4.28.07 The prose of Livestat
This entry was posted on 4/27/2007 6:06 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
Years ago a writer named Oliver Jensen recast Lincoln's Gettyburg Address in the gaseous verbiage of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation" became "I haven't checked these figures, but eighty-seven years ago, I think it was, a number of individuals organized a government set-up in this country, I believe it covered certain eastern areas, with this idea they were following up, based on a sort of national independence arrangement." You get the idea.
Livestat prose is to baseball writing as Jensen's parody of Ike is to the Gettysburg Address. The difference is that Jensen actually wrote the words he satirically attributed to Eisenhower. No human hand writes Livestat prose. Instead, it is what's generated automatically when the scorekeeper types in commands for things like "walk," "single," and "hit by pitch."
Livestat, of course, is the program that Rhodes (and many other schools) use to chronicle games on line as they unfold on the field. Every Rhodes baseball parent, sibling, friend, and fan knows what the Livestat screen looks like: the blue-shaded inning-by-inning score on top, bracketed on the left by an icon of a baseball player and on the right by an icon of a softball player. Everyone has experienced the anxiety of waiting for the "Last play" entry to be updated during an especially tense game. (Remember all four contests at Oglethorpe in March, nail biters to a one?) And how neat is it to see the box score change to reflect every plate appearance? No sooner does "Matt Jack tripled to right center, 2 RBI; Will Leibner scored; Zach Sherman scored" register under "Last play" than an at bat, a hit, and two RBIs are added to Matt's line in the box score, along with a run scored for Will and one for Zach.
All of this is seriously cool. But back to Livestat prose, the running play by play description of the game. Here, for example, is what Livestat says happened in the bottom of the fourth inning of today's first-round game against Southwestern:
"Killary walked. Andy Boucher singled to right field; Killary advanced to third. Drew Hubbard grounded out to 2b, RBI; Andy Boucher advanced to second; Killary scored. J.R. Bizzell singled to left field, advanced to second on the throw, RBI; Andy Boucher scored. Mason Mosby hit by pitch. Richard Hurd singled to right field, RBI; Mason Mosby advanced to third; J.R. Bizzell scored. Vanaman [no first name for some reason] flied to rf, SF, RBI; Mason Mosby scored. Matt Beesley struck out swinging."
Now I'm no Grantland Rice (or Abraham Lincoln for that matter), but what I saw in the bottom of the fourth was a lot more interesting than that:
"Third baseman Daniel Killary walked to start the inning. With second baseman Andy Boucher at the plate, Killary broke for second and was called out on the throw from the catcher. Coach Jeff Cleanthes protested to the umpire who made the call, who then reversed it after consulting with one of his colleagues. Boucher blooped a single to right, sending Killary from second to third. With men on the corners and nobody out, center fielder Drew Hubbard brought Killary home with a ground ball to second. Shortstop John Robert Bizzell bounced a single over the third baseman's head, then took second when the left fielder made an unsuccessful attempt to nip Boucher at the plate. Right fielder Mason Mosby was hit by a pitch, putting men on first and second with one out. Left fielder Richard Hurd lined an opposite-field single to right; Bizzell stumbled rounding third but still managed to beat the throw home and score the Lynx's third run of the inning. First baseman Daniel Vanaman hit a long fly ball to right, scoring Mosby on a sacrifice fly when the right fielder caught the ball in foul territory. Catcher Matt Beesley, who hit an RBI single in the first inning, fanned. At the end of the four-run fourth inning, Rhodes led 8-2, having scored its eight runs on eight singles while leaving only three men on base."
Enough about Livestat. How about Rhodes's ace starter Robert Flanagan winning a record twelfth game of the season after battling through six innings without his best stuff against a hard-hitting Southwestern team? Flanagan threw 130 pitches but managed to hold the Pirates to two runs. When Southwestern came back later in the game, reliever Charles Simmons won some battles of his own. In the eighth inning, for example, Simmons threw thirty-five pitches while holding the Bucs scoreless--how often does that happen? Rhodes won the game 8-6.
Livestat prose is to baseball writing as Jensen's parody of Ike is to the Gettysburg Address. The difference is that Jensen actually wrote the words he satirically attributed to Eisenhower. No human hand writes Livestat prose. Instead, it is what's generated automatically when the scorekeeper types in commands for things like "walk," "single," and "hit by pitch."
Livestat, of course, is the program that Rhodes (and many other schools) use to chronicle games on line as they unfold on the field. Every Rhodes baseball parent, sibling, friend, and fan knows what the Livestat screen looks like: the blue-shaded inning-by-inning score on top, bracketed on the left by an icon of a baseball player and on the right by an icon of a softball player. Everyone has experienced the anxiety of waiting for the "Last play" entry to be updated during an especially tense game. (Remember all four contests at Oglethorpe in March, nail biters to a one?) And how neat is it to see the box score change to reflect every plate appearance? No sooner does "Matt Jack tripled to right center, 2 RBI; Will Leibner scored; Zach Sherman scored" register under "Last play" than an at bat, a hit, and two RBIs are added to Matt's line in the box score, along with a run scored for Will and one for Zach.
All of this is seriously cool. But back to Livestat prose, the running play by play description of the game. Here, for example, is what Livestat says happened in the bottom of the fourth inning of today's first-round game against Southwestern:
"Killary walked. Andy Boucher singled to right field; Killary advanced to third. Drew Hubbard grounded out to 2b, RBI; Andy Boucher advanced to second; Killary scored. J.R. Bizzell singled to left field, advanced to second on the throw, RBI; Andy Boucher scored. Mason Mosby hit by pitch. Richard Hurd singled to right field, RBI; Mason Mosby advanced to third; J.R. Bizzell scored. Vanaman [no first name for some reason] flied to rf, SF, RBI; Mason Mosby scored. Matt Beesley struck out swinging."
Now I'm no Grantland Rice (or Abraham Lincoln for that matter), but what I saw in the bottom of the fourth was a lot more interesting than that:
"Third baseman Daniel Killary walked to start the inning. With second baseman Andy Boucher at the plate, Killary broke for second and was called out on the throw from the catcher. Coach Jeff Cleanthes protested to the umpire who made the call, who then reversed it after consulting with one of his colleagues. Boucher blooped a single to right, sending Killary from second to third. With men on the corners and nobody out, center fielder Drew Hubbard brought Killary home with a ground ball to second. Shortstop John Robert Bizzell bounced a single over the third baseman's head, then took second when the left fielder made an unsuccessful attempt to nip Boucher at the plate. Right fielder Mason Mosby was hit by a pitch, putting men on first and second with one out. Left fielder Richard Hurd lined an opposite-field single to right; Bizzell stumbled rounding third but still managed to beat the throw home and score the Lynx's third run of the inning. First baseman Daniel Vanaman hit a long fly ball to right, scoring Mosby on a sacrifice fly when the right fielder caught the ball in foul territory. Catcher Matt Beesley, who hit an RBI single in the first inning, fanned. At the end of the four-run fourth inning, Rhodes led 8-2, having scored its eight runs on eight singles while leaving only three men on base."
Enough about Livestat. How about Rhodes's ace starter Robert Flanagan winning a record twelfth game of the season after battling through six innings without his best stuff against a hard-hitting Southwestern team? Flanagan threw 130 pitches but managed to hold the Pirates to two runs. When Southwestern came back later in the game, reliever Charles Simmons won some battles of his own. In the eighth inning, for example, Simmons threw thirty-five pitches while holding the Bucs scoreless--how often does that happen? Rhodes won the game 8-6.
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4/27/2007 8:35 PM
Matt Beesley wrote:
Doc. Don't forget one thing. For those of us who can not attend every game, any information is better than nothing. Two years ago I had to wait until 1+ hour after a game to get a summary. As limited as Livestats is, I love to watch the game unfold in close to real time. Radio broadcasts and Game Tracker are better, but in lieu of nothing else, I still enjoy the prose of Livestats over pure silence.
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