[nosehair]

Being a fan of the greatest sport of all, baseball, I am very happy that the new MLB season has started.


For those who don't follow baseball....the regular season lasts 6 months, April-September, with the playoffs starting in October.

The World Series, where the best baseball team in the world is crowned, can actually end in late October, or in some instances the first week of November...1989 for example, when the San Francisco Loma Prieta quake of 7.1 stopped play for 10 days or so.

Anyone who was in the SF/Oak/San Jose area at the time can attest to the strength of that jolt...F N scary....

Anywho....with the start of a new season even the "Watfords" of the baseball world have supreme optimism that this will be the year of there team.....

So in keeping with the tradition of "Opening Day".....here are the winners of each division and the World Series victor for 2007....take it to da bank....

AL East....the Yankees...fuck 'em...only team I hate more is the Red Sox.

AL Central...the White Sox.

AL West...the A's

Wild Card...the Blue Jay's

A's advancing to the World Series.

NL East...Mets...hate these guys too.

NL Central...the Cubs

NL West...Dodgers...hate these Hollywood F N bums 2.


Wild Card...the Phillies.

Cubs advance to the World Series and beat the A's in 7 games...first World Series victory in about a 100 F N years

For all you baseball fans...I hope your team has a great season...unless they are playing mine

Although a Yankee...still the greatest ballplayer of all time...even my dog knows his name

Who is yer team?

[roamer]

[quote=nosehair;21860]

For those who don't follow baseball....



That would be me then.
Dumb question time.
What does AL and NL stand for?
How many games will each team in a division play in a season?
Just the winner of each division go through to play-offs or runner up as well?
When 2 top teams are playing in an important match what sort of crowd size do you get?

[nosehair]

roamer excellent questions.....There are two leagues in Major League Baseball...the American League and the National League.

Each team will play 162 regular season games...teams generally get 1 day off a week unless they go through a series of "rain outs" and then they can play 2-3 weeks in a row to catch up towards the end of the season.

Just the winners of each division AL and NL East, Central and West Divisions advance to the playoffs with one "Wild Card" team, the team with the best record that does not win a division, advancing as well.

The four AL teams play off against each other, likewise the NL teams...the winner of the Al then meets the champion of the NL in the World Series in a best of 7 games match up....it is the most historic sporting event in the United States with a tradition that goes back into the 1880's or so...

This ball park Wrigley Field is in Chicago.....

...it is one of the most beautiful venues in all of American sport. Capacity is approx 40,000, Standing Room Only, and they sell out about 99% of the time and will draw 3 million fans for an 81 game home season....the only teams that don't draw well are the perennial losers such as Kansas City and Tampa Bay.

[roamer]

Cheers nose,good explanation.
Wow! They play some games in the course of a season then.
Yep that ball park does look good,thought it looked nice on your opening post.

[old crust]

Interesting post Nose. Over this side of the pond little is known about baseball. Our summer sport is the greatest game on earth (cricket) although I appreciate we are probably both ignorant to each others game.

Baseball is played over in Australia and cricket players cut the mustard very well on the 'ball park'. Many years ago a top Aussie cricketer (DK Lillee) took on a top American baseball player at both games and came out on top. The American could not lay a bat on the cricket ball, due mainly to the bounce, whereas Lillee found the 'full tosses' meat and drink on the diamond.

In the spirit of this board I will follow the baseball season this year and try to become less ignorant about the game. I might need you as a guide though, so be ready for some basic questions.

Question one, which team should I follow?

[mack]

Nose, my team since 1958 has been the S.F. Giants...saw Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Marichal etc. at Seal Stadium as a 7 year old before the Stick was built. It has been a challenge rooting for the Giants with Bonds on the team, but hopefully this will be his last season. Nose, I wish the guy you talked to in the Pattaya bar long ago...the one with the 70 mph "heater"... could be the Giant's closer this year....Benitez is shaky.

[nosehair]

old crust....if I was to pick a team for you to follow I would pick the Chicago Cubs....they have been the "lovable losers" on Chicago's North side for many, many years...they have a huge fan base and should improve on last years dismal record after spending over $160 million USD's on free agents.

If you give it some time...baseball will grow on you. It's the only sport where you will see spectators reading the paper, knitting, sleeping, breast feeding, changing diapers, fighting and making out while the game is in progress....but everyone stops what they are doing when sumfin actually happens that effects the game.

Thanks for taking an interest.

mack....The Giants were always a fav team of mine. I used to get my family members into the bleachers at Candlestick for $1.00 each...we'd park the car, have a couple of frosty malts and only spend $20.00 for the whole outing (we'd bring all our food with us)...now you can't even park the car for $20.00 ....a day at the beautiful AT&T Ballpark is gonna cost you, including tickets and food and $10.00 for a F N beer , a couple of hundered.

And what ever you do don't buy a F N hat or a tee shirt 'cause that will run you another 30 bucks each .....but it's baseball...I'm glad it's back

[Guido13]

I was born and raised in New York City and am a rabid fan of the most sucessful MLB franchise in history, The New York Yankees!

[nosehair]

Originally Posted by Guido13

I was born and raised in New York City and am a rabid fan of the most sucessful MLB franchise in history, The New York Yankees!

LOL!

Just for you Guido.....

The 1928 Yankees...one of the greatest teams of all time...

World Series Champs with a regular season record of 101-53....they swept the Cardinals 4-0 in the W/S. You can see the Babe in the back row center and Lou Gehrig as well.

That's Leo "the lip" Durocher in the front row second from right...Leo turned out to be one of the truly great managers the game has ever known.

Lou batted .374 that year with 47 doubles and 142 RBI's while Babe smacked 54 homers and battd .323 with 142 RBI's as well.

[Guido13]

Thanks for that, Nose.
Lou Gerhig is my favorite Yankee of all time.
Truly incredibile production during his shortened career.