I agree. Nothing is as american as pointless tedium.

SHHHHH! CAREFUL, EDEN! :O

If you have an opinion, for God's sake man, keep it to yourself--The Trolls are on the hunt for anyone who DARES post about what they're thinking!

Bloody eyebots, broadcasting these wannabe FDR talks even on webdip, as if anyone cared...

But on your topic...

Sure, any thing to help baseball works for me...football's a great sport, as is hockey, but even if some call it boring and some across the Sea snicker and cry "You're playing a CHILDREN'S game!", baseball is the national pastime.

It'sgoes on forever...
Underperformers are overpaid...
Everyone's suspicious of everyone else...

But on the other hand, it's poetic...
The moments it gives you can stick with you a lifetime...
And it's the one sport we have that really embraces diversity (really, the nFL is something like 70% black, and most of the QBs are still white, hockey is still over 90% white, and the NBA is what, 80% black...with baseball, for all it's faults, you have a clear mix--about a third of the league is white, a third from Mexico or some Latin American state, and the rest are black or Japanese or Taiwanese or Canadian or whatever else...it's pretty diverse.)

"This field, this game, it's a part of our past, Ray...it reminds us of all that once was GOOD--and could be again. Oh...people will come, Ray...people will most definitely come."

@ Obi.......I agree, conventional wisdom (sic) must be maintained at all costs. The first weapon deployed in its defence is often an attempt at condescending and belittling sarcasm.

I intend to belittle no one!

I DO, however, intend that sarcasm, as you so rightly pointedn out, fullhamish...

I codenscend to no one--I have not the position nor the inclination to do so.

I DO, however, maintain that those who wish to speak their mind here should be allowed to do so without the droves popping in just to say "You're all so STUPID for discussing this, damn kids these days..."

I disagree with most of what Putin says.
And with some of what Draug says.
And TGM.
And others.

But I respect them ALL for giving their opinion with cinviction and with mutual respect.

I don't think that's all too much to ask for on the forums, is it?

That if you don't like a tpoic, just stay clear of it, and if you come into the thread, be respectful of one another and speak openly?

Seems rather fair to me...

I agree Obi. I know little of baseball, but love football (note we do not call it ''soccer'' on this side of the pond) and cricket. Is this perhaps something of the flavour of baseball to which President so eloquently refers:

Alive & Well



Stapleton in June. The sun shines down

Upon the cricket ground beside the town.

Spectators congregate and very soon

Forget their troubles for the afternoon,

Relishing an English summer's bliss.

Through bitter winter months they longed for this.



The visitors from Frome have won the toss

And batting first, are 30 without loss.

Visiting players, age obscure,

Having played here many times before,

Begin to wander by the dry stone walls

Responding to raised hands and welcome calls,

Greeting the spectators, some by name,

(Would this take place with any other game?)

And sitting with them, settle at their ease

Beside the walls and underneath the trees,

Then slowly, very slowly, working round

Renew old friendships all around the ground;

Men of different status, age, and kind

Seeking and finding those of kindred mind,

Impartial as they venture and compare

Opinions of proceedings on the square



Discussing prospects, memories, the wicket:

What do they have in common? Only cricket.

In other circles they would never meet

Or, silent, pass each other in the street.

As wickets fall spectators must release

Protagonist companions to the crease

Their conversations promised to resume

When next the first team plays at home to Frome.



"Ref assaulted", "Jostling at Lords",

"Team bus stoned" in pictures and in words

The press and media never fail to mention

The foul language, violence and tension

So prevalent in sport and, so it seems,

Between supporters of opposing teams.

The cameras and press we may assume

Will not be there when Stapleton play Frome


By Arthur Salway

As to football I am off to that wonderfull little ground at the end of the park, next to the Bishop's Palace, on the banks of the Thames tonight to watch the mighty Black and White army called Fulham. On the walk through the park I always stop at the modest granite slab which commerates those locals who did not come back from Spain and say just a small and, all too brief, prayer.

No sarcasm or condescention here.

Well, I have no idea what the part about "30 without a loss" means--I've tried watching this on YouTube, tried reading about it, even saw one of the Doctor actors play it when I was trying out Doctor Who, and I STILL cannot get this game, haha--but yes, that is a good poem, and a great idea...

It's a shame that doesn't really happen...

@ obi... I am pleased to tell you that ''it'' actually still does often happen at cricket in England, although I am forced to admit that ''it'' is rarer at football matches!

I'm far more of a football fan as well. I don't hate baseball but I think there's a lot more in the way of tactics in football (American football) than what's found in baseball. I think that the game has begun to falter in some areas, however. I'm not a fan of simply firing your coach because he had a terrible season, or even firing him partway through the season. I also think that the player trading/releasing and bouncing around has gotten a bit out of hand, especially in terms of some players. Brandon Marshall is one example of a player whining like a baby, throwing games in order to get traded and just the overall selfish mentality that some jerk-headed players seem to maintain.

Baseball is about strategy over the season, not tactics in a signle game. It's about knowing who to send down to the minors for a little R&R and who to bring up to fill in. It's about recognizing am umderrated and hidden talent and grooming it and using it until it, too, needs to go take a little break and recuperate then finding the *new* underrated hidden talent to replace it.

At game time, it's about the line up and knowing who should bat where and how long your pitcher can last and what reliever does bets in which situations.

Minor league ballplayers don't get paid very much. The average salaries for the lowest league players are around $8000 a year. For first year players in the highest class of minor league ball, it is $17200, then open to negotiation.

The high salary bonuses only occur in the top 10 rounds of the draft, so really, the only people who are being paid so much money are the people who have played a major league game. For everyone else, it's Denny's on the road and motels.

Baseball is the perfect American game, I think, because it's a game of halves and halves, 50/50, very equal.

When you get down to the bare-bones of the game, half of it really comes down to cold, hard statistics, and from batting averages, earned run averages, statistical analyis of how righties to against lefties and vice versa, and so and and so forth, you can dump app this information into a computer program or board game and "replay" a game or series or an entire season of baseball from those stats (and I do, in fact, do that, fan of the game that I am...lots of programs out there, I use a cheap one, Strategic Baseball Simulator, but if anyone knows of Stat-O-Matic or APBA, or can just grasp at the idea of batting average+earned run average+out ratio=probabilities that can occur, you have the general idea.)

And then there's the other, poetic side of baseball, the side that's not so much about stats or wins or who has the best walks/strikeouts ratio, but rather the feeling of hearing Vin Scully call Dodger games as he has for 61 years now, or going to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park, both nearly a century old, and seeing games from the same spots someone in 1915 might have, and the grass and sun and hot dogs and drama of the game...it lends itself to the imagination like few other games, because there's no time limit--Derek Jeter can't just sit on the ball and run out the clock.

In baseball, each team gets 27 outs at least, and thus an even amount of time on offense and on defense--you can't keep the ball the whole time in the enemy zone, sooner or later, no matter how good you are, it'll be time to take the mound and give the other team their fair crack at it.

4 bases, 90 feet apart--and it seems just the perfect amount, any closer and there are so many more hits and runs and pitchers lose out and games go on forever, and any further and there are so many more outs and offenses suffer and the games are over far too quickly.

There are two leagues, the National and the American--the American League is dominated by big money and big power from the Yankees and Red Sox, modern baseball's great corporate powers, and the National League is more of a scramble.

The National League was first to integrate for blacks, Latin players, and Japanese players, and for a long time was more diverse than its American League counterpart.

There are 30 teams, and they run the gamut as well--you have teams like the Yankees, who have appeared in roughly 1/3 of all the World Series and won 1/4 of all the World Series, and seem to defy statistics in doing so...and then you have teams like the Cubs, who are going on 103 years now without a World Series win and 66 years since they even appeared in a World Series.

There are the Red Sox, with historically bad luck and a legacy of great hitters and great choke-jobs, though now that's beginning to change...

And there are the Mets, who are infamous for their Miracle Mets and the miracle win in 1986 in Game 6 and Ventura's Grand Single and Piazza's 9/11 home run...though, too, now THEIR luck is beginning to change...(oy...!) ;)

Half of what makes Babe Ruth a modern American legend is his 714 home runs.
And the other half is just how many women and hot dogs he enjoyed along the way.

:D

Baseball's an equal opportunity game.
The NHL is mainly made up of players from Northern Europe, Canada, and the Northern US.
The NBA is mostly black, there's no other way to say it.
The NFL is dominated by blacks and whites, and whites dominate the QB position while blacks dominate the RB and WR slots.

Baseball's a game of mixed ethnicities, everyone plays--Whites and Latin American/Mexican players make up about 60%, and in that other 40% are blacks and Japanese and Taiwanese and Cubans and Jews and any number of players, baseball's had its prejudices, like Aemrica, but it's part of the game and part of the nation to pass them--Ty Cobb, one of the greatest and also most white supremacist players of all-time, had his long-standing record for stolen bases shattered by two black men, and despite people mailing him death threats, it was a black man who passed the beloved Babe's 174 to become the Home Run King.

755 is the number, folks, NOT Bonds' 767. ;)

But it's another thing baseball and America share, scandals and controversies...it was in the Steroid Era's peak in the mid-2000s, where more and more lost faith in the game's integrity, that more and more began to lose faith in the integrity of both the Democratic and Republican parties.

(OK, maybe we've always had problems with out parties, but still...) ;)

Babe Ruth IS America in the 20s and 30s--booming and huge in the first decade, depressed and fallen to Earth in the second.
Jackie Robinson's breaking the color barrier opened the doors for future players--but also was a prelude to the coming three decades of Civil Rights marching.
Mickey Mantle IS the 1950s--perfect when on the camera, hurting and hiding it while off.
Roberto Clemente was the Latin American Jackie Robinson at a time when that culture was just starting to really explode in the US.
A miracle of science occured in 1969 when we landed on the moon, and a Miracle in baseball occured that same year when the Miracle Mets won the World Series.

(Not quite on par with the other ones, but had to put it.) ;)

Baseball's a game of seasons.

February rolls around, and the first pitchers and catchers report for the first workouts.
March comes, and Spring Training is here, and young rookies get their shot at the team.
April heralds Opening Day, the chance to see your team, for one day, in first.
May toys with the hopes of everyone, it's so early, still, anything can and often does happen.
June starts the change from spring showers to summer sun, and the plot begins to unfold.
July marks the halfway mark, the Fourth of July and Summer Classics, the first dog days.
August starts the second half of the season, as the playoff push beings.
September is a fevered month, with the pennant races intense and each game huge.
October is the time of heroes, with playoffs and, finally, the Fall Classic itself to be won.

And from November to January...

We all watch football and hockey on the couch with the fire roaring and waiting for the winds to die down and the snow to melt. :)

America, in theory, anyway, loves equality and clockwork seasons and was and is built upon diversity and a mesh of poetic idealism and cold rationalism...

And the two clash in baseball, as they do in America.

But the truth is--neither baseball nor America work without them both.

(I LOVE THIS GAME!) :D

God Bless the Enclave!

The Enclave is America.

^ Well, what's left of the government on an oil rig when the end comes.

^^ It's sad that America can be knocked down to its knees by two unwashed hobos.

Something completely American?

Can't be capitalism, that's dutch.

Can't be industry, that's british.

Maybe Sattelites/Space travel? Nope that seems to be Soviet Russian

Can't be the television, british as well.

Democracy, that has to be Amer.... Greek.

Fireworks at least? Nope, China.

Ahh, yes... the Mobile phone! Center place of modern/ what do you mean it was also made by the Soviets?

Okay, please tell me that the internet... Swiss, but ARPANet you say?

Alright Networked computing is genuinely american, cornerstone of modern american society and created out of Cold War fear.

Lis of completely American things include also KKK, teledildonics, hippies, hand-egg, electric chair and Cheetos. Murika!

President Eden + 1 for the Fallout 3 reference

It was perfect, word for word.

@Gunfighter you can find the quote on wikiquote
@Tergem the Enclave still has some bases around Chicago. On a sidenote I hope Fallout 4 is around Chicago so we would have the Enclave, Midwestern Brotherhood (dicks), and some sort of Midwestern Republic.
Yes, I did poison the water in Fallout 3.

@airborne, yeah I know about that. I was referring to #2 of course when I brought up the oil rig.

dammit airborne ._.

also, I would love to see Baton Rouge in a Fallout game

Oh why's that?

because I'm from here, and I could with enough time map out post-apocalyptia Baton Rouge, and in fact have already done so, sorta, when bored

and it's fucking awesome

But, wouldn't you get eaten by Mutant Gators?

Not if you shot 'em with the mandatory-issue twelve-gauge in the shed.

Crips and Bloods are American, nothing but ... well a little Mexican too, but hey we fought a war with those bastards so tough shit

^ America fought multiple wars with Mexico, there was also a little scuffle during WWI too.

and don't forget the war on drugz

^lol

hey, 15 decapitations in Acapulco means a war by US tourons ...

@ airborne

I did not poison the water.

What's your favorite Fallout 3 DLC?