Your All-Star reading list

Rather than link to silly things like cartoons, let’s link to more serious things, like baseball.  Maybe it’s the incessant ads, or anticipating the irony of Terry Francona being the home manager at Yankee Stadium, or (most likely) my son’s excitement about the whole shindig, but I’m actually looking forward to the All-Star Game for ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Rather than link to silly things like cartoons, let's link to more serious things, like baseball.  Maybe it's the incessant ads, or anticipating the irony of Terry Francona being the home manager at Yankee Stadium, or (most likely) my son's excitement about the whole shindig, but I'm actually looking forward to the All-Star Game for the first time in a long while.  During the All-Star break, here are some articles worthy of perusal:  On Baseball Prospectus, Dayn Perry makes the case that, across a variety of dimensions, baseball is morally superior to football; In the New York Times, Alan Schwarz pens a fascinating article about the media responses to Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley of the Texas Rangers.  Because of their checkered past (Hamilton's drug/alcohol addictions; Bradley's temper), they call themselves the Risk Brothers.  By standard metrics -- on-base percentage and slugging -- Bradley is having the better year.  Hamilton is receiving all the better press, however.  Intriguingly, while some Rangers' players suggest that this can be explained by race, Bradley himself rejects that idea.  He thinks it's more about, "his refusal to kowtow to the news media for something as relatively benign as a wicked temper."  Slate's Nate DiMeo has a fun little essay on how sabremetricians are trying to devise new metrics for defensive efficiency, and why all of them conclude that Derek Jeter is a lousy infielder.  The American League has been on quite the All-Star winning streak.  The secret to their success?  Yahoo! Sports Jeff Passan reveals it -- Ichiro's profane pre-game speech.  An excerpt:  "Bleep … bleep bleep bleep … National League … bleep … bleep … bleeeeeeeeep … National – bleep bleep bleepbleepbleep."  I had no intention of watching last night's Home Run Derby, but because my son was into it, I watched it with him.  I'm very happy, because Josh Hamilton put on a hitting display that really has to be seen to be believed.  Joe Sheehan summarizes the good parts:  Over the next 20 minutes, Hamilton hit a total of 28 home runs, including 13 in a row at one point. He hit a series of blasts into the upper deck, a few more scattered through the right-center bleachers, a pair of balls into the "black seats" in center field. Along the way he converted a crowd that had been fairly apathetic to that point -- largely ignoring Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay's repeated requests that they cheer one guy or another on -- into Josh Hamilton's 50,000 biggest fans. Chants of "Ham-il-ton" and "M-V-P" spread from the bleachers to the crowd, each bomb off of Hamilton's bat raising the volume a bit more. Enjoy the break!

Rather than link to silly things like cartoons, let’s link to more serious things, like baseball.  Maybe it’s the incessant ads, or anticipating the irony of Terry Francona being the home manager at Yankee Stadium, or (most likely) my son’s excitement about the whole shindig, but I’m actually looking forward to the All-Star Game for the first time in a long while.  During the All-Star break, here are some articles worthy of perusal: 

Over the next 20 minutes, Hamilton hit a total of 28 home runs, including 13 in a row at one point. He hit a series of blasts into the upper deck, a few more scattered through the right-center bleachers, a pair of balls into the “black seats” in center field. Along the way he converted a crowd that had been fairly apathetic to that point — largely ignoring Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay’s repeated requests that they cheer one guy or another on — into Josh Hamilton’s 50,000 biggest fans. Chants of “Ham-il-ton” and “M-V-P” spread from the bleachers to the crowd, each bomb off of Hamilton’s bat raising the volume a bit more.

Enjoy the break!

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

Tag: Sports

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