Infield Chatter

[tgraham]

College Baseball Super-regionals
Rice over Texas A&M 3-2 in 10 innings ( the only game that really matters)
North Carolina over SOuth Carolina 9-6 after spotting SC a 6-0 lead
Mississippi State over Clemson 8-6
Louisville over Oklahoma State 9-0

More games tomorrow
Super-regionals are best two of three games.
Then on the the COllege World Series next weekend.

[The Doc]

Rice over Texas A&M 3-2 in 10 innings

Am I right in thiking its normally 9 innings?  Do they have extra if they are tied after 9?

[Sebastian Knight]

Am I right in thiking its normally 9 innings?  Do they have extra if they are tied after 9?

Yup, they keep playing until the tie is broken.  Also, each team gets a chance to bat in each extra inning, so if a team scores in the top of the 10th inning, the game doesn't end (i.e. its not "sudden death") until the other team has a chance to try to re-tie or win.

The damnedest game I ever saw was a July 4th game between the Braves and the Mets.  It was raining off and on, so there were periodic delays in the game from the rain, but they were determined to get the game in.  The game was tied after 9 innings, so even with an extra two hours (due to rain), it pressed on into the night.  Nobody scored in innings 10 through 16.  Finally, the Mets scored a run in the top of the 17th (at like 3am).  The first two Braves batters did nothing in the bottom of the 17th, leaving the relief pitcher to bat with two outs in the inning.  Now relief pitchers don't bat much, and I think he had a total of 20 or 30 at bats in the previous few years, so you don't really expect him to be able to do anything much in that situation.  So naturally he hits a home run and we head to the top of the 18th.  Possibly because he was so excited about the big game-tying home run, that same pitcher gave up a cluster of runs in the 18th, and the game finally ended at like 4am (on the 5th of July).  They had planned fireworks after the game, and they still shot them off...

Note also about the bizarre 18-inning sort of game: in baseball you sometimes swap in other players during the course of the game - particularly pitchers.  But once you take a player out, they can't come back in.  You only have a limited roster of players, so by the 18th inning, things are getting critical.  I've seen teams go into games that go more than about 14 innings with two pitchers on the field, one right-handed and one left-handed, and the two swap back and forth between pitching and playing right field as needed.

[tgraham]

In 1989 the Astros hosted the Dodgers for a weekend series. Friday's game went 22 innings, Astros won 5-4. That game ended after 4am, several of the Astros slept in the clubhouse after the game ended. The noon game on Saturday went 13 innings with the Astros winning. Sundays game went 10 innings, I dont remember who won that one.
I watched every inning of all three games on TV, as I recall 3 different Astros position players pitched an inning over the course of the weekend. They had all been pitchers in college ball and didnt do too badly.

[The Doc]

And I though cricket was weird!  Games that go on until the early hours???

Anyway back in the normal

Old Trafford (Manchester for those that don't follow football) Stumps Day 3

England 370 all out
WI 229 All out

England 313 all out. Cook 106, Peieterson 68  Sammy 7 for 66

Interesting (ok I know I use the term loosely) bits:
Kevin Peiterson was out "hit Wicket" which is an unusual method of dismissal.  basically a bouncer (a short ptched ball from a fast bowler, in this case Bravo) knocked his helmet off which fell on the wicket and dislodged the bails.
Darren Sammy took 7 wickets in an innings (pretty unusual) on his first appearance.  his figures in full - 21.3o 2m 66r 7w . That is he bowled 21 six ball overs and three balls, including 2 maidens (overs in which no runs were scored) had 66 runs scored off him and took 7 wickets (6 caught and 1 caught and bowled)

WI had 8 overs to face and eneded up 22-1

433 runs to go, one wicket down already and two days (with good weather predicted) to go - should be a win for us

[The Doc]

And this is why cricket is such a great game.


Did I predict an easy win for England? Well not quite -  I said "Should be a win for us".  However Wesi indies batted all the way through day four for the loss of only four wickets ending the day on 301-5, needing only 154 runs to win.
At lunch they are 379 for 7 , so only 3 wickets needed by England but only 76 runs by WI.  With only one specialist batsman left in it should still be an England win, but there will be some chewed fingernails this afternoon if the WI tail can hold on.

Ball by ball commentary can be found on http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/6740073.stm, but I won't be hurt if no one follows the link

[Scott]

Thing2 participated in the county track meet again this season.  This is a once per school year event for kids in grade 4 - 8.  Since the kids only compete against kids in their grade, they have two different meets.  One for elementary students (grades 4 & 5) and one for middle school students (grades 6 - 8 ).

Thing2 was eager to defend her title in the 800M run from last year where she won by a large spread.  This time around she had a real challenge and it looked like she was going to place 2nd when the young lady in the yellow shirt pictured below challenged her with about 125M left.  For a few steps Thing2 lost the lead that she had held from 50M mark.  A strong sprint at the end gave her the win by less than 1 second.

At the finish line our neighbor (and track coach) informed Thing2 that she was not allowed to play soccer anymore.  Furthermore she was instructed to report to track team training at their next scheduled practice.  Being the good girl that she is, she politely declined.

[The Doc]

Well done!

I bet she would be good at the 22 yard sprint between wickets too

Oh by the way it was all over shortly after lunch

West Indies 394 all out. Chanderpaul 116no, Panesar 6-137, Harmison 4-95

England win by 60 runs and take the series 2-0 with one test to go.

Fantastic and almost match winning innings from Chanderpaul - if he hadn't run out of partners....

and a ten wicket haul in the match for Monty.


Good game and a much improved WI performance

[tgraham]

The bracket is posted for the College world series.
For benefit of those who play with bails, the first part of this portion of the tournament is double elimination.
The four teams in each half of the bracket play, the winners move to the next round, the losers move to the losers bracket and play each other. If a team loses in the losers bracket game they are out and go home. The winner in the losers bracket moves forward to face the loser from the next round of play in the winners bracket.
The last team standing from each losers bracket plays the winner from each side of the winners bracket until someone has lost twice. The team from teh winners bracket only has to win once, the team from teh losers bracket has to beat the team from the winners bracket twice in a row.

When its down to two teams remaining, those two teams play best two of three games for the championship.

At least as clear as cricket.

Rice starts off with Louisville on Friday. I hear a beer calling me...

[The Doc]

I think I got that - Hey I can understand the Duckworth-Lewis method!

Don't forget to keep us updated

[tgraham]

Rice doesnt play boring baseball.
College world series starts off with a bang.
Rice over Louisville 15-10.
Rice gave a 10-4 headstart in the first few innings just to make if interesting.
Tonight Mississippi St and North Carolina, the winner of that game plays Rice, the loser plays louisville ( the loser of that game goes home)
tomorrow Arizona St. and UC Irvine early and Cal Fullerton and oregon St. late.

[The Doc]

Can I ask who we are rooting for?

btw no play on the first day of the 4th test - rain.  We have had significant flooding in northern England - not Australian proportions yet but pretty soggy.

[Scott]

Team USA coasted pretty easily through the group round in the Gold Cup.  I like this young team that Coach Bradley has put together.  USA v Panama Saturday at 4pm local time.

My U-14 girls have a 3:00 game so it looks like I'll watch the re-broadcast of this one Saturday night.

[tgraham]

Can I ask who we are rooting for?

Go Rice!!!!

[tgraham]

Team USA coasted pretty easily through the group round in the Gold Cup. 

Oddly enough the only scores I've seen in the local paper from the Copa de Oro have been for the tri-colores (Mexico) and central american teams.

Even though some of the matches have been played in our local stadium. They must think that Houston isnt a futbol town. Just because we sell out a 90,000 seat stadium for friendlies with visiting national teams.