Baseball in Winter?
We’ve got a few big days coming up. In fact the next 9 will be massive. Planning our trip to Denver for Monday Night Football, coming back to Green Bay for Halloween then off to Kansas City to see us beat the Chiefs. The two home games afterwards are looking quite nice from here.
As such, today was a stay at home day.
In preparing for the trip this week we have had to take the “World” Series into account. Now I don’t want to spend too much time on Baseball but shouldn’t the season have finished by now? Seriously, isn’t it a summer sport?
My first experience with baseball was in LA at the end of August when I heard the Brewers had to play 22 games in 21 days. I thought that was absolutely ridiculous. I mean 260 something games in a season? What the heck for?
So as it turns out, our experience in Denver may be very different if the World Series goes to a 5th game. The showpiece Monday Night Football Game going up against the 5th game of the Championship decider, in the same city. What are the chances?
Speaking of chances, what are the chances that since it’s inauguration in 1903 the “World” Series of Baseball is in its 104th consecutive year of being played by 2 North American teams? I think it’s incredible that these teams have been able to keep International teams out of the series decider for so long. (The Blue Jays are included as a North American team by the way). Either the rest of the world really sucks at Baseball or it isn’t really a “World” Series.
I did a little research on the 2 points above. (Now you have to take this as tongue in cheek, I actually enjoy the game and have adopted the Brewers as my new team):
1. The rest of the world doesn’t suck at Baseball. Since entering the Olympics as an official sport in 1992, Cuba has won gold 3 times. Silvering the only time they missed out on the big one. Japan has won 3 medals in 4 tournaments and the USA have 2.
The history of the Baseball World Cup is even more telling. Cuba has won gold every year since 1984. In fact, of the 36 championships since 1938, they have won gold 25 times.
The next most successful team is Venezuela with 3 gold’s followed by the US with 2.
Over the last 20 years, the US have managed 2 silver medals at the World Cup. Chinese Taipei, Korea, Japan, Nicaragua and Panama have all equalled or bettered that performance over the same period.
2. As such, I’m beginning to think it isn’t really a “World” series. I don’t mean to offend anyone here but seriously, a “World” series should be competed for by teams outside of just the USA and Canada don’t you think?
In saying all of that, I guess it is the premier baseball competition in the world and the fact that players come from all over the world to play could give reason to the name. That is a stretch though. (Insert smiley face here). Anyway I could go on about it but I like cricket and I’m sure there are alot of people who can’t figure that out so I guess we’re even in the end.
I actually watched the 2nd game of the series last night to see if it would have any effect on our plans for Monday. It didn’t, the Red Sox won again. I did enjoy the game though. It’s a little slow but so is cricket. There is too long between pitches but that’s the same for football and the scoring can be quite low, but that’s often the case for soccer and I quite like that too.
All in all it’s not the NFL but I’ll probably find myself watching game 3 anyway. I mean, it does have a bat and ball so it’s gotta be good from that standpoint.
As for the rest of the night I got horribly lost trying to get 5 miles from our place and ended up halfway to Sturgeon Bay. I guess that’s what happens when you get on and stay on the 43 north not knowing you were supposed to take the 172 east exit. I ended up taking the 189 to loop back around and head home again. At least I got to see some more of the countryside. Otherwise, Ben had fun discovering Kel’s Ugg Boots and we had our mates Tezza and Robbo over for some home made pizza whilst we sorted the plan for maintaining sanity over the next week and a half.
