Step Up To The Plate - Baseball Is Back. Here’s What You Need To Know.
Baseball isn’t only about home runs and stolen bases.
With Opening Day around the corner, it’s always good to be up to speed so you can join the baseball conversation and then steer it over to something baseball-related like beer, hot dogs and giant ballpark pretzels with cheese.
Now we’re talking,
The Last Night’s Game Team
Quick recap. Last season was a season shorted by COVID. There was no all-star game nor international play. In the end, the Los Angeles Dodgers were crowned World Champions, beating the Tampa Bay Rays.
1. History was made this off-season when the Miami Marlins hired Kim Ng, the first woman to ever serve in the general manager role for an MLB team. (A general manager handles all team operations – think player relations, the draft, scouting, etc.). Ng has served as an assistant GM with both the Yankees and the Dodgers and the executive suite with the White Sox. Hall of Famer and Miami Marlins CEO/owner Derek Jeter led the breakthrough hire. LET’S GO, GIRLS
2. There’s a new kid in the Big Apple. Steven Cohen beat out the investor group led by Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez to buy the New York Mets, and this season is his first full season behind the wheel. And he’s already kicking butt and taking names. He fired the team’s general manager Jared Porter after Porter admitted to sending lewd texts to a female reporter. Cohen stood firm, saying, “I spoke about the importance of integrity, and I meant it. There should be zero tolerance for this type of behavior.” So far, he has our vote regardless of how the team does on the field. NO THANK YOU
3. A few outside-the-box games to look forward to include the all-star game and the “Field of Dreams” game. The home run derby and the all-star game will take place in Atlanta on July 12-13. COVID halted the league’s dreams of having two teams play on the “Field of Dreams” field in Iowa last season. This year the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees will channel their inner Kevin Costner as the big leaguers to play amongst the corn on August 12. The game will also be the first-ever Major League game to be played in Iowa. HOW ‘BOUT THEM APPLES?
4. All teams will open their seasons on Thursday with fans in the stands. However, 11 stadiums around the league have been hosting fans for quite some time as mass vaccination centers. Those stadiums have distributed over 1 million vaccines, and some will remain open during the regular season. The league is encouraging its players, coaches and staff to get vaccinated and are using the promise of relaxed restrictions as the carrot. When 85% of tier 1 members of a team get vaccinated, players will be able to eat out at restaurants, bring their families on road trips and carpool with each other. DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK
5. Do you remember the old Nike commercials featuring one of the home run kings from the steroid era and the saying, “chicks dig the long ball?” Well, the league sorted out that steroid situation, but after a recent sharp rise in home runs, the league commissioned scientists to examine the current baseballs. This study resulted in changing how baseballs are made. While the league won’t admit the balls were “juiced,” they are making undisclosed changes. The inner workings of making a baseball are so secretive that the league won’t even share the color code for the red laces. PROPRIETARY INFORMATION
Honorable mention: “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” ranks right up there with “Happy Birthday” as a song that’s trickled off your tongue. But did you know the song was written by a guy who had never been to a baseball game? YOU DON’T SAY
Your Favorite Everyday Products That Started With Sports
Bet you didn’t know.
Whether or not you like sports, the industry has created products that are right under your nose.
Coming up roses,
The Last Night’s Game Team
1. The age-old question of “why aren’t my football players peeing during games” resulted in the development of Gatorade. In the summer of 1965, a University of Florida football coach sat down with a team of physicians to understand why the heat affected his players. The team of doctors soon determined that the Gators players were losing fluids and electrolytes from sweating, and they weren’t being replaced by water. They created Gatorade, and it powered the team to reach their first-ever Orange Bowl appearance the following season. Word soon spread about this magical drink, and the rest is history. The first “Gatorade Shower” took place after Super Bowl 21 on January 25, 1987, when the famed drink was dumped over the winning coach’s head. The brand wasn’t without controversy. Its ad featured in Playboy Magazine certainly turned some heads. WELL, THAT’S SPORTY
2. Many inspirational quotes tell you to look through your windshield, not your rearview mirror, but those authors were clearly not race car drivers. The mirror that we take for granted in our cars every day was a product of Indy Car racing. Instead of having a riding mechanic (aka a spotter) sit behind him in the car in the 1911 Indy 500, driver Ray Harroun chose to mount a mirror above his dashboard to see what was going on behind him. (Spoiler alert: the aerodynamic advantages of being a one-person vs. a two-person car led him to the win). Rearview mirrors began to be standard equipment in consumer cars in the 1970s. AND HERE WE THOUGHT IT WAS FOR CHECKING FOR FOOD IN OUR TEETH
3. While athleisure is a relatively new fashion trend, Lululemon entered the scene in 1998 with the first yoga pant. The quarantine workday pant that we all love started as a high-end alternative to the available cotton leggings. The Luon fabric made of nylon and Lycra—synthetic elastic fibers morphed into a culture-shifting phenomenon, leaving pants, including jeans, scrambling. Lululemon was not without controversies, including a mouthy founder and the costly $67M mistake of see-through pants disaster. NAMASTE (WORKING IN MY YOGA PANTS)
4. Irvin Johnson, not to be confused with Ervin Johnson, aka Magic Johnson, was a bodybuilder and a scientist. In the early 1950s, he developed the first protein powder. His dissolvable protein, “Johnson’s Hi-Protein Food,” was a milk and egg-based concoction. Johnson changed his name to ‘Rheo Blair’ after a spiritualist told him he’d have more luck if his name contained more ‘R’s. Well, we guess it worked as Blair/Johnson started a $4.72B U.S. Market (2020) for protein powders. GOOD TO THE LAST DROP
5. If you’ve ever cruised down the street on your bike with your brilliant brain strapped into a helmet, you can thank football players. Lafayette player George Barclay commissioned the first known helmet. His teammates were growing out their hair for extra padding, but he asked a harnessmaker to create a head strap with earmuffs made of padded leather. The first sign of a football helmet as we know it was created in 1893 by U.S. Naval Academy player Joseph Reeve. After being kicked in the head too many times, he put together a moleskin hat with earflaps to prevent further injury. Paratroopers later used his invention during World War I. THAT’S USING YOUR NOGGIN
Honorable mention: One product, nutrition bars, you would assume started with sports but low and behold, the nutrition bar as we know it was formulated by NASA. OUTTA THIS WORLD
The 5 Things You Need To Know About March Madness
It’s so much more than basketball.
Fans and non-fans alike can get excited for the action and the excitement of this once-a-year tournament. We’ll help you jump in on the action and if you want to get in on the fun for this year’s March Madness, try filling out a bracket. It gives you a little skin in the game and let’s be honest, it’s anyone’s guess who will actually win.
Hold onto your hats,
The Last Night’s Game Team
1. The March Madness basketball tournament features 68 teams vying for the championship. For this year’s tournament, which is single-elimination, the NCAA will be hosting every game in Indiana, with most of the tournament's matchups taking place in Indianapolis. The women’s tournament will take place in San Antonio. Usually, the tournament’s different stages are held nationwide but with COVID, limiting travel is essential for safety. But there will be fans. Arenas will be allowed to operate at 25 percent capacity when the men’s tournament starts on Thursday, March 18 and the women’s tournament on Sunday, March 21, in San Antonio. The championship games are April 5 and April 4, respectively. ALL-IN
2. Are you feeling blue about your men’s bracket? That might be the ticket to winning. Louisville is the only national championship team in the past 17 seasons that did not have blue as a school color. Want to pick your bracket by the mascot or best celebrity alum? Fine with us! Join our bracket and choose however you want. (There’s even autofill). BLUE DANCING SHOES
3. When choosing your bracket in this single-elimination tournament, remember that the most likely upset is a No. 12 team over a No. 5. Only once in the tournament’s history has a No. 16 team upset a No. 1 seeded team. PICKING A WINNER
4. In previous years, we’ve seen more than $6.3 billion lost in workplace productivity. Who knows what that number will look like with so many people working from home. Many companies have turned the tournament into a team-building opportunity with various contests. Take Warren Buffet and his $1 million a year for life promise for an employee who picks a perfect bracket in the first round. The chances of picking a completely perfect bracket? 1 in 9.2 quintillions. You’re better off basing your retirement on winning the lottery. DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH
5. In a year where major basketball programs like Duke and Kentucky didn’t make the cut for the tournament, everyone’s favorite underdog Gonzaga is thriving. They’re looking to do something that hasn’t been done in 45 years – finish the season undefeated. Gonzaga is the tournament’s top-ranked team with Illinois, Baylor and Michigan taking the other No. 1 spots. LEADERS OF THE PACK
On the women’s side, the Stanford Cardinal women's team is the overall No. 1 seeded team with North Carolina State, South Carolina and Connecticut (i.e., UConn) wrapping up the final top spots in the bracket. UConn will be without head coach Geno Auriemma for a few tournament games after he tested positive for COVID. Auriemma has coached UCONN to 11 titles. QUEENS OF THE COURT
Curious about how COVID will impact this single-elimination tournament? Need more pointers on picking your bracket? Check out our guide to making sense of March Madness.