Baseball can be silly, in a good way (My Baseball Winter #3)

My baseball winter hasn’t been as chronicled as closely as I might have initially hoped. Apologies dear readers. I’ve been trying to keep up, but failing miserably to actually record anything. Oh, the woe of a lazy blogger, eh? Still, I’ve been reading, online and off, and as mentioned previously even had a go at scoring a game or two. If I actually get around to scanning the scoresheets I’ll finally write about that soon. But what can I say? I’ve been busy, writing silly posts about hot toddies and in real-life making my annual pantomime appearance. But that’s another story for another time.

So, baseball. That’s what you thought you’d be reading about, right? Rather than all this waffling? Still here? Wow.

One super-duper obvious way of immersing myself in baseball is the myriad sites that pervade this here internet. There’s a wealth of information, insight and commentary. But sometimes, I’d like a little less statistics and seriousness and a little more silliness. Because (and keep this under your hat), I’m a little silly. And a great way into a sport’s soul is to explore its silliness. Like with people, you learn a lot when their guard is down. When it comes to sport, and people, if there’s no fun, it ain’t worth it.

First off, there’s this great video, of Dock Ellis explaining how he pitched a no-hitter, whilst under the influence of LSD, with some wacky accompanying visuals. But remember, don’t try this at home kids! This has been all over the web, but I’ll thank BaseballGB and The Daily Something, in particular, for flagging it up, and being two of my “go to” sites this Winter.

And secondly, something rather special. Compiling statistics may be engrossing, enlightening and all those things, but essentially they can be pretty dry. And rarely silly. Until now, where the Wezen-Ball blog has combined two of my favourite things, baseball and the Peanuts cartoons, to calculate Charlie Brown’s wins, losses and other stats. Now that is my kind of statistical analysis. A real treat.

I shall continue my exploration of the absurd, the comical and the strange in baseball, and may well even keep you abreast of developments. I should be a little more reliable, right? Anyway, what silly stuff have you come across (baseball or not) recently?