Today's Birthday Team has four players with monosyllabic first and last names. Otherwise it's bad and not very interesting.

C: Ed Ott
1B: Pop Schriver
2B: Milt Stock
3B: Dick Gray
SS: Jack Heidemann
LF: Bob Allison
CF: Jimmy Slagle
RF: Harry Wolter

SP: Andy Ashby
SP: Vito Tamulis
SP: Hal Gregg
SP: Donne Wall
SP: Joey McLaughlin
RP: Javier Lopez

Prospect Flameout: Billy Ashley
Obviously Fans of Jar Jar: Binky Jones, George Binks
Cool Name, Never Got Above AA Ball: Cirilo Cumberbatch

Nationals Made of Stuff to Win Uphill Ball Game

My bosom swells with pride.

Also: that linked article has some Grade A #1 eetalian talk on it.

Not really sure where to whine about this but I will anyway. ESPN has a poll on their front page today that says the following;

Bud Selig said that appetite for more instant replay is "very low". What?s your position on instant replay in baseball?

Now here is Selig's quote with emphasis added;

"appetite for more replay in the sport is very low."

Look, it's fun to beat up on Bud but I think ESPN as the self-appointed "Worldwide Leader in Sports" has a responsibility to be fair. Selig's point (or at least my reading of it) is that within the game itself (e.g. players, GMs, owners, umps) there is not an appetite for more replay. ESPN has changed the meaning of the statement by removing the words "in the sport."

End of rant which is admittedly driven by the fact that I don't like ESPN and I do actually like Bud (though he has his moments).

Why is the ASB four whole days now? It's always been three for some teams.

Probably "Morsehauser" should be "Morschauser" which is an actual German name. But I can't find any evidence of an old baseball player named "Morschauser" anyway.

Upon further investigation, Charles Morschauser was the lawyer for Harry Thaw, legendary Pittsburgh black sheep heir and defendant in one of the most famous murder trials of the era, who kept coming back into the news as he was first declared insane, then kept trying to have himself declared sane and kept being sent back to the mental institution. And his brother Joseph Morschauser was a judge in Westchester County, New York where the trial was taking place, and was later elevated to the New York Supreme Court. So someone writing for the Pittsburgh Press about any topic would find that "Morschauser" came quickly to mind as an example of a hard-to-spell name.

Question: Does home field advantage mean anything if the series does not go its full length?

I read Thaw's wiki entry a few days back. It's odd and oddly written.

Question: Does home field advantage mean anything if the series does not go its full length?

On a related note, does anyone know offhand what the historical HFA is in the postseason?

Upon further investigation, Charles Morschauser was the lawyer for Harry Thaw...

It's been said before, but it's worth saying again: Stuff like this is an amazing feature of the BTF community. Thanks, Crispix.

No problem, Dan Lee. Excelsior!

Question: Does home field advantage mean anything if the series does not go its full length?

You get the first game ... that's always nice. You are guaranteed to have more home games or at least the same number of home games as the other team, which is good for exciting your fans even though playoff revenue is equally split.

On the other hand you're probably less likely to clinch at home.

You are guaranteed to have more home games or at least the same number of home games as the other team,

Actually, if it goes five, the team with the "Home Field Disadvantage" gets more home games. See 2010.

On the other hand you're probably less likely to clinch at home.

Has this been true historically? In a seven game series where you play 2-3-2 you would play two possible clinching games on the road (games four and five) and two at home (games six and seven). Is a "home" team more likely to win in 4-5 games than they are in 6-7?

Actually, if it goes five, the team with the "Home Field Disadvantage" gets more home games. See 2010.

Only if they do the stupid 2-3-2 scheduling instead of 2-2-1-1-1

Only if they do the stupid 2-3-2 scheduling instead of 2-2-1-1-1

2-2-1-1-1 works if both teams are on the same coast, but a series between the Yankees and Dodgers with that schedule would either have an awful travel schedule or too many days off.

Off days after games 2 and 4, after 5 and 6, well tough ####.

Off days after games 2 and 4, after 5 and 6, well tough ####.

No thanks.

What is your objection to 2-3-2? Do you think one team has the harder road that way?

Only if they do the stupid 2-3-2 scheduling instead of 2-2-1-1-1

Which is the way it's been scheduled for quite some time.

There would be no question of home field advantage under 2-2-1-1-1. But my question germinates from the 2-3-2 setup.

The 'disadvantaged' team actually has an advantage in the five-game situation. How this relates to its seven-game disadvantage depends on how strong the HFA actually is.

This question has made me extremely unpopular amongst casual fans, specifically those who are now watching the All Star Game as if winning the game was in some way hugely important.

What is your objection to 2-3-2? Do you think one team has the harder road that way?

Yes, if the series goes 5 games, then the team that supposedly had HFA only plays 2 games at home and 3 on the road. It's blindingly obvious.

So I played with BBRef for a few minutes and I think, I think I THINK I got this right. The data is pretty balanced. After I excluded all LDS (including 1981) and pre-1985 LCS to eliminate 5 game series and the 1903, 1919, 1920 and 1921 World Series (9 game series) I found the winning team in the last game of the series (in other words the team that clinched);

Game 4
Home - 22 ("Home" means home team for the game, not for the series)
Road - 24

Game 5
Home - 23
Road - 34

Game 6
Home - 23
Road - 19

Game 7
Home - 28
Road - 22

Yes, if the series goes 5 games, then the team that supposedly had HFA only plays 2 games at home and 3 on the road. It's blindingly obvious.

Are you arguing from a competitive standpoint or from a revenue/fan standpoint? I guess I can see an argument for the latter, but it's not one I care a lot about.

But I don't see the competitive advantage at work here. If you have HFA, you don't have to win any games on the road to win a series. But if you lose one, then you've got to win one game on the road. Whether you wedge a home game between that must-win road contest seems kind of immaterial to me.

Game 5
Home - 23
Road - 34

Now, THIS is meaningful, and would lend some credence to the idea that earning the overall HFA is worth getting.

Game 5
Home - 23
Road - 34

Now, THIS is meaningful, and would lend some credence to the idea that earning the overall HFA is worth getting.

My concern with saying anything conclusive about that is that not all series have been 2-3-2. I don't know how many of the 34 "road" teams were truly teams with HFA for the series as a whole.

That comment on Harry Thaw allowed me to find that he escaped to the small town where I was born: Coaticook, Qc. Looks like one of the few exciting events that ever happened there.

Speaking of turn-of-the-century murder cases, 106 years ago today (7/11/1906), Chester Gillette rowed his (pregnant) girlfriend Grace Brown out onto Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks. Only Chester made it back to shore. Theodore Dreiser paid close attention to the eventual trial.

Game of the day (yesterday): NL 8, AL 0. I'm going to go ahead and assume that nobody here needs a recap.

It's the All-Star game, so it has all of its All-Star gaminess going for it. But as a pure baseball game, this was not especially good. The AL never so much as had the tying run on deck. It would grade out among the bottom 10 regular season games of the year so far.

Game of the day (last year): Red Sox 8, Orioles 6. Kyle Weiland vs. Mitch Atkins, so the final score isn't an utter shock. Weiland actually worked a 1-2-3 first inning against the O's. Atkins gave up a hit, a walk, two more hits, and a sac fly in the first, putting Boston in front. Baltimore quickly tied the score in the second on a two-run homer by Derrek Lee, then picked up a ground-rule double followed by five singles in six at bats, taking a 6-2 lead.

Atkins started the second with an out, then gave up a homer to Marco Scutaro; after the second out, Dustin Pedroia also went deep. Adrian Gonzalez doubled, and Kevin Youkilis hit the third homer of the inning, tying the score and unsurprisingly chasing Atkins from the game in favor of Jeremy Guthrie. Weiland worked decently effective innings in the third (hitting a batter but erasing him on a double play) and fourth (walking a hitter who was then caught stealing); Guthrie worked around a double in the third, then gave up another double in the fourth and didn't work arond it, following up with a single, a hit batter, and a run-scoring walk to put Boston back in front. The Sox would leave the bases loaded, and Weiland would come close to giving the lead back, allowing a leadoff triple to Adam Jones in the fifth and hitting the next batter with a pitch before being pulled. Alfredo Aceves stranded Jones on third with a pair of strikeouts and a line drive to left.

The bullpens maintained the same score until the seventh, which was pitched by 2012 All-Star Jim Johnson. He struck out should-have-been 2012 All-Star Josh Reddick, then gave up a double to Jason Varitek and a single to JD Drew. Varitek was thrown out at home on a grounder by Scutaro, but Jacoby Ellsbury singled Drew in to double the size of the lead. The Orioles went in order in the eighth, and managed only a two-out walk against Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth.

Large amount of early drama, moderate amount of middle drama, limited amount of late drama. Still a pretty fun game overall.