MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

That was Roz Kelly.

 

Infographics don't get much better than this.

I was perfect on the first six pitches, missed the seventh.

You Be the Ump

 

Somebody on Twitter was bitching about this being the first "perfect" umpired game, and how every game should be so. And I wonder if that person realizes there have been less than 25 official perfect games (23, to be specific) thrown in more than 235,000 games played over 150 years of professional major league baseball.

You're talking about the home plate umpire seeing an average of 120-150 pitches not swung on -- the majority of them at 95 mph-plus with movement -- and making an immediate call without the benefit of superimposed strike zone camera or replay. And I'll bet over half of those are right on the black or at the top or bottom of the zone. Missing 2 or 3 out of 140 is still amazing.

The guys in blue traditionally and consistently are pretty damn good considering how we view the officials in every other sport.

 

Never understood why she never had a hit in the US (Stumbling In doesn’t count)
This was her big UK hit

 

Which is why you don't see many (you still see some) arguments regarding the actual location of the pitch being called a ball or a strike. Many of the arguments come with consistency of the calls. I mean you do see hitters or pitchers complaining about borderline calls, but it more often than not stems from a call being something for five innings and then different in the later innings.

 

I think it's an old baseball axiom that the umpires can be bad, as long as they're consistently bad.

 

To me, Quatro charting with that collaboration felt much like Liz Phair's one "hit." Both of them stepped away from their edgy style and went mainstream pop for one song.

 

I did that too. Missed the first one because I wasn’t sure what to expect. Got the last six.

That was fun.

 

I truly despise the "you never played the game" cry of some athletes. But I'll still say there's one thing that can't be appreciated until you're on top of it, and that's facing a pitcher.

What you see from the first-base stands is not the same as what you see when that pitch is being thrown within a foot of you. This graphic gives that feeling more than almost anything I've seen.

 

The sound of a fastball is like a combination of a sizzling steak and an angry bee. That's more frightening than the velocity. You don't know if you should swat it or eat it.

 

And the fastball that looks from the center-field camera like it's rising slightly near the plate? That thing is taking off like a jet liner if you're standing in there against it.