When the inaugural Spring Breakout begins on Thursday, baseball fans will get a peek at what the future might look like as every team sends its best and brightest Minor League talent to the competition that will runs through Sunday.
Just as the Major League rosters have seen an uptick
Plus Curtis Mead's could-have-been sport, baseball in the Netherlands, Josh Donaldson on Jose Bautista's blast, Lenn Sakata's big day, facts and stats galore…
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This week’s entry: Quick hits
What it’s about: Lots of things! Over the years, we’ve come across Wikipedia articles that fascinated or amused to some degree, but were too short to write a full column about. So for the next few weeks, we’re going to shake up the format, and move through our 6,211,842-part series a bit faster by tackling multiple subjects in brief.
Honkbal Hoofdklasse: The crack of the knuppel, the smell of a freshly-oiled handschoen, Dutch baseball isn’t that different from our own national pastime, except their major league has the delightful name Honkbal Hoofdklasse. The eight-team Hoofdklasse plays from April to September, ending in the Holland Series although they play only 42 games per season, mostly on weekends. The two main things that set Honkbal apart from Major League Baseball: The team nicknames are usually related to corporate sponsors, and there’s Premiere League-style promotion and relegation, meaning the last-place team get
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This week’s entry: Quick hits
What it’s about: Lots of things! Over the years, we’ve come across Wikipedia articles that fascinated or amused to some degree, but were too short to write a full column about. So for the next few weeks, we’re going to shake up the format, and move through our 6,2098,117-part series a bit faster by tackling multiple subjects in brief. This week, some animal-themed pages.
Judas Goat: Just as Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, leading to his crucifixion, animal herders will often employ a Judas Goat, which is trained to lead other animals (usually not goats, often sheep or cattle) to slaughter (or simply into a pen or onto a truck), while the Judas Goat itself is spared. Wikipeida does not elaborate on why the other animals are willing to blindly follow a goat.