Good morning, campers!
If you are playing catch-up, here are topics we discussed in Right Field over the past seven days:
- Are the Dodgers’ finances indicative of a greater problem throughout professional sports?
- Why do fans sometimes cheer when their team’s batter grounds into a force play?
- Might players on the 1918 Cubs have thrown the World Series?
- How might one convert a friend to Catholicism … and Red Sox Nation?
- What explains the early-season, Troy Tulowtizki power surge?
- Did that radar gun really read “106″ miles per hour?
- What, if anything, does history tell us about the fast starts of the Indians and Royals?
And here is some other interesting stuff that transpired:
- Remember the panic that had invaded New England after the Red Sox had lost their first six games? Remember how the Rays were similarly dead in the water? Yeah, neither do I.
- Have home plate umpires been hosing left-handed batters by calling low and outside pitches strikes?
- Count Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum as not overly impressed with Commissioner Bud Selig’s decision to allow for an additional wildcard team per league starting next season.
- What accounts for the Cardinals’ recent success at the plate? The answer may be Batting Average in Balls in Play (BABIP), thanks in part to more line drives being hit.
- Does baseball really have an attendance problem?
- Selig’s decision to assume control of the Dodgers might make one recall the plight of the 1936 Boston Bees (Braves).
- While the Mets were in Atlanta, third baseman David Wright played catch with youngsters sitting behind the visitors’ dugout, thereby expanding his fanbase in Georgia.
- Weighted on-base average (wOBA) enjoys a far greater correlation to runs scored than does batting average.
- Retired first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz is still fielding questions about the World Series clinching ball that he held onto after the 2004 Red Sox championship.
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