1859: Sports Knowledge

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Sports Knowledge

Title text: I heard they might make the wild card game, which would be cool. Do you know when that is? I have a wedding next weekend, but if it's after that we could try to go!

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Need an explanation on why this is funny, plus an explanation for the title text If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Cueball demonstrates that he has some knowledge about Mike Trout, a baseball player for the Los Angeles Angels. However, he mixes up the LA baseball team for the city's basketball team when he mentions the Lakers. White Hat corrects him, after which Cueball takes another guess, this time mentioning an American football team, the Denver Broncos, indicating even poorer knowledge about sports.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Cueball and White Hat are walking next to one another in a single panel comic.]

Cueball: Mike Trout's on-base plus slugging has been at career highs. After this injury, the Lakers will be lucky if he can hit even close to that.

White Hat: ...Lakers?

Cueball: I forget which team he is. Broncos?

[Caption below the panel:]

I know a handful of very specific things, but after that my sports knowledge falls apart quickly.

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Discussion

Turns out I don't know enough about sports to get this comic. Thanks Explain XKCD! 108.162.245.184 15:54, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the explaination! I learnt a lot!Boeing-787lover 19:03, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Seems a similar sort of joke as https://xkcd.com/132/ - Carmageddonstein (talk) 22:04, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Yup, similar joke, different field. Good catch! And I love your name. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 18:07, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Could use a deeper explanation of "With the baseball season being halfway over and both football and basketball being in the offseason, Cueball further shows his lack of sports knowledge in asking whether it is next week, and assuming that he could spontaneously decide, at game time, to just go." - how long are seasons / how much longer until the game? (Also, I'm not sure what relevance the mention of non-baseball sports has here - just extra info for comparison?) Why couldn't he spontaneously decide to go? Is it that it sells out X amount of time in advance? (Turns out I have less sports knowledge than Cueball =)) 172.68.141.10 03:26, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Baseball seasons are 162 games - generally the regular season runs from early April (Opening Day was April 2 this year) until early October (the last regular season game is October 1, with the Wild Card games on October 3). The non-baseball sports are mentioned because Randall referenced teams from those sports - Lakers for basketball and Broncos for football. Generally the fans for the home team will buy most of the available tickets very quickly, in order to give the home team whatever home field advantage they can. It would be very difficult to buy the tickets in advance as it is not yet known where the game would be played. OldCorps (talk) 12:08, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Well Randall knows more than I do, LOL! Glad I'm not the only one. :) Never heard of Mike Trout, and "on-base plus slugging" was completely unknown to me until I read it here. I've always felt like I knew the basics of the major sports, like terms, but that one is new to me. I feel like I've got a better handle on which team belongs to which sport than Randall does, though. LOL! NiceGuy1 (talk) 18:05, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the comic, I thought, "Oh, what's the slugging-what average? Wait if Mike Trout is so good at this why haven't I heard of him- oh. wait. he plays baseball?" --Char Latte49 (talk) 18:55, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

🎶 mike troutsend is a credit to the team 172.70.110.171 17:36, 3 December 2021 (UTC)