BASEBALL!

[Ciaran]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Well, the regular season is over.

Congrats to the division winners: Yanks, Tigers, Athletics; Nationals, Reds, Giants. And the wild cards : Orioles, Rangers, Braves, Cardinals.

RIP 2012 Red Sox. Record 69-93. Good for 5th place (aka last place). Nowhere to go but up guys!

I'm hoping the A's go all the way. It's time for Billy Beane to have his day with the lowest payroll in baseball and a starting rotation of all rookie pitchers.

A's-Giants World Series would be sweet. A's-Nationals would be sweet too.

I've limited interest in modern day baseball but, as an onlooker, it appeared to be a fascinating season with many great stories including 3 perfect games, 7 no-hitters, Hamilton's 4 home run game, Rodriguez tying with Gehrig for most career Grand Slams, Moyer becoming oldest pitcher to win a game, Fister striking out 9 consecutive batters and many more incidents and stories that have slipped my mind.


It would be rather ironic were the A's to win the World Series given the recent Moneyball film. Some have made reference to a movie about the Red Sox being released shortly before they won the World Series in 2004.


Personally, although they haven't been very impressive recently, I hope that the Yankees can do it, especially as this year is the 80th anniversary of Babe Ruth's "called shot" in the 1932 Series rout of the Chicago Cubs.


More so, following on the back of Moneyball, I'm very much looking forward to the release of "42", the movie about Jackie Robinson who, of course, was the first black player to play in the major leagues:





Also, whilst on the subject of movies, as some of you likely know, I am a strong collector of original vintage baseball photography. This is one of the photos I picked up when in the United States over recent weeks. It's an original photo during the filming of one of the greatest ever baseball films of all time, Slide Kelly Slide (1927).

It shows Hollywood actor William Haines as a baseball player, pictured with a number of real life baseball legends of the era, Tony Lazzeri, my favourite player of all-time, Bob Meusel and, his brother, Irish Meusel. For the purpose of the film, all these players are pictured here in NY Yankees uniforms, even though Irish was actually a NY Giants player !!