tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post3074847764977841139..comments2024-03-19T21:14:01.007-07:00Comments on The Compass Rose: We Wuz Robbed !!Curtis Favillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-63245332338979271152010-07-20T14:29:18.330-07:002010-07-20T14:29:18.330-07:00Baseball may be the most demanding sport of any US...Baseball may be the most demanding sport of any US pro sport, taken as a whole (in terms of skill, technique, finesse etc...) but that doesn't redeem the corporate aspects. The salaries are outrageous as are the ego's. The stadium construction involves massive slushbuckets and rackets as well. The owners' incomes and lifestyles are also outrageous.<br /><br />Really, reading the LA papers you'd think the entire economy depended on how the Dodgers and Angels were doing. I wager some downtown brokers base their trades on the pennant race (Dodgers lose, and your Chevron stock did too). <br /><br />Pro sports have become a type of monopoly really, generally exploiting the working class. That may seem like a bit of a generalization or overly didactic but ...that's the way it is. Any authentic progressive should oppose pro-sports of any and all types--not that I think much will change, until there are either brownshirts or communists--or both-- marching in the streets (as could happen, sooner than you think).Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-83378914470930480142010-07-20T13:57:50.148-07:002010-07-20T13:57:50.148-07:00Word above should be "myriad".Word above should be "myriad".Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-45475037739989736382010-07-20T13:56:59.551-07:002010-07-20T13:56:59.551-07:00Baseball has often been described as a thinking ma...Baseball has often been described as a thinking man's game.<br /><br />What fascinates me about it is the extraordinarily tight nature of the distances and speeds. A well-placed bunt will only work if the runner has real speed. A grounder to the short-stop will generally result in an out, but the slightest delay in fielding it can cost an out. Stealing bases depends upon the sheerest fractions of a second, and movements of the tag and slide. The slightest edge, by the runner, or by the pitcher's wind-up, can affect this timing. Hitting home runs involves impacts along the cylinder of the bat in increments of centimeters--the difference between a routine fly and a 360 foot blast. A miscalculation by the batter of the speed of the pitch can usually cause a miss, or poor contact.<br /><br />The game is wreathed in a myrias of statistical measures. Every event is categorized. Manager and players all use this information in calculating odds, leverage--"playing the percentages". <br /><br />I played baseball--but I'd still be fascinated if I'd never done so. Certain aspects of the game--throwing hard as pitchers do--is very stressful on the body. The casualty rate for major league pitchers is really very high--few of them have careers unmarked by medical issues.<br /><br />I've never thought of baseball as a "gladiatorial" sport. Football, maybe. Basketball has morphed into a different sport than originally conceived. It's a much faster and rougher sport than the way it used to be played, and most of the ordinary rules are routinely broken (double dribbling, shoving, body-blocking, dunk-hanging, etc.).Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-22549870441225225302010-07-20T13:37:50.772-07:002010-07-20T13:37:50.772-07:00While demanding greater coordination and technique...While demanding greater coordination and technique than bassetball, soccer or football, baseball's still fairly primitive, and ...boring frankly, even compared to, say, high-level tennis (the tennis business ain't great, but the top players are ...real athletes, not just thugs...tho' granted a few pitchers must have great technique...) . <br /><br />Pro-sports represent a fairly recent development, historically speaking. Perhaps an egghead (like yrself Sir F!) might interpret them as a resurgence of a pagan-like hysteria for gladiator events..if not blood sport (also seen in the craze for pro boxing, rasslin' etc). Gibbon at some point says something like that--when <a href="http://contingenciesblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/sports-hysteria-redux-football-is-game.html" rel="nofollow">sports hysteria</a> returns (along with...porno), the Empire's in danger. I'm not quite to Gibbon's POV, but something to keep in mind. <br /><br />Interestingly, quite a few "progressives" aka yankees (not the NY sort, but Bawstun) opposed the rise of college athletics (and pro) around the turn of the century, as with Charles Eliot (TSE's great uncle, ah believe): <a href="http://contingenciesblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/charles-eliot-contra-athletics-1906-or.html" rel="nofollow">Contra-athletics</a>.<br /><br />Imagine what Chas Eliot would think of NBA, NFL, MLB, NASCAR, boxing and...rasslin' 24/7. <br /><br /><i>RASSLIN'? Lemme tell ya about rasslin.</i>Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.com