Todd Frazier hit two HRs yesterday… what did YOU do yesterday? I bet you didn’t hit two HRs… which is why you aren’t the MVP of Yesterday, but Frazier is.
Standings after jump:
MVP of Yesterday (September 5, 2013): Todd Frazier
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MVP of Yesterday (September 4, 2013): Pablo Sandoval
Pablo Sandoval hit 4-5 with THREE homers and SIX RBIs. I’m so sure that he won the MVP of Yesterday that I wrote this late last night and set it to automatically post in the morning.
Standings are after the jump:
The last time the Pirates won 81 games…
September 9th, 1992. At the end of the day, after a 13-8 victory over the Cubs, the record of the Pittsburgh Pirates showed that they had 81 wins.
It never happened again. Until yesterday.
How long ago was 9-9-92? Well…
- Bryce Harper hadn’t been born yet.
- The United States still was doing nuclear bomb testing.
- The Colorado Rockies, Florida/Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks did not exist.
- Two players from the September 9, 1992 game- Joe Girardi and Ryne Sandberg– are now MLB managers (although Sandberg is an interim manager).
- Three participants in the game (Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and umpire Doug Harvey) are now in the Hall of Fame. A fourth, Barry Bonds, would be if not for, well… you know.
- Speaking of Bonds, at the end of the 1992 season, he had 176 HR and in 1992 he hit a then career-high 34 HR.
- The top movie at the box-office the weekend before was Honeymoon in Vegas. The top movie in the weekend after was Sneakers.
- Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” was the Number One single.
- George H.W. Bush was president and was facing both Bill Clinton and Ross Perot in the presidential race.
- Nickelodeon was only a few weeks old, the Sci-Fi (Syfy) Channel and Cartoon Network were a few weeks away from premiering.
- The first Mario Kart game had only been out for about two weeks.
- Gerald’s Game by Stephen King was the number one best-selling book at the time.
- The Russian Federation had not yet taken part in the Olympic Games- the 1992 Olympics had the “Unified Team” of Russia and former USSR countries because they hadn’t formed Olympic Committees in time.
- A Canadian Team had not yet won the World Series.
- Only Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Anaheim (Angel) Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Skydome/Rogers Centre, New Comiskey Park/US Cellular Field, the Oakland Coliseum and Camden Yards remain in MLB use from that season. Tropicana Field had been built, but had not yet hosted a Major League team.
In other words: It was a long time ago.
MVP of Yesterday (September 3, 2013): Brandon Barnes
Brandon Barnes and 3 hits, a home run, and five RBIs. Oh, it wasn’t enough to get his Astros a win, but still, impressive enough to be the MVP of Yesterday. It’s his second of the year.
Standings, as always, after the jump: Continue reading
If you have 230+ dollars and are willing to break trademark law, then you, too, can be Mr. Met
While looking for some Bizarre Baseball Culture on eBay, I came across something else….
Above, you see a “BASEBALL BALLPLAYER ADULT SIZE CARTOON MASCOT COSTUME” available from “sinooceantrade” on eBay. And, for $229.99 plus potential shipping, it can be YOURS via eBay. Seems totally legit.
How legit?
Well, for one thing, the “outter fabric” (sic) is “Short hair velvet”, but the “lining Materials” is “POLYESTER TAFFETA”. I don’t know anything about mascot uniforms or the Mr. Met costume, but I’m sure that it has POLYESTER TAFFETA in it. Also, guess what? It’ll be shipped to you in the finest packaging: “Put into thick box”.
And, that’s not all, look what it has to say about the “characteristic” of the costume:
3.One-piece of the head material :: We use the advanced machine to manufacture POLYFOAM head, it is only one piece, it is stronger and enough hard to avoid to break when it meet strike accidentally ,User head can be protected very well, but paperboard or foam head was produced by different paperboard or foam pieces, they was usually agglutinated by the bad gluewater ,this kind of head is not very firm, and very easily to turn into fragment, At the same time, the gluewater do harm to the User, It makes the User headache or feel unhappy.
4.Breather and vision : User can breath very well when he wears it, there are the hole of eyes and mouth and the neck area, They have enough ventilation for User, User have a good vision from the head eyes or mouth.
5.Eye net: there are plastic net on the costume eye, They can prevent the dust or the others into the User eyes.
6.Waterproof: POLYFOAM material can be Water resistance
7.Costume fabric: We choose the high quality fabric for our costume. we fill polypropylene cotton Material in the middle of outer and inner fabric, It make the costume soft and verisimilitude.
So… what are you waiting for? You too can get your own soft and verisimilitude-y Mr. Met costume!
Great Stuff from the B-Ref Japanese Data
With Baseball Reference adding Japanese stats, it’s time to look at some of the coolest stuff from it.
First off, of course, there is arguably the greatest Japanese player ever and one of the greatest hitters on any continent: Sadaharu Oh. You probably know about his 868 HRs, but you probably didn’t know about his impressive 2786 hits. Going on a tangent here, I remember reading somewhere that, after statistical conversions between the leagues, it’s thought that Oh would have had a career in MLB similar to Mel Ott.
Much like how Babe Ruth had Lou Gehrig behind him, Oh had Shigeo Nagashima, who formed the N in what was called the Yomiuri Giants’ “O-N Cannon”. Together, they helped the “Yankees of Japan” win nine straight titles.
However, had you looked hard enough, you probably could have found their statistics elsewhere, and the same probably goes for Americans and other westerners who spent time in Japan since the 1970s, like Charlie Manuel and Randy Bass and recent Japanese imports like Yu Darvish. What makes the Baseball Reference data awesome is that it goes beyond that to Japanese baseball’s earliest professional seasons.
For example, I can’t ever remember seeing the stats of Wally Yonamine, the first American to play in Japan post-WWII. Nor do I ever remember seeing statistics for Eiji Sawamura, the ace pitcher (Japan’s Cy Young Award equivalent is named for him) who once struck out Charlie Gehringer, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx in succession during one of Ruth’s famous tours of Japan, but whose career ended premature when he died during WWII.
As a third example of a early-years Japanese player who has interesting stats to look at: Victor Starfin (sometimes spelled Starffin). The first pitcher to win 300 games in Japan, Starfin was able to (mostly) avoid WWII’s effects on Japanese baseball. Well, until he was released in 1944 due to “security concerns” and thrown into a detention camp for being a foreign national. That, by the way, is like the fourth most interesting thing in his SABR biography. Seriously, it starts with his family fleeing the Russian Revolution and ends with him tragically dying in a drunk-driving accident in January, 1957- not long after his final season (1955).
Those just scratch the surface of the treasures in Baseball Reference’s new Japanese pages… go check them out.
The Roller Coaster Red Wings head to the Postseason
When announcing lineups, the Rochester Red Wings often play “Love Rollercoaster”. It fits this season, as the AAA Twins affiliate seemed to be on one that had highs, lows, loops, 
corkscrews and no shortage of screaming and yelling. And now, after a blowout 13-3 victory on the final day of the season and a stunning 1-0 extra-inning defeat by the Norfolk Tides (AAA Orioles), the Wings now have made the playoffs for the first time since 2006 by virtue of holding a tie-breaker against Norfolk.
It was by no means a sure thing. Then again, there was very little “sure” about this season. The Wings started 2-11, they were in last place as late as May 29, they were in first later in the year, only to lose both that lead and also seemingly the wild card in a late skid after their best player (Chris Colabello) and best pitcher (Andrew Albers) were called up… and then, finally, at the end, they were able to pick themselves up and get to the playoffs, with a little luck.
(Go below the jump for more)
I heard from Chris Hill, one of the people behind the AAA baseball comics…
You may remember the two Marvel giveaway comics, and you may remember how Chris Eliopoulos, who wrote the first comic, had a brief Twitter conversation with me.
Well, a few days ago I heard from another person involved with the comics: Christopher Hill, who helped make the deals that got those comics made in the first place and also did some of the writing. With his permission, I’m putting up what he sent me, with only one edit (removing a link to the comic overview, which I already posted higher up):
A friend just sent me a link to your blog articles on the books we did with Marvel. Thanks for taking the time. Great article.We had fun writing those. Tough to pack so much in to a few pages, but we had a good time doing it. The boy on Hulk’s shoulder is based on my son. My favorite thing I have written! Glad you liked them.We are working on a few new things in MiLB and MLB so I may circle back to borrow some of your ideas for future books! – ChrisPS – For those new things you can find me quietly on twitter @mPrintComics
Thanks, Chris!
MVP of Yesterday (August 30, 2013): Adrian Gonzalez
Two hits. Two homers. Four RBIs. Adrian Gonzalez is the MVP of Yesterday.
(Standings after jump)
(Humor) Things Cubs players would still be able to do
Jeff Passan has an article on how the Union is worried that the contracts being offered by teams like the Cubs could be a slow march to non-guaranteed contracts on par with the NFL. You can read the article for the full details, but in essence, they are worried that the expansion of the “conversion clause” that allows a team to turn it into a non-guaranteed contract if a player does something. It’s a call-back to the eighties, when everybody was worried about all the cocaine going around, but now-a-days the MLBPA is worried about the implications that teams could not only use the clause to extend it to PEDs, but to, well, anything.
Like, take this snippet apparently from a Cubs contract, meant to list out restricted activities that could allow the Cubs to turn the contact into non-guaranteed if there was an injury. Passan notes that due to the way some parts of the contract were originally written, they could have in theory been able to convert the contract for even the most mild of injuries doing these activities:
“(A)uto racing, motorcycling, piloting, co-piloting, learning to operate, or serving as a crew member of, an aircraft, being a passenger in a single engine airplane or private plane, hot air ballooning, parachuting, skydiving, hang gliding, bungee jumping, horseback riding, horse racing, harness racing, fencing, boxing, wrestling, karate, judo, jujitsu, any other form of martial arts activity, use of an All Terrain Vehicle (‘ATV’), skiing (water or snow), snowmobiling, bobsledding, luging, ice hockey, ice boating, field hockey, squash, spelunking, basketball, football, softball, white water canoeing or rafting, kayaking, jai-alai, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, rodeo, bicycle racing, motor boat racing, polo, rugby, rodeo, handball, volleyball, in-line or other roller skating, surfing, hunting, paddleball, racquetball, archery, wood chopping, mountain climbing, boating, any weightlifting not prescribed by or approved in advance by Club (said approval not to be unreasonably withheld), participation in the ‘Superteams’ or ‘Superstars’ activities (or any like activity) or other made-for-television or made-for-motion picture athletic competitions…”
That’s a big list, and the union was- if I’m reading this right- worried that such a big list and the vague writing of the contract could have allowed the Cubs to NFL-ize the contracts of anybody who, say, had a slight sprain during a pick-up basketball game or had a soccer ball hit them in the nuts. Thankfully, that vague language has been changed, so now the they probably have to actually get shot by a bow-and-arrow or falling down a cliff while mountain climbing for their deal to become non-guaranteed.
Still, even if they WERE in danger of seeing their guaranteed contracts going poof if they got hurt doing those above activities, they still have many activities they still could have done:
- Golf
- Bowling
- Bocce
- Ballroom dancing
- Water Polo (regular polo is prohibited, however)
- Paragliding (hang-gliding is prohibited, however)
- Badminton
- Australian-Rules Football
- Sepaw Takraw (AKA Malaysian Foot-Volleyball)
- Korfball (AKA Dutch Basketball)
- Kickball
- Pesapallo (AKA Finnish Baseball)
- Snowboarding (Surfing, Skating and Skiing are prohibited, however)
- Shuffleboard
- Dodgeball
- Ultimate Frisbee
- Unicycling (bicycling and motorcycling are prohibited)
- Tug of War
- Trading Card Games
- Paintball
- Laser Tag
- Billiards
- Fishing
- Playing “Go Fish”
- Darts
- Gymnastics
- Flying a kite
- Table Tennis
- Most Track and Field events
- Hurling (AKA Irish Field Hockey, sort of)
- Bandy (Russian Ice Hockey but with a ball instead of a puck)
- Hide and Seek
- Tag
- Team Handball (regular Handball is prohibited)
- Chess
- Checkers
- Battle of the Nations
- Connect Four
- Quidditch
- Thumb-War
- Horseshoes
- Blernsball
- Rollerball
- Calvinball
- Podracing
- Video Games
- Jeopardy!
- Staring Contests
- Scootering
- Segway Racing
- Uno
- Monopoly
- Baseball itself!
…Oh, wait, there is this at the very end:
“…or any other sport, activity, or negligent act involving a reasonably foreseeable substantial risk of personal injury or death.”
Well, there goes those. Good thing the Union was able to get a change in the language of the Cubs contracts, otherwise, they could have ended up with people getting their contracts non-guaranteed after paper-cuts while playing Uno.
The Baseball Continuum 