November 08, 2010

On What's Drawn From Our Sabers At Baseball-Reference.com

It's put down as a strikeout on the scorecard, the backward "K" signifying a called third strike to end the game.

The record of the event doesn't admit the batter's angry glance back at the umpire, however integrally bound to the moment as it actually transpired.

"Glanced angrily at the umpire" must go and live in the realm of yarns about the game, where all the narrative threads that lead to and then out of that angrily given glare at its end can be found, tellings associated however loosely with the game noted in the record.

The yarn, given what people are willing to listen to over and over, may or may not last. It's nice to have a basic record at the very least, and what baseball-reference.com makes of baseball's basic records is an invaluable aid to anyone experiencing the rarely exercised impulse to make informed comment about the game, for whatever good that ever does.

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