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Showing posts with the label MLB

Tim McCarver: Baseball Savant

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  He’d call it before you saw it Tim McCarver was a baseball savant. Whether you liked the way he called a game, or didn’t, he knew his shit. There was no better proof than what happened during the 2001 World Series. McCarver’s analysis when he described what might happen actually did seconds later. Tim McCarver was a baseball lifer. He had seen everything that could happen on a diamond. McCarver was the catcher on the Stl Cardinals when Bob Gibson had his best years. Gibson arguably had the best season a pitcher could have in 1967. 22 wins and a 1.12 ERA with 268 strikeouts. He won the NL Cy Young award for best pitcher and the NL MVP. Pitchers rarely win both. Tim McCarver was his personal catcher, calling all the pitches. McCarver caught Gibson’s Game One start of the 1968 World Series when Bullet Bob struck out 17 on the way to a victory. McCarver had a way with pitchers that had a mean streak. Gibson was as mercurial as a bad tempered thoroughbred horse. He also knew Steve Carlton

Upsets Abound in N.L. Playoffs

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Braves and Dodgers unceremoniously kicked to the curb Anything can happen in a short series A couple of months ago, I declared the San Diego Padres dead . This is a display of my overconfidence whenever it comes to prognostication. My lapse of reason for prediction is particularly painful when I’m in Las Vegas. It’s there when my penchant for being a prophet cannot turn a profit. I should know better by now, and I do, but that doesn’t stop me. In sports, there is always a chance. Sometimes the underdog overcomes all odds and shocks the pundits. That possibility has an ability to wheedle its way into decision making. There’s always a chance. That’s the tantalizing prospect. To be recognized as an oracle. A soothsayer of the science of sports forecasting. I didn't see this coming, and that's the problem with the Major League Baseball playoffs. The defending world series champion Atlanta Braves looked unbeatable. The same with the 111 win Los Angeles Dodgers. Both teams seemed to

Padres Gonna Padre: Tatis Suspended

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  Just when they thought there was a chance. If this isn’t the biggest PED suspension, it’s at least in the top 3. The  San Diego Padres  fan is the most tortured in baseball. There’s no contest. It’s the hands-down leader. I’ll go as far as saying San Diego sports fans are on top of the sports misery index for all sports. Suffering doesn’t describe it. They’re flat-out cursed. Their sports teams can’t even sniff a title. Oh, I’m sorry. They no longer have teams. San Diego’s NFL and NBA teams left town for Los Angeles. The L.A. Clippers used to be headquartered in San Diego. The Houston Rockets also began life in San Diego. This is getting exhausting. The Padres have been around since 1969. They have been to two World Series. They have won a grand total of one game in the fall classic. One in 1984. The past few seasons, they seemed to build a winner. The Padres spent millions constructing a club that could compete with the best. They’ve signed star free agents. They’ve made trades for

29 Years Ago: Ryan vs. Ventura

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  Ventura learned the hard way not to charge the GOAT There are some things in life that someone just doesn’t do. Don’t tug on Superman’s cape is one of them. Nolan Ryan, besides being the greatest human to ever throw a baseball, is a lifetime cattle rancher in the state of Texas. If there is one thing that Ryan does better than punching out batters, it’s punching cattle. He can rope ’em, poke ’em, tie ’em and brand ’em with the best of ’em. Ryan is one of those actual cowboys that  Kevin Costner  plays on television, except Ryan is not playing. Nolan is a real-life John Wayne, even though John Wayne wasn’t real life. On his way to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Ryan pitched for 27 seasons, won 292 games, and struck out 5,714 hitters. Nobody will ever strike out that many hitters ever again. Ryan threw fastballs over 100 mph and a curveball that was like it was falling off a table. Later in his career, he developed an off-speed pitch that just wasn’t fair. If hitters could’ve sued him, the

Mike Trout Just Got Old

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  The Los Angeles Angels are snake-bit. They are cursed. Somehow someway someone put a hex on them. Sure they won a world series once, but that was 20 years ago. It must’ve been because Disney got involved with them at the time. It was fantasyland for Angels fans. Maybe it was the baseball gods punishing the San Francisco Giants and Barry Bonds for crimes against baseball humanity. Bonds cheated to break the most hallowed records in the game. The Angels beating Bonds and the Giants was just a happy circumstance. But, I digress. Throughout the Angels history, they have had one misfortune after another plague them like the plague. Players have died. The team more than once snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They’ve had bus crashes and car accidents. I don’t know if it’s been more or less than other teams, but the Angels sure have had a lot. The latest is with the greatest player they have ever produced. The great Mike Trout was available for the club to draft because of a technic

The Pine Tar Incident

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  George Brett had a helluva stroke and then almost had one Gather around, young ones. I’m about to tell you about how  Major League Baseball  Hall-of-Famer Billy Martin turned fellow Hall-of-Famer George Brett into a human volcano. Which is quite the turnaround because Billy Martin was famous for his eruptions. Brett’s team, the Kansas City Royals were playing the Martin-managed New York Yankees that day. The backstory is that both teams hated each other, in a sporting sense. It wasn’t hatred like the Hatfields and the McCoys or the Montagues and the Capulets. That’s a whole other story. The teams in the late ’70s and ’80s were perennial playoff opponents. They often met in the American League Championship Series for the right to advance to the fall classic. The World Series. The Yankees, of course, dominated the Royals. They’d brush past them like the Royals were the weak peasant pretenders to the throne. The Royals were a folly standing in the way of the Yankees’ rightful royalty. T

The Angels Have To Move Shohei Ohtani

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  When Shohei Ohtani selected the Los Angeles Angels offer, it was like the baseball gods had finally smiled on the team. They finally won a championship in 2002 and they lucked into drafting the great Mike Trout in 2009, but signing Ohtani was a genuine gift. When he took off as a player last year they believed that he and Trout would form a nucleus that would send the Angels to the promised land. This season started out promisingly enough. But then there was a 14 game losing streak that cost manager Joe Maddon his job. Maddon was a coach for the Angels when they won the World Series. He was the manager of the Chicago Cubs when they ended a 108 year drought and became champions. The Angels went into a tailspin that they have shown no signs of coming out of. They were just swept by their cross-town rivals, the Dodgers. But to call it a rivalry is a misnomer. The Dodgers rudely treat the Angels like underlings. The Dodgers don’t know the rivalry exists. The time has come to face facts.

Just Rickey Henderson Being Rickey

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Rickey Henderson is the greatest base stealing artist of all-time. Nobody is close and nobody will ever challenge Rickey. When it comes to baseball, Rickey is like Madonna or Elvis or Ali. He’s known by one name. Rickey’s last name is superfluous. Just Google the name Rickey. It will auto fill his last name automatically. There is no more meaningful justification today than that. In baseball, the most meaningful act is to score runs.  Rickey has accomplished the baseball equivalent of the prime directive more than any player in history. It’s another of Rickey’s records that will be unchallenged. Rickey is Major League Baseball’s greatest leadoff hitter. It’s a position that is traditionally meant for a speedster with a premier ability to get on base. Rickey had an eye for the strike zone like an owl has an eye for prey. In 24 seasons, Rickey got on-base over 40% of the time. Rickey wasn’t just a base stealer and on-base machine. Rickey hit almost 300 home runs in Rickey’s career. 81

Eck And Gibby

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Mike Davis took ball four from Dennis Eckersley and made his way to first. Eck got the first two batters out easily. Walking Davis was an uncharacteristic move, but they were teammates the year before with the Athletics and Davis had a good year with 24 home runs. Tony La Russa, the manager of the A’s, decided whoever the Los Angeles Dodgers had on the bench was less dangerous. I was in the cheap seats. The upper of the upper deck on the third base side. We jammed the place. We were all standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder. It seemed like we were all breathing together synchronistically. When Davis walked, we all knew he was the potential tying run and we simultaneously let out a roar. Now the question was, who was going to pinch hit? Mike Davis had pinch hit for the light hitting shortstop, Alfredo Griffin, in the 8th hole. The pitcher’s number 9 slot in the batting order was due next. Kirk Gibson was the Dodgers’ most valuable player in 1988. He had come over to the club that

Son, Meet Baseball

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Son, meet baseball . My old friend.  I was thinking back to the favorite sports conversation we had a few days ago, and I thought that spelling out my love for baseball would help you understand more than just telling it. When I was 8 years old, my grandfather called me into the house where he was watching a game. He sat me down and said, ‘I want you to watch this next hitter. His name is Willie Mays. He’s the greatest player I ever saw. I want you to tell your children that you saw him play.’ That was the beginning of my romance with baseball.  Baseball is unlike other sports for my generation because baseball is truly generational. My father took me to my first baseball game, just like his father took him.  I had the pleasure of attending a game with them both, which gave us a commonality, something of a reference that led to bonding unlike anything else. It was a shared experience that we could relate to.  I played baseball with my friends. The game would take place in an abandoned

The Transcendent Shohei Ohtani

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When Shohei Ohtani chose the Los Angeles Angels, it was like the baseball gods finally gave the ball club's fans a break. Not since the Angels lost out on Mark Teixeira and got the rights to draft Mike Trout as fortune shone on Angel Stadium.  Drafting Trout was a fluke of the rules. Shohei Ohtani choosing the Angels was a miracle. He did it because the club told him he could pitch and be a position player. That ruled out National League teams. Ohtani wanted to be a Dodger. But they weren’t prepared to let him do it.  In his first season, Shohei Ohtani became the first Major League Baseball player to make 10 starts as a pitcher and hit 20 home runs as a position player since Babe Ruth accomplished the feat in 1919. The Babe was not a two-way baseball player after that. His diet didn’t allow it. Shohei Ohtani was just getting started.  He has always been a meticulous conditioning zealot. As a youth in his native Japan, Ohtani became relentless and worked out hard. When drafted

MLB Playoffs: The Legend of Eddie Rosario

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They’re the surprise team of the 2021 MLB Playoffs.  The Atlanta Braves are not supposed to be where they are. They only had a two percent chance to represent the National League in the 2021 World Series. They didn’t have a winning record until August 6th.  If it wasn’t for a spike in early season revenues, the Braves wouldn’t have made the MLB Playoffs .  Atlanta Braves fans purchased tickets in a frenzy that overrode expectations. Because of that, Braves ownership gave their general manager the green light to spend the extra revenue . Like a man that got an unexpected bonus check, he set out to do just that.  After the knee injury to All-Star outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr., Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos sprang into action.  In four hours before the July 30th trade deadline, Anthopoulos remade his outfield and added depth to his bench.  One player they gained was Eddie Rosario. Rosario had an abdominal strain, but might return in September. He is an outfielder by trade. He hits

Major League Baseball to Provide for Minor League Players

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For the first time in Major League Baseball history, teams must provide housing for minor league players.  A majority of baseball players signed to contracts do not get bonuses. They’re players that have just enough talent to be recognized. Teams sign many right out of high school.  Those players have had to subsist on roughly $15,000 a year that Major League Baseball pays them. They’ve had to hustle and grind for day-to-day living expenses.  Many have to work side gigs outside of the game. In the offseason, they have to pay more attention to staying financially afloat. Players have to stay in shape and find proper nutrition. Minor league baseball players usually have to scrape by on junk food and sleep on an air mattress.  If the players are nursing injuries, it’s up to them to rehabilitate the damage. Most players have no access to healthcare when they can barely pay rent. Speaking of rent, players have to share living accommodations. A recent ESPN article told the stories of playe

MLB Playoffs Wildcard Games Have Been Nirvana

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The crisp October air can represent a lot of things, but it’s the best time of year for a baseball fan. The MLB Playoffs have started. This week has been Nirvana. The fans are rapturous. Ballparks are full. Every pitch, every at bat has consequences. It all began with the MLB Playoffs Wildcard games. The defending World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers were favorites to win the NL West Division. They lost to the upstart San Francisco Giants who were not supposed to be contenders. The Dodgers were playing against the St. Louis Cardinals . The Cardinals were an afterthought until they went on a seventeen game winning streak. They overtook the Cincinnati Reds for the 2nd wildcard spot to close the season. Dodger bats went quiet during the first half of the game as the Cardinals clung to a one run lead. Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner tied the contest with a home run in the fourth inning. Then it was up to the bullpens. The game stayed tied until the bottom of the 9th. St. Louis r

Respect The Game And It Will Pay You Back

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Every ballplayer hears the same thing from coaches throughout the beginning of the player’s career. If you respect the game, the game will pay you back. A small fraction of players makes the majors straight out of the draft. Most make the big show after refining their skills for a few seasons in the minor leagues. A few bounce back and forth between the majors and minors before eventually sticking and finding their place. Then there are the players that have enough talent to keep around, but not quite enough to make the jump to the majors. They’re the depth guys. They are uniquely talented in rare skills, but lacking in areas that would permit them to move forward. They’re like singers that have the chops but sound like someone famous. Like, a talented painter whose works have the same attributes as a master but not the full complement.  They possess an uncommon skill but are common as a player. The player can hit, but can’t field or run. He can field like a vacuum cleaner, but can’t h