Kevin Johnson is the current mayor of Sacramento, and was also a three-time All-Star for the Phoenix Suns. But he also briefly had a baseball career of two games in 1986 in the Athletics organization:
| Year | Age | AgeDif | Tm | Lg | Lev | Aff | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | TB | HBP | SH | SF | IBB | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 20 | -2.5 | Modesto | CALL | A | OAK | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 Season | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||
And now you know!
Dan Glickman’s second foray into podcasting turns into a disaster during the second segment as he tries to tie together pitch clocks, Rob Manfred’s “One Baseball” idea and the Anti-Trust Exemption into something coherent but finds that what sounds good in his head is kind of a bit of rambling when he speaks it. He totally is going to have to write down stuff more in the future, and also expand upon what he was TRYING to say in a blog post.
Also, he said he’d discuss the 2016 All-Star Game being rewarded to San Diego, and ended up not. What a doofus.
Oh well, better luck next time, Dan!
The download link can be found here. The Continuucast will arrive on iTunes and similar services in the near future.
Music/Sounds Featured:
“The National Game” by John Phillip Sousa
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas, as performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1941
“The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin
“Entry of the Gladiators” (AKA The Circus Clown music) by Julius Fucik
All sound and music used is either public domain or falls under fair use.
The first Baseball Continuum Continuucast, presented by Dan Glickman. In this episode, you finally hear the voice behind the Baseball Continuum blog as he boldly tries to make a podcast despite having a voice that was made for the written word. Hear his thoughts on the Cubs and the Hall of Fame, get updated on what’s going on outside of North America and MLB as he takes a look “Around the Continuum”, learn about the “Bizarre Baseball Culture” that Dan has never been able to do, and hear a short tribute to Justin Huber.
The podcast can be heard using the player above, or can be downloaded from here. You may need to click “Save Link As…” I am currently working on getting it up on iTunes and similar services.
Music/Sounds Featured:
“The National Game” by John Phillip Sousa
“Chicago” by the Paul Elkins Orchestra
“Flight of the Bumblebee” (AKA The Green Hornet Theme) by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov performed by the US Army Band (special “Bizarre Baseball Culture” remix by Dan Glickman featuring the Pablo Sanchez Theme and clips from previous and future Bizarre Baseball Culture pieces)
“News Intro” by Maximilien
“Waltzing Matilda”, written by Banjo Paterson, tune by CambridgeBayWeather on Wikipedia
“Advance Australia Fair” instrumental written by Peter Dodds McCormick and performed by the US Navy Band
All sound and music used is either public domain or falls under fair use.
David Guthrie is a referee in the National Basketball Association. But before he was a ref on the hardwood, he played hardball in the Reds organization. Drafted in the 26th round of the 1995 draft out of NC State, Guthrie played infield positions from 1995 to 1998. Although he never hit well, he did reach AA by the end of his career:
| Year | Age | AgeDif | Tm | Lg | Lev | Aff | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | TB | GDP | HBP | SH | SF | IBB | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 21 | 1.1 | Princeton | APPY | Rk | CIN | 55 | 207 | 181 | 28 | 37 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 18 | 41 | .204 | .286 | .265 | .551 | 48 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 1996 | 22 | 1.4 | Billings | PION | Rk | CIN | 48 | 219 | 181 | 45 | 41 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 28 | 10 | 1 | 26 | 48 | .227 | .343 | .359 | .702 | 65 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| 1997 | 23 | 1.5 | Charleston WV | SALL | A | CIN | 73 | 264 | 233 | 27 | 50 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 26 | 6 | 2 | 20 | 75 | .215 | .295 | .300 | .595 | 70 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| 1998 | 24 | -0.1 | Chattanooga | SOUL | AA | CIN | 67 | 225 | 203 | 23 | 39 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 58 | .192 | .261 | .256 | .517 | 52 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 Seasons | 243 | 915 | 798 | 123 | 167 | 29 | 9 | 7 | 76 | 24 | 5 | 80 | 222 | .209 | .296 | .294 | .590 | 235 | 16 | 20 | 13 | 4 | 1 | ||||||
| Rk (2 seasons) | Rk | 103 | 426 | 362 | 73 | 78 | 17 | 3 | 4 | 41 | 17 | 2 | 44 | 89 | .215 | .315 | .312 | .627 | 113 | 8 | 10 | 7 | 3 | 1 | |||||
| A (1 season) | A | 73 | 264 | 233 | 27 | 50 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 26 | 6 | 2 | 20 | 75 | .215 | .295 | .300 | .595 | 70 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 0 | |||||
| AA (1 season) | AA | 67 | 225 | 203 | 23 | 39 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 58 | .192 | .261 | .256 | .517 | 52 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | |||||
By the way, the players who Guthrie was drafted before in the 1995 draft and signed a contract include Pedro Feliciano, Justin Speier, and Gabe Kapler.
In the grand tradition of previous blog entries on weird baseball auctions, I now give you…LEFTY GROVE’S TAX RETURNS!
Yes, 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?
Okay, 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.
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)
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.
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)
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)
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:
The Baseball Continuum 