Rowley: Time has come today

From SABR member Meg Rowley at FanGraphs on August 29, 2019:

Last Thursday, the Red Sox and Royals resumed a game from August 7 that had been previously suspended due to rain. The original contest took its pause knotted up 4-4; it resumed in a 2-1 count in the top of the 10th. It was a strange viewing experience. With the game still tied in the home half of the inning, Andrew Benintendi came up to bat. The chyron showed his season stats entering this day, August 22, but marked his batting line from a day when he was two full weeks younger.

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It was a testament to a few things — the surprising rigidity of baseball’s schedule, the allure of a chance, however small (entering the day, our playoff odds had the Red Sox with a 1.7% shot at playing October baseball), the grip of a discounted hot dog on the hearts of children. But the whole ordeal also made me think about how we think about time — how we sometimes consider it banked, or free, or very precious, or, when we’re mad, or tired, or perhaps inconvenienced, something we’d just like to hurry along. The Red Sox played the Royals for about 12 minutes, and in that span, they showed us time in four different states. These are those four.

Read the full article here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/time-has-come-today/



Originally published: September 5, 2019. Last Updated: September 5, 2019.