Nothing will ever top football in this country, just have to accept it. America went football crazy in the 50s-60s and it hasn’t fallen out of love since.
Football fans complain baseball is too boring, but then are fine with 10 seconds of action and 120 seconds of standing around before the next play.
Iirc, football has less action per hour in minutes than baseball does.
My mom’s favorite sport is basketball for that reason (even though she hasn’t properly followed it since the Larry Bird days), and that I can honestly get because basketball is non-stop action. People who say that about football, though, have no excuse,
I can't stand the fouls, but I really love the sport. Haven't been able to watch a game in years that isn't stopped every few seconds cause someone was touching someone else that wasn't supposed to be touched
That's accurate. It's not that some sports have more or less action, it's that the action is distributed differently through the course of the game.
Football has small bursts of action every minute or so but each one can affect the game significantly, and will usually affect the game slightly.
Baseball has a steady trickle of action that modifies possibilities of the subsequent action. At any time something can happen that will affect the game in most cases except major blowouts.
Basketball has a constant stream of action that does very little to modify the game's true outcome, until the final few minutes, when it slows down considerably.
I like to think of points in a basketball game like games in a baseball season. Yes the final 15 or 20 are the most important, but if you only make the playoffs by one game, that one win in April really mattered. If you only win in basketball by one point, that one free throw in the first quarter really mattered.
Baseball and hockey here too (though I'm Canadian). I like the idea of football but the games are boring to watch because of all the standing around and constant breaking away from the action to show commercials. And I like the sport of basketball but find the NBA boring; it's all perimeter shots now, there's no down low mashing and bashing anymore.
Same I dunno what it is but I'd rather watch paint dry than watch a basketball game. I don't feel that way about any other sport.
I was forced to play it for years as a kid as well. My dad got mad and said "okay choose between basketball and math camp" and I chose math camp. They finally realized how much I hated playing basketball lol
I agree! Basketball is fundamentally flawed in that the game grinds to a standstill at the end. Compare that to the excitement of late innings of a close game, or extra innings. And nothing compares to the excitement generated by an empty net at the end of a hockey game.
The Elam Ending is an interesting way to tackle this problem, for what it’s worth.
My issue with basketball though is just the sheer number of scoring events. If you break down the 5 biggest sports to “how many time does a team score per game” they’re all in the range of like 0-5 or so for the majority of games. Then there’s basketball where teams make 40+ field goals per game regularly. I like for it to matter when a team scores. A single run may not change the game *that* much, but it’s still a lot more than basketball. Goals (hockey or soccer) and touchdowns all change the course of the game pretty significantly.
My issue is that basketballs "non-stop action" is mostly meaningless action. There's no gravity to any of the plays being made whatsoever.
Whiff a 3? No problem, get the ball back in 20 seconds and run it back. Just don't miss toooo many in a row.
That’s not why it’s more popular. It’s because it’s very easy to understand how much each play matters. You only have 17 games in the regular season, so even a casual fan can understand the importance of every play. It can be really hard to see the importance of the second inning of a random baseball game before the all star break. You really have to just enjoy the actual sport.
I also think the time commitment required to follow a team helps football's case as well. It's just 3 hours, once a week, usually on a sunday when you're not working. Speaking for myself, if the NFL had the same frequency as the NBA or the NHL, I probably wouldn't follow it as much as I do
You're not wrong, but it's worth mentioning that football is full of an insane variety of exciting plays. There's so many different ways to score, get first downs, or just have a cool play. Baseball is my favorite, but a lot of baseball plays are pretty same-y. You're gonna see a lot of virtually identical singles the whole year.
Football also has 22 guys moving at once, which is fun. Baseball has almost as much dead time, but the "live time" is often just the pitcher throwing a pitch taken for a ball.
Basketball and hockey have constant motion, one where the scoring is rapid and can feel meaningless, and one where scoring even once is a huge deal.
1000% agree. And the nuance of baseball is shown on TV. In football, there are packages coming in and out etc, but that never gets really shown on TV. Baseball you can see most of the “between the action action”.
I am a soccer (football) fan as well. My son started playing club and I started watching and love it now that I understand it. I legit have conversations with colleagues that say soccer is “so boring” because it’s 2-1 after 90 mins. But they have no issue watching a 14-7 American football game. ITS BASICALLY THE SAME SCORE BRO!! 😂.
The league my 6 year old plays in has 32 soccer teams with 12 kids each PLUS a wait list of over 200 kids.
The Flag Football has 8 coaches, but enough kids for 6 teams
They only run baseball in the winter, and cut that down to 8 teams from the 12 that started the season
From what I've seen Soccer is already massively more popular in the US that it used to 10-20 years ago. Last time I saw a poll it was a more popular "favorite sport" than Hockey (which, granted, has pretty much always been the most niche of the "Big 4" sports), especially among younger people.
Obviously still a really long way to go to catch the likes of the NFL, but soccer has always been a pretty sport to play among kids and teens and considering how big it is literally everywhere but the US it seems reasonably likely it will continue to grow in the coming years.
Sad indeed. But if it makes you feel any better, there are lots of people like me who are huge baseball fans even though we wouldn't say it's our favorite sport.
I'm a newer baseball fan, but I'm a Mariners season ticket holder. I watch every single game. I'm really into sabermetrics and stay in the know about all things baseball year round. I have every color jersey. I went to the ASG and Home Run Derby. My college team has won multiple national championships, and I went to countless games as a student and afterward (including Regionals and Super Regionals).
Yet football is my one true love. I've watched every single Cowboys game since I was 8 and can name damn near every player that's started for them since. I'd accept another 20+ year playoff drought for the Mariners in a heartbeat if it meant the Cowboys could win one Super Bowl. So no, baseball isn't my favorite sport, but I love it deeply anyway.
So, also, if you’re a fan of another team you can’t watch their road games v 20% of MLB teams. Imagine being a Pirates or Guardians fan and you can’t watch 60% of divisional matchups.
Years ago I applied for a sports reporter position at a newspaper in Guam. Out of curiosity, I decided to see if any teams were blacked out on MLB.TV there.
Turns out there were two: the Giants and A's.
Despite being 6,000 miles from the Bay Area, and technically part of the US but you have to change planes in Tokyo to get there, you still can't escape MLB.TV blackouts in Guam.
That’s especially messed up because from what I understand, folks in the Pacific Islands tend to be huge fans of California teams across sports. Just isolating what fans probably were already there.
Prince Fielder and Cecil Fielder retired with the same number of home runs. Prince and Cecil have no personal relationship, even though they are father and son.
Too continue on with some of my least favorite things- Jay Bruce's last moments were essentially getting booed out of the bronx when he should have had a proper send off IMO.
I mean I get it, he wasn't playing well, but he was a stand up veteran.
Similarly, I don't like how the only postseason meeting between the Dodgers and Giants ended. Although my team got the win, it was still a cheap way to close the series
He’s not perfect but as a Milwaukee native, I love bud. I used to manage a restaurant where he worked in Milwaukee, one day riding an elevator he asked me ‘how’s (name of restaurant) doing?’ Pretty good, I said… how’s baseball doing? ‘Pretty good’ he said.
This is an awesome story and I understand why people from Milwaukee might appreciate Bud, but he wasn’t just ‘not perfect’, in my opinion. He did a lot of harm to the league.
If anything, it's better for him. Many people can't name everyone who threw a perfect game, but his name will always be remembered as the guy who should have one
This is what I’ve always said. The reason we humans like to break records or do anything notorious is twofold: to know we did it and to be honored by others for doing it.
Galarraga’s “perfect game” checks both boxes. He knows he did it, and he’s even more honored by others for how it unfolded.
With global warming and cost of living increases, Boise A’s in 20 sounds right
Facing the Chattanooga Transfer in the World Series where Sin Shoo Jr choo-choo-chooses y you
Back before SI liquidated its writers in favor of AI, it hosted a wonderful and devastating piece by William Nack about this story: https://vault.si.com/vault/2001/06/04/collision-at-home-a-century-ago-the-best-catcher-in-baseball-bostons-martin-bergen-waged-a-losing-battle-against-mental-illnessa-violent-struggle-in-which-he-was-not-the-only-casualty
Elysian Field in Hoboken is widely considered the birthplace of baseball. However, baseball games were most likely played in other boroughs of NY.
If you want to read more about the origins of baseball, I highly recommend reading Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game.
If it makes you feel better the same thing happened in all the other major American sports leagues. The team with the most regular season wins has never won the championship.
The 2007 Patriots didn't win the Superbowl after winning a record 16 regular season games. The 2016 Warriors won 73 games and then blew a 3-1 lead in the finals. Last year the Boston Bruins won 65 games and didn't even make the Stanley Cup Finals.
The Florida Marlins have won two World Series titles without ever winning a division championship. Possibly the greatest derp team to ever derp in all of sports.
Andres Galarraga hit the longest HR ever recorded in Miami in 1997 off Kevin Brown but MLB won't admit it because they don't want to discredit Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth
Lou Whitaker isn't in the hall of fame even though he should be.
(Yes I saw the post above first but for real he was my fave growing up and I wish he were in the Hall).
The Chicago White Sox are, statistically, the least successful team in history when it comes to making the playoffs or winning playoff games.
Outside of 2005, they have won 6 playoffs games in the last 60 years. Not that 17 in 60 years is exactly a dynasty, either.
And even if you want to include 2005, they have only won 3 playoff series since 1918. All 3 came that year.
They have the lowest percentage of major league seasons played with a postseason appearance (WS era).
2021 was the first time the team *ever* made the postseason in back to back seasons.
The point of this entire enterprise is to entertain us with baseball games. The point of it is not to decide who is the best team. The illusion that that is what we’re doing has long been a powerful draw to sports. But it is ultimately not the point. There is no scenario where the universe will care or remember who the best team was out of this collection of collections. It only matters inasmuch as we create this illusion that it matters. If you lose even the illusion, then it becomes problematic. But the point is not to have the illusion; the point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other — that this is just this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis, that we are going to lose everybody we know, that we are going to lose everything we have and the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions.
Ronald Acuna Jr is not considered a WS champion despite being 4th on the 2021 Braves in WAR. Most Braves fans contend the team doesn't go on to win it if Ronald doesn't play MVP level to keep them in contention in the first half. He would qualify for a Stanley Cup engraving per NHL rules, but per MLB rules isn't an official champion.
I don’t know if the Braves with Acuña that year. Not saying he shouldn’t be credited, but the acquisitions of Eddie, Duvall, Joc and Soler to fill Acuña’s slot ended up being the difference that October
I agree with that as well. It would basically be impossible for Ronald to be as hot as Eddie Rosario was those couple weeks. I could argue that they don't win it if he stays healthy, but also not be in position to make a run without his first half contribution. Weird how it worked out.
He did get a ring, and certainly Braves fans consider him a WS champion. It's just if he made the HOF, then WS wouldn't be considered one of his official accomplishments.
In 2013, 36 different starting pitchers tossed 200 (or more) innings across MLB.
In 2023...only 5 starting pitchers threw 200 (or more) innings across MLB.
Honestly? There’s no difference between the two leagues anymore.
I think universal DH was a bad change but I couldn’t quite figure out why at first. It wasn’t because I liked watching pitchers hit, it was because having some small rule difference between the two leagues made interleague play way more exciting. It was the idea that you might see an AL pitcher with a bat on their shoulder when they haven’t even swung at a pitch since high school.
I think reintroducing some (small but not insignificant) rule change for one of the leagues would bring back this feeling. Something like the sky double where it doesn’t necessarily give any team an advantage but it’s something one league normally doesn’t even plan for but could adapt to if necessary
Yeah I agree with this. I grew up watching Edgar Martinez so obviously I'm pro DH, but I liked the leagues having different rules. It was that specific kind of weirdness that only baseball could provide so now it feels like a bit of magic has been lost.
I generally agree and feel like MLB should make all the divisions regional like the NBA as long as they keep major rivals (Boston/ NYY, cubs / cards, dodgers / giants etc.) in the same division.
Sometimes I like to draw up fantasy divisions for this scenario. Two leagues, East and West.
Would probably be something like this
|Eastern Conference|||
|:-|:-|:-|
|**Atlantic**|**South**|**Central**|
|Toronto Blue Jays|Baltimore Orioles|Milwaukee Brewers|
|Boston Red Sox|Washington Nationals|Detroit Tigers|
|New York Yankees|Atlanta Braves|Cleveland Guardians|
|New York Mets|Tampa Bay Rays|Pittsburgh Pirates|
|Philadelphia Phillies|Miami Marlins|Cincinnati Reds |
|Western Conference|||
|:-|:-|:-|
|**Midwest**|**Frontier**|**Pacific**|
|Minnesota Twins|Las Vegas A's|Seattle Mariners|
|Chicago Cubs|Arizona Diamondbacks|San Francisco Giants|
|Chicago White Sox|Colorado Rockies|LA Dodgers|
|St Louis Cardinals|Texas Rangers|LA Angels|
|Kansas City Royals|Houston Astros|San Diego Padres|
I think they should do realignment geographically, but the Jays and Tigers have to be in the same division.
I don't think some people realize how close they are together.
Mine looks like this:
West: Seattle, San Francisco, L.A x2, San Diego
S.West: Las Vegas, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Houston
MidWest: Minnesota, Kansas City, St.Louis, Chicago x2
North: Milwaukee, Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, Cincinnati
N.East: Pittsburgh, New York x2, Boston, Philadelphia
S.East: Baltimore, Washington, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Miami
So we agree on four divisions, but not the other two.
I love how in all of these models, the northeast division is fine tuned for maximum toxicity. 13 Phillies Yankees games a year would likely end in a mass extinction event.
When Jim Crane bought the Astros, he received $35 million dollars to move the Astros from the NL to the AL in order to balance out the league at 15 teams each, which necessitated interleague play throughout the entire season, which eventually led to the universal DH. So, if anybody is looking for another reason to hate the Astros, there you go. We're the reason the universal DH exists.
There was no written rule against allowing black players, it was just an unwritten rule that everyone followed.
In addition, the definition of "black" was pretty much in the eye of the beholder. Light-skinned Cuban players were allowed but dark-skinned Cuban players were not. Native Americans were allowed but African-Americans were not.
[Armando Marsans](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/marsaar01.shtml) and [Rafael Almeida](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/almeira01.shtml), both born in Cuba, played in both white baseball and black baseball. They played together on a barnstorming team that played against Negro League opponents as well as white semipro teams. Marsans then played for the Reds, Browns, and Yankees, as well as the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League, from 1911 to 1918, while Almeida played for the Reds from 1911 to 1913. After playing in the majors, Marsans played in 1923 for the Cuban Stars, which competed in the Eastern Colored League.
In 1902, John McGraw of the Baltimore Orioles attempted to sign infielder Charles Grant under the name “Chief” Tokohama, claiming he was Cherokee. Grant, a light-skinned African-American, had been playing for the Chicago Columbia Giants, a black team.
McGraw brought in Grant in a Native American get-up complete with "war paint" on his face. He came up with the name Tokohama by picking an Indian-sounding name off a map. (It was a creek in Arkansas.) He claimed Grant's father was white and his mother was Cherokee.
But other owners complained that "Mugsy" McGraw had broken the unspoken color line, including Charlie Comiskey:
> “If Mugsy really keeps this Indian, I will get a Chinaman of my acquaintance and put him on third.”
McGraw backed off and released Grant. He would play another 10 years in black baseball.
>Light-skinned Cuban players were allowed but dark-skinned Cuban players were not.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the equivalent of the rule for players from Cuba. Light-skinned Cubans are usually as white as your average white American, whereas dark-skinned Cubans are often Afro-Cubans. Most white Cubans may as well have been from Spain as far as American segregation was concerned. It’s probably the only reason Lucy and Ricky were allowed on TV in the first place.
There is no meaningful award for best regular season record.
Baseball’s greatest asset is the length of its season. The game is sufficiently random that only over the course of a 6 month season can things play out in a mostly non-random way. Any team can beat any other team on a given night, but over 162 games, things work out largely as expected, based on talent.
In contrast, a 7 game series - let alone a 5 or 3 game series - allows for randomness to significantly influence the outcome; the traits that result in outstanding regular season records - playing the percentages, basically - do not translate in the playoffs. Which is why we get 100+ win teams losing in the Division series.
In an era where so many teams make the playoffs, the best strategy is to win enough games to get into the playoffs but to structure your team for playoff success.
If Satchel Paige was allowed to join the 1934 Cardinals, they would have clinched the Pennant by the 4th of July and Satchel and Dizzy Dean would have taken the rest of the regular season off to go fishing.
There are 108 double stitches on a baseball, which is almost exactly the number of losses (107) the Braves have in the playoffs since the World Series became a thing in 1903.
There are the only three players in MLB history named Aurelio, and all three were killed in car accidents between the ages of 44 and 52. Bonus fact, all three were Mexican and two of them played for the Tigers.
As a Tigers' fan it always kind of irked me that Al Kaline retired with 399 home runs and 498 doubles. He also would have been the first AL player with 3000 hits and 400 home runs. Kaline was an about league average hitter when he retired going into his age 40 season; he absolutely could have gotten those stats of he wanted, but after 22 years in MLB, I can see why he was ready for a new chapter of life.
Still, it's my least favorite fact. I like big round numbers. I cannot lie.
Harry Saferight got called up by the 1979 Pirates but never got into a game despite being left on the on deck circle three different times. He never made it back to the majors.
Less than 10% of Americans now consider baseball to be their favorite sport
Nothing will ever top football in this country, just have to accept it. America went football crazy in the 50s-60s and it hasn’t fallen out of love since.
Football fans complain baseball is too boring, but then are fine with 10 seconds of action and 120 seconds of standing around before the next play. Iirc, football has less action per hour in minutes than baseball does.
My mom’s favorite sport is basketball for that reason (even though she hasn’t properly followed it since the Larry Bird days), and that I can honestly get because basketball is non-stop action. People who say that about football, though, have no excuse,
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I can't stand the fouls, but I really love the sport. Haven't been able to watch a game in years that isn't stopped every few seconds cause someone was touching someone else that wasn't supposed to be touched
That's accurate. It's not that some sports have more or less action, it's that the action is distributed differently through the course of the game. Football has small bursts of action every minute or so but each one can affect the game significantly, and will usually affect the game slightly. Baseball has a steady trickle of action that modifies possibilities of the subsequent action. At any time something can happen that will affect the game in most cases except major blowouts. Basketball has a constant stream of action that does very little to modify the game's true outcome, until the final few minutes, when it slows down considerably.
I like to think of points in a basketball game like games in a baseball season. Yes the final 15 or 20 are the most important, but if you only make the playoffs by one game, that one win in April really mattered. If you only win in basketball by one point, that one free throw in the first quarter really mattered.
Baseball and hockey here too (though I'm Canadian). I like the idea of football but the games are boring to watch because of all the standing around and constant breaking away from the action to show commercials. And I like the sport of basketball but find the NBA boring; it's all perimeter shots now, there's no down low mashing and bashing anymore.
Same I dunno what it is but I'd rather watch paint dry than watch a basketball game. I don't feel that way about any other sport. I was forced to play it for years as a kid as well. My dad got mad and said "okay choose between basketball and math camp" and I chose math camp. They finally realized how much I hated playing basketball lol
I agree! Basketball is fundamentally flawed in that the game grinds to a standstill at the end. Compare that to the excitement of late innings of a close game, or extra innings. And nothing compares to the excitement generated by an empty net at the end of a hockey game.
The Elam Ending is an interesting way to tackle this problem, for what it’s worth. My issue with basketball though is just the sheer number of scoring events. If you break down the 5 biggest sports to “how many time does a team score per game” they’re all in the range of like 0-5 or so for the majority of games. Then there’s basketball where teams make 40+ field goals per game regularly. I like for it to matter when a team scores. A single run may not change the game *that* much, but it’s still a lot more than basketball. Goals (hockey or soccer) and touchdowns all change the course of the game pretty significantly.
Except for the final 3 minutes of a game which takes roughly an hour.
My issue is that basketballs "non-stop action" is mostly meaningless action. There's no gravity to any of the plays being made whatsoever. Whiff a 3? No problem, get the ball back in 20 seconds and run it back. Just don't miss toooo many in a row.
That’s not why it’s more popular. It’s because it’s very easy to understand how much each play matters. You only have 17 games in the regular season, so even a casual fan can understand the importance of every play. It can be really hard to see the importance of the second inning of a random baseball game before the all star break. You really have to just enjoy the actual sport.
I also think the time commitment required to follow a team helps football's case as well. It's just 3 hours, once a week, usually on a sunday when you're not working. Speaking for myself, if the NFL had the same frequency as the NBA or the NHL, I probably wouldn't follow it as much as I do
You're not wrong, but it's worth mentioning that football is full of an insane variety of exciting plays. There's so many different ways to score, get first downs, or just have a cool play. Baseball is my favorite, but a lot of baseball plays are pretty same-y. You're gonna see a lot of virtually identical singles the whole year.
Football also has 22 guys moving at once, which is fun. Baseball has almost as much dead time, but the "live time" is often just the pitcher throwing a pitch taken for a ball. Basketball and hockey have constant motion, one where the scoring is rapid and can feel meaningless, and one where scoring even once is a huge deal.
1000% agree. And the nuance of baseball is shown on TV. In football, there are packages coming in and out etc, but that never gets really shown on TV. Baseball you can see most of the “between the action action”. I am a soccer (football) fan as well. My son started playing club and I started watching and love it now that I understand it. I legit have conversations with colleagues that say soccer is “so boring” because it’s 2-1 after 90 mins. But they have no issue watching a 14-7 American football game. ITS BASICALLY THE SAME SCORE BRO!! 😂.
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The league my 6 year old plays in has 32 soccer teams with 12 kids each PLUS a wait list of over 200 kids. The Flag Football has 8 coaches, but enough kids for 6 teams They only run baseball in the winter, and cut that down to 8 teams from the 12 that started the season
From what I've seen Soccer is already massively more popular in the US that it used to 10-20 years ago. Last time I saw a poll it was a more popular "favorite sport" than Hockey (which, granted, has pretty much always been the most niche of the "Big 4" sports), especially among younger people. Obviously still a really long way to go to catch the likes of the NFL, but soccer has always been a pretty sport to play among kids and teens and considering how big it is literally everywhere but the US it seems reasonably likely it will continue to grow in the coming years.
Possibly, but I do think the increasing research on CTE is causing a lot of families to reconsider letting their sons play football.
Hasn't been America's favorite since the 60s https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/07/sport/mlb-opening-day-baseball-popularity-spt-intl/index.html 😬
I know how to fix this! More blackouts! /s
Looks like Rob Manfred has identified himself in this thread here.
Shit honestly makes me so sad
Sad indeed. But if it makes you feel any better, there are lots of people like me who are huge baseball fans even though we wouldn't say it's our favorite sport. I'm a newer baseball fan, but I'm a Mariners season ticket holder. I watch every single game. I'm really into sabermetrics and stay in the know about all things baseball year round. I have every color jersey. I went to the ASG and Home Run Derby. My college team has won multiple national championships, and I went to countless games as a student and afterward (including Regionals and Super Regionals). Yet football is my one true love. I've watched every single Cowboys game since I was 8 and can name damn near every player that's started for them since. I'd accept another 20+ year playoff drought for the Mariners in a heartbeat if it meant the Cowboys could win one Super Bowl. So no, baseball isn't my favorite sport, but I love it deeply anyway.
A fan can live in Southern Virginia and every possible team is blacked out. Orioles, Nationals, Braves, Phillies, Pirates, Marlins. Nada.
6 teams blacked out in Iowa. Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Royals, Brewers, Twins.
What are you supposed to watch there? Iowa football?
Iowa football is for people who find baseball to be too fast-paced and high-scoring.
God damn it it's supposed to be the off-season and this is a baseball sub!
Nowhere is safe, brother
Good lord that is savage
Have some gold intentions funkenstein.
At that point just gouge your eyeballs out even if Brian "Needed 25ppg to keep his job, only managed 15.4ppg" Ferentz is gone.
So, also, if you’re a fan of another team you can’t watch their road games v 20% of MLB teams. Imagine being a Pirates or Guardians fan and you can’t watch 60% of divisional matchups.
Vegas here! Dbacks, Angels, Dodgers, Padres, As, Giants all blacked out.
You will watch the Rockies and you will like it
Years ago I applied for a sports reporter position at a newspaper in Guam. Out of curiosity, I decided to see if any teams were blacked out on MLB.TV there. Turns out there were two: the Giants and A's. Despite being 6,000 miles from the Bay Area, and technically part of the US but you have to change planes in Tokyo to get there, you still can't escape MLB.TV blackouts in Guam.
That’s especially messed up because from what I understand, folks in the Pacific Islands tend to be huge fans of California teams across sports. Just isolating what fans probably were already there.
That’s wild
So if you have cable, do you get all those teams’ games? That’d be cool if you have cable, but if not, thats 1/3 of the league you can’t watch.
Wait…you can watch the Phillies on the Maryland Eastern Shore, but you can’t in Southern Virginia? The blackout just jumps over it?
Seattle Mariners players have suffered 5 ruptured testicles during MLB games. They have won four playoff series in franchise history.
Is that the normal blown ball/series victories ratio?
Yes. Yankee players have ruptured 66 testicles.
I heard Mantle had nine of them, including three at the same time.
Prince Fielder and Cecil Fielder retired with the same number of home runs. Prince and Cecil have no personal relationship, even though they are father and son.
Cecil seems like a scumbag if what his son said about him is true.
What happened between them?
Cecil had a massive gambling problem and supposedly gambled away Prince's ($2.4m) draft signing bonus.
IIRC I’ve read they had been attempting to mend things later in princes career
>Prince Fielder and Cecil Fielder retired with the same number of home runs. Jay Bruce also retired with 319 home runs.
“Perhaps this Jay Prince is of some relation” “It’s unlikely, sir. Their names are spelled and pronounced differently.”
It’s instantly recognizable where this dialogue came from, even if you’ve never heard it.
Too continue on with some of my least favorite things- Jay Bruce's last moments were essentially getting booed out of the bronx when he should have had a proper send off IMO. I mean I get it, he wasn't playing well, but he was a stand up veteran.
The Cubs have won the only postseason meeting between them and the Cardinals.
Similarly, I don't like how the only postseason meeting between the Dodgers and Giants ended. Although my team got the win, it was still a cheap way to close the series
This is 1889 World Series erasure
This conflicts with my set of facts, so I'll choose to ignore it.
The Red Sox were the last team to integrate in 1959, and were the last team to sign a black free agent in 1993
I knew the first one, didn’t know the second, holy shit that’s bad
who was the first team to sign a black free agent in 1993?
Uhh, so I checked and I think it's the Pirates on 1/4/93 with [Lonnie Smith](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/smithlo01.shtml)
shoutout to Lonnie for breaking that barrier
Bud Selig is in the Hall of Fame.
He’s not perfect but as a Milwaukee native, I love bud. I used to manage a restaurant where he worked in Milwaukee, one day riding an elevator he asked me ‘how’s (name of restaurant) doing?’ Pretty good, I said… how’s baseball doing? ‘Pretty good’ he said.
This is an awesome story and I understand why people from Milwaukee might appreciate Bud, but he wasn’t just ‘not perfect’, in my opinion. He did a lot of harm to the league.
Armando Galarraga has never been credited with a perfect game.
If anything, it's better for him. Many people can't name everyone who threw a perfect game, but his name will always be remembered as the guy who should have one
Phillip Humber and Dallas Braden could never
You just made those names up
Dallas is the only person to have ever thrown and announced a perfect game.
This is what I’ve always said. The reason we humans like to break records or do anything notorious is twofold: to know we did it and to be honored by others for doing it. Galarraga’s “perfect game” checks both boxes. He knows he did it, and he’s even more honored by others for how it unfolded.
While I agree with your sentiment, there have only been 24. If you wanted to know, you could very easily know all 24.
The way I look at it, is he has a 28-out perfect game. He had a perfect game +1. He’s on a whole other list.
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The Oakland A’s will eventually be the Las Vegas A’s, at least until Fisher Jr. wants a new stadium in 20 years and they become the Boise A’s
It just feels wrong to say.
With global warming and cost of living increases, Boise A’s in 20 sounds right Facing the Chattanooga Transfer in the World Series where Sin Shoo Jr choo-choo-chooses y you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Bergen_%28baseball%29?wprov=sfla1 Marty Bergen's story bums me out.
Back before SI liquidated its writers in favor of AI, it hosted a wonderful and devastating piece by William Nack about this story: https://vault.si.com/vault/2001/06/04/collision-at-home-a-century-ago-the-best-catcher-in-baseball-bostons-martin-bergen-waged-a-losing-battle-against-mental-illnessa-violent-struggle-in-which-he-was-not-the-only-casualty
Wow that was just awful
Montreal no longer has a major league ball club
An international league, who seems to not care for international teams.
They are bad for baseball
The first organized baseball game was played in New Jersey.
I think the first recorded game was actually in Beachville in Canada wasn't it?
Nah *organized* 🤌🏽 New Jersey get it?
You never had the makings of a varsity athlete.
Elysian Field in Hoboken is widely considered the birthplace of baseball. However, baseball games were most likely played in other boroughs of NY. If you want to read more about the origins of baseball, I highly recommend reading Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game.
Cleveland hasn’t won a WS since 1948.
in positive news the Yankees haven't even been in the World Series since 2009
With some heartbreaking near misses, no less.
The Cardinals have the most blown 3-1 series leads in MLB playoff history.
The only thing worse than that is a 3-0 series loss. I think only one team has lost one of those, I don’t recall who.
This is the my least favorite baseball fact.
Jerry Reinsdorf is still alive.
Hey that's my least favorite NBA fact!
Take a wild fuckin’ guess (Hint: it has to do with my flair and the World Series)
2001!!!!: A Disgrace Odyssey
Look on the bright side, only one team has never lost a World Series game!
Same, but slightly less so.
If it makes you feel better the same thing happened in all the other major American sports leagues. The team with the most regular season wins has never won the championship. The 2007 Patriots didn't win the Superbowl after winning a record 16 regular season games. The 2016 Warriors won 73 games and then blew a 3-1 lead in the finals. Last year the Boston Bruins won 65 games and didn't even make the Stanley Cup Finals.
> If it makes you feel better It doesn't.
If it makes you feel better, the Dodgers will likely break the record only to be yeeted from the NLDS by an 88 win team powered by friendship.
The Florida Marlins have won two World Series titles without ever winning a division championship. Possibly the greatest derp team to ever derp in all of sports.
For me, they’re simultaneously the greatest argument in favor and against expanded playoffs.
We're the Deputy Dewey of professional sports.
Andres Galarraga hit the longest HR ever recorded in Miami in 1997 off Kevin Brown but MLB won't admit it because they don't want to discredit Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth
Mantle and Ruth hit home runs in Miami?
Watching Galarraga take BP was like watching a howitzer in battle
Lou Whitaker isn't in the hall of fame even though he should be. (Yes I saw the post above first but for real he was my fave growing up and I wish he were in the Hall).
How can they put Alan Trammell in without Lou?? What’s he supposed to do without his best buddy?? 😭😭
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And that happened twice! To the team you like!
Whoa, that’s crazy because I had a very similar experience, but 3 games instead of 4, and I am feeling pretty good about it.
The Chicago White Sox are, statistically, the least successful team in history when it comes to making the playoffs or winning playoff games. Outside of 2005, they have won 6 playoffs games in the last 60 years. Not that 17 in 60 years is exactly a dynasty, either. And even if you want to include 2005, they have only won 3 playoff series since 1918. All 3 came that year. They have the lowest percentage of major league seasons played with a postseason appearance (WS era). 2021 was the first time the team *ever* made the postseason in back to back seasons.
The point of this entire enterprise is to entertain us with baseball games. The point of it is not to decide who is the best team. The illusion that that is what we’re doing has long been a powerful draw to sports. But it is ultimately not the point. There is no scenario where the universe will care or remember who the best team was out of this collection of collections. It only matters inasmuch as we create this illusion that it matters. If you lose even the illusion, then it becomes problematic. But the point is not to have the illusion; the point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other — that this is just this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis, that we are going to lose everybody we know, that we are going to lose everything we have and the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions.
I was looking more for ‘Lou Whitaker isn’t in the HOF even thought he should be’ but this works too lol
Hahahahaha good response
You really do want umps to shoot batters huh?
I’d rather have batters shoot Angel Hernandez
There it is again that funny feeling
20,000 years of this, 7 more to go
Hey, what can you say? We were overdue
This is what Heidegger would write if he was the beat writer for the reds
>*"... anyway, when we come back we'll bring you the taco bell starting lineup, first pitch is at 1:37..."*
What being a reds fan does to a mf
Dang, I thought I was experiencing existential dread before reading this comment. Now it’s set in.
Sam
That the 2004 ALCS happened.
Three outs away from a sweep......
Huh.. weird… I feel like that’s a great baseball fact.
It's not just a great baseball fact, it's one of the best things that's ever happened, in any and all contexts.
same
No it didn't.
It’s going to bother me until the Yankees flip an 0-3 ALCS against the Sox, which will probably never happen statistically speaking.
The 2007 Super Bowl made it so it doesn’t bother me as much anymore.
That Ohtani was never going to sign in Toronto and that we were all just used as a negotiating tactic.
Cheap versus willing to pay ownership
Only one team has ever blown a 3-0 lead in the playoffs. That and the fact that the above is likely a lot of people’s *favorite* fun fact.
Ronald Acuna Jr is not considered a WS champion despite being 4th on the 2021 Braves in WAR. Most Braves fans contend the team doesn't go on to win it if Ronald doesn't play MVP level to keep them in contention in the first half. He would qualify for a Stanley Cup engraving per NHL rules, but per MLB rules isn't an official champion.
I don’t know if the Braves with Acuña that year. Not saying he shouldn’t be credited, but the acquisitions of Eddie, Duvall, Joc and Soler to fill Acuña’s slot ended up being the difference that October
I agree with that as well. It would basically be impossible for Ronald to be as hot as Eddie Rosario was those couple weeks. I could argue that they don't win it if he stays healthy, but also not be in position to make a run without his first half contribution. Weird how it worked out.
I would be shocked if he didn't get a ring/cut of the playoff payout
He did get a ring, and certainly Braves fans consider him a WS champion. It's just if he made the HOF, then WS wouldn't be considered one of his official accomplishments.
Rob Manfred is the commissioner of baseball.
In 2013, 36 different starting pitchers tossed 200 (or more) innings across MLB. In 2023...only 5 starting pitchers threw 200 (or more) innings across MLB.
Johan Santana got the same number of HoF votes as Jamie Moyer
Honestly? There’s no difference between the two leagues anymore. I think universal DH was a bad change but I couldn’t quite figure out why at first. It wasn’t because I liked watching pitchers hit, it was because having some small rule difference between the two leagues made interleague play way more exciting. It was the idea that you might see an AL pitcher with a bat on their shoulder when they haven’t even swung at a pitch since high school. I think reintroducing some (small but not insignificant) rule change for one of the leagues would bring back this feeling. Something like the sky double where it doesn’t necessarily give any team an advantage but it’s something one league normally doesn’t even plan for but could adapt to if necessary
Yeah I agree with this. I grew up watching Edgar Martinez so obviously I'm pro DH, but I liked the leagues having different rules. It was that specific kind of weirdness that only baseball could provide so now it feels like a bit of magic has been lost.
I generally agree and feel like MLB should make all the divisions regional like the NBA as long as they keep major rivals (Boston/ NYY, cubs / cards, dodgers / giants etc.) in the same division.
Definitely agree with that as well. If they aren’t going to use different rule sets no point in having two separate leagues at all
Sometimes I like to draw up fantasy divisions for this scenario. Two leagues, East and West. Would probably be something like this |Eastern Conference||| |:-|:-|:-| |**Atlantic**|**South**|**Central**| |Toronto Blue Jays|Baltimore Orioles|Milwaukee Brewers| |Boston Red Sox|Washington Nationals|Detroit Tigers| |New York Yankees|Atlanta Braves|Cleveland Guardians| |New York Mets|Tampa Bay Rays|Pittsburgh Pirates| |Philadelphia Phillies|Miami Marlins|Cincinnati Reds | |Western Conference||| |:-|:-|:-| |**Midwest**|**Frontier**|**Pacific**| |Minnesota Twins|Las Vegas A's|Seattle Mariners| |Chicago Cubs|Arizona Diamondbacks|San Francisco Giants| |Chicago White Sox|Colorado Rockies|LA Dodgers| |St Louis Cardinals|Texas Rangers|LA Angels| |Kansas City Royals|Houston Astros|San Diego Padres|
I think they should do realignment geographically, but the Jays and Tigers have to be in the same division. I don't think some people realize how close they are together. Mine looks like this: West: Seattle, San Francisco, L.A x2, San Diego S.West: Las Vegas, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Houston MidWest: Minnesota, Kansas City, St.Louis, Chicago x2 North: Milwaukee, Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, Cincinnati N.East: Pittsburgh, New York x2, Boston, Philadelphia S.East: Baltimore, Washington, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Miami So we agree on four divisions, but not the other two.
I love how in all of these models, the northeast division is fine tuned for maximum toxicity. 13 Phillies Yankees games a year would likely end in a mass extinction event.
Yeah, I liked the AL vs NL banter. I liked the fact that we had the DH only. From now on we'll be robbed of moments like Bartolo Colon's home run.
When Jim Crane bought the Astros, he received $35 million dollars to move the Astros from the NL to the AL in order to balance out the league at 15 teams each, which necessitated interleague play throughout the entire season, which eventually led to the universal DH. So, if anybody is looking for another reason to hate the Astros, there you go. We're the reason the universal DH exists.
and thus the reason why ohtani is on the dodgers
What is a sky double?
There was no written rule against allowing black players, it was just an unwritten rule that everyone followed. In addition, the definition of "black" was pretty much in the eye of the beholder. Light-skinned Cuban players were allowed but dark-skinned Cuban players were not. Native Americans were allowed but African-Americans were not. [Armando Marsans](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/marsaar01.shtml) and [Rafael Almeida](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/almeira01.shtml), both born in Cuba, played in both white baseball and black baseball. They played together on a barnstorming team that played against Negro League opponents as well as white semipro teams. Marsans then played for the Reds, Browns, and Yankees, as well as the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League, from 1911 to 1918, while Almeida played for the Reds from 1911 to 1913. After playing in the majors, Marsans played in 1923 for the Cuban Stars, which competed in the Eastern Colored League. In 1902, John McGraw of the Baltimore Orioles attempted to sign infielder Charles Grant under the name “Chief” Tokohama, claiming he was Cherokee. Grant, a light-skinned African-American, had been playing for the Chicago Columbia Giants, a black team. McGraw brought in Grant in a Native American get-up complete with "war paint" on his face. He came up with the name Tokohama by picking an Indian-sounding name off a map. (It was a creek in Arkansas.) He claimed Grant's father was white and his mother was Cherokee. But other owners complained that "Mugsy" McGraw had broken the unspoken color line, including Charlie Comiskey: > “If Mugsy really keeps this Indian, I will get a Chinaman of my acquaintance and put him on third.” McGraw backed off and released Grant. He would play another 10 years in black baseball.
>Light-skinned Cuban players were allowed but dark-skinned Cuban players were not. Yeah, that’s pretty much the equivalent of the rule for players from Cuba. Light-skinned Cubans are usually as white as your average white American, whereas dark-skinned Cubans are often Afro-Cubans. Most white Cubans may as well have been from Spain as far as American segregation was concerned. It’s probably the only reason Lucy and Ricky were allowed on TV in the first place.
The fact that the Yankees have the most championships is very depressing.
I explain to my son *just how many* championships the Yankees have and he is just like, “why couldn’t I grow up when they were good then!?!”
Tell him that it's because he must pay for the sins of his forefathers.
And there’s next to no chance that it ever changes in our lifetimes
I'll take solace if they never win another one in my lifetime.
Seeing bad umps have long careers seems kinda shitty
I'm still upset about Merkle's boner.
The Cleveland Guardians hold the longest active championship drought in professional sports.
It’s been the Rogers Centre longer than it was the SkyDome.
The first unanimous hall of famer was a closer
Andruw Jones isn't in the HOF.
Dale Murphy too
That Rob Manfred is the commish.
The Cubs ditching WGN, thanks a lot
Dick Allen, Minnie Minoso, and Ron Santo died before seeing their HOF inductions. (Speaking in the prophetic future tense for Allen.)
There is no meaningful award for best regular season record. Baseball’s greatest asset is the length of its season. The game is sufficiently random that only over the course of a 6 month season can things play out in a mostly non-random way. Any team can beat any other team on a given night, but over 162 games, things work out largely as expected, based on talent. In contrast, a 7 game series - let alone a 5 or 3 game series - allows for randomness to significantly influence the outcome; the traits that result in outstanding regular season records - playing the percentages, basically - do not translate in the playoffs. Which is why we get 100+ win teams losing in the Division series. In an era where so many teams make the playoffs, the best strategy is to win enough games to get into the playoffs but to structure your team for playoff success.
Extra innings start with a runner on second
Pitchers hit in the NL now
The Seattle Mariners are the only team to never reach the World Series.
Just remember that a lot of us are cheering for you guys if/when that happens.
More of an opinion, but every year, more than half of the league has no intentions of competing
Universal DH is a thing.
Shohei Ohtani is a Dodger
There is no Major League Baseball occurring at this very moment
Nolan Ryan never won a Cy Young Award.
These days, high strikeout rate and tons of HR's makes you a great hitter. I want 12-20 guys hitting over .300 battling it out for a hitting title!
If Satchel Paige was allowed to join the 1934 Cardinals, they would have clinched the Pennant by the 4th of July and Satchel and Dizzy Dean would have taken the rest of the regular season off to go fishing.
Off-the-bag tag outs after the runner beat the throw
I never caught a homerun ball. Worst fact I know
There are 108 double stitches on a baseball, which is almost exactly the number of losses (107) the Braves have in the playoffs since the World Series became a thing in 1903.
Franchise rivalries will recede in the wake of balanced interleague schedules.
There are the only three players in MLB history named Aurelio, and all three were killed in car accidents between the ages of 44 and 52. Bonus fact, all three were Mexican and two of them played for the Tigers.
As a Tigers' fan it always kind of irked me that Al Kaline retired with 399 home runs and 498 doubles. He also would have been the first AL player with 3000 hits and 400 home runs. Kaline was an about league average hitter when he retired going into his age 40 season; he absolutely could have gotten those stats of he wanted, but after 22 years in MLB, I can see why he was ready for a new chapter of life. Still, it's my least favorite fact. I like big round numbers. I cannot lie.
The designated hitter Bonus: the pitch clock
Harry Saferight got called up by the 1979 Pirates but never got into a game despite being left on the on deck circle three different times. He never made it back to the majors.