Late Innings

The “Ifs”

2012-03-02T10:11:00.006-05:00

Well the 2012 season is about to start and there is much ado from all quarters from the grapefruit league. The Jays have put up a brave face for this up coming season. The talk is very upbeat. positive and sometimes over the top. For a solid 5 hundred team, changes needed to be made in the off-season that would improve the chances. Alex Anthopoulos has made some changes and kept some things the same. But as the spring season starts, it seems to be full of “ifs”. Who will have a break out year, will finally be what is expected, who will be a surprise? There are many questions with answers only to be found between the lines.

So some of the “ifs”:

Colby Rasmus: If he lives up to the hype and the Jays win, he will not be traded. If not, he too will be gone. He has not proven yet that he can be the leader in centre field or that his bat is worth the hassle. He reportedly did not get along with LaRussa at the Cardinals. Over three seasons he has posted only a .251 BA, .322 OBP and 53 home runs. If and when are my questions. When will he get the major league numbers that justify 2.7 mil salary? Will the Jays culture influence him in the right direction? According to Rasmus himself, last year “was not a good one”. I think there may be a positive chance he will live up to his rookie year’s great expectations. He is only 23 years old and in his third year. Chances are good that with his new, calmer attitude and focus on work, he will live up to his potential.

Kelly Johnson: He has plenty of defensive skills but has lost all confidence at the plate. Not at all unlike Aaron Hill before the trade. Only his home runs were on par last season, everything else was way below average. Fielding was good but we need lumber too. Last year his split was better when he came to the Jays. His BA went from .209 to .270 and the SO to BB ratio improved from 3:1 to 2:1. However, he is a career .260 hitter with a SO to BB ratio of 2:1. So, he is in his career range. I think we can do better. If he can be more than he has so far, he might stay on the team. For Kelly, I don’t think he is and AA will have to find some other piece to fill this position.

Travis Snider: “Lost in translation” is the way Snider plays. In the minors he smashes it up pretty good and in the majors he falters. His starts have been disappointing at best and he’s had a few chances. He is young and apparently, so far, unable to adjust at the MLB level. Things are easy in the minors but not that much. His numbers are literally out of the park. But the major league level adjustments Snider needs to make have not worked out. This is it for Snider. He played only 49 games last year with a .225 average and OPS of .616. Since his spectacular 2008 last season call-up he has tailed off in a similar spectacular way. It’s now or never. I think it will be never. Thames will carry the team and Snider may remain as a utility outfielder or be traded off.

Eric Thames: He seems to have the bull by the tail. He performed beyond expectations last season. If he continues his athletic ways with the bat and in the field he will definitely find a spot. He had 95 hits over 95 games and a projected 20 HRs if he played all year. Not a bad intro to big league ball. (It seems the Jays have already decided he will make the team as his face is in most of the advertising and on the Jays’ web site.)

Kyle Drabek: After the melt downs of last season, is he ready? Mabe the Jays brought him up too early. Whatever the excuse, it is hard to imagine a worse introduction to the Jays’ then Drabek has had. Last year he had 18 starts and nine decisions at 4/5 for a .444 record and an ERA of 6.06. Also, he had 51 SO and gave up 55 BB. If he can manage his head, he will stay. He has the potential.

Adam Lind: Lind should not be on this list, but… These last two years he has under performed his own career record. Last year he made an offensive come back, but still not up to 2009 stats, when he and Aaron Hill were in competition. Lind has, I think, shown he can play first. His defense really has improved. It is his position in the line-up that could put him out. How could he cover Bautista or anyone with a BA of under .200? The Jays have not covered this position or the DH. Lind hit 26 home runs and drove in 87 runs but had an OPS of only .734, almost 200 points lower than his 2009 OPS. The real question comes when he hit only .197 for the second half of the season while his paired teammate Encarnacion was strong only in the first half. Encarnacion is not the answer if Lind does not pan out.

For the Jays, there is much potential and as yet, little realization. If the playoffs are to be a reality, an 11 to 14 game improvement is required. Don’t forget the Angels, Rays, Tigers and Rangers. All have made improvements to their teams and big ones at that. I am hoping against hope that all the Jays come thru from “ifs” to “sure things”. The wild wild card may be our only chance.

Do you believe Ryan Braun?

2012-02-26T00:01:00.002-05:00

For the first time ever, the results of a drug test in Major League Baseball have been thrown out. Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers, who had a sample taken at the beginning of the post season, showed results from that test that passed the threshold for testosterone – as in “blasted through the threshold and into the next state” above. Apparently, the test reported levels were “insanely high, the highest ever for anyone who has ever taken a test, twice the level of the highest test ever taken.” (Teri Thompson, New York Daily News)

Braun immediately denied having taken any performance-enhancing drugs. Again, according to unnamed sources, the test showed the levels were not caused by a drug or a steroid. He had a second test done immediately by an independent laboratory that came back with normal testosterone levels.

The original testing (of A & B samples: results the same) was done by the Olympic testing labs in Montreal, probably the best in the world and the results showed “the presence of synthetic testosterone”. (T.J. Quinn, ESPN) At this point, MLB decided that a suspension was in order and proceeded to implement it. Braun filed an appeal.

[Let’s call a time out: All of the current behind-the-scenes information is from “unnamed sources”. When you have to rely on this sort of information, all kinds of things can go on. You would hope that the reporters know and trust the people supplying the information, but that might not be the case. Why we don’t already have the report from the arbitration panel who heard Braun’s appeal is disturbing. The baseball public deserves to know what went on. Also, right from the beginning, all sorts of information was leaked. That’s not a good thing. Why did it happen? If I were in charge of MLB’s testing program, I’d certainly want answers to that one and pronto! And I would also want them relayed to the public.]

Clearly, something is going on here well past your basic failed drug test. How did synthetic testosterone get into the urine sample? From this point, it gets really muddy. The sample was not sent to the lab right away. It sat on the collector’s desk at home for the weekend because he said that he couldn’t get it out immediately on FedEx (who handle all shipping). Braun and his lawyers have seized on this fact, saying that the sample was tampered with.

I’m willing to bet that this is the reason the arbitrator’s report will give for overturning the suspension. MLB’s testing program is clearly on thin ice here. They can’t say for sure that the sample might not have been tampered with – even though “the seals were apparently intact when the sample arrived at the lab”. (T.J. Quinn, ESPN) In short, not getting the samples “into the mail” promptly has compromised their case for suspension.

MLB is angry about the outcome of Braun’s appeal, Dick Pound (the drug-testing guru for the Olympics) has indicated his disapproval, and after the long line of athletes who have tested positive, vociferously protested their innocence, and much later said that they did indeed cheat, a lot of the media and public think that Braun has gotten off on a technicality.

What do you think? Not guilty? Guilty and lucky? Or guilty and lying?

However, above and beyond that, I come back to who leaked all the information and what’s being done about it? I’d like to know why protocols weren’t followed and what’s being done about it. I’d like to know what the hell is in the report and why it’s taking so long to get it out. Surely, if the arbitrator can come to a conclusion and lift the suspension, why can’t he tell us his reasons? My guess is that there’s stalling going on while a phalanx of lawyers and PR people scramble behind the scenes, trying to package this mess into something the public will find palatable.

So maybe they’re having to let a guilty man off because of their own screw-ups.

AA,YU & JM's

2012-02-24T18:01:00.005-05:00

It is so great to read Rick and Will’s posts this week. It’s all about being a fan and the hope that each spring brings to each club. As a fan, I feel the Jays have a good chance to make the wild wild (??) card playoffs. I want to feel this way. However, it certainly depends on a number of ifs in the player ranks, but that is for next time. Today I want to rant a little about some moves Alex Anthopoulos made.

For the most part Alex Anthopolous has done a great job putting the Jay’s house in order in the minor leagues and making positive trades and call-ups for the big team. In this past off-season he made a couple of what I think are goofs.

From the fan side it was the Yu Darvish bid. Did we or didn’t we go for him? I don’t know. Did we or didn’t we make a competitive bid? We may never know. I would like the Jays and AA to come clean. They should have at the time. The deal would have made no impact on the rest of the team picture of free agency or trade deals. So it would have been an off the shelf pick. Yes, the asking was a huge price and if AA did not want to play that game he should have said so. I would have been happy with that. AA saw Yu Darvish and others play in Japan last season. A smart idea if you might make a move. (I think he still has ideas that would come out of those trips to Japan.)

My point is that the coy response from AA about Yu got the fan’s expectations up and was a poor PR move. He could have said they were in it or not. The let down was not that the Jays lost out on the bid but that AA seemed not to care whether the fans (taken in by media reports) understood or could understand the deal, good or bad. AA’s thinking is unclear. Did AA think Yu Dervish a tier one or tier two type of pitcher? Did they make a real bid? Would he have been a fit for the Jays? Was he worth it? All these questions are left unanswered. All this by the guy who wants us, the fans, to back him up by putting our bums in the seats. Probably too late now, but AA should have kept the fans in the loop on this one.

Now for the other oops. Catcher. It seems that the Jays thought so little of Jose Molina that they let him go without much fight, or so it seems. The resultant hole is now filled by Jeff Mathis. Ultimately it will probably be Travis d'Arnaud who will come in next season, but not yet. I think if AA offered Molina something halfway decent he would have stayed for another year. His 2011 salary was 1.2 million and it’s now 1.5 for the Rays. AA is paying the same 1.5 for Mathis 9 (last year was 1.7 million from the Angels). But what do we really get from the number two catcher?

Mathis’ strong point is his ability to handle young pitching. Molina did a pretty good job of that too. Mathis threw out only 24% caught steeling second and Molina 40%. Neither are the best at going down on balls in the dirt. This is something I will pick up shortly. But here is the kicker, Mathis has just a .194 BA while Molina is career .241 and last year .281 in a backup position off the bench.

So in the space of eight days AA lets Molina go, picks up Mathis and then signs the new closer Sergio Santos. Santos has great movement on his pitches. Batters can’t pick up the late movement on the ball. This is great for a closer but hard on the catcher who must have a best guess on where the ball will wind up. There are many examples of Santos getting a strike out and the ball goes in to the dirt and the catcher is all over the place trying to cover it. This could be very problematic if a close game.

I hope Mathis is up to the role. He will have to show much more than he has to date to stay in a Jays uniform beyond June.

Will Your Team Have the Greatest Season Ever?

2012-02-22T15:00:00.004-05:00

As Rick recently wrote, all baseball fans are hoping their team will have an amazing season, with most of their players having career years. Well, there is always hope. As you will read below things didn't look very promising for the 1927 Yankees – often regarded as the greatest team ever – but they did okay. Check out the players' nicknames as you read. (Life is too politically correct for many of the nicknames nowadays.)

Okay, granted, the Yanks had won the pennant the year before, but not in '24 or '25. In '24 they finished second, two games behind Walter Johnson's Washington Senators. (Of course the Senators won – Goose Goslin – at right- hit 12 home runs that year.)

But in '25 the Yankees finished second last! They had just 69 wins and ended up 28 1/2 games back of the Senators. (Goose hit 18 that year – thanks to Ruth lots of guys were swinging from the end of the bat now.) Bob Meusal, the big Yankee left fielder, hit 33 home runs, but slick-fielding Earle Combs was the only man to hit over .300. The Babe hit just .290, with only 25 home runs. None of their starting pitchers was over .500.

In '27 their prospects weren't all that good. Their pitching, catching, and infield were all suspect – and Ruth, at 33, was showing signs of age along with their best pitchers Herb Pennock and Urban Shocker. Ruth had hit 47 homers in '26 but had a habit of following great years with poor ones – for him that is.

The Yankee pinstripes had not yet achieved the status of legend, the '26 pennant was seen as a collapse by their competitors and the Yankees had lost the Series (on hungover Grover Cleveland Alexander's relief appearance in which he'd struck out Tony Lazzeri – after Lazzeri had crushed a pitch that was just foul). Their improvement from '25 to '26 was the biggest in baseball history to that point but there was a feeling that the pendulum might swing right back.

In his third year at first base Columbia Lou Gehrig, a.k.a Biscuit Pants (Ruth, who couldn't remember anyone's name, called him Buster) had hit .313 in '26, with 16 home runs and 107 runs batted in. (He'd break Ruth's record of 170 with 172 in '27.)

At second was "Poosh 'Em Up" Tony Lazzeri. In his first year in organized ball he'd been struggling and a fellow Italian, a restaurant owner, cooked him a spaghetti dinner and encouraged him to push 'em up (get hitting). He did. He drove in 222 runs in the Pacific Coast League. '26 was his rookie year and he impressed with 18 home runs but hit just .275, well below what he'd hit the next several years.

Like Lazzeri, shortstop Mark Koenig was in his second year. He'd hit .271 in '26 but he led the league in errors with 52. He'd also been the goat of the Series hitting into three double plays, committing three errors, and striking out seven times, often in crucial spots.

At third was Jumping Joe Dugan. In his mind his first team, the Philadelphia Athletics, didn't pay him enough and he jumped, i.e. left the team, 36 times. (Talk about a record that may never be broken!) Dugan could hit, field (especially bunts), run, and throw. He was one of the best third basemen in the league but now he was suspect because of an old knee injury.

Speedster Earle Combs (he was clocked at 10 seconds flat over 100 yards at Churchill Downs) covered a lot of ground in Yankee Stadium's cavernous center field (490 feet). Combs hit a lot of triples into it. Combs was a .325 lifetime hitter but had hit just. 299 in '26.

The aforementioned Bob Meusal was usually in left, but when the sun was in the right fielder's eyes the Yankees often switched Ruth and Meusal – no sense endangering the babe's vision. Long (6 foot 3) or Languid (he often took it easy) Bob had the best arm in baseball and hit for average and power. Ben Pascal, the backup outfielder hit .360 in 89 games in '25 but how do you break into that outfield?

The catchers included 145-pound Benny Bengough who was being visited by quacks and eccentrics because doctors hadn't fixed his throwing arm after he was hit by a pitch; Pat Collins, who'd hit .600 in the Series (.275 for the season) but also had a damaged throwing arm (he claimed that bowling repaired it); and John 'Nig' Grabowski who had come over from the White Sox after hitting .262.

The biggest question about the Yankees was their pitching. Their ace was Herb Pennock, the Squire of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, who bred silver foxes. He knew every hitter's weakness but at 33 he was in his fourteenth big league season.

Next was Waite Hoyt (at right) who pitched 27 shutout innings in the '21 Series (Mathewson shares the record with him). Still called Schoolboy though in his tenth year, he had never won 20 games and was 16-12 in '26.

At 37 Urban Shocker was nearing the end. He was one of seven pitchers still allowed to throw the spitter but had such an assortment of curves and other dirty tricks he often didn't need to use it.

Unruly (he drank a lot) Walter "Dutch" Reuther was in his eleventh season and was still considered one of the game's best lefties. He'd been accused of being drunk when he started against Ed Cicotte in the 1919 World Series. He won the game, which was later accepted as having been fixed. "I thought I'd worked a tight game," Dutch said later (probably over a beer).

To shore up the aging staff the Yankees added rookies George Pipgras, a Minnesota farm boy, "the Dutch Viking", who had a common minor league label – great stuff, no control, and Wilcy Moore, a 30-year-old dirt farmer from Okmulgee, Oklahoma. His wrist had been broken two years earlier and he'd developed a sidearm sinker. It worked. In '26 he was 30-4 with Grenville in the Sally League.

So a pennant and a 4-0 World Series was anything but a sure thing in '27. On April the Yankees opened the season in front of 73,206 fans (a record) and Waite Hoyt outdueled A's ace Lefty Grove 8-3.

On September 22 they were down 8-6 to the Tigers in the bottom of the ninth when Babe Ruth chipped a piece out of a seat in the 64th row of the bleachers (six rows from the top) with a two-run homer, his 56th. Unable to contain his excitement a young boy who had been praying all afternoon that the Babe would hit one jumped out of his seat, ran across the diamond, and caught up to Ruth as he rounded third. Ruth still had his bat in his hand. The boy crossed the plate together with his hero and followed him right into the the dugout. The win put the Yankees (who would finish with a .714 record) 16 1/2 games in front.

Not a bad year for the Babe or the Yankees. To see how they did, go to http://retro.bb-ref.org/teams/NYY/1927.shtml

Kicking the tires

2012-02-18T00:01:00.002-05:00

I love spring training. First, because it’s the end of a very long dry spell for baseball fans. Yeah, MLB gives us the winter meetings and then those are followed by various free agent signings and trades, but it soon becomes something akin to throwing crumbs to a starving person (unless your team signs Albert Pujols or something). When February finally rolls around, we’re all really ready for something meaningful to happen, teams as well as fans.

If you’re a fan of a particular team, you’ve probably listened to all the news from them over the off season. Since their marketing departments never have an off season, you know that this will be a good year because a) “we’re finally ready to compete”, b) “we’ve fine-tuned the team and expect to be in the post-season once again”, or c) “out rebuilding efforts are going to make this team really exciting to watch this season”. Or some such sales talk like that.

But second, I also love spring training because you finally get to see your team’s 40-man roster in action. You can begin to make a more accurate assessment of what their potential is for the upcoming season, see if you’ve been given a hollow sales pitch or have gotten the straight gen. Sure, everyone says that spring training records don’t mean a thing once the starting bell rings in April, but if you’re a savvy ball fan you can begin to assess where the team’s strengths and weaknesses really are.

One fond wish I’ve had for many years is to go down to spring training. February and March are pretty gloomy up here north of the 49th, and a little Florida sunshine would go down pretty easily. But I think it would be fantastic to be down there, see the Jays of course, and also visit some of the other teams’ ballparks to see where they’re at. You know, play “advance scout” a bit and kick the tires on the forthcoming baseball season, not having to rely on the baseball pundits, but on my own two eyes.

So starting next week, we get to find what just may happen once baseball hits April. I can’t wait, even if I can’t be down south.

Is everyone drinking electric kool aid or something?

2012-02-11T13:30:00.002-05:00

I’m as anxious as everyone to see spring training get started, and so to get my daily taste of the upcoming baseball season, I’ve been reading a lot of baseball journalism over recent weeks. Normally, at this time of year, everyone’s optimism is on display, and why not? No practice pitches have yet been thrown, no drills have taken place, and there have certainly been none of the spring training sister-kissing games to show that [name of team here] is going to [a) enjoy their long-awaited breakout season, or b) continue their dominance in their division/league].

But this year it has been ridiculous. It seems as if nearly every team is bound to win 100 games and go to the post season where they will crush all opposition – if you believe what journalists are saying.

In recent days we’ve been treated to journalistic prognostications indicating that “Toronto could be East’s newest beast” (Spencer on mlb.com), or “Royals’ bumper crop of talent ready to ripen” (Justice on mlb.com), just to mention two that caught my eye. Arizona has apparently the best pitching in the NL west. Cleveland is on the verge of a big season. And it goes on. Of course, the Angels, Rangers, Marlins, Nationals, and Detroit have made huge commitments to winning now. The Yankees, even though they didn’t get involved in the off-season sweepstakes haven’t lost a jot according to many, and are stronger now than they were at season’s end. Ditto for the Red Sox, Cardinals, and Rays. Even the lowly Mariners are getting some journalistic action (“Wedge, Mariners full of promise for new season”—Johns on mlb.com).

You’ll notice that all of the above quotes come from the Major League Baseball website where they certainly have a stake in heightening each teams’ fans’ expectations, but I could find other examples from other sports journalists with nearly any publication. You could, too. All you have to do is look. At this time of year, every baseball journalist is going to give his view of each teams’ chances for the season, but based on what’s being written in 2012, you’d think at least 20 teams have a realistic chance of going winning it all.

Obviously, everyone is being far too optimistic. However, the thought does occur to me that it would be a terrific thing if they were all right. Can you imagine the baseball we’d see with so many teams that good, battling it out over 162 games?

The importance of the 2012 season for the Blue Jays

2012-02-04T11:30:00.002-05:00

Since I haven’t been a season ticket holder for well over 10 years now, I don’t get to go to the January feature the Jays have put on for that august group. I can watch it on clips, though, and I’ve always found it informative, but maybe not in a way the team’s brass would like.

First and foremost, it’s a marketing exercise. They want to sell more tickets, so those of us on the outside can watch, our noses pressed against the glass, what special things people who lay down a wad of cash are treated to. Since it is about marketing, there’s not much said of substance. Sure, season ticket holders can air their grievances, but there never is much of that. How can there be? These people have already indicated their support of what the team is doing by plunking down their cash.

However, some grumbling occurred at this year’s “state of the union” address, and that’s a good thing. Those of us on the outside are still waiting to see what’s going to happen, and holding back our unfettered support while we keep our wallets firmly in our pockets.

Two years ago, Alex Anthopoulos, boy wonder, promised us a different way of doing things. He announced the Jays were going to build from within by making savvy draft choices, beefing up an ailing farm and scouting system, only making trades with a big upside and only signing major free agents when the team was ready to make a serious run at the post season. The proposed formula was promised to give the Jays sustainable, first-rank teams over a number of years. So far, he has stuck to his guns, diligently, rigorously, nearly to the point of obsession.

And the team has prospered modestly. It’s been above .500 both years AA has been on board – and through some significant injury adversity. Like many, I have been waiting as patiently as possible during the off-season to see what the Jays actually have when they hit the field. And I am one of the patient ones.

So what we have is a team on the cusp. Will they need one or two significant players to make the post season? Most likely. I do like what’s been done under AA’s tenure. What I don’t like is the fact that the team seems to be trying to distance themselves from being willing to try to go all the way this year. The 2013 season is what they’re now hinting at.

I don’t think that’s good. Sure, there are a lot of promising players on this team. If enough of them break out and some of the established players (Bautista, Lind, Escobar, et al) have solid seasons, the Jays could go pretty far. But ownership all of a sudden hinting that they want to see bums in seats before they’ll shell out big bucks for a big stud player is very troubling.

Should they have gone after Fielder? No. The price and length of contract required precluded that being a good fit. Darvish? No. Way too expensive. So deals were not made for big free agents. A lot of fans are objecting. Those fans will sit back further and take even more of a wait and see attitude. The result for 2012 may well be that enough bums won’t be in seats for the team’s owner to be willing to pony up cash for free agents after the season ends, free agents that the team may well desperately need in order to compete.

So it falls on the 2012 team to play way above their heads to get the fans hot and bothered again, and showing up at the ball park in far more increased numbers that has been the case in the past 10 seasons. I’m thinking that the average needs to be 30,000 per game for Rogers to reach for its wallet.

And that’s a tall order. I’m hoping to be very surprised by this year’s team – or AA’s plan could really be in trouble.

Re: The Jays in 2012

2012-01-31T18:14:00.003-05:00

Looks like someone else agrees with me about the Jays:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/2012/01/31/carson_bluejays_stateoffranchise

I actually am really looking forward to this season. The Jays could be the sleeper hit of 2012. They won 81 games last season and now have a much-improved bullpen, so with no changes could realistically expect to win 90 games. Watch for the front office to pull off a big trade if the Jays are doing well mid-season if they have any need of one or two key spots that need improving.

Thanks to Will for sending me the above link.

By the way, I will be back at my usual every Saturday posting starting this week, so please stay tuned! Will and John will be back shortly too.

How Does Baseball Stack Up?

2012-01-28T02:49:00.003-05:00

As often happens, I was doing research for a blog – this time on greed among players – and found myself being led down another path. This time the allure was an understandable one – gorgeous women. In identifying the highest salaries in baseball one encounters Derek Jeter and one outcome of his huge salary, along with his fame and glamour boy looks, is his ability to attract hot women.

So today's topic is how baseball ranks among the professional sports in the ability of its stars to attract gorgeous females. In the media we often see basketball players' beautiful wives and girlfriends, such as Eva Longoria who wed Spurs guard Tony Parker, Victoria Secret model Adriana Lima who got hitched to Marko Janic, and Kobe Bryant, whose wife Vanessa (left) has sued for divorce. Mexican supermodel Elisa Benitez was married to Miami's Rony Seikaly for six years. And how about a fox with a fox? The Lakers' Rick Fox landed 1983 Miss America Vanessa Williams. So basketball stars do all right.

The NFL's Tony Romo dated Jessica Simpson, who moved on to ex-49ers tight end Eric Johnson. Romo later married Candice Crawford. Former 49er and Cleveland Brown Jeff Garcia is married to Playmate Carmella DeCesare (left).

New England Patriot QB Tom Brady wed supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Playmate Kendra Wilkinson (right) tied the knot with Minnesota Viking wide receiver Hank Bassett at the Playboy mansion. And the well enhanced Playmate Jennifer Walcott married Adam Archuleta. So football stars rank high as well.

Hockey's Brad Richards landed Olivia Munn - for a while. Tough winger Mike Fischer played for the Ottawa Senators but was traded to Carolina where he was a lot closer to wife, country singer Carrie Underwood. And Wayne Gretzky's wife Janet Jones is still pretty hot.

Sports Illustrated model Ingrid Vandebosh gets NASCAR's Jeff Gordon's engine revving and Dario Franchitti drove off with beautiful actress Ashley Judd.

As for golf, Phil Mikleson's wife Amy is lovely. Tiger Woods married Elin Nordegren, which I think turned out pretty well.

Tennis anyone? How about Andy Roddick marrying Sports Illustrated model Brooklyn Decker (right)? I love baseball, but I'd take Brooklyn Decker over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Wimbledon champ Rafael Nadal is dating Maria Francisca Perello.

And now for baseball. There's former Met hurler Kris Benson and his often photographed wife Anna, and C.J. Wilson of the Texas Rangers who sees Sports Illustrated model Dominique Piek. Former Brave David Justice hit the jackpot with Halle Berry, his wife for four years.

A-Rod was married to wife Cynthia and so, of course, would not even look at other women but bachelor Derek Jeter ... well he is in a class by himself. The Jeter list is nothing short of stunning. Here we go. Rachel Uchitel, Jessica Biel (left), Jessica Alba (both Jessicas !), Vida Guerra, Vanessa Minillo (right), and recently Minka Kelly. Jeter was interviewed by Barbara Walters recently and though repeatedly pressed would not say a single word about his love life. Class act.

But for hottest gal pals baseball doesn't stand a chance. Nor do any other of the sports listed above. With the exception of tennis and golf they are all basically North American sports so their stars have primarily America women to woo. But the hands down winning sport has the whole world as its oyster. It is far and away the biggest and sexiest sport in Brazil, Argentina, Italy, France, Spain, Greece, need I go on? I think not, soccer players have the most beautiful wives and girlfriends. I have included below just a few of the many gorgeous females who cling to 'footballers'. I won't name their boyfriends, it would take too long as some of these gals, like Gemma Atkinson, have dated a few.

Federica Ridolfi Clio Pajczer Sara Tomassi

Georgia Palmas Adriana Karembeu Eva Amurri

Nicola McLean Francesca Lodo Elisabetta Canalis

Rosaria Cannavò Gemma Atkinson Imogen Thomas

So in spite of Derek Jeter baseball loses out, but it has had the most famous wedding of all sports ...

The most famous athlete hookups.

The recent New York Nets forward Kris Humphrie's brief marriage to Kim Kardashian;

David Beckham and and Spice Girl Victoria; and of course ...

Joltin Joe Dimaggio and the somewhat famous Marilyn Monroe.

When fans get in the way

2012-01-18T00:01:00.002-05:00

There’s one thing about most sports fans: they’re opinionated. They know what’s wrong with a team, they know exactly what to do to fix the situation and they’re always right. The Blue Jays are suffering from this big-time at the moment. I find it troubling.

To be fair, the Jays have been pretty tight-lipped during the off-season, and it hasn’t always been in their self-interest to be so. Sometimes a little information, a reassurance from a club GM, can help reassure impatient fans, and heaven knows, Jays fans are getting impatient.

When current GM Alex Anthopoulos came on board, he took a lot of heat from fans even though they really disliked previous GM JP Riccardi. Why? Because Alex was young and unproven. During his tenure, though, AA has proven himself to be very good at his job and a pretty dab hand at being able to pull off blockbuster trades.

One thing he stated upon taking the helm was that Toronto was going to take their time to reorganize their farm system and develop a team that had the potential to win year after year, rather than trying to buy themselves a few players to put them over the hump. There was a new way of doing business.

And he’s stuck to his guns. He reinvigorated the scouting staff and that has led to some excellent draft picks and a restocking of the farm system with a number of blue-chip prospects. No, they won’t all make it to the Bigs, but some will. Via the trade route, AA has done some amazing things. Brett Lawrie is one of the players he’s brought in this way. He may have done it again this off-season with Santos whom many pundits are saying he “stole” from the White Sox. Time will tell.

Where the real friction with the fans currently resides is that the Jays have made no big free agent signings. Despite what Anthopoulos says and the way he wants to work (and it’s been pretty damn successful up to now), they want to see some big gun coming to Toronto. It may still happen, but it only will if AA and the Blue Jays brain trust really feels confident there is a major upside to such a deal. So far, they obviously haven't felt that way. Fielder for 10 years at 250 million? All I have to say to that is: why? It ain’t worth it.

To be fair, it’s obvious the Jays owner, Rogers, wants to see improved financial returns before they really open the purse strings. When AA stated that (in so many words) at the Winter Meetings, a lot of fans took it to mean that the Jays were less than serious in fielding a competitive team this year. Not so. They’re just not willing to throw money around to make the fans happy.

The one thing that’s struck me, though, is that these grumbling fans seem to be discounting the team the Jays have already assembled for next season. On paper – and right now every team is “on paper” – the Jays should be better than last year. AA has done his best to fix the faults of the bullpen, he’s getting players signed rather than taking them to arbitration, and he may have an ace or two still up his sleeve.

Let’s look at some of the things Toronto’s hysterical fans are overlooking:
• We’ll have Brett Lawrie for the entire year – and more seasoned as well
• JP Arencibia has handled his catching duties well and he was a proven hitter at AAA. Now that he can concentrate more on swinging the bat, he could open some eyes in 2012.
• The outfield defense at this point is really excellent (bit of a question mark in left field aside) and could get even better, depending on what transpires in spring training. It will definitely be better than what Toronto had coming out of spring training last year.
• Adam Lind has proven he’s a good first baseman. He will improve and as he becomes steadier defensively, like Arencibia, he’ll be able to concentrate more on hitting. Look for a breakout season from him. There. I’ve said it.
• Second base is a bit of a question mark. Maybe with being familiar with the team, Kelly will return to form. It worked for Escobar. The Jays now have a solid, all-round shortstop.
• Starting pitching remains a big question, though. Romero has legitimate ace stuff. Morrow does too, but hasn’t seemed to harness it yet, although at the end of 2011, he was looking much better.
• It was encouraging to see Dustin McGowan make it all the way back last year. He could be the real dark horse in this starting staff. There were some good things on display in September and he only needs to build on that. Watch out if he gets it all together again. This guy knows how to pitch. Remember Chris Carpenter?
• Henderson Alvarez seems to be somewhat forgotten many by the fans. This kid is good, keeps his focus well and has above average stuff. Don’t they expect him to get better?
• For the final starter, there’s a lot to choose from: Cecil, Drabek, possibly one of those prospects at AAA. If a team can get 10-12 wins from a fifth starter, they’re getting what they need. Cecil proved in ’09 that he could deliver 15 wins. Drabek might get his head together. Who knows what could happen here?
• At DH, the Jays have Encarnacion. Once they got him away from his starting position at third base, he seemed to settle down and hit far better. The team still likes him a lot, and with good reason. Expect him to get better. He has something to prove. Ditto for Colby Rasmus and Johnson, by the way. Could that be the reason AA only signed them both for one year? Now they have something to really play for.

The bottom line to all this is that if the Jays players who had good years in 2010 keep that up and some of the lesser lights come on in a way they’re fully capable of doing, this team could get to that 90-win plateau quite easily – without additional changes to the roster. I’m not saying that some a few players being brought in would be a bad thing, but let’s be sensible about it.

Also bear in mind that old adage: winning begets winning. If this team really goes on a tear, they will begin believing in themselves even more and that can mean an extra half-dozen wins more at the end of the season. They showed that character last year in pulling some games out of the fire. I’d like to see them build on that.

So to everyone in Toronto who’s freaking, chill out! You have to trust that AA and his front office team know what they’re doing. They’ve mapped out a path and they’re still following it. So what if the Jays didn’t get Darvish and will probably pass on Fielder? How many other teams have thrown away huge amounts of money to sign a free agent and gotten nothing much in return? (Take AJ Burnett. Seriously. Take AJ Burnett. The Yankees will thank you.)

I, for one, am still firmly behind AA and the Jays’ brain trust.

One of Those Moments in Baseball

2011-12-20T16:46:00.012-05:00

Okay, it happened again. I went to comment on Rick's video of the Japanese pitcher throwing the blooper pitch and it turned into another article. I hope you folks don't mind, I try my best to make 'em interesting.

The pitch in the video he posted brought to mind the 1946 All-Star game. I wasn't yet born but I've read about the game. Almost all of baseball's star players had been overseas fighting and now the fans in Boston got to see them assembled for the first time in five years.

Ted Williams never won a World Series, the only one he played in was that October (he went 5-25). His stage was the All-Star game. In his previous game, in '41, before becoming a Marine Corps pilot, he'd hit a walk off home run – though they didn't call them that in those days – to give the AL a 7-5 win.

The American League had its way with the Nationals in '46 though, winning 12-0. Williams already had a home run and three RBI (he'd end up 4-4) by the eighth inning. Called in to pitch for the NL was Pittsburgh's Rip Sewell.

Sewell had started with the Pirates in 1938. In 1940 he was 16-5 with an ERA of 2.40. But then hitters started to figure him out and he lost more than he won the next year. No matter though, for Sewell was very likely to be drafted that year – until he got shot that is.

On December 7, 1941, the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Sewell was hunting when a friend accidentally put 14 pellets of buckshot into him. Sewell told a reporter that the blast had torn holes into him the size of marbles. "My legs looked like screen doors." No one knew whether he'd pitch again, but his draft status immediately plummeted to 4-F.

Ignoring doctor's orders Sewell went to Spring Training, pitching in pain and keeping his wounds hidden from everyone but the Pirate trainer. It was lucky he wouldn't be facing the league's top hitters, who were on their way overseas, but his injuries had taken some of the zip off his fastball and the snap off his curve. So Rip came up with a trick pitch, the Eephus pitch. It rose on on a 25-foot arc and slowly dropped over the plate, and it was misery for batters used to swinging at fast pitches.

His first victim in exhibition play started to swing, stopped, started again, and then almost fell down. The first time he threw it in a real game the batter pointed his bat at Sewell and threatened to shoot him. (Been there, done that.) The Cubs manager tried unsuccessfully to have the pitch banned.

In St. Louis Whitey Kurowski spit tobacco juice on the ball as it floated past him. In Cincinnati the Reds shortstop caught the pitch and fired it back at Sewell. (It was still called a strike.) Against watered-down competition Sewell won 17 games in 1942 and 21 in '43 to lead the NL and then another 21 in '44. No one homered off his Eephus pitch.

In the eighth inning of the '46 All-Star game NL manager Charlie Grimm told Sewell to "See if you can wake up this crowd with that pitch of yours." Three singles and two outs later the Splendid Splinter stepped into the batter's box shaking his head from side to side and yelled, "You're not going to throw that damn pitch of yours are you?" Sewell threw it on the very first pitch and Williams swung hard, fouling it off the tip of his bat. Sewell threw it again, but missed the strike zone and Williams never swung at anything out of the strike zone.

Williams had told Bill Dickey before the game that he wasn't sure a home run could be hit on the Eephus pitch as the hitter would have to supply all of the power. On the third of Sewell's trick deliveries Williams took two steps forward – out of the batter's box – and launched the ball into the right field bleachers.

Of course the home run, the only one ever hit off Sewell's special pitch, was allowed to count – in violation of Baseball Rule 6.04 "A batter shall be called out when he hits a ball with one or both both feet on the ground outside the batter's box".

You can see at left that Ted's front foot is out of the box. But you can't ruin a magical moment like that.

You know, I've been spending some time analyzing how the Cardinals won this year's World Series and I think I've figured it out.

Wanna know why the Ranger pitchers couldn't throw strikes?

Take a look at this. Watch the girl behind the catcher as the pitcher delivers. Watch her left hand.

Best. Baseball. Pitch. Ever.

2011-12-17T16:31:00.004-05:00

Okay, it’s silly Saturday. I found this on Youtube the other day and thought you ball fans would enjoy seeing it.

New Baseball Show: The Greed Factor

2011-12-15T14:30:00.015-05:00

That was a great post about realignment, Rick. I started responding to it and found my long-winded self writing an entire blog. Here goes.

Sports franchise owners obviously believe Gordon Grekko's philosophy that greed is good. Heaven forbid that they should ever wait to add new franchises until it is good for the game. There are some obvious factors to consider after all, such as arithmetic (duh) and, in the case of a huge land mass like North America, geography – with the added element of time zones when TV is taken into account.

Then there are continuity, tradition, fan interest, and just plain common sense. The NHL recently did the unthinkable – they actually put some thought into the realignment necessitated by the Atlanta Thrashers' recent move to Winnipeg. And several owners and general managers did something even more unthinkable – they put the league's and the fans' interests ahead of their own. Yikes! What is the world coming too?

Speaking of hockey, perhaps the NHL, whose All-Star game is deadly dull, should adopt baseball's accidentally brilliant strategy of awarding home field advantage to the conference that wins the All-Star game.

For me a basic problem with so many damn teams in all the sports is that you want to build and nurture rivalries but you also want to give the fans a chance to see all the stars from time to time. But you can't fairly do that in baseball. First, it goes against tradition, something that Selig has buggered up pretty nicely, and second, in baseball the teams don't play other teams once, they play three or four games in a row.

In a completely fair world, teams should play other teams as often as do their rivals. But you can hardly have everybody playing all of the teams in the other league (to keep things equal) three or four times, there would be no time left to play the teams in your own league. Again – too many flipping teams!

It's really too bad that so many things have to act like pendulums, swinging so far each way. In hockey for decades you had just six teams and many top players spent their careers in the minors. Then the NHL moved much too quickly to 12 and you had a lot of bums playing in the league. The players were treated like slaves and then thanks to expansion (and briefly the WHA) the players had all the power. The majority of NHL players are from small towns in Canada and almost none of the people who live there could ever afford to go see the kids play after they get drafted.

In baseball you had just two out of 16 teams in the post-season and just one round of playoffs. It was downright silly in the early 1950s when three teams from the same city (New York/Brooklyn) played in four out of five series. Now you have a bunch of teams in the playoffs and they go into October. (Hockey goes into June now!)

We all need to go MLB's website and suggest changes (or changes back) to the game. Then they should have a draw of the names of all the people who sent in suggestions. Winners would get free memberships in a very exclusive club – the Bud Selig fan club.

My first suggestion for MLB ... erect statues like the one at the right outside every major league ballpark.

What the hell is Major League Baseball thinking?

2011-11-26T12:46:00.004-05:00

A number of things have come together in the recent postseason that are very good for the game and its fans – on the surface. Dig deeper and you’re going to be left scratching your head.

There’s a new collective agreement in place that will mean labor peace for some more years (as compared to the mess in the NBA). There will be a second wildcard position, quite possibly in 2012. The Astros are going to be moved to the AL and play in the Western division. On any day when all teams are playing, there will be an inter-league game.

Let’s disregard the collective agreement, because I don’t think any fans have a beef with that.

Way back in 1997, MLB decided to add one more team to each league (the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays). The problems this decision created were major in that each league would have an odd number of teams. There were two solutions: inter-league play extended over the entire season with one team from each league involved. The other thing that could happen was to move one team to another league.

Apparently, Bug Selig, who owned the Brewers at that point, felt that it would be a conflict of interest to have his team move to the NL. So the Kansas City Royals were asked first and declined. Since Milwaukee had been a NL city for 13 seasons (1953-65) when the Braves were in town, it was felt this was the best switch to make. It was also worth a lot of money to the team that moved. Gee, I wonder why this all happened this way?

So from 1998 until the end of this past season we had two unbalanced leagues with the AL West easily being the best place to be because you had only three other competitors to beat in your division instead of four – or five if you were unlucky enough to be in the NL Central.

My big question to all parties concerned is why this was allowed to happen in the first place? It created a patently unfair situation for all teams. The solution to the situation was obvious: either don’t award franchises to Arizona and Tampa, or wait until four franchises could have been awarded.

Now let’s look at the fallout of this latest decision.

It’s been decided to move the Houston Astros to the AL Central, thus putting both leagues back into balance – exactly the same place MLB was during the off-season of 1997 when the two new teams were added! Now I don’t know about you, but if I were a Houston fan, I’d be pretty pissed off about this.

We’re now going to have inter-league play spread more thinly over the entire season, the decision that was shot down in 1997. So why is it the correct decision now? Nothing has changed?

I have been against inter-league play from the beginning because the number of games between teams in each league had to drop. Not only that, but the schedule also changed to pit teams from each division against each other more often. In divisions like the AL east, this puts the “lesser” teams like Baltimore, Toronto and, until recently, Tampa Bay at a distinct disadvantage against the division’s two powerhouse teams, New York and Boston.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the inter-league schedule will affect inter-divisional play next season. Are we going to see even few games between our teams and teams from other divisions? That would hurt the game a great deal, in my opinion.

My basic feeling is that MLB made a big mistake creating only two new teams in 1997. It should have been four or none at all. With the continuing juggling they're only painting over the initial mistake that was made.

Time has born out that one of the decisions for a new franchise was a poor one. The Tampa franchise is floundering badly – not out on the field, certainly. They’ve been able to compete toe-to-toe with Boston and New York for several seasons now. It’s at the gate where they’re hurting. Even when they were in the World Series in 2008, I was shocked to see empty seats at Tropicana Field. As they came on so strongly at the end of 2011, thousands of seats went unfilled night after night. The team was forced to sell discounted tickets and waive parking fees in the middle of a postseason drive in an attempt to fill up their stadium. Not a very good sign.

Arizona has been more successful putting bums in seats, but there are several other teams around the league that have been floundering at the gate which means other options could have been looked at back in 1997.

But with Bug at the helm we got a very wrong decision from MLB’s hierarchy and I believe it’s harmed the game, most definitely in the fairness department.

2011-11-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

I thought this might be an interesting way to keep off my first off-season post. Hope you find this as interesting as I did.

And now, the off-season

2011-11-06T00:01:00.001-04:00

Hi there, Late Innings fans.

With the slowing down of the baseball year while every team tries to figure out just what the hell they’re going to need to do to get to the World Series a year from now, we’ve also decided to go into off-season mode here on Late Innings, too.

“What exactly does that mean?” you might well ask. Well, a few things.

First, you won’t be hearing from Will as often. His historical essays take a fair bit of time to research and write up and he has severe writer’s cramp as a result. He’s going to see Dr. Frank Jobe who has treated nearly all the great baseball sports journalists over the years who have come down with this career-threatening injury. Will may post during his convalescence, but not until he’s given clearance to write off a mound. He promises to be ready by spring training.

John will continue to post sporadically, as well – keeping up his record from the regular season. A man of many words, I know he has a lot of them left over that he’ll need to get rid of before spring training starts in the new year.

Me? You’ll have to put up with me since I’ll probably post most Saturdays.

But now our big announcement! We’d like to invite you, our faithful readers, to be guest off-season writers for us. Do you have any interesting baseball thoughts you’d like to share? A favorite team? Player? Something you want to gripe about? We’d love to offer you our soapbox. Please contact me directly at rick@rickblechta.com and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.

In Memory

2011-11-04T09:18:00.004-04:00

With all the managerial changes due to firings, resignations and retirements this year, I thought we would remember one of the greats in the game.

He won back to back series with Big Red Machine in 1975 and 1976. He also won with the Tigers in 1984. It has been a year since Sparky Anderson died at age 76.

His style was flamboyant but convivial. “I got good players, stayed out of their way, let them win a lot and then just hung around for 26 years,” said Anderson during a 2000 speech on being inducted to the Hall of Fame. He had some of the greats in the game and he helped them become great. Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Jack Morris and Kurt Gibson to name just two from each team.

Sparky is the nickname of George Lee Anderson. He got the name from a broadcaster while playing for the Double-A Fort Worth Cats of the Texas League as a shortstop in 1955.

We have Maple Leafs General Manager, Jack Kent Cooke, to thank for Sparky’s involvement with managing baseball. Sparky played for the Triple A Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. This was after his time in the show in a Dodger’s uniform. Even though Sparky was not a great ball player (fielder, no bat) Cooke noticed he could teach, lead and inspire those around him. In 1964 Cooke hired him to manage the Maple Leafs. (Same team Babe Ruth once played for).

Very quickly Sparky rose thru the managing ranks producing championship teams in each of his four minor league years. The Reds hired him for the 1970 season. They won 102 games in the regular season and then lost in the WS to the Orioles. It was this team that gained the moniker the “Big Red Machine”. It was a name that stuck until 1979. Sparky was hired by the Tigers in 1980 starting another run to the WS. He holds the franchise record for wins by any manager with the Tigers at 1,331.

Sparky is also the first manager to win World Series rings in both leagues. Of course, Dick Williams of the Padres, would have also been the first if they had beat the Tigers in 1984.

Sparky’s style was his “sunny disposition”. Except when it wasn’t. He could dust it up with the best of them, but not often. He treated his players with respect and taught them about the real game and about real life. He did start what is now a common practice. Get to the bullpen. If the starter is not doing well, don’t wait, get the relievers out there. He became know as “Captain Hook”. Tony LaRussa called him a mentor. I guess that is part of what we just saw in this year‘s WS with so many pitching changes for the Cardinals. (What was that? LaRussa brought in a reliever to pitch-out one batter.)

In 2000 Sparky was inducted to the Hall of Fame. His number 10 was retired by the Reds in 2005 and his number 11 retired by the Tigers in 2011. Each Tiger player, this past season, wore his number 11 on their uniform. Sparky is missed by the whole of baseball and its fans.

One of the Best is Gone

2011-11-01T10:56:00.025-04:00

With Tony La Russa’s retirement after 16 seasons with the Cardinals a golden age of managers is nearing an end. Only Tiger skipper Jim Leyland, a friend of La Russa, is left of a group of extremely successful modern-day managers. In the past year La Russa, Bobby Cox, and Joe Torre, who rank 3, 4, and 5 in all time in wins by a manager, have each retired gracefully.

For the record, Cornelius McGillicuddy (you may know him better as Connie Mack) had the most wins (3,731) in baseball history, but his record is tainted by the fact that he lost a lot more (3,948) – for a .486 record. John McGraw, who won just 35 more times than La Russa, had a winning percentage an even hundred points better than that. McGraw’s .586 trails only Joe McCarthy’s amazing .615, but keep in mind that in McCarthy’s first thirteen years with the Yankees they finished first or second in the AL twelve times.

LaRussa should easily make it into the Hall of Fame. So too should Bobby Cox, whose best-ever 16 playoff appearances is marred only by the fact that he won only one World Series, and Joe Torre, who went to the postseason 15 times, won six pennants, and four World Series.

As for Jim Leyland, who has 1,588 wins and sits in 18th place, he has only three more wins than losses, but he had the misfortune to continue managing the Pirates after they jettisoned their big salaries and he also led the '98 Marlins to an impressive .333 record.

La Russa managed teams to twelve first-place finishes and six pennants, going to the World Series in three straight years with the A’s from 1988 to ’90. He also lost in the Series with the Cardinals in 2004. He often appeared tight-lipped at his post game news conferences, but behind the scenes he showed a sense of humor, often poking fun at his .199 career big league average in a playing career that consisted of 176 at bats over 11 years as a utility infielder.

La Russa has changed the way baseball is played through his use of a number of unusual strategies. He started games with his pitcher batting eighth 432 times and continually used batter-pitcher matchups to determine which reliever to bring in – which unfortunately made major league games even longer and slower. He was one of the first managers to regularly use a reliever – Dennis Eckersley – for a single inning. Of course Herman Franks used Bruce Sutter as a specialized reliever in the late ’70s and the Yankees used Sparky Lyle that way too – and then Goose Gossage, but La Russa refined the practice, trying to ensure that Eckersley would start the ninth with a clear slate by trotting out a parade of righties and lefties to create matchups.

In 1991 La Russa set a major league record with 397 pitching changes, surpassing the record set by Reds manager Pete Rose four years earlier. Of course it was more remarkable in the AL where the existence of the Designated Hitter in and of itself reduces the need for pitching changes. By 1993, his last in Oakland, La Russa was up to 424 changes.

La Russa was getting a lot out of his hitters too. But not because of a shot in the arm from him – because of a self-injected shot in their butts – of steroids. La Russa claimed not to have known about their use, particularly by Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, but a guy as smart as he is must have. Funny thing ... Mark McGwire hit prodigious home runs and made prodigious use of steroids with another team in another league three years later. Now let me think, who managed that team – the ’96 Cards? Oh ya, that was La Russa again.

So Hall of Fame, yes. La Russa was one of the most intelligent, involved, innovative, competitive, and successful managers of all time and he deserves to be there. But his lengthening of games and his acceptance of steroids loses him quite a few points with me.

And it all comes to a close

2011-10-29T13:10:00.005-04:00

Well, I was wrong about the World Series. I honestly thought that my comments would jinx the rest of the games. I’m happy to be able to say that I was completely wrong. This was baseball worth watching. And the worst played game was one of the most exciting I’ve ever seen.

Some personal observations:

I honestly thought that Texas would win it after they came back from game 3, the one I like to think of as The Albert Pujols Show. It demonstrated a lot of backbone on their part. In game 6, by the 6th inning, I thought the series was about over. Was I ever wrong! It’s not often that such a sloppily played game (by both sides) can turn out to be this exciting. Even though I’m not a fan of either team in particular, it was almost unbearable to watch. More than once I thought of two punch-drunk fighters staggering around the ring trying to knock the other out. It’s hard to imagine that the Cards managed to come back not once, not twice, but three times in those last 3 innings. As soon as the game ended, I knew I wouldn’t have wanted to be in that Texas clubhouse. Three blown saves in 1 game. That’s really gotta hurt. How many times were they within one strike of winning? Last night must have been even worse.

Up until game 6, we had some of the best defensive baseball I’ve seen in a long time (see last week’s blog for my choice of the best of the best). How many times were players picked off or thrown out by Napoli and Molina? I wonder if it’s a record for one series. Those are always exciting plays.

I wonder if the use of the bullpen by the two managers is the shape of things to come in regular season games? Once it got past the 5th inning, you could count on at least 8 pitching changes to be made before the game was over. That’s a lot of extra advertising time for Fox. Bet they were happy about Washington’s and LaRussa’s bullpen strategies.

In listening to the ESPN radio broadcast last night, Dan Schulman and Orel Hershiser were talking about the length of this series’ games. One thing they brought up was Fox’s insistence on adding 18 extra minutes to the game through between-inning commercials. Huh? I’m sorry but if MLB needs cash that badly, maybe they should hold a bake sale or host a telethon or something and not make us sit around for that much extra time while Fox makes money off their advertisers. The game doesn’t need this. Between relief pitchers warming up, the general slowness of the game and then the 18 minutes, that makes for one draggy game. I found myself drumming my fingers impatiently several times.

As much as I feel very sorry for Texas, there was a feeling of inevitability about this year’s playoffs – actually the last month of the season. Those Cards started playing great ball in September and peaked at just the right time as they rolled over one team after another. Texas wasn’t beaten by much, and if the pitching had been just a tiny amount better, one pitch better even, they would be getting ready for a victory parade through Dallas this week, instead of having to spend the winter tasting their own bitter bile. I wanted better for Ron Washington, one of the great guys in the game by all accounts.

So, on to the off-season and what promises to be a very interesting time of trades and free agent signings. Wonder who will make the upgrade of the year for 2012?

Another Rainout

2011-10-27T02:53:00.004-04:00

Well, here I am all ready to watch game six of the World Series. This series has been most interesting and exciting. As Rick posted Saturday there have been some great plays and on both sides of the bat. The last game had some of the most bizarre pitching changes I have ever seen (especially from Tony LaRussa). But…. again, tonight, the weather is playing a major part in the festivities.

The post season is again too late in the year. Even though the season started a bit early, here we are fighting cold, rainstorms and delayed play. All the players’ routines, workouts and preparations are delayed. Fans have to rearrange schedules. The World Series does not come along to your team every year. You want to be there for every game you can.

In ballparks that can be covered, like Rogers Centre and Tropicana Field, games are not delayed, not canceled for weather related issues. It still amazes me that since 1989 more clubs have not opted for some kind of domed stadium. At least clubs playing in extreme climates like the Southwestern and Northeastern parts of the US. Regions that can, at the beginning or end of the season, be too hot or too cold. The arguments will be that baseball should be played outside. I am in agreement except when the weather is too extreme. Close the lid. I’d rather see a game than sit through a long rain delay or cancellation.

At the Rogers Centre, it is a push button operation. After twenty-two years, the dome still closes quickly and silently when needed. It’s quite a marvel. Rain or shine, a game happens. During the WS in 1992 and 1993, weather delays could have produced different outcomes for the Jays. I remember how cold it was outside, but inside the temperature was warm enough to have a proper game. The Jays prevailed and all the postseason home games were played without interference of the weather. The games were won by the skills of the players and managers, not the weather.

Major League Baseball has deemed that in postseason play a game delay would be postponed only, and be resumed later. This adds for a continuity of play. In the past, you started the game over. Now the game and the statistics are contiguous. I think this is an improvement.

If you have ever been to Wrigley on a somewhat blustery and rainy day you can appreciate how much like a sieve that place is. Sure, it a very storied park, but very uncomfortable. Some recent stadiums have come up with different ideas on how to keep the elements out. The Astro’s Minute Maid Park has a retractable lid and grass. Looks good too, with red brick and a train in left field. (I know Rick would like that). The Brewer’s Miller Park most unique feature is its fan-shaped movable roof. It, too, has grass. I know cement is bad for the players and the Jays certainly have a better field with the new turf after replacing the old. But it is still cement. I think it is possible to have grass in most lidded parks. It just takes a different lighting situation and a good drainage system.

Games have always delayed and canceled due to rain or snow. Opening day for the Jays was delayed but played after the field was shoveled. Too cold. As of today, 21 World Series games have been delayed, only one for cold in 1903. Rain check anyone?
In today’s game, or what will now be Thursday’s game, the pitching situation will be much different with an extra day of rest for starters and especially the bullpens, who have done the bulk of the work to date. The managers are pleased. Fans, who intended to see this game, not so much. The strategies will be different with the players not on the same schedule as planned. As Will has said, baseball is not a cold weather sport. When needed, a covered park is the best thing going. Bravo to the Astros, Brewers and Jays for having state of the art parks that assure the show will go on.

What Records Can Pujols Break?

2011-10-25T10:42:00.051-04:00

When Albert Pujols banged five hits including three home runs in Game 3 of the Series he sent media statisticians scrambling for the record books. It was quite a performance, though his bat has been silent in the other games. Pujols had two home runs and ten RBIs in the Division and League Championship Series.

The Cardinal slugger is arguably the best hitter in baseball. He holds the distinction of having the highest lifetime batting average (.328) among current players. He's number 30 all-time and one of the very few in the top 100 who did not finish his career before 1940. (Ichiro Suzuki is up there too, just four spots back.) Farther down the list you'll find two other stars in this year's Series. Matt Holliday, stands an impressive 67th with a .315 career mark and Michael Young ranks 139th at .304.

Whether Pujols, Young, or Holliday set any other post-season single game records, it is highly unlikely that they or any other player will reach the career World Series records accumulated by New York Yankees such as Yogi Berra. It just ain't gonna happen.

Unless his team goes on an amazing streak - which is pretty unlikely with the number of teams there are now - there is no way that any current player can reach the World Series often enough to compete with Berra, Mickey Mantle, and their teammates.

With a lot of luck a player might last twenty years. Let's look at how often teams have made it to the Series in the last twenty years. The Yankees got there an impressive seven times. The Atlanta Braves made it five times, the Cardinals and the Phillies three times each. No other team has made it more than twice.

So let's see what kind of numbers recent Yankees have put up in those seven appearances. Derek Jeter, leading off or hitting second in just about every game over seven Series, has 156 at bats, 32 runs, 50 hits. Yogi Berra played in twice as many Series - an almost unbelievable 14. He had 259 at bats. That's half of a regular season. He scored 41 runs, had 71 hits -both records - and 39 RBIs. Mickey has him by one there. The only hitting records not held by Yankees are batting average, sacrifices, sacrifice flies (Joe Carter), and triples.

As for pitching records, over the Yankees' recent run Andy Pettitte started 13 games and won five. But Whitey Ford started 22 and won 10 - though he also lost 8. Ford pitched 146 Series innings (again, roughly half a season) and leads with 94 strikeouts - though he also leads in walks.

The only records Ford doesn't own are complete games and shutouts. Christy Mathewson had ten and four respectively. Mathewson's ERA was 0.97, one of the best, he had the fewest walks per game, and his WHIP is second best all-time. And talk about how playoff games have changed ... Christy averaged more than nine innings per start! As for top relievers, the leader is again a Yankee, but a current one. Mariano Rivera leads in appearances (24 games) and has a record 11 saves.

The only way a current player can be compared to the Yankees who dominated baseball for so long is to use division and league championship records. The recent Yankees again have an edge, making the playoffs year after year, but other teams have made it to the post-season fairly regularly too.

Counting playoff series Bernie Williams had 18 homers, equal to Reggie Jackson, but Williams had 80 RBIs while Mr. October had only 48. Manny Ramirez has posted some impressive numbers. In 111 postseason games he has a .937 OPS and hit a record 29 home runs (partly because he has the third most at bats) along with 78 RBIs.

Carlos Beltran has been a terrific playoff performer with 11 homers in just 82 at bats. His .817 slugging percentage and his 1.302 OPS are the best in playoff history. How does Pujols rank? In 56 games he has a .322 average, a 1.009 OPS, and 13 home runs.

Derek Jeter has the most games played, hits, runs, total bases, and is near the top in home runs. And he's played more than an entire season in the post-season, an amazing 637 plate appearances.

Lou Gehrig, "the Iron Horse", had 10 home runs, 30 runs, and had 35 RBIs - in just 34 games. His average was .361, his OBP .477.

Then there's the Babe. He had a 1.211 OPS and hit .326 with 15 World Series home runs - second only to Mantle who played in a lot more Series. Oh, and Ruth also has the third best ERA among pitchers with more than 30 innings. Talk about your all round player! He had 4 stolen bases too. Don't think of the Babe as always being the fat guy you see in newsreels, all of which were recorded in his last couple of seasons. He was a speedy fielder and runner for most of his career.

As for post-season pitchers, Andy Pettitte had 249 innings, 18 wins, 164 strikeouts - which would add up to a pretty good season. Tom Glavine is right up there with 218 innings, 14 wins, and a much better ERA - 3.42to Pettitte's 3.68. Speaking of ERA, Rivera's 0.83 (30 IP minimum) is going to be tough to beat. In case you're wondering, Koufax had a 0.95 ERA. Teammate John Smoltz excelled in the playoffs with 15 wins, a 2.67 ERA and 199 strikeouts. Then there's Curt Schilling, hard to forget his gutsy performances, with 11 wins and a 2.23 ERA.

In relief, well of course it's back to Mariano Rivera ... 88 appearances, an all-time best .772 WHIP, 39 saves, and an all-time best 0.74 ERA. Sounds like one of his seasons.

Of course if baseball expands the playoff format there will be more opportunities for post-season records.

It doesn’t get much better than this

2011-10-22T00:01:00.004-04:00

Is it just me or has the 2011 World Series been much more exciting than those in the recent past? Two hard-nosed, talented teams are duking it out, toe to toe and not giving an inch. Sure, there are good games in the Series nearly every year. These are always really good teams that are usually playing at the top of their game, so what would you expect? But then there are also games and Series that leave a lot to be desired with sloppy play or one-sided blowouts or just uninspired baseball. My feeling is that the Rangers and Cardinals want this so bad they can taste it – and it’s showing in the way they’re playing.

Some of each team’s great players are definitely not having good series this year. Hamilton is obviously hurt, and admitted that if this were the normal season, he’d be on the disabled list. Pujols is struggling, too. But that’s to be expected. It’s the end of a long season and people get pretty beat up in six months of hard playing. And some players just hit a slump at exactly the wrong time.

But there are also some players on both teams that have been nothing short of amazing. Case in point: the Rangers’ Elvis Andrus. Have you seen the absolutely jaw-dropping double play he started last night, that I feel ultimately changed the course of the game in the Rangers’ favor. Here it is:

Is that not amazing? Some are comparing it to the incredible catch made by Willie Mays in the 1954 World Series. Look at it below:

Pretty good. Right? Which do you think is better? Mays made a huge play. His throw back to the infield certainly was skyed, but he makes an almost impossible catch and then stops on a dime to make it. The Andrus play from Thursdays game has a lot more subtlety about it. There’s finesse there. The fact that he obviously caught Kinsler, his second baseman, napping and out of the play makes the tail end of this double play even more amazing.

Like I said off the top, if you want to see some great baseball, I get the feeling that this series might be it.

Now watch the next 4 games be complete blowouts...

Blue Jays and Big Names in the Series

2011-10-19T09:38:00.034-04:00

The Texas Rangers, who lost the 2010 Series to the Giants, are very much a home-grown team. Among their position players only third baseman Adrian Beltre and catcher Mike Napoli have played elsewhere.

On their pitching staff, only starter Mike Adams, whom they picked up from San Diego, and relievers Colby Lewis and Darren Oliver have played for other squads. And Lewis and Oliver both started out as Rangers.

The Cardinals are quite a different story. Among their position players four have played elsewhere: right fielder Lance Berkman for several years with the Astros, left fielder Matt Holliday with the Rockies, second baseman Nick Punto with the Twins, and shortstop Rafael Furcal, who started with Atlanta and then moved over to the Dodgers.

The only starting pitcher who has played exclusively with the Cards is Jaimie Garcia. Edwin Jackson has thrown for four different teams and veteran Arthur Rhodes played for six clubs before St. Louis. Kyle Lohse came over from Minnesota four years ago.

And now we come to the Blue Jay connection, the most obvious being starter Chris Carpenter, who pitched in Toronto his first six seasons. Octavia Dotel has been with six different teams, the most recent the Blue Jays, and Mark Rzepczynski played his first two years in Toronto.

Cardinal manager Tony La Russa says the July 27 acquisition of 'spare parts' Dotel, Jackson (via the White Sox), and Rzepczynski for star center fielder Colby Rasmus was a major factor in the Cardinals making the playoffs. At the time the trade seemed tilted in the Cardinals' favour, though Rasmus had not done as well in his sophomore year as he had in his 23-home run rookie year. Now, with Rasmus having managed just three home runs and five RBIs and a paltry .173 batting average in 133 at bats for Toronto, the trade is looking pretty good for St. Louis.

"I'll tell you if that trade had not been made, I believe we probably would have been an under .500 club," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said on Tuesday. "That's how important it was to us. We were just getting so thin, it would have been hard to finish."

Instead it was the Braves who bungled their way to the finish line, in part because of a lack of pitching depth, Meanwhile the Cards clawed their way back from a 10½ -game deficit on Aug. 25 in the wildcard race.

Jackson was a Blue Jay for just a few minutes, picked up from the White Sox for reliever Jason Frasor and pitching prospect Zach Stewart. With St. Louis, Jackson went 5-2 in twelve starts. He got one win in the Division Series but got knocked around by the Brewers in the NLCS.

Rzepczynski, a sophomore lefty may have been the toughest player for the Jays to give up. In 28 games, he posted a 3.97 ERA, logging 22 innings, often facing the opposition's best left-handed bats. He gave up three runs in one inning pitched in the Division Series but just one hit and one run while striking out four in five appearances against the Brew Crew. Initially shocked by the trade, he is apparently delighted now. "It's a lifelong dream for me to be in the World Series," he said. "I didn't think I was going to be where I am today, but I can't ask for anything more."

Rzepczynski was given the option of making the Blue Jays roster out of spring training as a reliever or continuing to start for Triple-A Las Vegas. He chose the bullpen and it's turned out to be a good move for him. "If I was still a starter, who knows what would have happened, and for me right now, relieving works".

The 37-year-old Dotel never really had a role in Toronto - he pitched just 29 innings over the first four months of the season but he's fit in nicely for the Cards, pitching 24 innings in August and September and posting a 3-3 mark with an ERA of 3.28.

On the last day of the season, Jays manager John Farrell said one thing he would have changed from the season was the way he handled the team's closing situation with Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch, and Dotel, something Dotel says affected him negatively.

"It hurt me over there, I'm not going to lie to you," said Dotel, set for his first World Series appearance in 13 seasons and 12 teams. "Farrell, I understand his situation, his first year as a manager, he's kind of learning the game, trying to do his best, but at the same time, when you start managing for the first time, there are a lot of things (on paper) you can see about this guy, about this guy and this guy and it kind of hurt the way he used us."

"I'm glad I came through and do my best for this team, I'm glad where I am right now." So are the Cardinals. The Blue Jays just hope the other end works out for them down the road.

And in conclusion, another feature of the Series is that it features two players who are on the list of players with the hardest names to spell in baseball. Of course I refer to Mark Rzepczynski and Albert Pujols. Here is my team of current players with impossible names to spell.

C Jarrod Saltalamacchia of the Red Sox

C A. J. Pierzynski of the White Sox

1B Kila Ka'aihue of the Athletics

2B Mark Grudzielanek of the Indians

3B Wilson Betemit of the Tigers

SS Emilio Bonifacio of the Marlins

IF Tsuyoshi Nishioka of the Indians

RF Kusuke Fukudome of the Indians

CF Ezequiel Carrera of the Indians

LF Bronson Kiheimahanaomauiakeo Sardinha of the Yankees

DH Albert Pujols of the Cardinals

Starter Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Red Sox

Starter Justin Duchscherer of the Orioles

Starter Jair Jurrjens of the Braves

Starter Mark Buehrle of the White Sox

Relief Mark Rzepczynsk of the Cards

Relief Scott Schoeneweis of the Red Sox

Relief Jeff Samardzija of the Cubs

And if I have misspelled any of those names ... don't write in.

There is No Joy in the Motor City

2011-10-18T00:06:00.004-04:00

There is no joy in the Motor City today for the mighty Tigers have lost. The storybook year for the Tigers has come to an end. With the 15-5 drubbing they received from the Rangers, the hope for a World Series appearance is over.

The Tigers went 20 and 5 to end the season and took the Yankees 3-2 in the ALDS with what looked like an unstoppable force. Justin Verlander was great and Jose Valverde was perfect. Going into the series with the Rangers, the Tigers looked to be strong from both sides of the plate. And they were strong until game 6.

Game six was the undoing of a great season. It happens, but not quite so dramatically. All the previous games in the series were very tight. Extra innings won the day for the Rangers each time with a home run by Nelson Cruz. Of course the famous no-out grand slam, served up by Ryan Perry, in game 2 will be remembered as a first. And again of course, Nelson Cruz put the bite on again in game 4 to seal the deal. Each of these home runs were pitches in the wheel-house and just asking to be hit. Jose Valverde lost just once this season, and that in his last appearance. He still had a great year.

The situation with the Tigers was that the pitching let them down. Jason Verlander and Doug Fister were strong but other starters had more than enough to handle with the Ranger hitters (all of whom contributed in game 6). Tiger relievers were simply out matched by Ranger hitting. It is interesting to note that Tiger starters Verlander and Fister won games, no starter for the Rangers won a game at all. The relievers did the damage and Alexi Orgando won two from the bullpen.

Game 6 showed a number of problems. In the infamous third inning, the relievers just could not, for example, get a pitch low and away for a strike. Rick Porcello, after the game, complained about a call from the home plate umpire. He might have been right this time, but it did not make up for the walks and hits already given up. Most of the Rangers hits, again, were pitches right in the wheel-house. As far as hitting was concerned, the Tigers did themselves proud. They did hit against Ranger pitching. The Rangers, however, had a field day with Tiger pitching. Ranger hitters got 8 walks, only 4 strikeouts, 17 hits and a BA of .415. The Tigers had no walks, 8 strikeouts and a BA 0f .286 (normally in a playoff series not a bad day).

Walks and errors will kill your chances, as they always seem to score runs. The third inning was also awful in the field. Austin Jackson booted a ball, allowing a hit and everyone was safe. Next came the strange play of Delmon Young who, himself, booted a missed catch and then made an awful throw to home, missing the action allowing 2 runs to score. This is where it really fell apart. If he had made that play, just maybe, the Tigers could have gotten out of the third with one run scored and the inning over.

Jim Leyland has done a good job with this team. It has only two players from the ill-fated 2006 team remaining: Justin Verlander and Brandon Inge. To have this team rise like they did at just the right time was a marvel. In game 6, the collapse was sudden and complete. I guess, all winter, Tiger fans will wonder why Nelson Cruz was not intentionally walked.

My hat is off to the Rangers. They won big. Now, on to the World Series!

End-of-season report card on Jays

2011-10-15T00:01:00.002-04:00

I thought I’d let the dust settle for a few weeks to give you my overview on the 2011 season for the Jays. Larry Toman, our official bench guy this year did a great job with his mid-season report card on the team. A lot happened between then and the end of the September. I’m going to borrow Larry’s formatting for consistency.

STARTING PITCHING: How many starting pitchers did the Jays trot out this season? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was somewhere north of 15. While many will point their fingers at the bullpen for the reason the team didn’t do better, I’m more inclined to look in the direction of the starting pitching. With 2010 behind us, it was thought the starting 5 would be a real strength of the 2011 team. Sadly, this wasn’t so. Too many of the young pitchers crashed and burned for a variety of reasons, mostly due to inexperience. Still a number of positive things filtered through the clutter. We now know we have a legitimate ace in Ricky Romero who could have easily won 20 games with a bit better luck – and a better bullpen. Henderson Alvarez was a very impressive call-up late in the season. Will the Jays bring in an inning-eating veteran in the off-season? It might be a smart move, but you could also make a case for standing pat and seeing what happens in spring training. With Dustin McGowan now back and throwing with authority (if not the best accuracy at this point), the Jays could have caught lightning in a bottle. Brandon Morrow might figure out how to be consistent.

Bright lights: Ricky Romero, Henderson Alvarez, Dustin McGowan.

Question marks: Brett Cecil and Kyle Drabek. And will the real Brandon Morrow please stand up?

RELIEVERS: Okay, the Jays did sort of shoot themselves in the foot here during the season, trading away Rzepczynski and Jason Frasor for some center field help, but there were big question marks before that happened. Rauch was probably a flyer the Jays took on and it really never worked out. Good move to get rid of Dotel. Shawn Camp sort of swooned late, and once he got back from the DL, Casey Jannsen was terrific. It turned out to be a mistake to try to make Villanueva a starter. He’s probably better out of the pen in the long run. Great move to have Litsch move to the pen. He looked good. Will the real Frank Francisco please stand up? He was just not good early on and then looked great towards season’s end. The Jays have to get a real closer. Francisco may be the answer – if he can continue right on from where he left off, not take half a season to warm up. Maybe they’ll try to get Frasor back. Perez might turn out to be excellent...trade bait.

Bright lights: Casey Jannsen, Jesse Litsch and possibly Villanueva.

Question marks: Camp, Rauch, Francisco and Perez.

BATTING: Wasn’t this an up and down year for the team? At times they were just awesome, unstoppable, a force of nature. Other times, it was more like a Punch and Judy show. Bautista was “as advertised” until that damn homerun derby at the All-Star game. After that he seemed to come down to earth. My big question is will Adam Lind have the stamina to be an everyday first baseman and keep his hitting up? Don’t you all wish that we’d had Brett Lawrie all season? With Encarnacion at third, how could Lawrie have been any worse? Patterson and Rivera are thankfully now gone. Eric Thames has made it difficult for the Jays to stay hot about Travis Snider. What is up with him anyway? Escobar was a real plus at the plate. It is nice to contemplate going with him leading off again, followed by Thames, then Lawrie with Bautista cleaning up. Maybe Lind could bat fifth. If Rasmus does what he seems to be capable of and Arencibia picks up where he left off (and improves his average), the Jays could have a very potent lineup in 2012.

Bright lights: Bautista, Yunel Escobar, Lawrie and Thames.

Question marks: Edwin Encarnacion, second base, Lind and Rajai Davis.

FIELDING: The Jays’ outfield was screwed up through most of the season. Snider bombed, Patterson bombed, Rivera bombed, and Rajai Davis proved he can run the infield, but not patrol center field. We won’t talk about Dr. Strangearm at third base.

But shortly after Larry’s report card, there was a sea change in what the Jays brought to the defensive part of the game. People were moved out and some interesting replacements brought in. Colby Rasmus is a legit center fielder. Thames, God bless him, is working hard to improve his fielding and it shows. We’ve now got the best right fielder in the game back in right field. On the infield, Lind proved he can play first base well, Escobar is dazzling at short, and I think Lawrie is going to really open up some eyes with his second season at the hot corner. Second base is a big question mark. Johnson is smooth turning the double play, but will he be back? Behind the plate, Arencibia did well and should continue to improve. The Jays do need to get their bench strength up, though. Who’s going to back up Arencibia? Will we get Johnny Mac back from Arizona or go with McCoy? Will the real Travis Snider show up next year?

Bright lights: Bautista, Lawrie, Escobar and Rasmus.

Question marks: Thames, Snider and Davis.

The Jays certainly have a lot of young players to use as trade bait and I expect them to use that strength to bring in some veterans to fill the team’s holes, but even if they decide to stand pat, there are a lot of things to be excited about: Lawrie for a full season, Arencibia being able to concentrate more on hitting, Bautista being the superstar for the entire season and some potentially excellent starting pitching. If the team is going to improve from outside, it would be best to concentrate on the bullpen.

The pieces are definitely falling into place.

This Guy Can Hit

2011-10-11T16:46:00.002-04:00

I guess this guy can't hit a curveball or he'd be in the Majors.

Money Ball

2011-10-07T00:09:00.005-04:00

Rick and I went to see the new movie Moneyball this week. For those of you who do not know its story, here is a short synopsis: Bill Beane, the Athletics GM, is forced to go out and gather a competitive Athletics team on the year following an ALCS appearance. When asking for more money to secure his big name players, Beane is told by Stephen Schott, the new A’s owner, that no more money is forthcoming. Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen are now too expensive to sign. They are gone. He has to find a way to be competitive with the same money. The focus of the movie is all about how to win in an unfair game.

To win, Billy Beane turns his attention to a new and little used set of statistics called Sabermetrics (Society of American Baseball Research), to find undervalued players who can get on base. This system was developed and promoted by Bill James and others. Large market teams, like the Yankees and the Red Sox, can just buy the players they want. Small market teams claim they cannot compete with that kind of cash needed to buy big name free agents. What Billy Beane does is to find others who can contribute to the team for less money. He finds undervalued, but solid, players who can get on base by walk or hit (OBP) and make the opposing pitcher use lots of pitches to do it. For pitchers, Beane looks for those who throw first pitch strikes and have a low WHIP (Walk and Hits per Inning Pitched). It’s not so much about saving money as spending what you have where you need it. All of us who follow baseball closely now rely on these types of stats. Pitchers with a low WHIP are effective and hitters with a high OBP are going to get on a lot, ninety feet at a time. With certainty, so Beane says, "We try to create a situation where we're the casino. It's like how an actuary would set insurance rates. Predictability, predictability, predictability.” It’s boring, but apparently effective.

In the movie, the Athletics have just lost in the ALDS to the Yankees in 2001. Beane steals a guy from the Indians who is the fictitious Peter Brand. Brand, in the movie, is the stats guru. In reality, the character is Paul DePodesta, who actually played baseball in school and indeed did graduate from Harvard with an economics degree. He was already with the Athletics in 1999. The Brand character is the one who has the ready information on each player that Beane chooses. The move to sabermetrics creates conflict with everyone on the staff who has traditional baseball values in mind. This new style of scouting players is totally different than the traditional way. These conflicts get to the heart of the matter in the movie and heads roll as the plans Beane has are not put into action as he wanted by the unbelievers. But things change and the famous 20-game win streak (after a very poor start) is the highlight of this drama.

The Athletics have yet to win a World Series using sabermetrics. They have a positive win/loss record but have not been over .500 since 2006. It could be said that increased use of sabermetrics by other clubs has significantly reduced the number of undervalued players out there. If everyone is doing the same thing, well, then you have to do something else. I wonder what will figure in the statistics next? What will it take to equalize all the money to make the game fair?

This premise for a movie is pretty dry (dealing with statistics) and could have been. With Brad Pitt and a good script, the movie has plenty of drama and the time just flies by as this true story unfolds. There was lots of real baseball talk and action. It was fun to watch and relevant to baseball today. Go see it!

They Were a Big Hit ... and then they didn't hit

2011-10-04T17:47:00.014-04:00

This article is about the best starts and biggest disappointments in baseball history – among position players, not pitchers - see my previous blog posting for them.

Bill James created “the Clint Hartung Award” for amazing rookie flops. There is a good reason for that. The “Hondo Hurricane” was signed for big money by the New York Giants and was a spring training phenom in 1947, promoted as having superstar ability either as a pitcher or a hitter. Playing on military teams from 1942 to '45 he was 25-0 and hit .567. Respected sportswriter Tom Meany said of him, "Rather than stop at the Polo Grounds they should have taken him straight to Cooperstown."

In his first season he managed a 9–7 pitching record and hit .306. In 1948 his stats declined to 8-8 and .179; and in '49 he was 9 – 11 and hit just .190. His career (4 years) E.R.A. was 5.02, his fielding was never good, and reportedly he was unable to hit curveballs. Other than that he was terrific.

Walt Dropo of the Red Sox was the 1950 Rookie of the Year. He batted .322, hit 34 dingers, and drove in 144 runs. The next two years were less spectacular – 11, 57, .239 and 6, 27, .265.

Tom Tresh was destined to be the successor of Joe Dimaggio and Mickey Mantle in center field for the Yankees. Through age 27, the friendly, good-looking Tresh had won the Rookie of the Year Award (1962) and a Gold Glove, earned a top-ten MVP finish, and was on two All-Star teams. His OPS+ that year was 134. Following that, it was 122, then 103, then 89, then 79 and out. And it would be a long wait until Ron Blomberg.

Curt Blefary was the A.L. Rookie of the Year at age 21. He was 6th in the league in OPS+ in both his first and second seasons. From ages 22 through 24, his OPS+ went from 142 to 122 to 89. By the age of 26 he was no longer a regular and was traded four times in a three-and-a-half-year period, bowing out at the age of 29.

Lee Thomas hit 24 home runs in his rookie season. The next year, 1962, he hit 26 dingers, drove in 104 runs and hit..290. He was voted to the All-Star team. In 1963 though, he hit only 9 home runs, and the next year managed just 2. Thomas was traded to the Red Sox, where he rebounded somewhat, hitting 13 homers and then 22. And then he fell flat yet again, managing just ten home runs over his last four exasperating seasons.

It would be hard to fall faster than Cleveland's Joe Charbonneau. He was one of the all-time classic flops, going from media-darling Rookie of the Year to futility and minor league obscurity in just two years. His numbers from 1981 to 1983 were 23, 87, .284; 4, 18, .210; and finally 2, 9, .214. Ouch.

Merv Rettenmund played his way his way into a talent-laden Baltimore outfield (Frank Robinson, Paul Blair, Don Buford) with great performances in 1970 and 1971 (18 homers and .322 and then 11 homers and .318). But he collapsed (6 HRs and a .233 average) and was a mediocre utility man the rest of his career.

Earl Williams started big with 33 home runs for the Braves in '71 and then slowly faded away with totals of 28, 22, 14. 11, 9, and 8. He never knocked in as many as the 97 runs he did his first and second seasons and wound up with a .247 lifetime average.

The NL rookie of the Year in 1989 was Cubbie Jerome Walton. He hit .293 with 23 doubles. Then he hit .263, then .219, then .127. No wonder he spent his last six years with five different teams.

The 2004 AL Rookie of the Year was Bobby Crosby. Remember him and his 22 home runs – and his 145 strikeouts? He mostly just struck out after that – his best home run total after 2004 was 9.

In doing my research for this blog I came across something extraordinary – a season that featured a plethora of talented rookies. I used them to put together a lineup that I think would fare well against the rookies of any other season. The year was 1964 and here are its top rookies:

C - Jerry Grote 1B - Richie Allen 2B – Dick Green 3B – Jim Ray Hart SS – Bert Campaneris

OF - Tony Conigliaro OF - Alex Johnson OF - Tony Oliva OF – Jesus Alou DH – Don Buford

Pitching Staff - Luis Tiant, Mel Stottlemyre, Tommy John, Denny McLain, Mike Cuellar, Rick Wise.

Not too shabby.

You’ve just gotta believe...

2011-10-02T09:04:00.004-04:00

Can anyone believe that the 2011 season could have ended in a more exciting way? How many ball fans went to bed on Wednesday night thinking that the Braves might prevail against the Phillies, that the Sox had the Orioles in just the right place, and the Yankees had the Rays in a stranglehold at 7-0? The only thing that had been decided in the Wild Card race by late evening was that the Cards were still in the race since they’d drawn the Astros for the final series and crushed them – not a difficult thing to do this season.

When the last of the evening’s games ended, though, the Braves had given away the tying run in the 9th inning and lost it in the 14th, the Sox ace closer had coughed up the tying and go-ahead runs to the Orioles with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th, and holy cow, the Yankees let the Rays back into the game with 6 runs in the bottom of the 8th (including bases-loaded walks?!), and a game-tying homer from a Ray pinch hitter who hadn’t hit a big fly since April and whose average was well-below the Mendoza line. In the 12th, Evan Longoria won it with a walk-off homer.

What the heck happened?

Arguably the most exciting wrap-up to a season ever, that’s all. Three of the four critical games were tense, nail-biting affairs, two went to extra innings, one included a lengthy rain delay and one was about as improbable as it gets.

It’s the last I’d like to comment on. What in heaven’s name was Joe Girardi thinking? I kept wondering whether he’d gone back to his office to enjoy a few hands of canasta with his brain trust while his players fiddled. Was he trying to get revenge against the hated Red Sox by coughing up the game? Did he not care how the game ended? Or was he being a petulant baby because he didn’t like the playoff schedule this year? Regardless, he left a pitcher on the mound who obviously didn’t have it that night to let the Rays climb right back into the game. His later comments showed that he didn’t want to use his primo closer and back-end pitchers because he wanted them adequately rested for the first ALDS game on Friday. Huh? For the Yankees, it was a bush league way to play this very important game. It was almost as if he wanted to lose.

I was going to root for the Tigers to win the AL this year. I like the team a lot. After thinking about game 162 for the Yankees, though, I am more inclined to root for the Rays. Wouldn’t it be sweet justice for them to prevail against the Rangers, face the Bronx Bombers for the AL crown – and then whip their butts to take the prize? That would be sweet revenge for Girardi and his managerial el-foldo in Wednesday night’s game in Tampa.

Does anyone else feel that the Yankees could have won this game if Joe Girardi had wanted to?

The Triple Play

2011-09-29T10:55:00.003-04:00

One of the rarest and most exciting plays in baseball is the triple play or TP. One just occurred Tuesday night, started by the Rays against the Yankees.

It was a very sweet play if you're on the defensive side of course. It went 5-4-3. It also went like lightening. Some complain that baseball is slow, but did you see that? Many plays in baseball seem routine because they occur so often. It’s not really true since the players have practiced continually to make them look easy. The TP is at the other end of the scale. It is very fast and has to have all the players involved on the same page to get it to work. Anyone not up to speed will spoil it.

Tuesday night the Rays pulled it off against the Yankees for the 687th time in professional baseball. That is, since 1876. Russell Martin hits a short chopper to third. Evan Longoria steps on third and sends the ball to Ben Zobrist on second, who whips it to Sean Rodiguez, at first. It was a beautifully executed play. To get the full effect watch it a few times. Please click on the link below to view.

Click here:
http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=19728459&c_id=tb

In 1973 Brooks Robinson, playing third base for the Orioles, started two 5-4-3 TPs. The first was on July 7 against the Athletics and again on September 20, against the Tigers. This is very rare in itself, but the most interesting fact is that Brooks Robinson is the only major leaguer to hit into four triple plays in his career.

On July 17, 1990, the Twins became the first and the only team in baseball history to turn two TPs in the same game. Playing against the Red Sox they turned two 5-4-3 TPs. Unfortunately, the Twins still lost the game 1-0.

There have been only two game ending unassisted TPs in baseball history. The first was the Tiger's Johnny Neun, in 1927, against the Indians who caught a line drive, tagged the runner and ran to second just ahead of the returning runner. The second one was against the Mets on August 23, 2009, when Eric Bruntlett, of the Phillies, caught a line drive, stepped on second and tagged the runner. So, one each, for the NL and the AL. Both of these feats are pretty spectacular.

The Jays have contributed to the mix as well. On April 22, 1978, the Jays turned their first TP against the White Sox, 1-3-6. To date, the Jays have had 3 TPs for and 6 against. The most spectacular was the unassisted TP against the Jays by Indian second baseman, Asdrubal Cabrera.

The set-up; Kevin Mench on second, Marco Scutaro on first and Lyle Overbay at bat. With the hit and run on, Cliff Lee pitches to Lyle Overbay, who hits it up the middle. Cabrera, with a diving catch (out one, Overbay) stands up on second (out two, Mench) then tag’s Scutaro for the third out. Post Script: We won't mention the famous triple play that got away from Kelly Gruber.

The most “usual” TP is 5-4-3 (79 times). The others in order are 6-4-3 (55) and 4-6-3 (43). The unassisted are with shortstops and second basemen. Only twice with first basemen, like Johnny Neun mentioned above, and Red Sox George Burns, in 1923.

The perfect game, four home runs in a game and the unassisted triple play are right up there with rare baseball feats. They all require timing and luck. You can see a perfect game coming and anticipate a fourth homer. An unassisted triple play is very fast and unpredictable. It’s the luck of the moment and fun to watch.

Yikes Red Sox !!! The Biggest Pennant Race Collapses

2011-09-27T12:36:00.035-04:00

Can the Red Sox halt their disastrous nosedive? Well, the California Angels did - in 1995. On August 9 they were ahead by 11 1/2 games but won just 12 of their next 34.

Meanwhile the Ken Griffey Jr.-led Mariners went 16-3 to pull into a two-game lead before dropping their last two. The Angels rallied to win their final five games. Good enough?

Not quite, the two teams ended up tied, forcing a one-game playoff. Phew, that was close! And how did the reawakened Angels do? Mariner ace Randy Johnson beat 'em 9-1 to put them out of their misery. Now let's go back and retrace some other memorable collapses.

Before there were the Amazin' Mets there were the Miracle Braves. In 1914 the New York Giants had a 10 1/2 game lead late in July. The Boston Braves went 34-10 to win the pennant by the same 10 1/2 games.

On September 1, 1938 the Pirates beat the Giants 6-0 and were seven games ahead of the Cubs. But Chicago finished September with ten straight wins, including

an exciting sweep of Pittsburgh at Wrigley which featured the

'homer in the gloaming". (see photo at right)

At 5:30 in game two of the series on a foggy afternoon the umpire said the ninth inning would be the last. With two out and the count 0-2 player-manager Gabby Hartnett hit one into the first row to thrill the crowd and put the Cubs a game up. It was the most famous home run in baseball between Ruth's called shot (also at Wrigley) of '32 and Thompson's '51 playoff blast. (See next item.) The Cubs went on to win the pennant.

On August 11, 1951 the Brooklyn Dodgers had 13 1/2 game lead. They went 26-22 the rest of the way. Pretty good. But their crosstown enemies, the Giants, won 16 in a row and finished an incredible 37-7 to tie the Bums on the last day of the season. The Giants won the best 2-of-3 playoff series when Billy Thompson hit the "shot heard round the world" with a very nervous rookie named Willie Mays in the on deck circle.

In 1964 the Philadelphia Phillies had a 6 1/2 lead with just twelve games to play. But the Cardinals won eight in a row and the Phillies lost ten in a row and finished one game back.

On August 14, 1969 the Cubs had a 9 1/2 game lead in the brand new National League East. But early in September the Amazin' Mets, who were in the middle of a 10-game winning streak, took two from the Cubbies to pull into first. The Mets went on to have a 9-game winning streak in late September and won the East by 8 games. Chicago lost 14 of their last 20. But they would have had to do a whole lot better to keep pace with New York.

In 1978, with 32 games left, the Red Sox held a 7 1/2 game lead over the Yankees. But they won just three out of seventeen in the first half of September, including four straight at home to New York.

No problem, for the mighty Red Sox won their last eight games to win it all. Nope, not quite. The Yankees had gone 52-23 including an 8-3 finish to force a one-game playoff at Fenway. ... Bucky Dent. Nuff said.

At the half-season point in 1987 the Toronto Blue Jays were 46-35. Not bad. From then until the last week of the season they went 50-24 (.675). After taking the first 3 games of a 4-game series from the second place Tigers they were 3 1/2 games up. Lookin' good, Blue Jays. They lost the last game - in 13 innings after a Kirk Gibson homer tied it up in the ninth - okay, still, no sweat. But then Flanagan, Key, and Stieb each lost as the Jays were swept by the Brewers. The Jays went to Detroit for the final series and lost all three by one run to finish two games back. Ouch.

On September 6, 2009 the Detroit Tigers ended a 6-game winning streak with a 7-game lead in the AL Central Division. They won just three of their next nine and their lead was down to two games. After winning five of their next six, though they had a 3-game lead on September 26. They split their next four and were three up on the last day of September.

But the Twins swept their final three-game series and forced a playoff game, which Minnesota won in twelve innings. The Tigers had made history, becoming the first team since there has been a World Series to lose a 3-game lead with just four games to play.

The real surprises of 2011

2011-09-24T10:04:00.003-04:00

It may be too early to take a look back at the results of the 2011 season. After all, the wildcard spots in both leagues are still very much up for grabs. But after looking at the results of last night’s games, things have become a lot clearer. All the division results are now in. So what were the surprises?

The NL East was a foregone conclusion considering the pitching rotation of the Phillies. Indeed, the way many pundits and fans feel, the result of the coming World Series is a foregone conclusion. The big surprise would have been if the Phillies hadn’t won the east.

The Brewers went out during the off season with the expressed desire to buy or trade themselves to a division championship. Even with their stumble towards the end as the always-dangerous Cardinals seemed to be knocking at the door, they have clearly been the class of their division. No big surprise here that they took the NL Central.

The NL West was the really surprising division in the MLB this year. Who could have predicted that the D-backs would have been standing atop the pile at the end of regular season play? I’m not alone when I say I thought the Giants were a shoe-in to take that honor. If it wasn’t them, then I thought it would be Rockies or perhaps the Dodgers (who might have done better if they weren’t featuring that ownership sideshow all season). And who would have thought that the Padres could fall so far?

The stars seem to be aligning in the AL East as they always do. Hate the Yankees as much as you like, but you have to admit that they know how to field a winner better than anyone else. Yes, it’s due to the money that they command, but so what? Would you complain if your team could go out and buy a contender every year? The Rays were the real surprise in this division in 2011. I fully expected them to not come close to even a sniff of the playoffs. It’s a tribute to their management that they keep churning out quality players and fielding competitive teams. The real surprise to me is that they have such miserable fan support. (For last night’s tilt with the Jays, they managed to get a good crowd only by offering free parking!) I remember seeing empty seats when they were in the Series in ’08. Come on. Does this city even deserve such a good team?

In the AL Central, the Tigers have clearly been the class of the division all year. Verlander is putting up Cy Young numbers and they have a solid team. Again, the surprise here is that the Twins were so bad. Riddled with injuries, they struggled all year where they perennially compete. It was sort of sad to see. I was happy that Cleveland was doing so well for awhile. It was clear that they didn’t have the horses to go all the way, but it was nice to see.

The AL West was no surprise. I kept a list from the first day of the season of what I thought the standings would be at the final bell, and the only division that I aced was the AL West. Does anyone else also feel really sad for the Mariners? They just can’t seem to put it together and 2011 was no different.

As for the Wild Cards, the only surprise in the list of contenders, as stated above, is the Rays. Judging by the standings at the beginning of the month, I figured the AL East and AL wildcard would have been all wrapped up by now. The Red Sox’s September stumble is approaching epic proportions. That choking sound you hear in the distance are ball fans all over New England. You’ve gotta feel for them.

Who has the momentum?

2011-09-22T23:05:00.006-04:00

The races will soon be decided, but how will it turn out and why?

The American League Divisional Championship will boil down to the Yankees, Tigers, Red Sox and Rangers. I think that neither the Rays nor the Angles will be able to play through to the wild card spot. That leaves the above teams to battle it out for the AL pennant.

The Yankees as usual have peaked at just the right time and yet again going 14 and 7 for September. Money really does buy the experience to get to the postseason. They have gone 6-4 in their last ten and are on the way to dealing the Rays out of the wild card. The ageless, Mariano Rivera, has 44 saves and an even more impressive ERA of just .90 and a WHIP of .88. Team pitching has an ERA of 3.69 and WHIP of 1.312. Offensively they have the leading 211 home runs but only a .266 BA, which make them vulnerable.

The Tigers I mentioned last week. They have with a 15 and 5 record this month. Scherzer has gone a poor 3-4 lately and Porcello has a 4-3 record. Verlander is still hot and the closer Valverde is now at 46 saves. Leyland has added Betemet over Inge at third base, upping the offensive side considerably.

Boston is in the dumper this month with the worst record of the contenders at 5 and 16. The offence is average but the starting pitching has gone away, putting lots of pressure on a well-worn bullpen.

Texas is on a roll going 12 and 5 this month, much like Detroit, and just at the right time. Mark Napoli and Josh Hamilton are the strong offensive side at 26 and 23 home runs each, adding to the best team BA of .281. Pitching has a team WHIP of 1.252 for the best of the contenders and an ERA of 3.84

So how does this all match up? In the first rounds it will be the Yankees against the Tigers. Detroit won the season series against he Yanks this year. Detroit is cooling off. Detroit will have to be much better than their season record to pull off a series win. Brennan Boesch and Joel Zumaya are out and he Tigers could sure use them against the Yankees. For offensive starters, the Yankees are a better team. For pitching the Yankees as a whole team are, again, just a slight bit better in WHIP unless they include AJ Burnett and then they are worse. The Tigers would love that. It will go the distance and, sadly, I think the Yankees might just take it from the Tigers. As I said earlier, money buys experience, and dollar for dollar the Yankees will prevail against Tigers. The Tigers are well prepared for next year with the youngest team in the AL playoffs. The Yankees, as the oldest team, will have come the end of a great era in baseball. Wholesale changes will be in store for them next year.

Going to the season end, the Yankees have a much tougher schedule against the Rays and the Red Sox than the Tigers, who play the Indians and Royals. (I love the balanced schedule Bug Selig introduced, not).

Watching Red Sox and Rangers will not be a pretty sight. In every regard, the Red Sox are much weaker than the Rangers. The Rangers are on a tear and the Red Sox just can’t seem to catch break with their pitching. The pitching staff has an ERA of 4.14. Not good enough for the post season. The only tight battle will be when Jonathan Pabelbon and Neftali Feliz duke it out. Offensively the Red Sox have lost their series to the Rangers 4-6. With some short-term injuries and the likes of Youkilis and JD Drew being questionable, the Red Sox will have a tough time against a healthy Ranger offence.

For the end season schedule between these two Texas has the Athletics and then the Mariners and the Red Sox have the Orioles and Yanks.

For the next round it will be the Yankees and Rangers. The Rangers will prevail. And the Rangers will lose to the Phillies. (The Phillies have just lost six straight. I hope that's not the momentum they want). It's been such a good year (98-58), it’s hard not to go with the Phillies, they are a team of destiny this year. Good on Doc.

Outstanding Rookie Pitchers

2011-09-20T11:18:00.046-04:00

Earlier I wrote about the odds of Blue Jay Brett Lawrie or Yankee Jesus Montero going on to have great careers after their impressive debuts. But this time it's all about pitching prospects.

There are a few good (but not great) rookie hurlers this year. For starters let's talk about starters. In the AL, Tampa Bay's Jeremy Hellickson is 13-10 with a 2.91 ERA and a fair 1.19 walks and hits per inning. Seattle Mariner Micheal Pineda, an American League All-Star, has tailed off lately but he's still 9-10 with a lousy team. His 3.72 ERA is good, he has 171 K's, and an excellent WHIP of 1.08. Ivan Nova of the Yankees is 16-4 but with a higher 1.33 WHIP and a 3.62 ERA. Any of them could be Rookie of the Year in a season where there have been no great position playing rookies. Mark Trumbo and Eric Hosmer lead a pretty weak class.

In the National League the Mets' Dillon Gee is 12-6 but his WHIP and ERA are both less than spectacular. Brandon Beachy of the Braves is 7-2 plus a lot of no-decisions. He has 160 strikeouts in 135 innings, a 1.19 WHIP and a 3.58 ERA. Philadelphia's Vance Worley is 11-2 with a 2.85 ERA, and 1.20 WHIP. Let's talk relievers. Could a reliever be rookie of the year? Well, the last two American League ROYs have been relievers. Jordan Walden, the Angels' closer, has 31 saves and might get the nod over Hellickson, Pineda and Nova.

But the cream of the rookie crop is Craig Kimbrel, the Braves' closer. He's smashed Neftali Feliz's 2010 record for rookie saves with 45 in 77 appearances, and has 124 K's in 75 innings. He gets my vote. That kind of debut reminds you of Firpo Marberry. He had 52 saves in three years (1924 to '26) and turned the Senators into winners by finishing up for the Washington starters not named Walter Johnson. That was a pretty impressive number of saves (not recorded then) in an age when relievers were very rarely used. NL rookie position players are not doing much better than their American League counterparts. Who could possibly beat out Kimbrel? Maybe teammate Freddie Freeman (20, 74, .287) but I doubt it.

And now a quick walk down memory lane at some other great pitching debuts. In 1957 the Cubs' Dick Drott won 15 games. In May he struck out 15 Braves including Hank Aaron three times. But the next year he had arm troubles and was never the same again. The very next year George Witt had a great start with the Pirates. He was 9-2 with a 1.61 ERA. In his sophomore season he was 0-7, 6.93. He finished 2-13 after that glorious beginning.

The Red Sox have had a history of promising rookie hurlers. In 1945, his first year David "Boo" Ferriss was the Rookie of the Year. He won his first eights starts, then went on to win 13 more for a 21-10 record. The next year (with everyone back from WWII) he went 25-6. Ferriss was the most dominant pitcher in the game. But a cold, rainy night in Cleveland and a torn labrium effectively ended his career.

Fifteen years later Don Schwall was another Rookie of the Year for the Red Sox going 15-7, 3.92 (pretty good for Fenway). The next year he was 9-15, 4.92 and was dealt to the Pirates. He would win just 25 more games in six years before packing it in.

Mike Nagy went 12-2. 3.11 in '69 and was another Red Sox Rookie of the Year, lifting the hopes of the New England faithful that he would replace Jim Lonborg as the ace of the Boston staff. But injuries did him in and he won just eight more games over his six-year career. He was out of baseball by the time the Red Sox went to the World Series in 1975.

The Orioles had three great pitching prospects in the 60's. 19-year old Wally Bunker was rookie of the year in 1964 on the strength of a 19-5 season. But he tailed off after his first season and was eventually dealt to Kansas City and had just 41 wins over his last eight years in the majors. Tom Phoebus (14-9) won in the ROY award in 1967 and managed 29 victories over his next two seasons before fizzing out.

In J. R. Richard's Major League debut he took the mound for the second game of a 1971 doubleheader against the San Francisco Giants - including Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Bobby Bonds. Richard struck out 15 Giants, including Mays three times. He tied a record for strikeouts in a debut. From then until 1975, Richard threw no more than 72 innings in a season. From 1976 to 1980, he was one of the premier pitchers in the majors. (His slider was only 98 miles per hour, but his fastball was 103.) On July 30, 1980, however, Richard suffered a stroke and collapsed while playing a game of catch before a game, and was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery to remove a life-threatening blood clot in his neck. His condition brought a sudden end to his major league career at the age of 30.

The Texas Rangers made pitching phenom David Clyde the number one overall pick in the 1973 MLB draft. He received a $125,000 signing bonus, the highest bonus ever given to a draft pick at the time. Clyde won his first ever Major League start, before 37,000 fans, a Ranger record at the time. But he finished the season with a record of 4-8 and a 5.01 ERA. In '74 Clyde started 21 games and ended up 3-9 with a 4.38 ERA. The next year he started one game, had arm problems and was sent to the minors.

Perhaps at the top of the rookie folk hero pitchers list is Mark "Bird" Fidrych of the Detroit Tigers. In 1976 Fidrych was 19-9 in his rookie year but, plagued by injury, he won just 10 more games in a career that was over four years later. (I wrote earlier about the "Bird' and his antics.)

In 1981 Fernando Valenzuela, a rookie starter for the Dodgers after pitching in 10 games in relief the previous season, threw five shutouts in his first seven starts and won eight straight complete-game wins, allowing a total of four runs! In his three home starts Valenzuela attracted crowds of 50,511, 49,408 and 53,906 including many truckloads of fans from Mexico. Valenzuela would finish 13-7 with a 2.48 ERA in a season that lost a number of games to a labor dispute.

Dwight "Doc" Gooden, a.k.a. Dr. K, came onto the scene in 1984 going 17-9 with the New York Mets at the age of 19. He quickly developed a reputation with his 98 mph fastball and sweeping curve. On July 10, 1984, Gooden became the youngest player to appear in an All-Star game. Gooden won 17 games (the most by a 19-year-old since Wally Bunker's 19). His 276 strikeouts broke Herb Score's rookie record of 245 (in 1955). No flash-in-the-pan, Gooden pitched one of the most statistically dominating single seasons in baseball history winning the Triple Crown the next year with 24 wins, 268 strikeouts, and a 1.53 ERA (the second lowest in the Live Ball era trailing only Bob Gibson's 1.12 (in '68). Though he had his personal problems later on Gooden wound up with 194 wins.

In Kerry Wood's first start with the Cubs in 1998 he threw a one-hit, no walk shutout and struck out 20, tying Roger Clemens' record for a nine-inning game and breaking Bill Gillickson's single-game rookie record of 18 strikeouts in 1980. Wood and Bob Feller (1936) are the only two pitchers to strike out their age in one game. Wood had been a high school phenomenon but he was beset by injuries in the big leagues and has been relegated to the bullpen over the past few years.

The most recent rookie pitching phenomenon of course was Steven Strasburg. Drafted number one overall by Washington he signed a record-breaking four-year $15.1 million contract and debuted on June 8, 2010 against the Pirates.

A Sports Illustrated columnist termed it "the most hyped pitching debut the game has ever seen." Strasburg won, pitching seven innings, with two earned runs, no walks and 14 strikeouts. Over thirty of his pitches were clocked at 98 mph or better, two over 100. In his second and third starts he broke J.R. Richard's record for most strikeouts in a pitcher's first three starts. Soon after though Strasburg was placed on the disabled list. Eventually he was diagnosed as having ulnar collateral ligament which would require Tommy John surgery and 12 to 18 months of rehabilitation.

After another few hours of research I am ready to conclude that it's better (and healthier) for pitchers to start out slow. Hot flame throwers sure seem to burn out fast.

And now for something a little out of the ordinary

2011-09-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

I ran across the following video this past week and thought it would make a very interesting posting for anyone who’s really interested in baseball. I hope you enjoy it.

I’m sure all of use knew a bit of this. Hands up, how many of you have ever cut a baseball in half? Anyone here ever unwind one?

Well, now you know how they’re made. I thank you for your attention!

Are the Tigers Ready?

2011-09-15T23:50:00.003-04:00

It has been an unexpected set of wins for the Tigers. Now sitting at 12 straight wins, they are in a good position for post-season play and against the Yankees to boot. Are they up to the task? Are the pieces in place? Are they as good as the 2006 or 1984 teams?

Everyone is talking about Justin Verlander and his truly remarkable run to 23 wins so far this season (in 1968 Denny McLain won 31). Max Scherzer has a win/loss percentage of .636 and Doug Fister, picked up from the Mariners, is .833 and Rick Porcello is .636. Brad Penny is having a five hundred year at 10/10 rounding out a staff where everyone else has a winning season. I suspect, however, that Brad Penny, with some very weak starts of late, will be lower in the rotation for the post-season, if at all.

The team starting pitching stats for the season so far are a win/loss of .587, an ERA of 4.06 and a WHIP of 1.321, showing their slow start to the season. This resurgence was not as predicted, but good pitching still beats good hitting and the Tigers have good pitching and it's getting better. Good timing.

As with the pitching: the Tigers hitting had been suspect at the start of the season. They now have 152 homers, 677 RBI, a BA of .275 and an OBP of .338.
(Delmon Young is in for the injured Brennan Boesch. Young has 8 HR's and a .313 BA. Not up to the Boesch numbers).

In 1984, the Tigers started the season 35 and 5. That team did not have any hitter over .300 but did have 187 HR's, 788 RBI and a team BA of .271. The pitching combined for a 104/58 season and a win/loss percentage of .642. Some notable names from then are: Jack Morris, Danny Petry, Milt Wilcox and relievers, Aurelio Lopez and Willie Hernandez. And for the hitting, they had Lance Parish, Chet Lemon and Kirk Gibson. It was a pretty strong team on all counts. In the WS they beat the Padres 4/1.

Only two players from the ill-fated 2006 team remain, Justin Verlander and Brandon Inge. They have something to prove this time out. For the regular season in 2006, the pitching went with a win/loss % of .586, an ERA of 3.84 and a WHIP 0f 1.318. The hitting had 203 HR's, 785 RBI, a BA of .274 and OBP of 0.329. This team went 95/67, had a very strong post-season and lost to the Cards in the WS, falling completely apart in every category possible. It was a very embarrassing series for the Tigers. Their stats showed a better team than they played in the WS. They managed to beat the Yankees and Athletics to get the pennant and then choked. In the WS they had a batting average of .199 and OPB of .246. The pitching staff had an ERA of 3.00 and the Cardinals 2.05 and a Tiger WHIP of 1.405 against the Cards .909. The 2006 team had the lumber but was worse in pitching, but should still have won the World Series. The choke was a surprise for all to watch and could not be predicted by the regular season play. I do not even want to count up the number of errors committed. Just awful.

The 2011 Tigers have fewer home runs than the rest of this year’s contenders and have a better BA than everyone but The Red Sox and a higher OBP than everyone but the Rangers.

If the Tigers can keep finding ways to win (as they have of late) this team is nearly as good as the 1984 team. The 2011 team has recently played like winners. They have eeked out wins from potential losses. That’s what winners do. The Tigers are on track.

AJ Ain't the First Mistake

2011-09-13T16:20:00.036-04:00

In the midst of a mini-series I am doing on notable MLB rookies, I am inspired - once again - to do a follow up to something that John wrote. In his latest blog he lambasted the Yankees for acquiring and using the sporadically effective A.J. Burnett. I remember Bob McCown, Toronto's most respected radio sports personality, chastising the Blue Jays when they signed Burnett a few years back. McCown said, quite rightly, that Burnett is at best a .500 pitcher, and therefore not worth big bucks or perhaps even a spot in a team's rotation.

I completely agree with McCown and even with John (for once). The Yankees should never have signed him. In their starting rotation Burnett should be behind CC Sabathia, Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, Phil Hughes, Ivan Nova, D.J. Mitchell (from their AAA club), Joba Chamberlain when he comes back from Tommy John surgery next year, Whitey Ford, and Spud Chandler. In other words BURNETT SHOULD NOT BE IN THEIR STARTING ROTATION! Just look at his numbers compared to the rest of the Yankee starters. Even the Yankees don't score enough runs to get that guy wins.

As a Yankee fan I have been repeatedly dumbfounded as to why they continue to acquire and pay huge salaries to semi-talented, briefly successful pitchers. They have done much better of late (Sabathia, Colon, and Garcia) but Burnett reminds us that they can still be stupid. And it is a long history of stupidity. Let me take you back to some of the Yankee front office's brilliant decisions. Yankee haters will enjoy being reminded of these idiotic acquisitions.

In his first nine seasons Ed Whitson had pitched for five teams. Does that tell you something? In 1984 he helped the San Diego Padres to a World Series championship. Steibrenner saw him throw a gem against the Cubs in the playoffs, but neglected the fact that Whitson didn't make it out of the first inning (5 hits, 3 runs) in his only start against the Tigers in the World Series. Whitson had gone 14 - 8 in the regular season - not bad, but...

The year before he was 5 -7 (with a 4.30 ERA.) and that made his career won-lost record an unimpressive 39 -48. No wonder the Yankees gave him $4.4 million! That was big money in those days. Whitson was never comfortable in New York. Eventually he refused to pitch at Yankee Stadium because he was booed so badly. With terrific run support he made it to 10-8 (with a 4.88 ERA) and then he tanked. He went 5-7 the rest of the way and his ERA his next - and thankfully- final year in New York was a tidy 7.54.

No way the Yanks would repeat that mistake. Think not? Four years later they signed Andy Hawkins from the Padres for more big money. How'd he do? His ERA's with the Yanks paralleled Whitson's - 4.80 and 5.37. Great.

In 1995 the Yankees signed Kenny Rogers for $20 million (over 4 years). He won 12 of his first 15 that year, but like Whitson his ERA was over 4.50. And his second year he looked a lot like Andy Hawkins (a 5.65 ERA) and he won only six. He constantly complained and easy-going Joe Torre said he was one of the most difficult players he'd ever managed. Fortunately the Yanks were able to trade Rogers to Oakland (by paying them his salary) for Scott Brosius, who was a big part of three World Series Championships.

In 2001 the Bronx Bombers gave a 22 million contract to Atlanta Brave reliever Steve Karsay. That was a lot for a reliever who'd had only one or two good seasons. He was solid in 78 games his first year in New York but pitched only eight times over the next three years due to elbow and shoulder problems before being released.

Allow me to throw a trade in among these wretched free agent signings. The Yankees did throw in money into after all. At end of the 2003 season Dodger Kevin Brown had almost 200 wins under his belt. He was a horse and he was coming off a 14-9, 2.39, 185 strikeout season. But, he was 38 years old. The Dodgers, who got troubled Jeff Weaver in exchange for him, were somewhat glad to be rid of him. He was often injured and he had a bad temper. (Once, while he was having a shower a teammate flushed the toilet. Brown destroyed the toilet with a bat.) And, Brown was rumored (later confirmed) to be using performance-enhancing drugs along with teammate ace reliever Eric Gagne.

In his first year with the Yankees Brown was 10-3 with a 3.96 ERA though he had tailed off by the time he gave up three runs in six innings to the Orioles on September 3. After being lifted Brown took his frustrations out by punching the dugout wall, breaking a bone in his hand. Even Joe Torre got upset about that stunt. Brown ended up having to apologize to his teammates for letting them down during the pennant race.

He came back and pitched - and lost - two games at the end of the season and then pitched well in the '04 ALDS, allowing the Twins one run in six innings. But against the Red Sox in the ALCS in under two innings he allowed five runs, two on a home run by the hated David Ortiz. He was sidelined by injuries the next year and finished 4-7 with a 6.50 ERA.

Jaret Wright had a history of injuries and had won as many as 12 games only twice. But like Karsay he was coming of a good season with the Atlanta Braves so in 2004 the Yankees gave him a $21 million contract. He was never asked to be the ace in New York (in spite of all that money) but he was still awful, running up a monstrous 6.08 ERA his first year and he was relegated to the bullpen the next year, where he spent most of his time on the DL. Brian Cashman shipped him to Baltimore in 2006 for next to nothing. He retired a year later at the age of 31.

In 2005 the Yankees gave a $22 million contract to reliever Kyle Farnsworth of the ... you guessed it ... Atlanta Braves. He'd saved ten games the year before. He would save six the next year and just one over his last two years with the Yanks.

But Farnsworth was not their biggest new star in 2005. After their collapse to the Red Sox the year before they badly needed starting pitching. They signed Randy Johnston three years after his glorious 3-0 World Series with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The aging Big Unit went 17 -8 and 17 - 11 in his two years in New York but his ERA the second year was 5.00.

But their really big acquisition was - a name that makes the Yankee faithful cringe - Carl Pavano. He had a great fastball and a good slider but he was 39 - 50 in his first seven seasons. So what? He'd held the Yankees to a single run in nine innings in the 2003 Series and he was 18-8 for the Marlins in 2004. So the Yanks handed him $40 million.

In four years in New York he won just nine games, perhaps due to his 5.00+ ERA. He was constantly injured - or claimed to be - and missed the entire '06 season. To be fair though, when Pavano was healthy, he was still no good. After complaining he had been mistreated in New York he left as a free agent and somehow regained his health, winning 31 games over the next two years.

The Yanks were again in desperation mode in 2007 and Roger Clement and his agent took full advantage - $28 million for one year. He gave up a lot more runs than he had for Boston or Toronto but he was still 77-38 for the Bombers so they didn't do too badly that time.

But that same year they committed $46 million to a young Japanese phenom named Kei Igawa. In 16 major league appearances before 2008 (none since) his ERA was 6.66. His contract finally ends this year. Again, money well spent.

Okay, one more trade - ANOTHER guy coming off a single good season with the Braves. The Yankees gave up Melky Cabrera for Javier Vasquez. He was another Burnett - a .500 (142 - 139) pitcher. Sure he was 15-10, 2.87 in 2009 but his career ERA was over 4.00. Heck, it was 4.91 the previous time he'd spent with the Yankees. At the end of that year (2004) Vasquez gave up a grand slam and a two-run homer to Johnny Damon in game seven of the ALCS. Why not get him back! How did Vasquez do last year? How about 10-10, 5.32 and 32 home runs allowed in 31 games.

So you see, there were a lot of disasters before A.J. Burnett, he's just the last in a proud Yankee history of free agent stinkers. Apologies to Yankee fans for digging up memories of those train wrecks.

As the playoffs loom...

2011-09-10T11:39:00.004-04:00

We’re now in the last lap of the 2011 season, the games left now less than 2 dozen. Which teams will make it into this year’s playoffs is becoming more and more clear; some are already foregone conclusions. Who knows how it will all shake out? One thing I do know is that once the last of 2011’s game dust settles, it will be very late. In fact it might well be too late.

Baseball has been playing a dangerous game of chicken with fall weather for years, allowing the season to end later and later as broadcasting demands change. The bottom line is always top of mind with baseball’s owners and they want to milk the playoffs for every last dime.

The overriding idea seems to be that folks are more inclined to watch games on the weekend than during the week. Scheduling is predicated around that. Compounding the problem is the college football season starting up, not to mention the NFL. Here in Canada, it’s hockey.

As our weather patterns are changing, weird things are happening. It can become unseasonably cold at unexpected times. Rain is certainly in the mix with hurricanes being the really frightening factor in MLB’s playoff scheduling. Unlike football, baseball can’t be played in rain or snow. If it gets too cold, that isn’t good either with the game suffering as pitchers can’t hold the ball properly and batters’ hands suffer from badly hit balls. Generally, good baseball can’t be played in bad weather. And the playoffs is where fans expect to see the best baseball.

Now we’re looking at another, albeit shorter, round being added to the playoff schedule. It will be talked about this offseason and seems to have increasing support among owners and players. Who wouldn’t want an additional chance to make the playoffs?

Problem is, sooner or later baseball is going to reach the tipping point. Many teams play outdoors in climates known for dicey fall weather. Detroit and Milwaukee seem posed to play in October this year, Minnesota might be back in the hunt again next year. All of these teams could face lengthy delays due to inclement weather, and one of these days it will happen. Can you imagine a World Series being unable to finish due to bad weather? To expect to play in northern cities in November is asking for trouble, yet we’re heading in that direction.

Anybody have thoughts on this? What sort of contingency plans MLB should put in place? Should the season go back to the 154 games so the playoffs could start in late September? Does anybody really want to watch baseball in a frozen stadium in November?

AJ a Bust

2011-09-08T11:59:00.007-04:00

It is good to be back in the thick of things baseball wise. I have been in communicato for weeks with no internet access. So I would like to thank my long time buddy, Larry Toman, for some great blogs, adding so much to the Late Innings postings.

Well, again it is September and the boys from the Bronx are nearly ready for October. They have done it in style as they always do. Either as pennant winners or wild card, they will be there.

Their hitters have proven to be tops in the league; Teixeira, Granderson, Cano, Martin are having very good years. The Yankees have hit more homers than anyone else (200) and have a team BA of .268 on the season. They are two games ahead of Boston as of today. In last night's game, AJ Burnett served up 4 runs allowing a tie until the eleventh. Baltimore won and AJ managed to get another no decision.

The Yankee's entire pitching staff have combined for .621 win/loss record and a combined ERA of 3.75. Also they have a WHIP of 1.294. Not bad for a whole team. This now brings us to AJ Burnett. At 34 he is still younger than Bartolo Colon who is having a sub-par season himself, still better then AJ.

AJ Burnett for the year-to-date has a win/loss percentage of just .450, an ERA of 5.25 and a WHIP of 1.437, a pretty poor year even for him. At 16.5 million a year he should be much better. CC Sabathia gets the premier money of 23 million but has the stats to support that (if anyone does for that kind of money). He has never had a losing season in this his eleventh year. Now AJ, well, he is working on his fifth losing effort.

When the Jays signed AJ from the Marlins in 2006, he performed exactly as always, a .500 record (really a .495). I could not figure why the Jays paid him 13 million. In 2008 he had a spectacular year, 18 and 10 and a league leading 231 strikeouts. Of course, that was the last year of his contract. The Yankees signed him and he is back to his usual self: average.

Even in last night's game the fans booed him. Of course, they saw him pitch 3 wild ones to bring his total of wild pitching to 23. Well ahead of the rest of American pitchers by 9. He also failed to make two important fielding plays where his head was just not in it. The fans are fed up with his antics, as anyone should be. He is very high-maintenance with a psychologist on his personal staff and he needs to be hand held for each game. Black eyes and divorce have put him under the microscope as these things seem to affect his performance. Basically, it was great for the Jays to unload AJ just at the right time and the Yankees made a long-term deal, tying them up for five years. In the three years he has been with the Yanks, AJ has amassed a .478 win/loss record, an ERA of 4.82 and a WHIP of 1.42 and 28 no-decisions. Worth $16.5 million? I doubt it very much. Joe Girardi has talked of the "new" approach to his mechanics and yet he still has lost four in a row. AJ is a bust. The Yankees have three more years on that contract. Will they keep him? I doubt it.

The Yankees will need better from its starting rotation to play through. All cannot be left up to Rivera, who still is amazing. Detroit has Verlander ($12.75 million) at 21 wins and counting. Boston has Becket, Lester, Lackey, Buckholz, Papelbon and a .518 win/loss and an ERA of 4.21 for the starting six. It is better for the Yanks to go with the six-man rotation just to keep AJ from another start. Might help in their bid for the pennant.

My favorite baseball button is "I love New York in SECOND place". I think they will not get home field advantage this year nor do I think the Yanks will play through to the WS, but with them, you never can count them out.

The Best Starts of All Time

2011-09-06T12:12:00.036-04:00

In researching a new blog I invariably uncover far too much to include in one article. As I sat down to write my latest, about the most promising starts that rookies have had, I realized that there have been simply too many great rookie seasons to include in one blog. So I am splitting the topic into three blogs, namely: best starts by a rookie who was not a pitcher, most promising starts by a rookie pitcher, and biggest (rookie) busts of all time. Here comes the first. Keep in mind that I am just talking position players here – no pitchers – and that all these guys went on to have fine careers – or else they would be appearing in the upcoming famous flops article.

This year's highest achieving rookies are all three first basemen – Freddie Freeman (18 home runs and a .291 average) of the Braves, the Angels' Mark Trumbo (26 home runs and 80 RBIs) and Eric Hosmer of the Royals (.287 with 15 homers). Nothing all that impressive. I think a pitcher will probably win it this year.

Just recently called up to the show, however, are Brett Lawrie, the Jays' rookie third baseman (about whom Rick has written a couple of times) who is off to a great start and Jesus Montero, a highly-touted catcher the Yankees just debuted. Montero didn't do much his first three games but he belted a pair of home runs on Monday. Maybe one of those guys will win the Rookie award next year.

How about last year? Well, Jason Heyward of the Braves, who hit a 3-run home run in his much anticipated debut, ended up with 29 doubles, 18 homers, and 91 walks, but he struck out 128 times. NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey, the Giants' rookie catcher, hit .305 and belted 18 home runs.

And now ... here are some rookie standouts from recent years, going from most recent to longest ago. (Don't worry, I won't go back to the 1890's like I often do.)

Dustin Pedroia, who had started with a .191 average and just two home runs in 31 games in 2007, hit .317 with 39 doubles in 2008, his first full year.

In 2007 Ryan Braun hit .324 and had 34 home runs and 97 RBI in just 113 games. Troy Tulowitzki had 33 doubles, 24 homers, 99 ribbies, and a .291 average.

In 2006 Marlin rookie shortstop Hanley Ramirez had 46 doubles and 17 home runs and hit .292, but he struck out 128 times. Phillie sensation Ryan Howard, who'd hit 22 homers in 88 games in his debut, belted 58 and added 149 RBIs in 2006.

In 2001 each league had a star. Ichiro Suzuki led the AL with a .350 average based on 242 hits, won a Gold Glove and led the league in stolen bases with 56. In the senior circuit Albert Pujols hit .329, had 194 hits, 37 home runs, and 130 RBIs. Now that's a rookie season! He was the first rookie Cardinal named to the All-Star team since 1955! Who was that 1955 Cardinal rookie sensation? Okay I won't keep you hanging, it was Luis Arroyo, who had one other good year – for the Yanks in '61.

In 1999 Carlos Beltran had a great all around season batting .293 while scoring 112 runs and knocking in 108. He stole 27 bases and hit 22 home runs. The year before Todd Helton of the Rockies ripped 37 doubles, 25 home runs, had 97 RBIs and hit .317.

In 1998 Todd Helton of the Rockies had 37 doubles, 25 home runs, 97 RBIs and hit .315.

In 1997 Boston rookie shortstop phenom Nomar Garciaparra had 209 hits including 44 doubles, 11 triples, and 30 home runs.

In 1993 Dodger Mike Piazza batted .318 with 35 homers, 112 RBIs and a .561 slugging percentage.

In 1987 Oakland's Mark McGwire, who was still the size of a normal human being in his rookie year, led the American League with 49 home runs and 118 RBIs.

In 1964 Dick Allen of the Phillies had 38 doubles, 29 homers, 99 ribbies, and a .318 average.

In 1953 Harvey Kuenn had 34 homers, 144 RBIs and a .322 average.

In 1950 Boston's Walt Dropo hit .322 and had 34 home runs and 144 RBIs.

In 1939 Ted Williams had 185 hits for a .327 average, 31 home runs, 145 RBIs and walked 107 times. (He wouldn't swing at a bad pitch even if he could hit it even as a rookie.)

In 1936 Joe Dimaggio scored a whopping 132 runs and knocked in 125, hit 44 doubles, 15 triples, 29 home runs, and hit .323.

In 1926 Pittsburgh's Paul Waner hit 35 doubles, 22 triples, and had a .336 average.

My Top Ten (Offensive) Rookie Seasons:

2007 Ryan Braun
2006 Ryan Howard
2001 Albert Pujols (and Ichiro Suzuki if he was actually a rookie)
1997 Nomar Garciaparra
1993 Mike Piazza
1975 Fred Lynn and Jim Rice
1953 Harvey Kuenn
1939 Ted Williams
1936 Joe Dimaggio

Controversy!

To qualify as a rookie a player must have had no more than 130 at bats, 50 innings pitched, or 45 days on the active roster in a previous season. Ya, but ... Hideo Nomo (1995), Kazuhiro Sasaki (2000), and Ichiro Suzuki (2001) had starred in the Nippon Professional Baseball League and Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, and Sam Jethroe had played lots in the Negro Leagues. Should any of them have won? I say no.

And now for some fun;

Who had the most consecutive Rookie of the Year winners on the same team?

Well, the Senators/Twins went on a pretty good run between 1959 and 1967. Bob Allison (30 home runs) won in '59 and Albie Pearson won in '60. (They were still the old Washington Senators then). In 1964 Tony Oliva heralded great things for the Twins with 32 homers, 94 RBIs and a .323 average. And in 1967 Rod Carew won it.

Very impressive, but not consecutive. Amazingly, from 1992 to 1996 the Los Angeles Dodgers had a record five consecutive rookies of the year. They were Eric Karros, Mike Piazza (see above), Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, and Todd Hollandsworth.

Which club had the best rookies at the same position? Well it's sort of a tie.

In 1975 the Red Sox had two outstanding new outfielders. Fred Lynn, who was terrific defensively, hit .331 and had 47 doubles, 21 home runs and 105 RBIs. Fellow rookie Jim Rice hit .309 and had 22 home runs and 102 RBIs.

In 1958 Orlando Cepeda of the Giants won the NL Rookie of the Year Award after going 25, 96, .312. And the very next year the Giants had a real problem because that year's Rookie of the Year was Willie McCovey, another Giant first baseman! He hit 13 home runs in just 52 games and batted .354. No DH. What to do?

Hope you enjoyed this look at outstanding rookies, stay tuned for great young hurlers and famous flashes-in-the-pan.

Just how good is Brett Lawrie?

2011-09-03T11:51:00.002-04:00

We’ve discussed the Blue Jays’ marquee player trade with Milwaukee during the last off-season a few times since Late Innings came to the internet back in late February. Mostly the discussion was based around: is he ready for The Show and can the team live with more errors from the left side of the infield? This was back in the days of Edwin Encarnacion holding down the hot corner and we all know how that went.

However, the Jays’ brain trust decided their blue chip prospect required more work learning his new position despite some pretty solid numbers he put up in Spring Training. In Las Vegas, he lit up the night with his dazzling presence at the plate, some solid play at 3rd base (after an error-filled start to the AAA season, mostly caused by the hard infield). It looked as if he was ready for The Show. Then Lawrie got plunked on the hand by a pitch with some broken bones resulting. That took well over a month to heal. Once back on the field in Vegas, he took up where he left off, batting in the high .300s and making all the plays. Finally, Lawrie could be denied no longer and (sounding reluctant to do it) the Jays brought him up.

So what’s the kid from Langley, BC done since his call up on August 5th? He’s only led all 2011 rookies with a .330 average, 17 extra base hits (including 4 triples and 7 HR), 20 RBIs in only 27 games, stolen 4 bases, and made some dazzling plays at the hot corner. Not only that, he’s been able to delivered in the clutch, most recently in Baltimore on September first when his two-run blast provided a come-from-behind win for his team. In other words, the kid has delivered a pretty convincing impression of an all-star.

As the days go on and the hits pile up, the media (at least in Canada) has been taking more notice of the Jays’ young phenom. The attention ratcheting up hasn’t seemed to make a dent in the manner in which he goes about his business. It’s all about the team, he repeatedly insists. “I’m just playing the game and having fun, and just competing.” He also apparently brings an exciting electricity to the dugout and club house.

It’s a pretty heady situation for Jays fans. If this is what the kid is really all about and he’s still wet behind the ears, what can we expect in future seasons? Our all-star right fielder (Bautista) is now back where he belongs, the team has someone who should be a fixture at third for many years, and when they finally move him up in the line-up to one of the power slots, he should be able to deliver even more RBIs and highlight reel moments for the faithful.

From where I’m sitting, the kid from Langley, BC is the real deal and could very likely go on to become the best player Canada has ever produced.

Strange But True Tidbits

2011-08-30T17:11:00.020-04:00

Hey trivia buffs. I thought that this week I would share a few items I've come across in my readings (in books not websites – I am a bit old fashioned) of late.

Denton True Young, who threw the first pitch in a World Series game, threw so hard in the minor leagues that the fences behind the plate looked like they had been hit by a cyclone. The nickname Cyclone was shortened to Cy. In 1890 the Cleveland Spiders acquired Cy from the Canton club – for a tailored suit. Good deal.

The 1930's Cardinals, a.k.a. the Gas House gang, had some tough customers. Pepper Martin, their fiery third basemen, hated to field bunts and he punished clubs that used the tactic. Before a 1938 game against the Boston Braves Martin approached their manager, Casey Stengal, and warned him not to let his players bunt. Casey, of course, immediately instructed his players to bunt on Martin as often as possible.

In response, Martin began throwing not to his first baseman, but at the runners' heads. Eventually the tactic took a toll. Elbie Fletcher came to the plate for the Braves and laid down a bunt. As soon as the seething Martin moved to field it Fletcher bolted, fearing for his life – towards his dugout.

Golden Glove Awards are intended to recognize outstanding defensive prowess. But voters continually allow a player's offensive production to influence their choices.

Perhaps the most glaring example was the 1999 American League Gold Glove winner at first base, Rafael Palmeiro. Palmeiro blasted 47 home runs that year and he hit .324. He didn't embarrass himself at first base, but then again he didn't get much chance to. He played only 28 games at first and another 134 at his primary position – designated hitter!

Ever wonder why left-handed pitchers are called southpaws? Well the explanation is quite simple. In its first several decades baseball was played in the afternoon. and because it was imperative that the hitters not be staring into the setting afternoon sun, diamonds were constructed so that the hitters faced east. This meant that the pitchers faced west and left handers' arms were on the south side.

Why are strikeouts recorded as K's? In baseball's infancy in the 1860's newspaper writer Henry Chadwick wanted an elaborate system of scoring to record what had happened so he could write detailed accounts of what each 'side' did. He had already used S for sacrifice so when a player struck – the term strikeout wasn't popular yet – he used the word's last letter instead of its first.

You may have read one of my very first blogs about the various names that teams have used. But who was the first team to sport a logo? The first team to add a logo to its uniforms was the Detroit Tigers. They had a small red tiger stitched onto their caps in 1901.

How about the Major League baseball logo? Ever look at it and wonder who it's modeled after? Well it may surprise you because he hardly seems like the male model type, but it was actually Twins' slugger Harmon Killebrew. Take a look for yourself.

Wrigley Field almost got lights a long time ago, long before it did. Lights for Wrigley were ordered and delivered well in time for use for the 1942 season. In the interim, however, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and William Wrigley decided to donate the lights to a Chicago shipyard to help the war effort. Day baseball became an entrenched and beloved tradition at Wrigley – until Major League Baseball finally threatened to force the Cubs to play home games in St. Louis. They relented in 1988. The baseball gods intervened, however. The first night game at Wrigley was called due to rain after three innings.

The late-season doldrums

2011-08-27T13:54:00.003-04:00

Being a long-time Jays fan, I’ve gotten used to seasons seeming awfully long. This year’s edition of the team leaves me with much the same feeling. There is reason for hope this year. The Jays’ GM, Alex Anthopoulos, has a plan to improve the team, seems to be working and he’s sticking to it. It now seems realistic to think the Jays might truly be competitive next year – and that’s something that Toronto fans haven’t had in many a year. Some other major league teams are also rounding into this position. “Maybe next year” is realistic for some of them.

Also, just having a good team on paper can mean little if there are injuries to key members of the team, players have bad seasons, or even there’s poor chemistry in the clubhouse.

So, my team is clearly going nowhere this season, something that’s been true since 1993. What if I were a Cubs fan? That must be truly depressing.

At this point, for the bottom-level teams, the only thing we have to look forward to between now and the end of the season other than a chance to look at the kids from the farm team are the teams in your division. The schedule is such that if you’re in a strong division (as the Jays are), you can look forward to watching the Yankees, Red Sox and Tampa further beating up on your team. The AL East is a truly tough place to rise to the top, but the NL East and West are tough, too. So being a fan in September can become like having sand repeatedly kicked in your face by a bunch of bullies.

To every fan that’s in the same position as I am, I can say this: at least you can go to the ballpark and see some good baseball – even if it isn’t your team playing it.

Best Team, Best Pitcher?

2011-08-25T11:07:00.023-04:00

I read in the paper the other day that if Justin Verlander wins the Cy Young Award the Tigers will likely win the World Series. The writer argued that it had happened every time the Tigers won the World Series, namely 1935, '45, '68, and '84.

Well, that is a cute idea and it's close to the truth. In 1968 Denny McLain (31-4) won the Cy Young. And in 1984 Willie Hernandez (9-3 with 32 saves) did. That must give some hope to Tiger fans.
But there was no Cy Young Award in '35 or '45. The award was not created until the year after Cy Young's death in 1955.

In '35 Boston's Wes Ferrell led the league in wins and Lefty Grove had the best ERA. But the Tigers' big three led in shutouts (Schoolboy Rowe), strikeouts (Tommy Bridges), and winning percentage (Elden Auker). Ferrell was 25-14, 3.52 and Grove was 20-12 with a 2.70 ERA. For the World Series champs Rowe was 19-13, 3.69, Bridges was 21-10, 3.51, and Auker was 18-7, 3.83. I think Bridges might have won the Cy Young if they'd had it - but it might have gone to Ferrell.

In '45 Hal Newhouser, who had been exempted from military service, got to feast on the hitters who weren't fighting in Japan and racked up a league-leading 25 wins and posted a 1.81 ERA. 'Prince Hal' led the AL in every pitching category except saves, so I guess he would have won the award if it had existed.

It all got me to thinking how often the game's top team (arguably the World Series champs) won it all because they had the league's best pitcher. So here is how often it has happened since they started handing out the Cy Young. Keep in mind that there was only one award given out from '56 to '66, since then there has been a recipient in each league.

1957 - Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves
1958 - Bob Turley of the New York Yankees
1960 - Vernon Law of the Pittsburgh Pirates
1961 - Whitey Ford of the New York Yankees
1963 - Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers
1965 - Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers
1968 - Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers
1969 - Tom Seaver of the New York Mets
1974 - Catfish Hunter of the Oakland A's
1977 - Sparky Lyle of the New York Yankees
1978 - Ron Guidry of the New York Yankees
1980 - Steve Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies
1981 - Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers
1984 - Willie Hernandez of the Detroit Tigers
1985 - Bret Saberhagen of the Kansas City Royals
1988 - Orel Hershiser of the Los Angeles Dodgers
1995 - Greg Maddux of the Atlanta Braves
2001 - Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks

So, it used to happen regularly – 16 times in the first 32 years – or once every two years. But only twice in the past 23. Why? It's quite simple. Let's all say it together, "There are too many bloody teams now !!!"
Will it happen for the Tigers this year? Probably not. How come? Cuz' their number two guy so far this year, Max Scherzer, is no Schoolboy Rowe (1935), Dizzy Trout ('45), Mickey Lolich ('68), or Jack Morris ('84). Sorry Motown.

Under the Radar No Longer

2011-08-19T00:01:00.001-04:00

On a historical Monday night (Aug.15, 2011), while the Milwaukee Brewers superior defense turned a dazzling triple play, at Detroit’s Comerica Park, 36,211 fans witnessed a very special and significant game. Jim Thome, designated hitter of the Minnesota Twins, joined a very elite group, becoming only the eighth player in major league history to hit 600 career home runs. As an added bonus, he became the only player in history to belt both his 599th and 600th homers in the same game.

Now, let’s get this out of the way right from the get-go. The big affable slugger has never been linked to performance-enhancing drugs in any way, shape or form. Of course, the inevitable discussions will now rear their ugly heads yet again, regarding his possible use of PEDs. Let’s pour cold water on the hot coals, and finally give the great Jim Thome the recognition and respect that he so rightly deserves. He has flown under everyone’s radar for many years, and that should now be silenced.

Drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the 13th round of the 1989 amateur draft, Thome made his major league debut on Sept. 4, 1991. In that game, the (then) third baseman went 2-4, with an RBI and run scored. The Indians defeated the Twins 8-4. Thome enjoyed 12 productive years in Cleveland, while amassing 334 home runs. In his final year with the Tribe (2002), he set a career high with 52 round trippers.

In 2003, the slugger made the move to the National League and spent three seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies. The first two years were very productive for Thome, as he pounded 47 and 42 home runs respectively. His next, and last, year in Philly did not go as planned, as elbow surgery limited him to 59 games and seven long balls.

With 430 dingers under his belt, he took his talents back to the American League and began the 2006 season as a member of the Chicago White Sox. Over the next four years, Thome played 529 games while combining for 134 home runs and 369 RBI. At 38 years of age, Thome continued to deliver solid and consistent production.

On Aug. 31, 2009 the Chicago White Sox sent Thome, and cash, to the Los Angeles Dodgers for minor-leaguer Justin Fuller. His tenure with LA lasted just 17 games. The Dodgers swept (3-0) the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Division Series, before bowing out 4-1 to the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL Championship Series.

After becoming a free agent on Nov. 6, 2009, Thome signed with the Minnesota Twins on Jan. 26, 2010. On Jan. 14, 2011, Thome once again became a free agent and re-signed with the Twins. So far in his current run with the Twinkies, he has produced 36 homers and 97 RBI.

At age 40, Jim Thome remains a dangerous and productive hitter. The exclusive company he now keeps in the 600+ club includes Barry Bonds (762) Hank Aaron (755) Babe Ruth (714) Willie Mays (660) Ken Griffey Jr. (630) Sammy Sosa (609) and Alex Rodriquez (626 and counting). And of those eight, three of them, Bonds, Sosa and A-Rod, have had their image tainted as a result of PED admission, or suspicion. At age 40, Thome is the oldest to hit 600 bombs, and needed the second-fewest at-bats to do it.

In an illustrious career now in its 21st season, the burly slugger has collected 600 home runs and 1662 RBI. Is he worthy of a trip to Cooperstown? I have no doubt in my mind. A true gentleman who plays the game with respect, Jim Thome deserves to be a Hall of Famer.

What If?

2011-08-17T21:18:00.000-04:00

In this first of two entries on this topic I am going to discuss some might have beens, how would things have been different if only ...

What if they had used brand new baseballs throughout a game in the old days? Ray Chapman, a shortstop his whole career planned to retire after the 1920 season. He didn't make it that far. Yankee pitcher Carl Mays had a reputation for throwing inside to hitters. A couple of seasons earlier Chapman had set a record that still stands - 67 sacrifice bunts in one season. Mays figured he would bunt when he came to bat late in the afternoon on August 16, 1920.

Mays threw a fastball toward Chapman's head that he never saw in the afternoon gloom. When it hit him, the sound resembled that of a ball being struck by a bat. Mays fielded it and threw to first and the infielders threw the dirty grey ball around the infield. Chapman dropped to the ground and died twelve hours later.

If it had not rained the day before in Cleveland Dimaggio's 56-game hitting streak might have been even longer - a lot longer. Most fans know that Ken Keltner, the best defensive third baseman in the league in 1941, robbed the Yankee Clipper of two sure doubles and ended his streak by playing deep and diving to snag shots off Dimaggio's bat. Each time Joe D almost beat out Keltner's throws to first. He claimed the base paths were soggy though and slowed him down. What's the interesting thing about this? Dimaggio went on to get hits in his next 16 straight games! By the way, to this day, no one has ever hit in 72 out of 73 games.

What if, ten years later, Dimaggio had not been resentful and jealous of Mickey Mantle's talent? Joe had painful bone spurs in his legs and he knew he was close to the end of the line. He wanted to retire as a Yankee legend and the young phenom was stealing the spotlight from him. In the second game of the 1951 World Series Mantle, the fastest runner in baseball, should clearly have been playing center in the cavernous Yankee Stadium outfield. But the proud Dimaggio was in center and Mick was in left.

A flyball was hit between them that Mantle was able to reach easily. He called Dimaggio off, but he stubbornly kept coming and called for it himself. Mantle tried to jam on the brakes. But when he did, he caught one of his spikes in a sprinkler cover. His Series was over. He underwent surgery on his knee and never again ran like he had before Dimaggio hogged that flyball. We will never know how much better Mick would have been.

What if Gil McDougald had laid off that low, outside pitch? It's May 7, 1957 and we're at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium. The count is 2-2 on McDougald, Yankee's second batter and a former Rookie of the Year. On the mound is the man who'd won the award just two years earlier. On his twelfth pitch of the game Cleveland ace Herb Score lets go one of the fastballs that had helped him amass 508 strikeouts in his first two seasons. McDougald lines the pitch up the middle.

"I was in my follow-through," Score said later. "All I ever saw as my head came up was a white blur. I snapped my glove but the blur blasted through the fingertips and into my right eye. I clutched at my face and thought, 'My God, the eye has popped right of of my head!'" The career of baseball's best young pitcher, the fireballing Herb Score was over. He'd gone 36-19 for the Indians and was destined for Cooperstown.

Afterwards Score, who went on to become a much-loved Indians' broadcaster, joked to a teammate, "They say I didn't keep my eye on that one." A sympathetic reporter told him he would see him at the hospital later and Score said, "I hope I can see you."

“I came back in ’58 throwing as hard as ever. I had 48 strikeouts in 41 innings. I was never better. Then we had about a week of rainouts, and I was pitching in Washington on a cold, rainy night. I felt a pain in my elbow and then one of my pitches didn't make it to the plate. The next one didn't either. My pitches were never the same, I had no snap. It's possible the cortisone I had to take for 10 months to reduce the swelling on the side of my head might have altered my muscle tone and affected my windup somehow." Herb Score would win just 19 games in the remaining six seasons of his career.

What if Dizzy Dean hadn't ignored an injury he suffered in a somewhat similar fashion? After Babe Ruth's retirement, Cardinal ace Dizzy Dean was easily the most colorful figure in baseball and its biggest drawing card. He claimed to have developed his strong arm knocking squirrels out of trees.

An infield out ended the bottom of the third inning in the 1937 All-Star Game. It was a spectacular play and it marked the beginning of the end of Dizzy Dean's spectacular career. With two out, Earl Averill cracked a low line drive that hit Dean on the foot. Averill was thrown out at first and Dean headed for the clubhouse, his three-inning stint over. In the clubhouse, it was discovered that Dean's toe was broken.

It was considered a minor injury and Dean and the Cardinals management decided he would return to the mound before the toe was fully healed. The injury affected his delivery though, which eventually wrecked his arm and ended Dizzy's glory days at the age of twenty-six.

I'll try to conclude this blog about sad events in baseball that might have been avoided on a light note. After his retirement Dean became a popular Cardinal broadcaster. (He later did NBC's Saturday afternoon games.) His backwoods grammar was pretty bad. After a close play at third Dean would say that the feller slud into the bag. Horrified St. Louis schoolteachers complained to the radio station that Dizzy was a bad influence on children. When asked for a comment a bewildered Dean answered, "What am I saposed to say? He slidded into third?"

A little fun

2011-08-13T00:01:00.002-04:00

I’m out of town this weekend and don’t have a lot of time to write something up. Then something good fell into my lap courtesy of a good friend and Late Innings reader, Johnson Attong. Thanks for sharing this, Johnson!

The clip is from a recent game between the Mariners (who finally won after losing heaven knows how many games in a row) and the Athletics. I’m sure you’ll look at this and think like I did, “Gee, haven’t seen something like that since Little League.”

Now, the big question is: if you were the official scorer, how would you have scored the play? The game’s scorer gave the hitter a single and two bases on a fielder’s choice. Hmmm... Is it just Johnson and me, or do you have a problem with that, too?

What do you think? How should it have been scored?

Regardless, every time I look at this, I just have to chuckle.

Here's a link to an account of the play: CLICK ME!

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NOTE: The included video above seems to not work on occasion. If that happens, the link just above also includes the video clip.

The Dog Days of August: Predictions and Observations

2011-08-11T00:04:00.003-04:00

This is that glorious time of the season when baseball fanatics are in seventh heaven, basking in the glory of the pennant races. The clarity of the picture is more sharply focused, as the contenders, pretenders and also-rans distance themselves from each other. The teams vying for a playoff berth will all be dealing with injuries, consistency, sustainability and durability. To add to the mix, September call-ups, quality of opponents and home versus away games takes the chess match to another level. Some observations are rather straight forward, while others are bathed in fog. Let’s get right to the nitty-gritty and dive into the steeplechase in progress.

THE AMERICAN LEAGUE: EAST DIVISION

The toughest, and arguably most exciting, division in baseball has the two big thoroughbreds going neck-and-neck. The Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees are deep in the trenches, gearing up for all-out warfare. Despite both teams’ erratic and (at times) questionable starting rotations, these two behemoths always find ways to gut it out and grind through the mayhem.

PREDICTION: The Beantowners and the Bronx Bombers will top the list, with one winning the division and the other taking the wild card. That may not be decided until the last weekend of the regular season.

OBSERVATIONS: The Tampa Bay Rays are in a scratch-your-head-and-wonder quagmire. The Toronto Blue Jays continue to progress forward with more pieces to the puzzle being filled. The Baltimore Orioles are the hapless birds who have flown the coup.

THE AMERICAN LEAGUE: CENTRAL DIVISION

This is an interesting three-team horse race between the Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox. All three teams are probably breathing a collective sigh of relief, considering they are all finished with Boston and New York. Detroit and Cleveland will go head-to-head twelve more times, giving the Indians a chance to gain ground on the team they’re chasing. Chicago face more quality opponents than both the Tigers and the Indians and trails both of them in the standings. The problem here is that only one of these three teams will advance to the playoffs. Expect a down-and-out dogfight to the finish line.

PREDICTION: The Detroit Tigers will prevail, when all is said and done. They are better positioned with starting pitching and an All-Star closer. Cleveland and Chicago will make a run, but will just fall short.

OBSERVATIONS: Everything that could have possibly gone wrong for the Minnesota Twins did, and then some. They’ve had a disastrous season and were the biggest disappointment in the American League. The Kansas City Royals remain the perennial cellar dwellers in this division.

THE AMERICAN LEAGUE: WEST DIVISION

This is the wildest, perhaps most unpredictable race in the derby, as the Texas Rangers hold a slight lead over the Los Angeles Angels heading into the stretch run. Statistically, the Rangers outshine the Angels in almost every offensive category. Texas’ schedule is far more grueling than the Angels, having two more series’ against both Boston and Tampa Bay. And if that’s not enough, the Rangers go head-to-head with the Angels 10 more times – including the final series of the season – with seven of those games being played in California.

PREDICTION: The dominant starting pitching of Weaver, Haren and Santana, coupled with Scott Downs and flamethrowing rookie closer Jordan Walden, will propel the Angels to the division title. It will be a wild and crazy ride down the stretch.

OBSERVATIONS: The Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics have both had seasons they would like to forget about and probably wish was over. Neither team posed any kind of a threat this season.

We may well have to wait until the very end of the regular season to see who moves on and who doesn’t. That’s part of the excitement and unpredictability of the pennant races. The dog days of August and beyond provide us with quite a thrill ride. Welcome aboard and enjoy the journey.

They'll Never be Broken

2011-08-09T16:30:00.004-04:00

When Icharo Suzuki broke George Sisler's record of 257 hits set in 1920 he broke a record that I thought was going to be pretty tough to beat. Of course it had really been something when Rose beat Cobb's 4,197 hits lifetime. And no one ever thought Gehrig's 2,130 consecutive games record would ever be equaled until Ripken Jr. smashed the heck out of it.

What records will NEVER be broken? I often read that Dimaggio's 56-game hitting streak can never be matched. Maybe not, 44 is as close as anybody's got. But I think it could be. There are some, however, that really never will be broken. Here they are and why.

Most triples, 309 by Sam Crawford. Among active players Carl Crawford (29 years old) leads with 110. He's a third of the way there. Explanation: Current centre field fences range from 380 to 435 feet (Houston's Minute Maid Park). There used to be several major league parks with center field fences 500 feet deep. Even if you hit a ball into the power alleys in parks like the old Yankee Stadium you could round a lot of bases.

Most inside the park home runs, 55 by Jesse Burkett. Explanation: See above.

Most stolen bases, 1,406 by Rickey Henderson. 33-year old Juan Pierre of the White Sox has 545 – again, he's a third of the way there. (Crawford's next with 422.) Explanation: Henderson was not only talented, but extraordinary like Hank Aaron, Rose and Ripken Jr. – in that he played for a long time. Otherwise he wouldn't have passed guys like Cobb and Brock. It's pretty doubtful anyone else will be that fast for that long.

Most steals of home, 54 by Ty Cobb. I remember watching Rod Carew pull this off once in a while (he did it 17 times). And we've all seen pictures of Jackie Robinson doing it. You almost never see one attempted anymore. I believe three (by B.J. Upton, Tori Hunter, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield and Omar Vizquel) is the most among active players. A ways to go here. Explanation: It's a different game today. Fellow blogger Rick laments the loss of the triple as an exciting play to watch, well here's another one that has virtually disappeared. Back in the day there were guys who stole home twice in a game, not a career.

Highest batting average .440, by Hugh Duffy in 1894. Explanation: Seeing as even Suzuki can't hit .400 (and Carew, Brett and Gywnn couldn't either) it's tough to think anyone will reach .440.

Fewest strikeouts in a season, 4 by Joe Sewell (see photo). Explanation: The game sure has changed. Nobody chokes up on the bat and tries to poke the ball through holes anymore (except maybe Suzuki). Babe Ruth, who swung for the fences like no other player never struck out 100 times in a season. Now lots of guys do. Dimaggio struck out just 13 times in 541 at bats in '41 (the streak year). This year Nationals' catcher Jesus Flores has 13 strikeouts – in 34 at bats! Jeff Keppinger of the Giants is doin' okay though, just 12 strikeouts in 231 at bats.

Most wins, 511 by Cy Young. Number two is Walter Johnson and he fell almost 100 short (417). Explanation: The four- and five-man rotation has ended any chance of this one being matched, unless somebody pitches into his eighties. In baseball's early days a team would have two starters. (And they were also finishers.) Among recent pitchers Greg Maddux (355) and Roger Clemens (354) came closest. Jamie Moyer, who is today's Phil Niekro, leads active pitchers with 267. Then it's Roy Halladay (184), Tim Hudson (176), C.C. Sabathia (173), and Livian Hernandez (172). Lotta work to do.

Most shutouts, 110 by Walter Johnson. Warren Spahn had 63. Nolan Ryan topped 50. Roy Halladay leads current pitchers with 19. Again, a ways to go. Explanation: See above.

Most complete games, 749 by Cy Young. Halladay has 64, Livian Hernandez has 50. I don't think they'll reach 749. Explanation: Sure modern owners are often corporations with shareholders who don't want their valuable young arms overused as Billy Martin did with the Athletics thirty years ago, so there is a pitch counter on every bench now, but there is more to it than that.

Back before Ruth made the home run so popular and profitable pitchers could pace themselves, especially when they got near the bottom of the order. You didn't have to throw hard all the time. So what if the sixth and seventh hitters walked or got hits? Even if one of them was for extra bases you're still only down a run. Walter Johnson didn't have to throw his 100 mile an hour (probable not verified) fastball on every pitch so he could go nine or twelve or fourteen innings and still pitch three days later.

Now almost every hitter except the pitcher could hit a ball out. You can't really let up for long. You walk a guy, another guy gets a scratch single and the next guy could cost you three runs with one swing.

I know other analysts have suggested other records, but for me, these are the ones that'll last forever.

Instant replay

2011-08-06T00:03:00.000-04:00

I’m going to stay on my hobby horse for a second posting based on tonight’s Jays game against Baltimore.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, with Cesar Izturis on first following a single, Robert Andino placed a ball down the first base line. On his way to the bag, he definitely did not stay within the 45-foot double lines. Not only that, he veered inward, almost stepping on the ball and Perez the pitcher, who subsequently picked up the ball poorly and missed Lind at the bag. He was charged with an error.

Will, our resident umpire, will tell you that Andino did two illegal things on this one play: running outside the double chalk lines and interfering with the pitcher trying to field the ball.

Here’s the tagline to all this: both the home plate umpire and the first base umpire missed the two transgressions of the rules. Andino was called safe. At first the official scorer even awarded him a hit!

Jays manager John Ferrell came out to argue. Replays clearly showed that he was in the right. Eventually, he argued too long and too forcefully and was tossed from the game.

This was the perfect time for the umpires to huddle, decide to review the play on screen and come up with the correct call. As the rules are currently, they can’t do that – except in the case of home runs.

Clearly, with the Jays ahead by only one run and runners now on first and second with no outs, the botched call could easily have affected the outcome of the game. Fortunately, in this case, it didn’t, but it was a very close thing.

When is MLB going to get their collective heads out of the sand and realize that standing in the way of replays for their umpiring crews will actually help baseball? Even though they would have taken it, I can’t think that Baltimore wouldn’t have wanted a replay to show Andino should have been called out for interference if they knew that another botched call might be reversed in their favour farther down the line.

Ultimately, this game probably means very little in the way the season will play out, but it’s only a matter of time before yet another botched call will screw up a really important game, and once again MLB will shuffle their feet, look down at the ground and tell us there’s nothing they can do about it.

There is and they should! If they make the proper rule change and allow replays for umpires on close and especially clearly-botched plays, they can always fine tune it as they go along. To hear them speak, you’d think there is the chance that the game will be ruined, especially if they get the rule change wrong. That’s bullshit and they know it.

The Brooklyn Cyclones

2011-08-04T00:04:00.004-04:00

Larry Toman, guest baseball blogger extraordinaire, is filling in for The Tomahawk again this week. Sounds like he had a good time in the Big Apple. Thanks, Larry!
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Last Wednesday, July 27, I went with family to watch professional baseball at Coney Island. MCU Park (Municipal Credit Union) is the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones of the New York-Penn League. The league consists of fourteen teams in three divisions – McNamara, Pinckney and Stedler. The Cyclones are in the McNamara division with Staten Island, Hudson Valley and Aberdeen. Brooklyn is a Class-A affiliate of the New York Mets, which is known as Short Season Class-A. It is only fitting that their arch rivals are the New York Yankees affiliate from Staten Island.

It was on September 22, 1999 that the Brooklyn Baseball Company announced that it would purchase the St. Catharines Blue Jays, a Toronto Blue Jays affiliate in the NY-Penn League. It would then relocate the team to Brooklyn for the 2001 season. The team was named after the historic roller coaster The Cyclone, which made its debut on June 26, 1927.

MCU Park has an intimacy not found in the big league parks, because of its size and design. It has a capacity of 7,500. The night we were there saw a boisterous crowd of about 5,000 fans taking in the action. It is fan friendly, family orientated and boosts the atmosphere and amenities of the amusement park that resides behind the stadium. From Nathan's Famous hot dogs to burgers, pretzels, pizza, peanuts, popcorn and Brooklyn’s own micro-brewed Brooklyn Lager, it has something for everyone. Souvenirs abound everywhere. We had great seats in Row 12 looking directly down the first base line from home plate. The tickets were $16.00 each.

The game we saw had a little bit of everything, as the Cyclones hosted the Connecticut Tigers who are an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. Pitchers for both teams were throwing from the high 80’s to the low 90’s. After a scoreless first inning, Brooklyn would take a short lived 2-1 lead into the third. The Tigers would put up runs in each of the next three innings and the Cyclones were now facing an 8-2 deficit heading into the bottom of the seventh inning. Then Brooklyn came alive and rallied for four runs, which was the most scored by either team in one inning. The gap was now narrowed to 8-6, but the Tigers would add an insurance run in their eighth inning, and the Cyclones would run out of gas. Connecticut would prevail for a 9-6 victory, in a game which featured four home runs.

Since their inception in 2001, the Cyclones have been the recipients of several prominent former major league players including Howard Johnson and Bobby Ojeda on the coaching staff. This year the team has former Cy Young Award winner and Minnesota Twins great Frank “Sweet Music” Viola as their pitching coach.

There are seven current members of the New York Mets who played for the Brooklyn Cyclones between 2001 and 2007. They are: Angel Pagan,OF, Nick Evans, 1B/OF, Daniel Murphy, 3B/OF, Bobby Parnell, RHP, Ike Davis, 1B, Lucas Duda, 1B/OF, and Dillon Gee, RHP.

As of August 2, 2011 the Brooklyn Cyclones have a record of 24-20 for a .545 winning percentage. The club is currently in second place, 8.5 games behind division and league-leading Staten Island. Overall, in the fourteen-team league, the Cyclones are tied for fourth with Jamestown and Williamsport. They conclude their regular season schedule on September 4, 2011 hosting the Staten Island Yankees.

MCU Park is the first professional baseball stadium in the borough of Brooklyn since Ebbets Field was torn down in 1960. In 2007 the park hosted its two millionth fan, with the Cyclones reaching the attendance mark faster than any club in Short-Season history. On July 27,2011 the three millionth fan was welcomed to the park. Pro baseball in Brooklyn is thriving with a competitive ball club and a strong and loyal fan base.

The All-Time Canadian Team

2011-08-02T14:25:00.004-04:00

In looking at where (other than the U.S.) major leaguers have been born, I started to wonder if Canada could put together a decent team of players. And we could, we'd have fair pitching, an excellent outfield, one Hall of Famer, a future Hall of Famer, a couple of MVP winners, and a fair amount of power. But we wouldn't be turning any double plays and there will be a lot of hits up the middle 'cuz we've got no middle infielders.

Here is my All-Time Top Canadian Team

The Pitching Staff:
Our 'horse' would be Ferguson Jenkins, the pride of Chatham, Ontario. Fergie won 20 or more games six years straight ('67 to '72) for the Cubs and later went 25-12 and 18-7 with Rangers. Jenkins ended up in the Hall of Fame with 284 wins and a 3.34 ERA.

The Other Starters:
Reggie Cleveland from Swift Current, Saskatchewan pitched for the Cardinals and Red Sox. For his 13-year career he was 105-106, 4.01, his best year being 1973 (14-10, 3.01).
Kirk McKaskill from Kapuskasing, Ontario played mostly with the Angels and Chisox winning 106 games over 12 years. His best year, 1986, was his second in the majors when he showed great promise with a 17-10 record and a 3.36 ERA.
John Hiller was born in Toronto and played his whole career four hours from home - with the Tigers. His 'career year' was 1973 when he was 10-5, with a 1.34 ERA and 38 saves. As a starter the next year he went 17-14. Lifetime he was 87-76 with an impressive 2.83 ERA.
Paul Quantrill from London, Ontario was 11-2, 3.04 in 2001, his last year with the Jays and 7-3 in 2004 with the Yankees.
Erik Bedard from Navan, Ontario went 15-11 and 13-5 (with 10.9 strikeouts per 9 innings) for the Orioles in 2007 and 2008. He's 4-7 with the lowly Mariners this year though.
Ryan Dempster of Sechelt, British Columbia had 17 wins in 2008, and 15 in 2010. This year he's 8-8 and leads Cub hurlers in strikeouts.
Jeff Francis, who was born in Vancouver, B.C., was 14-11, 13-11 and 17-8 from 2005 to 2007 with the Rockies. He's 4-11 with the Royals this year.

In the Bullpen:
Eric Gagne from Montreal had more than 50 saves a year for the Dodgers from2002 to 2004. He later admitted to using HDH though and was one of the worst quick fadeouts among baseball's top relievers.
Claude Raymond of St. Jean, Quebec had 23 saves for the Expos in 1970, still a big number for those days.

The Position Players:
Catcher Russell Martin of the Yankees was born in East York, a suburb of Toronto ('Trawna' as locals call it). He hit over .280 his first three years with the Dodgers but is respected mostly for his terrific work behind the plate. He has a great glove and one of the hottest girlfriends in the game. See photo.

1B Justin Morneau from New Westminster, B.C. has hit 30+ homers three times, knocked in 100+ runs four times, hit over .300 three times and won an MVP award in his first seven years, all with with the Twins. He may surpass Ferguson Jenkins and Canada's all-time best.
1B Joey Votto, from Toronto, in his first two years with the Reds hit 24 and then 25 home runs and batted .297 and .322. But last year was his best so far (37, 135, . 324) when he won the NL MVP award. So far this year he's at .320 with 17 homers.
3B Pete Ward from Montreal twice hit more than 20 homers for the White Sox in the mid-sixties.
OF Larry Walker of Tay Creek, B.C. starred for the Expos and Rockies in the 90s. He hit 20+ homers eight times and ended up with 383 homers lifetime. In '97 he had 49 homers, 130 ribbies and a .366 average and was the NL's MVP and the next two years he hit .363 and .379! He won seven Gold Gloves, was an All-Star five times, and ended up with one of the best career averages (.313) among modern players.
OF "Twinkletoes" George Selkirk from Huntsville, Ontario took over in right field for Babe Ruth in ;34. (Few observers drew comparisons between the two.) Lifetime Selkirk had 108 home runs and batted . 290 over a 9-year career. His best year was 1939 (21, 101, .306).
OF Tip O'Neill from Springfield, Ontario played for the St. Louis Browns in the 1880s In his best season he hit 52 doubles, 19 triples, 14 HR's and hit .485 in 567 at bats! He hit over .300 in eight of his ten years and wound up with a .334 career average.
OF Terry Puhl of Melville, Saskatchewan was twice an all-star and had a .280 average and over 1.300 hits with the Astros over a long and steady career. He was great with the glove and owns the ninth best fielding percentage in major league history (.993).
OF Jason Bay from Trail, B.C. has averaged 29, 93, .279 over his last six healthy seasons with the Mets.
DH Matt Stairs from St. John, New Brunswick holds the MLB record for most jerseys 12. His best years were 1997 to 2000 with the Athletics when he hit more than 20 homers each year, the best being his 38 dingers in '99.

Top Prospects:
The top Canadian prospects right now are probably third baseman Brett Lawrie from Burnaby, B.C. and pitcher Scott Richmond (3-0 and Rookie of the month in April 2009) from Vancouver, both Blue Jays. If the majors let girls play I would include Lauren Bay, Jason's sister. See photo.

Not a bad squad. Believe me I searched the ages for even decent middle infielders and there have been none. Unless one of you readers can find any. Sadly, the vast majority of the players born in Canada played less than two seasons in 'the bigs', many getting just a quick cup of coffee and a "Thanks for comin' out".

What is it with MLB and umpires?

2011-07-30T12:04:00.003-04:00

If you’re a ball fan (and I assume you are if you’re reading this), I’m sure you’re well aware of the horrendous 19th inning end to a game between the Pirates and the Braves this past week. In case you aren’t up to speed, here it is:

So what do you think? Worst call of the season so far? Worst call ever? How do you think it compares to Jim Joyce’s call that ruined the Armando Galarraga’s perfect game last year in Detroit?

Okay, everyone is human. We all make mistakes, but we expect our umpires to be impossibly perfect. If you take into account the number of calls made by a crew of umpires during a ball game, the vast majority are called correctly.

But what happens when they’re not? What happens when they’re blatantly wrong? In Joyce’s defense with last year’s debacle, at least that play was pretty darn close. Also, the next day he publicly acknowledged that he’d blown the call.

What really bugs me, though, is that while the game of baseball assumes that umpires are perfect, most of us know they’re not. Most of us. The ones who turn a blind eye to this little fact are Bug Selig and his Merry Band of Idiots at MLB Central. This week, though, even they admitted that Jerry Meals (the home plate umpire for the Braves/Pirates game) made a bum call. Then they followed this admission by more or less saying, “But we’re not going to do anything about it.” Huh? It’s okay to have a game with a team trying to make the playoffs go down because an umpire couldn’t see what was right in front of him? Check out the video again. Meals was in perfect position on top of the play. How could he have missed it?

Here’s what he said by way of explanation, “I saw the tag, but he looked like he oléd him and I called him safe for that. I looked at the replays and it appeared he might have got him on the shin area. I’m guessing he might have got him, but when I was out there when it happened I didn’t see a tag. ...I just saw the glove sweep up. I didn’t see the glove hit his leg.”

Even from a TV screen it looks to me as if the catcher’s glove hit the baserunner about three times going along his body. Meals said that he looked at replays and changed his mind. Why couldn't he have been allowed to review the call before the game was ended and the Pirates lost?

Okay. So the call was blown. Joyce’s call last year was blown. Everyone admits it, even Bug.

Here’s where the situation really gets up my nose (and a lot of other people’s judging by what I’ve heard): MLB has the technology to correct this, but they refuse to use it. I’ve heard these bozos say by way of reasoning that it would hurt “the integrity of the game”. What? It’s okay to have a game completely turned around because an umpire screws up?

Let’s look at it another way. When these things happen the fans have to sit there and watch what is generally a long field-level debacle as everyone starts arguing. This can last for several minutes, people generally get tossed and nothing good happens. How long would it take for the umpiring crew to duck in and watch a replay to possibly get the ruling right? Two minutes? Think anyone would argue with their call after this? I doubt it. Also, if it’s allowable to review home runs in this manner, why not a play like the one we’re discussing?

Of course they can’t allow every call to be argued. That would be nuts. Why not leave it up to the umpiring crew to make the decision to review a play? I am assuming that umpires are the first people who want every call to be correct. They already on occasion confer as a crew on calls during games. Why not give them the option of a video review?

This is nuts and it’s hurting the game. Why are Bug and the Boys sticking their heads in the sand yet again? The players deserve better, the umpires deserve better and the fans deserve better.

The Canadian HOF

2011-07-28T00:01:00.004-04:00

Sunday was a great day at Cooperstown with two, count them, two notable Jays taking the spotlight. "Stand Pat" Gillick and Robbie Alomar were given the highest tribute in baseball by being inducted to the Hall Of fame. The speeches were great and the reception by the assembled crowd was loud and satisfying. I was working with Rick during the time that Pat Gillick made the biggest trade in baseball history (I think so anyway).

But Cooperstown is not what I want to share with you today. There is another baseball Hall of Fame, the Canadian one in St Mary’s, Ontario. On June 18 three new members were inducted: Tom Henke, Allan Simpson and George Wood. Their stories are interesting and make one very proud to have a Hall of Fame Canada.

Allan Simpson is originally from Kelowna. He was founder and editor of the now famous Baseball America magazine, which has in depth information about baseball at all levels including collegiate ball. For now over thirty years it has been a leader and source for fans players and scouts. Simpson started as a manager of pioneer leagues, the Lethbridge Expos and the Alaska Goldpanners. “I had the good fortune to watch Dave Winfield break in as a full-time position player in Fairbanks in 1972, and Andre Dawson make his professional debut in Lethbridge three years later,” recalled Simpson from his home in Durham, North Carolina. He realized that The Sporting News was reducing coverage of the minor winter and summer leagues. He decided, without the proper financing and publishing expertise, to start and baseball magazine from Canada no less. Lots of guts there.

The magazine was sent through the state of Washington so that it appeared to come from the US. American fans probably would not have paid attention to a Canadian telling the baseball story to the US. Baseball America started with a subscription of 1500 and now has over 250,000. It is very big success which. Congratulations to Allan Simpson.

George "Dandy" Wood is and old era player. He was born in 1858 in Pownal, PEI. and died in 1924. He played outfield, batted left and threw right and was active from 1880 through 1892. In his pro years he played for Detroit, Philadelphia (both the Quakers and the Athletics), Baltimore and Cincinnati. He was home run leader in 1882 with a lifetime BA of .273, 1,467 hits and 228 doubles, 138 triples, 601 RBI and 113 stolen bases. He is famous for having (in his first week in the majors) initiated the 11th triple play in history. Even more interesting is that he played left field for the major leagues first perfect game on June 12, 1880, pitched by Lee Richmond of the Worcester Ruby Legs.

Tom Henke is not Canadian, however he played for the Jays from 1982-1992. He was a thrill to watch especially with his usual offering of a first pitch down the pipe for a home run for the opposition. But then they could hit nothing at all.

Henke was an imposing man on the mound being 6'5" and wearing large glasses. During his time with the Jays he had 217 saves, most of any Jay to date. Henke collected 311 career saves, a 2.48 earned run average and struck out an average of 9.8 hitters per nine innings over his career. In 1992, he took a pair of saves and pitched in three of the Blue Jays four one-run victories over the Atlanta Braves during the World Series. Thanks again Tom.

I am very glad the Canadian Hall of Fame has honored these players and publisher. They had impressive careers. As with Cooperstown, St Mary’s is the spot for Canadian baseball lore and legend. The player’s records speak for themselves but the recognition of Allan Simpson is especially important because of his vision and huge impact on the game for both countries through his magazine. Again a good year in baseball.

The Top Infield Ever?

2011-07-26T18:53:00.003-04:00

Could the current Yankees have the most talented infield of all time? It's possible. Rarely has a team boasted stars at every one of the four infield positions. Teixeira, Cano, and Rodriguez are excellent defensively and all three hit for power. If Derek Jeter were still in his prime offensively and defensively the argument for them would be even stronger than it is.

What current infield would rank second? Perhaps the Phillies' Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, and Wilson Valdez. The Bosox have a claim as well with Adrian Gonzales, Dustin Pedroia, Marco Scutaro, and Kevin Youkilis.

The most famous infield in history was the 1906 to 1909 Cubs double play combination of "Tinkers to Evers to Chance" (Harry Steinfeldt was the not so famous 3rd baseman). In reality, in addition to not liking each other very much, Tinkers, Evers, and Chance didn't actually turn that many double plays and the four certainly weren't all that great with the bat. Only Evers hit .300.

The next most famous were the Philadelphia Athletics' '$100,000 infield' and they were extremely talented. Between 1910 and 1914

Stuffy McInnis, Eddie Collins, Jack Berry, and Frank Home Run Baker led the A's to four pennants and three World Championships. McInnis was among the league leaders in several offensive categories (he hit .321 over those four years) and could reach almost any ball thrown near him. Eddie Collins and Frank Baker, who was among the top ten in MVP votes each of those years, are in the Hall of Fame. Barry's contribution was with his soft pair of hands, great arm, and extensive range.

Incidentally, the $100,000 (about $2.5 million in today's money) was what reporters figured A's owner-manager Connie Mack could get for the four stars if he sold them. Forget their possible value on the market, the current Yankee infield makes $80 million just in salaries!

The 1934 Tigers are right up there for offensive production. First basemen Hank Greenberg (26, 139, .339) and second basemen Charlie Gehringer (11, 127, .356) - both Hall of Famers - tore the cover off the ball. But shortstop Billy Rogell (3, 100, .296), and third basemen Marv Owen (8, 96, .317) had pretty fair years too.

The 1983 Brewers with Cecil Cooper (30, 126, .308), Jim Gantner (11. 74, .282), Robin Yount (17, 80, .308), and Paul Molitor (15, 47, .270) would rank as one of the best hitting infields of all time. The '86 Tiger infielders - Darrell Evans, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammel, and Darnell Coles - each hit 20 or more home runs and Whitaker and Trammell were a great DP combination, turning 99 double plays while the Tinkers and Evans combo averaged fewer than 50.

For a great combination of offense and defense how about the '76 Reds? Tony Perez had lots of power, Joe Morgan had a great glove and was one of the top hitters of all time (especially among second basemen), Dave Concepcion was an outstanding shortstop, and third baseman Pete Rose could hit a bit.

And the 1999 Met infielders were no slouches either. John Olerud (19, 96, .303), Edgardo Alfonzo (327, 108, .304), and Robin Ventura (32, 120, .301) had great years. Only Rey Ordonez (1, 60, .258) struggled at the plate.

Maybe you can think of another awesome infield. These are the ones I came up with and they'll be tough to beat.

The slow death of the two-hour ballgame

2011-07-23T00:01:00.003-04:00

I was in a bar the other night (yeah, I know. Imagine me being in a bar) and started chatting with a guy at the next table. The ball game was on and I was watching while he was trying to ignore it.

“I hate baseball. It’s so damn boring and the games take forever to play.”

Now this was a pretty damn good game (the first in the series in which the Jays just swept the Mariners and it was a wild affair). How could he not think this one was interesting to watch? So I asked him.

“Watch how long it takes the pitcher to throw the ball. When he’s finally ready, the batter steps out on him. Then they start the whole bloody thing all over again. It’s dumb.”

“What about all the commercials?” I asked.

“What about them? They’re the same as the ones on all the sporting events.”

“No, I meant about the number of them? We just saw three at the end of the last inning.”

“So?”

“There are at least 17 changes of at-bats in a 9-inning ballgame. Let’s say the break between each of these lasts three minutes. That means the dead space in between at-bats adds 51 minutes to every game. If you add in pitching changes and extra innings, a huge amount of time is taken up by pretty useless things – and they could do away with most of it.”

His eyes had glazed over and he nodded and turned away.

Okay, so this baseball hater didn’t mind that the game was stretched beyond sensibility by what have become, basically, opportunities for the broadcasters of the games to sell advertising space.

Ever notice how teams don’t charge out onto the field between innings? Does a pitcher really need all those pitches to warm up – especially if he’s just finished warming up in the bullpen? Those are just two of the things that have evolved in baseball during the modern era that have slowed the game down.

Let’s take a look at two specific areas comparing old-time and modern baseball.

Back in the day, pitchers were expected to finish what they started. Teams’ rosters didn’t include all the specialty pitchers they carry today. It is not unusual for each team to use 4 pitchers during a regular game. The starter goes 6 innings, begins to tire and a reliever is brought in. Maybe he gets the team through the 7th inning. Then the set-up guy is brought in. He pitches the 8th, possibly with the help of the other set-up guy who pitches to batters hitting from the opposite side. Finally, the closer is brought in.

All those pitching changes take a hell of a lot of time. The other ball players are standing around, the fans are sitting around, and the only people happy about the dead air are the people selling the ad time. I’ll bet a minimum of 30 minutes gets eaten up during every game by these shenanigans. Will MLB do anything about this? No. They all love the extra money they’re making.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find anything interesting about a pitcher leaning forward, ball behind his back while he squints at the catcher who’s supposed to be flashing signs. Finally, the pitcher figures it all out, gets into his set position, looks left, looks right, looks up, looks down, maybe looks left again, sighs and starts his wind-up. By this time the batter has decided that his batting gloves need some adjusting so he backs out. Then the whole silly thing starts all over again.

In years past, these sorts of shenanigans would get someone drilled in the arm or backside by the opposing pitcher. Ballplayers didn’t want to spend their entire day in the ballpark.

Will MLB do anything about this? No. They tried once, but then just seemed to give up. Games continue to lengthen needlessly.

Bottom line: a game under two hours is a rare fluke, Hell, a game under three hours is becoming an endangered species.

And all of these things are slowly killing the game.

The Falcons Win

2011-07-21T02:30:00.001-04:00

I am back in town for a couple of days from British Columbia visiting family. I wish to thank Larry Toman for so ably filling in for me. Up in the Shushwap Valley there is not much in the way of WiFi signal.

The trip was a wonderful time with two young boys dear to my heart. We played ball at a ball field and then went to see a Kelowna Falcons ball game. A beautiful night for a ball game and the hometown team won in a shut out.

What is so nice about this level of play? They play in a 1250 seat ballpark, Elks Field. It a small town family operation. The team owner sells fifty-fifty draws himself. He’s a well- known figure hereabouts. The players have their fans in the stands. They are very vocal and supportive. Local advertising, the beer tent, the smell of hot dogs and foul balls hitting the road careening off an occasional car add to the small town feel. Very nice. Different from the MLB.

The Kelowna Falcons belong to the West Coast League. It's a collegiate level, using wooden bats (not the metal bats of regular season college ball). The young men are all university students mostly from North Western United States.

The WCL started in 2005, built from six teams in the former Pacific International League. There are nine teams in two divisions with rosters of 25 men each. They have a 48 game season from June 3 till August 6. The Falcons are the only Canadian team in the league.

On the night I went, the Falcons shut out the Klamath Gems from Oregon 6-0. Ryan Paterson pitched 6.2 shut out innings notching up his third win of the season, a 3-1 record. Connor Joe hit a 1-out, 2-run double in the 4th that put the Falcons ahead in the game for good. In the bottom of the 8th, Andrew Firth hit a 2-out, 3-run double down the right field line, batting in Kyle Pearson, Ben Swinford and Bo Folkinga. For the box score the Falcons went 6 runs on 9 hits, 1 error and 5 left on. The Gems went no runs on 4 hits, 1 error and 7 left on. If the truth be told, both teams are at the bottom of their respective divisions.

This League is not MLB and not AAA. Considering that these are university students they played very well, only two errors. We enjoyed watching a player’s approach to his position. There were occasional miss cues but lots of energy. There were no home runs. However, you could see some good talent playing good ball with glove and bat. You could also observe some mental and physical aspects of the game that needed development. The opportunity to play for the summer at this level is terrific for such young players. The learning curve is very high and they have a very demanding schedule. The players are billeted in each of their team towns and travel long hours by bus. They are paying their dues. New York Met and Canadian, Jason Bay, played in a similar league on the East coast called the Cape Cod League.

All of this was good. The best was talking baseball with my grandsons, son-in-law and my daughter.

I Was There for One of Them

2011-07-19T05:25:00.011-04:00

My fellow contributors often write about games they have attended. Well, I was at one of the strangest ever. In the past forty years there have been only five forfeits in Major League Baseball and game two of a scheduled doubleheader on July 12, 1979 at Comiskey Park was one of 'em.

In early July of that year a friend and I decided to go to Chicago to see some ballgames (and eat 32-ounce steaks and visit the Playboy Club.) Luckily, the White Sox were playing a doubleheader. This was before the owners got greedy and started kicking everybody out and charging again for the second game of a 'twi-night' double header.

Stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way into Chicago we stopped at a gas station for a map and a cold drink. The attendant looked at us like we were from Mars. What we soon realized was that we had stopped in the South Side of Chicago - where white people did not go.

The night of the White Sox vs. Tigers doubleheader was perfect. When we got to Comiskey a young boy came up to us as we parked and asked if we wanted him to 'watch our car'. He said he'd keep people from vandalizing it. We gave him the $5 figuring if we didn't, he'd vandalize it himself. We were excited to find our seats, which were in the first row behind the box seats and right near home plate.

But it was Disco Demolition Night at the park. Disco was dead and the Sox's marketing director Mike Veeck, son of the legendary Bill Veeck as in 'wreck', and Steve Dahl, WLUP's new rock jock DJ, had cleverly planned to set up a booth between games so Dahl could blow up disco records. Fans got in for 98 (the station's spot on the FM dial) cents - if they brought a disco record. What a brilliant promotion! Really? Had anyone thought this out?

The White Sox management had apparently deemed it unnecessary to hire any more security than their usual pimple-faced college boys and cute little 18-year old co-eds. And who showed up? Rockers by the thousands, mostly with mickies or joints in their pockets. Having no real interest in what was happening on the field, many of the attendees who had never been to a ballgame in their lives left their seats and started wandering. We almost got into several fights telling people not to walk in front of us during pitches.

It got worse. "Fans" in the outfield hung signs and sheets, most of which read "Disco Sucks", over the outfield fences and the PA announcer had to keep telling them to remove them because they distracted the batters. Then some of the 'fans' realized that their records, especially LP's, made perfect frisbees and they started firing them onto the field. Several lodged in the turf close to players and umpires. Just as it started getting really dangerous the first game ended. Phew! What a relief.

Out came the crew to set up the demolition booth. Steve Dahl and his gang came out and blew the records to smithereens. But instead of a cleanup crew as had been planned, several thousand drunken disco haters, some who had paid to get in and others who had jumped a fence, surged onto the field. After a few minutes there was one small fire in the outfield and both foul poles were on fire! Hoodlums stole the bases, knocked over a batting cage and tried to get into the Chisox dugout to steal bats. Harry Carey, the beloved radio voice of the White Sox, pleaded with the hoodlums to get off the field and was completely ignored.

Finally, after 45 minutes of fun - and repeated warnings - most of the high or drunken rioters staggered off the field. Only a handful remained, stumbling around and laughing their heads off. Then the bullpen gate opened. But the relief that was on its way was not Ed Farmer, the Sox closer. It was several huge, mean, angry Chicago riot police, pulling dogs and carrying big nightsticks. They methodically moved among the rockers and clubbed them viciously in the backs of their legs. The 'youngsters' fell helpless to the ground and were unceremoniously hauled off the field to the cheers of the real ball fans like us.

Out came Sparky Anderson, the Tigers' manager to hand in his lineup card. He looked around, knowing what had transpired. "Gentlemen," he told the umpires, "you have yourselves an unplayable field. This is a forfeit." And it was. We never got to see game two and we hadn't seen much of game one either. But it was quite a night.

For video of the riot go to...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a_hBR9YuNw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o98PcPvS-54&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-fEtF9NKfc

The best part of the season

2011-07-16T00:01:00.003-04:00

I don’t know what it is about the immediate part of the season after the All-Star Game, but my interest in baseball always gets a boost. This year is no different. That’s also why Larry’s Jays mid-season report card really resonated with me.

I’ve talked about this with fans of other teams over the years, and I’ve found that this feeling isn’t confined to me. Fans of teams with a less-than-stellar-record can always see the second half of the season as a new start, a peek at the next year, as it were. For the fans of front-running teams, you hope your guys have made the most of the off days, recharged their batteries and girded their loins (how does one do that?) for the stretch run to the post-season. Either way, there's something magical about sitting in the stands on a warm summer evening watching your guys do their thing. Let's face it, major league baseball on a perfect evening with a cup of beer and some good peanuts is a pretty damn good way to spend a few hours, isn't it?

Regardless, mid-July is a time of a second start to the season. I’m reminded of this by the results of the Jay’s first game last night against the Yankees. Even with the shaky pitching of Reyes, the team looked like world-beaters. I almost attended the game and I’m really sorry that I didn’t because it was a damned exciting contest. If the Jays could do this a good part of the time, I’m sure they would see their attendance increase dramatically. Everyone (except their fans) loves when a team beats up on the Yankees.

If the Jays want to be taken seriously next season, now is the time for them to step up their game, make a statement as to where they think they’re at and even though they probably won’t make the post-season (but that kind of charge would be very interesting to watch, wouldn’t it?), they can show us what their core is made of. Actually, I think they’ve showed us that already. There have been a lot of games where they’ve hung in their when down to make a game of it when most teams would have air-mailed in the remainder of the their innings and tried again next day. That says a lot for the squad in 2011 and bodes very well for next year when they very well might be ready to make a serious run at the post-season.

So, I’m looking forward to the rest of July and early August to see how much things change over the next four or five weeks.

Enjoy the ride. I'll be in the 500 level at the Rogers Centre, somewhere to the right of home plate. Stop by. I'll front you a beer.

Toronto Blue Jays Report Card

2011-07-15T00:01:00.001-04:00

Larry Toman, our blogger DH/Violist, is back again for another week to fill in for the vacationing John "The Tomahawk" Trembath (no, we're not referring to his cello playing). Today, he’s offering a pretty frank mid-season report card on the Jays. Welcome again, Larry!
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With the All-Star break upon us, it’s time to see what the Blue Jays have been up to for the first 92 games of the 2011 season. In the highly competitive American League East Division, Toronto resides in fourth place while sporting a 45-47 record, good for a .489 win percentage. The Blue Jays are 11 games behind the division-leading Boston Red Sox, while sitting 10 games behind the New York Yankees in the wild card race.

Every team in Major League Baseball is faced with the same set of adversities during the gruelling 162-game schedule. Injuries, surgeries, mediocrity and often complacency become the ongoing and unexpected challenges. Season-ending surgery to a star player can quickly become the knock on death’s door for a team. And while the Jays have been fortunate to avoid such a scenario, a team made up largely of stopgaps cannot expect to contend in a division that boasts three of the better teams in the game.

Now, here’s the mid-season report card for the Blue Jays.

STARTING PITCHING: It’s rare that a starting five-man rotation can make it to the break unscathed. Either by addition or subtraction, other pitchers enter the equation. In the case of the Blue Jays, eight different starters have been involved in what are deemed quality starts. They have compiled 47 of them in 92 games and tip the scales at just over a .500 winning PCT.

Bright lights: Ricky Romero, Brandon Morrow, Brett Cecil and Carlos Villanueva.

Question marks: Jo-Jo Reyes and Kyle Drabek.

RELIEVERS: It gets a little dicey here. Seven pitchers have combined for 36 holds, which has resulted in only 20 saves. Blown saves are part of the game, but the above-mentioned two stats are too far apart. While there is always room for improvement, the Jays middle-to-long relief has done a respectable job. Yet, the murky and unsettling waters of the closers are another story.

The Jays do not have a go-to-guy that can slam the door and a closer-by-committee situation is usually a cross between Russian roulette and a recipe for disaster. In this present scenario, the Jays are using Frank Francisco and Jon Rauch back and forth, based heavily on statistical hitter/pitcher matchups. Francisco has above average stuff, but his short fuse and emotional instability have both been detrimental at times and have played a factor in his wildly inconsistent season. Rauch has the physical attributes and mental demeanour, but the quality of his repertoire is average at best and he lacks the speed generally required to excel in the ninth inning.

Bright lights: Jason Frasor, Shawn Camp, Casey Janssen and Marc Rzepczynski.

Question marks: Octavio Dotel, Luis Perez, Francisco and Rauch.

BATTING: The Jays have relied heavily on a few to carry the bulk of their production. One-through-nine is filled with bumps and potholes. The Jays currently have a team batting average of .257, which could be much-improved with increased production from the under-achievers. J.P. Arencibia will come around as his maturity and experience grows, cutting down on chasing bad pitches and showing more patience. Aaron Hill needs to step up production, and most likely will. Travis Snider is coming around, and Eric Thames has been a pleasant surprise, while solidifying his presence. Superstar Jose Bautista leads the charge, as arguably the best player currently in the major leagues.

Bright lights: Bautista, Adam Lind, Yunel Escobar, Thames and Snider.

Question marks: Edwin Encarnacion, Corey Patterson and Rajai Davis.

FIELDING: The defensive deficiencies in the outfield were often alarming with Patterson, Rivera and Davis, patrolling the space. Collectively, the group is subpar and lacks a combination of range, accuracy and arm strength. Rivera is now gone, but filling spots with players who do not fit into the long-term plans often yields questionable results, as is the case here. Bautista’s move to third base is only a temporary assignment until Brett Lawrie is ready for the call-up from Triple-A Las Vegas, which may happen later this season. The second half scenario paints a much brighter picture once Snider, Thames and Bautista patrol the outfield.
 
Bright lights: Bautista, Snider and Thames.

Question marks: Patterson and Davis.

While the Blue Jays will be competitive and provide excitement, the quest to return to the postseason is still in the future.

A Pretty Exclusive Club

2011-07-11T11:55:00.002-04:00

Though the only 2011 starting MLB lineup I could rhyme off is that of the Yankees, you know you can count on me to put modern events into historical perspective. So here goes.

June 28, 2007 Craig Biggio, who was hitting under .240 goes 5-for-6 and his third single of the night is his 3,000th hit. How could you top that? Well leave it to Derek Jeter, one of the great clutch hitters of all time.

He was coming off an injury and having a pretty mediocre season to-date There were just two home games left before the All-Star break and an 8-game road trip. After all the hype you knew he'd like to get it at home. So, Jeter went 5-5 to better Biggio and also got his 3,000th on a homer. The only other 3,000 hit club member to homer for 3,000 was Wade Boggs, who also did it against the Devil Rays.

The list of players with 3,000 hits can be divided fairly evenly between old-timers, players from the 60s and 70s (including Rod Carew – the only one to reach 3,000 in the 80s), and 'modern' ballplayers.

The old-timers include Cobb, Musial, Speaker, Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins, Nap Lajoie, Paul Waner, and Cap Anson.

The 60s to 80s list features Rose, Aaron, Yastrzemski, Mays, Carew, Lou Brock, Al Kaline, and Roberto Clemente.

The modern list includes Paul Molitor, Cal Ripken Jr., Eddie Murray, George Brett, Robin Yount, Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield, Craig Biggio, Rickey Henderson, Rafael Palmeiro, Wade Boggs, and now Derek Jeter.

Who got there fastest? Stan Musial, in just 8,774 at bats. So he was hitting a career .342 at the time. Who took the longest? Cal Ripken Jr. took 10,803 at bats. So he was hitting just .278 lifetime when he reached 3,000. In the past 75 years who is the member with the highest career average? Of course it's Tony Gwynn – at .338.

Who's next in line among modern players after Jeter? That would be Ivan Rodriguez, now with the Washington Nationals – he's about 150 away. Next are Omar Vizquel, A-Rod, and, surprisingly, Johnny Damon.

Who are the only members of the club not in the Hall of Fame? Rose, Jeter, and Craig Biggio, who retired in 2007.

Who just about made it but didn't? Sam Rice of the Senators fell thirteen hits short. Sam Crawford, Frank Robinson, Barry Bonds, Wee Willie Keeler, Rogers Hornsby, Al Simmons, and Jake Beckley all had more than 2,900. And before you dismiss Beckley, a .308 hitter, keep in mind that his 2,930 hits included a whopping 246 triples. But a lot of his hits were bunt singles. To deaden the ball, 'Old Eagle Eye' would flip the bat around and bunt with the handle!

Mel Ott, Babe Ruth, Harold Baines, and Brooks Robinson, had over 2,800. Because of his premature death Lou Gehrig reached just 2,721 and missing seasons due to WWII and Korea left Ted Williams at 2,654.

It takes longevity (such as Aaron and Ripken) and it takes a lot of skill too. Hard to believe Jeter is the one and only Yankee in the club, but he sure did it in style.

It doesn’t get much worse than this

2011-07-09T15:26:00.002-04:00

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one here listening to the Jays game versus Cleveland on Thursday evening. Villanueva had made another damn fine start with six shutout innings. Going into the bottom of the 9th, the good guys were up by four runs, thanks to yet another blast by JoeyBats. Things should be good to go, right?

Sadly, a victory wasn’t to be. Francisco, the team’s supposed closer, came out, and instead of bringing the heat, he poured gasoline all over the game, loading the bases with no outs. Perez, who is generally pretty reliable, came in, gave up an RBI single and than left a pitch out over the plate to Travis Hafner, the next hitter (admittedly on a tear of late), and the Indians’ DH made no mistake about where he sent it. The game ended with a totally deflating walk-off grand slam.

In my younger days, I might have thrown the radio at the wall. After all, the radio had been the bearer of the bad tidings, hadn’t it? In my more sanguine maturity, I just shut the thing off – rather forcefully.

Yesterday, I couldn’t bring myself to read any coverage of the game, look at the Jays website and so I completely forgot about doing my blog posting until a short time ago. During my time “away from the game” – all thirty-four hours of it – I spent some time reflecting on why we care so much. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, is history going to remember a completely blown victory by one team that’s not even in the playoff hunt? There was nothing historic about the loss. The back end of the Jays’ bullpen, which hasn’t been all that good this season, had their worst night yet, but it’s not like it cost the team a spot in the playoffs. It was all no big deal.

But if you’re anything like me, you probably suffered from a bit of depression yesterday because of your team’s loss. That’s all part of being a sports fan. Teams are going to have great games, horrible games and a whole bunch of games in between those two extremes.

Thursday’s crash and burn stung because the Jays were so close. They could see the finish line and all they had to do was lurch over it. They could have even given up three runs and still put up a W. That’s what made the final outcome of the game sting so much.

But the question remains: why do we care so much?

The rollercoaster ride is still in motion

2011-07-07T08:20:00.006-04:00

Today, Larry Toman, an avid and knowledgeable baseball fan and regular commenter here on Late Innings is taking John’s regular spot. He’s written a terrific piece which is what being a ball fan is all about. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks, Larry!
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Some baseball memories remain so vivid that it’s almost like they happened yesterday.

This one takes us back to September 12, 1999. It would be an historic day in Detroit at Tiger Stadium, as the Toronto Blue Jays were to play their final game at the venerable old ballpark at Michigan Avenue and Trumbull. Steeped rich in history and tradition since 1912, the stadium would be scheduled for demolition at the end of the season.

On this day, I would have the great fortune of taking in the game with my dear friend John “The Tomahawk” Trembath and his wonderful dad, Jack. As we were heading for the exits following a 5-3 victory by the Blue Jays, we luckily stumbled upon several players in the corridor waiting for their bus to be loaded for the trek back to Toronto. With the exception of a few big name stars, the players were very accommodating as they mingled and signed autographs with the fans. Standing over in a corner all by himself was a tall boyish-looking player who looked uncomfortable and out of place. At that moment I decided to approach him, shake his hand, and get his autograph. I had just met who would become one of my favourite players of all time; Chris Carpenter, a 24-year-old pitcher.

From that day forward I would closely follow his rollercoaster career. The highly-touted prospect was taken in the first found, 15th overall, of the 1993 amateur draft by the Toronto Blue Jays.

Carpenter would make his major league debut with the Jays on May 12th, 1997 at the Metrodome in Minnesota. Unfortunately, Carp’ got bombed and surrendered 8 hits, 7 runs (5 earned) in a brief 3-inning, 78-pitch outing that left him with a staggering ERA of 15.00. Final score: 12-2 Twins. As a very young 22-year-old, he finished his 1997 rookie campaign with a 3-7 record over 13 starts and 5.09 ERA.

He would make progress over the next two seasons. In 1998 and 1999 combined, Carpenter went 21-15 over 48 starts, logged 325 innings, and posted a near identical ERA in each season, of 4.37 and 4.38, respectively.

In 2000 and 2001, he would post double-digit win totals in each year, but also double-digit losses, to go a combined 21-23. There were rumblings from the Jays brass as to where Carpenter was headed. Although he was always thought of as a future front-of-the-rotation arm, his tenure with the Jays would finish at the end of the 2002 season. He was removed from the 40-man roster and offered a minor league incentive deal which he declined.

The free agent door had just swung open, and his rollercoaster career would now take him to the National League, after being signed by the St.Louis Cardinals prior to the 2003 season.

Pitching in 2003 was not in the Cards, as a torn labrum would shelve him for the entire season. The injury woes that began in Toronto were continuing to follow him in St.Louis.

The 2004 season would prove to be a comeback year for the flamethrower, as he went an impressive 15-5, while posting a very respectable ERA of 3.46 (the lowest of his career at the time). Nerve problems would keep him out of the World Series.

Coming back with the roar of a lion, Carp’ had a spectacular 2005 season, setting career-highs in the following categories: wins (21), ERA (2.83), strikeouts (213), innings pitched (241.7), complete games (7), and shutouts (4). The icing on the cake for Carpenter after a dominating campaign was being named the Cy Young Award winner.

The good fortune would continue to roll in 2006. Carpenter went 15-8, with a 3.09 ERA and helped guide the Cardinals to a World Series date with the Detroit Tigers. And Carpenter’s first career World Series start was an impressive one, pitching eight strong innings of three-hit ball, with no runs allowed. A World Series ring would follow.

However, his rollercoaster career would rear its ugly head and veer down the wrong track -- again. Disaster would strike Carpenter in a big way. He would pitch opening day on April 1, 2007 and in a loss to the New York Mets, his season was over. He would require Tommy John surgery, followed by another procedure to remove bone spurs.

After 486 days, he would return and pitch four innings (getting a no-decision) in a Cardinals 7-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves on July 30, 2008. Plagued on and off by persistent injuries and repeated stints on the disabled list, he would make only four starts in the two seasons of 2007-08.

A marvellous rebound would occur yet again in 2009, as he went 17-4 with a stingy 2.24 ERA (a career best). His 2010 season would continue positively as he posted a 16-9 record, with a 3.22 ERA.

Carpenter’s current campaign of 2011 has endured more potholes, although he is coming off one of his most impressive starts of the season.

On July 5, he threw a gem, going eight innings while winning a 1-0 game over the Cardinals’ arch rival, Cincinnati Reds, improving his record to 4-7 with an ERA of 3.74.

Could this be yet another turnaround? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: There is no quit in Carp’.

Talk About Trends ! The All-Star Game

2011-07-05T11:15:00.003-04:00

The "Junior Circuit" got off to a fast start, with three straight All-Star wins (1933 to '35) and won twelve of the first sixteen mid-summer classics from 1934 to 1949. (No game was played in 1945.) The '37 All-Stars featured a truly remarkable lineup of future Hall of Famers. Pictured at left are Lou Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. Even super confident NL starter Dizzy Dean had to be a little nervous.

But between 1950 and 1987 the senior circuit's record was 33-8 – an astounding .805. It's generally postulated that the National League's dominance was due to its earlier welcoming of black and Latin American players. It's hard to argue with that. The AL had few stars to match Mays, Aaron, Banks, Clemente, Robinson, McCovey et al. When the AL finally won a game in 1957 it was due to ballot boxing stuffing in Cincinnati, which allowed the Redlegs to win seven of the nine starting positions! The outraged commissioner moved two Reds out of the lineup – and took voting away from the fans. But the NL lineup still included Roy McMillan and Ed Bailey.

In '58 things returned to normal – even though it was the first All-Star game without an extra base hit. The lightweight American League's only stars were Jackie Jensen and Mickey Mantle. Their lineup included Bob Cerv, Gus Triandos, and Frank Malzone! And whom did they face? Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, and a fair double play combination of Bill Mazeroski and Ernie Banks!

Many fans may not know that two all-star games were played each summer from 1959 to 1962.

Among them was the first tie, in the second of the two 1961 games, when a ninth inning downpour ended the game in a 1-1 tie.

But I would argue that it was not just the black stars in their lineups that allowed the NL to dominate in the 50s and 60s. It was their pitching too. They had Koufax, Marichal, Spahn, Burdette, Drysdale, Jim Bunning, Bob Gibson, Gaylord Perry, Tom Seaver, Fernando Valenzuela, and Dwight Goodin to name a few.

But everything changed in '88. After years of futility (seven straight losses) the AL actually won a game. How? It was A's catcher Terry Steinbach, who hit a home run and launched another drive that fell ten feet short of being a grand slam. It ended up as a sac fly that gave the AL a 2-1 victory. Stunned by their success, the AL racked off five straight more.

From 1988 to 2009 the AL went 18 and 3, an incredible .857 record. Symbolic of the AL's success during this remarkable stretch was the '92 Classic. After four straight losses the now underdog NLers looked for revenge. But the first seven AL hitters stroked singles and built a 4-0 lead in the first. Then Ruben Sierra capped a 4-run sixth with a two-run homer. Ken Griffey Jr. went 3-for-3 and the AL coasted to a 13-6 win. (The AL 'slumped' to a 9-3 walkover the next year.)

Between '92 and '94 the unfortunate NL hurlers were facing lineups with simply no weaknesses. The AL had Kirby Puckett, Gary Carter, Ken Griffey Jr., Ivan Rodriguez, Ruben Sierra, Mark McGwire, Jose Conseco, and Frank Thomas. The 'weak' part of their lineup featured Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor, Cal Ripken Jr., and Wade Boggs!

The only relief came in '96 – in a game with no singles – when the AL also had no homers and lost 6-0. But they won the next 12 straight, though four in a row (2006 to '09) were by one run and there was the tie in 2002. The 2004 game in Houston was the lone blowout. Much-hyped hometown hero Roger Clemens (then with the Astros) got roughed up in the first.

The NL is on a roll now – with one straight win. Can they start another awesome run? It's 2-1 for the AL in amazing All-Star streaks.

Realigning the major leagues

2011-07-02T14:45:00.005-04:00

It’s great to be back. Did anyone miss me? What I should have done was take a computer on vacation with me, but we had no idea what kind of access we’d have in the various places we visited in Italy, and it seemed silly to drag something around that we’d only use very little. Anyway, I’m back in the saddle – but still I’d rather still be in Italy.

Hal Bodley on mlb.com wrote a column the other day in which he has a few suggestions that I think would go a long way towards addressing some scheduling issues that have existed for the past few years. Here’s where you can read it: Hal Bodley’s Column and I’d suggest you do. He makes a great deal of sense.

First and foremost, Bodley suggests realigning the league. Why was it made unbalanced in the first place? That’s what I’d like to know. The fact that it was Bud Selig’s own team, The Brewers, that were moved to the national league is very suspect. The only real reason they could give is that there would be a natural rivalry between Milwaukee and The Cubs. That’s just no reason to have 14 teams in one league and 16 in the other – and all the inherent scheduling problems it causes, not to mention the silliness of having one national league game when the rest of the teams are doing the interleague thing. Could the switch have been made because Selig thought his team would have a better chance making the post season in the NL rather than the generally stronger AL? Anyway you slice it, the move was stupid.

Now there’s talk about moving the Astros to the AL West (which only has 4 teams). Whatever way they do it, whatever team they move, all I can say is, “It’s about friggin’ time.” The Brewers should never have been moved in the first place, and you can bet if it had been any other team than the Commissioner’s, it would not have happened. I’ll bet previous commissioners were rolling in their graves over that move.

Another suggestion Bodley throws in is to have one Interleague game going on every day, rather than two blocks of games in the year. Personally, I’d rather see them chuck the whole idea, but I know that will never happen, so the idea of spreading them out throughout the year is a good one.

The only alternative to moving an NL team is to add two to the AL. With a number of teams already struggling at the gate in both leagues, that would be also be incredibly stupid. All MLB has to do is take a look at the train wreck happening in the NHL because they put teams in American cities where little or no interest in hockey existed before. If MLB were to make this kind of move, I can’t think of a single city in North America that would be a good candidate unless they did something creative like move into Mexico or some other Central American country. Regardless, any expansion would be stupid at this time.

So what do they do?

The third thing Bodley discusses is the idea that’s been floated of eliminating divisions in each league. He comes out dead against it, but I’m not so sure it’s that bad of an idea. Rooting for a team in the AL East as I do, the idea has some merit. If you’re in the current AL West, you only have to have a better record than three other teams. AL and NL central tend to be rather weak from year to year. Getting rid of divisions would very much level the field. The reason it won’t happen is that MLB is trying their very best to avoid playoff matches that would lead to teams on the same side of the country or even the same division appearing in playoff games or even the World Series together. The television audience takes precedence whenever we get into playoffs.

What do you think? All I can say is they’re way overdue to change something.

Off Field Battles: Owners vs Commissioner

2011-06-28T17:19:00.007-04:00

Bud Selig is the latest MLB Commissioner to earn the wrath of an owner. LA Dodger owner Frank McCourt, who is also in the midst of a helluva fight with his ex-wife, is blaming his need to file for bankruptcy on Selig's 3-year delay in approving McCourt's $3 billion deal with Fox that he claims would have made the team one of the strongest capitalized teams in sports.

Apparently McCourt has siphoned off more than $100 million of the team's money to pay for twin homes in Malibu, private jet travel, and his-and-hers house calls from hairdressers. Manny Ramirez and Vince Scully are among the long list of people and companies that have not been paid by the Dodgers.

It kind of makes you think back to Harry Frazee selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees to finance his pet show, No, No, Nanette.

One of the most famous annulments of an owner's decision came in 1976 when eccentric A's owner Charlie Finley tried to sell Joe Rudi, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue to the Yankees before they could declare free agency. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn expressed concern about the A's remaining competitive and vetoed it.

Generally owners have wanted commissioners too weak to boss them around, which may explain their choice of Bowie Kuhn, William Eckert and others.

A notable exception was Kenesaw Mountain Landis, appointed to clean up the game after game-fixing scandals, the most notable of which was the 1919 World Series. He was a federal judge named by Teddy Roosevelt and was famous for his land-breaking rulings. Most of them as it turns out however were overturned at appeal. He may have been more interested in making a name for himself when he banned Joe Jackson and the other Black Sox for life and he was at least partly responsible for baseball's lengthy delay (until after his death) of the integration of baseball.

Switch Pitching?

2011-06-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

In an email this week Will the Quill, sent me a video which I found hard to believe. It showed a pitcher in the minor leagues pitching with both arms. He pitched left and right interchangeably. I did not even know that this was possible at a professional level nor that someone could be able to handle the mechanical aspects of pitching from both sides.

This young gun pitcher is Pat Venditte, a 26-year-old from Omaha, Nebraska. In his high school and college days he pitched both right and left. On June 19, 2008 (when 23) he pitched a scoreless ninth inning. However, he became noticed by everyone when he faced a switch hitter Ralph Henriquez of the Brooklyn Cyclones on the last out of the game. Venditte then pitched for the Staten Island Yankees. Henriquez came up to bat left then Venditte switched to throw right. Henriquez then crossed over to the right box. This went on for quite a while, then the umpires decided that the batter must pick one way to hit and stick to it. The pitcher can then decide with which arm to throw. Both managers were in the fray and the result is one for the books. The video shows how this played out and the confusion created:

Pat Venditte was trained by his father from childhood to pitch both ways, even though Venditte is a natural right hander. Hours of practice on mechanics with both hands took place in the family backyard. But, here is the big thing, you have to have the same feel and control of the ball from both sides. For this, Venditte's father made him punt footballs with both legs to balance his body, strength from both sides and too establish the needed leg motion. He pitched right to righties and left to lefties. From his natural right side, Venditte throws over the top with a curve and moderate fastball. From the left, he throws sidearm with a slider. His glove is an interesting two-directional deal with a thumb hole on each side and appears to have netting in the middle. He can change back and forth quickly.

Because of this very unique situation, the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation (PBUC) came up with new rules on July 3, 2008. It limits the number of times a switch hitter vs switch pitcher can change sides during one at bat:

“The pitcher must visually indicate to the umpire, batter and runner(s) which way he will begin pitching to the batter. Engaging the rubber with the glove on a particular hand is considered a definitive commitment to with which arm he will throw. The batter will then choose which side of the plate he will bat from.

The pitcher is not permitted to pitch with the other hand until the batter is retired, the batter becomes a runner, the inning ends, the batter is substituted for by a pinch-hitter or the pitcher incurs an injury.

Any switch (by either the pitcher or the batter) must be clearly indicated to the umpire. There will be no warm-up pitches during the change of arms.

If an injury occurs the pitcher may change arms but not use that arm again during the remainder of the game.”

One quick aside; Greg A. Harris is the only MLB switch pitcher in the modern era. He did it only twice on September 28, 1995 (as an Expo) against the Reds. In the ninth inning he faced four batters the first right-handed, the next two left-handed and the last out against Brett Boone as a rightie.

Pat Venditte is now playing for the Yankee’s Class-AA Trenton Thunder. This year to date he is 0-3 with an ERA of 3.52. In 2010, at spring training he pitched for the Yankees against the Braves. Venditte has not yet been called up to the majors.

The Greatest Pairs of Sluggers

2011-06-21T00:03:00.001-04:00

In an earlier entry I discussed the greatest outfields of all time and I may in future write about the best infields, but what are the greatest slugging partners in baseball history?

There have been a number of sluggers who have had no one else with a lot of pop to protect them in the lineup. Joe Jackson, Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Bobby Bonds, and now Jose Batista come to mind. I'm sure readers can come up with others, but here are some of the most dynamic duos ever.

The most famous and probably most fearsome of course would be Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, who were teammates from 1923 through 1934 but really at their peak from ’25 to ’33.

Prior to them the Pirates had Fred Clarke supporting Honus Wagner and at the same time in the junior circuit the Tigers featured Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford. Neither Clarke nor Crawford hit too many homers but they had a helluva lotta doubles and triples many of which would have left the playing area in modern stadia.

In the ’30s slugging pairs included Gabby Hartnett and Hack Wilson of the Cubs, who combined for 93 homers in 1930, Al Simmons and Jimmie Foxx of the A’s, and Lou Gehrig and Joe Dimaggio.

In the ’40s there were Ken Keltner and Joe Gordon of the Indians.

In the ’50s there were Hank Aaron and Eddie Matthews of the Braves and Mantle and Berra of the Yankees.

In the 60s there were Mantle and Maris and Mays and McCovey and Bob Allison and Harmon Killebrew of the Twins.

In the ’70s there were Willie Stargell and Dave Parker in Pittsburgh and the Reds had a fearsome foursome of Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, George Foster, and Joe Morgan.

In the ’90s there were Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio of the Astros.

In the 2000s the Red Sox had David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez and later the Phillies had Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. I’m sure you can come up with a few other powerful pairs that I have omitted.

It’s report card time.

2011-06-16T02:48:00.004-04:00

Alex Anthopoulos, in his second season as GM and he has made some big and bold moves with the team. I will just take a look at a few. The minor league moves are too many to discuss here. His first was the biggest and involved the best pitcher in either league.

Roy Halladay, the “Doc Deal”: Cy Young.

Roy Halladay was traded for Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor and Travis d’Arnaud. Taylor went to the Athletics for Brett Wallace who went to the Astros for Anthony Gose. Halladay and his contract would have not allowed the financially confused Jays to move to improve their other weak positions. It was painfully clear that the team around Roy was not competitive enough to give him a chance to get to the World Series. Also, the Jays were not prepared to offer a large extended contract that Halladay needed beyond free agency. Anthopoulos sought the best deal he could get on paper. In retrospect, a deservedly great deal for Halladay and weak one for us. Drabek has been sent down for seasoning (too many walks and anger issues), d’Arnuad and Gose working there way up. This rates a D so far.

Vernon Wells: Games -42,BA -.192, HR -6, RBI -16

Wells had a career year in 2006 and another good year in 2010. But, with the big contract and sporadic production in recent years, Anthopoulos traded Wells to the Angles for Juan Rivera and Mike Napoli (who was immediately filliped for Frank Francisco). So, Rivera has proven to be a good go to guy who has contributed with the bat and with surprisingly soft hands at first base. Judgment on Francisco is still out as one cannot tell how good he will be when he takes the mound. He could walk the first three or serve up a big hit and not go for the save but have to work for a win. He is not truly a closer, at least at this point. Back to Wells, I do not think that the injuries are what plagued him the most. I think he can no longer actually see the ball the way he did. His power hitting days are done. Over all, with the money and the lack of production, I think the Jays did well with these transactions. Maybe Kyle Drabek can get over himself. I give the Jays an A+.

John Buck: Games -59,BA -.230, HR -6, RBI -24

John Buck had a great and career year in 2010. The Jays did not want to offer him a long-term deal so he left a free agent. I think the Jays forgot that one also has to call a game. JP Arencibia is improving all the time but still leaves his pitchers hung out to dry and does not always calls the best game. In a previous blog, I mentioned how he did not help the now departed Kyle Drabek. Arencibia is a rookie as well. He needs more seasoning. Buck called a great game, just ask Romero. I appreciate that he has much more money now, but we lost something here. I give the Jays a C.

Shawn Marcum: 7-2, ERA 2.68

After the Tommy John surgery and rehab assignments, Marcum was the opening day starter in 2010. He headed up a promising rotation including a second year man Ricky Romero. Both had good years and contributed 27 wins. This year, Marcum is ahead of last years pace and his ERA is lower. We should not have dumped him so fast. The Jays had their eye on Brett Lawrie and got him for Marcum from the Brewers. Lowrie was expected to fill the dismal third base position. He was to be up by now. It is a very tough call to give up pitching for an up and coming bat and glove but the Jays were desperate. If the rest of the pitching had not gone south I would have given an A. If your ace is a third year guy and the most experienced, maybe the pitching has gone exactly the way it should have, South. I give this a C+

Alex Gonzales: Games -66,BA -.264, HR -7, RBI -22

Alex Gonzalez was traded for Yunel Escobar and JoJo Reyes. Escobar (Games -62,BA -.284, HR -7, RBI -39) is finally fitting in with the team. He is a very tall short stop who has limited range but is swinging the bat quit well this season. He seems to have found his spot and has caused no personal issues as he did in Braves. Reyes (W-L: 2-5 · ERA: 4.30 · K: 47 · BB: 25 · IP: 73.1 · WHIP: 1.51) is now famous for being tied with the longest streak of no decisions at 28. He seems to have good stuff most of the time. With the entire pitching staff this year the Jays have gone on to long without making changes. Three of the starters have been sent down already. Will there be more? The bullpen is blown up and now not able to finish games without way too much excitement. I give this trade an A for what is and what could be.

So as the bell curve goes, I give Alex Anthopoulos and the front office a C+ for the season so far. The record shows it I’m afraid. Not up to last year’s standard.

Great Names

2011-06-13T05:07:00.016-04:00

I really enjoyed John's last post about great baseball names. John talks about players whose nicknames were used so regularly that few fans knew the players' real given names. The classic is of course George Herman Ruth, who was immediately referred to as another one of the 'babes' (young players) that minor league owner Jack Dunn had sold to the Red Sox.

Other players who were always called by their nicknames include (Larry) Napoleon Lajoie, (Frank) Home Run Baker, (Lewis) Hack Wilson, (Lynnwood) Schoolboy Rowe, (Charles) Gabby Hartnett, (James) Cool Papa Bell, (Charles) Chief Bender, (Mordecai) Three-Finger Brown, (Harold) Peewee Reese, and (Carlton) Pudge Fisk.

Cool Papa Bell

There have been several very cool and understandable nicknames given to players because of their rare talents. They would include Iron Man Joe McGinnity, Ty Cobb the Georgia Peach, Lou the Iron Horse Gehrig, Walter the Big Train Johnson, Frankie Frisch the Fordam Flash, Ted Williams the Splendid Splinter, Phil the Skooter Rizzuto, Stan the Man Musial, Leo the Lip Durocher, Willie Mays the Say Hey Kid, and Reggie Jackson, Mr. October.

Okay, now let's have some fun and use mostly actual birthnames and some nicknames to put together baseball's all animal team.

P - Doug Bird

P - Randy Wolf

P - Moose Haas

Reliever - Goose Gossage

C - Yogi the Bear Berra
1B - Moose Skowron

2B - Nellie Fox

3B - Jimmie Foxx

SS - Rabbit Maranville

Reserve IF - Mike Lamb

OF- Ducky Medwick

OF - Goose Goslin

OF - Rob Deer

And the all fish team...

P - Art "Red" Herring
P - Catfish Hunter

P - Dizzy Trout

P - Mudcat Grant
C - Steve Lake

1B - Randy Bass

2B - Cod Myers

3B - Neal "Mickey" Finn

SS - Lip Pike

Reserve IF - Bobby Sturgeon

OF - Tim Salmon

OF - Kevin Bass
OF - "Gentleman George" Haddock

DH - Mike Carp

Why don't you readers try to come up with your own All __________s teams?