“The dream begins, most of the time,with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth”
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In the wake of last week’s Dodger’s World Series win, I’ve read a lot of analysis about Game 6. The joy of is baseball lies in its ability to emulate life. In this case, unfortunately, it imitated some of the worst tendencies of the education world.
In the 6th inning of the pivotal game 6, the Ray’s were up 1-0. Their pitcher Blake Snell was cruising. He’d faced 18 hitter s and only 3 balls had left the infield, while he’d struck out 9 with no walks. Needing only 73 pitches to get this far meant there was plenty of juice left in his arm.
After getting the first out of the 6th, the Dodger’s Austin Barnes hit a floater to center field for a single. With a man on first Snell was set to face the heart of the Dodger lineup in Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, and Justin Turner. Reason for concern, but collectively they’d struck out 6 times today already. No one was expecting what happened next.
Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash, called time out and made the trek to the mound for what most thought would be a pep talk. Instead, he took the ball from Snell and made a call to the bullpen. Inexplicably, he was removing his ace pitcher, who was cruising, prematurely, and calling for a reliever. The results of the move proved disastrous.
With Barnes on first, Betts — helpless against Snell — ripped a ball down the third baseline, a double to put runners on second and third. When the reliever, Nick Anderson, uncorked a wild pitch, Barnes scampered home. Tie game. The Dodgers went on to score twice more, winning the game and the World Series.
What happened was that baseball, like education, has become a world dominated by data at the expense of human intuition. While Cash’s pitcher may have claimed he was good, the cyber CONTINUE READING: MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING – Dad Gone Wild