Baseball

[Valmy]

Congrats to Samurai Japan on their third world championship! They take down the USA 3-2 in the finals.

This one hurts. I had resigned myself to defeat when the USA was down to Venezuela before that dramatic grand slam but suddenly it seemed like the USA couldn't be stopped...until it was. The USA had base runners all over the place but just couldn't get the big hits.

The technical excellence, speed, and talent of the Japanese is truly awesome and I guess if you are going to go down in a championship it might as well be the greatest baseball player alive, Shohei Ohtani.

Still GODDAMNIT! So close but so far.

It was an amazing World Baseball Classic and I hope all who caught any of it enjoyed it, I know I did. Let's do it again in 2026.

[Barrister]

Sounds like it was a hell of a game last night.  Sorry I missed it live.



On a totally different level, my wife's family grew up playing baseball/softball, but she's failed to convince any of our kids to try the sport out.  Until this year - my youngest (age 9) is signed up to play softball starting next month.  I need to get out there with a glove in his hand ASAP to try and get him some idea on what to do...

(This is the kid who hated hockey, but has enjoyed Taekwondo, so who knows what he'll think about softball)

[Admiral Yi]

Hey Valmy, couple questions about Teh Classic.  DH or no DH?  Are all the refs MLB?

[Grey Fox]

Sounds like it was a hell of a game last night.  Sorry I missed it live.



On a totally different level, my wife's family grew up playing baseball/softball, but she's failed to convince any of our kids to try the sport out.  Until this year - my youngest (age 9) is signed up to play softball starting next month.  I need to get out there with a glove in his hand ASAP to try and get him some idea on what to do...

(This is the kid who hated hockey, but has enjoyed Taekwondo, so who knows what he'll think about softball)

Boy softball! That's cool, we don't have that here.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/USH_hUziATU

Excellent advice for beginning batters.

[Grey Fox]

My son is currently taking part in day 1 of AA 11U selection camp. His goal is too make it to week 2.

Wow a select camp. That is pretty awesome. Keep us updated.

It seems that no cuts were made after week 1. On to week 2!

He did not survive the first cut. On to the A/B camp.

[Valmy]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/USH_hUziATU

Excellent advice for beginning batters.

That is great advice!

Though it doesn't work by 10U...most of the time.

[Valmy]

He did not survive the first cut. On to the A/B camp.

Sorry to hear that.

Still...think of all the money you saved.

[Valmy]

Boy softball! That's cool, we don't have that here.

Yeah boys are not allowed to play softball until we are old and doing it for fun.

[Grey Fox]

He did not survive the first cut. On to the A/B camp.

Sorry to hear that.

Still...think of all the money you saved.

  It's like 2 grand when including out of town tournaments.

[Barrister]

Boy softball! That's cool, we don't have that here.

Yeah boys are not allowed to play softball until we are old and doing it for fun.

Huh - never thought about it.

Baseball is a tricky sport to learn.  If you don't have a basic proficiency in throwing, catching and hitting it is just PAINFUL to both play and watch.  Whereas from experience, even if you're terrible at hockey you can still play some kind of meaningful version of the game.

So (if like my kid) you're just starting out at age 9 I think softball would be a much easier introduction to the whole game.

[Savonarola]

In the past my wife and I went to Lakeland to see the Detroit Tiger's spring training this time of year.  Both Orlando and Tampa have grown enormously starting with Hurricane Maria hitting Puerto Rico and continuing on through Covid, so it now takes about three hours to get to Lakeland during the day (where it used to take us two.)  Instead we went to Jupiter to watch the Tigers play the Cardinals.  (The closest stadium to us is The Mets in Port Saint Lucie, but we couldn't find a game that fit our schedule.  Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium (really) in Jupiter is shared by the Marlins and the Cardinals so there's almost always a game every day spring training. 

It was 90 F (32 C) and no shade near us; fortunately there was breeze.  It's hard to draw too many conclusions from a spring training game, but it looks like the Tigers might have some offense this year.  Their fielding looked terrible.  The Cards didn't look much better, but they could at least make the occasional spectacular catch.

[Admiral Yi]

It appears they have made the infield shift illegal.  I don't get that at all.

[HVC]

So... what's with the shot clock?

[Grey Fox]

It appears they have made the infield shift illegal.  I don't get that at all.

It was analytics taking too far and stopped the fun of hits.

@HVC Pitch clock. 😉