The American Pastime, Baseball

With baseball season in full swing, I wanted to share a creative writing piece I did in college. It combines two of the things I love, math and baseball. I added the glossary of math terms.

“Here we are at Galois Field₁ on this beautiful Sunday afternoon with the temperature a pleasant 22 degrees. Today we have the baseball confrontation of the season.” “I’m Chuck Forty, along with my partner Howard Cosineâ‚‚, and we will bring to you the final matchup between the Idaho Integers₃ and the Rhode Island Rationalsâ‚„. We’ll be right back with the starting lineups.”

Today’s game is brought to you by Root Beer, the beer that’s not only for squares.

It is also brought to you by Grandma Shape Restaurants where the pi’sâ‚… enough to turn a person irrational₆.

“Here is the starting lineup for the visiting Idaho Integers.

1. First baseman Pete Prime₇
2. Left fielder Victor Vector₈
3. Shortstop John Cone
4. Right fielder Mat Rices₉
5. Third baseman Billy Ray₁₀
6. Centerfielder Al Gebra;
7. Second baseman Axel Axis
8. Catcher Vern Vertex₁₁
9. Pitcher Max E Mum.

Now, here is Howard Cosine to give you the starting lineup for the hosting Rhode Island Rationals, Howard?”

“ Thank you Chuck.

1. First baseman Minnie Mum
2. Right fielder Polly Nomial₁₂
3. Third baseman Fred Factor₁₃
4. Left fielder Con Jugate₁₄
5. Second baseman Larry Lambda₁₅
6. Catcher Randy Cand₁₆
7. Center fielder is George Graph
8. Shortstop Man Tissa₁₇
9. Pitcher Cal Culus.

We will be right back with the start of the game after a word from one of our sponsors.”

"If you’re complex₁₈, rational, square₁₉, irrational or just plain realâ‚‚â‚€ then Root Beer is the beer you should drink. The beer for a variable₂₁ number of people."

“Here we are back again and ready to start the game. Cal Culus is finishing his warmup pitches and will soon be ready to deliver the first pitch to the Integer’s Pete Prime. Prime is batting .331 on the year, with 7 home runs and 47 runs batted in. He also leads the team in stolen bases with 89. Cal Culus has a record of 4!â‚‚â‚‚ and 3! and his earned run average is 3.25.”

“Well Chuck, I think if Cal can integrate₂₃ a lot of his pitches he should be able to control the Integer batters. On the other hand if the Interger batters can differentiateâ‚‚â‚„ between his pitches they might have some success.”

“The first pitch is a fastball and Pete takes a prime cut at the ball and misses it.”

“The second pitch is a curve and it is hit on an arcâ‚‚â‚… to the third baseman Fred Factor for the first out.”

“In steps the Integer leftfielder Victor Vector. He has really been in a slump recently. He has been hitting the ball hard but right at someone. He’s hoping he can break out of his slump against Cal Culus tonight. He has always had pretty good luck against Cal. In his career against Culus he is hitting a whopping .750 with 5 homeruns and a few of those were of large magnitudes₂₆.”

“The first pitch to Vector is a changeup and Victor jumps on it and sends it a long way to centerfield. George Graph is back, he’s back, way back, he’s at the wall! Graph has the ball measured, he scales the wall, and catches it! What a catch!”

“The next batter is the Integer’s shortstop Jon Cone. He may well be the best shortstop in the game. He doesn’t like to talk to the media because ellipse₂₇ and he is very self-conscious about it.

“Chuck, I did get a chance to have lunch earlier today with this nice gentleman. He seemed very articulate in his speech. He also told me that he keeps fresh and lively by taking at least one nappe₂₈ a week.”

“Well Howard, let’s hope he had that nappe today so he will be able to differentiate between Cal Culus’ good and bad pitches.”

“The first pitch to Cone is a curve and he slices it foul for strike one.” 

“The second pitch is another curve and Cone takes it for a ball. The count is 1 and 1.”

“The third pitch is a curve and Cone hits one hard to short and Man Tissa gets a fraction₂₉ of it but will have no play.”

“The next beta₃₀ is their right fielder Mat Rices who is the prankster in their clubhouse. He really likes to pull  pranks especially in May during what has been coined by his teammates as “May Tricks Month”. “

“The first pitch to Rices is a knuckleball which he hits on a short hop to Minnie Mum at first, who makes an easy play of it and steps on the bag to retire Rices and the integers. The Integers come up with no runs, no hits, one Rational error and one Integer left on. So with the Rationals coming to bat the score is 0 – 0.”

“Come to Grandma Shape Restaurants where the food is great, the PIs are even better and all at a fraction of the cost.” Go to a Grandma Shape Restaurant today, located in an area₃₁ around you.

“We are back to start the bottom of the first. The Integers pitcher Max E. Mum has a good strong arm, and throws with good velocity₃₂. He lead the league in all pitching categories. He had a record of 30-2 with an ERA of 0.96. Today he is pitching on only 3 days rest but they hope that they can get the most out of his performance.”

“The first batter is Minnie Mum, why they lead off with him is beyond me. Minnie  is last in the league in every category and can not hit the ball with any strength.”

“The first pitch by Max, is a high heater and Minnie waves at it for strike one.”

“The second pitch is another fastball about belt high on the outside corner that Minnie watches for strike two.”

“The third pitch is a slider on the inside corner that Minnie swings feebly at for strike three and the first out.”

“The next batter for the Rationals is Polly Nomial. This guy can really swing the old log. He is like a musician with it, he really gives that log rhythm₃₃.”

“Chuck, excuse me for interrupting but I had a talk with this man just yesterday and baseball is his life. I don’t think this guy could function₃₄ without baseball.”

“Thank you, Howard, for that insight into Nomial’s life. The first pitch by Max Mum is taken for a ball by Nomial.”

“The second pitch is a changeup, and Polly Nomial foils₃₅ this one into leftfield where Vector fields the ball and throws in back into second to hold Nomial to a single.”

“The next batter is the third baseman Fred Factor. This guy is the radical₃₆ one on the team. He has extremely long hair and as we might say… a real zest for the fast life.”

“The first pitch by Mum is hit on a bounce right into the glove of the third baseman Billy Ray who throws it on a tangent₃₇ to second baseman Axel Axis who turns, avoids a good take out play by Nomial and throws on a straight line to Pete Prime to complete the double play.”

Two hours and forty minutes later…

“What a matchup we have had. This game is the classic show of what baseball is all about. Here we are in the bottom of the ninth with the score deadlocked at 2, there are two out and no Rational on base. There is a three-two count on the batter Man Tissa.”

“Tissa has stepped out of the batter’s box to catch his breath during this penultimate₃₈ point in the game. While he has done that, I would like to point out Howard that there were a lot of groups visiting the ballpark today.”

“Yes, Chuck from the size of the crowd it looks like abelian₃₉ of them.”

“We did have a sellout crowd today Howard. With Man Tissa back in the box we are ready for the final pitch. The pitch by Mum is a fastball, looks like Tissa got a hold of it and sent it on a deep parabolaâ‚„â‚€, it’s back, still going, going, GONE! The Rationals win the pennant, the Rationals win the pennant. There is pandemonium here, the Rational fans are going irrational.”

“Chuck, it has been that way all season for the Rationals. Their fans have really done their fair square to root₄₁, root, root for the home team. There is nothing negative about this dramatic win and season.”

BOX SCORE

Integers…………002 000 000  250

Rationals……….000 100 101  371

Two out when winning run scored

Game winning RBI- Tissa E- Tissa DP- Integers 1

Rationals 1 LOB- Integers 6 Rationals 5 2B- Rices,

Jugate, Lambda  HR- Prime, Tissa

T- 2:55          A- 61,357

GLOSSARY OF MATH TERMS

1. Galois Field - In mathematics, a finite field or Galois field (so-named in honor of Évariste Galois) is a field that contains a finite number of elements. As with any field, a finite field is a set on which the operations of multiplication, addition, subtraction and division are defined and satisfy certain basic rules.
2. Cosine - the trigonometric function that is equal to the ratio of the side adjacent to an acute angle (in a right-angled triangle) to the hypotenuse.
3. Integer- is a whole number (not a fractional number) that can be positive, negative, or zero
4. Rational number- is any number that can be expressed as the quotient or fraction p/q of two integers, a numerator p and a non-zero denominator q. Since q may be equal to 1, every integer is a rational number.
5. Pi- It is the circumference of any circle divided by its diameter. The number Pi, denoted by the Greek letter π - pronounced 'pie', is one of the most common constants in all of mathematics.
6. Irrational Number- is a real number that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers. ... The number "pi" or π (3.14159...) is a common example of an irrational number since it has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point.
7. Prime - A prime number is a whole number greater than 1 whose only factors are 1 and itself
8. Vector - A vector is an object that has both a magnitude and a direction. Geometrically, we can picture a vector as a directed line segment, whose length is the magnitude of the vector and with an arrow indicating the direction. The direction of the vector is from its tail to its head.
9. Matrices - Matrix is a rectangular arrangement of numbers into rows and columns.
10. Ray – A portion of a line which starts at a point and goes off in a particular direction to infinity.
11. Vertex – The common endpoint of two or more rays or line segments. Vertex typically means a corner or a point where lines meet.
12. Polynomial – an expression of more than two algebraic terms, especially the sum of several terms that contain different powers of the same variable(s).
13. Factor – To factor a number means to break it up into numbers that can be multiplied together to get the original number. EXAMPLES: 6 = 3 x 2 so, factors of 6 are 3 and 2. Sometimes, numbers can be factored into different combinations.
14. Conjugate – A math conjugate is formed by changing the sign between two terms in a binomial. For instance, the conjugate of x + y is x - y. We can also say that x + y is a conjugate of x - y. In other words, the two binomials are conjugates of each other.
15. Lambda – Lambda calculus (also written as λ-calculus) is a formal system in mathematical logic for expressing computation based on function abstraction and application using variable binding and substitution. ... Function definition (M is a lambda term). The variable x becomes bound in the expression.
16. Radicand – A radicand is the number under a radical symbol (√).
17. Mantissa – the part of a logarithm that follows the decimal point.
18. Complex Numbers – A complex number is a number that can be expressed in the form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers, and i is a solution of the equation x² = −1. Because no real number satisfies this equation, i is called an imaginary number.
19. Square Numbers – a square number or perfect square is an integer that is the square of an integer; in other words, it is the product of some integer with itself. For example, 9 is a square number, since it can be written as 3 × 3.
20. Real Numbers – The type of number we normally use, such as 1, 15.82, −0.1, 3/4, etc. Positive or negative, large or small, whole numbers or decimal numbers are all Real Numbers. They are called "Real Numbers" because they are not Imaginary Numbers.
21. Variable – A variable is a quantity that may change within the context of a mathematical problem or experiment. Typically, we use a single letter to represent a variable. The letters x, y, and z are common generic symbols used for variables.
22. Factorial – the product of an integer and all the integers below it; e.g. factorial four ( 4! ) is equal to 24.  the product of a series of factors in an arithmetic progression.
23. Integrate – an integral assigns numbers to functions in a way that can describe displacement, area, volume, and other concepts that arise by combining infinitesimal data. Integration is one of the two main operations of calculus, with its inverse operation, differentiation, being the other.
24. Differentiate – The essence of calculus is the derivative. The derivative is the instantaneous rate of change of a function with respect to one of its variables. This is equivalent to finding the slope of the tangent line to the function at a point.
25. Arc – An arc is a portion of the circumference of a circle.
26. Magnitude – magnitude is the size of a mathematical object, a property which determines whether the object is larger or smaller than other objects of the same kind. More formally, an object's magnitude is the displayed result of an ordering of the class of objects to which it belongs.
27. Ellipse – An ellipse usually looks like a squashed circle (in fact a circle is a special kind of ellipse). Any point P on an ellipse has the same sum of distances to two "focus" points. It is one of the Conic Sections
28. Nappe – Either of the two parts into which a cone is divided by the vertex.
29. Fraction – A part of a whole. A common fraction is made up of a numerator and a denominator. The numerator is shown on top of a line and is the number of parts of the whole.
30. Beta – the beta function, also called the Euler integral of the first kind, is a special function defined by. for Re x > 0, Re y > 0.
31. Area – The area of a flat, or plane figure is the number of unit squares that can be contained within it. The unit square is usually some standard unit, like a square meter, a square foot, or a square inch.
32. Velocity – Velocity is speed (how fast something is moving) with a direction.
33. Logarithm – That means the logarithm of a given number x is the exponent to which another fixed number, the base b, must be raised, to produce that number x.
34. Function – a relationship or expression involving one or more variables.
35. FOIL – A technique for distributing two binomials. The letters FOIL stand for First, Outer, Inner, Last. First means multiply the terms which occur first in each binomial. Then Outer means multiply the outermost terms in the product.
36. Radical – In mathematics, a radical expression is defined as any expression containing a radical (√) symbol. Many people mistakenly call this a 'square root' symbol, and many times it is used to determine the square root of a number. However, it can also be used to describe a cube root, a fourth root, or higher.
37. Tangent – A line which touches a circle or ellipse at just one point.
38. Penultimate – next to the last
39. Abelian – an abelian group, also called a commutative group, is a group in which the result of applying the group operation to two group elements does not depend on the order in which they are written. ... Abelian groups generalize the arithmetic of addition of integers.
40. Parabola – A u-shaped curve with certain specific properties. Formally, a parabola is defined as follows: For a given point, called the focus, and a given line not through the focus, called the directrix, a parabola is the locus of points such that the distance to the focus equals the distance to the directrix.
41. Root - The root of a number x is another number, which when multiplied by itself a given number of times, equals x. For example, the second root of 9 is 3, because 3x3 = 9. The second root is usually called the square root.