And I Swore I Wasn't Doing Any Fantasy Football This Year...

Last Saturday, my brother and I journeyed to the wildnerness of New Hampshire to take part in the draft for his long-running fantasy football league. He's been doing it for ten years, give or take, with a group of friends from college, but this is my second year as his "general manager" and first appearance at the draft (he refused to allow me to attend last year because I'd been in the emergency room the night before). My first appearance at ANY live draft, in fact.

It was everything I always hoped and dreamed it would be. Pretty much.

A few points before I share the potential horror that is our 2007 team:

• Saturday was hot as balls to begin with (that one's for you, Lozo). Throw in a house with no air conditioning, two seriously overmatched floor fans, and a bunch of people in a relatively enclosed space, and you had one very warm fat man.


• On the bright side, there were also approximately 473 "So when are you gonna turn on the central air?" jokes.


• Every team is allowed up to three keepers. The league commissioner kept Stephen Jackson (!), LaDainian Tomlinson (!!), and Peyton Manning (*cough*fix*cough*)...then threw a minor fit when somebody outsmarted him in the first round and snatched up the San Diego Chargers defense. I probably wouldn't have cared all that much, except he was so set on taking a defense in the first round that he snagged the Patriots...which I was hoping would slip through a couple of rounds.


• You've heard about the guy who takes things too seriously or the guy who consistently picks players who have already been taken? I was the guy who kept forgetting to check bye weeks. At one point, we were pretty sure that we wouldn't have any players for Week 6.


• For reasons that remain unknown at this time, the host's wife wanted me dead. After the draft, I was eating some celery and dip while everyone sort of stretched their legs and tried not to die from the heat. After watching me eat for a few minutes, she picked up the dip, said, "Has this been out all day? It's probably bad," and threw it away. After watching me eat it. Fortunately, it appears I'll live.

Anyhow - on to the team, which could be very good or very bad, depending on how things work out. We had the fifth and ninth picks in the supplemental draft, then drafted fourth overall when the regular picks started.

Keeper: Reggie Wayne, Indianapolis - After an injury plagued season for our team last year, Wayne was one of the only players on our roster worth keeping (in retrospect, we should've held onto Rudi Johnson - my bad).

Supplemental Pick 1: Willis McGahee, RB, Baltimore - The best back remaining at the time. Please God, let him run for 1,500 yards this year.

Supplemental Pick 2: Jon Kitna, QB, Detroit - He wasn't the highest ranked quarterback on my list - Vince Young was something like 8th (and lasted seemingly forever) - and he wasn't the first choice of either my brother or myself (he liked Chad Pennington, I favored Alex Smith), but the Lions have a ton of offensive weapons.

Round 1: Marshawn Lynch, RB, Buffalo - There weren't many top backs still available, so it's not as big a reach as it looks (that's what my brother has been telling himself, anyway).

Round 2: T.J. Houshmandzadeh, WR, Cincinnati - I didn't take Howsha-ma-zilly solely because it would allow me to quote that ridiculous ESPN commercial - it was just a nice added bonus. Of course, the one person in America who hasn't seen the commercial? My brother. Figures.

Round 3: Jacksonville DST

Round 4: Vincent Jackson, WR, San Diego - They can't go to Gates and Tomlinson ALL the time, can they?

Round 5: Marion Barber, RB, Dallas - It was between him and Julius Jones. Barber should get more goal line touches.

Round 6: Jason Elam, K, Denver - Best kicker still available. The idea was to put together a full starting lineup, then start looking for subs.

Round 7: Matt Schaub, QB, Houston - I'm hoping for a breakout season, even with the Texans subpar offensive line.

Round 8: Chris Cooley, TE, Washington - He had a good year last year (730 yards, 6 touchdowns) and is playing with an inexperienced quarterback who will hopefully view him as a safety valve.

Round 9: Seattle DST

Round 10: Reuben Droughns, RB, New York Giants - Seems like there's a good chance that he will end up getting a fair number of carries alongside Brandon Jacobs.

Round 11: Amani Toomer, WR, New York Giants - We had him last year and he was a big producer before injuring his knee.

Round 12: Damon Huard, QB, Kansas City - It was either Huard or another kicker. Considering the potential crapfest that is our quarterback situation, we figured this was the best option.

My overall thoughts: This team has a chance to be solid, but there are a lot of ifs - if Lynch can become the featured back in Buffalo, if McGahee bounces back in Baltimore, if Schaub emerges as a top-line NFL quarterback in Houston...you get the point. It'll be interesting to see which of our many reaches pan out and which don't.

Checks and Balances, Part 2

One month into the 2007 baseball season, I revisited my preseason predictions to see how I was doing. Now, with about a month left before the playoffs start, it's time to take another look:

Predicted American League East
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Baltimore Orioles

Actual American League East
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays
Baltimore Orioles
Tampa Bay Devil Rays

How am I doing? The Red Sox have not left first place since the first Checks and Balances on May 2, the Yankees righted the ship and reentered the postseason picture after a terrible first two months, and the Blue Jays have been just as mediocre as expected. I thought Tampa Bay would have a mini-breakout year, priming the pump for a run at .500, but their stranglehold on the basement continues, despite the ongoing efforts of the Baltimore Orioles.

Predicted American League Central
Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins
Cleveland Indians
Chicago White Sox
Kansas City Royals

Actual American League Central
Cleveland Indians
Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins
Kansas City Royals
Chicago White Sox

How am I doing? The Indians are trying to run away with the division, bringing a four game lead into Thursday night's game against Seattle. Detroit has not been helped by the extended absences of Fernando Rodney, Joel Zumaya and Kenny Rogers from the pitching staff, and Minnesota just hasn't put it together all season. The big surprise for many is the White Sox - who among us (besides PECOTA) had Ozzie Guillen's team in last place at this stage?

Predicted American League West
Oakland Athletics
Los Angeles Angels
Texas Rangers
Seattle Mariners

Actual American League West
Los Angeles Angels
Seattle Mariners
Oakland Athletics
Texas Rangers

How am I doing? It appears I vastly overrated Oakland, which hasn't been able to put together another big second half run, and underrated Seattle, which overcame an "eh" start (26-24 at the end of May) and the loss of manager Mike Hargrove to become a player in the playoff race. The Rangers have been a disappointment, but they'll always have 30-3. Los Angeles, honestly, scares me as much as any American League team aside from the Yankees.

AL MVP: David Ortiz, Boston (.322, 25 HR, 89 RBI, 1.013 OPS) - Ortiz has "struggled" this season (really, his homerun numbers are down while everything else has remained pretty solid) but could probably be considered a dark horse candidate at this point. Barring an atrocious September, however, the award belongs to Alex Rodriguez (with Magglio Ordonez the likely runner-up).

AL Cy Young: Johan Santana, Minnesota (14-10 W-L, 3.06 ERA, 200 K) - Although Santana still has a chance at walking away with his third Cy, the favorites at this point include Boston's Josh Beckett, LA's Kelvim Escobar and Cleveland's C.C. Sabathia.

AL Rookie of the Year: Delmon Young, Tampa Bay (.292, 10, 69, .733) - Recent buzz has centered around Boston's trio of rookies (Dustin Pedroia, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima), all of whom are likely to finish ahead of Young in the voting. Still, not a bad rookie season from a guy who could be a cornerstone in Tampa Bay's outfield for years to come.

Predicted National League East
Philadelphia Phillies
New York Mets
Florida Marlins
Atlanta Braves
Washington Nationals

Actual National League East
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Atlanta Braves
Florida Marlins
Washington Nationals

How am I doing? Philadelphia just swept the Mets in a huge four game series and is primed to make a late-season run for first. The Braves are lurking around within striking distance. The Nationals aren't as bad as expected, but they aren't that good either.

Predicted National League Central
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers
St. Louis Cardinals
Houston Astros
Cincinnati Reds
Pittsburgh Pirates

Actual National League Central
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers
St. Louis Cardinals
Cincinnati Reds
Houston Astros
Pittsburgh Pirates

How am I doing? I should never have given up on the Cubs in early May. After sitting 8 1/2 games behind Milwaukee on June 23, Chicago has charged to the head of the standings despite an 11-15 record in August. Also coming on are the Cardinals (somehow bolstered by the arrivals of Joel Pineiro and Rick Ankiel) and the Reds (still seven games back, but in this division...). Houston fired its manager and general manager this week. Fortunately, the Pirates aren't trying any funny business.

Predicted National League West
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants
Colorado Rockies
Arizona Diamondbacks

Actual National League West
San Diego Padres
Arizona Diamondbacks
Los Angeles Dodgers
Colorado Rockies
San Francisco Giants

How am I doing? Only the Giants are really out of it at this point, with the remaining four teams all within 5 1/2 games of the lead. The Padres and Dodgers were expected to be near the top. The Diamondbacks? Not so much.

NL MVP: Albert Pujols, St. Louis (.321, 30, 84, .987) - More than any other award, this one will depend on what people and teams do down the stretch. Current candidates include Pujols, Prince Fielder, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez...

NL Cy Young: Roy Oswalt, Houston (14-6, 3.21, 139) - Not a bad season from the Astros' ace, but this award probably belongs to Jake Peavy (15-5, 2.18, 197).

NL Rookie of the Year: Josh Hamilton, Cincinnati (.285, 17, 41, .917) - He might have been the frontrunner until a couple of guys named Hunter Pence and Ryan Braun appeared on the scene (Pence fell off the pace when he missed a month; Braun is the likely winner).

Visual Crack: For A Second There, I Thought We Had Something Special

Deadspin has Kige Ramsey. Awful Announcing has freekinwilly (what do you mean, he only shows up on weekends? What are you implying?). And for just a moment, I thought One More Dying Quail had Cassie Corless.

Unfortunately, Cassie only made two videos for YouTube, the last one in mid-July, before disappearing back into the Internet, but her second offering earns a mention here for several reasons:

1) Her segues from topic to topic are outstanding.

2) Granted, she only did two videos, but she's holding a different brand of beer in each one. I like to think this would have become a sort of signature move for her, punctuated by a mad dash to the store before video 10 when she realized that all she had in her apartment was Heineken, and SHE HAD FILMED WITH THAT ONE ALREADY!

3) She's a human rule book. Sacrifice flies, strike fours...you name it, she'll explain it to you.

4) That trivia question...come back, Cassie! We need an answer!

Happy Birthday: August 27 - September 2

(Baseball birthdays found here have been compiled from the “Frivolities” section at Baseball-Reference.com. All other birthdays were taken from Wikipedia.)

Non-celebrity birthdays of the week: my father-in-law turns 50-something today and my wife’s newly engaged cousin Tom turns 28 tomorrow.


August 27
Lyndon B. Johnson (36th U.S. President) – 1908
Jim Thome (baseball) – 1970
Billy Buckner (baseball) – 1983

August 28
Lou Piniella (baseball) – 1943
Rick Rossovich (actor) – 1957
Scott Hamilton (figure skating) – 1958
Pierre Turgeon (hockey) – 1969
Tom Shearn (baseball) – 1977

August 29
Ingrid Bergman (actress) – 1915
Michael Jackson (singer) – 1958
Jamal Lewis (football) – 1979

August 30
Kiki Cuyler (baseball) – 1898
Ted Williams (baseball) – 1918
Robert Parish (basketball) – 1953
Shaun Alexander (football) – 1977
Andy Roddick (tennis) – 1982

August 31
Eddie Plank (baseball) – 1875
Ray Dandridge (baseball) – 1913
Frank Robinson (baseball) – 1935
Von Hayes (baseball) – 1958
Hideo Nomo (baseball) – 1968

September 1
Jim O’Rourke (baseball) – 1850
Rocky Marciano (boxing) – 1923
Craig Skok (baseball) – 1947
Zach Thomas (football) – 1973

September 2
Al Spalding (baseball) – 1850
Terry Bradshaw (football) – 1948
Christa McAuliffe (astronaut) – 1948
Jimmy Connors (tennis) – 1952
Lennox Lewis (boxing) – 1965
Salma Hayek (actress) – 1966

The Rangers Scored 30...But Who Scored 29?

The Texas Rangers lit up the Baltimore Orioles for a modern-day record thirty runs last night, which must be a big deal because this is my third consecutive post on the subject and virtually every other sports blog and mainstream media site has covered it in some way, shape or form.

With all the attention focused on the frontier justice perpetrated by the Rangers (take that, Erik Bedard!), the teams that previously held the mark for most runs in a nine inning game with 29 have slipped back into history virtually unnoticed. Sure, there's all this talk about the Chicago Colts and how they once scored 37 runs in a game way back in 1897, but since when do we care about baseball records set before 1900? Since never, that's when.

So let's take a look at the teams that held the record before the Rangers. There were two of them, both of which played prior to the Retrosheet Era (sorry, no box scores) and beat teams that kinda sorta no longer exist, at least in the same form. The first was the 1950 Boston Red Sox, a lineup that featured two Hall of Famers (Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr), three borderline candidates (Johnny Pesky, Vern Stephens, and Dom DiMaggio) and scored 1,027 runs on the season.

On June 8 at Fenway Park (which had a ridiculous 110 Park Factor for batting and 107 for pitching that year), the Sox absolutely demolished the St. Louis Browns (a team that ironically later moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles) by the score of 29-4. It was, at the time and for the next 57 years, the largest margin of victory in modern major league history. Even more impressive was that the slaughter was a two-day affair: on June 7, that vaunted Boston lineup had warmed up with another laugher, 20-4.

As mentioned above, I couldn't find a box score for this game online, so here is some of the vital information (from Baseball Library):

Bobby Doerr has three home runs and eight RBI; Walt Dropo, two home runs and seven RBI, and Ted Williams, two home runs and five RBI, all collecting a round tripper in the 8th inning. Pitcher Chuck Stobbs walks four times in four innings, Al
Zarilla adds four doubles, including two in one inning, and a single—with no ribbies—as the Sox set a major-league record with 58 total bases...Leadoff batter Clyde Vollmer goes to the plate eight times in eight innings, the only time this has happened in history.

The second pre-Texas record holder was the other Sox, the Chicago variety, which on April 23, 1955, beat the tar out of the Kansas City Athletics by a score of 29-6. Like Boston, the 1955 Chicago lineup featured a pair of Hall of Famers (George Kell and Nellie Fox) and at least one maybe (Minnie Minoso), as well as former Red Sox Walt Dropo and Vern Stephens, who were both on the 1950 team that originally set the record. It was a far less prolific lineup, however, scoring nearly 300 fewer runs (727), but the pitching staff was also better, giving up about 250 less on the season (804 to 557).

Again, no box score online (oh, how accustomed I've come to the magic of the Retrosheet Era!), but Baseball Historian did have a reprint of the newspaper article that ran the following day. The focus: journeyman catcher Sherm Lollar, who homered twice and tied a major league record by twice hitting safely two times in one inning.


The thing that amazes me most about these games is that they were both played before the advent of the designated hitter rule, which means the pitchers came to bat several times for each team. The Baseball Library article quoted above mentions that Boston's pitcher drew four walks in four innings - imagine if that position had been a DH instead of the pitcher, how many runs that might have added to the final total.

For my money, however, the craziest fact here is that the Red Sox were the home team. Not only did they not have the benefit of the designated hitter, they only got to bat eight times in the game. And as Texas' six-run ninth against Baltimore showed, those three extra outs can make a world of difference.

Answerbag.com: Where Amateur Psychics Go To Ply Their Trade

Lost in the craziness that was the Texas Rangers scoring thirty runs against Baltimore last night was the team they passed for the modern record: the Boston Red Sox, who once sent the St. Louis Browns running for cover after a brutal 29-4 beating.

While looking for the exact date that this happened so I could attempt to find a box score, I found the following blurb that some character named SlickRick had posted on Answerbag.com:

The Chicago Colts set the record for most runs in a game on June 29, 1897 when they scored 36 against the Louisville Colonels.

Since 1900, two teams hold the record. The Boston Red Sox scored 29 against the St. Louis Browns on June 8, 1950. The Chicago White Sox tied the record five years later when they defeated the Kansas City Athletics 29-6 on April 23, 1955.

The way runs are being scored today, we might not have to wait very long to see this record broken.

Why so impressive? Because this was written on August 31, 2004.

Some will say that SlickRick is not, in fact, a psychic, that it didn't take much baseball knowledge or common sense to speculate that some team would eventually remove the Sox from that section of the record books. I disagree; obviously my main man Rick knew what was going on and saw fit to warn us well ahead of time.

Give it to me straight, Rick. I can take it. Boston Red Sox=2007 World Series champions?

The Texas Rangers Don't Have A Good Offense, You Say?

There has been a lot of ridicule around the Internet this week for the Texas Rangers following back-to-back games in which they struck out a total of thirty times.

Ordinarily, I would consider hopping up on my high horse and talking about how stupid and thoughtless it is to make comments like this. Sure, thirty strikeouts in two games, including 28 by the starting pitchers, is pretty rough - unless those opposing starters happen to be named Johan Santana (17) and Erik Bedard (11). Then it starts to make sense.

The Rangers don't need me to make their point for them, however. They are currently performing a prison yard-style beatdown on Baltimore, 20-3, with six runs in and no outs in the eighth. Since I first read about this at Baseball Musings and decided to post about it, Texas has scored ten unanswered runs. Poor Brian Burres probably wishes he took the night off - eight runs allowed, all earned, in 2/3 of an inning.

Take that, naysayers.

UPDATE: Ten runs in before the Orioles get out of the eighth, and the score is now 24-3. Rob Bell did his level best to match Burres - 1 1/3, seven runs, all earned. Ouch.

UPDATE 2: As you have no doubt heard by now, the final score was Texas 30, Baltimore 3 (thanks Bruce!). The thirty runs are a major league record. And the best part? Wes Littleton worked three innings and was credited with a save. The score was 14-3 when he entered the ballgame.

Happiness is an Eight Inch Tall Bobblehead

My wife and I (and our friends Chris and Colleen) attended our second Nashua Pride game of the season last night on "Standup Comedy Night" at Historic Holman Stadium. Throughout the course of the game, five comedians took center stage (the top of the home dugout) and were given two minutes to make us laugh as much as possible.

Most failed miserably.

The guy who ended up winning (number two or three, I think. The only one I clearly remember was number five, clearly the best of the bunch. Of course, he didn't even finish in the top three) only earned the $500 prize because he was smart enough to throw a Barack Obama reference into his bit. The Illinois senator and presidential candidate was on hand to take in the ballgame and host a picnic for his New Hampshire supporters. Chris and Colleen and myself made it a goal to meet Obama and possibly ask him a hard-hitting question (Chris and Colleen are both conservative Republicans. I'm a registered Independent and the only one who may actually vote for the guy), which was difficult because a) we weren't wearing little stickers that identified us as invited guests to this picnic and b) I'm pretty sure his security detail viewed us all as mildly sketchy figures (at one point, Chris looked at me over his shoulder and said, "So are we gonna do this?", to which I replied, "We've come this far - can't go back now." No, we didn't look like terrorists at all.) Still, we managed to get right in front of him (first impression: taller than I realized), Chris prepared to extend his hand in greeting and get his thoughts on education...when one of the campaign aides suggested they start heading to their seats. As the British would say, "Bollocks."

My night was ultimately a success, however, because four innings later, while waiting for a second chance to greet the senator, I happened to look into the basket of a vendor who walked in front of me on the concourse. What was he carrying? A plain white box containing a limited edition Rich Garces Bobble Belly.

A little known fact about me: I love bobbleheads. Thanks to my time as a Pride employee, I have a total of about 10-15, some of which are stupid (a couple samples that have no personal meaning whatsoever, a WNBA mascot) and some of which are very cool (Butch Hobson, the Old Man of the Mountain, Richard Nixon). Most of them are downstairs in storage right now, banished to a far off place by the birth of my son and his hostile takeover of our second bedroom (previously my Man Room), but I assure you: someday, when I have a house of my own, those bad boys will be prominently displayed once again (no matter how much it embarrasses the boy - did I mention that he stole my room?).

Considering my love for all things bobbly and the fact that Chris and I were enjoying the Spectre of Garces enough to arm him with a secondary nickname (Dark Side of the Moon - don't ask me to explain it) and randomly shreik "EL GUAPO!" throughout the night, this was a must-have item.

"How much?" I asked the kid with the bobblehead.

"Twenty dollars," he replied.

You know James Earl Jones' big speech in Field of Dreams, the "people will come" speech where he basically tells Kevin Costner that people will be so focused on following their dreams and attaining some inner peace that they will gladly hand him twenty dollars to go look at his cornfield-turned-baseball diamond? Yeah, that was me. $20 was just a goal to reach, a number that stood between me and El Guapo - outside of that, it had no actual meaning. I scraped together what was in my pocket and rolled Colleen for another $10, almost before I knew it finding myself the proud owner of a Rich Garces Bobble Belly. People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone. Not thinking that my wife might not appreciate me spending $20 on a single bobblehead ("But dear...El Guapo...Field of Dreams..."), I asked the kid if they had any more in the team's gift shop. His answer: "Sure, we have a few. Butch Hobson, the Old Man of the Mountain, Roy Campanella..."

Well, fuck me. Roy Campanella. Not only one of the greatest catchers of all-time, but one of the two guys (Don Newcombe was the other) who broke the minor league baseball color barrier in the United States with the Nashua Dodgers in 1946. Talk about your underappreciated pioneers. While Jack Robinson was up in Montreal doing his thing, Campanella and Newcombe were down in New Hampshire doing theirs, blazing a trail and playing some pretty damn good baseball in the process. Needless to say, the news of a Campy bobblehead sent me charging off to the main concourse, to the team store.

Once there, I thought for about four seconds if I really wanted to buy it. Had the price been more than $10, it might've dragged out to seven or eight seconds. As it was, that thing was mine in the time it took the lady behind the counter to swipe my debit card and ask me to sign my name. Thirty dollars, gone - but in its place, two collector's items.

Tell that to my wife, who appreciates my many quirks (I also continue to collect baseball cards - sometimes, you'd swear I was about seven years old) but has never shared my love of bobbly things. It took her some time to wrap her brain around the fact that I had spent $30 on a couple of goofy looking statues - truth be told, she'll probably be struggling with it for awhile.

Wait until I tell her they're going in our living room, on the coffee table, for all visitors to see and enjoy.

In the end, the night couldn't have gone better (even if the wily and elusive Barack Obama managed to elude our grasp). The Pride, playing as the "away" team against the Can-Am League's traveling squad (the Grays), won a 4-3 nail biter (thanks in large part to five errors by the "home" team), with Garces strolling in from the bullpen to nail things down with a 1-2-3 ninth for his sixteenth save. I added two bobbly items (and a kick-ass El Guapo poster) to my collection. And I never have to listen to any of the five featured comedians ever again.

Photos: Nashua Pride, Cooperstown Glory, American Rhetoric, Lunatic Fringe

Visual Crack: Yay, El Guapo!

This video is long, so I don't expect you to watch the whole thing. But how often do we get the opportunity to watch Rich Garces, in all his glory, pitching for a team in an independent league? (When I worked for the Pride, the coolest player we had was Dante Bichette. I think El Guapo would've been better.)



Two notes:

1) The public address announcer is Ken Cail, a local radio host who has done PA for the Pride since 1998. After listening to him for two full seasons, I feel confident saying that he belongs in Fenway Park or Camden Yards or some other major league park.

2) El Guapo is sponsored. That should be Sports Illustrated's "This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse" or something.

Why The Long Face, Horse? The Red Sox Are Okay

It's August 21 and the Boston Red Sox have the best record in baseball and a 4 1/2 game division lead over the New York Yankees.

Naturally, the Red Sox fan base is in an absolute state of panic. We are at Defcon 1. The terror alert level is red. The British are coming, the British are coming.

But why? Why are people so upset about a team that has struggled at times offensively, but still done enough to win 75 games and hold first place since April 18? Boasts two 15-game winners and three viable Rookie of the Year candidates on it's roster? Has a very manageable schedule coming up in late August and all of September?

Listening to a few of the callers to the local sports talk station this afternoon (as well as the hosts themselves) helped me to understand some of the logic behind those questions, faulty though it may be.

Big Papi is having a subpar season.

Admittedly not something heard on the radio today, but it has been kicked around as one of the symptoms of the team's offensive struggles (along with Manny Ramirez's inability to get hot so far). And truth be told, Ortiz has battled shoulder and knee problems for much of the season, requiring alterations to his stance (at the suggestion of hitting coach Dave Magadan, he now stands more upright) and robbing him of some power and ability to hit the ball with as much authority as we have come to expect. The result? A fair number of fly balls that might have been homeruns from 2003-06 have died on the warning track in 2007.

But Baseball Musings hit it on the head recently, noting that this "has been a down homerun year" for the slugger. Not a down offensive year - a down homerun year. Through Sunday, Ortiz was hitting .316 (tenth in the league) with 38 doubles (third), 21 homeruns (tied for tenth) and 79 RBI (tied for eleventh). Most importantly, he leads the league in on base percentage (.427) and is third in slugging percentage (.556) and OPS (.982). In conclusion: subpar season, my ass.

Why does Terry Francona keep telling the media that he will continue using Eric Gagne in close and late situations? Why, God, why?

Gagne's difficulties since coming over to the Red Sox at the trade deadline are already the stuff of legend: 8 games, 10 runs, 16 hits, 12.86 ERA, .444 opponents batting average. He has been directly responsible for three losses in that time, a lack of success that has led some to wonder out loud if he is actually on the Yankees' payroll.

I don't know a lot about pitching mechanics and whatnot, but Gagne appears to be throwing the ball okay. His fastball has lost some life since the glory days with the Dodgers and he has had some difficulty throwing his offspeed stuff for strikes, but overall he appears to be physically capable of getting guys out when he toes the rubber.

The problem with Gagne, then, is one of confidence. Relief pitchers, closers in particular, need to know that when they step up onto the mound, they are in control, that they are in charge of the outcome from beginning to end. As Gagne suffers through rough outing after rough outing, the frustration is written across his face. When he issued a one out walk to Los Angeles's Casey Kotchman in the ninth inning of an eventual loss on August 17, you could see it there, plain as day - "Uh oh, here we go again." Every subsequent batter was approached almost with the expectation of defeat - instead of knowing that he held all the cards and would set this guy down with no problem, Gagne appeared to think that maybe, if he was lucky, he could get out of the inning without suffering any damage. That's not a mindset you want your closer to have.

Seeing this, the natural instinct is to suggest chaining Gagne to the bullpen bench and refusing to release him until they need someone to handle mop up duty. Tempting, but as Terry Francona realizes, ultimately out of the question. The Sox gave up three players to bring Gagne to Boston, including a major league ready pitcher who had been extremely useful in the rotation to this point. You don't just bury an investment like that after a few bad outings.

Francona has been around baseball for a long time. He knows the fragility of the Gagne situation. Leaving him on the sidelines is probably tempting, but he realizes that to do so could totally destroy the man's confidence, to the point that expecting him to be a useful bullpen contributor at any time this season becomes wishful thinking.

The solution? Keep running him out there, if not in tight games then in ones in which the team has a four run lead. Let him know that even though he doesn't believe in himself, even though the media is busy making jokes about his performance, even though the fans long for the return of the Kason Gabbard Era, that the manager, the guy who counts, still thinks he can do the job. Sooner or later, that sort of support pays off. (Please God, let it be sooner.)

That's why Terry Francona keeps relying on Eric Gagne. And in a related note...

They should have traded for Jermaine Dye instead of Eric Gagne at the deadline. Why try to fix something that isn't broken?

The idea of acquiring Dye for the stretch one must have been tempting. He would have brought a powerful bat to a lineup that has struggled to get on track this season. The problem, however, is threefold: one, where would they have played him? David Ortiz is the designated hitter. Manny Ramirez is entrenched in left, Coco Crisp provides outstanding defense and reliable offense in center, and J.D. Drew is in right. The most likely cut would have been Drew, who has woefully underperformed this season, but what exactly are the odds that Theo Epstein allows a free agent signee making $14 million in the first year of his contract to ride the pine for any significant length of time? Somewhere between slim and none, which would have left Dye, a veteran who wanted to play every day, scrambling for playing time. Last time that happened, Jay Payton ended up in Oakland.

Two, a more antagonistic caller than the usual "yes men" noted that this is a classic second guess situation. Because Gagne has been a disaster and Dye has been solid thus far in August, it's easy to look at the situation as is. But what if the roles were reversed? What if Gagne had been lights out for the Rangers (or whatever team acquired him) and Dye had floundered upon his arrival in Boston? The exact same point would be up for discussion, only everyone would be saying that we should have bolstered the bullpen and not taken the risk on Dye.

And third, what would Dye have cost? Various rumors indicate that Wily Mo Pena, Craig Hansen, and Manny Delcarmen were all brought up as potential compensation. According to MLB Trade Rumors, Delcarmen was the sticking point at the wire - the White Sox wanted him, the Red Sox didn't want to give him up. The Other Manny is a valuable contributor to the bullpen - losing him would have weakened it greatly, especially if we assume that the Gagne deal doesn't go through (and also that the latter trade ends up working out in the long run).

The second part of that question, why try to fix something that's not broken, is an example of short-sightedness on the part of Red Sox fans and followers who look at the bullpen situation at the time and wonder why they needed to add to a relief corps that was already among the best in the majors. Every single member is solid in his own right, but all come with a built in "but" that needed to be addressed.

Delcarmen, for instance, is fairly solid (he's only allowed runs in four of his 26 appearances this season), but he's only 25 years old, one season removed from a 5.06 ERA in 50 games, and prone to allowing the occasional big inning. He might continue to be good - or, he might not.

Mike Timlin is a longtime contributor to the Sox who has only allowed two runs since June 26, but he's 41 years old and already missed over a month earlier in the season with arm problems.

Hideki Okajima has been unbelievable, making the All-Star team and emerging as an extreme darkhorse for Rookie of the Year honors, but it is mid-August and he has already pitched more innings than any season since 2001. His is the name most often thrown about when the topic of Gagne comes up - "We had Okajima as a setup man, why change that?" - which makes some sense, if there are no extenuating circumstances. Epstein and Francona, however, saw the wisdom in cutting back Hideki's workload down the stretch and keeping him fresh for the playoff run. If Gagne ever starts pitching effectively, that is still a valid plan.

Finally, Jonathan Papelbon is one of the best closers in the game, but he experienced shoulder issues after a heavy workload near the end of last season and has been treated with kid's gloves in 2007. Francona doesn't like to use him on back-to-back days or for more than one inning, which could be a problem in the event of a series like the one against the Yankees at the end of August. Assuming Gagne pitched well - and at the time the trade was made, the Red Sox had no reason to assume he wouldn't - having two dominant closers to throw out at the end of games was a tantalizing prospect.

Francona needs to settle on a single lineup. I mean, really: Bobby Kielty batting third?!

This one needs to be studied further: how much does a set lineup affect the fortunes of a baseball team's offense? I suspect that frequent changes aren't as damaging as fans tend to think and that most of the public uproar over such a managerial style is media driven.

As for the newly acquired Bobby Kielty's position in the three spot this evening (a source of major consternation for one of the local hosts) - strange, yes. Unexpected, yes. But it becomes more clear after looking at the numbers. Kielty vs. Tampa Bay starting pitcher Scott Kazmir: 7-for-13 with two homeruns and a ridiculous 1.648 OPS. David Ortiz (who normally bats third) vs. Kazmir: 5-for-34, one homerun, an equally ridiculous (for different reasons) .521 OPS. Sure, the sample sizes are small, and Kielty ended up going 0-for-5, but given his past success it was a chance worth taking.

This team never gets those big walk-off wins anymore. They have no heart.

I haven't heard this as much lately, following two big come from behind wins and one other that fell just short thanks to a Gagne implosion, but I'm sure there are fans out there who truly believe that this team does not have what it takes to win closely contested games when it counts.

The answer to that, I suppose, depends on just how much of a role you expect "heart" to play in a team's success or failure. Unlike many people, I believe that it can be an important factor; the Los Angeles Angels, for instance, scare the hell out of me because of the way they battle to the last out and genuinely enjoy and celebrate every big win. They are a team that appears to have great chemistry, which is important no matter what line of work you are in.

The Sox are no slouches in that department, however. They may not lead the league in come from behind wins, but they have a terrific mix of guys who treat every play like life or death (Kevin Youkilis, Jason Varitek) and guys who have a ton of fun on the field regardless of the circumstances (Manny Ramirez, Julian Tavarez). They're solid. Personally, "clutchness" is the least of my worries.

These are just a few of the questions that are often asked and rarely answered about the Red Sox. I'm not saying that these are the only possible solutions to the problems posed by fans and the media - the situations are complex and can obviously have more than one valid answer - but I think it demonstrates that if we just sit back and actually think about these things, we will find some reasoning for many of the issues that frustrate us.

The Channel 4 News Team Wants YOU!

Last month, I swore up and down that I would not be attempting to run any fantasy football teams this season. After ignoring, in order, my more recent football, basketball, hockey, and baseball entries, it just didn't seem like a very valuable use of my time.

Then my brother called to let me know that he was still counting on my "help" for his team this year. He's in a keeper league with a bunch of old college buddies, one of whom has inexplicably acquired Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Stephen Jackson over the years. Unless I can come up with a far reaching scandal that implicates one or more of those three, Quentin will probably win again this year.

And as if that wasn't enough, fellow Awful Announcing affiliate Signal to Noise came up with the idea of starting up a Channel 4 News Team league. We ran through the obvious entries, added a few other players from blogs we enjoy, got turned down/ignored by a handful of people - and eventually ended up with eleven participants.

If you're interested in being that twelfth member, head on over to Signal to Noise and let him know why you feel you belong. Entries should be in by the end of the week, with the decision likely coming by the end of October (we aren't a particularly efficient organization).

Good luck!

Happy Birthday: August 20 - 26

(Baseball birthdays found here have been compiled from the “Frivolities” section at Baseball-Reference.com. All other birthdays were taken from Wikipedia.)

August 20
Al Lopez (baseball) – 1908
Chris Drury (hockey) – 1976

August 21
Toe Blake (hockey) – 1912
Jack Buck (broadcaster) – 1922
Wilt Chamberlain (basketball) – 1936
Archie Griffin (football) – 1954
B.J. Upton (baseball) – 1984
Hayden Panettiere (actress) – 1989

August 22
Ned Hanlon (baseball) – 1857
Carl Yastrzemski (baseball) – 1938
Bill Parcells (football) – 1941
Paul Molitor (baseball) – 1956
Mats Wilander (tennis) – 1964

August 23
George Davis (baseball) – 1870
George Kell (baseball) – 1922
Sonny Jurgensen (football) – 1934
Julio Franco (baseball) – 1958
Kobe Bryant (basketball) – 1978
Rex Grossman (football) – 1980

August 24
Harry Hooper (baseball) – 1887
Kenny Baker (actor) – 1934
Vince McMahon (pro wrestling) – 1945
Cal Ripken, Jr. (baseball) – 1960
Reggie Miller (basketball) – 1965

August 25
Althea Gibson (tennis) – 1927
Sean Connery (actor) – 1930
Rollie Fingers (baseball) – 1946
Albert Belle (baseball) – 1966
Rachael Ray (TV personality) – 1968
Claudia Schiffer (model) – 1970
Justin Upton (baseball) – 1987

August 26
Tom Heinsohn (basketball) – 1934

Jamal Lewis (football) – 1979

Does This Mean I'm Part Of The Mainstream Media?

Several weeks ago, I mentioned to my good friend The Extrapolater that I was interested in trying my hand at freelance writing - you know, see if I was actually good enough to get something published, maybe make a few dollars off my work. He suggested the up and coming Chicago Sports Weekly, a new paper that had already printed one or two of his stories, and had an editor willing to work with newbies like myself.

I gave it a try, contacting the editor at the beginning of summer. Yesterday, it finally paid off when I got an email saying that my piece on 300 game winners was in the August 15 edition. Here's the link (it's a PDF file):

http://csweekly.com/CSWEEKLY/august15.pdf

The coolest thing about this is that you can read my story on page 25, then continue on to pages 26 and 27 for Extra P.'s article on pensions for retired NFL players. As I told him in a celebratory email this afternoon, the Channel Four News Team is taking over the world...or at least the midwest.

The Real Reason Jose Offerman Charged The Mound

On the surface, it appears we know all the facts surrounding the incident that took place on Tuesday evening in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in a game between the hometown Bluefish and the Long Island Ducks: Long Island's Jose Offerman was hit by a pitch in his second at-bat and chose to deal with the situation in a manner that, in retrospect, was probably not a good idea. The picture sums it up adequately, I think:


Needless to say, Offerman is taking a lot of flak for the incident. He was arrested and charged with assault, his name and picture were all over the blogs on Wednesday, and there is a good chance he will face a lifetime ban from the Atlantic League in the not-too-distant future (and when independent leagues won't have you - well, hope you enjoyed your career, Jose). It's hard to imagine that things could have gotten worse than they already were for Jose Offerman, but they did.


The problem is, I think Offerman's intentions in this situation may have been misunderstood. Isn't it possible, if not probable, that he was merely trying to pay homage to one of the most infamous incidents in major league history: August 22, 1965, the day Juan Marichal took exception to a John Roseboro return throw to the pitcher that came a little too close and responded by playing Whack-A-Mole on Roseboro's head? Consider the evidence:

• Roseboro played for the Dodgers. Offerman's major league career began with the Dodgers.

• The incident occurred on Tuesday. Today is the five-year anniversary of Roseboro's death.

• The Revenge of Offerman took place on August 14. Roseboro v. Marichal took place on August 22. Close enough.

• The pitcher on the mound when Marichal unloaded on Roseboro? Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax. The pitcher on the mound when Offerman erupted? Matt Beech. Both are left-handed.

• The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants are one of the biggest rivalries in baseball today, and even moreso in the 1960s. The Bridgeport Bluefish and Long Island Ducks are one of the biggest rivalries in the Atlantic League.

Clearly, Offerman's best defense at this point is to claim he's a history buff and was merely trying to honor Roseboro's memory.

Photo: AP Photo/Connecticut Post, Christian Abraham, WhatIfSports.com

The BizHOF: Introducing the Class of 1981

As part of an ongoing project, One More Dying Quail will be profiling the 182 current members of the Bizarro Hall of Fame, an organization that currently exists only in my mind. It was created in the wake of Major League Baseball’s infamous Steroid Era as a way of honoring those players whose careers were perfectly mediocre: the only requirement is that a candidate be listed on the official Baseball Hall of Fame ballot and receive zero votes.

Class of 1981

Ken Berry – Berry wasn’t the offensive threat one might expect in an outfielder – 58 homeruns, .255 batting average, .652 OPS – but he stuck around for fourteen seasons on the strength of his glove. He won two Gold Gloves in 1970 and 1972, the second when he recorded thirteen outfield assists and did not commit an error for the California Angels.

Johnny Briggs – Briggs hit 139 homeruns in his twelve-year career, but none were more interesting than the first two. His first, a solo shot off the Mets’ Frank Lary on June 21, 1964, led off the first inning of an eventual 8-2 win for the Phillies; his second, a two-run job on May 10, 1965, ended a game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Bill Hands – Most fans would remember Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins as the ace of the 1969 Chicago Cubs team that finished second to the Amazin’ Mets. Most fans would be wrong. As good as Jenkins was in 1969, Hands was better, posting a 20-14 record, 2.49 ERA and 181 strikeouts in exactly 300 innings pitched.

Bob Locker – A member of the original Seattle Pilots in 1969, Locker was one of the American League’s most used relievers from 1967 to 1970. He bounced around a bit throughout his career, from Chicago to Seattle to Milwaukee to Oakland and back to Chicago (with the Cubs this time), appearing in nearly 600 games and saving nearly 100. Locker saw action in the 1972 World Series with the Oakland Athletics, walking Johnny Bench intentionally and allowing a run scoring single to Tony Perez; in 1974, he was traded for future Hall of Famer Billy Williams.

Dal Maxvill – Owner of three World Series rings from his days with the Cardinals and Athletics, Maxvill has one of the worst offensive records of any player in Fall Classic history: a career .115 batting average (7-for-61), including an 0-22 disaster against the Tigers in 1968. On the bright side, he won a National League Gold Glove at shortstop that season.

Dick McAuliffe – A power-hitting middle infielder who might have put up even better numbers had he not played his prime years in the offensive sinkhole that was the late 1960s. McAuliffe was one of the American League’s best shortstops from 1965 to 1967, earning three consecutive All-Star nods before being moved to second base in 1968.

Sam McDowell – One of the hardest throwing pitchers in history, “Sudden Sam” was a six time All-Star who twice struck out more than 300 batters in a season. Despite phenomenal seasons in 1965 and 1968, he only finished among the top ten vote-getters for the Cy Young award once, in 1970. He was traded from Cleveland to San Francisco for Gaylord Perry in 1972, bounced to the Yankees the following year, and finished up with Pittsburgh in 1975.

(Coming soon: the Bizarro Hall of Fame Class of 1980)

(All Hall of Fame voting results were obtained from the official web site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Statistical information included in postings for the Bizarro Hall of Fame was, unless otherwise noted, originally compiled by Baseball-Reference.com.)

Dave Smith Should Probably Brush Up On His Baseball Knowledge

According to Sporting News Radio's afternoon host, Dave Smith, the Boston Red Sox will probably play end up playing the Detroit Tigers or Milwaukee Brewers in the first round of the playoffs.

I'm going out on a limb here, but a guy who likes to refer to himself as "The Sports God" should probably have more of a clue about stuff like this - you know, considering the Brewers are in the National League and all.

Bobby Cox Is Officially The Angriest Man In Baseball History

Some observers have noted with surprise that prior to his record setting 132nd career ejection tonight, Bobby Cox had not been thrown out of a game in nearly two months. Some may suggest he was watching his step in the hopes of delaying the seemingly inevitable ejection for as long as possible; I submit that he was waiting until the birthday of Earl Weaver, possibly the greatest arguer of the last thirty years, to set the record. Sort of a tribute for Earl.

SI.com called this a "dubious distinction". Cox is embarrased. I am gleeful.

Photo: Comcast

Another Red Sox Choke? I Don't Think So

Earlier this season - June 3, to be exact - I was up late on a Sunday night, watching the rubber game of a Red Sox-Yankees series at Fenway Park and finishing up my weekend work at Awful Announcing. For some reason, AA and I had been sending some emails back and forth, and after Alex Rodriguez broke a ninth inning tie with an opposite field blast into the bullpen, he asked if I wanted him to pull the video and make it available on YouTube.

"You can do a post saying, 'Hey, we're still 12.5 up', if you want," he said, ever thoughtful of my Red Sox fandom.

"Sure," I replied, but my heart wasn't in it. He had a tough time getting the video, which was just as well, because even though the lead was huge at that point, I knew that overconfidence was a dangerous thing.

Fast forward ten weeks. After trailing by 14 1/2 games in late May, the Yankees have pulled to within four five. No longer entranced by Barry Bonds saga in San Francisco, the mainstream media and blogosphere have responded in full force.

"Told you the Red Sox would choke!" they trill gleefully.

"You never should have counted the Yankees out!" they admonish.

"1978! 1978! 1978!" the haters cry.

To call the summer of 2007 a typical Red Sox choke is, at this point in the season, a ridiculous statement. Though the team slumped in June, stumbling to a subpar 13-14 record, they have not continued that trend in recent weeks, and in fact currently have the best record in Major League Baseball. Boston's record since July 1 is 23-17, a .575 winning percentage that would still give them the second-best won-lost mark in the majors this season. Since the All-Star break, they are 19-13, a .594 clip - not exactly the mark of a team that is choking its season away.

The Yankees, on the other hand, have been cutting a path of destruction through the American League for two and a half months and pointing out just how foolish it was to believe that they wouldn't right the ship at some point. Their record since the start of June? 45-23 (.662). The start of July? 29-12 (.707). The All-Star break? 24-9 (.727). New York was terrible for the first two months of the season, but they have absolutely brutalized the competition since that point. After sitting at 22-29 at the end of May, they now have the third-best record in the major leagues. In four of baseball's six divisions, including the entire National League, they would be the first-place team.

I understand the temptation to label this another Red Sox choke simply because the Yankees have gained a lot of ground in a relatively short period of time, and the Sox have had some difficult losses recently, but it should be obvious by now that Boston is handling New York's surge very well. The mere fact that they are still in first place despite a division rival that has played over .700 baseball the past ten weeks is proof of that.

Visual Crack: They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

It's Tuesday. It's Visual Crack day. It's Earl Weaver's birthday. This, friends, is why YouTube was invented.



This video has made the rounds in the past few months (Joe Sports Fan and The FanHouse both had it recently), but it deserves another look. My favorite part? When Weaver says, "Five, ten fucking years from now, who's gonna be in the Hall of Fame?" and the umpire fires back with, "Oh, you're gonna be in the Hall of Fame? Why - for fuckin' up World Series?" Classic.

Barry Bonds: The Most Hated Athlete In History?

Marketing Evaluations Inc. of Manhasset, New York ran a survey recently to determine the popularity of various professional athletes. Know what they "discovered"?

Barry Bonds is one of the least-liked (is that the same as "disliked"?) people in sports. Shocking, I know.

It shouldn't be news to anyone who follows baseball that Bonds is kind of a dick. In the last ten years alone, he has been accused of: cheating on his wife; cheating on his taxes; lying to a grand jury; purchasing and using illegal drugs that transformed him from a Hall of Fame baseball player to one of the best ever; failing to properly hug his son after hitting homerun number 756; being a bad teammate; and not playing nice with the media. That's what I've got off the top of my head. Certainly there are others charges to be brought in the court of public opinion as well.

Opponents of Bonds often try to push the idea that he is the most hated person in the history of baseball, if not all of sports. I am neither in favor of nor against Bonds (although I do find myself attempting to defend him against stupid attacks recently), and I may sometimes be slightly off in my attempts to provide insight into current events, but I know a little bit about sports history. And I am fairly certain that forty years from now, Barry Bonds will be viewed far differently from the way he is today.

Why do I feel this way? Because of a 20-year-old kid from San Diego, that's why. A kid so bold, so brash, that when told he was being sent down to the minor leagues for more seasoning, informed the team's starting outfielders that, ''I'll be back, and I'll be making more money than the three of you put together.'' So angry over his treatment at the hands of the fans that he refused to tip his cap or acknowledge their cheers for fifty years. So frustrated with the local media that he dubbed them "The Knights of the Keyboard" and didn't mend fences for several decades. So imperfect as a human being that he spit when frustrated, tossed a bat that accidentally struck a fan in the head, made obscene gestures, married and divorced multiple times.

Or how about the youngster from Louisville, the one with the fast hands and the even faster mouth? The kid who won the heavyweight championship of the world and immediately made enemies by refusing to hide his allegiance to the Nation of Islam. Who made even more enemies by refusing to accept induction into the United States Army during the Vietnam War. Who turned on a close friend, in the name of promotion, painting him as an "Uncle Tom", referring to him as a gorilla, and generally driving his reputation into the ground.

The primary difference between Ted Williams, Muhammad Ali and Barry Bonds, as I see it, is that historical perspective gives us some legitimacy in considering the first two heroic figures, while we have no such luxury with Bonds. Williams had a terrible temper and was detested by many fans and most of the media...but he also worked tirelessly to raise money for The Jimmy Fund, championed the cause of former Negro League players at his own Hall of Fame induction and served his country in not one, but two wars, flying 39 missions over Korea and narrowly escaping disaster on more than one occasion. He may have been imperfect, but he also possessed certain qualities that we look for in our heroes.

And as hated as Ali was at the height of his boxing career, his legacy has done nothing but grow since the 1960s. Where his decision not to accept his draft status and refuse induction into the Army was regarded as subversive and anti-American at the time, it is now regarded as a heroic choice, one that cost him nearly four years in the prime of his career. He turned his allegiance to the Nation of Islam into a devotion to the religion of Islam, turning his back on racially inflammatory statements made in his youth and professing the need for peace and love and understanding. And it doesn't hurt that he has cultivated a reputation as one of the most open legends in sports, the type of person who will answer the knock of a complete stranger at his door and talk for awhile.

With Bonds, we just don't know how this is going to turn out. Yes, he has appeared to this point to be a morally bankrupt figure with few redeeming qualities to speak of. But if you had asked many sports fans in 1960 or the mid-1970s, you would have found a large number who said the same of Williams and Ali.

That's why it's silly to label Barry Bonds the most hated player in the history of sports, or to put any stock in some survey that tells us how much people dislike him right now. Because before we know it, the year will be 2039 and we'll be listening to fans and media alike as they talk about Bonds and how it's a damn shame that a guy like Bonds, who was such a great player and who did so much charity work through the years, is losing his record to some guy who just doesn't deserve it.

Visual Crack: The Kid's Got Spirit

(Thanks to Cursed to First and Red Sox Monster for the video)

I first saw this passionate young Red Sox fan on Sunday afternoon during the post-game recap of the excruciating loss to Baltimore and thought she was hilarious. After repeated viewings...she is. She's awesome. I have to admire anyone who can do battle with cancer and emerge with this much happiness.



Two things that I absolutely love: the reaction when Tina Cervasio mentions that she's on live TV (the eyes widen for a second, then her personality kicks in and she tries to steal the microphone) and the video where she's kissing all the Red Sox players and deliberately bypasses Kyle Snyder after he sits up and opens his arms for a hug. That's right, Kyle Snyder - Lexi will decide for herself who is next.

I'd Say This Is Some Pretty Good Company

Mister Irrelevant's Jamie Mottram is one of the most successful bloggers around. He runs the ultra-successful AOL FanHouse, hosts Blog Show on Friday nights, has appeared on ESPN several times, and is wildly handsome.

In many ways, I wouldn't mind being just like Mottram. It figures, then, that the one thing we have in common completely sucks.

Seriously, though, it's been cool to see Ankiel fight through this problem and it's nice to read about Jamie's baseball "comeback". Now that I am appropriately inspired, I may have to apply for a coaching gig somewhere.

Better start with T-Ball.

One Game Wonders - The Best Cups of Coffee In The Majors

Next Sunday marks the 56th anniversary of the most famous “cup of coffee” in major league history: Eddie Gaedel’s appearance for the St. Louis Browns on August 19, 1951. Gaedel, a 3’7”, 65-pound entertainer hired specifically by Browns owner Bill Veeck to draw attention to his last place team, assumed a deep crouch (Veeck supposedly measured his strike zone at about an inch and a half) and drew a four-pitch walk from Detroit’s Bob Cain in his only career plate appearance.

Gaedel’s upcoming anniversary shines a light on one of the most interesting and least appreciated parts of baseball: the “cup of coffee” career. Technically, the phrase could be used to describe anyone who spent a brief period of time in the majors, but the strictest interpretation limits the group only to those who appeared in a single major league game. According to Baseball-Reference.com, which has a separate page for just this type of player, that list numbers somewhere over 1,000.

Most of those situation were completely normal – a guy gets called up from the minors, has his number called once, the team sends him back down and he never gets the call again. Because it’s baseball, however, there were guaranteed to be oddities mixed in with the group. Using the BR.com Cups of Coffee page, I found several players whose only game was, for whatever reason, memorable.

Walter Alston, St. Louis Cardinals (September 27, 1936) – The Fates have a sense of humor sometimes. A decent minor league player, Alston made his major league debut in 1936 as a fill-in for Hall of Fame slugger Johnny Mize, striking out against Chicago’s Lon Warneke. That was it for Alston in the majors until the mid-1950s, when he took over as manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He stuck around in that role for 23 seasons, guiding his teams to seven National League pennants, four World Series victories, and over 2,000 wins, and eventually earning a spot in baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Adam Greenberg, Chicago Cubs (July 9, 2005) – The Cubs were winning, 8-2, when manager Dusty Baker tabbed Adam Greenberg to pinch-hit against Florida’s Valerio de los Santos in the top of the ninth inning on July 9, 2005. Greenberg, a left-handed hitter with a game built on speed, stepped in – and almost before knew it was on the ground, struck in the head by a runaway fastball from de los Santos. It was his last major league plate appearance. In the two years since, he has struggled mightily, bouncing through several organizations. To date, he and Fred Van Dusen are the only two players to be hit by pitches in their only career plate appearances.

Moonlight Graham, New York Giants (June 29, 1905) – Graham enjoyed a most unremarkable major league career, playing the field in one game and never getting a chance to bat, but something about him caught the eye of W.P. Kinsella, who included the Giants outfielder as a character in his book, “Shoeless Joe”. Though the facts of his baseball career were treated liberally by the writers of the movie “Field of Dreams”, Burt Lancaster’s riveting portrayal in the film has guaranteed that Graham will always be viewed as a kindly old doctor who turned down his chance at a major league career in exchange for a life spent helping others.

John Paciorek, Houston Colt 45s (September 29, 1963) – The oldest of three Paciorek brothers who played in the majors, John debuted with a terrific game against the New York Mets in 1963. Batting seventh and playing right field in the final game of the season, Paciorek went 3-for-3 with two walks, three runs batted in, and four runs scored. So why didn’t he reach the majors again? According to the BR.com Bullpen, he aggravated a back injury over the winter and struggled for the rest of his career.

Allan Travers, Detroit Tigers (May 18, 1912) – Never in major league history has there been a more unlikely starting pitcher. Following the suspension of Ty Cobb days before, the entire Tigers team struck in support of their teammate, leading the manager to fill in the gaps with local college students. One of those students was Travers, who got hit hard (26 hits, 14 earned runs) but battled gamely for eight full innings.

Larry Yount, Houston Astros (September 15, 1971) – Despite being credited with one game pitched for Houston in 1971, Larry Yount never threw a pitch in anger to a major league hitter. Oh, he was brought into the game on September 15, 1971 to face the top of the Atlanta Braves batting order (Henry Aaron was due up third), but it didn’t exactly work out as planned: Yount injured himself while warming up and had to be replaced. That replaces Moonlight Graham’s Hollywood alter ego as the most disappointing career in major league history.

I Might Be Psychic

I was looking through my archives tonight, trying to find my post from Memorial Day, when I clicked on the May archive and found something I had written following the NBA Draft Lottery about the Boston Celtics and their fifth overall pick in the draft.

Intended to ease the worries of Celtics fans distraught over the team's draft position, the post provided a breakdown of every player chosen fifth overall since 1985 and their career performances in the three major statistical categories (points, rebounds, assists). Taking a quick look back, I realized something weird: while Boston traded its first round selection on draft night, the team's two biggest off-season acquisitions - Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen - were former number five picks themselves. What a coincidence.

In fact, here's what I wrote about Boston's possibilities for draft night:

Basically, this is what it comes down to for the Celtics on draft night:
best case, they end up with Dwyane Wade or Kevin Garnett, a special player who
could make an immediate impact.

When I wrote "they end up with Kevin Garnett", I didn't actually mean they would end up with Kevin Garnett.

Happy Birthday: August 13 - 19

(Baseball birthdays found here have been compiled from the “Frivolities” section at Baseball-Reference.com. All other birthdays were taken from Wikipedia.)

August 13
Alfred Hitchcock (director) – 1899
Ben Hogan (golf) – 1912
Mudcat Grant (baseball) – 1935
Bobby Clarke (hockey) – 1949

August 14
Wellington Mara (football) – 1916
Earl Weaver (baseball) – 1930
Mark Fidrych (baseball) – 1954
Rusty Wallace (auto racing) – 1956
Magic Johnson (basketball) – 1959
Halle Berry (actress) – 1966

August 15
Charlie Comiskey (baseball) – 1859
Gene Upshaw (football) – 1945
Tom Kelly (baseball) – 1950
Natasha Henstridge (actress) – 1974

August 16
Frank Gifford (football) – 1930
Kathie Lee Gifford (talk show host) – 1953
Madonna (singer) – 1958
Steve Carell ( actor) – 1962
Bonnie Bernstein (broadcaster) – 1970

August 17
Robert De Niro (actor) – 1943
Skip Lockwood (baseball) – 1946
Butch Hobson (baseball) – 1951
Dustin Pedroia (baseball – 1983

August 18
Burleigh Grimes (baseball) – 1893
Roberto Clemente (baseball) – 1934
Robert Redford (actor) – 1936
Patrick Swayze (actor) – 1952

August 19
Frank McCourt (author) – 1930
Willie Shoemaker (jockey) – 1931
Bill Clinton (former U.S. president) – 1946
Morten Andersen (football) – 1960

Rocky Cherry (baseball) – 1979

Photos: My Classy Lyrics, Bonnie Bernstein Fan Club

Hey, Did You Hear That Derek Gave Jessica Herpes?

One of the biggest stories to circulate the blogosphere yesterday was the news that Jessica Alba contracted herpes from Yankees captain Derek Jeter, presumably while the two dated in the summer of 2004. The original source? An exclusive report from L.A. Rag Mag, a blog that unapologetically offers "unedited celebrity gossip", which cited an unnamed source from "one of their camps" who "had to refill her Valtrex prescription for her on a regular basis!"

Fourteen hours after The Big Lead found this item and posted it, at least seven other blogs (according to BallHype) have picked up the rumor and passed it along (in fairness, all are noting the questionable reliability of the source).

Here's my problem. When we read that Alba is taking Valtrex, we make an automatic assumption: she's a dirty girl who has genital herpes. And to make it worse, we drag Derek Jeter into the mess by assuming that he's the one who kindly passed it along, in all likelihood because he is the most famous person who has ever been linked with Alba and the "source" knew that throwing his name out there would make this a potentially huge story.

But here's the thing that nobody ever thinks about before rushing to judgment: what if Jessica Alba is taking Valtrex as treatment for a cold sore, an "extremely common" viral infection that affects "80%-90% of the [United States] population...by the time they are 50 years old" and is "usually caused by the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1)", or shingles, a painful skin infection "caused by the varicella-zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox."

You know what I get out of that? If you've had chickenpox at any point in your life, you've had herpes. Dirty whores, the whole lot of you.

The thing that most people don't care to do is differentiate between the two classes of herpes viruses. Cold sores, chickenpox, shingles = herpes simplex virus type 1. Genital herpes = herpes simplex virus type 2.

The point here, I suppose, is that while we're all jumping on this story and talking about what a dirty boy Derek Jeter is and what a skanky ho Jessica Alba must be, there is at least a chance that if she was even taking Valtrex, it was to treat a potential outbreak of shingles or a possible cold sore - neither of which is a very exciting possibility for a woman universally considered among the most beautiful in the world.

In a perfect world, people would at the very least consider this possibility. Not in our world, however. In our world, taking all the facts into account would only serve to ruin a good joke.

Ejection Leaderboard: The Umpires

A random Google search for "Has Larry Young ejected any MLB players?" led somebody to One More Dying Quail today and convinced me that the time is right to post the data I have put together on each individual umpire.

MLB.com has information on major league umpiring crews - there are seventeen crews in action this year, lettered A through Q, plus two "rovers" and a number of minor leaguers who are called up to fill in for leaves of absence such as vacation or sickness.

Overall, more than fifty umpires have ejected a player, manager or coach from a major league game this season. Through August 6, Mike Everitt (Crew O) and Phil Cuzzi (Crew I) were tied for the league lead with seven apiece. The full, rather lengthy list (in alphabetical order), including those who have not issued an ejection this season, is below (crew chiefs are denoted by an asterisk beside their name).

Umpire	Ejections	Crew
Alfonso Marquez	4	Crew E
Andy Fletcher	0	Crew L
Angel Hernandez	2	Crew A
Bill Hohn	0	Crew I
Bill Miller	5	Crew K
Bill Welke	4	Crew B
Bob Davidson	5	Crew M
Brian Gorman	0	Crew O
Brian Knight	5	PCL
Brian O’Nara	1	Crew I
Brian Runge	0	Crew J
Bruce Dreckman	0	Crew G
Bruce Froemming*	1	Crew J
C.P. Bucknor	1	Crew H
Chad Fairchild	4	IL
Charlie Reliford*	1	Crew F
Chris Guccione	3	PCL
Chuck Meriweather	1	Crew E
Dale Scott*	1	Crew Q
Dan Iassogna	1	Crew Q
Dana DeMuth*	0	Crew N
Derryl Cousins	1	Crew N
Doug Eddings	2	Crew N
Ed Hickox	1	Rover
Ed Montague*	2	Crew K
Ed Rapuano	3	Crew H
Eric Cooper	0	Crew L
Fieldin Culbreth	0	Crew P
Gary Cederstrom	0	Crew C
Gary Darling*	1	Crew G
Gerry Davis*	2	Crew O
Greg Gibson	4	Crew F
Hunter Wendelstedt	2	Crew M
James Hoye	3	IL
Jeff Kellogg	0	Crew L
Jeff Nelson	0	Crew D
Jerry Crawford*	1	Crew I
Jerry Layne	3	Crew K
Jerry Meals	1	Crew G
Jim Joyce	0	Crew D
Jim Reynolds	1	Crew C
Jim Wolf	1	Crew D
Joe West*	5	Crew H
John Hirschbeck*	1	Crew B
Kerwin Danley	0	Crew N
Lance Barksdale	2	Crew C
Larry Poncino	0	Crew G
Larry Vanover	4	Crew F
Larry Young*	2	Crew A
Laz Diaz	1	Crew B
Mark Carlson	2	Crew A
Mark Wegner	5	Crew J
Marty Foster	3	Crew P
Marvin Hudson	1	Crew K
Mike DiMuro	0	Crew H
Mike Everitt	7	Crew O
Mike Reilly*	1	Crew L
Mike Winters	4	Crew J
Paul Emmel	3	Crew Q
Paul Nauert	0	Crew O
Paul Schreiber	0	Crew P
Phil Cuzzi	7	Crew I
Randy Marsh*	0	Crew M
Rick Reed*	0	Crew E
Rob Drake	1	PCL
Ron Kulpa	3	Crew Q
Sam Holbrook	2	Crew M
Scott Barry	1	IL
Ted Barrett	1	Crew A
Tim McClelland*	2	Crew P
Tim Timmons	4	Crew E
Tim Tschida*	0	Crew D
Tim Welke*	1	Crew C
Tom Hallion	4	Rover
Tony Randazzo	3	Crew F
Travis Reininger	2	PCL
Wally Bell	0	Crew B

By crew, the numbers are as follows. Note the amazingly low numbers of Crews D, G and L, as well as the somewhat high totals for minor league umpires.

Crew A	7
Crew B	6
Crew C	4
Crew D	1
Crew E	9
Crew F	12
Crew G	2
Crew H	8
Crew I	9
Crew J	10
Crew K	11
Crew L	1
Crew M	9
Crew N	3
Crew O	9
Crew P	5
Crew Q	8
Rovers	5
PCL	11
IL	8

MLB.com List of 2007 Umpiring Crews
2007 Minor League Umpires

Bobby Jenks Has Spoken: There Will Be No More Baserunners Until Further Notice

At the end of a Chicago White Sox highlight this morning on Sports Center, one of the anchors threw out a fascinating fact: Sox closer Bobby Jenks has currently retired 36 batters in a row.

That seemed pretty remarkable, so I went to Yahoo! Sports and Baseball-Reference.com and did two things: one, find the details of Jenks' streak and two, see if I could find anyone who had put together a similar run.

The streak actually began on July 18, when Jenks blew a save in an eventual 6-5 loss to the Cleveland Indians. After entering the game to start the ninth inning, he immediately surrendered a single to Trot Nixon and a homerun to Ryan Garko before settling down to retire the next three hitters in order. Since Garko hit that homerun, Jenks has appeared in eleven games, saving seven, and retired all 33 batters he has faced.

It's tough to find another reliever who might have approached such an impressive streak, but at least three starting pitchers have surpassed it in the Retrosheet Era (and possibly more than three; this is just a sample):

• Randy Johnson - Retired the final six batters he faced against the New York Mets on May 12, 2004; on May 18, pitched a nine inning perfect game, retiring all 27 Atlanta Braves batters in order; picked up the first six outs on May 23 against the Florida Marlins for a total of 39 consecutive outs.

• David Wells - Retired the final ten batters he faced against the Kansas City Royals on May 12, 1998; on May 17, pitched a nine inning perfect game against Minnesota, retiring all 27 Twins in order; recorded one out against the Boston Red Sox on May 23 for a total of 38 consecutive outs.

• Harvey Haddix - Retired the final two batters he faced against the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 21, 1959; on May 26 against the Milwaukee Braves, he set down the first 36 batters in order (still the single game record) before a runner reached on an error for a total of 38 consecutive outs.

As I said above, it's hard to find such streaks for a reliever. Honestly, I didn't look very hard for any relievers with comparable streaks. Dennis Eckersley's 1990 season was the one I checked out and he didn't come close despite being overwhelmingly dominant that year. So Jenks appears to be in pretty good position here - there's a chance, at least, that another inning or two will net him a major league record.

UPDATE: Thanks to the White Sox message board at ESPN.com for pointing out that Jim Barr of the San Francisco Giants holds the major league record for consecutive outs recorded with 41 over two games (August 23/August 29) in 1972.

The BizHOF: Introducing the Class of 1982

As part of an ongoing project, One More Dying Quail will be profiling the 182 current members of the Bizarro Hall of Fame, an organization that currently exists only in my mind. It was created in the wake of Major League Baseball’s infamous Steroid Era as a way of honoring those players whose careers were perfectly mediocre: the only requirement is that a candidate be listed on the official Baseball Hall of Fame ballot and receive zero votes.

Class of 1982

Gates Brown – His given name was William James Brown, but for some unknown reason his mother called him Gates. In his first major league at-bat, he pinch-hit for pitcher Don Mossi and homered off Red Sox pitcher Bob Heffner. He went on to compile a .257 career average in that role, with 106 hits and 16 homeruns in thirteen seasons.

Tommy Harper – An original member of the Seattle Pilots in 1969, Harper moved with the team to Milwaukee the following year and enjoyed his best season, hitting .296 with 31 homeruns, 82 RBI and 38 stolen bases. After two seasons he was dealt to Boston for 1967 Cy Young award winner Jim Lonborg and a pair of famous baseball brothers (Ken Brett and Billy Conigliaro). Harper’s 54 stolen bases in 1973 remain the Red Sox team record.

Deron Johnson – Johnson finished fourth in the 1965 National League Most Valuable Player voting after hitting 32 homeruns and driving in 130 runs for Cincinnati, but his best season overall (according to OPS+) may have been 1971 – 34 homeruns and 95 RBI for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Alex Johnson – Carl Yastrzemski won three batting titles in his major league career. It could easily have been four. In 1970, Johnson edged out the Red Sox Hall of Famer by percentage points, .3289 to .3286. The narrow loss rankled Yastrzemski, who wrote years later in his biography that Johnson had “conned” him by promising to play a full game in the season finale if the title was on the line. Yaz went the distance in his final game, while Johnson finished 2-for-3 before leaving for a pinch-runner.

Cleon Jones – The most famous part of Cleon Jones is his shoes. In Game Five of the 1969 World Series, Dave McNally threw a pitch down and in the dirt. The Mets argued that the pitch had actually struck Jones on the foot, a fight that was settled when the umpire looked and found shoe polish on the ball. New York went on to win the game and the World Series.

Jim Northrup – One of the heir apparents to Hall of Famer Al Kaline in the Detroit Tigers outfield in the late 1960s, Northrup could (and did) play all three outfield positions in his 10+ years with the team. He brought some pop to the Tigers lineup, hitting 20+ homeruns from 1968-70 and 16 in two other seasons.

Sonny Siebert – A two-time All-Star with the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox, Siebert won 15 or 16 games four times in twelve seasons. Primarily a starter, he was also capable of closing games out, as evidenced by his 1969 campaign with the Red Sox in which he went 14-10 with five saves.

Tony Taylor – I find it somewhat bothersome that I had never heard of Tony Taylor before tonight; a guy with 2,007 career hits deserves better. He might have had more, but his playing time took a major hit in 1971 and his last six seasons were spent in supporting roles. Primarily a second baseman but also valuable at a variety of other positions, Taylor was the oldest player in the National League in 1976, his final season.

Cesar Tovar – Always a player who was valuable at a number of defensive positions, Tovar made himself into a historical footnote on September 22, 1968 by playing all nine positions in a game against Oakland. The opposing shortstop was Bert Campaneris, who became the first to accomplish the feat three years earlier. Unlike Campaneris, however, Tovar played the positions in their numerical order, starting the game as the pitcher and finishing as the right fielder.

(Coming soon: the Bizarro Hall of Fame Class of 1981)

(All Hall of Fame voting results were obtained from the official web site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Statistical information included in postings for the Bizarro Hall of Fame was, unless otherwise noted, originally compiled by Baseball-Reference.com.)

And That's That

(Much love to Awful Announcing for the video)

Baseball Ejections: Addendum Numero Siete

Manny Ramirez's first ejection of the season on Monday, August 6 proved costly for his Boston Red Sox. Tossed by umpire James Hoye for arguing balls and strikes in the fourth inning, Ramirez was replaced by rookie Brandon Moss, who had just been called up from the minors and was making his major league debut. Of course it came back to haunt them: Moss came to the plate in the ninth with the potential tying run on base and struck out to end the game.

In other ejection news from the past few days, Tony LaRussa apparently decided he liked the peace and solitude that comes with being the only person in the clubhouse - he was tossed on Sunday for the second time in eight days, his only two ejections of the season. His rival in the race to be the last person ejected, Ron Washington, was thrown out of Monday's game against Oakland for arguing balls and strikes in the eleventh inning. With Washington's early shower, every manager who started the season has now been thrown out of at least one game.

Boston Red Sox
August 6 – Manny Ramirez, left field
Top 4th by home plate umpire James Hoye for arguing balls and strikes

St. Louis Cardinals
August 5 – Tony LaRussa, manager
Top 5th by home plate umpire Mark Wegner for arguing balls and strikes

Texas Rangers
August 6 – Michael Young, shortstop
Bottom 11th by home plate umpire Bill Miller for arguing balls and strikes

August 6 – Ron Washington, manager
Bottom 11th by home plate umpire Bill Miller for arguing balls and strikes

Visual Crack: You Can Always Count On Butch Hobson

There are few people in the world of sports that I respect more than Butch Hobson. When I was an intern with the Nashua Pride in 2003, one of my jobs was to stay late and fax out the game recap to local media outlets. As I was leaving one night near the end of the season, I popped my head into Butch's office to tell our general manager that I was done so he could lock up. Butch stopped me, extended his hand, and said, "I just want to tell you that you guys do a heck of a job around here."

Did he know my name? Probably not. Would he remember me if I saw him on the street tomorrow? Not likely. Do I believe that his praise was totally sincere? Absolutely.

Butch's awesomeness as a person - I almost felt bad asking him to speak with the media or do personal appearances, because he almost never said no - was actually enhanced by the fact that he threw some of the greatest temper tantrums I have ever had the privilege of witnessing. One three game stretch from that summer of 2003 was particularly memorable: during the first game, he protested a blown homerun call by stalking - not walking, stalking - three hundred feet down the left field line, scaling the five foot brick wall, and explaining to the umpire in no uncertain terms what that big yellow pole was for; two days later, after another questionable call in the same spot, Butch argued for several minutes before tearing his shirt and undershirt off, throwing them onto home plate and striding off the field. They were two of the greatest performances I've ever seen.

The problem with Butch's ejections is that most of them have occurred in the lowest level of minor league baseball, the independent leagues, where televised games are a rare privilege. The closest we came to having any record of his antics was a documentary from the Pride's 2000 season called Stolen Bases, which contained a Butch tirade that ended with him pulling a base out of the ground, signing it and handing it to a young fan in the front row.

YouTube, however, has come through for me once again. While searching, on a whim, for "baseball ejections", I came across the clip you see below - a five minute snippet of the July 27, 2007 game between the Nashua Pride and North Shore Spirit. If you fast-forward to the 1:30 mark, you will be treated to a halfway decent show involving Butch Hobson, an umpire, and a base. I'm not gonna spoil it any more than I already have. Just watch, you won't be disappointed - we're talking about a 6.5 on the Mikulik-Wellman Scale.

Barry and Twenty-Four Other Guys

According to ESPN's Dave O'Brien, the San Francisco Giants lineup for tonight's game against Washington only has four batters:

1. Rajai Davis
2. Omar Vizquel
3. Randy Winn

Note: Vizquel and Winn may be the same person. O'Brien said their names so fast I couldn't tell.

4. Barry Bonds.

After reading Bonds' name, O'Brien proceeded to perform verbal fellatio on the slugger for approximately 15-20 seconds. When he was finished (O'Brien, not Bonds), color commentator Rick Sutcliffe took up the cause. I kept waiting for them to move on to Bengie Molina, Ray Durham, Pedro Feliz, Kevin Frandsen and Tim Lincecum, but it never happened.

I understand that for the Giants, this season is all about Barry Bonds, and ESPN is picking up on that sentiment big time as he goes for the record. But do you really need to disrespect the rest of the team by pretending they don't exist, by being so excited to talk about him that you gloss over three guys in a row and flat-out ignore four others (in fairness, Tim Lincecum is also being lauded tonight at every possible opportunity - but still, that's two out of 25)? Doesn't seem fair.

Thank God Nobody Pulled A Canseco

Lion In Oil had a post over the weekend about St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Aaron Miles, who was pressed into action as a pitcher during a blowout loss to Washington on Saturday and responded with a 1-2-3, nine pitch inning.

The tongue-in-cheek suggestion was that Miles could be capable of pulling a “reverse Ankiel”, shifting from position player to full-time pitcher, but I was left with a very real question when I finished reading: how many Hall of Fame position players saw the same sort of action?

My goal was to find guys who, like Miles, made the occasional mound appearance, not those who could legitimately list their occupation as “pitcher” on a job application. To help differentiate between the two types, I set a somewhat arbitrary limit of 25 career innings pitched – even that is probably a little high, but it helps weed out the likes of Babe Ruth, George Sisler, and John Montgomery Ward, which was the goal anyway.

What’s left? Sixteen Hall of Famers, including some of the greatest hitters in baseball history, doing their best to see how the other half lives:

Ted Williams – Appeared in one game in 1940, his second season. He pitched the final two innings, allowing one run on three hits and striking out one.

Stan Musial – Appeared in one game as a 31-year-old veteran in 1952. He faced one batter, Frank Baumholtz, who reached on an error.

Wade Boggs – The only Hall of Fame position player to pitch in the Retrosheet Era (weird, because I would have considered this a newer trend than it actually is), Boggs appeared in one game each for the Yankees in 1997 and the Devil Rays in 1999. He gave up one run on three hits in 2 1/3 total innings, walking one and striking out two. His “career” ERA+ is 121.

George Davis – Appeared in three games with the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, his second year in the league. He finished all three, recorded one save and one loss in four innings pitched, and allowed seven earned runs on eight hits and three walks for a 15.75 ERA.

George Kelly – Appeared in one game for the New York Giants in 1917, his third year in the league. He picked up the win, allowing four hits and one walk with two strikeouts over the final five innings.

Jake Beckley – The regular first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds, Beckley started a game for the team in 1902. He lasted four innings, giving up eight runs (three earned) on nine hits in four innings.

Harry Hooper – Pitched two innings of relief for the Red Sox in 1913, surrendering two hits and one walk.

Jimmie Foxx – Pitched a perfect inning of relief for the Red Sox in 1939, then worked nine more games for an absolutely terrible Phillies team in 1945, starting two. He struggled some, allowing 27 base runners in 22 2/3 innings, but only gave up four runs for a 1.59 season ERA.

Dan Brouthers – Appeared in three games, starting two (and going the distance in both) as a rookie with the Troy Trojans in 1879. He had an 0-2 record in those games, allowing 30 runs (only 13 earned) on 35 hits in 21 innings. Four years later, he pitched two innings for the Buffalo Bisons, giving up seven runs on nine hits in two innings for a 31.75 earned run average.

Jim O’Rourke – Another Buffalo Bison, O’Rourke appeared in six games, finishing four and saving two in 1883 and 1884.

Cap Anson – Finished three games for the 1883-84 Chicago Cubs, recording one save and a 4.50 ERA in four innings pitched.

Charlie Comiskey – Maybe the most effective pitcher of any regular position player, Comiskey posted a 0.73 ERA in 12 1/3 innings spread over four games. Thanks to two seasons in which he recorded an ERA+ of infinite, his final career total in that category was 410.

Tris Speaker – It’s good to see a traditional addition to the list: Speaker appeared in one game for the Red Sox in 1914, pitching the last inning and giving up one run on two hits.

George Wright – Recorded a 1.80 ERA in three games for the Boston Red Stockings and Boston Red Caps in 1875 and 1876, respectively. In four innings pitched in 1875, he struck out eleven batters.

Ty Cobb – Appeared in two games in 1918 (finishing one) and one in 1925 (earning a save). In three career games, he allowed six runs on two hits, walking two and failing to record a strikeout.

Honus Wagner – The greatest shortstop of all time was also a good outfielder, first baseman, and third baseman, and probably would have been a decent pitcher if the Pirates had asked more of him. As it was, Wagner pitched two games for the team, one each in 1900 and 1902. He allowed five runs (all unearned) on seven hits in 8 1/3 innings.

Happy Birthday: August 6 - 12

(Baseball birthdays found here have been compiled from the “Frivolities” section at Baseball-Reference.com. All other birthdays were taken from Wikipedia.)

August 6
Hank Iba (basketball) – 1904
Lucille Ball (actress) – 1911
Andy Messersmith (baseball) – 1945
David Robinson (basketball) – 1965
Mike Greenberg (sportscaster) – 1967
Geri Halliwell (“singer”) – 1972
Soleil Moon Frye (actress) – 1976

August 7
Bill McKechnie (baseball) – 1886
Don Larsen (baseball) – 1929
Alan Page (football) – 1945
Charlize Theron (actress) – 1975
Sidney Crosby (hockey) – 1987

August 8
Dustin Hoffman (actor) – 1937
Ken Dryden (hockey) – 1947
Roger Federer (tennis) – 1981

August 9
Ralph Houk (baseball) – 1919
Bob Cousy (basketball) – 1928
Rod Laver (tennis) – 1938
Ken Norton (boxing) – 1943
Brett Hull (hockey) – 1964
Deion Sanders (baseball/football) – 1967
Eric Bana (actor) – 1968
Audrey Tautou (actress) – 1978
JaMarcus Russell (football) – 1985

August 10
Willie Wells (baseball) – 1908
Rocky Colavito (baseball) – 1933
Riddick Bowe (boxing) – 1967
Sal Fasano (baseball) – 1971

August 11
Jerry Falwell (evangelist) – 1933
Bill Monbouquette (baseball) – 1936
Hulk Hogan (pro wrestling) – 1953

August 12
Christy Mathewson (baseball) – 1880
Ray Schalk (baseball) – 1892

Antoine Walker (basketball) – 1976

Baseball Ejections: Addendum Numero Seis

Does Tony LaRussa read this blog?

Last Friday, I noted that following Manny Acta's ejection against the Phillies, the only managers who had not been thrown out of a game this season were LaRussa and Ron Washington.

The next day, Saturday, LaRussa left the dugout in the sixth inning to voice his displeasure over a check-swing call that went against the Cardinals. Minutes later, home plate umpire Greg Gibson told him to go ahead and take the rest of the night off.

Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe he's been keeping an eye on things, knew it was down to him and Washington, and decided to take advantage of the next best opportunity to get tossed.

I prefer to believe that he fired up the computer last weekend, searched "tony larussa, ejection" for the hell of it, and clicked on result #9. Not such a crazy thought.

Chicago White Sox
July 31 – Ozzie Guillen, manager
Bottom 1st by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi for arguing balls and strikes

July 31 – Paul Konerko, first base
Top 6th by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi for arguing balls and strikes

August 1 – Charles Haeger, pitcher
Bottom 8th by home plate umpire Tom Hallion for hitting a batter

Seattle Mariners
July 29 – Richie Sexson, first base
Top 6th by second base umpire Mark Carlson for arguing a call at first base

St. Louis Cardinals
July 28 – Tony LaRussa, manager
Bottom 6th by home plate umpire Greg Gibson for arguing a check swing

August 2 – Scott Spiezio, left field
Bottom 10th by home plate umpire Bob Davidson for arguing balls and strikes

Tampa Bay Devil Rays
July 28 – Joe Maddon, manager
Top 11th by home plate umpire Mark Wegner for arguing balls and strikes

Toronto Blue Jays
July 30 – John Gibbons, manager
Bottom 8th by third base umpire Tim Welke for arguing balls and strikes

Memo To Chris Berman

Andre Ethier is a baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Andrew Ethier is not.

If you are going to provide play-by-play for a national broadcast, you might want to take care to actually learn the names of the players involved.

What Great Programming Mind Came Up With THIS Bright Idea?

I was updating my 2007 ejections list tonight when Yahoo! Sports reminded me that there were still several baseball games being played on the west coast. On a whim, I turned on the television and flipped to ESPN, hoping that they were showing one of them.

No go on ESPN, but ESPN 2 (weren't they getting rid of that at some point? Or changing the name or something?) had Giants-Dodgers. Cool - not only do I get to watch some baseball tonight, I have a 1-in-4ish chance at seeing Barry Bonds tie the homerun record. Like it or not, it'll be an historic moment and I'd like to be watching when it happens.

After a minute or two, however, I began to notice a number of things about this game that are just...off. For example:

• The broadcast team? Chris Berman and Joe Morgan. This pairing takes any potential joy out of a Barry Bonds homerun. I can deal with him passing Hank Aaron - I cannot deal with hearing "Back back back...GONE" every time I see the highlight for the next ten years. (Silver lining, courtesy of Sports Bastards: the Dodgers are involved, which means Vin Scully could make the call, and Vin Scully can do no wrong.) And it's still early, but Joe has his theme for tonight: neither Brett Tomko nor Barry Zito has a good enough fastball to put hitters away. It was strangely satisfying to see Zito use his changeup to shut down the Dodgers in the first inning. (Oh, wait - he's using his off-speed stuff the way most guys use their fastballs. Thanks, Joe.)


• Way too many shots of Grady Little in the Dodgers dugout. They've got the camera on him all the time. When stupid sports fans start crying about Bill Buckner's error and how it cost the Red Sox Game Six, it makes me crazy because Buckner was about 3% responsible for that loss (Calvin Schiraldi and Bob Stanley owe Bill big for taking the heat off of them). Grady Little, on the other hand, is the reason the Red Sox didn't play in the 2003 World Series. THE reason.


• Second inning. No Erin Andrews. Unacceptable.

Morgan and Berman also do not believe that it is "mathematically possible" for a pitcher in this day and age to win 300 games. I'm calling it right now - there WILL be another 300 game winner. I will bet Joe and Chris $5,000,000,000 that this will happen.

(Over/under on the number of times Joe mentions Zito "using his off-speed stuff the way most guys use their fastballs" because he refuses to admit he was wrong when he said that Zito was ineffective because his fastball wasn't good enought - 32.)

(UPDATE: An Erin Andrews sighting, which is good. But she's "interviewing" Jon Lovitz - and by interview, I mean Lovitz is giving a long soliloquy on Barry Bonds and steroids - which is bad.)

Sometimes, NESN, I Find It Hard To Love You

Dear NESN,

I'm willing to give Sox Appeal a chance. Ten Minute Dating, Blind Date, and a Red Sox game? It's got potential, even if you did decide to pick some low hanging fruit tonight and toss a Yankees fan into the mix (and way to play up the fact that she's not really into baseball - just like a Yankee lover, isn't it?).

But let's agree on one thing: that crap you pulled tonight, airing the show immediately following the game, was just plain dirty. I can understand and appreciate that you were trying to retain the audience from the broadcast and present your new offering to the largest possible pool of viewers, but do you know what happened? You dragged my father into a place he never really expected to go.

The man is 61 years old, and all he wanted to do before heading off to bed was find out who picked up the win. He figured that the best place to do this was the post-game show, which usually passes along such information at the outset before proceeding with the more in-depth analysis. No post-game tonight, however, thanks to some guy named Garrett, who used to be a figure skater and doesn't drink beer.

Yes, we watched the show. We didn't have a choice - we were paralyzed by the change in schedule and my mother (the holder of the remote control) apparently took our silent staring at the television as genuine interest. Around the first commercial break, I turned to my father and said, "Guess there's no post-game tonight." He just gave me a blank look, muttered something indecipherable, and kept watching. I think you broke his brain, NESN. All because he wanted to know that Javier Lopez was the winning pitcher and he thought you would be the one to tell him.

Anyhow, here's my plea: in the future, if you want to debut a new show, don't do it immediately following a game on August 1. We're set in our schedules by this point in the season, and the sudden removal of such important things as a post-game show may be hazardous to our health.

Sincerely,

One More Dying Quail

I Was More Excited When I Thought His Name Was "Bienvenue"

One of the local sports radio hosts mentioned this afternoon that one of the players involved in the Eric Gagne trade was Engel Beltre, a 16-year-old kid hitting .200 in the low minors who the host claimed has been likened to a young Ken Griffey, Jr.

Not believing that this kid was only 16, I checked it out after I got home. Turns out he was close on the age - young Engel will turn 18 on November 1 - and right on with the batting average, but that didn't even end up being my favorite find of the day.

I couldn't remember the player's first name (and Joe Castiglione was no help, referring to him as "a minor leaguer named Beltre"), so my search at the minor league baseball web site was for "Beltre" only. Looking for my man Engel, I missed the top result at first. When my eyes passed over the list again, however, I found one of my new favorite baseball names:

Bienvenido Beltre.

He's 19-years-old and has a 5.73 ERA in the Dominican Summer League, but somebody in the Cubs organization needs to guarantee that he makes it to the majors someday, if only so the Wrigley faithful can be afforded the opportunity to greet him with the obligatory "Welcome" chant.