Matt Harvey has a UCL injury and will miss the rest of the season and probably longer, since he will likely have to undergo TJ Surgery. Upon seeing some of the online reaction to this, I believe it can be summed up by clicking here. Note that certain parts of that reaction are not-safe-for-work.
As a fan of baseball and great pitching, I agree with the above assessment.
Awhile back, Game 7 of the 1960 World Series was on MLB Network, having been found in an old wine cellar that had once belonged to Bing Crosby, who owned the Pirates at the time. And while, of course, it was one of the greatest games of all time in it’s own right, and had perhaps the greatest home run of all time in Bill Mazeroski‘s walk-off blast, what fascinated me was Roberto Clemente. I heard about how great Clemente was, I could see the old footage, but this was the first time I could see Clemente in a taped television broadcast since his death, as far as I knew.
And a weird thing happened: whenever he came up to the plate or a ball came towards him in the outfield, my eyes could not leave the television. Despite the fact the game had happened decades ago, despite the fact he only went one for four in the game… I could not take my eyes off the television. Because, well, I just knew there was a possibility he’d do something amazing (I hadn’t checked the box score before watching the broadcast, so I really only knew the broad strokes of the game).
To me, Ichiro Suzuki, the man who goes by only his first name, is the closest thing we have had in our lifetime to that sort of player. The player who’s talent is so great that you want to watch the TV not just when he’s at the plate, but when he’s about to make a fielding play as well, or on the basepaths. Oh, he’s left-handed (although naturally a righty, he bats lefty as a way of getting that slight head-start of running to first), and he’s Japanese and not Puerto Rican, but in most other ways the comparison fits: Ichiro, like Clemente, isn’t much of a power hitter (Ichiro averages about nine homers every 162 games while Clemente averaged about 16) but can definitely hit one when needed. Ichiro, like Clemente, has a cannon from the outfield that can stun even the fastest of runners. Ichiro, like Clemente, can make excellent catches in the outfield. And, finally, Ichiro, like Clemente, is a large case of “what if?”
For Clemente, it is a a tragic what-if of what may have happened had he not died that Christmas off the coast of Puerto Rico. For Ichiro, it is a bit more benign: what if he had played in Major League Baseball from the start?
As Ichiro got his 4000th combined hit yesterday, and in the run-up to it, some poo-poo’d him, saying that the 1,278 he had in Japan were meaningless, and that if we were to count them in any way we might as well count minor league statistics, or postseason statistics, or spring training statistics. This is ignorant of both the quality of the NPB (which, while not of MLB quality, is still better than even the best of AAA) and how dominant Ichiro was there (Jeff Passan notes that sabermetric wiz Clay Davenport found that Ichiro’s stats in Japan don’t translate downward that much when converted to MLB), as well as just how hard it is to get 4,000 hits in any league or combination of leagues.
In fact, as far as I can find, only seven players with good verifiable statistics have had 4,000 professional hits including every level: Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Jigger Statz*, Minnie Minoso, Stan Musial and now Ichiro. Regardless of league, evel of competition or era, the fact that only seven players out of the thousands upon thousands of professional players in North America, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Europe have had 4,000 professional hits is proof of just how hard it is and how impressive it is that Ichiro has done so.
And, even if you want to totally ignore the Japanese hits, your forgetting the fact that with his hit yesterday, he passed Lou Gehrig (another player with a large “what-if”) on the all-time MLB hit list. And that, on it’s own, is impressive.
So, congratulations Ichiro.
*Statz got most of those in the minor leagues, where he was a constant presence for the Los Angeles Angels for years.
Yes, when the Orioles were asked for the most recent issue of Orioles Magazine what animal they would want to be, Jason Hammel said he’d want to be a Ninja Turtle.
And that, needless to say, instantly made him the winner of that Q&A page. Which, considering Matt Wieters said he’d want to be a Liger (a Lion/Tiger hybrid), is quite an achievement.
Cowabunga, Jason Hammel. And remember: Turtle Power!
Charlie Manuel has had an interesting baseball life. After a sub-par career in the big leagues, he headed to Japan, where he was dubbed the “Red Devil” by fans for his tenacious play (at one point returning to play against doctor’s order after having his jaw smashed into six pieces by a beanball) and becoming the first American to win the MVP of Japan’s Pacific League. He also, legend says, once joined forces with fellow American exiles Clyde Wright and Roger Repoz in fighting the East German National Hockey Team in a Tokyo nightclub.
After retiring, Manuel’s second life began, as a scout and then as a manager. And what a career it ended up being: he made the playoffs once with the Indians before being let go after a contract dispute, and then later began the tenure that this post is about: the Phillies job. In this final year, where the Phillies have flailed and flopped and ultimately cost Manuel his job, some may have forgotten just how good the Manuel Phillies have been. Before this year, they had finished at or above .500 every single year. They won five straight NL East titles, and won one World Series and may well have won another if it weren’t for Alex Rodriguez‘s alleged artificial help (yeah, I said it). While, as SBNation’s Steven Goldman said, Manuel was hardly the second coming of John McGraw, the success must have had at least something to do with him. And, while the fall of the Phillies (the Phillies’ Phailure?) also has something to do with him, it’s not his fault. No, the end of the Phillies run can be traced primarily to Ruben Amaro, the General Manager of Philadelphia.
Amaro gave a gargantuan extension to Ryan Howard in 2010, an extension that has come back to bite the Phillies as Howard’s injuries have increased and his power numbers have gone down. Nobody is willing to trade for him, and as a result, Howard and his 125 million dollar salary will be with the Phillies until 2016. The rest of the team, while not suffering the wear-and-tear of age and injury to the extent as Howard has, still isn’t getting any younger. And bad drafts and once-acclaimed trades have left the cupboard bare for the Phillies as far as the minor leagues are concerned. And, what’s more, Amaro has refused to deal some of the best trading chips he had: he could have traded Cliff Lee for several good prospects this summer, for example, but didn’t.
Charlie Manuel may one day find another job… but the Phillies could be in the wilderness for several years in the future. Good luck, Ryne Sandberg.
I don’t know why, exactly, I have an Athletics cap, but I decided to put it in a scanner. This is what it looked like:
There is a Twitter Feed that lets you know when Yasiel Puig comes up, and when Vin Scully says something cool or profound. What other Twitter feeds do we need? I have some thoughts…
Get to work, Internet!
After Bobby Thomson‘s famous “Shot Heard Round the World”, Red Smith perhaps wrote the greatest lede (or lead, for those of you who didn’t major in journalism) in history:
Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.
A game in the International League in early August is a long way from the events that surrounded Thomson’s shot, of course, but last night there was another example of the can-you-believe-this nature of baseball that Smith paid tribute to in that lede, and another reminder that, as the great Yogi Berra once said, it ain’t over until it’s over.
For most of the game between the Rochester Red Wings (AAA Twins) and Syracuse Chiefs (AAA Nationals), it was a pitcher’s duel, as P.J. Walters of the Wings went 5.2 giving up only one earned run and Syracuse’s Caleb Clay doing the same for seven innings. The bullpens then brought it to extra innings. And it is there that the story truly begins. Although at the time, the crowd at Rochester’s Frontier Field must have thought it was an ending, as Luis Perdomo took the mound and then, after a quick first out, allowed Eury Perez to double, walked Jeff Kobernus and then hit Danny Espinosa with a pitch. Cody Eppley came in to replace him, but with runners already on base and no room for error, the Chiefs knocked in five runs off of him, although only two of them were earned.
And so, it headed to the bottom of the tenth, with the Wings down by five. Many of the 9,000+ in attendance were likely only still there due to the fireworks scheduled for post-game, but the fireworks would come early. The Chiefs brought in Cole Kimball, a high-ERA’d mop-up guy who they probably figured they could give some work to as they recorded the final outs of the game. Early on, it looked like maybe he’d do just that, getting two outs while allowing only two small hits, hits that everyone knew were meaningless unless something big happened.
And then, the wheels came off for Cole Kimball. A wild pitch got Eric Farris and James Beresford into scoring position, and then a single from Chris Parmelee got Farris home and left runners at the corners. However, again, that run was meaningless unless something else was going to happen.
Meanwhile, in the outfield, a group of Chinese fire-balloons from a local festival appeared on the horizon:
And then, Kimball walked Deibinson Romero. Up to bat came Jeff Clement, a low-average but high-power hitter who has had stints with the Mariners and Pirates in the past, but who hadn’t been doing well lately, being without a homer since June. Now, though, the bases were loaded, but the tying run stood at the plate.
He worked a 3-1 count, and then, on the fifth pitch of the at-bat, he sent it deep into the night, a no-doubter. As soon as it was clear that it would be fair, the stadium erupted into a bonanza of high-fives, hugs and joyous screaming. Five runs down with one out left to survive, and the home team had still found a way to tie it up. Meanwhile, the Chinese Fire-Balloons faded over the Rochester Skyline.
But the inning was not over, although Kimball’s night was. Michael Crotta came in, only to walk Aaron Hicks and then give up a single to Josmil Pinto (Hicks wasn’t sent for home on the single, as he probably would have been dead meat at the plate). Crotta then was able to get Eric Farris- in his second AB of the inning- to ground out, ending the inning and sending it to 11.
The Chiefs threatened in the top of the 11th, only to have their would-be rally shushed by Shairon Martis, who came in to get the final out of the inning after the Chiefs got two men on. The Wings went down one-two-three in the bottom half. The Chiefs did the same in the top of the 12th.
And then, in the bottom of the 12th, after Chris Parmelee struck out against the Chiefs’ Jeff Mandel, Deibinson Romero walked. The speedy Eduardo Escobar was sent in as a pinch-runner. And to the plate came the hero of earlier in the night: Jeff Clement.
And again, he worked a 3-1 count.
And then, again, he sent a ball into right. It wasn’t a home run, it was just a good shot into the corner. It was close at the plate, but the throw was off, and Escobar came in to score the walk-off run of the miracle victory.
Down by five with one out left in the tenth to a walk-off in the 12th. Only in baseball do you see things like this. And when you see such a magical game, you think that Red Smith was right: only the utterly impossible can ever be plausible again.
(MVP of Yesterday will be written later today, for those wondering.)
While checking eBay for a share to Rochester Community Baseball (no luck!), I instead came across this.
If you don’t want to look at it or the link has gone dead, here’s what it is:
It’s a coffee pot that belonged to Cy Young‘s estate, and thus, presumably, Cy Young himself. Yes, you too can pour coffee from the same pot as the winningest pitcher of all time for the low, low price of $999! You may think that price absurd, but you are forgetting that you would be having coffee from the same pot as A BASEBALL GOD. Just like how you will be getting the WORKSMANSHIP OF A BASEBALL GOD if you buy a toolbox from the Cy Young estate.
And that’s not all! Thanks to eBay, you also have the chance of having a flower vase that once belonged to Young, for the low price of $199.99! That’s the same price that can get you a hack saw made in 1879 that also was no doubt passed down through the Young family. Throw in an extra $375 and you can get Cy Young’s tie-clasp!
But, these are nothing compared to the crown jewel of Cy Young’s estate on eBay. No, they all pale in comparison to this:
CY YOUNG’S POCKET KNIFE.
Yes, you can buy CY YOUNG’S POCKET KNIFE off of eBay. Just imagine what this knife has been used for! For all we know, Denton True Young may once have gotten into a knife-fight with Ty Cobb using this. I mean, we’ll never know for sure, but it can’t be totally discounted, right?
However, my enthusiasm is dampened by the horrible truth that you may not have been able to glean from the above image. No, to see the truth, you must… ENHANCE!
Las Vegas, Nevada. What would Cy Young’s knife be doing in Sin City? Well, the truth is, it’s only in Las Vegas a nice legal fiction to hide the truth from us. You see, the real location of Cy Young’s pocket knife is actually about 83 miles northwest of Vegas at a US Military Facility. You know it better as AREA 51. And, deep below A51, a secret alliance of the Illuminati, Knights Templar and the Boras Corporation used blood on the knife to begin a cloning process of Cy Young. Sometime in the next 18 to 22 years, a wave of Cy Young clones will enter the majors, bringing with them the ability to throw complete games on short rest. The entire pitching economy will be overthrown, closers and relievers will be driven to the street, the Rolaids Relief Man award will go unawarded… while the conspirators will profit all the while…
You see, that is why they are now selling it, to get the evidence away from themselves.
“But,” you say, “why would they make it so expensive? It’s over 23 hundred dollars!”
And I say: Gambling debts. Even secret conspiracies did not see Florida Gulf Coast coming this March.
…Anyway. Now you know the truth. Yes… the truth.
Use it as you will.
*I say “semi-humor” because while I make several bad jokes and go on at least one bizarre tangent, it is true that this stuff is on sale on eBay.
In honor of Brian Wilson‘s return to baseball as a member of the Dodgers, here’s a classic commercial from ESPN that revealed the horrible truth about Wilson’s beard and it’s dark powers:
The Baseball Continuum 