Baseball Brain Teasers
from Wilbur Wilke
HERE ARE SOME MORE BRAIN
TEASERS TO WORK ON . . . . .
(All answers appear at the end of the column.)
(1) What two National League MLB teams are tied with the longest names?
(2) What two American League MLB cities are tied with having the most letters in its city or state name?
(3) What three MLB teams have the shortest names. Disregard the city or stae portion of the name.
(4) Three MLB team cities begin with a vowel. Can you name them?
(5) Only two MLB teams do not end with an S. Can you name them?
(6) Which is the only MLB team that does not play in a Stadium, Field, Park, or Dome?
ANSWERS:
(1) Arizona Diamondbacks and the Washington Nationals. (19) letters each. The San Francisco Giants have 18 letters.
(2) Los Angeles Angels and the Kansas City Royals (10)
(3) Mets, Reds, and Cubs
(4) Atlanta Braves, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Oakland A's
(5) Red Sox and White Sox
(6) The Oakland A's (Oaland Coliseum)
|
That's What I Think...
by Richard Royce
HOW LONG IS A HOME RUN?
Most baseball fans are enamored with the home run. Ever since Babe Ruth was crowned the king of swat and set his famous 60 home run mark, ballplayers have been chasing the record. Some have managed to surpass the Babe: guys like Roger Maris, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa have gained immortality. But in order to have a record, shouldn’t there be a level playing field? I'm not talking about the steriods issue. That's another matter. I'm talking about baseball not having a ballpark dimensions consistency. Shouldn’t the home run distance be the same in each ballpark?
A ballplayer plays 81 games every year in his home park. Suppose he’s a left-handed batter and the right field fence is only 290 feet away from home plate. He’s going to hit a good amount of his season total over that short fence. Another player plays his 81 home games in a stadium that has a high right field fence that is 365 feet away. You can’t have an unequal home run distance and establish a fair and equitable home run record.
Bur baseball goes on with the charade and no one seems to care.
Football field measurements are the same everywhere in the league. Just suppose some fields were shorter or longer than others, or wider. Wouldn’t the amount of touchdowns scored be affected? How could you crown the player scoring the most touchdowns for the year when the distances for scoring touchdowns were different for each player?
Basketball courts are uniform throughout the league and on every college campus, but suppose the height of the basket from the floor was arbitrary. Suppose each team was allowed to set the basket height to any distance it desired. Wouldn’t the inconsistency affect the game and the scoring? Of course it would. How could you have any credible records with variable boundaries? Golf courses are not dimensionally the same, but the competing players all play the same holes, which makes things fair and equal. Soccer field dimension are the same everywhere, in every country, so are boxing rings and bowling alleys, and hockey rinks, and tennis courts. Even Boccie and horseshoe courts are uniform. A six furlong race is the same distance at every racetrack. So the horse that runs that exact distance in the fastest time, holds the record.
Only baseball does not have distance consistency. Even the ball and strike zone is arbitrary, officialized by the whim of the umpire, and differing from one umpire to the other, and from one league to the other. Yet, we have strikeout records. How?
How can you justify having home run records if the distances are not the same in every park? The only thing that is uniform are the distances between the bases; All are 90 feet apart. How would we ever have stolen base records if they weren't? If you don’t have consistency in dimesions you’re comparing apples and oranges. Don’t you think? . . . . . . .
And did you know that in Babe Ruth’s playing days, a ball that bounced into the stands on one hop was considered a home run? Today it’s a ground rule double. How many of Ruth’s 60 home runs bounced into the stands? We don’t know because nobody kept a statistic on it.
__________________________
Wilbur Wilke's Daily Sports Blog
View Previous Articles
You Heard It Here First...
Nobody Asked Me But...
|
