It's That Old-School Prestigious Way of Baseball [BASEBALL]

[Thermofusion]

I feel you man. I'll tell you what the REAL problem is, though. We don't have an "Extrahuman" stats category yet, a separate-but-equal appendix compiling records achieved by dopers, mutants, robots and Bartolo Colón. As usual MLB is behind the times. You laugh now but in a couple of decades there's gonna be full-on robot baseball leagues in Korea and Japan, and where will the stats go?

[Thermofusion]

Hey man are you by any chance following the WBC qualifier stuff? A select few of the games you can even watch. All the ones in Regensburg Germany are on mlb.com. Lots of highlights. It's fun stuff. Germany was beating Great Britain 17-1 or something and they invoked the mercy rule in the 7th inning! South Africa beat France, only to get pounded by Spain! The Czech Republic has a national baseball team! The games being held in Germany are drawing decently energetic crowds but the ones in Florida are drawing less than 1,000 people, which is further proof that Florida is where baseball (and old people) goes to die.

[El_Josharino]

I wonder what sort of posting fees the NPB will get from robots jumping to big league clubs.

[El_Josharino]

Haven't really caught much about the WBC, except saw that Shawn Green was playing for Israel and I think a couple other recognizable names are coaching. I guess just the couple things that have showed up in the SBNation feed or whatever. Is there a decent resource for keeping up with it?

[Thermofusion]

There's a lot of stuff on the MLB site, highlights packages, scores, schedules and full archived games, if you're the kinda dude who wants to watch three hours of international baseball between countries you didn't even know played baseball. I'm that kinda dude, and I suspect you are too. The big game today is Israel vs. Spain, at 5 pm.

[distance]

i'm excited about the prospect of actually getting to see a triple crown.
unfortunately no luck on catching a game this year.  next year it will be like my #3 priority.  there's still hope that maybe i could catch a playoff game or something.  i was in atlanta in 03 for the last game of the cubs/braves divisional series, but i didn't try to get tickets.  we're definitely going to be travelling this month at some point so maybe i can pull something off in some east coast city.  cincinnati/atlanta are both like 8hrs.  dc/baltimore are close...

as much as i enjoy the beginning of football season, it is a bit disappointing that it now overshadows the september stretch and a bit of the playoffs.  i love the beginning of the playoffs when there's 3-4 games on in a day and it's stretched out all day.  the ALCS/NLCS seem to go slowly to me.

[davy]

as much as i enjoy the beginning of football season, it is a bit disappointing that it now overshadows the september stretch and a bit of the playoffs.  i love the beginning of the playoffs when there's 3-4 games on in a day and it's stretched out all day.  the ALCS/NLCS seem to go slowly to me.

I always feel this way.

[El_Josharino]

Oh man guys, I just got home from a crazy road trip, drove from home (Omaha) to Atlanta, saw the Braves last 2 home games, then swung up to Pittsburgh and saw Braves/Pirates on Monday and Tuesday, and then hit Chicago for the Cubs/Astros at Wrigley on the last day of the season in probably one of the least relevant games ever played. Had a total blast, and as an added bonus I met Myke in Atlanta and saw his band play. Might go into more detail later, but holy crap, I might just try to go on a crazy stupid road trip like this every year.

[El_Josharino]

Also fuck yes to the A's. Would have been really really hilarious to have the play-in game be the Rangers/Yankees, but we'll see what happens.

[El_Josharino]

Hahaha, in further proof that Buck Showalter and the Orioles exist on a different plane than any logic, mathematics, or god, they're going to go ahead and start Joe Saunders for the most important game of the season...

[jebreject]

Isn't there a baseball thread at TNM yet?

[distance]

Isn't there a baseball thread at TNM yet?

maybe someone should make one in the music section on tnm so that the fantasy football thread doesn't feel lonely.

[distance]

clearly to avoid the nonsense of what happened in the braves/cards game, the wild card should actually be settled by a home run derby.  if it's good enough to decide home field advantage for the world series if the ASG is a tie, why not let it decide who gets into the playoffs?  anyone have bud selig's number?


oh also, since baltimore and texas had exactly the same record for the wildcard spot, wouldn't they have had a one game playoff anyway as under last year's rules?  kind of interesting if the second wildcard thing didn't actually change anything in the AL by chance.

[El_Josharino]

Whoa, is that true about the home run derby? I did not know that. But yeah, screw it, let's just make the whole thing as absurd as possible. Maybe a pass, punt and kick competition in case the home run derby also ends in a tie.
As a baseball fan, I think that ruling was absolutely ridiculous, and the fact that they played the game under protest even more so. In a situation like that, in the playoffs, there need to be MLB officials on standby to make a ruling immediately. And what would have taken less time than cleaning up all the trash that was thrown on the field would have been to have the umps watch a replay. I'd rather my favorite team finish last in their division every year than ever have to watch another playoff game like that between any teams.
As a Braves fan, I'm mostly irritated with the terrible defense that allowed 4 unearned runs. Without that, the infield fly situation isn't even relevant.