Teams aware that Brian Wilson could audition for scouts around Aug. 1. He’s been working out in Hawaii.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 9, 2013
Tweet of the Night: Return of the Beard?
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Tag Archives: baseball
The Longest Dingers of this year’s Home Run Derby contestants
The Home Run Derby roster has been announced! Well, mostly… they still have another AL spot open.
So, for those who want to get psyched by images of longball, here are links to the longest home runs by each of the participants so far this year:
Robinson Cano‘s 442-foot solo bomb off the batter’s eye in Minnesota.
Prince Fielder‘s 460-foot shot at Comerica.
Chris Davis‘ 439-foot longball at Camden Yards.
David Wright‘s 464-foot bomb against Craig Kimbrel in Atlanta.
Carlos Gonzalez‘s 458-foot shot deep into the Cincinnati night.
Michael Cuddyer‘s game-tier of 434 feet.
Bryce Harper‘s 434-foot bomb off of Bronson Arroyo.
I’ll put up the farthest by whoever else is named later.
Link
I’ve got another game report on the Rochester Red Wings up on Twinkie Town’s Fanposts page.
It’s the 20th Anniversary of “Rookie Of The Year”, here’s what I have to say about that
Pulling the curtain for a second, an admission:
I originally had this big plan where I would watch the now-20-year-old kid-baseball classic Rookie of the Year and figure out the statistics for it’s main character, Henry Rowengartner. But, alas, it was not to be: I inadvertently deleted it from my DVR, ruining my opportunity to bring the world such great baseball scholarship. One day, perhaps.
Still, some thoughts on Rookie of the Year:
Rookie of the Year was part of an early 90s mini-fad of baseball movies sparked by the late-80s success of Kevin Costner’s films and Major League. Other baseball movies from this time period include The Sandlot, A League of Their Own and Little Big League. I saw them on VHS when I was like five or six, possibly more times than was healthy. And, although in hindsight The Sandlot and A League of Their Own* were the best of the early 90s bunch, I think I watched Rookie of the Year and Little Big League more. It makes sense, come to think of it: They were wish-fulfillment tales. Who doesn’t wish to make it to the big leagues in some way? Heck, who doesn’t wish they could be doing it when they are still kids?
Anyway, for those of you who don’t know the story, Rookie of the Year is a semi-remake of an obscure movie called Roogie’s Bump. In the film, Henry Rowengartner, a baseball-loving boy in his early teens, suffers a strange injury that heals in such a way that his arm suddenly becomes able to throw MLB-level heat. The Cubs sign him, and, well, you can probably guess how the rest of the story goes.
While the film is unrealistic and pretty formulaic, it still is a fun watch, especially with John Candy as an announcer for the Cubs who opens up the movie with this ever-so-true line:
Opening Day at Wrigley, and oh what a sight! The diamond, the decorations, and the dread of yet another losing season.
Really, there isn’t much more that can be said, other than that as part of the Anniversary there have been a few articles about it.
For example, Yahoo!’s Mike Oz talked a bit to star Thomas Ian Nicholas (who has since gone on to star in the American Pie films) and director/supporting actor Daniel Stern about it. From it, I learned that, for example, John Candy was not originally involved with the film, but the studio liked the close-to-finished product enough that they let the producers hire John Candy to film a few scenes and voiceovers for the film.
Meanwhile, as a extra to Sports Illustrated‘s “Where Are They Now” issue, screenwriter Sam Harper revealed what happened to Henry after the film. Turns out that similar injuries led to him having brief careers in football and bowling.
So, if you see Rookie of the Year on cable in the coming days, feel free to think back to this post and those other articles. And also think how funky-buttloving (you’d get it if you saw the movie) awesome my look at Henry Rowengartner’s stats would have been.
*True story: I almost had a cameo in A League of Their Own as a redheaded toddler grandchild in the Cooperstown scenes at the end. But according to family legend, my parents didn’t want to drive all the way to Cooperstown for the shoot, especially since if I cried they’d probably just have some other 1-year-old do it and they’d have driven all the way to Cooperstown for nothing. And that, friends, is why Daniel J. Glickman doesn’t have an IMDB page noting his uncredited cameo in A League of Their Own.
Bizarre Baseball Culture: The Batman and Cal Ripken Jr. join forces to promote Big League Chew
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.
When I was growing up, there was only one true cartoon Batman, and that was the Batman voiced by Kevin Conroy in a series of cartoons that started in the early nineties, ended in 2006, and then briefly revived for the occasional video game or DVD movie. The shows that featured Conroy- usually headed by a writer named Paul Dini and an artist named Bruce Timm- were and are masterpieces, regarded by many as the definitive Batman and not just great kids shows, but great shows period.
However, there was the slight problem that having a deep and rather mature Batman in the cartoons meant there wasn’t as much stuff for the very little kiddies, so in 2004, while the Conroy-Batman was in a Justice League cartoon, a new show was created, entitled simply The Batman. While it did have it’s moments (or so I hear, I think I only watched maybe four episodes of it in total), it was not dark, it was not deep, it was not mature and it just in general was an abomination, especially when compared to the Batman cartoons I’d grown up watching. It was created basically just to sell toys to little kids in the run-up to the release of Batman Begins (which, as we all know, was totally kid friendly, right?).
Still, there was one thing that The Batman gave us: a comic book in which Batman joins forces with Cal Ripken Jr. in order to stop the Penguin and hawk Big League Chew. Just as Bob Kane and Bill Finger intended.
(Go below the jump for more)
Pace Updates on July 5
Chris Davis is currently on pace for 60 HR. The AL Record in 61 (Roger Maris).
Manny Machado is on pace for 72 doubles. The single-season record is 67 (Earl Webb).
Raul Ibanez is on pace for 40 HR. The single-season record for a player 40 or over is 34 (Darrell Evans).
Albert Pujols‘ current HR pace will put him hitting his 500th HR on September 20th of this season.
Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Classic Continuum: The Luckiest Man
(This article was initially published on July 4, 2012.)
It was July 4th, 1939. Lou Gehrig was a dying man. Earlier that year, he’d ended his 2,130 consecutive game streak, taking himself out before a game in Detroit for the good of the team (he was hitting .143 with an RBI). A visit to the Mayo Clinic in June confirmed the worst: he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, the disease that now carries his name. Although his mind would remain intact, his body would slowly betray him. Although his wife had told the doctors to try and withhold some of the more horrible details of the diagnosis from him, there is evidence to suggest that Lou knew, somehow, that he was on his way out. He announced his retirement from the game he loved.
So it was on Independence Day that the Yankees held a day in his honor. They retired his number 4- the first in baseball to be so honored. Some of his most famous teammates, including Babe Ruth, joined delegates from across the country in Yankee Stadium.
Everybody knows how the speech began, and many know how it ends, as can be seen below:
However, that was because, as amazing as it sounds, no media outlets had recorded the whole thing. That is partly why Gary Cooper‘s speech in Pride of the Yankees is occasionally played instead, although it moved the beginning of the speech to the end for artistic reasons and was more of a paraphrase of the actual words Gehrig gave on that day.
Since Gehrig’s death in 1941, he has remained an inspiration and a rallying-cry in the fight against ALS and similar diseases. What had been before Gehrig a little understood disease is now studied across the world.
Progress has been made. A few years back, a report came out that suggested that people who have a history of concussions may be more likely to develop an ALS-style disease (Gehrig, it should be noted, took plenty of beanballs during his career, and also had played football at Columbia), and there is also some evidence that genetics and mutations may also play a role. Despite this, however, there remains no cure.
Baseball Food Myths/Legends
Today, July 4th, is the famous Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. And, in homage to that and as a semi-sequel to the article about Chris Sale‘s diet, here’s a look at two of the other great baseball tales involving appetite… after the jump, of course:
Yasiel Puig and the ASG: The fix is in
I can see both sides of the arguments about Yasiel Puig being an all-star or not. However, I think that it’ll ultimately be a moot point: Yasiel Puig will be at the All-Star Game, barring injury or he himself refusing an invite.
Oh, he probably won’t be amongst the initial people named this coming weekend. Instead, one of the backup ways for him to get in will come into play:
- The Final Vote, which allows fans to vote for one of five snubbed players in each league. Puig would, barring a team like the Giants or Cardinals running a gigantic get-out-the-vote campaign (always a possibility), run away with the NL voting.
- Injuries. Without fail, at least a few All-Stars get hurt or decide not to take part due to pre-existing (but not serious) injuries. These would provide more opportunities for Puig to join.
- Guys just skipping. Although it isn’t as common as in games like the Pro Bowl, there are also usually a few players who just respectfully decline an invite, saying they want their rest or that their hamstrings are bothering them or whatnot. This usually more happens when it’s in a city without a good party scene or big-time recognition, so it’s likely that it is less likely this season with it being in New York City… but it could still happen. And if enough guys just pass on the ASG, then there are more spots to put in Puig.
- If all else fails, behind-the-scenes wrangling. It’s a dirty secret, but then again it’s hardly a secret at all: Major League Baseball will do everything within it’s power to get their biggest individual story to take part in the All-Star Game. And Yasiel Puig is the biggest individual story so far this year, especially since Evan Gattis got hurt. It could come by way of MLB execs whispering over Bruce Bochy‘s shoulders, it could come as a special dispensation to just have him show up, like how Tony Gwynn was added to the 2001 All-Star Game (but didn’t play). But if all else fails, Puig will be added to the National League team.
Got all of that?
Random Tweet: “No.”
It was bound to happen: somebody thinks Chris Davis may be on steroids. They even asked him! His answer?
— Chris Davis (@ChrisDavis_19) June 30, 2013
The Baseball Continuum 