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< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 236 OF 914 ·
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| Jan-12-11 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> My copy of "Daguerrotypes" credits Candy Cummings with the invention of the curve ball. |
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| Jan-12-11 | | crawfb5: <PB>, <PP> -- Thanks, guys. As I suspected, while Showalter might have <thrown> curve balls as a young man, it does not appear he invented it. |
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Jan-12-11
 | | Phony Benoni: <playground player> Candy Cummings is most often credited as the inventor of the curveball, and it got him into the Hall of Fame. But there are a lot of disputes about the whole thing. For instance, Fred Goldsmith gave a public demonstration of the curveball, and is sometimes given credit for its invetion. Apparently, Cummings used it in competitive play before Goldsmith's demonstration, but never publicized the fact. |
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| Jan-12-11 | | Jim Bartle: Yeah, but who invented the hanging curve?
Ray Sadecki in 1966. At least that's what old Giants fans think. |
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| Jan-12-11 | | Jim Bartle: I reached this position with white against Hiarcs, and won with some nice sacrifices:
click for larger viewIn particular I had to be careful not to allow a perpetual check or even a mate, as the attack leaves the white king very exposed. |
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| Jan-13-11 | | Jim Bartle: Warning: Addictive.
I stumbled onto a big set of youtubes of Wally Backman, manager of the South Georgia Peanuts. Not much substance, but lots of atmosphere, like a Ring Lardner story come to life. They focus mainly on Backman (who must be miked up) in the dugout, talking with umpires, chasing down an announcer who called him a "disgrace to baseball," etc. I kept saying "I'll watch just one more," and I was still saying it after watching ten. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Z-...
#139 is great if you can withstand a torrent of obscenities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOZx... |
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Jan-13-11
| | Phony Benoni: <JB> Finally took a look at the position. Started fooling around with the knight sacs, and at length decided the correct order was 1.Nf5+ gxf5 2.Ne6+ fxe6 3.Qg5+ Kf7 4.Rh6, with the White king fleeing checks along the first rank. If that works, I congratulate you. I certainly couldn't have calculated everything out. |
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| Jan-13-11 | | Jim Bartle: The best line, I thought was 1. Ne6+ fxe6 2. dxe6 Ng8 (to protect h6) 3. Nf5+ gxf5 4. Qg5 Kf8 5. Qxf5+ Ke8 6. Rh7. The white king looks really vulnerable at this point, but it turns out it can run to g3 and the checks run out. Then white can play Qf7+ and mate will follow. Took me a couple of tries to find that, and of course it's easier versus a computer, where no pride or points are involved. HOWEVER looking more, it appears that black can give a piece back with 2...Nxe4 and the best white can get is a draw. At least that's the best I could get. Drat. |
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| Jan-15-11 | | playground player: <Jim Bartle> Great Wally Backman videos! Been a long time since I saw a grown man throw a tantrum. Too bad we don't have Nimzovich on tape yelling "Why must I lose to this idiot???" Incidentally, I always thought it was too cold in South Georgia to play baseball. Oh... not THAT South Georgia! <Phony Benoni> I wonder if anybody has ever kept this stat: over the course of a major league season, what percentage of half-innings are scoreless? |
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Jan-15-11
| | Phony Benoni: <playground player: I wonder if anybody has ever kept this stat: over the course of a major league season, what percentage of half-innings are scoreless?> Of course they have!
http://tangotiger.net/RE9902score.h...
If you look at the bases empty/0 out situation (which would be in effect at the beginning of each half-inning), the figure is 70.7% scoreless half innings. Now, this only covers the four seasons from 1999-2002. It would be very interesting to compare with the dead ball era (1900-1910). Would the number of scoreless half-innings decrease because teams would be more likely to play for one run, or would it increase due to the lack of bases-empty home runs? |
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| Jan-15-11 | | Jim Bartle: Watching Baltimore-Steelers, I want a stat about what percentage of players will stand around with the ball lying on the ground, but without any refs blowing the whistle? On today's data: 21 out of 22. |
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Jan-15-11
| | Phony Benoni: Q: How many football players does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: 22. One to screw in the light bulb, and 21 to wait for the whistle to blow. |
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| Jan-15-11 | | Jim Bartle: Fooled the cameraman, too, or the TV director:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlBi...
They missed it live. Just unbelievable how all those players just stood around, including Ray Lewis. |
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Jan-15-11
| | Phony Benoni: Well, the Steelers were sleepwalking most of the first half anyway. Perhaps the coach gave a nice little pep talk at halftime. Not surprised seeing Green Bay up on Atlanta. |
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| Jan-15-11 | | crawfb5: I'm still stuck on the curve ball.
I checked a few secondary sources (the promo material for a book by Goldsmith's grandson, a couple of sports columns from the 1930s, etc.) and they all seem to agree that Goldsmith had a public demonstration of the curve at the Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn on 16 Aug 1870. The top baseball writer of the day, Henry Chadwick, was there and wrote it up in the <Brooklyn Daily Eagle> issue of 17 Aug 1870. The sources are very specific, including direct quotes and all agree on the above details. Great, I thought, that year of the <Eagle> is online, I'll pop over and check out the original and I'll be a good position to dismiss the Showalter curve myth in some of the discussions about his early matches. However here is where I fell into the rabbit hole. The <Eagle> of that vintage is only showing four pages per issue and there is hardly any sports coverage of any kind. I see nothing on Goldsmith for 17 Aug 1870. Further digging turned up a short notice on 1 Aug 1870 that Chadwick had just left the <Union> to take a position at the <Tribune>. Furthermore, he had been at the <Union> for six years and at the <Eagle> for three years before that. I tried looking in the 17 Aug 1870 issue of the <Tribune> and found nothing there either. While Chadwick does seem the logical reporter for such a demonstration, I find it unlikely that Chadwick would write a report for a paper that he hadn't been with for years. It seems this would be an important article for baseball history, no? Why can't I find it? I guess I'm just lucky that way, creating chaos out of order... |
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Jan-16-11
| | Phony Benoni: <crawfb5> I couldn't find the Goldsmith article either, but did run across this about the Capitoline Grounds, where the exhibition supposedly took place: http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/broo... About halfway down it discusses Goldsmith's claim, stating that despite extensive research Chadwick's article has not been found and inclining toward the view that Goldsmith faked the whole thing, or at least the article. It is suspicious that Goldsmith was only fourteen in 1870. Also, if I'm reading it correctly, Goldsmith's pitch described an "S" curve in the air, meaning that it changed direction twice. A normal curve ball does nothing like that, and it's hard to imagine happening. I don't know when this site dates from, but I think you're right that baseball researchers would have found such an important article by this time. |
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| Jan-16-11 | | crawfb5: <PB> Thanks for the Capitoline link. At least I'm not the only one puzzled here. I'd assumed the date and/or the source had to be incorrect, but I'd not done the math to check Goldsmith's age. I guess the specifics of the source must have originated from him. As I read the description, it does not seem to be an S-shaped path. Pole 1 --------- Pole 2 -------- Pole 3
As I read it, Goldsmith was standing to the left of Pole 1, and was required to throw the ball to the right of Pole 2 and have it arrive back on the left of Pole 3. |
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| Jan-16-11 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> Whitt Wyatt, Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher c. 1941, invited a doubting sportswriter to stand behind a tree, and he'd hit him with his curve ball. I've never heard how that experiment turned out. As for the 14-year-old kid throwing a ball that curved twice on its way to the target... naaah! |
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Jan-16-11
| | Phony Benoni: I heard the same story about Dizzy Dean, except that he offered to hit the sportswriter with an optical illusion. |
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| Jan-16-11 | | Jim Bartle: In 1870 I think the pitcher was throwing from only 50 feet. How much break can you get on a ball in only 50 feet? |
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Jan-16-11
| | Phony Benoni: <JB> The test was actually conducted over a 45 foot distance, which was the standard at the time. It became 50 feet in 1881. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseba... |
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| Jan-16-11 | | Jim Bartle: Roger Clemens throwing from 45 feet... |
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| Jan-16-11 | | hangingenprise: phony: be prepared to hear the chicago bears fight song from a certain individual.
as it looks now the championship game will have thee classical match-up. |
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Jan-16-11
| | Phony Benoni: Oh, darn, I seem to have forgotten how to click on YouTube links... |
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Jan-16-11
| | Phony Benoni: Hey, looks like we might have a Super Bowl tournament after all! AFC, I think Steelers. The Jets have already played their Super Bowl, and the Steelers have the kind of defense to give Mark Sanchez trouble. But it will probably be a close, low-scoring game, so anything can happen. NFC, the Packers look like a much better team and I simply don't trust Jay Cutler. |
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