Ballpark Quirks

Even if you’re not really a baseball fan, you can still get caught up in the fever every time the sport is in season. Once you decide to join the diehard fans in their enthusiasm over the sport of baseball, there is no turning back. The sport itself is exciting, but its traditions and endearing quirks will get you hooked. For instance, did you know that the ground rules in Major League Baseball differ from ballpark to ballpark, thanks to their different unique features and varying dimensions? Even the best ballparks in baseball have their peculiarities.

Nevertheless, these so-called ballpark quirks make watching the game live at the venue even more fun. Some of the most interesting places are listed below:

  • Before Miller Park, there was the old Milwaukee County Stadium. In the old venue, Bernie Brewer, the mascot, would go down a long slide into a gigantic mug. The Miller Park variation has Bernie sliding down into a platform which Kalahari Resorts has in recent years turned into a splash zone. Fans sitting nearby get sprayed with water as soon as Bernie hits the platform.
  • Tropicana Field, or “The Trop”, has those infamous catwalks (they support the ballpark dome)
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Wednesday on the radio version of News, Notes and Rumors

SBurtonAt 6:20PM EDT Samantha Burton Indians Beat writer Bleacher Rept joins me to talk about the amazing Indians and MLB in general.At 7:20 Dave Kay waterfootball.com NBA writer joins me to talk about the playoffs and NBA draft updates.Please join us at 6PM and be a part of the show by calling us on the Herbalife hotline 216-539-0607.Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for and edits https://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels onand a non-fiction work at http://www.merriam-press.com/. He edits . Also listen to the best Sports Talk anywhere on the Internet and hear his sports show Monday-Friday 6-8 PM EST on https://fryingpansports.com/radio-show/ or .

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Wednesday on the radio version of News, Notes and Rumors

nflDraft

Tonight at 6:20 PM EDT Samantha Burten who covers the Indians on BleacherReport.com joins me to discuss the great start of the Indians and what else is going on in MLB. She will be on every Wednesday at 6:20 to update us on the Indians progress throughout the season.

At 7:20 Paul Banks of the SportsBank.net joins us to discuss the latest on the NFL draft. Paul will also be my co-host for our complete NFL Draft coverage for Day 1 on April 28. Draft coverage Thursday and Friday begins at 6 PM EDT.

On Day 2 of the NFL Draft, Kevin Arnold AKA “Ziffels” will be my co-host for rounds 2 and 3 of the draft. Again draft coverage will start at 6:00 right after Mr. Moohead’s show and continue until the conclusion of the draft that day. Regular listeners know that Kevin is outstanding in his analysis of the draft and I thank him very much for his assistance.

On Saturday we will cover the draft starting at 11AM and Ken Becks of 1stdownscouting.com is my co-host. We will cover the last 4 rounds of the draft and have a roundup of the draft including winners and … Read more at FryingPanSports

The Top Five most Ludicrously Overpaid Sportspeople

There’s crazy money in sport ––– we all know it. And it’s never been fresher on the mind: January’s football transfer window saw £136 million spent in transfer fees on just four players, Chelsea’s Fernando Torres, Liverpool’s Andy Carroll, Manchester City’s Edin Dzeko and Aston Villa’s Darren Bent.

But as stunning as those transfer fees are, the real crazy money is in the salaries top sportspeople get paid.
After all, the first big news story of the football season came from the transfer that wasn’t. Having threatened to leave Manchester United, Wayne Rooney’s new contract sees him pocketing £26,000 – the nation’s average annual salary – every day.

Outrageous? Of course. But even those massive earnings pale into insignificance when you compare him to some of sport’s most extravagantly compensated individuals. Rooney might be rich but at least he’s helping to win championships – which is by no means the case for all the stars below. Without further ado, here’s our list of the most ludicrously overpaid sports stars on the global scene.

Fernando Alonso (Motorsport)

Formula 1’s highest earning driver is pocketing an annual £23million retainer from Ferrari – and that’s just his fee for driving. He can (and … Read more at FryingPanSports

Baseball is the one reality show that is losing TV viewership.

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As the ship sinks slowly in the west and the sun pulls away from the shore, we say goodbye to the beautiful islands. Viewership for baseball, the sport formerly known as America’s game, is down 9 percent from last year which was a disaster. Fox executives will visit Commissioner Selig high atop a 2 story Shell Station in beautiful downtown Milwaukee in an attempt to figure out what the problem might be.

Logic tells us that when the economy is in the dumper, more people should be saying home watching the games from their couches. The people are staying home. They’re just not watching baseball. The problem is that those that have the responsibility for marketing the game couldn’t sell you a fire extinguisher if the cuffs of your pants were blazing.

The game is what it is. It by nature is a slow game played over a 20 year season, or so it seems. The future of any sports league is the young. Baseball and hockey have all but abandoned marketing to those under 30.

When I was a kid, Ben Franklin, George Washington and I used to go out with our friends and play baseball everyday during the … Read more at FryingPanSports

Fantasy Baseball Fans—Beware of the WBC players in your drafts.

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Fantasy Baseball Fans—Beware of the WBC players in your drafts.

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By Bill Smith

Note to readers: Niblets will return next Saturday.

There are two reasons that you should shy away from drafting WBC participants. We have seen the list of injuries that key players have sustained. As bad as those injuries are, they may represent just the sales tax on the costs to teams that allowed their players to participate.

First, there is a much higher chance of injury than a given player would have had he not played in the WBC. The level of competition was way too high way too soon. They did not have the usual slow process of most springs working into game shape. That lack of warm up time and intensity of competition against national teams that were ready for the games will show up in mid season injuries.

Be particularly careful drafting pitchers that were in the WBC. The usual spring pitch count limit in the first 2 or 3 appearances for starters is 30-50. Some WBC starters went 100 to 120 pitches in game conditions not in the laid back or laid out games of spring training. That is a prescription … Read more at FryingPanSports