BATTER UP!

[HudsonHawk]

I don’t watch baseball that often, but agree with the commentators.
It was a very enjoyable game to watch!
And not because who won.

This ALCS was a tremendous series. If you're a fan of pitching and glove work, this was your series.

 

[Harp]

Saw Verlander pitch six innings last week, he'll be up againt K tonite. All in for the Astros!

 

[2jakes]

Verlander was the best pitcher in baseball—until Kershaw came along. Now, the two defining pitchers of this generation take the mound for opposite sides, with a World Series ring on the line.

 

[2jakes]

Wild Game #2

George Springer hit a two-run home run in the top of the 11th inning to give the Astros a 7-5 lead over the Dodgers in Game 2 of the World Series.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ Baseball is doing its best this year to grab back some attention from the stumbling NFL.

 

[2jakes]

Game 2 was exciting that I found myself watching it.
I usually don’t watch much sports or TV except for TCM
or PBS.

 

[Harp]

I remarked last nite at the bar around 3rd inning that the Astros could beat the Dodgers, but by the 6th with Verlander having been hit and finished
for the nite, I concluded I had been wrong. And the game looked like a beer that had gone flat. I had a train to catch and bade all a good nite.
Then, of course, I get home and turn the radio on to The Score 67*AM and learn what a wild ride I missed.
Yogi was right, it ain't over until its over.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They don't come much better than that one. And the Dodgers deserve to lose, if only for the abomination of adding white stripes to their socks.

 

[belfastboy]

They don't come much better than that one. And the Dodgers deserve to lose, if only for the abomination of adding white stripes to their socks.

My wife, a non sports fan, asked me who I was rooting for. I replied, Astros. Why, she asked. My reply as usual......I root for the best uniforms and I am partial to the orange and blue of the Astros. Seinfeld does a funny bit in his latest standup about rooting for the "sweaters" and I pretty much agree....best uniforms get my support. Except for the Yankees.....Never Yankees!

 

[Frunobulax]

My wife, a non sports fan, asked me who I was rooting for. I replied, Astros. Why, she asked. My reply as usual......I root for the best uniforms and I am partial to the orange and blue of the Astros. Seinfeld does a funny bit in his latest standup about rooting for the "sweaters" and I pretty much agree....best uniforms get my support. Except for the Yankees.....Never Yankees!

Being a Reds fan from birth, I couldn't in good conscience root for the Dodgers.


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

 

[Fading Fast]

Intellectually, I get the "we are only rooting for the uniform" argument and agree 100%. Emotionally, I am there 80% of the time as well and am now much, much less engaged with the teams and sports in general - free agency, contact holdouts, teams moving cities, strikes, stadium-building rip-offs, the general grabby, grubbiness of it all turned me off.

But darn it if, 20% of the time, I don't still get sucked in and find myself really involved and rooting with passion (and being disgusted with myself later for letting that happen again).

All that said, I want baseball to thrive and remain popular so I am ecstatic that the Series has been really engaging so far especially with the NFL, via a self-inflicted wound, having handed baseball a great opportunity.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It takes guts to wear orange on a baseball field and get away with it, and the Astros have been doing so even since they were the Colt 45s. But sometimes they did take it to extremes.

If you ever wondered if there was a picture of Leo saying "WTF?" I think this would be it.

I've always been quite fond of the Dodger uniform, which dates back to 1938, but they keep frigging around with it and busying it up with a lot of extra Boys From Marketing crap. That "LA" patch on the sleeves is obnoxious, and the white stripes on the socks are even worse. The "LA" on the hat stinks too, but that's a whole other gripe.

 

[Fading Fast]

...I've always been quite fond of the Dodger uniform, which dates back to 1938, but they keep frigging around with it and busying it up with a lot of extra Boys From Marketing crap. That "LA" patch on the sleeves is obnoxious, and the white stripes on the socks are even worse. The "LA" on the hat stinks too, but that's a whole other gripe.

Agreed, there's something in humans that can't leave well enough alone. As you know, I'll join you in a good old bash-the-Boys-From-Marketing round, but it is also the team owners / managers that hire the Boys.

I saw it in Corporate America for years - the attitude of "let's improve this," "let's start with 'clean piece of paper'" etc., is everywhere in Corporate America - companies just can't leave anything alone for long.

I worked for Bank of Boston when it decided it needed to "spruce up its name and image - make it more youthful and 'today'." Well, two consulting / marketing firms and $1,000,000 (I kid you not, I saw the invoices) later - the new name was (drum roll please) BankBoston.

The senior management of the bank spent $1,000,000 of the shareholder's money to remove the word "of" from its name.

I get that things do need to adjust and be updated for various reasons from time to time, but the constant itch to change also kills many good, classic things that would be much better off left alone.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One thing I'll grant the Yankees is that they've left well enough alone with their uniforms. I could do without the white border around the lettering on the road suits, but in general they've kept things stable since the 1930s, and should be commended strongly for that. Especially when you look at the mess the Mets made of their uniforms for a very long time with the addition of black, the drop-shadows, the two-tone hats, and other such repulsive nonsense. They seem to have regained sanity in recent years, but they never should have messed around in the first place.

I still haven't forgiven the Red Sox for getting rid of the navy-blue undershirts and the blue-white-red striped socks and keep hoping they'll come to their senses.

 

[Fading Fast]

I deeply love the Yankee's uniform. It just sings Golden Era to me: it's pinstripes for God's sake!

The Mets have always, IMHO, had style issues.

And agreed on the Sox, a classic, venerable organization with THAT stadium should know better than to mess with its uniform.

 

[belfastboy]

Being a Reds fan from birth, I couldn't in good conscience root for the Dodgers.


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

Yeh, but I love the look of the Dodger uniform, still close to old school classic. I just don't like them as much as the orange/navy blue of the Astros.

 

[belfastboy]

I deeply love the Yankee's uniform. It just sings Golden Era to me: it's pinstripes for God's sake!

The Mets have always, IMHO, had style issues.

And agreed on the Sox, a classic, venerable organization with THAT stadium should know better than to mess with its uniform.

The Mets issues started when they coopted the NY Giants logo. and the orange of the giants and the blue of the dodgers....derivative at inception!

 

[Fading Fast]

The Mets issues started when they coopted the NY Giants logo. and the orange of the giants and the blue of the dodgers....derivative at inception!

Even as a kid when he Mets won the World Series, the Yankees still felt like New York's baseball team and the Mets were just a team that played in Flushing - they never felt like a true home team to me. And, at that age, I didn't even know the history, it was just the vibe a kid picks up. I had the exact same feeling about the Giants versus the Jets, even when the Jets were winners.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The whole Giant orange/Dodger Blue thing was definitely an intentional plan from the beginning, and if you look at the first Met roster in 1962, you see how literal they tried to make it, using up as many expansion draft picks as they could on aging ex-Dodgers: Gil Hodges, Charley Neal, Roger Craig, Clem Labine, Joe Pignatano, Don Zimmer, etc. That would have made for a pretty good lineup in 1957, but what a difference six years makes. Interestingly, though, there were no ex-NY Giants on the roster, suggesting where the real root stock of Met fandom came from.

They even took it to the extreme of holding an elaborate ceremony at the opening of Shea Stadium, where the soil was baptized with water from the Harlem River and the Gowanus Canal. And then the Mets went out and lost.

 

[2jakes]

I deeply love the Yankee's uniform. It just sings Golden Era to me: it's pinstripes for God's sake!

The Mets have always, IMHO, had style issues.

And agreed on the Sox, a classic, venerable organization with THAT stadium should know better than to mess with its uniform.

Without a doubt, the Yankee’s pinstripes is my all-time favorite.

Even looked good on Yogi regardless of the grime & dirt.