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June 19, 2013
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And That Happened (3)
30th anniversary: Bob Welch does it all (1) And That Happened (2) 30th anniversary: Keith Hernandez for Rick Ownbey and Neil Allen (4) Four teams, 38 innings, one historic day (9)   
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Wednesday, June 06, 2012And That HappenedNationals 7, Mets 6: The legend of Bryce Harper grows. A game-winning hit in the 12th inning. What say you, Harper? "I'm happy to get the W, of course. I'm happy to get that walk-off hit, but I don't like going 2 for 7," Harper said. "I don't like striking out twice in one game, either." Bryce ... we talked about the me-first stuff ... "To get that moment at the end, that wipes everything away," Harper said. OK, good. Just checking, because everyone's watching, kid. Braves 11, Marlins 0: Tim Hudson with a five-hit shutout and Dan Uggla hit two homers and drove in five against his old team. Rookie Andrelton Simmons had three hits including a triple and drove in three. That's coming up big. Of course everything about him's big. Kid, do us all a favor and buy yourself a jock, OK? You're gonna hurt someone out there. Dodgers 2, Phillies 1: Cliff Lee: 12 strikeouts and two runs in 7.2 innings but he still took the loss. That's nine starts and no wins despite a 2.92 ERA. Chad Billingsley tied up the Philly bats, allowing six singles, a double and only one run in seven innings. Angels 6, Mariners 2: Mark Trumbo smacked two homers, doubled, singled and drove in four. His line on the year is .337/.384/.634. Cubs 10, Brewers 0: Ryan Dempster gets out of the Cliff Lee club, finally gets some run support and a win. He was perfect through five innings, but the aw shucks Dempster wasn't about to say anything about it: "Yeah, I was thinking about a perfect game for sure," Dempster said. "I'm not an idiot. I know that I hadn't had anybody on base. But it's the second-best thing: a win right here." Dude, talk to Bryce Harper's media relations team, OK? Diamondbacks 10, Rockies 0: Ian Kennedy struck out 12 in six innings. Afterwards he said a mechanical tweak was responsible. What tweak? "It's a secret," Kennedy said. Fine, be that way. Jason Kubel drove in five. Indians 4, Tigers 2: Ubaldo Jimenez has been a hot mess this year, walking the whole league, but the Tigers made him look like it was 2010 all over again. Asdrubal Cabrera, Lou Marson and Michael Brantley each hit RBI triples. I love triples. They're so much damn fun. Yankees 7, Rays 0: Andy Pettitte struck out 10 while shutting out the Rays for seven. Russell Martin went 3 for 4 and hit a grand slam. New York has won nine of 12. Pirates 8, Reds 4: Clint Barmes had three hits and drove in three runs. The Pirates have hit seven homers in their last two games. Is what has been the worst offense in the NL starting to wake up? Orioles 8, Red Sox 6: Jim Johnson blew a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning but held on to vulture a win. Wasn't a pure vulture-job in that he came back and shut the Sox down in the 10th. And given how good he's been -- he had saved 25 straight coming in -- he's entitled to one of those every now and again. Baltimore is 4-0 in Fenway this year. Blue Jays 9, White Sox 5: Colby Rasmus went 5 for 5 with a double, homer and three RBI. Brett Lawrie led off and went 3 for 5 and scored three times. Interesting. Phil Humber continues his quest to cement himself as the most fluky perfect game pitcher ever, as he allows five runs in five innings and runs his ERA up to 5.68. Seriously: how many guys have thrown perfectos and lost their rotation job in the same season? Astros 9, Cardinals 8: Houston led 6-1 after two innings, saw the lead shrink, built it back up again and managed to hold on as St. Louis put up four in the ninth. Jose Altuve responded to your collective snubbing of him in the All-Star voting by going 4 for 5 and scoring three runs. Jaime Garcia looks totally off, and is clearly not better after missing a start due to a sore elbow. Royals 1, Twins 0: Bruce Chen shut 'em out for seven and the pen took over. Rangers 6, Athletics 3: Texas survives Oakland's offensive outburst. Well, an outburst for the A's. Derek Holland struck out two, walked two and allowed three runs on seven hits, so it's likely that he avoided a spanking. Padres 6, Giants 5: Logan Forsythe's first-ever home run was a walkoff job: "I was just trying to get on base for the guys. Luckily, it got out," he said. Kids these days with their selfish attitude. 50th anniversary: LaRussa goes proFifty years ago today, a kid signed his first professional contract with a major league team. He’d stick around the game for quite some time. It was June 6, 1962, when the Kansas City A’s sign a 17-year-old kid from Tampa, Florida who had just graduated from high school. His name? Tony LaRussa. He wouldn’t make much of an impression as a player. Despite a middling performance in the minors, LaRussa won a brief call-up to the major leagues in 1963. After picking up 11 hits, he went back to the minors, where he stayed for five more years. By the time he came back with the A’s, they were in Oakland and loaded with talent. LaRussa was never much more than organizational filler for them. One nice thing for LaRussa, however, was that he got to know a better prospect than himself, catcher Dave Duncan. Later on, Duncan would be LaRussa’s longtime pitching coach. Not needing LaRussa, the A’s traded him in mid-1971. His prospect years over, he now became a minor league vagabond. Though he briefly played in the majors for the Braves and Cubs, LaRussa spent most of his time in the minors for a handful of organizations. While he amassed just 35 big league hits, his collected over 1,100 hits in the minors. In 1977, he was a 32 year old hitting under .200 for the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A club. His playing days were done. Of course, that’s when LaRussa’s career really took off. In mid-1978, the White Sox tabbed him to manage their Southern League team. Apparently his smarts had impressed the Chicago brass when he played in their minor league system in 1976-77. The club immediately improved under LaRussa and continued to play at a high level in 1979. Then, midway through the ’79 campaign, the Sox fired their major league manager. They didn’t have to look far to find his replacement. LaRussa, still in his mid-30s, was a big league manager. He’d stick around for 33 years, missing only a few weeks in the middle of the 1986 season. Either as player or manager, LaRussa has been employed by some franchise or another for almost every day from June 6, 1962 until October, 2011. He retired last year just before the 50th anniversary of his first baseball paycheck. 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 just want to skim. Click for more... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
