Monday, September 30, 2013

Football and basketball ban blows to the head. Why doesn't baseball?

In recent years both the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) has changed rules to pretty much ban any blow to the head regardless of intent.

The Major Baseball League (MBL) has not.  Why not?

The primary example of such a blow is a pitcher releasing a ball traveling faster than 90 miles per hour (MPH) from about 55 feet away and the ball hitting the batter in the head.  Probably the next most frequent occurrence would be a base runner crashing into a catcher at home plate.

Both of these situations could easily be addressed by making them against the rules with severe penalties such as:
- first incident: one month suspension
- second incident: one year suspension
- third incident: lifetime suspension.

One of the charges being presented against Alex Rodriguez today at his hearing is that Rodriguez frustrated the commissioner, Allen Huber "Bud" Selig.  Rodriguez was suspended 121 games in August: the remainder of the 2013 season and all of the 2014 season.  Rodriguez appealed, which is why there is a hearing.  Given that Rodriguez is already 38 years old and that he did not start to play until August because of his second major hip surgery, such a penalty would be a baseball death sentence.

Blow to the head versus frustrating the commissioner.  Which is worse?

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Playoff tiebreaker rules had there been a three way tie.

Tampa and Texas finished in a tie for the last American Conference wild card spot in the tournament.  However, had Cleveland lost there would have been a three way tie, for which the league provided the following:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130904&content_id=59527184&c_id=mlb

On Friday, Major League Baseball revealed what will occur should all three finish in a tie, which would require two tiebreaker games -- one on Monday and one on Tuesday -- ahead of Wednesday's AL Wild Card Game.

The bottom line is this: The Indians would host the Rays on Monday, with the winner earning one of the berths. The loser would play at Texas on Tuesday for the final spot.

That schedule is the result of the Indians having the best combined record (7-5) against the Rays and Rangers and therefore having the right to choose to host the first game. The Rays' combined record is second (7-6) and they 
chose to go on the road on Monday rather than host a game on Tuesday. The Rangers (5-8) were left with only that option.
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I read this three times and still don't understand why Tampa "chose to go on the road on Monday rather than host a game on Tuesday".  It seems that Tampa could have played at home Tuesday against a team that had just lost on Monday.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Why does Florida have teams and other comments on attendance.

Tampa and Miami are last in their respective conferences in attendance per game.  See earlier post:

Saturday, September 28, 2013  Attendance: 1963 v. 2013 - shocking differences.

That post contains numbers for this season and for 50 years ago.  It's just the numbers.  This post has some comments.  Attendance in 2013 is based on tickets sold.

Miami has an excuse: the worst record in the National Conference (NC).  Tampa is tied with Cleveland for the two American Conference (AC) wild card spots in the upcoming tournament with Texas one game behind and two games remaining.  What gives with Tampa?  Miami, when it was still called Florida, won the tournament in 1997 and 2003 only to disband both times and leave its fans with losing teams.

Cleveland has the second worst AC attendance.  Kansas City, only recently eliminated, is fourth worst.  The Yankees are first.

Yet the Tampa attendance of 18,464 is better than that of Minnesota (17,366), which led the old American League (AL) in 1963; Yanks were second.  In 1963 San Francisco was second in National League (NL) attendance with 19,399, a little more than Miami in 2013: 19,260.  In 1963 the Los Angeles Dodgers drew 31,341, which in 2013 in the NC would be 8th.

Top attendance in 2013:
Los Angeles 45,973
St. Louis 41,518
San Francisco 41,080
Yankees 40,489

Top attendance in 1963:
Los Angeles 31,341
San Francisco 19,399
St. Louis 14,451
Minnesota 17,366
Yankees 16,362

See a pattern?  Pittsburgh, which last made the post season in 1992 led by Barry Bonds, will host the NC wild card play-in game against Cincinnati.  Their 2013 NC attendance ranks: 11 & 10.  1963 NL attendance ranks: 8 & 7.

Sunday, March 29, 2009  Super League

I really don't care whether Kansas City has a MLB team.  Nor Toronto.  Nor Pittsburgh.  I'm tired of junk like small market teams and revenue sharing.  There's a reason it's called MAJOR league
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New York Team Attendance: 1903-2010

Written March 2011.  Click this link to view the entire document.  Here is a summary:


Attendance will be evaluated per game ...

Following  the 1957 season the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and the Giants moved to San Francisco.

1962-2010 average combined attendance per game NY (Yankees and Mets) v. CA (Dodgers and Giants):

CA 57,952
NY 54,883

-->
YearsYankeesMetsGiantsDodgers
1903-201020,19715,78221,993
1903-195712,56910,1459,135
1947-195623,92113,94316,466
1958-196120,29519,09425,806
1962-201028,75126,13221,83936,113

The numbers speak for themselves.  The Giants fail to lead in any of these eras.  Dodgers win 3 of 5.  Yanks 2 of 5.  The so called glory years 1947-1956 have considerably less attendance for ten years than the 48 years 1962-2010.  This despite the fact that in 7 of those 10 years 1947-1956 both World Series teams were from New York and in the other three one New York team was in the World Series.  1947-1956 Giants were outdrawn:

Yankees  41.7% (23,921 - 13,943) / 23,921
Dodgers 15.3% (16,466 - 13,943) / 16,466

A case could be made that if the Giants had remained in New York and gotten Shea Stadium they would have had the Mets attendance,  4,293 and 16.4% higher than what they drew in San Francisco.  Some may say that NL would have not permitted the Dodgers to move to LA without another NL team on the west coast to make the relatively primitive  commercial air travel at the time more manageable but LA would have gotten a team around that time and New York was becoming a two team town.  Maybe the Chicago Cubs would have gone to San Francisco.  In 1956 and 1957 only the Giants prevented the Cubs from being last in NL attendance.  At least one New York team had to move and it wasn’t going to be the Yankees...

The Dodgers have been by far the most successful of any MLB team after moving.  Since leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles, the Dodgers have had much better attendance than the Yankees, Giants or Mets as described above.
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Attendance: 1963 v. 2013 - shocking differences.

1963 American League:

Tm Attendance Attend/G ▾ BatAge PitchAge BPF PPF #HOF #A-S #a-tA-S Est. Payroll Managers
MIN 1,406,652 17,366 27.2 26.7 102 100 1 4 0 Mele
NYY 1,308,920 16,362 27.9 26.7 99 97 3 6 0 Houk
CHW 1,158,848 14,132 27.2 28.5 98 96 2 2 0 Lopez
BOS 942,642 11,783 27.9 26.3 103 104 2 4 0 Pesky
DET 821,952 10,148 28.4 28.5 103 103 3 2 0 Scheffing and Dressen
LAA 821,015 10,136 27.4 27.9 94 94 0 3 0 Rigney
BAL 774,343 9,560 27.4 28.0 96 95 3 3 0 Hitchcock
KCA 762,364 9,412 28.2 27.4 106 108 0 1 0 Lopat
CLE 562,507 6,945 27.2 28.2 99 100 1 1 0 Tebbetts
WSA 535,604 6,695 28.6 28.2 100 103 0 1 0 Vernon, Yost and Hodges
Generated 9/27/2013.
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American Conference 2013:

Tm Attendance Attend/G ▾ BatAge PitchAge BPF PPF #HOF #A-S #a-tA-S Est. Payroll Managers
NYY 3,279,589 40,489 31.8 31.8 101 101 0 2 14 $224,675,750 Girardi
TEX 3,019,430 38,711 29.5 27.9 104 103 0 3 15 $112,477,200 Washington
DET 3,083,397 38,067 29.9 28.4 106 105 0 6 10 $147,574,500 Leyland
LAA 3,019,505 37,278 27.8 29.2 94 94 0 1 8 $121,057,500 Scioscia
BOS 2,833,333 34,979 29.7 30.3 103 103 0 3 13 $150,325,500 Farrell
TOR 2,431,491 31,173 29.1 31.0 101 102 0 4 10 $125,125,100 Gibbons
MIN 2,392,183 30,669 28.3 28.3 99 101 0 2 4 $79,095,000 Gardenhire
BAL 2,245,991 28,795 27.8 27.9 105 105 0 5 12 $84,361,500 Showalter
OAK 1,809,302 22,337 28.3 28.3 95 93 0 2 5 $58,407,500 Melvin
SEA 1,703,700 21,842 28.6 28.1 92 92 0 2 5 $80,252,400 Wedge
CHW 1,699,071 21,783 29.2 27.1 107 107 0 2 7 $116,913,500 Ventura
KCR 1,750,754 21,614 27.0 28.9 102 103 0 3 9 $80,078,625 Yost
HOU 1,544,656 19,803 26.0 27.2 99 102 0 1 3 $19,139,800 Porter
CLE 1,572,926 19,419 28.6 27.4 93 94 0 2 9 $75,998,833 Francona
TBR 1,510,300 18,646 29.6 29.1 96 95 0 2 7 $59,448,500 Maddon
Generated 9/27/2013.
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National League 1963:

Tm Attendance Attend/G ▾ BatAge PitchAge BPF PPF #HOF #A-S #a-tA-S Est. Payroll Managers
LAD 2,538,602 31,341 27.4 26.5 92 91 2 4 0 $321,500 Alston
SFG 1,571,306 19,399 28.2 28.8 99 97 5 5 0 Dark
STL 1,170,546 14,451 28.8 29.1 110 108 3 5 0 Keane
NYM 1,080,108 13,335 27.4 27.6 100 105 1 1 0 Stengel
CHC 979,551 12,093 25.8 28.5 106 107 4 2 0 Kennedy
PHI 907,141 11,199 28.3 27.4 99 98 0 1 0 Mauch
CIN 858,805 10,603 26.4 29.2 103 101 1 2 0 Hutchinson
PIT 783,648 9,675 27.6 28.7 100 100 3 2 0 Murtaugh
MLN 773,018 9,427 27.6 28.1 99 98 3 3 0 Bragan
HOU 719,502 8,883 27.0 29.4 94 96 1 1 0 Craft
Generated 9/27/2013.
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National Conference 2013:

Tm Attendance Attend/G ▾ BatAge PitchAge BPF PPF #HOF #A-S #a-tA-S Est. Payroll Managers
LAD 3,585,885 45,973 30.5 28.1 96 95 0 1 17 $211,472,000 Mattingly
STL 3,238,411 41,518 28.7 26.9 99 98 0 6 11 $113,683,000 Matheny
SFG 3,245,307 41,080 28.7 29.6 89 89 0 4 10 $139,845,667 Bochy
PHI 3,012,403 37,190 30.0 28.7 101 102 0 2 10 $166,860,000 Manuel and Sandberg
COL 2,793,828 34,492 27.7 28.3 117 117 0 3 6 $81,540,500 Weiss
WSN 2,652,422 32,746 27.8 27.7 102 101 0 2 11 $110,152,250 Johnson
CHC 2,642,682 32,626 27.9 28.7 104 105 0 1 6 $103,073,000 Sveum
MIL 2,531,105 31,248 27.9 28.8 104 104 0 2 8 $85,242,000 Roenicke
ATL 2,429,603 31,149 26.8 27.2 104 102 0 3 9 $87,638,750 Gonzalez
CIN 2,371,103 30,794 28.5 27.6 103 102 0 3 9 $101,310,000 Baker
PIT 2,256,862 27,862 27.9 28.7 94 94 0 5 13 $75,187,000 Hurdle
SDP 2,166,691 26,749 28.1 28.8 91 92 0 1 5 $70,773,600 Black
ARI 2,043,665 26,201 28.1 27.6 102 102 0 2 9 $88,975,000 Gibson
NYM 2,039,164 26,143 28.3 29.0 94 95 0 2 4 $73,979,935 Collins
MIA 1,502,265 19,260 27.7 26.0 102 103 0 1 3 $33,290,500 Redmond
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/27/2013.