Korean baseball league hoping to start up April 21. I wonder if any US network will show those games on tape , maybe some diehards will watch.
One of our cable sports channels has been showing the games of the 1992 and 1993 World Series, when the Toronto Blue Jays won each series. They’re not showing complete games; they’ve condensed each game down to 60 to 90 minutes of highlights, but plays and scoring are shown in the order they occurred. As a Jays fan, I’m having fun rewatching those Series.
On the radio here in Chicago, they’ve been running replays of every Cubs playoff game from 2016, one per night.
On the NBC Sports Chicago cable channel, tonight’s lineup features a 2005 White Sox game, and a 1996 Bulls playoff game.
Yesterday the Cleveland Indians’ local cable TV station replayed 1995 ALCS Indians v. Mariners game 6 when the Tribe won their first pennant in forever. It was especially interesting because they had the Mariners’ broadcast team calling the action. The must not have been able to find or get the rights to the Cleveland broadcast. 
Yes, Al Kaline.
My little league bat had his name stamped on it.
This rebroadcast of the 1995 Yankees\Mariners series is one of the best things I’ve heard in years. Names you’d totally forgotten about like Steve Howe and Vince Coleman. The shock of hearing how loud crowds were in both cities–I think the increasing cost of major league games has driven out the hardcore fans. How Yankee fans were so crazed they drove the Mariners off the field by throwing stuff on to the field. And best of all, hearing tons of legendary broadcaster Dave Niehaus is best of all. Wouldn’t it be great if stations swapped each others broadcasts. Hearing guys like Harry Carey, Vin Scully, and Ernie Harwell again would be the comfort food we need now.
Growing up in Michigan during Kaline’s heyday meant he was very special to me. Great hitter and terrific fielder, he always seemed to glide to where he had to be. Terrific broadcaster, the Kaline-Kell pairing was one of the best teams ever. I still think of him whenever I put those AlKaline batteries in anything.
Baseball looking at a plan to play all games around Phoenix using 10 spring training sites and Chase field. No fans would be allowed and players would be isolated in hotels. Might include doubleheaders of 7 inning games. Seems like a bad idea to me.
I think that’s just a function of using entirely different microphones. Modern stadiums are still tremendously loud in big games, but directional microphones are able to filter so much of that out so that the broadcast doesn’t sound like a mess.
Better than no baseball. Still, I’d think this is an option of last resort. There is still likely time to wait the crisis out and play half a season.
This just isn’t true. Crowds are as loud as they’ve ever been.
The **Kingdome **was a louder arena, acoustically at least.
Old Yankee Stadium sat more people and really was louder than the new one. I speak from experience. The new stadium really seats about 6000 less people. It just isn’t as loud as the old one. Probably just numbers but maybe a bit of a changed fan base.
The old stadium crowd was also a lot more in your face and obnoxious. The fan base has gotten tamer when the Yanks became the hottest ticket in town so more people were going for the experience rather than being die-hard fans. Also the seats closest to the field have really changed. You look and they are often a third empty. These are extremely expensive seats and have radically changed from as recently as the mid-90s fanbase.
So if there is no 2020 World Series, then they cannot ever come back right?
Joe Posnanski is finally done #2 on his top 100 ballpalyers list, and it’s Babe Ruth. That means Willie Mays is his #1.
He’s wrong - so wrong I cannot help but think he did it just to be controversial. Babe Ruth is the greatest player in the sports’ history. It’s not a particularly close call.
I’m a Mays fan so I am fine with him #1. Do you put Ruth at #1 because he was also a very good pitcher?
I agree, but at least he’s picking Mays who I do think should be #2.
Noticed Ruth batted a career .342 so I think that makes him better than Mays. Did not know his average was that high. Also his WAR is 182 vs. 150 for Mays.
Gosh, that’s one reason.
Ruth was the single most valuable player who ever played the game by any analytical measure. He was a terrific pitcher and a ridiculously great hitter.
He was one of the greatest World Series performers of all time; in 41 World Series games he batted .326 with 15 home runs, and he started three games and won them all, allowing 3 runs in 31 innings. He was a member of seven World Series winners; had they had a World Series MVP back then he would likely have won it at least two or three times.
Ruth was the most IMPORTANT ballplayer ever. He change the way baseball was played, changed the way baseball exists as a business. He turned around the fortunes of an entire franchise in the most important baseball market. He ushered in a new style of playing. He was a media sensation to an extent and in a manner never before seen and, to be honest, in the case of baseball, never seen since. He was analogous to Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky in their sports but he is actually more important; while Jordan and Gretzky hiked interest in their sports and were stupidly great players, they did not herald a change in the way their sports were played.
I mean, Willie Mays was a ludicrously awesome player and is a perfectly good #2 choice. He did not change the sport.
The only argument in favor of Mays - the only one - is timeline, that baseball in the 1950s and 1960s was a harder, more talented sport than in the 1920s. That’s literally true, but it’s useless as an argument. Baseball talent HAS gotten better over time, but that process has not stopped; it’s better now than it was in the 1960s, so it’s hard to see how Posnanski can use that to justify Mays over Ruth, but then turn around and conclude Mays is better than Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., or Randy Johnson.
It’s also inconsistent with his own list. If you go purely by how a guy was at the time without any adjustment, it’s true Ruth was playing against weaker competition than Mays. (I totally think that were he to be stuck in a time machine and brought to modern times Ruth would adapt in a few weeks and be a the best hitter in the game, but whatever) but okay; if we do that, why is Ruth #2? Why is he ahead of Hank Aaron? Surely he’d be behind Aaron and Bonds and a bunch of others? For that matter, why is Kid Nichols on the list at all? Pop Lloyd? Grover Cleveland Alexander? If you do not compare them to their peers those guys aren’t top 100 players; they certainly are if you DO compare them with their peers, so I think they’re fairly on the list.
I just don’t think any argument can be consistently applied that places Mays above Ruth. Granted, that’s just MHO.
Guys like Willie Mays, Barry Bonds or even Mark McGwire would have hit a 1000 home runs in the watered down, segregated, extremely limited competition of the 1920s. Half the pitchers were throwing 80 mph meatballs. There’s a reason we don’t have outliers like Ruth anymore: a skill level across the league that was unimaginable 100 years ago. Ruth wasn’t any where near the greatest player ever.
Baseball might divide teams this season by spring training locations , AZ and FL. I’m sure some people head’s will explode if this happens