They say an organization takes on the traits of its leaders. So I guess it makes sense that the 2014 Cardinals are the most boring team in baseball history, because Mike Matheny is the most boring person in the world.
Zzzzzz.....
They're tearing down Tiger Stadium.
It was probably my favorite place I ever saw a ballgame. Either that or Old Comiskey.
Update! This is good news: They're going to save the field, the foul poles, and the flag pole - which used to be the only flagpole in the field of play in the major leagues. (It was until they put an in-play flag pole in the outfield of that stupid stadium in Houston, but I refuse to acknowledge that ridiculous bandbox.)
I hope the field becomes a city park or something.
It's odd, isn't it, that Tommy John had Tommy John surgery, and Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease, but Cy Young never won the Cy Young Award?
Michael Barrett of the San Diego Padres hit himself right between the eyes with a foul ball.
Ouch.
Some maps are much, much better than others.
This, for instance, is a map of the Apollo 11 astronauts' moonwalks, superimposed on a baseball diamond.
Hey, this would be cool:Multiple investor groups have expressed an interest in bringing an independent minor league baseball team to Normal, according to consultant Mike Thiessen. Thiessen is discussing with potential investors a stadium that would seat 3,500 to 4,500.
The Frontier League and Northern League are really low leagues - it's where you play if no major league team drafts you into its farm system. But baseball is baseball.
A Normal baseball team would likely play in either the Frontier League or the Northern League. Both Northern League commissioner Clark Griffith and Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee have expressed interest in having a Normal team join their league, possibly as early as 2009.
Apparently they're looking at building a stadium near Heartland Community College, which wants a decision by April 1. So we'll know something soon!
Apparently the CEO of the Tribune Company is thinking of selling the naming rights to Wrigley Field.
What a boneheaded move. It would be colossally stupid for any company to buy those rights. Cubs fans - and a lot of baseball fans in general - would hate you for it.
So in an attempt to market yourself, you'd actually hurt your marketing and PR. Talk about "perversity in Chicago..."
One exception: I think The Wrigley Company could get away with it. :-)
Good grief. I came across this today and I'm having a hard time imagining how this guy could have any less of an idea what the suicide squeeze is:For sports fans like George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the Annapolis meeting is the diplomatic equivalent of baseball's suicide squeeze bunt play: in the last inning of a nine-inning game, with runners on base and everyone wound up with anticipation, the manager tries a daring move that puts all the runners in motion while the hitter taps a soft bunt that aims to bring in a run and win the game.
For the record: The squeeze play does not occur only in the 9th inning; it does not involve starting all the runners, and it usually is successful - 86 percent of the time.
The suicide squeeze is one of the most exciting plays in baseball, perhaps in any sports. But it usually fails, because it is based on a combination of desperation and offensive deceit that rarely add up to a winning strategy.
The baseball season in the National League is coming down to the wire. With only 3 games left, everything is still up in the air. The wildest possibility is a five-team tie that would have to be resolved to determine the winners of the NL East, the NL West, and the Wild Card.
ESPN breaks down how silly this could get:Among the fun possibilities if five teams in the East and West finish the season with the same record:
Wow.
The San Diego Padres theoretically could play in Milwaukee on Sunday, in Arizona on Monday, in San Diego on Tuesday, in Philadelphia on Wednesday, back in San Diego on Thursday and then in New York on Friday.
The guy who bought the baseball that Barry Bonds hit to break Hank Aaron's record has set up a website where we, the people, get to vote what he will do with the ball. The three options are:
I think the "asterisk" option will win. Shooting it into space seems too...final. And handing it over to the Hall of Fame seems too...ordinary.
Besides, burning an asterisk into the ball would just have to irritate Barry Bonds. That makes it a good option right there.
UPDATE: This is already irritating Barry Bonds!Bonds said Ecko could have found a better way to spend three-quarters of a million dollars.
I think Ecko is very smart. Apparently he's a fashion designer by trade, and in that business your name is your brand. This guy has bought tons of brand recognition by doing this.
"He's stupid. He's an idiot," Bonds said. "He spent $750,000 on the ball and that's what he's doing with it? What he's doing is stupid."
Ecko did not directly respond to Bonds' comments Wednesday, but said in a statement he would make Bonds a custom T-shirt that says, "Marc Ecko paid $752,467 for my ball, and all I got was this 'stupid' T-shirt."'
Ah, yes. Today is one of the high holidays of baseball.
It is the 28th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
Truly one of the great moments in baseball history.
Thank you, Steve Dahl.
Are tied with Tampa for last place:The Yankees fell 13 1/2 games back of AL East-leading Boston, their biggest deficit since August 1995, and have lost four straight and eight of 11. They dropped a season-high seven games under .500 and are tied with Tampa Bay for last in the AL East at 21-28.
I love it.
The Hardball Times recently featured a story about "flawed no-hitters" which included the no-hit loss that the Yankees' Andy Hawkins suffered July 1, 1990.
I was at this game, which was also the 80th birthday of Comiskey Park: Pitching for the Yankees during their dire early '90s period Andy Hawkins took the mound in Chicago for a game against the White Sox on July 1.
I remember the crowd cheering when the scorer gave Blowers an error on Sosa's grounder to third. It was an in-between hop, and Sosa was fast in those days. It could have gone either way, but nobody wanted to see the no-hitter end on a weak two-hopper to third.
Through eight innings Hawkins had yet to allow a hit, but his hapless teammates had failed to muster any offense of their own. After getting Ron Karkovice and Scott Fletcher on pop-ups to second baseman Steve Sax, Hawkins had to face a young Sammy Sosa. Sosa reached based after an error by third baseman Mike Blowers. Perhaps rattled by this, Hawkins issued back-to-back walks to Ozzie Guillen and Lance "One Dog" Johnson.
With the bases now loaded, but two outs, Hawkins bore down and got a fly ball to left field out of Robin Ventura. The best laid plans were awry, as Jim Leyritz-—inexplicably stationed in left field by Yankees skipper Stump Merrill-—committed an error of his own, clearing the bases and leaving Ventura standing on second.
Despite this, Hawkins managed to settle down and Ivan Calderonhit a flyball in the direction of right fielder Jesse Barfield. Hawkins must have been feeling better, as Barfield was a real, actual outfielder. In fact, he wasn’t just any real, actual outfielder; he was a two-time Gold Glove winning outfielder. Those Gold Gloves didn’t do him, or Hawkins, any good. Barfield also made an error, allowing the inning’s fourth run to score.
After Hawkins finally recorded the last out, the Yankees couldn’t manage any runs in the ninth, so Hawkins had pitched a no-hitter, allowed four unearned runs and had only a loss to show for his troubles.
Things really got cooking when the bases were loaded. Everyone realized that, hey, the no-hitter is still intact and the White Sox might actually score!
We were sitting down the left-field line and when Ventura hit his routine fly ball, I looked out at Leyritz and immediately realized that he didn't have a bead on it at all. I think he lost it in the sun. He staggered around trying to find it and never really made a competitive play on it.
After that point, the place was rocking. The no-no was still intact, the White Sox had a three-run lead, and Bobby Thigpen was ready to go in the 9th.
So at that point, it was like everybody in the ballpark switched allegiances. Everybody wanted to see the no-hitter.
So when Barfield made his error, the place erupted in groans and boos. And when Hawkins finally - mercifully - escaped with the final out, the place went nuts.
I kept a scorecard of the game, and I took a couple of grainy pictures of Comiskey's scoreboard. It's the strangest line score I've ever seen:
Yankees: 0 4 4
White Sox: 4 0 0
Even though he's a Red Sock and killed the Redbirds in 2004, I really like David Ortiz.
Along with being one of the best hitters in the game, he plays with a kind of rare joy that I wish more ballplayers had.
Last night, while running the bases, he got utterly run down between first and second. He was a dead man, a sure out if ever there was one. But instead of meekly letting himself be tagged out by Mariners' shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt, he took a couple of steps forward and gave Betancourt a big bear hug.
You've got to love a guy like that.
This season, it's all you can eat in the right-field bleachers at Dodger Stadium.
This is a pretty interesting infographic. It's all of major league baseball's retired numbers. It shows some odd little quirks.
For example, I wouldn't have guessed that the most retired number (other than 42, which all MLB teams have retired because: A. Jackie Robinson wore it, and B. It is the answer to life, the universe, and everything) is 4.
Off the top of my head I can only think of one retired 4: Lou Gehrig.
I'm also surprised that there is only one retired 7 (Mickey Mantle). Generally, better baseball players get lower numbers, so you would think that there would be a slew of retired 7s. But nope, it's just Mickey.
I only recognize a few of the other "unique" retired numbers. 17 is Dizzy Dean. 45 is Bob Gibson. 72 is Carlton Fisk. 43 might be Dennis Eckersley, but I'm not sure.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, this tidbit:With Sunday's two hits, including his first home run of the season, Pujols avoided the ninth hitless series of his seven-year career.
Seven years ... and he's gone hitless in a series only 8 times. You figure in a 3-game series, a player will get about 12-15 at-bats. Plus you have to take into account the days when he doesn't play, plus the fact that they play more 2-game series than they used do.
The Astros series was the 310th in which Pujols has appeared. Of his eight hitless series, two occurred in two-game series last season against the Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets.
And that's just amazing.
Can it be that there are still three-and-a-half months until spring training? Can it be that I miss baseball already?
At the end of this season, of all seasons, can something still be missing? This season of losing streaks, of injuries, of strke threes, of swept-by-the-Cubbies? This season of Weaver, of Marquis, of Wilson, of Miles and Miles and Miles?
This season of Spiezio, of Albert the Great, of Soooooup, of Carp (just Carp), of Eck the Pest, of did-you-really-just-do-that-P-dub?, of Yadi, Yadi, Yadi?
Can something still be missing, even after this?
Yes. For this was the season in which the child in us defeated the adult in us. This was the season in which the "we can do it" beat the "we know better." This was the season in which hope beat cynicism, the season in which love beat knowledge.
This was the season to savor. This was the season of the "why not," the season of the "maybe more."
But there is no more. Not for a while. Nothing to savor now but hot stove discussions and speculations gone mad. Suppan? Weaver? Spiezio? Belliard?
All of it nothing but fantasy gone amok. All of it nothing but the displacement of childhood dreams, the substitution of X-L-S for 6-4-3. All of it just numbers, numbers, numbers.
All of it mattering not at all in comparison to the specific physics of a ball that climbs and climbs and climbs and falls and falls and falls and finally fades into the cradle of a child's hands in a late summer twilight, to the "hurray" of the crowd.
Not mattering at all, even a little bit, until the whiff of early spring grass brings the next hit-and-run, the next suicide squeeze, the next double up the gap, the next "Oh, Tony, what-are-ya-thinkin?"
Until the next swing-and-a-miss.
For in the end, that's what we live for. The next swing-and-a-miss. Not the last one, no matter how sweet the slider, or how significant the stakes, or how ungainly the Inge.
It's the next one that keeps us waiting, and watching, and dreaming of summer days to come, of autumns full of baseballs loaded with dirt and grit and spit and gumption.
The next one. It's a long way away, a winter-spring-summer-fall. A long, long way away.
So fly into the winter, Redbirds.
We'll see you in the spring.
