Tag Archives: MLB

Could a MLB team be heading to Korea in 2014? Or the Netherlands? Or both?

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According to an article linked to from MyKBO, there are some talks in the works by the KIA Tigers to try to get an MLB team to travel to Korea to play them in an exhibition game to open the Tigers’ new stadium.

Now, no team is mentioned, although it’s said that it’s likely to be a team popular in Korea. Of course, who knows if it will happen due to logistics and other issues.

What will probably happen- at least some time in the next few years (possibly as early as next year) there will be games in the Netherlands. These games, which will be the first in Europe, will likely involve AL or NL East teams, will be played at a new stadium being built in Hoofddorp that will be able to be expanded temporarily to a 30,000 seat stadium.

It’ll be interesting to see how all of this turns out, especially given the upcoming World Baseball Classic.

The Meaning of Jackie Robinson

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The true meaning of Jackie Robinson (who would turn 94 today) is often forgotten.

I, like many others, have grown up in a sports world where it has not mattered what the color of a player’s skin was, only his talent. It matters not whether the player is Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Polynesian, or a mix of the above. All that matter is simply whether they can play. This is not just true in baseball, but in other sports as well. It is a meritocracy: If you are good, you are good, and if you stink, then you stink.

While there are, of course, still some cowards out there who continue to throw out racial epithets from the safety of anonymous accounts on the internet, they are just that- cowards. They know that what they are trying to peddle no longer is welcome in the American fan-scape.

And, although it is something of an exaggeration to say this, Jackie Robinson can be thanked for this. As not only did he show that talent knew no race, but he also showed dignity and courage doing it. He defeated those who hated and heckled him by simply ignoring them, not by giving in and returning their hatred.

A good example for any and all who have faced bullies. And something that has led to a better country, both on the field and off.

Happy Birthday, Jackie Robinson.

Famous for Something Else: Ricky Williams

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Before he played twelve seasons of professional football, Ricky Williams played baseball in the Phillies system, reaching as high as short-season low-A Batavia. Here are his stats from his time on the diamond:

Year Age Tm Lg Lev Aff G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB
1995 18 Martinsville APPY Rk PHI 36 121 113 19 27 1 0 0 11 13 2 6 32 .239 .289 .248 .537 28 1 2 0 0 0
1996 19 Piedmont SALL A PHI 84 288 266 30 50 4 3 3 20 17 8 18 87 .188 .245 .259 .504 69 2 2 2 0 1
1997 20 Piedmont SALL A PHI 37 149 136 12 28 5 0 1 6 10 4 9 44 .206 .268 .265 .533 36 0 3 0 1 0
1998 21 Batavia NYPL A- PHI 13 55 53 7 15 0 0 0 3 6 3 2 16 .283 .309 .283 .592 15 0 0 0 0 0
4 Seasons 170 613 568 68 120 10 3 4 40 46 17 35 179 .211 .265 .261 .526 148 3 7 2 1 1
A (2 seasons) A 121 437 402 42 78 9 3 4 26 27 12 27 131 .194 .253 .261 .514 105 2 5 2 1 1
Rk (1 season) Rk 36 121 113 19 27 1 0 0 11 13 2 6 32 .239 .289 .248 .537 28 1 2 0 0 0
A- (1 season) A- 13 55 53 7 15 0 0 0 3 6 3 2 16 .283 .309 .283 .592 15 0 0 0 0 0
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 1/30/2013.

Justin Upton to the Braves: Brothers in Baseball (and the many inexplicable appearances of the Padres)

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Well, that escalated quickly. I wake up, turn on the the TV, and then, BOOM! Upton family reunion in Atlanta.

No, seriously, after seemingly endless rumors and innuendo over the last year or two, Justin Upton is finally leaving Arizona. The Diamondbacks aren’t exactly getting pennies back from the Braves, either, as they are receiving Martin Prado, Randall Delgado, and some minor leaguers from the ATL.

Now, of course, is an excuse to run a feature on the best brother combos in baseball. I don’t mean cases where two or more brothers both played baseball, I’m talking when brothers played on the same team. Y’know, like how the Uptons will starting this season.

(JUMP!)

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The Lone Man to play in MLB and the NHL (and other MLB/NHL connections)

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Hockey is back!

(Crickets)

Well, anyway, there have been far fewer two-sport athletes in baseball involving hockey than there are basketball or football. In fact, there has been a grand total of one player who has spent time in the Major Leagues and the NHL. That player is Jim Riley, who spent some brief time with the St. Louis Browns and Washington Senators in the 1920s and spent a brief time with the Chicago Black Hawks (note the space) and Detroit Cougars (not yet the Red Wings) in the 1926-1927 season. Here’s what his top league statistics looked like:

In MLB:

Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards
1921 26 SLB AL 4 12 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 .000 .083 .000 .083 -78 0 0 0 /4
1923 28 WSH AL 2 5 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 .000 .400 .000 .400 13 0 0 0 /3
1931 Did not play in major leagues (Did Not Play)
2 Yrs 6 17 14 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 .000 .176 .000 .176 -52 0 0 0
162 Game Avg. 162 459 378 27 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 81 81 .000 .176 .000 .176 -52 0 0 0
WSH (1 yr) 2 5 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 .000 .400 .000 .400 13 0 0 0
SLB (1 yr) 4 12 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 .000 .083 .000 .083 -78 0 0 0
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 1/14/2013.

In the NHL:

Season Age Tm Lg GP G A PTS GC +/- PIM EV PP SH GW S S% TOI ATOI
1926-27 31 TOT NHL 9 0 2 2 1 14
1926-27 31 CBH NHL 3 0 0 0 0 0
1926-27 31 DTC NHL 6 0 2 2 1 14
Career NHL 9 0 2 2 1 14
Provided by Hockey-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 1/14/2013.

Of course, Riley also played in the minor leagues in both sports. You can find his baseball minor league stats over at Baseball Reference, and you can find his hockey stats over at hockeydb.com.

Now, although Riley is the lone man to have played in both MLB and the NHL, he is not the only player who played both sports. Not even close. Take a look after the jump for other connections between America’s pastime and Canada’s pastime:

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Review: The Living Baseball Card

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The baseball card. Is there anything so low-tech and yet interesting as it? And remember how, when you were young, you’d look over those statistics, look at the cool photos, and maybe see a line or two about the player off the field? You know, stuff like:

“Player X enjoys hunting and fishing during the off-season.”

Or…

“Player Y lettered in baseball, football and track in high school.”

Well, the Living Baseball Card project is sort of like that, only with a documentary instead of a line at the end. While it has the picture of the player and lines of stats, what sets the Living Baseball Card (which is larger than the average baseball card) apart is that it comes with a DVD that holds a documentary on the card’s player (the one I watched was about 23 minutes), in which the player talks about his childhood, upbringing, time in the minors, and MLB career.

Take the documentary I watched (I received two cards, but I’m holding one of them back as a possible giveaway in the future), which was on Royals outfielder Willie Wilson. The only person who speaks in the video is Wilson himself, as he discusses his childhood, his baseball days, as well as other topics related to his life. Having known very little about Wilson, it was interesting and seemed a good primer on him: about how he got into baseball, his experiences in the minors, etc. They ranged from the funny- he once left before the second game of a doubleheader in the minors, only to come back and have to grab his uniform out of the wash so that he could pinch-hit late in the game- to the sad- he stopped doing autographs for a time because a man had knocked down Wilson’s wife and young child trying to get it. A well-made and good paced DVD.

It will be interesting to see how the Living Baseball Card moves forward- I can definitely see it as being a possible giveaway at ballparks, for example, as the format could easily be changed around to showcase a current player, or an all-time legend that is getting his number retired.

Time will tell, but it definitely has potential.

My five best position players, pitchers, and managers- just in time for the “End of the World”

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Well, here it is. One day until the end of the world, according to the Mayans. Never mind that the Mayans actually didn’t predict that 12-21-2012 was the end of the world, or that the Mayan culture didn’t see history as a straight line but rather as a series of cycles, or that they found another Mayan calendar that extends past 2012, or that the Mayans didn’t see the collapse of their own empire coming… a bunch of crazies on the internet say the world ends tomorrow, so who am I to argue?

Humanity had a good run. We mastered fire, created the wheel, spoken and written language, and invented pre-sliced bread. And remember that time we landed a man on the moon? Or when we drove smallpox into functional extinction? And we created the Internet, allowing us to watch video of a Corgi getting cleaned using a vacuum cleaner!  Good times. Good times. Heck, it’s a shame that those stupid Mayans didn’t give us time to fix that whole Global Warming thing sometime before it turned us into a wetter version of Tatooine, because that probably would have ended up there on the list of accomplishments.

Stupid Mayans.

But, hey, the end of the world gives me the perfect excuse to finally say who I think are the greatest ballplayers of all time. After all, if history ends tomorrow, I can say with certainty that this list will never have to change again!

So here we go (after the jump- because the Mayans would have wanted it that way):

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The (AL) East is Wild

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The American League East is in a interesting situation. For years, after all, there were some things that were for certain: The Yankees and Red Sox could be expected to come in first and second (sometimes flipping the order), the Blue Jays and sometimes Orioles would be a distant third, then the Orioles and Tampa would be taking the bottom two spots.
Then, suddenly, the Rays rose, becoming a factor. And so for the past few years, there were three teams in the AL East who could be expected to make a run at the playoffs.

And then came this past season, 2012, when everything went crazy. The Yankees still won, sure, but the Red Sox plummeted and the Orioles, despite the fact they were, on paper, maybe the fourth-best team in the division, ended up snagging a wild card spot. The Rays also were pretty good and made a good run at a playoff spot, and may well have gotten one if not for injuries.

But now, with the Red Sox again opening their checkbooks, and the Blue Jays having traded for basically every good player on the Marlins and now closing in on a deal for NL Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey, the question is… where is the weakness of the AL East?

None of the teams have gotten particularly worse- although the Yankees may not have signed anybody of note (save for Kevin Youkilis) and they have Alex Rodriguez out for the first half of the season, they can hardly be considered to have suddenly plunged into irrelevance.  The Orioles haven’t really added anybody, but they’ve only lost Mark Reynolds, and most of last season’s historic bullpen will remain. The Rays have lost James Shields, but any rotation that has David Price and a lineup that has Evan Longoria is going to cause plenty of havoc in the standings.

The two teams that have added the most people- the Red Sox and Blue Jays- still have plenty of question marks. In Boston, for example, John Farrell will have to prove that his less-than-stellar performance as skipper in Toronto wasn’t just a result of the players he had available and the tough schedule he had to play. Toronto will have to avoid the injuries that devastated their pitching staff last season and integrate a bunch of new players into the team, all while also having the return of John Gibbons as manager. Gibbons had a sometimes tumultuous stint as Blue Jays’ manager from 2004 to 2008, and his hiring was something of a head-scratcher.

What does it all mean? It means that the AL East is a wild division, one with no clear favorite or clear unfavorite. It should be an interesting season in 2013.

The West Is (Number) One

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Josh Hamilton, the prize hitter on the free agent market, is a Los Angeles Angel of Anaheim. And so continues the movement of baseball’s greatest talents to the west. While it is true that Hamilton was already in the West Division of the American League, it shows that the old powers of the East Coast baseball establishment are no longer what they were- the money and the power is now out west. Consider:

  • The Dodgers are going to make so much money from their cable deal that they are now a financial force greater than even the Yankees ever were.
  • The Angels now have three players (Albert Pujols, Hamilton, and Mike Trout) who have had a claim at one point or another of being the best in baseball, as well as Mark Trumbo, one of baseball’s best young hitters (assuming they don’t flip him for pitching or prospects now).
  • The San Francisco Giants have won two of the last three World Series.
  • And the Athletics have lots of good young pitching, which, of course, can be the great equalizer.

What does this mean?
Well, for one thing, it means that staying up late will be a treat in the coming years. The struggles between the Dodgers and Giants will be grand opera, narrated by Vin Scully. The Athletics will have to once again find a sling in order to take down Goliath. The Rangers will have to do all they can simply to avoid falling into the basement of the AL West (thankfully, they will still have the Mariners and Astros to beat up on).

For another, though, it means, once again, that television and the ever-increasing riches in baseball- for all teams but definitely more for some than for others- have changed the game. The Los Angeles teams now are able to tap into more money than they had before, while established eastern powers like the Braves are trapped in bad deals. The big advantages that team-owned stations like YES and NESN once gave are now no longer so big. It’s a brave new world.

Finally, did anybody else hear that the Red Sox signed Ryan Dempster? Yeah, I almost missed it too.

Number 12s for 12/12/12

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It’s 12/12/12! So in honor of 12/12/12, perhaps it’s a good idea to note that two number 12s have seen their numbers retired in Major League Baseball.

The more notable of them is Roberto Alomar, who’s number 12 has been retired by the Toronto Blue Jays. Interestingly, Alomar is getting married today, so he must really like that number.

The other player to have number 12 retired is Wade Boggs. The reason this isn’t as notable as Alomar is because, well, Boggs had the number retired by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now Rays). Boggs was from the Tampa area, and he had his 3000th hit in a Tampa uniform, so his hometown team honored him by retiring his number. Boggs wore 26 during his time with the Boston Red Sox, and switched to 12 when he went to New York.

Number 12, it should be noted, has far more retirees in the NFL: Jim Kelly, Joe Namath, John Brodie, Bob Griese and Seattle’s “Twelfth Man” have had it retired. Just a random thing I found that I thought to note.