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| Aug-26-10 | | eightbyeight: I am thoroughly impressed - you must indeed have "booked up like crazy." The KBNk checkmate takes at most 33 moves. You took 36, (which is understandable - I doubt any human can perfectly master this mate) and my computer gives mate in 30 after 59. Nc5. Well done. However - d3 against the Caro-Kann defence? I have seen stranger stuff in the opening, but that makes the top ten. Any explanation? |
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Aug-26-10
 | | Phony Benoni: <eightbyeight> Nothing particularly weird about it; White is heading for a King's Indian Reversed formation. Fischer played it a few times (Fischer vs I Ibrahimoglu, 1970, for instance), and also employed the strategy against the French and Sicilian on occasion. |
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| Aug-27-10 | | crawfb5: They may have torn down his Bridgeport house last summer, but Hall of Famer James Henry O'Rourke (http://baseballhall.org/hof/orourke...) gets a statue outside Bridgeport's minor league park. Former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent to speak at dedication(http://www.ctpost.com/local/article...). O'Rourke had the first hit in the National League (22 April 1876) and set the record for the oldest player in the NL when he played his last game at age 54 as catcher for the Giants (22 Sept 1904). |
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| Aug-27-10 | | Jim Bartle: Pujols hits his 400th. Amazing in just ten seasons, particularly for a player who is basically a line drive, high average hitter. Looks to me as if he will soon be the second best first baseman in history, but whom will he be passing? Jimmy Foxx? Later in the game Pujols unfortunately lost a battle with the rolled-up tarp. I assume he will be OK today. |
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| Aug-27-10 | | Jim Bartle: Oh no. Looks like Tommy John is going to have <another> surgery! How much can one body take? |
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Aug-27-10
| | Phony Benoni: Pujols not only playing tonight, but he's hit #401. If he can continue his present pace for three more years, there will be a good argument to put him ahead of Gehrig. As for Strasburg, well, that's why they have pitch counts and bring young pitchers along slowly. Maybe this give the yappers who complain about how pitchers are babied today something to think about. |
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| Aug-27-10 | | Jim Bartle: I guess he thought, "If I hit a home run, then I won't have to run." |
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| Aug-28-10 | | playground player: <crawfb5> "Orator Jim" O'Rourke--yes, he deserves a statue! <Phony Benoni> Putting anybody ahead of the Iron Horse, just on the basis of stats... no can do. With all due respect to today's hitters, a lot of the pitching they face would never have made it to the major leagues in Gehrig's day, when there were only 8 teams per league. I can't even imagine the kind of a feast Lou would have on today's pitchers... |
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Aug-28-10
| | Phony Benoni: <playground player> On the other hand, Pujols rarely gets to face the same pitcher more than two or three times in a game, and must constantly adjust to new hurlers. Gehrig often faced pitchers who were growing progressively more tired four or five times in a game. Gehrig also had the advantage of a stronger overall lineup. There were far fewer situations when teams could pitch around Gehrig, particularly when they had already walked Ruth. This is not to denigrate Gehrig's achievements in any way. But every era has its own set of challenges that players must overcome; it's never totally in favor of one or the other. |
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| Aug-28-10 | | Jim Bartle: It's really tough to compare eras. Everything playground player says is true. Especially the part about there being only half as many teams. Also, baseball attracted a larger percentage of the best athletes in Gehrig's time. On the other hand, Gehrig never had to face Latino or black pitchers, the split-finger and slider had not been developed, there were no lights-out relief specialists, gloves were much smaller, he played many more day games, etc. |
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| Aug-29-10 | | David2009: <Phony Benoni> nice analysis! Ftacnik vs A Aleksandrov, 2008 An example where the protected passed Pawn doesn't win |
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| Aug-29-10 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni>, <Jim Bartle> Alas, there really is no way to prove which of us is right. But if we can't enjoy our preferences in baseball, why bother? Especially when either side can make reasonable arguments... Livy, responding to the speculation as to what would've happened had Alexander the Great lived to invade Italy (a plan that was certainly on his docket), said the whole idea was laughable. Alexander, Livy said, made his reputation conquering ill-disciplined, poorly-equipped mobs of servile barbarians: but in Italy he would have had to fight real men who knew what they were doing. Isn't it fun to latch a baseball discussion on to some serious historical inquiry? |
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Aug-29-10
| | Phony Benoni: Much of the charm of baseball is having time for these good-natured arguments between pitches. I haven't researched the question closely, but I wasn't aware that the Romans of 425 AUC were such hot stuff militarily. Was Livy just being a homer? |
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| Aug-29-10 | | Jim Bartle: "ill-disciplined, poorly-equipped mobs of servile barbarians" You talkin' to me, playground player? I don't see anybody else here, so you must be. |
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Aug-30-10
| | Phony Benoni: And, speaking of great calls by sports announcers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPJ... |
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| Aug-30-10 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> Livy is always a homer! <Jim Bartle> Livy said it, not me... |
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| Aug-31-10 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> That's a very funny video, but I think that guy was sitting behind me in the theater when I went to see "Crucifer of Blood" on Broadway (an extremely rare event! probably not going to be repeated). He kept commenting to his girlfriend, until finally he arrived at this: "Oh, I already read the story--the girl did it!" I shall always regret not turning around and strangling him. |
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| Sep-01-10 | | Jim Bartle: The really odd thing is that the commentary on the Beethoven symphony actually makes me appreciate it more. |
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Sep-01-10
| | Phony Benoni: Advice to Spectators at a Baseball Game, circa 1922, by Robert Benchley. Warning: some of the language is suitable only for children, which doesn't stop adults from using it: http://books.google.com/books?id=Kc... |
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| Sep-01-10 | | crawfb5: <PB> You did notice the section right before baseball was on watching a chess match, didn't you? I particularly liked: <I once heard of a murderer who propped his two victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered.> |
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Sep-01-10
| | Phony Benoni: <crawfb5> Yes; in fact, that's the article I found first. I put that link into Kibitzer's Café, thinking it to be of more general disinterest. |
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| Sep-01-10 | | crawfb5: Speaking of Google Books, I was disappointed to find that the 1904 <American Chess Bulletin> GB scanned is missing the volume with most of the games from St. Louis 1904 (7th American Chess Congress), won by Marshall. The critical pages should be 107-118. I recently picked up a used copy of the Olms reprint of the 2nd (Cleveland 1871), 3rd (Chicago 1874), and 4th (Philadelphia, 1876) American Congress tournament books. I have most of the Cleveland games pulled in a temporary collection, and I think the others have already been done. If there's anything that needs checking against the tournament book, I can give it a look. |
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Sep-01-10
| | Phony Benoni: <crawfb5> Ah, you bring back memories of the days when I had a decent chess book collection. Unfortunately, it was so large that I needed a house to store everything, but then I had to sell the collection to raise the down payment. I hate the Magi. There were probably a couple of hundred tournament books, and a goodly proportion were Olms reprints. Great stuff. Hardly a day goes by on this site that I don't regret getting rid of them. |
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Sep-02-10
 | | OhioChessFan: Have you had a chance to see Aroldis Chapman? He makes Stephen Strasburg look like a junkball pitcher. Maybe I'm exagerating. A little. |
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Sep-02-10
| | Phony Benoni: Hey, big deal. In Detroit, we've got Joel Zumaya, who hits 103 routinely between stints on the DL. But it must be exciting for Cincy fans, who have already had plenty to cheer about this year. |
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