Wednesday, May 23, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraCardinals 4, Padres 0: Tough break for San Diego to have Adam Wainwright figure it out and throw a four-hit shutout while they were in town, but I really do need them to go on a bad skid right now. I'm taking my kids to their first major league game when we go to San Diego next month -- Rangers-Padres on June 18! -- and it would be really useful for me if the secondary market was flooded with cheap, unwanted tickets.
Nationals 5, Phillies 2: A lot of folks in the Bryce Harper/Philly threads of the past few days have said stuff about how, for all of the talk, this isn't truly a rivalry. I tend to agree. For it to be a real rivalry, one team can't dominate the matchups so thoroughly. The Nats take the fourth of five meetings so far this year, and have beaten Philly six straight times in Citizens Bank Park. Harper singled, tripled and drove in two.
Reds 4, Braves 3: Brandon Phillips hit two homers and Brandon Beachy backs up his best start of the season with his worst (7 IP, 6 H, 4 ER). Not that it was horrible. You can get a win with a line like that, but Mat Latos was better (7 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 8K). Michael Bourn had two home runs in a losing cause. In case you haven't noticed it, Bourn -- a Boras clients -- is making himself some serious bank in his walk year (.323/.376/.439, 13 SB and the usual solid D).
Mets 3, Pirates 2: R.A. Dickey struck out 11 in seven innings, which was a career high. Which means that in the space of five days the Pirates were dominated by one of the the hardest throwing starters in baseball in Justin Verlander and one of the softest throwing in Dickey. The Pirates offense is like some weird scientific control group or something. A time trial. They're setting the bogey for every pitcher in baseball, and there's something damn noble about that.
Twins 9, White Sox 2: Twins fans aren't quite sure what to make of a starting pitcher who goes deep into games and strikes out a lot of batters, but they'll accept what they got from P.J. Walters last night (CG, 5 H, 2 ER, 8K).
Marlins 7, Rockies 6: Nolasco vs. Nicasio! With special referee Tom Nieto! On hand were Chris Nabholz, Russ Nagelson and Cholly Naranjo! Tsuyoshi Nishioka sends his regrets from Rochester.
Astros 2, Cubs 1: The Astros gotta be the most respectable team everyone thought would lose 100+ games in history, right? Jose Altuve with a homer, Brett "trade for me because I'm a proven closer, I swear" Myers got his 11th save.
Rays 8, Blue Jays 5: Carlos Pena was moved to the leadoff spot and had two hits, including a homer. Dude: you're a table setter. Make things happen. Home runs kill rallies. Hasn't anyone ever told you that?
Yankees 3, Royals 2: New York is lucky they won this one. Because I have it on good authority that all of those hacks who write "If the Boss was alive ..." columns when the Yankees struggle are in the process of actually reanimating Steinbrenner's corpse and unleashing him on the populace. He'll have a hunger for brains. And calzones. But mostly brains.
Indians 5, Tigers 3: Cleveland ends a ten-game losing streak to the Tigers. Andy Dirks had two hits in the two-hole and Miguel Cabrera was walked three times batting third. Prince Fielder was 0 for 5, however.
Orioles 4, Red Sox 1; Brian Matusz struck out nine in six and a third as the Red Sox managed only two hits all damn night. I think it would be hilarious now if Josh Beckett called a closed-door meeting in which the pitchers yelled at the Red Sox hitters, after which Beckett came out and told the press that he's totally a leader. And if he had the whole press conference while wearing Payne Stewart-style golf pants.
Giants 6, Brewers 4: Giancarlo Stanton, nothin': Buster Posey homered off the Miller Park scoreboard. He also hit a double and blocked the plate to prevent a run, which is something he was told not to do, but hey, heat of battle, yo. The Giants have won eight of eleven.
Dodgers 8, Diamondbacks 7: Down one in the ninth inning and down to their last out, the Dodgers Ivan De Jesus hit a two-run double, completing the comeback after being down 6-1 in the sixth inning. It was the Dodgers' sixth straight win. The Dbacks' bullpen work was reminiscent of 2010.
Rangers 3, Mariners 1: Elvis Andrus tripled home two runs in the third, but it was one of only four hits for the Rangers who won this one with pitching and defense. Matt Harrison tied up the M's (7 IP, 7 H, 1 ER) and Josh Hamilton made two pretty spectacular plays in the outfield, robbing Seattle of hits.
Angels 5, Athletics 1: C.J. Wilson probably figured before the game "heck, our offense stinks, but if the other guys can't score, they can't win." So he shut out the A's on one hit over eight innings. A homer and a sacrifice fly for Pujols.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
10th anniversary: Shawn Green’s big day
Posted by Chris JaffeTen years ago today, Shawn Green had quite possibly the best game any hitter has ever had, tying or setting some rather impressive records along the way.
On May 23, 2002, Green and his Dodgers teammates were in Milwaukee to take on the Brewers. Green came up in the top of the first with one out and a runner on second, and promptly belted an RBI double off Milwaukee starting pitcher Glendon Rusch. For many, an RBI double would be a highlight. For Green, it would be one of his worst at-bats on the day.
Next inning, Green came up again, this time with two on and two out. This time Green connected for a fly ball that cleared the fence. Rusch just didn’t have it that day, and two batters (and two extra base hits) later, was in the showers, having allowed eight runs while getting five outs.
Rusch was done, but Green had just begun. Milwaukee’s bullpen would not be able to solve the Dodgers right fielder at all.
In the fourth, Green led off against the Dodgers. On the mound was Brian Mallette, who had just been inserted into the game. Green tagged Mallette for another home run. In the fifth Green came up again against Mallette and it was a repeat of the previous inning—home run. This was only Mallette’s fifth big league appearance; he never would get a sixth.
Things were now rather interesting. Green had three home runs through five innings—and that guaranteed he’d get at least one more at-bat. That means he could tie the record of four homers in a game. He could even break the record if he was lucky.
In the eighth inning Green came up again to lead off. With the Dodgers up 10-2, even many Milwaukee fans were rooting for Green to make history by nailing another homer. Alas, he couldn’t quite do that, lashing out a single instead. He was now 5-for-5 with three homers and a double.
There was no guarantee that Green would get another chance, but fortunately for him his Dodgers teammates were going a better job than Milwaukee’s relievers.
With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Green stood at the plate one final time. Brewers pitcher Jose Cabrera was perfectly capable of surrendering a home run—in fact he’d done just that to Adrian Beltre batting just before Green in the Dodgers batting order.
Green took the first pitch for ball one. He swung at the next offering but missed, evening the count. The third pitch was the big one. Green connected and once again the ball launched over the fence for his fourth home run of the day. (For good measure, Cabrera then allowed his third consecutive homer when backup Dave Hansen went deep on him).
Green’s day: 6-for-6 with four home runs and a double. Four homers tied a record, and his 19 total bases set a record. You can’t do much better than that, and it’s what Shawn Green did 10 years ago today.
Aside from that, today marks the anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something occurring X-thousand days ago) of many other events. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim.
Day-versaries
5,000 days since the White Sox top the Tigers 17-16 in 12 innings. The teams combine for 51 hits in this contest.
5,000 days since Carlos Beltran makes his big league debut.
9,000 days since rookie Padres catcher Benito Santiago’s hitting streak peaks at 34 games, the record for a first-year player.
9,000 days since Gary Matthews Sr. plays in his final contest.
15,000 days since one time Padres pitcher Sterling Hitchcock is born.
20,000 days since White Sox pitcher Bob Keegan no-hits the Senators in a 6-0 win.
20,000 days since Yankee pitcher Bob Turley pitches a two-hitter only to lose 1-0 to the Kansas City A’s.
Anniversaries
1862 Dummy Hoy, star center fielder, is born.
1872 Deacon Phillippe, high quality turn-of-the-century pitcher, is born.
1873 Brewery Jack Taylor, good pitcher who (as his nickname clearly notes) has a taste for liquor, is born.
1888 Hall of Fame outfielder Zack Wheat is born.
1889 The wooden grandstand in Brooklyn’s Washington Park burns, leaving the Bridegrooms (as the Dodgers were then called) homeless.
1890 The Pirates and Giants combine to steal 20 bases in one game, the all-time record. New York steals 17 of them.
1896 Normally known for his pitching, today Cy Young impresses on offense as he legs out an inside-the-park home run. Chippy McGarr, Young’s teammate does likewise against 200-game winner Jack Stivetts.
1901 The Indians stage one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history when they score nine runs in the bottom of the ninth for a 14-13 win over Washington. The rally began with two outs and no one on base.
1901 It’s the ultimate sign of respect: Nap Lajoie receives a bases-loaded intentional walk.
1906 Negro League Hall of Famer Martin Dihigo is born.
1908 Giants third baseman Art Devlin fields a record 13 chances in one game.
19110 Cincinnati hitter Dode Paskert steals second, third and home in the first inning against Boston.
1911 Christy Mathewson notches his 18th consecutive win over the Reds.
1915 George Mullin, early star AL pitcher, appears in his final game.
1918 It’s work or fight. Baseball players learn they have until July 1 to find war-essential jobs. If they’re still playing ball at that time, they’ll become eligible for America’s World War I draft.
1924 Walter Johnson fans 14 and allows one hit in the 100th of 110 career shutouts.
1925 Reds pitcher Pete Donohue has a devastating day at the plate, smacking four singles and a home run in a 11-2 win over the Phillies.
1926 Cubs star Hack Wilson hits a homer off the Wrigley Field scoreboard, which isn’t the same scoreboard it currently has.
1927 In the first inning, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig hit back-to-back homers, but it’s not enough as New York loses 3-2 to the Senators.
1927 At night, hard-drinking center fielder Hack Wilson is arrested for violating the nation’s prohibition laws.
1930 Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell is off today, as he allows a personal worst 17 hits. Yet somehow he nearly wins anyway, but the Phillies top Hubbell and his Giants teammates by one run, 9-8.
1935 Hall of Fame third baseman Bill Terry legs out his 100th triple.
1935 It’s the first night game in major league baseball. Well, in theory. It’s delayed by rain in Cincinnati.
1936 Sammy Byrd has one of the most awesome at-bats in baseball history. Stepping to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and his team trailing 3-0, he uncorks a walk-off, pinch-hit grand slam. Yeah, that’s pretty awesome.
1937 Dizzy Dean stages a one-man protest against the balk. He pauses in his windup as he’s supposed to—but stays paused for three full minutes. He’s upset at a balk call from four days prior.
1938 Cubs pitcher Bill Lee beats Boston 4-1. That run he surrenders is the only one against him in a 47-inning stretch from mid-May to early June.
1944 It’s a real blowout in the American Association, as Milwaukee whumps Toledo, 28-0.
1944 Wartime restrictions are starting to ease up, and as a result New York City has its first night baseball game of the war. Brooklyn tops the Giants 3-2 in Ebbets Field.
1948 Joe DiMaggio bops three home runs in one game for the second time in his career. Today’s blasts come in three successive at bats, the first two of which are against Bob Feller.
1951 Mel Parnell has a pretty good day. He four-hits the Browns while rapping out four hits himself at the plate in Boston’s 12-0 win. In that same game, Parnell’s teammate Ted Williams receives a personal best five walks.
1952 Roy Campanella hits his 100th career home run.
1954 Boston trades Hall of Fame third baseman George Kell to the White Sox for Grady Hatton and $100,000.
1956 Orioles manager Buck Showalter is born.
1957 A Cardinals loss gives skipper Fred Hutchinson a career record 86 games under .500 (244-330), his all-time low point. He’ll be 586-497 for the rest of his career.
1957 Dummy Hoy, on his 95th birthday, writes that sportswriters should go back to calling him Dummy again, just like they did in his playing days. (They’d taken to calling him William, his given name, instead over the years).
1958 Willie Mays knocks out his 200th career home run.
1960 The White Sox release former Indians ace Mike Garcia.
1960 Sandy Koufax is denied a no-hitter when opposing pitcher Bennie Daniels gets a second inning single against the Dodgers southpaw. That proves to be the only hit Koufax surrenders in a 1-0 win over the Pirates.
1961 Billy Pierce ties his personal best of 12 Ks in one game—and today he does it while throwing only six innings. The other times he fans a dozen he throws nine, 10, and 12 innings. Despite that, he loses today’s contest, 3-1.
1963 Gavvy Cravath, one of the best sluggers of the 1910s, dies.
1963 Washington trades Jim Piersall to the Mets for Gil Hodges.
1965 The Cubs beat the Dodgers 3-2 in 16 innings on a bases-loaded walk to George Altman. LA scores twice in the first inning and that’s it for them on the day.
1965 Earl Webb dies. He still owns the record for most doubles in one season with 67.
1965 Mets outfielder Ron Swoboda, in an act of anger and frustration, puts his foot through a batting helmet. However, in a moment of comedy and humor, he can’t dislodge it afterwards.
1969 Pirate rookie Al Oliver makes three errors in one inning.
1969 Mickey Lolich sets a Tigers record by fanning 16 batters in one game. He’ll tie that record 17 days later.
1970 Bob Gibson fans a personal best 16 batters in one game, leading St. Louis to a 3-1 win over the Phillies.
1970 The Padres top the Giants in a wild one, 17-16. Willie Mays reaches base seven times for the only time in his career. He has two homers, two singles, and three walks.
1971 Veteran third baseman Clete Boyer appears in his final game.
1971 A’s phenom Vida Blue appears in his 11th straight Quality Start. His line in that time: 11 GS, 10 CG, 94 IP, 50 H, 11 R, 10 ER, 30 BB, 93 K and a 0.96 ERA. He’s 10-1 on the season. So yeah, not bad.
1972 Roberto Clemente grounds into three double plays in one game for the only time in his career.
1975 Harmon Killebrew enjoys his 46th and final multi-home run game.
1977 It’s the Sport magazine article heard ‘round the world. An article by Robert Ward interviews Reggie Jackson, and quotes him claiming, “I am the straw that stirs the drink.” He is dismissive and insulting to many of his teammates, most notably Thurman Munson. This doesn’t go over well in the Yankees clubhouse, to put it mildly.
1978 The AL approves transfer of the Red Sox to a group headed by Jean Yawkey, Buddy LeRouex, and Haywood Sullivan for $15 million.
1978 A’s manager Bobby Winkles walks away from the job despite a 24-15 record, saying he wants to leave on his terms, not those of owner Charles Finley. Jack McKeon, the man Winkles replaced in the dugout the year before, now replaces Winkles.
1978 The Braves release Tom Paciorek, who will last many more years as a big league hitter.
1978 Irate after a 3-2 loss to the Padres, Dodgers skipper Tommy Lasorda destroys his office. In fact, he overdoes it and ends up damaging the door frame causing him to be locked in.
1979 Al Oliver smacks three home runs in one game.
1979 The Cubs trade starting pitcher Ray Burris to the Yankees for reliever Dick Tidrow.
1980 Five hours after the official midnight deadline for negations, a baseball strike is averted with a new basic agreement and an increase in the minimum wage.
1981 The Royals and Twins have a nice pitchers duel that ends in a 1-0 win for KC after 15 innings. Royals starting pitcher Paul Splittorff goes 11 innings while Roger Erickson lasts 9.1 for Minnesota.
1981 Ozzie Smith’s longest hitting streak peaks at 15 games. He has 20 hits in that span—19 singles and one double.
1984 The Tigers win their 16th consecutive road game. Their record is now 34-5.
1984 It’s revenge for Fernando Valenzuela. A week ago he faced the Phillies and Steve Carlton only to have the veteran lefty belt a grand slam against him. Today Valenzuela and Carlton meet again, but this time Valenzuela wins 1-0 on a three-hitter with 15 Ks.
1986 Tony Gwynn hits a walk-off home run. It’s the first of two in his career.
1986 The Oakland A’s make one of their best pickups. They sign Dave Stewart, a reliever released by the Phillies two weeks before. Tony LaRussa will make Stewart a starting pitcher and he’ll win 20 games a year four straight seasons.
1986 Veteran pitcher Ken Forsch appears in his last game.
1987 The Cubs top the Braves 7-6 in 16 innings despite walking 14 Braves. Atlanta strands 17 runners on the day.
1987 In his 241st career start, Bob Welch allows his first leadoff home run. He’ll end his career with seven leadoff homers allowed.
1987 Former MVP Steve Garvey appears in his final game.
1987 The dumbest experiment in Chicago history ends as Carlton Fisk appears in left field. The move to left is one of the more regrettable parts of making Ken Harrelson the team GM.
1987 Giants manager Roger Craig receives the rare post-game ejection by an umpire. The Giants lose 9-8 to the Phillies with a ninth-inning balk call setting up the winning run. Craig has words with Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey about it after the game ends and Harvey thumbs him.
1989 Bo Jackson launches a 461-foot home run off Nolan Ryan that’s believed to be the longest one ever hit in Arlington.
1989 The Cleveland Indians sit atop the AL East despite a 21-22 record.
1990 Former Yankees outfielder Charlie Keller dies.
1991 Kirby Puckett gets six hits in a game for the second time in his career. He’s the first person in over 50 years to do this twice (Doc Cramer did it in the 1930s).
1991 Tommy Greene pitches a no-hitter to beat Montreal, 2-0.
1993 Will Clark lays down his first sacrifice bunt since September 1987. He’ll never do it again, making this the only one in his final 7,326 plate appearances.
1993 California signs amateur free agent catcher Bengie Molina.
1993 The White Sox release ex-Jays ace Dave Stieb.
1993 Glenn Davis, former star Astros slugger, plays in his final game.
1993 Craig Biggio enjoys what might be the best game of his career. He’s 4-for-5 with a double, two homers, three runs, 11 total bases (his most) and one K, helping Houston top the Padres, 9-7.
1995 Chuck Finley posts his 100th career win, giving him a record of 100-90. He does it in style, with the best Game Score of his career: 96. His line: 9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, and 15 K. That also ties his personal best with 15 Ks.
1995 Jim Edmonds enjoys the first of 28 multi-home run games.
1995 California signs amateur free agent Ramon Ortiz.
1995 A new golden age begins in the Bronx as Mariano Rivera makes his big league debut.
1995 It’s a rarity, even in Colorado, as opposing starting pitchers homer off each other. Cubs hurler Kevin Foster and Rockies starter Marvin Freeman are the pitchers involved.
1996 For the second consecutive day, a Kansas City Royal steals home plate. Today David Howard does it and yesterday Bob Hamelin did it.
1997 For the only time in his career, Derek Jeter has two sacrifice bunts in one game.
1998 Two veteran starting pitchers make their debut on this day: Carl Pavano and Ryan Dempster.
1999 Baltimore scores 10 runs in the first innings, with Brady Anderson getting hit by pitch twice.
2000 Rickey Henderson draws his 2,000th career walk, which is especially impressive when you realize that pitchers never want to let the speedy Henderson on first base.
2001 Derek Jeter enjoys a nice 5-for-5 game. It’s his only one until the day he gets No. 3,000.
2001 Jeff Brantley appears in his final game.
2002 In his 600th career game, switch hitter Luis Castillo homers from the left side of the plate for the first time.
2003 Cardinals superstar Albert Pujols has his first five-hit game.
2003 The umpires in A ball eject the groundskeeper from a game. He told the umps it was time to cover the field and they disagreed. An argument ensued, and umpires always have the trump card in an on-field argument.
2003 Jason Bay makes his big league debut.
2003 Scott Rolen enjoys his best game ever according to WPA. He’s 2-for-5 with a home run for a 0.646 WPA day. His big moment is a three-run homer with two out in the ninth with his team trailing by a pair.
2004 Randy Johnson nearly sets a record. He’s retired his last 33 batters faced heading into today and gets the first six today for 39, two short of Jim Barr’s record, but then the first man in the third reaches base against him.
2004 Tom Glavine ties his personal best Game Score: 92. His line: 9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, and 8 K. Only an eighth-inning double keeps him from a no-hitter.
2005 Mark Mulder pitches a 10-inning complete game shutout over the Astros. It’s the first extra inning complete game shutout in the NL since Greg Maddux did it 17 years earlier. The losing pitcher is Roger Clemens, part of a stretch of four straight starts in which his team loses 1-0 each time with him pitching.
2006 Carlos Beltran hits a two-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the 16th for a 8-7 Mets win over St. Louis.
2009 Jason Giambi launches his 400th home run.
2010 Jose Lima dies at the too-young age of 37.
2011 Corey Hart of the Brewers launches three homers in one game.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraMarlins 7, Rockies 4: Jamie Moyer pitched in his 50th different major league park. But he may have given up his longest most hellacious homer ever. Giancarlo Stanton hit a grand slam that went 438 feet in basically a straight line and broke the friggin' scoreboard. Roy Hobbs stuff, there. Gave the Marlins the lead and, eventually, the game.
Nationals 2, Phillies 1: Ian Desmond drove in both Washington runs, one on a homer, and Gio Gonzalez pitched six scoreless for his sixth win. Bryce Harper had two hits, a stolen base and scored a run. No word on whether he was hit with any batteries.
Pirates 5, Mets 4: Michael McKenry hit a two-run homer in the seventh to tie it up and to chase Johan Santana. A Clint Barmes sac fly was the game winner. In other news, Clint Barmes still draws a major league paycheck. Who knew?
Reds 4, Braves 1: Mike Leake pitched eight strong innings and hit a homer. Drew Stubbs didn't pitch at all but had two of his own. Cincinnati takes their third in a row and keeps the pressure on the Cardinals. Oh, and about that Aroldis Chapman arrest? It happened in Grove City, Ohio. Which is a Columbus suburb, 100 miles from Cincinnati. This on the morning after the Reds got back from a road trip and before a home game. I'm struggling to think what's so appealing about my fair city for Chapman that he had to make a 200-mile+ road trip in such a short amount of time. But hey, at the speeds he was driving, I guess it's a short trip.
Cardinals 4, Padres 3: St. Louis needed this one to avoid falling behind the Reds in the Central. They got it via a two-run Tyler Greene home run in the eighth. Clayton Richard pitched seven and a third, Jaime Garcia pitched seven, but they each gave up two runs on seven hit with one walk. Garcia struck out more. I wonder how often two starters have had the same exact pitching line. Had to have happened a few times before, right?
Astros 8, Cubs 3: A laugher. Matt Garza turned in his worst start of the year (3 IP, 5 H, 7 ER) and was countered by Bud Norris' seven innings of shutout ball. Norris left with an 8-0 lead.
Blue Jays 6, Rays 2: I'll let the box score speak for this one and instead note something that caught my eye in the scoring summary. Second inning: "E Thames singled to center, J Arencibia scored, E Thames out stretching at second." I read that and I pictured this for some reason. Just put Eric Thames' head on the body.
Royals 6, Yankees 0: I'm not saying it would be nice for Royals fans to make "contract the Yankees" jokes like so many Yankees fans have done to them over the years, but I understand it if they do. The Yankees offensive impotence -- 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position -- hits bottom, they hope. I have this feeling today is gonna be super crazy in the tabloids.
Red Sox 8, Orioles 6: And part of that super crazy tabloid thing is gonna be based on the fact that the Yankees now have the same 21-21 record as do the Boston Red Sox who, as we've all been told to believe, are in utter chaos and whatnot. Not that we should be glib about that. They fell behind early before a six-run rally put them ahead and they still weren't comfortable here.
Mariners 6, Rangers 1: The M's are not impressed with Yu Darvish, who issued six walks. Felix Hernandez, in the meantime, allowed one run over eight. Ichiro tripled in a run and singled in two. I'm guessing that, in light of all of this, my friends in the Japanese media have a lot to write about today.
Dodgers 6, Diamondbacks 1: Matt Treanor, Andre Ethier and James Loney all homered. Chris Capuano is now 6-1. When people ask later why no one thought the Dodgers would contend, folks like me in the analysis business will say things like "we didn't expect Chris Capuano to post an ERA more than two runs lower than his career norms."
Giants 4, Brewers 3: Ryan Braun hit a two-run homer in the eighth to tie things up, but Hector Sanchez with a 14th inning homer to win it. Lost in no-decision land was Madison Bumgarner who struck out 10 over seven and a third.
Athletics 2, Angels 1: The A's have now won 5 of 7 matchups against the Angels. And we're running out words to describe the Angels offense. Just perusing the thesaurus, I got: anemic, debilitated, decrepit, delicate, effete,enervated, exhausted, faint, feeble, flaccid,flimsy, forceless, fragile, frail, hesitant,impuissant, infirm, insubstantial, irresolute,lackadaisical, languid, languorous, limp,makeshift, out of gas, powerless, prostrate,puny, rickety, rocky, rotten, senile, shaky, sickly,sluggish, spent, spindly, supine, tender, torpid,uncertain, undependable, unsound, unsteady,unsubstantial, wasted, wavering, weakened,weakly, wobbly.
Pick a winner.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
10th anniversary: Giambi-Mabry trade
Posted by Chris JaffeTen years ago today, one of the strangest trades of the 21st century was made. It was a marker trade, serving to define what group you belonged to. If you didn’t think it was much of a big deal at all, then you were normal and part of mainstream baseball fandom. But, if this trade was a gigantic jolt to you, then congratulations, you were part of the sabermetric community, circa 2002.
On May 22, 2012, the Oakland A’s sent Jeremy Giambi to the Phillies for John Mabry, and in doing so threw an enormous loop to many who supported A’s GM Billy Beane and what he stood for.
It’s a sign how much things have changed. In 2002, the sabermetric revolution was largely still confined to Oakland. Okay, so Toronto had hired Beane’s former assistant J.P. Ricchardi as GM. To be sabermetrically inclined generally meant you had some rooting interest in the A’s because their success validated your approach to baseball.
And that’s why this trade threw people for such a loop; it completely went against all sabermetric belief. Giambi was a sabermetric darling. He was a huge sabermetric darling. He couldn’t field, and his batting average wasn’t great, but he had power and drew walks for a mighty nice OPS.
Mabry? Eh, I’m sure he looked good in a pair of jeans, but he was the opposite of a sabermetric player. He was just an end-of-the-bench backup or role player. And here was Billy Beane, the Official GM of Saber-town, casting off his kind of player for a bucket of whatever.
What happened was simple. Beane needed to shake up the clubhouse on a team badly underperforming its talent level, and this was his solution. The shakeup worked and (as portrayed in Moneyball), the team awoke from its slumber to win 103 games by the end of the year.
The trade is a time capsule in many ways. First, it defied what people expected from Beane. It’s a sign of how much times have changed that many expected Beane to always make the smart move, by which I mean always make the sabermetrically friendly one. And he did have quite a track record back in the day of turning low payrolls into high win totals. The golden boy aura has since worn off Beane as his success has lessened and other franchises like Tampa have done more with less money.
It’s also a time capsule in its stats-versus-scouts mentality. I don’t think any such trade could inflict such psychological shockwaves on that stat community as this one did. I just don’t think it’s possible. There was such a sense of certainty and confidence that the sabermetric way was the way, and it would overcome all. Now, stats vs. scouts has become more stats and scouts. There was always some “and” and there’s still some “vs.,” but the sense of certitude has really shifted.
Lastly, speaking as a sample size of one, this trade really helped cement a sense of an online sabermetric community. Many of us nerds were stunned by it while for most baseball fans the trade was a complete afterthought. The trade literally helped create a community, as the thread for it at Baseball Think Factory was a turning point for that site. Giambi-Mabry was it’s coming out party, and BTF remains the leading watering hole for baseball’s nerd herd.
And it happened exactly ten years ago today.
Aside from that, many other events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event that occurred X-thousand years ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you prefer to skim the lists.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since a Rays-Jays game sees three different umps work the plate. Jerry Crawford starts the game there but is struck by a foul tip and has to leave with an injury. Tom Hallion replaces him but is hit by a fastball and follows Crawford out of the game. Brian O’Nara completes the game, with just one other umpire working all three bases.
4,000 days since White Sox leftfielder Carlos Lee hits a walk-off grand slam against the Cubs in the crosstown classic. A record-setting crowd of 45,936 in U.S. Celluar sees the 7-3 Sox triumph.
4,000 days since Damion Easley hits for the cycle.
4,000 days since Luis Gonzalez hits three home runs in one game.
4,000 days since Toronto signs free agent Tony Fernandez for another go-around for the veteran with the Blue Jays.
5,000 days since slugger Cecil Fielder plays in his final game.
5,000 days since Mike Lowell makes his big league debut.
5,000 days since Sammy Sosa hits two homers in one game against the Brewers, No. 61 and No. 62 on the year. He joins Mark McGwire as the only men to top Roger Maris. The Cubs win the game, 11-10, part of arguably the greatest series in the history of Wrigley Field.
6,000 days since the Cardinals sign free agent Gary Gaetti.
9,000 days since St. Louis skipper Whitey Herzog helms his 2,000th big league game. He’s 1,085-914 for his career.
15,000 days since the Twins sign free agent Tom Kelly. He won’t do much as a player, but will end up a two-time world champion manager for them.
15,000 days since the longest hitting streak of Joe Torre’s career peaks at 24 games. He’s 41-for-96 in this span.
30,000 days since Gabby Hartnett catches a ball dropped 550 feet from the Goodyear blimp. That sets a new record, breaking the old one of 504 feet held by Gabby Street, who caught a ball dropped from the Washington Monument back in the day.
Anniversaries
1875 Pud Galvin, baseball’s first 300-game winner, makes his big league debut—if you consider the National Association a big league.
1883 Billy Sunday, outfielder who will find tremendous success as a preacher after his playing days are over, makes his big league debut.
1888 Ed Delahanty, one of the best hitters of his generation, debuts in the big leagues.
1891 Well, that was unexpected. Hall of Fame pitcher Mickey Welch hits into a walk-off triple play.
1897 There aren’t too many times when a Hall of Fame player is released by a team in the middle of his career, but one of those times happens here, when the Giants do just that to first baseman Jake Beckley. He’s 29 years old when New York overreacts to a slow start. Cincinnati will pick Beckley up, and he’ll play for them effectively for years.
1901 Reds pitcher Noodles Hahn fans 16 Braves batters in one game. That will be the club record for Cincinnati until Jim Maloney tops it in 1963. Hahn is a pitcher with tremendous talent whose arm just isn’t strong enough to hold up long enough.
1902 Al Simmons, Hall of Famer with five straight 200-hit seasons, is born.
1902 Veteran centerfielder George Van Haltren snaps a small bone near his right ankle while stealing second base. This effectively ends his career, and he’ll play in just 80 more games.
1907 Umpire Billy Evans needs a police escort after Tiger manager Hughie Jennings incites a riot over an Evans call in Detroit. The AL will suspend Jennings for this.
1911 Boston hurler Cliff Curtis loses his 23rd consecutive game, a streak dating back to Jun 13, 1910.
1913 The Giants make one of the worst trades in franchise history. To gain Art Fromme from the Reds, New York gives $20,000 and three players: Red Ames, Josh Devore, and the real prize, Heinie Groh. With the Reds, Groh will develop into a star and a man who arguably deserves a place in Cooperstown. With the Giants, Fromme will win 20 games over two-plus seasons.
1914 For the first time all season, the Braves win back-to-back games. Despise this bad start, they’ll win the World Series this year.
1922 Age be damned, 35-year-old Eddie Collins smacks two triples in one game.
1922 Frank "Home Run" Baker hits his last career home run. He had fewer than 100 career dingers, but that was a lot for his era.
1923 Negro League outfielder Cristobal Torriente hits for the cycle at the plate but late in the game is called on as an emergency reliever. He throws two pitches, both of which are wild, and his team loses.
1923 It’s a great 15-inning pitchers duel. Hall of Fame starting pitcher Herb Pennock posts a Game Score of 105 with this line: 15 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 6 K. Going the distance in defeat is Mike Cvengros, whose Game Score is only 75 due to 21 baserunners and three earned runs. Despite the triple-digit night, this is not Pennock’s best career Game Score.
1926 Yankee phenom Waite Hoyt wins his 100th game, making him 100-74. He’s one of fewer than 20 liveball pitchers to win 150 games before turning 30.
1926 Before today’s game at Wrigley Field, star Cubs pitcher Pete Alexander receives a Lincoln automobile as a gift from Cub fans. Later in this same homestand, he’ll be waived by rookie manager Joe McCarthy.
1926 The Cardinals have Rogers Hornsby Day in St. Louis, giving their star $1,000 in gold and a medal. He’ll last this season and next with the team, unlike Chicago’s Alexander.
1927 Late-bloomer Dazzy Vance wins his 100th game. He’s 100-58 in his career so far.
1928 Carl Mays, one of the best pitchers not in Cooperstown, wins his 200th game. He’s 200-124 in his career at this point.
1928 White Sox centerfielder Johnny Mostil ties a record by fielding 12 balls in a game.
1930 It’s a big day for teammates Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, albeit in different games. Ruth, who smacked three homers in the first game of a doubleheader today, hits two in the first game of today’s twin billing. Gehrig belts three homers in the second game. One of those is the seventh of his record 23 grand slams. Gehrig ends the second game with eight RBIs, tying his personal best. The Yankees win the games, 10-1 and 20-13. Hall of Famer Tony Lazzeri gets five hits and scores five runs, both personal bests, in the second game.
1934 Arne Harris, longtime producer of baseball games on WGN, is born.
1936 Phillies pitcher Bucky Walters has quite the day, throwing a complete-game shutout and smashing a home run. Philadelphia decimates the Giants, 15-0. New York pitcher Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons surrenders the only grand slam of his 200-win career in this game.
1936 St. Louis Cardinals star Pepper Martin scores a run in his 13th straight game.
1937 The Dodgers announce that pitcher Van Mungo has been fined, suspended for three games, and billed $1,500 in damages for a rampage he went on in a St. Louis hotel room.
1937 Hank Greenberg does the nearly impossible, hitting a ball so far at Fenway Park that it leaves the entire park via centerfield! It’s called the longest shot in park history.
1938 Hall of Fame Lloyd Waner gets his 2,000th hit, and it takes him just 1,453 games to do so. That said, he has a very empty batting average and really doesn’t belong in Cooperstown.
1938 Hall of Fame pitcher and all-time White Sox win leader Ted Lyons wins his 200th game, for a career record of 200-185.
1938 The Dodgers announce contracts to install lights in Ebbets Field.
1939 Hall of Fame outfielder Heinie Manush plays in his last game.
1943 Tommy John is born.
1946 Negro League star Josh Gibson hits one of the longest bombs ever hit in Forbes Field: 450 feet over the left-center wall. The estimate possibly understates the distance.
1949 Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe becomes the first NL hurler in 11 years to toss a complete-game shutout in his first start. In that same doubleheader, Ken Raffensberger tosses an 83-pitch one-hitting, allowing just an eighth-inning single to Gil Hodges.
1952 Pirate farmhand Bill Bell tosses the first of his three no-hitters on the year.
1953 Irv Noren of the Yankees hits into a walk-off triple play. Washington wins, 12-4.
1954 Hall of Fame A’s pitcher Chief Bender dies. All his life he preferred to be called Albert Bender.
1954 In the 28th game of his career, Hank Aaron does something he’ll never do again, fan with the bases loaded to end the game.
1956 Roberto Clemente plays two innings at third base, the only time he’ll ever appear there.
1957 Robin Roberts surrenders a walk-off home run to future Pirates manager Chuck Tanner. It happens in the 13th inning—and, yes, this is a complete game for Roberts. It’s one of four walk-offs he allows (and the only one Tanner ever hits).
1959 Don Drysdale has the best game of his career. He tosses 13 innings for a complete-game win and a personal-best Game Score (100) and WPA (0.969). His line: 13 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, and 11 K. LA tops the Giants, 2-1.
1961 Indians pitcher Frank Funk has what WPA considers to be the best relief performance of the decade. He enters in the eighth inning and tosses eight full innings of two-hit relief. He gets the win as Cleveland tops Minnesota.
1962 In one game, Roger Maris receives four intentional walks. That’s four more than he had all last season when he swatted 61 homers.
1963 Mickey Mantle hits one of his signature moonshot homers in Kansas City. It strikes a foot below the roof in the 11th inning of a game.
1966 Jose Mesa, closer, is born.
1966 Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda enjoys his best game ever according to WPA: 0.788. He goes 3-for-5 with a homer, run, and two RBIs as he leads the Cardinals to a 4-3 win over the Reds.
1968 Don Drysdale tosses the third of his six consecutive shutouts during his 58-scoreless-innings streak.
1968 Willie Stargell knocks out three homers in one game for the second time. He just misses No. 4, a ball that lands at the top of the wall and goes for a double. He’s 5-for-5 on the day, his best in professional baseball.
1971 Hank Aaron receives three intentional walks in one game for the only time in his career. The Mets do it and win the game, 8-7.
1974 In a Chicago-Texas game, Pat Kelly gets things off to a rousing start with a leadoff inside-the-park homer off Fergie Jenkins.
1975 Lefty Grove, arguably the greatest pitcher of all time, dies at age 75.
1976 Reggie Smith hits three homers in one game. He leads St. Louis to a 7-6 win over Philadelphia and has his all-time best WPA performance of 0.957. It’s also one of just 15 times he plays third base.
1977 Oakland trades Stan Bahnsen to the Expos for Mike Jorgensen.
1978 A bunt single by Rod Carew off Jon Matlack raises his all-time career average to its highest mark: .336482 (1,959 for 5,822).
1979 Seattle pitcher John Montague ties a franchise record with a 7.2-inning relief outing.
1979 The ill-fated shortstop Dickie Thon debuts. He’ll develop into a star until a fastball hits him in the face, derailing his career.
1980 Ozzie Smith fans three times in one game for the only time in his career.
1982 Longtime reliever Charlie Hough has recently been converted to a starter, and today he shows why that was a good idea. He posts his all-time best Game Score of 89 with this line: 12 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, and 5 K in a complete-game win. That same game is also the last one in which long-time weak-hitting infielder Mario Mendoza (of “Mendoza Line” fame) appears.
1983 Boston’s Bob Stanley tosses 10 innings in relief. It’s the last time any reliever has gone over nine innings in one outing.
1983 The Cubs trade reliever Willie Hernandez to the Phillies for Dick Ruthven. Next year, Hernandez will win the Cy Young Award and MVP for the Tigers.
1984 Al Oliver bops his 500th career double.
1988 Chuck Tanner manages his last game.
1988 Pedro Guerrero isn’t happy about getting hit by a pitch by David Cone. He’s so unhappy that he tosses his bat at Cone, earning an ejection and a four-game suspension.
1990 In a marathon game, Cub star Andre Dawson receives five intentional walks. In that same game, Chicago starting pitcher Mike Bielecki lasts 10 innings. They haven’t had a guy go over nine innings since then.
1990 Barry Bonds knocks out the first of his 11 career grand slams.
1992 Felipe Alou makes his dugout debut as Expos skipper.
1993 John Smoltz surrenders his only home run to an opposing pitcher. Dwight Gooden belts it.
1993 Cardinals minor league Diego Ruiz dies in a car accident.
1995 A Carolina League brawl between Durham and Winston-Salem lasts over a half hour and results in 10 ejections. As it happens, it’s “Strike Out Domestic Violence" night at the ballpark.
1996 Chipper Jones enjoys the first of many multi-home run games.
1997 The Red Sox strand 16 baserunners in an epically frustrating 8-2 loss to the Yankees.
1997 Revenge! Last week, Hideo Nomo sued the wife of Padres star Tony Gwynn for an unlicensed use of the pitcher’s image in a jigsaw puzzle. (No, I don’t know any more than that.) Today, Gwynn goes 3-for-4 against Nomo.
1997 Jason Giambi hits his first of 14 (and counting) grand slams.
1998 Hopefully he knew better than to try ri buy a house there. Newest Florida Marlin Mike Piazza is now former Florida Marlin Mike Piazza. Not long after the team traded for him while dumping half of its roster on LA, Florida sends the star backstop to the Mets for Preston Wilson and two other players.
1998 Cincinnati belatedly retires Frank Robinson’s number.
1998 For the second time in three days, Vladimir Guerrero fans with the bases loaded to end a game.
1999 Oops. Knuckleballer Steve Sparks clearly has some control problems, as he hits three batters in a row.
2000 Only 3,913 are on hand in County Stadium to see it, but Milwaukee stages the greatest comeback in franchise history, scoring seven times in the ninth to top Houston, 10-9.
2001 Bruce Bochy manages his 1,000th game. His record: 510-490.
2001 Barry Bonds homers in his sixth consecutive game. Incredibly, even for his standards, it’s the second time this year he’s done that.
2001 The Twins take an early 8-0 lead on the Mariners but have to struggle to hold on to win, 12-11. Despite their loss, Seattle will go on to win its next 15 contests, a franchise record.
2002 Minnesota’s Governor Jesse Ventura approves $330 million in financing for an open-air Twins stadium. This plan requires the team to make a down payment of $120 million.
2002 It sure seems like a big deal at the time, as uber-pitching prospect Mark Prior makes his big league debut with the Cubs.
2002 Ricky Henderson becomes one of the few, the proud, the men who’ve played in 3,000 games.
2003 56-year-old advertising tycoon Arturo Moreno buys the Angels from Disney for $184 million.
2003 The Marlins all-time cumulative franchise record bottoms out at 151 games under .500 (725-876).
2004 Oakland retires Reggie Jackson’s number.
2004 Zack Greinke makes his big league debut.
2006 Frank Thomas returns to the South Side of Chicago for the first time as a visitor. He hits two home runs and one very long single.
2008 Ken Griffey Jr. belts his 200th home run for the Reds, becoming the fourth person ever to hit that many homers for two separate franchises. Jimmie Foxx, Mark McGwire, and Rafael Palmeiro are also in that club.
2009 Michael Cuddyer hits for the cycle.
2010 Matt Stairs ties Todd Zeile’s record by homering with his 11th different club.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Monday, May 21, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraIf I missed something important in one of these it's because I was less plugged-in than usual yesterday. My daughter Mookie had her dance recital. Both ballet and jazz, which required me to sit through two (2) separate shows. I kid you not: four hours of sitting in an auditorium to watch eight minutes of my eight year-old daughter dancing. But hey, to make up for it I paid over $1,500 for dance tuition in the past year, plus tickets to both shows at $25 a pop, plus costumes and everything else. I swear, I can't dance a lick, but I'm tempted to open up a ballet studio, because it's a license to print money.
Of course, even if it's not always pretty, I do it anyway because my girl is precious and cute and even as I bitch like crazy about how much I'm gouged for this kind of thing, I still have to fight back proud tears when she does her thing and then hug her tightly and never let go when she's done. Let no one doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion. Anyway:
Tigers 4, Pirates 3: Max Scherzer struck out 15 in seven innings. See, that's what he does: gets totally killed for a few starts and then pulls something like this from where the sun don't shine. His stuff is such that, if everything breaks right one year, he'll put together some crazy Cy Young season. But in the meantime, erraticville.
Brewers 16, Twins 4: Jonathan Lucroy hit cleanup, homered twice and drove in seven. After the game he said he was comfortable as a cleanup hitter. The Brewers should bat everyone fourth, really.
Red Sox 5, Phillies 1: Josh Beckett continues to not poison the Red Sox with his horrible attitude and personal worthlessness. Shocking. I almost feel like someone was peddling a b.s. narrative in the wake of that tempest in a Boston teapot non-story a couple weeks ago. Seven and two-thirds of one-run ball for Beckett. A three-run homer for Saltalamacchia.
Athletics 6, Giants 2: Tim Lincecum's disaster season continues unabated. Beat by Bartolo Colon after giving up four runs in four innings and ending it with an ugly collision while covering the plate on his own wild pitch. Where is Timmy's mojo?
Mariners 6, Rockies 4: The ninth inning was shaky, but the M's held on to sweep the Rockies. Jesus Montero and Justin Smoak hit back-to-back homers, Blake Beavan struck out seven.
White Sox 6, Cubs 0: And the South Siders own Chicago for now, sweeping the Cubs. Jake Peavy threw six and a third shutout innings. Adam Dunn hit a homer. Peavy and Dunn. After last year, who knew?
Diamondbacks 2, Royals 0: I called Brandon Beachy "the best pitcher you've never heard of" the other day. How about Wade Miley? After seven shutout innings he's 5-1 with a 2.14 ERA.
Braves 2, Rays 0: Tim Hudson outduels David Price. His sinker was working and he wore out the infield carpet with 14 groundball outs. I never thought I'd think of Tim Hudson as crafty, but he was crafty. The Braves have won 7 of 10.
Rangers 6, Astros 1: Colby Lewis scoffs at the DH. In addition to allowing one run over eight innings, he went 2 for 4 with an RBI single. Texas scored five in the first inning, ending this one before it really began.
Nationals 9, Orioles 3: More DH-disrespecting: Stephen Strasburg struck out eight in five innings and went 2 for 2 with a homer. He left the game early with tightness in his biceps. Bicepts. Anyone miss Bicepts? He's bugging me on Twitter to let him back in the comments. Said he would only comment in ATH and wouldn't wade into other threads. I'm kinda skeptical, but you guys can offer your views. It's not a democracy. I'm gonna make up my own mind on this, but your thoughts are welcome.
Mets 6, Blue Jays 5: Mike Baxter singled, doubled, tripled and drove in a run. Ain't gonna lie: before this game, if you put Mike Baxter in a lineup I wouldn't have been able to pick him out. I'd be all like, "I can put you in Queens on the night of the hijacking." And he'd be like "Really? I live in Queens. Did you put that together yourself, Einstein? What, do you got a team of monkeys working around the clock on this?"
Reds 5, Yankees 2: The Yankees have lost five of six and Aroldis Chapman is now the Reds' closer, which means he's further ensconced in the bullpen what with the fancy label and all. Gosh, there are days I wake up and think I don't understand baseball anymore.
Padres 3, Angels 2: Clayton Richard pinch hit and was running the bases when he scored the winning run in the 13th, but that's OK because Howie Kendrick was playing left field. No one was doing what they were supposed to do. Least of all the Padres, who were taking two of three from the Angels.
Marlins 5, Indians 3: Josh Johnson allowed one run over seven. Everyone who bought high on Derek Lowe following that shutout he threw last week saw him pitch well but still got the loss. Hey, he's Derek Lowe, you can only ask so much.
Dodgers 6, Cardinals 5: I'm supposed to be a professional baseball writer with a national focus and I had no idea that Andy Van Slyke's kid was in the bigs? God, sometimes I feel like I shouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Scott Andyson (see what I did there?) hit a pinch-hit three-run homer in the seventh to snatch victory from what, for much of the evening, looked like the jaws of defeat for the Dodgers.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
20th anniversary: Angels bus crash
Posted by Chris JaffeTwenty years ago was a nasty day for the California Angels. They didn’t suffer any tough loss at the ballpark. In fact, they didn’t even have a game that day. That said, I’m sure they’d much rather have suffered a horrible loss on the field than the horrible event that took place off the field.
On the morning May 21, 1992, the Angels were on their way to the airport. They’d lost a night game the day before against the Yankees, and today they were to fly to Baltimore for a series slated to begin on May 22.
So they got a night’s sleep in the hotel and the team bus took them down the New Jersey turnpike. The bus didn’t get there, though. Instead, it crashed and crashed badly, overturning on the turnpike.
The good news was that no one died. But when “no one died” is the good news, you know there must some serious bad news. And there was. In all, a dozen people were injured. The severity of injuries varied. Second baseman Bobby Rose had to go on the 15-day DL with a sprained ankle, but didn’t need any serious medical treatment.
Several team members had to fly back to California for medical treatment. These men included first baseman Alvin Dark (bruised kidneys), bullpen catcher Rick Turner (deep cut), trainer Ned Bergert (bruised kidneys), and traveling secretary Frank Sims (broken rib).
But one man unquestionably had it the worst of all, manager Buck Rodgers. He damaged a knee and rib cage, and most of all had a badly broken elbow, which was broken in multiple places. The doctor who examined Rodgers said he looked like a post-fall Humpty Dumpty.
Rodgers would have to miss much of the season. He was confined to a wheelchair for a time due to his knee, and between that and his elbow, he didn’t return for over three months.
In his absence, coach John Wathan ran the club for Rodgers. In his first night, Wathan refused to dress in the manager’s office, opting to stay with the other coaches. It was just too soon and the cause for the change too traumatic.
The Angels, who had lost three straight just before the accident, took a while to recover. They lost 15 of their first 18 after the accident, and they never really bounced back. Rodgers did return to the dugout on Aug. 28, but the season was a lost cause by then.
The Angels were probably doomed in the pennant race anyway. They were .500 the year before and would lose 90-plus the next year. They had a nice pitching staff anchored by Mark Langston, Chuck Finley, and Bert Blyleven, but the offense was a disaster. But no team should have a bus crash happen to them.
It was a horrible thing that happened to the Angels, and it happened 20 years ago today.
Aside from that, many other items have their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something that occurred X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better items in bold if you prefer to just skim the lists below.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Zack Greinke sets a Royals franchise record by fanning 15 batters in one game. He throws only eight innings.
2,000 days since Milwaukee signs free agent Craig Counsell, who will end his career with the Brewers.
5,000 days since the Cubs top the Brewers, 15-12, as part of the wildest series ever in the history of Wrigley Field. Sammy Sosa hits his 60th homer of 1998 in this game.
6,000 days since Atlanta trades Kent Mercker to Baltimore for Joe Borowski and a minor leaguer.
7,000 days since a spring training boating accident kills Steve Olin and Tim Crews. Teammate Bob Ojeda survives but is badly injured.
9,000 days since Darnell Coles of the Pirates hits three home runs in one game.
10,000 days since Houston drafts Mel Stottlemyre Jr. while the Cardinals gets his brother, Todd. Houston will sign their guy, but St. Louis won’t. Also, the Angels draft Chuck Finley and the Dodgers draft John Wetteland. Both players will be signed.
15,000 days since Curt Flood goes AWOL on the Senators, for whom he played 13 games. This ends Flood’s career.
15,000 days since Hank Aaron knocks out his 600th career home run.
20,000 days since Mickey Mantle’s career batting average peaks at .317241 (1,058/3,335) after a fourth-inning ground-rule double off Connie Johnson.
Anniversaries
1859 Fred Dunlap, great 19th-century second baseman, is born.
1891 Jim Whitney, star pitcher of 1880, dies at age 33.
1892 Pud Galvin, baseball’s first 300-game winner, loses a tough one. He holds the opposing Cubs hitless until the eighth and surrenders only two safties all game, but that’s all it takes as Chicago triumphs, 1-0, for its 13th consecutive win.
1896 Louisville pitcher Mike McDermott pitches a two-hitter in a 2-0, complete-game shutout. In the other 56 innings he pitches this year, he allows 85 hits.
1901 Giants owner Andrew Freeman accuses umpire Billy Nash of incompetence and bars him from the Polo Grounds.
1901 Christy Mathewson allows a run, ending a 39-inning scoreless streak. The run is unearned.
1902 Hall of Fame center fielder Earl Averill is born.
1904 Red Sox shortstop Bill O’Neill commits six errors in a 13-inning game. He muffed three balls in the first inning alone.
1904 200-game winner Jack Powell allows not one, not two, but three inside-the-park home runs in one game versus the White Sox. Frank Isbell, Frank Owen, and Fielder Jones hit them.
1907 NL President Harry Pulliam dismisses a protest by Pirate manager Fred Clarke about Giant catcher Roger Bresnahan wearing shin guards.
1911 Connie Mack wins his 1,000th game as manager. He’s the sixth manger in the club, joining Harry Wright, Cap Anson, Frank Selee, Ned Hanlon, and Fred Clarke.
1912 AL President Ban Johnson fines each Tiger between $50 and $100 for their one-day strike on behalf of the suspended Ty Cobb. The suspension remains in place.
1919 Giants trade Jim Thorpe, arguably the greatest athlete of all time, to the Braves.
1920 Hughie Jennings manages his 2,000th game in the majors, all with the Tigers.
1923 Formal transfer of T.L. Huston’s interest in Yankee ownership to Jake Ruppert completed for $1.5 million. Ruppert becomes famous as New York’s owner in their first glory stretch.
1925 Mickey Cochrane hits three home runs in one game. He gets three homers total in his other 133 games on the year.
1926 Earl Sheely, White Sox, hits three double and a homer in today’s game. Combined with a trio of doubles in his last three at-bats the previous game, that’s a record seven consecutive at-bats resulting in extra base hits.
1927 Pie Traynor, who hit only 58 home runs in his career, launches his third one in four days.
1930 Babe Ruth hits three home runs in one game. It’s the first time he’s done it in the regular season, but third time overall, as he twice did it in the World Series. He’s the first player to do this three times in all. In his final at-bat of the game, the left-handed Ruth tries to bat righty to gain a platoon advantage over relief pitcher Jack Quinn. After two strikes, he goes back to batting left-handed but fans anyway.
1930 In the same game Ruth homered three times, Max Bishop of the opposing Philadelphia A’s walks five times. It’s the second time in his career he’s done that, something no one else can claim.
1932 Tony Lazzeri has a nice doubleheader, going 6-for-7 with a home run, two doubles, and a triple. One of those hits is his 1,000th career base knock.
1934 Giants starting pitcher Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons struck in the back by a fungo bat while warming up. He’s injured and will miss several starts.
1935 Senators purchase durable starting pitcher Bobo Newsom from the Browns for $40,000.
1936 The Cubs trade Chuck Klein back to the Phillies for Curt Davis and Ethan Allen
1938 Spud Chandler doesn’t need any teammates, as he combines pitching a complete-game shutout with hitting a home run in New York’s 1-0 win over the White Sox.
1938 Silver King, great 1880s phenom pitcher, dies.
1940 For the second straight day, Jimmie Foxx swats a grand slam.
1941 Bob Feller has his worst day at the plate: 0-for-5 with four strikeouts.
1942 Ted Williams launches his 100th home run.
1943 It's the fastest night game in AL history: CWS 1, WAS 0 in only 89 minutes.
1943 Hal Newhouser endures his longest outing: 13 IP, 9 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 10 K.
1948 New York Giant Les Layton hits a pinch-hit home run in his first big league at-bat.
1949 Jackie Robinson drives in a career-high six runs despite hitting no home runs. Most guys have at least one homer in their best RBI game. He was 3-for-5 with two doubles and a stolen base. In related news, Robinson’s teammate Pee Wee Reese scores a personal-best five runs in a game.
1950 Joe DiMaggio clubs his 13th and final grand slam.
1952 Minor league phenom Ron Neccai, who fanned 27 in a no-hitter just eight days earlier, fans 24 today.
1952 Brooklyn has record-setting 15 runs in first inning versus Reds en route to a 19-1 win. It could’ve been even worse: only two Brooklyn outs came at the plate in the first, the other was a caught stealing. Cincinnati starter Ewell Blackwell gets the first guy out, but then the next 19 batters in a row reach base. According to the 1980s book, The Baseball Hall of Shame, after leaving the game, Blackwell showered, changed, left the park, and went to the bar—and saw the first inning was still going on. By the time it ended, the guy who relieved Blackwell made it to the bar, as well. That’s a pretty bad inning.
1953 Red Sox catcher Del Wilber hits pinch-hit home run in third straight pinch-hit opportunity.
1955 The White Sox sign amateur free agent Norm Cash. They’ll later trade him away in the 1959-60 offseason, in which they also dump Don Mincher, Johnny Callison, Earl Battey, and John Romano, all of whom will become All-Stars.
1956 The White Sox trade George Kell to the Orioles in a six-player trade.
1957 Jim Bunning has his longest career outing: 13 IP, 10 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 11 K, but it results in a no-decision as his Tigers prevail, 2-1, over the Orioles in 16 innings.
1957 Boston writers reaffirm their decision to ban women from the press box.
1957 Yankee outfielder Hank Bauer is arraigned for his involvement in the Copacabana Incident, a brawl in which he and several other Yankees were involved. Bauer will later be cleared and threatens to sue Edward Jones, a man pressing charges against him.
1957 Jim Bunning has the longest outing of his career: 13 IP, 10 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, and 11 K, for a personal best WPA of 0.965. He gets a no-decision as his Tigers teammates top Baltimore in 16 innings, 2-1.
1959 MLB owners opt against expansion. This position won't last much longer.
1960 Kent Hrbek, Twins slugger, is born
1961 Joe Torre knocks out the first home run of his career.
1962 The Yankees release veteran pitcher Robin Roberts, who the Orioles sign later the same day. He never actually pitched for the Yankees, but he was theirs from Oct., 1961 until this day.
1963 Reds pitcher Jim Maloney fans eight straight from the first through fourth innings and ends the day with 16 whiffs in a 2-0 win. He doesn’t get the complete game, though, pitching 8.1 innings.
1966 Harmon Killebrew hits his 300th home run.
1966 Robert Clemente fans four times in one game, the only time he ever does that. He’s 1-for-6. LA 5, PIT 4 (12).
1967 Whitey Ford pitches in his last game.
1968 Billy Williams plays in his 695th straight game, setting a record for outfielders.
1968 The A’s cumulative all-time franchise record bottoms out at 763 games under .500 (4,730-5,493). Only the Phillies and Browns/Orioles have ever been lower.
1969 Reggie Jackson hits an inside-the-park home run, the third of four in his career.
1970 Cardinals’ Steve Carlton fans 16 Phillies, but St. Louis loses 4-3.
1970 Yankee Mel Stottlemyre walks 11 in 8.1 innings vs. the Senators, but New York wins anyway, 2-0.
1972 Montreal signs amateur free agent Larry Parrish, who will have a nice little career for himself.
1975 Reds enter today 20-20, but a win propels them on an 88-34 streak the rest of the season.
1976 When umpires refuse to cross a vendors' picket line at Three Rivers Stadium, an amateur crew works the game.
1976 Dave Winfield hits his first career grand slam.
1977 According to WPA, Rick Sawyer has the best relief stint in Padres history: 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 4 K for a 0.963 WPA. Padres win 11-8 over the Expos in 21 innings. The teams combine for a record nine intentional walks.
1981 Josh Hamilton is born.
1981 It just might be the best college pitcher’s duel of all-time, as Ron Darling of Yale meets Frank Viola of St. John’s. St. John’s wins, 1-0, in 12 innings after Darling throws a no-hitter through the first 11 frames, with 16 strikeouts. In the 12th, a single, a reached on error, and several stolen bases provide the difference.
1985 The Orioles release longtime role player John Lowenstein.
1985 Montreal release longtime rotation stalwart Steve Rogers, ending his career.
1985 Ryne Sandberg plays an inning at shortstop. It’ll be the last time he takes the field at any place other than second base.
1986 Matt Wieters, Orioles catcher, is born.
1987 Indians slugger Cory Snyder swats three home runs in one game.
1988 The Red Sox retire Bobby Doerr’s number.
1989 Ken Griffey Jr.’s first inside-the-park homer is career homer No. 6.
1990 Barry Bonds bats leadoff for the last time.
1993 Dale Murphy plays in his final game.
1993 Umpire Jim McKean ejects Toronto mascot B. J. Birdie for making gestures the ump finds offensive.
1993 Rickey Henderson has a career-best five RBI when he goes 2-for-4 with a triple and home run in Oakland’s 12-11 win over Chicago.
1995 Mark McGwire’s personal-best hitting streak maxes at 18 games. He’s 23-for-69 with six doubles and nine home runs.
1996 Larry Walker gets a double, triple, and two home runs but never does get a single to complete the cycle.
1996 Ken Griffey Jr. hits his 200th home run.
1996 There is a 4.8-magnitude earthquake in third inning of a Giants-Expos game. The game proceeds, as it's just a mild quake, and the Giants win 8-5.
1996 Terry Mulholland, veteran relief pitcher, hits a 407-foot home run. He began the day with the third-worst batting average among anyone with at least 400 at-bats.
1997 Roger Clemens wins his 200th game: 200-111 for his career.
1997 Reliever Keith Foulke makes his big league debut.
1998 Jim Edmonds gets his 100th home run.
1998 Herbert Aaron, father of Hank Aaron, dies at age 89.
1999 The Cubs trade Kyle Lohse to Twins for Rick Aguilera in four-player trade.
2000 For the second consecutive game, Rickey Henderson bashes a leadoff home run.
2000 Giants starting pitcher Russ Ortiz becomes first pitcher since Bob Friend in 1954 to get the win despite allowing 10 earned runs.
2000 Major league teams combine for six grand slams on this day, a record.
2001 Barry Bonds clubs his eighth homer in five games, tying a record.
2002 Randy Johnson fans his 3,500th batter.
2002 Tampa pitcher Joe Kennedy tosses a complete game, ending a 194-game stretch without one for Tampa.
2003 Geoff Jenkins hits three home runs in a game for the second time.
2004 Alex Rodriguez plays his first game in Texas as a Yankee and, predictably, gets booed.
2005 As New York’s Dae-Sung Koo faces Randy Johnson, in the Mets dugout, Mike Piazza tells his teammate David Wright that he’ll give $1 million to charity if Koo gets a hit. Koo doubles. Piazza sticks up to his word, creating a 20-year plan of $50,000 per year to give to charity.
2005 The Giants unveil a statue of former ace starting pitcher Juan Marichal.
2007 The all-time bottoming out of the Colorado Rockies’ cumulative franchise record occurs on this day: 164 games under .500 (1,043-1,207). (They tie the 164-games-under mark on June 3, 2009.)
2009 Troy Percival appears in his final game.
2010 Pitcher Brad Penny tears his lat while hitting a grand slam in third inning versus St. Louis. He’ll be out for the year.
2010 Astros star pitcher Roy Oswalt says he’s willing to waive his no-trade clause.
2010 Edwin Encarnacion of Toronto hits three home runs in one game.
2011 Los Angeles police make an arrest in the case of the Giants fan beaten so badly after a Dodgers game that he was left with severe brain damage.
2011 It’s announced that Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter has brain tumors. He has less than a year to live.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Kerry Wood career highlights
Posted by Chris JaffeIt was stunning, but not surprising, news. On the morning of Friday May 18, 2012, news broke that Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood intended to retire. He’d been having a very rough time of it in 2012 after years of battling injury.
Now that his career is over, it makes sense to take a look back. Below are Wood’s career highlights; these are his bests (and worsts): most important games, milestones, and other odds and ends from his career:
First Cubs tenure
April 12, 1998: At the tender age of 20, Wood makes his big league debut. He’s the youngest player in baseball at the moment. It starts out perfectly for Wood: He fans the first batter he faces, Mark Grudzielanek. Wood allows four runs in 4.2 innings and loses, 4-1, to Montreal.
April 24, 1998: In the third start of his career, Wood walks in two runs in the bottom of the second inning. They are the first of 18 runs Wood will walk in din the majors. He faces 12 batters and allows seven runs in what will be the second-shortest start of his career (1.2 innings).
May 6, 1998: Perhaps you’ve heard of this one. Appearing in just his fifth career game, Wood puts on one of the greatest displays of pure pitching dominance ever. Wood ties Roger Clemens' record by fanning 20 Astros in a complete-game shutout. He hits one batter and allows a single down to third base (and I know many who still maintain that Kevin Orie should’ve gotten to it to make it a no-hitter). His Game Score is 105, the highest mark ever in a nine-inning game. Wood is an instant star.
May 11, 1998: Following up his 20-K game, Wood fans 13 batters, giving him a record-tying 33 strikeouts in two consecutive appearances.
June 20, 1998: Wood is a pretty good hitting pitcher, and he’ll hit seven regular-season home runs and one postseason homer. Today he nails the first of them.
July 21, 1998: It’s a big deal in Chicago. Wood, the bright young hope of the day, faces the ace who got away, ex-Cub Greg Maddux. For one day, at least, Wood and the Cubs get the better of it, winning 3-0. Wood fans 11 in 7.2 innings.
Aug. 26, 1998: Against the Reds, Wood fans 16 men, the second-highest total of his entire career. He guides the Cubs to a 9-2 win in eight innings of pitching. He throws 133 pitches in this game, also the second-highest total of his career. He’ll soon land on the DL for the first time.
Aug. 31, 1998: Wood has his most clutch moment at the plate. In the bottom of the fourth with the Cubs trailing, 4-3, Wood belts a two-run home run to give the Cubs a 5-4 lead, and that’s the final score. However, the Cubs will shut down Wood after this game for the rest of the regular season. It’s the first of many injury concerns for Wood.
Oct. 3, 1998: NLDS Game Three: And now for the dumbest thing the Cubs ever did with Wood. Never mind that Wood missed the entire month of September with an elbow shredded so badly he’ll miss all of 1999. Never mind that the Cubs are already down two-games-to-none in a best-of-five NLDS to a 106-win Braves team. The Cubs haul him to the mound anyway, apparently thinking he’ll be some sort of magic elixir. He pitches well, allowing just one run in five innings, but that’s as far as he can go, and the Cubs lose, 6-2.
May 2, 2000: After missing all of 1999 and April 2000, Wood makes his return facing the same team he fanned 20 times in a game, Houston. He gets the win, allowing one run in six innings with four strikeouts. Oh yeah, in his first at bat he belts a two-run homer off Jose Lima.
June 16, 2000: I once heard that Bill James did a study showing that ballplayers tend to do a bit better on their birthdays than normal. Kerry Wood didn’t get that memo. On his 23rd birthday, Wood has a rough go of it. Against the Expos he allows four runs in five innings. Wood will have just one more birthday outing in his career and it’s among his worst. On June 16, 2002 Wood is tagged for eight runs on six walks (but just two hits) in four innings.
Sept. 6, 2000: Wood surrenders the first of three leadoff homers in the game when Rockies shortstop Neifi Perez goes deep against him in Chicago. He’ll later allow leadoff dingers to Ray Durham and Jimmy Rollins.
Sept. 22, 2000: Wood suffers through the shortest start of his career, lasting just 1.1 innings before getting yanked. While it’s short in terms of outs, it sure takes long enough as he walks eight of the 13 batters he faces. He walks in two runs and lets another score on a wild pitch against St. Louis.
May 25, 2001: Aside from his 20-K game, this is the best performance of Wood’s career. Against Milwaukee, Wood is nearly perfect, fanning 14 while surrendering just one hit and two walks in a 1-0 complete game victory. Mark Loretta lines a single to left against him to lead off the seventh to avoid the no-hitter. Wood’s Game Score is 97, which is higher than any other Cubs pitcher has ever attained in a nine-inning game.
Sept. 24, 2001: Pittsburgh’s Craig Wilson makes history against Kerry Wood when he belts a pinch-hit homer, Wilson’s seventh pinch-hit bomb of the year. It’s one of only two pinch-hit homers Wood ever allows.
April 26, 2002: It might be the best pitching performance by anyone starting against Kerry Wood when Dodger hurler Odalis Perez allows just one base runner in nine innings. The runner is Corey Patterson, who hits a leadoff single in the seventh—and is promptly erased in a double play. Wood and the rest of the Cubs staff don’t have it, as the team falls, 10-0.
June 22, 2002: Wood is supposed to be the starting pitcher for the Cubs this afternoon at Wrigley against the Cardinals, but then everyone gets the bad news. In a massive shock, star Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile died in his sleep the previous night, and today’s game is postponed. Wood will start tomorrow and lead the Cubs to an 8-3 game in a rather somber atmosphere in Chicago.
Sept. 2, 2002: Wood makes the history books with a four-strikeout inning against the Brewers. Wood owes it all to catcher Todd Hundley who lets not one but two swinging strike threes get away from him. Thus Milwaukee gets five outs in the frame. Other pitchers have had four Ks in one inning, but this is the only one to begin with a leadoff groundout. (Hundley also commits a fielding error.)
Aside from that, Wood enjoys his best game ever at the plate, going 2-for-4 with a home run and three RBIs as the Cubs win 17-4 (in a game they once led 17-0).
Sept. 8, 2002: Another start, another hit. Wood gets a hit for the fifth consecutive game, his best hitting streak ever. He’ll tie this mark with another five-game hitting streak in 2003.
March 31, 2003: For the first time in his career, Wood gets the honor of the Opening Day start. It goes as well as you can hope, with the Cubs pummeling the Mets 15-2. Wood throws only five innings, but then again it’s 10-2 when he leaves. Wood even gets an RBI single along the way. He’ll start next year’s Opening Day, too, and win that one, 7-4.
May 10, 2003: It’s time for another personal high for Kerry Wood—most pitches in one game. The oft-injured hurler unleashes 141 pitches in just seven innings against the Cardinals. He fans eight and walks three. There are just a lot of really deep at-bats. Most notably, opposing pitcher Woody Williams works Wood for 11 pitches before grounding out in the seventh. None of the 29 batters he faces sees just onepitch, and 18 last at least five pitches. It comes in a stretch where he throws 100 or more pitches 15 times in 16 starts, with 97 in the other one. Including the postseason, he’ll throw 4,008 pitches in 2003 and will never be that effective afterward.
June 7, 2003: Ouch. It’s one of the most regrettable plays of Wood’s career. In an interleague game against the Yankees, Wood collides with young first baseman Hee Seop Choi while going for a pop up. Choi is injured—so injured that an ambulance is brought onto the field to take Choi off. Wood is okay, but Choi never really recovers with the Cubs.
July 4, 2003: It’s a not-so-happy Independence Day for Wood, who according to Game Score has the worst start of his life. His line: 3 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 6 BB, and 1 K for a Game Score of 14. Predictably, Wood and the Cubs lose, 11-8 to the Cardinals.
July 15, 2003: Wood appears in his only All-Star Game. He pitches the fourth for the NL, fanning Edgar Martinez and Troy Glaus while allowing a single to Garrett Anderson. Wood will be selected to another All-Star Game later in his career, but he won’t appear in that one.
July 19, 2003: For only the second time in his career, Wood wins a 1-0 game with a complete game shutout. Wood allows just two hits while walking five in his victory over the Marlins.
July 20, 2003: For the second straight outing, Wood gets tagged for a grand slam home run. Last time it was Bobby Abreu and today it’s Edgar Alfonzo. Wood allows just four slams in his career, and these are the last pair of them. The Cubs lose both outings.
Aug. 11, 2003: In the top of the seventh Wood fans Jeff Kent for career strikeout No. 1,000. It’s taken him just 853 innings to do it, which makes him the fastest person to reach this milestone.
Sept. 30, 2003: NLDS Game One: Wood brings his A-game versus the Braves today. He fans 11 and allows two runs on just two hits to deliver a win to the Cubs to kick off the postseason.
Oct. 5, 2003: NLDS Game Five: In the winner-take-all game, Wood twirls his second straight gem of the postseason. He allows one run in eight innings as the Cubs win, 5-1. It clinches their only postseason series victory since 1908.
Oct. 10, 2003: NLCS Game Three: For six innings, Wood is on top of things, holding the Marlins to just one run. Then he melts down in the seventh and Florida takes the lead. Chicago manages to come back and win in extra innings, 5-4.
Oct. 15, 2003: NLCS Game Seven: Clearly, it’s the biggest game of Wood’s life. However, after pitching terrific in the postseason so far, he doesn’t quite have it tonight. He allows three runs to the first four batters faced thanks to a triple, walk, and homer. Then he calms down and shuts down Florida completely for several innings. He also helps his own cause, belting a two-run homer in the second inning to tie the game in the game in a signature Kerry Wood moment.
However, he hits a wall in the fifth inning, and ends up allowing three runs there and another in the sixth. Wood, and the Cubs, lose, ending their dreams of claiming a pennant.
April 30, 2004: More than any other batter, Wood owns Reggie Sanders. In 16 at bats lifetime against Wood, Sanders fans 10 times. But give the devil his due, Sanders gets his only hit against Wood here, a solo home run. He also grounds out and fans against Wood. Though Wood fans 10, the Cubs lose 4-3 to the Cardinals.
Aug. 8, 2004: It’s Wood at his least Wood-iest. He pitches six full innings for the Cubs but doesn’t record a single strikeout. It’s by far the longest outing of his career without a K.
Aug. 14, 2004: Wood has an all-around dominant day. On the mound, he pi ches eight shutout innings against the Dodgers. At the plate, Wood smashes a home run.
Aug. 22, 2004: For Wood, the anti-Reggie Sanders is Jeff Kent. The second baseman owns Wood: He’ll post a 1.514 OPS against him by batting 13-for-37 with five walks, three doubles, and five homers. Today is the best Wood will ever be against Kent. Wood fans him the first two times Kent comes up, and then hits him the next time. Wood has 12 starts against Kent’s teams, and Kent reaches base in all of them. Despite his success against Kent, Wood can’t get out of the fifth inning today.
Oct. 1, 2004: Well, that was embarrassing. For the only time in his career, Wood serves up a gopher ball to the opposing pitcher—Atlanta’s Mike Hampton. At least it was a good hitting pitcher.
April 8, 2005: I have no idea how complete records for this stat are, but officially Wood pulls of the last regular season pickoff in his career today when he nabs Milwaukee’s Brady Clark in the third inning.
June 6, 2006: For the 178th and final time, Kerry Wood gets the start. Against Houston, Wood has to leave in the fourth inning with an injury. He won’t appear on a big league mound for the next 14 months. His remaining 257 games will all be in relief.
Oct. 6, 2007: NLDS Game Three: In the Cubs’ tepid performance while getting swept by Arizona in the NLDS, Wood gets the unenviable assignment of mop- up duty in the last game. He pitches the ninth with the Cubs trailing 4-1 and promptly gives up a homer for an insurance run as the Diamondbacks complete their sweep.
April 3, 2008: He’s worked as a reliever in the past, but today Kerry Wood makes his debut as a closer. Against the Brewers, he fans two and allows a hit in a scoreless inning of relief for the save. He’ll be the closer this year and for a bit with Cleveland.
Oct. 2, 2008: NLDS Game Two: Wood has spent his entire career with the Cubs so far, but his contract is up at the end of the year, and this proves to be his final appearance before heading elsewhere. It comes in a one-sided sweep of the Cubs by the Dodgers. Wood pitches the top of the ninth with the Cubs trailing 9-1 and surrenders a run to make it 10-1.
Indians tenure
April 21, 2009: Cleveland’s defense pulls off a double play in six straight innings—and then the Indians put Wood in the game. After a DP in the third through eighth innings, Wood fans two to avoid maintaining the streak in his inning of scoreless relief.
June 23, 2010: In the bottom of the ninth, Jimmy Rollinsconnects on a Wood offering for a game-ending two-run walk-off home run. It’s the only walk-off blast Wood ever surrenders. As it happens, Rollins also hit one of the only three leadoff shots against Wood. This won’t be a good year for Wood in Cleveland, which is why the Indians send him to the Yankees in midseason.
Yankees tenure
Sept. 10, 2010: Wood makes a bit of history. He pitches a scoreless seventh for the Yankees against Texas, making him one of 19 pitchers who will go in the game (11 Rangers, eight Yankees). New York loses, 6-5 in 13 frames.
Sept. 26, 2010: As bad as Wood was in Cleveland, he’s fantastic in New York. Today marks his 21st consecutive appearance without allowing a run. He’s fanned 24 while allowing 12 hits and 13 walks in 23.1 innings in that span. He’ll allow a run in his next time out (his last one of the season), and had allowed a run in his second game with New York, but that’s it.
Oct. 7, 2010: ALDS Game Two: Wood pitches in all three games of New York’s sweep of the Twins, but in the other two games he pitches fairly poorly. Today he delivers, fanning two in an inning of scoreless relief.
Oct. 20, 2010: ALCS Game Five: Wood pitches in four of the six games of the Yankees’ unsuccessful ALCS against the Rangers, and this is his best performance. He pitches a full two innings allowing one hit while fanning three. The man who singles is later picked off, allowing Wood to face the minimum six batters in two innings.
Cubs return
April 2, 2011: Wood makes his triumphant return to the Cubs today. He went to the Cubs despite the fact he could’ve gotten more money from other teams (including the White Sox), but decided he’d rather have some involvement with the Cubs now and after his playing days. He walks the first batter he faces but recovers to fan two others in one inning of middle relief.
April 7, 2012: That must be frustrating. Wood surrenders a home run to Washington second baseman Danny Espinosa to conclude a 10-pitch at bat. It’s the longest battle that ever ends in a home run against Wood. At one point, Espinosa fouls off five straight pitches. While Wood has had a rough go of it in 2012, at the time of his retirement announcement this is the sole homer he’s allowed on the year.
April 11, 2012: Wood has had a terrible time of it in 2012, but even the sad, bad final season has its moment. Pitching one inning of relief against the Brewers, Wood strikes out the side one last time.
May 8, 2012: You can kind of tell Wood is thinking of calling it a career. Entering a game in the eighth against Atlanta tied 1-1, Wood allows two runs His ERA rises to 14.54. On his way back to the dugout, a frustrated Wood throws his glove and hat into the stands. After the game, when reporters ask him about his tossing, an unusually churlish Wood curtly tells the reporter that’s irrelevant and walks away. The inability to get outs is getting to him.
May 18, 2012: In the morning, news breaks that Kerry Wood plans to retire during this weekend’s Chicago Crosstown Classic series against the White Sox. Prior to game time, it’s reported that Wood wants to appear on the field one more time this series.
Well, in the eighth inning Wood is called on to face Dayan Viciedo with one out. Wood fans him, and is then pulled from the game after facing his one batter. He gets to hear the roar from the crowd as he walks off the field. And that ends his career.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraBraves 7, Marlins 0: Brandon Beachy: the best pitcher you haven't heard of. He shuts out the Marlins on five hits and ups his record to 5-1 with a 1.33 ERA.
Giants 7, Cardinals 5: Bad Cardinal defense and a little more offense than usual gave the Giants some runs on a day when Matt Cain wasn't at his best. But let's not totally blame the D. Adam Wainwright continues to be shaky, walking four and allowing six hits in five and two-thirds.
Pirates 5, Nationals 3: Two solo shots for Andrew McCutchen and a two-run job for Rod Barajas. James McDonald struck out 11 in five and two-thirds. The Nats struck out 14 times overall, adding a nice breeze to what was already a beautiful evening in our nation's capital.
Blue Jays 4, Yankees 1: AP headline said this win gave the Blue Jays the "sweep" over the Yankees. Bull. I don't recognize anything as a sweep in a series that is less than three games. Just one of my rules. Maybe I'll call it a "dusting," but we have to be conservative when it comes to broom metaphors. Anyway: Jose Bautista hit a homer. Yan Gomes went 2 for 3 in his major league debut, making him the all-time Brazilian hits leader. Congratulations, Yan.
Twins 4, Tigers 3: I told people last night that I'd allow one exception to the "no sweeps in a two-game series" rule, and that's for the Twins, who can claim it. Really, it's all they have.
Red Sox 5, Rays 3: My friend Jason of DRaysBay posted the cutest little picture of his little daughter on Facebook last night with the caption "getting ready to watch the Rays beat the Red Sox." Poor girl will now never trust her father. This is why I always tell my children to prepare for inevitable, crippling disappointment and despair. In other news, Bobby Valentine used five relievers to pitch three and a third innings.
Diamondbacks 9, Rockies 7: Justin Upton hit a two-run homer in the ninth that proved to be the game winner. But the best part of this game was when a bunch of bees swarmed the stadium, taking over a camera bay next to the Rockies' dugout in the fifth inning necessitating the calling of a beekeeper to vacuum them up. Which is better than dogs, I guess. And much better than the dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you.
White Sox 6, Angels 1: Wait, I thought Chris Sale (5 IP, 5 H, 1 ER 7K) was supposed to be closing now or something? Gosh, I'm so confused. In my defense, outside of Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko, the White Sox sort of bore me, so I don't play too close attention. I bet if you go back, Gleeman has done 75 percent of the White Sox posts on this blog. Sorry, don't mean to seem mean or biased or anything, just being honest.
Mets 9, Reds 4: Saw this described as "the Mets score nine unanswered runs." I've never liked that phrase. Such run binges are always answered. Just with lots of expletives and groans as opposed to opposing team runs. Also, saw yesterday a New York writer saying that Bobby Parnell doesn't have the closer's mentality. But he does, apparently, know how to win, getting the decision in this one. I wonder if that's a related skill.
Orioles 5, Royals 3: Just gonna say how much I love that the Orioles are 4.5 up on the fourth place Yankees and 6.5 up on the last place Red Sox. Viva chaos.
Athletics 5, Rangers 4: The A's won it in extra innings. But they should have had it in regulation. They didn't thanks to a blown call in the sixth where the ump said that Brandon McCarthy trapped a popup rather than caught it which turned a would-be double play with McCarthy doubling off Craig Gentry at third into Gentry scoring. The AP wrote this in its game story:
Melvin ran from the dugout to argue, gesturing repeatedly at Diaz before he was finally thrown out. Replays were inconclusive.
Every single beat writer who was there and people I knew watching the game live -- Texas fans included -- thought McCarthy caught the ball. So chalk up Ryan Cook's win, Brian Fuentes' save and everything else that happened in the 10th to the Human Element.
Indians 6, Mariners 5: The M's lost a 4-0 lead in the seventh and a 5-4 lead in the 11th. Carlos Santana had the walk-off single.
Phillies 8, Cubs 7: Closer than it should have been. When Roy Halladay left, it was a 5-run lead. The Cubs scored four in the ninth off Jacob Diekman, though, to make it at least moderately interesting and to force Jonathan Papelbon to come in for the save. Carlos Ruiz continues to be a beast, going 4 for 5 with three RBI.
Astros 4, Brewers 0: J.A. Happ and the pen combine for a shutout. Jed Lowrie homered and Jose Altuve rapped out three hits.
Dodgers 8, Padres 1: Aaron Harang shut out the Padres for seven innings. A rejuvenated-looking Bobby Abreu had an RBI triple and a double last night. He's now 11-for-35 (.314) with six extra-base hits in 12 games since signing with the Dodgers.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Thursday, May 17, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRockies 6, Diamondbacks 1: I took my bike out for a spin for the first time in a while last evening. It was a nice ride on a nice night. At least apart from the crazy, over-the-handlebars wreck I got into at the corner of Alpath and Johnston Road. There were no apparent injuries at the time -- not even a scrape -- and I got up and rode away before anyone saw me. But as I went to bed last night my ankle became very grouchy and it hurts like the dickens this morning. It's basically telling me "stick to the treadmill, old man." Meanwhile, a nearly 50 year-old man in Colorado pitched effective ball into the seventh inning and drove in two by hauling ass down to first on an infield single. Sigh.
Rangers 4, Athletics 1: I watched a lot of this and I can offer you my expert opinion: Yu Darvish is pretty good. He moves his record up to 6-1 after seven and two-thirds innings of one-run ball. Bonus: at one point during the game the Rangers announcers had an extended conversation about the rapper B.o.B., which is something I didn't need to hear.
Indians 9, Mariners 3: It's not often you see a line like this from Felix Hernandez: 3.2 IP, 10 H, 8 R, 6 ER, 3 BB and only three strikeouts. Eric Wedge after the game: "Felix just had an off-day. He's human. I think sometimes we forget about that." It's easy to forget that, actually. Normally it takes only twenty, thirty questions, cross-referenced, to figure that out. With Hernandez it took 100. Wait ... he doesn't know, does he!
Marlins 8, Braves 4: Miami stays hot, notching its 12th win in 15 games in the month of May. Mike Minor has another ugly start for the Braves. Freddi Gonzalez gave him a vote of confidence after the game, but I see Gwinnett in his future.
Reds 6, Mets 3: Todd Frazier hit two homers. The second off of D.J. Carrasco, who got released right after the game. A heckuva couple of nights for Carrasco.
Astros 8, Brewers 3: Carlos Lee drove in three and Bud Norris pitched seven strong. The Astros -- who were supposed to be historically bad -- and the Brewers -- who were supposed to contend -- have the same 16-21 record.
Blue Jays 8, Yankees 1: Hiroki Kuroda was shellacked and Kyle Drabek ... wasn't. Homers from Edwin Encarnacio, Jose Bautista, Kelly Johnson and J.C. Arencibia.
Nationals 7, Pirates 4: Adam LaRoche had a double, a homer and four driven in. Gio Gonzalez struck out ten in seven innings. Four runs is something of an offensive outburst for the Pirates lately.
Phillies 9, Cubs 2: It was tied up heading into the eighth and then Philly scored seven runs in the last two innings. Hector Luna hit a grand slam and Carlos Ruiz hit a homer of his own. Meanwhile, Placido Polanco left the game in the seventh with a knee contusion. Because the Phillies need more injured infielders. The Phillies are at .500.
Twins 11, Tigers 7: Is it time to press the panic button yet? Kinda feels like it. As was prophesied in the spring, horrible defense -- every member of the Tigers infield committed an error -- made Rick Porcello's night harder than it needed to be, which is saying something given that he kinda stunk anyway. Oh, and Austin Jackson left with an injury, and he's been hitting better than just about anyone on that squad.
Rays 2, Red Sox 1: There was a scary moment when Will Rhymes passed out after taking first base upon being hit by a pitch on the forearm in the bottom of the eighth. As Marc Topkin reports, when he came-to, the medical staff asked him what his name was and he said "Batman." Granted, Batman didn't even pass out when the leader of the Mutants nearly killed him in "Dark Knight Returns," so no fastball is gonna give him trouble, but we'll give Rhymes credit for pluck.
Padres 4, Dodgers 2: Chase Headley homered, doubled and drove in three. If was his fifth homer of the year. Last year he hit only four.
Orioles 4, Royals 3: 0 for 6 while stranding a bunch of runners through the first 14 innings? No worries, Adam Jones hit a homer in the 15th to lift the O's to victory in a mini-marathon. I say mini, because they had that 17 inning game against the Red Sox less than two weeks ago. I guess it's their thing.
Cardinals 4, Giants 1: David Freese hit a go-ahead solo home run in the seventh and Skip Shumaker pinch hit in the eighth and delivered with a two-run double. Jaime Garcia struck out nine.
Angels 7, White Sox 2: More signs of life from Albert Pujols. Three hits on Tuesday and a three-run homer in this one. And a study in contrasts: Jerome Williams allowed ten hits and only two runs. Gavin Floyd allowed ten hits and seven runs.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
10th anniversary: Giambi’s walk-off slam
Posted by Chris JaffeTen years ago, Jason Giambi had perhaps the greatest game of his life. It was certainly the most clutch at-bat he ever had in a regular-season game, and it served as his New York Yankee coming out.
In the offseason, Giambi moved from Oakland to the greener pastures of the Bronx. The 2000 AL MVP became a free agent after the 2001 season and signed a big payday with the Yankees, who had won four of the previous six world titles. They could pay him the most and give him the best chance at October glory.
In New York, he got off to a slow start in the first week of the year. Though he soon recovered, the pressure was on. He was playing well, but not MVP-well, and the Yankees ended April a game behind the Red Sox in the AL East. For the Yankees, that wasn’t up to snuff.
At the quarter post, Giambi had eight homers with a .286 batting average and .385 on-base percentage. That’s nice, but not what the Yankees were paying for. He needed a big day, and that’s when the calendar turned to May 17, 2002.
The Yankees hosted the upstart Minnesota Twins that day. Early on, it looked like a laugher, with New York holding a comfortable 8-3 lead. Then Minnesota stormed back with a six-run inning and kept their 9-8 lead until the ninth. At that time, veteran Yankee Bernie Williams belted a game-tying homer to send things into extra innings.
Neither team could break the stalemate. It went on inning after inning, with the score still knotted, 9-9. Four innings passed with neither team able to score a run.
So far, Giambi had been a complete non-factor. He had an early double and an extra-inning single, but neither safety led to any runs. After 13 frames, he was 2-for-5 on the day. Not bad, but nothing memorable.
The 14th would be very memorable. First, Minnesota broke the deadlock in the top of the inning. Behind four singles, a walk, and an error, Minnesota scored thrice to seemingly ice the game with a 12-9 lead.
However, the Yankees weren’t about to give up. In the bottom of the frame, three of the first four Yankees reached base, loading them up with just one out.
With the bases loaded, Giambi strode to the plate with the game on the line. He didn’t make anyone wait, bashing the first pitch out of the park for a game-winning, walk-off grand slam.
Walk-off grand slams are inherently cool. A walk-off slam with a team trailing by three is even cooler. A walk-off slam with a team trailing by three in the 14th inning? Yeah, that’s the coolest of all. And it’s what Jason Giambi did exactly 10 years ago today.
Giambi ended up hitting well over .300 with a superlative OBP and 41 homers in 2002, but then his performance fell off. Based on his numbers, his contract probably wasn’t worth it, but then again, the Yankees can afford to overpay. And no one can ever take away what happened on May 17, 2002.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something occurring X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to skim over things.
Day-versaries
5,000 days since Jeff Bagwell finally hits his first career grand slam. It’s his 218th home run.
5,000 days since McGwire sets the new all-time single-season home run record when he smashes his 62nd homer of 1998. In that same game, J.D. Drew makes his big league debut.
5,000 days since Eric Chavez makes his big league debut.
8,000 days since the Braves hire Bobby Cox as their new manager.
9,000 days since Len Barker plays in his final game.
15,000 days since Dodger skipper Walter Alston becomes the ninth manager to win 1,500 games.
Anniversaries
1882 Charlie Buffinton, a pitcher who would go on to win around 200 games, makes his big league debut.
1887 Pud Galvin, the first pitcher to win 300 games (and also the first to lose 300), gives up the only grand slam of his career.
1892 Louisville Colonels (a major league team back then) sign Hughie Jennings. He’ll go on to a Hall of Fame career.
1893 Mickey Welch, a 300-game winning pitcher, plays his final game.
1903 Cool Papa Bell, Negro Leaguer and Hall of Famer, is born. Legend has it he was so fast he could turn the switch off and get into bed before the room was dark. There’s truth to that legend, of a sort. Staying at one motel, he realized there was a short in the wiring causing a delay from switch to lights. Taking advantage of that, he bet his roomie he could beat the speed of dark—and then he did. And that’s how one legendary story began.
1912 The Red Sox have the official dedication of Fenway Park. They could’ve done it earlier, but management figures if they have one day for its grand opening and another for the dedication, they can sell more tickets. It’s a good idea, but Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate. It doesn’t rain enough to cancel the game, but it does rain enough to dampen attendance.
1913 The grandstand section of Comiskey Park collapses. Oops.
1913 Washington purchases veteran pitcher workhorse George Mullin from Detroit.
1915 Zip Zabel of the Cubs pitches the longest relief stint ever: 18.1 innings. He gets the win in a 19-inning, 4-3 Chicago triumph over Brooklyn.
1920 The New York Times reports that at the end of the year the Giants will evict their Polo Ground tenants, the Yankees. This report will be rescinded a few days later, but the Yankees aren’t long for the Polo Grounds either way.
1921 Hall of Famer Burleigh Grimes allows a personal-high 18 hits in one game. His line: 9 IP, 18 H, 7 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K.
1921 Iron man infielder Everett Scott plays his 700th straight game.
1927 Bob Smith of the Braves becomes the last pitcher to toss over 21 innings in game: 22 IP, 20 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 9 BB, 5 K. Unfortunately for him, it’s all for naught as the Cubs win, 4-3, and Smith gets pegged for the loss. The Cubs were just three days off an 18-inning game, too. In this game, the Cubs used three pitchers; most notably, Bob Osborn pitching 14 innings of shutout relief for the win.
1929 Pete Alexander loses his 200th game. He’s 366-200 for his career at this point.
1934 Rogers Hornsby hits his 300th career home run. He’s the first National Leaguer to do so, and third overall, behind Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
1934 Former Phillies great Chuck Klein returns to the Baker Bowl for the first time since becoming a Cub. He bangs out two home runs.
1939 It’s the first time a baseball game is televised: Princeton against Columbia in the Baker Bowl.
1940 Chuck Klein gets his 2,000th hit in only 1,576 games played. He is one of the fastest to get there.
1941 May 17, 1941 is a legal holiday in the state of Pennsylvania and city of Philadelphia to honor longtime A’s owner and manager Connie Mack.
1944 Boston’s Hall of Fame second baseman Bobby Doerr hits for the cycle.
1945 For the fourth straight day, rain causes the postponement of all AL games.
1947 Ellis Kinder gets very lucky, or is almost extremely unlucky, depending on how you look at it. While he’s pitching at Fenway Park, a seagull flies by and poops on the mound, narrowly missing him.
1957 Pascual Perez, Braves pitcher, is born.
1958 Stan Williams, a hard-throwing pitcher known for aiming at people’s heads, makes his big league debut.
1959 In the second game of a doubleheader, Harmon Killebrew hits his fifth multi-home-run game of the month. Not bad, especially given it’s only midway through the month.
1959 Jim Perry, pitching in relief, surrenders the only walk-off walk of his career. And he can’t blame his fellow pitchers: he’s the guy who loaded the bases this inning, too.
1959 A Roberto Clemente home run ball juuuuuust misses hitting the Wrigley Field scoreboard. It flies a little to the left of it. To this day, no home run ball has ever hit it.
1960 The Dodgers release long-time right fielder Carl Furillo.
1961 Stan Williams out-duels Braves ace Warren Spahn and himself in 2-1 victory over 11 innings. He holds the Braves to only four hits but walks 12 batters while striking out 10. It’s one of only six times in the last 90 years a pitcher walks 12 and still gets the win.
1961 Roger Maris hits his first Yankee Stadium home run of the year and No. 4 overall. It’s a slow start, but he’ll pick up the pace as the year continues.
1961 Veteran hitter Walt Dropo appears in his last big league contest.
1963 Bob Allison becomes the first Twin to belt three home runs in one game.
1963 Don Nottebart tosses the first no-hitter in Astros history (or Colt .45s, as they were called back then): Houston 4, Philadelphia 1. He walks three while fanning eight in the game.
1965 Dodgers skipper Walter Alston wins his 1,000th game: His career record is 1,000-754.
1965 New York Mets release former Yankee legend Yogi Berra.
1967 Tom Seaver surrenders the only walk-off home run of his career. Joe Torre hits it. It’s the third of four career walk-off blasts by Torre.
1969 Pants Rowland, manager of the 1917 White Sox world champion club, dies at age 90.
1970 Hank Aaron laces out his 3,000th career hit. It’s only taken him 2,460 games. He’s the ninth person to have 3,000 hits, and the first to combine 3,000 hits with 500 homers (though Willie Mays will join him in the 3,000 hit club later that year).
1971 Johnny Bench hits his 100th home run.
1971 Atlanta’s Ralph Garr homers twice in extra innings of one game, in the 10th and 12th innings.
1971 The Red Sox sign free agent pitcher Luis Tiant, whom the Braves cut two days previously. Tiant will go 1-7 for the Red Sox this year but then turn things around dramatically, going 96-58 over the next five seasons.
1971 One of the most famous blooper plays in baseball history occurs. Washington infielder Tom McCraw hit a pop-up to shallow left-center, and three Cleveland defenders converged to catch it but instead ran into each other. John Lowenstein, Vada Pinson, and Jack Heidermann ran into each other at full speed, and all had to leave the game after the play. McCraw got an unlikely inside-the-park home run out of it.
1973 Bobby Valentine ruins his playing career. He tries to scale a wall to catch a Dick Green home run blast, and his spikes catch in it. Result: fractured leg.
1974 Hank Aaron gets his first sacrifice hit since July 27, 1961, when he bunts over Dusty Baker against Dodger reliever Mike Marshall in the eighth inning of tied game. Aaron went 7,863 consecutive plate appearances between sacrifices.
1975 Phillies reliever Gene Garber ties a modern record by recording his third win in three days.
1976 The Cubs trade Andre Thornton to Expos for Larry Biitner and Steve Renko
1977 After reaching on a fielder’s choice in his 3,176th career plate appearances, Oakland A’s catcher Earl Williams steals second, his first ever stolen base. The embarrassed pitcher-catcher combination is Ron Guidry and Thurman Munson. Making this especially odd, Guidry’s a lefty, so you’d figure he could do a better job holding the runner. Then again, when the runner hasn’t stolen a base in over 3,000 trips to the plate, you probably aren’t thinking of him as a threat.
1977 In the very same game that Earl Williams steals his first base, his teammate Vida Blue pitches 13 innings, the longest outing of his career, but gets stuck with a no-decision as the game keeps going on. His line: 13 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 6 K. The Yankees win in 15 frames, 5-2.
1978 Carlos Pena is born. In the internet era, he has transformed from hot prospect, to disappointment, to washout, to comeback player, to aging vet.
1978 The Dodgers trade Glenn Burke to the A’s for Billy North, reputedly because Burke was gay.
1978 Lee Lacy sets a record with his third straight pinch-hit home run.
1979 Games don’t come much wilder than this: Phillies 23, Cubs 22 (10). Philly led 7-0, and then the Cubs came back to make it 7-6. Then the second inning began—really, that’s how it started. The Phillies scored the game’s next 10 runs, but the Cubs came back behind a trio of Dave Kingman homers, but still lost.
Yes, it was windy in Wrigley that day. The wind blew out so strongly to straightaway center that supposedly Phillies announcer Richie Ashburn said, “Get the married men off the field!” at the beginning of his broadcast.
1982 Dixie Walker, star outfielder from the 1940s, dies.
1985 On the 12th anniversary of the play that ruined his promising playing career, Bobby Valentine manages his first game in the majors.
1985 After 990 career at-bats, Jack Perconte hits his first home run.
1985 St. Louis trades outfielder Lonnie Smith to the Royals.
1986 Fred McGriff makes his big league debut.
1988 Greg Maddux has the longest outing of his career: 10.2 innings and 167 pitches. He gets the loss.
1992 Gary Carter joins Bob Boone and Carlton Fisk in the 2,000-games-caught club.
1992 Wade Boggs gets his 2,000th hit in only 1,515 games. That's even faster than Chuck Klein.
1993 Dave Winfield hits his 500th double.
1993 Seattle’s Mike Blowers hits a grand slam in his second consecutive game.
1994 Veteran skipper Buck Rodgers manages in his last game.
1994 It takes 12 pitches, but it’s well worth it for Kenny Lofton. On the dozenth pitch of an at-bat against Cal Eldred, he smacks a home run. It’s the only time he took more than eight pitches to homer.
1996 Jermaine Dye, MVP of the 2005 World Series, makes his big league debut.
1996 In just the 92nd game of his career, Jason Giambi lays down his second, and last, career sacrifice hit. Giambi does advance the runner, but that just allows the opposition to intentionally walk Mark McGwire, which in turn sets up an inning ending GIDP. Giambi has had over 8,100 PA since then without any sacrifice bunts.
1997 Kenny Lofton enjoys his only 5-for-5 game. He had four other five-hit games, but all with six at-bats.
1998 David Wells tosses a perfect game in Yankee Stadium in a 4-0 win over the Twins.
1999 Larry Walker hits his only inside-the-park home run.
1999 Edgar Martinez scores five runs in a game for the only time in his career.
2000 Cal Ripken passes up Hank Aaron by grounding into his 329th double play, the new record.
2002 Erubiel Durazo hits three homers for Arizona in one game.
2005 Mike Hargrove manages his 2,000th game. He’s 1,011-987 for his career so far.
2007 Curt Schilling allows seven doubles in one game. For most pitchers that would be a personal high, but not Schilling. He once allowed nine doubles in one game.
2007 John Mabry plays in his last game.
2009 Ivan Rodriguez hits his 300th home run.
2009 Joe Maddon screws up filling out the lineup card, forcing Tampa to go without a designated hitter. As a result, pitcher Andy Sonnanstine gets an RBI double in a 7-5 win over the Indians. Go figure.
2009 Mike Pelfrey balks three times in one game, the first time any pitcher has done that in 15 years (when Al Leiter did it).
2010 Arizona releases veteran reliever Bob Howry.
2010 The Red Sox and Yankees have a titanic battle. The Yankees go up 5-0 only to see Boston storm back to a 9-7 lead. The Yankees get a pair of two-run homers in the bottom of the ninth to win it, though, 11-9.
2010 Forget walk-off homers. In the bottom of the 11th of the Rays-Indians game, Tampa shortstop Jason Bartlett does something much rarer. He lays down a walk-off sacrifice bunt to win the game, 4-3. Most walk-off sacrifices are actually defensive errors, but this is the genuine thing, a sac with runners on the corners in which the winning run scores. It’s not a physical error by Indians pitcher Jamey Wright, who has a brain fart and throws to first for the fielder’s choice despite the winning run scoring.
2011 Legendary Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew dies at the age of 74.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRed Sox 5, Mariners 0: That Josh Beckett is such a disgrace! He's poisoning this team, I tell you, poisoning them! Oh, wait, he pitched well? Seven shutout innings while striking out nine? Well, in that case, I stand corrected.
Cardinals 7, Cubs 6: Jason Motte vultured a win when he gave up a tying homer to Alfonso Soriano in the ninth but then stayed on to be the pitcher of record when Yadier Molina hit the game winning single in the bottom half of the inning. After the game Mike Matheny said ""There's going to be some loud music playing in the clubhouse, and there's going to be some crazy stuff on the plane, too." Somewhere, wherever he is, Tony La Russa had a pain shoot up his side.
Phillies 4, Astros 3: As we noted yesterday, Hunter Pence hit the walk-off homer. But the real play of the day came from umpire Bob Davidson, who in ejecting Charlie Manuel for no apparent reason apart from his own combative insecurity, truly lived up to his reputation yesterday. Oh, and Cliff Lee was pretty amazing despite the no decision.
Tigers 10, White Sox 8: Ugly all around. An eight-spot for the Tigers in the sixth inning helped them win it, but that was sandwiched by another bad, bullpen-stressing Max Scherzer start and a Jose Valverde injury on the other side. Chicago of course feels bad about it too, what with giving up a six-run lead.
Padres 6, Nationals 1: Strasburg was cold from the get-go. Just icy. The fireballer had to be hot about how bad his start was. Really burned him up, I'm sure. Oh, and Bryce Harper hit another homer, but he's old news compared to Strasburg's burning bits and pieces.
Indians 5, Twins 0: Derek Lowe's shutout -- and really, his entire season so far -- is basically this to all Braves fans who enjoyed him losing 17 games last year. Not that we're crying because we're doing just fine without him, but still. As for the Twins: currently on a worse pace than the 1962 Mets, so there's that.
Angels 4, Athletics 0: Albert Pujols broke out, going 3 for 4 with two RBI singles. Ervin Santana pitched seven and two-thirds shutout innings.
Brewers 8, Mets 0: The Travis Ishikawa and Zack Greinke show. The former drove in five with the help of two homers. The latter shut the Mets out for seven innings, striking out seven. Oh, and right after Rickie Weeks hit a homer, Ryan Braun was plunked on the next pitch by D.J. Carrasco. Umpire Gary Darling ejected Carrasco. Darling must be an HBT reader and knows that intentional plunkings should not be tolerated. Good man.
Marlins 6, Pirates 2: Omar Infante went 4 for 5 and is hitting .325/.350/.598. Remember when everyone made fun of him making the All-Star team a couple of years ago. Tell me: how many teams wouldn't want that kind of production from their second basemen right now? Josh Johnson: two runs over seven innings for his first win in over a year.
Rays 4, Blues Jays 3: Down 3-0 after four innings, the Rays rallied and David Price won his fifth, retiring 12 of the final 13 he faced. And then there was ugliness, as Brett Lawrie was ejected after losing his sh** and throwing his batting helmet at the umpire. Then manager John Farrell got ejected too. Then:
Police and stadium security were seen pointing into the crowd after an exchange between fans and umpires as the crew headed off the field through the visitor's dugout.
Canadian players and fans? Acting threateningly? Unpossible! Enjoy your suspension, Mr. Lawrie.
Braves 6, Reds 2: Tim Hudson allowed two runs over seven innings and the Braves had no problems holding the 6-0 lead they had after only four innings. Why are the Braves winning so much? The top seven of last night's lineup sported OBPs as follows: .399, .374, .368, .360, .331. .348, .362.
Orioles 5, Yankees 2: Chen outduels Sabathia. Guessing that's the only time I'm gonna ever write that.
Royals 7, Rangers 4: The last time we saw Vin Mazzaro throw a pitch that counted he was in the process of giving up 14 runs to the Indians in what was probably the worst single-game performance by a pitcer in baseball history. Last night: surprisingly repectable: he gave up three runs in five innings, which isn't bad against that Ranger lineup.
Diamondbacks 5, Dodgers 1: Weird: Andre Ethier started in center, which is something he has never done. Chad Billingsley continues to struggle. The Dodgers' five-game winning streak ends.
Rockies 5, Giants 4: The Rockies blew a 4-1 lead in the eighth inning, but Marco Scutaro's ninth inning homer broke the 4-4 tie.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraNationals 8, Padres 5: Bryce Harper golfed one more than 400 feet to straightaway center for his first ever major league homer. He also struck out on four pitches to Joe Thatcher and launched a really loud f-bomb. I love him for both reasons, frankly. And I love how the back end of the Nats bullpen continues to struggle. Henry Rodriguez came in with a three-run lead in the ninth and walked the bases loaded. Sean Burnett came in and induced a 1-2-3 double play to end it, but man, Davey has to figure out what to do about Rodriguez. Guy throws a billion miles per hour but he has no idea where it's going half the time.
Reds 3, Braves 1: Jonny Venters: a lot closer to mortal this year than last. Brandon Phillips knocked a double off him as the Reds plated two in the eighth to break a 1-1 tie. Then Chris Heisey drove in Phillips with a double of his own. I was blacked out from watching this one and didn't know what was going on until the ninth when I saw on the scoreboard that Livan Hernandez entered the game. He's the Braves' living white flag.
Rays 7, Blues Jays 1: Good news: the Rays win. Bad news: Jeff Niemann was knocked out in the first inning after taking a grounder to his ankle. Cesar Ramos and the bullpen brigade came to the rescue.
Mets 3, Brewers 1: Milwaukee mustered only four hits off Miguel Batista, who threw seven shutout innings. No offense to Batista, but the Brewers need to take a long look in the mirror after getting stifled like that by a pitcher like that.
Red Sox 6, Mariners 1: Jon Lester pitched a complete game, allowing only one run. Four in a row for Boston.
Pirates 3, Marlins 2: My daddy said "son you're gonna drive me to drinkin' if you don't start games with old Brad Lincoln." Um, let's forget I said that. Anyway: Lincoln allowed two runs in six innings after switching from starting to the pen.
Phillies 5, Astros 1: Placido Polanco is in a season-long funk, but a homer gave him his 2000th career hit. One of the more under-the-radar 2000-hit players in big league history, I'd reckon. Joe Blanton continues his nice recent work, allowing one run on six hits in seven innings.
Indians 5, Twins 4: Jeanmar Gomez pitched seven strong innings but his bullpen betrayed him. Shin-Soo Choo came through in the ninth with the go-ahead single.
Cubs 6, Cardinals 4: The Cards have cooled off big time, dropping their fourth straight. The Cubs finally scored some runs in a Ryan Dempster start, but not all when he was in the game. Meanwhile Dempster himself allowed four. Bryan LaHair went 3 for 4 and hit a two-run homer.
Royals 3, Rangers 1: Bruce Chen and four relievers douse the scorching Rangers lineup. A Nelson Cruz homer was all that was doin' for Texas.
Yankees 8, Orioles 5: Ivan Nova was first ineffective and then injured, spraining his right ankle while fielding a tapper back to the mound. the Yankees pen hurled three and two-thirds innings of shutout ball, however, while a Mark Teixeira homer led the late Yankees charge. A-Rod, Robinson Cano and Teixeira were a combined 7 for 14 with two RBI and seven runs scored. That's the sort of middle-of-the-order production New York hadn't been getting in the early going.
White Sox 7, Tigers 5: Detroit had a 5-2 lead but then starter Drew Smyly ran out of gas and reliever Luke Putkonen -- who if you asked me before I saw this box score, I would have said wasn't a real person -- unraveled. Detroit is now under .500. Dayan Vicido drove in four on a two-run homer and a two-run single. Adam Dunn homered again too and is slugging over .600 on the season.
Giants 3, Rockies 2: Buster Posey and Brett Pill RBI singles in the eighth bring the Giants back after Christian Friedrich shut them down bigtime in his seven innings, in which he struck out ten.
Dodgers 3, Diamondbacks 1: No Matt Kemp? No problem, as with Clayton all things are possible (7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER).
Athletics 5, Angels 0: Anaheim's nightmare season continues, as Tyson Ross shuts them out for six and the pen shuts them out for three. Oakland has won eight of 12.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Centennial anniversary: Ty Cobb beats up a cripple
Posted by Chris JaffeExactly 100 years ago today, on May 15, 1912, baseball witnessed one of its most infamous fights. It pitted one of the game’s greatest stars, Ty Cobb, against a man missing all of one hand and much of the other. Yeah, that fight was a bit one-sided.
Cobb and his Tiger teammates were playing in New York City against the Yankees (or Highlanders, as they were then known), and one fan in the stands heckled Cobb every chance he could. That heckler, a man named Claude Lueker, exchanged barbs with Cobb for several innings.
Things took a turn for the worse in the sixth inning. Lueker went beyond attacking Cobb to bring up Cobb’s mother. What’s more, he brought race into it. Without wanting to get into too much background—and certainly not wanting to justify the attitudes of the time—America’s attitudes on race were very different 100 years ago. Many people wouldn’t be at all insulted to be called a racist.
And the Georgia-born Cobb certainly wasn’t ahead of his time. Just three weeks earlier in Jackson, Georgia, a place not far from where Cobb was born, a black man had been lynched for “race prejudice” (which was typically code for being upset at the way whites treated blacks at the time). That’s the heritage Cobb came from.
At any rate, in the sixth inning, Lueker reportedly bellowed out that Cobb was a “half-nigger” and that his mother had willingly slept with a black man. That was as loaded an insult as you could say in 1912 America. Where Cobb came from, blacks were getting lynched for that in 1912. Hell, on May 3 a mob lynched a black man in Louisiana for insulting a white woman.
Cobb wasn’t going to stand for that one. In fact, teammates—including Hall of Famer Sam Crawford—asked Cobb if he was going to take that sort of talk. Hell, no.
Cobb sprang into the stands and went after him. It turned out that Lueker recently lost a hand and several fingers on his other hand in an industrial accident. That was fine by Cobb – it just made the beat down that much easier. Fans screamed to Cobb how could he hit a man without hands. Cobb retorted he didn’t care if the man had no feet – he was going to pay.
Cobb won the fight, but the AL was not happy. They suspended Cobb for it. His teammates tried to stick up for him and threatened to strike, but when the AL refused to back down, Cobb told them to end their strike on his behalf.
Can you imagine something like that now? A player going into the stands to assault a fan and then his teammates sticking up for him like that? The closest modern example would be basketball’s Ron Artest getting in a fight in the stands in Detroit. But he had more provocation (something was thrown at him, not just insults), and while some teammates joined the fracas, they didn’t threaten to strike on his behalf. And no one involved was seriously handicapped.
But it did happen, exactly 100 years ago today.
Aside from that, many other items today celebrate either their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something that occurred X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim it.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since the Cardinals sign free agent pitcher John Smoltz.
4,000 days since a rarity happens: a starting pitcher gets the win despite throwing only four innings. CC Sabathia does it, as the game is called after five-and-a-half innings due to rain.
5,000 days since John Smoltz pitches maybe the best game of his career, a three-hit, complete-game shutout with no walks and a dozen strikeouts. His Game Score is 93, his all-time best.
5,000 days since infielder Carlos Guillen makes his big league debut.
5,000 days since hard-throwing starting pitcher Matt Clement makes his major league debut.
6,000 days since Rick Aguilera signs with the Twins. It’s a return to Minnesota for him.
6,000 days since Harold Baines returns to the South Side as the White Sox sign him as a free agent.
8,000 days since Ken Griffey Jr. hits the second of his three career inside-the-park home runs. His second insider is just his 27th home run overall.
9,000 days since Gary Carter has his worst game ever, according to WPA. Carter is 0-for-5 with a K for a WPA of -0.417.
15,000 days since Willie Stargell belts three home run in a game for the fourth time. It’s just 11 days since the third time, too.
Anniversaries
1856 Fred Goldsmith, one of the better baseball pitchers for the first half of the 1880s, is born.
1862 Union Grounds, the first enclosed baseball park, opens in Brooklyn. By enclosed, that means there’s a gate you had to pass through to watch the action, not just some sandlot field anyone could walk up to at their leisure.
1888 Harry Stovey, one of the best hitters of the era, hits for the cycle.
1890 Pittsburgh releases Fred Dunlap, one of the greatest second basemen of the 1880s.
1893 Reds pitcher Farmer Vaughn tags out St. Louis baserunner Steve Brodie at the plate and then throws a bat at Brodie. Vaughan is ejected and receives a $25 fine.
1894 Boston fans, upset that their team is losing to Baltimore, set fire to the right field bleachers. The fire ends up destroying or damaging 170 buildings over 12 acres. Somehow, no one dies.
1899 Wee Willie Keeler drives the ball past Philadelphia star outfielder Ed Delahanty for an inside-the-park grand slam home run. That proves to be the difference as Keeler’s Dodgers win, 8-5.
1901 Christy Mathewson tosses his third consecutive complete-game shutout.
1901 Pat Moran makes his big league debut. He’s a forgettable catcher but will become one of the best managers of his day. He would be in Cooperstown had he not drunk himself to death too soon.
1903 Red Sox outfielder Patsy Dougherty has a really bad day. He keeps misjudging flies, which results in five triples and two inside-the-park home runs hit to him.
1906 Giants pitcher Hooks Wiltse becomes the first pitcher of the 20th century to fan four batters in an inning, a feat he achieves in the fifth inning versus the Reds.
1911 Claude Hendrix, good pitcher who will later be banned for betting on baseball, makes his debut.
1911 Ty Cobb starts a 40-game hitting streak.
1915 Claude Hendrix throws a no-hitter in the Federal League, leading the Chicago Whales to a 10-0 win over Pittsburgh.
1918 Patsy Tebeau, roughneck 1890s manager for the Cleveland Spiders, commits suicide. A newspaper headline will read: “Patsy Tebeau Acts as His Own Umpire.”
1918 In an 18-inning marathon between Washington and Chicago, both starting pitchers go the distance, with Walter Johnson topping Lefty Williams for a 1-0 final score.
1919 The Reds beat the Dodgers 10-0 in 13 innings. Yes, they scored 10 runs in the 13th frame.
1920 Spitballer Jack Quinn becomes the only pitcher ever to hit the ball over the fence against Hall of Famer Stan Coveleski.
1922 Pie Traynor connects for the first of three career inside-the-park home runs. This is the only one of that trio to clear the fence.
1922 A Ty Cobb hit to short is called an error by the official scorer. Fred Lieb of the AP calls it a hit, and AL honcho Ban Johnson goes with Lieb’s call, even though it isn’t the official one. This will lead to a discrepancy in Cobb’s career hit total.
1923 The longest hitting streak in the career of Hall of Famer Harry Heilmann peaks at 32 games. He’s 62-for-121 with 14 doubles, four triples, and six homers in that span along with 13 walks. His AVG/OBP/SLG: .512/.563/.843. Not bad.
1923 Jim Bottomley belts three triples in one game.
1930 Hall of Fame starting pitcher Red Ruffing fans 12 batters, tying his all-time personal best. Actually, this is his best one-game performance as his other dozen-punchout games went into extra frames. This one is just a nine-inning, four-hit shutout.
1934 The Buffalo Bisons minor league club hits five homers in one inning against the Albany Senators. After the fifth homer, the Albany pitcher plunks a batter, which derails that prospect’s chances at the majors.
1934 The St. Louis Cardinals release Hall of Fame pitcher Burleigh Grimes.
1935 Hall of Fame shortstop Arky Vaughan has a personal-best six RBIs in one game, as his Pirates triumph over the Phillies, 20-5.
1935 Dazzy Vance has the longest relief outing of his career, nine innings. He comes into the game after starting pitcher Johnny Babich is yanked after failing to retire any of the three batters he faces in the first inning.
1936 Ill-deserving Hall of Fame third baseman Freddie Lindstrom plays in his last game.
1938 Brooklyn releases former Yankee wunderkind pitcher Waite Hoyt. It ends his major league career.
1941 Joe DiMaggio, who didn’t get a hit in his last game, gets a hit today to begin his famous 56-game streak.
1941 Washington trades catcher Rick Ferrell to the Browns for Vern Kennedy.
1943 Mel Ott hits a walk-off home run for the Giants in the bottom of the 11th inning.
1944 1,014 are on hand to see Reds pitcher Clyde Shoun no-hit the Braves for a 1-0 win. The day before, Cincinnati threw a one-hitter.
1948 For the first of 117 times in his career, Yogi Berra catches both ends of a doubleheader.
1949 Bob Feller loses his 100th game. His record is 178-100.
1951 Duke Snider launches the first of five career grand slams.
1951 The Red Sox have a special day to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first AL game in Boston. They invite 29 survivors of that first season to see today’s game. Dignitaries include Connie Mack, Cy Young, Hugh Duffy, and Clark Griffith. They see something special as in that game Ted Williams becomes the 11th person to belt his 300th career home run.
1952 Virgil Trucks tosses a no-hitter, beating Washington 1-0. He’d thrown four no-hitters in the minors before. He’ll throw another major league one later this season.
1953 Hall of Fame third baseman George Brett is born.
1954 Long-lasting manager Bucky Harris loses his 2,000th decision. He’s 1,939-2,000 so far.
1954 Ted Williams returns to action after breaking his collarbone. He has a pin in his shoulder.
1955 Giants batter Irv Noren legs out an inside-the-park grand slam.
1956 Brooklyn purchases former star pitcher Sal Maglie from the Indians.
1959 The White Sox release veteran contact hitter Don Mueller.
1960 Don Cardwell’s first game with the Cubs is a good one, as he no-hits the Cardinals, 4-0. He walks a batter in the first inning, and that’s it for baserunners.
1960 Young pitcher (and eventual 200-game winner) Jim Perry tries to steal a base for the only time in his career. Well, officially that’s what happened. It’s a blown hit-and-run that goes for a strike-'em-out/throw-'em-out double play against Early Wynn.
1962 Cub pitcher Barney Schultz ties a major league record by appearing in relief in nine consecutive games. Pirate relief ace Roy Face previously achieved this distinction.
1962 The Angels release longtime Cincinnati pitcher Joe Nuxhall.
1965 Cub pitcher Dick Ellswoth pitches a one-hitter, and he’d really like to have that pitch back. The hit is a pinch-hit three-run homer in the eighth for a 3-1 Dodger win over the Cubs.
1965 Washington release veteran slugger Roy Sievers.
1966 Longtime baseball brain Chuck Dressen manages his last game. His health is failing him badly. He’ll be dead in three months at age 72.
1967 Detroit releases former Red Sox ace pitcher Bill Monbouquette.
1967 John Smoltz, former Braves ace, is born.
1967 Roberto Clemente has maybe the greatest game of his career, going 4-for-5 with a double and three homers. He drives in a personal-best seven runs, but sadly it’s not quite enough as the Pirates lose, 8-7, to the Reds. Yup, he drove in all his team’s runs in the loss.
1968 It’s the first American League game in Milwaukee since 1901, as the White Sox lose 4-2 to the Angels. It’s officially a home game for Chicago. A total of 23,403 sees the game, which lasts only five innings before it’s cut short by rain.
1969 Flashy fielding shortstop Luis Aparicio gets his 2,000th career hit.
1969 Cesar Tovar will end his career with a record five games in which he got the only hit in a one-hitter, and today is the second of those five games. He gets a ninth-inning single with one out to ruin the hopes of Orioles starting pitcher Dave McNally. Baltimore wins, though, 5-0.
1969 Willie Horton leaves the bench in Detroit during the game and goes AWOL for four days.
1970 The Mets tie a big league record by throwing a one-hitter for the second straight day. Gary Gentry did it yesterday and Tom Seaver does it today. Phillies catcher Mike Compton gets the hit, which is rather unlikely given that he’ll end his career with 18 hits. The Mets franchise had not thrown a no-hitter as of 1970, and 42 years later they still haven’t.
1970 Rico Carty’s hitting streak peaks at 31 games today.
1971 Billy Williams hits his 300th career home run. He’s the 32nd member of the club. Norm Cash was No. 31 just a week earlier.
1971 The Braves release starting pitcher Luis Tiant. He spent just 29 days as a Brave, and at this point his career appears over. However, he’ll go on to have a very impressive second wind.
1973 Gene Mauch uses five infielders in the bottom of the 11th against Pittsburgh’s Dave Cash. However, Cash foils the plan by singling anyway for a 9-8 win over the Expos.
1973 Nolan Ryan gets the first no-hitter of his career, fanning 12 Royals in a 3-0 win. Shortstop Rudy Meoli makes a great catch in the eighth inning to preserve it. This is the third no-hitter caught by Angels backstop Jeff Torborg.
1976 Jim Rice crushes his only career pinch-hit home run, a three-run shot off Milwaukee’s veteran arm Ray Sadecki.
1976 Mark Fidrych gets his first big league start for the Tigers.
1977 Willie Horton becomes the first Ranger to hit three homers in one game. It’s the second time Horton has gone deep thrice in one contest.
1978 Minnesota signs veteran reliever Mike Marshall.
1980 Starting pitcher Josh Beckett is born.
1981 Justin Morneau, Twins slugger, is born.
1981 Len Barker tosses a perfect game for the Cleveland Indians.
1982 Pirates starting pitcher Rick Rhoden homers and doubles—in one inning. His teammate Johnny Ray drives home five runs in that same frame, as the Pirates win, 12-9, thanks to their nine-run third inning.
1984 Mike Schmidt hits his 400th home run. He’s the 20th man to do that.
1984 Joaquin Andujar hits a grand slam home run. Not bad for a pitcher.
1984 One of the greatest pitchers in baseball history makes his big league debut on this day. Roger Clemens lasts just 5.2 innings for Boston, surrendering 11 hits and three walks for five runs (four earned) while fanning four. The first batter he faces is Brett Butler, who grounds out. Mike Hargrove becomes his first strikeout victim.
1985 Kirby Puckett gets two sacrifice hits in one game for the only time in his career. He’ll end his career with 23 sacrifice hits in 7,831 plate appearances.
1987 Don Sutton walks the first batter of the game, something he hasn’t done in nearly 150 starts.
1988 Mike Schmidt is in the worst slump of his life, as he suffers through his ninth straight game without a hit. He’s 0-for-29 in that span.
1989 Blue Jays skipper Cito Gaston manages his first game.
1989 Cub centerfielder Bob Dernier hits an inside-the-park walk-off home run off Craig Lefferts. It’s a three-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the 12th inning.
1991 Paul Molitor hits for the cycle.
1991 At an A’s-Orioles game in Baltimore, President Bush attends with a special visitor, Queen Elizabeth of England.
1992 Bret Saberhagen has to leave today’s game with tendonitis in his pitching hand. He’s new to the Mets but essentially done for the year.
1992 In the bottom of the 10th inning, Franklin Stubbs belts a walk-off grand slam off Kenny Rogers for a 7-3 Brewers win over the Rangers.
1994 Brett Butler gets career hit No. 2,000.
1994 Welcome to modern baseball: Six Marlins pitchers combine to throw a shutout over the Cubs.
1994 Jon Lieber makes his big league debut.
1995 Cincinnati trades workhorse starting pitcher Tim Belcher to the Mariners.
1996 The Big Hurt Frank Thomas gets a personal-best six RBIs in one game. He’ll later tie this effort.
1996 Eddie Murray, at age 40, hits his last career triple. It’s his first one in two years and one day.
1996 Ken Griffey Jr. has a vexing day. Three times he comes to the plate with the bases loaded, and he grounds out twice and flies out once.
1996 Scott Sanderson appears in his final career game.
1999 Twins skipper Tom Kelly loses his 1,000th game. His record: 936-1,000.
1999 D’oh! Starting pitcher Esteban Loaiza breaks his hand when a car door slams on it. He’s out indefinitely.
2001 Houston signs free agent Vinny Castilla.
2003 The Red Sox play for a sellout crowd in Fenway, beginning a streak of sellouts that goes into the next decade.
2004 Kevin Youkilis, the Greek God of Walks, makes his big league debut with Boston.
2004 The Yankees intentionally walk Edgar Martinez three times in one game. It’s too late to undo the 1995 ALDS, though.
2005 For the first time all season, the White Sox never have the lead all game long. They’d had the lead at some point in the first 37 games on the year, a first in big league history.
2005 Randy Johnson wins his 250th career game.
2005 Todd Helton gets his third career sacrifice hit. To date, he’s never gotten number four.
2005 Manny Ramirez hits his 400th home run.
2005 Morgan Ensberg slugs three home runs in one game.
2005 Tony LaRussa manages his 4,000th game. He’s 2,138-1,859 for his career.
2008 After 44.1 scoreless innings, the Indians club allows a run.
2009 Well, that could’ve gone better. John Lackey makes his season debut today, one delayed by a strained forearm. However, his belated beginning doesn’t last long, as he’s ejected after two pitches for throwing at the head of Texas’ Ian Kinsler.
2009 Tampa sets a record for biggest comeback in franchise history, turning a 7-0 deficit into an 8-7 win over Cleveland.
2010 Tampa Bay releases Pat "The Bat" Burrell.
2011 Jose Bautista slugs three homers in one game for Toronto versus Minnesota.
2011 It’s a wild top of the ninth in today’s Reds-Cardinals game. The inning begins with the Reds up 9-2, but St. Louis makes it interesting when they bat. The inning begins with back-to-back walks. Then a fly ball becomes the inning’s first out. Then it’s back to no control, as the Reds walk a pinch-hitter to load the bases and then walk another pinch-hitter to force in a run. It’s 9-3.
Well, with that it’s time for a new Cincinnati pitcher. The new guy immediately surrenders a two-run double. 9-5. Next, it’s a rare home/third double steal. Yes, really. 9-6.
Time for another new pitcher. The first batter singles in another run. It’s 9-7 with the tying run at the plate, and still only one out. Well, now the tying run is on base as the next batter is hit by a pitch.
Then things become normal as a fielder’s choice and strikeout end the inning and the game. But 10 batters come to the plate despite only two hits.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Chris Sale and his faulty elbow
Posted by Kyle BoddyChris Sale has been the subject of much discussion in 2012, as he's been jerked around from the starting role to the bullpen with reports of inconsistent velocity. To compound all of this, he's had an MRI on his elbow due to tightness, though it's been reported that it's due to normal soreness and not major injury.
Keith Law is not impressed with Sale's mechanics or the idea of him in the starting rotation:
I've asked Keith on Twitter (@keithlaw if you decide to do the same) why he thinks Sale's arm action has a higher propensity for elbow injury, but he hasn't commented on the specifics of his claims.
Sale's Mechanics: Then and now
Here are two clips of Chris Sale pitching against Oakland, both in the Coliseum. These are two different years. One clip has Sale throwing a 95 mph fastball, the other a 93 mph fastball. Both came in the eighth inning. Can you tell me which one came from 2012 and which one came from 2011?
If I hadn't cut the video, I bet I wouldn't have been able to do better than simply flipping a coin and guessing, though I might choose the clip where Sale is throwing 95 mph over the one where he came in as a reliever in 2011.
I'd be wrong. Sale was throwing 95 mph in Oakland in the eighth inning as a starter on April 25.
My point is that Sale's mechanics between 2011 and 2012 have not meaningfully changed. (If you slow the clip you can see some minor differences with the glove leg and trunk flexion, though.)
But why does Law think that Sale is an injury risk? I won't speculate on his reasons; rather, I'll discuss some scientific research that might shed a light on Sale's pitching mechanics.
Sidearmers, valgus stress, and you
Generally speaking, Sale has a fairly internally rotated humerus at stride foot contact (SFC) and, combined with his high rates of pelvic and shoulder rotation, he lays his forearm back into external rotation during arm cocking quite fast. This certainly will increase the eccentric load on the shoulder, though whether or not this is specifically injurious is debatable.
However, Sale is also a sidearmer, and research does indicate that sidearm pitchers are generally at higher risk for increased elbow valgus torque. (Source: Aguinaldo et al; ignore the "conclusion" contradiction, Aguinaldo has said it's a typo/mistake in the abstract that isn't there in the full paper. Read it here if you like). Increased elbow valgus stress is highly correlated with UCL tears/sprains, especially when combined with a more-extended elbow at ball release (which Sale does have).
The theory that sidearm pitchers are at higher risk for elbow injuries seems to hold water based on previously conducted research out there, though it's worth noting most sidearm pitchers have lower ball velocity than high three-quarters and overhand pitchers (for whatever reason). Ball velocity is obviously very highly correlated with valgus stress, so the net effect may be lowered amongst all sidearmers. Of course, Sale throws very hard, so that's not applicable to him.
Whether or not Law looked at Sale's mechanics through this type of research lens is unknown, but he's probably onto something. It should be interesting to watch Sale's velocity over the rest of the year, and beyond.
Kyle Boddy is the owner of Driveline Baseball and Driveline Biomechanics Research, both in Seattle, Washington. At his facility, he trains athletes and operates a biomechanics lab that focuses on improving the efficiency and durability of baseball pitchers. He can be reached via email at kyle at drivelinebaseball dot com.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraReds 9, Nationals 6: Joey Votto hit three homers including a walkoff grand slam. Yeah, that'll play. The back end of the Nats bullpen continues to be horrific.
Marlins 8, Mets 4: Earlier in the day Giancarlo Stanton hit a walkoff slam of his own capping a six-run bottom of the ninth for Miami. Heath Bell got the decision despite giving up two in the top of the ninth. Guess he just knows how to win.
Phillies 3, Padres 2: Cole Hamels got an extra day of rest and then got to face one of the worst offenses in baseball. How is that punishment again? Hamels allowed one run over seven innings and apparently didn't have to welcome any rookies to the big leagues with Old School Baseball.
Braves 7, Cardinals 4: The sweep. Several HBT regulars attended this series this weekend in a mini-meetup. Of course I suck so I didn't go even though they asked me nicely and scheduled it for a Braves weekend to entice me. Did I mention I suck? Braves don't, though. They're looking pretty damn spiffy right now, yes? Lance Lynn takes his first loss of the year.
Giants 7, Diamondbacks 3: And they said a Melky Cabrera/Gregor Blanco-powered offense couldn't get it done. Four hits for Melky, three driven in for Blanco. Ponder why Melky is always referred to by his first name all the time and Blanco isn't. Like that's fair.
Dodgers 11, Rockies 5: A.J. Ellis drove in four and the Dodgers managed 11 runs on only eight hits. But ruh-roh Raggy: Matt Kemp aggravated his hammy.
Tigers 3, Athletics 1: Leave it to the big man to salvage the split. Justin Verlander allowed one run and struck out eight over seven innings. Clearly the reason for the A's loss was an Inge deficit disorder, as he was given the day off.
Twins 4, Blue Jays 3: Seven shutout innings for Scott Diamond, who has two of the team's 10 wins despite only joining the team a week ago.
Cubs 8, Brewers 2: A homer for Ian Stewart and a pinch hit homer for Reed Johnson. They still count the same, though. Those are the rules. Chicago wins its first game in Milwaukee in over a year.
Royals 9, White Sox 1: Close until the ninth when Robin Ventura got all walk-the-bases-loaded happy for some reason.
Pirates 3, Astros 2: Wandy Rodriguez deserved better. He threw eight innings of one run ball, but A.J. Burnett was nearly as a good and the Houston closer -- well, Brett Myers -- couldn't hold the one run lead. On to extras where Josh Harrison did some first-pitch swinging in the 12th and drove home the winning run on an RBI single.
Red Sox 12, Indians 1: The Sox sent nine men to the plate in the first inning, more or less setting the tone. Jarrod Saltalamacchia homered and drove in five. Three straight for Boston, turning a hot mess into a merely warm mess.
Rays 9, Orioles 8: Tampa Bay had a 7-1 lead and the O's chipped back with three in the sixth and two in the seventh to get within one, the Rays scored a couple, the O's scored a couple of their own but the Rays just hung on to salvage one in the series. Baltimore is still in first place. I don't know how long they'll stay there. I do know, however, that they are going to be a gigantic pain in the ass for everyone this year, and O's fans have to love that.
Mariners 6, Yankees 2: Andy Pettitte's return was underwhelming, allowing four runs on seven hits in six and a third. Kevin Millwood, meanwhile, took care of business, allowing only one in seven. Three driven in by Casper Wells, who began the day posing for a pic with his mom, who has a pretty sweet M's shirt.
Rangers 13, Angels 6: Remember back in March when people were saying that the Angels were the favorites in the West? Haha, yeah, that was fun. Josh Hamilton drives in three more. Nelson Cruz drives in four. The Rangers are eight games up on the Angels and have a +80 run differential.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
90th anniversary: Last time the Phillies franchise at sea level
Posted by Chris JaffeNinety years ago today was something of a turning point in Phillies franchise history.
On May 14, 1922, they beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-1. In and of itself, that wasn’t terribly important. The win gave the Phillies a record of 11-12 on the year. Again, that wasn’t particularly special, either.
No, but in a longer view, it had a meaning. That win gave the Phillies an all-time cumulative franchise record of 2,827 wins and 2,827 losses, exactly .500. It proved to be the last time they’d ever be .500.
Immediately after that win 90 years ago today, the Phillies began a 12-game losing streak. Sadly, that did more to set the tone for the rest of the 20th century than their .500 record through May 14, 1922.
The Phillies finished 1922 with 96 losses for the club’s fifth straight losing season. They would experience 30 losing seasons in the next 31 campaigns, broken up only by a 78-76 finish in 1932. By the time they finally experienced back-to-back winning seasons with Robin Roberts in the late 1940s, the franchise was over 1,000 games under .500.
They’ve tried to recover and have had their good moments since then, but the hole has proven to be far, far too deep. In the 1950s, they got fewer than 1,000 games under .500, but then regressed.
In fact, aside from being the 90th anniversary of the last time the Phillies were .500, it’s also 20,000 days (a “day-versary” I call it) since they fell back to 1,000 games under .500. That was Aug. 11, 1957, when the Phillies ended the day with a cumulative record of 4,951-5,951. They’ve been under .500 ever since.
Their all-time franchise record reached its low point on May 31, 2002, when a loss put them 1,243 games under .500 (8,360-9,603). Four games later, they tied that low point, but they then improved and have remained above it since then.
However, prior to Sunday’s game, the Phillies have a franchise record of 9,252 wins and 10,311 losses, 1,059 games under .500. In other words, since May 14, 1922, they’ve been 6,425-7,484 (.462).
To get back to .500, they’d have to average 87 wins a years for the next century. While 87 wins are do-able in a single season, over a century it’s almost impossible. It’s hard to imagine the Phillies getting back to .500, a place they last stood at 90 years ago today.
Aside from that, many other events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary.” Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you just want to skim through things.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Houston trades Ivan Rodriguez to the Rangers, the club that made him famous.
2,000 days since the Angels signs free agent centerfielder Gary Matthews Jr. to a far-too-large contract.
2,000 days since the Dodgers sign free agent centerfielder Juan Pierre to a far-too-large contract. There must have been something in the air that day in LA.
3,000 days since the Steve Bartman ball is destroyed at Harry Caray’s restaurant in Chicago.
5,000 days since Barry Bonds fans in his first at-bat of the day, ending a string of 15 straight plate appearances reaching base.
9,000 days since Bill Madlock joins the 2,000-hit club.
9,000 days since Albert Hall hits for the cycle.
9,000 days since the Braves sign aging pitcher Phil Niekro. It’s a homecoming for him.
9,000 days since the Angels release Doug DeCinces, veteran third baseman.
Anniversaries
1878 James L. Wilkinson, Hall of Fame owner of Negro Leagues’ Kansas City Monarchs, is born.
1881 Ed Walsh, Hall of Fame iron man White Sox pitcher, is born.
1886 Charlie Comiskey breaks up a double play by running full tilt into Cincinnati second baseman Bid McPhee. The Reds are furious, but the play stands.
1890 Hall of Fame Negro League scout Alex Pompez is born.
1896 Jake Stenzel becomes first Pirate ever to tally six hits in one game.
1899 Earle Combs, Hall of Famer who played center field for the 1927 Murders Row Yankees, is born.
1911 The Cleveland Indians play their first home game on a Sunday.
1912 Major league debut: Herb Pennock, arguably the worst Hall of Famer ever voted in by the BBWAA.
1913 Walter Johnson runs his scoreless-inning streak to a then-record 56 innings before a run in the fourth inning ends it.
1914 White Sox hurler Jim Scott tosses a no-hitter through nine innings but allows two hits and a run in the 10th, losing the game 1-0 to Washington.
1916 Rogers Hornsby hits his first home run, an inside-the-park shot.
1918 Sunday baseball is legalized in Washington, D.C..
1920 Walter Johnson wins his 300th game. He’s the 10th member of the club, with a record of 300-194 at the moment.
1920 Hall of Fame spitballer Burleigh Grimes has probably the best game of his career, setting personal bests in Game Score (102) and innings pitched. His line: 14 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K in a complete-game victory as Dodgers beat Cardinals, 5-1 (14). Opposing pitcher Marv Goodwin also goes the distance, though his line isn’t as good (though three of the runs allowed are unearned).
1924 Babe Ruth day at Yankee Stadium: he gets the AL MVP Award, and the team’s first World Championship banner is unfurled. But the Browns win the game.
1927 It’s an all-time great pitchers’ duel as Cubs hurler Guy Bush and the Braves’ Charlie Robertson both go the distance in an 18-inning, 7-2 Cubs victory.
1927 An entire section of the Baker Bowl’s right field stands in Philadelphia collapses. Thankfully, only one person dies, but scores are injured.
1928 Jimmie Foxx hits the first of his 12 career walk-off home runs. It’s also his only pinch-hit walk-off home run. To this day, no one’s had 13 walk-offs in the regular season.
1928 John McGraw is hit by car outside Wrigley Field while trying to hail a cab. He takes responsibility for it and doesn’t try to get the driver’s name.
1932 Earle Combs gives himself a nice birthday present. He celebrates his 33rd birthday by belting a leadoff homer off veteran pitcher Sad Sam Jones. It’s the only leadoff homer Jones ever surrenders in 487 career starts.
1933 Al Simmons bangs out his 100th career triple.
1933 Hack Wilson lashes out a walk-off grand slam, a pinch-hit one, too. Dodgers 8, Phillies 6.
1936 Dick Howser, late Royals manager, is born.
1936 Hall of Fame catcher Bill Dickey gets his 1,000th career hit.
1938 Enos Slaughter’s career is off to a nice start. Today he hits his second career home run, and it’s a walk-off home run.
1938 The second career home run for a young Enos Slaughter is a walk-off home run.
1939 Charlie Gehringer hits his 500th double.
1939 On Mother’s Day, Mother and Father Feller come watch their son pitch. They get more than they bargained for when a foul ball off the bat of Marv Owen catches Mother Feller flush in the face. She needs six stitches over her right eye.
1939 The Giants sign longtime Yankees star second baseman Tony Lazzeri.
1940 Jimmie Foxx hits arguably the longest home run in the history of Comiskey Park, as it clears the left field roof.
1941 Dizzy Dean retires. Technically, he pitches once more in 1947, but that’s just a gimmick. (As a broadcaster, he criticized the Browns saying he could do better, so the team gave him a chance to prove it.)
1942 Tony Perez is born.
1944 A Connie Ryan single ruins what was otherwise a perfect game for Bucky Walters in Cincinnati victory over the Braves.
1944 Stan Musial loses the ball in the sun, and it conks him on the head. Pepper Martin runs over to ask him if he’s okay and then asks if it’s okay that he laughs at Musial. Then he bursts out laughing. Can’t blame the guy, really.
1950 The Yankees farm out Billy Martin to the minors, but not before he first argues with team boss George Weiss about it.
1950 Johnny Hopp gets six hits for the Pirates in one game, including two homers, as they top the Cubs, 16-9.
1955 Dennis Martinez is born. He has a great nickname: El Presidente.
1958 The Kansas City A’s purchase Whitey Herzog from the Senators.
1959 Today is the worst known WPA game for Stan Musial: 0-for-3 with an RBI, two walks, a strikeout, a sacrifice hit, and a GIDP. WPA: -0.578 as Braves beat Cardinals, 8-7.
1961 The Indians win a great pitchers duel over the Orioles, 1-0 in 15 innings The only run scores on a throwing error by Baltimore shortstop Jerry Adair.
1964 Former batting champion Pete Runnels appears in his final game.
1965 Carl Yastrzemski hits for the cycle, going 5-for-5 with two home runs. He sets personal bests for total bases (14) and extra base hits (4). He also gets five RBIs.
1967 Mickey Mantle becomes only the sixth member of the 500-home run club. Two months later, Eddie Mathews joins him.
1968 Don Drysdale begins his streak with the first of six consecutive complete-game shutouts.
1968 A young Nolan Ryan shows glimpses of his future as he fans 14 batters in a game, leading the Mets to a 3-2 win over the Reds.
1970 Dick Allen gets his 1,000th career hit.
1972 Willie Mays first plays with the Mets.
1973 According to WPA, the best game any player for the WAS/TEX franchise ever had comes today when Toby Harrah goes 2-for-4 with two runs, a homer, three RBI, and a walk for a 1.011 WPA. Texas 7, Twins 6.
1973 Yaz gets his first sacrifice hit in over six years and won’t have another for more than three seasons.
1975 Mets honcho M. Donald Grant fines player Cleon Jones $2,000 for “betraying the image of the club.” Jones had recently been arrested on an indecent exposure charge in Florida (though the charge was later dropped).
1977 Jim Colborn of the Royals tosses a no-hitter versus the Rangers. He fans six and walks only one.
1977 Roy Halladay is born.
1978 Dave Kingman of the Cubs hits three home runs in one game and gets eight RBI on the day. A three-run blast in the 15th is the highlight. Or rather, it’s the highlight of the game. After the game, the real highlight takes place when a reporter asks Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda what he thought of Kingman’s performance on the day. His response:
What's my opinion of Kingman's performance!? What the BLEEP do you think is my opinion of it? I think it was BLEEPING BLEEP. Put that in, I don't BLEEP. Opinion of his performance!!? BLEEP, he beat us with three BLEEPING home runs! What the BLEEP do you mean, "What is my opinion of his performance?" How could you ask me a question like that, "What is my opinion of his performance?" BLEEP, he hit three home runs! BLEEP. I'm BLEEPING pissed off to lose that BLEEPING game. And you ask me my opinion of his performance! BLEEP. That's a tough question to ask me, isn't it? "What is my opinion of his performance?"
1980 It’s the best WPA game Alan Trammell ever had: 0.924 WPA. 4-for-5, one double, three runs, and two RBI. Tigers 6, A’s 5.
1980 Steve Carlton has his 10th consecutive Quality Start, his longest such streak ever. His line in that time: 8-2 W-L record, 78 IP, 46 H, 16 R, 15 ER, 26 BB, 68 K and a 1.73 ERA.
1981 George Brett injures his ankle in a game and whaps reporter on the head with a crutch afterwards. (He apologies the next day).
1983 Ben Oglivie hits three home runs in one game for the third time in his career as Brewers beat Red Sox 8-7 in 10 innings. His third homer tied it, 6-6, in the bottom of the ninth.
1983 The longest hitting streak of Darrell Evans' career peaks at 13 games. He’s 26-for-52 with six doubles, a triple, and seven homers in that span.
1987 Former catcher Luke Sewell dies at age 86.
1988 The best WPA that we know of for a relief stint in Braves history occurs when Rick Mahler does this in relief: 8 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 2 K for a 0.943 WPA. It’s also one of the last times a pitcher tosses eight innings in relief.
1988 Jose Oquendo becomes the first position player in 20 years to get a decision, losing when Ken Griffey Sr. hits a double off him in the 19th inning of a Braves 7, Cardinals 5 (19) game.
1988 Don Sutton records his 324th and final career win.
1989 Benny Distefano joins the exclusive club of left-handed catchers when he works the backstop for one inning. The last southpaw catcher was Mike Squires, nine years before.
1993 Wally Backman plays in his last game
1993 Woody Williams, one of the only pitchers to beat all 30 franchises, makes his big league debut.
1993 Jay Gainer of the Reds hits a homer run in his first at-bat, on his very first pitch.
1994 It’s the 30th/final multi-homer performance for Dave Winfield.
1994 In only his second major league appearance, relief pitcher Paul Shuey fans four in the ninth inning.
1994 The Royals retire George Brett’s number.
1995 Sammy Sosa belts out his 100th career home run.
1996 Dwight Gooden tosses a no-hitter: NYY 2, SEA 0. I looked it up once and figured it was against the fourth-best lineup ever no-hit.
1997 Jim Thome laces his 100th home run.
1998 Wayne Huzienga has a hissy fit: Marlins trade Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla, Charles Johnson, Jim Eisenreich, and another guy to the Dodgers for Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile.
1999 Ted Lilly makes his big league debut.
2000 Wild game: Expos 16, Cubs 15. The Cubs lead 6-2 early but blow it. They rally to lead 11-9 in the middle of the eighth, but that’s when things get really ridiculous. First, Montreal scores four in the bottom of the eighth for a 13-11 lead. Then the Cubs came back for four immediately after for a 15-13 lead, but Montreal scores thrice more in the bottom of the ninth. It’s not too often you see 11 runs scored in the last inning and a half and neither team’s lead is ever more than two runs.
Sammy Sosa gets five hits, Eric Young steals five bases, and Henry Rodriguez tallies seven RBI, all for the Cubs—and the team still loses.
2000 Jim Fregosi manages his 2,000th game: 966-1,034 in his career.
2002 Jimmy Carter throws out the first pitch in a Cuban League All-Stars game. Fidel Castro coaches him as he warms up.
2006 A month after reaching .500 for the first time in 44 years, the Astros franchise record falls back to .500 (3,519-3,519) and it’s never been that high ever since.
2006 Andy Pettitte ties his personal-high Game Score: 87. His line: 9 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K.
2008 The Cubs sign centerfielder Jim Edmonds.
2010 Ron Gardenhire orders his team to issue an intentional walk to Mark Teixeira in order to face Alex Rodriquez with the bases loaded. This highly questionable strategy immediately backfires, as A-Rod launches his 19th career grand slam.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Friday, May 11, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraNationals 4, Pirates 2: Stephen Strasburg struck out 13 in six innings. The only thing more dominating than he was the Hulk when I went to go see "The Avengers" last night. Upshot: damn fine movie. But the "Dark Night Rises" trailer before it may have been even better. Yes, I realize that I may be reacting emotionally here.
Anyway, a question (and if you haven't seen the movie yet, move along): why is the Hulk such a malevolent threat when he first transforms on the ship, to the point where Black Widow and everyone in his path is in extreme peril just by being near him, yet during the big battle scene everyone can hang around him and he's all cool and knows who the bad guys are and stuff? Well, except for Thor that one time. I'm sure there's some reason for this besides movie convenience -- and I never read the Hulk comics, so if the answer is there, I'm just ignorant about it -- but I did think about it. Oh, and I'm sort of in love with Cobie Smulders now too. Anyway, enough of that. Other games:
Indians 8, Red Sox 3: The fans booed Josh Beckett off the field. And afterwards he said they were smart fans because he "pitched like sh**." That sums it up, no? He gave up seven runs on seven hits and walked two in two and a third innings and ensured that people will make hacky jokes about his golf game for the next five days.
Orioles 6, Rangers 5: Rangers 7, Orioles 3: Colby Lewis struck out ten but allowed five bombs in Game 1, which is kind of special. In Game 2, Josh Hamilton hit his 15th homer and drove in two, giving former teammate Tommy Hunter the loss.
Yankees 5, Rays 3: CC Sabathia struck out ten and allowed no earned runs in eight innings, getting his 5th win of the year. Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson hit homers.
Blue Jays 6, Twins 2: Henderson Alvarez continues his fine work, allowing only a single earned run over seven. Jason Marquis, not so much. And talk about symbolic futility: runner on third, popup in front of the plate and neither Maquis, catcher Ryan Doumit nor third basemen Trevor Plouffe caught it. It just hit the ground with a sick thud. There are your 2012 Minnesota Twins, folks.
Tigers 10, Athletics 6: Yes, Detroit won -- good job for Miguel Cabrera and Andy Dirks having big games as the Detroit offense awoke from its stupor -- but that aside, Brandon Inge hit a grand slam against his old mates, giving him 12 RBI in his last four games. As I said yesterday, the closest thing to chaos we have in baseball right now is the relationship Tigers fans have with Brandon Inge, so to see him have a big game against them is rather fun.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
20,000 days since Dodgers announce their move to LA
Posted by Chris Jaffe20,000 days ago, Brooklyn got the bad news. On that day—Aug. 8, 1957—Dodgers team owner Walter O’Malley announced the team was headed for greener pastures out west in Los Angeles. And by greener, I mean richer.
This was the conclusion of a new stadium fight for the Dodgers. There are two versions of it. In one version, O’Malley wanted to keep the team in Brooklyn but couldn’t get the deal he wanted. That is, not surprisingly, the view of the Dodgers.
Ebbets Field, the Dodgers' old Brooklyn home, was a small place and the Dodgers wanted something bigger, and with better amenities. He’d even floated the notion of building a domed stadium—this a decade before the Astrodome. But the city wouldn’t give him the land he wanted. Supposedly, the city offered him land in Queens, and he said, well, I can’t take the Brooklyn team to Queens.
The Brooklyn die-hard view has a simpler tale: Walter O’Malley is evil. Any talk he had with the city fathers was just that—talk. He saw greener pastures in California, and got the Giants to go along with him, giving him a local and traditional rival out west. Some diehard Brooklyn-ites have long since argued that the three worst men of the 20th century are Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Walter O’Malley.
Odds are some of both tales are true. O’Malley was a businessman first and foremost, and he recognized the promise of California and did want to go out there. Lord knows he did enough to lay the groundwork, from acquiring rights to the region from the Cubs to convincing the Giants to joining him and handling many other lesser details in advance. Then again, if he could get a lucrative enough deal in New York City, why not take it? O’Malley methodically and ruthlessly made himself the best deal he could.
And 20,000 days ago, people found out what it was.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their “day-versary” or anniversary today. They are listed below; with the better ones in bold to make it easier for anyone who just wants to skim the list.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Phillies closer Brad Lidge makes two errors on one play. Atlanta ends up winning the game, 4-3.
4,000 days since Paul LoDuca of the Dodgers gets six hits in an 11-inning game.
4,000 days since Chuck Finley has the worst Game Score of his career: 4. His line: 1 IP, 8 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 2 BB, and 1 K.
6,000 days since the Indians sign free agent Julio Franco.
6,000 days since the Yankees trade Sterling Hitchcock to the Mariners for Tino Martinez, Jeff Nelson and Jim Mecir.
Anniversaries
1891 Tony Mullane, a career 280+ game winner, allows two inside the park home runs in one game. This was the third time it happened to him in 16 days. This happens to him only two other times in his career.
1897 Washington catcher Duke Farrell throws out eight would-be base stealers. His team loses anyway, 6-3 to Baltimore.
1903 Charlie Gehringer, Hall of Fame second baseman, is born.
1904 After six innings of hitless ball today, Cy Young finally allowes a hit, ending a still-record stretch of 23 hitless innings.
1907 All-Star pitcher Rip Sewell is born.
1919 Reds pitcher Hod Eller throws a no-hitter for a 6-0 win over the Cardinals. He fans eight and walks three.
1919 Pitchers duel: Yankee-Senators game ends tied 0-0 after 12 innings. New York can muster only two hits against (who else?) Senators ace Walter Johnson. New York pitcher Jack Quinn allows 10 hits (including one to Johnson) and four walks, but none come around to score.
For Quinn, it’s his first complete game shutout in five years. He came up as a Yankee in 1909, went to the Braves in 1913, and then the Federal League in 1914-15. Then he went to the minors and was still trying to re-establish himself at age 35 with the Yankees again. He does and will stay in the big leagues until 1933, at which time he’s 49 years old, the oldest real major league player of all time.
1920 Hall of Famer Ross Youngs hits three triples in one game.
1920 Babe Ruth hits two homers in today’s game. It’s the first of 69 games in which he’ll homer more than once.
1922 Hall of Fame umpire Nester Chylock is born.
1923 Hall of Fame spitballer Burleigh Grimes wins his 100th game (100-79).
1923 Pacific Coast League player Pete Schneider hits five home runs and has 14 RBIs one game, a 35-14 win for his squad.
1923 Phillies beat Cards 20-14 as the two teams combine for a record 10 homers and 79 total bases. Philly’s Cy Williams hit three homers in the game.
1924 Moses Fleetwood Walker, baseball’s first black player, dies. He played when the color line was being created.
1925 Ray Schalk catches a ball dropped from the top of Tribune Tower, 460 feet up.
1926 The Reds purchase veteran pitcher Art Nehf from the Giants.
1930 Indians get 27 hits and score in every inning accept the eighth in a 25-7 win over A’s. They do it without hitting a single home run.
1931 Hall of Famer Chuck Klein belts his 100th career home run. Fewer than 40 people had done that at this point.
1932 Wild Bill Hallahan lives up to his nickname, with three wild pitches in one inning.
1932 13-year-old eighth grader Joe Schulz steals second and third bases as a pinch runner in a Texas League game. If you’ve ever read Ball Four, yes this is the same Joe Schulz who later managed the Seattle Pilots.
1936 Mel Ott is a one-man wrecking crew, leading the Giants to a 13-12 win over the Phillies. He went 3-for-5 with a double, home run, career-high eight RBIs, and three runs scored.
1937 Old Reliable Tommy Henrich makes his big league debut.
1939 Milt Pappas is born.
1940 The perennial powerhouse Yankees fall into last place after a loss to Boston Red Sox.
1941 The Dodgers release Paul Waner.
1944 Hal Trosky steals home in 16th inning of White Sox’ 4-2 win over the A’s.
1945 Hall of Famer George Kell hits his only inside the park home run. As it happens it’s his second career homer.
1946 It’s the first night game at Braves Field. The New York Giants win 5-1 before 37,407, the largest crowd there in 13 years. It's also the 1,000th game managed by Braves skipper Billy Southworth, who ends the night with a 629-356 record.
1949 White Sox score in every inning in 12-8 win over The Red Sox at Comiskey. So I assume they didn’t get a chance to bat in the ninth.
1949 The Red Sox release Denny Galehouse, who started a one-game playoff for the pennant last year for them. (He lost that game, as you might guess).
1950 Sen. Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut introduces legislation for the observance of National Baseball Day.
1950 Fenway fans boo Ted Williams for making errors in both games of doubleheader in Boston, and he gives the crowd “an insulting gesture.” He’ll also smash a grand slam.
1951 The Indianapolis Clowns play their season opener with a new player: Teenaged Hank Aaron.
1952 Bob Lemon scores his 100th win: 100-61
1955 Ernie Banks hits his first career grand slam. He’ll hit five this year and 12 in his career.
1955 The Yankees trade Enos Slaughter and Johnny Sain to the Kansas City A’s for Sonny Dixon and some money.
1955 The Indians release Hal Newhouser.
1956 Danny Kravitz hits a walk-off grand slam for the Phillies in a 6-5 win over Pirates. He’ll hit only 10 homers in his career.
1956 The Cardinals trade Harvey Haddix, Stu Miller and Ben Flowers to the Phillies for Murry Dickson and Herm Wehmeier.
1958 Future Tigers workhorse Walt Terrell is born.
1963 Sandy Koufax pitches his second no-hitter. He allows two walks and fans only four as the Dodgers beat the Giants 8-0.
1964 Bobby Witt, hard-throwing pitcher with virtually no control, is born.
1970 Dick Allen hits an inside the park home run off Jim Bunning, the only insider Bunning ever allows.
1971 Steve Dunning of the Indians becomes the last AL pitcher of the 20th century to hit a grand slam. Felix Hernandez will do it in 2008.
1972 Tom Seaver wins his 100th game. He becomes 100-55 for his career.
1973 Gene Mauch manages his 2,000th game. He’s 924-1,073 for his career.
1974 Jimmy Wynn, Dodger, hits three home runs in one game.
1975 Tom Seaver celebrates the three-year anniversary of his 100th win by posting his 150th win: 150-90.
1975 Francisco Cordero, closer, is born.
1976 Steve Carlton wins his 150th game: 150-120. Not bad, but he’s no Tom Seaver.
1977 Ted Turner manages the Braves for a day. They lose 2-1, their 17th straight loss. It’s a strange day to manage, as the opposing Pirates win their 11th straight that day—and that’s the longest winning streak opposing manager Chuck Tanner ever had. Also in that game, Phil Niekro loses his seventh straight decision, a career worst. His numbers in that spell: 0-7, 9 GS, 4 CG, 58 IP, 72 H, 43 R, 40 ER, 35 BB, 41 K, and a 6.21 ERA. I love that he still has four complete games in that streak.
1978 In a Padres-Cubs game, San Diego ace Gaylord Perry, who balked only six times in his 5,000+-innings pitched career, balks twice in one game. The umpires also call a balk on Cubs reliever Bruce Sutter..
1979 The Yankees purchase Jim Kaat from Phillies.
1980 Pete Rose, age 39, steals second, third and home in one inning. He’s the first NL player to do that since Jackie Robinson in 1954. It’s only the second time Rose steals three bases in a game, let alone an inning.
1982 Dwight Evans triples twice in one game
1982 Gaylord Perry pitches his 5,000th inning.
1984 Tigers set a record with the best 30-game start ever: 26-4. (1955 Dodgers went 25-5, the previous best).
1984 For the only time in his life, Joe Morgan ends a game by fanning with the bases loaded. His A’s team loses 4-3 to the Orioles.
1985 Davey Concepcion gets his 2,000th hit.
1986 Bill Almon hits a walk-off inside-the-park home run, something that hasn’t happened in the major leagues in seven years.
1987 Relief pitcher Mike Henneman makes his big league debut.
1988 The Cubs top the Padres 1-0 in 10 innings, with the only run scoring on the rare walk-off sacrifice bunt. Most times that happens it’s really an error, but this is an honest to goodness attempt to score the only run on a bunt. It’s really a brain fart by the fielder, who throws to first, not even trying to get the lead runner, never mind that the run ends the game. This is one of only two 1-0 games since 1950 to end with a walk-off sac bunt. The other is also a Cubs win (on June 9, 1977).
1990 Yankees trade Dave Winfield to the Angels. Winfield, exercising his 5-10 rights, initially rejects it, but lets it go through five days later.
1990 It mercifully ends. After going 0-for-41, young Sox star Robin Ventura gets a hit. It’s an infield single to the pitcher. Far too many of his last 41 at-bats were either Ks or weak outs.
1992 WPA’s favorite Larry Walker game: 0.898 WPA: 2-for-2 with four walks (two intentional), three RBIs, one run, and a stolen base as he leads the Expos to a 6-5 win over the Dodgers.
1994 Third baseman Jeff Cirillo makes his big league debut.
1994 Mets reliever Mel Rojas strikes out the side on nine pitches in the ninth inning against the Mets.
1996 Al Leiter throws a no-hitter, the first by a Marlin, as they win 11-0 over the Rockies. Leiter walks two, and fans six.
1998 Ivan Rodriguez laces his 1,000th career hit.
1998 Randy Winn first plays in the major leagues.
1999 Mirror image: Bobby Jones of the Mets faces off against Bobby Jones of the Rockies when their teams play play. It’s the first time in baseball history opposing starting pitchers have the same first and last names. They have different middle names, as Bobby J. is a Met, and Bobby M. a Rockie.
2000 Lou Piniella manages his 2,000th game. He’s 1,036-964 for his career at this point.
2000 37-year-old Joe Strong of the Marlins becomes the oldest person to make his big league debut since 41-year-old Diomedes Olivo did so with the Pirates in 1960.
2001 A’s 7, Red Sox 6. This is an odd loss because in the bottom of the ninth the would-be tying run would’ve scored—except a trailing runner tries to advance and is called out for an inning and game ending double play before the man on third can score.
2001 Rick Ankiel, one day after throwing five wild pitches, is sent to the minors to work on his control.
2001 Carlos Delgado becomes the all-time Toronto home run leader when he hits No. 204 as a Blue Jay. He passes Joe Carter. To this day, Delgado is still franchise dinger king.
2002 Arizona’s Byung-Hyun Kim strikes out the side on nine pitches in the eighth inning against the Phillies.
2003 Rafael Palmeiro bangs out his 500th home run.
2003 Marlins fire manager Jeff Torborg and hire Jack McKeon. This turns out to be a great move: The floundering Marlins will turn it around under their new skipper and win the World Series.
2004 Houston wins, putting Jimy Williams 130 games over .500 (887-757), his all-time peak.
2004 Pittsfield, Mass. city officials release a 1793 bylaw that they claim is the oldest written reference to baseball.
2004 Manny Ramirez celebrates his first day as an American citizen by leading teammates out of the dugout waving American flags.
2004 Fernando Vina plays his last game.
2005 Red Sox win second straight game on a walk-off home run.
2006 Bill Mueller plays his last major league game.
2006 Ken Griffey Jr. hits a three-run walk-off homer in the bottom of the 11th with his team down by two runs. The swing is worth 0.786 WPA, the best Griffey ever gets on one swing. The Reds top the Nats, 5-4.
2007 Phil Garner loses his 1,000th game as a manager: 943-1,000.
2010 Johnny Cueto pitches a near no-hitter. A third inning single deflects off an infielder’s glove and that’s the only hit he allows in 9-0 Reds win over the Pirates.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Mo’s wins
Posted by Dave StudemanMeanwhile on Twitter, CJ Nitkkowski got my attention by calling THT a "nerd blog" and belittling Tom Tango's analysis that Mariano Rivera is worth about two wins a year to the Yankees. CJ's blog response was a lot more reasonable (another reason to dislike Twitter) and made the point that the loss of Rivera brings down the relative effectiveness of the rest of the bullpen. He also feels that the loss of Rivera is unquantifiable.
But here's the thing. Mariano Rivera is being paid $15 million this year. Let's say that the average free agent will be paid around $6 million to $7 million a win in 2012. Let's take the high end of the range, cause wins are worth more in New York. Doesn't this mean that the Yankees are paying Mo for two wins a year? Isn't this a quantity? Why wasn't CJ complaining about Rivera's contract before the injury?
Part of the answer lies in the short-term and long-term impacts of losing a reliever like Mo. Presumably, CJ is taking the short-term view; contracts (Mo's was for two years) take the longer view. But still...isn't there a disconnect here? Mo's salary reinforces Tango's point. As the season progresses, two wins will be the correct standard.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
No two games alike? Sure, but these are the closest.
Posted by Jonathan FalkOn Aug. 1, 1965, the Detroit Tigers went to Comiskey Park to play the White Sox in the first game of a Sunday doubleheader. In a close battle, the Pale Hose emerged victorious in a 1-0 battle, scoring a run in the second and holding the lead. Detroit was held to three hits, had only one walk, and struck out five times, while Chicago had six hits, one walk and four strikeouts. Detroit left four men on base, Chicago three.
Just another game? Well, yes, but consider this. On Aug. 25, 1975, Detroit went to Texas and a very odd thing happened. The Tigers lost 1-0 on a Texas run in the bottom of the second. They had three hits with one walk and five strikeouts while the Rangers had six hits, one walk and four strikeouts. Once again, Detroit left four men on base, the opponent three.
Using the Retrosheet game log database, these are the two most similar games in major league history. They are the only games with identical run lines, hits, walks, and strikeouts for both teams. So for anybody who says that one baseball game is pretty much like another, point out that of the almost 170,000 games for which we have line scores, they’re all different. Unless you’re a devout Tigers fan… then you’ll remember a game in August that was suspiciously similar to one about 10 years earlier.
Here are the box scores of these two games:
Even with games this similar, however, there are some differences. One was a day game; one was a night game. Left on base totals were the same, even though I didn’t match on this, but there were two errors in the later game, with none in the previous game. Both winning pitchers pitched complete game shutouts, but in the first game Detroit used a reliever for one inning. The most memorable difference is that Detroit turned a triple play in 1965. There were three double plays in the 1975 game, but none in 1965. The other memorable similarity? Willie Horton batted cleanup in both games (DHing in the second, an impossibility in 1965) and was 0-for-4 both times.
Clearly one could make other similar games by matching on other things which were different in this game: at-bats and errors, for example. But this is my nominee for the two most similar games in baseball history.
Jonathan has been a Braves fan ever since they showed up in Atlanta to mesmerize a ten year old.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraMets 10, Phillies 5: Cliff Lee was OK in his return, but he was on a pitch count and the bullpen -- including reverted-to-longman-work Kyle Kendrick -- got shellacked. Again. Ike Davis drove in three. The Mets so thoroughly own Citizens Bank Park this year that the Phillies are gonna have to launch some awkward take-back-the-park initiative pretty soon. Philly-a-tude! Phillies-o-rama! Phillandia!
Rays 4, Yankees 1: Welcome to what everyone else has had to deal with forever, Yankees fans: shaky bullpen work. Granted a 1-0 lead isn't the easiest thing to protect, but David Robertson left little doubt about whether this one was going to be blown, giving up four runs.
Rockies 6, Padres 2: Left-hander Christian Friedrich pitched six solid innings and .... wait. Sorry, I can't continue this one. I need to clear something up. [dials the Rockies clubhouse]
Me: Mr Freed-rich ...
Christian Friedrich: "Fredrick"
Me: You're putting me on.
Christian Friedrich: No, it's pronounced "Fredrick"
Me: Do you also say "Christ-Ean"?
Christian Friedrich: No... "Christian."
Me: Well, why isn't it "Christ-Ean Frederick?"?
Christian Friedrich: It isn't; it's "Christian Frederick."
Me: I see.
Christian Friedrich: You must be Craig.
Me: No, it's pronounced "Cray-ag."
Christian Friedrich: But they told me it was "Craig."
Me: Well, they were wrong then, weren't they?
Pirates 4, Nationals 2: Erik Bedard left with an injury after one inning but the Pirates didn't miss a beat: five guys combined to pitch eight innings of two-run ball and Andrew McCutchen went 4 for 4. Bryce Harper went 0 for 4, but he did catch a Pedro Alvarez fly near the wall and then turned around with the ball in his glove and taunted Pirates fans with it, and that's pretty effin' solid. As a tremendous fan of Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard, I can't tell you how happy I am to have a heel in Major League Baseball right now.
Reds 2, Brewers 1: Hit this one up yesterday. Zack Greinke's bad luck and lack of support has to remind him of his days back in Kansas City.
Blue Jays 5, Athletics 2: Adam Lind was moved down to eighth in the order. Must not have liked it because he hit a homer. Brandon Morrow struck out ten.
Cubs 1, Braves 0: A two hour and five minute game on getaway day. I have no idea if this is common for the Cubs, but I am shocked -- shocked! -- that the Braves went down quietly while a plane waited for them at the airport.
White Sox 8, Indians 1: Jake Peavy (7 IP, 7 H, 1 ER) and Adam Dunn (1 for 3, HR, BB, 2RBI) continue to carry this team.
Angels 6, Twins 2: Mike Trout had a couple of doubles and a couple of RBI. Albert Pujols singled in a couple of runs. I've been telling people for a while that I'll feel way better about Pujols being back on track if he starts to simply hit a bit -- singles count -- as opposed to us watching the home run totals as if they mean everything.
Royals 4, Red Sox 3: Two of the Royals runs were unearned thanks to a Marlon Byrd error. Bruce Chen gave up three runs while pitching into the seventh. Adrian Gonzalez had a bases-clearing double. The Sox have lost seven of eight. Those games were against Oakland, Baltimore and Kansas City. Which, sure, they're all playing decent ball, but no, they were not supposed to be abusing the Boston Red Sox.
Marlins 5, Astros 3: I fell asleep before this one ended and I set ATH to post this morning before I woke up. In the meantime, Old Gator supplied a pithy recap that will suit our purposes just fine:
The Feesh took down the Astros 5-3 in extra eenings last night, playing beyond Craig's bedtime when he wore himself out trying to button the rear hatch on his Pooh pajamas after having already put them on ... Josh Johnson peetched seven pretty solid innings, thank Buddha, giving up just two runs and looking, if not like the dominant monster he was early last season, at least a lot less like the batting practice machine he has been in most of his starts. Probably Slobbering Ozzie had noticed something about his motion, and Josh discovered the flaw while he was trying to figure out what Ozzie had said to him in the first place. Omar Infante got Ryan Webb back the two runs he gave away for him the night before with a walkoff seengle in the twelfth.
The Astros have assuredly not been the doormats everyone expected them to be, at least not in the early going, and it's a shame these hungry kids will have that degenerate, post-classical phenomenon known as designatedhitterball in their futures, this just as they're getting good at real baseball. Perhaps playing well enough to surprise everyone is their bucket list.
Dodgers 6, Giants 2: Lincecum looked good for three innings and then hit a wall in the fourth, giving up a bases-clearing triple to Tony Gwynn Jr. In other news, I don't care if he plays 15 years, I will still have trouble getting my mind around the fact that Tony Gwynn's son is playing major league baseball. I never have this trouble with other kids of major leaguers, but for some reason it just doesn't match up for me with Gwynn, who no matter his age, shape or infirmity, I am convinced stopped playing baseball only a year or two ago.
Cardinals 7, Diamondbacks 2: Arizona is skidding, St. Louis is surging. Close until the ninth when Matt Holliday drove in two with a double and Allen Craig hit a two-run bomb.
Mariners 2, Tigers 1: John Jaso drove in the go-ahead late after Jason Vargas allowed one run over eight innings. Detroit is a .500 team on May 10th. No one saw that coming.
Rangers vs. Orioles: POSTPONED: Pfft. As if Josh Hamilton isn't powerful enough to have just stopped the rain with his bat and his determination. Weak sauce, Hamilton.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
A job with your name on it
Posted by Dave StudemanThe Houston Astros and old buddy Mike Fast are looking for a summer intern for their Decision Sciences group. They're particularly interested in candidates with good database and front-end skills. If that sounds up your alley, here's the link.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRangers 10, Orioles 3: Josh Hamilton: four bombs, eight RBI and 18 total bases on a 5 for 5 night. Every time he does something awesome this year I imagine him muttering something about how dumb it was for Jon Daniels not to talk about a contract extension before the season began.
Yankees 5, Rays 3: Two homers for Raul Ibanez. Which most nights would get him kudos, but we have used up our kudo supply on Josh Hamilton. In other news, remember those Kudos chocolate covered granola bars? When my brother was in the navy and his ship was sent to the Persian Gulf in late 1990, the Mars Corporation sent an utter ass-load of those Kudos bars to them. They had them all the time every day and they got sick to death of them. Summer 1991 they were back in Norfolk and they had a dependants' cruise, allowing the families onboard. I went with my parents. They still had tons and tons of Kudos bars, and the sailors were begging everyone to take handfuls of them with us so they could clear out the stock. Rumor was that they'd get better candy bars once those where gone. I have no idea why I just told you all of this.
Cardinals 6, Diamondbacks 1: A big night for multi-homer games. Carlos Beltran had two and drove in six runs. Like I said, we're out of kudos. Would you care for a Skor? Or a Whatchamacallit? God, I love Whatchamacallits. Jake Westbrook pitched seven shutout innings. He gets some Necco Wafers. Sorry, I know that sucks, but we're running out of candy.
Athletics 7, Blue Jays 3: Earlier in the day yesterday I was on a radio show in Toledo that covers the Tigers and we talked about how hilarious it would be if Brandon Inge was a big hero this weekend when the A's play the Tigers. Well, he's warming up: walkoff grand slam. He's had two straight 4-RBI games.
Pirates 5, Nationals 4: Rod Barajas hit a walkoff two-run homer. Henry Rodriguez was fugly in the ninth: a walk, two wild pitches and then that tater. The fact that the Nats signed Mike Gonzalez yesterday is no accident.
Braves 3, Cubs 1: Hey, on the bright side, the Cubs actually gave Ryan Dempster one run of support. Which is a ton for him. I think they're gonna see if they can trust him with that and if things go well they may score two runs for him sometime in the near future. No need to go crazy or anything. Braves are tied for first, by the way. And while I watched this whole game, I didn't focus too hard on the second half because I was busy riffing on Chip Caray on Twitter. I gotta start watching the opponents' broadcasters so I'm not so distracted with fun pursuits like that.
Mets 7, Phillies 4: Philly jumps out to a 4-0 lead but Joe Blanton didn't have nearly the mojo last night that he had in his last start. The first four guys in the Mets lineup went 8 for 17 with 5 RBI.
Astros 3, Marlins 2: Houston ends Miami's seven-game winning streak. All-Star infielder Omar Infante had two errors on one play in the sixth allowing two Houston runs to score.
White Sox 5, Indians 3: Alex Rios tripled home the go-ahead run off Chris Perez in the 10th and scored himself on a subsequent fielder's choice. Rios has beaten up on Perez quite a bit in recent years.
Twins 5, Angels 0: Scott Diamond had seven shutout innings. The Twins had 12 hits and walked four times.
Royals 6, Red Sox 4: Billy Butler with a big three run homer in the eighth. The AP game story, at least as it was written as of 11:15 PM last night, referred to Butler as the Royals' "portly designated hitter." Which is pretty hilarious and I'll be sad if they scrubbed it out by this morning.
Brewers 8, Reds 3: Aramis Ramirez his a bases loaded triple and Ryan Braun had three hits and scored twice.
Giants 2, Dodgers 1: Ryan Vogelsong outuels Clayton Kershaw. Brett Pill's third inning two-run bomb was all that was needed.
Tigers 6, Mariners 4: Kevin Millwood has to be about done, right? (5 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 3K). The pen was shaky again, as Jose Valverde walked the bases loaded in the ninth, but this time the Tigers shook loose.
Padres 3, Rockies 1: Comeback story Jeff Suppan wins again. Will Venable doubled and tripled. The Rockies have lost five straight.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Last week’s record
Posted by Jonathan FalkIt happened last week. On May 2, the Braves came back from a 6-0 deficit to defeat the Phillies and Roy Halladay. Then, after an intervening 4-2 loss, they came back from 5-0 down to beat the Rockies on May 4 and from 6-0 down to win on May 5. That’s three big comebacks in four days.
And it was the fastest such set of comebacks in baseball history. Using the Retrosheet game log database, I found 1,799 games where the winning team came back from 5-0 or worse. (Note that I am not looking at all leads here—only leads where the ultimately winning team has not yet scored.) A total of 137 teams performed this feat three times or more in a season. Six teams did it five times in one season, the most recent being the 1987 Cincinnati Reds.
I then looked to see how quickly these teams got three such wins. Until last week, the record was held by the 1949 Boston Braves, who came from 6-0 down to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers on 5/28, from 5-0 down to beat the Phillies on 5/31 and from 5-0 down to beat Pittsburgh on 6/1. That’s three big comebacks in five days.
Also notable are the 1997 Anaheim Angels, who came back from 5-0 down three times in six days: 5/12 (White Sox), 5/14 (Orioles) and 5/17 (Brewers). And honorable mention goes to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who came back to win both ends of a doubleheader after trailing 5-0 in the first game and 7-0 in the nightcap against the Philadelphia Athletics.
I think records are set in baseball every week. You just have to know where to look.
Jonathan has been a Braves fan ever since they showed up in Atlanta to mesmerize a ten year old.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraMets 5, Phillies 2: I had been agitating for Jonathan Papelbon to pitch more. Specifically in tie games. Well, he did here and gave up a game-losing three-run homer to Jordany Valdespin. I suppose we'll let Cholly run the team from here on out.
Marlins 4, Astros 0: Carlos Zambrano with the three-hit shutout pushes his ERA to 1.98 on the year. Guy can still pitch a little.
Reds 6, Brewers 1: Since when does Bronson Arroyo strike out nine guys in six and two thirds?
Indians 8, White Sox 6; Indians 3, White Sox 2: I'm beginning to think that, perfecto notwithstanding, Phil Humber is not all that good (2.1 IP, 9 H, 8 ER). The second game ended in a bunch of rain. Which you play through when you're already making up a rainout in a double header.
Angels 8, Twins 3: Alas, Jered Weaver did not pull a Johnny Vander Meer. But he could've. It's the Twins we're talking about here. He settled for one run on three hits in six innings, bringing his record to 5-0.
Cubs 5, Braves 1: Bryan LaHair, Ian Stewart and Geovany Soto all homered off Braves pitching. Jeff Samardzija allowed only one homer, to Jason Heyward and was otherwise solid. BTW: Samardzija hit Heyward with a pitch in the seventh. If that was intentional retaliation for the Heyward homer, it was bad, bad, bad. Then Eric O'Flaherty hit David Dejesus. If that was intentional it was bad, bad, bad too. There: happy that I don't simply think that Cole Hamels was in the wrong because he plays for the Phillies?
Red Sox 11, Royals 5: The Sox snap a five game losing streak behind two Will Middlebrooks home runs. Which is exactly how everyone imagined slumps would be busted in Boston this year.
Rangers 14, Orioles 3: Way to make me look bad with all of that "the O's are getting great pitching" on the HBT Extra that will air later this morning but which was taped yesterday. Brandon Snyder homered and had six RBI.
Dodgers 9, Giants 1: Ted Lilly allowed one run on four hits and struck out six to run his record to 4-0. L.A. scored five off the Giants pen in the eighth. I'd call the Giants pen a hot mess, but I don't want to insult hot messes.
Mariners 3, Tigers 2: The wheels done fell off in the ninth for Detroit as Octavio Dotel -- filling in for the unavailable Jose Valverde -- blew a 2-0 lead, wasting a great Doug Fister start. Dotel was all over the place, walking the first two hitters he faced, then throwing a wild pitch. Then a passed ball -- which could have been ruled a wild pitch -- scored a run. Then a double scored another. After Dotel was yanked a bunt and then a sac fly ended it.
Padres 3, Rockies 2: Yonder Alonso drove in two and Edinson Volquez got his first win. Let's just give Cincinnati this victory, OK? The Padres can have the Mat Latos win from Sunday.
Cardinals 9, Diamondbacks 6: Lance Lynn wins again after shutting out the D-backs for five. If the season ended now he's the NL Cy Young Award winner, right? God, I hope the season doesn't end now. I like baseball.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
10,000 days ago: Marge Schott becomes Reds owner
Posted by Chris Jaffe10,000 days ago, the Cincinnati Reds got a new owner: Marge Schott. Her reign would prove to be one of the most controversial in the annals of recent American sports ownership.
As to the controversies around Schott (oh, wear to begin). Let’s start with the obvious ones. She owned a Nazi armband and once told reporters that Hitler was good in the beginning (he built the roads, don’t you know). An employee said she called the team’s best black players “million dollar niggers” and that the front office had an unwritten policy against hiring blacks. As controversies around her biases swirled, Scott told reporters she didn’t understand why people found the term “Jap” offensive. At least one employee contended she made anti-Semitic remarks.
There was a good deal of bigotry in the above listed accusations, obviously, and also a good deal of cluelessness. She doesn’t even think Jap is offensive? She thinks Hitler was good in the beginning? (Short version to anyone unaware—no, he wasn’t. His goal from day one was to create a new racial utopia and conquer other places). Not only was it like Schott was walking out of the 1950s—or 1920s—into the 1990s and not being aware that things had changed, it’s like she walked out of a bad stereotype of bygone times.
This was true in other ways as well. Schott reportedly said she didn’t want any players who wore earrings because “Only fruits wear earrings.” She announced in midseason that the Reds wouldn’t bring back manager Davey Johnson regardless of how well the team did. One background reason for this was because she didn’t approve of his co-habitation with a woman he wasn’t married to.
Schott was odd in other ways. A Sports Illustrated article noted that in the car dealerships she owned (and that she inherited after he husband had died), Schott would engage in various sorts of frankly ridiculous and pointless cost-saving measures. The one that stuck with me is that if she saw a computer terminal turned on at an unoccupied desk, she’d walk up to it and turn it off. She was the one paying the electricity bill, and she didn’t want to waste any. Really? That’s pretty damn pennywise and pound-foolish.
Similarly, she didn’t like hiring baseball scouts because all they are paid to do is watch baseball games. More famously, she complained about having to pay players when they were on the DL, even team stars and World Series heroes. Eric Davis was openly irked at her callous treatment of him after getting injured while helping the Reds claim the 1990 world title.
Schott also made beloved dog, Schottzie, the team mascot. She always loved animals, but at one point some of the team’s publications featured virtually nothing but photos of the dog, and almost none of the players or even team legend Pete Rose. The mascot had become prominent to the point of parody and embarrassment for the Reds. She let the dog have free reign in Riverfront Stadium. It even pooped on the field.
What’s interesting, is that Schott was initially a fairly popular owner. She’d make herself publicly visible during games and talk to fans. She kept the concessions prices low, and even kept the seat prices as low as she could. She always loved children and throughout her entire adult life was very active in charity foundations for children.
Mainly, I see a large streak of provincialism here; a streak many others share but those who are so provincial rarely have as much public stature of money that Schott had. Or if they are, they’re not so vocal about it.
It’s like she developed a sense of how the world should be at an early age and then just spent her entire life locked into it. She never noticed the world was changing or thought to reexamine whether any of her beliefs were wrong. Thus she thought you shouldn’t hire blacks, but should be as nice as you can to kids. Jews aren’t trustworthy, but a ballpark hot dog should only cost $1. There’s something funny about guys wearing earrings but it’s perfectly natural to let your dog poop on the lawn – even if the lawn is center field.
I also remember a group of sportswriters (actually, it was the late, great Sportswriters on TV show – saying that they felt more than a few other sports owners had similar social views as Schott, but they didn’t publicize it.
For better and for worse, the above era began 10,000 days ago when Marge Schott became majority owner of the Reds.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you prefer to skim the lists.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since some idiot in the bleachers at Wrigley Field tosses his drink of Phillies outfielder Shane Victorino during a play. He sneaks out of the stadium but will have to turn himself in to the authorities that day. In that same game, Pedro Martinez makes his Phillies debut, and they win 12-5. I was at this game.
5,000 days since Roger Clemens tosses his third consecutive complete game shutout. His line: 27 IP, 8 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 5 BB, and 31 K.
5,000 days since the Cardinals unveil a statue of longtime voice of the franchise Jack Buck.
6,000 days since the New York Daily News reports that several big stars dodged taxes on their autograph fees, including: Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson, and Mickey Mantle.
8,000 days since Steve Avery makes his debut.
8,000 days since the lords of baseball approve the sale of the Padres from Joan Kroc to Tom Werner and friends for $90,000,000.
15,000 days since Jim Slaton, the all-time Brewer franchise win leader, makes his big league debut.
20,000 days since the Brooklyn Sports Authority says a 50,000 seat stadium in downtown New York City will cost $20.7 million.
Anniversaries
1850 Ross Barnes, great hitter in 1870s, is born.
1858 Dan Brouthers, one of the best hitters in the 19th century, is born.
1878 Paul Hines starts a triple play, a pretty neat fact given that he plays center field. He catches the ball, runs to third base for the second out and tosses it to second base for the last out. It was a very different game back then.
1893 Edd Roush, Hall of Famer interviewed in The Glory of Their Times, is born.
1896 While Billy Nash of the Phillies argues with an umpire over a called strike, savvy Cubs pitcher Clark Griffith takes advantage of the fact that Nash is still standing in the batter’s box to throw the ball at Nash’s bat. The ball doinks off it for a double play.
1899 Harry Wolverton hits a walk-off grand slam: Cubs 8, Spiders 7.
1901 Turkey Stearnes, Hall of Fame Negro Leaguer, is born.
1902 Here’s a weird one: Cubs beat Giants 10-5 but afterward it’s discovered that the plate is 15 inches closer to the mound that it’s supposed to be. The Giants protest, and the game (and the previous day’s game) are replayed.
1906 Chief Bender would hit only six home runs in his Hall of Fame pitching career, but two come in this game off Jesse Tannehill. Added bonus: both are inside the park home runs. Extra added bonus: Bender wasn’t pitching in this game. Due to injuries, A’s manager Connie Mack put Bender in left field in the sixth inning, and he hit both dingers as a position player.
1907 Big Jeff Pfeffer tosses a no-hitter, as the Braves beat the Reds 6-0.
1911 Pete Alexander tosses the first of his 90 complete game shutouts.
1914 Walter Johnson tosses reportedly the only bean ball of his career—aimed at star third baseman Frank Baker.
1921 Ty Cobb hits home run, triple, and two doubles—but no single, so no cycle.
1922 Sam Beardon buys controlling interest in the St. Louis Cardinals.
1926 Three-alarm blaze at Fenway Park burns down the grandstand roof and left field bleachers. There won’t be any more left field bleachers until the 21st century.
1929 Frankie Frisch legs out his 100th career triple
1929 Carl Hubbell throws no-hitter versus a very tough Pittsburgh Pirate offense. (I once determined it was the third most impressive lineup ever no-hit. Giants win 11-0. He walks one, but two reach on error (both errors are in the ninth).
1930 Freddie Lindstrom hits for the cycle—and his homer was an inside-the-park one.
1935 Ernie Lombardi clubs four doubles in one game, all in consecutive plate appearances.
1936 37-year-old Kiki Cuyler hits his 19th and last inside-the-park home run.
1936 Hall of Fame first baseman Johnny Mize enjoys the first of 30 career multi-home run games.
1937 Bobo Newsom, 200-game winner with a losing career record (211-222), hits his only career home run.
1937 Mike Cuellar, pitcher, is born.
1939 Cards top Dodgers 1-0 as Pepper Martin steals home in the sixth inning.
1940 Reds get 27 hits in 23-2 demolition of Dodgers. In the game, Harry Craft hits for the cycle.
1941 The Boston Braves release former AL star pitcher Wes Ferrell.
1941 Red Ruffing goes 3-for-3 with a home run in 5-4 Yankee win over Indians. He may have done more damage at the plate, but was taken out in the sixth, as he allowed 12 base runners while making only 17 outs.
1942 In a Navy Relief Fund exhibition game between the Dodgers and Giants, everyone—even the players and umpires—pays their way into the stadium, as all proceeds go to the war effort.
1946 Tigers pull off odd triple play when a line drive bounces off pitcher Hal Newhouser and into the hands off Eddie Mayo. This surprises the base runners enough for the next two outs.
1947 AP breaks the story that the St. Louis Cardinals reportedly are talking of boycotting Dodgers game because of Jackie Robinson. This likely amounted to little more than some guys muttering in the clubhouse, and was never a real plan, let alone one involving the entire team.
1948 Hall of Famer Hal Newhouser loses his 100th decision (132-100).
1948 Larry Doby hits reportedly the longest home run at Griffith Stadium in Washington since Babe Ruth in 1922. Doby’s blast hits a loudspeaker 35 feet over the center field wall.
1953 Charlie Grimm wins his 1,000th game as manager (1,000-845).
1957 Kansas City A’s lose, putting Lou Bourdreau’s managerial record under .500 (1,083-1,084) and it will stay under from here on out.
1957 Old Folks Ellis Kinder is finally too old – today is his last game.
1957 Ted Williams hits three homers in a game for the second time. He did it 11 years ago.
1958 Reds enter ninth inning trailing 8-2 at Wrigley Field, but score eight runs to beat the Cubs.
1960 Fourth inning single gives Willie Mays his highest career batting average: .318970 (1,325/4,154).
1960 Hall of Fame managers Casey Stengel and Al Lopez manage against each other for the 200th time.
1961 It’s announced that the new NL team will be called the Mets.
1963 Bob Buhl, pitcher, singles. It’s his first hit since 1961—and yes, he played all of 1962.
1963 Willie Stargell mashes his first MLB home run.
1963 Stan Musial sets record by hitting his 1,357th extra base hit. Babe Ruth had “only” 1,356.
1964 Willie Mays homers off Phil Ortega, the only hit Mays ever managed off Ortega in 19 plate appearances.
1965 New record longest game in organized baseball viewed by a paid attendance of 386: Elmira Pioneers 2, Springfield Giants 1 (27). It was 0-0 for 25 innings, but incredibly they both scored in the 26th.
1966 It’s the last game at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. The Giants win, 10-5.
1966 Barely a month after joining the Orioles, Frank Robinson hits the only ball ever to completely leave Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. He’ll win the Triple Crown in his first year in the AL.
1966 Big trade: Giants send first baseman Orlando Cepeda to St. Louis for pitcher Ray Sadecki. Advantage: St. Louis.
1968 Catfish Hunter throws a perfect game and fans 11 in the process. The losing team was the Minnesota Twins, whose lineup featured Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, and Tony Oliva. Damn. It’s also Catfish Hunter’s 11th straight Quality Start, his longest streak ever. His record in those games: 5-5 W-L, 89 IP, 55 H, 22 R, 20 ER, 19 BB, 66 K, 2.02 ERA. 5-5 with a 2.02 ERA? Welcome to the 1968 American League.
1971 The Senators trade Mike Epstein and Darold Knowles to the A’s for Don Mincher, cash, and two others.
1973 Ralph Miller, the last living 19th century player, dies
1973 Willie Stargell hits home run off Andy Messersmith that completely leaves Dodger Stadium. It’s only the second time that’s happened—and we’re still waiting for Time No. 3. The first time? That was also Stargell, back in 1969.
1976 Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant allows nine runs in one outing against the Rangers—but none are earned. In the second inning, the first three batters strike out, reach on error, and then ground out. The next 10 straight batters reach base.
1977 Rod Carew gets two triples in one game. He’ll do it only one other time in his career—and that will come 26 days later.
1978 Royals manager Whitey Herzog tries something different. To try to stop Red Sox star Jim Rice (who enters the day batting .364 with a slugging percentage over .700), Herzog puts more men in the outfield. He goes without a second baseman. Rice goes 2-for-3 with a double and an IW on the day.
1979 It’s an infamous game in Kansas City, as Texas starting pitcher Ed Farmer beans Frank White and Al Cowens in the same game. White has to leave with a broken right hand bone and Cowens with a broken jaw. Cowens in particular clearly thinks this was intentional, as the next time he faces Farmer, he charges the mound. On a ground out. In extra innings. Despite the fact that Cowens is now a Tiger and Farmer now a White Sox.
1981 It’s all Tom Seaver for the Reds. He tosses a complete game shutout and belts a home run off of Don Sutton.
1982 Adrian Gonzalez is born.
1982 Expos release Rodney Scott, causing Bill Lee to walk off the team in protest, which will end his career.
1984 Kirby Puckett has a heckuva MLB debut, going 4-for-5. He’s only the 12th person to debut with a four-hit game.
1984 The longest game in AL history begins: White Sox 8, Brewers 7 (25). Due to curfew rules, it will finish the next day. Robin Yount grounds into three double plays in it, his personal worst.
1987 It’s the first of 67 multi-home run games for Mark McGwire.
1988 Chris Chambliss plays his last game.
1990 Andre Dawson hits his only walk-off home run as a Cub, giving him at least one walk-off home run in three different decades. It’s also his best WPA game: 0.813 WPA. 3-for-5, two homers, two runs, three RBIs, an intentional walk, and a K as Cubs beat Braves, 10-8.
1991 Howard Spira found guilty of trying to extort money from George Steinbrenner.
1992 Jim Leyland manages his 1,000th game: 516-482 record.
1992 Astros pitcher Butch Henry has a memorable first major league hit: a three-run inside the park homer. But Houston loses, 6-3.
1993 Terry Mulholland pitches 10 innings for the Phillies, the last time a pitcher went over nine innings for them in one game.
1994 Andy Van Slyke goes 8-for-9 in doubleheader versus the Cubs.
1995 Jason Giambi plays in his first big league game.
1994 Former star second baseman Steve Sax plays in his last game.
1997 Randy Johnson loses, ending a 16-game winning streak.
1997 Cory Lidle, pitcher, makes his major league debut.
1998 Mark McGwire hits his 400th home run.
1998 Tony Gwynn's home run off of Tom Glavine in the first inning raises his career batting to its all-time peak: .340356 (2,827/8,306).
2000 For the second straight game Craig Biggio is twice HBP.
2000 Marlins lose to Braves on walk-off balk by John Rocker. It’s 2-2 entering the bottom of the ninth when this happens: single, error on botched pick off, out, out, intentional walk, runner advances to second on defensive indifference, balk. What an ugly inning.
2001 Randy Johnson fans 20 batters in nine innings—but then the game goes 10 innings. Records are normally different for nine- and extra-inning games, so Johnson doesn’t tie the Kerry Wood-Roger Clemens record, but Tom Cheney once fanned 21 in 16 innings, so Johnson isn’t there either.
2003 Giants sign amateur free agent Pablo Sandoval.
2003 Aaron Boone this three homers in one game for the second time in his career.
2004 Sammy Sosa strikes out for the 2,000th time. He’s the second guy to do that. Andres Galarraga will become the third later this year. (Reggie Jackson was the first).
2004 Texas Ranger Alfonso Soriano gets six hits in a game—the first time that happened to any batter in that franchise’s history.
2004 For the only time in his career, Greg Maddux let’s the opposing pitcher homer off him. It’s Rockies hurler Jason Jennings in Wrigley Field. Pitchers are 162-for-1,250 with 19 doubles an a homer and a .130/.151/.147 AVG/OBP/SLG against him.
2008 Jim Thome steals his first base since Sept. 25, 2002.
2009 Dom DiMaggio, star centerfielder and brother of a Hall of Famer centerfielder, dies
2009 Alex Rodriguez returns to baseball following hip surgery. He homers on the first pitch he sees.
2010 Milwaukee’s Jody Gerut hits for the cycle. It’s an unlikely one as not only is Gerut having a terrible season, but before the game Brewers manager Ken Macha flipped a coin to determine if Gerut or Corey Hart should start in right field. The coin does the job right and Gerut gets the start.
2010 Mark Teixeira 2010 hits three homers in a game. It’s the third time he's hit three home runs in a game. Each time he's done it while playing for a different team, too.
2011 Mike Scioscia posts his 1,000 win as manager: 1,000-817 for his career.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Monday, May 07, 2012
Ubaldo Jimenez: A quick mechanics review
Posted by Kyle BoddyIn my earlier analysis of Ubaldo Jimenez's mechanics, I noted that his initial separation from the glove was extremely early, terminating momentum and reducing athleticism out of the glove with his pitching arm. However, people said that his velocity was up in his start on Sunday against the Texas Ranges and Yu Darvish, and a few readers asked me to take a look into his mechanics. I quickly cut the video and put it up against the 2010 and older 2012 clips to take a look:
The newest clip is on the left, the Rockies (2010) clip is in the middle, and the earlier 2012 clip is on the right. Here's the important part slowed down:
(You can use a free browser plug-in like GIF Scrubber for Chrome to step through these images frame-by-frame or slow it down even further.)
If you can't tell, there's a pretty big difference in his pitching arm action between Sunday's game and the one prior to that, and the results showed it on that pitch, registering at 95 mph on the stadium gun.
Ryan from Let's Go Tribe said that Ubaldo's average four-seam fastball velocity was 94.7 mph, but the Brooks Baseball PITCHf/x tool disagrees, saying Ubaldo came in at 92.37 mph, not much different than his start on May 1, where he was averaging 92.07 mph with the same pitch. (Texas Leaguers agrees with these velocity readings for Ubaldo's May 1 and his May 6 starts.)
Since his average fastball velocity was similar but the arm actions were so different on the 91 and 95 mph fastballs, it's clear that the real problem is consistency in his delivery. Ubaldo's main problem is still the early hand break (with secondary thought to how he uses the front shoulder and glove arm), and while it's encouraging to see fastballs touch 95 mph, his arm action isn't yet as efficient or athletic as it was when he was in Colorado. The closer he gets to optimizing his arm action and remaining consistent with it, the better results you'll see with not only his fastball velocity, but his overall command and control.
Kyle Boddy is the owner of Driveline Baseball and Driveline Biomechanics Research, both in Seattle, Washington. At his facility, he trains athletes and operates a biomechanics lab that focuses on improving the efficiency and durability of baseball pitchers. He can be reached via email at kyle at drivelinebaseball dot com.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraOrioles 9, Red Sox 6: Just your standard 17-inning affair in which a first baseman is the winning pitcher, after throwing two shutout innings and and an utfielder is the losing pitcher after giving up a three-run homer . Chris Davis shut out the Red Sox for the 16th and 17th innings, striking out two. Of course he did. Darnell McDonald gave up a three-run homer to Adam Jones. Of course he did. J.J. Hardy had two homers. The game took six hours and seven minutes. Mercy.
Angels 4, Blue Jays 3: Albert Pujols hit a homer, so we can quit keeping track of that, I suppose. Guess now we can see how long it takes for his average to get above the Mendoza Line.
Indians 4, Rangers 2: Yu Darvish struck out 11 Indians but still got the loss because, strikeouts aside, walking four and giving up six hits in six innings while throwing 112 pitches isn't a study in efficiency. The Indians' three-run third inning started when a Johnny Damon popup fell in after getting lost in the sun. Here's Darvish, after the game through an interpreter:
"If the ball goes into the sun, what can you do?"
I'd like to think that he listened to "A Saucerful of Secrets" right before this game, but I kinda doubt it.
Braves 7, Rockies 2: The sweep. What a nutso series. I thought they had a humidor or something, but by the time yesterday's game got started I was totally of the mindset that a six run deficit didn't matter any. Overall the Braves scored 29 runs in this three-game series. On the pitching side, some order was restored in this one with Brandon Beachy allowing only a couple of runs in six and a third.
Marlins 6, Padres 3: Tied at two until the Fish put up a four-run eighth inning. Thankfully, however, the Padres scored one in the bottom of the inning, creating a save situation and allowing us to watch someone besides Heath Bell handle the ninth. Edward Mujica gets the save.
Mariners 5, Twins 2: Hector Noesi took a shutout into the seventh and Jesus Montero hit a two-run double. If you told this to a Yankees fan a year ago ...
Cardinals 8, Astros 1: Tyler Greene hit two homers, the Cardinals salvaged one in the series and, more importantly, Adam Wainwright looked good, with good command for really the first time all season.
Yankees 10, Royals 4: Robinson Cano hit a grand slam, Alex Rodriguez hit a three-run shot and Nick Swisher hit a solo homer, breaking the Yankees offense out of a slump. We knew the offense was going to figure it out soon enough. We were less sure of Phil Hughes, but he turned in his best start of the season, allowing three runs over six and two thirds and striking out seven.
Reds 5, Pirates 3: This is why the Reds traded so much talent for Mat Latos: six innings, two hits, no runs and eleven strikeouts.
Athletics 9, Rays 5: Of course Brandon Inge hit a three-run homer and drove in four. We all know he'd do that against Matt Moore. Who we also predicted would give up eight runs. We all talked about this during the big pregame show. It was my Master Lock "Lock of the Week."
Mets 3, Diamondbacks 1: R.A. Dickey was on point (8 IP, 4 H, 1 ER). Assuming knuckleballers have points. I think of them as having weird concave places and a lot of swirly bits.
Giants 4, Brewers 3: Matt Cain struck out 10 in seven innings but the bullpen couldn't hold the one-run lead. Tim Dillard walked two and gave up two hits to blow the game in the 11th. Because -- all together now! -- you can't use your closer in a tie game on the road!
Tigers 3, White Sox 1: The Tigers offense still isn't clicking, but solo homers by Austin Jackson, Prince Fielder and Andy Dirks were all Rick Porcello (6.1 IP, 4 H, 1 ER) and four relievers needed to take care of the Sox.
Cubs 4, Dodgers 3: A walkoff walk to David DeJesus in the 11th. By the way: is it just me, or are there an inordinate number of extra inning games this year? Seems like a lot. Someone who has some research-fu, tell me if I'm nuts.
Phillies 9, Nationals 3: True fact: Natitude is still only 66.6 percent effective. Hunter Pence had four RBI. Cole Hamels allowed one run in eight innings and struck out eight.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Sunday, May 06, 2012
30th anniversary: Gaylord Perry’s 300th win
Posted by Chris JaffeThirty years ago today, one of baseball’s greatest milestones was achieved. On May 6, 1982, veteran spitballer Gaylord Perry won his 300th game, becoming just the 15th pitcher to do so. Making it even more impressive, Perry was the first pitcher to win No. 300 since Early Wynn 19 years earlier.
From 1963-81, the 500 home run club erupted from four members to a dozen. In that same span, the 3,000 hit club had nearly doubled, rising from eight to 15 members. But the 300 win club remained stuck at 15.
In fact, almost all the 300 win clubbers were either 19th century or deadball pitchers. Perry was only the fourth man to have his prime since the emergence of Babe Ruth to win 300 games. Since Pete Alexander joined the club 60 years earlier, just Lefty Grove, Warren Spahn, Early Wynn, and now Perry had done it. Simply put, while it’s always an impressive achievement when someone achieves one of these milestones, Perry’s 300th win was extremely impressive because it was so hard to do in recent memory.
Well, from one angle it was an extremely impressive achievement for Perry. From another angle, it was less awe-inspiring. At the time Perry did it, he was barely hanging on as a pitcher. Perry had been a quality pitcher in his 20s who had a surprisingly strong second wind in his 30s. Actually, he’s one of the game’s greatest late bloomers, as he thrice led the league in wins in his 30s, and twice picked up Cy Young Awards. He won 191 games in his 30s, the fifth highest total in baseball history.
But, after a 21-win Cy Young season with the Padres at age 39 in 1978, age finally caught up to Perry. After a middling 1979 campaign, San Diego traded the rapidly aging Perry to Texas. After four months, Texas sent him to the Yankees. Perry won four games for New York, which let him walk away in the offseason to join another team. Instead, Perry landed with the Braves in 1981. Just three years removed from a Cy Young season, Perry was a below average pitcher for the Braves that year. Right after the regular season ended, Atlanta released him. After five months unemployed, Perry finally signed on with the Mariners in March 1982.
Yeah, in 1982 Perry was on the verge of achieving the hardest of all milestones. He was also playing for his fifth team in four years. What does that sound like? Sounds like a veteran trying to stick around as his talent wound down. He wasn’t bad enough to leave baseball altogether but he wasn’t good enough for any team to keep him for very long. And the teams picking him up were often the dregs—such as the Mariners.
Perry had gone 30-33 from 1979-81, raising his career record to 297-239. Things got off to a dreary start with the Mariners, losing his first two decisions. The losses were largely due to poor run support, but when you’re sitting on 297 wins, you just want to get some Ws. In late April, Perry picked up a pair of victories to even up his record at 2-2 on the year and more importantly giving him 299 lifetime wins.
On May 6, 1982, Perry went for No. 300 for the first time, against one of his recent former teams—the Yankees. Seattle’s often-dormant bat awoke for this game. In the third inning they parlayed three singles, two triples, and a batter reaching on an error to plate five runners, giving Perry all the cushion he would need. The veteran pitcher cruised the rest of the way for a complete game win. It was both his 300th win and also his 297th complete game. And it happened 30 years ago today.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something occurring X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim the lists.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Vladimir Guerrero hits his 400th home run.
1,000 days since Toronto puts Alex Rios on waivers.
1,000 days since Troy Tulowitzki has a game for the ages, driving in seven runs while hitting for the cycle.
2,000 days since the Cubs sign Mark DeRosa. This works out well for them.
4,000 days since Derek Jeter goes 5-for-5 for the first time in his career. He only does it one other time – the game he joined the 3,000 hit club.
4,000 days since Jeff Brantley plays in his final game.
5,000 days since Mike Piazza gets his 1,000th hit.
6,000 days since Paul Molitor belts his 600th double.
6,000 days since the ball Cal Ripken Jr. hit for a homer in his 2,131st consecutive game played sells at an auction for $41,736.
7,000 days since a new Yankees advertising campaign begins. It focuses on team owner George Steinbrenner.
8,000 days since Nolan Ryan tosses his sixth no-hitter, becoming the oldest man to ever throw one. (He’ll toss another one in his future, though. Today, he walks two while fanning 14).
9,000 days since Keith Hernandez gets his 2,000th hit.
9,000 days since three long-lasting pitchers all make their big league debut: Senator Al Leiter, Black Jack McDowell, and John Burkett.
Anniversaries
1871 Cap Anson, one of the best players in his generation, makes his debut.
1893 Roger Connor, the all-time home run king before Babe Ruth, hits his 100th home run. He’s just the second man to do that. Harry Stovey was the first.
1901 Bill Bergen, the worst hitter ever, makes his debut. The catcher is a fielding whiz.
1902 Giants pitcher Dummy Taylor returns to the team, claiming he’d been kidnapped and thus unable to play recently.
1903 The White Sox tie the all-time AL record by making a dozen errors in one game.
1905 It’s a first in the big leagues—the first tarp. The Pirates roll one over the infield as it rains.
1910 The Giants sign aging left fielder Wee Willie Keeler.
1911 Bill Carrigan hits into the rare walk-off triple play versus Russ Ford and the Yankees.
1914 Hall of Famer Mordecai Brown allows the only pinch-hit homer of his career. Gus Zinn is the batter.
1915 One down, 713 to go. Babe Ruth hits his first home run.
1918 Babe Ruth plays first base. It’s his first time as a position player.
1925 Two Tigers star outfielders connect for their 100th home runs: Hall of Famers Ty Cobb and Harry Heilmann. With Cobb, it’s quite a bit more impressive than that. He hit three homers yesterday and two more today, as he is out to prove to the press that he could be a power hitter if he wanted to.
1930 Boston trades starting pitcher Red Ruffing to the Yankees. Ruffing is 39-96 as a Red Sox but will go 231-124 with the Yankees. This trade helps put him in the Hall of Fame.
1931 One of the greats is born—Say Hey Kid Willie Mays enters the world in Westfield, Ala..
1933 Babe Ruth scores run No. 2,000.
1933 Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg hits his first big league homer. As it happens, it comes off longtime Tigers starter Earl Whitehill.
1933 The Reds sign free agent Jack Quinn.
1934 Veteran pitcher Sad Sam Jones loses his 200th decision. He’s 214-200 on his career.
1934 While one man loses 200, another wins 200. Former phenom George Uhle wins No. 200 for a record of 200-162. It’s his final career win. He’ll go 0-4 in his remaining contests.
1934 Well, you don’t see that every day: Red Sox batters Carl Reynolds, Moose Solters, Rick Ferrell, and Bucky Walters hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back triples in a 14-4 win over the Tigers.
1937 Arky Vaughan triples in his fourth consecutive game.
1937 Yankee pitcher Spud Chandler makes his big league debut.
1938 Minor leaguer Bob Sands of the Newark Bears homers in four consecutive innings. He ends the day 6-for-6 with four homers in a 22-9 win.
1941 Billy Herman, Hall of Fame second baseman, is traded by the Cubs to the Dodgers for two players and $65,000.
1941 Hank Greenberg plays in his last game before joining the military as part of the nation’s peacetime draft. He makes it a memorable one, homering twice and driving in three in a 7-4 Tigers win over the Yankees.
1941 Wes Ferrell, pitcher of Hall of Fame talent (though he’s not in it), plays in his final game.
1942 Bobo Newsom never will toss a no-hitter in his days, but today has one of his five one-hitters. A Doc Cramer single ruins it.
1945 Red Sox rookie Dave "Boo" Ferriss, in his second career start, tosses his second career shutout. Yeah, that’s a nice way to start a career.
1946 After 11 consecutive hits, Johnny Pesky grounds out to end his streak.
1949 Philadelphia A’s hurler Bobby Shantz, in his second career game, tosses nine innings of no-hit relief versus the Tigers. He tosses 10 innings in all, allowing two hits and walking seven. He gets the win in a 13-inning contest. He allows a run in the final frame, but it’s after the A’s scored two in the top of the inning.
1950 Enos Slaughter gets his 100th triple.
1951 Pirates pitcher Cliff Chambers tosses a no-hitter against the Braves. It’s not a particularly well-pitched one, as he walks eight and allows a wild pitch.
1953 Bobo Holloman tosses a no-hitter for the Browns against the A’s. Browns owner Bill Veeck later says it’s one of the worst no-hitters ever thrown, as the A’s kept drilling the ball, but it keeps going right at the fielders. Making it even more unlikely, this is Holloman’s first career start.
1956 Willie Mays celebrates his birthday by stealing four bases in one game. It’s the first of two times he does it, and is his personal high.
1957 One of the game’s greatest players has one of his worst days. Hank Aaron goes 0-for-6 with a GIDP.
1958 Turk Farrell throws 151 pitches in a relief stint. It’s certainly not the most pitchers in one relief outing, but it is the most known pitches in one relief outing. His line: 8.2 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, and 9 K. He enters the game and lasts until the 14th. He is stuck for the loss.
1960 Sandy Koufax is still a year away from being great, but he shows his potential today, fanning 15 in one game. He also allows five runs on seven walks and nine hits in 9.2 innings. He runs out of gas in the ninth as the Dodgers lose, 6-1 in 10 innings.
1960 Vern Bickford, the No. 3 pitcher on the Spahn-and-Sain 1940s Braves, dies at the far too young age of 39.
1964 Then-catcher and later future great pitching coach Dave Duncan makes his big league debut.
1965 For the second time in three games, Willie Stargell homers twice in one game.
1966 Whitey Ford finally loses his 100th game. His record of 232-100 is the best for a man upon loss No. 100 since at least WWI.
1966 In the top of the second inning, pitcher Milt Pappas picks off base stealer Maury Wills. It’s his second and last career pickoff. He pitches another 1,536.1 innings without any others.
1968 Bob Gibson has his best game in his best season. He goes 11 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, and 11 K for a Game Score of 97. He beats the Mets 2-1 in 11 innings. In his previous start, Gibson threw 12 innings surrendering one unearned run. In this game, Bob Gibson allows three straight single to lead off the fourth, and those are the only hits he allows. Tom Seaver goes the distance as the losing pitcher. The loss drops Seaver’s record to 1-2 despite a 1.56 ERA.
1970 Hall of Fame second baseman Bill Mazeroski has probably his worst game at the plate. He’s 0-for-4 with four Ks. It’s his only four-K game. The pitcher is Braves knuckler Phil Niekro, who fans 10 on the day.
1970 Sudden Sam McDowell is too much for the White Sox. Or not. He fans 15, including 13 in the first six innings. However, Chicago has the last laugh, winning 2-1 on a ninth inning homer by Carlos May.
1970 Mets ace Tom Seaver gets his 16th straight win. His line in that span: 18 G, 12 CG, 154.1 IP, 104 H, 32 R, 28 ER, 39 BB, 123 K, and a 1.63 ERA.
1971 NBC pays $72 million for a four-year MLBTV package.
1974 Reggie Jackson gets his 200th home run. In that same game, Reggie’s Oakland teammate Paul Lindblad makes his first error after 385 appearances without one. The relief pitcher makes an errant throw in a loss to the Orioles.
1983 Cal Ripken Jr. enjoys the first of 21 career multi-home run games.
1983 Rod Carew goes 3-for-4 to improve his average on the year to .500! (48-for-96).
1983 Darryl Strawberry makes his big league debut.
1984 Cal Ripken Jr. hits for the cycle.
1984 Old-time pitcher Kirby Higbe dies.
1986 Brewers infielder Cecil Cooper gets his 2,000th career hit.
1987 200-game winner Bob Welch has his best day at the plate. He’s 2-for-3 with a home run, run, and three RBIs, but it’s not enough as the Cubs beat him, 7-6.
1987 The Expos sign veteran Dennis Martinez. Collusion prevented him from singing earlier.
1989 Super Seattle hitter Edgar Martinez gets his first home run.
1989 In the fourth inning against the Angels, Jim Rice flies out, dropping his career average to under .300 (2,434-for-8.127 which equals a .2994955 average). It’ll never be over .300 for him again.
1991 While returning from John Kruk’s bachelor party, Len Dykstra and Darren Daulten are in a one-car accident. Both end up with broken bones.
1991 Rod Beck plays in his first game.
1994 Mets pitcher Anthony Young wins a game, ending a 29-game losing streak as a starter.
1994 Charles Johnson, catcher, makes his big league debut.
1994 The Yankees release aging reliever Jeff Reardon.
1998 Atlanta signs free agent Ozzie Guillen.
1998 Kerry Wood is ready for his close-up. The 20-year-old rookie pitcher fans 20 Houston Astros in a dominating one-hit performance.
1998 On the same time one rookie stars for the Cubs, another former Cubs rookie star Jerome Walton goes out with a whimper. The 1989 Rookie of the Year plays in his last game—and is ejected in it.
2000 Curt Schilling posts his 100th win, giving him a record of 100-84.
2000 Roger Clemens wins his 250th contest. He’s 250-136 in his career so far.
2000 It’s one of the best, and most unlikely pitchers duels of the decade. Well, half of it is very likely as Boston ace Pedro Martinez fans 17 Tampa hitters. However, he’s out-dueled by Steve Trachsel, of all people. Trachsel fans 11 in a three shutout for a 1-0 win. According to WPA, Trachsel has the best pitching performance of the decade with a 0.888 WPA.
2001 Chipper Jones belts his 200th home run.
2001 Bobby Cox and Tony LaRussa manage their 100th game against each other. Cox leads, 64-36.
2001 For the first time in nearly six years, Mike Mussina picks off a base runner.
2001 Houston debuts a new pitcher: Roy Oswalt. Good move by Houston.
2003 Barry Larkin connects for a walk-off, pinch-hit home run.
2004 Mike Piazza has his seventh and final career walk-off home run.
2005 Trevor Hoffman creates the 400 save club.
2005 Paul Wilson has one of the worst starting pitching performances of all-time. He gets no outs and allows eight runs in his start. That’s only happened five times since 1920 and has never been worst-ed by any starter in that span. Rather sadly, Wilson is responsible for two of those five games. In today’s game, all runs are earned, something that happened in only two of those five 0 IP, 8 R starts.
2007 Hideki Matsui doubles. If you combine his Japanese and North American big league hits, that’s No. 2,000.
2007 Giants star Tim Lincecum makes his big league debut.
2007 The Yankees sign free agent pitcher Roger Clemens.
2008 Tim Wakefield has his best career Game Score: 84. His line: 8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, and 6 K.
2009 Two men manage their 1,000th game: Eric Wedge (507-493 in his career), and Bob Melvin (493-507).
2009 Todd Helton homers on the 14th pitch of the at-bat from Osiris Matos. Incredibly, it’s not his longest battle to result in a homer: He had a 15-pitch at-bat on May 13, 2000.
2010 All-time great pitcher Robin Roberts dies.
2010 Texas blows a 8-0 lead to the Royals, but comes back for a dramatic 13-12 win. The tying and winning runs score on back-to-back solo home runs.
2011 Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmerman strikes out the side on nine pitches versus the Marlins in the second inning.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
The injury all-stars
Posted by Joe DistelheimA year ago, looking at the carnage of the first month of the baseball season, I suggested to my colleagues here at The Hardball Times that there sure were a lot of star players injured, and that one of our writers should do an article about how unusual it was.
Several told me cool my jets; it happens every year, they said. But David Wade, good solider that he is, took up the challenge and put together a first-month disabled list All-Star team. (Wade, a good reporter, did demonstrate that a crowded April DL was not unprecedented.)
A fine squad it was, with Kendrys Morales, Chase Utley, Ryan Zimmerman (a small stretch at shortstop) and Evan Longoria around the infield and Joe Mauer catching. Josh Hamilton, Jason Bay and Corey Hart were the flychasers. David put together a first-rate rotation of Adam Wainwright, Ubaldo Jimenez, Zack Greinke, Johan Santana and Jake Peavy. Frank Francisco, Andrew Bailey and Stephen Strasburg headed the bullpen crew.
Another year, another march to MRI-ville. Rather than provoke another bout of eye-rolling among the THT staff, I'll call the roll myself. Here's your 2012 First Month All-DL Team:
Catcher: Salvador Perez
First base: Ryan Howard
Second base: Utley
Shortstop: Stephen Drew
Third base: Zimmerman
Outfield: Jacoby Ellsbury, Chris Young, Carl Crawford
DH: Longoria
On the bench, we can have Pablo Sandoval, Michael Morse, Kevin Youkilis, Lance Berkman, Brett Gardner, Brian Roberts and a host of others.
Our starting rotation would include Cliff Lee, Daniel Hudson, Michael Pineda, Cory Luebke and Doug Fister.
And look at this deep, deep bullpen, headed by Mariano Rivera and including Brian Wilson, Bailey, Drew Storen, Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge.
That's a strong squad, and there are many lesser lights available as non-injury replacements.
I've probably left out some patients of Dr. James Andrews. I apologize to them. But there's always next year.
Joe Distelheim is chief copy editor for The Hardball Times website. He welcomes comments and suggestions via e-mail.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Calico Joe and home-field advantage
Posted by Greg SimonsI'm reading John Grisham's new book, Calico Joe. As the name, and certainly the book's cover, indicate, this is not his latest legal thriller. It's a quick (208-page) piece of baseball fiction for which his publisher has the gall to charge $25. (Thank goodness for libraries.) A full review may be forthcoming, but for now I'd like to focus on one singular scene in the book and the question it raised in my mind.
This might be spoiling things a bit, but the seminal moment of the book is a hit-by-pitch, as the home team's hurler plunks a visiting batter. There is some speculation that the batter simply didn't see the ball, that for some reason he couldn't pick up the ball as it rocketed toward his skull.
This got me thinking. In baseball, the home team usually wears white uniforms, while visiting squads wear some sort of colored uniform—gray, blue, red, yellow, orange, teal, purple, etc. (I think the Marlins' new unis contain all these colors, and more.) How much does the fact that a white baseball is being thrown by a pitcher in a white outfit contribute to home-field advantage?
Certainly, it's easier to pick up the ball against a dark background, which is why the batters' eye in ballparks usually is painted black or dark green, and why some teams have had to remove trees and other distractions from their center-field backdrops over the years.
An aside: Jeff Sullivan at SB Nation wrote an article recently about the advantage Jered Weaver gets throwing the ball with Angels Stadium's rockpile behind him, and it's possible this benefited Weaver in his recent no-hitter. Well, that and he was facing the Twins. There is also speculation that the Marlins' new home run feature could provide a similar benefit to certain pitchers.
A quick internet search did not come up with any studies examining the impact of jersey color on home-field advantage, so I'm wondering if anyone has looked into this effect. If not, it could be an area worth exploring. With so many teams donning non-white alternate home uniforms over the last several seasons, there could be a large enough sample size to work through the noise and see if there's any impact.
Greg Simons continues to hold out hope that some major league team will have need of a past-his-prime left-handed shortstop. If you know of such an opportunity, or want to contact him for any other reason, he can be reached at gregbsimons AT yahoo DOT com.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraPirates 6, Cardinals 3: Erik Bedard struck out 11 men in five innings. At one point he fanned seven in a row. Overall, Pirates pitchers struck out 17 Cardinals. Pedro Alvarez went 2 for 4 with a homer. Two weeks ago he was hitting .074. Now he's at .257 and he's slugging over .600 on the year.
Marlins 3, Giants 2: The sweep for Miami. Pretty disastrous series for the Giants too, what with losing Sandoval and all. Not that this is anything new: As my friend Wendy Thurm put it yesterday: "2 years in a row, Marlins come to SF in May, Giants roll over dead and their best hitter gets really hurt."
Rays 4, Mariners 3: The Rays sweep, win their 11th of 12 and now sit at 18-8, the top of the baseball world. The Mariners: a six game losing streak.
Reds 4, Cubs 3: Hit this one up yesterday. Note: Closers who implode but don't, by virtue of a just-in-time-hook, give up that one last hit that allows the tying run to score aren't officially given a blown save. They need one, so let's call such outings "Marmols," shall we?
Phillies 4, Braves 0: I hit this one up yesterday too. Really, I don't mean to belittle Joe Blanton's three-hit shutout, but the fact is that you can't throw an 88-pitch shutout unless you're (a) Greg Maddux; or (b) you have some help from some mailed-in at bats from the opposition. I've been watching the Braves for 27 years. They are NOTORIOUS getaway day sandbaggers. I don't think they really mean to. It's just in the team's friggin' DNA.
Nationals 2, Diamondbacks 1: Ross Detwiler keeps up his good work, allowing one run over six and a third and sending his ERA down even farther below 2.00. Bryce Harper hit another double, driving in the game-winning run. The Nats are slowly but surely pulling out of their brief funk and now get a chance to face the Phillies over the weekend and see if they can truly lay a claim on the NL East.
Indians 7, White Sox 5: Jason Kipnis hit a triple, a homer and drove in four. Justin Masterson gets his first win of the year.
Royals 4, Yankees 3: Danny Duffy pitches well, Mike Moustakas drives in three. Jeter, by the way, went 4 for 5 and is hitting .404 on the year. But really, it's not like anything in this game matters as much as the Rivera news. Damn.
Blue Jays 5, Angels 0: Like Joe Blanton, Brandon Morrow threw a three-hit shutout. Took him 102 pitches, not 88. I think that means something. Maybe I'm wrong.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Most exciting games (and teams) of April
Posted by Chris JaffeLast year, I wrote an article for THT trying to figure out the best postseason series of all-time based on a semi-basic formula I’d figured out. I took some of the elements that made a game memorable and applied it to the postseason.
It occurred to me, I can just as easily apply this formula to regular season games and figure out what are the most exciting and dramatic games of the year. So I’ve done that.
First, what makes a game exciting? There are a few things I look for—late-game drama and lead changes, walk-off wins, going into extra innings, a close final score, comebacks, and great personal performances. For hitters, that just means hitting multiple homers in a game, and for pitchers tossing a shutout, and/or a game with few hits allowed (with a no-hitter or perfect game getting real big points).
The full formula can be found in the references & resources section of last year’s article. I made two minor tweaks here: 1) lessening the points for going into extra innings, and 2) increasing points for no-hitters/perfectos.
That said, here are the five best games of April:
5. April 28, 2012: Dodgers 4, Nationals 3 (10)
It’s an extra-inning game that ended with a walk-off home run. The ninth inning was a wild one. Washington scored a pair to take a 3-1 lead, only to see LA storm back with two of their own to tie it, 3-3.
4. April 21, 2012: Yankees 15, Red Sox 9
Ah yes, this one. Boston blew the biggest comeback of the month here, a nine-run lead. A game is worth a lot of points with a big comeback.
3. April 14, 2012: Rockies 8, Diamondbacks 7
Ah, Coors Field. A real back-and-forth game. Arizona led, 1-0, then Colorado went up 5-1 only to see the Diamondbacks storm back for a 7-5 lead in the middle of the eighth. Todd Helton ended it with a two-run walk-off home run.
2. April 8, 2012: Tigers 13, Red Sox 12 (11)
It wasn’t enough that Detroit had to score three runs in the bottom of the ninth to tie the score at 9-9. No, they had to spot Boston a pair of runs in the 11th before completing their incredible victory with three runs in the bottom of the 11th.
1. April 21, 2012: White Sox 4, Mariners 0.
It’s the 21st perfect game in baseball history. Of course, it’s No. 1.
Using the same system, I can figure the teams who had the most and least exciting April. Please note it doesn’t matter if the team won or lost—just how exciting their game was.
The most exciting month: Washington Nationals
Three times they’ve won a game on a walk-off play. All three came in extra-innings. Their April 18 game against Houston saw both teams come from behind to take the lead. On April 15, they overcame a 5-0 deficit to the Reds only to lose in 11 innings. Washington also lost the fifth most exciting game of the month. In all, it’s a pretty busy month.
Least exciting month: Atlanta Braves
Let’s start with what they haven’t had. There are no extra-inning games. No walk-off finishes. You get points for late game drama, but Atlanta has played in exactly one game where either they or their opponent tied the score or took the lead in the eighth inning.
One unexpected oddity: Even though one-sixth of all games in major league baseball scored at zero points—nothing especially distinctive happening in them—the Braves had only one such game. I wouldn’t expect that from the least exciting team.
Yeah, but while an average big league game scores at 6.7 points, Atlanta achieved that only three times all April long. They’re games are rarely completely lacking in anything especially exciting; they just regularly have very little excitement.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraYes, I'll get to the Weaver no-hitter in a minute. But it's already a Hardball Talk top story and we have some supporting stuff too. And besides, there was some clairvoyance going on last night, and that's way more rare than a no-no, so first:
Braves 15, Phillies 13: Dudes, not gonna lie. I turned this game off when it was 5-0 Phillies and Halladay was on the mound because 99 percent of the time, that's over. So instead I chatted online with my girlfriend and watched a couple of Season Two episodes of "Louie." Including the one with the duckling in Afghanistan which was awesome, right? Of course.
So, Louie ends and I go to the scoreboard to see how badly the Braves lost and I see that -- shock! -- it's 13-13 in the 11th inning. To the Roku player! I turn it on and Chipper Jones is batting against Brian Sanches. This is my chat log with my girlfriend, unedited. Apologies for the language, but it was the heat of the moment:
Me: Holy f**k, what the f**k happened in the Braves game. I started ignoring it when it was 5-0 Phillies. Now it's 13-13, hahaha
Allison: oh my god i had no idea??
Me: Looks like the wildest thing ever
Allison: couple of Phillies fans i know havent tweeted much
Me: I'm hoping Chipper hits a walkoff two run homer here
Me: S**t he almost did. Just foul
Allison: haha aw
Allison: No f*****g way??
Me: I f*****g called that!
Allison: Hahahaha this chat log better make the blog too
Me: Oh yeah
So yeah. I called it. If "hoping" counts as calling it, which I think it does. If not, I at least willed it. Anyway, the Braves' mostly-dead third baseman is better than your third baseman, so there.
Angels 9, Twins 0: Jered Weaver: no hitter. Drew had the details last night. And yes, it counts even though it came against the Twins. The best part of it: the lengths to which the Angels broadcasters went to avoid mentioning the fact that he actually had a no-hitter going until the game actually ended. They're so cute.
Rockies 8, Dodgers 5: Chipper wasn't the only old man to hit a walkoff homer. Jason Giambi did too, and his was a three-run job. Carlos Gonzalez hit two homers of his own as Clayton Kershaw was rocked in Denver.
Cardinals 12, Pirates 3: A really nice day for older, often-gimpy players: Carlos Beltran had two homers and seven RBI. Also, there was a kind of beauty in A.J. Burnett's pitching line. Just the numbers themselves, I mean: 2.2 12 12 12 1 2 2. I'm assuming Pirates fans feel differently about that.
Cubs 3, Reds 1: You can't stop Bryan LaHair, you can only hope to contain him. He hit a homer and now sits at .381/.459/.794 on the season with six bombs.
Indians 6, White Sox 3: Johnny Damon led off, went 0 for 3 and left early with cramping. Didn't matter, though, because Travis Hafner and Carlos Santana went yard. Adam Dunn hit a homer too.
Rays 5, Mariners 4: James Shields became the first five-game winner in the AL, and struck out 11 Mariners. It wasn't perfect -- he gave up four runs in six innings -- but he had homers from Sean Rodriguez and Luke Scott backing him. That's 10 of 11 for the red-hot Rays.
Athletics 4, Red Sox 2: Brandon McCarthy explained after the game how seeing Jarrod Parker tie up the Red Sox the night before helped him visualize success against them last night:
"If anything, it gives you the confidence that you're not facing a team that scored a bunch of runs," McCarthy said of watching his teammate's success the previous game. "When you see someone go out there, throw strike one, with good location, I think it can give you the confidence that it can be done."
Based on that, I'm taking the hill tonight. I'll watch the Parker game three times if I have to. I know I can do it.
Nationals 5, Diamondbacks 4: Ian Desmond hit a walkoff homer. Bryce Harper went 3 for 4 with two doubles and an RBI and made a barehanded catch in the outfield after he stumbled. More importantly, the Nats snapped a five game losing streak. Exciting stuff going down in the District.
Orioles 5, Yankees 0: OK, seriously Orioles, cut it out. The joke has gone on long enough. That "hee hee, look at us compete" thing is starting to make everyone a little nervous, so whenever you're ready, please return to being the division doormat, OK? Anyone? Folks, I'm not sure that they're listening. Jake Arrieta, eight innings of shutout ball.
Padres 5, Brewers 0: Jeff Suppan won his first game since 2010, shutting out his old team for five innings. I'd call it "The Revenge of Jeff Suppan," but I'm not sure that the Brewers did anything that warranted vengeance.
Royals 3, Tigers 2: Hit this up yesterday. The Tigers are gonna wake up soon, right?
Blue Jays 11, Rangers 5: Edwin Encarnacion continues to abuse baseballs. He hit a three-run jack -- check out how beautiful it was -- and Kelly Johnson hit one too. Just as disaster of a series for Texas.
Astros 8, Mets 1: Chris Johnson: two homers, four hits, six RBI. This is the Astros third baseman, by the way. Not the Chris Johnson I went to GW law school with and who was a former colleague of mine back at the Ohio law firm. Totally different dude.
Marlins 3, Giants 2 : Carlos Zambrano shut out the Giants for seven. And, amazingly, Barry Zito's new marriage didn't cause him to maintain his pitching success. He walked seven dudes in three and two-thirds innings and needed over 90 pitches to get that far. But then the ninth inning came and Heath Bell came in and he, once again, didn't have it, and the Giants tied it up. Never fear, though: Giancarlo Stanton had it: homer in the 10th to win it.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
The list, and the wait, grow longer
Posted by Greg SimonsDee Gordon hit the first home run of his career Tuesday. Gordon isn't know for his power; he's known for his speed. One day he'll probably tag up from second and score on a pop-up to shortstop.
Dee Gordon has more homers this year than Albert Pujols.
Jose Tabata homered for the first time this year Tuesday. With nine career long balls in 812 at-bats, that's about one home runs every 90 at-bats.
Jose Tabata has more homers this year than Albert Pujols.
Rafael Furcal went deep Tuesday for the initial time this season. He actually has more than 100 career home runs, maxing out at 15 in a single season twice, but he's always been known as a speedy (and oft-injured) leadoff hitter.
Rafael Furcal has more homers this year than Albert Pujols.
Cory Snyder, Gordon Beckham and Mark Kotsay all did something Tuesday they hadn't done before in the 2012 regular season. Care to guess what it was? Care to guess what it means?
Thus far, 252 players have hit at least one home run this season. Albert Pujols is not one of those players.
This is not a vengeful rambling of a Cardinals fan rejoicing in the pain of a former hero (though I am a Cardinals fan). No, this is an inquiry into when one of the great hitters in the game's long history will start performing as we all expect him to.
Sure, the signs of decline have been evident the last few years, with Pujols' triple-slash line steadily declining from .357/.462/.653 (1.114 OPS) in 2008 to .299/.366/.541 (906 OPS) in 2011. But last year's OPS+ was still a healthy 148; it's not like Pujols was Adam Dunn bad, where we weren't sure he'd ever bounce back. He still had 37 home runs in 2011, an identical number to his 2008 total.
Knocking the ball over the fence has never been a problem for Pujols, who "bottomed out" in 2007 with a mere 32 long balls. But for some reason—the pressure of his new contract, moving to a new league, having to spend too much time in perfect SoCal weather—that first home run has yet to clear the fence.
Now, we all know it will come, and when it does, it's likely Pujols will pull out of his funk and start shredding the ball as he typically does. But for now, it gives us a chance to speculate.
So, when will Pujols finally join the gaggle of players who have knocked a ball over the fence? Make your guess in the comments section, and we'll see who comes closest to predicting the date Albert Pujols' homerless drought died.
I'm going with Saturday, May 5, against Toronto's Kyle Drabek (though tonight's match-up against Liam Hendricks—WHO?—is enticing).
Greg Simons continues to hold out hope that some major league team will have need of a past-his-prime left-handed shortstop. If you know of such an opportunity, or want to contact him for any other reason, he can be reached at gregbsimons AT yahoo DOT com.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraBlue Jays 8, Rangers 7: We hear a lot about Bryce Harper, but Brett Lawrie is a more fully formed version of "young, confident dude who can be a difference maker." Toronto fought back from an early 5-0 deficit, took the lead, then blew the lead before Lawrie hit a leadoff homer that just barely cleared the wall to walk things off in the bottom of the 9th.
Phillies 4, Braves 2: It's not often that Jonny Venters is going to give up two runs on four hits in a given outing, but when he does, you know the Braves are sunk. Venters gave up a double, a single, struck a dude out but threw strike three wild and then gave up a couple more hits in the eighth inning and that was all she wrote.
Rays 3, Mariners 1: On a day when all of the off-the-field news was miserable for Tampa Bay at least the on-the-field part went OK. The Rays had only three hits, but Matt Joyce's homer and RBI triple were two of them. The Rays have won nine of ten.
Diamondbacks 5, Nationals 1: Bryce Harper's home debut didn't go well for him -- he was 0 for 3 -- or the Nationals, who have lost five straight. Trevor Cahill allowed one run over seven and a third.
Orioles 7, Yankees 1: Phil Hughes was largely ineffective again. Brian Matusz: not so much. Matusz allowed only one run in six and a third, giving him his first win since last June and Buck Showalter his 1000th win of all time.
Tigers 9, Royals 3: Detroit scores five in the first inning, which while it took all of the drama out of this one, meant that the Tigers finally won one. Austin Jackson was four for five two batted in. He's at .314/.398/.523 on the year, which is a bright spot indeed.
Marlins 2, Giants 1: Maybe the Marlins just needed to get out of town. They break their losing streak behind seven string innings from Ricky Nolasco and a Giancarlo Stanton homer. Matt Cain, who has pitched so brilliantly this season, is now only 1-2 on the year, putting him in the early lead for the King Felix Award, which goes to starters whose records stink because they get totally boned by their teammates all the time.
Angels 4, Twins 0: Minnesota is either doing a wonderful service in giving confidence to struggling teams this season or else they have officially become jobbers. If I were Gregg Easterbrook and gave every team putatively clever nicknames and never let go of them, I'd consider calling the Twins the Iron Mike Sharpes or the Randy Mulkeys or something like that. Jerome Williams with a three-hit shutout.
Padres 2, Brewers 0: Shaun Marcum shut out the Padres for seven innings but Edinson Volquez did the same to the Brewers and he didn't have K-Rod giving up a two-run pinch hit homer to Mark Kotsay in the eighth. By the way, if you told me before I looked at the box score that Mark Kotsay hit the game-winning homer in this one, I would have assumed the Brewers won. Kotsay is one of those guys who, gun to my head, I could never tell you who he played for in a given season until he did something that forced me to take notice.
White Sox 7, Indians 2: Gordon Beckham went 3 for 4 with a homer. Easily the best Beckham-related news of the day yesterday. This one had an extended rain delay and then fog. This is why they'll never expand to Scotland.
Dodgers 7, Rockies 6: Dee Gordon hit his first homer and A.J. and Mark Ellis each had a bunch of hits. I wish those two were good. If they consistently helped the Dodgers win I'd consider some fun Ellis-related nickname for them or some clever pro wrestling reference or something. But, nah, I don't think it's gonna come up much.
Cardinals 10, Pirates 7, Adam Wainwright gets his first win since 2010. David Freese remains hot with another homer. Matt Holliday had a homer among his three hits and drove in two.
Astros 6, Mets 3: The difference between good teams and bad teams this year: good teams go into Houston on their way out west and take care of business against the Astros. The Mets aren't doin' it. Chris Snyder hit a three-run homer, Jed Lowrie had a two-run bomb.
Athletics 5, Red Sox 3: Jarrod Parker allowed only one run in six and two-thirds for his second straight strong start at the beginning of his career.
Cubs vs. Reds: POSTPONED: O Rain! that I lie listening to, You're but a doleful sound at best: I owe you little thanks,'tis true, For breaking thus my needful rest! Yet if, as soon as it is light, O Rain! you will but take your flight, I'll neither rail, nor malice keep,
Though sick and sore for want of sleep. But only now, for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
10th anniversary: Mike Cameron hits four homers
Posted by Chris JaffeTen years ago today, Mike Cameron had one of the greatest days of any player in history. He tied a record and had a chance to break it.
On May 2, 2002, Cameron and his Mariners teammates played on the South Side of Chicago against the White Sox.
Seattle entered the game in a bit of a slump, having dropped five of its last six. That said, thanks to an extremely hot start, the Mariners' record was still 18-9, the second best in baseball. Clearly, the team that won 116 games the year before had some talent.
It didn’t take long to realize this was going to be Seattle’s night. Two pitches into the game and the Mariners led 2-0, as White Sox pitcher Jon Rauch plunked Ichiro Suzuki and served up a gopher ball to Bret Boone with his first two offerings.
That brought up Cameron for the first time. He worked the count, looking for his pitch, and found it on the fourth offering he saw. Crack! Gone. Cameron launched one over the fence, and now Seattle led, 3-0.
Rauch couldn’t stop the bleeding. His day came to an end before the inning did as Seattle batted around and kept on going. Boone came back up and hit his second home run of the game—and of the inning. That put Boone in the record books for going deep twice in an inning. So why is this entry about Cameron and not Boone?
Well, in part it’s because of what happened next. Cameron came up against Sox reliever Jim Parque and worked the at-bat for seven pitches, again looking for one he liked. Again he found it. Again it was a homer.
Okay, this was new. Several players had belted two homers in one inning before, but never had two guys done it in one game, let alone the same inning, and certainly not back-to-back. Yet that’s just what Boone and Cameron had done.
The inning ended with a 10-0 Seattle lead. The game was done, but Cameron’s performance was just getting started.
In the top of the third, Cameron faced Parque again. Boom. For the third time, Cameron knocked one out of the ballpark. He was just one swing short of tying the record for most homers in a game—and it was only the third inning!
Well, two innings later, Cameron came to the plate again. Parque was still on the mound and threw his best stuff to Cameron. Yet again, Parque’s best stuff wasn’t enough. Not on this day. Cameron connected and made the history books with his fourth homer of the game.
It was just the top of the fifth. Cameron was guaranteed at least one more time to the plate; quite possibly two. There was no drama in who would win the game, but quite a bit of drama in Cameron’s performance.
In the seventh, Parque left the game (and wouldn’t pitch in the majors again for three months), and Mike Porzio came in to mop up. He first faced Boone, whom he walked. That brought up Cameron.
Okay, cue the drama. First pitch—called strike. Cameron was going to wait for his pitch. The second offering was a ball to even the count. The third pitch plunked Cameron. Oops. Yeah, Porzio really didn’t have good control. So no history this time, but the game wasn't over.
Sure enough, Cameron had another chance as he came to the plate with two on and no outs in the ninth. Porzio was still in the game but still having control problems. In fact, he’d walked each of the two batters he faced this inning. But the big event was Cameron. This was it, now or never to make history.
Cameron took the first pitch for ball one. Then he did the same for ball two. He was still going to wait for his pitch. The third offering was also outside, bringing the count to 3-0.
Well, now, that put Cameron in a nice position. Porzio would have to try to make the strike zone on this one. There was no margin for error, so the next pitch would probably be something nice and straight. If Cameron was ever going to swing away, now was the perfect time.
True, but there was another angle. A hitter isn’t supposed to swing on a 3-0 pitch. He should make the pitcher prove he can find the strike zone instead of trying to help him by swinging away. Sure, everyone wants to have the big swing, but the team is better off in the long run if you practice discipline and patience.
Porzio pitched, and this one was in the strike zone—and Cameron took it for strike one. He was too much of a professional hitter to go against his training there. A disappointment for the fans in the seats, but the at-bat wasn’t over. The next pitch came, and Cameron fouled it off.
Now, with a full count, Porzio threw another one. Cameron swung and connected for a hard-hit ball. But, alas, this ball wasn’t high enough and certainly wasn’t placed well enough. It went for a line out.
Cameron didn’t get his fifth homer. That said, four homers in one game is certainly nothing to sneeze at. And he did it 10 years ago today on May 2, 2002.
Aside from that, today many other baseball events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event that occurred X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you prefer to skim the lists.
Day-versaries
5,000 days since Arizona signs amateur free agent Vicente Padilla. He’s since become one of the only 10 pitchers to record a victory against all 30 teams.
9,000 days since Jay Buhner makes his big league debut.
9,000 days since Brewer ace Teddy Higuera allows a run, ending a scoreless inning streak at 32 innings.
15,000 days since Steve Stone makes his big league debut.
20,000 days since the birth of Clint Hurdle.
20,000 days since Ron Northey hits his ninth career pinch-hit home run, tying a big league record. It’s a two-run shot for the Phillies.
20,000 days since Steve Trout, pitcher on both sides of Chicago, is born.
Anniversaries
1876 Ross Barnes hits the first home run in NL history.
1881 It’s the big league debut for Jerry Denny, who will later become the last person to field his position without a glove.
1881 Jim Whitney, a very good pitcher with rather dismal teammates, makes his big league debut.
1882 The American Association debuts. It should not be confused with the modern minor league; it was a rival to the NL. It’s the first time there have been two rival major leagues.
1882 Hall of Famers Bid McPhee, Charlie Comiskey, and John Clarkson all make their big league debut. Also debuting that day is the original Louisville Slugger, Pete Browning.
1887 Eddie Collins, arguably the greatest second baseman of all time, is born.
1887 It’s the big league debut for Gus Weyhing, a 200-game winner who is still No. 1 all-time with 277 hit batsmen.
1901 Cubs purchase Rube Waddell from the Pirates. It doesn’t take.
1901 It’s the first AL forfeit. The White Sox lose when manager Clark Griffith has his team stall, hoping nightfall will scrub the game from the books.
1901 The Red Sox have a nine-run second inning and a 10-run third inning during a 23-12 win.
1909 Honus Wagner steals second, third, and home in the first inning versus the Cubs. It’s the fourth time in his career he’s stolen his way around the bases, something only Ty Cobb can claim.
1917 It’s baseball’s “double-no-hitter.” In arguably the greatest pitchers duel of all-time, Cincinnati’s Fred Toney and Chicago’s Hippo Vaughn hold the opposing squads scoreless through nine innings. The Reds touch Vaughn for two hits and a run in the 10th, which is why I had to put quotation marks around “double no-hitter.”
1919 A Washington Senators win pushes the career record of veteran manager Clark Griffith to 170 games over .500 (1,371-1,201), his all-time peak.
1920 Eddie Collins gets his 2,000th hit. It took him 1,727 games.
1920 The first game in the Negro National League played.
1921 George "High Pockets" Kelly of the Giants raps his seventh home run of the year. He won’t keep up the pace, but please note that Babe Ruth hit “only” his sixth homer on the year this same day. Ruth will end the season with 59 homers, while Kelly will lead the NL with 23.
1922 Harry Heilmann gets his 1,000th career hit.
1923 Dazzy Vance fans 15 men in 10 innings but loses, as he also allows 15 hits, four walks, and six runs (all earned). That said, the entire NL averages 2.8 strikeouts per nine innings that year, so Vance was pretty impressive that day.
1923 A notable Senators-Yankees game occurs. First, New York infielder Everett Scott plays his 1,000th consecutive game, the first person ever to do so. Second, Walter Johnson throws his 100th complete-game shutout that day, and he’s still the only person to do so.
1924 Hall of Fame pitcher Herb Pennock steals the only base of his career.
1924 In the Pacific Coast League, San Francisco outslugs Salt Lake City, 30-14.
1930 The Des Moines Demons in the Western League’s Class A ball become the first team to play in a park with permanent lights.
1932 Bill Terry’s best hitting streak peaks at 24 games. He’s 45-for-104 with eight doubles, four triples, and six home runs.
1937 Catcher Mickey Owen makes his big league debut.
1938 A changing of the guard in New York: Joe DiMaggio is given the cleanup slot while Lou Gehrig drops to sixth in the order.
1939 Lou Gehrig rests, ending his consecutive games streak and with it, his career. He walks out to give the umpire the day’s starting lineup for the Yanks, and when the fans realize he isn't going to play, they give him a standing ovation—fairly rare back then. Mind you, this was on the road, too. In that game, Tigers pitcher (and future big league manager) Fred Hutchinson makes his big league debut.
1939 Hall of Famer Mel Ott hits the third of his four career walk-off home runs.
1939 Gates Brown, pinch hitter extraordinaire, is born
1942 The Browns lose 11-10 to the Red Sox. They lead 10-8 entering the bottom of the ninth but allow three runs, with the big blast being a two-run homer by Ted Williams. Rather incredibly, losing pitcher Elden Auker throws a complete game despite allowing 11 runs on 17 hits in a game his squad could’ve won. It was a different time.
1943 Schoolboy Rowe, pitcher for the Phillies, hits pinch-hit grand slam. Phillies win 6-5 in 12 innings.
1944 Phillies pitcher Charley Schanz has a great day all around. He takes a no-hitter into the seventh. A home run with a man on ends it and gives the opposing New York Giants the lead. No problem. Schanz hits a bases-loaded triple later, so he and the Phillies win the game.
1944 Ted Williams commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Air Corps and given his wings.
1946 Ted Williams hits the first of three career walk-off home runs.
1947 Bob Feller throws his third consecutive complete-game shutout. It’s also a one-hitter, his 10th such performance. In his last three games, his overall line is: 27 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 12 BB, 27 K. Yes, only five hits: a one-hitter, a three-hitter, and then another one-hitter. Not bad.
1948 Duke Snider hits his first career home run, which happens to be an inside-the-park version. He later hits one over the fence that game, making this the first of 34 career multi-home run games.
1949 Don Newcombe’s first start is a complete-game shutout.
1952 Ted Williams reports for duty at Camp Willow Grove, Pa., for active duty as a marine fighter pilot.
1953 Carlos Bernier, Pirates, triples in three straight at-bats. In 11 at-bats, he’ll tally four triples, two doubles, and two singles.
1954 Keith Moreland, current Cubs radio color guy, is born
1954 Stan Musial has a performance for the ages. He hits three home runs in the first game of a doubleheader, and then two more in the nightcap. Five homers in a day is a record shared with others. In the first game, he also singled, giving him a career-high 13 total bases in one game.
1956 Giants 6, Cubs 5 (17) in a record-setting game. The teams combine to use 48 players (25 Giants, 23 Cubs), a record. There are 11 intentional walks, a record. And Cubs batter Don Hoak fans six times, also a record. Added bonus: Each time it comes against a different pitcher.
1957 Hank Aaron ties personal record with five hits in one game.
1957 Robin Roberts fans 13 batters, his personal best. 9 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 13 K. Phillies beat Cubs, 4-2.
1957 Roy Campanella has his worst game according to WPA: -0.617 WPA. He is 0-for-7 with a K and GIDP as St. Louis topped Brooklyn 3-2 in 16 innings. It's the third-worst one-game WPA by any Hall of Fame batter.
1959 Frank Robinson hits for the cycle as Reds demolish LA, 16-4.
1959 Harmon Killebrew hits two homers in a game for the second day in a row. He’ll do it again exactly one week later, too.
1959 Super contact hitter Ray Mueller appears in his last big league game.
1959 The last time a Phillies reliever pitched nine innings in a game: Gene Conley: 9 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 11 K.
1960 Hank Aaron hits bunt single off Mike McCormick in the second inning, raising his career batting average to its all-time peak: .324203 (1,160 hits in 3,578 at bats).
1960 Willie Mays’ best hitting streak maxes at 23 games. He’s 41-for-86 with 10 doubles and four home runs in it. His batting line: .477/.559/.733.
1961 Billy Williams connects for the first of eight career grand slams.
1963 Indians trade Jim Perry to Twins.
1967 Fergie Jenkins has his 11th consecutive Quality Start, his best such streak. His line in that period: 7-2 record, 88.2 IP, 57 H, 22 R, 20 ER, 18 BB, 64 K, and a 2.03 ERA.
1968 The White Sox release Ken Boyer.
1968 Gaylord Perry pitches his 17th straight Quality Start. His line in that stretch: 9-5 record, 150.2 IP, 98 H, 24 R, 21 ER, 45 BB, 115 K, 1.25 ERA.
1969 Al Lopez resigns as White Sox manager for health reasons. He’ll live until 2005.
1972 Vida Blue ends his holdout from the A’s, signing for $63,000.
1975 The Cubs trade Burt Hooton to the Dodgers.
1976 Dan Bankhead, major league baseball’s first black pitcher, dies.
1976 Jose Cardenal gets six hits in a 14-inning game for the Cubs.
1979 Bobby Bonds connects for career home run No. 300.
1980 Longtime Cardinals infielder Jose Oquendo first plays in the big leagues.
1984 La Marr Hoyt faces the minimum 27 batters in complete-game shutout. It’s a one-hitter—Don Mattingly hits a blooper in the seventh, only to be erased by a double play.
1987 Thanks to collusion, this is the first game Tim Raines plays all year. He goes 4-for-4 with a triple, home run, three runs scored, four RBI, a walk, and a stolen base. Expos 11, Mets 7 (11).
1988 Mark Grace makes his big league debut.
1989 Orel Hershiser pitches his 15th straight regular-season Quality Start. His numbers in those starts: 11-3, 9 CG, 7 SHO, 127.2 IP, 15 R, 12 ER, 27 BB, 92 K, 0.85 ERA.
1989 Having pitched exactly 2,101 innings, Bob Welch surrenders his first grand slam.
1990 Gary Carter hits the only pinch-hit home run of his career.
1995 It’s an ugly Opening Day in Tiger Stadium. In the first game there since the players’ strike, fans run on the field, and others toss batteries, cans, and baseballs. Manager Sparky Anderson blasts them after the game, saying it’s the worst thing he’s ever seen, and that they ain’t real fans.
1995 Red Sox get grand slams in consecutive innings by John Valentin and Mo Vaughn. That’s it in 8-0 win over Yankees
1995 Hideo Nomo makes his big league debut. He isn’t the first Japanese player in North America, but this kicks off the current wave of East Asians coming to America’s big leagues.
1995 Roberto Alomar hits his only walk-off home run.
1995 The Royals retire Frank White’s number.
1996 A quake of 4.8 on the Richter scale halts Mariners-Indians game in Cleveland. It resumes the next night.
1997 Randy Johnson wins his 16th straight game. His numbers: 177 IP, 118 H, 50 R, 48 ER, 63 BB, 234 K, and 2.44 ERA.
1998 Roger Clemens (seven innings pitched) and Paul Quantrill (two) combine for a one-hitter against the A’s. A Ben Grieve single is the only Oakland hit.
1998 Jeff Kent gets his last sacrifice. He has 6,433 more plate appearances in his career.
1999 Rafael Palmeiro gets his 2,000th hit.
2000 Kerry Wood pitches in his first game since elbow surgery. He allows only one run in six innings, and helps his own cause with a home run.
2000 Gary Sheffield grounds into three double plays in one game.
2001 Greg Maddux has his greatest game ever. He fans 14 in a two-hit shutout over Milwaukee for a 1-0 win and a Game Score of 96. It’s his 100th complete game.
2002 Sammy Sosa homers twice in a game for the second straight day.
2003 Mo Vaughn plays his last game.
2003 Edgar Martinez gets career hit No. 2,000.
2005 The Giants' all-time record peaks at 1,504 games over .500 (9,976-8.472). That’s still their best. Even with the 2010 championship, they’ve been a tad under .500 since then.
2005 Boston signs veteran hitter John Olerud.
2005 Cardinals 10, Reds 9. The Cardinals score seven runs in the top of the ninth in a huge comeback. The key moments were a three-run dinger by Jim Edmonds and a two-run home run by John Mabry.
2006 Andre Ethier makes his big league debut.
2007 Jarrod Saltalamacchia of Atlanta sets a major league record with the longest last name: 14 letters. The previous record was a 15-way tie with a 13-letter last name.
2009 According to WPA, Carlos Beltran has his worst game ever. He’s 2-for-5 with a K, a HBP, and GIDP for a –0.424 WPA. He scores so low because the GIDP comes in the top of the 10th inning with runners on the corners and only one out. To be fair, he nearly had much higher WPA score. In the eighth inning he singled with a runner on second, but that guy was thrown out at the plate to end the inning. As it is, the Phillies top Beltran’s Mets, 6-5.
2010 Zack Greinke falls to 0-3 on the year in six starts despite a 2.27 ERA. Today, he and the Royals lose 1-0.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRangers 4, Blue Jays 1: I think it's safe to say that, after a couple of rocky starts to begin the year, Yu Darvish is starting to get comfortable. He struck out nine Blue Jays while giving up a single run in seven innings. The homer was by the incredibly hot Edwin Encarnacion, who has gone long in four straight games. He hit this one two innings after getting hit by Darvish.
Brewers 8, Padres 3: Ryan Braun hit three homers, one of which landed on the top deck of the Western Metal Supply Co. down the left-field line at Petco, which is a serious poke, especially for a night game in San Diego when it's around 60 degrees. He also socked a triple. Mercy.
Red Sox 11, Athletics 6: Darn. I thought Sunday's loss would send them off on some new, horrible, drama-filled losing streak but wouldn't you know it, the Red Sox bounce back and win their seventh of eight. Dammit, it looks like we need another narrative besides "the Red Sox are doomed!" Maybe Clay Buchholz still is, as he gave up six run on seven hits in six and two-thirds. But Tommy Milone had it worse.
Rays 3, Mariners 2: Tampa Bay rallied in the 11th and the 12th. Evan Longoria and Miguel Olivo each left the game early with injuries, but each of their replacements on defense -- Elliot Johnson and Jesus Montero -- had big hits.
Phillies 6, Cubs 4: A four-run first inning wasn't all the Phillies needed -- Placido Polanco broke a tie in the eighth with a two-run double -- but it was a good start. Vance Worley allowed one run over seven but didn't get the win thanks to a Chad Qualls give-up-a-tying-homer-and-then-hang-around-for-the-offense-to-pick-me-up vulture job.
Yankees 2, Orioles 1: Hiroki Kuroda outduels Jason Hammel. A 2:22 Yankees game. You don't see a ton of those.
Pirates 9, Braves 3: It's been a while since the Buccos' bats did anything decent, but they went off last night. Pedro Alvarez and Yamaico Navarro each went yard. It was the first time all year that they had scored more than five in a game.
Astros 4, Mets 3: A Jed Lowrie RBI single broke a 3-3 tie in the eighth. The Astros used seven pitchers to get through this one even though their starter went six and two-thirds innings. That's not something you see every day.
Diamondbacks 9, Marlins 5: Patrick Corbin won his major league debut. Cody Ransom and Justin Upton hit two-run homers. The Marlins have lost eight of nine and the home crowds are booing. Or maybe they weren't booing. Maybe they were just saying "Boo-uehrle, Boo-uehrle ..."
Angels 4, Twins 3: Torii Hunter was 3 for 4 with a homer and three driven in. C.J. Wilson cruised into the eighth where he ran into a bit of trouble but still picked up his third win.
Rockies 6, Dodgers 2: Matt Kemp homered again -- that's 12 already -- but the Dodgers didn't do much more against Juan Nicasio, who scattered nine hits and allowed only two runs to the previously-hot Dodgers.
Royals vs. Tigers: POSTPONED: April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring. Dull roots with spring rain. And Yuniesky. He was stirred too, I imagine.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
20th anniversary: Rickey’s 1,000th steal
Posted by Chris JaffeTwenty years ago, one of baseball’s most impressive career milestones was achieved. It was a milestone that had never been reached before and has never been attained since.
On May 1, 1992, world-class base stealer Rickey Henderson led off for the A’s by doubling against Detroit and then immediately stealing third base. That swipe was No. 1,000 for Henderson. Yeah, that’s not bad.
This is an incredible achievement. Only three others even topped 850 steals, and two of those played before the lively ball era began. Only Lou Brock has even approached 1,000 steals, and he came fairly well short, with 938.
Henderson? Not only did he get to 1,000, but he blew past it. He ended his career with 1,406 steals. If he’d had just one more, he’d have exactly 50 percent more than runner-up Lou Brock.
As for 1,000 steals itself, in the last 20 years only two guys have even topped the 600 stolen base marker, Kenny Lofton and Otis Nixon. Neither made it to 700, let alone 1,000. Among active players, only Juan Pierre is over 500.
Some achievements get more attention; 500 homers, 300 wins, 3,000 hits come to mind. But those are far easier to attain than 1,000 steals. Actually, that’s one reason they get more attention. A one-man club like 1,000 steals isn’t much of a club. It’s Henderson’s exclusive domain.
And he first made it to that domain 20 years ago today.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something happening X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim the lists.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Jason Schmidt appears in his final game.
4,000 days since Barry Bonds smacks three home runs in one game for the second time in his career.
5,000 days since the Blue Angels air force planes buzz Wrigley Field during a game. Video of the incident is here.
5,000 days since Barry Bonds hits his 400th home run. His original goal in baseball was to have 400 homers and 400 steals. Now he’s achieved it, and no one cares. He’ll decide to focus on homers from now on.
5,000 days since Felipe Alou manages his 1,000th game. His record: 521-479.
8,000 days since Cecil Fielder hits three homers in one game for the second time in his career.
8,000 days since the Yankees fire manager Bucky Dent.
9,000 days since Jose Mesa makes his big league debut.
15,000 days since longtime shortstop Chris Speier plays in his first baseball game.
20,000 days since Tommy Thevenow, one of the least powerful batters of all-time, dies.
Also, at some point today it will be 1,000,000,000 seconds since Charles Finley sells the A’s to Walter and Wally Haas, and Roy Eisenhardt for $12.7 million.
Anniversaries
1878 Way back in the day, May 1 was Opening Day, so a ton of 19th-century players make their big league debut on May 1. In 1878, the following stars debuted: Hall of Famer King Kelly, third baseman Ned Williamson (who will swat 27 homers in a single season in 1884), Charlie Bennett (the best catcher of the 1880s), and slugger Abner Dalrymple.
1879 Today the following guys debut: Star middle infielder Jack Glasscock; hitting star George Gore, and versatile player Hardy Richardson. All will be among the best players of the 1880s.
1880 King Kelly hits the first home run ever on Opening Day.
1880 Several more stars make their debut: Roger Connor, who will be the all-time home run king prior to Babe Ruth; Mickey Welch, a 300-game winner; Larry Corcoran, a star pitcher; Fred Dunlap, maybe the best second baseman of the 1880s, Ned Hanlon, a good player who becomes a Hall of Fame manager, and Tom Burns, a solid infielder.
1882 Fred Pfeffer, infielder, makes his debut.
1883 The New York Giants play their first ever game. They beat Boston, 7-5. Also debuting, the Philadelphia Phillies play their first game. They lose 4-3 to Providence.
1884 Gus Schmelz, one of the game’s great innovators, manages his first game. He’ll be at the cutting edge of creating spring training, some coaching drills, and developing the sacrifice bunt.
1884 Several more players make their big league debut: Pitcher Ed Morris, the all-time complete game king; Adonis Terry, a long-lasting pitcher; Curt Welch, the best defensive outfielder of his day; and Charlie Ferguson, a great pitcher who will die young.
1884 Also deserving today but deserving his own entry is Moses Fleetwood Walker. He’s the first black player in the majors and the only one until Jackie Robinson in 1947.
1886 The NL plays its first game under “sudden death” rules in the ninth. It used to be that both teams batted in the ninth, no matter the score. Now a team won’t bat in the bottom half if they already have won the game. In the first such game, Chicago tops Cincinnati, 4-3.
1886 Al Atkinson tosses his second no-hitter, and wins 3-2.
1891 300-game winner John Clarkson surrenders an inside-the-park grand slam to Oyster Burns.
1901 Chicago White Sox Herm McFarland hits the first grand slam in AL history as Chicago tops Detroit, 19-9. The Tigers commit an even 12 errors in that loss, the AL record.
1906 The Red Sox release Hall of Famer Jesse Burkett.
1906 Phillies pitcher Johnny Lush tosses a no-hitter, beating the Dodgers, 6-0. He fans 11 in the process.
1912 University of Michigan freshman George Sisler fans 20 in seven innings.
1920 Babe Ruth hits his first home run as a Yankee. It’s career long ball No. 50.
1920 It’s the longest game in history, as the Braves and Dodgers play 26 innings and end tied 1-1. Both starting pitchers go the distance: Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger.
1924 Hall of Fame centerfielder Max Carey gets hit No. 2,000.
1924 White Sox base runner Bill Barrett steals home twice in one game versus Cleveland.
1925 17-year-old Jimmie Foxx makes his big league debut as a catcher for the A’s.
1926 19-year-old Satchel Paige debuts in the Negro Southern League, leading Chattanooga to a 5-4 win over Birmingham.
1928 Babe Ruth legs out his 100th career triple.
1929 Jimmie Foxx enjoys the first of 55 multi-home run games. In that same game, his teammate Al Simmons enjoys the first of eight career five-hit games.
1930 After playing 1,103 consecutive games, Hall of Fame infielder Joe Sewell misses a contest. He’s only the third man to top 1,000 consecutive games played.
1933 Pittsburgh shortstop Arky Vaughan hits the first of two career inside-the-park grand slams.
1934 Burleigh Grimes, the last legal spitball pitcher, wins his 270th and final game.
1936 Dizzy Dean posts his 100th career victory. He’s 100-53 in his career at this point. He also ties his career high Game Score: 87. His line: 9 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, and 7 K.
1936 The White Sox claim outfielder Dixie Walker off waivers from the Yankees.
1939 Monty Stratton, a pitcher who lost a leg in an off-season fielding accident, plays in an exhibition game.
1940 For the only time in his 457 career starts, Lefty Grove allow a leadoff home run.
1941 It’s the first night game at Griffith Stadium. The Yankees spoil Washington’s big night by winning, 6-5.
1942 Stan Musial has the first of 37 career games with more than one home run.
1943 Rubber-armed Bobo Newsom has one of his five career one-hitters. He never does get that no-hitter. Babe Barna gets the sole safety against him. Barna will end the year with 42 hits and a .187 batting average.
1944 Washington’s George Myatt gets six hits in one game. It’s the first time in franchise history anyone has done that.
1946 Brooklyn release veteran pitcher Curt Davis. He arguably has the best career by any pitcher who debuted after his 30th birthday.
1946 Before today’s Cubs-Dodgers game, Chicago’s Len Merullo and Brooklyn’s Dixie Walker have a big fight on the field. The players form a circle so no one can break up the fight.
1948 The White Sox lose to put their all-time franchise record at .500. They’ll stay under it for the next eight years: 3,547-3,547.
1949 Ted Williams smashes the ninth of his career 17 grand slams.
1949 Elmer Valo of the A’s become the first AL player to hit two bases-loaded triples in one game.
1949 Bobby Shantz makes his big league debut.
1951 Mickey Mantle hits career home run No. 1. It’s a 450-foot shot. In that same game, Minnie Minoso integrates the Chicago White Sox.
1952 Bob Lemon has the longest outing of his career: 12.1 innings. He loses as Washington tops the Indians, 2-1.
1955 Bob Feller has his 12th and final career one-hitter. It’s an odd one for him, as there are only two strikeouts and one walk. Sammy West of the Red Sox gets a seventh-inning single.
1959 Early Wynn has maybe the most dominant game of his career. He tosses a one-hitter, and the hit came with one out in the first inning by Pete Runnels. Wynn fans 14 and walks seven. Oh, and Wynn also belts a home run. Chicago wins 1-0. Yeah, he was pretty damn dominant in that one.
1959 Dick Stuart hits a nearly 500-foot home run for the Pirates.
1960 It begins! For the first time, the exploding scoreboard at Comiskey Park goes off. Al Smith hits a homer to launch it for the first time.
1965 Tommy Davis breaks his ankle sliding into second base for the Dodgers.
1966 Sudden Sam McDowell tosses his second straight one-hitter. Don Buford gets a third-inning single off of him.
1967 Jimmy Piersall plays in his final career game.
1968 For only the second time ever, a pitcher is ejected for throwing the spitball. This one is especially interesting, because it isn’t during the game. John Boozer of the Phillies is tossing spitters while warming up against the Mets in Shea Stadium when umpire Ed Vargo rings him up.
1968 It’s one of the greatest pitchers’ duels of the year as Oakland’s Blue Moon Odom and Cleveland’s Sam McDowell square off. Odom retires the first 15 batters he faces but loses 3-0 to McDowell, who fans 16 batters.
1969 Hall of Fame skipper Al Lopez manages his last game.
1969 Houston’s Don Wilson no-hits the Reds. The day before, Cincinnati’s Jim Maloney had no-hit the Astros. Just nine days ago, Wilson faced the Reds and got killed, 14-0. Today, he fans 15 in a 4-0 win.
1971 For the first time in nine years, an American League game begins with back-to-back homers. Incredibly, the same pitcher who surrendered them in 1962 is on the mound here again, Jim Perry. Boston’s Luis Aparicio and Reggie Smith go deep against the Minnesota star pitcher.
1973 The Giants beat the Pirates, 8-7, thanks to one of the most incredible comebacks in baseball history. San Francisco scores seven runs in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. The final runs come on a three-run, walk-off double by Bobby Bonds.
1973 Jim Colborn becomes the last Expos hurler to toss nine innings in relief.
1974 Pittsburgh pitcher Dock Ellis is looking to send a message to shake things up against the Reds. Boy, does he ever want to send a message. He beans the first three batters of the game and then walks the fourth guy on four would-be bean balls. After two more attempts, he’s yanked from the game.
1974 Tom Seaver has his all-time highest Game Score of 106. His line: 12 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 16 Ks. As an added bonus, he does it against the Dodgers, who begin the day with a record of 17-6 and will win 102 games all year. Aside from a Steve Garvey homer in the fifth, Seaver doesn’t allow anyone to make it past first base against him until the 12th inning. Alas, Seaver gets a no-decision as the Mets lose in 14 innings, 2-1.
1975 Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s RBI record, as he ends the day with 2,211 RBIs to Ruth’s 2,209. Next year, the Records Committee will revise Ruth’s RBI total to 2,204, so officially the record was set on April 18, but no one knew that on May 1, 1975.
1977 Tony Perez, who steals only 49 bases in 2,777 career games, has two swipes in today’s contest. He’s nearly 35 years old, too.
1977 According to WPA, this is Carlton Fisk’s best game: 0.790 WPA. He’s 3-for-4 with two homers and five RBIs in a 6-4 Red Sox win over the A’s.
1978 Jim Bouton begins his unlikely comeback pitching with the Savannah Braves of the Southern League.
1979 Phil Niekro wins his 200th game. He’s 200-175. Though he’s already 40 years old, he’ll still win 100-plus more games.
1979 Frank Taveras of the Mets fan five times in one game.
1979 Roger Freed hits a walk-off grand slam for the Cardinals against Houston. Even by walk-off grand slam standards, it’s unusually dramatic. It’s in the bottom of the 11th with St. Louis trialing, 6-3.
1980 Bill Madlock receives a 15-game suspension and $5,000 fine for hitting umpire Jerry Crawford in the face with a glove in a recent game.
1981 Tim Raines hits his first home run, a walk-off shot in the bottom of the 13th inning. He’ll never homer that late in a game again, have just one more walk-off homer in his career.
1983 Robin Yount hits his 100th home run.
1984 Dwight Gooden becomes the first teenager to record double-digit strikeouts in a game since Bert Blyleven back in 1970.
1985 Jimmy Key becomes the first southpaw starting pitcher to win a game for the Blue Jays in 614 contests.
1985 Pitcher (and pretty good hockey player) Kirk McCaskill makes his big league debut.
1987 Tim Raines finally signs with the Montreal Expos. He tried to sign with another team in the offseason free agent market, but collusion slammed the door in his face, so he missed the first month of the year. For that matter, Bob Boone, Ron Guidry, and Bill Campbell all also sign for the first time on this day.
1988 Andre Dawson hits the last sacrifice hit of his career. It’s the only one he’ll ever have with the Cubs.
1991 The Brewers and White Sox have a 19-inning contest. It’s the longest AL game in seven years since the same two teams went a league-record 25 innings. Milwaukee wins today’s game, 10-9. Paul Molitor receives three intentional walks along the way.
1991 Nolan Ryan tosses his seventh career no-hitter. He walks two and fans 16 along the way for a Game Score of 101.
1991 He is the greatest. Rickey Henderson steals his 939th career base, passing Lou Brock for No. 1 on the list.
1992 The Dodgers decide to postpone their three-game home series against the Expos due to rioting going on after the jury in the Rodney King beating trial acquits the police.
1992 Randy Johnson walks 10 batters, his personal most. Since then, five other pitchers have walked 10 in a game, and none have walked more than that in one outing.
1995 MLB and the umpires reach an agreement, ending the ongoing lockout of the arbitrators. They’ll be back on the field on May 3.
1996 Gerald Williams of the Yankees gets six hits in a 15-inning contest.
1998 The Orioles release veteran infielder Ozzie Guillen.
2000 For the first time, a home run ball lands in McCovey’s Cove in San Francisco. Naturally, Barry Bonds blasts it there.
2000 Texas purchases the ancient Ruben Sierra from the Mexican League’s Cancun team.
2000 Todd Helton hits three homers in one game.
2001 Ramon Martinez appears in his last game.
2001 Jeff Kent enjoys perhaps the best game of his career. He’s 3-for-4 with a double, homer, walk, and seven RBIs as the Giants top the Pirates, 11-6.
2002 Rafael Palmeiro bops his 500th career double.
2003 Baltimore’s B.J. Ryan records a win despite not throwing a single pitch. He enters the game and picks off Omar Infante in the bottom of the seventh to end the frame. The Orioles rally to take the lead in the eighth, and the squad pulls Ryan for a new hurler in the eighth. Baltimore wins, 5-4 over Detroit.
2004 Barry Bonds gets four intentional walks in a nine-inning game, setting a record for a nine-inning contest. (Andre Dawson had five IBB in a 16-inning game in 1990).
2004 Frank Catalanotto of the Blue Jays gets six hits in one game, a first in franchise history.
2005 It’s the end of Johan Santana’s 17-game winning streak as the Angels top Santana and the Twins, 2-1. He allows just two hits in eight innings, but those hits are a pair of solo homers by Vladimir Guerrero and Jose Molina.
2006 Joel Pineiro becomes the first hurler in a dozen years to pitch nine innings and neither walk nor fan any batters.
2010 The Mets’ Mike Pelfrey has a scoreless-inning streak end at 27 as the Phillies clobber New York, 10-0. For the Phillies, today is Roy Halladay’s second complete-game shutout in his last three starts.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Monday, April 30, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraGiants 4, Padres 1: Madison Bumgarner keeps rolling (7.2 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 6K). After the game he explained his recent success by saying "I'm just trying to make pitches." I've heard that for 30 years and I'm still not quite sure what it means but I always like hearing it for some reason. It's a satisfying answer to me on some level. I think I'm going to start using it in everyday conversation:
Mookie: Dad, why do you keep putting strawberries in my lunch. You know I don't like strawberries.
Me: Hey, I'm just trying to make pitches.
Dodgers 2, Nationals 0: Chris Capuano outpitches Gio Gonzalez as the Dodgers sweep the Nationals. They're now 0-2 with Bryce Harper. Let's pretend that's a thing because it will probably annoy the hell out of him.
Twins 7, Royals 4: Single, double and a triple for Josh Willingham in his first game back from paternity leave. Man, I remember going back to work after my kids were born. Most relaxing place to be on the planet after a few days of that noise. Don't look at me like that. The people with parents know what I'm talking about.
Mets 6, Rockies 5: Johan Santana was pretty awesome again, but he had a big lead blown when Tim Byrdak gave up an 8th inning pinch hit grand slam to Todd Helton. The Mets pull it out in extras, however, when Ike Davis singled home David Wright.
White Sox 4, Red Sox 1: Gavin Floyd took a no-hitter into the seventh but then he eased up on that stuff because he realized that if you throw a no-hitter you're gonna suck on your next outing and he didn't want any part of that. Just ask Phil Humber. Adam Dunn hit a two-run homer. He's at .231/.368/.513 and is on pace for 35+ homers. So I guess that means Adam Dunn is back to being Adam Dunn.
Brewers 3, Cardinals 2: Zack Greinke scattered seven hits and gave up one run over six to help the Brewers avoid the sweep. The game ended on a strike-em-out, throw-em-out at the plate on a delayed double steal thing, which was kinda interesting.
Orioles 5, Athletics 2: The A's led the O's 2-0 entering the bottom of the ninth, but then Matt Wieters doubled home two runs to tie it and then Wilson Betemit walks off with a three-run homer. For the first place Orioles.
Cubs 5, Phillies 1: Matt Garza allowed one hit over seven innings and struck out ten. The hit was to Jimmy Rollins leading off the game and he wasn't touched after that. Philly only got two hits all day. There is just little if any light to be seen with their offense right now. They just don't have the talent in that lineup to get the job done. It's that simple.
Blue Jays 7, Mariners 2: Edwin Encarnacion has homered in three straight games. The M's were 0 for 14 with runners in scoring position.
Braves 4, Pirates 3: Welcome back Tim Hudson. He was rusty, but he survived and stranded a bunch of Pirates runners. Bad defense hurt Pittsburgh too. Andrew McCutchen just plain dropped a fly ball Hudson hit in the third, and Hudson eventually came around to score. In other news, I was reminded, as I am reminded every year, that Pirates games are blacked out in Columbus, Ohio. Which makes all kinds of friggin' sense.
Indians 4, Angels 0: The best thing about the Angels since the callup of Mike Trout: outfield defense. Trout is great with the glove, Peter Bourjos is probably the best in baseball and Torii Hunter has a gajillion gold gloves. So of course the Indians scored two runs when Hunter done lost one in the sun. Manny Acta after the game: "The mighty sun was on our side today." I can just picture how he said it too. I love Manny Acta so much.
Diamondbacks 8, Marlins 4: Wade Miley had a no hitter going into the sixth. In other news, I learned who Wade Miley was yesterday. Jason Kubel drove in three. Kubel is hitting .333/.400./528 this season. Guess he doesn't miss Target Field all that much.
Yankees 6, Tigers 2: CC Sabathia was solid for eight innings and despite stranding a ton of runners early, the Yankees won easy. The Tigers have lost eight of ten.
Reds 6, Astros 5: Jay Bruce has hit four homers in four games. Joey Votto drove in four runs. The Reds entered April like a lamb but are leaving it like a lion.
Rays 5, Rangers 2: David Price had struggled against Texas his entire career, but he beat 'em last night. Three hits for Ben Zobrist. Josh Hamilton left with back stiffness. Ron Washington left because he got ejected.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
10th anniversary: first man to beat 30 franchises
Posted by Chris JaffeTen years ago today, Mets pitcher Al Leiter made a bit of baseball history. On April 30, 2002, he pitched seven strong innings against the Diamondbacks, allowing just one run for a 6-1 New York victory.
By picking up the win in that game, Leiter became the first pitcher to beat all 30 major league franchises. It was about time he accomplished it. He’d topped franchise No. 29 (the Marlins) way back in June, 1998. Incredibly, it took him just 69 career wins to beat the first 29 clubs. The final piece in the puzzle came 51 victories later.
He was in the right place in the right time. He played on a pair of AL teams, followed by a pair of NL teams. Interleague play didn’t hurt, as that allowed him to defeat the Devil Rays. If you’re curious, here is when Leiter lodged his first triumph against each of the 30 clubs.
Opponent First Win Brewers 9/15/1987 Orioles 9/25/1987 Jays 4/14/1988 Twins 4/19/1988 Angels 5/24/1988 Seattle 5/7/1993 Red Sox 6/17/1993 Royals 7/15/1993 W. Sox 7/21/1993 Yankees 9/25/1993 Indians 5/21/1994 Rangers 7/23/1994 A's 7/28/1995 Tigers 8/17/1995 Pirates 4/4/1996 Padres 4/9/1996 Dodgers 4/20/1996 Mets 5/6/1996 Rockies 5/11/1996 Reds 5/27/1996 Braves 6/28/1996 Astros 7/17/1996 Cards 8/29/1996 Expos 9/15/1996 Cubs 4/2/1997 Giants 6/2/1997 Phils 6/24/1997 Rays 6/10/1998 Marlins 6/21/1998 D-backs 4/30/2002
Leiter became the first man to accomplish this feat, but he’s not the only one. By my count, nine pitchers have done it in all. I’ll list who them in a second, but before I do, take a second and see if you can figure out who any of them might be.
Ready? Thought up your guesses? Okay, here they are, in order of when they completed the achievement by beating their 30th franchise:
Completed Pitcher 4/30/2002 Al Leiter 3/31/2004 Kevin Brown 7/3/2004 Terry Mulholland 9/10/2004 Curt Schilling 5/26/2008 Jamie Moyer 4/19/2009 Randy Johnson 6/12/2010 Barry Zito 7/21/2010 Javier Vazquez 8/10/2010 Vicente Padilla
Yeah, there are some names I wouldn’t have guessed either.
If you know of any others not included, feel free to note them in the comments section at the end of the article.
Aside from that, many other events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event occurring X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold in case you want to skim:
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Albert Pujols connects for his 11th career grand slam. It’s also his fifth of the season.
2,000 days since the Indians trade Andrew Brown and Kevin Kouzmanoff to the Padres for Josh Barfield.
5,000 days since Ivan Rodriguez clubs his 100th home run.
7,000 days since the banning of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner ends. He’d been banned over his actions with Yankee star Dave Winfield. Steinbrenner will run the team until his death.
7,000 days since the Expos sign amateur free agent Vladimir Guerrero.
8,000 days since Richard Dotson, young pitcher who won 20 games in 1983, appears in his final major league contest.
9,000 days since Nolan Ryan fans 16 batters in just eight innings work against the Giants. He fanned 12 of the final 13 batters he faces. It’s the most strikeouts he ever has as an Astro and his most in any start fewer than nine innings long.
15,000 days since Billy Williams hits a walk-off home run off Bob Gibson in the 10th inning. Cub starter Fergie Jenkins also goes the distance as Chicago wins, 2-1.
20,000 days since 18-year-old phenom Von McDaniel tosses a one-hitter versus the Pirates. In his debut earlier, McDaniel had a two-hitter. He’ll end up with seven wins in his entire career, all in 1957.
30,000 days since Vern Law, Pirates ace pitcher, is born.
40,000 days since star infielder Herman Long jumps from the Braves in the NL to the Yankees in the AL.
Anniversaries
1850 Charley Jones is born. He’s one of the best sluggers in the early years of major league baseball and the best player whose death date has never been figured out.
1887 The Baker Bowl opens up in Philadelphia. It will host the Phillies until the 1930s.
1887 Right fielder Mike Tiernan makes his big league debut. He’ll become one of the first players to hit 100 home runs.
1887 American Association star Tip O’Neil hits for the cycle.
1898 Second baseman Lou Bierbauer plays his last game. His main claim to fame is inspiring the nickname for Pittsburgh’s club when they pirated him from another squad.
1899 The biggest baseball crowd to date sees Chicago Cub Nixey Callahan allow 12 hits but still get a shutout win over St. Louis. 27,489 are in attendance.
1901 The first extra-inning game in AL history is won by the Red Sox over the A’s, 8-6. It’s also Boston’s first franchise victory.
1903 The American League finally enters New York, as the team that later will be called the Yankees tops Washington, 6-2.
1903 Pirates star Tommy Leach hits an inside-the-park grand slam off Cubs ace Mordecai Brown.
1904 Cy Young tosses seven hitless innings in relief. His hitless streak is now up to nine innings.
1913 Ty Cobb finally comes to the plate in Detroit’s Navin Field after a preseason holdout. The fans give the star a two-minute ovation.
1919 It’s a 20-inning marathon in which both pitchers go the distance. Burleigh Grimes and Joe Oeschger each get a complete game despite the fact that the final score is 9-9. Both teams score three runs in the 19th inning.
1919 George Uhle, a terrific pitcher for a time until he blew his arm out, makes his big league debut.
1922 White Sox pitcher Charlie Robertson tosses a perfect game, beating the Tigers 2-0. It’s the first of three perfect games in franchise history, as he’ll later be joined by Mark Buehrle and Philip Humber.
1923 Former friends turned bitter enemies John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson manage their 200th game against each other. They’ll end up managing 376 times against each other—the most by any two managers in NL history—and end up perfectly even: 186-186-4.
1923 The Yankees sign amateur free agent Lou Gehrig. This works out pretty well for them.
1927 Hall of Fame pitcher Jesse Haines wins his 100th game. He’s 100-91 at the time. He doesn’t deserve to be in Cooperstown, but that’s another issue.
1934 Lou Gehrig hits his 300th career home run. He’s the second member of the club. In that game, future Hall of Fame pitcher Red Ruffing wins his 100th game. His record: 100-136. He’ll go 173-89 for the rest of his career.
1934 Denny Galehouse, pitcher, makes his big league debut. Galehouse is most famous as the pitcher Joe McCarthy starts for the Red Sox against the Indians in the winner-take-all play-in game for the 1948 pennant. (Galehouse and the Red Sox lost that one).
1936 Johnny Mize, Hall of Fame first baseman, swats his first home run.
1937 Carl Hubbell completes his 14th consecutive game. He’s 14-0 in that span. It’s part of his 24-game winning streak. His line in those starts: 126 IP, 87 H, 25 R, 25 ER, 21 BB, 54 K, and a 1.79 ERA.
1939 Lou Gehrig plays in his 2,130th and final consecutive game. It’s the last game of his career. Yankee pitcher Johnny Murphy congratulates him on a routine play and Gehrig knows that he just can’t do this anymore.
1940 Brooklyn tie a then-record by starting the year 9-0.
1940 Brooklyn’s Tex Carleton tosses a no-hitter two months after a Double-A team released him. It’s his second big league appearance since 1938. This is the first game in Crosley Field in Cincinnati after a flood had it under water.
1942 Brooklyn purchases veteran pitcher Schoolboy Rowe from the Tigers.
1944 The Giants annihilate the Dodgers, 26-8. Mel Ott scores six runs in a game for the second time in his career. Teammate Joe Medwick scores a personal-best five runs. Also, Giants catcher Ernie Lombardi gets a personal-best seven RBIs. Topping them all is first baseman Phil Wientraub, who drives in 11 runs. For Brooklyn, relief pitcher Tommy Warren allows 15 runs in five innings of work. It’s the first game of a doubleheader. Brooklyn wins the second one, 5-4.
1944 Jimmie Wilson, one of the least successful managers in baseball history, fills out his final lineup card.
1944 Indians killer Ed Lopat makes his big league debut. He beats the Indians so many times in a row that Cleveland will eventually have a “Beat Eddie Lopat Night” at Municipal Stadium.
1946 Bob Feller tosses his second career no-hitter, beating the Yankees 1-0. He fans 11 and walks five along the way. It’s the first time any visitor has even thrown a no-hitter in Yankee Stadium.
1946 Old Folks Ellis Kinder makes his big league debut.
1949 Rocky Nelson hits a rather unlikely homer against the Cubs. Outfielder Andy Pafko dives to catch it, but the umpire rules he trapped the ball. Irate, Pafko goes up to the umpire to argue, completely forgetting the ball is live. Nelson chugs around the bases for his inside-the-glove home run.
1949 Indians second baseman Bobby Avila makes his big league debut.
1949 Phil Garner is born.
1951 The A’s, Indians, and White Sox make a three-way trade. The White Sox come away with the big prize, Minnie Minoso. The A’s land Gus Zernial.
1952 Boston hosts Ted Williams Day at Fenway as he’s about to rejoin the armed forces. He hits two homers in the game, including in his last at-bat before going off to war.
1955 The Reds and Phillies stage a six-player trade. The Reds get Smoky Burgess, and the Phillies get Andy Semnick. That same day, the Phillies purchase Roy Smalley Sr. from the Milwaukee Braves.
1955 The Kansas City released hard-throwing pitcher Ewell Blackwell.
1957 Stan Musial hits a home run in the top of the 13th inning, the latest he ever goes deep in a game.
1958 Frank Robinson conks the first of 12 walk-off home runs.
1959 At age 32, Duke Snider hits his third and final career inside-the-park home run.
1961 Willie Mays ties a record—and nearly breaks it. He homers four times in one game, and is in the on-deck circle when the game ends. Mays also drives in eight runs, his all-time personal best. In all, the Giants have eight homers as they trash the Braves, 14-4.
1966 In the eighth inning of an Angels-Red Sox slugfest, Rick Reichardt homers twice. His Angels win, 16-9.
1967 Cesar Tovar will end his career with a record five times in which he gets the only hit in a one-hitter. This is the first of those five games. His sixth-inning single is the only hit Barry Moore of Washington allows in a 3-0 win over the Twins.
1967 Bob Buhl, one of the worst-hitting pitchers of all time, plays in his last game.
1967 Steve Barber and Stu Miller combine to throw a no-hitter. Barber gets 26 outs but also walks ten. As a result, Barber gets the loss, as his Orioles fall, 2-1, to Detroit.
1969 Rod Carew steals home for the third time on the year. Not bad, given that it’s April and all. It’s versus the Pilots, and Jim Bouton will later note in Ball Four that just before Carew stole home, pitching coach Sal Maglie tells the man on the mound to focus on the plate, Carew isn’t going anywhere.
1969 Jim Maloney tosses his second no-hitter, a 10-0 over Houston in Cincinnati. He fans 13 in the effort.
1969 Phil Niekro completes his ninth straight start, his personal best.
1970 Billy Williams becomes the first National Leaguer to play in 1,000 straight games.
1973 In a random fluke, there are zero baseball games played. This won’t happen again in a non-All-Star break period during the regular season until June 29, 1998.
1974 Padres right fielder Dave Winfield hits the cut-off man with his throw. That’s literally true—he hits Derrel Thomas right in the butt when Thomas has his back turned.
1974 Nolan Ryan fans 19 batters in a 16-6 Angels win over the Red Sox.
1975 Roy Smalley Jr. makes his big league debut.
1975 Bobby Bonds has his best game ever, according to WPA: 0.674 WPA. He drives in three with one out in the bottom of the ninth that turns a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 Yankees win over the Orioles.
1977 Atlanta sells one-time iron man reliever Mike Marshall to the Rangers.
1977 The Dodgers end the month with a record of 17-3. Not bad for new manager Tommy Lasorda.
1977 Dennis Eckersley pitches 11 shutout innings, allowing just three hits and an equal number of walks. He gets the win, thought not the complete game, as Cleveland tops the Brewers 1-0 in 12 frames.
1979 Dave Winfield triples twice in one game. It’s the only time he ever does so.
1979 In the Carolina League, Gary Pellant homers from both sides of the plate in one inning. He’s only the second person in all of organized baseball history to do that.
1980 The Cardinals purchase veteran lefty Jim Kaat from the Yankees.
1980 Bert Blyleven, upset at what he believes is manager Chuck Tanner’s too quick of a hook, quits the Pirates. He flies home to California and demands a trade.
1982 Reggie Smith hits a pinch-hit, walk-off three-run homer off the Mets’ Neil Allen for a 5-4 Giants win.
1983 Andre Dawson gets his 1,000th career hit.
1985 Dwight Evans has his worst game ever according to WPA. He’s 0-for-6 with a walk, a strikeout, and two double plays grounded into. His WPA: -0.666. His second-worst ever WPA was exactly two years ago on this day.
1987 Wade Boggs gets his 1,000th hit in just 747 games. In that same contest, Ellis Burks makes his big league debut for the Red Sox.
1988 Dave Winfield drives in two runs, giving him a new April record with 29 RBIs. (Joe Carter breaks the record in 1994.) Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, who doesn’t like Winfield for whatever reason, derisively nicknames Winfield Mr. April for his early-season heroics.
1988 Roberto Alomar hits his first home run.
1988 When umpire Dave Pallone accidentally pokes Reds manager Pete Rose in the chest, Rose responds by shoving him. That earns him a 30-game suspension and a $10,000 fine.
1989 The Yankees trade Al Leiter to the Blue Jays for Jesse Barfield.
1989 It’s a Texas tough guy pitchers' duel as Nolan Ryan tangles with Roger Clemens. The younger man gets the better of it as the Red Sox top the Rangers, 2-1. Ryan fans 11 while Clemens has only six whiffs. Rafael Palmerio hits a home run for the only Ranger run.
1990 Reliever Jeff Shaw makes his major league debut.
1990 The New York Times has a front-page article on the rise of esoteric baseball stats. The headline: “How much is enough?”
1993 Milwaukee Brewer Graeme Lloyd becomes the first Australian-born player to win a game.
1994 The Tigers sell longtime star catcher Lance Parrish to the Pirates.
1995 Infielder Joe Randa makes his big league debut.
1996 Andy Pettitte suffers through his worst career Game Score: 1. His line: 1 IP, 8 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 2 BB, 0 K. The Yankees win, though: 13-10 over Baltimore.
1996 Pittsburgh’s Jeff King homers twice in an inning. It’s the second time he’s done that, something no one else has ever done twice before.
1997 Yankee skipper Joe Tore wins his 1,000th career game: 1,000-1,086 record.
1998 Tim Wakefield tosses 30 consecutive strikes from the fourth through sixth innings against the Indians. Naturally, one of the batters he faces who doesn’t get a ball is Shawon Dunston. Baseball began tracking each pitch in 1988, and this is the record for the most consecutive strikes until Bartolo Colon has 38 in a row on April 18, 2012.
1999 3,000 fans show up at Kauffman Stadium in “$hare the wealth” t-shirts for a Yankees-Royals game.
1999 John Smoltz has his only career complete-game one-hitter. Eddie Taubensee tags him for a single in the fifth.
2000 The Brewers release troubled pitcher Jaime Navarro.
2000 Pedro Martinez wins his 11th consecutive decision, his best streak ever. His line in this span: 13 G, 12 GS, 91.1 IP, 50 H, 13 R, 10 ER, 16 BB, 147 K, and a 0.99 ERA. Damn, he was good.
2002 Jim Edmonds connects for home run No. 200.
2003 Toronto selects Doug Davis off waivers from Texas.
2004 Scott Rolen, in his ninth season in the big leagues, lays down his first sacrifice hit. It’s still his only one, with over 8,250 plate appearances in his career.
2005 Nationals fans start chanting, “Let’s go grounds crew!” as they struggle to put a tarp on a soggy field, symbolizing the franchise’s ineptitude. The game is later called off.
2005 Bud Selig and the Players’ Association agree to a 50-game suspension for the first PED offense, 100 for the second, and a lifetime ban for the third one.
2007 Tony LaRussa becomes the fourth big league manager to lose his 2,000th decision. His record: 2,307-2,000.
2008 Julio Franco, age 49, announces his retirement. He had most recently played in the Mexican League.
2008 Seattle releases Brad Wilkerson.
2010 In the bottom of the 11th of a tied Rangers-Mariners game, Seattle’s Eric Byrnes is at the plate when the team calls for a suicide squeeze. Rather incredibly, he takes the pitch, causing Ichiro Suzuki to be tagged out at the plate. Byrnes then strikes out.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Holland and an imperfect game
Posted by Shane TourtellotteI got my first chance to watch my nine-year-old nephew Holland play baseball on Friday. His game was, unsurprisingly, a very different experience from watching the big leaguers. I won't give all the gory details, but a short example from the third inning will show what made an impression on me.
Holland reached base on a 5-4 force-out. On the next pitch, the opposing catcher let strike one roll a couple feet away, and Holland swiped second. The next pitch, ball one, went in the dirt too, and Holland took third. Then, after a walk, the pitcher turned his back for a moment, and not only did Holland steal home, but in the confusion the runner on first got all the way to third.
From my rough scoring of the game (yes, I was scoring it), four and a half innings produced 18 instances of what in professional baseball would be judged wild pitches or passed balls. Nothing more need be said to illustrate the chasm between these kids and "real" ballplayers, right? The professional game, the true game, is on a plane of effective perfection, right?
Jump-cut to the bottom of the ninth at Yankee Stadium that night. Game knotted at six, with Derek Jeter on first and Brayan Villarreal pitching to Curtis Granderson. The payoff pitch goes wild, and Jeter makes it all the way to third. Three pitches later, a slider goes off the end of catcher Alex Avila's glove, and Jeter beats the throw back to the plate to score the winning run.
This was a highly dramatic example, but not an isolated one. On that busy Friday night in major league baseball, there were four passed balls and 12 wild pitches (including two "dropped" third strikes) that led to 20 runners gaining extra bases. Ten of the 15 games on the schedule had at least one wild pitch or passed ball—and all five that didn't had at least one hit-by-pitch.
Maybe most interesting, one of those wild pitches led to that bizarre rarity: a four-strikeout inning. In the top of the eighth at Camden Yards, Oakland's Ryan Cook got the first two Orioles hacking, but strike nine to Adam Jones was a wild one that let Jones reach. Cook regrouped and threw strike 12 past Matt Wieters' bat to end the inning.
It was, according to MLB.com, the 59th four-K inning in history. (And the second one in four days. Who knew?)
So on a pretty ordinary day in baseball, arguably the two most interesting and memorable moments are defined by their imperfection, by someone goofing up. Kinda brings those multi-millionaire celebrities down to the level of nine-year-old boys playing for fun, right?
Well, no. Let's not get carried away. The pros are light-years in quality beyond those kids. But they aren't machines; they aren't infallible.
And thank God for that.
A flawless game is a sterile game. Tic-tac-toe holds no interest for anyone but kids, because adults can figure out the perfect strategy pretty easily and make a perpetual tie of it. Several years ago, computers solved the game of checkers, figuring out its optimum strategies, and the world of human tournament checkers has been reeling ever since. Once there's an equation for a game, the game is over. It's a solved puzzle, thrown out like a completed crossword in yesterday's paper.
It is the possibility, indeed the inevitability, of imperfection that makes the game what it is. The pitcher missing the outside corner; the batter getting under a fastball; the infielder's dive deflecting the hot-shot grounder. You can be perfect for a moment, or for a few at-bats. You might, like Philip Humber, be perfect for a whole game—but then there's the next game.
This should give us a bit of perspective. The players are going to keep striving for perfection, and we're going to keep rooting for our teams to exhibit it, and that's exactly as it should be. But the pursuit of that flawlessness is only interesting because it's so hard to achieve, even briefly, even for the best in the game. In baseball as in so many other endeavors, nobody's perfect.
Except for Holland's team, that is. They're 4-0 on the season so far—but there's still a lot of baseball left to be played.
Shane Tourtellotte is a long-time, occasionally-nominated science fiction writer, currently living in Asheville, North Carolina. He will tell you all about the baseball novel he’s shopping if you give him an inch.
Silver anniversary: Andre Dawson’s greatest game
Posted by Chris JaffeTwenty-five years ago today, baseball Hall of Famer Andre Dawson had the greatest game of his career. It was pretty good timing for it, too. Not only was he in his first month playing for his new team, the Cubs, but the game occurred at home in Wrigley Field. What Dawson did that day went a long way to creating a love affair between Dawson and the Wrigley Field fans.
Heading into the game on April 29, 1987, Dawson was having a rocky start in Chicago. It was 19 games into the season, and he was hitting .236—and that was thanks to a recent hot streak. Less than a week earlier he had been well under .200.
The team couldn’t complain too much about the price. In the 1986-87 collusion offseason the Cubs signed him because Dawson offered them a blank check. They could name their price if they were willing to sign him for one year. And so Dawson came for $500,000. But that would put more pressure on Dawson to deliver so he could get a paycheck he deserved.
And that takes us April 29, 1987.
Dawson’s day got off to a terrific start. In the bottom of the first, he belted a solo home run to tie the game, 1-1.
As nice as that was, Dawson outdid himself a half inning later with a great defensive play. While playing in right field, he threw a runner out at first for the rare 9-3 ground out. Yeah, you don’t see that too often. Sure, it was just opposing pitcher Roger Mason he threw out, but still—he threw out a guy at first from the outfield!
The rest of the game, Dawson continued to batter San Francisco with his bat. In the third inning, Dawson doubled in a run to give Chicago its first lead of the game, 3-2. Not bad. He nearly drove in another run, but the Giants threw out Ryne Sandberg at the plate.
Next inning Dawson faced Giants reliever Greg Minton and singled. He was now 3-for-3 and just a triple away from the cycle. So you know what happened next, right? Yep, in the sixth inning Dawson tripled to right to complete the cycle.
Last but not least, Dawson singled in his last plate appearance to conclude a perfect day. He was 5-for-5 with a double, triple, homer, and pair of singles. Oh— and let’s not forget that assist on a 9-3 groundout.
Dawson’s batting average leapt from .236 to .286. His slugging percentage catapulted from .500 to .610. By the time the Cubs' home stand ended less than a week later he was hitting .317 with three more homers.
Dawson would win the MVP in 1987. By the numbers, he didn’t deserve it. Yes, he led the league in homers and RBIs, but he also made his share of outs.
That said, the fans at Wrigley fell in love with him, and you could see why. At Wrigley in 1987, Dawson batted .332 with 27 homers and 71 RBIs in 74 games. But he was never better at Wrigley—or anywhere—than he was on April 29, 1987, exactly a quarter-century ago today.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something that occurred X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim the list.
Day-versary
1,000 days since the Padres release former Cubs pitcher Mark Prior.
2,000 days since Johnny Sain, 20-game winner turned great pitching coach, dies. Also, Sain was one of the toughest batters in baseball history to strike out. He wasn’t just tough for a pitcher—he was tough period; he fanned 20 times in 856 plate appearances.
4,000 days since Steve Trachsel becomes the first Met to allows four homers in an inning. Yeah, that sounds like him.
8,000 days since Ramon Martinez fans 18 batters in a three-hit win.
8,000 days since the 1990 draft is held. Among the highlights, the following teams drafted (and would later sign) these players: Atlanta gets Chipper Jones, Philadelphia signs Mike Lieberthal and Mike Williams; the White Sox land Alex Fernandez, Ray Durham, Jason Bere and Bob Wickman; the Yankees claim Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Carl Everett; the Twins have Todd Ritchie, Everyday Eddie Guardado and Damian Miller; the Mets get Jeromy Burnitz, Brian Daubach and Fernando Vina; the Orioles draft Mike Mussina; the Expos draft Rondell White; Texas claims Rusty Greer; Seattle drafts Bret Boone and Mike Hampton; the Angels draft Garret Anderson and Troy Percival.
10,000 days since the Pirates trade John Tudor and Brian Harper to the Cardinals for George Hendrick and a minor leaguer. This works out better for St. Louis.
15,000 days since the Astros debut a new, largely orange, uniform.
15,000 days since the Cardinals return Cecil Cooper to Boston.
25,000 days since Phillies owner William Cox, who is under investigation for betting on baseball games, writes to Commissioner Landis that, “I have . . . decided to devote all my time to my war-essential business” (it’s during World War II) and will resign as Phillies honcho.
Anniversary
1876 The NL has its first extra-inning game. The Braves top Hartford in 10 innings.
1879 Noodles Hahn, pitcher with Hall of Fame talent but not much durability, is born.
1885 Will White, a 200-game-winner, allows two inside the park homers in one game. Charles Comiskey and Curt Welch hit them.
1888 Charlie Ferguson, highly talented young Phillies pitcher, dies at age 25 years and 12 days old. He’s the first prominent major league player to die.
1891 Hall of Fame pitcher Amos Rusie, the greatest fastball hurler of his generation, surrenders a leadoff, inside-the-park home run to Hub Collins.
1897 Roger Connor, the all-time home run king before Babe Ruth, hits his 138th and final career home run.
1898 Frank Chance, part of poetry’s most famous infield, makes his big league debut.
1902 John McGraw hit by pitch five times but the umpire refuses to let him take first. McGraw sits in the batter's box in protest, for which he'll be suspended five games. I don't really know what's going on here, but I assume the ump was a stickler for the rule saying the batter must make an effort to get out of the way of the pitch. It probably didn't help McGraw that umpires hated him.
1905 Speaking of stories I'd love to hear the background for .. .on this day Christy Mathewson punches a kid selling lemonade in the stands. The kid had been heckling Mathewson. Ohhhh-kay. This incident doesn't really jibe with Mathewson's gentlemanly reputation.
1913 Reds come to Chicago to play the Cubs but there's a problem: They left their uniforms in Cincinnati. So they wear White Sox road uniforms.
1918 Tris Speaker pulls off his sixth career unassisted double play. It's his second in less than two weeks
1919 Lefty O'Doul makes his big league debut. He's a pitcher, but will later convert to batting, where he'll do well.
1922 In Braves Field, the New York Giants leg out four inside-the-park homers. Two were by George "Highpockets" Kelly and one each by Ross Youngs and Dave Bancroft. All are now in Cooperstown. Kelly and Bancroft both hit one off another Hall of Famer, Rube Marquard. Kelly may have had the most homers, but Youngs had the best day: 5-for-5 with five runs and two RBI. He hit for the cycle with two doubles. Giants beat the Braves, 15-4.
1922 The longest outing in the career of Hall of Famer Waite Hoyt: 14 IP, 10 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 6 K.
1923 Major league debut: Rube Walberg, a quality pitcher on Connie Mack’s second dynasty.
1923 Yankees sign Lou Gehrig to a contract of $2,000 plus a $1,500 signing bonus.
1924 Bump Hadley, playing for Mercersburg Academy, not only tosses a perfect game against Hadley-Lynn of Massachusetts, but fans 26 of the 27 batters he faces. Hadley will become a productive major league pitcher for many years.
1925 Brooklyn Dodger president Ed McKeever dies from an illness that he initially contracted while standing in the cold rain during the funeral of former team honcho Charles Ebbets.
1926 Major league debut: Joe Cronin.
1930 Major league debut: Lefty Gomez.
1931 Jimmy McAleer, former major league manager and all-time winningest St. Louis Browns skipper, commits suicide
1931 Wes Ferrell has a game for the ages. He throws a no-hitter, hits a home run and a double, and drives in four runs. Rick Wise may not be impressed, but anyone else ought to be. With 26 outs, his brother Rick Ferrell comes to the plate and gets on board with what's ruled an infield error.
1932 Hall of Fame White Sox pitcher Red Faber loses his 200th game. He's 249-200 on his career now
1932 Greenelee Field, Negro League park, opens in Pittsburgh.
1933 Dodgers release Jack Quinn, who until Jamie Moyer came along was the oldest pitcher to ever win a game.
1933 One of the most bizarre plays in baseball history: Yankee teammates Lou Gehrig and Dixie Walker both tagged out at the plate bang-bang one right after the other in one play against the Senators. The same thing happened to the Yanks about a half-century later against the White Sox.
1934 Hall of Fame shortstop Luis Aparicio is born
1934 Phillies play their first legal Sunday home game. So does Pittsburgh. Sunday ball finally has come to all of major league baseball.
1936 It's the first pro baseball game in Japanese Baseball League.
1936 Epic pitchers duel as Cardinals defeat Giants 2-1 in 17 innings. St. Louis' Roy Parmelee and New York's Carl Hubbell both go the distance. Parmelee: 17 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 9 K. Hubbell: 16.1 IP, 11 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 6 K.
1936 For the third time in his career, Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons pitches a complete game shutout and hits a home run in one game. NYG 9, BRK 0.
1939 Joe DiMaggio tears a muscle in his leg and will be out five weeks
1940 Ted Williams hits two triples in a game. He'll do it once more in his career.
1940 200-game winner Paul Derringer is having one heck of a season. He tosses his 14th straight Quality Start, a career high he'll tie three months later. In this stretch, he's 12-1 in 126 IP with 131 H, 35 R, 30 ER, 18 BB, and 52 K for a 2.14 ERA.
1944 St. Louis Browns, of all teams, set AL record by winning their first nine decisions.
1947 Yankees release Joe Medwick, who in his prime had won a Triple Crown in the NL.
1948 200 homers: Ted Williams.
1948 After 77 straight appearances dating back to 1945 without picking up a loss, Ted Wilks of the Cardinals loses a game.
1952 Al Rosen, Cleveland, homers three times in one game.
1952 Bob Feller sets personal record with most hits allowed, 18. He wins in complete game anyway: Indians 21, A's 9. Feller’s teammate Jim Fridley smacks six hits in that game.
1953 Joe Adcock becomes first person to homer into Polo Grounds' center field bleachers, 475 feet from the plate.
1956 Richie Ashburn hits an inside the park home run in the first game of a double header. He also hit two homers in a game the day before. Those are his only homers on the year. Think about it: He gets only three home runs in 719 plates appearances, and they all come within five PA.
1962 New York Mets outfielder Frank Thomas suffers from two HBP in one inning.
1963 Willie Mays hits his 100th career triple.
1966 Hank Aaron homers in his fifth consecutive game, his longest streak.
1967 Whitey Ford notches his 236th and final career win.
1969 Bobby Bonds has his best game according to WPA: 1.126, which is incredibly high. In a 13-inning game against the Reds, he’s 4-for-7 with a homer, two runs, three RBI and a reached on error. The Giants win, 4-3.
1970 Paul Blair hits three home runs in one game.
1971 Sterling Hitchcock born.
1973 Astros pitcher Tom Walker suffers one of the worst indignities—he’s called for a walk-off balk to end the game against Montreal.
1975 The Yankees perform six double plays in one game against Cleveland.
1977 Young Yankees reliever Ron Guidry is called into service as an emergency starting pitcher for Billy Martin’s depleted rotation. Guidry piches eight shutout innings for the win. His days in the bullpen are now over.
1978 Pete Rose hits three homers in one game. It's his first multi-homer game in eight years and last one in his career.
1979 Gary Carter hits an inside-the-park home run. It's the first of two in his career. He gets two homers in this game, the second time in three games he's done that.
1980 The Phillies sign amateur free agent Juan Samuel.
1980 Rangers owner Bradford G. Corbett (nicknamed “Chuckles the Clown” by unhappy Texas fans) sells majority interest in the club to Eddie Chiles.
1981 Steve Carlton fans his 3,000th batter.
1982 Orioles pitcher Storm Davis makes his big league debut.
1983 Steve Carlton picks off three base runners in game vs. Houston.
1983 Lee Elia has his memorable postgame tirade denouncing Cubs fans. Mind you, he's the Cubs' manager at the time. It can be heard here (audio NSFW).
1984 Dave Stewart becomes the first pitcher to go 0-6 in April. In his partial defense, there weren’t enough April ballgames for a pitcher to go 0-6 until not too long before this.
1985 Larry Parrish hits three homers in a game for the fourth time. Larry Parrish did it four times? Larry Parrish? He was a good hitter, but Hank Aaron did it only once.
1986 Roger Clemens has one of the greatest starts in history, setting a record by fanning 20 men in a nine-inning game.
1986 Expos hit four homers in fourth inning: Andre Dawson, Hubie Brooks, Tim Wallach and Mike Fitzgerald
1986 It’s a nightmare ending for Cubs. They enter bottom of the ninth leading the Padres 4-1. Then: single, force out, single, single, homer by Terry Kennedy off Ray Fontenot.
1987 Jack Clark slugs his 200th career home run.
1988 Joe Niekro pitches in his last game.
1988 Orioles FINALLY win a game, now 1-21 on the season. BAL 9, CWS 0.
1989 According to WPA, this is the worst game Andre Dawson ever had: 1-for-5, one run, GIDP. WPA: -0.400. He makes three inning-ending outs, most notably a GIDP with the bases loaded to end the seventh inning.
1990 Dan Quisenberry retires. When I was a kid, he was the ultimate relief ace. What the BBWAA thinks of Bruce Sutteris what I thought of Quis.
1990 Royals pitcher Jeff Montgomery fans the side on nine pitches in the eighth inning against Texas.
1992 Yankee farmhand Jeff Hoffman dies of previously undetected heart problem in his hotel room.
1993 John Olerud enjoys his only five-hit game. He’s 5-for-5 with a pair of doubles.
1994 Montreal Expo Kirk Rueter becomes first pitcher since Fernando Valenzuela to start his career at 10 wins and no losses.
1995 Major league debuts: Brad Radke, LaTroy Hawkins (both for Minnesota Twins), Andy Pettitte and Esteban Loaiza.
1996 Tom Kelly offers a memorable quote about Mariano Rivera: "He needs to pitch in a higher league, if there is one. Ban him from baseball. He should be illegal." I half-wonder if I have the right year for this one, but looking it up, Rivera had thrown three innings of hitless middle relief against the Twins the day before. Two days before that he had another three-inning relief stint against the Twins without surrendering a hit. So it was this early in Rivera's career Kelly said that.
1999 A's loss puts manager Art Howe 83 games under .500, his worst (618-701). He'll tie that mark two games later, but will rise up from there.
1999 Roy Halladay suffers his worst start: 2.1 IP, 9 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 3 BB, and 1 K. He even surrenders his first grand slam as the Angels maul Toronto, 17-1. Halladay’s Game Score on the day is –7.
1999 Brewers sign Hideo Nomo.
2000 After losing their first half-dozen contests in their new stadium, the Giants finally win one at Pac Bell Park.
2001 Shawn Chacon makes his big league debut.
2001 Geoff Jenkins homers twice in one game, giving him five in two games.
2005 The first match-up between two 300-game winners in 18 years as Greg Maddux outduels Roger Clemens 3-2 in Houston.
2006 The 200th career homer for Magglio Ordonez helps Tigers beat Twins, 18-1.
2007 Jamie Moyer slugs his first double in 19 years.
2007 Troy Tulowitzki achieves the most boring of baseball's noteworthy plays: the unassisted triple play. It's the 13th ever. In that same game, Tulowitzki’s Colorado teammate Todd Helton draws five walks (none intentional). Helton is also 1-for-1 on the day.
2009 Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo has quite a nice day: Hits homer while winning 1-0.
2009 Zack Greinke’s scoreless inning streak ends at 43, but he tops Toronto, 11-3.
2010 Magglio Ordonez raps out his 2000th hit. Oh, and he also gets his 300th career home run.
2010 John Buck, Toronto, hits three homers in one game, all off different pitchers.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Friday, April 27, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRays 4, Angels 3: Pinch hit walkoff bomb from Brandon Allen to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Albert Pujols got a hit but he was thrown out at second trying to stretch it into a double. I think that's what the fancy commentators on those evening baseball television programs call "pressing." The Angels are nine games back of the Rangers already which, dude, wow.
Mariners 5, Tigers 4: As my Twitter friend Grey said yesterday: "Brandon Inge is gone and the Tigers still have 24 other guys who have also struggled this week! woooooo!" Yeah, not a week to write home about if you're the Tigers. Which is worse considering they were at home for all of it. Chone Figgins was 3 for 4 with an RBI double. If Chone Figgins is kicking your butt, you gotta look in a mirror.
Royals 4, Indians 2: Break up the Royals, they're on a winning streak! Two straight for Kansas City. Alex Gordon after the game: ""We can't lose now. It's unbelievable." Yes, he actually said that.
Orioles 5, Blue Jays 2: Brian Matusz went six allowing two runs -- but neither were earned -- as the O's sweep the Jays and take their fourth straight overall. You know who's happy Albert Pujols is struggling so much? Jose Bautista. Because not that many people are paying attention to his .194/.349/.343 line.
Mets 3, Marlins 2: Rule of thumb: if your closer comes in to a one-run game and throws 46 pitches, he's not having a good day and you're not winning. Heath Bell threw 46 pitches, he was not having a good day and the Marlins didn't win.
Giants 6, Reds 5: I hit the ending of this one up yesterday. In the comments to that post someone suggested that I pointed out the fact that Angel Pagan -- who hit what proved to be the game-winning three-run homer -- should have struck out but for the bad call because "you still can’t get over the fact that the Giants beat your Braves in the 2010 DS. Stop hating and give a little credit." Yes, that's exactly why I pointed that out. You got me. I've been harboring my hate for the Giants for over a year and a half and finally -- finally! -- found my chance to pounce.
Red Sox 10, White Sox 3: I'm sure someone has done a study of how dudes do after throwing a perfecto, and I imagine they do quite poorly on average. Maybe not as poorly as Phil Humber did, though (5 IP, 8 H, 9 ER). Saltalamacchia hit two homers.
Padres 2, Nationals 1: Edinson Volquez gave up one run over seven. Which was one more than Edwin Jackson gave up over six, but Volquez had a better bullpen on his side last night.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
10,000 days ago: the Gary Carter trade
Posted by Chris Jaffe10,000 days ago, the Mets made one of their most famous trades in their franchise history. Or, if you’d rather, 10,000 days ago the Expos made one of their least fondly remembered deals.
On Dec. 10, 1984—exactly 10,000 days ago—the Expos traded future Hall of Famer Gary Carter to the Mets. In exchange, Montreal received four players who collectively were not nearly as good as Carter.
The biggest name was Hubie Brooks. He’d been a quality Mets infielder for the past several years. Only 28 years old, he’d still have several more good seasons in front of him. Ultimately, his best seasons were in Canada. He’d be the most productive player Montreal received. So at least that part of the trade worked out for them.
The big hope for Montreal was a young phenom named Floyd Youmans. The next year, Youmans, despite being only 21 years old, would post a 2.45 ERA in 77 innings. In 1986, he went 13-12 in his first full season, a campaign that included several sterling performances. Then his arm went south. Three months after turning 25, he threw his last big league pitch.
The Expos also got a replacement for Carter in 24-year-old catcher Mike Fitzgerald. This part was a disaster. It’s hard enough to replace a legend at the same position when you’ve just been traded for him. It’s even harder when you hit .207 in 108 games, as Fitzgerald did in his first season in Montreal. He improved from there, but he was clearly no Carter.
Lastly, Montreal received 23-year-old centerfielder Herm Winningham. He had only one problem—he couldn’t hit.
As for Carter, he hit 32 homers with 100 RBIs in his first season in New York. In his second year, the Mets won a world title.
Looking back, you can see Montreal’s thought process. Carter would be a 31-year-old catcher in 1985. That’s an age guys start to get old and at a position they get old quick. As Branch Rickey said, it’s better to trade a man one year too early instead of one year too late. That’s what Montreal wanted to do. And really, that’s pretty much what they did. Carter had two good years in New York, but in his third season he batted .235 with 20 homers. Carter’s prime was almost entirely in Montreal.
The problem for Montreal was their haul disappointed. They got three young players and one veteran in his prime, and only the last one panned out as hoped.
You can easily see a scenario where it plays out differently. If Youmans’ arm stays healthy, this would be a great trade for Montreal. Winningham had been a pretty good player in the minors. At age 21, he batted .354 in Double-A and the next year in Triple-A he hit .281 with 23 stolen bases versus only five caught stealings. Even Fitzgerald was a legitimate prospect, batting .284 with moderate but legitimate power in Triple-A at age 22.
In fact, according to WAR the Expos won the trade. The foursome gave Montreal 15.3 WAR while Carter managed just 11.2 WAR for the Mets. Huh. I wouldn’t have guessed that.
Then again, it’s four on one. You have to figure three other guys given prominent roles on a team can manage to play slightly over replacement level between them. Or, to put it another way, if you trade Barry Bonds for 10 guys, you might “win” the trade, but only if you push other would-be starters to the bench, which minimizes the advantage. There’s a difference between a trade in isolation and it’s impact upon the team.
It’s a fun trade to play devil’s advocate for I suppose, but regardless, it happened 10,000 days ago.
Aside from that, many other baseball events celebrate their “day-versary” or anniversary today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d rather just skim the list.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen hits three home runs in one game.
1,000 days since the A’s retire No. 24 for Rickey Henderson.
4,000 days since the Astros sign free agent Vinny Castilla.
5,000 days since the Cubs sign free agent Gary Gaetti.
5,000 days since Felipe Alou wins his 521st game as Expos skipper, passing up Buck Rodgers for most wins in the history of the Montreal franchise.
5,000 days since Tim Wakefield pitches a nine-inning complete game despite striking no one out. It’s the only time he ever does that.
8,000 days since Randy Johnson tosses a no-hitter, beating the Tigers 2-0. It’s the first no-hitter in Mariners franchise history. He walks six and fans eight.
9,000 days since Tim Belcher makes his big league debut.
9,000 days since Ron Gant makes his major league debut.
20,000 days since the last game of swingman extraordinaire Steve Gromek.
Anniversaries
1887 Bob Caruthers, a 200-game winner and maybe the best-hitting pitcher of all-time, hits his only grand slam.
1891 Allen Sothoron, pitcher mentioned in one of the most famous story leads in history (“Allen Sutton Sothoron pitched his initials off”) is born.
1896 Hall of fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby is born.
1897 Veteran pitcher Adonis Terry appears in his final game.
1903 Christy Mathewson surrenders the only grand slam of his career. Frank Bonner hits it, whoever he is.
1909 For the third consecutive day, the Browns lose to the White Sox by a score of 1-0.
1916 Hall of Fame outfielder Enos Slaughter is born.
1918 Brooklyn finally wins, improving its record on the season to 1-9. They beat the crosstown rival Giants, who were 9-0 until this game.
1918 The Phillies win, putting their all-time franchise record at 118 games over .500 (2,510-2,366). That’s the franchise peak.
1926 Walter Johnson becomes the last pitcher to win 400 games. His record: 400-258.
1926 17-year-old Mel Ott makes his big league debut.
1926 Tigers manager Ty Cobb puts himself in the lineup for the first time in the two-week old season. He collects three hits and makes a sensational catch.
1929 Dodger relief pitcher Clise Dudley becomes the first person to homer on the first pitch he sees in the big leagues.
1930 Hall of Fame hitter Harry Heilmann belts his 500th double.
1930 Despite playing all game, White Sox first baseman Bud Clancy records zero putouts and zero assists in a game against the Browns.
1931 Lou Gehrig, for the only time in his career, steals three bases in one game.
1933 Chuck Klein, Hall of Famer, gets his 1,000th hit. It’s taken him just 683 games.
1939 The White Sox select hurler Eddie Smith off waivers from the A’s. With the Sox, Smith will become one of the hardest-luck, most run-support-deprived pitchers of all-time.
1940 Lou Boudreau hits his first career home run. It leads off the game against Detroit’s 18-year-old phenom Hal Newhouser. It’s also the first homer Newhouser has allowed in the big leagues. Boudreau will have only one other leadoff dinger in his career. He later hits his second career homer off Newhouser. It’s one of only five multi-home run games for Boudreau.
1941 Bucky Walters records his 100th win, giving him a record of 100-81.
1943 In a great pitchers’ duel, the A’s top the Senators, 2-1 in 16 innings. All the game’s runs score in the final frame. Philadelphia’s Jesse Flores goes 15.2 innings and ends with a Game Score of 100. Early Wynn lasts “only” 13 innings and leaves with a Game Score of 98. It’s the highest Game Score of the Hall of Famer’s career. Wynn’s line: 13 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, and 4 K.
1943 Tommy Byrne, pitcher for the early Casey Stengel Yankee teams, makes his big league debut.
1943 The Braves trade aging catcher Ernie Lombardi to the Giants.
1944 Hal Newhouser has the best Game Score of his career: 93. His line: 12 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 6 BB, and 5 K. It’s a complete-game win as the Tigers top the White Sox, 2-0.
1944 Boston Brave Jim Tobin tosses a no-hitter. Only 1,984 are in attendance to see it.
1945 The Giants release fiery pitcher Johnny Allen.
1945 Legend has it that on this day MLB leaders issue a report claiming that integration is a bad idea. All copies of it are supposedly destroyed, hence explaining the “legend has it” start to this entry.
1947 It’s Babe Ruth Day in baseball. 58,339 assemble in Yankee Stadium to honor the ailing slugger.
1955 An 81-year-old Honus Wagner watches as Pittsburgh unveils a statue of him in Sceneley Park outside Forbes Field.
1957 Cub pitcher Moe Drabowsky is hit by a pitch and hams it up really bad after it. Teammate Dick Drott runs out to the plate with a wheelchair to take Belinsky to first. Not surprisingly, the umpire ejects Drott.
1957 Willie Upshaw, Blue Jays first baseman, is born.
1962 Jim Bunning, a pitcher who plunked 160 batters (the 13th most all-time), is himself hit by a pitch. It’s the only time this happens to Bunning.
1963 For the only time in his career, Frank Robinson reaches first base via catcher’s interference. Then he scores what turns out to be the game’s only run in Cincinnati's 1-0 win over Houston.
1965 The Mets sign free agent Yogi Berra.
1965 The Mets complain about the air conditioning in the Astrodome, alleging it blows cold air toward home when the visitors are up and never when Houston bats.
1965 Matty Alou belts a walk-off home in a 14-13 Giants win over the Phillies. It’s just his 11th career homer, but his third career walk-off shot.
1968 Baltimore’s Tom Phoebus tosses a no-hitter for a 6-0 win over the Red Sox. Brooks Robinson makes a great catch to rob Boston shortstop Rico Petrocelli in the eighth inning.
1969 Harmon Killebrew nails his 400th home run.
1969 Montreal signs aging reliever Roy Face.
1969 Sal Bando enjoys maybe the greatest game of his career. He’s 3-for-4 with two homers, a walk, three runs, and a personal-high seven RBIs. The A’s trash the Pilots, 13-5.
1970 Washington trades Ken McMullen to the Angels for Aurelio Rodriguez and Rick Reichardt.
1971 After just 13 games with his new team, Curt Flood jumps the Senators, ending his big league career.
1971 It’s home run No. 600 for Hank Aaron.
1972 Don Zimmer manages his first big league game.
1973 Joe Morgan reaches base for the 41st consecutive game, his all-time personal best streak.
1973 Steve Busby no-hits the Tigers. 3-0. It’s the first no-hitter in Royals history.
1974 Frank Catalanotto, infielder, is born.
1974 Mike Schmidt hits the first of two career inside-the-park home runs.
1975 Chris Carpenter, ace pitcher, is born.
1975 Glenn Beckert, one-time second baseman for the Cubs, plays in his final game.
1977 The A’s trade Mike Torrez to the Yankees for Dock Ellis and two other players.
1981 A’s manager Billy Martin catches opposing manager Maury Wills trying to pull a fast one in Seattle’s Kingdome. The batter’s box is seven feet long instead of six feet, it’s specified length. Wills had the grounds crew add a foot to help his pitchers take advantage of Oakland’s breaking pitches.
1983 Nolan Ryan breaks Walter Johnson’s long-held strikeout record of 3,508 Ks. Steve Carlton will later pass Ryan briefly, but then the Ryan Express will blow past Carlton and keep on chugging for many more years.
1984 Houston releases J.R. Richard.
1985 Don Sutton allows a personal high 17 base runners en route to tying a personal worst Game Score of 6. Sutton’s line: 4.2 IP, 12 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 5 BB, and 3 K.
1985 For the third time in a week Jim Rice grounds into two double plays in one game.
1987 Don Baylor gets his 2,000th career hit.
1988 Scott McGregor, who went 20-8 for the 1980 Orioles, appears in his final game.
1990 Orel Hershiser undergoes surgery on his pitching shoulder and will be done for the year.
1990 Pittsburgh’s Wally Backman becomes the first NL player in 15 years to get six hits in a nine-inning game.
1992 Harlond Clift, former hard-hitting Browns third baseman, dies.
1993 Pirates knuckler Tim Wakefield has a monster start, lasting 10 innings and walking 10 in a 172-pitch performance. Even back then, 172 pitches got people’s attention. Despite that, he only fans one batter. It’s the last time the Pirates have had a pitcher last more than nine innings.
1994 Bobby Thigpen, formerly the single-season save leader, appears in his last game.
1994 Minnesota’s Scott Erickson tosses a no-hitter, beating the Brewers, 6-0.
1996 Barry Bonds belts his 300th home run, becoming the fourth member of the 300/300 club, alongside Willie Mays, Andre Dawson, and his father Bobby Bonds.
1999 Rickey Henderson steals his 1,300th base.
2000 Bobby Abreu receives a walk-off walk from Byung-Hyung Kim. Philadelphia 5, Arizona 4.
2000 Jose Valentin hits for the cycle and ends the day with five RBIs.
2001 Chipper Jones goes 5-for-5 in exactly five plate appearances, the only time he does it. He gets three singles, a double, and a homer.
2002 Carlos Delgado gets his 1,000th hit in his 1,013th game.
2002 Derek Lowe becomes the first Red Sox to toss a no-hitter in Fenway Park in 37 years when he beats Tampa Bay, 10-0.
2003 Alex Rodriguez has his third career 5-for-5 game.
2003 According to WPA, Allen Levrault has the best relief stint in Marlins history: 0.555 WPA. His line: 4 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, and 3 K.
2003 Kevin Millwood tosses a no-hitter for a 1-0 Phillies win over the Giants. He walks three and fans 10.
2004 Chad Moeller hits for the cycle.
2005 Jose Mesa joins the 300-save club.
2005 Mark Grudzielanek hits for the cycle.
2006 Tampa prospect Delmon Young is suspended indefinitely by the International League after throwing his bat, which hit the replacement umpire in the chest. (It’s a replacement umpire because minor league umps are striking.)
2008 The Pirates release Matt Morris.
2009 Dexter Fowler steals five bases in one game for the Padres as they top the Rockies, 12-7.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRoyals 8, Indians 2: I keep hitting refresh on the scoreboard but nothing changes so, apparently, this is correct and the Royals actually won a game. Billy Butler hit two homers as Kansas City beat up on Ubaldo Jimenez.
Mets 5, Marlins 1: David Wright hit a two-run homer, giving him 735 RBI in his career, which pushes him past Darryl Strawberry for the all-time Mets RBI crown. Strawberry needed around 300 fewer plate appearances to do it. Wright, however, was not coked out of his mind, so this is really an apples-oranges comparison.
Rangers 7, Yankees 3: Phil Hughes is a wreck. He gave up four runs in two and two-thirds, bringing his year to 1-3 with a 7.88 ERA while allowing 26 hits and six walks in 16 innings. That is ... not acceptable. Adrian Beltre seems to be feeling just fine: 3 for 5 with a homer and 3 RBI.
Reds 4, Giants 2: Barry Zito had a shutout going through six, but then Scott Rolen hit a homer, the bullpen came into play again, bad defense went down and the Giants laid another egg in Great American Ballpark, where they have dropped seven straight.
Nationals 7, Padres 2: Washington continues to cruise behind great starting pitching. The Nats, overall, are 14-4. The starters are 8-2 with a 1.71 ERA with 103 strikeouts and only 22 walks.
Mariners 9, Tigers 1: Felix Hernandez was Felix Hernandez (7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER), but for once he got run support. Imagine. Detroit has lost five of six.
Rockies 2, Pirates 1; Pirates 5, Rockies 1: I wrote up the first game yesterday (short version: tough luck for James McDonald). In the nightcap, the Bucs rode a five-run fifth inning -- complete with Pedro Alvarez's second homer of the day -- to earn the split. I guess the Rockies earned the split too by losing the second game, but we tend not to ever say that for some reason.
Phillies 7, Diamondbacks 2: Cole Hamels drove in two runs with an RBI single. Oh, and he also pitched a little (8 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 7K).
Cardinals 5, Cubs 1: Lance Lynn -- who wasn't even gonna be in the rotation before Chris Carpenter's shoulder went wonky -- now leads all of baseball with four wins following yet another strong outing. David Freese hit a two-run homer and an RBI double. The Cards avoid the sweep.
Orioles 3, Blue Jays 0: Jason Hammel, who came over from Colorado in the Jeremy Guthrie deal, said after the game "I am still learning a new league and seeing what everybody else is doing." Mostly they're busy not hitting Jason Hammel. Hammel tossed seven four-hit shutout innings. He's 3-0 with a 1.73 ERA on the season. Matt Lindstrom worked a perfect eight inning and has still yet to give up a run on the year. He too came over in the Guthrie deal.
Astros 7, Brewers 5: His name is Jose Altuve. And he's the man whose big day helped Houston beat the Brewers for the first time in 12 tries.
Rays 3, Angels 2: I am the conductor of the Don't Worry About Albert Pujols Because He's Gonna Be Just Fine Orchestra, but it is probably still worth noting that he's 0 for his last 19. C.J. Wilson struck out 11 in seven innings. But dude, when your offense goes 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position, good is not good enough.
Athletics 5, White Sox 4: Someone tweeted at me yesterday and asked why I don't have many funny or insightful things to say in White Sox recaps. Well, when the team in question goes 13 innings in a 2-2 game, takes a two run lead in the 14th and still end up losing, well, that sort of limits my options. Yoenis Cespedes hit a two-run homer in the 14th and Kila Ka'aihue hit the game-winning single a few minutes later. That erased Alexei Ramirez's go-ahead two-run double in the top of the 14th. It also rendered Paul Konerko's 400th career homer a mere footnote.
Red Sox 7, Twins 6: Not news: Clay Buchholz stunk (5.1 IP, 10 H, 1 ER). News: The Sox' bullpen shut the opposition down. And they did it by committee: six relievers combined to throw the last three and two-thirds, allowing no runs. Although the ninth inning did get dicey, as Alfredo Aceves loaded the bases on a walk, a single and a hit batsman before striking out Denard Span to end it.
Braves 4, Dodgers 2: L.A. took a 2-1 lead into the ninth but then the Braves hit five straight singles -- including those of the RBI variety by Dan Uggla, Chipper Jones and Jason Heyward -- to rally Atlanta. Jones, in addition to the go-ahead RBI -- made a couple of solid plays at third base and didn't seem at all like a creaky 40 year-old on a retirement tour. He said:
"I was like a school kid out there. I mean, that's what you play the game for -- moments like that."
Great. Now he's Brett Favre. See you in spring training next year, Chipper.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRangers 2, Yankees 0: Yu Darvish finally arrives. Eight and a third innings, ten strikeouts and a big goose egg in the runs column against the best offense in baseball.
Rays 5, Angels 0: David Price: five-hit shutout. Albert Pujols: 0 for 4. He has the lowest slugging percentage of anyone in last night's Angels lineup with the exception of Peter Bourjos.
Mariners 7, Tigers 4: Sometimes Max Scherzer is good, sometimes he's bad and rarely is he anything in between. This was a bad night: five runs on ten hits in five innings. Michael Saunders had a couple of RBI doubles for the M's. Meanwhile, while the box score shows no errors for Brandon Inge, Kurt from SB Nation felt it necessary to depict his play at second base thusly. Which says a lot about how the Tigers blogosphere feels about Brandon Inge.
Orioles 2, Blue Jays 1: Matt Wieters hit a homer that was made possible thanks to the glove of outfielder Eric Thames. As in, the ball bounced off Thames' glove and over the fence. Thames hit his own homer the inning before, so I suppose this made it even.
Reds 9, Giants 2: Matt Cain proves somewhat mortal, but what put this game out of reach was the bullpen "help" from Dan Otero, who gave up six runs on six hits in an inning and two-thirds. Meanwhile, Matt Latos shuts San Francisco out over the course of seven innings. Three RBI for Brandon Phillips.
Pirates 5, Rockies 4: When Jim Tracy's Rockies meet Clint Hurdle's Pirates, I like to pretend that the two of them -- each of whom once managed for the other team -- were traded for one another. Straight-up challenge trade, like, in the middle of the season. Manager had to fly in before game time, get his new jersey and just get out there. In other news, Jamie Moyer -- whose first ever appearance against the Pirates came when the now nearly 63 year-old Rick Reuchel was on the team -- left with a 2-1 lead after six strong innings but the pen couldn't hold it.
Mets 2, Marlins 1: Jose Reyes returns to New York and goes 0 for 4. So much for that drama. More important here were the performances of Johan Santana and Josh Johnson, each of whom are trying to show the world that they're truly healthy and an be aces again. On this night they were: Santana struck out 11 in six and two thirds while giving up only one and Johnson struck out nine and gave up one over the same distance.
Indians 4, Royals 3: Derek Lowe: one run on eight hits over six innings. Jonathan Sanchez: 115 pitches and he couldn't even go five. Uglyville, U.S.A. as the Royals drop their 12th straight.
Red Sox 11, Twins 2: The Sox break out the bats. Six guys in the lineup had at least two hits. David Ortiz drove in three. Mike Aviles went 4 for 5 with a homer. Josh Beckett allowed two runs over six.
Cubs 3, Cardinals 2: The second 3-2 loss in a row for St. Louis. Alfonso Soriano drove in the winning run with an RBI single in the 10th. It maybe shouldn't have happened, though, as Tony Campana -- who scored the winning run -- maybe shoulda been called out at second when he stole it earlier in the inning. Silver lining for the Cardinals: Adam Wainwright finally pitched well (6 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 7K).
Brewers 9, Astros 6: A five-run sixth inning capped by a Rickie Weeks homer. Corey Hart, Travis Ishikawa and Carlos Gomez also homered. Milwaukee has beat Houston 11 straight times.
Phillies 8, Diamondbacks 5: I guess Hunter Pence's shoulder is OK: he hit a two-run homer, sparking the Philly offense to its best day in over a week.
Athletics 2, White Sox 0: Tommy Milone shut the Chisox out over eight innings, besting Gavin Floyd in a pitcher's duel and stopping the Sox' winning streak at four.
Braves 4, Dodgers 3: Martin Prado only had one hit, but it was a biggie: an RBI triple in the ninth to break a 3-3 tie. He drove in another earlier in the game on a groundout. Atlanta also scored on a wild pitch. Chipper Jones had a homer too. On his 40th birthday. He always hits on his birthday: for his career his is 21 for 49 on April 24th and the Braves are 11-2.
Nationals 3, Padres 1: So far the Gio Gonzalez deal is feeling pretty good for Washington. He allowed only two hits in six shutout innings, running his scoreless innings streak to 20.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
40th anniversary: Steve Carlton’s greatest performance
Posted by Chris JaffeForty years ago today, one of the greatest pitchers of all-time, in the midst of having one of the greatest seasons of all time, threw the greatest game of his career.
The pitcher was Steve Carlton, a career 300-game winner. In 1972, he would win 27 games for a last-place team that won just 59. He also would lead the league in strikeouts (310), ERA (1.97), starts (41), complete games (30), and innings pitched (346.1). Like I said, it was one of the greatest seasons of all-time.
But the crowning achievement in Carlton’s wondrous year came early, when he took the hill on April 25, 1972 against the San Francisco Giants. The Giants weren’t a great team, but they had some talent in their lineup.
Their starting pitcher was Hall of Famer Juan Marichal. They had experienced veterans like Bobby Bonds, Ken Henderson and Tito Fuentes. They had some youngsters with lengthy futures in front of them named Dave Kingman and Chris Speier. Finally, making his major league debut on the day was a center fielder who would later spend many years backing up Carlton with Philadelphia: Garry Maddox.
They had talent, but Carlton was far too much for them. The first part of the day would be the worst for Carlton. In the first inning, he surrendered a leadoff single to Speier. That was it. Carlton wouldn’t let another man get a hit off of him the rest of the way. Oh, and Speier didn’t get to enjoy his good fortune for very long. Philadelphia catcher Tim McCarver threw Speier out trying to steal moments later. That and two groundouts made up the Giants' opening frame.
Beginning with the second inning, Carlton pitched like a man possessed. He struck out the side. In the third, he fanned a pair, and allowed a meek groundout to short for the other out. In the fourth inning, he struck out the side again—and he got Speier looking.
In the fifth inning, Kingman led off with a weak pop up to the catcher, and then Carlton struck out the next two batters. Carlton fanned the leadoff man in the sixth before finally walking Chris Arnold, the number eight hitter. Before then, Carlton had fanned 11 of the previous 13 batters. Only one man in that time had even pushed the ball past the pitcher. That’s dominance.
Carlton got the next two batters out easily, including one by the first flyout of the game. Carlton faced 18 batters before he ever needed to use his outfielders.
The last few innings weren’t as overwhelming, but Carlton still managed to retire every batter he faced. He ended the game by fanning the last two batters. The first was the legendary Willie Mays, who entered as a pinch-hitter, and the last batter was the man who got the hit, Speier.
Carlton didn’t get the no-hitter—and in fact he never had one in his career—but he pitched a far better game than most no-hitters. He allowed one hit, one walk, while fanning 14. His Game Score of 98 would be the best of his career. Carlton would have 709 starts in his career, but none topped this one.
Oh, and Carlton also laced a single himself and scored one of Philadelphia’s three runs. Yeah, that was a nice game Steve Carlton had 40 years ago today, on April 25, 1972.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since The New York Times reports that sluggers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are among the 104 names on the 2003 PED list.
4,000 days since Jeff Kent hits his 200th home run.
6,000 days since Don Mattingly announces his retirement.
8,000 days since Bo Jackson hits an inside the park home run off of Bob Welch.
10,000 days since Oakland trades Bill Caudill to the Blue Jays for Dave Collins, Alfredo Griffin and cash.
20,000 days since Mickey Mantle hits for the cycle.
Anniversaries
1876 It’s the first shutout in NL history. It's by the Cubs, in their league debut.
1883 Russ Ford, godfather of the emery ball, is born.
1896 Fred Haney, who mismanaged the late 1950s Milwaukee Braves, is born. (Bill James once said Haney did the worst job by any manager with a good team in those years.)
1899 Honus Wagner hits his only walk-off home run. It's a solo shot off Jesse Tannehill for a 2-1 Louisville win over Pittsburgh. Next year he'll join Tannehill as a Pirate.
1901 Wild Opening Day. The Tigers win their first game 14-13 despite entering the bottom of the ninth trailing by 10 runs. Really. Still one of the all-time greatest comebacks.
1904 Cy Young pitches two hitless innings at the end of 2-0 win over the A's, beginning what turns into a still-record streak for most consecutive hitless innings.
1912 George Cutshaw, long-lasting second baseman, makes his big league debut.
1913 Bill Klem nullifies an apparent game-winning Giants single because Klem was turned around announcing the pinch hitter when the pitch was thrown.
1919 Dickie Kerr, White Sox pitcher who will win two World Series games as a Clean Sox later this year, makes his big league debut.
1924 Al Simmons hits his first homer. It's off Walter Johnson.
1928 The Browns trade shortstop Wally Gerber to the Red Sox.
1930 Jack Quinn, the eternal spitballer, lodges his 200th career loss: 231-200. Just a few months earlier he set a World Series record that lasted a generation for most strikeouts in one game. Until recently, Quinn was the oldest pitcher to win a game.
1933 Russ Van Atta didn't have a great career, but he sure had a heck of an opening act. In his debut, he goes 4-for-4 while shutting out Washington. Yanks win 16-0. There is also a nasty brawl in this game. It's s so bad a police riot squad is called out, and some attack the Yanks.
1933 Lu Blue, veteran AL first baseman, plays in his final game.
1936 Luke Appling suffers through what might have been his worst day at the plate ever: 0-for-5 with three strikeouts. The last is especially impressive, as he fanned only 528 times in 10,242 career PA. In 1936, aside from this game, he whiffed 22 times in 613 plate apearances.
1937 Cliff Melton makes his big league debut by fanning 13 for the Giants. He still loses 3-1 to Boston, but will win 20 times on the season with 142 strikeouts, fourth in the league.
1939 Dizzy Trout, star pitcher for the World War II Tigers, makes his debut in the major leagues. Also debuting that day are fellow 1940s pitchers Ken Raffensberger and Jack Kramer.
1941 Hall of Famer Earl Averill plays his last game.
1944 Tony Mullane, 1880s star pitcher, dies. Ladies Day supposedly began because of him, as his team wanted to cash in on the handsome Mullane's appeal to female fans.
1948 Larry Doby ties the record by fanning five times in one day.
1953 Richie Ashburn gets three sacrifice hits in one game. In all, he's 0-for-4 with one walk in a 7-6 extra inning win for the Phillies.
1954 First of three times Hank Aaron gets five hits in a game. Not bad for the kid enjoying his first month in the big leagues.
1954 Ray Murray, Orioles catcher, ejected for praying. He's upset at an umpire's call and prays that the Lord gives the ump better eyesight.
1957 Baseball adopts a new rule stating that base runners can’t intentionally interfere with batted balls on the field. The Reds did it twice earlier this week to help the batter advance on the bases.
1959 Tony Phillips, late blooming baseball player, is born.
1961 The A’s sign Bert Campaneris, the first piece of their Mustache Gang puzzle.
1965 Willie Mays hits his 18th and final homer off Warren Spahn, the most he nailed off any one pitcher.
1968 Jim Perry's 100th win: 100-83 on his career.
1969 It’s the second straight day with Reggie Jackson homering twice in a game.
1969 Jack Hiatt hits well over his head. The catcher, who will end the year hitting .196 with 34 RBI, bangs two homers and seven RBI, including a 13th-inning grand slam in 12-8 Giants win over Houston.
1970 Earl Wilson of the Tigers does something rare: He reaches third base on dropped third strike. After he whiffs, the Twins entire team pulls a Josh Paul and starts trotting off the field, so Detroit's third base coach tells Wilson to run.
1970 Veteran pitcher Pedro Ramos appears in his final game.
1970 For the second time this week and seventh time in his career, Willie Stargell launches a homer over the right field roof in Forbes Field.
1971 Juan Marichal's 100th loss. His career record is 206-100. He's one of only four live ball pitchers to win 200 before losing 100. The others are Lefty Grove, Whitey Ford and Pedro Martinez.
1971 Don Sutton wins, pushing his career record to 86-85. It'll be over .500 forevermore.
1971 Curt Flood plays his last game, as he abruptly jumps the Senators team and goes to Europe, telegramming his retirement.
1972 Super fielding center fielder Garry Maddox makes his big league debut.
1973 Only time Harmon Killebrew fans with the bases loaded to end a game. Boston 4, Minnesota 3.
1975 Jacque Jones is born.
1976 Rick Monday's most famous moment: He rescues a U.S. flag from would-be flag burners in Dodger Stadium. The crowd cheers and spontaneously breaks into a rendition of “God Bless America.”
1977 Baltimore fans hang Reggie Jackson in effigy after he beats them in a game with two doubles and a game-winning homer for the Yankees. Making the loss that much harder, Jackson had been an Oriole just last year.
1977 The Reds tie an NL record by scoring 12 runs in the fifth inning en route to a 23-9 stomping of the Braves. George Foster ends the day with seven RBIs.
1980 Montreal’s Larry Parrish hits five homers in a game for the third time in his career.
1982 George Steinbrenner fires Yankees manager Bob Lemon. This ends Lemon’s days as a big league manager.
1986 Padres relief pitcher Craig Lefferts hits a walk-off homer. He’s the last pitcher to do that. He hits it off Greg Minton, who is known for never allowing homers to anyone. It’s the only walk-off homer by a pitcher since the 1960s.
1987 Whitey Herzog's 1,000th managerial win: 1,000-856.
1987 One day after fanning four times in one game, Eric Davis fans five times in five at bats. It’s a record nine consecutive Ks for a position player.
1987 Yankees star Dave Winfield fans with the bases loaded, ending the game. The Indians win, 2-1.
1987 Bill Bean, who will come out of the closet after retiring, makes his big league debut by getting four hits in one game.
1990 Bill Buckner hits an inside-the-park homer. He's 41 years old, it's his only homer of the season, and the last of his career. Someone misplayed a ball but good out there.
1993 Frank Thomas plays his 31st straight game without a homer, his all-time worst drought.
1994 Paul Molitor, age 37 years, eight months, and three days, hits his first career inside-the-park homer. He gets No. 2 the next year. Late bloomer, that Molitor.
1994 Ryne Sandberg, 34 years and seven months old, legs out two triples in a game.
1995 The baseball strike ends as the Dodgers beat Marlins, 8-7.
1997 Ken Griffey Jr. hits three homers in a game for the second time.
1997 Matt Williams hits three homers in a game.
2000 Sammy Sosa plays center field for the last time. He had some speed when he was young.
2000 Several players take today off to protest the feds' taking of Elian Gonzalez in a pre-dawn raid a few days earlier. On the Marlins: Mike Lowell, Vladimir Nunez, Alex Fernandez, Michael Tejera. On Tampa: Jose Canseco. On the Mets: Cookie Rojas (coach) and Rey Ordonez.
2000 WPA's favorite Tom Glavine game: 9 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K, in 1-0 win. WPA: 0.783.
2001 Rickey Henderson draws his 2,063rd career walk, passing Babe Ruth for most ever.
2003 Todd Helton gets his 1,000th hit. It took him 844 games.
2003 Richie Sexson bangs out three homers in a game for the second time.
2007 Jake Peavy fans 16 D-backs, including nine in a row at one point, but San Diego loses 3-2.
2008 Royals release Hideo Nomo, ending his major league career.
2009 Albert Pujols reaches 1,000 career RBI in style with his eighth career grand slam and second one of the year.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
A baseball card mystery: Who is Jeff Pendleton?
Posted by Bruce MarkusenAs a rookie third baseman for the Cardinals in 1984, Terry Pendleton made a distinct impression on National League pitching. He batted .324 for St. Louis and finished seventh in the league’s Rookie of the Year balloting.
There have been three players with the last name of Pendleton in the major leagues. The late Jim Pendleton was a versatile 1950s-era utility man who could play the infield and outfield. He played for the Braves, Pirates, Reds and Colt .45s, but not the Cardinals. Lance Pendleton is a still-active pitcher who debuted out of the Yankee bullpen in 2011. And, of course, there is Terry Pendleton himself, a standout third baseman for the Cardinals and Braves throughout much of the '80s and early 1990s. None of those players had “Jeff” as either a first or a middle name.
That avenue exhausted, I looked at other players on the 1984 Cardinals roster. Perhaps one of the production people at Donruss transposed another Cardinal player’s name with Pendleton’s. Only one player on the ‘84 Cardinals was named Jeff, and that was a relief pitcher named Jeff Lahti. He looked nothing like Terry Pendleton, so again, I’m not sure why Donruss would have confused his name in such a way.
I performed a Google search for Jeff Pendleton. I turned up some wonderful people on Facebook and MySpace, and even a guitarist in California, but no one from the sports world or the world of general celebrity.
Well, all I can say is that Terry Pendleton deserves better. He was an excellent defensive third baseman who emerged as an offensive force after being traded to the Braves in the early 1990s. In 1991, he led the National League in batting on the way to winning the league’s MVP Award. The following year, he paced the NL with 199 hits and collected a career-high 105 RBIs. He remained an effective offense player through the 1993 season, before injuries and age took their toll.
So as baseball fans, we should know all about Terry Pendleton. But who exactly was this Jeff Pendleton fellow? And from where did Donruss conjure him in 1985?
Bruce Markusen is the author of seven books on baseball, including the award-winning A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, the recipient of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. He has also written The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, Tales From The Mets Dugout, and The Orlando Cepeda Story.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraYankees 7, Rangers 4: The platonic ideal of a late-dynasty Yankees game: Four hits for Jeter, homer for A-Rod, a CC Sabathia win and a Mariano Rivera save. I sorta feel like I wanna be the guy who starts writing the breathless "can Derek Jeter hit .400?" articles. Maybe I'll do one later today.
Giants 6, Mets 1, Giants 7, Mets 2: In the first game, Tim Lincecum finally pitches like Tim Lincecum. Well, not really like Lincecum -- more like a shadow of Tim Lincecum who likes to walk guys -- but after his first couple of stinkers, this was quality. Madison Bumgarner ties up the Mets in the nightcap.
Blue Jays 4, Royals 1: Eleven straight losses for K.C., 10 at home. In other news, someone you love lost their job since 2008 while Ned Yost remains gainfully employed. For now.
Cubs 3, Cardinals 2: Jason Motte came in to lock down a 2-1 lead in the ninth, but the Cubbies had different ideas: walk, walk, groundout to put both runners in scoring position and then a Joe Mather two-run RBI single to win it for Chicago. A great Jaime Garcia start was wasted (7.2 IP, 6 H, 1 ER). If Tony La Russa were still alive, Motte would be working mopup duty tomorrow and La Russa would be claiming that the Cardinals never had a closer, and who are you talking about anyway?
Red Sox 6, Twins 5: Cody Ross homered in the seventh to tie it and homered again in the ninth to put the Sox ahead for good. Jon Lester wasn't sharp -- he gave up five runs in seven -- but the pen actually held Minnesota scoreless for two innings, which is a cause for celebration with the Sox.
Dodgers 7, Braves 2: I watched the first couple innings of this. Between listening to Vin Scully and watching Dee Gordon and Matt Kemp play, I'm sorta tempted to turn heel on my Braves and root for the Dodgers this entire series. It was especially easy to do last night what with Jair Jurrjens becoming this year's version of 2011 Derek Lowe and over four innings of Livan Hernandez Time.
Diamondbacks 9, Phillies 5: The return of an effective Justin Upton (2 for 3, HR 2 RBI). I may have said on the HBT Extra going up today that Kyle Kendrick filling in for Cliff Lee wouldn't be horrible. Which just goes to show you that you can't believe anything you see on video (3 IP, 11 H, 7 ER).
White Sox 4, Athletics 0: Jake Peavy throws a three-hit shutout, overshadowing another great Bartolo Colon start.
Brewers 6, Astros 5: Ryan Braun was 3 for 4 with a double, homer and two RBI, breaking a 2-for-20 slump. Zack Greinke struck out nine in six innings. As go the Brewers stars, so go the Brewers.
Rockies vs. Pirates: POSTPONED: When the rain falls, there's magic in our lives. When the rain falls, we're happy deep inside. When the rain falls, it cleans away the corners of our minds.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Monday, April 23, 2012
Run Ryan, run
Posted by Mat KovachThe last out of Philip Humber’s perfect game brought some controversy as an umpire’s call was questioned. The last pitch was on 3-2 count involving a called third strike on a checked swing.
The problem, though, was missed. The controversy should not be about the call itself, but Brendan Ryan’s reaction. Down to your last out in a 4-0 game, instead of attempting to get on base, you argue the call instead of running to first base?!? I think Ryan, if he would have run, probably would have been safe at first.
Yes, Ryan could have ended a perfect game by being safe and also the 27th out, since Humber would have been credited for the strikeout. In fact, if Ryan would have run, the discussion of Brian Runge’s call on the checked swing would have been muted immediately.
The real problem was Ryan’s lack of hustle.
Given that, I still want to take a look at Runge’s call. Interesting enough, it was one of the Fox national games, opposite the Red Sox and Yankees. Significantly, this means the game’s camera coverage was increased a bit.
We—at least, I—have not yet seen a first-base angle replay of the check swing. This leads some people to speculate that MLB is just trying to hide the fact that Runge’s call was incorrect. Most likely the reason for a lack of replay is less sinister.
The center field camera was used to record the pitch, and a normal set of cameras was prepared to cover the live action. Any remaining cameras available to record the batter and different angles probably were used to record the reaction of the White Sox’s dugout, Humber, etc.
Since checked swings are not a reviewable call, the production team has the option not to record it at every angle. Watching a replay of the last pitch and the events surrounding it, it is pretty clear the Fox production team was scrambling a bit. It was a fairly unique circumstance.
But here lies the problem with a fan’s expectation of replays and the reality of the production of a televised baseball game. If something is not reviewable, the production team is under little obligation be able to produce replay material for it. As I believe happened in Humber’s perfect game, Fox used extra cameras for entertainment value.*
*This is why, in a previous post about instant replay, I included uniform standards across games and stadiums for instant replay specifically so something like this could not happen on a reviewable call.
Like most people, Fox did not anticipate a called third strike on a checked swing where the catcher missed the ball and the batter argued before running to first.
Thus, we circle back to the real problem: Brendan Ryan didn’t run.
Indians fan, member of the Duane Kuiper Fan Club, Spitball Researcher, Contact me on twitter, @siddfinch, via email or avian carrier
Ivan Rodriguez career highlights
Posted by Chris JaffeIt was recently announced that veteran catcher and current unsigned free agent Ivan Rodriguez intends to officially retire in Texas on Monday.
When a great player like Rodriguez retires, it’s nice to look back over his career, what his highs and lows were, his career milestones, and the best (and oddest) games he ever participated in where. That’s what’s listed below, the career highlights of Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez.
Rangers tenure
June 20, 1991: Rodriguez makes his big league debut. He flies out in his first at-bat, but in the ninth hits a two-run single to help cement a 7-3 Rangers win over the White Sox. There are a lot of big names in this game, including Carlton Fisk, Frank Thomas, Ozzie Guillen, Sammy Sosa, Bobby Thigpen, Robin Ventura, Kevin Brown, Brian Downing, Juan Gonzalez, Ruben Sierra, Julio Franco, Gary Pettis, and Rodriguez himself.
Aug. 3, 1991: In the seventh inning, Rodriguez connects on an offering from Royals pitcher Storm Davis for his first career home run.
July 14, 1992: All Star Game: Rodriguez becomes the first player born in the 1970s to appear in the Midseason Classic. He is 0-for-2, but the AL triumphs, 13-6.
Aug. 31, 1992: For the second time this week, the Royals really shouldn’t have tested Rodriguez’s arm. Kansas City attempts to steal three bases on the day and gets gunned down every time by the Texas backstop. The exact same thing happened to them on Aug. 27, 1992.
Sept. 26, 1992: Fifty-four players take part in a 16-inning Mariners-Rangers marathon. Despite that, Rangers catcher Rodriguez plays the entire game. He’s 3-for-7 with a double. Seattle wins, 4-3.
May 26, 1993: It might be the funniest thing that ever happens in a game Rodriguez plays in. During the fourth innings, Cleveland get an odd home run. You’ve heard of an inside-the-park home run? Well, this is an off-the-Canseco homer. Outfielder Jose Canseco goes to the wall to catch the ball but misses it and has it bounce off his head and into the stands. Since it never hit the ground, it’s a homer. It’s the difference, as Cleveland wins, 7-6.
Aug. 4, 1993: It’s probably the most famous play Rodriguez is involved in. Yup, it’s the Ventura-Ryan thing. After Robin Ventura hits a first-inning RBI single, Nolan Ryan responds by drilling Ventura with a pitch in the third. Ventura famously charges the mound, only do have Ryan get him in a headlock and punch him in the noggin repeatedly. Rodriguez runs up behind Ventura and grabs him as Ryan continues to hit the Chicago third baseman.
Sept. 22, 1993: Rodriguez is behind the plate when Ryan throws his last pitch. It wasn’t a glorious ending for Ryan, who never got a single out. Ryan allows a single, three straight walks, and then a grand slam homer. Ryan’s last pitch is wild, going all the way to the backstop, and then he’s lifted for a reliever.
July 12, 1994: All-Star Game: Rodriguez will play in 14 All-Star Games, but this is the only time he plays in the entire contest. He’s 2-for-5 with a run, but the NL comes back to win, 8-7.
July 28, 1994: It’s the best game Rodriguez ever catches. Texas pitcher Kenny Rogers retires all 27 Angels he faces in a perfect game. Texas, aided by a Rodriguez solo shot, wins the game, 4-0.
July 13, 1995: It’s taken until his 504th career game played, by Rodriguez finally enjoys his first multi-home run game as he goes deep twice against the Red Sox during a 9-8 Rangers win. He’ll have 18 multi-home run games in his 2,543-game career.
Sept 4, 1995: Baseball history is made on a pair of pitches called by Rangers catcher Rodriquez. In back-to-back innings White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura hits consecutive grand slams. He ends the day with those eight RBIs in a 14-3 Chicago win. Rodriguez goes hitless.
Oct. 2, 1996: ALDS Game Two: It’s the first postseason appearance in Rangers franchise history. They’ve already won the first game against the Yankees and threaten to win this one also. Instead, New York rallies from a 4-1 deficit and wins, 5-4 in 12 innings. Rodriguez is 0-for-4 with a walk, and one of his rare sacrifice hits. Texas will lose both of the next two games to lose the series. That sets a pattern, as the Yankees will continually top Texas in the late 1990s ALDS.
June 12, 1997: Rodriguez is on-hand when a new era in major league baseball begins. It’s the very first regular-season interleague game, and the Rangers lose to the Giants, 4-3. Rodriguez catches the first pitch, which is a ball. He also goes 0-for-4 with a strikeout.
Aug. 28, 1997: In the top of the third inning, Rodriguez lays down a sacrifice bunt. It’s been almost exactly four years since he last did that in a regular season game (Sept. 1, 1993). He won’t due it again for nearly five years (until June 14, 2002). That’s a stretch of 4,524 plate appearances in over 1,000 games with this the only sacrifice hit.
Sept. 2, 1997: The Rangers win a wild one, 13-12 over the Dodgers, thanks to an amazing six-run bottom-of-the-ninth rally. In that inning, Rodriguez steps to the plate as a pinch hitter with the bases loaded and singles in two runs to tie the game. He also moves the eventual winning run into scoring position, and he’ll come home minutes later on a walk-off Rusty Greer single.
Sept. 11, 1997: The Rangers whump the Twins 7-0, largely thanks to Rodriguez. He belts three home runs and drives in five.
May 11, 1998: Leading off the second inning against Boston, Rodriguez lines a single for his 1,000th career hit. He gets No. 1,001 later in the game, which is the 914th game of his career.
July 7, 1998: All Star Game: Rodriguez has his best Midsummer Classic ever: 3-for-4 with a run, RBI, and even a stolen base. The AL wins easily, 13-8.
Aug. 22, 1998: Rodriguez goes deep for his 100th career home run.
April 13, 1999: It’s probably the greatest game of Rodriguez’s career. In the first inning, he belts a three-run homer. The next inning he steps up with the bases loaded and drills a single that brings home a pair. In the fourth inning, he again comes up with the bases loaded and this time launches a grand slam home run, his first career slam. The game isn’t even half over, and he already has nine RBIs. He’s done driving in runs, but he’ll add another hit. His nine RBIs are the most by a catcher since Smoky Burgess had that many on July 29, 1955.
June 1, 1999: Rodriguez’s longest career hitting streak peaks at 20 games. He’s 30-for-80 with nine doubles and five homers in that span for a .375/.414/.675 batting line.
Oct. 5, 1999: ALDS Game One: Rodriguez prevents Yankee pitcher Orlando Hernandez from making history in this game. Hernandez allows just two Texas hits on the day, a first-inning double by Rodriguez and a third-inning Rodriguez single. He’s 2-for-4 while his teammates are 0-for-23. The Yankees win easily and will sweep Texas for the second straight year in the ALDS.
April 28, 2000: Well, that’s an odd way to lose a game. With Rodriguez behind the plate, Texas reliever Jeff Zimmerman ends the day with the rare walk-off balk. His herky-jerky motion causes Baltimore’s winning run to trot home for a 4-3 win. Rodriguez was 2-for-4 in the game.
May 12, 2000: At age 28 years and five-and-a-half months, Rodriguez wheels his way around the bases for two triples in one game. It’s the only time he ever does this.
July 3, 2002: It’s a nice day for Rodriguez as he belts two homers, both of them memorable. His first one is a career milestone, home run No. 200. The second is a walk-off home run. It’s especially sweet as it comes right after Texas allowed two runs in the top of the ninth to turn a 5-3 lead into a 5-5 game. Texas wins, 6-5.
Sept. 29, 2002: It’s the last game of the season, and Texas plays at home. Rodriguez is set to be a free agent in the offseason, and he goes out in style today. In the seventh inning, he belts a solo home run. The next inning, he doubles in a run, and is immediately replaced for a pinch runner. No doubt the fans cheered him wildly as he trotted to the dugout, waving to the 34,529 in attendance. Next year, he’ll be a Marlin.
Marlins tenure
April 8, 2003: In just his seventh game as a Marlin, Rodriguez does something completely out of character—he draws five walks in one game. None of the walks are intentional. For his career, he’ll have just 513 bases on balls in over 10,000 trips to the plate. On two separate occasions, he’ll go 38 straight games without a walk.
Oct. 3, 2003: NLDS Game Three: Rodriguez has one of the greatest clutch offensive performances of his life. With the Marlins trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the 11th against the Giants, he comes to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded and promptly connects for a single for the walk-off Marlins victory. This puts Florida one win from the NLCS.
Oct. 4, 2003: NLDS Game Four: Rodriguez has one of the greatest clutch defensive performances of his life. Florida clings to a 7-6 lead in the bottom of the ninth against San Francisco, but the Giants have the tying run on second base with two outs. When Jeffrey Hammonds singles, J.T. Snow barrels around third trying to score. The throw beats Snow to the plate, so he tries to bowl over Rodriguez, but the veteran backstop holds on to the ball to end the game. Florida moves on to the NLCS.
Oh, and Rodriguez is a big part of the reason why Florida won this game, too. He was 2-for-4 with two runs, an RBI, a walk, and a double on the day.
Oct. 7, 2003: NLCS Game One: The Marlins win the first game over the Cubs, 9-8 in 10 innings, thanks in no small part to their catcher. Rodriguez is 2-for-5 with five RBIs, a walk, a run, and a home run. He has a three-run homer early and a two-run single in the ninth.
Oct. 12, 2003: NLCS Game Five: The Marlins, down three games to one, need a win to stay alive. Rodriguez does his part, hitting a solo home runs as the Marlins prevail 4-0 to sent the NLCS back to Chicago.
Oct. 14, 2003: NLCS Game Six: Yep, it’s the Bartman Game. Florida is trailing 3-0 entering the eighth when they pull off a furious rally, scoring eight times in one inning. Minutes after the foul ball that made Steve Bartman famous, Rodriguez drives in the first run on a single. A little later he scores the game-tying run.
Oct. 15, 2003: NLCS Game Seven: After over a decade in the big leagues, Rodriguez finally has a pennant as the Marlins complete their comeback with a 9-6 win over the Cubs. He doubles and then scores the run that puts the Marlins ahead of Chicago for good.
Oct. 22, 2003: World Series Game Four: Rodriguez has his best game of the World Series in its tightest and most tense game. Florida, down two games to one, really wants a win to even things up, and Rodriguez obliges. With two outs and none on in the first, he singles to kick off a three-run rally. Florida’s 3-0 lead turns into a 3-3 tie when regulation ends, but the Marlins triumph in 12 frames, 4-3. The Yankees won’t win another game all Series.
Oct. 25, 2003: World Series Game Six: With Rodriguez calling the pitches, Florida’s Josh Beckett tosses a five-hit, complete-game shutout to give the Marlins their second world title. For Rodriguez it’s his first and ultimately only one. Rodriguez was a big part of Florida's postseason success, as he hit .313 with three homers and five doubles in October.
Tigers tenure
May 25, 2004: According to WPA, this is the worst game of Rodriguez’s career: -.518. He’s 0-for-5 as the Tigers lose to the Royals, 5-3. The at-bat that really kills his score comes in the ninth. Rodriguez steps to the plate with runners on first and third and one out and promptly grounds into a game-ending double play.
July 23, 2004: Rodriguez achieves a career milestone this day that very few catchers have ever been able to attain when he gets his 2,000th career hit. It’s a seventh-inning single off Royals reliever Scott Sullivan. Despite that, Detroit loses, 13-7.
April 4, 2005: Rodriguez is on hand for one of the greatest Opening Day individual performances in history when his teammate Dmitri Young belts three home runs to start the season.
April 22, 2005: Rodriguez hits his second career walk-off home run when he goes deep off Minnesota’s Terry Mulholland to lead off the 10th inning in a 4-4 tie. This will be the only extra-inning home run of his career.
April 5, 2006: For the only time in his big league tenure, Rodriguez goes 5-for-5 at the plate. He had another five-hit game on Aug. 1, 1999, but that took six at-bats. Today, he gets a trio of doubles (tying a personal best) and a home run. It’s the only four-extra-base hit game he’ll ever have. Rodriguez also scores three times and drives in five as the Tigers trounce the Royals 14-3.
June 4, 2006: For the first time in his career, Rodriguez is asked to play a defensive position other than catcher. The 34-year-old is Detroit’s first baseman today.
Aug. 5, 2006: For the third and final time in his career, Rodriguez belts a walk-off home run. According to WPA, it’s the most clutch swing of his life. It comes with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Tigers trailing the Indians, 3-2, and a runner on first. WPA values the homer at 0.894. As a result, this is his best overall one-game WPA score, 0.790. He goes 2-for-5 with a homer, single, and strikeout on the day.
Aug. 15, 2006: It never happened before and it will never happen again, but today it does happen: Rodriguez plays second base. He’s only there for two innings, but due to some mid-game replacements, manager Jim Leyland opts to put the veteran catcher at second. Rodriguez catches one pop-up there. Detroit tops the Red Sox, 3-2.
Oct. 1, 2006: It’s the last game of the season, and even though the Tigers have a playoff slot clinched, a win today gives them the division, something they’d much rather have than a wild card. They lose 10-8 to the Royals in 12 innings, but that is despite a fantastic effort by Rodriguez.
His first time up he hits an RBI single. He does the same thing in his next time at bat. In his third trip to the plate, he drives in another run with a triple. After that, the Royals refuse to give him anything to hit, and he walks three times, including an 11th-inning intentional walk with runners on second and third and one out. (The next two batters fan to end the inning). The six times on base is a career high.
Oct. 10, 2006: ALCS Game One: Rodriguez belts his fourth (and final) postseason homer when he leads off the fourth against the A’s. It helps Detroit win this game 5-1, en route to an ALCS sweep for the first franchise pennant in 22 years.
Oct. 22, 2006: World Series Game Two: So what was that stuff on Kenny Rogers’ pitching hand anyway? Only Rogers and catcher Rodriguez really know for sure, but he’s asked to wash it off during this game. The Tigers win 3-1 to even the Series. Whatever it was, I bet the Tigers wish all their pitchers had it on their hands as Detroit will fall in five games to the Cardinals.
Sept. 5, 2007: It’s milestone time again as Rodriguez gets his 500th career double. No previous athlete who played most of his career at catcher has ever joined the 500-double club. He also owns the single-season record for doubles by a catcher, which he set in 1996. He banged out 47 doubles that year, 45 of which came when he played catcher.
Yankees tenure
Sept. 3, 2008: Rodriguez is on hand when another bit of baseball history is made. The powers that be recently decreed that instant replay could be used on home run calls, and today that’s used for the first time. A replay shows that the umpires correctly called an Alex Rodriguez blast a home run against Troy Percival. The Yankees top the Rays, 8-4.
Astros tenure
May 17, 2009: Rodriguez lodges another career milestone when he gets his 300th home run. It comes off Rich Harden of the Cubs in the fourth inning.
June 17, 2009: It’s an achievement well-earned. Rodriguez plays catcher for the 2,227 time, breaking the record previously held by Carlton Fisk. Fittingly for a man with iron knees, the game goes into extra innings, and Rodriguez is behind the plate for all 10 frames.
Rangers second tenure
Aug. 19, 2009: The Astros just traded Rodriguez across the state, and today is the first time in seven years that Rodriguez takes the field in the familiar Rangers uniform. As an added bonus, it’s a home game, and Rodriguez is up for it. He singles in his first at-bat and later scores the game’s first run. He ends the day 3-for-4 with a double, run, and RBI. Unfortunately, it’s not enough as the team blows a 4-0 lead and loses, 5-4, to the Twins.
Nationals tenure
June 8, 2010: The man who was behind the plate for Nolan Ryan’s last pitch is the backstop for Stephen Strasburg’s first pitch. With Rodriguez selecting the pitches, the phenom fans 14 in seven innings.
Sept. 3, 2010: Rodriguez grounds into a pair of double plays today, which causes him to tie and then pass Hank Aaron for the No. 2 slot on the all-time GIDP leaderboard. He’ll never rise further up the list, leaving Cal Ripken as the all-time GIDP champion.
May 6, 2011: He might be a veteran, but there are still new experiences for Rodriguez. Today he’s the backstop when Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmermann has a perfect inning, striking out the side on nine pitches in the second inning against the Marlins. The Nationals win, 3-2 in 10 innings.
Sept. 28, 2011: It’s the 2,543rd and final game of Rodriquez’s career. He singles in the fifth for his final hit, but his last at-bat is less glamorous. He fans on three pitches in the seventh, with the last pitch catching him looking. In the ninth, he’s on deck when the Nationals make their last out.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRangers 3, Tigers 2: If only there was some form of technology that could rectify bad calls. Some magical device that could allow officials to see that what really happened on a baseball field when the umpires miss it. A bit of sorcery that could put right what was wrong and prevent a game from being decided on a blown call. Sadly, no such thing exists, despite all of the efforts of our men and women of science and, alas, the Rangers win on a blown call.
Diamondbacks 6, Braves 4: Randall Delgado issued a bases loaded walk and then a grand slam to Gerardo Parra in the second inning and that would be all Arizona needed. The Dbacks snap their five-game skid and salvage one in what had been a ghastly series against the Braves.
Padres 6, Phillies 1: Nick Hundley tripled, homered and drove in four. I don't have time to go run the numbers right now, but I assume that that alone is more offense than the Phillies have mustered since the season began.
White Sox 7, Mariners 4: Ichiro Suzuki singled in the first, so no perfect game in this one. Umpire Tim Mcclelland had to be restrained from saying Ichiro struck out on the single, though. And then no one showed the replay and no one talked about it. Huh.
Reds 4, Cubs 3: From the AP game story:
Aroldis Chapman came on to strike out Ian Stewart looking with a fastball that registered 99 miles per hour on the stadium scoreboard, preserving the lead.
I've only been there once and it was like 12 years ago, but I was kinda surprised that Wrigley had gun readings on a scoreboard somewhere. These sorts of things elude me.
Athletics 5, Indians 1: Justin Masterson, the Indians Opening Day starter, continues to struggle, giving up four runs on six hits in five innings. Seth Smith and Cliff Pennington each drove in a couple.
Rockies 4, Brewers 1: Ryan Braun got his MVP plaque awarded to him before the game. That and 50 cents gets you a pack of Certs,apparently, because a Michael Cuddyer RBI double in the eighth and a Carlos Gonzalez RBI single in the ninth put the Rockies over the top.
Orioles 3, Angels 2: Nick Markakis supplied all of the Orioles' offense, in the eighth and the tenth innings. The O's are at 9-6 tied with the Rays a half game back of New York and Toronto. Yeah, it's too early for that kind of standings watching, but it's kinda fun to say it, ain't it?
Astros 12, Dodgers 0: L.A got whupped. Jordan Schafer hit a grand slam. Wandy Rodriguez threw seven three-hit shutout innings.
Blue Jays 5, Royals 3: Rickey Romero was solid (8 IP, 5 H 2 ER), Brett Lawrie stole home on a delayed double steal and Kansas City has lost ten in a row. Yikes.
Rays 6, Twins 2: First sentence of the AP recap:
The Minnesota Twins are becoming concerned withFrancisco Liriano's struggles.
This is not a repeat from any year since 2006.
Cardinals 5, Pirates 1: How is Kyle Lohse doing this year? Well, he gave up one run over seven innings and his ERA actually went up. From 0.89 to 0.99.
I will now sell five copies of The Three E.P.'s by The Beta Band:
Yankees vs. Red Sox: POSTPONED: I asked him time again ...
Marlins vs. Nationals: POSTPONED: Take me in and dry the rain ...
Giants vs. Mets: POSTPONED: Take me in and dry the rain, take me in and dry the rain, take me in and dry the rain, the rain the rain the rain now.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
60th anniversary: Hoyt Wilhelm’s only homer
Posted by Chris JaffeSixty years ago today, baseball saw one of its least likely home runs.
At the plate was a 28-year-old rookie Giant stepping into a major league batters box for the very first time. But it wasn’t just any 28-year-old rookie, but a 28-year-old rookie pitcher. Yeah, that’s someone unlikely to homer in his first at-bat.
This particular aging rookie was Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm. He’d made his pitching debut a few days earlier, but this was his first time at the plate. He faced Boston Braves reliever Dick Hoover, who had just entered the game after the starting pitcher allowed two homers and a hit batsmen to the last three batters he faced.
Wilhelm belted a solo home run in his first at-bat, clearly not a bad way to start his career. One could be forgiven for wondering if this newest pitcher would be better suited to an everyday role, but that was not to be. Rather famously, Wilhelm’s first-at-bat home run would be the only one in his career.
He'll play 21 years and have 493 plate appearances, but never go deep again. In fact, he proved to be a .088 hitter. Even for a pitcher, that’s bad.
An inning after his homer, Wilhelm drove in another run on a ground out. He wouldn’t drive in another run for 14 months. Wilhelm had only one other multi-RBI game in his career.
After this game, his best shot was a triple, which he hit in 1953. He also hit two of his three career doubles that year. From 1954-73, Wilhelm hit .075/.125/.078.
As unlikely as it sounds, a pitcher homered in his first at-bat and then played another 20-plus years without another longball. And that homer was 60 years ago today.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event that happened X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you just want to skim:
Day-versaries
1,000 days since the Red Sox trade Mark Kotsay to the White Sox for Brian Anderson.
1,000 days since Mark Buehrle retires the first 17 batters he faces. Including his recent perfect game (and the fact he retired the last batter he faced in the start before that), he now has 45 consecutive batters retired, a new all-time record. However, the Sox lose this game, 5-3 to the Twins.
1,000 days since the Red Sox retire Jim Rice’s number.
4,000 days since The Red Sox lose 7-6 to the A’s. It’s a very strange loss, as the would-be game-tying sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth turns into a double play. The trailing runner tagged up and is nailed before the lead runner can cross the plate.
4,000 days since Carlos Delgado hits his 204th home run with Toronto, surpassing Joe Carter as the all-time franchise leader in dingers.
4,000 days since the Cardinals send struggling pitcher Rick Ankiel to the minors. He needs work on his control, as he tossed five wild pitches the day before.
5,000 days since seven games go into extra-innings, matching a record set in 1918.
8,000 days since the Mets fire Davey Johnson, the best skipper in franchise history.
8,000 days since Rickey Henderson steals his 893rd base, passing Ty Cobb on the all-time leaderboard.
9,000 days since Tom Candiotti tosses his second one-hitter of the year but loses 2-1. He makes an error and walks seven. The hit comes from the bat of Matt Nokes with two outs in the eighth.
10,000 days since the Padres and White Sox trade seven players. The Padres get former Cy Young Award winner LaMarr Hoyt, while the Sox get Ozzie Guillen, Tim Lollar, and Luis Salazar.
15,000 days since the Mets trade former Cy Young Award winner Dean Chance to the Tigers.
20,000 days since Hall of Famer George Kell hits his seventh homer off Alex Kellner. That’s rather impressive given that Kell will end his career with only 78 home runs.
20,000 days since Cub reliever Jim Brosnan injures his Achilles' heel by falling off the mound during pre-game warm-ups. He becomes one of the rare starting pitchers who never tosses a single in-game pitch.
30,000 days since Del Crandall, catcher, is born.
Anniversaries
1886 Harry Coveleski, Giant-killer pitcher who beat them repeatedly in the 1908 NL pennant race, is born.
1888 Cupid Childs, a second baseman of arguable Hall of Fame talent, makes his big league debut.
1890 Kid Nichols, the dominant pitcher of the 1890s, makes his debut.
1891 Darby O’Brien hits into a walk-off triple play.
1892 Charles Comiskey manages his 1,000th game. His record: 643-340.
1900 Jim Bottomley, Hall of Famer, is born in Oglesby, Illinois.
1903 The New York Yankees win their first game, topping the Senators, 7-2. Well, they were called the Highlanders, not the Yankees, but close enough.
1903 The Braves win, giving them an all-time franchise record 523 games over .500 (1,833-1,310). That’s their franchise peak.
1907 Dolph Camilli, NL slugger, is born.
1910 Tris Speaker pulls off his second career unassisted triple play. He snares a low line drive and beats Harry Davis to second base.
1914 It’s the first game ever played at Weegham Park in Chicago. You know it as Wrigley Field. The Chicago Whales of the Federal League win, 9-1.
1919 Babe Ruth legs out the first of his 10 inside-the-park home runs.
1919 Walter Johnson hurls his fifth Opening Day shutout, a 1-0 win over the A’s in 13 frames.
1921 Warren Spahn, the winningest pitcher of the last 80 years, is born.
1923 Rogers Hornsby hits his 100th home run. All his homers have come with the Cardinals, making them the fourth franchise to have a guy with triple-digit homers.
1923 Rabbit Maranville hits his 100th triple.
1924 The Cubs begin regular radio coverage of their home games with Hal Trotten broadcasting on WMAQ.
1924 Sherm Lollar, catcher, is born.
1926 For the only time in his career, Lefty Grove doesn’t record a single out in one of his starts. He walks two, allows a hit, and has another guy get on via error.
1932 Hall of Famer Fred Lindstrom gets a hit-by-pitch for the first time since July 1928, a stretch of nearly 450 games.
1933 Tim Keefe, 300-game-winner, dies.
1935 For the first time in three years, Bill Terry hits an inside-the-park home run. He gets it off the same pitcher who allowed the previous one, Huck Betts.
1939 Ted Williams goes 4-for-5, including his first career home run.
1940 Pee Wee Reese makes his big league debut.
1941 Phil Rizzuto hits his only walk-off home run. It’s a two-run shot in the 11th inning for a 4-2 Yankees win over the Red Sox.
1942 Lloyd Waner fans for the first since Aug. 4, 1940. He played over 100 games since then.
1943 Amid complaints that the new balata balls are 25 percent less resilient, Spalding Company denies charges of inferior balls.
1944 Jim Tobin of the Braves tosses an Opening Day one-hitter. Phillies second baseman Ford Mullen gets a safety in the sixth inning.
1946 Ed Head tosses a no-hitter. He walks three and there is one error.
1947 The White Sox purchase slugger Gus Zernial from the Indians.
1948 A dying Babe Ruth attends the ceremony for the 25th anniversary of Yankee Stadium, The House That He Built.
1949 Joe McCarthy records his 2,000th win as manager. His record: 2,000-1,250. That same day, Frankie Frisch wins his 1,000th decision: 1,000-884.
1950 In a first, a game begun during the day ends under lights. It’s the second game of a doubleheader at Braves Field.
1950 Joe Adcock makes his big league debut.
1951 According to WPA, Warren Spahn has the best start of his career: 1.021 WPA. He tosses a personal best 15.2 innings (that’s one more out than he recorded in his famous duel versus Juan Marichal) but loses 2-1 to the Dodgers. Spahn’s Game Score is 99.
1952 It’s a rarity, dueling one-hitters. St. Louis Browns pitcher Bob Cain tops Indians legend Bob Feller for a 1-0 win. Feller allows a triple to the first batter he faces, who scores. Cain surrenders a single in the fifth. This is Feller’s 11th career one-hitter. This is the only one in which he pitches fewer than nine innings. He tosses eight, as St. Louis doesn’t need a ninth frame.
1953 Mickey Mantle knocks out the first of his dozen walk-off home runs.
1954 Hank Aaron hits the first of his 755 career home runs. Vic Raschi allows it.
1954 Jackie Robinson steals second, third, and home (as the front of a triple steal) in a 6-5 Dodgers win over the Pirates in 13 innings. The winning run scores on a Robinson homer.
1955 Sherm Lollar celebrates his birthday by getting two hits in an inning—in two different innings. The White Sox destroy the Indians, 29-6.
1958 It’s a big day for the Dodgers as Gil Hodges hits his 300th home run, Pee Wee Reese plays in his 2,000th game, and Duke Snider injures his arm. The Cubs beat them, 7-6.
1959 Jim Perry, star pitcher and brother of a Hall of Fame pitcher, makes his big league debut.
1960 For the 200th time, Casey Stengel and Paul Richards manage a game against each other.
1960 The White Sox release the first great Venezuelan shortstop, Chico Carrasquel.
1962 The Mets finally win a game. They’re 1-9 on the year. They beat the Pirates, who came into the contest at 10-0, an NL record at the time.
1964 Astros pitcher Ken Johnson tosses a no-hitter but loses. He personally commits two errors in the ninth, and that brings in a run for a 1-0 Reds win. He thus didn’t last a full nine innings, and this isn’t considered a sanctioned no-hitter as a result.
1965 Jim Lonborg makes his big league debut.
1966 Fergie Jenkins homers off of Don Sutton for his first home run. Jenkins also tosses a shutout for a 2-0 Cubs win. It’s the first of 13 consecutive losses Sutton will suffer against the Cubs.
1968 The Cubs acquire Jim Hickman and Phil Regan from the Dodgers for Ted Savage and Jim Ellis.
1968 Relief pitcher Stu Miller appears in his final game.
1969 The White Sox play the first of 11 games this year in Milwaukee. It’s the second year they’ve done this. They won’t do it again, as the Brewers will be there in 1970.
1971 Walter Alston becomes the ninth manager to record his 1,500th win. His record: 1,500-1,210.
1974 Gene Mauch has win No. 1,000 as manager. His record: 1,000-1,144.
1974 Cy Williams dies.
1977 Andruw Jones, centerfielder who fizzled younger than he should have, is born.
1977 Veteran pitcher Ray Sadecki plays in his last game.
1978 Ron Hassey makes his big league debut.
1978 The Phillies sign amateur free agent Julio Franco, who proves to have some impressive staying power.
1979 Carlos Silva, starting pitcher with great control, is born.
1980 Bruce Kison loses a no-hitter in the ninth, something that will happen to him twice this year. Ken Landreaux of the Twins doubles in the ninth with one out. Kison’s Angels win, 17-0.
1980 George Brett unleashes the only bases-loaded triple of his career.
1982 Julio Franco makes his big league debut.
1982 Ryne Sandberg has the first of 25 multi-home run games. They are career homers No. 1 and 2.
1982 The Yankees trade Bob Watson to the Braves.
1985 Teddy Higuera makes his major league debut.
1988 Steve Carlton plays in his final game.
1989 Andre Dawson connects for his 300th career home run.
1989 With one out in the ninth, Lloyd Moseby breaks up a would-be no-hitter by Nolan Ryan. It’s the only one Ryan loses in the ninth.
1990 In the Chicago Crosstown Classic exhibition game, Steve Lyons of the Sox plays all nine positions.
1990 Dan Quisenberry, former relief ace, plays in his last game.
1992 Deron Johnson dies of lung cancer at age 53.
1992 The Mets top the Cardinals, 1-0 in 13 innings, on the rare walk-off hit-by-pitch when Juan Agosto plunks Daryl Boston. It’s one of only four 1-0 games since 1950 to end on a walk-off HBP.
1994 John Mabry makes his big league debut.
1994 The Blue Jays all-time franchise record peaks at 14 games over .500 (1,363-1,349).
1997 Barry Bonds hits his first inside-the-park home run in 10 years. Five months later, he’ll hit his third and final one. Tom Glavine allows this one; it’s the only one he ever surrenders.
1999 Fernando Tatis hits two grand slams in one inning. Incredibly, they are both off the same pitcher: Chan Ho Park.
2000 Alex Rodriguez walks five times in five trips to the plate. He scores twice as the Mariners top the Royals, 8-5.
2000 Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada become the first teammates to homer from both sides of the plate in one game. The Yankees top the Jays, 10-7.
2004 Barry Bonds receives four intentional walks in one game. It’s the first of four times this happens. All four instances occur this year.
2004 Former ace pitcher Kevin Appier appears in his last game.
2005 Former big league pitcher Earl Wilson dies at age 70.
2005 Roger Clemens, for the third consecutive start, is on the wrong end of a 1-0 game. Today, Mark Mulder lasts 10 innings for a 1-0 win over Clemens and the Astros. It’s the first 10-inning complete game shutout win in a 1-0 game since Jack Morris did it in Game Seven of the 1991 World Series.
2006 Brian Wilson, famously bearded Giants closer, makes his big league debut.
2007 Alex Rodriguez’s best career hitting streak peaks at 23 games. He’s 39-for-90 with 10 doubles and 15 homers. He’s also walked 10 times. His line over this period: .433/.495/1.044.
2008 The Cubs win the 10,000th game in franchise history.
2010 The Reds replace GM Wayne Krivsky with Walt Jocketty, formerly of the Cardinals. Jocketty becomes the fourth Reds GM in six years.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Holland and Granderson
Posted by Shane Tourtellotte"Uncle Shane, what if a player hit a home run every time?"
I've been hearing questions like that a lot lately. My sister just moved up to Asheville with her two children. Among doing other things, this has thrown me in pretty close with my nephew Holland, who is a pretty fair ballplayer for nine. Trying to help the boy through a rough transition, I've been taking time to watch some baseball games with him the last couple weeks.
I've been getting peppered with Holland's questions during these games, and in trying to deepen his baseball knowledge I've actually tried to answer a few. For instance, after I explained how most pitchers don't bat too well in the bigs, he asked if a pitcher had ever managed to hit an over-the-fence home run. This is where I got to tell him how Babe Ruth started in the majors. The name "Babe Ruth" strikes Holland the way I imagine invoking Zeus struck the classical Greeks: awesome power at a distant remove. Telling Holland the Babe had been a pitcher left him speechless, and this is no easy feat.
So when Holland asked if someone could hit a home run every time, I actually tried to engage the question. Nobody could do it over a whole career, I explained, but for a single game I supposed it was possible. Pretty easy, actually, if you were a pinch-hitter and came up only once. (Images of a fist-pumping Kirk Gibson flitted through my mind.) Holland needed the term "pinch-hitter" explained, though, and the train of thought wobbled off-course and lost steam.
Events of the evening would bring it back.
Holland and I were watching the Rangers and Tigers on MLB Network. This disappointed Holland, as he likes the Yankees, but their game against the Twins wasn't being carried by MLBN in our area. I had my iPod loaded with the proper app, though, so I could follow the score on his behalf (and mine, of course). The Twins leaped ahead with four in the first, but the Yankees got most of that back in their half, sparked by a Curtis Granderson home run. New York rallied again in the second, and took the lead ... on a Curtis Granderson home run.
And as I told Holland this, suddenly a question he had asked in youthful ignorance began gaining some heft.
I knew a bit about the players who had hit four homers in a single game. Lou Gehrig had been the first, his accomplishment swept off the front pages by John McGraw's retirement the same day. I recalled those four homers and a double off the wall at Ebbets Field, though I was blanking on Joe Adcock's name. I knew it had been done a number of other times—but I did not know whether anyone had accomplished it in just four plate appearances.
And I didn't know whether Curtis Granderson had this kind of historic accomplishment in him. But I was sure thinking about it.
As Yu Darvish doused a Detroit rally with only one run scored to maintain a slim lead, bedtime came for Holland. He left for bed without resistance, which I suspect wouldn't have happened had the Yankees been playing. As Texas began mounting its own threat in the top of the fifth, I checked my app again, just in case. And there it was. Bottom of the fourth, one out. A single, deceptively prosaic line.
"Curtis Granderson homered."
It had only been a couple minutes, so I went to knock on my nephew's door. Three home runs, and it's just the fourth inning. Pretty exciting news for Holland, yes, but more so for me, because I understood the context. I knew how unusual this was. I knew Granderson had a shot now, a real measurable shot, at history. Four home runs would tie the record. And with four-plus innings at least left for the hot Yankees' bats, he would have more than one chance.
But Holland's question echoed within me. What if Curtis hit a home run every time? What if ...?
Five?
"Impossible." We use that word pretty loosely sometimes, as shorthand for "so unlikely it's not worth thinking about." And at the start of the game, a five-homer performance was just that kind of impossible. The same kind of impossible that some randomly chosen journeyman, hanging on to a rotation slot by his fingernails, will pitch a perfect game.
But at some point, as the statistics accumulate, that rhetorically tossed-off "impossible" becomes "you know, maybe." Curtis Granderson had reached that point, and because of a question my nine-year-old nephew had asked, I was at that point with him.
Of course, Granderson didn't make history. He singled in the sixth and singled in the eighth, and the Yankees hung on to win. Only in the context of his first three at-bats could that be considered any kind of disappointment. Or perhaps if you're still nine, and don't fully grasp the bounds of the game, and of human abilities.
But Holland picked an awfully good time to ask what adults would consider a pretty silly question. And when he comes home from school today, I will have an answer for him. If a player hit a home run every time ... he would be Carlos Delgado. Of the 13 players to hit four home runs in a game, he is the only one who did it in four plate appearances.
The date, though, is a bit galling: Sept. 25, 2003. Not even nine years ago, and I had forgotten this unique baseball accomplishment so thoroughly that I had to look it up to know it had even happened. Maybe to get any long-lasting recognition, you do have to hit five home runs in a game.
Impossible, you say. But you know, maybe ...
Shane Tourtellotte is a long-time, occasionally-nominated science fiction writer, currently living in Asheville, North Carolina. He will tell you all about the baseball novel he’s shopping if you give him an inch.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraYankees 7, Twins 6: Curtis Granderson hit three bombs and went 5 for 5. If you just followed this game on Twitter, though, you'd think the storyline of the game was Phil Hughes stinking. The Yankees fans I follow are a surprisingly neurotic bunch despite following the most dominant team in American sports history. But to be fair, Hughes did kind of stink and he actually needed all three of those Granderson bombs. Just keeping the slot warm for Andy Pettitte I guess.
Dodgers 4, Brewers 3: Matt Kemp hit another homer. Ho-hum. Meanwhile, jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, look at the play Jerry Hairston made.
Reds 6, Cardinals 3: Adam Wainwright still doesn't have his mojo back. The Reds beat him up for four runs on seven hits in five innings. Which is saying something, because the Reds couldn't hit water if they fell out of a damn boat before yesterday.
Orioles 5, White Sox 3: Jason Hammel struck out ten and Jim Johnson got out of a bases loaded jam in the ninth. Orioles are still in first place, people. I think that's in Revelations. That child running on the field is in there someplace too, I'm sure of it ("and then cometh the young, who shall leadeth the ..." and something or other).
Marlins 5, Cubs 3: And the Feesh sweep the Cubs. The Marlins are now 3-0 when being managed by a repentant Fidel Castro sympathizer.
Astros 11, Nationals 4: Houston raps out 17 hits. Every starter including the pitcher hit, and the team hit three triples in the first inning, sorta killing all of that "K Street" love I taped for today's HBT Extra. When that part of the video airs later just pretend that this game didn't happen, OK?
Rangers 10, Tigers 3: Yu Darvish had his best outing so far, giving up one run on two hits in six and a third. Of course, because he walked five and struck out five, his pitch count was pretty nutsy by the time he was yanked. Michael Young continues his hot hitting. Nelson Cruz continues his Tiger-destroying.
Rays 9, Blues Jays 4: Evan Longoria: 3 for 4 with a homer a double and four RBI. Another error too -- five on the year for the guy who says "I will make my glove golden" in those MLB promos -- but we'll let that slide for today.
Indians 2, Mariners 1: The Tribe gets both of its runs on a ninth inning RBI single from Jack Hannahan. They rally -- and lack of Seattle run support -- squandered a fabulous Felix Hernandez performance: 8 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 12K. As usual, King Felix just doesn't know how to win.
Phillies 2, Padres 0: Another great west coast pitching performance, this once from Vance Worley (7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 11K). Phillies scored their runs on a sac fly and a passed ball, however, so the offensive worries are still there.
Athletics 4, Angels 2: The Angels continue to struggle, dropping their third in a row to Oakland. The A's only mustered three hits total and only two off C.J. Wilson but still scored four runs, partially due to a Wilson throwing error.
Braves 10, Diamondbacks 2: Freddie Freeman went 3 for 5, hit two homers and drove in five. Mike Minor struck out nine and allowed only one earned run. His stuff was pretty filthy last night too. I was so impressed with it that while watching the game I tweeted about it. I accidentally called his curve his "braking ball." I think I actually like that better, so I'm sticking with it. Minor throws a braking ball. It was taught to him by the braking ball guru. In other news, I also got this screencap from the game, that I will show you without comment. Well, one comment: "fisted."
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Centennial anniversary: Fenway Park and Tiger Stadium
Posted by Chris JaffeExactly 100 years ago today, two of baseball’s longest-lasting stadiums hosted their first official major league baseball game: Fenway Park in Boston and Detroit’s Tiger Stadium (which back in 1912 was called Navin Field and for a stretch was Briggs Stadium). Today, Fenway Park becomes the first active big league stadium to make it a full century.
In fact, there was a third stadium that also debuted on the day. The Giants played in their revamped Polo Grounds. The Giants had played there for years, but it wasn’t a steel-and-concrete, 20th-century major league stadium until 1912. Previously it had been an old-fashioned, rickety, wooden place. (All places were like that until 1909 or so.)
Tiger Stadium would last all the way until the end of 1999. Fenway, of course, is still around. The Tigers would be 3,764-3,090 (.549) in their longtime home. That’s equivalent to an 89-73 year. The Red Sox are 4,555-3,342 (.577) at home from 1912 through Monday of this year. That’s roughly a 93-69 season.
The Tigers won their stadium debut, topping the Indians, 6-5. Boston did likewise, beating the Yankees, 7-6.
It was a long time ago. At the time, only seven pitchers had ever won 300 games. (Christy Mathewson would soon be No. 8.) Only four had ever fanned 2,000 batters. No one had ever hit 140 homers, and Babe Ruth was still a teen in Baltimore. Ty Cobb had won several batting titles but was just 25 years old for Opening Day in Detroit. The Cubs were the winningest team in major league history.
Broadening our focus, when Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park opened, the world was still recovering from news that the Titanic had sunk. Future North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung was not even a week old. The Meiji Emperor ruled in Japan, and China was getting used to post-imperial life as its last emperor had been forced to step down a few months earlier.
William Howard Taft was president, and Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were gearing up to challenge him in a three-way 1912 race. America as a whole could celebrate that, for the first time ever, there were no territories from coast to coast as New Mexico and Arizona had just become our 47th and 48th states.
It was a long time ago when those places opened for business 100 years ago today on April 20, 1912.
Aside from that, many other baseball events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event that occurred X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d rather just skim the list.
Day-versaries
4,000 days since Randy Johnson fans 20 batters in nine innings. However, the game goes into extra innings, so it doesn’t tie the nine-inning game record. Plus, in the 1960s, pitcher Tom Cheney fanned 21 batters in 16 innings, so Johnson didn’t set an extra-inning record, either. It’s a great pitching performance that falls through the cracks of the record books.
5,000 days since Alex Rodriguez belts home run No. 100.
5,000 days since the Yankees beat the Twins, pushing Joe Torre’s career record to 1,169-1,168. It’s been over .500 ever since.
6,000 days since Oakland hires Art Howe as their manager.
8,000 days since Atlanta’s Jeff Treadway hits three homers in one game.
9,000 days since Kirby Puckett has the best game of his career, tallying six hits, including two doubles and two homers. The day before he belted two homers, as well.
10,000 days since the Mariners claim Mike Morgan from Toronto in the Rule 5 draft. In that same draft, Texas gets Mitch Williams from San Diego.
20,000 days since Stan Musial gets his 600th career double.
20,000 days since Cub teammates Ernie Banks and Chuck Tanner each hit an inside-the-park home run against the Pirates in a 6-5 Chicago win at Forbes Field.
20,000 days since Gil Hodges hits his 12th grand slam, tying the NL record held by Rogers Hornsby and Ralph Kiner.
20,000 days since Giants owner Horace Stoneham says his team will leave New York after the season. He claims it isn’t contingent on the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for the West Coast.
20,000 days since A’s owner Arnold Johnson denies that he has any ties to Yankee ownership or has favored them in any trades.
Anniversaries
1872 Paul Hines, one of the best hitters of his day, makes his debut in the National Association.
1888 Kid Gleason, pitcher/hitter who played for 20 years before managing the Black Sox, makes his big league debut.
1891 Dave Bancroft, Hall of Fame shortstop, is born.
1891 Fred Dunlap, one of the best second basemen of the 1880s, plays in his final game.
1897 Brooklyn signs veteran pitcher Sadie McMahon, who Baltimore just released.
1898 Vic Willis, Hall of Fame starting pitcher, makes his big league debut.
1903 Chief Bender, Hall of Fame pitcher for Connie Mack, makes his big league debut. Also debuting on this day is George Stone, who for a brief stretch was a great player.
1907 Buck Freeman plays in his last game. At the turn of the century, he was maybe the game’s best slugger.
1908 Henry Chadwick, the only sportswriter with a plaque in Cooperstown, dies.
1909 It’s announced that the new Pirates stadium will be named Forbes Field, in honor of General John Forbes, who founded the city.
1910 Addie Joss tosses his second no-hitter. It’s against the White Sox, who that day field the worst lineup ever no-hit.
1916 The Cubs play their first game at Wrigley Field. Previously, it had been home to the Chicago Federal League club.
1917 The Braves win, boosting the career record for manager George Stallings to 63 games over .500 (639-576), which is his high point.
1918 John McGraw wins his 1,603rd game as manager, becoming the game’s all-time winningest skipper. Previously it was Fred Clarke. McGraw’s record at this moment is 1,603-1,081.
1920 John McGraw manages his 3,000th game. He’s 1,758-1,191 in his career thus far.
1923 The Cubs, who belted six homers yesterday, swat another half-dozen today in their 12-11 win over the Pirates.
1923 Hall of Fame outfielder Heinie Manush makes his debut.
1925 Brooklyn selects pitcher Joe Oeschger off waivers from the Phillies. Oeschger is famous for pitching a 26-inning complete game on May 1, 1920.
1926 For the only time in his career, Babe Ruth scores five runs in one game. He also has five hits and eight RBIs in a 18-5 Yankee win over the Senators. Among other things, Ruth nails a two-run homer off Walter Johnson.
1932 Hall of Fame shortstop Travis Jackson gets his 100th career home run. His Giants teammate Bill Terry hits two homers in the game, the second straight game Terry’s done that.
1933 Outfielder Al Simmons somehow makes an unassisted double play versus the Browns.
1933 Carl Hubbell sets a personal best with 13 strikeouts in one game. He leads the Giants to a 1-0 win over the Braves.
1933 Lefty Grove lodges his 18th consecutive complete game.
1937 Gee Walker hits for the cycle on Opening Day.
1937 Bobby Doerr makes his big league debut.
1938 Bob Feller tosses the first of his 12 one-hitters.
1939 Star Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg hits a walk-off home run in the 15th inning off Thornton Lee of the White Sox. The Tigers triumph, 8-7.
1939 Splendid Splinter Ted Williams makes his big league debut in a Yankees-Red Sox game. It’s the only game featuring Williams and Lou Gehrig. Also playing in it are Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Bill Dickey, Joe Cronin, Lefty Grove, and Bobby Doerr. Not bad.
1941 A Boston syndicate buys the Braves from the Charles F. Adams estate for $350,000.
1941 Brooklyn players begin wearing cap liners, becoming the first team to wear any sort of protective headgear. It’s sparked by nasty beanings the year before to their teammates Billy Jurges and Joe Medwick.
1942 Braves manager Casey Stengel orders young call-up Warren Spahn to bean a batter. Spahn fails and will be sent back down to the minors for not hitting anyone.
1943 Braves manager Casey Stengel is hit by a taxi, breaking his leg. He’ll miss part of the season, and at the end of the year one Boston newspaper will nominate the cabbie for Sportsman of the Year.
1944 Elmer Gedeon becomes the first big league killed in World War II.
1946 Sherm Lollar, catcher, makes his big league debut.
1947 Red Sox pitcher Mel Parnell makes his big league debut.
1948 Dodger catcher Roy Campanella makes his major league debut. Fellow Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn does likewise for the Phillies. For that matter, so does non-Hall of Fame shortstop Roy Smalley.
1951 The A’s win at Fenway for the first time since September, 1948.
1951 Gil McDougald of the Yankees makes his big league debut.
1957 Infielder (and later broadcaster) Tony Kubek debuts in the big leagues.
1961 Former Yankees first baseman and current Dodger manager Don Mattingly is born.
1964 Eddie Dyer, title-winning manger of the 1946 Cardinals, dies.
1965 Warren Spahn records strikeout No. 2,500.
1966 Hank Aaron belts his 400th home run.
1967 Tom Seaver wins his first game, a 6-1 decision over the Cubs.
1969 Darrell Evans makes his big league debut.
1973 In a special election, the recently deceased Roberto Clemente is elected into Cooperstown.
1974 Frank Robinson nails his 500th double.
1975 Pete Rose hits his third and final career walk-off home run.
1976 Mike Schmidt connects for his 100th home run.
1976 Tiger phenom Mark Fidrych makes his debut.
1977 Gary Carter becomes the first Expo to hit three homers in one game.
1979 Braves starting pitcher Rick Mahler make his big league debut.
1980 Darrell Evans hits his only career leadoff home run. It comes off veteran starting pitcher Rick Wise.
1980 Current Angels manager Mike Scioscia makes his playing debut as Dodgers catcher.
1981 Houston trades Jeffrey Leonard and Dave Bergman to the Giants for Mike Ivie. This works out better for San Francisco.
1982 The Braves become the first team ever to start the year by winning all of their first dozen games.
1983 George Brett sets a personal high with seven RBIs in a game, thanks to a three-homer performance. It’s the second time he’s gotten three homers in a game—the third time if you include the postseason. He also has a single in na 8-7 Royals win over the Tigers.
1984 Eddie Murray gets his 200th home run.
1985 The Pirates trade longtime reliever Kent Tekulve to the Phillies for fellow reliever Al Holland and a minor leaguer. Tekulve will become the second pitcher to appear in 1,000 games while Holland will be named in baseball’s 1980s drug trials.
1986 One-time A’s phenom Vida Blue wins his 200th game. His record: 200-153.
1986 Garry Maddox plays in his last game. It was once said of the Phillies centerfielder that two-thirds of the planet is covered by water, the remainder is covered by Garry Maddox.
1986 Dennis Eckersley surrenders the only inside-the-park home run of his career. It’s hit by Steve Kemp, of all people.
1987 The Brewers win their 13th straight game to start the year, becoming baseball’s first 13-0 team.
1988 The Baltimore Orioles set a new, unwanted record by dropping their 14th straight game to start the year.
1988 Tiger fans stage a demonstration to protest Mayor Coleman Young’s call to replace Tiger Stadium. On this day, its birthday, they ring the place and give it a hug.
1990 Seattle pitcher Brian Holman is one out from a perfect game when former Mariner Ken Phelps ruins it with a pinch-hit homer. It’s the last homer of Phelps’ career.
1990 Larry Walker knocks out his first career home run.
1990 Pete Rose pleads guilty to two felony counts about his taxes.
1991 The Braves franchise record reaches an all-time low of 526 games under .500 (8,105-8,631). 20 years later, they’ll get back over .500.
1991 Former infielder turned ace pitcher Bucky Walters dies.
1991 Gary Sheffield lays down the last sacrifice hit of his career. He has 9,860 more plate appearances left to go in his career.
1994 Kirby Puckett’s longest hitting streak peaks at 23 games. He’s 34-for-97 with eight doubles and a pair of homers for a .351/.400/.495 AVG/OBP/SLG line.
1994 Lima Time begins. Jose Lima first appears in a big league game.
1994 Tim Raines reaches base seven times in one game, a career best. He’s 3-for-3 with four walks (one intentional) and scores twice for the White Sox in their 8-6 win over the Brewers in 12 innings.
1995 Longtime reliever (and briefly the all-time saves leader) Jeff Reardon announces his retirement.
1995 Dodger owner Peter O’Malley donates the 1955 Brooklyn World Champions banner to the borough of Brooklyn saying, “The flag belongs in Brooklyn.”
1995 The Pirates release Tim Wakefield, who turns out to have quite a bit of gas left in his tank.
1996 After starting the season by dropping their first 14 games, the Cubs finally win one.
1997 Mark McGwire becomes the fourth man to hit a homer over the left field roof in Tiger Stadium. Frank Howard, Harmon Killebrew, and Cecil Fielder did it before him.
1999 Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott agrees to sell her controlling interest in the Reds for $67 million to the Carl H. Lindner-led group.
1999 The Nolan Ryan Museum opens in Alvin, Texas.
2001 After 7,700+ career plate appearances, Barry Larkin finally connects for a grand slam.
2001 Carlos Delgado gets three homers in one game for the first time in his career.
2003 Art Howe picks up his 1,000th managerial win. His record: 1,000-963.
2004 Barry Bonds bops out an extra-base hit for the eighth consecutive game. He’s 14-for-21 with three doubles and eight homers in that span with 11 runs and 16 RBIs. Oh, and that’s despite receiving 12 walks in this period.
2006 Frank Robinson wins his 1,000th game in the dugout. His manager record: 1,000-1,095.
2006 Julio Franco becomes the oldest person ever to hit a home run. The previous record holder was Jack Quinn—a pitcher!
2007 For the first time in 13 years, Craig Biggio hits a grand slam.
2008 Toronto releases aging DH Frank Thomas.
2010 Atlanta tops the Phillies. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Philadelphia led, 3-0, but then surrendered a two-run homer by Troy Glaus, immediately followed by a pair of solo shots from teammates Jason Heyward and Nate McLouth.
2010 Tim Wakefield can’t stop the running game at all, as he surrenders nine steals versus zero caught stealings. He’s so rattled by the non-stop running against him that for the first time in nearly eight years, Wakefield commits a balk. His last one was 1,461.1 innings ago.
2010 MLB takes over operation of the Dodgers, who are hamstrung by the McCourt divorce case.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraTwins 6, Yankees 5: Justin Morneau hit two homers. That's four homers in six games, which hopefully means that Morneau is back to his mashing ways. Jason Marquis, who missed most of spring training when his daughter was seriously injured in a bicycle accident, made his first ever start in Yankee Stadium and got the win with his daughter -- now healthy -- looking on.
Rockies 8, Padres 4: Chase Headley had two homers too, though they were in a losing effort. Still count, though. It says so right there in the rules.
Cardinals 11, Reds 1: The Cards' bats continue to go nuts, touching Matt Latos for eight runs in five and two-thirds. Carlos Beltran and Tyler Greene homered. Jaime Garcia, in addition to handcuffing the Reds, tripled in a couple of runs. This was Adam Wainwright's reaction to it. I think the Cardinals are having fun.
Rangers 6, Red Sox 3: Mike Napoli hit a two-run homer -- his fourth bomb in three games -- and drove in four. Bobby Valentine got booed when he made a pitching change in the eighth. Kevin Youkilis hit a home run, but his heart wasn't in it, I hear.
Marlins 9, Cubs 1: Miami racked up 14 hits including a dinger from Hanley Ramirez, his third in as many games. Four straight losses for the Cubs.
Nationals 3, Astros 2: Three Astros relievers combined to walk three Nationals and allow two runs in the eighth inning. One of them was on a bases loaded walk to Jayson Werth. Washington pitching was good again, but they only struck out four in nine innings. Dudes: we're used to K Street here, not 6-3 street, OK?
White Sox 8, Orioles 1: Jake Peavy and Adam Dunn have, at various times over the past year or so, looked like they had giant forks sticking out of their backs. Last night Peavy pitched seven strong innings and Dunn doubled in three runs to break it open late and walked a couple of times.
Pirates 2, Diamondbacks 1: Pittsburgh started the west coast swing poorly but finished strong. Pedro Alvarez hit a homer and, as the game story noted, "he raised his batting average 32 points to .074." Good times.
Rays 12, Blue Jays 2: Four homers for the Rays including a Luke Scott grand slam. He asked the official scorer to only grant him three RBI for it because even numbers are socialist.
Braves 14, Mets 6: Atlanta knocked R.A. Dickey out early and kept piling on runs. This with Chipper Jones and Brian McCann out of the lineup (though Jones did pinch hit, doubling in a run and scoring). The offensive outburst overshadowed a poor outing by Jair Jurrjens, who couldn't make it to the fifth inning. His performance this season has thus far been ... worrisome.
Tigers 4, Royals 3: I could tell you all about what went down here, but I'll just note that Prince Fielder stole a friggin' base and let you pick the pieces of your mind up off the floor for the remainder of the morning.
Brewers 3, Dodgers 2: A walkoff sacrifice fly for Ryan Braun in the 10th. More impressive: Zack Greinke hit a double. Him and Jaime Garcia: making the case against the DH last night.
Giants 1, Phillies 0: Holy crap. Cliff Lee threw ten shutout innings and got a no decision. That's because Matt Cain threw nine shutout innings and three Giants relievers combined for a tenth and eleventh while Melky Cabrera singled home Brandon Belt in the Giants' half of the eleventh inning for the win. More on this one later this morning.
Athletics 6, Angels 0: Meanwhile Bartolo Colon shut the Angels out on four hits over eight innings himself. Yoenis Cespedes hit a three-run homer. The Angels are kinda reeling, yes?
Mariners 4, Indians 1: Jason Vargas was on it, striking out seven in seven innings in front of the smallest crowd in Safeco Field history (11,343). Apparently seeing Eric Wedge's old team come to town is not a big deal to some people. The Indians' four-game winning streak comes to an end.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraRangers 18, Red Sox 3: The Rangers were definitely physically and emotionally into this game. In fact, they did a Gashouse Gorillas-style conga line around the basepaths. Josh Hamilton drove in five, Mike Napoli drove in four.
Rockies 5, Padres 3: Jamie Moyer wins and thus becomes the oldest pitcher to ever win a game. And it wasn't a cheapie, either: Moyer allowed no earned runs in seven innings while scattering six hits. Doing that with 78 m.p.h. "heat" is one of the more astounding things you'll ever see on a baseball diamond. Congratulations Old Sport.
Marlins 5, Cubs 2: Ozzie returns and ... the world goes on. No protests. One fan kept yelling insulting stuff at Guillen from the crowd, but that was probably a good 10-15 fewer fans doing that in this one than in most games. As for the baseball: the return of an effective Josh Johnson (7 IP, 7 H, 2 ER) was way more important than the return of Guillen.
Nationals 1, Astros 0: This one ended in 2:12. Everyone has someplace to be, I guess. Well, not the offenses, because they weren't going anywhere. Gio Gonzalez, Tyler Clippard and Brad Lidge combine for the shutout. Wandy Rodriguez was almost as good, giving up a couple of bloop hits to allow a run.
Braves 9, Mets 3: Atlanta finally beats New York. Johan Santana -- who at times looked like he was bending in his first two starts -- finally broke. The Braves roughed up Santana, knocking him out in the second inning, though they had the help of some ugly Mets defense in the process. It was the shortest start of Santana's career.
Orioles 3, White Sox 2: Every season the Orioles begin at the top of the standings by virtue of being first alphabetically. It's strange to see them in first place via their actual record, but there they are. Homers from Nolan Reimold and J.J. Hardy.
Blue Jays 7, Rays 3: Jose Bautista, Adam Lind and Brett Lawrie all hit homers. Two-time Gold Glove winner Evan Longoria had three (3)(III)(tres) errors. The Rays have lost six of eight.
Yankees 8, Twins 3: CC Sabathia and the Yankees were down 3-1 in the third, but the big man tightened up. Russell Martin got the night off, allowing backup Chris Stewart to rack up three RBI.
Tigers 3, Royals 1: Miguel Cabrera snapped an 0 for 22 streak with a single and later added another single, this time of the RBI variety.
Brewers 5, Dodgers 4: A see-saw battle, with the Brewers taking the lead, losing it on an Andre Ethier homer in the eighth and then getting it back in walkoff fashion via a two-run George Kottaras double.
Cardinals 2, Reds 1: A helluva pitching duel between Johnny Cueto and Kyle Lohse goes 10 thanks to Mitchell Boggs being unable to hold a 1-0 lead in the eighth. But never fear, Matt Carpenter is here hitting a sac fly after Reds pitchers loaded the bases with walks in the bottom of the 10th.
Giants 4, Phillies 2: Three hits for Buster Posey and Nate Schierholtz. A stolen base for Posey, which is yet another encouraging thing regarding his recovery from injury. Madison Bumgarner gave up two runs over six.
Pirates 5, Diamondbacks 4: Pittsburgh lost starter Jeff Karstens after one inning due to some shoulder trouble, but as Clint Hurdle said after the game, they got it done with "duct tape and chicken wire." Which, while people normally refer to that as some crazy, lucky half-ass way of fixing a problem on the fly, does suggest a lot of planning. Who the hell has chicken wire laying around these days? That requires an incredible amount of forethought, frankly.
Indians 9, Mariners 8: A seven-run fifth by Cleveland erased an 8-1 deficit and then Jason Donald hit a tie-breaking single in the seventh. Donald also took a ball to the mouth in the ninth, after which he said "Hopefully my girlfriend still wants to date me after getting smoked in the mouth like that." That's what she said.
Athletics 5, Angels 3: Yoenis Cespedes went two for four and drove in two. He only hit singles, though, and only struck out once which is kind of sad given that I was sort of cottoning to the idea of him being the next Rob Deer.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
A baseball card mystery: Roy Lee Jackson
Posted by Bruce MarkusenCompetition breeds creativity. One of the outgrowths of the court decision that ended Topps’ monopoly over producing cards of major leaguers was the emergence of the Fleer Company. In the early '80s, Fleer displayed the kind of creativity and imagination that had been missing in recent sets of Topps cards. In particular, the 1984 Fleer set provides several excellent examples.
Roy Lee Jackson and gave it a nifty twist, showing the Blue Jays pitcher, not on the mound, but singing either the National Anthem or “Oh Canada” before a game with the Rangers. How can you not love a card like that?
Roy Lee Jackson is hardly a household name, unless you’re a diehard fan of 1980s baseball, but at one time he was a top prospect in the Mets’ farm system. In the late '70s, the Mets envisioned him as someone who could fill one of the gaps in a rotation that had lost Tom Seaver and Jon Matlack, both of whom had been dispatched in unwise trades.
For three straight years, Jackson won in double figures at Triple-A Tidewater. In 1979, the Mets gave Jackson a look in the bullpen, where he excelled in eight appearances. But when the Mets used him as a starter in 1980, he flopped badly. The poor performance convinced the Mets that he was expendable. So when they had a chance to acquire the highly touted and versatile utilityman Bob Bailor (whom it seem everyone wanted in the early '80s), the Mets sent Jackson to the Blue Jays in a straight-up one-for-one deal.
Wisely, the Jays made Jackson a fulltime reliever. He excelled in the role in 1981 and ‘82, slumped the following season, and then bounced back with a career high 10 saves in 1984. Strangely, the Blue Jays released him just before Opening Day in 1985. He signed with the Orioles, but never made it out of their farm system. The O’s traded him to the Padres for the ill-fated Alan Wiggins. Jackson ended up pitching well in long relief for San Diego, but all that earned him was another spring training release in 1986. The same day of his release, he signed with Minnesota and pitched a season with the Twins before his career came to an end after a brief tryout with the Brewers.
Jackson’s pitching talents kept him in the big leagues for 10 seasons. Apparently, he was nearly as good at singing as he was at throwing fastballs. Impressed by his vocal talents, the Jays arranged to have him sing one of the anthems before a game against the Rangers.
That brings us to this week’s mystery. Based on our usual logic, we assume that the photograph for his 1984 Fleer card was snapped in 1983. Jackson’s singing appearance came before a night game in Texas.
So we have several questions. On what night of the season did Jackson sing? Who is the Rangers’ catcher, seen in the background? The Rangers’ catchers that season included Jim Sundberg (we know it’s not him) and two obscure players, Bobby Johnson and Donnie Scott. And dare we ask, even though we’ve never inquired about umpires before, who is the home plate arbiter standing next to the Rangers’ catcher?
Bruce Markusen is the author of seven books on baseball, including the award-winning A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, the recipient of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. He has also written The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, Tales From The Mets Dugout, and The Orlando Cepeda Story.
Golden anniversary: Milt Pappas out-hits the Yanks
Posted by Chris JaffeFifty years ago today, Milt Pappas proved himself to be a pretty effective one-man team. On April 18, 1962, the then-Orioles hurler didn’t need no stinking teammates.
On the mound, he held the opposing team scoreless. That was especially impressive given that the opposing team was the Yankees, defending world champions who would win yet another world title that year. But the lineup anchored by Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris couldn’t score that day.
Perhaps even more impressive is what Pappas did at the plate. He belted a solo home run. Oh, and that solo homer was the game’s only run, as Baltimore triumphed 1-0 over the fearsome Yankees.
Actually, it isn’t quite fair to say Pappas didn’t need any teammates. While the Yankees were shut out, it wasn’t a complete game shutout. The O’s pulled Pappas after six solid innings. There is no clear reason why this happened. He wasn’t coming up to bat—in fact his latest at-bat was the homer, so you definitely wouldn’t want to pull him.
He pitched well in the sixth. In fact he’d retired seven straight batters. Not a single Yankee had made it past second base, and only three times had anyone even reached first through six innings against Pappas. Yet Baltimore pulled him anyway.
Well, to be fair, he wasn’t pulled for just anyone. Baltimore brought in relief ace Hoyt Wilhelm, who celebrated the 10th anniversary of his big league debut that day. Wilhelm would later become the first reliever elected to Cooperstown, and today he safely kept the Yankees at bay for the final three innings.
As it happens, this would not be the only time Pappas homered in a game in which the opposing team scored zero runs. He’d do it five times in all. In baseball history, only Bob Gibson did it more times than that. This, however, was the only time Pappas would ever do it in a 1-0 game. And he did it exactly a half-century ago today.
Aside from that, many other baseball events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something that happened X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Mark Buehrle throws a perfect game in a 5-0 win for Chicago over Tampa. DeWayne Wise makes one of the greatest catches you’ll ever see in the ninth to preserve the perfecto, no-hitter, and shutout. It’s Buehrle’s second career no-hitter.
2,000 days since Joe Niekro dies.
4,000 days since Mike Mussina picks off a runner for the first time in nearly six years.
4,000 days since Roy Oswalt makes his big league debut.
4,000 days since Chipper Jones hits career home run No. 200.
5,000 days since Luis Gonzalez connects for his 1,000th hit.
5,000 days since the Angels release Cecil Fielder.
7,000 days since baseball owners vote to link a salary cap and revenue sharing in their talk with the Players’ Association.
9,000 days since Baltimore’s Fred Lynn hits a pinch-hit, walk-off home run against young reliever Chuck Finley for a 6-5 win over the Angels.
Anniversaries
1880 Sam Crawford, the game’s all-time triples king, is born.
1888 American Association umpire John Gaffney has a new idea. He’ll stay behind the plate whenever no one is on base and otherwise place himself behind the pitcher. This new technique takes off in the old days of the one-man umpiring crew.
1888 Duffy Lewis, star left fielder, is born.
1896 Fielder Jones, terrific glove man whose birth name really was Fielder, plays in his first game.
1899 Hall of Fame workhorse pitcher Iron Man Joe McGinnity plays in his first game. So does Noodles Hahn, a phenom with Cooperstown talent whose arm didn’t last long enough.
1901 James Samuel Tilden Sheckard connects for three triples on Opening Day for Brooklyn.
1906 Babe Adams, pitcher with terrific control, makes his big league debut.
1908 Gavvy Cravath, maybe the best slugger of the last decade of the Deadball Era, makes his big league debut.
1918 Center fielder Tris Speaker pulls off his fifth career unassisted double play. This one is extra special because he tags both runners. It was a very different time.
1923 A crowd of 74,200 attends the first regular season game at Yankee Stadium, and another 25,000 are turned away. Ruth homers and the Yankees win, 4-1 over Boston.
1923 Columbia University southpaw Lou Gehrig—yes, that Lou Gehrig—fans 17 batters from Williams College.
1923 Charley Root, the winningest pitcher in Cubs history, makes his big league debut. Also debuting is Willie Kamm, who will have a nice career as a third baseman.
1925 Charles Ebbetts, the man for whom the Brooklyn Dodgers' stadium is named, dies at age 65.
1925 Rogers Hornsby scores five runs in one game for the only time as the Cardinals maul the Cubs, 20-5.
1927 Goose Goslin steals three bases in one game for the second and last time in his career.
1929 Larry French, high quality pitcher who joined the Navy during WWII, makes his big league debut. He stayed in the Navy after the war, retiring at the rank of captain in 1969.
1930 Jack Stivetts, terrific hitting pitcher who won over 200 games in the 1890s, dies.
1930 Lon Warneke, one of the best NL pitchers of the 1930s, makes his big league debut.
1934 Paul Dean, Dizzy’s talented brother in pitching, makes his big league debut.
1938 Joe Gordon, Hall of Fame second baseman, makes his big league debut.
1939 Leo Durocher manages his first big league game. It’s also the first regular season Dodgers game broadcast on the radio. Red Barber is on the microphone.
1942 Hank Borowy, pitcher, makes his big league debut.
1942 Steve Blass, pitcher with control problems, is born.
1942 The U.S. military asks the Pacific Coast League to limit crowds to 3,000 due to fear of Japanese attacks.
1945 Leo Durocher plays in his final big league game. The player-manager is just a manager from here on out.
1946 Cincinnati trades Jim Konstanty to the Braves. Four years later as a Phillie, he’ll win the MVP as a relief pitcher.
1946 Jackie Robinson debuts with the Montreal Royals. He grounds out in his first at-bat and then hits a three-run homer the next time up.
1946 A press conference is held to announce the formation of the American Baseball Guild—a players’ union.
1946 Ralph Kiner hits his first home run.
1947 Jackie Robinson knocks out his first home run.
1947 Ted Kluszewski, one of the most muscular sluggers of his day, debuts.
1949 The Yankees release Bill Bevens, who nearly threw a no-hitter for them in the 1947 World Series.
1950 Cleveland releases longtime third baseman Ken Keltner, whom the Red Sox sign that same day.
1950 The Braves become the fifth team to integrate when Sam Jethroe takes the field for them. Previously, the Dodgers, Indians, Browns and Giants integrated.
1950 Billy Martin makes his debut, and gets two hits in it. Also debuting on this day are Chico Carrasquel, Jackie Jensen and Clem Labine.
1951 Doug Flynn is born.
1952 Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm makes his debut.
1952 The Yankees retire Joe DiMaggio’s number.
1953 Don Larsen makes his big league debut.
1955 Ewell Blackwell, one of the most feared fastball pitchers of his day, plays in his last game.
1955 Roberto Clemente connects for his first home run.
1957 It’s the ultimate insult to a hitter. The Pirates put second baseman Bill Mazeroski ninth in the batting order, behind pitcher Luis Arroyo, who hits eighth.
1957 Roger Maris hits his first homer, and it’s a doozy: An 11th inning grand slam.
1958 The Giants and Dodgers play their first game in LA and 78,672 see them in the Coliseum.
1959 Frank Robinson hits his 100th home run.
1959 Mike Cuellar, big winner for Earl Weaver’s early 1970s Orioles, debuts.
1960 Cleveland trades Herb Score to the White Sox.
1960 In his first at-bat of the season, Ted Williams hits a 500-foot home run.
1960 Don Mincher makes his big league debut.
1962 Ernie Banks hits his 300th home run.
1962 Bo Belinsky makes his big league debut.
1964 Rick Wise, a mere 18 years old, makes his big league debut.
1964 In the third inning versus Cincinnati, Dodgers ace Sandy Koufax fans the side on nine pitches. It’s the second time Koufax has done that, making him the first NL pitcher to do that more than once in the 20th century. However, the Reds win the game, 3-0.
1965 Ray Oyler, one of the game’s worst hitting regulars ever, plays in his first game.
1965 Tug McGraw, long-lasting reliever, makes his big league debut.
1966 In Houston, it’s the first game ever played on an Astroturf infield. The outfield will be added in later. The game is noteworthy for another reason, as young Dodgers starting pitcher Don Sutton records his first big league win as he out-duels fellow future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts.
1967 Reggie Smith, in the 12th game of his career, plays second base for the sixth and final time.
1969 Houston’s Joe Morgan starts the game in center field. Today and tomorrow are the only times he ever does that.
1969 Luis Tiant allows 11 hits, but only one single. The other ten hits are evenly divided up as doubles and homers.
1969 The fourth win in Padres history is also the only game that ever ends with Willie Mays fanning for the last out with the bases loaded. San Diego edges San Francisco, 3-1.
1970 Nolan Ryan records his first shutout in style, fanning 15 in a one-hitter. Denny Doyle gets a leadoff single for the Phillies in the first inning, and that’s it. The Mets win, 7-0.
1972 Reliever Dick Tidrow makes his big league debut.
1973 Tommy John walks in a run for the only time between July 7, 1966 and April 11, 1977. There are more than 2,000 innings in that stretch.
1973 After 177 games without one, Rod Carew finally connects for a home run.
1977 Eddie Murray goes deep for the first time in his career.
1977 Mexican League pitcher Ricardo Sandate hurls 19 innings in one game, only to lose 2-0.
1979 Mike Scott, stud pitcher with the 1986 Astros, makes his big league debut as a Met.
1980 Bill Madlock gets his 1,000th career hit.
1981 Pawtucket and Rochester begin an International League game that will go 32 innings and take eight hours and 25 minutes of playing time. It runs into a curfew today and will be completed in June.
1981 Tom Seaver strikes out his 3,000th batter, who happens to be Keith Hernandez.
1983 Miguel Cabrera is born.
1984 Dave Stieb wins his 67th game with Toronto, passing Jim Clancy as all-time franchise leader. He still is. (Actually, Clancy will tie Stieb with 67 wins the next day, but Stieb will never fall behind Clancy again).
1985 Super-speedster Vince Coleman debuts in the major leagues.
1986 Tom Seaver loses his 200th decision.
1986 Oakland’s Alfredo Griffin scores from second base on a bases loaded walk as Seattle catcher Steve Yeager and pitcher Mike Moore are caught completely off-guard by his base running daring.
1986 Bobby Witt has a no-hitter going after five innings, but is yanked anyway, as he’s allowed eight walks and two wild pitches (though he’s also fanned 10). He doesn’t even get the win, though Texas defeats the Brewers, 7-5.
1986 Steve Carlton sets a personal worst with his seventh straight loss.
1987 Mike Schmidt joins the 500 home run club in style, by belting one with two out in the ninth as the Phillies rally to top the Pirates, 8-6.
1990 Robin Ventura hits his first home run. The pitcher who allows it is Roger Clemens.
1991 Robin Yount gets his 500th double.
1991 New Comiskey Park (now called U.S. Cellular Field) opens with a dud, as the White Sox lose, 16-0 to the Tigers. The first standing ovation comes when the Sox record a routine out in the midst of a 10-run Detroit inning.
1992 Will Clark bops his 1,000th career hit.
1992 Jeff Bagwell gets his first ever walk-off home run. He’ll hit another one this year, but only one more in the rest of his career.
1992 John Smoltz becomes the first pitcher to homer off Orel Hershiser. Tom Browning will do it next year, but that’s it.
1993 Barry Bonds joins the 1,000 hit club in style, going 4-for-5 on the day.
1994 Mickey Mantle discusses his problems with booze in Sports Illustrated.
1994 White Sox’s Tim Raines gets three homers in one game. He’s 4-for-5 with a walk and a career-high tying five runs scored. Even his non-hit isn’t an out, as he reaches on error.
1995 California signs free agent pitcher Scott Sanderson.
1995 Jack Morris, the winningest pitcher of the 1980s, announces his retirement.
1996 Alex Rodriguez connects for the first of his 22 (and counting) grand slams.
1996 Bill Mueller makes his big league debut.
1998 In the 10th inning, John Olerud lays down a sacrifice bunt for the first time since June 1992, a streak of 3,247 plate appearances without one.
2000 Adam Kennedy becomes the first second baseman in 50 years to get eight RBIs in one game. The lst second baseman to do that was Red Sox Hall of Famer Bobby Doerr, who did it in June 1950. Kennedy also sets an Angels franchise record for most RBIs by one player in a game.
2000 Mark Mulder makes his big league debut with the A’s.
2003 Craig Biggio hits his 200th home run.
2004 Adrian Gonzalez makes his big league debut.
2004 Sammy Sosa hits his 513th home run as a Cub, passing Ernie Banks as the franchise leader.
2005 For the second time in his career, Alex Rodriguez scores five runs in one game. He’s 5-for-6 with two doubles, two homers, and six RBIs. It’s the only time he gets four extra-base hits in one game.
2005 Tim Hudson and Roger Clemens trade goose eggs, and the bullpens for Houston and Atlanta have to decide it. Atlanta wins, 1-0 in 12 innings when Ryan Langerhans hits an inside the park home run.
2005 Manny Ramirez has two homers in a game for the second time in three days.
2006 Luis Gonzalez joins the 500 double club.
2006 For the first time since April 1962, the Houston Astros' all-time cumulative franchise record is at .500 (3,507-3,507).
2006 Hanley Ramirez hits his first career home run.
2007 For the first time in nearly seven years and over 1,000 innings, David Wells walks in a run.
2007 Chicago White Sox Mark Buehrle throws his first no-hitter.
2009 Manny Ramirez hits two runs in a game. It’s his 54th multi-home run game and last one.
2010 In Japan, Tomoaki Kanemoto asks to be left out of the lineup for the Hanshin Tigers. He’s hitting .167. He’d not only played in 1,492 consecutive games, but been in every inning along the way. He makes a pinch-hit appearance today to keep the games streak alive.
2011 Cincinnati Reds pitcher Mike Leake is arrested for shoplifting. He’s accused of cutting tags off shirts and trying to leave Macy’s with them. His salary is $425,000.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraOrioles 10, White Sox 4: Matt Wieters homered twice, the first one coming in the eighth, which kicked off the O's comeback after finding themselves down 4-1. The second one: a 10th inning grand slam which put the game out of reach.
Twins 7, Yankees 3: Joe Mauer had three hits and Justin Morneau played in the field and had a home run. That should make the Twins fans happy. Carl Pavano allowed three runs in seven innings, which should make the Yankees fans mad.
Phillies 5, Giants 2: The battle of the aces doesn't quite live up to its billing, but Halladay beats Lincecum, who is still struggling mightily. Indeed, Lincecum gave up five runs and eight hits in six innings and it actually represented a clear improvement over his last outing.
Mets 6, Braves 1: I guess the Mets own the Braves now. Ike Davis -- three run homer -- and Dillon Gee -- four hit ball over seven innings -- led New York to its fourth straight win over Atlanta.
Rays 1, Red Sox 0: As mentioned yesterday, Bobby V. stuck with Daniel Bard a bit too long and he walked the ballpark. And Fernando Rodney should have walked Cody Ross in the ninth, but Larry Vanover had other ideas. None of which takes away from James Shields' day (8.1 IP, 4 H, 0 ER). The Rays avoid the sweep.
Nationals 6, Astros 3: Stephen Strasburg cruised through five innings, was beat up a bit in the sixth, but had plenty of margin for error to get the win. And check out this throw home on a pop fly by Rick Ankiel. You'll never see a better one in that situation. If the dude stood out there and threw it like that 10 years ago instead of on the mound he'd still be a pitcher.
Tigers 3, Royals 2: Speaking of nice throws, check out this one by Jeff Francoeur nailing Jhonny Peralta at third base. Tigers still won, though, because Verlander dealt for eight innings and then survived -- just barely -- for the ninth, after loading the bases and going 2-2 to Alex Gordon. Struck him out looking, though, with all five pitches to him being 100 mph fastballs. Brandon Inge had a two-run homer. Which probably bought him two more years in a Tigers uniform, what with the sliding performance scale to which he is subject.
Padres 7, Rockies 1: Nick Hundley drove in three, Chase Headley had three doubles and scored three times and Corey Luebke allowed one run on six hits in seven innings.
Angels 6, Athletics 0: Kendrys Morales hit his first homer since the one that led to his ankle injury nearly two years ago. Mike Scioscia actually said this after the game: ""I was happy he got around the bases in one piece." Pujols went 2 for 4 with a double. Jered Weaver got his 1,000th career strikeout. The A's were shut out for the third time in six games.
Diamondbacks 5, Pirates 1: Chris Young continues his torrid start. He had three hits, including his fifth homer of the year. Joe Saunders gave up one run on six hits in seven innings.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
120th anniversary: the NL goes to hell
Posted by Chris Jaffe120 years ago, the battle between morals and profit reached one of its periodic climaxes, and—as often is the case—profitability won.
On April 17, 1892, the National League did something it had steadfastly refused to do for its first 16 years of existence: It had a game take place on Sunday, a.k.a., the Lord’s Day, or the Sabbath.
Yeah, it took long enough, but the NL finally violated that commandment. Or, if you’d rather, 120 years ago the NL went to hell. If you’re interested, the initial Sunday game featured Cincinnati topping St. Louis, 5-1.
While it was the NL’s first Sunday game, it wasn’t the first one in all of major league baseball. In 1882, the NL had its first rival claimant, the American Association. That league would play on Sundays and beer gardens in some of their park. They were openly catering to people’s desires—the lowest common denominator, if you will.
Well, the NL teams would have none of it and held up their noses at their crasser opponent. Sure enough, they outlasted the AA. Their success and the AA’s failure weren’t due to Sunday ball, though, but to the NL having better players and sounder financial backing.
The AA collapsed after 1891 and sure enough, as soon as it was gone, the NL went into the Sunday ball business. After all, there was no more AA to differentiate itself from. What’s more, if the NL left Sunday open, that meant another rival league could come along in the future and have that same edge on the established league.
It wasn't the entire league that adopted Sunday ball in 1892. Many states and cities had their own ordinances barring it. Pennsylvania and Boston wouldn’t let theirs go until the Great Depression. But the National League itself did, and by the 1930s it went so far as to make Sunday its doubleheader day, the day when more games were scheduled than any other.
That lay in the future, though. But 120 years ago, observing the Sabbath was a thing of the past for the National League.
Aside from that, many other baseball items today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something that occurred X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you prefer to skim.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Todd Helton collects his 500th career double.
1,000 days since Manny Ramirez belts his first pinch-hit homer. It’s a grand slam in the sixth inning of a game tied 2-2. It’s Ramirez’s home run No. 538 overall.
4,000 days since Alex Rodriguez gets his 1,000th hit.
5,000 days since Dennis Martinez picks up his 244th win, surpassing Juan Marichal for the most by a Latin American pitcher.
5,000 days since Montreal draws 757 dogs to the park on a Dog Day promotion. The Expos top the Devil Rays, 8-2.
8,000 days since former Yankee slugger Charlie Keller dies. He could’ve been a Hall of Famer if it hadn’t been for back problems.
9,000 days since the Royals fire manager Billy Gardner and replace him with John Wathan.
25,000 days since the White Sox purchase first baseman Hal Trosky from the Indians. Like Keller, back problems cost Trosky a chance at Cooperstown.
Anniversaries
1820 Alexander Cartwright, in Cooperstown as the inventor of baseball, is born.
1864 Jersey Bakely, 19th century pitcher with horrible run support, is born.
1869 It’s the first openly professional baseball game in history. The Cincinnati Redlegs beat the Cincinnati Amateurs (that’s really their name), 24-15. As the team name of the loser implies, only one team consisted of professionals.
1884 Jake Daubert, first baseman, is born.
1886 Two notable players make their debut today: Lou Bierbauer, a second baseman from whom the Pittsburgh Pirates got their nickname (they pirated Bierbauer from another team), and Matt Kilroy, a pitcher who still technically owns the record for most strikeouts in a year. He fanned 513 in 583 innings in 1886, before the four-ball, three-strike count had been set up.
1889 Herman Long, one of the best-fielding shortstops of his generation, plays in his first game.
1897 Baltimore releases former ace pitcher Sadie McMahon.
1898 Bobby Mathews, pitcher who won 297 games (including in the sorta big league National Association), dies.
1902 Hall of Fame shortstop Joe Tinker makes his big league debut.
1904 The Brooklyn Dodgers find a loophole in local Sunday laws. They let fans in for free but make them buy a program to enter the grandstand or box seats. This loophole soon will be closed.
1909 The Cubs sell catcher Jimmy Slagle to the Braves.
1913 Seattle Bill James, later a star pitcher for the 1914 Miracle Braves, makes his big league debut.
1913 The Yankees play their first game at the Polo Grounds and lose 9-3 to the Washington Senators.
1914 Hall of Fame pitcher Red Faber makes his debut. So does another pitcher of considerably less renown, Dave Davenport.
1923 The Cardinals wear uniform numbers for the first time in a regular-season game.
1923 The Phillies tie the Dodgers, 5-5, in a 14-inning contest that sets a record as the longest Opening Day game in NL history.
1923 Jimmie Wilson, catcher, makes his big league debut.
1924 Senators star outfielder Baby Doll Jacobson hits for the cycle.
1925 Babe Ruth undergoes surgery for intestinal abscess in St. Vincent’s Hospital in NYC for the “belly ache heard around the world.”
1926 Hall of Fame pitcher Waite Hoyt has his worst ever day at the plate, going 0-for-4 with three whiffs.
1927 Hall of Fame outfielder Al Simmons legs out his only inside-the-park home run.
1929 Babe Ruth marries actress/model Claire Merritt Hodgson.
1932 Giants first baseman Bill Terry sets an NL record with 21 putouts as they beat the Braves, 5-0, behind pitcher Hal Schumacher.
1932 Hall of Famer Heinie Manush fans four times in a game for the only time in his career. He only fans 345 times in 8,416 plate appearances, but today he has four in five hitless at-bats.
1932 Arky Vaughan, Hall of Fame shortstop and one of the most underrated players in history, makes his big league debut. Also making their debuts today are pitcher Tex Carleton and Paul Richards, a catcher who will later be a great manager.
1934 Casey Stengel manages his first big league game. So does Jimmie Wilson, but his career won’t have the success of Stengel's.
1934 Lon Warneke carries an Opening Day no-hitter into the ninth versus the Reds. Adam Comorosky singles with one out, earning the boos of the 30,427 fans in attendance.
1934 Hard hitting third baseman Harlond Clift debuts today. So does poor fielding first baseman Zeke Bonura, outfielder Cookie Lavagetto, and Frenchy Bordagaray.
1934 A rebuilt Fenway Park opens, but the Red Sox lose, 6-5 in 11 innings, to Washington.
1936 Brooklyn releases long-lasting starting pitcher Tom Zachary.
1945 Future Hall of Fame second baseman Red Schoendienst makes his debut. That’s not the debut that gets people’s attention at the time, though. That honor goes to one-armed outfielder Pete Gray, who plays his first game for the Browns.
1945 The Pirates lose their Opening Day game weirdly. A three-run homer is nullified because Frankie Zak, their runner on first, called time to tie his shoes just before the gopherball pitch. That proves to be the difference in the contest.
1946 Jack Quinn, 200-game winner who pitched until he was nearly 50 years old, dies.
1947 Jackie Robinson gets his first big league hit, a bunt single. In that same game, Duke Snider makes his big league debut.
1951 One of the game’s most storied players makes his debut on this day: Mickey Mantle. Also debuting around the league: Johnny Logan and Roy McMillan.
1951 It’s a first in major league baseball, an Opening Day night game. The Senators top the A’s, 6-1.
1951 Al Lopez manages his first big league game. In it, Lopez’s starting pitcher, Hall of Famer Bob Lemon, has his worst day at the plate. Normally one of the game’s best hitting pitchers, Lemon today is 0-for-4 with four strikeouts. It’s his only four-K game. Lopez is not the only prominent manager debuting today; so does Paul Richards with the White Sox.
1951 Just before the home opener at Wrigley Field, golfer Sam Snead tees off from home plate and hits the centerfield scoreboard, something no batter has ever done.
1953 The Cubs top the Cardinals, 23-13, setting a record for the longest nine-inning game then played: three hours and 43 minutes. Yeah, that’s been broken a ton over the years.
1953 Mickey Mantle hits maybe his most famous home run, a towering shot off Chuck Stobbs at Griffith Stadium estimated to have traveled 565 feet. The Yankees win that game, pushing Casey Stengel’s career record to 972-971. It will always be over .500 from here on out.
1953 Former Negro Leaguer Connie Johnson makes his debut. So does Bob Buhl, who will be one of the worst-hitting pitchers of all time. In one doubleheader, pitchers Johnny Podres and Ruben Gomez also debut.
1954 Don Mossi, maybe the ugliest pitcher in baseball history, debuts.
1954 Charlie Grimm manages his 2,000th game. His record: 1,085-901.
1954 The Reds finally integrate, as first Nino Escalera and then Chuck Harmon play for them in one game. They are either the ninth or tenth team to integrate (the A’s also integrate around this time).
1955 Roberto Clemente, iconic rightfielder, makes his big league debut. Also debuting is terrific pitcher Larry Jackson.
1956 Bill Rigney manages his first game. He’ll last over 2,500 games.
1956 Billy Pierce walks the first batter of the game, something he last did 112 starts ago.
1956 Ed Rommel becomes the first umpire to wear glasses on the field when he works today’s Senators-Yankees game. In that game, Mickey Mantle hit a pair of homers that are each estimated over 500 feet long.
1956 Four Hall of Famers debut in one day, a record. They are: Frank Robinson, Don Drysdale, Luis Aparicio, and Whitey Herzog. OK, so Herzog is in as a manager, but April 17, 1956, is still the greatest one-day debut haul in baseball history. (Not that it matters too much, but Tito Francona and Jerry Lumpe also debut on this day.)
1958 Eddie Mathews is off to a terrific start. He’d already homered twice on Opening Day and today, in the second game on the season, he does it again.
1958 Mudcat Grant, future 20-game winner, makes his big league debut.
1959 Al Kaline belts his 100th home run.
1960 Eddie Mathews gets his 300th home run.
1960 It’s one of the most famous trades in history, as Detroit sends defending batting champion Harvey Kuenn to Cleveland for defending home run champion Rocky Colavito. Detroit gets the better of this one.
1962 Lou Brock hits an inside-the-park home run to lead off the game for the Cubs against the Pirates.
1964 Dick Allen connects for his first career home run.
1964 Willie Stargell hits the first home run at Shea Stadium.
1965 Jim Palmer makes his big league debut.
1967 Marquis Grissom is born.
1968 Johnny Bench will end his career with only 11 sacrifice hits, but two of them come in this game.
1968 Here’s a weird one: The steel shell of a pitcher’s mound at Oakland’s Alameda County Stadium is exposed and has to be covered between innings. Why make a pitcher’s mound out of steel?
1968 Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda suffers through his worst game, according to WPA. He’s 0-for-5 with a walk and GIDP for a –0.413 WPA as the Reds top his Cardinals, 4-3.
1968 Carl Yastrzemski, fresh off a Triple Crown MVP season in 1967, receives three intentional walks in one game for the only time in his career. Aside from them, he’s 1-for-1 with a solo homer on the day. That’s all Boston needs in it’s 2-0 win over the White Sox.
1969 Bill Stoneman tosses the first no-hitter in Montreal history, defeating the Phillies, 7-0, in Connie Mack Stadium.
1970 Bud Harrelson belts his only home run at Shea Stadium. The longtime Met will hit six homers elsewhere in his 16-year career.
1970 California purchases weak-hitting infielder Ray Oyler from the A’s.
1970 Ron Santo receives his only career walk-off walk, as the Cubs top the Expos, 8-7.
1974 Badly hung over Cubs backup catcher George Mitterwald has the game of his life, hitting three homers and a double while driving in eight.
1974 Cleveland’s Gaylord Perry becomes the last pitcher to toss 15 innings in a game. Unfortunately for him, he gets a no-decision as the Indian bullpen lose it in the 16th, 5-4, to Milwaukee. Perry’s line: 15 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 14 K for a Game Score of 95.
1974 Troubled pitcher Steve Blass plays in his last game. He was a good pitcher, but then he suddenly developed a weird mental block and couldn’t find the plate.
1976 It’s one of the wildest games in the history of Wrigley Field, or any field. The Cubs blow an 11-run lead, and the Phillies come back to win, 18-16, in 10 innings. Mike Schmidt was Philadelphia’s engine, as he hit four homers and a single while driving in eight runs.
1976 The Yankees name Thurman Munson their first team captain since Lou Gehrig.
1977 When the Diamondvision at Atlanta shows a close play at the plate that indicates the umpires blew the call, the officials leave the field in protest of the scoreboard. They return only after Atlanta agrees not to show replays on close plays on the scoreboard again.
1981 Texas signs free agent Bobby Bonds.
1982 Keith Hernandez gets his 1,000th hit.
1982 Rickey Henderson steals his 200th base. He’s been in the majors fewer than three seasons (and one of those was strike-shortened).
1982 Eddie Murray enjoys his only five-hit game. All his hits are singles.
1983 Former knuckleballer Dutch Leonard dies.
1983 Nolan Ryan fans his 3,500th batter.
1984 Dennis Eckersley records his 100th loss. His record: 120-100.
1984 The Yankees sign free agent Oscar Gamble, who in his prime had the game’s greatest afro.
1986 Jerry Reuss suffers through his worst start ever: 4 IP, 13 H (including three doubles and three homers), 11 R, 9 ER, 1 BB, and 2 K for a Game Score of –3. As it happens, his previous record for worst Game Score (-2) came exactly 12 years earlier, in 1974.
1986 Ryne Sandberg legs out his only inside-the-park home run.
1988 Atlanta finally wins a game, after starting the year 0-10.
1988 Barry Larkin hits the only inside-the-park home run that Nolan Ryan ever surrenders.
1988 Tony Gwynn is ejected—after asking for it. Sort of. After a call at the plate he disagrees with, he says, “It’s not a strike, and if you don’t like it, you can throw me out.” Yeah, that’s not a smart statement to make.
1993 For the second time this week, Detroit scores 20 runs in a game. In that game, Alan Trammell plays third base. It’s his first time on defense not at short.
1993 Baltimore somehow ends up with three runners on third base. With the bases load, there’s a fly out. The runner on third stays put, but the runner on second advances, and somehow the runner on first makes it all the way there, too.
1993 Mike Hampton makes his big league debut.
1994 Cory Snyder belts three homers in a game. It’s the second time he’s done that.
1995 Cincinnati signs free agent Benito Santiago.
1995 Kirby Puckett goes to the hospital for an eye problem he suddenly developed on March 28. It turns out his career is suddenly over.
1998 Chuck Finley wins his 14th straight game. His line in that span: 124 IP, 98 H, 30 R, 30 ER, 48 BB, and 116 K for a 2.18 ERA.
2000 MLB owners approve the sale of the Royals to David Glass for $96 million.
2001 22 days before his 40th birthday, Tony Gwynn gets his last triple. It’s his first one since 1997.
2001 Barry Bonds belts his 500th career home run.
2001 Ichiro Suzuki, still in his first month in North America, is caught stealing twice in one game. It hasn’t happened to him since then.
2002 Orioles starting pitcher Erik Bedard makes his debut. So does Cincinnati batter Austin Kearns.
2003 Toronto outfielder Reed Johnson makes his major league debut.
2004 After Cleveland’s starting pitcher is rocked—he allows all six batters he faces to reach base—the team brings in Jake Westbrook in relief. He retires all 21 batters he faces, tying for the longest perfect relief outing since 1920.
2006 Pedro Martinez becomes only the fourth pitcher since 1920 to record 200 wins before losing 100 games when he earns the victory today. Lefty Grove, Whitey Ford, and Juan Marichal also did it. Martinez’s record at the moment: 200-84.
2007 Jorge Posada hits his 200th home run.
2008 Colorado tops the Padres, 2-1, in 22 innings in what’s the only known game where both teams toss over 320 pitches (337 for San Diego, 321 for Colorado).
2008 Florida’s Ricky Nolasco allows nine hits, all for extra bases. It’s the most hits allowed without surrendering a single any pitcher has had since at least 1920, and probably ever. He allows four doubles, a triple, and four homers.
2009 Gary Sheffield has an interesting way to join the 500 home run club—he belts a pinch-hit homer. It’s the second pinch-hit shot of his career. The first one happened 15 years earlier.
2009 Jason Kubel hits for the cycle, the third one baseball has witnessed in the last five days.
2009 Catcher Michael Barrett plays in his last game.
2010 Albert Pujols sets a new personal best by reaching base six times in one game. He’s 2-for-5 with four walks as the Cardinals lose, 2-1, in 20 innings to the Mets. The score was 0-0 after 18 frames.
2010 Ubaldo Jimenez tosses the first no-hitter in Rockies history.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Enough with the blowhard managers
Posted by Greg SimonsBobby Valentine, being Bobby Valentine, spouted off about Kevin Youkilis' game prep to the Boston Globe's Pete Abraham:
I don't think he's as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason.
Anyone expecting him not to say things like this doesn't understand Valentine's M.O. He's bombastic, confrontational and publicity-seeking. In other words, he's Boston's version of Ozzie Guillen. You know Guillen, the guy who recently said he loves and respects Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
I get that these two managers enjoy stirring the pot. They love to be the center of attention. They prefer to call our their players in the media instead of addressing their issues face-to-face in the privacy of the clubhouse. What I don't get is why, at least regarding that last point.
Sure, generating controversy boosts their notoriety and helps land them broadcast gigs when they're not in the dugout. That's smart (if annoying) business, helping set them up professionally and financially when their managerial schticks finally wear out their welcome.
But embarrassing their players in public, as Valentine just did and Guillen often did in Chicago, serves only to create a divide between themselves and their players. Who wants to listen to a manager who questions your integrity in public? Who wants to play for a manager who doesn't have your back?
I know these antics bring attention to a team, and as the old saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity. And plenty of people seem to revel in these controversies. But it seems the negative impact of this behavior in the clubhouse—and by extension, the playing field— would outweigh the positive impact of a few more ears and eyeballs focused on the team.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I wish Valentine and Guillen would just shut up.
Greg Simons continues to hold out hope that some major league team will have need of a past-his-prime left-handed shortstop. If you know of such an opportunity, or want to contact him for any other reason, he can be reached at gregbsimons AT yahoo DOT com.
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraMarlins 5, Astros 4: Omar Infante and Hanley Ramirez hit home runs, finally putting that crazy home run sculpture into action. Somehow we all survived, though I'm not ruling out the possibility that we all got thrown into an alternate timeline or something and won't truly realize it until all the crazy occult stuff starts happening. Kind of like when Ash heard that tape of the professor reciting passages from the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. If Logan Morrison starts calling his bat his "boomstick" and decapitates a possessed Giancarlo Stanton, we'll know that there is some serious stuff going down.
Dodgers 5, Padres 4: L.A. sports the best record in baseball at 9-1 following a walkoff RBI single by Dee Gordon. Weird triple play in this one. Runners on first and second and Jesus Guzman squared to bunt. He thought it was foul as did the runners, none of whom moved. Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis fired to third, it went around the horn to second and first and everyone was out. Kind of b.s if you ask me, as the home plate umpire held his arms up as though it were a dead ball at first.
Cardinals 10, Cubs 3: Matt Carpenter only has playing time because everyone on the planet is injured, but he's making the most of it. He's hitting .409 with 10 RBIs in 22 at-bats on the young season. Yesterday he hit a homer, a triple and drove in five. Jake Westbrook allowed only four hits in seven innings.
Braves 7, Brewers 4: Atlanta lost its first four games but has won its last five. Chipper Jones hasn't played much, but he's contributed each time he has played, hitting a three-run homer in this one. Brandon Beachy gave up only three hits and an unearned run in seven innings.
Blue Jays 9, Orioles 2: The Jays put up a seven spot in the sixth inning to turn this one into a laugher and averted a sweep by the Orioles. Kyle Drabek had his second strong start in a row.
Reds 8, Nationals 5: Joey Votto doubled in two in the 11th to help the Reds avoid a sweep in Washington. Grand slam for Ryan Ludwick.
Red Sox 6, Rays 4: Nothing like winning three straight over a division rival while scoring 31 runs to make everyone feel better about everything. Patriots Day game early today during which the Sox will go for the sweep. In other news, Ralph Branca threw out the first pitch. The ghost of Bobby Thomson stole the sign that was relayed to him and smacked it over the left field wall. Don DeLillo is writing all about it as we speak.
Phillies 8, Mets 2: Cole Hamels strikes out ten in seven innings, helping the Phillies avoid the sweep. Ty Wigginton drove in four, three of which came on a bases-clearing double that broke the game open in the eighth. The Phillies now start a ten game west coast swing.
Tigers 5, White Sox 2: Rick Porcello gave up one run in seven and two-thirds and Gerald Laird went 3 for 4 with a homer. Believe it or not, Porcello's win was the first W notched by a Tigers starter this season.
Indians 13, Royals 7: The Indians scored 32 runs in a three-game sweep of the Royals, reminding everyone who thought the Royals were a sexy pick this season that they really don't have the pitching to do it. Unless you count Mitch Maier, who now leads the team in ERA. Travis Hafner murdered a baseball in this one, sending it some 456 feet, which was one of the longest homers in the history of Kaufman Stadium.
Diamondbacks 5, Rockies 2: Yet another game yesterday in which the winner avoided a three-game sweep. Trevor Cahill allowed only four hits, all of them singles, and only one run in seven and a third. Chris Young homered and drove in three.
Rangers 4, Twins 3: Texas scored three in the eighth, capped by a Josh Hamilton two-run bomb. Hamilton has four homers on the season and his 16 for 41. The Rangers lead the AL with an 8-2 record.
Pirates 4, Giants 1: Pittsburgh snaps a five game losing streak. Garrett Jones homered, described in the AP game story as "Jones pulled a solo home run over the right-field arcade." When it landed it hit a guy who was pounding the l-r buttons on Track and Field so hard he couldn't hear the crowd noise, then it bounced over to the other side of the arcade and rolled under the Dragon's Lair machine. Which no one ever really plays because we all feel like it's rigged.
Yankees 11, Angels 5: Jerome Williams got shelled out of the gate, the bullpen didn't help and the Angels slow start continues. Raul Ibanez absolutely destroyed a baseball in the bottom of the seventh, putting it up in the upper deck on one of the longest homers ever hit in new Yankee Stadium.
Mariners 5, Athletics 3: Remember back when the Mariners and A's used to play teams besides each other? I don't. Brendan Ryan hit a homer. I don't remember that happening too often either.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
40th anniversary: Burt Hooten’s no-hitter
Posted by Chris JaffeForty years ago, it looked like the baseball world had it’s latest and greatest phenom on its hands. A new young pitcher was ready for his close-up almost as soon as he arrived in the majors, and based on the early results, he just might have a Hall of Fame career in front of him. The pitcher was young Cubs hurler Burt Hooten, and 40 years ago today, on April 16, 1972, he threw a no-hitter. It was only his fourth career start.
That’s a mighty nice way to start a career, to be sure. But what made it even more impressive was that Hooten’s no-hitter fit in well with his three previous starts. As April 16, 1972, came to an end, Hooten had pitched 30.2 IP in his career and only allowed eight hits. Yes, only eight.
It’s actually a bit more extreme than even that implies. In June of 1971, Hooten came up for a cup-of-coffee start and couldn’t get out of the fourth inning. He allowed three runs in 3.2 innings on five walks and three hits. In his next three starts, Hooten tossed three complete games, allowing a total of five hits. Yeah, that’ll get people’s attention.
The second and third starts came in September of 1971. In his second start, Hooten allowed only three hits while striking out 15 batters. That tied the Cubs all-time franchise record for punchouts in a game. Oh, and those three hits allowed? They all came late in the game. Hooten went 6.2 innings with a no-hitter intact.
In his next turn, Hooten pitched a two-hitter for his first career shutout. There was no flirting with a no-hitter, as Bud Harrelson led off the game with a single, but it’s still five hits allowed over two games. Many fine pitchers never did that in their careers.
But the main event was April 16, 1972. In his first start of the new season, Hooten no-hit the Phillies in a 7-0 win. Rarely has a young talent pitched three consecutive games like the ones Hooten had just unleashed. I’m sure many left the game thinking he was headed to Cooperstown. Instead, he became Burt Hooten, a pitcher with a nice career but only a 151-136 record with a 3.38 ERA.
What went wrong? Well, first, Hooten’s success came in part because he threw a pitch hitters weren’t very familiar with, the knuckle curve, but they got familiar with it and adjusted.
Second, the Cubs didn’t take care of him. There’s a reason why they didn’t win anything for decades. Among other things, they put a terrible defense behind him. In fact, two years later, the 1974 Cubs would have what Wins Above Replacement calculates as the worst defense by any baseball team in at least 90 year: -16.6 defensive WAR. Yeah, that can suck a pitcher’s confidence.
Hooten got worse every year he was with the Cubs but did rebound some after they traded him to LA. By that time, the league had adjusted, and Hooten had lost several valuable years of development. He became a great also-ran in baseball history, but 40 years ago today he was still in the running for greatness.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something occurring X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d rather just skim the list.
Day-versaries
2,000 days since the Cubs sign amateur free agent Starlin Castro. Yeah, they got him young.
4,000 days since Craig Biggio joins the 2,000 hit club.
5,000 days since Paul Molitor steals his 500th base.
8,000 days since Barry Bonds belts the first of his 11 career grand slams.
8,000 days since Andre Dawson draws five walks in one game, all of which are intentional. It’s the only time he ever draws more than three base on balls in one game. The contest goes extra innings, and Cub starter Mike Bielecki pitches 10 frames, making him the last Cub hurler to go that long in one game.
9,000 days since Paul Molitor’s hitting streak comes to an end at 39 games during a nice pitchers’ duel. The Brewers beat the Indians 1-0 in 10 innings as the two starting pitchers combine for 180 Game Score points. Milwaukee pitcher Teddy Higuera gets 94 from a line of: 10 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 0 ER, 10 K, and Cleveland’s John Farrell gets 86 off a line of: 9 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, and 7 K. Only the bullpen surrenders any runs in this one.
9,000 days since the Reds trade Bill Gullickson to the Yankees for Dennis Rasmussen.
20,000 days since Willie Mays belts the first of his six career walk-off home runs.
20,000 days since Moose Skowron hits the first of six career walk-off home runs.
Anniversaries
1887 Until today, no major leaguer ever homered in his first at-bat. Today, two guys do it: Mike Griffin and George Tebeau.
1887 Tommy Tucker, the game’s first great switch hitter (he’ll lead the league in batting average in 1889), makes his big league debut.
1892 Dutch Leonard, Red Sox pitcher who posted a 0.96 ERA in 1914, is born.
1895 It’s the first known instance of a Detroit baseball team being called the Tigers. The Detroit Free Press uses that term to refer to the town’s minor league squad.
1898 About 100 are injured in a crowd of 4,000 when a fire breaks out in the second inning of a St. Louis-Chicago game.
1898 Hall of Fame umpire Tom Connolly works his first game.
1902 Paul Waner, Hall of Fame outfielder, is born.
1905 Orval Overall, pitcher on the Tinker-Evers-Chance Cubs, makes his big league debut.
1906 Star Cub infielders Johnny Evers and Frank Chance are ejected from a game in Cincinnati. Shortstop Joe Tinker isn’t thumbed, but after the game he gets in a fight with a fan outside the park.
1908 Slim Sallee, pitcher who rather famously and definitely bizarrely won 21 games for the 1919 Reds with only 20 walks and 24 strikeout on the entire season (!), makes his big league debut.
1909 Hall of Famer Harry Hooper makes his big league debut.
1914 Max Flack, outfielder, makes his big league debut.
1915 Dazzy Vance, Hall of Fame pitcher, makes his big league debut. He won’t catch on for several more years, though.
1921 Bing Miller, outfielder, makes his big league debut.
1922 Tris Speaker bops his 500th career double.
1926 Sam Rice hits his 100th career triple.
1928 Pepper Martin, outfielder on the 1934 Gashouse Gang, makes his big league debut.
1929 Hall of Fame skipper Billy Southworth manages his first game.
1929 Hall of Famer Earl Averill makes his big league debut in style, becoming the first batter in AL history to homer in his first at-bat.
1929 Dale Alexander, who later wins a batting title, makes his big league debut.
1929 The New York Yankees debut uniform numbers on their back. They’re the first team to do it permanently.
1931 Paul Derringer, 200-game winner, makes his big league debut.
1935 Babe Ruth makes his NL debut with the Braves. He singles and homers off Carl Hubbell.
1935 The Red Sox sign catcher/spy/genius Moe Berg.
1935 Mel Harder and Bobo Newsom engage in an impressive extended pitchers’ duel, with Harder leading Cleveland to victory in 14 innings over Newsom’s Senators. Harder’s line: 14 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, and 6 K for a career-best Game Score of 95. Newsom’s line: 14 IP, 12 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, and 6 K for a Game Score of 83. It’s Harder’s longest outing and tied for Newsom’s longest outing.
1936 Freddie Lindstrom crashes into a teammate who just caught a pop fly, causing the ball to roll away for an inside-the-park home run.
1936 Johnny Mize, Hall of Fame slugger, makes his big league debut.
1938 The Cardinals say goodbye to Dizzy Dean, trading him to the Cubs for pitcher Curt Davis, two other players, and $185,000.
1938 Hall of Fame outfielder Enos Slaughter makes his big league debut.
1940 Bob Feller throws the only no-hitter in the history of Opening Day as the Indians top the White Sox. Chicago’s Luke Appling supposedly fouls off 15 straight pitches at one point, but it doesn’t do him any good.
1940 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has maybe the worst Opening Day ceremonial first pitch any president ever had. He hits a Washington Post photographer right in the camera.
1940 Marty Marion, star infielder, makes hi big league debut.
1940 Reds starting pitcher Paul Derringer posts his 11th consecutive win, his personal best. In this span, he has an ERA of 1.89 over 11 starts, all of which Derringer completes.
1942 Jim Lonborg, ace of the 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox, is born.
1945 Jackie Robinson and fellow Negro Leaguers Sam Jethroe and Marvin Williams try out at Fenway Park for the Red Sox. Boston takes a pass on them all.
1946 Baseball commissioner Happy Chandler announces that all players who jump to the Mexican League will be suspended.
1946 Two notable outfielders make their debut: Hall of Fame Pirate slugger Ralph Kiner, and rifle-armed rightfielder Carl Furillo.
1948 WGN begins televising baseball games for the folks in Chicago. The first game features Jack Brickhouse announcing the White Sox-Cubs Windy City Classic. The South Siders win, 6-3.
1953 In a pitchers’ duel, Harry Breechen of the Browns and Billy Pierce of the White Sox combine to allow three hits. Breechen allows two of them and loses 1-0 on an unearned run.
1953 Connie Ryan of the Phillies gets six hits in the game. He’s the first Phillie of the 20th century to do that. The Pirates win, though, 14-12. Almost all of the scoring comes in the fourth and fifth innings, as each team gets all but one of their run in that pair of frames. Future star reliever Roy Face makes his debut for Pittsburgh in the fifth and allows three runs while recording just one out.
1957 Dick Drott, one of those wunder-kid pitchers who is great for a brief while before ruining his arm, makes his big league debut.
1957 Roger Maris, the 61-homer guy, makes his big league debut.
1959 Dave Philley gets his ninth consecutive pinch hit, a new record.
1961 Dodger coach Leo Durocher gets in a shin-kicking contest with umpire Jocko Conlan. Conlan has protective equipment on his legs and wins this one easily.
1961 Roger Maris gets his first of his 61 homers on the season.
1962 Frank Robinson, underrated great, gets his 1,000th career hit.
1962 Manny Mota, the greatest pinch hitter of his generation, makes his big league debut.
1962 Bob Veale, until rather recently the only Pirate pitcher to fan 200 batters in a season, makes his big league debut.
1963 Duke Snider gets his 2,000th career hit.
1963 Eddie Mathews belts his 400th career home run.
1963 Billy Pierce, who has 10 career balks in 3,306.2 frames, balks twice in this game. He still pitches a complete game shutout for the win, though.
1964 Tony Conigliaro, young slugger, makes his big league debut.
1964 Shea Stadium is christened, literally, as Dodger Holy Water from Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal and Giants Holy Water from Harlem River are applied to it.
1966 Indians pitchers, who fanned 17 batters yesterday, whiff 16 today, for a new two-day record of 33.
1967 Knuckleballer Joe Niekro makes his big league debut.
1967 For the only time in his career, Carl Yastrzemski gets two triples in one game. In all, he’s 5-for-8 with a double and a walk as the Red Sox fall in 18 innings to the Yankees, 7-6.
1969 The White Sox install an Astroturf infield at Comiskey Park. Huh, never heard of that before.
1969 Fernando Vina is born.
1969 Big Red Machine outfielder Cesar Geronimo makes his big league debut.
1970 Reds pitcher Jim Maloney tears his Achilles tendon while running the bases. He’ll never win another game.
1970 Al Kaline suffers through maybe his worst game ever at the plate. He’s 0-for-4 with a GIDP and a career-tying three Ks.
1971 Atlanta signs free agent Luis Tiant.
1972 Dave Kingman hits for the cycle.
1972 Hall of Fame reliever Rich Gossage makes his big league debut.
1975 Hall of Fame staring pitcher Juan Marichal appears in his last game.
1976 Veteran manager Ralph Houk endures his 1,000th loss. His record as skipper: 1,074-1,000.
1977 Red Sox reliever Bob Stanley makes his big league debut.
1977 A’s starting pitcher Vida Blue is forced to discard his old lucky cap because it no longer matches the color, trim, and style, of the Oakland hats. He’ll lead the league with 19 losses. Take that, rational thought processes.
1978 The A’s are 0-for-5 in stolen base attempts versus California and lose, 2-1, in 11 innings.
1978 Bob Forsch does what his brother Ken Forsch had done before him, toss a no-hitter.
1981 Effa Manley, Negro League owner who is the only woman inducted in Cooperstown, dies.
1983 Sparky Anderson manages his 2,000th game. His record: 1,151-847.
1983 Steve Garvey sets a new NL record by playing in his 1,118th consecutive game. Billy Williams held the record until now.
1987 Hall of Fame umpire Jocko Conlan dies at age 89.
1988 Graig Nettles belts his final home run, which is a pinch-hit shot.
1989 Kelly Gruber becomes the first Blue Jay to hit for the cycle.
1992 Due to an error in the lineup card, the Mariners can’t use a DH. Two first basemen are listed instead of one first sacker and one DH.
1993 Jack Morris endures his worst career start: 4 IP, 11 H, 10 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, and 0 K for a Game Score of 3.
1993 Jeff Bagwell belts the only bases-loaded triple of his career. Veteran knuckler Charlie Hough surrenders it.
1995 Montreal trades Marquis Grissom to the Braves for three players.
1996 Tiger slugger Cecil Fielder hits three homers in one game for the third time in his career.
1997 The Cubs set an NL record by starting the year 0-12. Appropriately, they commit three errors in a 4-0 loss to the Rockies.
1997 Detroit releases former star speedster Vince Coleman.
1999 Kevin Brown loses his 100th decision. His record at this point is 140-100.
1999 Curt Schilling has a memorable day at the plate, hitting his only triple and drawing two walks in a game for the only time. The triple is his best-ever blast, as he never homers.
2000 Chuck Finley fans four batters in one inning. Improbably, it’s the third time he’s done that. No one else has ever done it twice, let alone thrice.
2000 Alex Rodriguez hits three homers in one game for the only time in his career. He scores five runs and drives in seven while going 4-for-5 with a walk. The Mariners win, 19-7, over Toronto. Teammate John Olerud sets a personal best by getting on base six times.
2001 Philadelphia retires Jim Bunning’s number.
2002 Lance Berkman of Houston hits three homers in one game.
2004 Matt Holliday makes his big league debut.
2005 Pedro Martinez tosses three wild pitches, his most ever.
2005 Toronto’s Reed Johnson gets hit three times in one game, tying a record.
2005 The A’s top the Dodgers, 1-0 in 10 innings, with the only run coming on a walk-off error. Ouch.
2006 Albert Pujols has one of the greatest games of his career, blasting three homers, the last of which is his sixth career walk-off shot. St. Louis tops Cincinnati, 8-7. To date, it’s Pujols’ best WPA game: 0.987 WPA.
2008 Tampa’s all-time franchise record bottoms out a 330 games under .500 (651-981). They’ll tie that mark twice more later in the month but never go lower.
2009 It’s the first game at the New Yankee Stadium. The home team loses, 12-3. Jorge Posada hits the first home run there.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Friday, April 13, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraGiants 4, Rockies 2: Madison Bumgarner took a no-hitter into the sixth, silencing the Rockies bats that rocked Tim Lincecum's world the night before. That, and some bad defense by Dexter Fowler, prevented Jamie Moyer from becoming the oldest pitcher to ever win a game. Can't have errors behind the old guy or he's toast. Why? Because as Jason Giambi said after the game: "He's not a strikeout pitcher." To which the interviewer responded thusly.
Cubs 8, Brewers 0: Attention Zack Greinke: you're doing this whole free agency push thing wrong (3.2 IP, 9 H, 8 ER). Matt Garza, in contrast, was masterful (8.2 IP, 3 H, 0 ER). Well, almost masterful.
Nationals 3, Reds 2: The first place Nationals won their home opener in front of a sellout crowd. There are, like, three things unusual about that sentence. But over the next several years it will seem pretty normal, I reckon. Ryan Zimmerman scored the winning run on an Alfredo Simon wild pitch in the 10th.
Rangers 5, Mariners 3: Michael Young went 3 for 4 and drove in four. Derek Holland struck out eight in seven and a third. The Rangers have gotten a lot of really good starting pitching over the past three games.
Twins 10, Angels 9: The Twins rapped out 20 hits, including homers from Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau (who were booed earlier in the game, BTW. What the hell is wrong with you people?). Not that it was an offensive tour de force, as Minnesota stranded a bunch of runners. But that paled compared to the Angels' bullpen, which gave up 11 hits and seven runs over the last four innings.
Tigers 7, Rays 2: Drew Smyly made his major league debut for the Tigers. It was rough at first -- he loaded the bases with no one out to start the game -- but wiggled out of it. Still didn't get the win, though, as he threw 90 pitches over four innings. It was Brennan Boesch's birthday, so he partied like it was his birthday, driving in four.
Phillies 3, Marlins 1: Joe Blanton had no trouble handling the Marlins, giving up one run on three hits in seven innings.
Dodgers 3, Pirates 2: The Dodgers sweep. Third game in a row without Vin Scully, by the way, as he recovers from a bad cold. Which just means that when he comes back and the Dodgers don't win the division, I'm going to start claiming that it was because of the curse of Vin Scully. That ought to be popular.
Diamondbacks 3, Padres 1: Ian Kennedy strikes out nine in six innings. A lot of people, myself included, thought that Kennedy would regress some this season. I think what we were forgetting is just how many games he gets to pitch against the Padres each year.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
40th anniversary: The first strike ends
Posted by Chris JaffeForty years ago today, a bit of baseball history was made. Or perhaps it would be better to say that 40 years ago today a key bit of baseball history came to an end.
On April 13, 2012, Major League Baseball and the Players’ Association came to an agreement, ending the first labor strike in the history of big league ball.
It had not been an especially long strike, lasting a little under two weeks. It cost teams only a small number of games, but it was historic nonetheless. It proved that the players really were organized behind labor honcho Marvin Miller and that they were determined to improve their standing in the game. At a certain level, it’s all talk until it becomes a labor strike. Then it becomes actual action. The players were willing to take action.
More than that, taking action worked for them, as they won the strike. The strike didn’t eliminate the main point of contention between the players and owners—the reserve clause. That clause, which allowed teams to keep their players under their control for all eternity, had not been the issue. That would last until overturned by a baseball arbitrator a few years later.
No, but there were very real gains for the players in this strike. They won more money for their pension fund. A minimum salary was instituted. More originally, veteran players could veto a trade if they didn’t like it. This applied only to those who had been in the league 10 years, and had spent the last five with the same team. The 10/5 clause as its still known, would be first invoked the next offseason.
Cubs third baseman Ron Santo would be one of the first (maybe the first) player to use it to kill a proposed deal that would’ve sent him to the Angels. Since Santo first used the clause, some writers nicknamed it the “Santo Clause.” Oh, those wacky writers.
Those were all nice gains, but the big change was the owners agreeing to salary arbitration. This would help fuel salary growth by ensuring that salaries for all players would be pegged on salaries of the best players.
While short-lived, the strike did knock out some games. Most teams lost six to eight, with nine being the most. The owners opted not to reschedule the games. After all, if they did reschedule them, they’d have to pay the players. If the games were cancelled, the players wouldn’t get paid.
This had a couple interesting results. Most notably, it determined the AL East division race. The Tigers topped the Red Sox by a half-game—because they played one more game. Detroit went 86-70 and Boston 85-70. Them’s the breaks.
It’s also interesting to figure how some pitchers might have done if there was a full season. That was a season of gaudy pitching stats—so imagine how much gaudier they could’ve been. Steve Carlton was 27-10 with 346.1 innings pitched. Could he have posted 28 or 29 wins and 350-360 innings? He was on pace for it. Gaylord Perry threw nearly as many innings—342.2.
They all pale before Wilbur Wood. For a team that played 154 games, Wood started 49 times (!), posted a 24-17 record, and threw—are you ready?—376.2 innings. Yeah, that’s a lot. And it was in a reduced season, too. If he can squeeze in three starts in those eight games (not impossible given the way he pitched), he has a chance for 400 innings pitched.
Regardless, the strike happened, and it ended exactly 40 years ago today.
Aside from that, many other events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event occurring X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim the lists.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since the Marlins break ground for their new ballpark.
2,000 days since the Tigers top the Cardinals 3-1 in Game Two of the World Series. The big story is people wondering what was that substance on Kenny Rogers’ pitching hand.
4,000 days since Ramon Martinez plays his last game.
4,000 days since perhaps the best game of Jeff Kent’s career. He goes 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and a home run. He scores a run and drives in seven. Oh, and he also draws a walk.
5,000 days since Atlanta signs free agent Norm Charlton.
5,000 days since Craig Biggio takes the day off, ending his consecutive games streak at 494 in a row.
5,000 days since Kevin Brown wins his 11th consecutive game, his best ever streak. His line in this time: 15 G, 14 GS, 106.2 IP, 102 H, 32 R, 31 ER, 20 BB, 121 K, and 2.62 ERA.
Anniversaries
1866 Herman Long, one of the best defensive players of his day, is born.
1875 Kid Elberfeld, fiery shortstop of the Deadball Era, is born.
1885 Vean Gregg, talented pitcher who blew his arm out, is born.
1889 Claude Hendrix, briefly a star pitcher who was later caught up in gambling scandals, is born.
1902 Ben Cantwell, pitcher who won 20 with the 1933 Braves and then went 4-25 with them in 1935, is born.
1906 Hugh Duffy plays in his last big league game.
1911 Cincinnati releases veteran starting pitcher Jesse Tannehill.
1912 Jack Fournier, slugging first baseman, makes his big league debut.
1914 The Federal League makes its debut. It doesn’t take.
1916 Babe Adams has a near no-hitter. It’s a one-hitter in which the only hit is a ball that squirts out of an infielder’s glove. As it happens, he’ll win only two games all year long.
1921 On Opening Day, Babe Ruth enjoys his only 5-for-5 game ever. He has two doubles and three singles.
1921 Riggs Stephenson makes his big league debut.
1922 Dazzy Vance, age 31, makes his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He loses to Phil Douglass for the Giants. As it happens, when Vance started one game in the majors seven years earlier, the opposing pitcher was that very same Douglass—and Vance lost that one, too.
1925 Stuffy McInnis is released by the Braves.
1926 Connie Mack loses his 2,000th game: 1,987-2,000 for his career at this moment.
1926 Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig pull off a double steal.
1926 Three of Hall of Famers debut today. On the playing end, Pittsburgh’s Paul Waner, and Tony Lazzeri of the Yankees both appear for the first time. In the dugout, Joe McCarthy manages his first big league game.
1926 Walter Johnson wins his final 1-0 complete game shutout, a 15-inning duel over Eddie Rommel of the A’s on Opening Day.
1933 Bill Dietrich, pitcher, makes his big league debut.
1933 Sam West of the Browns gets six hits in a game. It’s an 11-inning game.
1946 Eddie Klepp, a white pitcher playing for the Negro Leagues’ Cleveland Buckeyes, is barred from the field in Birmingham, Ala..
1953 A new era dawns as the Braves play their first game as a Milwaukee franchise. They beat the Reds in Cincinnati, 2-0. It's the first franchise relocation in a half-century. Within 10 years, five more franchises will move. Bill Bruton makes his big league debut in that game for Milwaukee.
1954 One of the greatest players in history makes his big league debut. It’s Hank Aaron He goes 0-for-5 and hits into an inning-ending double play in his first trip to the plate. Cincinnati wins, 9-8.
That Braves-Reds game is the first time in major league history in which the teams don’t leave their gloves on the field after the third out. Also, rookie Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts manages his first big league game. Also, it’s an overflow crowd, causing extra seats to go up and leading to 13 doubles—12 of which are ground rule doubles.
1954 Aside from Hank Aaron, many other players make their debuts, including, Bill Skowron, Bob Skinner, Frank Bolling, Vic Power and Wally Moon.
1954 Major league baseball finally returns to Baltimore as the Orioles lose their first game to the Tigers.
1954 Hall of Fame umpire Nestor Chylak makes his debut.
1954 The Pirates open at home for the first time in 61 years. Don’t ask me what caused that because I don’t know.
1954 Hall of Fame skipper Walter Alston manages his first game. His debut is spoiled by Willie Mays, who hits a two-run homer for a Giants win. It’s Mays’ return to the bigs after his stint in the Army. Calling the game in the booth are Vin Scully and Andre Baruch, who replace Red Barber as the main voices of the Dodgers.
1955 Mickey Mantle is hit by a pitch for the first time in his career. Mind you, he was a rookie four years earlier. He’ll be plunked twice more later this month.
1955 Washington suffers the worst Opening Day blowout ever, losing 19-1 to the New York Yankees.
1962 Nellie Fox legs out his 100th career triple.
1962 The Mets play their home opener, and 12,447 see them lose 4-3 to Pittsburgh at the old Polo Grounds.
1962 Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey gets his first plate assignment and sees Billy Pierce and the Giants beat the Reds.
1962 Stan Musial sets anNL record by scoring his 1,869th run.
1963 Pete Rose gets his first big league his in his 12th at-bat. It’s a triple off Bob Friend of the Pirates.
1964 Cincinnati releases Ryne Duren, whom the Phillies sign that same day.
1965 Davey Johnson makes his big league debut.
1967 Tom Seaver makes his big league debut against the Pirates.
1968 Ron Santo hits his 200th career home run.
1968 Jim Perry has a terrific day, pitching a complete game shutout and belting a home run. His Twins smack the Yankees, 6-0.
1968 Sal Bando hits his first career home run.
1970 The A’s use gold colored bases in their home opener. The Rules Committee will subsequently ban them.
1970 Cincinnati releases veteran pitcher Camilo Pascual, whom the Dodgers sign that same day.
1971 On Opening Day in Montreal, fans stand on snow mounds outside Jarry Park and watch for free.
1975 Al Oliver gets his 1,000th career hit.
1975 Gaylord Perry wins his 200th career game. His record at this point is: 200-157.
1975 Houston retires the number pf Don Wilson, who died in the offseason in an auto accident. (He drove home, passed out behind the wheel of his car with the engine running and garage door closed. He dies, a child of his dies, and another relative or two has to go to the hospital. No, it wasn’t very pleasant).
1975 Brooks Robinson scores four runs in a game for the only time in his career.
1976 The Cubs purchase veteran catcher Randy Hundley from the Padres.
1977 Original THT writer Larry Mahnken is born.
1977 Joe Torre’s 252nd and final career home run is his first pinch-hit homer in over a decade.
1978 Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris reunite in Yankee Stadium to raise the 1977 championship banner. It’s the first time in over a decade they’ve been together. It’s also Reggie Candy Bar Day at the Stadium. When he belts a three-run homer, fans litter the field with his treat.
1980 AL umpire Ted Hendry works the full game with a split in the rear end of his pants and underwear.
1980 Pitcher Dan Quisenberry and catcher Jamie Quirk of the Royals combine for baseball’s first all-Q battery.
1980 In the first Rotisserie auction, Mike Schmidt becomes the first player taken, at $26.
1981 Steve Carlton wins his 250th game. His record at this point: 250-169.
1981 A labor strike at a factory making Louisville Slugger bats begins, with 330 workers walking off.
1982 Ozzie Smith smacks his first home run since Sept. 7, 1978.
1983 Pete Rose becomes the fourth person to get 700 career doubles.
1983 Bo Diaz hits a walk-off grand slam for a 10-9 Phillies win over the Yankees. His total WPA on the day is 1.030, which is the best known WPA by any Phillies batter. He also had a walk, a single, and a double.
1984 Pete Rose gets his 4,000th career hit.
1984 St. Louis retires No. 85 for longtime owner August Busch Jr.
1985 Rollie Fingers notches his 217th save, setting an AL record held by Sparky Lyle.
1987 The Padres hit back-to-back-to-back homers to lead off the first on their Opening Day. Marvell Wynne, Tony Gwynn, and John Kruk do it versus San Francisco.
1988 Rick Honeycutt commits four balks in four innings. He’s the second AL pitcher to do it in two days.
1988 Jose Canseco becomes the first person to hit a ball to the second deck façade at Seattle’s Kingdome.
1988 Will Clark has his most clutch homer, according to WPA. He hits a walk-off homer with two outs and none on in the 11th for a 0.471 WPA.
1991 Dave Winfield hits three homers in one game, plus a double and a single. He sets or ties personal bests in homers, total bases (15), extra base hits (four), runs scored (four), and RBIs (six).
1991 Mike Scott appears in his last baseball game.
1991 Texas Rangers sign free agent Brian Downing, ending his lengthy tenure in California.
1993 The A’s pitchers toss 263 pitches in a 20-4 loss to the Tigers, which is the most known by a team in a non-extra inning game.
1993 Lee Smith becomes all-time save leader when he records his 358th career save. The previously leader? Jeff Reardon. He didn’t lead for long, but he did lead for a bit.
1995 Detroit trades Tony Phillips to the Angels.
1998 Ken Griffey Jr. hits his 300th career home run. It’s only been 23 months since No. 200 for him.
1998 Esteban Yan has the best WPA stint by a relief pitcher in Tampa Bay history. He tosses five perfect innings for a 0.757 WPA. He gets the victory in a 13-12 triumph over the Twins that went 14 innings. It was only the 11th game in franchise history for the Devil Rays.
1998 Lee Stevens of Texas this three homers in one game.
1999 Ivan Rodriguez nails nine RBIs in one game by going 4-for-5 with a pair of homers—including his first career slam. It’s the most RBIs by a catcher since Smoky Burgess also drove in nine on July 29, 1955.
1999 Houston steals nine bases in one game.
2000 Frenchy Bordagaray dies.
2000 Tampa purchases Dwight Gooden from Houston.
2001 Manny Ramirez enjoys his best game, according to WPA. He goes 2-for-5 with a double and three RBIs for a 0.794 WPA as the Red Sox top the Yankees, 3-2. Yes, he has all the team’s RBIs.
2002 Jason Isringhausen of St. Louis, strikes out the side on nine pitches in the ninth versus Houston.
2004 Barry Bonds passes Willie Mays with his 661st home run.
2005 Mike Hargrove wins his 1,000th game from the dugout. His record: 1,000-967.
2005 Albert Pujols has his worst game ever according to WPA: -0.542. He’s 1-for-5 with a game-ending GIDP. The Cardinals lose to the Reds, 6-5.
2007 Houston’s Carlos Lee gets three homers in one game.
2007 Roy Halladay lasts 10 innings for Toronto, a rare feat in the 21st century.
2008 Tom Glavine loses his 200th decision.
2008 Kenny Rogers suffers his seventh straight loss. His line in that span: 11 GS, 60.1 IP, 72 H, 45 R, 40 ER, 29 BB, 33 K, and a 5.97 ERA.
2009 Harry Kalas, longtime voice of the Phillies and NFL Films, dies.
2009 The incredibly unlikely happens for the White Sox. Not only do Sox teammates Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye both join the 300 home run club in the same game, but they do it in consecutive at-bats.
2009 Former baseball wunderkind Mark Fidrych dies in an accident while fixing his truck.
2009 CitiField in New York City makes his big league debut.
2009 Orlando Hudson hits for the cycle.
2010 Florida’s Jorge Cantu becomes the first player in 89 years to get an RBI in each of his team’s first eight games.
2011 Barry Bonds is found guilty on one count of obstruction of justice.
2011 Carlos Delgado announces his retirement. He’d been out for 23 months with a bad hip.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraAthletics 5, Royals 4: Jonathan Broxton walked two batters and hit two batters to blow the game in the 12th inning. That, my friends, is how you blow a save. Without doubt and with authority. None of this pussyfooting around with grounders that just get past an infielder. Decisive action brings order to a world full of chaos.
Rockies 17, Giants 8: Tim Lincecum was beat up for the second straight start, and this time it wasn't just a minor beating. The Rockies touched the Giants' ace for six runs in two and a third innings -- his shortest outing ever -- opening the floodgates for Colorado. He got a no-decision thanks to some equally-bad Rockies pitching, but then the bullpen gave up ten runs and that was that. The Rockies rapped out 22 hits overall, eight of which were doubles and three of which were triples. Lincecum's struggles have to be concerning in the extreme to anyone who gives a crap about the Giants.
Brewers 2, Cubs 1: Castro kicked off the scoring with a sac fly in the first, but no one else on the Cubs wanted to associate themselves with Castro in this highly-charged environment, so he was the only Cub with an RBI. Yovani Gallardo induced approximately 126 ground balls and didn't break much of a sweat in this one.
Rays 4, Tigers 2: Justin Verlander had a one-hitter going and had thrown a mere 81 pitches when the ninth inning began. He threw 23 more in the game without escaping it. A couple of singles and a walk chased him when it was tied 2-2 and Daniel Schlereth was called on for some reason. He walked another guy and Jose Valverde let two score on a Ben Zobrist single. Seeing Verlander go from nearly untouchable to watching singles squirt through here and there was one of the more unexpected things of the young season so far.
Phillies 7, Marlins 1: The Roy Halladay vs. Josh Johnson battle everyone was anticipating was decidedly one-sided. Doc threw seven innings of one-run ball and Johnson couldn't get out of the fourth after allowing six runs on 11 hits. Every position player got a hit for Philadelphia, five of them got two or more.
Padres 2, Diamondbacks 1: Aww, Arizona finally loses a game. They were the last undefeated team in baseball before last night. So, per tradition, the survivors from the last undefeated baseball team will all now crack open their celebratory bottles of champagne, toasting the endurance of their lasting achievement.
Twins 6, Angels 5: Yes, the Twins won, but let us all take a moment and acknowledge that Peter Bourjous is one fast s.o.b. Check out his inside the park homer. Wait for the replay that sticks on him as he's running the bases. He doesn't even really start running hard until he's in between first and second base. And there still was no play at the plate. What happens if he's running hard out of the box? Two times around the bases? Mercy.
Nationals 4, Mets 0: I guess it was getaway day for home plate umpire Larry Vanover too, because the pitching staffs combined for 25 strikeouts. Terry Collins was ejected when he'd seen all he could stand of a zone that had dudes being punched out on balls thrown over the opposite batter's box. Johan Santana was effective but not efficient. Stephen Strasburg was both, and he got the win.
Yankees 6, Orioles 4: The second extra innings game in a row for these two. Nick Swisher's two-run shot in the 10th ended up winning it.
Blue Jays 3, Red Sox 1: Rickey Romero shut the Red Sox down. Boston didn't even have a hit after the third inning. And now they go back to Boston with a 1-5 record. Which is one win better than they were through six games last year, but don't anyone mention it because that screws up the whole panic thing.
Reds 4, Caridnals 3: Joey Votto had four hits and scored the winning run when Chris Heisey singled him home in walkoff fashion. Aroldis Chapman struck out five dudes in two innings of relief work to get the win. Can someone tell me why he's not starting?
White Sox 10, Indians 5: A.J. Pierzynski hit a three-run homer and drove in four as the White Sox pulled away with a five-spot in the sixth inning. The Indians bullpen and offense have been a big problem in the early going, but Manny Acta is not worried:
"Five games is not going to make me panic about my bullpen, my offense, defense or anything like that," Indians manager Manny Acta said. "We have to give it a little more time."
Then he can panic.
Braves 6, Astros 3: Jason Heyward had a night, as he goes 3 for 4 with two RBI and a homer. The big guy has started the year off hot, which is exactly what the Braves need if they have a shot at contention.
Mariners 4, Rangers 3: The M's rallied after finding themselves down 3-0 entering the eighth inning, scoring one that inning and capping it off with three runs off Joe Nathan in the ninth. In other news, Kevin Millwood has had a fork stuck in his back several times over the past decade, but he always seems to find a way to remove it. After missing most of last season, he begins 2012 by giving up a mere one run on six hits to one of the best offenses in the game. He didn't get the win -- thanks Steve Delabar! -- but he was solid.
Dodgers 4, Pirates 1: The Dodgers are now 5-1, thanks in part to Matt Kemp and Juan Rivera, each of whom had three hits. Chad Billingsley was strong again too, allowing only one run over six.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraBraves 6, Astros 4: Chipper Jones came off the disabled list, singled in his first at bat and hit a home run in his second. Dude is on death's door and he hasn't had functional knees since Bush's first term yet he's still the best hitter on this team. Tyler Pastornicky hit his first MLB bomb. In other news, the Astros wore their Colt .45 throwback jerseys and they looked totally amazing. Check out those stirrups, dude.
Rangers 1, Mariners 0: Neftali Feliz didn't allow a run in his first ever -- and long overdue -- major league start. But according to my sources in the ATH Texas satellite office, he wasn't all that crisp out of the gate, elevating pitches and the like. Guess there's more of a margin for error when you're facing the Mariners. Mike Napoli took an ugly one to the noggin but was OK.
Blue Jays 7, Red Sox 3: Daniel Bard got roughed up (5 IP, 8 H, 5 ER). Thankfully no one in Boston overreacts to such things and will give him all the time he need to ease into the rotation rather than freak the hell out and demand that he be moved to the pen. Meanwhile, Kyle Drabek gave up one run on three hits in five and a third. If he comes correct this season the Jays' perceived rotation problems will be way less significant.
Nationals 6, Mets 2: Between learning about David Wright's broken finger and losing their first game of the season, it seems that the Mets are not invincible after all. Jayson Werth went 4 for 5 and drove in two. Ross Detwiler pitched five scoreless innings.
Brewers 7, Cubs 4: The Brewers scored five in the first with the help of an Alex Gonzalez three-run homer.
Yankees 5, Orioles 4: Freddy Garcia threw five wild pitches. That's special. Raul Ibanez doubled in the go-ahead run in the 12th. That's unexpected.
Tigers 5, Rays 2: Work fast, throw strikes. It's pretty easy, yes? Rick Porcesllo made it look so on a cold afternoon. Porcello allowed two runs on four hits in seven innings. Matt Moore was almost as effective for Tampa Bay, but the bullpen gave up three.
Dodgers 2, Pirates 1: Andre Ethier hit a homer with two outs in the eighth to break a 1-1 tie on Dodger Stadium's 50th anniversary. The Beach Boys sang the National Anthem. Brian Wilson was actually there, so it was the actual Beach Boys, not Mike Love and his Twisted, Depressing Beach Boys Tribute Band.
Cardinals 3, Reds 1: The Cardinals are 5-1, are hitting the ball well and are getting great pitching too. I guess they don't quite miss Tony La Russa, Albert Pujols and Chris Carpenter yet. Homers from Carlos Beltran and David Freese.
Diamondbacks 4, Padres 2: Chris Young with a two-run homer in the 12th wins it. He hit it off Micah Owings, who probably should have been playing left field instead, but then again people have been saying that about Micah Owings for years and folks still let him pitch. The Snakes were lucky the game went extras given that their starter, Trevor Cahill, threw more balls than strikes while walking six dudes in six innings.
Royals 3, Athletics 0: Given the forecast I saw yesterday afternoon I'm surprised they even got this one in. But they did, even if it was rain-shortened. Danny Duffy allowed only one hit in six innings while striking out eight. According to the game story there were probably 150 people in the Coliseum taking this one in.
White Sox vs. Indians: POSTPONED: This one was postponed due to a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow. Well, rain, but since the temperatures were falling, it could very well have been snow eventually.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
A baseball card mystery: Reggie Smith and Ryno
Posted by Bruce MarkusenRyne Sandberg was a fine fielding, power-packed second baseman who is now an unquestioned member of the Hall of Fame. Reggie Smith was an underrated star whom some also regard as Cooperstown worthy.
When you combine them on an action shot featured as part of the excellent 1983 Topps set, you have yourselves a gem of a card.
Smith actually accumulated slightly more WAR during his career than Sandberg, 63.4 to 62. That might be a simplistic way to assess Smith’s case for the Hall of Fame, but there is little doubt that he was a superb all-round player who hit with power, batted for a good average, drew walks, stole bases, and played a strong right field, the latter ability reinforced by his cannon-like throwing arm. Smith didn’t even strike out all that much for a legitimate home run hitter, never accumulating more than 95 strikeouts in a single season. Clearly, Smith could do it all.
Those kinds of numbers should have generated Smith a major league contract for the 1983 season, and while the Giants did make him an offer, they were outbid by the Yomiuri Giants of the Japanese League, so Smith took his substantial talents to the Far East.
Yet, this particular baseball card mystery is not solely about Smith’s value as a player, as great as he was. (But feel free to debate his Hall of Fame case.) As usual, it’s about the card, always about the card.
We know that the photograph must have been taken in 1982, because that was Smith’s only season in San Francisco, and it also happened to be Sandberg’s first season as a Cub.
(In 1981, Sandberg played briefly for the Phillies, while Smith put in his final season in Dodger Blue, so that season is simply not a possibility for the card.)
We also know that the ballpark is Candlestick Park, as evidenced by Smith’s home white uniform and the iconic chain link fence in the right field background. And, of course, it is an afternoon game, with the sun shining brightly in the San Francisco sky.
Sandberg, who looks particularly thin in his age-22 season, is safely returning to first base on a pickoff attempt. So while we know that Sandberg somehow reached first base, we don’t know exactly how. It’s a good bet that since the Giants are attempting a pickoff at first, there is likely no runner at second base, and quite possibly no one at third.
Is this enough information to pin down the game and the inning when the photograph was taken? I’m not sure, but let’s give it a try.
Bruce Markusen is the author of seven books on baseball, including the award-winning A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, the recipient of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. He has also written The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, Tales From The Mets Dugout, and The Orlando Cepeda Story.
50th anniversary: Mets first game
Posted by Chris JaffeFifty years ago today, the National League reclaimed its portion of New York City. On April 11, 1962, the New York Mets played their first game.
As anyone who knows baseball history should be aware, that first season for the Mets was not the stuff of wonder and glory. Boy, is that ever a nice way of putting it. That Mets team was the worst of the 20th century, posting a horrible record of 40-120.
The only team with more losses was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who went 20-134. That team hardly counts, though, as their owners bought the St. Louis franchise in the 1898-99 offseason and concentrated all the quality players in the larger St. Louis market, leaving only the dross in Cleveland. Among real teams, the ’62 Mets are the all-time loss leader.
True to form, that first game was a loss. Playing on the road in St. Louis, the Mets were crushed by the Cardinals, 11-4. It started well for the Mets as pitcher Roger Craig retired the first batter the franchise ever faced. Then things immediately went downhill, with Craig allowing three consecutive singles. Then he balked. Thus, for a brief moment, the Mets had more balks in franchise history than innings pitched.
That set things off on the wrong note for the Mets, and they lost each of their first nine games. That stretch included an extra-innings loss to their fellow expansion team, the Houston Colt .45's.
As it happens, at the same time the Mets were off to their horrible start, the Pittsburgh Pirates set a record by becoming the first NL team in history to begin the year 10-0. Between their hot start and the Mets' dismal debut, the Mets were 9.5 games out of first before they ever won a single game. As it happens, when they finally did win a game, it was over those high-flying Pirates. New York’s 9-1 win over Pittsburgh on April 23 ended both squads’ streaks.
That win would be an aberration, as the Mets dropped 16 of their first 19 contests, putting them 13 games out of first place less than a month into the season. It would be a long year for the Mets, indeed. To be fair, immediately after that horrible start, the Mets had their best stretch, winning nine of their next dozen games. Then again, aside from that stretch, the team was 31-117 on the year so—OUCH!
Looking just at the game that took place a half-century ago, the Mets set the following team firsts:
First batter: Richie Ashburn, who flew out. Later in the day, he scored the team’s first run.
First pitcher: Roger Craig. He also recorded their first out, allowed the team’s first hit, surrendered the first run, got called for the first balk, and struck out the first opposing batter.
First hit: Gus Bell got it, in the second inning.
First walk drawn: Felix Mantilla.
First RBI: Charlie Neal drove it in during the third inning. During this game he would also commit the first Mets error.
First home run: Former Brooklyn Dodger hero Gil Hodges swatted it.
First 1-2-3 inning by a pitcher: Reliever Bob Moorhead did it in the fourth, as Craig only lasted three innings. In the fifth inning, Moorhead gave up the first walk in Mets history.
In all, 14 Mets played in that game, seven of whom are still alive: Craig, Mantilla, Don Zimmer, Frank Thomas, Jim Marshall, Hobie Landrith, and Ed Bouchee.
Also, four of the men who played in that game for the Mets later became managers. Hodges won a world title with the 1969 Miracle Mets. Craig won the pennant while helming the 1989 Giants. He defeated Zimmer’s Cubs in that year’s NLCS. The Cubs were one of four teams Zimmer managed. Marshall managed a team nearly as bad as the 1962 Mets, the 1979 A’s, who went 54-108.
At any rate, the Mets got their start in the majors, exactly 50 years ago today on April 11, 1962.
Aside from that, many other baseball events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something that happened X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better items in bold if you’d prefer to skim the list.
Day-versaries
4,000 days since Shawn Chacon makes his big league debut.
4,000 days since Geoff Jenkins gets two home runs, giving him a total five in two games.
5,000 days since Mike Oquist of the A’s has kind of a bad day. His line: 5 IP, 16 H, 14 R, 14 ER, 3 BB, and 2 K for a Game Score of –21. Yes, negative 21. That’s the worst Game Score by any pitcher in decades.
5,000 days since Kevin Mitchell appears in his last big league contest.
5,000 days since Houston hurler C.J. Nitkowski hits three consecutive batters in the eighth inning versus Florida.
6,000 days since MLB signs a $1.7 billion deal with Fox, NBC, ESPN, and Liberty Mutual for broadcast rights to their games.
7,000 days since the Tigers sign free agent Kirk Gibson. It’s a return for him.
9,000 days since Dale Murphy hits his 300th career home run.
9,000 days since Andre Dawson enjoys his second straight two-home run game. It’s his fourth multi-homer game of the month and eighth of the year. (It’s his MVP season in 1987).
Anniversaries
1852 Cap Anson, the first man to get 3,000 hits, is born.
1877 Fred Thayer, the captain of the baseball team at Harvard, designs the first catcher’s mask. His teammate, Jim Tyng, will wear it.
1891 Clark Griffith makes his big league debut. He’ll win over 200 games and later own the Washington Senators for decades.
1907 On Opening Day, the Giants are forced to forfeit to the Phillies when fans reign snowballs down on the field. It’s the only Opening Day forfeit on record. The fans were an overflow crowd that led to some standing on the field, which led to 13 ground-rule doubles hit on the day by the Giants. In that same game, Giants catcher Roger Bresnahan wears cricket leg guards to become the first catcher to wear shin guards.
1907 Hughie Jennings manages his first game. He’s Detroit’s manager, and will stay there until 1920.
1912 Cincinnati’s Redlands Field opens. It’ll later be called Crosley Field and survive until the early 1970s.
1912 Buck Weaver, Black Sox third baseman, makes his big league debut. Also debuting in the big leagues on this day are Del Pratt, and Ossie Vitt.
1913 The Cubs sell James Samuel Tilden Sheckard to the Cardinals.
1928 Burt Shotton manages his first game. Sort of. Previously, he’d managed the Browns on Sunday when then-manager Branch Rickey would take off to keep a promise he made his mother never to play ball on Sunday. In this game, Shotton’s official debut, infielder Pinky Whitney makes his debut with Shotton’s Phillies.
1932 The Cardinals trade Chick Hafey to the Reds for Benny Frey, Harvey Hendrick, and cash.
1949 Joe DiMaggio’s heel acts up on him in an exhibition game in Texas, forcing him to leave. Heal problems will hamper him for much of the season.
1953 Kid Nichols, arguably the best pitcher of the 1890s, dies.
1954 St. Louis trades longtime star Enos Slaughter to the Yankees for Bill Virdon and two other players.
1955 Pedro Ramos, pitcher, makes his big league debut.
1959 Early Wynn wins his 250th career game. His record: 250-203.
1959 Don Drysdale becomes the only pitcher to homer in more than one Opening Day.
1959 Ernie Broglio makes his big league debut. He’ll be a 20-game winner with the Cardinals before being traded to the Cubs for Lou Brock.
1960 The Indians purchase Johnny Klippstein from the Dodgers.
1961 On Opening Day, the Angels win their first ever game, beating Baltimore, 7-2. The former Washington Senators play their first game as the Minnesota Twins, and beat the Yankees, 6-0, on the road. Many players make their big league debut, most notably future Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski, who replaces Ted Williams in left field for Boston. Two notable managers also make their debut on this day: Ralph Houk with the Yankees and Alvin Dark with the Giants. As it happens, they will face off in the World Series.
1963 Don Leppert becomes the first member of the new Washington Senators to hit three homers in one game.
1963 Warren Spahn passes Gettysburg Eddie Plank as the all-time winning lefty with his 328th win.
1964 Bret Saberhagen born.
1966 Baltimore releases former World Series star Don Larsen.
1966 Cincinnati releases veteran pitcher Roger Craig, whom Philadelphia signs that same day.
1966 Detroit purchases Mike Marshall from Philadelphia.
1966 Emmett Ashford becomes big league baseball’s first black umpire.
1967 Hall of Famer Rod Carew makes his big league debut. For that matter, Mustache Gang star Joe Rudi also debuts.
1968 Billy Williams gets his 200th career home run. He also gets No. 199, too.
1968 Pitcher Jack Billingham makes his big league debut.
1969 The Seattle Pilots debut, and fans can see them through numerous holes in the unfinished left-field fence.
1970 The Milwaukee Brewers win their first game, topping the White Sox, 8-4.
1971 Terry Forster, famously mocked by David Letterman as a big tub of goo, debuts.
1972 Jason Varitek, long-lasting Boston catcher, debuts.
1973 Sal Bando belts his 100th home run.
1973 Nolan Ryan lodges his 50th win.
1973 Jimmy Wynn hits his only leadoff home run.
1975 Atlanta releases veteran second baseman Davey Johnson.
1975 The White Sox sign free agent pitcher Claude Osteen.
1975 Hank Aaron returns to Milwaukee. Well, he plays for Milwaukee, though the game is in Cleveland. He gets an RBI in a 6-2 win over the Indians.
1976 Kelvim Escobar is born.
1977 For the only time in his career, Nolan Ryan issues a walk-off walk. He gives Oakland’s Mitchell Page a free pass with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth for a 3-2 A’s win over California.
1977 Toby Harrah hits the rare inside-the-park walk-off home run.
1980 Rod Craig enjoys the best known WPA game by a Seattle Mariner hitter. He goes 3-for-5 with a double, homer, walk, and five RBIs. Despite that, Seattle loses to Toronto anyway, 10-7. His WPA: 0.959.
1980 Fergie Jenkins walks the first batter of the game, something he last did in 1973. He’ll never do it again. That’s one lead-off walk in his final 311 starts. The batter he walks today is Willie Randolph.
1980 Mark Teixeira is born.
1980 Two notable relief aces make their big league debuts: The drug-addled Steve Howe, and also Dave Smith.
1981 Mike Witt, pitcher, makes his big league debut.
1982 Mike Moore, starting pitcher, makes his big league debut.
1984 Alvin Davis, Seattle first baseman who had a decent run for a while, makes his debut.
1985 Dave Kingman launches a ball that hits a support wire in the Kingdome. It’s caught for an out.
1985 Gorman Thomas hits three homers in one game and gets six RBIs.
1985 Roger McDowell, reliever, makes his debut.
1986 Dan Plesac, long-lasting lefty reliever, debuts in the big leagues.
1987 Matt Williams makes his big league debut.
1990 California no-hits the Mariners. Mark Langston starts and lasts seven innings, and Mike Witt finishes it off for the last six outs. California wins, 1-0. It’s Langston’s first game with California and Seattle is his old team. He walks four and California commits one error.
1991 Walker Cooper dies.
1992 Carlos Baerga gets six hits for Cleveland in a 19-inning game.
1994 The Ballpark in Arlington hosts its first Rangers game.
1994 John Olerud has one of the best games of his career, going 4-for-5 with two homers and a double. In his out, he reaches base on an error. He scores four times and drives four in as well.
1995 The Mets sign free agent Brett Butler.
1996 Roger Clemens loses his 100th game. His record: 182-100.
1996 Seattle’s Dan Wilson hits three home runs in one game.
1996 Greg Maddux loses, ending a streak of 18 consecutive road wins. He was 18-0 with a 0-99 ERA in 20 road starts since losing to Montreal on June 27, 1994.
1997 Mark Gubicza plays in his last game.
1998 Kevin Millar makes his big league debut.
2000 Opening Day presents new ballparks in San Francisco, Houston, and Detroit.
2000 Kevin Elster of the Dodgers gets three homers in one game.
2001 Greg Maddux and two relievers combine for a near no-hitter, allowing just one hit. That hit was a second-inning single by Todd Zeile that he barely beat out.
2003 Jeff Kent has the best WPA game of his career: 0.773 WPA. He 1-for-4, but the hit is a walk-off two-run homer with two outs in the ninth for a 3-2 Giants win over St. Louis. That swing is worth 0.897 WPA all by itself.
2003 Montreal plays their first “home” game in Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They win, 10-0, over the Mets.
2004 Mike Mussina joins the 200 win club. His record: 200-112.
2004 Benito Santiago plays in his final big league game.
2006 Derek Jeter enjoys his best game ever, according to WPA: 0.536 WPA. He goes 1-for-4, but the hit is a three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth against Kansas City.
2006 Cincinnati’s Bronson Arroyo hits his second career homer. It comes just six days after his first homer. As it happens, both long balls are against the same pitcher, Glendon Rusch.
2007 Alex Rodriguez gets an extra-base hit in an 11th consecutive game. It’s part of a 23-game hitting streak. He’s 17-for-40 with six doubles and seven homers in this span with an OPS of 1610.
2008 For the third time in six years, MLB adopts a stricter steroids policy, one that calls for increased testing and more power given to outside administrators.
2009 For the seventh time in his career, Albert Pujols hits a grand slam. It’s the first of five he’ll get in 2009.
2010 David Murphy gets on base twice in one game via catcher’s interference. That’s only happened six times since 1920.
2011 Brent Lillibridge hits the 10,000th home run in the history of the White Sox.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Ozzie gets five days for Castro comments
Posted by Mat KovachAnybody seen Jack McKeon?
Apparently much to the surprise of the Miami Marlins, Ozzie Guillen firmly put his foot in his mouth in a recent interview with Time magazine. A Latino manager hired to manage a team in a city that has a neighborhood call "Little Havana" can't say:
"I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that [expletive] is still there."
The reaction to Guillen's comments in Miami was less than favorable, in particular from Cuban refugees who fled their home country because of Fidel Castro. The Marlins gave Guillen a five-game suspension today.
Guillen has drawn attention from the commissioner's office for his comments in the past. In 2006 he was fined and order to take sensitivity training for using a gay slur toward Jay Mariotti, a Chicago sportswriter.
He has apologized for his Castro comments and people who know him say he is about as upset as they have seen him, but the hard fact is that Ozzie and the Marlins are in a difficult position.
It should be interesting to see if Guillen has lost the clubhouse or, at least, the respect of many of his players for his comments. I will admit to not understanding the full depth of Guillen's comments until I talked to a few people from the Miami area. For Guillen, who has called the area home for over a decade, to not understand is quite unbelievable. It may be very hard to Guillen to get his team to completely trust his sincerity in his apology.
But now the Marlins have a larger issue at hand.
The Marlins have a new publicly funded stadium. A stadium, in Little Havana, that will cost the city $2 billion over the next 40 years. The Marlins have lavished millions of dollars on payroll. About the worst thing that could happen to them, in a city where the Cuban community is politically powerful, is for their manager to praise Castro.
Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria had to work with that community to get the new stadium. The pressure on the Marlins from a community of people driven from their homeland by Castro is going to be immense. I am sure the commissioner's office, which lobbied to the same groups for a new stadium, is going to apply further pressure to make sure the Marlins don't have a full blown taxpayer revolt on their hands. One idea of the intensity of the issue can be found here:
“We strongly disagree with the opinion of Ozzie Guillen, and consider it a provocation against the Cuban and Venezuelan communities,” said Miguel Saavedra, head of Vigilia Mambisa. “Tomorrow starts a boycott. We are asking for the resignation of Guillen.”
Miami Mayor Carlos Gimenez has called for "decisive steps" to end the controversy.
The five-game suspension gives the Marlins a bit of time to find the full scope of the damage Guillen has done. It gives the Marlins time to figure out how, exactly, to free themselves of Ozzie.
The Marlins, though, hold some blame here. Guillen also has waverd between supporting and not supporting, Hugo Chavez, president of Ozzie's country of birth, Venezuela, and a Castro supporter. They should have taken this consideration before hiring Guillen.
I am sure they will take it into consideration when they decide his fate. If, before the suspension is up, the Marlins announce Guillen was fired in part because he lost the trust of players in the clubhouse I wouldn't be surprised but it won't be the full reason.
Indians fan, member of the Duane Kuiper Fan Club, Spitball Researcher, Contact me on twitter, @siddfinch, via email or avian carrier
50th anniversary: Dodger Stadium debuts
Posted by Chris JaffeToday marks a memorable anniversary in the history of baseball stadiums. Exactly a half-century ago today, the Los Angeles Dodgers played their first game in Dodger Stadium at Chavez Ravine.
It was a breakthrough—the first of the modern stadiums. Dodger Stadium was the first place to try to get rid of obstructed seats. Up to that point, stadiums sought to maximize capacity (in frequently tiny stadiums) by putting the upper deck seats right over the lower deck, making it impossible for those way back on the lower level to follow the flight of the ball. Dodger Stadium moved the upper deck back a bit to lessen the problem.
Many older stadiums had minimal room for accommodations such as concessions stands. Dodger Stadium ensured there would be more concessions stands, allowing people to buy a wider variety of food and other items. That made the fans happy—and their spending money made the team happy.
Dodger Stadium was hailed as a step forward, and often considered a model for how to build a stadium. It remained that until Camden Yards came around 30 years later to invent a new model.
As of right now, Dodger Stadium is the third oldest stadium in baseball, trailing only Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. Personally, it’s odd for me to type that the third oldest stadium is only 50 years old. As a kid, there were four stadiums much older than that—Wrigley, Fenway, Tiger Stadium, and the eldest of them all, Comiskey Park.
Despite that, Dodger Stadium in many ways outdoes some of those more senior stadiums. Here’s an unlikely fact: Dodger Stadium’s overall official attendance in its history is greater than the overall official attendance of any of those other four places just mentioned. It’s true.
Officially, Dodger Stadium will have its 147,000,000th attendee of a regular season game this Opening Day. Those other places are all under 140,000,000; some well below. Comiskey Park’s 80 years of baseball had less than half Dodger Stadium’s overall total.
(Of course, if you want to go by stereotypes, you could quip that if you adjust by innings seen, Dodger fans fall below Comiskey Park, as LA routers are famous for showing up late and leaving early).
Well, that isn’t quite fair. After all, in the 1980s baseball switched from turnstile clicks to tickets sold when counting official attendance, so many of the Dodger Stadium faithful listed in attendance didn’t actually attend. But that doesn’t explain a two-to-one advantage over Comiskey. Part of it is also era, as the last 20 years of baseball have had far more fans per game than the 1910s-50s (when Comiskey exited but Dodger Stadium didn’t).
Let’s look this up. Below are the top ten stadiums in all-time regular season official attendance (all numbers prior to the 2012 season):
Stadium Attendance Yankee Stadium 151,741,771 Dodger Stadium 146,987,687 Fenway Park 139,452,863 Wrigley Field 135,210,452 Tiger Stadium 104,261,485 Angels Stadium 98,112,726 Shea Stadium 97,336,378 Busch Stadium 90,400,082 Comiskey Park 72,625,477 Veterns Stadium 66,709,435
For the record, I did remember to check stadiums that hosted multiple teams such as Sportsman’s and Connie Mack Stadiums. Overall attendance just wasn’t very high back then, so the places didn’t make the list.
These numbers aren’t perfect as some teams split their seasons in multiple stadiums. The Yankees split 1976 between Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium, for instance, and the Red Sox actually played in Braves Field a little bit way back when. But Dodger Stadium should end up in second place behind Yankee Stadium regardless of how you adjust it. In 2013, it should move up to be the all-time champion stadium in attendance.
Oh, and in that first game on April 10, 1962, the Dodger lost 6-3 to the Reds. That didn’t prove to be a harbinger of things to come. From 1962-2011, the Dodgers have a 2,272-1,714 record at home. That’s a .570 record, equivalent to a 92-70 season. Yeah, that’s a nice home record.
In 50 years, Dodger Stadium has packed them in like few other places in baseball history. Who knows how many will be counted in attendance there before its time is up.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate either their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something that happened X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim the list.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since the Phillies sign Pedro Martinez.
2,000 days since the Cardinals top the Mets 3-1 in Game Seven in the NLCS. It’s the Yadier Molina home run game.
4,000 days since Geoff Jenkins hits three homers in one game. The Brewers top the Expos 8-4 with six RBIs for Jenkins.
4,000 days since the Reds reach their all-time peak franchise record of 408 games over .500 (9,173-8,765). They’ll tie it three days later but never better it. (This includes their AA days).
8,000 days since Tony Gwynn suffers his worst game according to WPA: -0.388 WPA. He’s 1-for-5 with a GIDP.
8,000 days since the Braves release veteran catcher Jody Davis.
8,000 days since Mark Clear’s last game.
8,000 days since Mark McGwire has his best game according to WPA: 0.968 WPA. He goes 3-for-4 with an IBB, double, two homers, and three RBIs in a 7-6 A’s win over the Indians.
15,000 days since Bill Mueller is born.
20,000 days since Ford Frick is elected to another seven-year term as commissioner when his then-current contract expires in 1958.
40,000 days since Ray Kroc, McDonalds dynamo and Padres owner, is born.
Anniversaries
1897 Ross Youngs, Hall of Famer who died very young, is born.
1913 Bill Carrigan manages his first game. He’ll helm the Red Sox to two world titles.
1913 Branch Rickey manages his first game. He’ll last nearly a decade in the dugout before finding his true calling in the front office.
1913 On Opening Day in Washington, Walter Johnson begins a streak of 56 consecutive scoreless innings. He allows an unearned run in the first inning and then Washington beats New York, 3-1. This is also the first game New York plays as the Yankees. They’d been the Highlanders previously. President Woodrow Wilson throws out the first pitch.
1930 Frank Lary, pitcher, is born.
1932 Fred Pfeffer, infielder, dies.
1946 Bob Watson, scored baseball’s 1,000,000th run, is born.
1947 The Dodgers announce they’ve purchase Jackie Robinson’s contract.
1950 Ken Griffey Sr. is born.
1956 Ginger Beaumont, good player for turn-of-the-century Pirates, dies.
1959 Sparky Anderson makes his major league debut as a player. I bet he looked old even then.
1959 Nellie Fox goes 5-for-7 with a game-winning home run in the 14th inning for Chicago’s 9-7 Opening Day win over Detroit. Fox didn’t hit a single homer in 1958.
1959 St. Louis releases Sal Maglie.
1961 There are now 17 teams in the majors as the new Washington Senators lose 4-3 in their debut.
1962 Houston become the first new NL team in 70 years when they beat the Cubs 11-2 in front of the 25,271 fans in Texas.
1962 Dick Radatz makes his big league debut. So do Joe Pepitone and Cookie Rojas.
1962 Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey makes his big league debut. As often is the case with debuting umps, he works third base.
1963 Bill Rigney manages his 1,000th game. His record: 489-510.
1963 The Cubs become the first team to hire an athletic director when they peg ex-Air Force Col. Robert V. Whitlow for the job.
1963 Ray Culp, pitcher, makes his big league debut.
1963 The demolition of the Polo Grounds begin. The same wrecking ball that was used for Ebbetts Field is used here.
1967 Detroit signs free agent Johnny Klippstein.
1968 Don Money makes his big league debut.
1969 The Padres all-time franchise record peaks at three games over .500: 3-0. That’s not a bad start, given that they’ll lose 110 games on the year.
1970 Veterans Stadium, maybe the most widely maligned stadium of that generation of ballparks and home to the worst turf in professional sports, makes its big league debut. It’s the largest crowd in Philadelphia history, 55,352. The Phillies top the Expos, 4-1.
1970 Reds pitcher Don Gullett makes his debut.
1971 Willie Stargell swats his 200th home run. He hits three homers in the game for the third time in his career.
1971 Luis Aparicio sets a personal best with six RBIs in one game. He goes 2-for-5 with a double and homer but his Red Sox lose 11-10 to the Indians.
1973 Royals Stadium opens. It’s usually considered to be the best stadium to come out of the 1970s. The Royals top the Rangers 12-1 on a cold day (39 degrees).
1975 Mike Norris makes his big league debut.
1976 Atlanta signs Andy Messersmith.
1976 In the bottom of the ninth of a Yankee-Brewer game, Don Money hits an apparently walk-off grand slam home run for a 10-9 Milwaukee win, but it’s nullified because the first base umpire claims he called time just before the pitch was thrown. New York goes on to win, 9-7.
1977 The Red Sox and Indians combine to score 19 runs in one inning when Boston gets six and Cleveland 13 in the 8th. Cleveland wins, 19-9.
1977 Juan Bernhardt hits the first homer in Seattle Mariners history.
1979 The White Sox lose on Opening Day 10-2, and look so bad doing so—they walked 12 and made multiple defensive miscues—that team owner Bill Veeck offers free admission the next day to everyone at Comiskey on this day.
1979 J.R. Richard has a rough day, tossing six wild pitches.
1980 Harold Baines makes his big league debut.
1980 Milwaukee’s Sixto Lezcano hits an Opening Day walk-off grand slam. He becomes the first person to ever swat two Opening Day slams, as he’d also nailed one in 1978.
1980 Ron Guidry and Jon Matlack engage in a nice pitchers’ duel. They both throw nine shutout innings with zero walks and only five hits between them. (Guidry allowed two hits, three for Matlack). Texas wins in 12 innings, 1-0.
1981 Chili Davis makes his big league debut.
1982 Andre Ethier is born.
1982 Rick Wise, the first pitcher to beat all 26 teams, plays in his final game.
1982 Minnesota trades Roy Smalley to the Yankees for Greg Gagne, Ron Davis, and a third player.
1982 Wade Boggs makes his big league debut.
1983 Eddie Murray collects his 1,000th hit.
1985 On Opening Day, Cal Ripken, in consecutive game No. 444, sprains his ankle. He stays in the game and x-rays are negative.
1986 Bobby Witt makes his big league debut.
1987 Gary Carter’s longest hitting streak peaks at 16 games.
1987 The Dodgers release longtime workhorse Jerry Reuss.
1989 For the fourth time in his career and third time in his last four starts, Dave Stieb has a complete game one-hitter.
1989 Ken Griffey Jr. belts his first home run.
1993 Tom Kelly manages his 1,000th game. His record: 530-470.
1993 Fernando Vina and Robb Nen both make their big league debut.
1994 Gary Sheffield becomes the first person in 32 years to hit a double, triple, and two homers – but miss the cycle because he never got that single.
1994 Michael Jordan gets his first hit with the Birmingham Barons.
1994 Rick Helling makes his big league debut.
1994 Randy Johnson endures his worst Game Score: -4. He line: 2.1 IP, 8 H, 11 R, 10 ER, 6 BB, 2 K.
1995 Florida signs free agent Andre Dawson. It’ll be the last stop in his career.
1996 Roberto Alomar draws four walks in the game for the only time in his career.
1997 Ryne Sandberg suffers his only 0-for-4 with four Ks game. He has one other four-K game in his career.
1998 The largest crowd in the history of post-renovation Yankee Stadium—56,717—see the Yankees outslug the A’s, 17-13.
1998 Mike Piazza belts a grand slam for the second straight day.
1999 Jim Leyland wins his 1,000th game as manager. His record: 1,000-1,044.
1999 Carlos Beltran belts his first home run.
2000 Ken Griffey Jr. becomes the youngest person to ever get 400 career homers. He’s 30 years and 141 days. It’s been just under two years since his 300th home run.
2003 Colorado pulls off the firs triple play in franchise history.
2003 Craig Biggio sets an NL record with his 31st career leadoff home run.
2003 Tampa Bay signs controversial reliever John Rocker.
2005 John Smoltz ties a personal best by fanning 15 batters. He did it 13 years earlier. Today he needs just 7.1 IP to do it.
2006 Ex-Pirate Howdy Groskloss dies at age 100.
2007 Kenny Lofton hits his first leadoff home run in four years. It’s his 29th career leadoff homer.
2010 The Yankees’ C.C. Sabathia takes a no-hitter into the eighth until Kelly Shoppach singles off of him.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Friday, April 06, 2012
20th anniversary: Camden Yards’ first game
Posted by Chris JaffeToday marks the 20th anniversary in one of the biggest turning points in the history of major league baseball stadiums. On April 6, 1992, the doors opened for the first major league game at the new Orioles Park: Camden Yards.
It was, simply put, a sensation, as many writers and fans hailed it as an instant classic. In fact, some went so far as to proclaim it the best stadium in major league baseball, surpassing previous standards such as Fenway Park and Wrigley Field.
Camden Yards was something new. It was a park deliberately designed to look like a retro-park; an old fashioned one like Fenway or Wrigley. However, unlike those old structures, Camden would have the amenities of a modern park. It was so successful that it kicked off a new wave of stadium building, all made on the Camden model. Even though it is only 20 years old, it’s one of the 10 oldest ballparks that will be used in 2012.
There have been three great waves of baseball park building. The first began with Philadelphia’s Shibe Park in 1909 and lasted a decade or so. These were the first modern parks of steel and concrete. The old flimsy grandstands were a thing of the past. Many of these lasted decades—Fenway and Wrigley are still around.
They were the most advanced parks of their time, but as the decades wore on, people became more aware of their shortcomings. They were often cramped. While they were built to last, they were often built rather quickly in the old days, and people came to want something with better amenities and fewer obstructed views.
In the 1950s franchises began relocating and in the 1960s expansion brought in new teams. This ushered in the second wave of stadiums. These stadiums prided themselves on being more modern and efficient. They would have more amenities, and more leg room. Dodger Stadium helped usher in stadiums that minimized the traditional problem of obstructed views that had so long plagued patrons in the back of the lower deck.
Oh, and going along with the modern theme, these stadiums were often built to house more than one sport. That’s a more efficient use of real estate. Some were even indoors and air conditioned with a field consisting of man-made grass. Say what you will of Astroturf, it’s clear a sign of modern technology.
By the early 1970s, many of the old stadiums used by pre-expansion teams that hadn’t moved came down. By the mid-1970s, only Comiskey Park, Tiger Stadium, Fenway and Wrigley survived.
Here’s a nice little secret for you. When they first went up, these places got really nice reviews. They did have more amenities. They did have fewer obstructed seats. They were much larger and could house more fans. They were an answer to all the problems people had with old stadiums.
That’s nice to point out because over the years the reputations of those places changed considerably. They were denounced as soulless storehouses. The artificial turf seemed like a fake intrusion upon the game. Yes, people liked the plentiful concessions and the like, but over time you could take those things for granted. People longed for the old stadiums, forgetting their downsides. As a kid, I often heard how Fenway and Wrigley were the best stadiums in baseball; not the newfangled ones.
That’s where Camden Yards came in. It self-consciously tried to replicate the charm of the older places with the amenities of the newer ones. So Camden had a manually operated scoreboard in center (like Wrigley) and had a bit of nearby real estate incorporated into the outfield view to give it more character and add to the experience. It won raves.
That’s a nice note to end the story on, but I’m not sure if that’s how the story ends. Please realize that all three generations of stadiums opened to rave reviews, including the later-maligned multi-purpose stadiums. No, Generation Camden will never be denounced the way those stadiums later were—it’s already been 20 years, after all. But part of the appeal of a place like Camden was the contrast it provided to what had come before. There is almost nothing like that left to contrast it with.
When I visited Camden three years ago during a SABR convention, I was struck by how non-striking I found the place. It wasn’t bad, but Camden couldn’t hold a candle to Safeco Field, I thought. It looked like just another stadium to me. I’ve spoken to several other SABR members and most felt the same way—Camden was a letdown.
In fact, the place it most closely reminded me of (and it was a very strong reminder at that) was the White Sox’s U. S. Cellular Field. That’s very ironic because The Cell was the last of the pre-Camden stadiums, and for years Chicagoans railed against it as the stadium build at the wrong time. Aye, but over the years The Cell has a post-facto retro-fication that made it look like Camden. At the same time, Camden Yards also got rid of some of its most distinctive features among modern parks, such as the hand-operated scoreboard.
Camden is the most important ballpark built in at least the last 50 years, maybe the last 100 years. It ushered in a new era, but some of its imitators, such as Safeco or Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, surpassed it.
Nevertheless, Camden Yards did usher in a revolution of stadium construction when it was built, and that revolution began on Opening Day 20 years ago, on April 6, 1992.
Aside from that, many other baseball events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event occurring X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim the list.
Day-versaries
3,000 days since Houston signs free agent Roger Clemens.
4,000 days since the Dodgers sign free agent reliever Jesse Orosco.
5,000 days since the Cubs trade Jon Garland to the White Sox for Matt Karchner.
6,000 days since the Yankees announce that they’ve hired Joe Torre as their new manager.
8,000 days since Davey Johnson manages his 1,000th game. His record: 591-409.
8,000 days since Kirby Puckett belts his 100th home run.
9,000 days since Tim Raines, just three days after scoring five runs in a game in which had only five plate appearances, goes 5-for-5 at the plate for the only time in his career. He hits for the cycle with two doubles. This time, however, he scores “only” four runs.
9,000 days since Mike LaCoss becomes the last Giants pitcher to pitch 10 innings in one game.
15,000 days since the Angels purchase Jeff Torborg from the Dodgers.
30,000 days commissioner Judge Landis blocks a move by the Cardinals to place catcher Gus Mancuso on their International League team in Rochester.
Anniversaries
1889 Al Spalding’s world traveling ballplayers return to the U.S. after a five-month tour elsewhere.
1903 Mickey Cochrane, one of the greatest catchers in baseball history, is born.
1908 Ernie Lombardi, Hall of Fame catcher, is born.
1916 Cincinnati signs controversial first baseman Hal Chase for three years for $25,000.
1937 Phil Regan, reliever, is born.
1947 The Yankees sign amateur free agent Lew Burdette.
1951 Bert Blyleven, recently elected to the Hall of Fame, is born.
1951 Cleveland signs over-the-hill free agent pitcher Johnny Vander Meer.
1966 Cleveland trades Ralph Terry to the Kansas City A’s.
1969 Bret Boone is born.
1970 It’s debut day for the Cincinnati Reds. It’s Opening Day, and in the dugout for the first time is 36-year-old rookie manager Sparky Anderson. When he fills out the lineup card, his starting shortstop is Dave Concepcion, who is also making his big league debut.
1970 Washington releases Zoilo Versalles, a former AL MVP.
1971 The Cubs top the Cardinals 2-1 in 10 innings when Billy Williams hits a walk-off home run off Bob Gibson. Both Gibson and Chicago’s Fergie Jenkins go the distance in the game. Jenkins allows only three hits.
1971 Milwaukee releases Tom Kelly, who will later go on to fame as Twins manager.
1973 It begins. It’s Opening Day in the AL and that can only mean one thing in 1973—the era of the designated hitter is on. Ron Bloomberg is the first one to come to the plate in a major league game.
1973 Gorman Thomas, Brewers slugging center fielder, makes his big league debut.
1973 Carlton Fisk hits his first career grand slam. He hits another homer on the day, making it the first of 24 multi-home run games for him.
1973 In Philadelphia, Danny Ozark makes his managerial debut. With Kansas City, Jack McKeon manages his first big league game.
1973 Pittsburgh retires No. 21 for the recently demised Roberto Clemente.
1974 With Yankee Stadium undergoing renovation, the Yankees begin their tenure in Shea Stadium.
1974 Texas Ranger Fergie Jenkins sets a personal best with a Game Score of 94. His line on the day: 9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 10 K. Bert Campaneris singles off him in the fourth for the only hit Jenkins allows. Jenkins has another Game Score of 94 in his career, but he pitched 12 innings in that one.
1975 Atlanta sells Joe Niekro to Houston for $35,000.
1976 The Yankees release Tommy Davis.
1977 The Seattle Mariners play their first game. They lose 7-0 to the Angels.
1978 In the bottom of the seventh of the season opener, the Reds become the first team to strike out into a triple play. With Joe Morgan on third and George Foster on first, Dan Driessen strikes out. Houston catcher Joe Ferguson then throws out Foster at second. Finishing it off, Morgan is caught straying too far from third and is nailed in a rundown. The Reds win anyway, 11-5.
1978 Shane Rawley makes his big league debut.
1979 Earl Weaver wins his 1,000th game. His record: 1,000-686.
1984 Glenn Wright, terrific fielding shortstop from back in the day, dies.
1984 Two pitchers make their big league debut on this day: Jimmy Key and Mark Gubicza.
1985 San Francisco sign free agent Vida Blue.
1985 San Diego trades reliever/prospect Mitch Williams to Texas. The Rangers will make him a closer, then flip him to the Cubs for Rafael Palmeiro.
1987 Al Campanis makes his infamous appearance on "Nightline."
1988 Todd Stottlemyre makes his big league debut.
1989 On Opening Day, Orel Hershiser gets the obvious nod to start for the Dodgers and in the first inning his scoreless streak, which was at 59 innings when the 1988 regular season ended, comes to an end.
1989 Kenny Rogers makes his big league debut.
1992 Jack Morris gets the start for the 13th consecutive Opening Day, which sets a record. Previously, Tom Seaver and Robin Roberts had 12.
1992 Two notable managers fill out their first big league lineup card today: Jim Riggleman (with the Padres) and Phil Garner (with the Brewers).
1992 On Opening Day, Baltimore’s Rick Sutcliffe tops his old team, the Indians. With this win, he becomes the ninth pitcher to have defeated all 26 teams. The other pitchers are: Rick Wise, Mike Torrez, Gaylord Perry, Doyle Alexander, Tommy John, Don Sutton, Nolan Ryan and Rich Gossage.
1993 Randy Johnson posts his 50th career win.
1993 On Opening Day, Dusty Baker debuts as the new Giants manager.
1993 Relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman makes his big league debut.
1995 Florida signs Terry Pendleton as a free agent..
1995 Kansas City trades David Cone to Toronto.
1996 Exactly three years after posting his 50th career victory, Randy Johnson has win No. 100.
1996 Chan Ho Park becomes the first Korean-born pitcher to win a major league game in North America when he leads the Dodgers to a 3-1 win over the Cubs at Wrigley Field.
1997 One-time sabermetric darling Glendon Rusch makes his big league debut.
1999 Infielder Cristian Guzman makes his big league debut.
2001 Albert Pujols crunches his first career home run.
2001 The Phillies retire Jim Bunning’s number.
2001 Ichiro Suzuki hits his first home run on this side of the Pacific Ocean.
2005 Brad Wilkerson hits for the cycle for the second time in his career.
2006 Pedro Martinez sets a personal “best” by plunking three guys in one game.
2008 Frank Thomas connects for the 11th and last of his grand slams.
2009 Emilio Bonifacio hits the first Opening Day inside-the-park home run in 41 years, since Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1968. His run helps the Marlins beat the Reds, 12-6.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
40th anniversary: Montreal trades Le Gran Orange
Posted by Chris Jaffe40 years ago, baseball witnessed one of more memorable trades. It’s a trade that involved several notable players and arguably wasn’t a very good move for either team.
On April 5, 1972, the Mets went all-out to land the man they wanted, Montreal’s Rusty Staub. He was clearly the best player in Montreal. He was its All-Star in each of the Expos' three years of existence. He hit about .300 with power while playing every day. There’s a reason why the Mets wanted him.
But boy, did the Mets pay to get him. They sent Montreal three young’uns with promising futures in front of them: Shortstop Tim Foli, first baseman Mike Jorgensen, and corner outfielder Ken Singleton.
This is one of those rare cases in which all three young players lived up to their promise. That trio played in 41 seasons after the trade in nearly 5,000 games. Yeah, that’s a lot. Though Staub had a lengthy career in front of him, he couldn’t match that single-handed.
How often are all four players involved in one trade still playing major league ball a dozen years later? Ken Singleton became the first person from this deal to retire when he hung them up in 1984.
So Montreal gained more on-field talent than they gave up. That said, many fans were unhappy with the trade.
There are occasions when off-the-field stuff matters. It doesn’t happen too often, but when t does it can be especially important. Rusty Staub time in Montreal was one of those when the off-the-field issues should be taken into account.
Staub wasn’t merely a fine player for Montreal, he was as effective a goodwill ambassador and public face for the franchise as management could dare dream. Upon arriving in Montreal, he embraced the city completely.
He learned to speak French. He bought a place near the hockey arena, and became a regular at the Montreal Canadians’ NHL contests. Staub didn’t just say the right things and engage in pleasant photo-ups, he lived it. The fans took Staub to heart, nicknaming the red-head “Le Gran Orange.”
It’s always nice for a team to have such a positive, fan-friendly face for its best player. But it might be especially important for an expansion team. The fans there have no history of following the team. They hadn’t grown up living and dying with each win and loss. You have to get them in the habit of doing that. Lord knows the quality of play wasn’t going to bring fans to the games. The Expos lost 289 games in Staub’s three years, including 110 losses in the first season.
The team did improve in 1972 and onward, but fan support fell a tad. Don’t get me wrong. Trading Rusty Staub didn’t spell doom for the Expos. Their problems didn’t really kick in for another two decades. The 1972 attendance drop really was minor, and probably would’ve happened anyway—even if Staub were still there. After all, fans usually do fall away after several years of substandard play, Staub or no Staub. But the Expos would never again have a player as beloved as Staub.
Also, while Montreal got a lot of talent in return, they didn’t keep the best part very long. Ken Singleton was by far the best player coming to Montreal in return, but he lasted only three years there. Then the team packaged him and Mike Torrez to Baltimore for two nobodies and starting pitcher Dave McNally. In his day McNally had been a 20-game winner, but his arm was about to fall off. Instead, Torrez became a 20-game winner and Singleton became a key contributor to Earl Weaver’s squads.
Jorgensen hung around a bit longer, and Foli the longest. They were both decent players, but nothing that special.
For the Mets, the trade was a clear mess up. Not only did all three guys they sent away go on to have long, productive careers, but they got Staub at the worst time possible. Instead of 25-30 homers with a .300 average, Staub suffered through an injury-plagued year, appearing in just 66 games.
He remained healthy from 1973-75, but was only capable of hitting around .280 with not quite 20 homers in a season. The Mets let him go (though Staub later returned as a free agent in the 1980s).
It was a high price the Mets paid, and looking back they would’ve been better off not making this deal.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something occurring X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim the lists.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Atlanta trades outfielder Jeff Francoeur to the Mets for Ryan Church.
1,000 days since Jonathan Sanchez tosses a no-hitter. Had it not been for an eighth inning error, it would be a perfect game.
2,000 days since the Tigers clinch the pennant when Magglio Ordonez hits a walk-off home run to complete a sweep over the A’s. Oakland wins Game Four of the ALCS, 6-3.
2,000 days since the Cardinals top the Mets 5-0 in Game Three of the 2006 NLCS. The match up is Steve Trachsel versus Jeff Suppan. St. Louis’ Suppan tosses a three-hitter for the win while Trachsel records only three outs.
8,000 days since the Yankees trade Dave Winfield to the Angels for Mike Witt. Initially Winfield, a 10/5 guy, rejects the trade, but five days later he’ll approve it.
8,000 days since young third baseman Robin Ventura ends a nightmarish 0-for-41 streak when he beats out an infield single on a ball hit back to the pitcher.
9,000 days since Mike Schmidt enjoys the last of his 44 multi-home run games.
15,000 days since Raul Mondesi is born.
20,000 days since Dolf Luque, probably the best pitcher in the NL in 1923, dies.
20,000 days since Yogi Berra drives in eight runs in one game, his all-time personal best.
25,000 days since the Dodgers resign Leo Durocher to be their manager for 1944. He gets a special clause in his contract stating that for every 100,000 fans over 600,000 the team draws, he’ll get an additional $5,000.
Also, at some point today it will be 1,000,000,000 seconds since speedy Ron LeFlore steals a base and is then immediately picked off because he was too busy reading the Diamondvision scoreboard, which had a historical item up about how that day was the anniversary of the first stolen base.
Anniversaries
1913 It’s the first game ever at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn when the Dodgers top the Yankees 3-2 in an exhibition match. Casey Stengel beats out an inside the park home run. There is no American flag on hand, though, and at first fans couldn’t get into the bleachers because the team forgot to bring the key that opens the gate to that part of the park.
1925 Babe Ruth collapses at a railroad station in North Carolina. He’ll wind up in a New York City hospital and have to undergo an ulcer operation. He’ll be sidelined in bed until May 26.
1934 The Reds hire a new broadcaster to call their games: Red Barber.
1934 Quaker Oates hires Babe Ruth to do three 15-minute broadcast over a week on NBC. This easy gig will pay him more money on the year than the Yankees will.
1946 The St. Louis Browns release former great Cardinal outfielder Joe Medwick.
1953 Pacific Coast League outfielder Herb Gorman suffers a heart attack during a game and dies on the way to the hospital.
1965 Washington acquires slugger Roy Sievers as a free agent.
1971 Houston debuts new, largely orange, uniforms.
1971 St. Louis returns Cecil Cooper to Boston.
1972 Today is supposed to be Opening Day, but it isn’t due to the first players’ strike of the 20th century.
1974 Fred Snodgrass, outfielder who made a famous error in the 1912 World Series and later became one of the men interviewed for The Glory of Their Times, dies.
1974 Robin Yount, only 18 years old, makes his big league debut.
1974 On Opening Day, Nolan Ryan ties a personal high by walking 10 batters in one game. He has only one other 10 BB game in his career, and that came over 13 IP.
1974 Opening Day at Comiskey Park is marred by numerous streakers, who shed their clothing despite 37 degree weather in Chicago.
1975 The Cardinals release Claude Osteen.
1976 The White Sox release Claude Osteen.
1977 The White Sox make a big trade, sending Bucky Dent to the Yankees in exchange for Oscar Gamble, La Marr Hoyt, $200,000 and a prospect not worth mentioning. Dent will hit one of the most famous homers in Yankee history, while Hoyt will win a Cy Young Award for the White Sox in 1983, and Gamble will lead the Sox to a surprising run at the division title in 1977.
1979 Boston wins their season opener, giving team skipper Don Zimmer a career record of 353-352. He’ll be over .500 for the rest of his managerial career.
1979 Then-young pitcher Jesse Orosco makes his big league debut.
1981 The Pirates trade Dave Dravecky to the Padres.
1983 The Padres top the Giants 16-13 in the highest scoring Opening Day game in decades.
1984 Jose Rijo makes his big league debut.
1985 Lastings Milledge is born.
1988 Baltimore signs free agent Mickey Tettleton.
1989 The longest hitting streak of Barry Larkin’s career peaks at 23 games.
1990 Former minor league umpire Pam Postema files a sex discrimination suit against the AL and NL in federal court.
1993 Bob Welch wins his 200th game. His career record at this moment is 200-129.
1993 The Marlins win their first ever game, topping the Dodgers 6-3. The Rockies also play their inaugural games, but are less fortunate, losing 3-0 to the Mets in Shea Stadium. The Rockies game also marks Don Baylor’s managerial debut. The Marlins retire No. 5 for Carl Barger, the team president who died last December. (They pick five because it was the number for his favorite player, Joe DiMaggio).
1993 Dennis Martinez pitches his 11th consecutive career Quality Start, his all-time high. In that span, he’s 6-2 with a 1.58 ERA over 85.2 IP.
1995 Cleveland signs free agent Dave Winfield.
1995 Montreal trades John Wetteland to the Yankees.
1995 The Royals trade Brian McRae to the Cubs.
1997 Larry Walker belts three homers in one game for Colorado.
1997 Former Mets pitcher Sid Fernandez appears in his final game.
1998 Curt Schilling has one the best strikeout performances of his career, fanning 15 in a five-hit complete game.
1998 Eric Milton makes his big league debut with the Twins.
1999 It’s the best known one-game WPA score by a Dodger batter, as Raul Mondesi gets a 1.055 WPA. He’s 4-for-6 with a walk, two homers, and six RBIs as the Dodgers top the Diamondbacks, 8-6.
1999 The Yankees sign free agent Wily Mo Pena.
2000 Atlanta releases veteran shortstop Ozzie Guillen.
2000 Kazuhiro Sasaki makes his North American major leagues debut.
2001 High profiles prospect Ben Sheets makes his big league debut as a pitcher for the Brewers.
2002 Barry Bonds belts the sixth of his 10 career walk-off home runs.
2003 The Mets win, giving new manager Art Howe a career record 42 games over .500 (995-953), which is his highest water mark.
2003 Greg Maddux has arguably the worst start of his career. His line: 2 IP, 8 H, 9 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 2 K. His Game Score of eight ties his lowest ever during his Atlanta tenure.
2004 Joe Mauer makes his big league debut as Twins catcher.
2004 Ozzie Guillen manages his first game.
2005 Derek Jeter hits is his first (and still only) regular season walk-off home run. (He also has a walk-off homer in the 2001 World Series.
2006 Ivan Rodriguez has possibly the best game of his career. He enjoys the only 5-for-5 games of his career with three doubles and a homer.
2007 Daisuke Matsuzaka makes his North American debut with the Red Sox.
2008 Walt Masterson, 1940s/50s pitcher, dies at age 87.
2009 The Mets sign free agent Gary Sheffield.
2010 Atlanta’s Jason Heyward hits a three-run homer in his first big league at bat. It comes of Chicago’s Carlos Zambrano in a 16-5 Braves thrashing of the Cubs.
2010 Mark Buehrle makes the most amazing defensive play by a pitcher you’ll ever see. It’s at the end of this video.
2010 Matt Stairs sets a major league record for a position player by appearing in a game with his 12th team when he makes his Padres debut. He previously played with the Expos, Red Sox, A’s, Cubs, Brewers, Pirates, Royals, Rangers, Tigers, Blue Jays, and Phillies.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
A baseball card mystery: Rich Dauer and Carlton Fisk
Posted by Bruce MarkusenRich Dauer was the American League’s version of Glenn Hubbard. He didn’t hit all that well, had little power, and couldn’t run. But he could play the fundamentals out of second base. Dauer had vacuum-suction hands, a strong arm, and that rock-solid ability to turn a double play without being dropped to the ground. In 1978, he set an American League record for second basemen by playing 86 consecutive games without an error.
At one time, the Orioles considered Dauer the next Bobby Grich. When Grich left the Orioles and signed a monster free-agent contract with the Angels, Dauer succeeded him at second base, though he did end up platooning some with the switch-hitting Billy Smith.
Dauer never had Grich’s offensive ability, nor did he have as much range in the field, but he gave the Orioles solid defensive play up the middle for nearly a decade. He was also Cal Ripken Jr.'s first full-time double play partner, teaming with the Hall of Famer to form a foundation for the Orioles’ 1983 world championship team.
Just last week, the Orioles deemed Dauer worthy of entrance into their Hall of Fame. Along with Mike Mussina, he will be officially inducted on August 25.
Now a coach with the Rockies, Dauer made a memorable appearance in Fleer’s 1982 card set. The 1982 Fleer set is often criticized for its mediocre, out-of-focus photography, but I like the set’s charming simplicity. There is a minimum of design, with just a small banner featuring the player’s name, team and position at the bottom of the card, which allows for a larger allotment of space for the actual photograph. Sometimes the less complicated the card, the better.
But I’ve always had one basic question about the card: Who is playing for the home team? Dauer’s orange jersey doesn’t give us the answer, because the Orioles wore the orange as an alternate uniform both at home and on the road.
Fisk appears to be wearing the Red Sox’ home whites, but this is clearly not Fenway Park given the absence of the “Green Monster” in the background.
The background looks like it could be Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, but there would have been no reason for the Red Sox to wear white during a regular-season road game. So maybe it’s a spring training shot from the Red Sox’s Grapefruit League site in Winter Haven, Florida.
If it is a spring training game, pinning down the game and the inning becomes problematic, if not impossible. If it’s a regular-season game from Memorial Stadium, the task at hand becomes easier. Due to the strike, the Red Sox played in Baltimore only two times in 1981, the year before the card was produced.
But wait a minute. Fisk did not play for the Red Sox in 1981; he had already departed Boston as a free agent and played the entire ‘81 season for the White Sox.
So this photo must have been taken earlier than 1981. Perhaps it was taken in 1980, when the Red Sox played seven times in Baltimore. So when exactly did this Dauer/Fisk play take place?
Bruce Markusen is the author of seven books on baseball, including the award-winning A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, the recipient of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. He has also written The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, Tales From The Mets Dugout, and The Orlando Cepeda Story.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
When are game seven wins inevitable?
Posted by Dave StudemanSomeone interrupted my presentation at the SABR Analytic Conference to tell me that he literally "knew" that the Cardinals were going to win the seventh game of the World Series last year after they broke Texas' heart in Game Six. Someone else (at least, I think it was someone else) commented on my recent critical at-bats article to say that the Mets' win in Game Seven of the 1986 World Series was "inevitable" given that they had burned the Red Sox so badly the day before. I have to admit, I admire their sense of certainty.
On the other hand, I'm a skeptic. It's easy to say that you "know" something when you haven't studied it in detail. You're more likely to pick examples that support your point. You're more likely to interpret everything that happens through your perspective. If you see a Game Six comeback that doesn't lead to a Game Seven win, you're likely to say that the game just didn't have the same impact for some reason. You rationalize it away.
So, I wondered, is there a way to study this issue dispassionately? Can we quantify, in an objective way, how likely a game is to break the heart of the losing team? Why yes, I said to myself, I think there is.
Tense moments in games are measured by Leverage Index. The more high-LI at-bats there are in a game, the more intense it is. Theoretically, these are the games that should break the losing team's heart. So, following is a list of the most intense Game Sixes in World Series history, along with a description of what happened next.
The most intense Game Six ever was last year's. You probably remember the game, and you probably remember how Texas didn't seem to really compete the next day. Score one for the "inevitable" school.
The second-most intense Game Six ever occurred in 1992, the Joe Carter home run game. There was no Game Seven.
The Cubs won an whirlwind 8-7 12-inning game against the Tigers in 1945. The Tigers had scored four in the eighth to tie the game, but couldn't pull off the win. That was the third-most intense Gave Six ever. The next day, with Hal Newhouser on the mound, they won easily. Score one for the "momentum is only as good as tomorrow's pitcher" camp.
Next on our Intense-O-Meter is 1986, Mets over Red Sox. The Red Sox actually had a three-run lead in the sixth inning of the final game, but the Boston bullpen was spent and the Mets took the seventh. I've never quite understood how a team that doesn't have momentum can take a three-run lead (most typical response is "It was the Red Sox. They always toy with us.") but I'll give this one to the Momentum Knowers.
Game Six of the 1975 World Series is virtually tied with the 1986 game, but the Red Sox won this one on Carlton Fisk's famous ability to guide the path of baseballs in the air. Still, the Reds weren't deterred and won the seventh game on a single by Joe Morgan in the ninth. At this point, seems to me the record is 50/50.
Next we've got the 1971 10-inning Game Six squeaker by the Orioles over the Pirates. The Buccos won a 2-1 squeaker in Game Seven. No loss of momentum there.
Then there's the 1991 Kirby Puckett game, extra innings with a Puckett home run finally winning it for the Twins. The next day, Jack Morris spun a 1-0 win over John Smoltz, giving up the winning run in the 10th. I find this one really hard to swallow, given that this game could have gone to either team, but let's say the Momentum Believers saw something here.
A couple more? In 1985, Don Denkinger made a boneheaded call and the Royals pulled a 2-1 win out of the hat with two runs in the bottom of the ninth. Evidently dispirited, the Cardinals lost 11-0 the next day. Definitely an argument for momentum.
We'll finish by citing the 1956 Game Six between the Dodgers and Yankees, a 1-0 win in 10 innings for the boys from Flatbush. The Yankees shrugged it off with a 9-0 win the next day.
So, we've got an even record here. Based on this list, teams that lose dramatic Game Sixes, the types of games that break hearts, are no more or less likely to lose the seventh game. This obviously isn't the last word on the subject, and I'm sure I'll get a hate email or two. But this little survey ought to at least introduce a little bit of doubt for those who believe that Game Seven wins are inevitable after a Game Six heartbreak.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
Silver anniversary: A’s get Eck
Posted by Chris JaffeA quarter-century ago, two teams engaged in what seemed like a fairly routine and scarcely notable transaction, but turned into one of the biggest steals of the 1980s.
On April 3, 1987, the Oakland A’s sent three minor leagues to the Chicago Cubs for Dan Rohn and Dennis Eckersley.
At the time it looked like a simple move. The Cubs were hoping that one of the three prospects would become something useful (none ever did), while the A’s hoped to get the last lingering drops of baseball from Eckersley.
People had good reason to think Eckersley might be through. He’d been a good starting pitcher for a decade, but his 30s hadn’t been kind to him. In 1985, his age 30 season, Eckersley had pitched well—but he couldn’t always pitch. He spent time on the DL, and made only three appearances over a two-month period.
1986 was even worse. While he had health problems the year before, at least he’d been effective when available. In a full season on the hill, Eckersley won just six games while posting a 4.57 ERA. It looked like his clock had expired.
So the Cubs willingly palmed him off to Oakland in exchange for some prospects. And, of course, that’s when Eckersley’s career took a very different course. Instead of winding down, it turned out the 12-year veteran had another dozen years left in his arm.
Oakland manager Tony LaRussa figured that if Eck couldn’t hack it as a starter, maybe he could help out the bullpen. Yeah, that move worked pretty well. Initially a middle reliever, by the end of the year he was the team’s relief ace.
The next year, he topped the league with 45 saves and finished second in the Cy Young Award voting. He began a glorious five-year run capped off by winning the 1992 Cy Young and MVP Awards.
Along the way, he and LaRussa transformed how teams used their relief ace. That Oakland bullpen had plenty of live arms – it’s arguably the greatest bullpen in history. The quantity of strong arms allowed LaRussa to use Eckersley in a more specific manner than teams had previously used their relief aces.
Up to that point in time, relief aces were firemen who could throw up to 100 innings a year thanks to plentiful multi-inning appearances. LaRussa didn’t need Eckersley to do that. Instead, he started saving Eckersley for the ninth inning, allowing him to close out games. Let the middle relievers handle the load until then. The modern closer was born.
Well, sort of. It wasn’t as clear-cut as the above paragraph makes it sound. Even in the MVP-winning 1992 season, Eck tossed 80 innings, considerably more than a modern closer would typically get. But the pattern had been set, and its been adopted by essentially every team since then.
One can wonder how the game might be different if it wasn’t for the trade of Eckersley to the A’s 25 years ago today. Would the A’s have found someone else to be their closer? Or would LaRussa have used his relief ace as a fireman, the way most teams did then? Even if there was no revolution in Oakland, would the current pitching staff alignment have occurred anyway?
Ultimately, those are forever unanswerable what-ifs, because the Cubs did in fact trade Dennis Eckersley to the A’s—and they did it 25 years ago today.
Aside from that, many other baseball events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event occurring X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to skim the list.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since the Mets’ Alex Cora hits a foul ball into the chin of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews. She goes to the hospital, but only has bruises.
1,000 days since Andruw Jones, then with Texas, belts three homers in a game for the second time in his career.
1,000 days since Scott Rolen’s longest career hitting streak maxes out at 25 games.
2,000 days since former Phillies outfielder Johnny Callison dies.
5,000 days since Jim Leyland endures his 1,000th loss as a manager. His career record is 981-1,000 when the game ends.
5,000 days since Ken Griffey Jr. steals three bases in a game for the only time in his career.
6,000 days since the Orioles sign Davey Johnson, a former Baltimore player, as their manager.
8,000 days since Roger Clemens records his 100th win. His record is 100-47.
8,000 days since AA player Bernard Gilkey gets three hits in one inning; a 16-run third inning for Louisville against Nashville. The team has 14 hits in 21 PA in the inning.
8,000 days since Rickey Henderson receives his second and final career walk-off walk.
9,000 days since the Cubs retire No. 26 for Billy Williams.
9,000 days since Mark McGwire establishes a new rookie record by belting his 39th homer of the season, passing the old record co-held by Wally Berger and Frank Robinson.
9,000 days since the St. Louis outfield records zero putouts in a 13-inning game. That sets a new record for longest game with no outfield putouts. St. Louis tops Philadelphia, 4-2.
20,000 days since Cincinnati fans threaten to sue Ford Frick unless Gus Bell, George Crowe, and Wally Post are all on the All-Star team. They each won election in fan voting – fan voting skewed by blatant ballot box stuffing in Cincinnati.
20,000 days since pitcher George Zuverink and catcher Frank Zupo of Baltimore combine to form the first all-Z battery in baseball history. The Yankees beat them, 3-2.
Anniversaries
1856 Guy Hecker, good-hitting pitcher, is born.
1888 The Cubs sell Hall of Fame pitcher John Clarkson to Boston for $10,000.
1899 Brothers Frank and Matthew Robinson, co-owners of the Cleveland Spiders, purchase the St. Louis franchise. They’ll ship all the team’s best players to the larger St. Louis area in the off-season. That ensures the Spiders will go 20-134 in 1899, and also ensures St. Louis won’t be contracted when the 1899 season ends, otherwise the modern day Cardinals wouldn’t be there.
1901 The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the “Indian” Charlie Grant, really a black ballplayer, won’t join John McGraw’s Orioles squad. McGraw had flirted with the idea of passing off Grant as an Indian to try to get around the game’s informal color line.
1919 It’s one of the weirder competitions in baseball history as hefty ballplayer Ping Bodie takes on a challenger in a spaghetti-eating contest. The challenger? An ostrich. Really. The bout goes 11 rounds before the bloated bird passes out.
1923 Former Black Sox Swede Risberg and Happy Felsch sue the White Sox for damages and back salary. The suit won’t succeed.
1930 Chicago Cub catcher Gabby Hartnett catches a ball dropped from the Goodyear blimp. The blimp is 550 feet in the air, allowing Hartnett to break the old record sent by former Washington catcher Gabby Street, who once caught a ball dropped from the top of the Washington Monument, 504 feet in the air.
1930 Wally Moon is born.
1931 The White Sox purchase infielder Lu Blue from the Browns for $15,000.
1937 Dizzy Dean is in an ugly incident as he takes a swing at reporter Jack Miley. Diz’s brother Paul Dean and other Cardinals then attack him.
1938 Washington signs aging free agent outfielder Goose Goslin. It’s a return to a town where he'd had some of his best seasons.
1952 Phenomenal Smith, a 19th century pitcher so cocky (he gave himself the nickname “Phenomenal”) that his teammates once intentionally failed to field behind him, dies.
1962 Minnesota releases aging infielder Billy Martin.
1966 The Mets sign amateur free agent Tom Seaver.
1966 In spring training, Johnny Roseboro has his first at bat versus Juan Marichal since Marichal’s infamous assault on Roseboro the year before. Roseboro smacks a three-un inside-the-park home run off Marichal.
1969 Detroit releases former Pirates star reliever Roy Face.
1969 In spring training with the Pilots, manager Joe Schultz tells the team, “Well boys it’s a round ball and a round bat and you got to hit it square.” Jim Bouton records this wisdom for posterity in Ball Four.
1972 Former 20-game winner Alvin "General" Crowder dies.
1974 Cleveland trades 17-year-old minor leaguer Pedro Guerrero to the Dodgers for Bruce Ellingson. Ellingson will win one major league game while Guerrero will be one of the NL’s best hitters from 1981 to 1987.
1976 Bobby Bonds breaks his finger. He’ll play with it for 99 games this year before opting for surgery. Ouch.
1984 An arbitrator rules that yearlong suspensions for Willie Wilson and Jerry Martin need to be reviewed first.
1984 On Opening Day, the Rangers try to ban their fans from bringing food into the stadium. It doesn’t go well and the lines at concessions stands last over an inning and a fan backlash causes the team to end the ban.
1985 The lords of baseball decide to change the LCS from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven format.
1986 Pedro Guerrero ruptures a tendon in his left knee while sliding into third base.
1989 In one game, two four-decade players make their major league debuts when the Seattle Mariners introduce Ken Griffey Jr. and Omar Vizquel. Elsewhere, Steve Finley also makes his big league debut.
1990 Pittsburgh trades Billy Hatcher.
1991 The White Sox sign free agent Bo Jackson.
1993 Philadelphia releases former Atlanta great Dale Murphy, who Colorado picks up that same day.
1993 Detroit signs free agent pitcher David Wells.
1994 Seattle signs Hall of Fame reliever Rich Gossage for what will be the last year of his career.
1995 With the players’ strike over, Sparky Anderson, who previously said he would never manage replacement players, resumes his job at the helm with the Tigers. Anderson tells reporters, “I can look in the mirror now.”
1996 St. Francis College tops Robert Morris University 71-1 in a game called after four innings. St. Francis scores 26 in the first inning, 22 in the second, only four in the third, then 19 more in the fourth.
1998 Jose Valentin, Milwaukee, hammers a trio of homers in one game.
1998 Javier Vazquez makes his big league debut.
1999 The Reds release minor leaguer Brendan Donnelly. Though Donnelly won’t make his big league debut until he’s 30 years old, he’ll have quite a nice run for himself as a reliever for the 21st century Angels.
2000 Johan Santana makes his major league debut. He pitches one inning of mop up relief in a game Minnesota loses 7-0 to Tampa. The first batter Santana faces, Dave Martinez, flies out.
2000 Two manager begin their dugout careers on this day: Mike Sciosica and Charlie Manuel.
2001 Craig Biggio enjoys his only 5-for-5 game.
2001 Brandon Inge and David Eckstein both make their big league debuts.
2003 The Mets trade Gary Matthews Jr. to the Orioles.
2004 Cleveland trades the troubled Milton Bradley to the Dodgers for two players.
2005 Alex Sanchez becomes the first big leaguer suspended under the steroid policy.
2006 Dan Uggla and Nick Markakis each make their big league debuts.
2010 The Dodgers release veteran first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz.
2010 Jim Pagliaroni, the man who was on deck when Ted Williams homered in his last at bat, dies. Pagliaroni was also one of Bouton’s better friends on the 1969 Pilots. At the SABR convention in Seattle in 2006, Pagliaroni stole the show in a 1969 Pilots panel featuring him, Bouton, Mike Marshall, and Steve Hovley.
2011 Bobby Abreu gets on base seven times in one game. He goes 5-for-5 with a pair of walks, but his Angels lose 12-9 to the Royals.
2011 The Indians set a new record low attendance at Jacobs/Progessive Field: 9,853 paid attendance. This record will be broken the very next day.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Monday, April 02, 2012
10th anniversary: Sean Burroughs debuts
Posted by Chris JaffeTen years ago today, one of baseball’s can’t-miss prospects made the big leagues. He was the sort of player that had all the scouts and analysts raving about him and seemingly had everything lined up to start a magnificent major league career.
There was just one problem. This can’t-miss did miss, and miss badly. His name is Sean Burroughs.
On paper, he seemed like such an ideal prospect as to be something out of a Hollywood script. First, Burroughs had the bloodlines. His father, Jeff Burroughs, was the 1974 AL MVP.
Second, he was a prodigy. As a kid, he led his team to the championship in the Little League World Series. Young Sean even threw a pair of no-hitters along the way. He was always at the front of the class in baseball talent. He shifted to third base and remained a bright hope.
As soon as he graduated high school, the Padres drafted the 18-year-old in the first round of the draft with the ninth pick overall. He went before CC Sabathia, Brad Lidge, and, Adam Dunn, among others.
Burroughs tore up the minors, hitting for high average—though without much power—and remained one of the biggest prospects in all of baseball. After hitting .322 with nine homers in Triple-A in 2001, he was on the verge of his big chance in the majors.
That chance came on April 2, 2002, when he earned the start at third for San Diego. He began his career by facing Arizona ace Curt Schilling. Though Burroughs whiffed his first time up, he rapped out back-to-back singles after that, and the storybook athletic career continued.
He had a nice start, and on May 1 was hitting .300, though with only two walks and four extra-base hits. Then Burroughs went on a skid, going 5-for-51 and working his way back to the minors.
It was the first notable bump in his career, but these things happen. San Diego still had faith in him, and he was the starting third baseman for all of 2003 and 2004. But the glorious promise didn’t quite come. Burroughs could hit, but he had almost no power. In 2004, he belted only two homers, which just isn’t enough in the 21st century.
Then, he injured his knee later in 2004. While recovering from surgery, Burroughs says his life really started to take a darker turn. He delved into drugs. He didn’t just dabble, but fell full into it.
With his personal life sliding, his athletic effectiveness vanished. Burroughs lost his starting job in 2005, and San Diego traded him to Tampa that offseason. He played eight games for them before being released in the middle of the 2006 season. Seattle took a flier on him, but when Burroughs couldn’t perform in the minors, they cut him in June 2007. The can’t-miss was now an epic bust.
Out of baseball, Burroughs fell so fully into drugs it would make Charlie Sheen wince. When he bottomed out in 2010, he was eating food out of dumpsters, staying at fleabag motels in Las Vegas, and so messed up mentally that he would talk to telephone poles.
Fortunately, the story turns around. After bottoming out, Burroughs cleaned himself up, got off of drugs, and began working out. Kevin Towers, his old San Diego GM and now the man in charge of Arizona, gave Burroughs a chance, and in a surprising turnaround, Burroughs made it. On May 19, 2011, for the first time in five years and 15 days, Sean Burroughs stood on a major league diamond.
He was no longer the great hope. Frankly, he wasn’t especially good, and at age 30 it’s unlikely he’ll ever live up to the prophecies once spoken of him. But at least he’s pulled himself out of worst period. There are more important things than becoming a big athletic star.
But I can’t imagine anyone foresaw the way the next ten years would go when Burroughs stood and faced Curt Schilling on April 2, 2002.
Aside from that, many other baseball events celebrate an anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something occurring X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the best ones if bold if you just want to skim the list.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Colorado’s Alan Embree picks up a win despite not throwing a single pitch in a game. He picks off Austin Kearns in the eighth to end an inning, and Colorado then rallies for the win immediately after. The Rockies top the Nationals, 5-4.
1,000 days since Paul Konerko belts three home runs in one game.
2,000 days since Cory Lidle dies in a plane crash in New York City.
3,000 days since Gus Suhr dies.
4,000 days since Barry Larkin, after 7,700-plus plate appearances, finally hits a grand slam.
4,000 days since Carlos Delgado hits three homers in one game for the fourth time in his career.
5,000 days since Dennis Martinez allows the only inside-the-park home run of his career. Added bonus: it’s a pinch-hit shot. The batter is Pittsburgh’s Turner Ward, whoever he was.
5,000 days since Jim Bouton finally appears in Yankee Stadium on Old Timer’s Day. They’d kept him out due to anger about his book, Ball Four.
5,000 days since Neifi Perez, of all people, hits for the cycle.
8,000 days since Andre Dawson blasts the last of his career five walk-off home runs. It also means he’s hit one in three different decades (1970s, 1980s, and 1990s). It's the only walk-off he ever hit as a Cub.
9,000 days since one of the most famous win-now versus win-later trades of all-time: Atlanta sends Doyle Alexander to Detroit for John Smoltz. Alexander will have a great stretch run for the Tigers in a pennant race while Smoltz, well, he’s John Smoltz.
20,000 days since Al Lopez manages his 1,000th game. His record at the time: 613-380.
20,000 days since Bud Black, current Padres manager, is born.
20,000 days since Don McMahon, reliever, makes his big-league debut.
20,000 days since Eddie Mathews has his best one-game WPA performance. He goes 2-for-5 with a two-run homer in a 6-5 Braves win over Pittsburgh. His WPA: 0.713. The home run is a 13th-inning walk-off shot that all by itself is worth 0.684 WPA.
40,000 days since Win Mercer, pitcher, plays in his last game.
Anniversaries
1856 Tommy Bond, the best pitchers of the 1870s, is born.
1869 Hughie Jennings, maybe the best player in baseball during his prime in the 1890s, is born.
1874 The National Association officially adopts the batter’s box.
1907 Luke Appling, Hall of Fame shortstop, is born.
1908 The Mills Commission falsely declares that Abner Doubleday invents baseball. This is why the Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown.
1925 The Phillies select George J. Burns off waivers from the Reds for the last season of his career.
1927 Billy Pierce, great White Sox pitcher, is born.
1931 In an exhibition game in Chattanooga, TN, a 17-year girl named Jackie Mitchell fans Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth.
1932 John Morrill, 1880s manager, dies.
1937 Dick Radatz, great reliever in his prime, is born.
1945 Don Sutton, 300-game winner, is born.
1945 Reggie Smith, star outfielder, is born.
1952 Monte Irvin breaks his ankle sliding into third base in an exhibition game.
1959 Detroit returns minor league prospect Maury Wills to the Dodgers as part of a conditional deal.
1962 Cleveland trades Vic Power and Dick Stigman to Minnesota for Pedro Ramos.
1963 Washington purchases Minnie Minoso.
1970 Jon Lieber, pitcher, is born.
1972 The White Sox release Joe Horlen.
1972 Gil Hodges, Boys of Summer first baseman turned Miracle Mets manager, dies. He was still Mets manager at the time of his death.
1973 The Royals trade Greg Minton to the Giants.
1975 Pittsburgh signs what’s left of Sudden Sam McDowell.
1976 The Orioles and A’s stage a true blockbuster trade. Baltimore trades Don Baylor, Mike Torrez, and Paul Mitchell to the A’s for Reggie Jackson, Ken Holtzman, and a minor leaguer.
1976 Texas releases former star pitcher Clyde Wright.
1982 Under orders from team manager Billy Martin, A’s pitcher Steve McCatty comes to bat with a 15-inch toy bat. This is a protest of the lack of a DH in any NL parks.
1983 The White Sox release troubled outfield Ron LeFlore. (He’s got drug problems).
1984 On Opening Day in Baltimore, President Reagan tries to buy four $2 hot dogs with a $5 bill. Oops.
1984 Davey Johnson enjoys his first game as manager in the big leagues.
1991 Baltimore signs free agent Mike Flanagan.
1991 Milwaukee signs free agents Rick Dempsey, Candy Maldonado, and Willie Randolph.
1992 Houston trades Curt Schilling to Philadelphia for Jason Grimsley. Yeah, Philly got the edge here.
1995 The big 1994-95 strike officially ends as owners accept the players’ March 31 unconditional offer to return to work.
1997 Tino Martinez of the Yankees hits three homers in one game.
1998 Vladimir Guerrero enjoys the first of 42 career multi-home run games.
1998 Mark McGwire enjoys the fourth of five career walk-off home runs.
1998 Ellis Burks homers in his 33rd stadium, setting a new big league record.
1998 Russ Ortiz makes his big league debut.
2000 Atlanta signs free agent pitcher John Burkett.
2000 Boston signs free agent third baseman Gary Gaetti for the final five games of his career.
2001 On Opening Day, it’s the big league debut of Albert Pujols and Ichiro Suzuki. In lesser news, it's also the debut of Shea Hillenbrand, and Jim Tracy manages his first big league game.
2003 Alex Rodriguez hits his 300th career home run.
2003 Mike Bordick’s errorless streak at shortstop ends at 544 chances in 110 games.
2003 Detroit has four pitchers make their big league debuts today, a big league record. The biggest name of them was Jeremy Bonderman. Elsewhere, Shane Victorino also makes his big league debut.
2004 Minnesota purchases Terry Mulholland from Seattle.
2007 Josh Hamilton makes his big league debut.
2008 Kevin Youkilis plays his 194th consecutive game without an error at first base, breaking Steve Garvey’s old record.
2010 Mike Cuellar, 1970s Orioles pitcher, dies.
2011 Ichiro Suzuki gets his 2,248th hit; breaking Edgar Martinez’s club record.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
How to estimate playing time
Posted by Dave StudemanThe real key to forecasting performance in any year is getting a player's playing time right. Sure, averages and percentages rise and fall, but they remain outside our best efforts to make them more predictable. Playing time is tough to predict too, but something can be done here. This is where you come in.
People who follow teams have real insight into who is most likely to play where. So Tangotiger has started his annual Playing Time Survey to get your input. Just head on over to his site, pick your favorite team, and enter your best guess as to who is going to play how often during the season. This is a community project; the results are available to all. So please help by contributing. It will just take a couple of minutes.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
Friday, March 30, 2012
20th anniversary: Sosa-Bell trade
Posted by Chris JaffeThirty years ago today was one of the biggest crosstown trades in Chicago history. In involved two MVPs—one who had previously won one and one who in the future would win one.
On March 30, 1992, the Cubs sent left fielder George Bell&mdashwho’d won the 1987 AL MVP while a member of the Blue Jays—to the White Sox for right fielder Sammy Sosa, who would win the 1998 NL MVP with the Cubs.
Suffice it to say, the North Side got more value in this deal.
It was a frankly bizarre deal for the Sox to make. Bell’s (undeserved) MVP was propelled by a league leading 47 homers, but since then he’d hit 88 homers in four full seasons. His batting average was nothing special, he didn’t draw walks, he couldn’t play defense, and he had a reputation as a jerk.
The Sox weren’t happy with the way Sosa was developing (more on that in a second), but they sold low on Sosa to buy high on Bell. In two years with the White Sox, Bell hit .240 with 38 homers. When the team didn’t use Bell in the 1993 ALCS, he publicly declared that he didn’t respect team skipper Gene Lamont as a manager or a man. On that note, the Sox cut Bell and his career came to an end.
As for Sosa, well, we all know what he did. And we’ve all heard the accusations of PEDs against him. For right now, I’ll look at Sosa the player and prospect at the time of the Bell trade.
Sosa hadn’t performed well on the field on the South Side. In 1991, his first full year in the majors, Sosa batted .233 with 15 homers. The next year he declined to .203 and 10 homers. So you can see why the Sox were looking to dump him.
Sometimes people point to his ugly start as evidence that he’s just a chemical creation. But there’s more to it than that. Upon arrival, Sosa was a big prospect with immense—if extremely raw—talent.
The Sox had gotten him in a trade a few years earlier from Texas. Larry Himes, then the Sox GM, gave up his biggest star, Harold Baines, to get Sosa. There were other players involved (the Sox also got a young Wilson Alvarez in the deal), but Himes’ big love was Sosa. He told everyone that Sosa was a rare, raw talent who had all five tools.
Sure enough, I remember a lot of excitement in Chicago when Sosa first arrived. The first thing that grabbed people’s attention was his arm. The guy could throw the ball hard. His aim wasn’t the best—in fact, it would always suck—but he threw that thing hard.
He wasn’t performing well, but he did seem to have lots of potential. I have one memory. It must be the late summer 1990 at Comiskey Park. Sosa comes to the plate and there’s a big cheer from the crowd. They liked the youngest with all this talent. Then I looked at the Diamondvision in center—Sosa had 10 homers and a .230 average. It’s weird how someone who looked so good out there had such bad results. Even on defense, he made a bunch of errors.
But Sosa regressed instead of impressing the longer he was there and the Sox pulled the plug. Big mistake. Sure he was terrible in 1991, but he also was only 22 years old. A lot of really good players are still in Double-A at that age. Sosa had played 327 games in the big leagues by then.
Sure enough, in an injury-plagued 1992, Sosa improved to a .260 average with the Cubs. The next year he swatted 33 homers. You know the rest. For all the talk about Sosa and PEDs and all that, you don’t hit as many homers as he did without plenty of natural talent. He’s the only guy to homer 60 times in a year four times in a row. He’s not the only guy widely considered to be on special substances.
Ultimately the Sosa-Bell trade worked out a lot better for the Cubs. That said, March 30, 1992 wasn’t all happiness and good moves for the North Siders. On that very same day they released a young pitcher they’d developed, traded away, and just recently picked up as a free agent. That pitcher’s name was? Jamie Moyer. And the Cubs cut him the same day they traded for Sosa.
Yeah, that one didn’t work out too well for them.
Aside from that, many other baseball events today celebrate an anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something that occurred X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim.
Day-versaries
3,000 days since the Giants sign free agent Brett Tomko.
4,000 days since Tony Gwynn, just 22 days shy of turning 40 years old, legs out his last career triple.
4,000 days since Barry Bonds knocks his 500th home run.
4,000 days since Ichiro Suzuki, still in his first month of play in this hemisphere, gets caught stealing twice in one game. He hasn’t done that since then.
7,000 days since Vern Kennedy, big league pitcher, dies.
9,000 days since the Indians trade Phil Niekro to the Blue Jays.
9,000 days since Jack Clark draws two bases loaded walks in one game. They come in the top of the sixth and 14th innings for the Cardinals against the Phillies.
25,000 days since Sandy Alomar Sr. is born.
50,000 days since the big league debut of Charley Jones, an 1880s slugger who is the best player in baseball history whose death date is still unknown. It’s also the debut of catcher Silver Flint, and pitcher George Bradley.
Anniversaries
1857 Tom Burns, infielder, is born.
1866 George Van Haltren, 19th century outfielder who is one of the best players not in Cooperstown, is born.
1904 Ripper Collins is born.
1948 Murry Dickson of the Cardinals pitches the first nine-inning no-hitter in spring training history.
1952 Deacon Phillippe, high quality early 20th century pitcher with the Pirates, dies.
1955 The A’s purchase Ewell Blackwell from the Yankees for $50,000.
1956 The Cubs trade Hank Sauer to St. Louis.
1965 The Indians purchase Stan Williams from the Yankees.
1966 Houston signs Robin Roberts as a free agent.
1966 The joint holdout by Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale ends. Estimates are that Koufax will make $120,000 and Drysdale will get $105,000.
1969 The Pirates sign amateur free agent Omar Moreno.
1971 The Mets trade Dean Chance to the Tigers.
1972 The A’s release Tommy Davis.
1972 Davy Jones, Tigers outfielder during the Ty Cobb days, dies.
1972 Marvin Miller completes his canvassing of player support for a strike. He reckons that 663 players support a strike, 10 oppose it, and two abstain.
1977 Cleveland release overweight veteran Boog Powell.
1978 Billy Cox, infielder, dies.
1978 The Indians trade Dennis Eckersley and Fred Kendall to Boston for Rick Wise, Bo Diaz, and two others.
1979 The umpires vote 50-2 to reject a new offer from the AL and NL. They’ll strike when the season begins instead.
1981 The White Sox purchase Greg Luzinski from the Phillies.
1982 Kansas City trades Atlee Hammaker and three others to San Francisco for Vida Blue and one other. Hammaker will win an ERA title with the Giants in 1983.
1982 The Giants trade Doyle Alexander to the Yankees.
1984 The Yankees trade Graig Nettles to the Padres for Dennis Rasmussen and a player to be named later.
1988 Los Angeles signs Rick Dempsey as a free agent.
1991 Houston signs amateur free agent Melvin Mora.
1993 Comic strip character Charlie Brown belts a home run—his first homer in 43 years.
1993 Toronto releases pitcher David Wells.
1994 Oakland releases future Hall of Famer Rich Gossage.
1998 Cleveland trades Sean Casey to the Reds for Dave Burba.
2000 Benny Agbayani hits a pinch-hit grand slam in a 5-1 win in 11 innings for the Mets over the Cubs in Japan’s Tokyo Dome.
2001 Dwight Gooden announces his retirement from baseball.
2001 Mets prospect Brian Cole dies when his SUV flips.
2005 Boston trades Byung-Hyun Kim and cash to Colorado for Charles Johnson and another player. Boston releases Johnson the same day.
2007 The A’s sign free agent Todd Walker.
2008 In the first game played at the new Nationals Park, Washington tops Atlanta, 4-3.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Happy Retention Bonus Day!
Posted by Matt FilippiWhen the new Collective Bargaining Agreement was signed and announced most people were concerned with the new budgets for spending in the amateur draft and international free agency, and rightfully so. These new regulations will make it harder for teams to get a lot of young, quality talent, but, advocates hope, even things out a little bit.
However, one thing from the new agreement has been a bit overlooked: If a player with at least six years of service time is signed in the offseason to a minor league deal and doesn’t make the team out of spring training, he must be offered a $100,000 retention bonus to go down to the minors.
This being said, the nature of minor league contracts has now changed. Sure, the players signing these types of pacts usually have a chance to make the big league team they have signed with, but if they don’t, things could get interesting. That is why more teams are putting opt-out clauses in contracts for players near the end of spring training. If they are going to make the team, the team doesn't have to pay them anything, but if they aren’t, the player can just opt out and the team won’t have to pay him the bonus.
So now, players are going to start using the month of March as a tryout, so to speak. If they have a good spring, maybe another team can find a useful spot for them on their big league roster and everyone wins. A perfect example of this is Bill Hall. He signed a minor league deal with the Yankees over the winter and doesn’t really stand a chance of making the team with Eduardo Nunez and Eric Chavez ahead of him on the depth chart. He is hoping a team will like what it saw in this stint and sign him.
The reason this is a big deal now is because retention bonuses are due tomorrow. Teams will have to decide whether to invite non-roster invitees north to start the season or pay them to go to the minors. Starting this year, cheap depth will a little bit harder to come by.
Matt Filippi is the creator of Yankees Talk Blog; you can email him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and you can follow him at @Matt_Filippi.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
A baseball card mystery: Garth Iorg and Pepe Frias
Posted by Bruce MarkusenYes, there was a major league player by the name of Garth Iorg. He is one of only two “Garths” in major league history, the other being Garth Mann, who appeared in one game for the Cubs as a pinch-runner in 1944.
Not only did Iorg (pronounced ORJ) have an odd name, but he was also an odd player. He was principally a third baseman, but he had absolutely no power; he hit a mere 20 home runs in nearly 1000 major league games.
He also wasn’t good at reaching base, with a lifetime average of .258 and an on-base percentage of under .300. And as a right-handed hitter, he wasn’t exactly a hammer against left-handed pitching. His lifetime OPS of .677 against southpaws hardly stood out as a major strength in his game.
Yet, the Blue Jays liked Iorg, who was originally signed by the Yankees before being taken in the expansion draft. The Jays felt that he was good enough to be an important part of a third-base platoon with Rance Mulliniks for much of the 1980s. They must have considered him a reliable defender at the hot corner.
Toronto also liked Iorg’s willingness to play other positions, particularly second base. He also could man shortstop in an absolute emergency and occasionally put in appearances at first base and the outfield. A team-oriented player, Iorg played every fielding position except for right field and catcher.
A Fleer photographer presumably took this photo during the 1980 season, with the site being old Exhibition Stadium, the former ballpark for the Blue Jays. Iorg is running between second and third base while being observed by the shortstop for the Rangers.
I’m 99 percent sure the Rangers’ shortstop is the wonderfully named Pepe Frias, one of the many shortstops produced by the town of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic.
(I’ll leave myself a one percent safety net because there is a possibility the shortstop is Nelson Norman, who was Frias’ backup in 1980.)
Growing up in a household where Spanish was spoken, we used to laugh at the mention of Pepe Frias because his name sounded like “Papas Fritas,” which is Spanish for “French Fries.“
Frias was originally signed by the Giants before coming up with the Expos in the mid-1970s. He managed to play in 116 games for the 1980 Rangers despite an OPS of .530. Not exactly a dangerous batsman, Frias was at least a good defensive shortstop.
Given this information, can we pin down the exact game and inning when this photograph of Iorg was taken? If it is indeed Frias in the background, we know he appeared in all six games that the Rangers played at Exhibition Stadium that season. Out of those six games, which is the correct one?
Bruce Markusen is the author of seven books on baseball, including the award-winning A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, the recipient of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. He has also written The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, Tales From The Mets Dugout, and The Orlando Cepeda Story.
50th birthday: Billy Beane
Posted by Chris JaffeToday, one of the most well-known and controversial GMs in sports history celebrates his 50th birthday: Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s.
How many sports GMs have ever become the lead character in a major Hollywood movie? Off the top of my head, I can only think of one, Brad Pitt’s portrayal of Beane in last year’s Academy Award nominated Moneyball.
Let’s take a little bit of time to review his career in Oakland. He’s run the A’s for 14 straight seasons, making him currently the second longest tenured GM in the game. As it happens, he’s also the second longest tenured GM in the Bay Area, as San Francisco’s Brian Sabean is the only one whose been around longer. Beane narrowly edged Brian Cashman for second place.
In that time, Oakland has posted a 1,206-1,060 win-loss record for a .532 winning percentage. Not bad. Overall, it’s the seventh best record by any team in that span. He’s done it while spending “only” $691 million in that period. As huge as that number would look in my bank account, it’s still just the 25th most spent by any team. He’s outspent the Royals, Expos/Nationals, Rays, Pirates, and Marlins. That’s it.
The Bay Area is anything but a small sample size, but the A’s despite their success just can’t draw fans. In Beane’s tenure, they rank 25th overall in attendance. They only teams below them are the ones Oakland outspends.
For perspective, here are how all the records, attendance, and payroll for all teams in the Beane Era, ordered by winning percentage:
Tm W L Pct Attendance Payroll New York Yankees 1369 895 0.605 51,322,316 $2,250,097,312 Boston Red Sox 1285 982 0.567 39,145,041 $1,612,223,731 Atlanta Braves 1281 985 0.565 37,642,146 $1,235,520,754 St. Louis Cardinals 1247 1019 0.550 45,507,278 $1,146,887,994 Anaheim Angels 1221 1047 0.538 40,753,998 $1,223,135,021 San Francisco Giants 1208 1058 0.533 42,094,720 $1,096,661,143 Oakland Athletics 1206 1060 0.532 24,968,705 $691,682,891 Philadelphia Phillies 1201 1066 0.530 37,021,149 $1,178,338,229 Los Angeles Dodgers 1184 1083 0.522 47,049,011 $1,329,229,120 Chicago White Sox 1179 1089 0.520 28,955,888 $1,073,519,832 Houston Astros 1163 1104 0.513 37,731,351 $1,038,700,351 New York Mets 1156 1111 0.510 39,943,233 $1,465,690,348 Minnesota Twins 1153 1114 0.509 28,660,536 $765,234,204 Cleveland Indians 1151 1117 0.507 33,185,050 $897,281,014 Texas Rangers 1145 1123 0.505 34,900,419 $1,038,996,922 Toronto Blue Jays 1143 1124 0.504 27,843,667 $900,066,297 Arizona Diamondbacks 1129 1139 0.498 36,109,901 $948,176,895 Seattle Mariners 1120 1147 0.494 38,128,018 $1,164,266,790 Chicago Cubs 1110 1157 0.490 41,857,571 $1,290,494,258 San Diego Padres 1102 1167 0.486 34,018,968 $724,830,642 Cincinnati Reds 1094 1175 0.482 29,027,251 $790,854,221 Florida Marlins 1081 1185 0.477 19,650,689 $530,838,679 Colorado Rockies 1074 1195 0.473 38,641,011 $893,893,457 Milwaukee Brewers 1062 1204 0.469 32,999,563 $773,368,076 Detroit Tigers 1039 1228 0.458 31,125,219 $1,052,904,735 Tampa Bay Rays 1013 1252 0.447 21,195,863 $579,093,003 Montreal Expos 993 1273 0.438 20,579,468 $616,918,761 Baltimore Orioles 990 1276 0.437 35,679,071 $1,040,841,965 Pittsburgh Pirates 957 1307 0.423 24,583,214 $559,327,156 Kansas City Royals 946 1320 0.417 21,943,846 $647,640,543
The A’s stick out there a bit, don’t they? They’re the only club in the top dozen to spend under a billion, and they’re under $700 million.
But, of course, the Beane era can arguably be cut into two parts. As everyone who read or saw Moneyball knows, Beane succeeded in creating a team that won a ton of games with a meager payroll at the turn of the century. In 2001, they won 102 games with baseball’s second-lowest payroll. A year later, they won 103 with the third-lowest salaried squad.
This was the glory days for Beane and if you were active on the internet back then you can remember all sorts of people who were convinced he was and would always be the smartest GM of them all. You don’t here too much of that talk these days.
The A’s had a great run but that came to an abrupt end after 2006. The A’s enjoyed their eighth straight winning season that year, and finally advanced to the ALCS—only to be swept by the Tigers. Since then, the A’s haven’t had a single winning season. They usually aren’t too bad, and in fact haven’t lost 90 games in a season under Beane, but they keep losing 80-some games a year. Overall, they’ve gone 381-428 (.471) since their last October hurrah.
OK, so the A’s are that good, but let’s compare their win-loss record to their payroll. Here’s the same chart as above, only now restricted to 2007-2011. Again, we’ll organize it by winning percentage:
Tm W L Pct Attendance Payroll New York Yankees 478 332 0.590 19,708,583 $1,024,613,440 Philadelphia Phillies 473 337 0.581 17,589,641 $615,216,897 Boston Red Sox 465 345 0.574 15,182,15 $721,972,056 Anaheim Angels 457 353 0.564 16,359,900 $585,683,698 Tampa Bay Rays 434 376 0.536 8,468,738 $244,234,173 St. Louis Cardinals 431 379 0.532 16,723,521 $477,414,004 Texas Rangers 427 383 0.527 11,907,675 $357,759,607 Milwaukee Brewers 426 384 0.526 14,822,957 $398,712,112 Detroit Tigers 424 387 0.523 13,920,225 $576,135,869 Los Angeles Dodgers 423 386 0.523 17,846,703 $527,004,667 Atlanta Braves 422 388 0.521 12,534,731 $457,809,040 Chicago Cubs 411 397 0.509 15,802,460 $624,481,494 Colorado Rockies 412 399 0.508 13,476,570 $370,272,571 Minnesota Twins 411 401 0.506 13,406,807 $403,967,698 Toronto Blue Jays 410 400 0.506 9,950,144 $385,076,800 San Francisco Giants 409 401 0.505 15,373,908 $466,679,672 Chicago White Sox 407 404 0.502 11,664,701 $559,248,665 New York Mets 403 407 0.498 15,976,905 $655,669,277 Arizona Diamondbacks 401 409 0.495 11,126,067 $305,743,923 Florida Marlins 394 415 0.487 7,215,152 $203,126,219 Cincinnati Reds 394 416 0.486 10,139,282 $363,909,851 Cleveland Indians 391 419 0.483 9,444,393 $332,203,031 San Diego Padres 388 423 0.478 11,412,004 $258,790,323 Oakland Athletics 381 428 0.471 7,891,065 $311,035,466 Houston Astros 365 444 0.451 12,719,474 $441,751,721 Seattle Mariners 362 448 0.447 11,179,409 $495,652,081 Kansas City Royals 347 463 0.428 8,333,457 $302,998,543 Washington Nationals 340 468 0.421 9,849,982 $276,679,428 Baltimore Orioles 336 473 0.415 9,510,540 $394,389,258 Pittsburgh Pirates 326 483 0.403 8,489,899 $215,910,616
The A’s winning percentage ranks 24th overall. If you want to be nice, you can note that their .471 clip is closer to 20th place than 25th, but the point is they’ve done rather poor.
Also, if you look at the payroll, the A’s don’t really stick out like a sore thumb. The team just above them in winning percentage, the Padres, won more despite spending less. Over $50 million less. And north of them the Marlins have spent over $100 less than Beane and won 113 more games. And Arizona has won more than the Marlins despite spending less than Oakland. And if you look way up there, you can see the current sabermetric darling franchise, Tampa, with a lower payroll than Oakland.
Overall, the A’s earned their 24th best record with the game’s 23rd highest payroll over the last five years. Yeah, that’s bad. You should rank lower in record than in payroll. While it’s tough to be the GM of a team that draws poorly, the A’s are still less than what they should based solely on economics.
Yet he’s still around. In fact, in February the team extended his contract through 2019.
To be fair, the 2007-2011 numbers are a bit distorted by the big disappointment of 2007. That year, the A’s raised their payroll to a mid-range level of $79 million, only to fall flat with 86 losses. They immediately slashed payroll after that year.
Right now, Beane is a guy who helped remake baseball by aggressively using and promoting sabermetrics a decade ago to build a consistent winner. But since the league adapted, he’s had trouble finding his footing. Maybe he’ll turn it around again. Only time will tell. For now, it’s a big round number of a birthday for him to celebrate.
Aside from that, many other baseball events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event occurring X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you just want to skim things.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Ramon Vazquez belts the 10,000th home run in Pirates franchise history.
1,000 days since Albert Pujols belts his 10th career slam. It’s his fourth of five on the season.
1,000 days since Manny Ramirez returns from his 50-game PED suspension.
4,000 days since the Phillies retire Jim Bunning’s number.
5,000 days since Kerry Wood outduels Greg Maddux in a 1998 season start.
6,000 days since Anhesuer-Busch announce plans to sell the Cardinals after 42 years of ownership.
7,000 days since Tom Brunansky as a free agent.
8,000 days since the Red Sox trade Lee Smith to the Cardinals for Tom Brunansky.
9,000 days since Steve Carlton posts his 329th and final win.
20,000 days since Baltimore signs amateur free agent Milt Pappas.
40,000 days since the Braves beat the Giants 2-1, with both Boston runs scoring against New York ace Christy Mathewson on wild pitches.
Also, at some point today it’ll be 1,000,000,000 seconds since the birth of C.C. Sabathia.
Anniversaries
1849 George Hall, future Louisville player banned for helping to throw the 1877 pennant race, is born.
1867 Cy Young, all-time win leader, is born.
1889 Washington trades one-time ace fireballer Jim Whitney to Indianapolis for John "Egyptian" Healy.
1910 Bill Dietrich, pitcher, is born.
1921 Ferris Fain, hitter, is born.
1933 Kiki Cuyler, Cub outfielder, breaks his leg. He’ll miss nearly three months.
1935 The Cardinals release pitcher Dazzy Vance.
1938 Former Yankees co-owner Captain Tillinghast L’Hommedieau Huston dies at age 71.
1944 Denny McLain is born.
1945 Jim Hughey, a member of the 120-loss 1899 Cleveland Spiders, and the last pitcher to lose 30 games of the season, dies.
1954 Cubs manager Phil Cavarretta gives his ownership his honest opinion of the team’s chances that season. They fire him for defeatism.
1955 The Red Sox sign free agent Eddie Joost.
1960 Kid Carsey, former 1899 Spider, dies. That leaves only three players left from the 40-120 team: Sport McAllister, Harry Colliflower, and Otto Krueger.
1960 The Giants trade Al Worthington to Boston.
1971 Oakland signs free agent Tommy Davis.
1973 Orange baseball are used in an A’s-Indians exhibition game.
1975 The Yankees release longtime ace Mel Stottlemyre.
1977 Toronto trades John Lowenstein to Cleveland.
1979 63-year-old former ballplayer Luke Easter dies.
1980 Rico Carty is released by Toronto.
1983 The Dodgers become the first team to shut off season ticket sales before the season begins.
1988 The White Sox sign free agent pitcher Jerry Reuss.
1988 Detroit returns John Wetteland to the Dodgers.
1988 Ted Kluszewski dies at age 63.
1989 Atlanta purchases Mark Eichhorns from Toronto.
1991 Texas releases Pete Incaviglia.
1995 The Players’ Association votes to return to the diamond IF the federal courts uphold the NLRB complaint of unfair labor practices against the owners.
1999 Anaheim trades Phil Nevin to the Padres, where he’ll blossom.
2000 The Cubs and Mets open the season in Japan’s Tokyo Dome. The Cubs win, 5-3.
2000 Tampa Bay release starting pitcher John Burkett
2005 Andres Galarraga announces his retirement.
2006 Marquis Grissom announces his retirement.
2008 Houston trades Woody Williams.
2011 MLB creates a new seven-day DL for players who have suffered a concussion.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Extremely early awards voting
Posted by Greg SimonsSure, it's only one game (Mariners 3-1 over the A's in 11 in Tokyo), but a few players already have set themselves apart from the competition, establishing themselves are early front-runners for the American League MVP and Cy Young awards. Here's a look at the candidates and their credentials.
AL MVP
1. Dustin Ackley is slugging 1.000 and on pace for 162 homers, the same number of stolen bases, 324 RBI, and an equal number of runs scored. Naturally, all of those would be major league records. He had the game-winning RBI in Wednesday's contest, too, so he has the clutchiness factor working for him.
2. Ackley's 324-hit pace would shatter the current record. However, Ichiro Suzuki is looking to protect his status as the record holder in that category by getting off on a 648-hit pace, nearly 400 base knocks over the current record of 262 safties. Also, Ichiro's .800 batting average would make Ted Williams' .406 mark look pathetic in comparison.
3. A distant third, Cliff Pennington is batting .400 with a stolen base. Hey, someone has to get those third-place votes.
If you prefer to put one of the pitchers below in the MVP discussion, that's completely understandable. For now, I'm keeping the hitters and hurlers separate.
AL Cy Young
1. He didn't get the Opening Day win, but a low win total didn't stop Felix Hernandez from bringing home the hardware a couple of seasons ago. His eight-inning, six-strikeout, one-run, five-hit, no-walk performance enabled the Mariners to stay in the game long enough for Ackley to execute his heroics. And Hernandez's 1.13 ERA would be just off Bob Gibson's 1968 record of 1.12.
2. Brandon McCarthy did his best to keep pace with King Felix, but he managed to twirl only seven innings of six-hit, one-run ball. He also didn't walk anyone (nor did any other pitcher on either staff), but his mere three punchouts hint at a lack of dominance that could weaken his case as the season progresses.
3. Brandon League preserved the M's win, throwing a shutout frame in the 11th inning, whiffing two batters while allowing one hit. Sure, saves are overrated, but League's peripheral numbers show he's more than just an accumulator.
Greg Simons continues to hold out hope that some major league team will have need of a past-his-prime left-handed shortstop. If you know of such an opportunity, or want to contact him for any other reason, he can be reached at gregbsimons AT yahoo DOT com.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
10th anniversary: Dontrelle Willis trade
Posted by Chris JaffeTen years ago today, the Marlins made a pretty good trade for themselves, though it might not be quite as one-sided as you might think.
On that day they sent two players to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for a four-pack. The only established player was journeyman hurler Julian Tavarez. Along with him were two aging prospects, hitter Ryan Jorgensen and pitcher Jose Cueto. Rounding out Florida’s haul was the real prize, a charismatic 20-year-old lefty by the name of Dontrelle Willis.
Yeah, that ended up working well for the Marlins.
The young Willis spent all of 2002 in the minors, but in 2003 he won his promotion to the majors and made the most of it. He went 14-6 on the year for the Marlins, helping them claim a surprise wild card crown. From there, despite Willis having a poor postseason, the team claimed the franchise’s second world title—defeating Willis’ former team in the NLCS.
Two years later was his dream season, as he went 22-10 with a 2.63 ERA, leading the league in wins, shutouts, and complete games. He finished second to Chris Carpenter in the Cy Young voting. Willis was just 23 years old.
Then, as happens all too often with talented young pitchers, his arm began to go south. The next year in 2006 his record plummeted to 12-12 while his ERA rose to 3.87. 2007 was even worse, He went 10-15 while surrendering the a league leading 118 earned runs. That was his last year with Florida. Since then, he’s won four games over four years with three teams.
Willis didn’t have a great career, but his great peak ensured the Marlins got the better of that trade.
That said, the trade wasn’t a complete blow out. While the Cubs gave up more than they got, they got some usable parts. In order to get Willis, the Marlins sent Chicago former closer Antonio Alfonseca and reclamation project Matt Clement. Alfonseca was a dud in Chicago, but Clement worked out nicely.
Clement always had a nice fastball, but he lacked control. In 2000 with the Padres, he led the league in walks and wild pitches, en route to a 13-17 season with a 5.14 ERA. Florida picked him up in 2001, only to see Clement post another ERA over 5.00 while again lead the league in wild pitches (despite tossing barely enough innings to qualify for the ERA title).
In Chicago, Clement figured it out. A man who’d walked five batters per nine innings over the previous two years issued only 3.7BB/9IP. He proved to be a pretty reliable starter for the Cubs for the next three years. He was never great like Willis, but Clement helped the Cubs advance to the playoffs in 2003.
In the 2003 NLCS, Clement won his only start, Game Four. Making it a tad sweeter, the pitcher he outdueled on that day was none other than Dontrelle Willis. That victory gave the Cubs a three-games-to-one lead in the NLCS, and had they won one of the remaining trio of games, Chicago likely wouldn’t have minded the Cubs losing that trade as flags fly forever. However, it’s the Cubs and as everyone knows in Wrigley Field flags fly for never.
Aside from that, many other baseball events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event occurring X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you just want to skim the list.
Day-versaries
2,000 days since the Cardinals top the Padres 2-0 in Game Two of the 2006 NLDS. Five St. Louis pitchers combine to throw a four-hitter against San Diego.
3,000 days since Colorado signs free agent Jeromy Burnitz.
4,000 days since Miguel Tejada belts the 10,000th home run in A’s history.
4,000 days since San Diego retires Dave Winfield’s number.
4,000 days since major league baseball has a record 11 games decided by one run.
5,000 days since Carlos Delgado becomes the first player to hit a ball into the fifth deck of the Skydome.
5,000 days since the death of slap hitter Elmer Valo.
6,000 days since the King County Council approves a plan for a new $230,000,000 stadium for the Mariners.
6,000 days since the Yankees name Bob Watson their new GM.
6,000 days since the Cardinals hire Tony LaRussa as their manager.
8,000 days since Gary Carter’s only pinch-hit home run. It’s his 305th career homer overall.
20,000 days since Doug Jones is born.
Anniversaries
1878 Miller Huggins, Hall of Fame manager, is born.
1890 The Inter-State League rejects the membership application of an all-black club.
1902 The Chicago NL team is first publicly referred to as the “Cubs” when a newspaper says “[team manager] Frank Selee will devote his strongest efforts on the team work of the new Cubs this year.” This nickname would have a nice future in front of it (even though the franchise itself wouldn’t).
1927 Joe Start, early baseball star, dies.
1931 E. S. Bernard, AL president since 1927, dies at age 56.
1938 Luke Appling, White Sox star shortstop, breaks his leg sliding and will miss half the season.
1948 Hank Greenberg invests $100,000 from Cleveland and joins Bill Veeck as a team VP.
1951 Dick Ruthven, pitcher, is born.
1961 Cardinals pitcher Larry Jackson breaks his jaw when hit by a fragment of Duke Snider’s broken bat. Jackson will be out four weeks.
1967 Jaime Navarro, problematic pitcher, is born.
1973 The Braves unconditionally release former star Denny McLain.
1973 Minnesota trades Jim Perry to Detroit. He becomes the first player with 5/10 year power to OK a trade.
1975 Steve Blass is released by Pittsburgh.
1978 A’s owner Charles O. Finley cancels a deal that would’ve sent the team to Denver under the sponsorship of oil magnate Marvin Davis.
1981 San Diego trades Tony Phillips to the A’s. Yes, the Tony Phillips who lasted forever.
1982 The Korean Baseball Organization opens its first regular season.
1986 MLB changes the DH rule for the World Series. It used to be even years with it, and odd years without it – but now usage of the DH will depend on the home park.
1987 The Royals trade David Cone to the Mets.
1989 Sports Illustrated reports that Pete Rose gave hand signals to the Reds dugout about his baseball bets.
1992 Three women file a lawsuit against David Cone, accusing him of exposing himself to them while in the bullpen at Shea Stadium.
1995 The National Labor Relations Board files for a court injunction to restore the previous labor rules for MLB.
1997 Atlanta trades Jermaine Dye to the Royals for Keith Lockhart and Michael Tucker. It’s safe to say that KC gets the better half of this deal.
2000 The Mets purchase Timo Perez from Hiroshima.
2003 Montreal releases Jose Canseco.
2010 University of Minnesota takes on Louisiana Tech in the first baseball game played at Minnesota’s Target Field. 37,757 watch it. I have no idea who won.
2010 The Korean Baseball Organization begins a new 12-second limit rule between pitches to speed up the game. They also widen the strike zone.
2011 The Cubs release pitcher Carlos Silva.
2011 A thief breaks into the spring training abode renting by Tampa Bay players Evan Longoria, David Price, and Reid Brignac. He makes off with $50,000 worth of jewelry and electronics, and also swipes a gun.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Spring training DUIs
Posted by Mat KovachThey are almost as popular as spring training elbow injuries. This spring Alex White, Matt Bush, and Bobby Jenks have all been arrested and charged with at least drinking while driving.
- Alex White—Extreme DUI, twice the legal limit
- Matt Bush—Injury to man on motorcycle.
- Bobby Jenks—Hit a parked car.
Now, I am not here to preach about driving while under the influence. Where the question lies is who should be responsible for putting things in place to stop it.
All major league teams, reportedly, will provide transportation for the players, several practically begging the players to call the team if they need a ride. I question whether baseball can do more than that. I don't see Bud Selig and the owners imposing some conduct policy on the players. That's not just because the players union will rightfully be against it. The league and the owners know that imposing a conduct policy on the players would only bring resistance and resentment from the players. They can just look toward the NFL and see the reactions to the personal conduct policy imposed by the commissioner.
MLB has learned that this type of issue should be addressed by the players association. It only makes sense. The employer—here the team—will provide a ride. The MLBPA needs to start working with the players, and if needed, recommending enhancements to the collective bargaining agreement to include punishment for this type of conduct. In the end, it is the players who look bad, not baseball.
This is a real test for the MLBPA. The spring training DUI issue gives the union a chance to address an issue for the league. Major League Baseball and the MLBPA have grown to be fairly cooperative in recent years, to the benefit of baseball. I wonder if the union now is willing to take steps to address an issue before an event happens that forces the league to step in.
Indians fan, member of the Duane Kuiper Fan Club, Spitball Researcher, Contact me on twitter, @siddfinch, via email or avian carrier
Saturday, March 24, 2012
How does Madson’s injury affect the Reds?
Posted by Jason LindenNews came today that Ryan Madson will have Tommy John surgery and is down for the season. This is a painful loss for the Reds, but it's mostly an emotional wound. Madson is/was an excellent relief pitcher, but the Reds still have a strong bullpen, even if it isn't as strong and deep as it was before.
It is important to remember that relief pitchers rarely, if ever, contribute as much to a team as many people believe. They just don't throw enough innings to have an enormous impact. Madson was among the best, but it was unlikely he was going to be the difference maker for the Reds this year.
So what are the repercussions for the rest of the team? Sean Marshall is probably going to close. He's easily the best reliever on staff (this was true before the Madson injury, as well) and recently signed an extension with the implication that he would close after this year. The setup role is less certain, but there's a good chance it reverts to Nick Masset, since he's held that job the last several years.
Everyone is going to want to know what this means for lefty Aroldis Chapman. Lots of people are already convinced he's headed to the bullpen, but don't be so certain. While Reds manager Dusty Baker has been constantly pushing to have Chapman move to the pen, GM Walt Jocketty has indicated that Chapman will start, be it in Triple-A or the majors.
Only with the injury to Madson has Jocketty said Chapman might move to the bullpen. "Maybe" was the word he used, and that should encourage Reds fans.
This is Chapman's last option year, and if they plan to convert him to starting, this is the time to do it. Inserting him into an already-good bullpen as a Band-Aid would be a short-sighted mistake.
Jason has too many irons in the fire. He writes about the Reds at Redleg Nation, books at Elephants for Bookends, and everything else at The Winesburg Eagle. Follow him on Twitter @jasonlinden
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
A baseball card mystery: Tim Foli
Posted by Bruce MarkusenThe 1980 Topps set has its share of crisp action photography. Tim Foli’s card, which came out just a few months after his Pirates surprised the Orioles to win the 1979 World Series, is a good example of that.
We can see Foli grimacing, perhaps even groaning, as he attempts to finish off a double play agaisnt the Mets. We can also see a small puff of dirt kicking up from the Shea Stadium infield.
A player of limited physical talents, he survived 16 seasons in the major leagues, mostly on ferocity, maximum effort, and a fiery temper that reflected his motivation to show others that he belonged. Yes, there was a reason this man was commonly known as “Crazy Horse.”
Foli’s determination helped him reach the pinnacle of his career in 1979. Along with third baseman Bill Madlock, second baseman Phil Garner, and Hall of Fame first baseman Willie Stargell, Foli formed a rock-solid infield that became one of the bulwarks of the “We Are Family” Bucs.
Interestingly, Foli did not start the 1979 season with the Pirates. He actually appeared in three games for the Mets, his opponent on the Topps card, before an April 19th trade sent him to Pittsburgh for the “Man of Steal,” Frank Taveras.
In solidifying shortstop for the Pirates, Foli put together his best season. He batted a career-high .291, struck out a mere 14 times, and compiled a career-best OPS of .679 (hey, it was the 1970s).
Foli’s 1980 card not only reflects his down-and-dirty style, but it provides us with another baseball card mystery. Here are the assumed facts:
The photograph was taken during the Pirates’ championship run of 1979. The setting is Shea Stadium, as evidenced by the home pinstripes being worn by the versatile Joel Youngblood. We might also assume that Foli has retired Youngblood at second base, either on a simple foreceout, or on the front end of what is perhaps a 4-6-3 double play.
Or maybe I'm way off base. Maybe Foli hasn't thrown the ball at all. Perhaps Youngblood has been called safe, the end result of a successful steal of second base.
Given this nebulous information, can we pin down the exact game in which this play occurred? Better yet, can we determine the exact inning? That, my friends, is this week’s challenge.
Bruce Markusen is the author of seven books on baseball, including the award-winning A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, the recipient of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. He has also written The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, Tales From The Mets Dugout, and The Orlando Cepeda Story.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
20,000 “day-versary”: Jim Kaat goes pro
Posted by Chris Jaffe20,000 days ago, a kid went pro. On June 17, 1957, the Washington Senators franchise signed 18-year-old recent high school graduate Jim Kaat.
It turned out to be quite a nice signing, as Kaat would play in 25 major league seasons—then a record for a big league pitcher. He also won 283 games, one of the highest totals in big league history. 190 of those wins came with the franchise that first signed him, the Senators – who became the Twins in 1961.
Kaat is one of the all-time winningest pitchers not in Cooperstown. The all-time leaders are Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux, but they aren’t eligible.
Of all eligibles, only two men from 1876-onward won more games than Kaat’s 283 and aren’t in Cooperstown: Tommy John, and 19th century pitcher Tony Mullane. (Bobby Mathews also has more win than Kaat if you include the 1871-75 National Association, but it was more a proto-big league than an actual one).
While Kaat was a great pitcher, there will always be a winningest pitcher not in Cooperstown, and Kaat frankly is the sort of guy who should hold that distinction.
Let’s think for a second. What characteristics should the all-time winningest non-Hall of Famer have? Well, for starters he should have a lot of losses. A lousy win-loss record only makes sense.
That’s Kaat. Alongside his 283 wins are 237 losses. His .544 winning percentage is one of the 10 worst ever by someone with 250 wins.
Second, the winningest pitcher not in Cooperstown should have had nice help from his teammates.
That’s also Kaat. You might not think of the Twins as a great club, but they had an awesome offense in the 1960s. I believe they actually scored more runs that decade than any other. When Kaat was there, Minnesota’s offense featured Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, Don Mincher, Earl Battey, Zoilo Versalles, Bob Allison, Cesar Tovar, Jimmie Hall... That’s a lot of offensive firepower. They weren’t all peaking at the same time, but they all hit for Kaat.
Overall, Kaat’s run support was (park adjusted) about five percent above average. Five percent doesn’t sound like too much, but over 25 years it adds up. Despite that, Kaat still had only a .544 winning percentage.
Finally, the biggest winning Hall of Famer should lack a great, sustained prime. That’s only fair. If he’s got the career numbers, he shouldn’t have the peak numbers.
Well, Kaat does have three 20-win seasons, but strange though it might sound it’s “only” three 20-win seasons. You see, two game in the AL in 1973-74. In those two seasons, the AL had 21 different 20-win seasons. Yeah, that’s high. With the creation of the DH, managers left their starters in longer so they picked up more decisions. 20-game-winners reached a peak at that time. Kaat had 21 and 20 wins in those years. Meanwhile, there were nine different 22-win seasons in the 1973-74 AL.
Aside from that, Kaat had only one 20-win season, and that was way back in 1965. That’s not a sustained prime. Admittedly, it was a 25-win season, but there was no great prime.
Kaat isn’t the all-time winningest pitcher not in Cooperstown. He never will be, barring some unforeseen Tony Mullane bandwagon. And it wouldn’t be a travesty for Kaat to make it in, should the VC take a shine to him. But there’s a reason why he hasn’t gone in yet.
Aside from that, many other events celebrate an anniversary of “day-versary” today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold.
Day-versaries
2,000 days since Brad Radke’s last game
2,000 days since Vinny Castilla’s last game.
4,000 days since Woody Williams achieves the worst Game Score for a starting pitcher who picked up the win since 1960. He gets the W despite a Game Score of 12 with a line of: 5 IP, 12 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, as the Padres top the Rockies, 14-10. Without looking, I’ll guess the game took place in Denver.
5,000 days since San Diego’s Ken Caminiti hits three home runs in one game.
8,000 days since a 41-year-old Bill Buckner hits an inside-the-park homer. That’s as unlikely an inside shot as you’ll ever hear about. It’s his last career home run.
Anniversaries
1821 Bill Cammeyer, the inventor of the baseball stadium and one of the oldest people listed at Baseball-Reference.com, is born. Prior to Cammeyer, teams would pass the hat around after a game for money. Cammeyer started charging people entry before a game instead.
1865 Mike Griffin, outfielder, is born.
1871 Iron Man Joe McGinnity, Hall of Fame pitcher who didn’t debut in the majors until he was 28 years old, is born.
1888 Al Spalding announces that Chicago will go on a baseball tour of Australia accompanied by a team of NL All-Stars.
1889 A New York sporting goods company receives an order for bats, balls, and other pieces of baseball equipment from a Mr. Hiroka of Tokyo.
1901 The AL decrees that all umpires must be within 10 feet of home plate.
1901 Teams announce their rosters, and 111 of the 185 AL players have jumped from the previous year’s NL squads.
1907 Vern Kennedy, pitcher, is born.
1915 The groundbreaking for Braves Field in Boston occurs.
1920 In Jacksonville, Florida, Babe Ruth jumps into the left field bleachers to got after a heckler. Teammate Ernie Shore restrains him to prevent the fight, though.
1934 Female athlete Babe Didrickson pitches one inning for the A’s in an exhibition game against Brooklyn and walks one batter.
1937 The Negro League’s Homestead Grays acquire future Hall of Famers Josh Gibson and Judy Johnson for $2,500 and a pair of journeymen.
1938 Fats Fothergill, one of the most out of shape players in history, dies.
1952 Rick Langford, pitcher for the Billy Martin A’s, is born.
1953 Sen. Edwin Johnson offers a bill before Congress that would give clubs the sole right to ban radio and TV broadcasts in their territory. It’s an attempt to save the independent minors.
1954 The Cubs trade Roy Smalley to Milwaukee.
1976 Leo Durocher, who was supposed to take over this year as manager for the Taiyo Whales in Japan, is today told to forget it. He’s been in the hospital with hepatitis and the ensuing five week delay nixed his last chance to manage.
1984 Hall of Fame starting pitcher Stan Coveleski dies at age 94.
1989 Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth announces he’s conducting a full investigation into serious allegations that Pete Rose bet on baseball.
1992 After a 32-day owner lockout, spring training belatedly begins.
1993 The Mets sign amateur free agent Octavio Dotel.
1995 Baltimore cancels its remaining spring training games as it refuses to use replacement players.
2002 The commissioner’s office says teams will continue to play God Bless America during the seventh inning stretch of each team’s first home stand and they’ll keep the flag patches on their uniforms, too.
2003 Milwaukee trades Henry Blanco to the Braves for Paul Bako and Jose Cabrera. So it turns out that not only is there a difference between veteran catchers Blanco and Bako, but that the difference is worth an entire player.
2006 86-year-old Boston special instructor Johnny Pesky breaks a bone in his left ankle while watching a college baseball game.
2006 Veteran pitcher Al Leiter, the first man to beat all 30 franchises, announces his retirement.
2006 Boston trades starting pitcher Bronson Arroyo and cash to the Reds for Wily Mo Pena. Advantage: Cincinnati.
2009 Houston signs veteran catcher Ivan Rodriguez.
2011 White Sox starting pitcher Jake Peavy is scratched with rotator cuff tendonitis.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Friday, March 16, 2012
40th anniversary: Vida Blue’s holdout
Posted by Chris JaffeForty years ago today began one of the uglier labor episodes of the era. As is often the case with ugly episodes from the early 1970s, it involves maverick Oakland A’s owner Charles O. Finley.
Specifically, on March 16, 1972, star young pitcher Vida Blue rejected a contract offer from Finley. It would lead to a nasty war over a contract. Admittedly, contract disputes are not fun, and they could especially rankle players in the days before free agency, but this one still called attention to itself for how heated it got.
The story begins the year before, in 1971. That year Vida Blue had the sort of season most pitchers – even most great pitchers – only dream of. A 21-year-old with only three wins before the season began, Blue began the year posting a 10-1 record with a miniscule 1.03 ERA in his first dozen starts.
Though he couldn’t keep that superhuman pace up, he did finish the year with a 24-8 record while leading the league in ERA (1.82), and shutouts (eight) while fanning 301 batters. For that, he won the Cy Young Award and MVP. (In fact, Blue is the last switch-hitter to win the AL MVP). He even appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Everything was coming up Vida.
So naturally Blue expected a big payday for his efforts. Finley was willing to give him a pay raise, but not nearly as large as what Blue felt he deserved.
Forty years ago today, the war was on. Blue, a proud man, wasn’t about to back down. Finley, a successful businessman, knew he held all the cards. He wasn’t about to give in to Blue. Besides, his team hardly seemed to miss Blue, as it was winning two-thirds of their games in the early going.
As often happened, the owner won the fight. Blue caved and accepted a deal largely on Finley’s terms in late May. He’d missed two months of the season and not gotten what he wanted out of it. Actually, it was worse than that.
Finley was never big on taking the high road. He had the advantage and he was determined to put Blue in his place. He ordered Blue to issue a public apology to A’s fans for his holdout, and Blue had to comply. If he didn’t, he couldn’t play.
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but the bright, promising pitcher of the year before just wasn’t himself at all in 1972. He went 6-10 on a pennant-winning club. In the postseason, he was forced into the bullpen, starting only one of Oakland’s 14 October contests. He also was upset with the club overall. Most memorably, when Finley offered his players bonuses to grow facial hair for a special "Mustache Night" promotion, Blue was the only Oakland A's who opted not to grow hair. He wouldn't jump through any hoops to get some money from Finley—not after the 1971-'72 offseason.
Folklore says the lockout and its aftermath caused Blue’s bad performance, and maybe it’s true. Then again, maybe folklore is just looking to create a story line and the real problem was that Blue had a tired arm from the year before.
Blue recovered, and won 20 games in 1973, and 22 in 1975. He remained a fine pitcher until his early 30s, when he began to fade. That’s the curse of a young stud pitcher. Blue is one of 16 pitchers in the lively ball era to win 150 games before turning 30. Only one of them (Greg Maddux) won 300 in his career.
Contract dispute or not, Blue’s career probably would’ve been a disappointment after his amazing 1971 season because young arms are so fragile. Still, what began 40 years ago today was one of the more remarkable detours to afflict a young star pitcher.
Aside from that, many other baseball events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something occurring X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you would prefer to just skim the events.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since A.J. Burnett of the Yankees strikes out the side on the bare minimum of nine pitches against the Marlins.
2,000 days since Moises Alou joins the 2,000 hit club.
2,000 days since Dustin Hermanson plays in his final big league game.
4,000 days since Craig Biggio enjoys his only 5-for-5 game.
4,000 days since the big league debut of Brandon Inge.
4,000 days since the big league debut of David Eckstein.
8,000 days since Will Clark gets his 100th career home run.
9,000 days since Milwaukee’s Paul Molitor steals second, third, and home in the first inning against the A’s. The steal of home came during a double steal.
20,000 days since a nasty 30-minute brawl occurs in the AL. Pitcher Art Ditmar buzzes one by the head of Larry Doby, causing Doby to shout that if Ditmar does that again, “I’ll stick a knife in your back.” In the brawl, Billy Martin, Ditmar’s teammate, goes after Doby.
20,000 days since Baltimore trades future managerial whiz Dick Williams to the Indians for Jim Busby.
20,000 days since Ted Williams hits three homers in a game for the third time in his career.
30,000 days since pitcher Carl Mays signs with Portland of the Pacific Coast League. This ends Mays’ big league career.
40,000 days since Ned Hanlon wins his 1,000th game as a manager. He’s only the fourth manager to do that.
40,000 days since colorful A’s pitcher Rube Waddell wins two games, both in relief, against Baltimore. He pitches 10 innings in all, eight in the first game, and two in the second.
60,000 days since Deacon White, early baseball star, is born.
Anniversaries
1854 Blondie Purcell, outfielder, is born.
1859 Jerry Denny, baseball’s last glove-less outfielder, is born.
1865 Patsy Donovan, right fielder, is born.
1893 St. Louis releases star pitcher (and excellent hitter) Bob Caruthers.
1900 Ban Johnson his league, the American League, will put a team in Chicago.
1906 Lloyd Waner, Hall of Fame outfielder, is born.
1907 Tigers manager Hughie Jennings offers young star Ty Cobb to Cleveland in a proposed trade for established star Elmer Flick. Cobb recently got into fights with Detroit’s black groundskeeper (and the groundskeeper’s wife) and also with the team’s catcher, Boss Schmidt.
1908 Honus Wagner announces his retirement. It doesn’t take.
1939 The Reds purchase Billy Werber from the A’s.
1953 AL owners reject the proposal by Browns owner Bill Veeck to move his team to Baltimore.
1953 George Grantham, a good-hitting infielder, dies.
1958 Leon Cadore, pitched a 26-inning complete game on May 1, 1920, dies.
1961 New York City approves of a bond for the construction of Shea Stadium
1972 Pie Traynor, Hall of Fame third baseman, dies at age 72.
1976 Federal judge John W. Oliver finds the position taken by baseball owners on the reserve clause to be “ludicrous.” Yeah, that’s bad when a judge says that to you.
1977 Oakland signs free agent Dick Allen.
1978 Yankee pitcher Andy Messersmith falls and separates his shoulder.
1979 Hee Seop Choi, Korean-born first baseman, is born.
1981 Curtis Granderson is born.
1983 Stephen Drew is born.
1985 Denny McLain is convicted of racketeering, extortion, and cocaine possession. He’ll serve 29 months of a 23-year sentence before the conviction is overturned.
1985 LA signs amateur free agent Juan Guzman.
1994 Eric Show, former Padre pitcher and John Birch Society member, dies at age 37 in a homeless shelter.
2005 Dick Radatz, 1960s relief stud, dies.
2008 Bob Purkey, former big league pitcher, dies.
2010 Chuck Knoblauch pleads guilty to charges of domestic violence. He was accused of assaulting his common-law wife in Houston the previous September.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
No more video replay yet
Posted by Mat KovachMajor league baseball has decided to hold off on expanding replay for 2012.
I think it is important to look a few quotes from the article:
Umpires were concerned the television feeds they received to review calls were not equal at every ballpark. The umps get fewer looks in Oakland, for example, than at Yankee Stadium.
This was one of the areas that I stressed in my earlier article about instant replay.
Also:
Also at issue is how calls would be made under expanded replay and who would ask for a challenge. Would umpires still make the final decision, as they do now? Or would there be an NHL-style conference room with an MLB executive making the ruling?
This is an important point and MLB needs to tread a bit carefully here. While I think it is important for baseball to create a better way for umpires to confer about a getting a call right, I still am not sure about having somebody off the field making the decision. Given the separation of the umpires, the players, and baseball itself, I don't think giving an MLB executive or official scorer the ability to question an umpire's on-field call is compatible with the current separation.
It should be interesting to see the reaction when questionable calls do come up that may have been affected by the new instant replay changes*.
* Okay, it would be fun to see it happen to Ryan Braun. "Well, if the new instant replay was in effect, he could have won on appeal. Again."
Indians fan, member of the Duane Kuiper Fan Club, Spitball Researcher, Contact me on twitter, @siddfinch, via email or avian carrier
25,000 “day-versary”: debut of Gil Hodges
Posted by Chris JaffeIt was 25,000 days ago today that one of the Boys of Summer made his major-league debut on a fall afternoon.
On Oct. 4, 1943, Gil Hodges made his big-league debut, entering the game midway through. He was 0-for-2 but drew a walk and stole a base while playing third base.
Yes, that’s right, third base. Though he gained fame as a first baseman, Hodges had enough defensive ability to play third. It’s just that the club also had a fantastic defensive third baseman in Billy Cox, and so Hodges moved to first. If it wasn’t for that, Hodges might now be in Cooperstown.
As it is, he received considerable support. As it happens, in a fact I love to repeat (and have on at least a half-dozen occasions here at THT), in the entire history of BBWAA balloting, only one man not currently on the ballot ever has received a majority of the BBWAA vote even once and is not in Cooperstown right now: Gil Hodges. Many weren’t put in by the BBWAA but were instead by the Veteran's Committee.
Hodges achieved this ignominy despite comparing his bat to that of others first base. If he were against third baseman, whose bats aren’t typically as strong, Hodges would’ve gone in. Well, that’s assuming that Hodges would’ve spent considerable time at third. Who knows if that would’ve happened?
As it happens, Hodges only played 32 big league games at third. After debuting at the conclusion of the 1943 season, Hodges went off to war. He didn’t return to Brooklyn in 1947, during which time he hit .156 in 28 games. In the 1947-48 offseason, Brooklyn acquired Cox from Pittsburgh, and third base was closed off to Hodges.
Fortunately for him, the Dodgers also traded away second baseman Eddie Stanky. That allowed 1947 Rookie of the Year Jackie Robinson to shift from first base to second and allowed Hodges to move into the hole at first. Thus, though the Dodgers won a pennant in 1947, their 1948 infield had three guys who either weren’t there the year before or who played another position. At the same time behind the plate, 1948 saw Roy Campanella settle in for Brooklyn. Only shortstop Pee Wee Reese provided any continuity.
The outfield already had right fielder Carl Furillo, who first joined the everyday lineup in 1946. In 1949, Duke Snider joined him in center. Brooklyn also had a variety of guys ranging from Gene Hermanski to Andy Pafko to Sandy Amoros work for them in left.
Thus, of all the famous “Boys of Summer” everyday players, Hodges was the first to break in with the Dodgers. While there were stars with him on the field that day in 1943, they were guys whose suns were setting: Arky Vaughan, Paul Waner, Billy Herman, and Dixie Walker.
Thus 25,000 days ago wasn’t just a big day for Gil Hodges, it also marked the first day of a new generation in Dodger-dom.
Aside from that, many other baseball events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d rather just skim.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Brian Giles plays in his final game.
2,000 days since Sam Chapman dies.
3,000 days since 1980s White Sox/Mariners outfielder Ivan Calderon dies.
4,000 days since Jo Jo Moore dies. I believe he was the last surviving athlete to have played for John McGraw.
5,000 days since the Cubs select Glenallen Hill off waivers from Seattle. This will work well for Chicago.
6,000 days since George Steinbrenner is fined $50,000 for criticizing umpires in the ALDS.
6,000 days since the Braves top the Reds, 2-1, in 11 innings in Game One of the NLCS. Atlanta scores a run in the top of the ninth to tie it.
6,000 days since the Pirates are sold to Kevin McClatchey and partners for $85 million.
7,000 days since the Brewers purchase Bill Doran from the Reds.
7,000 days since Richard Ravitch, the lead negotiator for the owners, urges no lockout during negotiations, which begin that day.
Anniversaries
1869 Billy Rhines, 1890s Reds pitcher, is born.
1883 The Northwestern League votes down a motion by the Peoria club to ban blacks, but only after an “exciting discussion" on the matter.
1932 The Dodgers trade Babe Herman, Ernie Lombardi, and Wally Gilbert to the Reds for Tony Cuccinello, Joe Stripp, and Clyde Sukeforth.
1945 Reporters hear the umpires are being briefed on the way one-armed outfielder Pete Gray catches the ball in case he makes the major leagues.
1953 St. Louis’ Mayor Joseph Dart vows to fight losing the Browns to Baltimore.
1956 Butch Wynegar, Twins catcher, is born.
1956 Satchel Paige signs with the Birmingham Barons of the Negro Leagues. Both are in their twilight years.
1960 Kirby Puckett, Hall of Fame centerfielder, is born.
1961 The NL New York expansion team names George Weiss as its first team president.
1965 Kevin Brown, pitcher, is born.
1969 Heinie Zimmerman, star third baseman of the 1910s, dies at age 82.
1981 Bobby Jenks is born.
1986 Toronto signs free agent Cesar Cedeno.
1991 Milwaukee trades Dave Parker to the Angels for Dante Bichette.
1993 The Reds announce that the dog Schottzie 02, the St. Bernard owned by Marge Schott, is banned from Riverfront Stadium.
1995 The National Labor Relations Board issues a complaint against baseball owners for violating labor laws. This is the third such complaint they’ve issued in the last month.
2003 The Pirates sign free agent centerfielder Kenny Lofton. He does fine for them, but in midseason the Pirates will package Lofton and third baseman Aramis Ramirez to the Cubs for prospects that fizzle.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
A baseball card mystery: Rod Carew
Posted by Bruce MarkusenIt’s virtually impossible for a hitter to guide a batted ball, to place it on a target on the playing field. A hitter can try to hit the ball hard and can try to pull a pitch or take it to the opposite field, but he cannot be expected to hit a ball to a specific and particular location on the field. If there was anyone who came closest to having that ability, it was Hall of Famer Rod Carew.
Carew was an artiste at the plate and on the bases; he could do everything offensively but hit home runs. During the early stages of his career, he displayed the kind of speed and baserunning smarts that made catchers and infielders tremble. In 1969, he stole home nine times, a single-season total that has not been approached since.
Injuries and age took a toll on his footspeed, but they were slower in taking an effect on his hitting. Often changing his stance from at-bat to at-bat, Carew held the bat loosely in his hands, almost as if it were a baton. Patient and selective, he drew his share of walks, rarely swinging at pitches that were significantly outside the strike zone. When he did swing, he generally made contact, hard contact at that.
He could go with the pitch better than anyone, driving the ball to all fields, from gap to gap, from foul line to foul line. And just to add a little spice to the mixture, he could drop down a bunt as well as any player of the 1960s or '70s.
The numbers bear out Carew’s skills at the plate. In 1972, he failed to hit a home run but he still managed to lead the American League in hitting at .318. In 1977, he made a late-season charge at the .400 mark—something that had not been attained since the incomparable Ted Williams in 1941—and finished the season at an eye-popping .388. That performance marked the best of his seven batting titles; those titles, along with a career total of 3,053 hits, vaulted him into Cooperstown.
As a second baseman, Carew was a ferocious hitter. In 1976, he was shifted to first base, where his lack of power sometimes caused concern. But on balance, if you had a first baseman who could hit .300, reach base 40 percent of the time and steal 15 to 25 bases, you wouldn’t be too upset.
Judging by the color of the catcher’s jersey, that looks to be the uniform of the Giants. More specifically, I initially thought it was veteran catcher Milt May.
Well, there are two problems with that theory. May did not play for the Giants until 1980; he was still playing for the Tigers in 1978. Furthermore, when exactly would the Twins and Giants have played? There was no interleague play in 1978, so cross off that possibility.
So how about spring training? The Twins played their exhibition games in Orlando, Florida, while the Giants trained in Phoenix, Arizona. It doesn’t seem likely that they would have played each other at that time either.
Then I looked at the All-Star banner on Carew’s card, and it struck me that the photo was taken during the 1978 All-Star Game. Just to make sure, I looked up the box score of that game to confirm one of the Giants catchers played in the game.
My search turned up a negative result. None of the Giants’ catchers played that night. With perennial All-Star Johnny Bench sidelined by injury, the three catchers who did appear were Ted Simmons of the Cardinals, Bob Boone of the Phillies, and the Braves’ Biff Pocoroba (yes, he did make an All-Star team). None of these teams sported an all-red or all-orange top in 1978. So unless my eyes are deceiving me, this photo was not from the 1978 Midsummer Classic.
So when was this photo taken? I really have no idea.
Bruce Markusen is the author of seven books on baseball, including the award-winning A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, the recipient of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. He has also written The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, Tales From The Mets Dugout, and The Orlando Cepeda Story.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Harry Wendelstedt career highlights
Posted by Chris JaffeLast week, former umpire Harry Wendlestedt died at age 73. He was one of the longest-serving umpires in baseball history, arriving in the majors in 1966 and staying until the end of 1998. Along the way, he served in exactly 4,500 regular season games, 74 postseason ones, and a quartet of All-Star contests.
When someone notable in the baseball world passes, one thing I like to do here at THT is recount his career highlights, the greatest and most important games the guy served in and the memorable occasions he was on hand for. Umpires are, of course, part of the story, and a long-time umpire like Wendlestedt can end up serving in a remarkable and unusual number of memorable games. For instance, he personally worked home plate for five different no-hitters.
Thusm the list below, though long, is still but a smattering of the games Wendelstedt arbitrated.
The 1960s
April 13, 1966: Wendlestedt makes his big-league debut at third base as the Cardinals host the Phillies. As a result, Wendlestedt is on duty for the last Opening Day in the lengthy history of Sportsman’s Park. Alas, for an umpire (who wants nothing more than a short game), the game lasts 12 innings before the Phillies earn the victory, and it takes three hours and 40 minutes. In other news, the next day Greg Maddux is born.
April 16, 1966: The fourth game of the year is Wendlestedt’s debut behind the plate. Cincinnati’s Jim Maloney fans 13 and walks to in a complete-game shutout of the Phillies for a 4-0 win.
Sept. 11, 1966: Wendlestedt is again behind the plate when a young pitcher makes his big-league debut: Nolan Ryan of the Mets. Ryan pitches two innings in relief and fans three, including the first batter he faces, opposing pitcher Pat Jarvis. Thus, Wendlestedt is the first umpire to call strike three for the Ryan Express.
April 13, 1967: Again, Wendlestedt is on hand for the debut of a promising young Mets arm. This time he’s at second base when Tom Seaver gets a no-decision in the Mets' 3-2 win over the Pirates.
May 15, 1967: With Wendlestedt at third base, Roberto Clemente stages one of the great one-man performances of the era. He goes 4-for-5 with a double and three homers for seven total RBIs, but the Pirates loses anyway, 8-7 in 10 innings.
May 31, 1968: The single most memorable moment in Wendlestedt’s umpiring career comes on this day. It’s the ninth inning of a Dodgers-Giants game, and ace Los Angeles pitcher Don Drysdale is nearing closer to history. He’s on the verge of his fifth consecutive shutout. If he gets through the inning unscathed, he’ll have 46 straight scoreless innings.
It looks like Drysdale’s number is up, though, as he loads the bases with no outs and then hits the Giants’ Dick Dietz with a 2-2 pitch to force in a run. Well, normally that’s what would happen.
Here’s where Wendlestedt enters the story. He invokes a seldom-enforced rule and said that since Dietz didn’t try to get out of harm’s way, he doesn’t get the base. Drysdale gets out of the jam, and the scoreless streak survives, courtesy of Mr. Wendlestedt.
June 4, 1968: Would you believe that the next time Wendlestedt works the plate, Don Drysdale is again the pitcher? It’s true, and with his favorite umpire working, Drysdale records consecutive shutout No. 6. In his next outing, he’ll finally be tagged for a run, but by then he’ll have 58 straight innings without a run.
July 9, 1968: In only his third year, Wendlestedt makes his first All-Star Game. It’s a nice one, as the NL wins, 1-0, over the AL. Wendlestedt is in right field for the 130-minute game.
July 29, 1968: Wendlestedt umps the first of his five no-hitters from behind the plate. Today, George Culver of the Reds no-hits the Phillies in a 6-1 win as Culver walks five while fanning four.
Sept. 17, 1968: It truly is the year of the pitcher. For the second time this year, Wendlestedt is the home-plate umpire for a no-hitter. This time, Gaylord Perry no-hits the Cardinals, walking two while fanning nine in a 1-0 Giants win.
July 25, 1969: It might be the best pitchers duel he ever sees behind the plate. Bob Gibson pitches 13 innings and gets the win, allowing just one run while fanning 11. His Game Score is 100 against San Francisco. Opposing starting Gaylord Perry matches Gibson for 12 frames before a reliever blows it in the 13th for the 2-1 final.
Aug. 3, 1969: It’s the wildest game Wendlestedt ever works. Thanks to a 10-run fifth inning, the Reds top the Phillies, 19-17. Wendlestedt is at second base.
The 1970s
April 22, 1970: It’s not a no-hitter, but it still might be the greatest pitching performance Wendlestedt ever sees when he works the plate. Against the hapless San Diego offense, Tom Seaver fans 19, including the last 10 batters of the game. He allows two hits and one run in a 2-1 win.
May 12, 1970: With Wendlestedt at third base, Mr. Cub Ernie Banks makes history by belting his 500th career home run.
June 12, 1970: Wendlestedt is at third base in the first game of a Pirate-Padres double-hearder that proves to be one of the most memorable no-hitters of all-time. On that day, Pirates star hurler Dock Ellis tosses a no-hitter despite tripping on LSD the entire time.
Oct. 1, 1970: It’s the last game ever in baseball’s first real stadium. Shibe Park, by this time called Connie Mack Stadium, hosts its final game as the Phillies top the Expos, 2-1, in 10 innings. Wendlestedt is at first base during the game, and is in the umpires’ dressing room afterwards as the fans riot on the field.
Aug. 1, 1971: Wendlestedt is the man behind the plate in a game that ends in one of the strangest ways possible, and the circumstances directly involve Wendlestedt. The Reds lose to the Dodgers, 5-4 in 11 innings, with the winning run scoring on a walk-off catcher’s interference call. There’s one you don’t see too often. Manny Mota tried to steal home, and Reds catcher Johnny Bench came out to block the plate, causing Wendlestedt’s call. The Reds, as you can imagine, didn’t like it.
Aug. 14, 1971: For the third time in his career, Wendlestedt gets to work the plate in a no-hitter. Bob Gibson blanks the Pirates in an 11-0 win. He fans ten while walking three.
Sept. 16, 1972: Wendlestedt is at third when a young third baseman named Mike Schmidt hits the first home run of his career.
Oct. 11, 1972: NLCS Game Five: It’s the first great postseason game Wendlestedt is on-hand for. He’s at second base when the Reds rally for a pair in the bottom of the ninth for a 3-2 win and the NL pennant. It’s also the last game Roberto Clemente (and Bill Mazeroski) ever appear in.
May 8, 1973: Wendlestedt is at third base when Willie Stargell doesn’t just hit one over the fence at Dodger Stadium but out of the stadium outright. He did it once before, but no one else has ever done it.
Oct. 14, 1973: World Series Game Two: The A’s and Mets stage an exciting, though poorly played game. New York wins, 10-7, in extra innings. The poor play dominates the memory of it, though, as Oakland second baseman’s Mike Andrews’ pair of errors will cause team owner Charles Finley to force him from the game on a bogus medical report. Mets outfielder Willie Mays also stumbles around in the contest. Wendlestedt is in left field during the game.
April 9, 1974: Wendlestedt is at second base near the end of a seemingly forgettable Padres home loss to the Astros when the wildly unexpected happens. Padres team owner Ray Kroc gets on the PA to blast his team before the Opening Day crowd of 39,083.
Sept. 4, 1974: Umps typically get booed, but they don’t normally have the local city council pass a resolution denouncing their work. That happens in Cincinnati because of what happens on this day, though. With Wendlestedt at second, home plate umpire Jerry Dale calls Joe Morgan out at the plate in the seventh, and the Reds lose by one. The Cincinnati city council officially calls it an “atrocious call.”
Oct. 2, 1974: It’s Hank Aaron’s last game as a Brave, and he goes out with a doozy, belting a home run in his final at-bat in the NL. As the second-base umpire, Wendlestedt is probably the guy who signaled it was a homer.
May 4, 1975: MLB has promised new watches to the umpiring crew that works the game the millionth run is scored in, and for a few seconds it looks like Wendlestedt and his crewmates will be the ones. 999,999 runs are in, and Dave Concepcion is rounding the bases after hitting a home run. However, elsewhere Bob Watson beats Concepcion by a few seconds.
Sept. 22, 1975: Wendlestedt is behind the plate for the most one-sided shutout of the 20th century, as the Pirates torch the Cubs, 22-0. Infielder Rennie Stennett makes history, going 7-for-7 in the game.
July 13, 1976: Wendlestedt is given quite an honor: Home plate during the All-Star Game. The game itself is a snooze, as the NL romps easily.
Aug. 16, 1976: Harry Wendlestedt works 39 different 1-0 games behind the plate in his career, but none are as special as this one. Today, Mets infielder Bud Harrelson gets married, comes to the park, and hits a homer for the game’s only run.
Oct. 7, 1977: NLCS Game Three: Wendlestedt is behind the plate when the Phillies stage an impressive rally. They score three in the top of the ninth to win, 6-5, over the Dodgers. But LA will have the last laugh, claiming the pennant the next day.
April 7, 1978: On Opening Day, Wendlestedt is at first base when the Padres debut their new shortstop, a young defensive whiz named Ozzie Smith.
April 16, 1978: Wendlestedt is again at first base when St. Louis pitcher Bob Forsch does something his brother Ken had previously done—throw a no-hitter. He walks two and fans three in a 5-0 win over the Phillies.
June 14, 1978: As the first-base ump, it’s Wendlestedt’s job to call Pete Rose safe when he singles twice. This will begin Rose’s 44-game hitting streak, the longest in NL history.
May 17, 1979: Wendlestedt umpires his first game of the year as the umpires have just won their strike. From now on, he’ll get a two-week vacation every summer.
Aug. 13, 1979: Wendlestedt is at third base when Lou Brock legs out an infield single in the fourth inning for career hit No. 3,000.
The 1980s
July 6, 1980: There’s nothing umps hate worse than a long game, so of the 1,124 regular-season games Wendlestedt works the plate, this is probably his least favorite. The Pirates need 20 innings to top the Cubs, 5-4. The contest took 331 minutes.
Oct. 14, 1980: World Series Game One: As honors go, it’s a nice one. Wendlestedt umps home plate during the first game of the Fall Classic, which the Phillies win, 7-6, over the Royals.
Oct. 19, 1981: NLCS Game Five: Wendlestedt’s home-plate assignment today becomes a dark day for Montreal fans. In the winner-take-all contest, Rick Monday homers in the ninth for a 2-1 Dodger win and the pennant—“Blue Monday” as it becomes known.
Oct. 1, 1982: It’s one of the best pitchers’ duels of the decade, and Wendlestedt is at first base for it. The Mets top the Phillies, 1-0, in 10 innings in a game featuring three hits. The winning hit came off reliever Porfi Altamirano. Starters Randy Lerch and John Denny combined to allow two hits (one each) in 19 IP.
July 6, 1983: Wendlestedt is at first base for what’s arguably the last real All-Star Game. The AL hasn’t won in forever and a half, and so the players really care about it. That said, paced by Fred Lynn’s grand slam, the AL handily wins, 13-3. In the blowout, players from every team get in the game, an All-Star first. Thus, this game is transitional, away from caring about the results and towards getting everyone in.
Sept. 26, 1983: He has already worked one game in which Bob Forsch threw a no-hitter in, but today Wendlestedt is the home plate umpire when Forsch no-hits the Expos, 3-0. It’s the fourth no-hitter he’s worked from behind the plate.
July 29, 1984: Wendlestedt is at second base when Orel Hershiser tosses his fourth complete-game shutout in his last five starts in this two-hitter against the Reds. It’s the second straight day the Dodgers top Cincinnati by a score of 1-0.
April 28, 1985: It’s an endurance contest of a game. With Wendlestedt at first base, the Mets duel the Pirates for 18 innings before finally topping them. The Mets are stretched so thin that they need to use aging pinch-hitter Rusty Staub in the outfield for the final frames. They keep switching him from left to right, wherever they feel he’ll do the least damage depending on the handedness of the batter.
June 5, 1985: According to research by Larry Granillo, today’s Cubs-Braves game at Wrigley Field is the Ferris Bueller Game. While Ferris has the day off, Wendlestedt works second base.
July 22, 1986: It’s another all-time great pitchers’ duel. With Wendlestedt stationed at first base, there are hardly any runners for him to talk to. Through nine innings, Montreal’s Floyd Youmans has allowed just two hits, which is still one more than Houston’s Nolan Ryan has surrendered in a scoreless tie. Both pitchers run into trouble into the 10th, but Ryan’s bullpen bails him out, while the third hit Youmans allows ends the game as a 1-0 Houston win.
Oct. 25, 1986: World Series Game Six: It may very well be the most famous game Wendlestedt ever umpires. He’s the umpire at third base when the Red Sox blow a seemingly sure victory (that would’ve given them a World Series title) in what is forever known as the Bill Buckner Game.
Aug. 17, 1987: With Wendlestedt at first base, a new Braves pitcher makes his debut on the mound: Tom Glavine. Houston torches him en route to an 11-2 win.
Sept. 27, 1987: Wendlestedt is again at first base on a special day in the history of Braves pitchers. Phil Niekro makes his last big-league appearance but is no more effective than Glavine was in his debut, as the Braves fall, 15-6, to the Giants.
Aug. 30, 1988: Fittingly, the umpire who helped Don Drysdale set a new scoreless inning streak is behind the plate when Orel Hershiser starts the streak that will break Drysdale’s record. Hershiser allows two runs in the fifth, but then holds Montreal scoreless for the next four innings. Two weeks later, Wendlestedt will be at third base when Hershiser notches his third consecutive shutout in the streak.
Sept. 24, 1988: In a rain-shortened game, Expos pitcher Melido Perez tosses five perfect innings before the game ends. Wendlestedt is at third base throughout.
Oct. 4, 1988: NLCS Game One: Wendlestedt was there when Hershiser’s scoreless streak began, so it’s fitting he’s at the plate here when it (sort of) ends. After eight scoreless frames, Hershiser allows the Mets to score two in the top of the ninth for a 2-1 Mets win. Officially, it doesn’t end the streak because it’s a postseason game, and the streak is a regular-season thing, but it’s the first runs Hershiser has allowed since Aug. 30.
Oct. 9, 1988: NLCS Game Four: Wendlestedt is at third base when the Dodgers top the Mets, 5-4, in 12 innings. LA is so desperate for pitching that at the end they bring Hershiser out of the bullpen to finish things off.
Aug. 29, 1989: The Cubs set a franchise record for the greatest comeback when they turn a 9-0 deficit against the Astros into a 10-9 win in extra innings. Wendlestedt sees it from his vantage point at second base.
The 1990s
July 5, 1990: Wendlestedt works home plate as the Cardinals top the Padres, 4-1. It turns out to be Whitey Herzog’s last stand, as he resigns as manager after the game.
Oct. 12, 1990: NLCS Game Six: Wendlestedt is at first base when the Reds clinch the NL pennant in style, holding the Pirates to just one hit in a hard-fought, 2-1 win.
Aug. 9, 1991: It’s a weird one for Wendlestedt when he works the plate in today’s Dodgers-Giants game. The game is scoreless until the 13th inning when the Giants win on the rare walk-off hit-by-pitch as Kevin Gross accidentally plunks Kevin Mitchell with the bases loaded. It’s the first time any scoreless game, let alone a scoreless extra-inning game, ends on a walk-off HBP since the 1970s.
Sept. 11, 1991: For the fifth and final time in his career, Wendlestedt is the home plate umpire during a no-hitter. He sees Braves starting pitcher Kent Mercker and his bullpen shut down the Padres in a 1-0 victory.
Oct. 27, 1991: World Series Game Seven: This is possibly the greatest World Series of all-time, so I could possibly put in every single game. But for the sake of brevity, I’ll just note that Wendlestedt was one of the umpires on duty during it. He was at first base in this, the 1-0, ten-inning Jack Morris Game. In Game Six, he was at second base during Kirby Puckett’s walk-off homer. He served behind the plate in Game Two, which Minnesota won 3-2.
Sept. 24, 1992: Wendlestedt is at third base in today’s odd extra-inning game. The Mets and Cardinals are scoreless through 13 innings, but rookie Jeff Kent pops a three-run homer in the top of the 14th to seemingly cinch things for New York. Instead, the Mets bullpen melts down, and the Cardinals win, 4-3, in 14 innings.
April 4, 1993: Wendlestedt is the man behind the plate when the Colorado Rockies make their debut. They lose on the road to the Mets, 3-0.
Sept. 17, 1993: A back-and-forth slugfest is fun for the fans in the stands but probably less so for home plate umpire Wendlestedt. The Reds top the Cardinals, 14-13, in a topsy-turvy 221 minute contest that sees the Cardinals score seven in the top of the eighth to take a four-run lead and then blow their cushion in the last inning and a half.
Aug. 12, 1995: Catcher’s interference might be the rarest umpire call of them all, yet today Wendlestedt is on the field for the second walk-off catcher’s interference call his crew has ever been a part of. The Dodgers top the Pirates, 11-10, in 11 innings. The final run scores when catcher Angelo Encarnacion tried to scoop up the ball with his mask, and that is flatly against the rules.
Oct. 13, 1995: NLDS Game One: It’s the first year of the three-round playoff format (well, first year not counting the 1981 strike season), and Wendlestedt is one of the umps working the first round. Atlanta beats Colorado, 5-4, with Wendlestedt in the outfield. Wendlestedt will work the NLDS in each year from 1995 to 1997, but all his series will be forgettable sweeps.
Oct. 21, 1995: World Series Game One: Wendlestedt has been called to umpire home plate in the first game of the World Series. It’s a closely fought game in which both teams have as many hits as they have runs: Atlanta 3, Cleveland 2. Atlanta will win it all in one of the most underrated World Series of all time.
Sept. 17, 1997: Since 1919, no starting pitcher has ever allowed more than eight runs while recording zero outs. The 8 R, 0 IP start has happened a few times, though, including today when Bobby J. Jones of the Mets does it. In his defense, four of the runs were unearned. Wendlestedt is at third base during the disaster.
March 31, 1998: Wendlestedt’s final season begins with him working the plate in his only March game. It’s also memorable because St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire unloads the first of his 70 homers on the year. Two days later, Wendlestedt will be at third when McGwire hits a three-run, walk-off homer in the 12th inning.
June 5, 1998: Though 1997 began interleague play, the ill and aging Wendlestedt missed half of that season. Today becomes his first interleague game, and it’s a very nice one. The Cubs top the White Sox, 6-5, in Chicago’s Crosstown Classic on a walk-off homer in the 12th inning by Brant Brown.
Sept. 26, 1998: For the final time, Wendlestedt works home plate. It’s a memorable game to go out on, as the Marlins top the Phillies, 1-0, in a 13-inning pitchers duel. Alex Gonzalez homers for the game’s only run.
Sept. 27, 1998: Harry Wendlestedt’s career comes to an end. It’s actually an annoying way to end his career as the Marlins and Phillies have a doubleheader today, and they had another just yesterday. In his final game, the Phillies win, 7-3, to end Wendlestedt’s umpiring career.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
30th anniversary: Bill James hits the big time
Posted by Chris JaffeThirty years ago today, baseball experienced one of its most unexpected, but also important, seismographic shifts. For it was on March 12, 1982, that Ballantine Books published their first of seven annual “Bill James Abstracts.”
It wasn’t the first Abstract overall. As any good baseball sabermetrician knows, James initially self-published a series of Abstracts in his home in Kansas. Then Sports Illustrated published an article by Dan Okrent about James, and it was time for him to step into the national eye. Thirty years ago today was essentially the national coming-out party for James.
(Well, I think it was thirty years ago today. I’m going solely off of the release date listed at Amazon.com. Eh, it sounds reasonable).
The first abstract put out by an actual publishing company in many ways just rehashed some things gone over in the previous self-published ones. For example, James discussed and explained Runs Created, a stat that wasn’t new to him, even if it was new to the great multitudes who had never heard of him previously.
Long story short, the book was a hit. James never need concern himself with working at a traditional job again. His passion had become his profession; his calling merged with his income.
James would write seven of these annual books before getting burnt out. Along the way, he wrote his Historical Baseball Abstract and helped launched Project Scoresheet. He later came out with a series of more modest annual baseball books in the 1990s, such as the Bill James Player Ratings Book.
Perhaps more importantly, he released a series of seminal books about specific baseball topics: The Politics of Glory on the Hall of Fame, Bill James’ Guide to Managers, and Win Shares, which was James’ attempt to create one great uber-stat. Oh, and he also released a best-of-the-Abstracts books titled This Time Let’s Not Eat the Bones.
Those books, along with the Historical Abstract, are the center of the Bill James canon. The annual Abstracts themselves often only hold up so well. The writing is great and the analysis superb, but by their nature they often heavily focused on that particular moment in time. Some of the research that was so groundbreaking at the time is now practically conventional wisdom. This is not to dismiss the Abstracts, but just to note that some of James’ non-annual work holds up a bit better.
Later, Bill James became a brand name and in the Moneyball era has become part of the mainstream. He has been hired by the Boston Red Sox and won a pair of World Series rings. It goes beyond baseball for him, as Time magazine once named him one of the world’s 50 most influential people.
It didn’t all begin 30 years ago, but that first professionally published Abstract was a key marker on the road to where we are all now here.
Aside from that, many other baseball events today celebrate either than anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event occurring X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you just prefer to skim the lists.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Ivan Rodriguez catches his 2,226th game, tying Carlton Fisk’s all-time record.
4,000 days since Dwight Gooden announces his retirement from baseball.
4,000 days since Mets prospect Brian Cole dies in a car accident when his SUV flips over.
5,000 days since the Dodgers (under GM Tommy Lasorda) trades prospect Paul Konerko as well as Denny Reyes to the Reds for reliever Jeff Shaw. This is Exhibit A in why Dodger fans would like to forget Lasorda’s stint as GM.
5,000 days since Chipper Jones hits his third career sacrifice hit. That’s notable because to date it’s still his last one.
6,000 days since the Mariners conclude the greatest LDS ever by beating the Yankees, 6-5, in 11 innings of Game Five of their ALDS. It was 4-4 entering the 11th inning, and the Yankees scored one in the top half only to see Seattle score a pair in the bottom of the inning for the series win. It’s the last game Buck Showalter managers for the Yankees.
7,000 days since Jesse Jackson says he’ll call for selective boycotts of MLB unless they put more minorities in front offices.
9,000 days since the Braves lose, pushing manager Chuck Tanner’s career record under .500 (1,313-1,314). It will never go over .500 again.
9,000 days since Eddie Murray draws two bases-loaded walks in one game. Both times, the pitcher allowing the RBI walk is Jose DeLeon.
20,000 days since Ernie Banks belts his 100th career home run.
25,000 days since the Braves lose, dropping Casey Stengel’s career managerial record 162 games below .500 (579-941). That’s his low mark, which he’ll tie two days later but never be worse than.
25,000 days since Stan Musial sets a personal best by reaching base for the 55th consecutive game.
40,000 days since veteran pitcher Al Orth allows a pair of inside-the-park homers in one game. White Sox infielders Frank Isbell and Hall of Fame shortstop George Davis leg them out.
Anniversaries
1883 The National League and American Association reach a truce, as they agree to stop raiding players from each other’s leagues.
1889 Reb Russell, 1910s swingman pitcher for the White Sox, is born.
1892 Bill James, star pitcher on the Miracle Braves, is born.
1903 The AL officially admits the New York Highlanders into their league. In 1901-02, they were the Baltimore Orioles.
1921 Judge Landis suspends the eight Black Sox.
1930 Vern Law, star Pirates pitcher, is born.
1939 Johnny Callison, All-Star outfielder, is born.
1942 Jimmy Wynn, maybe the greatest player of the 20th century to get shut out of Cooperstown with zero BBWAA votes when he reached the ballot, is born.
1941 Baseball commissioner Happy Chandler loses a bid to stay in office, getting voted down, 9-7.
1955 The Giants sign amateur free agent Willie McCovey.
1955 Ruppert Jones is born.
1956 The Red Sox release Dizzy Trout.
1956 Dale Murphy, star Braves slugger, is born.
1960 The Reds sign amateur free agent Tony Perez.
1962 Darryl Strawberry, 1980s Mets star, is born.
1965 Steve Finley, outfielder who aged surprisingly well, is born.
1969 In Seattle Pilots spring training, Ball Four author Jim Bouton notes that hot young prospect Lou Piniella has a heated argument with team manager Joe Schultz. The manger had told reporters that Piniella wouldn’t make the team unless he threw better on defense.
1971 Raul Mondesi, outfielder, is born.
1973 Frankie Frisch, Hall of Fame second baseman and leading figure on the Veterans Committee, dies.
1988 Atlanta signs Lonnie Smith as a free agent.
1989 Baltimore trades Mike Morgan to the Dodgers for Mike Devereaux.
1991 Jim Palmer ends his unexpected comeback attempt by tearing his hamstring in spring training with the Orioles.
2002 Steve Gromek, arguably the greatest swingman pitcher in baseball history, dies.
2004 The Yankees sign free agent pitcher Orlando Hernandez, who didn’t play in the majors the year before.
2010 Tampa Bay signs former Rangers prospect Hank Blalock.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
A better ERA projection
Posted by Brian CartwrightThe THT Forecasts have been as good or better than any at projecting the rates of home runs, walks and strikeouts allowed by pitchers. However, recent third-party tests have shown that we have fallen short in projecting pitcher's runs allowed, which is the most important number. After conducting a THT roundtable discussing possible solutions, and long hours coding, most modifications are now in effect.
I had been calculating runs allowed based on a non-linear formula that uses the wOBA allowed by each pitcher. This has shown to be accurate at all scoring levels, and I am still confident in its ability to project the number of runs created by the actions of the batters against each pitcher. However, that is not the only way that a pitcher can control run scoring.
The extent to which a pitcher can or cannot control base stealing is the largest factor. I have tabulated the steals, caught stealing by catchers, pickoffs, pickoff caught stealings and pickoff errors by each pitcher, assigning an extra 0.25 runs for each steal and 0.50 runs for each pick error more than expected, and a reduction of 0.5 runs and an extra out for each additional pickoff and caught stealing.
Likewise, a pitcher will reduce his projected runs allowed by 0.25 with every steal less than expected. Soon, wild pitches and balks above or below expected will be handled in the same manner.
Groundball pitchers and those with fewer walks and strikeouts will get more grounded into double plays per opportunity. GIDP is not included in the wOBA calculation, but I now assign a 0.5 run change and an out for each GIDP more or less than expcted. Pitchers with a higher groundball rate also suffer more batters reached on error, but those additional errors lead to a higher percentage of unearned runs. Soon, I will adjust the unearned run percentage for the pitcher's groundball rate.
The ERA baselines also have been adjusted. Previously, I was using a single value of the MLB averages from the beginning of Gameday in 2005 until the current date, but the accuracy of this has been called into question as the offense production in the major leagues has dropped over each of the past two seasons. The baseline MLB wOBA and runs scored per plate appearance are now based on a weighted mean of the same past three seasons that the individual projections are constructed from.
The last major item is whether the pitcher is performing as a starter or reliever. My comparison of the performances of pitchers who worked in both roles confirm research by Tango that showed that pitchers have a strikeout rate about 17 percent higher and a home run rate 17 percent lower when in relief, while the walk rate does not change.
Tango also found a reduction of the batting average on balls in play of about 17 percent in relief, compared to starting, but my research found a difference about half of that. When each of those components are adjusted, depending on their mix of skills, pitchers had starting and relief ERA projections that varied from about 0.40 to 0.80 runs.
These adjustments enable me to convert statistics compiled in relief to an equavalent starting pitcher performance before league conversion factors are calculated.
After the projections are completed—and customized to each pitcher's parent club's home ballpark—a final projection is created that is a weighted mean of the starting and relieving projections. For pitchers who work 100 percent in either role, there will be trivial changes in their projections. However, this gives us the flexibility to customize projections when pitchers are transitioning to a new role.
For example, Daniel Bard has had a 2.88 ERA over three years in the majors, 3.33 last year, working strictly as a reliever, but his 2012 projection as a starting pitcher is 3.96, reflecting the lower expected level of performance.
Brian got his start in amateur baseball way back in the 1970's as the statistician for his local college summer league in Johnstown, Pa, which also hosts the annual All-American Amateur Baseball Association. A longtime APBA and Strat-o-Matic player, he still tends to look at everything as a simulation. He has also written for StatSpeak and Fangraphs, was runnerup in the Baseball Prospectus Idol competition, and has consulted for a major league team. You can contact him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Friday, March 09, 2012
100th birthday: Arky Vaughan
Posted by Chris JaffeA hundred years ago today, one of the greatest and most underrated infielders of all-time was born: former Pirates shortstop Arky Vaughan.
He was a terrific player who could hit for average and draw walks, had some decent mid-ranger power, and even once led the league in stolen bases. Oh, and he did it all while playing shortstop, the diamond’s most important defensive position. There’s a reason why Bill James listed him as the second greatest shortstop of all-time in his New Historical Abstract (behind fellow Pirates shortstop Honus Wagner).
Yet despite that, and despite playing in the era most over-represented in Cooperstown, Vaughan didn’t join the Hall of Fame until 1985, over 30 years after his death.
Let’s look at it this way. Vaughan’s greatest season came in 1935. That year, he led the league in batting average (.385),walks (97), OBP (.491), SLG (.607), OPS (1098), OPS+ (190), WAR (9.1), Runs Created (147) and several other sabermetric stats.
Well, 47 men who played in 1935 are currently in Cooperstown. Two of those guys are in as managers (Leo Durocher and Al Lopez) and a third as an umpire (Jocko Conlan) but that still leaves 44 players from that year in Cooperstown. Here’s when the 44 guys who played in 1935 made their way into Cooperstown. Please note where Vaughan’s 1985 induction ranks among them:
1936 Babe Ruth
1939 Lou Gehrig
1942 Rogers Hornsby
1947 Mickey Cochrane, Frankie Frisch, Carl Hubbell, Lefty Grove
1948 Pie Traynor
1949 Charlie Gehringer
1951 Mel Ott, Jimmie Foxx
1952 Paul Waner
1953 Al Simmons, Dizzy Dean
1954 Bill Terry, Bill Dickey, Rabbit Maranville
1955 Gabby Hartnett, Ted Lyons, Dazzy Vance
1956 Hank Greenberg, Joe Cronin
1964 Luke Appling, Heinie Manush
1967 Red Ruffing, Lloyd Waner
1968 Joe Medwick, Goose Goslin, Kiki Cuyler
1969 Waite Hoyt
1970 Earle Combs, Jesse Haines
1971 Chick Hafey
1972 Lefty Gomez
1974 Jim Bottomley
1975 Billy Herman, Earl Averill
1976 Freddie Lindstrom
1980 Chuck Klein
1982 Travis Jackson
1984 Rick Ferrell
1985 Arky Vaughan
1986 Ernie Lombardi
1991 Tony Lazzeri
Of the 44 Hall of Famers from 1935, Vaughan was No. 42 to get his plaque.
There are three groups of Hall of Famers. Through 1956, everyone is a Baseball Writers Association of America selection. That’s the first group. It’s a really solid bunch, with only Pie Traynor drawing raspberries from sabermetric circles.
The second goes from 1964-76, when the Veterans Committee put a bunch of guys in (and the BBWAA elected Appling and Ruffing, the last 1935-ers to go via the writers). While there are some good picks here (see Goslin, Goose), many of these are among the all-time worst picks in Veterans Committee history.
The third chunk is the final 1935 dribbles from the Veterans Committee. After 1976, its members waited four years to elect another 1935 guy, and they put in only six more from 1980-91, when they finally stopped. Some of these guys are bad jokes (Travis Jackson and especially Rick Ferrell).
Vaughan is better than anyone else is the third group, probably better than anyone in the second group, and better than several in the first group.
So why did he have to wait?
A few thoughts: First, he died really young—in 1952 at age 40. Public visibility helps a candidacy and he wasn’t visible at all.
Second, Vaughan had a short career. In part it’s because he missed three years due to World War II, but he also played only 129 games after it. Effectively, his career ended at age 31, so he has well under 2,000 games. That makes it trickier as well.
Third, being well-rounded may have hurt. If a guy has all his talent in one area of the game, it’s easier to notice because his homers or batting average or glove is so impressive that it sticks out. Vaughan’s overall value is great, but no single stat makes you go “Wow!” And you need a wow factor when you’ve got a shorter career.
Fourth, when Vaughan played (and for long after), walks were underrated as a stat. Well, Vaughan thrice led the league in walks drawn. That glanced off people’s skulls. It’s worth noting the best player from the 1930s not in Cooperstown, Stan Hack, also drew plenty of walks.
Vaughan was also overshadowed by his teammate Pie Traynor. Vaughan was a better player, but all of Traynor’s value was in his batting average, so it was easier to notice him.
Thus Vaughan fell by the wayside. His Hall of Fame support peaked at just over 15 percent in 1967, trailing people like Mel Harder, Allie Reynolds, Johnny Vander Meer and Marty Marion. All were fine players, but none were nearly as good as Vaughan.
Still, Vaughan did eventually enter Cooperstown and his plaque still stands there. Happy 100th, Arky.
Aside from that, many other baseball events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is an event occurring X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you’d prefer to just skim.
Day-versaries
1,000 days since Miguel Tejada gets his 2,000th career hit.
1,000 days since last game in the career of Jason Isringhausen.
1,000 days since Torii Hunter of the Angels smashes three home runs in one game.
2,000 days since the Cardinals retire Bruce Sutter’s number.
5,000 days since Ken Griffey Jr. enjoys his three doubles per game.
5,000 days since Toronto signs free agent Tony Phillips.
8,000 days since Carlos Baerga makes his big league debut.
9,000 days since the Twins retire Rod Carew’s number.
9,000 days since Wade Boggs has his worst single-game WPA of his career: -0.392 WPA. He goes 0-for-6 with a pair of Ks as the A’s beat his Red Sox, 5-3.
25,000 days since Paul Derringer wins his 200th game, giving him a career record of 200-188.
25,000 days since the White Sox purchase Johnny Dickshot from Hollywood in the Pacific Coast League.
25,000 days since the big league debut of George Kell.
40,000 days since Ed Delahanty bops his 100th career home run. He’s the eighth man to reach that level.
Anniversaries
1893 Billy Southworth, Hall of Fame manager, is born.
1893 Lefty Williams, Black Sox pitcher, is born.
1900 Brooklyn purchases Gus Weyhing from St. Louis.
1900 Jack Chesbro is assigned by Louisville to Pittsburgh. Louisville’s team no longer exists in the NL.
1900 Iron Man Joe McGinnity is assigned by Baltimore to Brooklyn as the old Baltimore team doesn’t exist any more.
1921 The Cardinals sign Rogers Hornsby to the richest contract in NL history: Three years at $18,500 a year.
1927 White Sox outfielder Johnny Mostil tries to kill himself by slashing himself with a razor. He’d been having an affair with the wife of teammate Red Faber, and Faber had just found out about it.
1927 Jackie Jensen is born.
1932 Ron Kline, pitcher, is born.
1934 Jim Landis, outfielder, is born.
1942 Bert Campaneris, shortstop, is born.
1943 The Phillies trade outfielder Lloyd Waner and another player to the Dodgers for Babe Dahlgren.
1946 The Mexican League offers Ted Williams $500,000 to jump there. He’ll turn it down.
1947 In a spring training game, Leo Durocher sort of implies that Yankees co-owner Larry MacPhail has mobsters in his box at their team’s stadium. This will help lead to Durocher’s year-long suspension in 1947.
1963 Terry Mulholland, pitcher, is born.
1965 Benito Santiago, catcher, is born.
1979 Commissioner Bowie Kuhn declares that all reporters—male and female—will have equal access to all big league locker rooms.
1987 The Cubs sign free agent right fielder Andre Dawson.
1987 Zeke Bonura, 1930s bad-fielding first baseman, dies.
1988 The A’s sign free agent Tony Phillips.
1994 John Kruk is diagnosed with testicular cancer.
1995 MLB awards expansion franchises to groups in Arizona and St. Petersburg.
2010 Willie Davis, outfielder, dies at age 69.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
70th birthday: Dick Allen
Posted by Chris JaffeToday marks the 70th birthday for one of the most iconic and controversial players of the 1960s: Dick Allen.
Few players have had as much talent, and even fewer found themselves in as much controversy. I have neither the time nor inclination to recount all of Allen’s episodes. He just had the knack for getting in controversy.
One thing interesting about Allen was that he was genuinely controversial. By that I mean it wasn’t that he did something that everyone hated. No, that would make him merely widely maligned. To be controversial, you need a split of opinion—not only vehement opponents, but also passionate detractors. Throughout Allen’s career, he had plenty of both. Many considered him to be a pure clubhouse cancer while others thought he was a good man, just misunderstood.
His controversies ran the gamut. Sometimes, it’s very easy to feel sorry for Allen, as he was put in rotten situations beyond his control. For instance, the Phillies made him the first black player on their southern minor league teams. This was in the early 1960s, during the peak of the civil rights movement, so things could be quite rough for Allen. It could be even rougher because he was from Pennsylvania, and while the north was certainly not a wonderland of racial utopia, it would make the transition to Jim Crow-era southern life that much trickier.
While there are times you can see it’s easy to feel bad for Allen; there are other time it’s hard to feel so bad for him. For example, towards the end of his career Allen played for the White Sox and, as a cost of keeping him (and his majestic bat) on the roster, he made the team keep his brother on the roster as well, to help him earn a pension. That’s being a nice brother, but it’s also leaving the team short-handed by one roster spot.
At other times, Allen was simply along for the ride in controversies. For instance, in October 1969 the Phillies made Allen the key part of a multi-player trade to the Cardinals. The big name going to Philadelphia in return was veteran center-fielder Curt Flood. However, instead of reporting, Flood opted to fight baseball and the reserve clause in court. Thus the first serious threat to the old labor arrangement came out of a trade involving Dick Allen.
In some ways Allen’s controversies reflected the times. That was certainly the case of his minor league experiences, where he helped integrate the minors. It was also true of perhaps the most memorable controversy of his career.
On July 3, 1965, Allen got in a pre-game, on-field fight with teammate Frank Thomas. The incident between the black Allen and white Thomas had racial overtones, as Allen didn’t like the way Thomas treated some of the black players and Thomas muttered that Allen was trying to be another Muhammad Ali.
The fight came just as the Selma voting rights campaign, arguably the peak of the civil rights movement, was in full force. Also, it came just one day after the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s fair employment provision took effect. As Thomas and Allen went at, lawsuits began across the country to protest discrimination in the job market.
There are many other things about Allen, but one thing they all have in common is creating the image of a supremely talented young athlete. It’s hard to envision Allen as anything else. But today that is the case, as he’s now 70 years old. He’s older than Babe Ruth ever was. He’s as old now as George Steinbrenner was when the Yankees won the 2000 World Series, completing a three-peat. Allen is older than Bud Selig was at the tied All-Star Game in Milwaukee.
Aside from that, many other baseball events today celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which occurs X-thousand days ago). Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you prefer to just skim the lists.
Day-versaries
2,000 days since Chone Figgins hits for the cycle.
2,000 days since Derek Jeter gets a hit for the 25th consecutive game, the longest such streak of his career. His line is .377/.432/.538 during this streak.
5,000 days since Mark McGwire hits his 37th home run of the 1998 campaign, tying Reggie Jackson with the most home runs hit before the All-Star break. No. 37 is a 472-foot bomb against Kansas City’s Glendon Rusch.
5,000 days since Sammy Sosa belts his 20th home run of the month, an all-time record. (It’s June 1998).
5,000 days since Alex Rodriguez experiences the worst game of his career according to WPA. He goes 0-for-5 with a pair of GIDP that results in a –0.486 WPA. The Rockies top A-Rod’s Mariners 6-4. The big hurt comes in the ninth inning when he comes up with runners on first and second and no one out and hits into a GIDP.
6,000 days since a big day in the 1995 LDS. Most notably, the Yankees top the Mariners 7-5 in 15 innings in Game Two of their series. Both teams scored once in the 12th frame. In the NL, the Reds top the Dodgers, 5-4. Both teams score twice in the ninth, but the lead never changed hand as the Reds batted in the top of ninth.
7,000 days since the Twins sign free agent pitcher Bert Blyleven.
9,000 days since Don Mattingly ties Dale Long’s old record by homering in his eighth straight game.
20,000 days since Red Schoendienst, who only launches 84 homers in his entire career, has his third and final multi-home run game.
Anniversaries
1889 The Louisville Colonels big league team purchase pitcher Red Ehret from Kansas City for $500.
1913 The Federal League announces it’ll set up in 1914.
1918 The New York Yankees purchase George Burns from Detroit.
1922 Carl Furillo, rifle-armed Dodger rightfielder, is born.
1923 Boston signs free agent Stuffy McInnis.
1939 Jim Bouton, pitcher/author, is born.
1941 Hugh Mulcahy becomes the first big leaguer drafted into the military service since World War I.
1953 Jim Rice, fearsome Hall of Fame left-fielder, is born.
1994 The Reds sign free agent shortstop Tony Fernandez.
1996 Boston signs free agent slugger Kevin Mitchell.
1999 Joe DiMaggio dies at age 84.
2001 Baltimore gives a press release stating that Albert Belle will be unable to perform due to a degenerative right hip.
2009 Milwaukee releases one-time Dodger relief ace Eric Gagne.
2011 Kim Ng is named senior vice president of baseball operations for MLB.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.