fox box

For the past 15 years or so, there's been something on TV screens that allows you to know exactly what is going on with the game.  It is called the Fox Box, named after Fox television which was the pioneer in the field of constant information during a game.

In the past, the score of the game was never really given unless you were at the end of the inning.  Now, whenever you need it, you have the score, inning, and what not else.

The Fox Box in the upper left hand corner

So what information can you get from the Fox Box?  Most importantly, you get the score.  In this instance, the score is STL (St. Louis) 3, and ATL (Atlanta) 2.

You also know it is the 9th inning, which is indicated to the right of the "STL."  The little down triangle below the "9TH" indicates it is the bottom half of the inning.

To the right of the "9TH" is the location of the runners.  In this instance, there was a runner on 1st base.  If there were runners on other bases, they would be highlighted.

The count on the batter was 0-1 (0 balls and 1 strikes).

There are two outs, as you can see there are two highlighted circles below the 0-1.

With this information, you can tell a lot of information about the game, rather than having to bug a stranger if they "knew the score?" like you had to for many years prior.

"best round ever"

The first round of the NFL Draft is occurring now as I am writing this blog.  The draft is how the NFL disperses talent from the college ranks to the professional level.  The worst team in the league drafts first, followed by the 2nd worst, and so on until all teams have drafted.

The title of the blog is the name of a contest Bud Light is sponsoring for tonight.  Bud Light is awarding $10 million to anyone who can correctly predict all 32 picks of the first round of the draft.

All I've heard in the past few weeks were the predictions that only two quarterbacks would be predicted in the first round.  In the first nineteen picks in this draft, there have already been 4 quarterbacks selected.  There will likely be a few more selected before the round is completed.

Number 1 overall selection Cam Newton is drafted by Carolina

There is a 0% chance that anyone in America will correctly predict all 32 selections.  Team general managers play games, and are all basically trying to mislead each other with false information, and no one really knows how each team is evaluating each player.  In effect, Bud Light basically got free publicity.

figuring out an earned run average for a pitcher

One of the best measures of the effectiveness of a pitcher is their earned run average, or as it is commonly called,  an ERA.  The ERA is the average amount of earned runs a pitcher will give up if they pitch 9 innings, or a complete baseball game.

So how do you calculate an ERA?  I've always created a simple proportion to solve this.  For instance, Twins pitcher, Francisco Liriano pitched 3 innings Wednesday and allowed 7 earned runs.  You take the 7 earned runs x 9 innings in a regulation game, divided by the number of innings pitched, which was 3.  With that, you get Liriano's ERA of 21.00 for today's game.

Francisco Liriano did not have a good Wednesday

Twenty-one is not a good ERA.  Today's performance lifted Liriano's season ERA to 9.13.  In today's game of baseball, I would consider anything less than 4.00 to be pretty good.  Under 3.00 is excellent.

how far behind are you?

One incredibly common thing that is talked about in baseball is the amount of games behind a particular team is out of first place.

I might guess that most die hard fans can't easily figure it out.  For instance, we can look at the NL Central Standings from April 26.  It has everything I would like to explain.

As you can see, St. Louis leads the division by 1/2 game ahead of Cincinnati and 1 game ahead of Milwaukee (games behind is the GB column).

Each game that each team plays counts as 1/2 game in the standings.  For instance, if St. Louis lost their game tonight and Cincinnati weren't playing, they each would be tied for 1st place with a 12-11 record.

We can also play a real life scenario with Milwaukee.  Milwaukee is 1 full game back, and is playing Cincinnati tonight.  If Milwaukee beats Cincinnati and St. Louis loses their game against Houston, Milwaukee would move into a tie with St. Louis, each with that 12-11 record.

Now how do you figure out how many games Houston is out?  The easiest way I've used is to analyze the absolute difference with respect to the 0.500 mark (the games above or below a team is to having won and lost the same amount of games).

St. Louis' record is 12-10, which is 2 games above 0.500.  Houston is 8-14, which is 6 games below 0.500.  The absolute difference between these two teams is 8.  Take 8 and divide by 2, and you get Houston as being 4 games behind.

Try this method whenever you see the standings.  It is more fun to try in September when some team is 25.5 games out of first place.

the big tease

So I went to my first baseball game this year....kind of.  I was in St. Louis on Friday night.  I didn't have tickets to the Cardinals/Reds game.  It was a decision that I made simply because there was doubt if the game would be played on Friday night.

There was a tornado that had gone through town that had delayed the start of the game.  Since our hotel was close to Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals play, I decided to take a walk down to the park in search of some really cheap tickets when the game resumed at 10PM.  I thought it might be a good game to attend since the park might be half full after a 2.5-hour delay.

When I found out the cheapest ticket was $21, I decided to watch part of the game from the seat seen below.

my centerfield "seat" on Friday night

You can see part of the game, but only when no one is walking in front of you.  I could see both the pitcher and the batter at the time this picture was taken.

There are a few other stadiums where they allow a sneak peek at the game.  I'm not sure if they do this to tease the potential patron, but it's always neat to see what a major league baseball stadium looks like, even if there isn't a game.

Ironically, the best view of Busch Stadium is from much farther away from the top of the St. Louis Arch.

the view from 630' above

 

getting people to the ballpark

Teams normally do promotions to get people to the ballpark.  Very popular promotions have been the Beanie Baby promotions of the late-90's, to the Bobblehead promotion which has been very popular for the last 10 years.

One promotion that I thought had gone away was the reduced price on beer nights.  There was a promotion in 1974 called "Ten Cent Beer Night."  It was held in Cleveland to help with sagging attendance.  The game was forfeited by the Indians because of fan's unruly behavior from excess Stroh's consumption.  If you want more info, the Wikipedia link does fine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Cent_Beer_Night .

A fan participating in Ten Cent Beer Night on the baseball field

However, one of the big stories of the 2011 season was the beating San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow took while attending a Giants/Dodgers game in Los Angeles on April 4.  Stow was beaten in the parking lot, and is still in a coma.  The assailants have not been found despite a $100k reward.

In response to this brutal beating, the Dodgers have agreed to cancel six planned half-price beer nights for the 2011 season.  It looks like after 37 years, teams are still using reduced beer prices to increase attendance.

With this incident, the Dodger's are becoming more known for this incident than what actually happens on the field....

catching a game on the go

Not so long ago, the only way to catch a baseball game was to either be at the game or to listen to it on the radio.  That normally meant pulling out your best radio with the special antenna to get radio stations from hundreds of miles away.  In the Midwest, you could normally do well getting radio stations of teams that were in between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians.

Today things are different.  I wasn't able to directly listen to today's Brewers game, but I was able to follow it on my phone while running errands with my special someone.

I was watching the Brewers tonight on the MLB At Bat 2011 app.  It's not television, but it is a simple simulation of what was happening during the game, pitch-by-pitch.

Watching Prince Fielder hit a home run on At Bat 

The picture above shows a Prince Fielder home run.  The perspective is behind the plate, and Fielder hit the blue ball with the number 2 on it out of the park.

Below you will see what the home run looked like on TV.  

Watching Prince Fielder hit a home run on TV

The new technology of taking the baseball game with you really is a game changer.  You can be on vacation, and you can still follow your favorite team like you are still at home.

going in head first

The baseball injury everyone is talking about today is the broken arm reigning AL MVP Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers received while sliding into home plate.

Josh Hamilton breaks his arm on this slide into home

Many players like to slide head first because instinctively it is much easier to do.  It is the same slide kids do every day.

However, baseball players are taught the feet first pop-up slide.  This type of slide allows the player to slide in feet first, and quickly pop back up.  It keeps the player safer than sliding in head first, where you are putting your wrist, elbow, arm, collarbone and head at risk should the slide not go well.

Hamilton performing a pop up slide

The irony of the situation is that had Hamilton slid in feet first, it is unlikely he would've avoided the tag of the catcher, and been ruled out.  So, Hamilton scored the run and broke his arm in a game the Rangers ultimately lost.


He said it best in his post game quote, "It was just a stupid play," Hamilton said. "I definitely shouldn't have done it."

why 162 games?

Major League Baseball plays a long season of 162 games.  So how did they arrive at that number?

Prior to expansion that occurred in the early 1960's, there were 8 baseball teams in each of the American and National League.  Each team played the other 7 teams 22 games a piece, which made for a season of 154 games.

When the American League expanded with two more teams for the 1961 season, it meant that the new American League would have 10 teams, meaning there were now 9 opponents.  The American League would need to find a new amount of times that each team would play each other that would be close to the number of games they had been playing previously.  If each team played each other 18 times, that would mean the season would consist of 162 games.  That number of 162 has been used for the past 50 years.

Yankee Roger Maris was the beneficiary of a longer season

Ironically, 1961 was the year that Roger Maris would break the home run record for homers in a season with 61, which sparked controversy because he needed the additional 8 games to break Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs accomplished in a154-game season.

the immaculate inning

I've been following for baseball for many years, and thought I'd heard of almost everything, that was until I heard about a statistical feat that has only been accomplished 44 times.  It is called the "Immaculate Inning," in which the pitcher throws 9 pitches, all strikes, and strikes out all three batters. 

One wonders though that this feat could be accomplished many more times that it might become irrelevant if a pitcher tried for it every inning.  For a pitcher, you don't really want to throw strikes all the time.  If you did that, you might become too predictable, and the hitter may just always know that a strike is coming, giving them a better chance of getting a hit.

The game between the pitcher and batter is a game of deception.  The pitcher throwing fast or slow, in or out, high or low.  

Rays pitcher Rafael Soriano threw the 44th Immaculate Inning in 2010

Oftentimes if a pitcher has two strikes on a batter, but hasn't thrown a ball yet, commonly referred to as an 0-2 count, the pitcher will throw the next baseball in the dirt hoping the batter will swing at something they have no chance of hitting.  A pitcher knows that if he throws a strike, there's a chance he gives up a hit.  There's no chance of giving up a hit when you throw a ball in the dirt.  It is with that reasoning that a pitcher having a great inning isn't really hoping for the Immaculate Inning.

baseball day games make it easy on everyone

Out of the 10 Major League Baseball games on Thursday, only two were played at night.  That may strike you as odd since teams are more likely to draw larger crowds at night games.  It is after all, the reason night games were invented.

However, teams help each other out by scheduling day games at the end of a series to help the other team as they travel around the country.

For instance, the Atlanta Braves played a game at 12:40PM in Milwaukee on Thursday.  Their next game is in Philadelphia on Friday evening.  Getting out of Milwaukee by 4PM today helps give the team a break on Thursday night.  It is much better for Atlanta to get to Philadelphia at 7PM on Thursday night after the day game, rather than play the night game and arrive in Philadelphia at 1AM on Friday morning.

It also makes life easier for the stadium personnel as well.  One of the very interesting intricacies of baseball is the washing of the uniform.  The dirty uniforms that the Braves wore today in Milwaukee get shipped with the team to Philadelphia.  The players go to the team hotel, while the dirty uniforms head to the stadium and are washed by the Philadelphia Phillies guest clubhouse attendants.  This job can take a long time as they wash and dry about 40 uniforms of players and coaches.  They are then placed in the individual lockers in the opposing team clubhouse.

Braves catcher Brian McCann gets dusted up by Nyjer Morgan

These Philadelphia Phillies employees are quite happy that Atlanta's game in Milwaukee was an afternoon game too.

why do baseball games start when they do?

While getting ready to listen to the Brewers game tonight, I made a mental note that the game would be starting at 7:10PM.

Back in 1980s, I can remember Brewers night games starting at 7:30PM.  After a few years of that start time, they adjusted the time back down to 7PM.  That time was easy for fans to make their way to the ballpark, and hopefully get home before 11PM.

Now that almost every baseball game is televised, every game either starts at 7:05, or in the case of this year, the start time is 7:10 for Milwaukee home games.  This allows for a short pre-game show for fans at home as well as time for a short interview prior to the game.

Each individual team has the ability to create their own start time.  The St. Louis Cardinals night games always start at 7:15PM.  A little more TV analysis for a more rabid fan base.

7-11 sponsored the start of White Sox games from 2007-2009

The most interesting start time for games occurred when the Chicago White Sox signed a deal with convenience store 7-11 a few years back.  In that deal, the White Sox got $500,000 per year to start all their night games at 7:11.

why women are easier to predict

On Tuesday night, the women will crown their NCAA basketball champion.  The match up is between Notre Dame and Texas A&M.

The women's tournament doesn't offer the amount of surprises and upsets that the men's tournament does.  This comes about because men have better opportunities to play professionally for money after their first year.  This leads to players who are constantly getting used to their teammates as the season goes on.  Oftentimes teams get great recruits, but since the best players leave after a season, there isn't a chance for the men's teams to gel and become great.  Kentucky basketball might be unstoppable if their top talent didn't go to the NBA after one season in college.

Texas A&M battling Notre Dame for the title

Women athletes don't have great opportunities to play basketball professionally.  The WNBA, the women's equivalent to the NBA does not pay well, and many times women athletes play overseas to make money.  The lure is not enough to leave their collegiate careers, leading many women's teams to be strong for many years.

when hitting a home run is a bad thing

Milwaukee Brewers centerfielder Carlos Gomez' season started with a bang.  He had a home in his first at bat.

With that first swing on opening day, Gomez might now think he's a power hitter.  In 15 at-bats since then, Gomez has one hit, and has struck out 6 times.  Instead of looking to make contact, Gomez is looking to go deep.

Carlos Gomez celebrating his opening day home run

It is this attitude that has made Gomez an enigma to Brewers fans.  All Gomez really needs to do is hit ground balls.  If he hits a ground ball to either the third baseman or shortstop, Gomez, with his speed, has a great chance to beat the ball to first base.

Most speedy baserunners can make the trek from home plate to first base in less than 4 seconds.  Instead of utilizing this blazing speed, Gomez is trying to hit home runs.

still looking to catch Jack

 Like sports such as tennis and bowling, golf has four major tournaments in the calendar year.

The first golf major of 2011 is the Masters, which will be played at Augusta National in Augusta, Georgia.  The tournament starts on Thursday morning.

It is also another chance for Tiger Woods in his pursuit of catching Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major championships.  Woods is currently at 14 major championships, and has not won a major championship since 2008.  Woods has won at Augusta National four times.

Woods receiving the green jacket signifying his 1997 win at Augusta National

Meanwhile, defending champion Phil Mickelson is going for another win at Augusta.  Mickelson has won the Masters three times and has a grand total of four major golf championships.

Phil's four major championships has always reminded me of how tough it will be for Woods to catch Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors given the slump the 35-year old Woods is currently in.  To win 19 majors, he has to basically match Mickelson's four majors, and then win another one to become the most decorated golfer of all time.