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"All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and men at last are forced to face with sober senses the real conditions of their lives and their relations with their fellow men." – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Here is a portrait of a man on the brink of oblivion. Like all great art, this piece expands the conventional bounds of its genre, transcending the strictly figurative representation that was the function of late twentieth century baseball card portraiture with both the abstract wash of colors in the background and the apparent slight but jarring distortion of the body in the foreground. The figure, "Wise," seems to have unusually long legs and wide hips in relation to the short torso and short arms, this distortion of the human form a seeming allusion to the powerful-legged, spindly-armed Tyrannosaurus Rex, which in turn gives the portrait overtones of great, fearsome power nullified by the certainty of extinction. This theme of extinction is furthered in the blurring in the background of what viewers at the time of the artwork would understand contextually to be the crowd, a gathering assembled for the purpose of cheering for and cursing and exalting and even in a crude way praying for and thus making sacred game-playing participants such as the one pictured here, "Wise." The blurring of all faces in the crowd, coupled with the look of apprehension on the face of Wise and the aforementioned anatomical distortion of his features, creates a sense of ending, of things once solid melting into air. No faces can be seen in the crowd, only here and there among the shapeless colors small soft-edged spheres, the motif perhaps an attempt on the part of the artist to contradict the allusions to the famous quote above with intimations of an afterlife, as if the orbs were souls able to carry something of the individual beyond the inevitable cessation of earthly life, of flesh. Less ambiguous than the mysterious orbs is the fate of the central figure, Wise, whose allegorical name in this context, coupled with his obvious inability to cease the dissipation of the crowd (and, by extension, the dissipation of meaning, for what is a game with no crowd?) seems to offer a bracing commentary on the limitations of the rational mind, of human wisdom. There will come a moment when all we know won’t mean anything. Wise seems to be verging on this moment. He is either looking around to see if there is anywhere where things are still solid or he is looking back, trying to find a place and time he can cling to, something that will never melt into air.
If he is looking back, what is the object of his gaze? What can we cling to in our last moment? The portrait offers no clue, but on the back of this card (where artisans who created these works supplemented the portraits on the front of the cards with intricate numerology and text), there is a cartoon of a ballplayer without thick glasses and with a broad smile (free of limitations and sadness), looking at a scoreboard that tells the tale of a victory. Above the cartoon is the following line of text, which according to experts in the interpretation of the back of the card numerology is exceedingly far-fetched, the stuff of a fairy tale, suggesting that all we have in the end are fairy tales, slim, brilliant moments that are too good to ever have been true:
"Rick hurled no-hitter for Phillies vs. Reds, 6-23-71, and hit 2 homers in the game."
Indians
G. Sizemore cf
A. Cabrera 2b
T. Hafner dh
V. Martinez c
R. Garko 1b
J. Peralta ss
K. Lofton lf
F. Gutierrez rf
C. Blake 3b
F. Carmona, p
Red Sox
D. Pedroia 2b
K. Youkilis 1b
D. Ortiz dh
M. Ramirez lf
M. Lowell 3b
J.D. Drew rf
J. Varitek c
C. Crisp cf
J. Lugo ss
C. Schilling, p
Is everybody else's local Fox affiliate as idiotic as mine is?
I can live with Buck (ecch, that sounds sick) but McCarver makes my insides want to turn themselves outside.
I don't agree-everyone knows the rule.
In all seriousness, the opponent can ask that you remove jewelry, etc if you think it is distracting.
Clubhouse confidential: No, that's not a pearl necklace that second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera wears. It's a necklace of beads that his wife, Lismar, made for him.
They were married in December in Venezuela. "It's good luck for me," said Cabrera.
I would shy away from saying that it means one is somehow able to get superfocused and get all veterany and clutchy on us.
It does represent performing well in critical situations against high quality opposition.
I guess we in the toasterverse would not dismiss postseason success, but just call it a data point, to be placed in context like all good data points.
His singing voice is so soothing slash relaxing.
12 They don't match, but he makes the ensemble work.
It strikes me that Carmona's money pitch isn't a strike a lot of the time. Could it be that easy?
I forget who wrote it, but there was a column recently saying that there could be a negative side of "experience in the playoffs" - mainly using the example of A-Rod and the undying pressure of the NY media. I think another example would have been the Red Sox prior to winning the World Series, it always seemed like the team would lose it, mentally, as soon as one thing went wrong.
What passes for explanation from people like McCarver is what raises my hackles, though-saying that Schilling's postseason success is due to the fact that his veteraniness and clutchiness makes him immune to pressure.
He's sure not looking very clutchy right now.
your comment kind of doesn't sound right, I'd rather let the sinker go deep into the strike zone & take it the other way. Carmonas sinker is just flat out SICK & I will agree (if that's what you meant) that Carmonas sinker is rearely a strike in the early going, I haven't seen much of him to be confident at what I'm saying tough.
I think his last name is Morgan (his last name escapes me at the moment)
err, that should be his first name escapes me at the moment. shooting for 4-4
http://mikesrants.baseballtoaster.com/archives/6522.html
Player CountOfteamID
David Wells 6
Kenny Lofton 6
Danny Jackson 5
Ellis Burks 5
Bobby Bonilla 5
Don Baylor 5
Rickey Henderson 5
John Olerud 5
Alan Embree 5
Reggie Sanders 5
that's just not fair, even if you wanted to hit it, forget about it, just sick.
Pads & Dodgers also but I don't know the sixth one.
Cincy & Baltimore?? that's news to me, I guess in his early career?
Wells in the postseason: New York, San Diego, Toronto, Boston, Cincinnati, Baltimore.
Reds was 1995, Orioles was 1996.
54 Cincy in 95, O's in 96 (the year before he went to the Yankees). He's kicked around a bit.
show off.... :o)
Francona seems a bit quicker with the trigger though, just a bit.
(Shh, it's the Pac-10....)
That could be hard to take.
we did that in '88 no Bob (L.A. did it)
The ghost of Roy Riegels laughs.
Or is it gloat?
Or is it 'wonder what this game with the oddly shaped ball is about'?
101 - well, at least Anaheim has a decent shot at keeping the Stanley Cup, right?
The Boston Bruins certainly aren't going to win the Stanley Cup.
I am consoling myself with the fact that there is no way Cal is the best team in the country anyway. Their defense is way too soft for a #1 team.
Oregon State beat #2 Cal in Berkeley 31-28. OSU lead 31-21 with 4 minutes to go. Cal scored on a long TD pass with about 2 1/2 minutes to go. OSU recovered the onside kick, but Cal forced a punt. Cal managed to get all the way to the OSU 12 and then this play transpired:
1st and 10 at OSU 12
Kevin Riley rush for 3 yards to the OrgSt 9.
Cal had no timeouts.
-30-
I can send you an Anaheim Ducks Stanley Cup winner t-shirt if you'd like.
So who will be starting Game 6? Let's discuss that for a while...
somewhere in my head, I had the word 'ideal', and it made all that make much more sense. Shame it never actually made it to the post itself.
He's dead to me!
Dead to me!
http://griddle.baseballtoaster.com/archives/317999.html
Amen brotha...
It wouldn't take a million years to come up with the name Asdrubal, but it was all the rage among elite Carthaginians, 27 centuries ago.
http://lexicorient.com/e.o/hasdrub2.htm
In the literal sense. They shot that flyball from a poor angle.
Time to get the SEC to step in. Or the Federal Reserve. There could be a Japanese Reliever Bubble.
Hey, my cable box wouldn't lie to me.
Does that take into account the decrease overall in the price of bionic parts? Once a standard caught on and everybody started buying more, bionic arms were just as cheap as DVD players.
I've had a lot of time to analyze that commercial.
But I am thinking, "This is it? Really? The Rockies could handle either of these teams no problem."
This is the weirdest year ever.
155 - I tend to think of game 2 as the third most important in a 7 game series: game 3; game 5; game 2. Of course, this all assumes it doesn't go 7 games, because game 7 would then be the most important.
I got a bionic arm at Radio Shack last week. I put in the closet for an emergency.
(cue demonic evil villain laugh)
And I can't believe I would think the Cubs are a team anyone would ever have to "keep pace" with.
Now I hope Colletti is watching with the sound on
There's a Reds fan at Baseball Toaster! Wow!
Although the Diamondbacks (or more specifically their fans) are really running up (or down?) the charts the postseason.
how can you even get in the mood when you don't understand the language though!?
it's a 2nd generation thing with me, my dad respected there great play but didn't like 'em much cause they rocked in the 70's, dad was a Dodger fan also.
When I was in Venice the other night, there were no less than 7 channels showing late-night phone number nudity shows.
1) They played in the NL West while the Cubs played in the NL East, and that didn't make any sense because Cincinnati is way east of Chicago;
2) I loved the Bash Brothers and hated the Nasty Boys and the 1990 World Series was a huge bummer;
and
3) I was a really sensitive, quiet, bookish kid and around when I was 9 or 10 I became completely obsessed with Jackie Robinson (still am) and I could not accept the cognitive dissonance of the game Jackie supposedly liberated harboring an owner like Marge Schott.
Didn't you watch any Rockies-Padres games last year?
There is a trend among Red Sox lore that annoys me. Roberts steal was in game 4. Buckner was in game 6. Fisk's home run was in game 6. These were not the moments that won or lost each series, there were more games to play after them.
Cleveland will hold there collective breath...
He's also have Venezuelian I think.
Especially with the franchise single-season stolen base leader being Tommy Harper.
But really cool people think the most important play in any game or series of games happens at some moment that will only be realized later.
Game-ending plays are so easy to figure out.
But isn't Pedroia supposed to be good?
Boston on October 8, 2003 in Game 1 of the ALCS.
Damian Jackson pinch ran for Todd Walker in the 8th inning.
Gabe White picked him off.
Park
Effects.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/F849