As of press time, the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers are leading the No. 1-ranked Vanderbilt Commodores in the seventh inning of a college baseball game being played at the latter’s home park (box). For much of the interval before that press time, the author of this dumb post was sitting on his couch and watching the aforementioned game, during the course of which one was able to observe not only (a) the long home run depicted above and produced by WKU’s junior center fielder Anderson Miller, but also (b) the sliver of a Nashville-area intersection that appears at the end of that home-run footage.
If the author possesses one virtue it’s a child-like sense of wonder — which sense was stirred by this home-run footage. I wondered: “What is this seemingly busy thoroughfare that so closely abuts — indeed, is visible from — Vanderbilt’s baseball stadium?”
Some inexpert Google mapping suggests that the answer is “25th Ave South,” which street runs along the right-field wall of Vandy’s Charles Hawkins Field. That same Google mapping suggests that a Quizno’s is located not far out of the picture to the right. An image of the general area is embedded below, from along Jess Neely Drive, which runs parallel to the field’s first-base line.
In conclusion, one of life’s questions has been answered. Only infinity more remain for similar treatment.
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Fun fact: if you use the distance tool in Google maps and satellite view, you can measure the distance of college home runs. I used this on many occasions in my college baseball game notes for the school I worked for.
I think this may be the Cistulliest post ever.
Is it just me, or does seemingly every other Cistulli post incite this sort of comment?
Yes, which leads us to only one possible conclusion.
Cistulli is becoming even more Cistulli, slowly transforming into what I assume ultimately will be a hilarious caricature of himself.
Someone should do something. I, for example, will continue to read these increasingly Cistulli posts.
On another note, my “I’m not a robot” task on this post involved typing the name of a city displayed on Google Maps, which is hilariously appropriate for this Google Mapsian article. Malbork was that city, for those of you who may be wondering.
The inevitable end point: the author passes the Authorial Event Horizon, thereby becoming the Cistulliarity. An author with so much gravitas that nothing, not even light-hearted editorialisms, can escape.
The Captcha ate my last comment, but I’ll say again: everyone forecasts Peak Cistulli at a different time, because our models are weighting the individual components of Cistulliness differently. Some models place more weight on twee pessimism, others on obsessive enthusiasm for minutiae, others on self-deprecation, others on ornamentally irrelevant quotation.
Truly a “pièce de distance” in the Cistulli annals.
These words and pictures were enjoyable
Carson Cistulli: dispatches from a modern-day layabout.
Also: whoa big Vanderbilt comeback. I’m eagerly awaiting the story from some experienced baseball reporter on this subject.
I’m disappointed. I expected a Google Map snapshot showing the walking distance from Vanderbilt Stadium to the street, illustrating that the home run was hit so far, the distance could be captured on a Google Map.
Long live NotGraphs.
Would you call this baseball whimsy, perhaps?
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Carson truly misses NotGraphs.
I’m sure Banknotes Industries would take him if he wanted to join up, irrespective of perceptions which may or may not paint him as “the worst.”
#KeepNotGraphs
This is great! I recently used Google Earth to digitize (i.e. draw) the fair and foul territories of all 30 MLB stadiums. This post inspired me to share it with world.
Map on ArcGIS Online: http://arcg.is/1FZnJH9
Table w/area: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ONY-n1e9CsIstJSV4ZHG5kP_V1C2_Me7me5E4V-Ryrg/edit#gid=0
Beautiful
Wow, I don’t understand what you did, but I did something uncharacteristically for me and pushed the tool button for which I knew not what it would do and managed to sort the foul area, by area. I am floored to learn that O.Co. is just middle of the road..oh woops, wrong column…still only number 19, which totally surprised me. Best part is I lived through the experience. 🙂 thanks Carson for helping me believe that I too can write if I just apply myself.
That was supposed to be in reply to ScottB…I will work on it!
Wow so many big fields with little foul areas?
I think you sorted by the wrong column, or the table has been updated; on the table I see O.Co has the largest foul area by a huge margin (over Tropicana, which itself has a huge margin over third-place Comerica).
Table hasn’t been changed…..O.C. still has twice as much fould ground as Wrigley and I am a robot.
Cistulli def inspires the best commentary.
that Quizno’s is inside the bottom of an on-campus residence hall and the construction in the background is a new engineering building