Well, not exclusively, there are still various ship and station teams, thanks to Holodecks, but close enough, that’s beer leauge shit.
Still, even funnier to me is that they say it’s a direct result of the death of one particular commissioner - and not some future, made-up commissioner, a real guy, A. Bartlett Giamatti, who was Comissioner for IIRC three and change years, and died in the late 80s.
Hell no you’re not, baseball is mad fun to play, even if it’s a snoozefest to watch. I still have my glove, though my old bat is a little undersize for me these days.
The really funny thing is that german uses the same word, “Schläger”, for baseball bats, golf clubs, tennis rackets, table tennis paddles, and rough men you don’t want to meet in an alley.
The guy on the right is Chiba Lotte Marines pitcher Roki Sasaki, age 20. The guy on the left is catcher, Ko Matsukawa, age 18. With Matsukawa catching, Sasaki just threw the first perfect game in japan’s NPB since 1994 and did so with 19 strikeouts. Ridiculous.
In his next game, Sasaki pitched another 8 perfect innings before being taken out of the game for the 9th inning. Of the past 52 batters he has faced, he hasn’t let a single one on base. Unbelievable. Sasaki was pulled because the game was 0-0 and Sasaki had thrown 102 pitches. The Marines would end up losing because they gave up a homerun to the Fighters.
However, this also marks two pitchers being taken out after eight innings while holding a perfect game in the same week, as Clayton Kershaw was taken out of the game in controversial fashion earlier this week. After just 80 pitches.