MLB 2022: Playing Ball, But Is Anyone Still Watching?

[Kepler]

ESPN just came out with a docuseries on the Savannah Bananas, a college summer league team that also plays an alternate schedule with games under different rules, essentially the Globetrotters but for baseball. To coincide with that they're televising one of the games tonight. Former MLB pitcher Bill Lee (age 75) plays for them, but just collapsed in the bullpen and now they've cut away and have just been showing parts of the documentary for the last fifteen minutes.

Edit: Now they just came back and he's up and walking off with assistance.

Jesus ****, hope Spaceman is okay.

[aparch]

Cardiac event, stopped breathing, AED saved him.

https://www.savannahnow.com/story/sp...ck/7852123001/

[Spartanforlife4]

Another interesting umpiring moment in the Italy-Australia game. Bases loaded, no outs for Italy. They hit a pop up halfway down the first baseline that dropped fair, then bounced into foul territory where the first baseman touched it. No one called infield fly, foul, or even pointed fair, so Australia plays it as a live ball and throws it home and gets a force out there, then a whole bunch of confusion happened and I'm pretty sure they ended up recording four or five outs between forces and tags for a supposed triple play.

Replays show the first base and home plate umps both pointed for an infield fly after the ball hit the ground, but then both immediately put their arms back down and home plate ump did not seem to be watching for fair/foul either. The crew gets together and rules it a foul ball (correctly). Then amidst the confusion of teams going back into the dugout after the play, Australia did not have a second baseman for one at-bat once they restarted play.

Edit: video of the play

[French Rage]

Edit: video of the play

I would have loved it if after tagging out every player on the base paths, the kid with the ball then went into the batting team's dugout and starting tagging every player there too.

[RaceBoarder]

Lindsey with her spot on analysis as usual for the play being discussed.

[Spartanforlife4]

I thought they would try to rotate through all the teams for the Little League Classic, but they announced that it will be Nats-Phillies next year, which will be the second appearance for the Phillies. The Pirates have also played twice in the game. I would assume travel logistics play a big part because all the games have involved series surrounding Pennsylvania, so we won’t see something like Dodgers-Padres anytime soon, but there’s still the Yankees, Jays, Tigers, and Reds that are all close by.

[SonofSouthie]

I believe the Red Sox could be the first team to finish last in the division and have to pay the luxury tax.

[Kepler]

I believe the Red Sox could be the first team to finish last in the division and have to pay the luxury tax.

Did it exist in 1993, cuz if so we did it.

[SonofSouthie]

Did it exist in 1993, cuz if so we did it.

1997.

[Kepler]

Tonight, deGrom is facing a batter with a runner in scoring position for the 6th time.

In his last 5 starts.

[Spartanforlife4]

It's probably entirely related to TV slots, but the modified double elimination format for the LLWS is awful. Hawaii and Taiwan both go into the semifinals undefeated, but if they lose they're knocked out even though every other team was allowed a loss. So Hawaii, who's outscored teams 42-1 so far in the LLWS, has their season end if they have their first off day of the summer, since they're actually undefeated going back to district qualifiers.

[Kepler]

I thought the elimination bracket victor had to beat the undefeated team twice to advance?

[unofan]

I thought the elimination bracket victor had to beat the undefeated team twice to advance?

TV/ESPN hates double elimination for championships. Since these are the US/World bracket title games, it's one and done for TV purposes.

CWS used to do something similar before they went to the best-of-3 final series.

[Spartanforlife4]

I thought the elimination bracket victor had to beat the undefeated team twice to advance?

That's what they do in the NCAA tournament and basically every other tournament that features double elimination, but I think ESPN has had the 1-5 window on ABC for the LL semis for years now so they probably don't want to have to commit if necessary time slots on ESPN or ESPN2, especially with Week 0 becoming a thing in college football.

[Russell Jaslow]

Tonight, deGrom is facing a batter with a runner in scoring position for the 6th time.

In his last 5 starts.

I must admit, that's pretty damn impressive.

But, it's still fun to see the Yankees may have broken out of their slump thanks to playing the Mets...