Category Archives: MLB

In the 1940s, you could actively stalk baseball players

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Before the internet, or even The Baseball Encyclopedia, stats for previous seasons often were in the form of baseball guides, often from The Sporting News.

Also in there, however, were more strange things. Some of them, for example, had a listing of where the visiting teams stayed. Now, even today you can often figure out where visiting teams stay in town due to ads that might say “Official Hotel of the Boston Red Sox” or something similar, to the point where most baseball players have aliases that they check in with that don’t reveal their fame (although Rickey Henderson, ever the master of disguise, went by the alias of “Richard Pryor”)

Anyway, if you are caught in a time warp and find yourself in the early 40s and want to visit some players, you can find them here, from the 1943 edition of the Baseball Guide and Record Book (found for free on archive.org):

The Second Episode of 2012’s “The Franchise” saw Ozzie Guillen say the F-Word about 18 times, and other observations

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The second episode of this season of The Franchise wasn’t as long or as good as the first, but it still entertained while providing a unique look at the Miami Marlins, focusing primarily on Giancarlo Stanton’s surgery, Logan Morrison’s trip back to his hometown of Kansas City, and the unexpected rise of Justin Ruggiano, but still getting in some good Ozzie Guillen sounds before the end, as he chewed out the team immediately following the All-Star Break. Thoughts and the “Ozzie Guillen ‘Carlin Words’ Counter” after the jump:

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“Moneyball” is a book that has shaped America. No, seriously.

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The Library of Congress recently released a list of 88 Books that Shaped America, which are part of a current exhibit at the Library. It’s a pretty good list of books (which had to either be written by an American or by somebody who became an American), and it’s hard to argue with most of them. However, it’s missing something big: sports. America is the most diverse and sports-loving country on Earth. Most countries focus on only one sport (usually soccer), but America has many sports, and it affects our language and culture. We ask for ballpark figures and play Monday morning quarterback. Something that is a certainty is a slam dunk. It’s one of the last few universal experiences: at a sporting event, nobody cares (or at least 99.9% of people don’t care) what party you vote for or what you do for a living.

That the LoC would so ignore this aspect of American life is disappointing, especially because there are plenty of good sports books out there that have shaped America. Jim Bouton’s Ball Four was one of the first books to openly tell things like they were and show the public’s heroes with all of their flaws. Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights highlighted the importance of football in small-town Texas, and later was made into a movie and TV series. Juiced was hardly a triumph of literary genius, but it can’t be denied that Canseco shaped not only baseball but America, leading to the government hearings and efforts by all sports (although people only cared about what baseball did) in trying to fight it.

However, if I could add in one sports book to the Library of Congress list, it would be Michael Lewis’ Moneyball.

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Billy Hamilton is the fastest man alive

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Watching the Futures Game out of the corner of my eye a few weeks ago, a guy named Billy Hamilton (Reds Organization) hit a triple. A very, very, fast triple. A triple that, if the outfielders had been slower or the outfield walls has been deeper, he could easily have attempted to make into an inside-the-park home run.

A few days ago, he did hit a inside-the-park home run. Not only that, but he did it in 13.8 seconds… while not even going full-speed near the end. Oh, and he has 109 stolen bases between A and AA this season. The all-time pro record for a season is 145, which Vince Coleman pulled off in A-ball during the 1983 season.

(more after jump)

And Hamilton isn’t exactly a one-trick pony, he hit .323 in a half-season of A-Ball. Barring injury, he could end up as a runner-off-the-bench for the Reds come September. After all, he’s way too fast to just be left in the minors once crunch-time comes, especially for a National League team.

By the way, Hamilton’s dash around the bases in 13.8 seconds- roughly 360 feet- is in itself a impressive athletic feat. It means he was averaging about 17.79 MPH during the run. If Hamilton were to hold that speed for just 100 meters, he’d finish in about 12.57 seconds. That isn’t exactly Usain Bolt, but then again it wasn’t exactly a straight sprint and Hamilton was running on dirt and grass instead of smooth pavement, so the comparison doesn’t really work… does it?

Interestingly, Billy Hamilton was also the name of a Hall of Famer from the late 19th century. “Sliding Billy” Hamilton also was quite the base stealer: he had 914 in his career, which was the most of all time until Lou Brock broke his record in 1978. He still is third overall.

So keep an eye out for Sliding Billy 2.0, he’s running his way through the minors, and it is probably only a matter of time before he is testing the arms of MLB catchers.

Obituary: The 2012 Baltimore Orioles’ Playoff Hopes

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The Playoff Hopes of the Baltimore Orioles passed away last night at the age of 89 games, dying shortly after a 19-7 trouncing at the hands of the Minnesota Twins, who sometimes don’t even seem to score 19 runs during a single month. Although Hopes, who had not been seen this late since 1997, is still technically alive, doctors confirm that the prognosis is extremely grim and that it is only a matter of time before it is overtaken and destroyed by the American League East and the tough competition for the AL Wild Card spots due to a lack of starting pitching.

The Orioles’ Playoff Hopes leaves behind it’s brother, fellow Baltimore native Michael Phelps Olympic Hopes, as well as it’s distant cousin, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Playoff Hopes.

Services are the rest of the season. In lieu of flowers, send quality starting pitchers.

Kevin Youkilis returns to Boston (AKA: The People vs. Bobby Valentine)

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I was in Boston, it was perhaps two or three days after Kevin Youkilis was traded to Chicago, exchanging his red for white. Figuring that Youkilis gear would now be on sale, I went to a Red Sox store on Lansdowne Street with my father. To our surprise, there still was plenty of Youkilis gear, up all around as if he still was set to to start that night at third. When my father asked an employee about that, there came (roughly) this response:

“Guy gave over eight years to this franchise and won two rings, we’re not just going to forget him overnight. He’s the Greek God of Walks, after all.”

He added that they’d probably end up taking them down and/or discounting them after the end of the homestand.

Right about now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the stores in Boston are still selling Youkilis jerseys. Because, as the Red Sox become the most volatile playoff-contending team since the Bronx is Burning Yankees, Youkilis very well may have been elevated to a martyr-esque cult figure. While he’s been producing in Chicago and writing nice notes to Red Sox Nation, manager Bobby Valentine has been quoted as blaming Youkilis for all of the problems the two of them had, saying that Youkilis never wanted to get over a comment Valentine had made in April about how he thought Youkilis wasn’t “into it”.

This is not something that is going to help Bobby Valentine’s reputation in Boston, much less the Red Sox locker room. Not like he will care, as he is seemingly turning the Red Sox around by making all of them have a common enemy: him. They are far behind in the AL East race, but are very much in the Wild Card race.

Here’s another anecdote: when at a Red Sox-Blue Jays game at Fenway, there was a mid-inning montage on the jumbotron of final games by Red Sox greats in Boston uniforms. It finished with Youkilis, and that part drew a big cheer.

I’m going to guess he’ll get a similarly big cheer tonight. The reaction to Bobby Valentine when he goes to the pitcher’s mound will probably be more… mixed.

Random Video of the Undetermined Amount of Time: Baseball at the 1956 Olympics

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I’ve been working on making WBC projections for Australia, and while doing so I came across this Australian documentary clip of when baseball was played as a demonstration sport at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. For years, it was the most attended baseball contest ever, with over 114,000 spectators (a few years ago the Dodgers had an exhibition game at the LA Coliseum which broke this record).

Interestingly, there is talk of having the 2014 MLB season start in Australia, albeit in Sydney, not Melbourne.

Things that still haven’t happened in baseball

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From Tom Haudricourt’s twitter feed:

The thing about baseball is that it has such a long history, and has had so many different styles of play over the year, that it’s rare that something is truly unprecedented. Zack Greinke starting three straight games (due to getting ejected early in one game, starting the game before the All-Star Break, and now starting the game after the All-Star Break) may be the first time it’s happened in almost 100 years, but the mere fact it had happened before (probably many times- pitchers before the 20th century often started consecutive days) is a testament to how many things have happened in baseball.

So what hasn’t happened on the Major League Level?

Well…

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The 33rd Anniversary of Disco Demolition Night

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It was July, 1979. Jimmy Carter was president, ESPN was still a few months away from it’s first broadcast and Laverne & Shirley was the most watched show on television. Against this backdrop, a DJ named Steve Dahl and fellow Chicagoland personality Garry Meier convinced Mike Veeck and his father Bill Veeck, owner of the Chicago White Sox, to hold an anti-Disco rally between games of a doubleheader.

After the Tigers beat the White Sox 3-1 in the first game… madness ensued, as can be seen in this compilation of news footage from Chicago that fateful night, 33 years ago. Keep an eye open for a young Greg Gumbel.

The second game, of course, ended up being cancelled, forfeited to the Tigers. It would be the last forfeit in American League history to this day and the second-to-last forfeit in MLB history (there was “ball day” on August 10, 1995 in Los Angeles).

Interestingly, despite claims that Disco Demolition Night ended disco forever, later that year the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series while playing Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” as their theme song.

The Pittsburgh Pirates, it should be noted, have not been back to the World Series since.

2013 WBC Team USA projections Version 1.1

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(EDITED IN ON DEC. 31: As of this writing, the most recent projection for the United States can be found here.)

I previously did a projection of a possible Team USA for the 2013 WBC, but with injuries and other developments occurring, I’m revisiting it to make some small changes. Where there haven’t been major changes, I haven’t really changed what was said in my original projection. Where I have made changes, I will note it with a section marked CHANGES.

A refresher on my selection rules/assumptions:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

So, with this in mind, and after much looking over of statistics and histories (as well as injury reports), here are my latest round of projections (after the jump):

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