Walk-Off Grand Slam (3 of top ten)
Submitted by
9xave on Tue, 08/05/2008 at 9:47am.
The walk-off grand slam, the ultimate checkmate in baseball ! I read an article in the local sports page about a week or two ago on my Texas Rangers and their clubhouse unity. One of the many activities the players partake in is chess. Those of you on this site familiar with me know how I feel about chess and the passion I have for the game and sports. You know that I will apply the principles of chess to any game from baseball to tennis. Yes, tennis. just watch a tennis match and you will see, if you want to, chess at play. If you don't want to see the nuances of chess in play, then you won't. Some may ask why will I not just blog on the sports website. Well that is because that website has so much content, one may never have the pleasure of coming across one of my blogs. And yes, I do occasionally blog there as well. But here I like to because it is more likely that you'll see my blogs and they're easier to spot. Hey, you'd do the same. It's just percentages, and at times I will play the percentages. But most of the time I go with my gut feeling. Half of the time I am wrong but this is not a gambling website and I am not a stock trader, although I do own some stock in a major beverage company and its salty snack food subsidiary... Did anyone catch the walk-off grand slam home run Marlon Byrd of the Texas Rangers hit to beat the New York Yankees last night ? Did anyone catch the Sportscenter highlights and the top ten plays of the night before ? Yes, that was my Texas Rangers in 3 of the top 10 highlights, 2 of which were of Marlon Byrd. A catch that he made in rightfield and the walk-off slam. Josh Hamilton had the other highlight, a shoetop catch off of a Derek Jeter diving flyball to centerfield that preserved the tie in the top of the 9th. You may have even heard that the Rangers fired their pitching coach and bullpen coach last Friday after their game with the Toronto Blue Jays. I wonder if that made the highlight reel that night. It should have. Pitching will and is for that matter, the downfall of this baseball team and has traditionally been that way since they moved to Texas from Washington D.C. back in 1972. And that brings me to chess. You see, the pitcher is white on the board and the batter is black. Black has to react to white's first move and try to seize the initiative by getting on base, whether it is first, second or third base. Once in a while, now that baseball monitors steroid usage, black will hit a home run. If white doesn't have a well balanced arsenal at his fingertips, it could be a short game. Nevertheless, football season is upon us and my Dallas Cowboys are poised for another regular season as the NFC favorite. Will it translate into a playoff run ending in a Super Bowl win ? We shall see. But you can bet you will read about it right here in 9xave's blog...