Things that still haven’t happened in baseball

From Tom Haudricourt’s twitter feed:

The thing about baseball is that it has such a long history, and has had so many different styles of play over the year, that it’s rare that something is truly unprecedented. Zack Greinke starting three straight games (due to getting ejected early in one game, starting the game before the All-Star Break, and now starting the game after the All-Star Break) may be the first time it’s happened in almost 100 years, but the mere fact it had happened before (probably many times- pitchers before the 20th century often started consecutive days) is a testament to how many things have happened in baseball.

So what hasn’t happened on the Major League Level?

Well…

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Blast from the past: How my predictions look after the first half

Earlier, I looked back at how my predictions from my time at the Cardinal Courier were doing this season. So, after the jump, another update on those predictions.

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Was that the worst (non-tie) ASG of all time?

So, the All-Star Game last night was a disappointment. It was a 8-0 drubbing of the AL, led by the NL’s Ryan Braun and the Giants contingent. It had it’s moments: the KC fans giving Chipper Jones a big round of applause, giving Billy Butler the largest applause he ever has and probably ever will be given, Trout and Harper making their debuts, the first bases-loaded triple in All-Star history. But in general, it was something of a bore, one of the least entertaining All-Star Games in memory.

But was it the worst All-Star Game? Well, no, at least it had a clear winner, and it wasn’t cut short by rain.  But what about of the non-ties? Well, looking at other blow-outs…

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Sunday Links and a preview of the next week

Some links that caught my eye and a preview of what will be on the Baseball Continuum in the week ahead.

On Friday, Miguel Gonzalez of the Orioles defeated the Angels for the first win of his MLB career. He did it while wearing a glove bearing name of his old friend and teammate, the late Nick Adenhart.

The bad news is that Giancarlo Stanton is out of the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby due to knee surgery, but the good news is that Bryce Harper will be the one replacing him in the game

…and Andrew McCutchen, possibly the most underrated player in baseball, will be replacing him in the Derby. He’s no Stanton, but he can still drill the ball.

The United States National College Team and Cuba’s National Team have renewed a series that had been dormant since the 1990s.

The All-Star Game has been held in Kansas City twice before: 1960 and 1973.

Coming this week on the Baseball Continuum:

  • Projections for Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic
  • An argument that Moneyball is a book that has shaped modern America
  • Thoughts on the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game
  • The first episode of this season of The Franchise airs (including the debut of the Continuum’s Ozzie Guillen swear-word scorecard)
  • A review of The Amazing Spider-Man
  • And who knows what else?

Well, that makes sense.

Most Baseball Reference pages for pitchers look like this:

Well, Jim Abbott wasn’t like most pitchers, due to the fact that he didn’t have a right hand. To field, he would switch his glove from his right arm onto his left hand and then switch it again to make the throw. Therefore, he wasn’t like Maddux, who obviously had his glove on his left hand. So B-Ref has a unique solution to mention this:

Makes sense.

Mini-Bizarre Baseball Culture- Tony Stark: Baseball Fan

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. This is a smaller installment of that.

In the trade paperback entitled The Five Nightmares (by Matt Fraction), Tony Stark AKA Iron Man has traveled to the Congo to investigate a genocidal supervillain organization that may have replicated his technology.

He also is tracking a few other things. Y’know, R&D meetings, messed up satellites….

… and Josh Beckett throwing a no-hitter.

Iron Man = Baseball Fan.

(The use of this low-quality photo of a very small portion of a larger storyline qualifies as Fair Use under US copyright law.)

Want more Bizarre Baseball Culture? Check out after the jump.

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The Cape Cod League: Pure Concentrated Americana

Over the last week, I’ve been vacationing in Massachusetts. And, of course, I made sure to see all of the sites: the USS Constitution, Quincy Market, the Old North Church, the JFK Library and Museum, and, of course, Fenway Park. I even went to a restaurant that is a replica of the bar on Cheers. I’ll write about all of that later, but first, I must tell you about a few innings in what might be the purest baseball this side of an old neighborhood pick-up game: The Cape Cod League.

(JUMP- note that this post is image intensive)

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An act of unnecessary baseball research: Miguel Tejada and Aaron Sorkin

During the pilot episode of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom (a good show, if a little soapboxy), newsman Will McAvoy is reminiscing with his old flame/new executive producer MacKenzie McHale and remembers that he once went to an Orioles game with her father, which ended with Miguel Tejada hitting a double to win the game 4-3, driving home runners who were on first and third.

However, either McAvoy’s memory isn’t as sharp as he’d like to believe, or the universe of The Newsroom isn’t just different because there is a fictional news network around… because no such thing ever happened. From 2004 (when Tejada joined the Orioles) to 2007 (it’s said the two of them haven’t seen each other in three years, so presumably that’s the latest such a game could have happened), Tejada didn’t hit any walk-off doubles for the Orioles.

However, just for the sake of argument, here are some possibilities of what he actually was talking about:

The only time that Miguel Tejada ever had a walk-off double with men on first and third was when he was with the Athletics. Given the fact that McAvoy so clearly remembers it being an Orioles game, and the fact that all of these characters appear to be based on the East Coast, he probably didn’t mean that.

He hit a walk-off home run against the Tigers in 2004, but the men were on 1st and 2nd, it ended the game by the score of 7-5, and, let’s face it, it’s hard to believe somebody would think it was a double.

Personally, I think it was likely this game from August 2006. The Orioles, like in the game remembered by McAvoy, won by one. Two men were on when he had the hit (a single). It’s entirely possible that, in the madness that so often follows a walk-off hit, that McAvoy would think that Tejada had gone to second. As for all of the other inconsistencies in McAvoy’s memories, well, he mentions that he and Mackenzie’s father had been drinking a lot that day, so, well, there you go.

So, there you go, the answer to a baseball question nobody asked.

An Eyewitness account of Evan Longoria’s setback

So, I was at the ballpark last night. Evan Longoria was in town with Durham on a rehab assignment- having injured his hamstring earlier in the year. I’ve seen him before in the big leagues, but the chance to see a ballplayer on a rehab assignment in the minors is something you should never pass up: you can see them far closer for far cheaper. Why, you can get close enough to realize they have begun growing more facial hair.

Good thing I went last night, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen him at all.

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Cool Baseball Websites: FanGraphs

Another site I often visit is FanGraphs, especially it’s scoreboards, which show the probability of a team winning the game at any given point. For example, you can see just how much that three-run homer in the fifth helped, or just how much that strikeout with the bases loaded hurt the team.
For example, check out the win probability chart for Game 6 of last year’s World Series, which looks like a roller coaster it has so many ups and downs.