular home run? Well, sometimes they miss. Not exactly. You never really miss the wall. But fielders may lose track of where they are and crash against that back wall. Ballparks have a warning track to give some notice that the wall is approaching and the walls are padded, but if you are chasing a ball running as fast as you can, colliding with the back wall at Wrigley Field, even with those nice old vines to soften the blow, it’s gonna hurt.

Weirdest crash into the back wall was in the Fourth of July series between Yankees and Red Sox where Johnny Damon goes flying into the wall and hurt himself. Watch the ball hit by Kevin Youklis balancing on the top of the wall for a second or two before falling back into play. http://whatsthe401.com/2008/07/04/sports/johnny-damon-near-catch-ball-sits-on-wall/

#3: Outfielders Crashing into Each Other. Players are supposed to call for the ball so they don’t run into each other, but sometimes they don’t hear each other. You can almost hear the crack of foreheads when this happens. The worst crash had to be back in 2005 when New York Mets outfielders Carlos Beltran and Mike Cameron collided while diving for a ball last night, breaking Cameron's nose and fracturing his cheekbones. http://www.guzer.com/videos/baseball_crash.php

#4: Spectators Getting Hit by Baseballs. You know about this one --- its the Catch Yourself a Souvenir Foul Ball Syndrome. But seriously, people can get hurt. Bats and balls flying into the crowd is a hot topic these days and it may not be too long before nets and see through walls and star wars defense cover takes place. And one of the thing that is really pushing this topic is…

#5: Spectators getting hit by broken bats. Softball is played with aluminum bats, but major league baseball is played with wooden bats. A bat is truly a thing of beauty, but it is mortal. Being pounded into the path of a 100 mph fastball, they sometimes break. Bats mostly break at the thinnest part of the wood, so that fat piece goes flying unfortunately like a Ethiopian spear and becomes as deadly as that weapon as well.

You don’t need to tell Susan Rhodes that. The poor girlfriend went on a date to her first Major League Baseball game and got hit in the mouth by an airborne broken baseball bat on April 25 of this year. That is why there is a big controversy in the MLB about maple vs. ash bats and the tendency of maple bats to shatter more dangerously.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-bats052908&prov=yhoo&type=lgns


#6: Players and coaches getting hit by baseballs and bats. The catcher is crouching underneath a swinging bat and on rare occasion, that ball slam into his protective face mask. It’s an engineering feat of wonder, that mask is, but your head has still got to take a beating. Umpires have gotten it pretty square on the face, hand or chest as well. That’s why they look so big on tv, they are padded up something fierce. But getting hit by a screaming baseball can be serious. Mike Coolbaugh of the Colorado Rockies, was struck in the head with a line drive last year and died from the injury. MLB then passed the rule requiring the third and first base coaches to wear helmets. And broken bats can be a real danger to folks on the field. Umpire Brian O’Nora got hit in the head with a broken bat at a Kansas City Royals game.
http://www.myfoxkc.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=6846259&version=1&locale=EN-US

#7: Sliding into plate. There are stories about long ago ballplayer Ty Cobb who was rumored to have sharpened his spikes in order to discourage any baseman from blocking his way. When a runner slides, and it appears he will be out, sometimes he will aim his slide toward the legs of the baseman in order to throw him "off balance." ( Let’s be honest, he is trying to take out the baseman so he can’t make the double play.) In the same vein, sometimes the baseman will stand in front of the plate and block the slide. The catcher is notorious for this because a runner sliding into home plate can lose the game for your team. But it is not going to be pretty. This happened just recently in an August 6 game between Texas and New York. David Murphy of the Texas Rangers and Ivan Rodirguez of New York Yankees knocked each other out just a couple weeks ago and trust me, even with all that protective gear that Pudge was wearing, he was hurting!

#8: Hitting the batter. You’ve heard a little bit about this already,(See A Gang of Thieves and Assassins) but hitting the batter can be both intentional and accidental. Sometimes the pitcher just loses control. Other times (like between Joba Chamberlain of the Yankees and Kevin Youklis of the Red Sox), there’s just bad blood. A baseball can give you a pretty bad circular bruise on your shin, or it can really zing you bad on your funny bone, or it can take away about fifty IQ points if it beans you in the head.

#9: Pitcher getting hit by a baseball. The pitcher throws a ball and hopes that if the batter hits it, that it doesn’t straight back at him. It can be a good thing if the pitcher has fast enough reflexes to catch it, but woe is him if it comes back and hits him in the foot or the leg or in the head. Owners and managers also hate to see their million dollar starter with thousand dollar fingers reach out reflexively with a bare hand to catch a ball sailing by him. That's why God made second basemen.

#10: Batters Charging the Mound/ Team Fights. The 1970s seem to be much worse for both benches clearing to defend their honor, but you don’t see as many fights any more. But here is a video of the top ten charges at the mound. Number one is from a game played near the end of Nolan Ryan’s career (one of the best pitchers ever in the game) where Robin Ventura, thinking that Ryan had intentionally hit him, charged the plate. A million baby boomers cheered as Ryan got the kid in a headlock and repeatedly punched him. Not cheering because of the punching, but because the “old” man still had it in him.

http://ballhype.com/video/nolan_ryan_vs_robin_ventura_1993/

And I’m adding in the "Coco Crisp Charging the Mound" video because it seemed to be the most talked about incident so far this summer, hair pulling and eye poking aside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ywYMKQdxu0

Here in Alaska, we have another entry for blood and guts.

#11: Things Falling From the Sky. Not only do you have to keep your eyes on the ball, you have to keep your eyes on the sky. In 2003, during an Anchorage Bucs/ Fairbanks Goldpanners Game in Anchorage, a Cessna 207 carrying four people crashed onto a ball field (actually it crashed onto the running track separating the ball park from a soccer game that was going on in the adjacent field). Fortunately, everyone on the two fields and the four people in the plane survived. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_M7FjjBA5I

All the Girlfriend has to say is, "Anyone want to buy a cafeteria tray?"

What Are You Wearing To The Game Tonight?

Every fan seems to have an opinion about baseball uniforms. Do you adore them? Do you despise them? Do you have a fan jersey yourself?

Yes, darling, let’s talk fashion. What’s in? And what is way out? I really like most of the current baseball uniforms that teams are wearing in the late years of this decade. Maybe I’m trapped in the prism of my own fashion times, but I especially like the alternate jerseys. In a recent game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, the Red Sox wore one of my favorite uniforms -- a bright scarlet baseball shirt with blue black Red Sox letters outlined in white over snow white pants. Sharp looking! Such a contrast to their usual old time baseball look, which is a bit reminiscent of the thirties and forties, which I also think is a classic baseball look.

Not surprisingly, the Yankees, coming from the fashion center of the country, always looks good, if on the conservative side. Blue on grey, blue pinstripes over white, solid blue over white. Always as stylish and classic. The baseball version of the little black dress. (Rumor had it that the pinstripes came into vogue during Babe Ruth’s term with the Yankees, because Ruth was so, hmmm, uh, how you say, big boned, and vertical stripes tend to be slimming,. It’s not true but there is a lesson to be learned about dressing for the workplace.) The Seattle Mariners also have a conservative bent to their uniforms, though since they do live in the Northwest, you know that they have to be wearing polar fleece in there somewhere.

I have no doubt that the designers of Fashion Week in New York would die to design baseball uniforms for all of those good looking boys. But, of course, in their big fat rulebook, Major League Baseball have some rules about uniforms. (Funny thing is, they don’t mention baseball caps, the most ubiquitous fashion statement around. And slimming lines are left to each team.)

The official Major League baseball rules about uniforms are this:

Every team must have two set of uniforms. A white uniform is worn for home games, and a uniform of a distinctly darker color must be worn for away games. Most teams have an alternate jersey as well for playing at home, such as the Red Sox Red Jersey over white leggings (oops sorry, pants.) Every player must were matching uniforms identical in the style, colors, trim and graphics. Players are not supposed to attach stuff to their uniforms that differ in color or proves detracting such as shiny buttons. No one can wear a graphic or details that resembles a baseball to prevent players from every seeing more than one baseball at a time on the field. Sleeves are supposed to b the same length (I guess undershirts are okayed to be asymmetrical. Jacoby Ellsbury has been wearing a one long sleeve look, and I noticed Derek Jeter doing the same thing during a game.) Players uniforms must have the number of each player on his back, but whether or not they have the name of the player on the uniform is up to the league.

Teams have several versions of their uniforms for away and at home. Sometimes a team will wear their team name uniforms at home (such as Rays or Astros) and wear the name of their town away (such as Tampa or Houston.) But it will be the home team wearing some version of white, and the visiting team wearing a darker color.

Some players tuck in their pants into their socks for the old time 30s look like Alex Rodriguez and Jason Varitek . I was eavesdropping on some middle age male fans at a local ball game and they called it “long sock” look and the “short sock” look. They also claimed that Reggie Jackson was the sharpest looking player ever to play the game and always wore his uniform the right way. They weren’t too crazy about Manny Ramirez’s uniform when he played for Boston. Manny claims his baggy pants pays homage to the hip hop culture of the streets he calls home, but I think they are just more comfortable that way when he trots around the bases.

Uniforms are subject to change because teams try to keep up with the time, and keep updating their looks. Some teams, like the Yankees and the Red Sox seem to change their basic uniform very little. I notice that the Pittsburgh Pirates seem to be a little more daring in their fashion choices (such as the round flat top cap of the Seventies and the vesty thing they are wearing now.) It doesn’t always work for me but I do believe it is good for a ball club to be aggressive.

A fun game to play with long time baseball fans is to ask them what they think have been the best and the worst uniforms ever made. Chances are someone will mention the Houston Astros of the 1970s. That’s the one that gets my vote.

But then I discovered that the Chicago White Sox experimented with a shorts version for those muggy Midwestern days. Yikes! I guess somebody thought that was a good idea until someone had to slide into second base. (I am stuck on bandaids…)

Every once in awhile in today’s game, you’ll see a “Turn Back the Clock Days” where the stadium goes retro and the home team wears the uniforms of the Eighties or the Seventies. The Toronto Blue Jays (who have a very smart looking uniform in 2008) sponsor Flashback Fridays in which they wear their very distinctive powder blue outfits of old. First time I saw them wearing them, I didn’t know about the retro thing and I just about popped my eyes wondering whoever thought that that particular shade of blue looked good. But knowing now it’s a retro-thing, I think it is fun.

Other retro uniforms from the Seventies will probably not work as well. Yellow seemed a popular color back then, but the uniforms have not dated well. Though those pinstripes just make Dave Parker practically disappear, don’t they?

There are a ton of websites listing the ugliest uniforms ever so I don’t need to go down that street in the Garment District. As I said, it’s a favorite sport of fans to do the Michael Kors Project Runway critique of past uniforms. Probably someday, someone writing a blog about baseball in the future will look back on this decade, and look at the bright, cherry red of the Red Sox uniform clashing against the stark virgin white of the leggings (oops, I mean pants) and write, “Whatever were they thinking?”

Pitching Stats

WARNING!!! THIS COLUMN CONTAINS STATISTICS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL AUDIENCES. USE DISCRETION IN CONTINUING.

Hah, hah, girlfriend. Just kidding. I’m projecting my own "eyes-glaze-over-when-someone-starts-droning-on-about-stats” paranoia on to you. Trust me, this will be fun.

We’ve focused on pitching the last couple entries (with a side trip to the bar and the ball park). To wrap up, here are some stats that will help you judge how well a pitcher is doing.

Remember how to read a box score? Pitchers have box scores, too, and include the same stats (hits, runs, strike outs) but from the perspective of the pitching mound. Two stats, however, are specific to pitching. They are Earned Runs Average (ERA) and Win/Loss Percentage.

EARNED RUN AVERAGE: The last thing a pitcher wants is for a batter to get a hit. And the pitcher REALLY doesn’t want the runner to make it all the way to home plate because that’s a run. The Earned Run Average (ERA) represents the average number of runs a pitcher gives up in nine innings. The other team must “earn the run” or basically beat the pitcher for it to be counted. (Fielding errors don’t count.)

ERA is calculated by taking all the earned runs a pitcher has against him, dividing it by the number of innings pitched and multiplying by nine If you want to remember how to figure it out, you can always look it up by going HERE. Even if you don’t remember how the ERA is calculated, remember that the lower the number, the better. So around a 1.5 to 2.0 ERA is really good , but a 6.2 ERA means a pitcher is struggling.

Another thing to remember is that ERA is the opposite of Batting Average. The lower the ERA, the better (with the 1.0s or lower 2.0s being really good) For batting average, the higher the better (with being in the .300s being really good.).

WIN/LOSS PERCENTAGE: For every game, one pitcher is awarded a win and one pitcher is awarded a loss. A pitcher gets the win if his team takes the lead while he is in the game and maintains the lead. The losing pitcher then is the guy who gave up the run that put the opposing team ahead and helped the enemy win the game. Ouch! Got to be rough to be a designated “loser” and have it go on your permanent record. You will often hear something like, “Felix Hernandez is 7 and 7” or read something like Hernandez (7-7) That means in this season Felix has been awarded the win in 7 games and was awarded the loss in 7 of those games. (His current ERA is 2.94, by the way.)

Don’t forget those relief pitchers eating sunflower seeds and spitting in the bullpen. If your team is ahead and you are tapped on the shoulder to get into the game, the team expects you to keep that lead. Relief pitchers have their own stat called a “save.” A pitcher is awarded a save when his team wins and he was the last pitcher. (There are some other things that go into it, such as you can’t be awarded a win and a save at the same time, but basically you got the idea.) Marino Rivera seems to be the King of Saves currently. He has 28 saves in 28 save opportunities -- damn, he’s scary.

Remember the box score from the newspaper? Pitching stats are also listed for each game.


IP - Innings Pitched.
H - Hits that the batters got off him.
R - Runs made while he was pitching. (Adding up the totals from all the pitchers, this column should add up to the final score.)
ER - Earned Runs or those runs that were not due to fielder error. (May not always add up to the score,)
BB - Base on Balls, or how many times a pitcher walked a batter.
SO - Strike Outs, or how many time a pitcher struck out a batter.
ERA - The current Earned Run Average of the pitcher after this game.

Note that in the game above, Putz actually got the Win event (indicated by the W in front of his Win-Loss Percentage) even though he was the closer. He was the pitcher at the time the Mariners pulled ahead of the Rays with a game-ending two-run homerun. Wins pack more of a statistical punch for a pitcher than Saves. Wheeler, the Rays' closer, got the Loss since he was the pitcher at the time the opposing team scored the go ahead run.

Three other phrases that you will hear:

Shutout: A shut out means that the opposing team had no runs. Runners may have made it onto base and batters may have made hits, but no one made it successfully home. The score on their end was a big fat 0. That ain’t easy to do. That’s a combination of good fielding and defense, and good pitching.

No-hitter: A no hitter means that there were no hits by the opposing team. Runners might be on base due to balls and errors, but no runner had a legitimate hit. So when you look at the scoreboard at a game, under hits it says a big fat 0. This is really difficult to do, and you might see just a couple no hitters in a baseball season. (This is when a low scoring ball game can be very exciting.) When a pitcher is pitching this good, the manager might leave him in the game to pitch all nine innings. When someone is throwing a no hitter, it is tradition (and superstition) not to mention it as such so as not to jinx it and it is tradition for other players not to talk to the pitcher in order not to jinx him.

Perfect Game: This is almost impossible. More people have orbited the moon that thrown a perfect game. (That’s my most favorite baseball stat in the world.) It means, no hits and no runners on base. If the pitcher pitches the whole game, that means 27 batters up and 27 batters down. It means when you look up at the scoreboard, you see big fat 0s across the board. Last pitcher to throw a perfect game was Randy Johnson of the Diamondbacks back in 2004. Couldn’t happen to a nicer (or a bigger) fellow.

Watching Baseball in a Bar

The Baseball Buddy has been up visiting us so of course we’ve been watching plenty of baseball games. He, the Boyfriend and I took a night to go see an Anchorage Bucs game (our local ball club) on a particularly good night with some good play and one of only a few sunny actually warm days in this very cool summer.

We’ve also watched a game or two at one of our favorite bars to catch a ball game after work. It got me thinking, Girlfriend, to offer you some pointers on watching baseball in a bar.

There’s a bit of an art to watching baseball in a bar. Some things you have control over and of course, others just happen. You need to go with the right people, you have to pick a place that has baseball playing on the tv, and it helps if the bar is showing a game you actually want to watch. Food is always good if you are going to be watching for awhile, and the Boyfriend points out, it helps if you can get peanuts in the shell, even if they are out of a vending machine. (The place we watch is a “bar” bar, so it ain’t fancy.)

I live in Alaska time Zone, which means a lot of east coast night games are usually in their sixth or seventh innings by the time I get off work. We can easily catch the last two or three innings of a game then still have the whole evening ahead. Late afternoon is a great time to go see a game. Usually bars are slower and there isn’t a lot of chatter or a loud juke box stuff going on.

Pick a place that has multiple screens if you can so you have a better chance you will find a team you want to watch. If you just love the game of baseball, it probably won’t matter what teams you are watching. The Boyfriend said that any baseball game is better than a basketball game.

Me? I like to watch teams I know. I appreciate good baseball, but I like it even better if I recognized the guy up to bat, or know a little about the pitcher. You don’t have to know much, but if I recognize Jeremy Reed or Tim Wakefield or Johnny Damon or Ichiro Suzuki, I’m gonna to be more interested. And if you are with people you like and who are fun, that’s your insurance against a boring or uninteresting game.

Best time to find baseball in a bar that isn’t a designated sports bar or baseball bar is in April and mid July to mid August. The basketball playoffs tend to dominate in late spring early summer and football gradually sneaks back in August, roaring back into life in September. It is a tough fact, but not everyone likes baseball. Once the Boyfriend and I walked into a place one afternoon and asked the bartender politely if we could get a ball game on. We were told quite bluntly that the hockey playoffs were on and other customers in the bar were watching. Ouch! Sorry. Hockey wasn’t even on our radar. So be mindful of others in the bar. Choose a baseball friendly place or a place with multiple screens so you can live and let live.

A table with an unobstructed view is the best. In the place we like to go, there are multiple screens. Once during the fattest part of the season, we could see three screens of baseball from our table. And this is no lie, we once were watching when all three screen had bases loaded and went to full counts. It was sensor overload, and of course while we were watching one game, the team hit a home run on one screen and when we switched attention to the other screen, the first screen showed the batter striking out (while there was another home run in the middle screen.) Whew! No way on earth we could have orchestrated that one.

At some point, try sitting at the bar and watch a game over the head of the bartender. It’s more social and you are bound to have a better chance at having a moment with the other barstooled patrons. You definitely want to watch the playoffs or better yet, the World Series, with a bunch of like minded fans in a crowded bar. There’s a camaraderie that happens at these time and you want to be part of the full crowd press of fans rooting for the same team.

It goes without saying to always treat your waitress or the bartender kindly. These people work hard and put up with a lot of shit in their job. You don’t want to add to it. Tip your waitress or bartender well and be kind to them.

Now here comes a challenge. How much do you talk during a game? Seriously, this is a fine point of balance. I find that guys love to talk a lot about baseball. Especially if you have a stats guy, he is a fountain of minutiae and obscure facts. Other patrons can go on and on. In a loud, booming somewhat beer soaked voice, they counter guess the manager, they think the umpire is blind as a bat, and they always have a better way of playing the game. But I have found that guys aren’t very tolerant of women talking about baseball. It is like they wait for you say something stupid. Sometimes, folks at your table just want to watch the game and talk is distracting. I like to ask questions so I can learn more, and I put in my own observations from the watching I’ve done. But learn to read the body language of when your companions are starting to get irritated. So here are a couple of ideas.

First of all, baseball is supposed to be fun, so don’t take anything too seriously that happens in a bar. No matter what, you are there to have fun, so cheer, yell, whatever you want and don’t let anyone deter you from being a fan. Or go with a bunch of Girlfriends and talk as much as you want.

Or do what I do. At some point during the game, I find myself watching and eavesdropping on the other people in the bar. I love people watching. I love it when a Yankees ball cap comes in and sits down three bar stools from a Boston Red Sox cap. Boston always has the loudest fans so I know it won’t take long before there is a shouting match at the television, each in its own distinctive East Coast accent. I also love to keep an eye on the middle age quiet guy sitting by himself at the bar nursing a beer with his eyes glued on the set watching the Detroit Tigers game. I know that guy probably grew up watching that team with his dad and he is watching every play with old, experienced eyes and a hopeful heart. Or, there is the drunk who has cornered some young pretty Girlfriend I want to rescue, because he is talking her ear off trying to impress her with his knowledge while she is politely listening and nodding her head, but trying to plot an exit strategy.

I like watching the people almost as much as the game. Sports brings stuff out in people that is wacky and almost beyond reasonable explanation. I think sports matters to people because it makes people care passionately about something and fight epic battles and go up against the enemy mano-a-mano, and win victoriously or lose tremendously and at the end of the day they can still go home without losing their life, a limb or their children or a homeland. It is the Roman coliseum without the chariots, the blood or the Christians being ripped asunder. So people will cheer and yell and verbally punch each other in serious good fun. Fan, of course, is short for fanatic.

Which brings me to my final point. When you watch baseball in a bar and you realize that someone else two tables down is rooting for your same team, make eye contact with him or her. Raise your glass and mouth the words, “Go Mariners!” That fan will always raise a glass and toast you back. Because, for one brief moment, you’ll both believe that your team will actually win.