Bobblehead doll of Bob Uecker, complete with microphone
2. Denver's big advantage Love that curve ball! Rained out? 5. National spot: Mouth cancer

 

 

 

Young boy bends to scoop baseball into mitt.
Presidential Council on Fitness

  'talk' balloon coming from Bob, says: 'A Why Files Grand Salami!'

POSTED 4 APRIL 2002

(With apologies to Take me out to the ball game):

Take me out to the ball game/I need for me to get loud/Buy me stale beer and Crackerjacks/Don't expect I'll ever wake up./Hear me root, scream, bray, for the home team/If we don't win jus' fire the ump!-Will it rain, snow or hail-At today's ball game?
Photo of New York Yankees Baseball Team , Oct. 19, 1926. Library of Congress.

The bigwigs
have chucked the first balls of the baseball season, and we trust the umpires declared each such rusty throw a strike. Seriously, baseball season is upon us, and that's got us Why Filers thinking about neat stuff.

What's different about baseball in Colorado? (Hint: It's not that Rocky Mountain water).

Why do balls curve in the air?

And what happens when baseball players tuck those disgusting wads of tobacco into their cheeks?

Baseball. It may be the American pastime. But that won't prevent us from exploiting it to talk science and math.

Satellite image of western U.S. showing cloud cover.
Play ball. On baseball's opening day, March 31, 2002, the GOES 10 satellite measured water vapor 8 km up in the atmosphere. NOAA.

Batter up!

A home run. What's the atmosphere got to do with it?

 

 

  
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Terry Devitt, editor; Pamela Jackson, project assistant; S.V. Medaris, designer/illustrator; David Tenenbaum, feature writer; Amy Toburen, content development executive

©2002, University of Wisconsin, Board of Regents.