Why We Still Watch Baseball

By Chuck Klosterman

Warren Wimmer/WireImage.com

Baseball is a turgid game that no longer reflects society. It fails to attract the best U.S. athletes and doesn't translate to television. It should be a dead sport. But it's not. Baseball still feels interesting, and it still captures the casual fan's attention every autumn. So what is the secret to its undying success? What is its quiet advantage? Some would argue tradition. I would argue it's the scoring system.

Forced to watch soccer all summer, I figured out why baseball games still feel compelling, even when nothing seems to be happening: Baseball has -- by far -- the best scoring system in all of sport. It makes uninteresting contests exciting, because it a) doesn't have a concept of time and b) distributes runs in unorthodox increments.

Here is what happens in (seemingly) every soccer game on the planet: Two teams are battling 0-0. It's compelling. But then the slightly stronger team scores one goal and the lesser squad immediately starts pressing; they replace a defender with an attacker, and the superior team scores again. Now it's 2-0 and the game is over. The lead seems insurmountable. Football has a similar problem -- because it requires a change of possession after every offensive touchdown, a team trailing late in the game is forced to take unusual risks to make up the deficit (even if that deficit is tiny). Football teams have to radically change their style of play when the game matters most. Basketball has so much scoring, and in such small increments, that hoops can feel meaningless. Intentional fouls become the lone option for desperate underdogs. But baseball has it right. Imagine a 3-0 game in the bottom of the ninth inning: The leading team is clearly in control. But if the leadoff hitter gets a bloop single, the pressure immediately reverts to the pitcher -- now, if the next guy gets on base, the game has the potential to be reinvented with one swing. The fact that you can instantly score a variable number of runs (in a game in which scoring is rare) keeps baseball fascinating. That's why we care about the drama, even when it isn't there.

Original here

Sources: Cuban out

Multiple sources tell Chi-ball that Mark Cuban is out in his bid to buy the Chicago Cubs.

Here is what we are hearing:

Cuban was reported to have bid 1.3 billion. We have been told Cuban’s actual bid was 1 bil. There was an offer to include 300 million in advertising to WGN, owned by the Tribune. That is how the 1.3 figure came about.

Tom Ricketts is now far and away the “leader in the clubhouse”. His bid is not only sufficient, but sources believe he is much more likely to be approved than a Cuban bid.

Cuban was contacted by local businessman and bidder Jim Anixter’s son to engage Cuban in partnership after Anixter’s bid failed, to give Cuban the local ties to Chicago he lacked.

It is believed by these sources that Zell has used Cuban all along to increase the bidding. The orchestration could have gone as far as inviting Cuban to sit next to Sam Zell’s right-hand man Gerry Spector at a Cubs game in the Tribune seats. A source is quoted as saying “If Mark Cuban didn’t exist, Sam Zell would have made someone like him up, he was a dream come true.”"Cuban is not only out of it, he was never in it.”

The source went on to say that the John Canning group was a favorite of the commissioner’s office but wouldn’t meet the price Ricketts and Cuban went to. The major league owners group however, intimated to Zell they would never approve Cuban. The fact is Jerry Reinsdorf still has great influence over the majority of baseball’s owners.

Here is some info on Ricketts:

TOM RICKETTS
Job: Chief Executive of Incapital LLC, a Chicago investment bank that packages corporate bonds for retail investors.
Age: 42
Residence: Wilmette
Education: University of Chicago, BA, MBA
Bio: Former pit trader met his wife at Wrigley Field. Formed Incapital with partners in 1999 to give retail investors an easy way to buy bonds. Son of J. Joe Ricketts, Omaha founder of what is now online broker TD Ameritrade. Brother Pete lost a bid for U.S. Senator from Nebraska in 2006. Strength of bid comes from family war chest Forbes estimates at $2.6 billion.

Original here

Diary entry may offer proof that baseball came from England

LONDON (AP) -- Baseball is as American as ... tea and crumpets?

That may be case, according to a diary uncovered in southern England last year but only now being made public.

Julian Pooley, the manager of the Surrey History Centre, said Thursday he has authenticated a reference to baseball in a diary by English lawyer William Bray dating back to 1755 -- about 50 years before what was previously believed to have been the first known reference to what became the American pastime.

"I know his handwriting very well," Pooley told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, adding he believed the game wasn't very common at the time. "He printed it to show it was new to him. He doesn't mention baseball again. It was something that seemed special."

Bray wrote that he played the game with both men and women on the day after Easter, a traditional holiday in England.

"He was about 18 or 19 (at the time of the diary entry)," Pooley said. "He was a very social man. He enjoyed sports."

The entry reads:

"Easter Monday 31 March 1755

"Went to Stoke Ch. This morning. After Dinner Went to Miss Jeale's to play at Base Ball with her, the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford & H. Parsons & Jelly. Drank Tea and stayed till 8."

Baseball has long been thought to have been an American invention, with roots in the British games of rounders and cricket.

The first recorded competitive baseball game took place in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1846 between the Alexander Cartwright's Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York and the New York Nine. The first professional team played in 1869 and the first professional league started two years later.

Bray, who died in 1832, kept a diary for much of his life and wrote a history of Surrey. He also transcribed and published the diary and writings of English writer John Evelyn.

Pooley said he first became aware of Bray's reference in July 2007 after local historian Tricia St. John Barry notified Major League Baseball to say she found a notation of the game that predated their own findings.

"She said, `... I've got a reference in a diary I found in the shed,"' Pooley said.

Pooley said St. John Barry only told MLB about the diary after researchers came to England last year working on a movie by Major League Baseball Advanced Media called "Base Ball Discovered," which examines the origins of the sport.

"She didn't realize its significance (before that)," Pooley said.

The movie is to be shown next week at the Baseball Film Festival in Cooperstown, New York, the home of the sport's Hall of Fame.

"While filming our documentary in England, we met Tricia, who responded to a BBC piece on our film crew being in country, looking at the roots of baseball," MLB.com said on its Web site. "This discovery places William Bray in a new role of importance and provides insight into baseball's beginnings."

The Surrey History Centre said there is a reference to baseball that came earlier than Bray's, but it appears in a fictional book by John Newberry called "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book." Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" also refers to baseball. It was written in 1798 but not published until 1817.

"It is a game steeped in history and now Surrey County Council's History Centre and an inquisitive local historian have provided the earliest manuscript proof that the game the Americans gave to the world came from England," said Helyn Clack, an executive member for safer and stronger communities at Surrey County Council.

A copy of the diary is to go on display at Surrey History Centre on Saturday.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Original here