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HARDCORE SYNDROME said:
I wish LLWS would upload more full game archives of their past games. They did upload a good handful last year to make up for cancelling the tournament but I felt it was sorta random in terms of years and teams (was nice to grab some games featuring Hawaii teams that I couldn't find on YouTube though). The only clips left from the 2005 championship game I could find are low quality TV recordings of the comeback inning and the walk off from YouTube. They must have the full game in HD since they also uploaded a compilation video of the last plays of the tournament from 1998-2019 and the walkoff clip was the most high quality I've seen for a recording from 2005. Would love to see old regional tournament games too. Maybe privacy issues with kiddies though or copyright or something, idk.

I also like the Hawaii teams since they're (typically) so humble and don't let the fame or pressure get to their heads. Like the New Jersey kid from the last LLWS who kept doing that stupid dance after getting on base...really annoyed me.



Yeah, it is too bad. I'm sure Jomboy would've done a clip on him or something. Although as much as it is impressive, in the limited game time I saw of him I felt it didn't make a huge impact and I felt he still had some control issues, but I don't claim to be a baseball expert. Don't know anything about the dark horses but I kind of just let the scoreboard speak for themselves. Like I remember times where the ESPN commentators would be all like "oh X team is so good, they're on a perfect run" or "they have X player who threw a no hitter the other day or Y player who was a beast in regionals" and then Hawaii would come along and just shut them down.



Sounded like one of the Delaware pitchers was also prematurely celebrating, too. Can't be doing that, especially in little league.



Hawaii teams have a fun bonus of commentators continually butchering Hawaiian pronunciations. Favorite emojis and the flossing were also pretty bad last year, though it also gave me my favorite LLWS commentary clip.

crapper.mp4

(Wasn't really fond of David Ross as a commentator tbh, but now he's busy managing the Cubs, so yay?)

Besides the ESPN cringe, what do you think of how the game has changed (format, pitch count, bats, team quality, etc.) since the late 90s? (And I suppose will change in the future with the expansion to 20 teams and new regions.)
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Totally agree on the preservation of games, it's a damn shame that all we've got are TV recordings. As much as I would love more regional games uploaded, I'd totally be fine with them just giving high quality of every Championship game they've got. It would be a start and huge improvement on what we've got.

I think ESPN just wants teams with larger markets to succeed so they'll hype anyone they can to bring in ratings, regardless of the vast majority of elite teams recently being Hawaii, the South, and the rare metropolitan teams.

I wasn't a fan of the expansion at first but I think it's worked out rather well in the long run. Still not a fan of Australia getting an automatic bid when you've got either South Korea or Chinese Taipei missing out every year when either of those teams would wipe the floor with any Australian team.

I kind of miss group play, tbh. It gives the kids more games to play and it streamlines the elimination process. The next expansion might expose talent a little more because some of the regions are pathetically weak in comparison to say the Southeast, where almost every state has been represented at least once in the World Series. I'm intrigued about the inclusion of Cuba and Puerto Rico, though. Not a huge fan of the cycling automatic bid. Especially when they could do the same with Korea, Taiwan, and Australia every three years.

Also, I did find out there was a girl in the LLWS this year unless it's just a really effeminate boy. Texas, of all places has one but I'm not sure how much she plays yet.
 
Goyaanisqatsi said:
I wasn't a fan of the expansion at first but I think it's worked out rather well in the long run. Still not a fan of Australia getting an automatic bid when you've got either South Korea or Chinese Taipei missing out every year when either of those teams would wipe the floor with any Australian team.

I kind of miss group play, tbh. It gives the kids more games to play and it streamlines the elimination process. The next expansion might expose talent a little more because some of the regions are pathetically weak in comparison to say the Southeast, where almost every state has been represented at least once in the World Series. I'm intrigued about the inclusion of Cuba and Puerto Rico, though. Not a huge fan of the cycling automatic bid. Especially when they could do the same with Korea, Taiwan, and Australia every three years.

Also, I did find out there was a girl in the LLWS this year unless it's just a really effeminate boy. Texas, of all places has one but I'm not sure how much she plays yet.
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More hispanic "diversity" and "inspiration" maybe? Considering Curacao has dominated in the Caribbean region and there's probably more active Cuban and Puerto Rican MLB players. I agree that Australia should be rotated along with Europe/Africa for the same reasons you mentioned, but I suppose there's the risk of making it seem less about a "let's all have fun with kids around the world" thing than a super duper serious tournament (as much as people take it seriously as is) if there's no representation from the other regions. When you mentioned more games to play I remembered reading stories about LLWS coaches pre-pitch count rules ruining their pitchers' arms in a similar fashion to, but I'm sure not as brutal as, Japanese high school baseball to try and win it all (and usually failing).

Yeah, Texas West has a girl girl (Ella Bruning) who primarily does catching and some pitching I believe. Already got some media attention for making some good defensive plays in regionals, which might make her more memorable than the Minnesota girl from 2019, but based on regionals stats she's only had the minimum one AB every game with no hits and a SO in 3 out of the 5 games. I think Mo'ne is returning again though, so ESPN will definitely find a way to overhype her and shoehorn both in together somehow.

Hawaii had a good win to start the tournament, though had a noticeable amount of errors/overthrowing to first base than I've noticed in past teams. Maybe just first game nerves. Also had to do some lowkey double takes on some of the teams wearing colors usually meant for international teams.
 
Local Fed said:
I don't think that he was doing an Elmer Fudd thing, I think he was clearly doing an Asian impression. With that said, yeah it shouldn't be a big deal. If someone did an impression of Liam Hendriks it wouldn't be an issue. If someone did an impression of a white player from Alabama it wouldn't be an issue. If someone did an impression of a Canadian player (apparently we all say "Hoser" and physically can not stop eating poutine while doing so) it wouldn't be a big deal, etc. I know the difference, I'd be told, is that Asians are oppressed or something in the US which to that I'd simply raise an eyebrow at.

Anyways, Morris fucked up. Not in that he did anything worthy of being tarred and feathered by Twitter users who couldn't tell you which state the Angels play their home games in, but in that he should have known that we're not a serious society and will act like this is tantamount to beating an Asian to death with a wok.

---

In news that I meant to share earlier, something people should maybe actually have moral outrage over: Felipe Vázquez, former All-Star closer of the Pirates was sentenced to two-to-four years in prison (he's been serving since September of 2019 so he could be out on parole by next month.) In May 2021, he was convicted on fifteen counts: ten counts of sexual abuse of children, two counts of unlawful contact with a minor, one count of statutory sexual assault, one count of corruption of a minor, and one count of indecent assault of someone under 16 years old for the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl. He's still facing charges in Florida and Missouri; Florida prosecutors allege he continued to have sex with the Pennsylvania victim after she moved to Florida, while he’s facing child pornography charges in Missouri after allegedly exchanging sexually explicit messages with the victim during a road series in St. Louis.

From a pure baseball perspective: damn, between him and Roberto Osuna (still just 26, MLB career *likely* ended last year at 25) that's a couple of really good young arms who just nuked their careers like fucking morons. The former was setting himself up to maybe be a Hall of Famer down the line, but Vázquez (just turned 30 last month, MLB career ended at 28 years old) was no slouch as one of the best lefty bullpen arms in the game.
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Not to mention Trevor Bauer. Not trying to excuse Bauer or Osuna by any means, but attempted sex with children is way worse in my book than beating women. Basically in my own moral code, if you batter a woman, you should do actual time and generally be forced out of any decent job like playing professional baseball. If you try to fuck a literal child, you should also do actual time and hopefully not survive it.
 
Just a few minutes ago against Steven Matz in Toronto, Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers hit his 500th career home run. He's the 28th player to achieve 500 homers, and is 4 away from tying Eddie Murray. He's now also just 45 hits away from 3000.
 
Aaron Nola and Austin Nola brothers had first game against each other today. Had a nice little jersey swap photo op before game and Phillies pulled a W .
 
My San Diego Padres have been horrific to watch lately, but I still can't stop watching.

I thought this might be the best season I've seen since '98 back when we had Gwynn, Vaughn, and Hoffman. But man, this is an implosion of ridiculous proportions. Machado has a 16 wRC+ over the last two weeks and it feels like we're swinging at the first pitch every damn AB.

What's the fix to this? Better coaching, analytics, scouting? We recently just let Rothschild go, after suffering a lot of the same problems that his former teams in the Cubs and Yankees experienced. Hopefully that'll help, but it's too early to tell.
 
Yadier Molina (who turns 40 next July) of the Cardinals signed a one-year extension yesterday for $10 million. Today he announced that next season will be his final year. He's lobbying for Adam Wainwright to come back next year. Considering that the latter (who turns 40 on Monday) is having a pretty good year I think it's reasonable that they ride off into the sunset together in 2022.
 
Local Fed said:
Yadier Molina (who turns 40 next July) of the Cardinals signed a one-year extension yesterday for $10 million. Today he announced that next season will be his final year. He's lobbying for Adam Wainwright to come back next year. Considering that the latter (who turns 40 on Monday) is having a pretty good year I think it's reasonable that they ride off into the sunset together in 2022.
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It would be cool if the ride off into the sunset together and winning the World Series, they would ride off into the sunset with a bang.
 
We're at NINE no-hitters now in 2021. This time it was a combined one by Corbin Burnes (8 innings) and Josh Hader (pitched the 9th) for Milwaukee. They shut out the Indians in Cleveland 3-0. Burnes struck out 14 while walking just one batter while Hader struck out 2 en route to his 31st save of the year.

It's the first time that a team has ever been no-hit three times in a single season. I noticed too that all three times that they were no-hit it happened at home in Cleveland.
 
The Indians were no-hit for the third time this year. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of fucking scrubs.
 
Max Scherzer just punched out Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer and recorded his 6th strikeout of the day. More importantly, it's the 3000th of his career Hall of Fame career. He's now just the 19th pitcher to record 3000 of more strikeouts. He also happens to be perfect through 5 innings today.

Edit: Hosmer got some revenge by breaking up his perfect game with a one out double in the 8th inning.
 
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Local Fed said:
Max Scherzer just punched out Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer and recorded his 6th strikeout of the day. More importantly, it's the 3000th of his career Hall of Fame career. He's now just the 19th pitcher to record 3000 of more strikeouts. He also happens to be perfect through 5 innings today.

Edit: Hosmer got some revenge by breaking up his perfect game with a one out double in the 8th inning.
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No way anyone touches Nolan Ryan's career K number right? Even in the three true outcome era we live in, pitchers don't hit the tremendous amount of innings that would require.
 
Cliff Booth said:
No way anyone touches Nolan Ryan's career K number right? Even in the three true outcome era we live in, pitchers don't hit the tremendous amount of innings that would require.
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tl;dr answer - I think that's right, there's no way that anyone touches. It's right up there with records like Wayne Gretzky's all-time points record or Cal Ripken Jr.'s iron man streak.

When you consider that Nolan Ryan ended with 5714 strikeouts over parts of 27 seasons and pitched until he was 46, there are just way too many things that would need to go right for someone looking to top it. The only way that someone I think could do it is if:

- they came up as a phenom around Opening Day as a 20 year old
- pitched 20 seasons with a virtual clean bill of health :optimistic: and elite performance
- averaged just a little over 285 strikeouts per season
- ideally plays their whole career in the NL and pray that they never adopt the DH
- play for a team who will let them stay late into games and don't treat analytic data as the Bible
- pray that they don't reduce the season at all which might cost the pitcher a start per year
- "ideally" play for teams who rarely go to the playoffs or don't go deep (Ryan only pitched 58.2 playoff innings; Scherzer for instance will likely already double that mark this October)

I think that 3000 will remain the vanity goal from here on out with perhaps a true phenom shooting for 4000. Of the three pitchers who've reached that latter number, all pitched parts of at least 22 seasons or more, and three of the four made their debut before reaching their 22nd birthday (the exception being Randy Johnson who made his five days after turning 25.)

Scherzer by the way is now just 10 strikeouts away from tying the injured Justin Verlander for #18 on the all-time list. The others to watch in the next few seasons are soon to be 38 year-old Zack Greinke (2799) and Clayton Kershaw (2663) who will be 34 before Spring Training next year. After that, it's basically a 32 year-old Chris Sale sitting at 2037 (currently tied with David Price who won't do it) so even that is a bit of a stretch, but not totally impossible either.
 
Cliff Booth said:
No way anyone touches Nolan Ryan's career K number right? Even in the three true outcome era we live in, pitchers don't hit the tremendous amount of innings that would require.
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Ryan's K record, Ripken's streak, Mariano's saves and Bonds's HR record are the only modern records that won't be broken imo.

Ryan's K record, like @Local Fed said, could happen but it's just so unlikely.

Ripken's streak won't be broken with pretty much every player getting days off pretty much every season.

Bond's HR record, both career and season, won't be broken unless a player similar to Adam Dunn with the plate discipline of Albert Pujols comes up young and has a real long career.

Ryan's no-hitter record I would've said is also unbreakable, but with 9 now this season and teams putting more emphasis on HR versus hits, it very well could be broken in the next coming decades if that trend continues.

Marino's saves record is pretty unlikely. You'd need a reliever to be a closer for a very good team (to get opportunities) for a very long time to get it. Seems unlikely. Even at 45 a season it'd take 14.5 seasons to break it, so a 22 year old pitcher would need to do that until they're 37, which seems really unlikely. I wouldn't put it on par with Ryan's Ks or Ripken's streak in unlikelihood, but it's still pretty unlikely.

As for older records, Dimaggio's streak could be broken in really any year, but seems pretty unlikely with batting averages going down. Gibson's "modern" ERA record (which did happen with a higher mound, so not really comparable) could also be broken with pitching being so much better these days. Hell, DeGrom might've done it this year had he not gotten injured. Old time records where the game was much different, like Cy Young's records and things like that, won't ever be broken unless the game changes.
 
Speaking of throwers Mad Max is a beast.

Aside that grats to giants cliched a playoff berth. First to do so.
 
Brewers fixture Ryan Braun officially announced his retirement today. I don't quite see him being a Hall of Famer (especially because of the roid scandal,) but he had a very good career which included winning the 2007 NL Rookie of the Year Award, five Silver Slugger Awards, being selected as an NL All-Star six times, winning the 2011 NL MVP Award and finishing as the runner up the next season.

Seattle has also been named as the host for the 2023 All-Star Game.
 
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