

Ted Williams is often mentioned in Kyle’s scouting reports and check out the slo-mo swing at 1:27.” There it was: the loaded hands, the exploding hips, the effortless uppercut. “The good news is, we don’t necessarily need this guy to be a particularly great hitter-he just needs to look like one-the greatest hitter of all time.” The contact responded ten days later with a video of Tucker and a brief note: “Astros prospect. “Given the way weight training has affected players’ bodies, maybe we need to be looking at amateurs or even high schoolers who haven’t bulked up their bodies yet,” he wrote. He sent an e-mail to a contact at Major League Baseball, asking for help. They were too visibly muscular and, therefore, not as graceful. But after some YouTube scouting, he concluded that neither of those players would suffice. He thought of swings he admired for their elegance, like those of the Nationals’ Daniel Murphy and the Dodgers’ Corey Seager. Initially, Davis had thought of casting a known big leaguer as Williams’s stand-in. Tucker is not named in the credits of “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived,” a documentary about Williams that premieres on PBS, on Monday, as part of the “American Masters” series, nor does his face appear in any of the footage Davis ended up using, to emphasize his subject’s “mythical” appeal. Nick Davis, who was directing the shoot (and dressed as an umpire, for verisimilitude), estimates that, of the hundred cuts Tucker took, he “smacked the shit out of the ball” ninety-eight times. A camera filmed him as he hit, capturing two thousand frames a second, against a black screen. “I had to lower my hands and elbow and try and get into a little bit of a crouch and lean over the plate a little bit more,” he said recently. Tucker, who is tall and lean, like Williams, made a few minor adjustments to his usual lefty stance. The baseballs were contemporary, but white nail polish obscured the M.L.B. He chose from among several vintage bats acquired via eBay, selecting what he felt was “kind of just like a log-like a tree trunk.” His mom accompanied him. He put on, as he recalls, “big, wool, baggy pants,” “old-time cleats,” and a Red Sox jersey from the nineteen-fifties, with the requisite No. However, the two teams last met in mid July, and the Chicago roster looks quite different now.In early February, a couple of weeks after turning twenty-one, a minor-league baseball player named Kyle Tucker went to his local batting cage, in Tampa, Florida, and impersonated Ted Williams. Only a deep playoff run can accomplish that.ĭuring the regular season, the Astros went 5-2 against the White Sox and outscored them 42-25 in those games. For the White Sox, La Russa is trying to justify ownership's decision to bring him in to replace Rick Renteria.
Astros play by play online series#
The Astros are trying to advance as far as the ALCS for the fifth straight year, and at the same time Baker is trying to add a World Series ring to his impressive managerial career. Odds: HOU -140 CHW +130 O/U: 8 (via Caesars Sportsbook) Location: Minute Maid Park (Houston, Texas) With that throat-clearing out of the way, let's get to the important stuff.

Astros play by play online full#
You can view the full postseason schedule by clicking here. This one's a best-of-five, which means Game 1 is especially important. Tony La Russa's White Sox, meantime, went 93-69, albeit against a substantially easier schedule.

2 seed in the AL bracket behind the Rays. During the regular season, the Astros under Dusty Baker went 95-67, which is good for the No. On Thursday, the AL West champion Houston Astros host the NL Central champion Chicago White Sox in Game 1 of the American League Division Series.
