u/SchmottledOtter

Just some thoughts after yesterday's Boston - New York game. I watched later that night when I got home after going to see the SF Giants lose at Oracle Park...haha (and one reliever - one of the a***le homophobes - walk in a run for the Rockies, so it's not just us!)

Anyway, like an earlier poster, I agree that it's disheartening as a baseball enthusiast to watch games be won or lost by walking in runs, getting hit by pitches, and a whole lot of fielding errors. Ouch! But I think, in addition to what the earlier poster said about not having deep enough pitching rosters leading to exhausted and demoralized pitchers, that it has a lot to do with very disparate amounts and types of playing experience.

These women come from many different journeys, some from softball, some from college baseball, some from youth baseball development camps, some from Team USA, and a very few have played in professional baseball in some fashion or another either in the US or abroad - and it shows. There's no "real" structured farm system either, so essentially what I feel like I'm seeing is a handful of women who belong at the pro level playing against a larger roster of women who would be in Low A Single A, and a reasonable but not large enough number of AA and AAA players.

Until there's a way for women to get a lot more playing time, off-season payroll, and more serious investment in the sport, i think it's going to struggle like this. It reminds me of what I saw in the Rockford Women's Baseball World Cup semifinals in July: you had teams like Team USA, Australia and Canada who have been playing together for many years and developing their skills. Some of them have played professional baseball. And it was so painful for me to watch them utterly destroy teams like Team Hong Kong, which is probably a lot newer and the players with a lot less experience. Mexico held their own against less experienced team rosters, but couldn't compete in total against the US, Canada or Australia. (I'm looking forward to next week's Taipei semis but nervous for the brand new UK team).

In the MLB, some of the WBPL players would simply be relegated to a lower level farm team, or fall out of the system all together. And I'm certainly not saying that the women's games should be exactly like the men's game. I don't think that's ever going to be the case and I think we need to appreciate and enjoy the differences in the women's game. I know I am. But even comparing it to the PWHL - a lot of those women not only have competed at a very high level in college alongside other women on women's teams, but there's also a women's Olympic hockey team and there isn't the same thing for baseball. Women who have played baseball, not only softball, alongside men in college, and women who have played on the US national team for many years, are playing a lot more skillfully than those who don't have that experience.

I know we're all eager for expansion teams, but I wonder where those players are going to come from if we don't have enough. Highly skilled players on the inaugural four teams as it is. And there's also not enough money in it. The MLB has thrown in with women softball, which doesn't interest me in the slightest. And I know that's true for a lot of you, you may be softball fans alongside being baseball fans, or you may just be baseball fans, but you want baseball and not just softball.

Reflections?

This week, I decided to try some vintage women's Guerlain samples. I had tried only Habit Rouge and did not like it, so I thought that maybe Guerlain was not for me. Boy was I wrong.

Yesterday, I wore vintage Samsara EDT. I was almost unconscious with bliss. Today I am wearing vintage Mitsouko EDT and it's a similar experience, though not quite as profound for me as yesterday was. I am besotted.

These fragrances are so well composed, soft yet insistent, clearly high quality. I love sandalwood a lot, so I knew I might like Samsara. None of my female relatives wore it. In the 60s, my mom was gifted by my father a mysterious and fascinating (to me) bottle of Le Dix, by Balenciaga, which I have a small vintage decant of. It's a little too floral for me, but reminds me of her (she's been gone many years). In the 80s, she started wearing Lauren (red bottle), which I adore and cannot find anywhere for less than, like , $500(sob 😢). And I love certain classic chypres, especially fruity ones, so I suspected I might like Mitsouko as well. But the richness of the experience for both frags is more depthful yet hard to truly describe than I expected.

Now I can't wait to try more scents from this house, but I'd like to get opinions on the vintage versions of these Guerlains vs the contemporary reformulations from those of you more experienced than me.

Ok, how can SF Firebells draft Naomi Ryan?!

She's a great arm! I realize that a lot of young women are not going to want to enter the professional baseball world. They may have dreams of doing other things in their lives, starting families, having kids, and wanting to be in particular professions outside of the sports world. But seeing some of the talent on the field this past week, especially in pitching, made me dream about some of these women who are not yet involved in the WPBL getting drafted and contributing!

Elise Berger was also a great arm. I believe she's still in college.

Team USA this year showed me what really good pitching & crafty baserunning can do to manufacture runs, regardless of hitting. I don't consider this small ball - to me, the game should be about more than hitting them over the fence. It's thrilling when some hits a homer, or gets extra bases, but watching my SF Giants this season (uuuugggghhh don't ask), I felt like they could learn something from the way Team USA women just run the hell out of the basepaths, steal bases, and take advantage of every hole everywhere to get women across the plate.

Watching that game against Canada - it was supposed to be our toughest game in the Rockford semifinals and we just killed it! I decided not to watch the last game against Hong Kong because I did not want to see them destroyed. It can actually be painful because there's such a huge gap between some of our best teams that have had much more development time and some of the newer teams that clearly just aren't there yet. It doesn't seem fair but I guess it is what it is.

Anyway, our pitching was stellar. Some of Canada's pitching was very good as well. And the Aussies made a really good showing this year, placing above even Canada to be the second place finisher.

I am super jealous of Los Angeles because they have Meggie Meidlinger, and damn what a punch out reliever she is! Between her & Ashton, they're gonna be a force to be reckoned with.

New York has Denae, and watching four of these full Team USA games as well as a few partial games of the semifinals, it was clear to me that Danae is one of our best athletes. She has an arm that can throw very hard and straight to second or third base. And she ended a third base steal attempt by Canada with a fantastic pick off pickoff. She can also hit the s**t out of the ball (and also she's adorable).

Firebells own Kelsie Whitmore put up a bunch of hits and a couple HRs, as well as starting and doing well in one of the games. She's clearly a good all around player. I feel like most of the women need as much playing time as they can get to develop as well as possible.

Whaddya think?

Here's a question:

I notice a lot of the players are both pitchers and play IF or OF, but normally this would make me nervous, especially with 3B or OF given the throw distance and arm strength needed.

I saw Kelsie playing OF in the "stars vs. stripes" game on YT, and it nearly gave me a heart attack.

In the MLB, a pitcher would never play another position, as he has to protect that arm and get plenty of rest between starts. Pitcher injuries are common, and so are surgeries with very long recovery times.

I realize that there are not as many women players in baseball and teams need to be flexible with their player pieces. I also realize that a woman is unlikely to be able to pitch 98 mph fastballs, but still!

Is this not an issue in women's baseball, and if not, why?

Just a note to say I'm watching the Rivercats game. It's Arteaga's first day in Triple A and he's doing great. Getting on base, great, nimble glove, and just socked in a run. I know Triple A isn't the big leagues (see: Eldridge), but it's nice to see anyway. Whisenhunt is pitching.

Hey guys, I'm still not clear on what happened last night in the top of the 7th. We had Adames on 2nd and Chapman on first, and it looked like one out. Then Gilbert comes up and hits a fly to the outfield. I could not see it on the Livestream because they didn't show all of Adames' running to 3rd, but I saw him start to run. Then I only heard Kuiper say "oh boy", and and no one explained it live. They cut the stream and it went to a commercial.

I am reading that Adames made a mistake on the number of outs. Was it that he didn't realize there was only one out, thought there were two and so did not try to get to 3rd on the sac fly, making it easy for them to tag him out before he got there and thereby ending the inning?

I think that's what must have happened, but I couldn't see all of it and they didn't explain it. Do I have this correct?

(And now ppl are upset because he was yukking it up w Betts or something instead of doing his job? 🙄)

Hey all,

Does anyone use a scorebook app they could recommend? I'm listening to the Giants Talk podcast (w Kuiper & Rodriguez), and they were saying that dots have been added to the scorebook for pitch challenges and I thought that was cool.

Looking forward to seeing Eldridge & Rodriguez (and seeing Susac come back, eventually). I feel kinda bad for the pressure on Eldridge but I think he's up to it. I saw him play at Rivercats games, and he was the standout.

Just a reminder that some of us are less knowledgeable about the rules, stats and technicalities of baseball. So please don't downvote us when we ask questions simply because we don't know all the things that you know. I've been a fan my whole life, and my dad was in the minors for 4 years too, but there is a lot I don't know and I'm learning for the first time as I get more into the game.

I find that it's really helpful for me to learn things I didn't know when people answer questions that folks ask. For instance, I didn't realize that guys who had more than 5 years of service had to agree first to be sent down to the minors. I never would have known that if somebody hadn't explained it instead of getting irritated and reactively downvoting the person who suggested it, as if they were being negative or were a moron.

So, when you feel the urge to simply click the downvote button because you think it's a stupid question, realize that some of us are simply asking because we just don't know things. Sharing your information and knowledge helps us learn the finer points of the game & business and become better fans, rather than feeling shamed simply for having even asked. I do plenty of web research & even reading on my own, but it takes a lot of time and I work f/t too!