Thursday, October 13, 2005

[Sports]

My One and Only Baseball Post

I know nobody likes my sports posts, and I suspect even fewer will like a baseball post (fewer than zero--hmmm). Nevertheless, following last night's bizarre ending in the White Sox/Angels game, I'm going to put up this one baseball post. I'm not really much of a baseball fan, but I have to say that I've grown quite attached to the playoffs. I was roped in by the Red Sox, but I stay for the games. Another thing I've learned is that pitching duels rock. The casual viewer loves homers, but pitching is the real art. I'm delighted we're past the steroid phase. Now it's back to good pitching, and homers are the rarity (and therefore the explosive game-changer) they should be.

For my own amusement, I just checked the stats on the great 'roid age. Looking at the table below, can you spot it?

[Date - players with 50+ homers, players with 40+ homers, year high]
2005 - 1, 9, 51
2004 - 0, 9, 48
2003 - 0, 10, 47
2002 - 2, 8, 57
2001 - 4, 12, 73
2000 - 1, 16, 50
1999 - 2, 13, 65
1998 - 4, 13, 70
1997 - 1, 11, 56

Now I promise--no more baseball posts.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw, man. Talking yourself down over sports postings, Jeff? Baseball's my favorite team sport (except for maybe kickball, but that's just baseball where you kick a playground ball, BUT you can bean the runners) so you've got at least one interested party. If that's all she wrote, though, I suppose I still have Keith Olbermann. He's the double journalistic threat: poetic sportswriter and unrelenting politico.

Jeff Alworth said...

If Keith were a writer, he'd have my dream job.