Category Archives: Indy and Amateur

World Baseball Classic Update 7/27/2022: An Aussie confirmed, Team Pakistan starts to take shape, and more.

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Curtis Mead, a top-100 prospect who plays in the Rays organization, told an MiLB reporter that he plans to play for Australia next year. It should be noted, however, that the Adelaide-born infielder has had an injury since then, so that could change.

In Qualifier news, Team Pakistan is starting to take shape. Infielder Alex Khan of West Virginia University has been confirmed by the Pakistani team’s Twitter feed, and Pakistani-Canadian infielder Ahmad Mahmood (a commit to a community college in California) has had his participation confirmed by both his Twitter bio and a tweet from his old baseball academy. Other players either confirmed or implied for qualifiers by the Pakistani baseball federation’s Twitter page include former DIII player Shahid Shattar, community college outfielder Sami Khan, 16-year-old pitcher Amaan Khan, former Astros draftee Omar Arif, Citadel baseball player Rohan Shah, Tulane pitcher Blake Mahmood, Bethune-Cookman pitcher Amir Asghar, Canadian college pitcher Adam Khan, and Lyad Ansari, the nephew of a internationally-experienced cricket player. While the Pakistani team will likely be massively outgunned in qualifying against teams from places like Panama and Nicaragua that will primarily have professionals, you never know what might happen in baseball. One of my favorite WBC memories, for example, is when a bullpen for Team Brazil that included a 16-year-old amateur was able to close out Colombia.

On the business side of things, a Korean paper looked into why Korea isn’t hosting a round in next year’s tournament. Reasons include the want to have as many Japan-Korea games as possible, fairly low attendance in 2017 in Korea for the WBC (not helped by a surprise early elimination for Team Korea), and the fact that apparently Taiwan lobbied for a round more than Korea did.

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Who is the greatest Mr. Irrelevant in baseball history?

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You may know about Mr. Irrelevant, the last pick of the NFL Draft. The idea being that he is the equivalent of the last person picked on the playground, doomed to be an afterthought. Of course, even the last person picked in a professional draft is still far more talented than you, me, or almost anyone else on the planet. And, indeed, some Mr. Irrelevant picks have gone on to have good careers.

But what of baseball? After all, until very recently the MLB Draft was hilariously long. In fact, at one point there was no set ending. Even once more structure was added, it could still last 40 rounds. Only recently has it truly been downsized, going all the way down to five rounds in 2020 for COVID/labor reasoning before being increased again somewhat to 20 in 2021.

That, as well as the fact that all but the very best of prospects must spend at least some time in the minors, mean many baseball Mr. Irrelevants never even played professionally. But of those who did, who did the best? Given that this year’s draft is currently in full swing, I have a rundown under the jump:

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Two neat links and a look at what is ahead

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We start today with two neat links, both about diamonds. One from the present, one from the past.

The first is this article from Emma Baccelieri on the Long Time, a sandlot ballfield and performance venue in Austin with idiosyncratic rules and a deep love of the game. Home of the amateur adult-league Texas Playboys (which includes the architect of the field), the games held there raise money for local causes. A fascinating read about something I’d never heard about until today.

The other is an article at Atlas Obscura by Jonathan Goldman about the Dyckman Oval, a venue in northern Manhattan which was the center of Black Baseball in New York City until its late 1930s. Now covered by housing, playgrounds, and community center basketball courts, it’s a forgotten part of New York City’s baseball and Black history, without even a historical marker to indicate that it was once a stadium that often had people like Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and Fats Waller sitting in the stands. Hopefully something is done to change that.

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Moving on now to what you can expect in the coming days and weeks:

  • Tomorrow, there will be a tradition unlike any other; My bare-bones no-explanations-given postseason predictions.
  • Reactions to the postseason.
  • An incredibly stupid thing about mascots, which is to say it’ll be amazing.
  • Ruminations on the ultimate baseball trip that I’d have if I had several million dollars and/or a bunch of sponsors.
  • Possibly finally the first “Glick on Gaming” segment.

Thank you coming to the Baseball Continuum, see you again soon!

The Little League World Series was not as good without the world

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The Little League World Series is over, only this year it just wasn’t the same, because the world couldn’t come. It’s obvious why: COVID-19. After cancelling the entire tournament last year for the first time ever, this year Little League Baseball returned the World Series to Williamsport, but only with American-based teams due to COVID concerns.

And while it did prove to be an excellent tournament, it still lacked much of what has made the tournament special: the international teams.

You see, part of the fun of the event is in seeing kids from so many places have fun with each other. It doesn’t matter if they are from Ohio or Osaka, it’s good to see people from different cultures bonding over a shared love for baseball.

However, there is also the fact that it also just wasn’t as fun to watch. Different countries bring different styles of play, which can be interesting. Plus, there are a clearer way of determining underdogs: you may not be able to tell who the favorite in a game between Texas and California is, but when it’s Japan vs. Australia or Curacao vs. Italy, you are instantly pulled in. Sure, the favorite almost always wins, but it is fascinating to get pulled in by the drama of seeing how long the underdogs can keep pace. And regardless of what happens, the kids don’t care: they are still having fun.

But, alas, some of that didn’t happen this year. Hopefully it’ll be back next year.

The All-Time Home Run Derby

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Imagine you have command of all time and space. And imagine you have been assigned to create the greatest Home Run Derby of all time… where do you hold it and who do you have in it?

I have ideas. Go below the jump to see them.

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Neat Site: Digital Ballparks

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Today’s neat site to check out is Digital Ballparks. It’s a site filled with slideshows of images of baseball stadiums past and present from around the country and even in some cases the world. It isn’t just limited to the pros, either: the Pastores (who run the site) also have plenty of amateur and semi-pro fields, as well as ballparks that once hosted professional baseball decades ago. In some cases where ballfields no longer have their traditional form (for example, abandoned fields or fields that may have been converted to another sport), they’ll even sometimes include Photoshop work to give an idea of what it may have looked like back in the day.

While it looks like they haven’t updated the site yet for the 2021 season, it remains a fascinating way to spend time for anyone interested in baseball stadiums.

Check it out.

Neat site to check out: “Threads of Our Game”

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Some of you may be familiar with the Dressed to the Nines uniform database run by the Hall of Fame. On it, you can look up what each team wore uniform-wise from 1900 to today.

But what if you wanted to know what teams looked like before 1900? Enter Threads of Our Game, a website run by SABR member Craig Brown that focuses on the first few decades of baseball. To make up for the fact that photography of those days was not as common and essentially never in color, the site uses research of newspaper accounts, contemporary drawings, and other sources to get an idea of what the uniforms of the era looked like.

What’s more, the site doesn’t just have the Major Leagues. In fact, it doesn’t just stop at professional teams in general. They also have semi-pro and amateur teams of the era. No team, seemingly, is too small for inclusion. Nor is no team too vile: among the teams with a uniform on digital display is that of the 1874 baseball team run by the Klu Klux Klan chapter of Oneida, N.Y. Somewhat surprisingly, the uniforms does not contain any white.

Among the interesting highlights of the page are polka-dotted ballcaps, the first ballcap with a graphic on it (an Oriole wing), the year that some teams had a different-colored uniform for each position on the field, and also some of examples of 19th-century teams from the proto-Negro Leagues.

Check it out.

Cancel (almost) Everything

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On Tuesday, I said that Opening Day will not take place. At the time, it was mostly figurative, at least in America, and it seemed that while the big importance of Opening Day (capitalized) wouldn’t take place it seemed likely that the season would still start on time, albeit in a more depressing manner than usual thanks to the coronavirus.

Now, though, I think that we won’t even be seeing an opening day (not capitalized) as scheduled, much less an Opening Day. In fact, I think it would be malpractice to have it.

This realization came last night. I’m not sure when, but it was probably when a NBA game inexplicably postponed at the last second, a player tested positive for COVID19, and the entire season was suspended all in the space of what felt like a half-hour. Oh, and Tom Hanks announced he tested positive as well.

The average NBA arena holds between 15 and 20 thousand fans. Even the smallest MLB stadiums (Tropicana Field with tarps up, for example) holds thousands more people. Public Health experts in cities seem to differ on what level of crowd is too big, but even the largest estimates are around 1,000 people, or WAY WAY less than any major league stadium. Even a fan-less game may break the level of a safe gathering, given the amount of support staff, journalists, and security.

Yes, it is true that most COVID19 cases are minor, and even those in dangerous categories are more likely to live than not. But think of it this way: you are also more likely to get Christian Yelich out more often than not, but nobody would want to give him the opportunity to bat in the ninth against them.

So what I’m saying is: shut it down. Shut it all down. Unless it is either something  something essential or something that can be done entirely over television or the internet without any large amount of human interaction, it can wait.

It is said that baseball is life. That is true, but you also need life to have baseball, so there is no sense in putting anyone’s life at risk.

So shut it down. Cancel everything, and perhaps we can try again in a month or two.

The greatest names of the upcoming 2019 MLB draft

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The following are actual names of prospects who may be drafted in the 2019 MLB draft, which begins Monday. Some of them were chosen because they sound cool, others because they sound funny, others because they just look fun to say.

So without any further ado, the best names in MLB Draft Tracker for 2019:

  • Josh Jung
  • Brett Baty
  • Quinn Priester
  • Gunnar Henderson
  • Cameron Cannon
  • John Rave
  • Hudson Head
  • Jaxx Groshans
  • Matthew Barefoot
  • Justin Fall
  • Quinn Cotton
  • Andy Archer
  • Bryce Ball
  • Dallas Beaver
  • Bear Bellomy
  • Cuba Bess
  • Hunter Bigge
  • Blake Buckle
  • Cade Cabbiness
  • Jax Cash
  • Steele Chambers
  • Cutter Clawson
  • Jack Dashwood
  • Gunner Halter
  • Maverick Handley
  • Jett Jackson
  • Dutch Landis
  • Skyler Loverink
  • Cole McDonald
  • Takoda Metoxen
  • Cam Opp
  • Al Pesto
  • Nico Popa
  • Major Posey
  • DJ Poteet
  • Paxton Rigby
  • Kipp Rollings
  • Rudy Rott
  • Jason Ruffcorn
  • Danny Sinatro
  • Ryan Sleeper
  • Bruce Steel
  • Trevor Tinder
  • Parker Towns
  • Benny Wanger
  • Hunter Wolfe
  • Zane Zurbrugg

Best of luck to all the awesomely-named prospects during the draft!

Random question: Will we soon have a MLB player with a last name starting with X?

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In 1949, writer Ogden Nash wrote “Line-Up for Yesterday”, a poem that paid tribute to some of the greatest ballplayers in history up to that point by going through the alphabet. Three letters did not have representation:

  • I, which was used as a joking reference to himself writing the poem.
  • Z, for zenith, as a way of saying that these players were the top of the game.
  • And, of course… X, because there weren’t any ballplayers with a last name starting in  X. To make up for it, he just paid tribute to Jimmie Foxx.

Time has gone on, and, well, there still isn’t an MLB ballplayer with an X starting their last name. But, I was wondering- are there any candidates for it? After all, there are a lot of baseball players, and those players come from an increasing number of countries, some of which have different languages where having an X at the start of your name is more common.

So let’s go through the history of X-named ballplayers and see who has come closest so far, and see if there is anyone who may have a shot in the near-future.

The closest so far: Joe Xavier.

The closest baseball has ever come to having a Major Leaguer with an X at the start of their last name came in the late 1980s and the 1990 season, when Joe Xavier reached AAA. An infielder with the Oakland, Milwaukee and Atlanta organizations, Xavier later told “The Greatest 21 Days” blog that he may have had a shot at the big leagues if not for being traded to Milwaukee, which had a glut of infield prospects at that time. Alas, the fact that he never was able to crack the big league roster meant that the X portion of MLB reference material would remain empty.

The most recent one: Gui Yuan Xu.

Technically, Xu is his first name, but under western naming convention his family name of Xu comes last and therefore if he were to make the big league that is where he would be found in the index of baseball history.

Putting aside that, though, Gui Yuan Xu is the most recent minor leaguer who would have broken the “X” barrier if he made the bigs. A rare pro ballplayer signed from mainland China, Gui Yuan played three years in the Orioles organization before being released this past spring.

Anyone coming up in the college ranks?

The outlook for X-named ballplayers right now is not looking good. A look at the Baseball Cube (which is better than even Baseball Reference when it comes to college ballplayers) shows no current or recent prospect-level college ballplayers with names starting with X, at least at the Division I level. While there surely must be some high school players with surnames that begin with X, I am not a big enough expert on the prospects at that level to say if any of them may have a shot of one day breaking the “X” barrier.

Chinese Dreams

Ultimately, the best hope of one day having a ballplayer with a X at the start of their surname may lie in mainland China. While many ballplayers in Taiwan transliterate names with the “shoo” or “choo” sound into English with “Ch” instead of “X”, on the mainland the X seems far more common.

To see how that is, you need only look at the Baseball Reference page for players who have had their surname begin with “Xi”. Most of them are Chinese players who were on the Texas AirHogs of the independent American Association either last year or this year. The AirHogs entered an agreement before the 2018 season to more-or-less give most of their roster over to China’s national team, as China prepares for the return of baseball to the Olympics in 2020 and likely then 2028. Six of those Chinese players on the 2018 AirHogs had names starting with “Xi”, and at least one of them has returned in 2019.

Now, the stats for them don’t exactly impress, with only one of the “Xi” (reliever Qi Xin) having statistics that I’d call “good”, but who knows? Perhaps one day a Chinese player with a surname that starts with X will catch somebody’s eye, just as Gui Yuan Xu once briefly caught the Orioles’ eye. And perhaps one day they will make the big leagues, breaking the “X” barrier once and for all.

So will we have a MLB player with a last name starting in X anytime soon? Probably not, but you never know…