You have to feel a little bit bad for teams like the Oakland Athletics and the New York Mets, who have no representation on the large map.
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Monday, April 28, 2014
A Map Of Baseball Nation
The New York Times recently published a map of the United States, overlaid with colored regions which represent fan support for a particular baseball club in that area. You can click to zoom in, and find that the map is broken down by zip code. Each zip code also lists other favorite teams in the area. This aggregate data was provided by Facebook, based on who users have listed as their favorite team.
You have to feel a little bit bad for teams like the Oakland Athletics and the New York Mets, who have no representation on the large map.
You have to feel a little bit bad for teams like the Oakland Athletics and the New York Mets, who have no representation on the large map.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Proposal
If you're considering proposing to your significant other at a ball park this year, fear not! The folks over at swimmingly.com have reached out to every stadium and have compiled a neat graphic, shown below, giving you the cost to propose. Make sure to check out the entire article for the full details.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Tattoo for Season Tickets?
The Syracuse Chiefs, an affiliate of MLB's Washington Nationals, has come up with an unusual promotion.
Not a bad logo, I could see some die-hards jumping at this opportunity. Would you do it? Will you do it? We're very curious to see how this turns out for the Chiefs.
On July 1, the Chiefs will hold Carmelo's Ink City Tattoo Night at NBT Bank Stadium. Any fan at that game who gets a tattoo of a Chiefs logo will also earn free general admission tickets to Chiefs games for the rest of their lives. The tattoos at the game will be applied for free. (via Syracuse.com)The team has verified this on their website. For those of you curious as to what the logo looks like, here it is:
Not a bad logo, I could see some die-hards jumping at this opportunity. Would you do it? Will you do it? We're very curious to see how this turns out for the Chiefs.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Masanori Murakami
Masahiro Tanaka has been on a tear this spring training season, giving New York Yankees fans hope that their newly signed Japanese star will help their team get back into the playoffs. While it has become commonplace for Major League Baseball to sign Japanese players from the Nippon Professional Baseball league, things were not always this way.
In 1964, three Japanese baseball players from the Osaka Nankai Hawks arrived in Arizona at the San Francisco Giants' Spring Training camp in Casa Grande, Arizona. These three pitchers were all headed to Single-A Fresno in what was termed an "exchange-student" type of event. It was expected the the Giants would eventually send over three players as well. On September 1st, one of those three, Masanori Murakami, was called up to pitch in the bigs (pitching a scoreless inning against the New York Mets), thus becoming the first Japanese pitcher in Major League history. In that final month of the season, the southpaw had nine relief appearances, a 1.80 ERA and a save. He came back the following year, where he appeared in 45 games, starting one of them, and going 4-1 with eight saves and a 3.75 ERA.
Alas, he would not return to MLB after 1965 and that ended what could have been a potentially good Major League career. There were still fresh wounds from World War II and resentment towards Japan, with Giants manager Herman Franks receiving death threats for pitching Murakami. In fact, Franks ended up needing FBI protection for a period of time. It took another 31 years for Hideo Nomo to become the second Japanese player to play for a Major League team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In 1964, three Japanese baseball players from the Osaka Nankai Hawks arrived in Arizona at the San Francisco Giants' Spring Training camp in Casa Grande, Arizona. These three pitchers were all headed to Single-A Fresno in what was termed an "exchange-student" type of event. It was expected the the Giants would eventually send over three players as well. On September 1st, one of those three, Masanori Murakami, was called up to pitch in the bigs (pitching a scoreless inning against the New York Mets), thus becoming the first Japanese pitcher in Major League history. In that final month of the season, the southpaw had nine relief appearances, a 1.80 ERA and a save. He came back the following year, where he appeared in 45 games, starting one of them, and going 4-1 with eight saves and a 3.75 ERA.
Alas, he would not return to MLB after 1965 and that ended what could have been a potentially good Major League career. There were still fresh wounds from World War II and resentment towards Japan, with Giants manager Herman Franks receiving death threats for pitching Murakami. In fact, Franks ended up needing FBI protection for a period of time. It took another 31 years for Hideo Nomo to become the second Japanese player to play for a Major League team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.