Weather permitting, the annual baseball game between the Democrats and Republicans of Congress is going on right now. It’s taken very seriously, to the point where freshman congressmen who would otherwise not be noted in the halls of Washington suddenly become very popular amongst their fellows if they happened to have played college ball. At least, that’s what this article seems to say.
Just in time for Man of Steel, our friend Michael Clair over at Old Time Family Baseball takes a look at a 1982 story in which Clark Kent has to manage a little league team. Go there.
Continuum Global News has been delayed until the First Anniversary Spectacular this Wednesday. In it’s stead, here is a cool link.
The Hall of Fame is opening an exhibit about scouting, which is neat. But even cooler is that they’ve started a website that has a searchable database of old scouting reports! While there aren’t that many for more recent players (you won’t find any scouting reports for Buster Posey, for example), it’s full of stuff for older players.
Here are some neat ones I’ve found:
A 1985 scouting report of the Cubs’ affiliate in Peoria: Rafael Palmeiro hits well to all fields, but Greg Maddux is not strong enough to be a starter, according to Duffy Dyer.
Orioles scout John Stokoe discusses Mariano Rivera, who he notes threw a rain-shortened no-hitter against Rochester and who he is impressed with. However, he notes that Rivera doesn’t really have any off-speed pitches, and would need one for future success. Turns out he didn’t need a true off-speed pitch. Much like everyone else, Stokoe never sees the cutter coming.
Mariners scouting report declares Alex Rodriguez is “similar to Jeter only bigger and better.”
Satchel Paige‘s faults in 1956? Too old. In 1958, a scouting report on him has “?” for age.
The Royals scout a young amateur Jim Thome… who was a shortstop at the time. Let that sink in. Jim Thome… was a shortstop. Oh, on a similar note, Frank Robinson was a 3B, and Joe Nathan was being scouted as a shortstop.
Mark McGwire pitched a bit in High School, had a body like Dave Kingman and his father was a dentist, according to a 1984 scouting report by Boston scout Joe Stephenson.
And that is just scratching the surface of what this site has… check it out.
After seeing what Target Field looks like today, I thought I’d share a link with you: Bleacher Weather, which superimposes the location of stadiums onto a weather map and gives you forecasts when you click on the stadium locations.
The National Pastime Museum is an online museum and timeline of baseball until the 1950s, with articles and pictures of unique memorabilia and artifacts thrown in. Check it out.
Today’s link is of sports team territories. It is basically based on the idea of what the “territory” of each sports team (they have NFL and NBA in addition to MLB) would be if it was actually based off of proximity to a team’s stadium. It’s an interesting contrast to the haphazard, unfair and antiquated television territory maps that exist today.
The Baseball Continuum 