Ask Grandstander

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by jtur88

Two-part question:L
1) Why does the World series start 13 days after the beginning of the 7-game LCS?
2) Where is there more likely to be a blizzard on November 1, Cleveland or Boston?

1) Safety valve in case LCS requires 13 games to settle.

2) I hav been wondering what would happen in they needed to play baseball in Denver in late October and now we will find out. They may have to move any Rockies homegames to Puerto Rico.

[jtur88]

Sorry about that, I re-edited my question, but you got in quickly to answer it.

[Grandstander]

jtur:
If weather conditions are unplayable, is it more likely that MLB will move all future World Series to a neutal site, like the super bowl, or back to October?
More likely that they would adjust the schedule than the venue. The neutrality of the Superbowl site has always been something which takes away from the game. However, it has been that way since the first Superbowl, so the fans are accustomed to it. Trying to promote that idea for baseball would generate a tremendous negative reaction because tradition has established that the games will be played in the home venues of the competitors. The psychological rules are different for things newly invented, and things long standing but now facing tampering.

[perfectstormhits]

Is that why New Coke failed?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by perfectstormhits

Is that why New Coke failed?

I believe so. Coke would have been a lot smarter to have simply made the changes to the higher fructose content without announcing it. I doubt that it would have been overtly noticed, but the enhanced sweetning would have had some addictive properties of its own and they could have recaptured some of the market that they were losing to Pepsi over a period of time. Instead they were impatient and went for the big splash approach, which failed badly.

[phenweigh]

I thought the Geico gecko had an Australian accent.

At the low point of the Korean Conflict, we were pushed back to the Pusan Perimeter. More recently, South Korea undertook at Romanization program to have consistent translations and Pusan became Busan. In deference to alliteration, should we now call it the Busan Boundary?

[Zen653]

Who is the best pre-1950s hitter whom few reasonably knowledgeable fans have ever heard of?

[perfectstormhits]

I have the following baseball card.

Should I unload it or keep it for the long haul?


PS- It's in better shape than this picture


1910 T206 Nap Lajoie (throwing) Cleveland HOF - (eBay item 220158556946 end time Oct-15-07 18:52:57 PDT)

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

I thought the Geico gecko had an Australian accent.

At the low point of the Korean Conflict, we were pushed back to the Pusan Perimeter. More recently, South Korea undertook at Romanization program to have consistent translations and Pusan became Busan. In deference to alliteration, should we now call it the Busan Boundary?

Busan Border is more snappy, but I do not understand why we are disqualifying Busan Perimeter. That was not one of the translation dispute words.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by Zen653

Who is the best pre-1950s hitter whom few reasonably knowledgeable fans have ever heard of?

Whichever player I select, all who have heard of him or are familiar with his career, will claim it's a poor selection on those grounds. And I could hardly argue with them......"Ug-uh, you haven't heard of him."

So rather than trying to meet what I think is impossibly vague criteria, I'll stay in the general area and offer Harry Heilmann as among, if not the most, neglected stars. He's way up there on the career batting average list at .342, he had a .403 season. He was the guy who started winning batting titles when Cobb stopped winning them. Harry won four and had ten seasons where he was in the league's top ten in OPS. In his peak value years, 1921-27, in OPS he finished 2nd, 5th, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd.

Heilmann of course was finally inducted into the HoF, but not until the Veteran's committee got around to it 20 years after he retired. That strikes me as rather odd.......Heilmann was not perceived as a Hall of Famer immediately after his career? Why? Heilmann is 12th on the all time career ba list, but at the time he retired he would have been 7th or 8th. Folks didn't think that was a HoF achievement?

There are a number of factors which have suppressed his fame. The most obvious was that he was the third outfielder on a team featuring Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford in the other two slots. The second is that his best years coincided exactly with the birth of the Babe Ruth homerun era and Heilman had only modest power. Ruth was the guy who was winning the OPS titles when Heilmann was the runner up. He was winning batting titles right at the time that people started shifting their views about the batting champion being the best hitter in the league. Lastly, Heilmann never got to play in the World Series.

[perfectstormhits]

I have the following baseball card.

1910 T206 Nap Lajoie (throwing) Cleveland HOF - (eBay item 220158556946 end time Oct-15-07 18:52:57 PDT)

Should I sell it or hang on to it for the long haul?

PS: My card is in better shape than the one pictured

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by perfectstormhits

I have the following baseball card.

1910 T206 Nap Lajoie (throwing) Cleveland HOF - (eBay item 220158556946 end time Oct-15-07 18:52:57 PDT)

Should I sell it or hang on to it for the long haul?

PS: My card is in better shape than the one pictured

1910? I think the long haul has already passed.

Sell.

[phenweigh]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Busan Border is more snappy, but I do not understand why we are disqualifying Busan Perimeter. That was not one of the translation dispute words.

I do not understand why you do not understand. Did you miss the part about deference to alliteration?

The old adage is that momentum in baseball only lasts until the next day's starting pitcher. Should somebody tell the Rockies?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

I do not understand why you do not understand. Did you miss the part about deference to alliteration?

The old adage is that momentum in baseball only lasts until the next day's starting pitcher. Should somebody tell the Rockies?

My apologies, you are exactly right, I did miss your caveat concerning alliteration. I'll have the responsible staffer flogged.

Momentum is really more of a sports writer/announcer concept than any sort of factor of substance. The people who are paid to comment on the games are under something of an obligation to create the most dramatic possible framework to enhance the competition as entertainment. Note how in a staged version of sports, pro wrestling, it is scripted so that the antagonists take momentum turns. One wrestler will have 100 % of the advantage for a time, the opponent will seem on his last legs, then he suddenly finds some uncommon reserve of energy and resolve and turns the tables....for a time, then it becomes the first guy's turn again and so forth.

Actual sports competition does not always arrange itself in these sorts of maximum drama patterns, thus the announcers must create the perception of it.

And that is where the concept of momentum having value gets its homage.

[phenweigh]

If you were ARod's agent, would you advise him to opt out of his contract?