Today Is Pitching

Posted on May 8, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

The flag of Sicily, where Joe DiMaggio's roots lie. To opposing pitchers, Joe D. must have seemed just as gracefully inhibiting.

Random Notes:

Click on this from AARP, even for those of us (who’s “us”?) under 50. It’s a hoot. The quiz asks comedy fans to remember the name of Abbott and Costello’s third baseman. (The Subject line of this blog takes its name from Abbott and Costello’s pitcher.)

Speaking of pitching, “Yesterday” (maybe Yesterday is A&C’s unnamed right fielder?) Justin Verlander (“A Little Chin Music!”),  barely missed pitching a perfect game. For people learning about baseball, and I hope your eyes do not glaze over from this explanation, a perfect game means a pitcher faces the minimum number of batters (27) in throwing a complete, 9-inning game without a single batter/runner reaching first base. A pitcher must rely on his teammates not to make an error that would permit a batter/runner to reach base as well. As in life, perfection on the major league level is a rare feat. Verlander himself walked a batter (meaning he threw four pitches out of the strike zone, in this case interspersed with many strikes in the zone that were fouled off by the batter) late in the game, which broke up his perfecto. This runner was immediately erased, however, on a double play. No one after him reached first base. Ultimate result: Verlander pitched a no-hitter, still a rare accomplishment, and came about as close to perfection as possible without landing there. (Pirates’ star Willie Stargell likened hitting against Sandy Koufax to eating soup with a fork. Verlander is pretty Koufax-like himself, though reminding me more of another old-timer with the Pirates named Bob Veale.)

Additionally from this slow-news day: The Mets ended Dodgers’s Andre Ethier’s consecutive-game hitting streak at 30. (Ethier has two hits today, possibly to ignite a new streak.) I hate to unfurl the Sicilian flag here, belonging as it may to half my heritage, but Sicilian-American Joe D.’s record of batting in 56 consecutive games remains secure. It is of course said all records are made to be broken, even after seventy years. Should it happen, should someone like Ichiro, or a baby only born this very Mothers’ Day break it at some unknown date, the excitement level will surely seem unprecedented.

Posted in Baseball, Right Off the Bat Website | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Missed Opportunities Caused by Racism

Posted on May 7, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

ESPNCricinfo has a fascinating article about Krom Hendricks, a southern African cricketer of color in the late nineteenth century, who was known for his terrifying pace as a bowler, and whose career was squashed by racist attitudes in South African and England. It would be only one of the hundreds of thousands of humiliations heaped on people of color in southern Africa over the next century.

Posted in Cricket, South Africa, Test Cricket | Tagged | Leave a comment

Why Soccer and Not Cricket? A Response

Posted on May 6, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

Lord Hawke: No Dove on Spreading Cricket around the Colonies

In response to my blog featuring Gideon Haigh’s question on why cricket and soccer succeeded or failed in certain countries, “Russ” made a comment that I think is worth bringing forward in its own blog. Let the discussion continue!

A fascinating question, and one that only gets more fascinating when you consider two other things: 1) many of the leading football clubs began life as joint cricket/football clubs (AC Milan for example), meaning cricket had as large a foothold in non-colonies countries in the early 20th century as football; and 2) that in almost every major English colony football not only didn’t usurp cricket, but outright failed.

There is quite a substantial literature on why cricket failed in America, and succeeded elsewhere, but it has a certain whiggish element to it. If football was taken to in non-colonies, why not cricket?; if it is because football is superior, why did cricket succeed and football fail (relatively speaking) in the colonies?

From my reading on this, there is an entrepreneurial element to sporting development. Cricket succeeded in predominantly southern climes, because Lord Hawke and others spent their off-season touring the colonies, promoting the game (and the empire), it failed in the USA and Canada because their northern clime meant weak tours in late September (and they were thoroughly out-entrepreneured by the local efforts of Spalding) and it failed in non-colonies either for winter climate (Europe) or lack of empire connection (Europe, South America) that might encourage leading players to come over.

In contrast to cricket that had tried hard to suppress professional “league cricket”, football was still loosely organised in this period, and in the off-season (summer) teams regularly went “on tour” to Europe and South America, for their financial profit, but promoting the game in the process. Thus did people come and watch, then take up the game.

In this modern age of globalisation, both sports seem to be reaching hitherto untapped markets, though cricket seems determined to stifle any progress through daft elitism via the self-absorbed nonsense of its cartel of leading nations.

Posted in Cricket | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Afghan Cricket Club

Posted on May 4, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

Courtesy of the Marylebone Cricket Club, I received in the mail a DVD of a new documentary film called “Afghan Cricket Club.” It tells the inspiring story of how the national team of Afghanistan rocketed from being the worst team in the world in 2007 to playing India (the best) last year in the World Twenty20 Championships. The film makes clear how improbable this journey up the rankings was: a country in crisis, few practice facilities, rubble or dry mud on the outfield of games, and severe culture shock for the players, who traveled to Jersey in the Channel Islands, the United Arab Emirates, and even Argentina, as they won game after game against tougher and tougher competitors.

Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about cricket. The film is more about the kind of characters that baseball fans will be familiar with: the rookie, the charismatic star, the earnest professional, the excitable coach, among others. It’s also a remarkable snapshot of daily life in Afghanistan and a testament to the power of cricket (which the Afghans learned in the Pakistani refugee camps they grew up in during the civil war in the early 1990s) to bring people of all backgrounds together.  I assume the film will be released for some kind of rental at some point. Be sure to check back here for further details.

Posted in Cricket, T20 Cricket | Tagged | Leave a comment

75 Years Ago Today the Man Knew How to Play

Posted on May 4, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

The One and Only

On this date, May 3, seventy-five years ago, Joe DiMaggio played his first game for the New York Yankees. He got three hits. Today, there is a player with the Los Angeles Dodgers having hit in 28-straight games: halfway to Joltin’ Joe’s peerless record. Good luck, Andre Ethier!

Posted in Baseball, Yankees | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Baseball Fans, Welcome to May

Posted on May 1, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

Before Highway 61 was revisited there was the 56-game hitting streak

May Day. Unions in France. Rockets in Red Square. Maypole dancing in England. The solemnity of Memorial Day. May! In exactly two weeks, it is the date, seventy years ago, on which Joe DiMaggio unknowingly began to make history. Nine days later, Bob Dylan was born. (Against the Boston Red Sox, The Clipper picked up a lowly single that afternoon in Game Ten, though he did score twice.) A baseball expression has it that no one ought to pay attention to April or September. But the games of these bookend months count in the standings, too, don’t they? April showers are behind us. The end of the school year is before us. I can feel the earth warming. The veterans are flexing their muscles. Welcome, everybody, to May!

Posted in Baseball, Right Off the Bat Podcasts, Yankees | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Thought of the Day

Posted on April 29, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

The following observation from Gideon Haigh’s thoughtful piece on the history of cricket’s spread around the world, struck me.

It remains true that while no former British colony has won soccer’s World Cup, only former British colonies have won cricket’s.

I have no idea quite what to think of this, but something about it seems significant.
Why have these two highly successful British exports had such divergent outcomes?
Discuss!

Posted in Cricket | 3 Comments

The Greatest Student Batter in New York City History?

Posted on April 28, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

Another West Side slugger: But there are not Manny like him.

The New York Times reports Manny Ramirez’s high-school batting average as .650. The main photo accompanying this Times article shows a determined teenager in 1991. Some of the other legendary batsmen in New York-school history include Hank Greenberg, Ed Kranepool, and one other…let me think, ah yes: Columbia Lou Gehrig. All get their due in our forthcoming book (“any day now!”), Right Off the Bat.

Posted in Baseball, Right Off the Bat Book, Right Off the Bat Website, Yankees | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Lights! Camera! No Ball!

Posted on April 26, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

Away from the hurly-burly of the Indian Premier League, the bright lights of Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies, Sri Lanka’s forthcoming tour of England, and any of the professional domestic tournaments, the game of cricket continues to be played on beaches in the Caribbean, public parks in Delhi and Dhaka, and (as I saw to my delight coming back from JFK airport the other day) in Flushing Meadow, Queens, by those who are—quite frankly—not quite ready for prime time. However epic their contests, these teams’ enthusiasm and lack of ability were only visible to the spectators who turned up to watch the game. Until now.

Yes, thanks to streaming video and a campaign to extend broadband access to the remoter parts of England, you can now watch the entire epic contest between Wray and the Rest of the World. This was the first time a village cricket game had been streamed live on the internet. The camera work and commentary may not be the slickest—although Brenda’s commentary is highly entertaining—and the batting, bowling, and fielding are rural in every sense of the word. But, if you want to see cricket at its rawest—with all the mistakes, copious amounts of booze, and cheery lack of interest in cut-throat competition—then give yourself a couple of hours, and watch twicket.info. (The game proper begins at 22 mins.)

Posted in Cricket, England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Let’s Not Forget April 23

Posted on April 23, 2011 by rightoffthebatbook

Not just any stuffed shirt: one of Shakespeare's early patrons, the earl of Pembroke

April 23, 1952, Hall of Fame knuckleball relief specialist Hoyt Wilhelm hit a home run in his very first time at bat in the big leagues. Even though he played in 1,069 more games, it would be his only home run. April 23, 1954, Hall of Fame slugger Henry Aaron hit his first of 755 home runs. And April 23, 1616, for all you literary types about to wander into Right Off the Bat, is notable for being, more or less in the words of singer Don McLean, the day the literature died: Messrs Cervantes and Shakespeare. Though before we go all negative, it is thought Shakespeare also was born on an April 23: in 1564. (Incidentally, in honor of the authors I learned a new word today: gormless, which, definitely, none of these April 23 Big Leaguers is in any way.)

Posted in Baseball, Right Off the Bat Book | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment