The Best Use of AI, ever!
Senior Baseball on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, September 19, 2024
Until recently, the best AI application I'd seen had been this. But my appreciation of state-of-the-art AI dramatically increased when Gretchen challenged me to send Pirate Talk updates1 on the baseball game I played on International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Note: what follows has been upgraded from my original report, and includes a few AI illustrations.
It was our 65+ weekday league B division playoffs,2 and we — the Dodgers — had a 1-0 lead against the top-seeded Giants3 in the best-of-three semifinal.
I started by trying a couple of 'established' websites but the results were underwhelming:
A win advances us t' th' championship today!We must defeat those scurvy Giants!We were waiting for the previous game — between the other semifinalists, the Rangers and the Pirates — to end, and not only did they run long in regulation, but their game went into extra innings. I then tried Google Gemini4:
The last match be a-draggin' on past its time, me hearties!That's more like it!
Avast ye scallywags, without further ado, feast yer eyes upon the rest o' me chronicle:
Yarr, seein’ as it be the Seven Seas Day O’ Pirate Yammer, it be no surprise that the rapscallion Pirate crew outmatched the landlubber Rangers in the prior scuffle.
Arrr, finally the hour be upon us for the valiant Dodgers to battle the scurvy Giants upon the treacherous diamond sea.
'Tis a sweltering day, fit for a pirate's plunderin'. 89 degrees and rising!
In our first clash we’d sent the Giants packin’ on their own turf. Now in game two we be hostin’em on our own deck.
In the top o’ the first, the Giants could find no treasure.
In the bottom o' the first, with shipmates on first and second, no storm clouds in sight, and the count at one ball and one strike, I clouted the orb high into the sky. It descended to the infield grass untouched but was determined by the umpire to be an infield fly for an out. Arrr, but me mates rallied behind me, pushin’ two runs ‘cross the plate, as sure as the tide rolls in!
Yarr, we kept them low-down Giants off the scoreboard yet again in the top o’ the second frame, leavin’ ‘em flounderin’ like fish outta water!
The score be two-to-nil in our favor after an inning and a half, mateys!
…
Arrr, sailin’ into the fourth watch we be still holdin’ the tiller two-to-one. After yielding two free passes and a single, I pitched me blubber off to seal the hatches on the top o' the fourth, my sole inning in relief.
With Giant bilge-rats on all decks, two out, I came back from a three-and-nothing count, getting their swabbie to send a deep fly ball into the clutches of Curt, our left-fielder.
Grog anyone?
In the bottom o' the fourth, I courtesy-ran5 after Steve G launched our frame with a single. I advanced to second on a fielder's choice. Arrr, then a ball be struck to the shortstop, and I be caught in a crossfire 'tween the shortstop and third, like a ship in a whirlpool! Digging deep into the submerged coves of me mind to unfurl muscle memories from three-score years past of Hot Box, I darted back and forth like a scurvy rat in a grain store, eventually sliding into the safe harbor of third base. I then scampered home on an infield grounder, makin' it three-to-one.
Ahoy, me hearties! The top o' the fifth was a right ol' squall, but we weathered the storm and marooned those landlubber Giant baserunners on second and third, shiver me timbers! After four and a half innings we be leadin' three-to-one.
In the bottom o' the fifth, our cannons stayed silent, and nary a run crossed the plate, aye.
Ahoy, mateys, a tale o' woe I tell ye!
In the top o' the sixth, our minds were adrift like a rudderless ship in a storm. We fumbled and blundered, grantin' those cursed Giants three extra chances to plunder our lead. With the bases loaded and two outs, they squeezed the life out o' us, pilferin' their inning-ending fourth run with a walk.6 A sorry sight it was, me hearties, a sorry sight indeed! Yarr, we now be laggin' behind at five-to-three, matey!
Avast ye, hearties! In the depths o' the sixth, I led the charge with a cunning bunt and scurried to first base like a barnacle on a ship's hull. Two noble sacrifices propelled me to third, with a matey on second, ready to plunder those runs. But alas, fortune turned her back, and our final crewman struck out with a full count, leavin' us stranded, high and dry. A salty tale, indeed!
Arrr, with but one frame remaining on the sodded sea, we still be trailin’ five runs-to-three.
In the top of the seventh, we battled those Giants like a kraken fightin' a whirlpool. They had runners on second and third, aye, but we held 'em back! One o' their scallywags blooped a ball over the third baseman, but I, yer trusty left-fielder, charged in like a storm surge and hurled a missile towards home plate. Our plate-minder Bill, bless his barnacle-covered soul, snagged it on the bounce and tagged the scurrilous runner tryin' to steal a score.7 We held 'em scoreless, by Davy Jones' locker, we did!
Now, mateys, gather 'round for a tale o' grand adventure on the high seas o' the ballfield!
The last of the seventh inning, the final showdown, and we yet be trailin' those landlubbers five-to-three.
Our first two batters, alas, were swallowed by the depths o' their defense. Hope was but a flicker in the crow's nest, aye.
Then, shiver me timbers, our closin' pitcher, ol' Peg-Leg8 Steve D, hobbled to the plate, a barnacle-encrusted warrior with a heart o' gold. The count reached three-and-oh, and the tension was thicker than a bowl o' plum duff. Two pitches, as wide as the ocean itself, were called strikes, and a mutiny o' grumbles erupted from our dugout. But Steve, bless his salty soul, swung his trusty cutlass and sent a grounder squirmin' through the infield. With a heave and a ho, he lumbered towards first, his knee creakin' like an old ship's mast, beating the throw by a hair's breadth!
Next up, Cap'n Tom, our startin' pitcher, took the helm. He launched a fly ball towards the port side, where their left fielder, a scurvy dog, made a valiant attempt at a catch. But alas, the ball squirreled out o' his grasp like a greased piglet, and our hopes soared higher than a mainmast in a hurricane.
Then came me, yer narrator, ready to seize the moment. Two pitches sailed wide, the umpire’s calls drawin' the ire o' their foul-mouthed catcher and his crew. Then with a three-and-one count, I unleashed a mighty stroke, barely grazin' the ball with a swinging bunt so devious it would make a pirate blush. Their catcher, so I hear, tumbled to the deck like a sack o' potatoes, but I reckon I'd have outrun that throw even if that shorewalker’d found his footing.
Our fearless leader, commodore Steve G, was due up next, but a previous injury left him walkin' the plank back to the dugout. So, up stepped our next buccaneer, second baseman, Don, a swashbuckling master of clutch hits. Don swung his bat with the force o' a kraken's tentacle, sendin' a grounder straight back at their hurler. The ball ricocheted off the chucker’s glove like a hare, deflectin' towards their shortstop. But the infield anchor’s throw to first was wild, arrr, a howlin' gale o' an overthrow that bounced off the right field fence like a skipped stone on the open sea. Roundin' second, I saw our third base coach wavin' the runner ahead of me home with the fury o' a thousand storms. He was bound for glory, to knot the game at five scores each.
As I reached third, me hearties belowdecks roared, urgin' me onwards. I sprinted like a man possessed, the wind in me hair, the taste o' victory on me tongue.
And as I crossed home plate, the ball still nowhere in sight, the cheers erupted like a volcanic eruption, and we knew, aye, we knew, that we had claimed the spoils o' this epic battle!
Six-to-five, the triumphant Dodgers advance to the championship series!
Yo ho ho, a pirate's life for me!
I text reports to my family during the baseball games I play.
There were 10 teams in our league. After 26 regular season games, the top five teams competed in the A division playoffs, while the bottom five competed in the B division playoffs. We had finished in last place with a record of 6-18-2 and had to win a ‘pigtail’ game against the ninth place, fourth-seeded Astros — 8-17-1 in the regular season — to reach the semifinals.
The sixth place, first-seeded Giants were the only team in the B division to post a winning regular season record: 12-11-3.
To re-work my original report, I mostly used Microsoft Copilot (rather than Google Gemini). Then, within a Google Doc, I had Gemini suggest re-wordings of a near-final draft. Gemini understood that my article was intended to feature pirate talk (!) and suggested some good revisions.
For illustrations, I found Copilot reasonably good, although still leaving a fair amount to be desired. I couldn’t get Craiyon to create anything useable on its own, but it did make a decent revision of a Copilot image; Craiyon is quite slow in free mode. I tried several other free AI image generators — Google ImageFX, OpenAI o1 mini / DALL-E 3, Wombo Dream, Easy Diffusion, Canvas, Leonardo AI — but they were all pretty poor. I did use one ImageFX image for my e-mail banner; it shows a lot of typical AI inaccuracies.
Our league permits unlimited ‘courtesy’ runners for pitchers, catchers and injured players. Once the batter reaches base, he is replaced by the able-legged player who was last recorded out. Thanks to this rule, I have scored as many as three times an inning.
In this league, teams are allowed to score at most four runs in each inning, except for the last inning.
For safety, in our league all plays at home plate are force outs. So Bill didn’t actually tag the runner, he just stepped on the plate.
Pirate talk for knee replacement!