Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts

October 30, 2026

Brewers at the Packers game.

MORE:

After that Lambeau Leap, how is Sal Frelick?

October 29, 2026

The radio announcers were much better — I know, Meade put them on some of the time — but they screw up the not-quite-live TV coverage.

Random lady not random at all.

Context:

October 28, 2026

"They came up big today. It's going to be hard.... It's when you're achieving something like this, it's going to have its adversity."

"You know, we had some things go our way yesterday. They had some things go their way this today. So that's the way it is. You just live with it. And if you're a competitor, you you wake up tomorrow morning, come ready to play. [Will the plan tomorrow be Misiorowski?] Yeah. And and to have that as, you know, your guy for this type of situation. Um Yeah. I mean, it's all hands on deck, you know, you just you can write it up and and hope that they perform like the best back of their baseball card, but that doesn't always happen, you know. So, you just you go with what you you believe is the the deal. And um you know, I trust our guys."

Pure baseball talk, from Brewers manager Pat Murphy, after last night's loss to the Rays.

"Just in case you forgot about the horrors of the world for half a second."

October 27, 2026

"So we had the privelege [sic] to watch one of the most amazing team performances in a World Series in history. And we wake up to see a summary of the game..."

"... and this is what we get? No offense to the author, but my goodness WaPo, what an embarrassment."

That's the top-rated comment on the main World Series article featured on the front page of The Washington Post. It's titled: "How a World Series team turns batting practice music into psychological warfare/The Milwaukee Brewers are famous for playing sleeping tunes during their opponents’ pregame sessions. So the Tampa Bay Rays came prepared."

And here's the last paragraph: "The World Series thus far has been tight, with the first two games, both Milwaukee wins, decided by a run apiece. The margins can come from anywhere, and the Rays’ chance to retaliate awaits. Game 3 begins at 8 p.m. in Tampa. But first, batting practice."

Here's the entire sports coverage on the front page, right now:
Game 3 has been over for more than 12 hours. It was quite something, 10 to 1, and nobody should be saying "The World Series thus far has been tight" at this point. But I get it. The Washington Post's sports coverage is for people who basically don't care about sports. So you get sports with music, sports with Paris, and sports with "short kings."

October 26, 2026

I thought the whole thing was a joke, but there really are stingrays on view — and available for touching — at Tropicana Field.

I don't approve. Leave animals alone. But isn't a stingray the beast that took out the Crocodile Hunter? I look a bit more closely at the truth/fiction of this special feature of the Rays' ballpark. These are not stingrays but cownose rays. Still, I would leave fish alone. (Yes, they are fish, cartilaginous fishes, like sharks. No bones!)

The Art of the Baseball.

I like this ArtButMakeItSports X account:
And look at that NYT "Connections" image.

October 25, 2026

He went.

October 23, 2026

The Brewers profess their love for the national anthem.

October 20, 2026

"If you're tired, go to sleep."

October 19, 2026

"I did everything wrong 5 times."

I was interested in that quote — "I did everything wrong 5 times" — not because I'm following the Brewers, though I am, but because — just 5 days ago — I was blogging about the positive side of wrongness.

After Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize, I started reading her book "Wrong Norma," and I wrote about her answer to the question, "Tell me about the 'wrongness' in the title of Wrong Norma." She said that in academia you always feel "that you’re wrong or on the verge of being wrong and you have to worry about that, because everything is so judgmental and hierarchical." And that's "kind of a mentality I was interested in disabling." It "loosens the mind" not to worry about being wrong: "you can go on to think other things or wider things or the things underneath where you were. It’s just suddenly a different landscape." 

Apply that to baseball.

October 18, 2026

"You just have a sense of... brotherhood."

Said Robert Gasser, a Brewers pitcher:

Texting that to Meade, I wrote "'brotherhood'/crystal blue persuasion/'There'll be peace and good — brotherhood.'"

He sent me this video of the song, and I said "I blogged that video in 2015." It was here: "The new Hillary catchphrase: 'Love trumps hate.'"

And I blogged about the song in 2006, describing what I'd just put in a podcast ("Audible Althouse #64," no longer on line):

October 16, 2026

"Unintimidated, undaunted, undeterred, they overwhelmed the Dodgers in every phase, outslugging their star-studded foes, countering every punch, perpetually pouring on pressure..."

"... and snatching the will of the defending champs, who couldn’t help but tip their caps afterward. 'No matter how much you win, these moments suck,' said Kikรฉ Hernรกndez. 'I've won a lot in my career, but I've also had a lot of these. They don't get easier. But they're playing unbelievable right now. Congrats to them. I hope that they end up winning it all. They're almost playing perfect baseball. That's a team that's incredibly hungry and incredibly talented. Their pitching was lights out. Their offense was almost suffocating.'"


The view from the winning side: 

AND: A pithy graphic:

October 15, 2026

Why we're rooting for Cleveland to win the American League Championship Series.

We like the idea of the Edmund Fitzgerald World Series. It's like a "subway series," but the geographic link is the Great Lakes:

Things to do on a rainy night in Wisconsin.

Compare the fans in L.A.

October 13, 2026

"Down 0-2 in the National League Championship Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers are going to consider the unfathomable... benching superstar Shohei Ohtani."

"'Yeah, I mean, obviously it hasn’t been good,' manager Dave Roberts told The Athletic on Monday, after the Dodgers’ 7-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 2. 'He doesn’t feel great. I think for me, it’s having a conversation with him tomorrow, kind of try to figure out what’s best for him, what’s best for us'..... Ohtani’s at-bats have been unrecognizable. Throughout October, a clearly compromised Ohtani has been getting beat on fastballs, and he’s rarely pulling the ball or hitting it hard.... He has attempted to shorten his swing and slap balls the other way.... In Game 2, Ohtani went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.... A clear sign of how uncomfortable Ohtani is at the plate? Leading off the sixth against Brewers left-handed reliever JoJo Romero, Ohtani showed bunt...."


Top comment at the NYT: "Whole country rooting for the Brewers right now."

October 9, 2026

"Man, that Fanta tastes fantastic."


That non-drinking is not because he's underage. He's young but not that young. 22. 

Pratt says he couldn't find "sparkling cider" — that's the classic Mormon substitute for champagne. 

October 7, 2026

"God damn it Merrill."

October 5, 2026

"Magical and electric."


And here's what he — Sal Frelick — did, scoring the winning run: