Do You Know Your Baseball?!

I encountered this word while working a New York Times crossword puzzle recently and had no clue as to its meaning or origin.  I had seen the movie Moneyball, but didn’t realize that the team had used sabermetrics to build their successful team.   This word originated in 1980 by utilizing the initials of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) plus    –metrics.

sabermetrics or sabrmetrics, sabermetrician

\ sey-ber-me-triks \, noun;  \‐mi-trish–uh n \

1.  (used with a singular verb) the computerized measurement of baseball statistics.

The Babe!

One hundred years ago today, George Herman “Babe” Ruth made his debut in Major League Baseball (playing for the Boston Red Sox).  He played 22 seasons (six with the Boston Red Sox, 15 with the New York Yankees, and one with the Atlanta Braves) and racked up numerous batting records (many of these have been broken):

• career home runs (714)
• slugging percentage (.690)
• runs batted in (2,213)
• bases on balls (2,062)
• on-base plus slugging (1.164)

In his time with New York, Ruth helped the Yankees win seven league championships and four World Series titles.  His overall batting average was .342, and, as a pitcher, he had a win-loss record of 94-46 and an earned run average of 2.28.   Ruth was one of the first five inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936 (garnering 95.13% of the vote).

Some of his career highlights include:

• 2× All-Star (1933, 1934)
• 7× World Series champion (1915, 1916,1918, 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932)
• AL MVP (1923)
• AL batting champion (1924)
• 12× AL home run champion (1918–1921, 1923, 1924, 1926–1931)
• 6× AL RBI champion (1919–1921, 1923, 1926, 1928)
• AL ERA champion (1916)
• New York Yankees #3 retired
• Major League Baseball All-Century Team
• Major League Baseball All-Time Team

He was a pretty remarkable player!

Spring Has Sprung!

While today marks the first day of Spring, our weather has been very “spring-like” for several weeks already.  We have actually been experiencing some Spring showers since yesterday and are under a flash flood warning until tomorrow. Ah, Spring, the time for severe weather (thunderstorms and tornadoes), for trees and flowers to bloom, for baseball spring training . . . and speaking of baseball, here’s a wonderful demotivator (courtesy of www.despair.com) utilizing a baseball image on “insight.”  Enjoy!  Happy Spring!