I’m positive, perhaps, that some of our best friends are like-minded, consenting adults, those into “splits.” Hey, as long as they keep it to themselves. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
“Splits” are the compilation, examination and explanation of every conceivable (and inconceivable) MLB stat. Excessive excess — plus. For every pitch to every batter, splits mix irrelevancies with the relevant and semi-relevant — and from there begin to break it all down into tiny pieces.
Splits overlook nothing, except a good view and practical baseball.
Splits are particularly useful for experts to now explain baseball to lifelong baseball fans — the who, what, when, where and why that just caused that .221 hitter to ground out at that particular moment against that particular pitcher, on that particular count, with that particular home plate ump, at that particular time (outdoors vs. indoors, natural turf vs. the real stuff) and in that particular month.
Look for yourself. The Internet specializes in long lists and never running out of paper.
Splits tell us the pitcher, on the last day of April, is not the same come the first day of May. Recently, YES’s Michael Kay noted Cleveland’s Corey Kluber struck out 30 batters in April, yet fanned 65 in May!
That’s right, with the turn of a calendar page, Kluber became Nolan Ryan. On April 29, he went 4 ²/₃ innings, striking out five. On May 4, he went eight and struck out 13. See?
Given Kluber’s splits — his “stuff” being far better in early May than in late April — will management hold him out at the close of next April to have him start the first game in May? Stay tuned!
Wednesday, with left-handed hitting Robinson Cano batting for the Mariners in the first, YES’s Ken Singleton took us on a spin through Splitsville:
“The one thing I noticed about Cano and his hits this year [is that] the majority of them are from center over to left field. … Twenty-three hits to left, 31 to center and only 18 to right, this year for Cano. And that tells you the league is keeping the ball away from him, and he’s taking what they give.”
Wait a second. First, when did left, center and right fields become bus stops? How does one distinguish right-center from right or center field? Where does left field begin and left-center end?
And it took all these years for pitchers to figure out that they should pitch Cano away? Not as a Yankee, only after he signed with the Mariners did they figure that out?
Pitchers ceased allowing him to pull the ball only after he joined a team with a deeper right field? That’s why he’s not a home-run threat in Seattle but was in Yankee Stadium?
Anyway, a moment later, Cano cast his splits to the wind. He pulled a hard grounder to second. Or is it a case of where you hit the ball doesn’t count if it’s not a hit?
Let’s record our own splits. That fish sandwich, yesterday, where’d you have it? Was it lunch or dinner? Fried, grilled or blackened? Whole wheat, rye, white, pumpernickel or a roll? What kind of roll? Indoors or alfresco? How many times have you had fish in June? And on Thursdays? Waiter or waitress? Lefty or righty? Counter or table? …
So many questions … so few answers
QUESTIONS: ESPN can’t do for NFL, NBA and MLB telecasts what it did Thursday for the U.S. Open and the World Cup — lose that repetitive, distracting, screen-squeezing and mostly self-serving crawl? Why don’t basketball, baseball and football qualify?
Why can’t Boomer Esiason explain on the air why he avoids saying “piss” “sucks” and “ass” during his weekend CBS TV NFL studio gigs, why he only speaks pig during his weekday WFAN/CBSSN show?
Thanks to NBA commissioner Adam Silver for explaining on ESPN Radio that NBA Finals are scheduled for 9 p.m. because it’s only 6 p.m. on the West Coast. Who knew? But why — other than maximizing prime-time TV ad revenue — can’t the Finals begin at, say, 8:10 p.m. ET, thus allowing everyone a shot to watch the second half if not the entire game? Why risk losing millions — of viewers, that is — to sleep?
And reader Don Lennon asks if we’ve noticed how identifying an athlete as “troubled” has become the polite, pandering media substitute for arrested?
Mark his words on the WWL
Perhaps he lost track of who he’s working for, but ESPN’s Mark Jackson, on Tuesday in Miami, provided extra special TV, demonstrating both candor and an enormous appetite for the hand that feeds him.
The Spurs were crushing the Heat with five-man, full-court basketball — it can happen — when a series of quick, alert passes concluded with a Manu Ginobili layup. Jeff Van Gundy then advocated showing that play to kids “on a loop.” Mike Breen added that NBA players might give it a look, too.
Jackson then rocked the Bristol House: “I hope they saw it now because they won’t see it on SportsCenter — it didn’t end in a dunk.”
♦ Trent Green should work as Dan Dierdorf’s replacement on CBS’s NFL games with Greg Gumbel. As a national radio analyst, Green has grown into a thoughtful, plain-speaking observer, avoiding the fool’s rush to chatter genuine gridiron gibberish and be a stat sheet parrot.
♦ Student-Athlete Crime of the Month: Five Delaware State football players, apparently operating as an on-campus organized crime wave, were arrested for burglarizing dorm rooms at the University of Delaware of laptops — just before the start of final exams.
♦ ESPN’s lead World Cup play-by-player, Ian Darke, during the opener between Brazil and Croatia on Thursday, noted Croat defender Josip Simunic had been banned from the tournament for “leading a racist chant.” Many Central and Eastern European pro team supporters are demonstratively attached to neo-Fascist and neo-Nazi movements.
♦ Good stuff from YES’s David Cone on Sunday: As long as you get four balls and three strikes, 1-1 and 2-2 aren’t “even counts.” The “real even count” is 3-2, when “batter and pitcher get just one ball and one strike.”
♦ Doc Emrick’s “Dragnet” open for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals, to an aerial shot of Los Angeles: “This is the City.”
♦ Local golfers on Thursday recognized the USGA had shamelessly copied this year’s U.S. Open rough or “waste area” from Brooklyn’s Dyker Beach GC, circa 1983