BASEBALL 101: Part One, The Ball

So the season has begun and we’ve established that April is a time for spring training for the fans. Let’s go back to basics and learn more about the very basic tools about baseball. Baseball is played in many different parts of the world from the big luxury stadiums designed for Major League Baseball in the United States all the way down to the sandlots and backyards and city streets where a bunch of kids make it up as they go along. But there are some basics that everyone uses. Bats, balls, sometimes gloves, and something that designates bases. So as you are learning your team rosters and trying to match new names to new faces (or enjoying having the old faces back) let’s talk about Baseball 101. Let’s start with the ball.

You already know that a ball has 108 red stitches around a ball of white (the same number of beads that are in a rosary Annie swears in Bull Durham.) Here’s a couple other interesting things to impress your friends.

Delaware River Mud

11 dozen

Puerto Rico

Holstein Cows

Let’s start by getting our hands dirty. It surprised me to find out that in the Major League Games, those baseballs that looks so pristine and white on TV or at the ball field are all rubbed with mud before the game. Not just any mud, but Delaware River Mud, or more accurately Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud. You see, those bright white balls are more easily seen by the batter. One website claims you can see a clean white ball from an airplane flying over a field. That puts the pitcher at a big disadvantage, though how anyone can see a 95 mph fast ball is beyond me anyway but I guess the whiter it is, the easier it is to see. Also, a shiny ball is harder to get a grip on for the pitcher. So to even up the score in the Big Leagues, the balls get rubbed with mud. Before 1939, seems like any old mud, or tobacco juice or shoe polish was good enough but a man named Lena Blackburne discovered a special kind of mud in the Delaware River that didn’t ruin the leather cover like some mud did or scratch up the surface. Now that’s the preferred mud that is used and it’s exact location of where the mud is harvested from is kept secret but it is know that it is somewhere on the Delaware River and in New Jersey. The mud is so famous that it was enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 1969. (Now, there’s baseball trivia for you!)

Sometimes it’s the umpire or an umpire’s assistant that gets the dirty duty and sometimes it is a special person assigned the task. It is an important task. You got to get it on even and in the seams.

(Note: a great present for a baseball fan friend is the "Got Mud?" tee shirt sold on the Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud website. The Boyfriend wrote a great mandolin song called Delaware River Mud on his cd of original mandolin tunes called Alaska Mando.)

Used to be that just one ball would be used during the game until it was too damaged to use. Like other sports, such as football and soccer, if the ball went up into the stands, the fans either threw it back or an employee went up into the stands to retrieve it. But a batter named Ray Chapman got beaned in the head during a twilight game and it was thought it was because he couldn’t see the ball. So the switch to clean white balls began.

There’s another reason as well. Balls need to be clean and new (Blackburne’s mud notwithstanding) because a scuff or a scratch or a tear can change the projectory of the ball and that gives the advantage to the pitcher. One baseball guide said, “A scuff, scratch or tear on the ball will affect its flight, creating greater aerodynamic drag on one side of the ball … the ball will curve toward the scuffed side of the ball.” Remember those stories about pitchers keeping sandpaper in their pockets? That’s a big no-no, and gets you kicked out of the game. So if balls are scuffed, or damaged in any way, you’ll see the catcher hand the ball to the umpire who may inspect it and take it out of play. But it’s not thrown away. Balls not used in for major league play are used for batting practice the next day, or in some cases may even get sent to the Minor Leagues. In the Minors, they use balls until they fall apart.

In the Major Leagues, on average about six dozen balls are used during a game, though during a hard hitting games or a game with a fast ball pitcher and lots of fouls, up 11 dozen balls might be used in a single game. You know who I’m talking about. Those great batters with good eyes who will run the count up to 3 balls, 2 strikes, then proceed to foul off the ball for another four or five swings. So if you are watching the game and you get one of those batters up, slip in your trivia. Some might be fouled off into the stands, some go out of the park on a home run, some are taken out of play due to scuffing or dirt. Or if you are a lucky fan, an outfielder or one of the Seattle Mariner ball girls will toss a catch up to you.

All the balls used in Major League baseball are made to exact specifications by one manufacturer. The balls used in play are made by Rawlings and all have been manufactured in Puerto Rico since 1990. Si, es verdad! And before 1974, horsehide was used in making baseballs, but I guess a shortage of available horses caused a switch to cowhide. Best cows for making baseballs? Yep, Midwestern Holstein cows because they have clean, smooth hides. That one goes out to all the Milwaukee Brewer fans back in my home state of Wisconsin. Eat some deep fried cheese curds in my honor, okay?

We All Go To Spring Training

This week is Opening Day at a stadium near you. A new season of baseball begins. And I’m still a noodle.

I was sitting in the Cubs spring training ball park of HoHoKam Park in Mesa, Arizona just a few weeks ago on a March (yes, March!) day, 80 degrees and hot and seated three rows above the Cubs dugout. Chicago's Alfonso Sorriano was up at bat and hit a fierce foul ball in my direction. I impulsively ducked, and didn’t come up until I heard it hit the tin roof above the fans and watched it roll backwards into the parking lot.

I learned something about baseball as I was sitting on that glorious day in those glorious seats beginning my baseball season. Right handed batters are more likely to pop up foul balls more toward the area behind the first base side of the field, and lefties pop up more to the third base side. And there I was in foul territory without a cafeteria tray in sight. “Keep sharp,” the Boyfriend warned. “We are sitting in the danger zone.” I decided to depend on the rabidity of the Cubs fans surrounded me to beat me to the ball and looked around at my defenders.

No problem, I decided quickly. The three red headed little boys in the front row wearing Lee, Zambrano and Soriano Cubs jerseys had it covered, as well as the very large Hispanic man in a Chicago Bulls jersey sitting next to me, and the tan, trim sixties something man in front of me with his baseball glove in his lap. I just needed to get out of their way.

Hey girlfriend, baseball season is here again! This spring, by mere chance, I found myself in Arizona during late March, which means that I found myself in spring training heaven and seated next to the Boyfriend during a Cubs versus Mariners game. I was wearing Mariner fan colors, blue and white (and a deep shade of pink from the very hot Arizona sun after a long Alaskan winter. Even number 30 sunblock only delays the inevitable for folks like me who are the color of fish belly white after winter.) Spring training games don’t count toward final stats, so the sea of blue and red Cubs fans who surrounded me were tolerant of my cheering and spontaneous clapping after a Seattle double play which sent two Cubbies trotting back to the dugout.

But there it all was. All the things I love about a live game. The 11-year-old singing the Star Spangled Banner (look for her on American Idol, she had the “work the crowd moves” down pat), the invitation to the kids to run the bases after the games (“Just like the major leaguers do, kids!”) the crack of the bat, the bark of the beer vendors walking up and down the stadium aisles (icy beer really does taste better in hot sunshine), the Cubs tradition of throwing the opponents homerun ball (this one hit by Chris Woodward) back on to the field rather than keeping it. The Mariners lost the game, but it didn’t matter. We called Steve, the Hopeful and Hopeless Cubs Fan from the field and rubbed it in that we were there and he wasn’t, and all of it was in good fun.

Ah, but my little bag of salted peanuts, you are saying to yourself, “Mariners vs. Cubs? That doesn’t make sense! One is a National League team and the other is an American League. ” But during spring training it does. And I’m proud of you for noticing the difference.

Spring training for the baseball players starts in February and gives everyone a chance to get back in shape, audition for the teams and also gives the starved fans a chance to get a jump on the season by watching the exhibition games between teams who may not play regularly against each other in the regular season. Down in Arizona, teams such as the Mariners, Cubs, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals have their spring training camps. It’s called The Cactus League, as opposed to The Grapefruit League which of course are all the teams that go to Florida, including those pesky Yankees and Red Sox.

Don’t think going to a spring training game was all fun and games, however. Baseball is serious business. The Boyfriend came back after an absence (kindly carrying two ice cold beers in hand) and asked, “What did I miss?” There is was. The test. I’m a fairly new convert to baseball so the words don’t yet come easily. I had to reach back to last season and remember the right terminology. I tried to say as casually as I knew how, “A line drive, stand up double by Derrick Lee. “

“Oh, “ he said and handed me my beer without giving me a double take as he settled back into his stadium seat. Inside, my inner peanut gallery let loose a cheer. I avoided the “stink eye”!

You see, when baseball returns, we all have to go to spring training. We all have to get back into the groove of a nine (or more) inning game, and pace ourselves with the nacho boats and the beverages, and remember what the lingo is, and once again, review the infield fly rule once again, just in case someone asks us. We have to get to know our teams again because they’ve been traded, injured, retired and banished since last October and the new guys are unfamiliar and unproven. We mourn the loss of favored players and sometimes have to get used to seeing them in new uniforms, and new positions and sometimes even new leagues.

This is a disconcerting time because maybe you grew to love your team last year, and now, well, they’ve changed. You don’t know who these fresh faced players are who look like they are ten years old and skinny as a whip. Can you ever feel that passionate about your team, ever again? Will baseball ever be as fun as it was last year? Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. But remember, the more you know, the more you will enjoy it. So like the players do, start with the basics. Pick a team, get a copy of the roster before the games, learn the new names and faces, and get back into shape. Re-read some of the old entries of this blog if you have to in order to remember the difference between a change up and fast ball and what the box scores in the newspaper mean.

Because the truth is, March is spring training for the players, but April is spring training for the fans. And spring training starts somewhere in your neighborhood on Opening Day, April 6. You are welcomed to sit in my row and watch the game with me. But stay sharp! We are sitting in the danger zone.

Adieu, Mon Season, Adieu!

Well, despite the rain, despite the mud, despite a two-day delay, Philadelphia won the 2008 World Series. The puppy dog pile was intense with outfielders, right on cue, jumping on top of infielders who had jumped on top of the hugging pitcher and catcher. The Tampa Bay Rays looked on, dejected and sad and dreading the long plane ride home. And The Boyfriend and I, having already said good bye to our favorite teams in the regular season (me) and the post season (him), had one last good-bye to the Crossroads Lounge in Anchorage, (where friends meet) where to the bar’s credit they had the World Series on every tv monitor in the joint. But now the season turns to basketball, and football, and hockey and Sunday morning football games with a steak and egg special between 9 and 2 p.m. (We are of course 4 hours behind Eastern Standard Time so Alaskans are used to watching football in their jammies and with mugs of coffee in hand.) We’ll be back in April.

In so many ways, I’m ready for the season to be over. I’ll take a break, and focus on Christmas, and then on to the Mardi Gras season (check out http://www.killerrubboard.com/! ) and enjoy the beauty that an Alaskan winter has to offer. There’s an old wise-cracking saying from a button I used to wear during my sassier days that proclaims, “How can I miss you if you don’t go away?” So we have to have time to detach and forget and build up hope and excitement and build up our fighting weight again so we are fierce competitors and not the sentimental marshmallow I always turn into this time of year.

A couple last thoughts from The Girlfriend at the end of this baseball season, random thoughts, like a ball breaking loose into a ground ball and darting into the part of the outfield that no fielder covers.

First of all, baseball caps with ear flaps. Who knew? This is the first year that I’ve seen ear flaps on baseball hats, and they featured prominently in the Tampa Bay lineup during the blowing rain and 39 degree temperature of Monday’s game. You know, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Alaska hunters have been wearing hunting caps with ear flaps for years , but the baseball cap version is truly styling. I predict they are here to stay. You know those commercials featuring Joe Torre in Los Angeles and touting some kind of financial planning (the red dot people)? He is featured surfing and doing yoga and driving in a convertible. I can feel his blood thinning out even as he speaks. If he ever returns to a team in the North, he’ll be looking like Joe Maddon did last night. I think the Alaska Glacier Pilots team have already put in an order with Tampa’s team for next season. Can we get them in camouflage?

Secondly, groundskeepers rock! I’ve always been impressed by the guys with the lawnmowers who made intricate designs such as checkerboards, and stripes, and the funky Boston Red Sox logo in the infield. They carefully cultivate those patterns through a rich fertilizing program and mowers with specialty blades that bend the grass this way and that. The new ballparks are modern day temples in many ways, and the groundkeepers are the unsung heroes of grass and lushness. But in this World Series, it became obvious that different fields demand different care. The Tampa Bay Rays play in Tropicana Field, a domed stadium, and their grass looked meager and adequate, but no Field of Dreams. Philadelphia, with that beautiful new ball park, has a gorgeous field and you could tell that the temple keepers were a fine skilled bunch. But Game Five on Monday night was a groundskeeper’s nightmare. With rain pounding down for most of the game, the baserunning paths turned to a creek of soupy mud. Despite the groundskeeper’s diligent dumping of sawdust, the special “Groundskeeper Secret Sauce for Rainy Days,” and the judicial unrolling of a tarp bigger than the Matanuska Susitna Borough which holds the distinguished city of Wasilla, The baserunning and stealing game looked like those advertisements for “Slip and Slides.” They couldn’t stop the rain, but they kept the game going until the sixth inning. Last, night, the field looked beautiful. Gardeners’ rule!

And lastly, I think about why I started writing this blog in the first place. My goal was to help Girlfriends of the world understand and appreciate this game called baseball. I remember back to when I didn’t know what I didn’t know and when I didn’t understand baseball enough to even recognize my mistakes and faux pas. Those of us who weren’t baseball fans as children all took our first step somewhere. Somewhere along the line, we have an experience that changes it for us. We end up spending lots of time sitting next to someone on a couch whose passion is baseball. Or we become friends with his baseball buddy who knows more about baseball than most people on the planet. Or we meet a friend of a friend who pitches for a softball team and rabidly defends her team even through heartbreak and gossip about Madonna. Or your sister moves to a new town and is suddenly wearing red tee shirts and spouting off the latest batting stats for David Ortiz. Something invites you into this club of people who love baseball. If you are willing to learn, you are amazed how complex, and involved, and statistical, and fanatic, and heartbreaking, and quirky, and truly wonderful this game is.

I had to remember all this last night in the bar when a young woman came up to us in the bar last night to say hi to The Boyfriend who she knew through the music scene. She stopped, introduced herself, and started chatting, making small talk and being very friendly. What she didn’t know is that above her head was a tv set showing that it was the top of the 9th with Tampa up to bat, down 4 to 3 with two outs and two strikes. And the Phillies posed to win the World Series with the next out. She didn’t have a clue what was happening at that moment. I (and The Boyfriend) were smiling and nodding, but with our ears and our peripheral vision were watching the end of the Series happening before our very eyes. She left before the final out (whew!) with a friendly goodbye.

I realize she was a girlfriend waiting to happen. If I see her again, I need to take her aside and introduce her gently to the art of baseball. I’ll loan her my DVD copy of Bull Durham and invite her to join us at the Crossroads Lounge next April, when the baseball season will begin again and the Seattle Mariners will commence on their march to their first appearance ever in the World Series. Now that, girlfriend, is what I’m talking about. There is always next year.

See you at the game!

--The Girlfriend

Bat Boys and Ball Girls

During a Major League Baseball Game, the television coverage zeroes in on the players, the dugout, and the actual play of the game. But at every game, others help the game run and are an integral part of the game. You, too, can be a member of the team even if you can’t be in the World Series lineup.

I’m talking bat boys and ball girls.

Bat boys are the more traditional of the two. The bat boy is the kid (and sometimes an adult) who is the fetch-em-and-go-fer member of the team. They don’t get to just hang out in a uniform with a big BB on their backs. They work hard. Bat boys look after the equipment for the team. They get the uniforms lined out in the lockers and collect the laundry at the end of the day. They line out the bats and clean the shoes. And of course, during the game, they retrieved tossed bats and stray balls. If you are watching on tv, you often see them darting out between at bats scooping up balls, bats, and various detritus.

All bat boys in Major League Baseball have to be at least 14 years of age. This requirement came after a “hold your breath” episode when Dusty Baker’s, manager of the San Francisco Giants, 3-year-old-son (cute as the dickens in a mini-Giants uniform) almost got clobbered in Game 5 of the 2002 World Series when he went out to home plate to recover a bat. Unfortunately for the little guy, the play wasn’t over yet and a player was running toward home. Darren was scooped out of harm’s way before any collision occurred, but after that, the MLB instituted an age minimum.

Often the bat boy is a teenager or young adult, though a man named Stan Bronson served as "bat boy" for the University of Memphis for over 50 years. They are part of the team, so they also wear a uniform with the initials BB on the back. They work hard and get to the game way before everyone else, but what a cool job for someone who loves baseball! When the players show up for batting practice, sometimes it’s the ball boys who get to shag the flies in the outfield. They carry the balls out to the players and the pitchers. There aren’t a lot of bat girls in Major League Baseball because the position has to move easily in and out of the guys' locker room, and well, let’s just say that’s a little different than an adult female reporter doing interviews in the locker room. Often the bat boys are the ones who stand on the wrong side of the foul line to field foul balls, but more and more teams are using ball girls for that job.

And ball girls rock.

The primary responsibilities of the ball girls during the game are to chase down foul balls and throw them into the stand. Look for them sitting on their chairs tucked next to the walls. Ball girls retrieve fouls so that players don’t have to go chasing balls and they get the fun job of determining who gets to go home with a souvenir baseball. (Trust me, if you are a little kid holding out your baseball glove, you have a much better chance going home with that ball than if you are a drunk college guy waving your beer and shouting, “Hey, baby, I got your balls right here.”)

Seattle has been using ball girls at least since the Nineties. The Texas Rangers are in their second season of using ball girls. And to show the popularity of the program, in this past season, 600 girlfriends showed up in Philadelphia to audition for seventeen positions for the Phillies (Look for them in World Series play when play goes to Citizens Bank Park, ) All the women are long time softball and baseball players and athletes. To be a ball girl for a Major League Team, let’s face it, you usually have to be pretty and young. But just as importantly, you have to be able to think quickly, discern quickly whether the ball is fair or foul, you have to think quickly to get your chair out of the way of a fair ball, you have to be able to field balls hit by Major League Hitters and you have to be able to throw. And trust me, looking at the resumes of the Phillies ball girls, they aren’t slouches (for example, the team this year includes past Captain of Cherry Hill East softball team, a health and physical education teacher, a Division I track scholarship winner, a Penn Varsity Softball player, and a pitching instructor.) Trust me, if someone ever tells you, “You throw like a girl,” look ‘em straight in the eye and thank them for the compliment.

There was a video going around the internet about a ball girl in the minor leagues that is superb. It turned out to be a teaser video of a commercial for Powerade and is staged, but it is still fun to watch and shout, “You go, girl!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SqJz0NgnnE

Of course, sometimes in her eagerness, a ball girl misjudges and makes a mistake. A Seattle Mariners’ ball girl named Rosie Santizo gained national attention during a 1998 game against Toronto when she came off her stool and dived after a ball hit into the corner by the Blue Jays' Craig Grebeck. But the ball was fair and Grebeck was awarded a double. However, the Seattle crowd went crazy, cheering the ever enthusiastic Rosie who had worked with the Mariners since she was 16. She was the only ball girl to show up for work wearing wrist bands and baseball cleats. According to Larry Stone in an article about Rosie in the Seattle Times, after leaving the Mariners, she stayed with professional baseball and worked as a cultural trainer for Latin America baseball recruits, teaching English and cultural literacy to players for the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles organizations. She finished her degree at the University of Washington in international business and Islamic studies. and worked for the Seattle Mariners to teach English to such players as Cuban born Yuniesky Betancourt.

Rosie had a big dream for a ball girl—she wanted to be a general manager of a Major League Baseball team. She was working toward this goal by working in Israel with the emerging Israeli Baseball League. Who even knew there was an emerging Israeli Baseball League? Unfortunately, that dream was cut short when she was killed in a car accident in Jordan in September of this year at the age of 29. The Seattle Mariners held a moment of silence before a game in September in her honor. Rosie was a girlfriend to be proud of.

You go, ball girl.

To The Victor Goes...

If you have been watching the playoffs, specifically the game last night that sends Tampa Bay to the World Series for the very first time, you have experienced the phenomena that I call the "puppy dog pile.” That is the exciting moment at the end of the game when the shortstop throws the ball to get the runner out at second and ends the game in the bottom of the ninth inning. Mayhem ensues and the pitcher throws his arms up in victory. The catcher throws off his bulky helmet and runs at the pitcher, jumping up and wrapping his legs around him in a huge bear hug and suddenly all the other players on the field jump on top of them until there is a teeming mass of legs and heads and hands pounding on each other. Here come the outfielders. It takes them longer to get to the action so they are the last ones there. They jumped on top of the pile until it is a churning lump of humanity, reminiscent of the “monkey piles” we formed in fourth grade.

Unbridled joy and celebration. This, girlfriend, is the prerogative of the victorious. The losers need not apply.

Tampa Bay beat the Red Sox 3 to 1 last night and won the series 4-3. It was a fun series one with some exciting twists, but this young team looked good and solid after a good and solid season and I wish them well in the Series. You’ll find, girlfriend, that when you know a little bit more about any game, you can appreciate it more when the team you and your couch buddy are rooting for loser in a well fought, well played game.

I know. I once told you that baseball will break your heart. And it does, almost every season. It’s no fun to lose. I’ve had the advantage of rooting for several teams this season—the Mariners (St. Rita, patron saint of lost causes, pray for us), the Milwaukee Brewers in the playoffs, and now in this past week, the Red Sox against Tampa Bay. So I found a way to extend the excitement of the baseball season. But last night I had to experience the same thing that my friends who are Yankee fans and are Cubs fans have already experienced. It’s time to close down your season of fan-dom. I know we still have the Series and great baseball ahead. But I’ll be watching it differently. More detached, more open to both teams, less enmeshed.

It’s a sad fact of being a fan that sometimes, it is just better when your team doesn’t make the playoffs or gets eliminated. Then you can return to being a normal human being again. You can sleep better. Maybe you can fold laundry or pay bills or do some other “multi-tasking” thing as you watch. Maybe you can skip a game or two and not be so obsessive about checking the internet. You aren’t sneaking peaks at the computer generated game update on mlb.com and emailing The Boyfriend about the progress of your team. It almost is a relief to finally say, “enough.”

And then you look at the faces of the fans in St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay. You see this incredible joy and victory of the folks wearing Bartlett and Longoria jerseys and jumping up and down and pointing “We’re Number 1!” fingers in the air. You watch the puppy dog pile and note that the players in Tampa are all really young, so they jump higher and with more abandon than a David Ortiz or a Jason Varitek might. You watch the dozens and dozens of champagne bottles get shook and sprayed in the air and over the heads of players and misting the lens of the cameras in the locker room. Then you watch the camera pan to the Red Sox dugout where the disappointment is quiet and deep and palpable. You know that somewhere, someone is destroying all those boxes of pre-printed tee-shirts and caps that proclaimed the Red Sox as the American League champions. And you wish that it was you who were celebrating.

We still have the Series ahead, so baseball isn’t dead yet. But I’ll also be starting to look forward to next year’s season. And that, dear girlfriend, is as American as baseball, apple pie and Mom.

It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over

Girlfriend, I hope that some day you have the experience of waking up in the morning and immediately thinking, “Where’s the sports page?”

That’s what happened to me on this morning. Last night, the Boston Red Sox were obviously on their way to being eliminated by a young, vigorous and well playing Tampa Rays team. It was 7 to 0 in the seventh inning, for heaven’s sake, and even The Boyfriend turned off the television in disgust. (It is sometimes better for your health if your team doesn’t make it into the playoffs. You can just relax and enjoy the games in a detached, appreciative manner instead of being bi-polar for an additional three weeks.)

Anyway, he left the game and I was out with a friend and came home about the time he checked the internet for “the final score”. There was a shout and a yell, “It’s 7-6, we gotta watch the game.” We stampeded to the couch.

And the Red Sox did it. They came from 7 runs behind and in the last three innings, scored 8 runs and earned another chance, another sweaty-heart-pounding-bipolar-episode for the fans. Coco Crisp tied it up with a 10-pitch at bat resulting in one run RBI and JD Drew hit an RBI walk off single to win the game in the bottom of the ninth. Then it was just a bunch of joyous-silly-jumping-up-and-down-puppy-like boys on the field, thrilled that they pulled off the impossible. They haven’t won the series and they are still behind two games, but one of the best parts of baseball is when the team you are rooting for pulls it off even though they should have lost.

Sports fans of all kinds know this feeling. This is not particular to baseball. But what does seem to be unique is the rapidity of how things can change. In soccer, players score one goal at a time. But in baseball, a player’s at bat can jump the score anywhere between one run to four runs in a single bat, So even when the game plods for several innings, things can change quickly. It ain’t easy. There wasn’t a Red Sox fan in Fenway at the beginning of the seventh inning that thought his or her team was going to win last night. A bunch of them headed home because it was late and they wanted to beat traffic. But suddenly there was a wave of good hitting and missed fielding that resulted in the crowd being back in the game again. And despite a gloomy first six innings, heck, here came the Red Sox coming from behind for the largest playoff comeback since 1929 (where the Phillies over came an 8-0 deficit against the Cubs.). This is what you pray for when you watch your team but never believe it will happen. Last night, it happened.

That’s what is so great about baseball. It really ain’t over ‘til it’s over. And it still ain’t over. Boston and Tampa meet again on Saturday and Tampa leads the series 3-2. But it still reminds me that baseball is a great game, filled with uneventful innings and soaring moments. And you reach for the sports page in the morning to relieve the impossibility and to understand what you really saw.

Who's On First?

You may have never seen this famous baseball skit or you may have memorized the entire thing, but it still is one of the best comedy sketches about baseball that ever was written. If you want to know baseball, you have to be familar with the "Who's on First?" sketch by Abbott and Costello. I've included the video here for you viewing pleasure and a link to the script just for fun. It has definitely has withstood the test of time!

Here's a link to The Video: "Who's On First?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M

Here's a link to The Script: "Who's On First?"
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor4.shtml