Category Archives: A5 Baseball Videos

Pitcher Makes Unassisted Triple Play! ~ Whodathunkit?

Posted on October 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

Well, okay.  Maybe it’s  not your ordinary triple play in the true sense of the word but you gotta admit it’s pretty darn unusual!  “Triple ka-thud” as Krukow puts it.

Cody Ross of the San Francisco Giants gets hit with a pitch thrown by Clayton Mortensen of the Rockies, and the ball pinballs off Ross’s arm, catcher Jose Morales’ helmet, and umpire Tim Tschida’s face mask. From the Giants-Rockies game May 16th, 2011.  SF Giants announcers Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper on the broadcast.   YouTube Uploaded by “hat301” on May 17, 2011.

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A British Take on NLDS Game 5.

Posted on October 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

British Fife and Drum

I know, you probably think I’m being a little giddy, perhaps dwelling too much on the last Cardinal/Phillies game.   But I just couldn’t resist the urge to share this post.  For one thing it references a previous post with an outlandish video spoof “Too Much Money Ball” .  It includes a 7th Inning stretch video “Take Me out to the Ballgame – Old Skool” as only a Brit could do.

Written by Steve Busfield for “The Guardian” in the U.K.,  this gives a good argument that the British are not totally limited to knowledge of soccer and cricket.  Here are some excerpts from the post: 

Money ball Yankees Style:

“My hilarious colleague David Lengel, who was on live blogging duty last night, is now live tweeting this game to me. This is his description of Molina’s appearance in the top of the 4th:

‘God strolls to the plate.   Oh, God gets a base hit.  Surprise.  God steals a base.  God is let down by his people.   This happens.’

Did you see the squirrel interrupt play in game four? (“like a tiny streaker in a fur coat,”

Seventh inning stretch: Take Me Out To The Ballgame: old skool:

Proper.

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Posted in A1 Baseball, General, A5 Baseball Videos, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals

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Pitching 101 – Tim Lincecum Video

Posted on September 21, 2011 | 1 comment

I’m currently on vacation so hope you like this video I downloaded a few months ago.  This might  be of interest to those of you who are pitchers, want to know about pitching or just curious as to how those guys can do all the stuff they do.  It’s educational and I hope you’ll find it as interesting as I did.

One of the more astounding statistics is that of Juan Marichal comingled in with the others.  You’ll understand what it means once you view the video.

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Posted in A1 Baseball, General, A5 Baseball Videos, San Francisco Giants

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Baseball vs Football. An Unbiased Opinion …..

Posted on September 8, 2011 | 2 comments

Oh okay, maybe the opinion isn’t exactly unbiased, but there are reasons.   Back in August, 2010 I wrote a blog titled “Gimme a Break.  Is this Baseball Season or Not?” about football taking the sports pages hostage every year two months before baseball season ended.

The blog included a delightful George Carlin video which I’ll repeat here, because it’s good enough to show  again in case you missed it.  

The reason I’m bringing this up again is Jim Caple, Sr Writer for ESPN.Com wrote a great article yesterday about”why baseball is better than football“.  Craig Calcaterra of NBC Sports Online recommended it, saying it explains why, quote “baseball beats the crap out of football”, unquote.

Anyhow take a look at Caple’s article, linked above, and see what you think.  It’s not that we die-hard baseball fans need reminding, it’s just always nice to see that others agree with our unbiased opinions, don’t you think?

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Astros A Thing of the Past? Ask the Giants!

Posted on August 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

I sat down to write about Billy Beane this morning, but when I perused my emails I couldn’t resist posting another Sully Video.   This one caught my fancy because it’s bemoaning the Houston Astros of the good old days in comparison to the Astros of today.    This one really made me chuckle because, to tell you the truth, after sitting through not one but two series with the Houston Astros and the San Francisco Giants these past few weeks  I think the Astros are looking pretty darn good.  Maybe even futuristic …. a team of the future!

Minute Maid Park

And my only criteria?   Total games played in two series so far in August ~ Five.   Astros Won 3, Giants Won 2.   Okay, granted the Giants aren’t exactly the frosting on the cake as far as winning games lately, but still, those Astros outscored them 21-14 in the series.  Just saying, the Astros may have the worst record in MLB today, but against the Giants they’re looking pretty darn good.

Take from that what you may, but leave it to Sully to come up with another thought-provoker early on a Saturday morning!

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Triple Play…….. Or Is it? Take A Look!

Posted on August 22, 2011 | 2 comments

I had to watch this several times and then again in slow motion to see what all the fuss was about.  Here’s the sequence of events as I see it.  Center fielder touched the ball 2) CF missed the ball 3) ball then bounced off CF’s head 4) he then fielded the ball 5) threw it to second 6) and the 2nd baseman then throws  it to first for the triple play.  Whew ….. you can read about it below and it makes a little more sense.  A great play especially for a minor league player but still a little comical huh?

“Omaha Storm Chasers vs. Nashville Sounds, yesterday. Triple-A-y baseball even by Triple-A baseball standards. We’ll set the scene for you: men on first and second, no one out, Clint Robinson up for Omaha. Logan Schafer is in center field.

The ball bounces off Schafer’s glove, then off his head, then it goes back into his glove. One out. He throws it back in awfully quickly—we can assume, then, he wasn’t concussed—and second baseman Eric Farris steps on his base. Two out. Farris then throws it over to first baseman Mat Gamel, and that’s three.

Said Schafer, per MILB.com:   “It was a little bit of disbelief and a lot of humor. When the ball hits you on your head, it’s pretty embarrassing, but I’m glad I could catch it. They were all laughing quite a bit, it’s a pretty funny play. Everyone was kind of in disbelief and they were all cracking up.”   Schafer said the Sounds submitted the play to ESPN with hopes of seeing it make it onto SportsCenter.  We hope Deadspin will suffice.

Not quite as tidy as the Red Sox’s triple play from Tuesday, but that’s why these are the minor leagues. They’ll get better.”

Video via WOWT-TV, h/t Minda.

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The Good Old Days you say? How About Here and Now?

Posted on August 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Sully’s at it again.  He takes us from the beginning right up to today and lets us know what’s not so good about baseball back then and what’s so good about it  now, today.  And I have to agree with him although I have to admit my fondest memories are still of  Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Joe DiMaggio.   Take a look and see what you think.   Thanks again Sully.  I love this kind of stuff!

Paul Sullivan’s website:  http://sullybaseball.blogspot.com/

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Now …. Where is that Batter’s Box Again?

Posted on August 15, 2011 | 2 comments

I was so excited about Buster Posey’s twins this morning, almost missed this great little ditty of a video, compliments of  Frisco Fastball,   one of my favorite blogs.  It reminded me of that Abbott & Costello “Who’s on First” comedy routine, except this is for real ~ I think.

“Even though Casilla could not have reached a pitch over the plate, he said with a straight face, “I was looking for a fastball away,” drawing howls of protest and laughter from teammates nearby. ” Hank Shulman,  SF Chronicle.  

And yes, please welcome into the world two more Posey’s,  Addison Lynn & Lee Dempsey Posey, born yesterday, August 14, 2011.  Congratulations to Buster and Kristin!  It was rumored Brian Sabean was up really early trying to come up with an MLB contract for infants.  But it’s just a rumor, probably nothing to it.  

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Umpire Changes his Mind….. Who Knew?

Posted on August 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

Video:   Umpire Changes Call   Take a look at this MLB video.  I wasn’t able to post the video, so posted a link to the video instead.   

The Lonely Umpire

What’s interesting here is the umpire originally called the play as a “foul ball” but when the catcher showed the ball to the umpire, the call was changed immediately to “out”.  This was all split-second timing so that’s why it’s important to watch the video. 

The commentators were critical of the catch because he could have thrown the ball to first and had a double play, but catcher Eli Whiteside explained later his main concern was trying to convince the umpire, who’d already made the foul ball call, that it should have been an out. 

I like this little ditty because umpires have been having a pretty tough go of it lately and this helps reinforce the fact that even though they have the toughest job in baseball, they’re  still pretty darn awesome!

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Posted in A1 Baseball, General, A4 Uncategorized, A5 Baseball Videos, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants

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Umpire makes Really Bad Call……or Does He?

Posted on July 27, 2011 | 7 comments

Wow!  Take a look at this.  You won’t believe it.  This makes that Jim Jarvis call on the Armando Galarraga play look like play-doh!   Unfortunately, it’s another reason for the instant replay pundits to continue beating their drums.   I’m not a fan of instant replay, but I have to admit I sometimes wonder if maybe Selig might, just once in a while, override a call.  You know, like maybe once or twice a year? 

The call was made by umpire Jerry Meals during the 19th Inning of the Atlanta Braves vs Pittsburgh Pirates game last night, giving Atlanta the win by a score of 4-3. The Braves’ runner, Julio Lugo, was clearly out as seen in the video and appears to be as surprised as the catcher was at the call.  I guess Jerry Meals wanted to go back to his hotel room and either sleep or eat a meal since it was already 2am in Atlanta.

The blog title’s a little skewed since I’m sure the runner thought the umpire made a fabulous call as did a lot of the  Braves fans.  It depends a lot on your perspective, doesn’t it?  Videos and some of the commentary  provided from D’Wizzle’s World, a Yardbarker network.

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Baseball Stats ….. Traditional vs Sabermetrics.

Posted on July 15, 2011 | 15 comments

A few months ago I signed up for the Annual SABR conference in Long Beach.  I wanted to learn about Sabermetrics,  the science of analyzing baseball  in unorthodox ways,  at least when compared with traditional “see ball, hit ball, run” stats. The term is derived from  SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research.

After reading everything I could get my hands on about the subject, I found this great  Sully video (what would we do without him?) and discovered everything I need to know about Sabermetrics, which is, I don’t need to know anything.

A few days ago a fellow BBA Blogger, Bryan O’Connor, wrote a post that relates to this very subject.  I had to save and read later, because I couldn’t understand it.  Here, see how you do with it ~ Bumgarnering Around …..

Wow!  How confusing is this stuff?  I jotted down a few abbreviations; WAR, OPS, VORP, OBP, OPS Plus, bWAR.  Good grief!  This game is confusing enough.  Don’t confuse me with facts and details.  Just give me a score card and a pencil and let the games begin!

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Dodger Fans ….. On Saving the American Flag!

Posted on July 2, 2011 | 2 comments

Happy 4th of July!

This YouTube video was uploaded by giramino on Jun 10, 2008, and this is an excerpt from the comment that was posted with the video:

“On April 25, 1976 at Dodger Stadium, Rick Monday of the Chicago Cubs, grabbed and secured the American flag from two individuals as they were attempting to burn our flag in the middle of the playing field. It was an outstanding display of American Patriotism.”

I particularly liked that this incident took place at Dodger Stadium, because it’s been in the news lately as being maybe not such a great place to attend a ball game.  But great fans are everywhere including Dodger Stadium and little things like God Bless America, sung  by the home team fans, the Dodger fans,after the incident, is symbolic of baseball fans in every stadium.  And even though this happened over 35 years ago, it’s a reminder that patriotism is alive and well in the USA.   Happy 4th of July everyone!

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Posted in A1 Baseball, General, A2 Ballparks, A5 Baseball Videos, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers

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