A Day Of Baseball …

Here in Curmudgeon Central, it is not uncommon to take note of failures and wretchedness.  So, the lead paragraph of this morning’s report in the Washington Post of yet another loss by the Baltimore Orioles compelled me to read on carefully.  Here is that lead paragraph:

“The 2021 Baltimore Orioles are historically bad.”

The American League has been around for 120 years.  Until last night, no AL team had ever had more than one losing streak of 13 or more games in a single season.  Last night the O’s lost their 13^th in a row after losing 14 in a row back in May.  Moreover, the losses in this streak have not been of the “heartbreakingly close variety.”  These 13 games were lost by 87 runs; that is 6.7 runs per game; last night’s loss was by the nail-biting score of 10-0.

[Aside:  The O’s are historically bad in the AL; over in the NL, the D-Backs have lost 13 games in a row twice this season too.]

A look at the standings for MLB this morning confirms the poverty of the situation in Baltimore.  Not only do the Orioles have the worst record in MLB (38-80), but they have also been outscored by 218 runs over the season.  The next worst team in that category would be the Pittsburgh Pirates who have been outscored by “only” 182 runs.  The Orioles’ pitching staff has already given up 693 runs in 118 games (5.9 runs per game!); only 3 other MLB teams have given up 600 runs or more.

A few other oddities from the MLB standings this morning:

• The Yankees are 16 games over .500; yet their run differential for the season is only +24.  Meanwhile in the AL East, the Jays are 8 games over .500 with a run differential of +121.
• The White Sox are cruising in the AL Central leading the division by 11 games.  However, the Sox are only 29-28 on the road.
• The Mariners are over-achieving this year and they are 8 games over .500 in mid-August.  However, their run differential is minus-45.
• The Rangers’ road record this year is abysmal at 14-45 as of this morning.
• The Braves lead the stunningly mediocre NL East by 2.5 games today.  Interestingly, the Braves are 6 games over .500 on the road and only 2 games over .500 at home.

The Misfortune Team of 2021 is probably the San Diego Padres.  With a record standing at 12 games over .500, the Padres would lead or be in contention in every other division in MLB.  In the NL West, they are 12 games behind the division leading Giants and 8 games behind the second place Dodgers.  Moreover, the Padres have produced their record despite a plethora of injuries that have put key players on the Injured List for this year:

• Fernando Tatis Jr. has been on the 10-day IL three separate times in 2021.
• Blake Snell has been on the 10-day IL twice in 2021.
• Yu Darvish is currently on the 10-day IL for the second time in 2021.
• Eric Hosmer was on the IL for 8 days in 2021
• Mike Clevinger has missed the entire season after Tommy John surgery.

Sticking with baseball, the Field of Dreams game was a TV ratings success story and according to reports it “blew up on social media.”  Not being a connoisseur of social media, I assume that to be a positive happenstance and not an injurious one.  MLB is not known for its proclivity to “tease its audience” even a little bit and it ran true to form here.  Yesterday, it announced that there will be another Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, IA in 2022 and that the Chicago Cubs would take on the Cincinnati Reds in that game in August.

Dyersville is a town of about 4,000 folks; MLB is not trying to lure the citizenry there into baseball fandom as a way of growing MLB revenue.  However, the state of Iowa is interesting to MLB because of its geography.  Iowans can be close to Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and even KC if they live in the southwestern part of the state.  So, enticing fandom among Iowans as a class is a plus for MLB and it should be noted that the White Sox played in Dyersville in 2021 and the Cubs will be there in 2022.

I wonder, however, how long the bloom will stay on this rose. MLB has done mid-season “specialty games” before.  Recall the games in Williamsport, PA during the Little League World Series in recent years.  [Aside:  Not surprisingly, those games in small-town PA involved the Phillies, Pirates and Mets.]  This year, two AL teams – Cleveland and LA – will meet in this mid-summer spectacle.  There was also a game played at Fort Bragg 5-10 years ago for no ostensible reason.

So, MLB has one ongoing mid-summer oddball game in Williamsport PA on the schedule and now is scheduling a second one in Dyersville, IA.  These sorts of things can lose their luster quickly; the safety net for MLB is that the stadiums they are played in are so small that MLB need never worry about a “sparse crowd;” if need be, the MLB Front Office could fill the stands with their immediate families.  But this is the kind of thing that can go from nostalgic and interesting and heartwarming to trite and annoying quickly.  So, where is MLB’s next “mid-summer oddity game”?  Cooperstown, NY?  Are there any facilities near to where Negro League teams played their games back in the 30s and 40s?

Here is an idea:

• Cancel the All-Star Game and the nonsense that accompanies it.
• Take the 3-day break in the schedule and play one game in Dyersville on the first day, one game in Williamsport on the second day and one game in Cooperstown (?) on the third day.
• Then go back to playing baseball “normally.”

Finally, I shall close today with an observation about cynicism by George Bernard Shaw:

“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………