|
SBTN Blog
Visit the Sports by the Numbers MLBlog to see the Stat of the Week for Major League Baseball and the New York Yankees.
Plane Tickets and Ticket Stubs
By David Horne, Sports by the Numbers™ co-author
February 18, 2008—This is what we play for:
1
The number of World Series titles (1) it takes to make your childhood dreams come true.
The long off-season is finally over.
I can pack up the Play Station and put away MLB 2K7. The Sandlot, 61*, For Love of The Game, The Rookie—they all did their duty, constantly playing on the DVD player, bridging the gap from October to Spring Training as only the classics can do.
It is finally time for the real thing. The Mitchell Report, McNamee, Clemens, HGH, BALCO, Bonds, Novitzky, Congressional hearings—whatever—we can now ignore, because there is real business to attend to.
Like circling dates on the calendar and buying tickets, for example.
Some early dates worth watching:
April 4-6, New York Mets at Atlanta Braves
April 11-13, New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox
Tickets stubs make for great stories, so be sure to hold onto them.
I have a stub from an Atlanta Braves vs. Cincinnati Reds match-up at The Great American Ballpark in July, 2006. Nothing extraordinary about the game itself, but the story about how I got there is worth telling.
I had to catch a flight from Oklahoma City to Frankfurt, Germany—so I did what any good fan would do, I checked the flight times against the baseball schedule and found that I could get into Cincinnati on a 6am flight, catch a 1pm Fox Saturday Game of the Week at the stadium during my extended layover, and make a 7:30pm overnight flight to Frankfurt.
My dad was in Florida, and when I told him what I was doing he went on-line, paid $600 for a last-minute ticket from Jacksonville to Cincinnati, via Chicago, and we made it to the stadium in time to watch BP.
I flew to Germany after the game, and he flew back to Florida.
My family has a pretty good collection of ticket stubs.
My brothers were at the game in Tampa when Wade Boggs went yard for hit number 3,000 on August 7, 1999. I missed it in person, but saw it on TV. There are not many people who can say (honestly) that they witnessed someone getting hit number 3,000 in person.
My dad was at the game in Cleveland on July 31, 1963, (only 7,288 in attendance) when Woodie Held, Pedro Ramos, Tito Francona, and Larry Brown hit four consecutive homeruns. It was only the second time in history that teammates accomplished that feat, and my dad still has the ticket stub.
I have a few good ones too.
World Series stubs, Big Red Machine stubs, grand slams from Ken Griffey and Johnny Bench, a homerun from Albert Pujols and a triple from Carl Crawford (in the same game), and a straight steal of home from Crawford on a different stub.
I saw Julio Franco play in Korea for the Samsung Lions (before he made it back to the majors with Atlanta). I saw Orel Hershiser pitch his final game, and last summer I saw Chan Ho Park pitching in Oklahoma City trying to make it back to the majors.
It's all good stuff.
One of the best things about spring is that we have no idea what is in store for us in the coming baseball season, or what kind of ticket stub memories are waiting for us.
I love it.
Fantasy Baseball
Some free fantasy advice—sign-up and draft late in the spring, not now. Pujols elbow, that kind of thing.
Best Quote of the Week
"I dominated that era—and I did it clean. I can stand by my numbers and I can be proud of them." Pedro Martinez
Sports by the Numbers™ Excerpts
On Bernie Williams (New York Yankees: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports):
"Many who know Bernie use the term flow to describe him, and it is a good choice—because whether they are referring to his Gold Glove ability in the outfield, his pure, sweet swing from either side of the plate, his track and field ability that gained him international recognition as a teenager, his intellectual prowess and commitment to charity work that earned him an honorary doctorate degree, or his post-baseball career as a classical guitarist and professional musician, Bernie makes everything he does look easy."
Baseball & Hollywood (Major League Baseball: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports):
"108 The number of stitches (108) on a major league baseball. The number of stitches busted by Roy Hobbs in The Natural—all of them.
Worth Talking About
Joe Girardi is manager of the Yankees and Joe Torre is manager of the Dodgers—now here are a couple of guys we should be talking about. Both enter the season surrounded by high expectations, but no one in the game will be under more pressure as the season begins than will Girardi.
This is the same Girardi who won Manager of the Year for the Marlins in 2006 after he led the club to a 78-84 record—because apparently winning almost half your games with a bad major league club is doing a better job than winning 97 games with a good one (Willie Randolph and the Mets, as they ended the Braves 14-year division title run).
Sort of an obvious one here, but if Girardi, who got canned after earning Manager of the Year honors because he couldn't get along with the Marlins ownership and front office personnel, and the Yankees get off to a cool start, well, Girardi could end up feeling more heat than Clemens is right now—and it could get ugly, real fast.
Torre on the other hand is in sunny California—and life should be real nice this year for the Dodgers, though the situation with Don Mattingly is unfortunate (and bizarre).
Not Worth Talking About
Jose Canseco, the case against Barry Bonds, Brian McNamee, or the Mitchell Report.
Sports by the Numbers™ Titles
University of Oklahoma Football: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports (August 2007)
NASCAR: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports (February 2008)
Major League Baseball: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports (April 2008)
New York Yankees: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports (April 2008)
|
SportsFananza.com