Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Friday, December 05, 2008

Brazil


The Rays are expanding to Brazil:

On Thursday, the Rays announced they have built a partnership with the city of Marilia, Brazil, that will include construction of a training facility beginning in the first quarter of 2009, which will be the first baseball academy in Brazil run by a Major League organization.

"It's [a project] that is obviously a long-term initiative," said Andrew Friedman, the Rays' executive vice president of baseball operations. "We don't think it's something that's going to pay dividends in a year from now, necessarily."

Very true, I'd gather, as there isn't a heck of a lot of baseball played in Brazil. To get talent out of there, one would assume that you'd need years and years of developing kids who are now of little league age or younger. You have to teach the game and immerse them in the game. More importantly, you have to gather an immense amount of data. Obtain every bit of available knowledge you can about the players in the area, their strengths, their weaknesses, everything. I guess what I'm saying is that, just as much as a talent development system, it would have to be one of information retrieval.

Dear Lord, I need the baseball season to start again.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:45am (5) Comments

A Different Kind of Integration


We'll soon be getting to the point where even otherwise grownup baseball fans won't remember that the NL never used to play the AL outside of the All-Star game and World Series, that each league had it's own President and, in many important ways, were administered separately. But every now and again I'll read something that reminds me that the leagues were far more integrated in the 70s and 80s than compared to how things used to be:

Here's another one of those surprises found in the old files.

Baseball approved interleague trading for a short period each winter [beginning in November 1959]. Players would not have to clear waivers to be dealt, so the Yankees could send Whitey Ford to the Dodgers for Sandy Koufax without any complications. That's just an example, not some old baseball rumor.

The concept was not unanimously approved by team owners. The Yankees were the only American League team to vote against the plan, but the National League barely passed it, 5-3.

Fresco Thompson of the Dodgers thought the plan would "open the gates" to trade stars from one league to the other.

The leagues really were different beasts back in the day.

By the way, that story comes from a Los Angeles Times blog which trolls the old archives for neat stuff from 50 years ago. Keith Thursby throws a lot of baseball in that series, so it's worth going back to on a regular basis.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:32am (2) Comments

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