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What was the last TV show you watched?

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
I believe it was 60 Minutes last year that did a great piece on the technology, umpires, the mistake rates of umpires in numbers, the biases by numbers, and any question someone might have. More mistakes in favor of the home team, by statistics. It was all there in the piece. There are people studying every single pitch. Every. Single. Pitch. Statisticians, not fans. All there in black & white how poorly umpires call games. I'm not anti-umpire, but I am definitely pro-fairness. Accuracy = fairness.

Time to make this retroactive. Eat sand, Larry Barnett.

AP7510141273.jpg
 

Seb Lucas

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,562
Location
Australia
I think it's a little early to tell. Remember how weak Tennant's first episode was? I think the last 'new doctor' episode that was better than this was definitely Ecclestone.

I didn't much like "Rose". I think Matt Smith's first one was pretty good - he immediately inhabited the character. Capaldi's was better than this one and I hated the Capaldi. Anyway we shall see. No point prejudging the entire new series.
 

Edward

Bartender
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24,873
Location
London, UK
I didn't much like "Rose". I think Matt Smith's first one was pretty good - he immediately inhabited the character. Capaldi's was better than this one and I hated the Capaldi. Anyway we shall see. No point prejudging the entire new series.

i loved the idea of Capaldi in the role, but he was just given such utter dreck with which to work, noone could have saved it. Smith's first..... eh. I hated all that raggedly man rubbish, and the fish fingers and custard stuff was just tedious, weak humour. To be fair, though, he did get one good season in before Moffat lost interest and ruined it.
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,183
Location
Troy, New York, USA
I wasn't going to say this, but I'm lacking self-control. We treat our society and politics the same way we treat our sports. Sadly, I honestly believe sports mirrors how we go about life. Generally speaking, that is. A good percentage of people who are on the higher side of the tribal/MY team scale show little interest once their team isn't involved. Worse yet, some wish ill upon the whole endeavor because their team isn't any longer involved. Spiteful. Childish. Tantrum. It's also why have two sets of rules. One for our team and one for everyone else. It's a real lack of integrity and decency. Win at any cost. Not much of an example to show the children. An extension of all that is how, at least in part, we've come to see compromise as a negative thing. What's that saying? We don't deserve to have nice things.

Bartender Edit: Non-partisan point appreciated, but let's nonetheless becareful not to stray into contemporary politics, thanks.
I really don't think your analogy is correct. My "tongue firmly planted in cheek" diatribe was done for humor's sake. Sorry you failed to see it. Yes... I'll admit that the political discourse in this country has devolved in the last 2 decades but I'm not buying the idea that sports fandom mirrors this. In America we don't have football riots no matter how passionate we are. In my personal life I HATE the Yankees but it didn't stop me from asking a life long Yankee's fan to be God Father to my son. I don't have "two sets of rules" when watching sport. I've two teams I love and two I absolutely despise and that's the long and short of it. I take umbrage at the idea that my rooting allegiances somehow equates to a lack of decency and integrity, your words not mine. You're welcome to your opinion on the subject but I'm not buying it.

Worf
 

Ernest P Shackleton

One Too Many
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1,221
Location
Midwest
I really don't think your analogy is correct. My "tongue firmly planted in cheek" diatribe was done for humor's sake. Sorry you failed to see it. Yes... I'll admit that the political discourse in this country has devolved in the last 2 decades but I'm not buying the idea that sports fandom mirrors this. In America we don't have football riots no matter how passionate we are. In my personal life I HATE the Yankees but it didn't stop me from asking a life long Yankee's fan to be God Father to my son. I don't have "two sets of rules" when watching sport. I've two teams I love and two I absolutely despise and that's the long and short of it. I take umbrage at the idea that my rooting allegiances somehow equates to a lack of decency and integrity, your words not mine. You're welcome to your opinion on the subject but I'm not buying it.

Worf
I apologize if it seemed like my comment was in response to you. It was not. My modus operandi when responding to, or because of, a post is to either quote it or use the member's name in the first sentence. I prefer the quote.
 
Messages
16,966
Location
New York City
The closest thing we have to sports hooliganism -- the "Here Comes The Pizza Incident" of 2007.


That's freakin' hilarious. I can't believe this is the first time I've seen it. Also, whatever your passions, who throws a full slice of pizza - 1. Now you don't have your pizza to eat :( and 2. if it's priced like other ballparks, you're out $5-$6. Also, just an odd thing to throw; in a small way, kudos to him for even getting it to land on his objective. But again, now he doesn't have his pizza slice to eat. And finally, in forty years of going to baseball games, I've never even thought about getting pizza at a stadium - that's just me.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,234
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
The Pizza Incident is to Fenway Park what Frankie Germano beating up the umpire was to Ebbets Field -- a transcendent moment of local lore that will be lived and relieved as long as baseball is played. What a lot of people don't remember is that it took place during a Patriot's Day game, meaning these guys were loading up on pizza and beer at 11 o'clock in the morning. There is nothing in the world that is more Boston than that. Five years later, the Pizza Thrower revealed his side of the story:


To this day, NESN trots out the Pizza Incident during rain delays, and I wouldn't be surprised if some day those guys are invited to throw out the first slice at a World Series game. Pepsi Fan Of The Game indeed.
 

MisterCairo

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,005
Location
Gads Hill, Ontario
Not as dramatic as Gull-Gate in Toronto. Dave Winfield took out, accidentally according to him, intentionally according to other, a seagull while warming up:

https://www.thestar.com/news/insigh...n_stadium_30_years_later_an_oral_history.html

He was taken downtown by one of the on-duty T.O. cops and charged with unnecessary cruelty to an animal. The charge was later dropped. Too much time, too many donuts...

dave-winfield 1.jpg
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,234
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
There was a story that used to go around in the 70s that something similar happened to Willie Horton of the Tigers in a game at Fenway. I've met a lot of people who swear "they were there" when Horton hit a gigantic foul pop that hit a pigeon and both ball and bird plummeted down, but I've never come across an actual newspaper account of the game where it happened. The internet tells me it happened on April 15, 1974, but that's as far as the documentation goes.

If it did happen, though, Willie Horton was the guy to do it. Few ever hit it harder.
 
Messages
16,966
Location
New York City
There was a story that used to go around in the 70s that something similar happened to Willie Horton of the Tigers in a game at Fenway. I've met a lot of people who swear "they were there" when Horton hit a gigantic foul pop that hit a pigeon and both ball and bird plummeted down, but I've never come across an actual newspaper account of the game where it happened. The internet tells me it happened on April 15, 1974, but that's as far as the documentation goes.

If it did happen, though, Willie Horton was the guy to do it. Few ever hit it harder.

With over a hundred years of fly balls, the odds say it should have happened a few times at least.
 

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