Picture of the day: Captain America

Posted on March 13, 2013 by danglickman

David Wright had five RBIs in Team USA’s victory over Puerto Rico last night, and now has 10 RBIs in the tournament overall. Adding that to his stellar performance back in 2009, and he has been dubbed by Matt Vasgersian of MLB Network- along with parts of the internet- as “Captain America”.

Sadly/thankfully, there are no images of David Wright in a Captain America costume that are in either the public domain or Creative Commons (or, indeed, anywhere), so this picture will have to do:

This image is under a creative commons license, and was taken by Paul Hadsall.

Baseball Streaks that nobody would want

Posted on March 12, 2013 by danglickman

The Baseball Reference Play Index is having a free trial until April 15, allowing people to look at some parts of B-Ref normally not open to unpaying eyes. And while you could use this to find things like the most home runs hit in a post-integration season by a left-hander who was never an All-Star (Travis Hafner‘s 42 in 2006) or the best June team batting average since 1916 (the 1930 Yankees, who hit .366), I instead have decided to look at some more… inglorious streaks.

Like, for example, do you know who holds the record for consecutive games grounded into a double play? Well, post 1916 (1916 is the earliest point where the Play Index is available), it’s a tie between Sid Gordon of the 1943 Giants and Greg Norton of the 1998 White Sox both grounded into double plays in six straight games they had an AB or Sac Fly in.

Okay, now what about the anti-Dimaggio, what everyday player (no P or replacement appearances allowed) has had the longest post-1916 non-hitting streak (again, in games in which they had an AB or sacrifice fly)? Well, again it is a tie: Tommy Dean went 15 games between 1970 and 1971 without a hit during any of the games where he started and had at least one AB or sac-fly, and Mick Kelleher– normally a defensive replacement (and in fact he DID get a hit during some of his defensive replacement games) went the same amount of games over 1981 and 1982 without a record. If you are curious as to what it would be like if I included replacements (but still kept out pitchers and the rare pitcher-used-as-PH), well, Eugenio Velez has that inglorious distinction, having gone 30 games and over a calendar year between 2010 and 2011 without a hit:

Rk		Strk Start	End	Games	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SO	BB	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Tm
1	Eugenio Velez	2010-09-14	2011-09-28	30	46	1	0	0	0	0	1	12	2	0	0	.000	.042	.000	.042	SFG-LAD

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/12/2013.

What about all in one season? That goes to Phil Stephenson, who went 25 games without a hit in 1992.

Now, let it not be said that just because you have a streak that nobody wants that you must be horrible. After all, just ask the pitcher who has the record for consecutive games in which they gave up a home run: Bert Blyleven, who had 20 straight games between 1986 and 1987 in which he gave up a homer.

Link of the day: Dutch baseball words

Posted on March 11, 2013 by danglickman

After a shocking 7-6 upset over Cuba, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, AKA “Honkbal”, is headed to San Francisco for the WBC semi-finals, with only a relatively meaningless game for seeding remaining against Japan before they head to America, and, no doubt, total world domination.

So, with that in mind, it may be a good idea to check out this link, which serves as a English-to-Dutch dictionary for baseball/honkbal terms.

Picture of the day: Fernando-Mania never died

Posted on March 10, 2013 by danglickman

Mexico may not have advanced in the WBC, but they certainly were popular with the fans during their time there. Just look at the crowd trying to get pitching coach and Mexican baseball legend Fernando Valenzuela to sign for them before a exhibition game against the Dodgers:

This picture, taken by “rwarrin”, is under a creative commons license.

I asked Buster Posey a tongue-in-cheek question, he gave me a short-but-reasonable answer

Posted on March 8, 2013 by danglickman

So, Buster Posey did a “Ask Me Anything” earlier today on the website Reddit. I wish I had some deep insightful question to ask him, but my mind kind of froze and I decided to give him a softball question based on a joke I made on Twitter when the news about the Mauer family’s upcoming kids had come out.

So I asked him this:

Any advice to Joe Mauer on how to be an elite catcher while raising twins?

(I remembered seeing somewhere that Posey and his wife had twins.)

And so, amongst the various snarky comments by others that Mauer has to raise a whole team of Twins, and sarcastic quips that I might be Joe Mauer (which, despite the sideburns, could not be farther from the truth), Posey actually wrote back a quick answer to the question:

Get your rest when you can!

Makes sense. Thanks, Buster. If I somehow see Joe Mauer some time before August, I’ll pass that along.

Picture of the day: Baseball In Italy

Posted on March 7, 2013 by danglickman

Here’s a picture from a playoff game between Parma and Nettuno in 2006:

This photo is under creative commons and was taken by “Lucam”.

Picture of the day: Packed House in Taichung

Posted on March 6, 2013 by danglickman

The games in Taichung that featured the home team were all packed-house games, as this picture from the game against the Netherlands shows:

This photo, taken by “孤雲出岫 Free Cloud”, is under a creative commons license.

Link of the Day: Baseball Statues

Posted on March 5, 2013 by danglickman

No picture of the day today, instead, here’s a link to a site that is cataloging baseball statues around the country (and, more broadly, sports statues around the world).