Tag Archives: Blogathon

(Blogathon ’16) Stacey Gotsulias: Sonnet 13

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

With my heartfelt apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her fans…

“Sonnet 13”

How do I love A-Rod? Let me count the ways.
I love A-Rod to the beauty of his swing and length of his home runs and pace of his trot around the bases
Even when I’m not at the Stadium or watching on TV
My feelings are big as Doug Eddings’ strike zone.
I love A-Rod during every single day game and at night, even if he goes 0-6 with four strikeouts
I love A-Rod freely, as others boo him vociferously
I love A-Rod purely, as others write vigorously, articles of his demise
I love A-Rod with the passion most have for their spouses or children
In my older, more wise age, and with the same faith as my 10 year old self.
I love A-Rod with a love I didn’t even know I had
With my lost family, friends and lovers. I love A-Rod with every breath,
every smile, every cry for his entire career even after his eventual retirement
I shall but love A-Rod better after baseball, when he’s broadcasting alongside Joe Buck on Fox.

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Stacey Gotsulias is a freelance sportswriter whose work has appeared both online and in print. She currently writes for It’s About The Money, which is the Yankees’ blog on ESPN’s SweetSpot Network and for The Hardball Times.

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) Dan Szymborski: Doughy Nerd Gets A Job

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis

Latin is still taught in schools, though as an everyday language has been dead for more than a millennium. The above phrase, of obscure origin and even of obscure construction — some claim the source was Ovid but a direct quote is not to be found — can loosely be translated as “the times are changed and we are changed in the times.” We still encounter Latin in science and law, and the reflection of it in the Romance languages, stemming from the so-called vulgar Latin.

What does this have to do with baseball? In the last 20 years, the language of baseball has changed and as a result, the people involved in baseball have also been changed. The rise of sabermetrics in baseball as a mainstream “thing” has been the largest cultural sea change in baseball that we’ve seen this generation. And for me personally, it turned into a career, something I certainly didn’t expect at the start of this timeframe.

Like pretty much everyone who followed baseball closely at the time, I was not amused, bemused, or even cemused by baseball’s labor friction in the early 1990s that culminated in the 1994 players’ strike. At the time of the start of the strike was a 16-year-old kid at the time, I had just gotten my driver’s license (literally five days prior) and my first car, a 1988 Ford Tempo with this unbelievably weird automatic seatbelt and an alternator that would die a couple of times a year. A friend of mine’s family had season tickets to O’s games and I had the prospect of getting to spend a lot of time hanging out at the then relatively new Oriole Park at Camden Yards. That baseball suddenly went away was a blow to me and the other millions of baseball-mad fans and I was in search of an outlet.

In 1994, I had a subscription to Baseball Weekly and a dial-up internet connection and no real replacement for my lack of baseball. The internet at that time wasn’t overflowing with comparable baseball resources either. Those were the days we actually said the phrase “World Wide Web” non-ironically. For baseball on the internet, we had a sparse amount of resources, such as standings on Nando.net and the home pages linked to in John Skilton’s Baseball Links. Even ESPN’s website was just a shadow of its future self at this point, known simply as the rather prosaic ESPNet.SportsZone.com.

So I happened onto this thing called a “newsgroup” at the time and found something called “rec.sport.baseball.” Baseball might have been on strike, but there was a whole community of people still arguing about baseball as if the world hadn’t stopped. Passionate people too; only a few of my friends growing up really cared about the sport. I was overwhelmed at the time by the breadth of knowledge that these people had. So much so that I only read the newsgroup and the other alt.* baseball newsgroups for awhile before I had the courage to express my own opinions.

I had always been into the statistical side of baseball. Always fascinated with numbers, my grandfather had bought me the Elias Baseball Analysts and the Baseball Abstracts by Bill James every year. My own baseball career faded out quite quickly, I was a perfectly competent baseball player as a nine-year-old, but obviously was never going to play in the majors. From the time I was five to the time I was a teenager, my baseball highlight was having a pitch of mine getting crushed by future minor league outfielder Justin Singleton. I think. I didn’t even know his first name at the time, the other kids just called him “Ken Singleton’s son” and to this day, I’m not even sure that was Justin Singleton, though the ages and location match up, as I discovered much later.

So as a kid, I didn’t dream of becoming Cal Ripken or Eddie Murray, I dreamed of becoming Bill James or Peter Gammons, whose writing was the first thing I would jump to in Sports Illustrated every week.

So hanging out on usenet in the mid-to-late 90s (the newsgroup thing I’m referring to earlier), I developed my writing style and most importantly, my ability to make and defend an argument. Usenet was a brutal place, full of snark and sarcasm and all sorts of venom if you lost an argument. For one person I fought with, a fellow who insisted that Ed Sprague would always be a better player than Aramis Ramirez, I wrote insulting haiku in response to his insults. I became more active in the sabermetric community at that point and many of the participants are names that you likely still recognize today. Baseball Prospectus got its origin from usenet and writers like Keith Law and Christina Kahrl were already doing some Grade A wordslinging. Sean Forman from Baseball-Reference. Sean Lahman of the Lahman database. Voros McCracken of DIPS fame. Doug Pappas and Greg Spira, both writers that left us too early and too sadly. David Cameron of FanGraphs. Grant Brisbee of SBNation. Even some writers that you wouldn’t generally associate with baseball today, like Josh Kraushaar (National Journal), Jonathan Bernstein (Bloomberg), and Peter Spiegel (Financial Times).

It was a heady group and in baseball, we were all outsiders. We combined all the tactlessness of the internet with the surety that were absolutely right and everyone who disagreed with us was an idiot. We dripped with contempt for media, and the term “mediots” got thrown about fairly regularly.

As time went on and sabermetrics became a bigger thing in baseball and blogs starting coming into existence, usenet faded away and died. But by then, many of the ideas that we had espoused so fervently had made their way into baseball. Michael Lewis’s very popular Moneyball had become the first book really talking about sabermetrics that had truly reached the mainstream and the rate of adoption of sabermetrics in baseball had increased significantly. It may be weird to younger readers today that grew up seeing things like Wins Above Replacement and OPS+, but 20 years ago, the utility of even basic stats such as OBP and SLG was a controversial thing in baseball fan circles.

Sabermetricians changed baseball and baseball media, but the rest of the truth is that baseball and baseball media also changed sabermetrics. Some of the truths we so strongly believed in were more complex than we thought at the time. And as writers with a numbers background spread into baseball, we also came to be empathetic with the rest of media. We hadn’t appreciated the difficulty of suddenly telling stories about baseball in an entirely new way to an audience that didn’t necessarily want to hear baseball stories in an entirely new way. These journalists that, to us, were mostly simply bylines, became our acquaintances, or colleagues, and our friends. While I’m still quite snarky at times — and let’s not even get to the Murray Chass stuff — I know I have a greater appreciation for differing viewpoints than I used to. Now, I still always am sure I’m right, but hey, writers gonna writer.

I wrote my first piece for ESPN in 2010. Looking back on it, it wasn’t very good. I had no journalism background of note, mainly being known for my snippy two sentence quotes on Baseball Think Factory and my work in the sabermetrics community, both inside and outside of baseball. I’m honestly surprised they kept paying me money after the first one. But I got better.

Suddenly, I had a new challenge, becoming a real journalist, not just the numbers-dork who made jerkass one-liners. And doing so gave me additional respect for everyone else in journalism who had to sweat out a story. It was far harder in practice than at a distance. My ambition to be a sabermetrics guy who could write eventually became to be a writer who could do sabermetric work.

I would never have admitted it, but being a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America was actually quite important to me. While I could obtain media credentials when I needed them, one thing I’ve always craved, since starting the journey into journalism, was belonging. I desired that affirmation that I was an actual, real writer, not just some numbers-dork moonlighting until I could snag a front office job. This month, I was accepted as a member to the Cincinnati chapter.

Looking at the world of baseball analysis is very different in 2016 than it was in 1996. At one point, I knew practically everyone who worked in the field. Now baseball teams have entire analytics departments devoted to crunching baseball information, stocked with people who are younger than me, with a dizzying array of doctorates. I find myself in a curious situation in which at 37, I’ve become one of the elder statesmen of sabermetrics, a dinosaur in a field where most analytics guys can write R programs in their sleep. If I tell people that I’m using STATISTICA and even Excel (there are a lot of cool plugins!), they look at me as if I’m telling a story about the time I caught Spanish Flu in 1919. So is the way of the world.

I never grew up to be Bill James or Peter Gammons. Just Dan Szymborski, which isn’t really that bad.

Dan writes about baseball and eSports for ESPN.com and is the developer of the ZiPS projection system as seen on FanGraphs and in various other internet pipes. He can found at @DSzymborski on Twitter and you can email him at DSzymborskI@gmail.com.

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) Dan Hirsch: The Most Average Player in Baseball History

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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In the baseball community, we are obsessed with comparing players to league average. The book Baseball Between the Numbers (which is a must-have for any baseball fan), the term “league average” appears 103 times. Wether it’s OPS+, ERA+, FIP-, wRC+ or DRS, we are constantly using it as a comparison. But what exactly is a league average player? Or maybe so we can understand it better, WHO is a league average player?

What I decided to look for was a player who performed closest to league average throughout their entire career. A quick way to do this would be to find which players total career Wins Above Average is closest to zero. This can easily be done using Baseball-Reference’s invaluable play index. I found each player with a career WAA between -0.1 and 0.1 and then sorted by plate appearances.

Rk Player PA WAA From To
1 Steve Sax 7632 0.1 1981 1994
2 Eddie Foster 6328 0.1 1910 1923
3 Melky Cabrera 5540 0.1 2005 2015
4 Gus Triandos 4424 0.0 1953 1965
5 Ivey Wingo 4376 0.1 1911 1929

The top spot belongs to Steve Sax. But while Sax’s overall career performance was almost exactly league average, his individual seasons don’t agree. He was a five time All-Star who posted multiple seasons with an OPS+ above 110 and multiple seasons below 75. Similarly, Melky Cabrera (who ranks third on the above list) has had a full-season WAA as low as -1.8 and as high as 3.2, so it’s obvious his performance has fluctuated greatly.

Clearly, this isn’t the best method in determining the most average player in Major League history. Instead of starting at the career level, I began by looking at each player’s individual seasons. The statistic I decided to use I was waaWL%, which can be found on the “Player Value” chart of each player’s Baseball-Reference page. This stat takes a hypothetical team of exactly league average players and estimates what their winning percentage would be if this player joined them. Obviously, a league average team would have a .500 winning percentage. Adding an above average player would increase the winning percentage while a below average player would decrease it.

For every season in a player’s career, I found the absolute value of the difference between their waaWL% and .500. Players closest to league average will have lower values than those who are farthest from league average. (Example: In 2015, Bryce Harper (.553 waaWL%) receives 53 points, since his waaWL% was 53 percentage points away from .500)

Finally, to give each player a career value, I found the average of each of their seasons, weighted by plate appearances.

I set the minimum career plate appearances at 5000, which will only include players with the equivalent of at least ten full seasons. Here are the qualifying players with the lowest career average point totals:

Rk Player PA WAA Pts From To
1 Jose Cruz 5448 1.2 3.8 1997 2008
2 Todd Zeile 8649 -7.7 4.7 1989 2004
3 Dan Driessen 6344 -0.7 4.7 1973 1987
4 Jack Graney 5584 -7.1 4.8 1910 1922
5 David DeJesus 5916 2.7 4.9 2003 2015
6 Ossie Bluege 7453 1.1 5.1 1922 1939
7 Bing Miller 6892 3.2 5.2 1921 1936
8 Joe Randa 6007 0.9 5.4 1995 2006
9 Bucky Harris 5559 -5.2 5.4 1919 1931
10 Steve Brodie 6342 -2.4 5.4 1890 1902
11 Chris Chambliss 8313 -1.5 5.4 1971 1988
12 Lyle Overbay 5802 -2.5 5.5 2001 2014
13 Al Lopez 6607 -5.3 5.5 1928 1947
14 Dick Hoblitzell 5368 1.3 5.5 1908 1918
15 Bruce Bochte 5994 -0.6 5.5 1974 1986

Jose Cruz Jr tops the list by a considerable margin. Over a twelve season career, Cruz had a waaWL% that was fewer than four percentage points away from .500. While his career total Wins Above Average (1.2) wasn’t exactly zero, he averaged just 0.1 WAA per 500 plate appearances. Cruz was also quite average with both the bat and the glove. When breaking it down even further, he averaged 0.08 offensive WAA and -0.15 defensive WAA per 500 PA.

How did the players in the first list fare using individual season waaWL%? Steve Sax’s average season (8.5 pts) was more than twice as far from league average than Jose Cruz Jr, while Melky Cabrera was almost 3x that of Cruz.

Rk Name Pts
1 Steve Sax 8.5
2 Eddie Foster 7.2
3 Melky Cabrera 10.9
4 Gus Triandos 7.8
5 Ivey Wingo 6.4

Pitchers
I ran the same process for pitchers, using innings pitched instead of plate appearances for the weighted career average and set the minimum at 200 games started. Here are the results:

Rk Name IP WAA Pts From To
1 Mudcat Grant 2442 -0.2 16.9 1958 1971
2 Harry Gumbert 2157 -0.3 17.3 1935 1950
3 Hooks Dauss 3389 1.0 21.4 1912 1926
4 Mike Flanagan 2770 0.3 21.6 1975 1992
5 Dummy Taylor 1916 0.4 21.7 1900 1908
6 Kirby Higbe 1952 0.6 21.7 1937 1950
7 Neal Heaton 1507 -1.7 22.8 1982 1993
8 Gary Bell 2015 -0.4 23.1 1958 1969
9 Tom Gordon 2108 4.5 24.3 1988 2009
10 Pat Dobson 2120 -0.2 24.6 1967 1977

Pitchers have more of an impact on the outcome of a particular game than an individual position player, leading to a greater variance in their waaWL%. This explains why their point totals are higher than those of the position players. Jim (Mudcat) Grant tops the list for pitchers, while Harry Gumbert is a close second.

So what kind of value does an average player provide over the course of a major league career? Jose Cruz Jr. racked up 19.5 WAR for his career while Mudcat Grant totaled 19.4. In fact, there were five players on the 2015 Hall of Fame ballot with lower career WAR than these two. To get a sense of present day value, Nori Aoki has a total of 0.1 WAA over last three seasons and just signed a contract for $5.5 million. League average has value. If a player like Nor Aoki is injured, their replacement will almost always be of below average ability.

So if you’re baseball obsessed friend asks you what exactly a league average player is, you can point them to Jose Cruz Jr and Mudcat Grant.

Dan Hirsch is the Creator of The Baseball Gauge. Baseball historian and SABR member for 10 years. Web designer for The Seamheads Negro Leagues Database and The Seamheads Ballparks Database.

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) Kayla Thompson: “Wild And Outside” Review

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

Book Review – Wild and Outside: How a Renegade Minor League Revived the Spirit of Baseball in America’s Heartland, by Stefan Fatsis

As a writer about independent baseball (Indy Ball Island), I am always curious to read more about the history surrounding the indy leagues. I was given a recommendation to check out Wild and Outside, a book that covers the independent Northern League during their second season. While major league baseball came to a halt in the summer of 1994, the Northern League was flourishing and bringing hope back to baseball.

This book, much like independent baseball itself, is a little all over the place. It bounces back and forth from teams to players frequently, but always in a way that keeps you following along all season long. Their second season of existence didn’t happen without some bumps in the road, but the league stayed strong and survived. Through all the ups and downs, readers are given an inside look at everything that went on behind the scenes with the league, in every city, and in each locker room.

The book’s introduction says it best:

“This is the story of how a game of rebels – from the purist Miles Wolff to the chip-off-the-block son of showman Bill Veeck to a happy-go-lucky career minor leaguer named Ed Nottle – battled the big leagues, and some times each other. It is about players who, despite being told they aren’t good enough, refuse to loosen their grip on a dream born in childhood. It is about communities that rally around something as innocent and traditional as a baseball team. And it is about a place where baseball can still be fun.”

Wild and Outside follows league owner Miles Wolff as he explains just why he wanted to bring baseball to cities in the northern mid-west. Readers get a chance to see how the six towns (Duluth, Minnesota; St. Paul, Minnesota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Sioux City, Iowa; Thunder Bay, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba) bonded with a group of misfits and brought the spirit of baseball back when it was going through its roughest patch. Meet the owners and managers who have to deal with the trials and tribulations that come with independent baseball. And finally, read about the players who are just trying to keep their dreams alive anyway they can.

While the book does cover all six teams to some extent, some teams and players are covered in much more detail than others. The Duluth-Superior Dukes with their owner Ted Cushmore is one story that really gets to the essence of independent baseball. Readers will find themselves growing sympathetic to their issues and begin rooting for the real underdogs in a league that is filled with them. Cushmore is thrust into owning the struggling Dukes, and with little help from others around him, including a manager who rarely communicated with him, faces many challenges that are a part of independent baseball teams everywhere.

In addition, hard working players such as Stephen Bishop, Vince Castaldo, Pedro Guerrero and many others have their stories weaved into the book effortlessly. The reader can follow their journeys throughout the season as they try to rekindle their love for baseball through indy ball all while still trying to reach their ultimate goal of making it (back) to affiliated ball.

Although the book is over two decades old, and the Northern League is no longer in existence (the league folded after the 2010 season), it is still a great read for baseball fans especially those that are a fan of minor league baseball and the true love of the game. This book could really be a number of stories around the country right now… the heart, the passion, the drive and determination are still in small towns all across America every summer. Get away from the big MLB contracts and fall in love with baseball again.

4 out of 5 stars

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A copy of Wild and Outside will be a giveaway to a lucky person who donates through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. A special thanks to Kayla for contributing a copy!

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

 

 

(Blogathon ’16!) Diane Firstman: Baseball Crossword Puzzle

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

One of the regular features at “Value Over Replacement Grit” is a baseball-themed crossword puzzle. I’ve created one especially for the blogathon, and hope you enjoy it! The answer key will be put up tomorrow at 9 AM.

Screen Shot 2016-01-30 at 1.09.11 AM
Across

1. “Planet of the ___”

5. Literally, “king”

9. Fergie, formally

14. Em, to Dorothy

15. Outfielder Nori ___

16. Ancient assembly area

17. Web gem, often

20. “Dallas” matriarch Miss ___

21. Annul

22. Beaned Astros shortstop Dickie ____

23. LAD/NYM, CHC/STL met in these in 2015 (abbr)

25. “___ Like It Hot”

27. Storyteller

30. Yankee shortstop Gregorius

31. Software program, briefly

34. Fishing, perhaps

35. All excited

37. Walker or Dierker

39. 1906 World Series champions

42. Uni number of Andy Etchebarren

43. “I’m ___ you!”

44. After-bath wear

45. Result of game one of 1907 World Series

46. Cutlass, e.g.

48. Stole 504 bases between 1981-1987

50. Like a stuffed shirt

51. Chad ___, Indians swingman 1994-1998

52. Middle name of Joe Tinker

55. “Mi chiamano Mimi,” e.g.

57. Gregg ___, saved 160 games for Orioles from 1989-1993

61. Weak-hitting reserve middle infielder for Rockies 2005-2009

64. Exquisite curio

65. “Our Time in ___” (10,000 Maniacs album)

66. Won 65 games for Boston Braves 1946-1948

67. Phi ___ Jama, nickname of Houston’s NCAA basketball team in 1983

68. Times or Century

69. Catchers on scorecards

 

Down

1. After Aardsma and the Aarons in Baseball Encyclopedia

2. Terry ___, lone Astros All-Star in 1978

3. Carbon compound

4. Terry ___, A’s catcher 1986-1996

5. Was idle

6. Falcon-headed Egyptian god

7. Like, with “to”

8. Its said to be 20-20

9. Pitcher’s plate appearance result with runners on, often

10. Banded stone

11. Middle name of Ken Forsch

12. With the bow, in music

13. Jesse ___, former Padre who became A’s starting pitcher in 2015

18. Aaron ___, threw 844 innings and won 69 games 1998-2001

19. Through the uprights

24. Downer

26. ___ Wilcox, Tigers hurler of late ’70s-early ’80s

27. Aspect

28. Kazuhisa ___, won 36 games for Dodgers from 2002-2004

29. Ecru

30. Scott ___, led AL in games pitched (81) in 2007

31. Flaming felony

32. Investigate

33. Eucharist vessels

36. Exclamation uttered in “Peanuts”

38. Trapeze whiz

40. Bit

41. Dane or Garth

47. Hilo feast

49. Long, long time

50. Late Sen. Thurmond

51. Like Cheerios

52. Walk and Moose

53. Middle name of Brandon Phillips

54. Big Indian

56. ___-European

58. Cole ___

59. Assortment

60. Indian breads

62. In the capacity of

63. Tidbit for an aardvark

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Diane Firstman wanted to be the first female general manager in the Majors, but a degree in Athletic Administration and an internship with the Elias Sports Bureau didn’t bear fruit. So, she toils by day as a data analyst for the City of New York, crunching large data sets and using SPSS and Excel.  She was the first “fan” to start a blog over at MLB.COM in 2005, and her “Diamonds are for Humor” was voted “Best Comedic Blog” that year. More recently, she contributed quirky stories and analysis to the “Humbug Journal” blog at Baseball Toaster, had an essay included in the “Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories” anthology, and offered game recaps and offbeat statistical analysis at the “Bronx Banter” site. Her “Value Over Replacement Grit” has been going strong since April 2011, and is part of ESPN’s “Sweet Spot” network of baseball blogs. She has also written for ESPN.com and the Village Voice.

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

 

(Blogathon ’16) Matt Taylor: Adam Jones Is a Difference Maker for Baltimore

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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I’m pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the Blogathon to raise money for the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. Like most everyone, it seems, I have a close personal connection to cancer. I lost my mom to the disease many years ago. I’ve also worked at the American Cancer Society, which helped me understand how much progress was and is being made in the fight against cancer.

I do my Orioles blogging over at Roar from 34. When I think about charity in relation to the Orioles, Adam Jones comes to mind. Jones received the 2015 Marvin Miller Man of the Year Award back in November. The award, which is part of the Major League Baseball Players Choice Awards, honors Jones’ efforts on the diamond and in the community. 

If you’re not an Orioles fan, you might not know about Jones’ charitable work. After receiving the Marvin Miller award he said the following: “I do a lot of stuff in the dark. I’ll do it on my own time and with my own resources and it’s great to have it thrive that way.”

In addition to the Marvin Miller Award, Jones has received the Governor’s Service Award in Maryland, the MLB Players Association’s Brooks Robinson Community Service Award, and has twice been nominated for baseball’s Roberto Clemente Award.

It’s easy, and often wise, to cast a cynical eye toward athletes’ charitable efforts. Jones isn’t one to worry about polishing his image, however. You might guess as much if you’ve ever witnessed his candor on Twitter (he introduced me to the term slapdick) or read some of his locker room quotes. The guy takes big cuts on the field and off of it.

Jones’ charity of choice is Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He benefited from the program while growing up in San Diego and now gives back to clubs there and in Baltimore.

“Giving back to these kids, letting them understand that there are people out there who really care about you in terms of your education and well-being. These have been the kind of places that always have been safe havens for youths,” Jones explained in a 2014 Baltimore Sun story.

Jones combines his love for food and for charity with an annual #StayHungry Purple Tailgate at a Baltimore Ravens game to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of Baltimore. In addition to raising money, the event allows fans to interact with Jones in person. The 2015 event featured Biz Markie.

Adam Jones has got what we need in Baltimore to make us proud.

Matt Taylor has been blogging about the Baltimore Orioles at Roar From 34 since 2006. Roar From 34 is the oldest independently operated Orioles blog. The site, which focuses on humor, history, and homerism, will celebrate its 10th anniversary this season. Matt was the first credentialed blogger to work in the press box at Orioles Park at Camden Yards and has participated in the MidAtlantic Sports Network’s (MASN) guest blogger program since its inception in 2011. 

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) Matt Wojciak: 2015 Middle Relief Report

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

There’s no set definition as to what constitutes a “middle reliever”. Many might say it’s a pitcher who comes out of the bullpen but isn’t a setup man or closer – I challenge this notion. I think that “setup” men fall perfectly in the realm of “middle relievers”. They throw in the middle of the game, sandwiched between the starters and the closers. Unfortunately for them, the position is often overlooked or ignored, because they don’t have catchy walkout music or a cool statistic to inflate their value in the public eye (sorry closers, but the save is just as useless as the win). Thankfully, a rise in the number of talented pitchers across the MLB has lead to more pitchers embracing the “middle relief” role and more teams giving those pitchers their fair dues, with guys like Darren O’Day, Ryan Madson, Antonio Bastardo, and Mark Lowe all signing multi-season deals for average annual values over $5 million dollars this offseason. The blog I created when I first started writing was called the “Middle Relief Report”, so I figured for this occasion I’d take some time to highlight the past season’s best middle relievers.

The difficult part for this project was compiling the data for every “middle reliever” of relative significance in 2015. Using Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, I searched for 6th inning splits from every pitcher with five or more innings pitched (in the 6th inning) and fewer than five games started. I repeated this process for the 7th and 8th innings, and I exported each of the resulting tables into Excel, which is when the real fun started. I put all three of the lists into a single workbook, and got to work consolidating the lists of names, the longest of which was up over 250 players. Through a system of cross-checking and inserting rows as I went, I progressively expanded the lists to include every player from every single list on each list (a painstakingly slow process). Eventually, I ended up with an alphabetical (by first name) list of 295 players, from A.J. Ramos all the way down to Zack Godley (neither of whom made this list, sorry Marlins and Diamondbacks fans). Then, it was on to the compiling of the statistics, which included me creating a fourth list, with all the names, and combining the three separate worksheet into one collective 6th-8th inning stat sheet. The tedious work wasn’t done, however, until I had converted all of the innings pitched from the “.1, .2” format into “.33, .66” format so I could re-calculate each pitcher’s overall rate stats. After paring down the list to pitchers with either 25.0 or more total innings (in the 6th-8th window) or 35 or more total appearances (again, from the 6th-8th), I had 156 pitchers left, and I calculated totals and averages for the group based on this “final cut” of pitchers.

I wanted to make the ranking of these guys as objective as possible, so I put together a formula that ranked each pitcher based on the following criteria:

  • ERA relative to the average of the group
  • RAA relative to the average of the group
  • K:BB rate
  • WHIP
  • HR allowed
  • OPS
  • Innings Pitched

I chose the stats I did based on what I believe are some of the most important parts of relief pitching. Obviously, limiting any runs allowed in these situations are crucial. Strikeouts are highly valuable in these situations, as it limits the opponent’s ability to advance runners even when making outs. Walks and hits are always a negative, but in situations where a pitcher may be inheriting runners, keeping the batters you face off base is even more crucial (with regards to inherited runners, I wanted to factor inherited runners scored percentage into the rating, but the Play Index doesn’t allow that stat to be searched for when looking at splits). Keeping teams off the board with home runs is another large factor. Lastly, I gave some weight to the amount of innings pitched by each player, to give those who were good for more innings a higher ranking. After calculating this “quality rating” for each guy on the list, I had them ranked from highest to lowest. I did not necessarily choose my top 10 as the top ten from this made-up rating, but I did use it as a guideline (for what it’s worth, the lowest guy who made my top-10 was ranked 15th by the quality rating).

Without any further ado, I give you my top 10 “middle relievers” of 2015:

#10 – Hunter Strickland, San Francisco Giants

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images North America

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 40.1 IP, 1.56 ERA, 42:10 K:BB, 0.818 WHIP, 0.536 OPS, 11.95 Quality Rating

Strickland was lights-out as part of a strong San Francisco bullpen this season, appearing in 55 games overall and pitching to the tune of a 2.45 ERA in 51.1 innings. His best work came in the 7th and 8th innings, where opponents hit .168/.230/.307 against the 6-foot-4, 220 pound right-hander from Georgia. At age 26, Strickland was old for a rookie, but he featured an impressive fastball that averaged nearly 97 MPH out of the bullpen for the Giants this season. Strickland is under team control through 2022, and projects to be a solid contributor in the Giants bullpen for years to come.

#9 – Tony Watson, Pittsburgh Pirates

Jared Wickerham/Getty Images North America

Jared Wickerham/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 67.1 IP, 2.14 ERA, 55:14 K:BB, 0.980 WHIP, 0.545 OPS, 9.45 Quality Rating

Watson was the definition of an exclusive setup man in 2015, leading the MLB in with 67.1 IP in the 8th inning. In his 5th season of work for the Pirates, Watson posted an ERA below 2.00 for the second season in a row setting up All-Star closer Mark Melancon for a team that won an impressive 98 games. Watson’s fastball rarely tops 90 MPH, but his nasty change-up and ability to locate pitches make him an elite MLB reliever.

#8 – George Kontos, San Francisco Giants

Victor Decolongon/Getty Images North America

Victor Decolongon/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 55.1 IP, 1.79 ERA, 36:6 K:BB, 0.831 WHIP, 0.540 OPS, 12.22 Quality Rating

The most versatile of the Giants’ bullpen assets, Kontos pitched more than 14.0 innings in each of the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings in 2015, racking up a total ERA of 2.33 in 73.1 innings across 73 games in relief. Similar to Watson, Kontos features a below-average bullpen fastball in terms of velocity, but makes up for the underwhelming heat with a plus secondary pitch (his slider) and excellent command.

#7 – Sergio Romo, San Francisco Giants

Dustin Bradford/Getty Images North America

Dustin Bradford/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 40.0 IP, 1.58 ERA, 51:6 K:BB, 0.825 WHIP, 0.477 OPS, 12.70 Quality Rating

Primarily filling the role of 8th-inning setup man for the Giants in 2015, former closer Romo dazzled hitters en route to a 2.98 overall ERA. Romo’s featured offering is his “no-dot” slider, which not only has nasty movement, but is especially hard for hitters to pick up out of his hand. Romo’s FIP in 2015 was a miniscule 1.91, indicating he actually pitched better than the results indicate. With Romo due for free agency after this season, he looks to put together another impressive campaign setting up closer Santiago Casilla in 2016.

#6 – Tony Sipp, Houston Astros

Jamie Squire/Getty Images North America

Jamie Squire/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 43.2 IP, 1.44 ERA, 54:10 K:BB, 0.893 WHIP, 0.535 OPS, 13.59 Quality Rating

After flying under the radar in 2014 for another poor Houston Astros team, Sipp finally made a name for himself in 2015, racking up a 1.99 overall ERA in 54.1 innings for the AL Wild Card winners. Sipp posted a K/BB rate over 4.00 for the first time in his 7-year career, earning himself the chance to sign a nice 3-year, $18 million dollar contract with the Astros following season’s end.

#5 – Ken Giles, Philadelphia Phillies

Source: Hunter Martin/Getty Images North America

Hunter Martin/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 41.0 IP, 1.32 ERA, 54:17 K:BB, 1.244 WHIP, 0.568 OPS, 13.00 Quality Rating

Before the trade that sent Jonathan Papelbon to the Nationals, 24-year-old Ken Giles worked magic in the 8th inning for the Phillies, en route to a 1.80 season ERA in 70.0 innings flat. Giles, owner of an impressive fastball that sits consistently around 97 MPH and can touch 100 MPH, now boasts a 1.56 career ERA in 115.2 innings across two full seasons. After being traded to Houston in the offseason, Giles looks to move into the closer role for 2016.

#4 – Wade Davis, Kansas City Royals

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images North America

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 44.2 IP, 1.21 ERA, 46:16 K:BB, 0.873 WHIP, 0.476 OPS, 20.22 Quality Rating

Wade Davis was once again electric out of the bullpen for the 2015 World Series Champs, posting a dominant full-season ERA of 0.94 in his third full season of relief (second with the Royals). Had Davis not been moved to the closer role mid-season with the injury to Greg Holland, I have no doubt he would’ve been #1 or #2 on this list. Davis looks to be the Royals closer through 2016 while Holland rehabs, and it will be interesting to see if he maintains the job once Holland returns.

#3 – Carson Smith, Seattle Mariners

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images North America

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 37.2 IP, 0.72 ERA, 48:8 K:BB, 0.850 WHIP, 0.491 OPS, 31.75 Quality Rating

Smith was absolutely spectacular in his rookie season, pitching 70.0 innings for the Mariners to the tune of an impressive 11.8 K/9 and 2.31 season ERA. Most of the damage done against Smith came in the 9th inning, when he was briefly put into the closer role after the departure of the incumbent Fernando Rodney. After moving back to the 8th inning, Smith went back to dominating hitters as he was before. After a move to the Red Sox this offseason, Smith will look to continue his success setting up new Boston closer Craig Kimbrel.

#2 – Andrew Chafin, Arizona Diamondbacks

Christian Petersen/Getty Images North America

Christian Petersen/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 51.0 IP, 1.06 ERA, 37:19 K:BB, 0.824 WHIP, 0.389 OPS, 25.37 Quality Rating

If we’re being honest, I couldn’t have told you what team Andrea Chafin was on before I began research for this piece. Regardless, Chafin fits the term “middle reliever” better than anyone on this list. Appearing in games as early as the second inning and as late as extra innings in 2015, Chafin posted an impressive 2.76 ERA, with his best work coming in innings six through eight. Chafin’s stuff doesn’t call much attention to itself, but his ability to induce ground balls and avoid giving up extra bases is extraordinary – he was the only reliever on this list to post an opponent’s slugging percentage below .200, posting a microscopic .167 mark.

#1 – Dellin Betances, New York Yankees

Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images North America

Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images North America

2015, 6th-8th innings: 64.0 IP, 0.84 ERA, 99:29 K:BB, 1.000 WHIP, 0.490 OPS, 36.19 Quality Rating

The 6-foot-8, 265 pound figure of Yankees hurler Dellin Betances has been looming over hitters from the American League East and beyond for two full seasons now, and the reign of terror doesn’t look to be ending any time soon, either. In his age 27 season, the right-hander from Brooklyn posted a total ERA of 1.50 in 84.0 innings, striking out a dizzying 131 batters, good for a K/9 of 14.04, third in baseball among relievers with 60 innings or more. The two men ahead of Betances in that ranking – Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman – will both be in the same bullpen as Betances in 2016, making what will undoubtedly be the best and most fearsome bullpen trio in baseball.

Honorable Mentions: Matt Albers, Chicago White Sox; Joe Blanton, Kansas City Royals/Pittsburgh Pirates; Addison Reed, Chicago White Sox/New York Mets; Ryan Madson, Kansas City Royals; Jeff Manship, Cleveland Indians; Darren O’Day, Baltimore Orioles

Dishonorable Mention: Justin De Fratus, Philadelphia Phillies

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2015, 6th-8th innings: 59.1 IP, 5.92 ERA, 49:22 K:BB, 1.517 WHIP, 0.845 OPS, -9.79 Quality Rating

Mr. De Fratus deserved to be mentioned in this piece simply for his expertise in one area: trickery. Somehow, Justin managed to rack up an ERA of nearly 6.00 in the middle innings for the Phillies in 2015, yet was charismatic enough to convince managers Ryne Sandberg and Pete Mackanin to let him pitch a total of 80.0 – yes, eighty – innings in this past season. There were some pitchers on my final list with slightly worse numbers than De Fratus, but the sheer volume of mediocrity is what made him deserving of making the cut. Here, he is pictured after giving up a screaming (114 MPH) line drive home run to Giancarlo Stanton on April 23.

That’s all folks! The best (and one worst) middle relievers of the 2015 season. With teams seemingly overrun with bullpen talent these days, we’re sure to see even more players break out or have career years in this role in 2016. Hopefully this piece has opened your eyes to the skills of some of these players and you enjoy watching them next year as much as I do.

Statistics compiled using data from Baseball-Reference, FanGraphs, and the Baseball-Reference Play Index.

Matt Wojciak is a 20-year old college senior at St. Joseph’s College of Maine in Standish, ME., studying for a degree in accounting. Hailing from Merrimack, NH, he has been a Boston Red Sox fan for as long as he can remember. He began his writing career with the now-hibernating blog Middle Relief Report, and now writes for Baseball Essential on a regular basis. You can follow him on Twitter @mwojciak21 or look for his work at Baseball Essential at @BB_Essential. Thanks for reading!

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) Yakyu Night Owl: Dreams of Kenji-kun

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Kenji-Alexander Ramírez was born last spring. His proud father, Alex Ramírez, will pilot the Yokohama DeNA BayStars this coming season. Rami-chan was a legend. His career was tremendous, and the accolades deserved, but there was also a certain poetry in moments big and small. Of course, his 2,000 hit in NPB was a home run. Why celebrate at first base?

When a great ballplayer adds to the family, it’s natural to be excited and think about what may happen in the future. After all, he isn’t just the newest part of a family at home. Kenji-kun has hundreds of older brothers, uncles, and aunts in his immediate baseball family, and thousands more around the world.

We can easily imagine the little fella growing into bigger and bigger uniforms and caps. If daddy keeps managing for a living, perhaps the clubhouse will be a second home. He could share enthusiastic high fives with the team after an exciting win, or a simple kind word to someone after a tough loss. In time, he may be carefully crafting rosin bags, or hanging fresh uniforms in long row of lockers. It’s fun to trace the steps along the road of a potential baseball lifer.

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For every Casey Candaele born to a Helen Callaghan, or David born to a Diego Seguí, there are a million children of ballplayers who never play baseball for a living. Like so many kids, Kenji-kun will probably not grow up to have 400 foot power, but his impact could still reach far beyond the upper deck.

Yes, it’s unfair to have expectations. He is just a little kid. At the same time, he is the youngest son of a global ambassador for the game. Imagine a generation of ballplayers learning from Kenji. By being himself, he can inspire others to be themselves. By being part of a winning clubhouse, he could show without a doubt that everyone has something to offer. He might open more eyes. He may change more hearts.

It’s a lot of pressure to put on an adorable little sprout, but this kid has immense potential, and an 80 grade grin.

Yakyu Night Owl is a writer from the Pacific Northwest who enjoys baseball across a big ocean.

(Blogathon ’16) CONTINUUM CLASSIC- The time I wrote an obituary for the 2012 Baltimore Orioles’ playoff hopes. Whoops.

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This piece from the blog’s archives is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

The Playoff Hopes of the Baltimore Orioles passed away last night at the age of 89 games, dying shortly after a 19-7 trouncing at the hands of the Minnesota Twins, who sometimes don’t even seem to score 19 runs during a single month. Although Hopes, who had not been seen this late since 1997, is still technically alive, doctors confirm that the prognosis is extremely grim and that it is only a matter of time before it is overtaken and destroyed by the American League East and the tough competition for the AL Wild Card spots due to a lack of starting pitching.

The Orioles’ Playoff Hopes leaves behind it’s brother, fellow Baltimore native Michael Phelps Olympic Hopes, as well as it’s distant cousin, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Playoff Hopes.

Services are the rest of the season. In lieu of flowers, send quality starting pitchers.

This piece from the blog’s archives has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

(Blogathon ’16) CONTINUUM CLASSIC: 2007 AAA BASEBALL HEROES

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This piece from the blog’s archives is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

Originally published June 19, 2013.

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.

I warned you. I told you it was coming. You could have gone away, but, no, you had to go and actually come here and read this installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture. This is a very special Bizarre Baseball Culture, as, for the first time, it’s something that I actually have in my very small personal collection of comic books. You see, in 2007, each Triple-A baseball team had a day celebrating superheroes, and as a giveaway, there was this comic:

2007GiveawayComic copyAnd, as you can probably guess, I was at that game and got the giveaway. And so, it sat in a drawer for almost seven years, ignored. Until today. Yes, true believers, tremble and prepare yourself for the 2007 edition of Triple-A Baseball Heroes, featuring the superheroes of Marvel Comics.

Now, a few notes before we get going here:

  • All of the images in this post were scanned by yours truly, and any problems with the quality of the images are my fault.
  • All characters and logos in the comic are property of their respective owners (such as Marvel Comics or Minor League Baseball). The excerpts from this comic used in this post are being used under fair use doctrine and are meant merely to support and enhance the opinions and facts stated in said post.
  • Click on any of the images to make them bigger.
  • To the best of my knowledge, the only way to get this comic nowadays is to find it on eBay or have gone to the games that had them released.

Now, go below the jump for the rest of the post:

Continue reading →