Tag Archives: baseball

IT CAME FROM eBAY: Lefty Grove’s Tax Returns!

Posted on by
1

In the grand tradition of previous blog entries on weird baseball auctions, I now give you…LEFTY GROVE’S TAX RETURNS!

Screen Shot 2015-01-08 at 2.00.02 PMYes, you can, for the low price of $995.00, own Lefty Grove’s tax returns from 1925. His rookie year! Yes, YOU can own the tax returns of a Hall of Famer. It’s not quite Stan Musial’s wallet or Reggie Jackson’s pal Mr. Peanut, but it’s something.

So… what did Lefty make his rookie year?

Screen Shot 2015-01-08 at 2.12.44 PMOkay, so…. he made $7404.00. That’s $101,600 in 2015 money! That would be below the minimum MLB salary today!

Also, I like the occupation of “Ball Player”. That’s a cool thing to have on a tax form.

Best of 2014- Future Possibilities for International Games

Posted on by
Reply

Originally published on July 27, 2014.

At the start of the season, regular season games were held in Sydney, Australia.* Whether you like it or not, it was not the first and won’t be the last time that MLB opened overseas. But, where will MLB go next? Here’s an overview of possibilities:

 

* This was partly written immediately following those games, but fell by the wayside until now, so here it is.

A Return to the Tokyo Dome

Used under Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en), taken by “DX Broadrec”.

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Baseball Pedigree: Has hosted baseball since it opened in 1988, home of the Yomiuri Giants, hosted WBC games in 2006, 2009 and 2013, hosted MLB season-opener games in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. Japan is one of the preeminent baseball nations on Earth and host to the world’s 2nd most prominent baseball league.

Capacity: Between 42,000 and 55,000 (depending on configuration)

Pros: Japan is baseball-mad, has shown it can pack the stadium for MLB games, and the Tokyo Dome is highly-familiar to MLB officials and some players thanks to it’s many previous MLB-related events. Being a dome makes weather considerations non-existent, and Tokyo’s status as one of the world’s greatest cities allows for plenty for players to do when not playing.

Cons: It’s been done before several times, it’s a type of stadium that has been phased out of MLB, and, while this isn’t much of a factor that MLB cares about much, there is the time difference issue, with night games in Tokyo being early morning games in the Eastern USA and very, very, very early morning games in the western part of the USA.

Likelihood of return: It’s inevitable that MLB will return to Japan again sometime in the future, the question is whether the Tokyo Dome is the place it will happen. More-than-likely yes, but I’ll be looking at other possible Japanese sites later on.

(HIT THE JUMP FOR THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE)

Continue reading →

Continuum Baseball Rankings Update (Dec. 29, 2014): Nicaragua makes a big jump, a note on some changes to the formula…

Posted on by
Reply

It’s time for the year-end Continuum Baseball Rankings! This takes into account the Central American and Caribbean Games baseball tournament in November. And only that was used in updating this edition.

Originally, I was going to use the IBAF year-end ratings, but that led to a slight problem: It would break the system, as the best countries and worst countries would end up going so high or low numerically that I’d be unable to use them with the website I use to make these rankings.

So, I’ll instead be making up for that by using more games and events in future editions, using different “K-values” (basically how much a win or a loss can give points in) for each event based on the level of team placed in the event for each team. For example, if it’s a WBC tournament and the teams playing are the best that the country has to offer, they’ll be putting more points at stake than if, say, it’s a strictly-amateur affair. This will allow it to be more sensitive to games the higher the skills involved- so if, say, Team USA does well in the WBC, it would get more points than if, say, it had done well in a college exhibition series somewhere. This is a bit different then how “K-Values” are used in some other places, but I think it’ll be good.

More information on that later.

For now, however, below the jump you can see the differences that have occurred because of the CACG’s. As you can see, Cuba (which won the tournament) jumped up to number 3, past the DR. The biggest mover and shaker was Nicaragua, which jumped from 18 to 14 thanks to their good performance (they came in second). Guatemala made it’s first appearance but is waaaaaay back at 43.

Stay tuned for more on the new system.

Continue reading →

Best of 2014- How Babe Ruth’s trade was reported (Updated!)

Posted on by
1

Originally published on July 9, 2014.

This is an updated version of an article from last fall, now including things from The Sporting News of the era. Thanks to the Society of American Baseball Research (of which I am now a member!) for the access to the Sporting News archive, which made this update possible.
It could be said that the last vestige of the “Curse of the Bambino” fell last year, as the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in Fenway Park itself for the first time since 1918. To be more exact, they were the first Boston team to clinch the title at home since this game.

Take a look at that game. And notice how different it was: it took only 1:56 to play, it was a day game and only 15,238 were in attendance. It took place in September since the season was shortened due to WWI travel restirctions. Hall of Famers Harry Hooper and Babe Ruth (who was used as a defensive replacement, despite still being primarily a pitcher at the time) were on Boston, and HOF umpires Bill Klem and Hank O’Day were working the corner bases (there were only four umpires in the playoffs back then).

Of course, that ended up being the last World Series game that Ruth would play for the Red Sox, because on December 26 of the following year, he was infamously sold to the New York Yankees. And that’s what brings us to this article, where I take a look at how the Ruth sale was reported in the papers of 1919.. or, rather, 1920, since it took TEN DAYS for them to officially announce it.

(JUMP)

Continue reading →

Best of 2014- A History of Player-Licensed/Sponsored Video Games

Posted on by
Reply

This was originally a piece of a “Wisdom and Links” article at Hall of Very Good. Thanks to Shawn Anderson for giving me permission to put it up here.

Let me tell you of a time. A time before the sports video game-scape was homogenized and turned into a few companies putting out slightly different versions of the same game every year. In this wonderful time, lasting from the late 80s to around the turn of our century, there were countless baseball games. And they were often branded to a certain player. This wasn’t just baseball, of course- to this day you can find John Madden’s last name on Electronic Arts’ NFL franchise- but for baseball, it seemed to have it’s own special charm. Maybe it was the fact that many of them didn’t have any real players other than the sponsor, or maybe it was just because I was of the age where, to paraphrase the “The Lego Movie”…“everything was awesome”. Or maybe it’s just because baseball was and is my favorite sport and thus I am biased.

Still, let us travel back to that wonderful time and look at some of the greatest player-or-manager sponsored games in history.

(JUMP)

Continue reading →

The Best of 2014- BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE: “Mr. Go” is about a GORILLA PLAYING BASEBALL IN KOREA

Posted on by
1

This was originally published July 18, 2014. More “Bizarre Baseball Culture” can be found here.

In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

Oh boy.

I have covered many strange things on Bizarre Baseball Culture over time. There was the story about baseball in 2044, there was the Pokémon episode, the comic where the hero basically uses PEDs, the comic where Billy The Marlin and Spider-Man had to save Jeff Conine from Doctor Doom, and, of course, all of those “Ultimate Sports Force” comics. But perhaps none can compare to the 2013 Korean/Chinese epic that is… Mr. Go.

Yes, Mr. Go. A film much beloved by people throughout the baseball internet for the sheer curiosity factor of those blog posts at places like Big League Stew last year, but rarely actually seen by it. I, however, was able to procure a copy of the film, in the form of a DVD from Hong Kong, acquired from a Canadian seller on eBay. All for you, the readership of the Baseball Continuum (and anybody who found this link).

So, buckle up, because below the jump, we dive deep on Mr. Go. Prepare yourself, because gorilla baseball, MLB cameos, banana-shaped thunderstix, pizza commercials, a bullpen-cart chase and other madness awaits you:

Continue reading →

Argument: The Padres Are The Most Non-Descript Team In Baseball’s History

Posted on by
2

Okay, I may be wrong here, and I’ll get to the point in a second, but far as I can tell, here’s what the “All-Time San Diego Padres” team would look like going by WAR, minimum five years with appearances on the team:

Starting Pitchers: Jake Peavy, Andy Ashby, Andy Benes, Randy Jones, Eric Show

Relievers: Trevor Hoffman, Heath Bell, Mark Davis, Scott Linebrink, Craig Lefferts, Luke Gregerson

Catchers: Terry Kennedy, Benito Santiago

First Basemen: Adrian Gonzalez, Nate Colbert, Ryan Klesko (also OF)

Second Basemen: Tim Flannery

Third Basemen: Chase Headley, Phil Nevin

Shortstops: Garry Templeton, Khalil Greene

Outfielders: Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield, Gene Richards, Brian Giles

Tell me, oh reader, does that strike the fear of god into you? The answer: No, not really. I mean, yeah, it’s got two Hall of Famers and another likely one (Hoffman), but it doesn’t look like an “All-Time Team”, but rather a “Probably going to win a Wild Card if there aren’t too many injuries” type of team.

And that’s what leads me to this: The Padres may well be the most non-descript team in Baseball’s history. They aren’t good, they aren’t bad, they just usually seem to be… there, as if they exist only to make sure the schedule is full and that the divisions are even. Sometimes it seems as if they don’t even exist at all outside of box scores and the bottom-ticker of ESPN.

To put it another way: I once took a online quiz where I had to name all 30 MLB teams. The Padres were the last ones I remembered to put in.

And that’s why it is a bit surprising to see the Padres make so many deals this off-season- just yesterday they acquired Justin Upton and Will Middlebrooks, not long after they had acquired Matt Kemp and Wil Myers, leading me to say this:

But why is it in the first place that the Padres seem to far down in the Baseball Zeitgeist?

I have some ideas:

1) Lack of Postseason Success

The Padres have been to two World Series- 1984 and 1998. Both times, they got to play Washington Generals to some of the greatest teams in history, going down to the 1984 Tigers in five games and being swept by the 1998 Yankees. And the road to those World Series aren’t particularly notable outside of San Diego. The 1984 NLCS, for example, is more known for a Leon Durham E3 that set-up a big Padres inning that doomed the Cubs.

2) They traded away Ozzie Smith and Roberto Alomar

Fun fact: If I hadn’t had the “minimum five years” thing for the All-Padres team, the Shortstop would have been a young Ozzie Smith and his double-play partner would be a young Roberto Alomar. Problem for the Padres: they traded both of them away. And it’s not like they were nobodies treading around in the minors when the Padres traded them away- they were both traded coming off of All-Star seasons. One would think the Padres’ history wouldn’t be so nondescript if they had had them for most of their careers.

3) No No-Hitters

The Padres are the only team in baseball without a no-hitter. That means that they lack one of the signature moments that every other MLB team has.

4) They are crowded out

They share the same division as the Giants and Dodgers, who suck up almost all of the attention given to NL West. Not having the history of other “stuck in the division of giants” teams like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, or Cincinnati means that they look even more non-descript by comparison.

…

This is all a shame, really. They have a beautiful stadium and lovely weather, and San Diego has a good baseball culture (amateur, etc.) even if their team doesn’t get much attention outside of the area. Perhaps the Padres’ moves this off-season will finally get the franchise that big moment that we can remember it by.

The Best of 2014: First References in “The Sporting News”: Japan

Posted on by
Reply

This was originally published on November 13, 2014.

One of the great perks of SABR membership is access online to The Sporting News’ archives. While it now is dedicated to all sports, for a good chunk of it’s earlier history it was almost entirely focused on baseball (with some boxing, horse-racing and college football thrown in here and there). So, today, I take a look at some early references to things in The Sporting News. In this case, in the spirit of MLB’s current tour of Japan, I’m looking at certain topics related to baseball in Japan.

Baseball in Japan in General

While there were some references to Japan as far back as the 1880s, they either are references to other things or exceedingly brief and vague, like this item from the November 13, 1886 issue that I honestly do not understand whatsoever (although John Thorn has thankfully given some insight as to what Copenhagen was– it was a game played by young children):

Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 11.28.29 AMThe first real, unequivocal reference to baseball in Japanese baseball in The Sporting News was in 1897, as the December 4 issue had this headline:

Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 11.38.13 AM

It began like this:

Base ball (sic) has invaded Japan and to such an extent that the Tokio (sic) Athletic Association has written to President James A. Hart of Chicago for rules and suggestions relative to the furthering of the American national game in the land of the Mikado.

The article goes on to say how “last summer” a “lively little gentlemen” name Tora Hiraoka of “Tokio” attended games in Chicago with Hart (who owned the team we now know as the Chicago Cubs at the time) and had told him of how baseball had been introduced to Japan (“displaying two or three crooked fingers as indisputable evidence”) and that he was sure it could be “immensely popular” if “generally introduced”. The rest of the article is on how Hart had received a letter from Japan and how he believes that the Japanese should take to the game because they are “agile and naturally like athletic sports”, also mentioning how maybe they could play a Australian team that had visited America “last season”.

Koshien Stadium

The most famous stadium in Japan and site of the country’s High School Championships, the first reference to Koshien came in the November 8, 1934 edition of Sporting News, when it was mentioned that Babe Ruth’s tour would likely see even greater crowds in Osaka, since that was where “the Koshien Stadium seats 80,000″.

Tokyo/Yomiuri Giants

The “Yankees of Japan” and winners of 22 Japan Series titles, the Yomiuri Giants were first referenced in the January 23, 1936 issue of The Sporting News, where it was reported that they (as the “Tokyo Giants”, their name before their owners at the Yomiuri Group changed it to better advertise themselves) would be coming to America to tour the Pacific Coast, Texas, and the Northwest. The first reference to the Yomiuri Giants under their current name came in 1951. In the November 7 issue, a story on a tour led by Lefty O’Doul and featuring players like Joe DiMaggio and Mel Parnell was printed, and it covered the team’s 6-3 victory over Yomiuri on October 25.

Masanori Murakami

The first Japanese player in MLB history, Murakami was a pitcher who had been sent to the San Francisco Giants as something of a exchange student to play in their minor leagues. However, he pitched so well that the Giants called him up and then refused to send him back to Japan when it was time. The baseball version of a international incident occurred, and it eventually led to the end of Japanese players in North American baseball until Hideo Nomo came over in the 90s.

The first reference to Murakami in The Sporting News was on March 7, 1964, in a story by Bob Stevens on how he and two other Japanese players (Tatsuhiko Tanaka and Hiroshi Takahashi) would be in the Giants’ organization that season. Funnily enough, the story includes a note that neither San Francisco or the Nankai Hawks (their Japanese team) thought any of them would be able to crack a National League roster. Whoops.

Sadaharu Oh

Probably the greatest player in the history of Nippon Pro Baseball and owner of the all-time professional record for HRs (868), the first reference to Oh in The Sporting News came in the Jan. 2, 1965 issue, as writer Jim Sheen looked back on some of the biggest accomplishments in the sports world in 1964:

Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 12.33.56 PMHideo Nomo

Interestingly, the first mention of Nomo in The Sporting News was a single item in Bob Nightengale’s baseball report on January 30, 1995, where he mentions that he is one of the hottest free-agent pitchers on the market and that the Dodgers, Blue Jays and Mariners were all pursuing him.

Ichiro Suzuki

Finally, the first reference to Ichiro in The Sporting News also was rather matter-of-fact, coming in a preview issue on Valentine’s Day in 2000, where he was mentioned not because he was joining the Mariners (he wouldn’t until 2001), but because his spring training stint in 1999 had given Seattle some experience with the throngs of Japanese press they would receive for their new reliever, Kaz Sasaki.

Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 12.52.47 PM

Thank you to SABR and their “Paper of Record” database for making this article possible. Also, thank you to @YakyuNightOwl for correcting me on the history of Yomiuri’s name- it was always owned and run by Yomiuri, it’s just that Yomiuri didn’t put their name in the team name until later.

The Best of 2014: Giancarlo Stanton’s $325 Million Dollars in perspective

Posted on by
2

This article was originally published on November 15, 2014:

Giancarlo Stanton will, likely, get $325 million dollars in exchange for playing for the Miami Marlins for 13 more years (assuming he doesn’t get traded or opts out).

That, scientifically, is known as a buttload of money. How much money? Let’s go through it…

$500 Million: The value of the Miami Marlins, according to Forbes. Yes, Jeffrey Loria is basically saying that Giancarlo Stanton represents 65% of the value of the team itself.

It is over 20 times Babe Ruth‘s career earnings after inflation.

It is over 1.6 times Ken Griffey Jr.’s career earnings after inflation.

It is over 1.2 times Barry Bonds‘ career earnings after inflation.

$311 Million: The GDP of Sao Tome and Principe, a island nation in the Gulf of Guinea

$785.20: The amount of money every person in the City of Miami would receive if Giancarlo’s next contract was split up equally amongst them.

Giancarlo would be able to buy eight 1962-63 Ferrari 250 GTOs (which sold for $38 million dollars in August) with his proposed new contract’s money.

$294 Million: The cost, adjusted for inflation, of Titanic, the second most expensive (when adjusted for inflation) movie production of all time.

812.5 years: How long the President of United States would have to be in office to make that amount of money ($325 million) from the job.

$292,198,327: Total salary earnings (without inflation) of Shaquille O’Neil over his entire NBA career.

10: The number of NHL franchises, according to Forbes, with a value below $325 million dollars.

All of them: The number of MLS teams, according to Forbes, with a value below $325 million dollars. If he were in a soccer sort of mood, Giancarlo could afford to buy both the most and the third most valuable MLS team at the same time with the money he will earn over his next deal.

The original cost to build Fenway Park was $650,000 dollars, which is $15.9 million dollars when adjusted for inflation. That means that Giancarlo Stanton over the span of his hypothetical new contract would be able to build 20 Fenway Parks circa 1912, and he’d have enough money left to do just under half of a 21st.

$25 Million: How much Giancarlo would make in an average year under his new contract.

$10 Million: GDP of the island country of Niue. It would take Niue two and a half years of it’s entire gross domestic product to pay for one year of Giancarlo Stanton.

I don’t think anyone can imagine how big Mike Trout‘s deal will be if this is anything to go on.

FINALLY UPDATED FOR 2014! Songs of October: A Retrospective (Because Why Not?)- 2014 Edition

Posted on by
2

For the far-too-late update on what happened in 2014, go to the bottom of the post after the jump.

In 2013, there was a sensation that spread across the nation: Mups. Their spread was unstoppable, to the point where some like the “Cespedes Family BBQ” and Jesse Spector had begun to engage in a “#Mupwatch”. But some wondered: What was a Mup? Were they some sort of Muppet? Were they dangerous? And why were they being lit on fire?

Well, the answer lay in the commercials that had been playing in the lead-up to and during the post-season, featuring Fall Out Boy’s “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark”. Here is an example of such a commercial. While officially they were saying “Light ’em up”, it sounded, especially during the echoing segments, like they were actually talking about things called “mups”.

And thus continued a long tradition of October songs that have graced our televisions and infected our ears, whether we liked them or not. And, usually, if we DID like them at the start of the postseason, we ended up being sick of them by the end just from hearing them so many times.

And, what’s more, these songs and how they have become memes aren’t from a universal source. Most of them, for example, have been part of TBS’ coverage, but others, including the Fall Out Boy song, have actually been of MLB’s doing. In 2013, for example, TBS was using a different song*, and MLB Network itself also had a different song for the commercials for it’s two games**. Rarely if ever have they been actually about baseball, usually selected more for their choruses or imagery.

*Using Google searches of the lyrics I was able to decipher, I’ve figured out it’s 30 Seconds to Mars’ “Do or Die”.

**Again using Google, I’ve found that the commercials use the chorus from Papa Roach’s “Still Swingin’“.

Still, with that out of the way, here’s a history (after the jump) of the Songs of October:

Continue reading →