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Rikard's avatar

Spring, what's that? It's snowing so heavy I can literally see the snow piling up against the windows.

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Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122's avatar

Go Giants!

(Peeps think that baseball starts in the Spring because of the weather, but the real reason is so the play will culminate at the start of the BEST season (devil emoji here).)

Who did the great Mr. Hornsby play for, and what stadium is that?

Edit: Now that I've read the comments, I'm guessing Kansas City for both. Am I right?

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SimulationCommander's avatar

Hornsby spent most of his time playing in St. Louis, actually. First for the Cardinals and then for the Browns! He played so long ago that KC didn't even have a team yet :)

The stadium, however, is the gorgeous Kaufmann Stadium in KC :)

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Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122's avatar

Thank you, M. Sim. (If you couldn't tell by now, I would much rather gain knowledge from people like yourself first before searching the interwebs, to the obvious annoyance of some!)

But now I must share a story.

My dad ('26-'02) grew up in N. California, playing baseball and looking for Mom. He would have reached the minor leagues....had their been any. He did play some semi-pro, before putting his math sense to use as a community college professor, and raising 4 (four) utility players and baseball lovers. (He would attribute his math acumen to knowing that 1 hit in 7 would send you packing, but just one more hit in 7 would let you bat in the first inning, when the scouts and the girls would be paying more attention.)

But as a fan, life was challenging. He rooted for the Cardinals, so many hundreds of miles away and yet the farthest team West! Glued to the radio and the sports page, he persevered, and when the Athletics moved from Philly to Kansas City, he saw the writing on Western outfield fences. Not three years later, he had his two loves, Mom and live big league baseball, just two hours down new Eisenhower multi-lanes! (And Mays, McCovey, and a So. Cal. rivalry to boot.)

Then came the icing on his cake. Out popped 4 scrappy scrubs who needed to learn to hit the curveball. When Dad's beloved A's moved to Oakland, he happily switched from muscle car to station wagon, and started hauling sons and their friends to rows of kelly-green seats behind home and first, where a glove and attention to every pitch was the natural cure for my pre-ADHD attention deficit. That, and Reggie Jackson and Joe Rudi and Catfish Hunter and Vida Blue (the eleven-year-old was sure to become ALL of them!) and a dynasty demanding attention.

I don't begrudge any baseball detractor. The individual freedom to choose how one uses one's precious time is MUCH more important than any pastime, national or not.

But time stands still on baseball diamonds, and it always will.

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Bill Heath's avatar

I went to my first professional hockey game in Toronto in 2001 during a business trip to Canada. I was a senior executive with my company, and the local office wanted to take me to a game. I was utterly shocked; one of the players tripped another, and didn't stop to apologize.

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Fiona Colombo's avatar

Goooooo Mariners!!

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RepublicJim's avatar

Off topic, but have you looked at any of the recent documents Pfizer released?

"reissue_5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf" (from April 2021) has a very telling detail in it. In Table 6, on page 13 they defined “vaccination failure” as two doses administered, seven or more days post-second dose, and a lab-confirmed positive test for covid. All those people now trying to rewrite history to say that the end goal for vax efficacy is "reduced severity" are liars who deny what Pfizer said from the outset. Prevention of cases absolutely is what was promised (with no mention of boosters) and this document proves that. Now that literally millions of cases worldwide meet their own criteria, let's call it what Pfizer originally did: vaccination FAILURE!

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SimulationCommander's avatar

Yes the entire 'we never said it would stop the pandemic' narrative is thoroughly skewered by the video evidence.

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BigT's avatar

Growing up in the 60s and 70s in California, baseball was my love. It switched to basketball my junior year in HS when I thought I had a better chance at being really good at it (and my batting average dropped to .249). Just every one of my friends played baseball. Now it's soccer.

It is a slow moving game to watch, but that was part of the fun. I was able to see Willie Mays and Willie McCovey play at Candlestick Park. Good times.

I stopped watching all professional sports when they went woke. I wouldn't mind watching some minors games, but there aren't any where I live.

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Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122's avatar

My wife and I will pass through Willie Mays Plaza in 12 hours on our way to her season seats in the arcade. We have cut back, to do our part to penalize MLB for the egregious moving of last year's All-Star Game.

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Jeff Cuttler's avatar

Longtime Pirates fan here. I was in the stands for Clemente’s 3000th hit. Down, but not out once the Buccos became what is essentially a AAA team. Abandoned MLB altogether once they went all in for BLM.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

MLB moving the all-star game from Atlanta to Colorado was shameful and hilariously hypocritical, IIRC (mostly white) Colorado already had the laws that (mostly black) Georgia was considering.

Edit: The fact the Braves won the series was perfect karma.

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Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122's avatar

MLB couldn't have picked a better way to screw Blacks. The 50 year anniversary of Hammerin' Hank, for crying out loud!!

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SCA's avatar

I hate baseball. The Lord blessed me with a child who almost entirely liked watching sports I could understand and follow. And I could never stop laughing when players of one were sent to the penalty box, and I kept referring to one player as "Propulski" which was first a mis-hearing but then seemed awfully apt.

But I hate baseball.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

I can understand the sentiment, as baseball can be boring to watch, but to me baseball is long summer nights in comfortable temperatures, the only time you can do that in my part of the world.

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Allen's avatar

Lifetime Cardinals fan here.

They're going for romance this year with the return of Pujols in his last year as Molina and Wainwright also play in their final year. Those things rarely work to script.

If Molina and Wainwright stay healthy, a big 'if', they will almost certainly break Freehan and Lolich's record of all-time starts as battery mates.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

Similar situation for the Royals and Greinke this year :)

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Allen's avatar

Haha my wife can't stand Greinke. She never watched baseball until we met and knew next to nothing about it but for some reason Greinke got under her skin. I kept saying how great he was and would recite his stats. She kept saying he "was just lucky."

Every year. It's a running joke.

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Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122's avatar

What a great story. My wife was born a baseball fanatic, but she also judges players that way! And she dislikes Greinke also, but she will tell you that it's because he came up with the Dodgers (and I believe he was a member of the cheating Astros).

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SimulationCommander's avatar

Still in first place! :)

Edit: And if Greinke pitches half as well as he did today, we're gonna be in great shape!

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Connie the Cat's avatar

I’ve given up on MLB, but love the Minor League games.

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Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122's avatar

I'll be at the Sacramento Rivercats (Giants Triple-A) game Sunday!

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SimulationCommander's avatar

I'll watch little league!

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The Ungovernable's avatar

I love spring but College and Pro Football is where it's at! :)

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SimulationCommander's avatar

I'm pretty sure we've had the spring/autumn discussion in the past. The problem with fall is that it's followed by winter. Spring only gets better until summer arrives.

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Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122's avatar

Oh, I'm sure that "discussion" will be quite seasonal! (See elsewhere...)

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The Ungovernable's avatar

Well, naturally! The only answer is spring football.

Plus I grew up a Pirates fan, so baseball is basically non-existent for me for the last 30 years. 🤨

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SimulationCommander's avatar

The USFL is a thing again!

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The Ungovernable's avatar

For this year anyway!

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SimulationCommander's avatar

For the first week, anyway ;)

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The Ungovernable's avatar

HA!

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