As Harold Reynolds said yesterday about Joey Votto walking too much: “Votto does NOT walk his way to the HOF.” #drugsnothugs

Votto has led the National League in on-base percentage three years in a row and currently leads the NL this season at .418 (through June 17). It helps that he’s been walked 348 times since the start of 2010.

The Canadian-born first baseman, who won the NL MVP in 2010 (.324, 37 homers and 113 RBI), hasn’t batted below .297 in his six-plus years in the majors. He owns a ...

Toledo News-Bee, June 20, 1913:

Larry, the Naps’ bulldog mascot, is in bad here [in Washington] and will probably be barred hereafter from the local ball park. One reason is that the dog bit a child Thursday, but the main one is that the Washington players complain the animal has been taught to bark in order to rattle the Naps’ opponents. If Larry remains Griffith threatens to train his Montana goat mascot to sing at critical moments.

Yes, Mr. Griffith. Ballparks should be absolutely silent ...

I believe it was Dutch Leonard Bernstein that said…“Baseball-Reference can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”

I was talking to (Major League Baseball historian and author) John Thorn a few years ago, and he was saying one of the potential pitfalls with Negro League stat research, he said there’s some researchers who’ll go so far as to hypothesize box scores. Have you heard of that kind of thing?

It’s very hard. The leagues were not well-defined. The barnstorming was ...

From the Pirates’ perspective, the best thing is that Stanton is making only $537,000 this season, so he fits into their budget. Sure, he’ll get expensive starting next year when he first becomes arbitration-eligible, but that’s the thing about acquiring him: You get him for three more seasons after this one. This isn’t renting Zack Greinke for two months. And if Stanton gets too expensive for your tastes by 2016, you can always trade him then.

All the Pirates have to do is cough up ...

AKA Roy Oswalt Lives!

RIP…Gene Freese.

After spending the last 60 years of his life in New Orleans, former Major League Baseball player Gene Freese passed away Wednesday morning from natural causes at the age of 79.

The man who claims to have given Pete Rose his “Charlie Hustle” nickname never left the Crescent City after spending the early part of his career playing for the New Orleans Pelicans—a Double-A, Minor-League team affiliated with the Pittsburgh Pirates during Freese’s tenure with the organization.

...

After three months as the single most popular person in Taiwan, Manny Ramirez will leave the EDA Rhinos by week’s end. Weep not, Manny fans, because he’s probably headed for the greener, more lucrative pastures of Japan.

We’re still struck by how fully fans embraced Ramirez, even if they initially couldn’t tell him from another dreadlocked Dominican ballplayer. But it couldn’t last. The Rhinos had only signed him to a three-month contract (expiring June 30), one that allowed him to break it in ...

Move over Bensonhurst Bomber! #jackiegleasonsucks

Matt Harvey challenged Jon Rauch to a fight last season, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports.

Harvey was taking a nap when Rauch doused him with ice water, shocking him awake and also ruining Harvey’s phone.

“He bounded up and challenged Rauch to a fight. Right there. Right then. He gave up 7 inches, about 75 pounds and a gallon or so of bad ink. It didn’t matter that he was a rookie. Harvey would not be a joke. He would not be a ...

May 20 (Royals Newswire)—OF Clark Kent was called up from Omaha and started in right field over the weekend in place of Jeff Francoeur, who was hitting .209/.250/.295 as of May 19. Kent hit a Pacific Coast League-leading .908/.996/3.725 over two months in Omaha, winning eight consecutive PCL Player of the Week awards. However, Kent did not get a hit in his first three Major League games, as he bunted in his first 11 plate appearances against Oakland. “He has to learn to manufacture ...

Tom Hamilton has the Best Home Run call in all of People Business.

LGT: There’s been a kind of evolution in statistical analysis and understanding of baseball. How much weight do you give to this broader statistical analysis?

TH: We get all the statistical information we need in advance of games. But I really think for my purposes, you have to be careful. You can number people to death. People will go numb if you use too many numbers. I know I do. If I hear a broadcast and they’re stuck on ...

The Machado (2013) - The Criterion Collection.

Yesterday, Bill James wrote (subscriber-only) about Manny Machado’s chances of breaking the all-time, single-season double record. Here’s the meat, or rather the top and bottom buns; I snipped out most of the mathematical meat:

  Manny Machado has hit 31 doubles through the Orioles’ first 71 games. At that pace he would hit 73 doubles this season, which would break the major league record for doubles in a season, which is 67 (Earl Webb, ...

I’m predicting about 30 home runs during the remainder of 2013 and 50 next year.

Evan Longoria (4.3 PA/G) is currently your most consistent hitter, sitting at 28% better than league average. That’s great news for the Rays considering he has a 154 wRC+ so far in 2013. Not only is producing at an extremely high level offensively, but his performance has been quite consistent, game-to-game.

Contrast that to the Marlins’ Placido Polanco. Polanco (4.2 PA/G) has the sixth-best VOL so far this year, but he’s hitting 41% worse than league average. That means the Marlins are ...

Milwaukee Sentinel, June 19, 1913:

As the indirect result of being hit in the head by a pitched ball during a game years ago, Earl Davenport, who played with Pittsburg in the National League in 1892, Wednesday was sentenced to serve three years in San Quentin prison for passing fictitious checks.

Before he was sentenced, Davenport told Judge Willis that he had been irresponsible ever since he was “beaned” during a baseball game. He asked the court to arrange for an operation on his skull.

He ...

“cartoon characters dressed up”? Time to cue “Tick Tock Tuckered” where Porky actually wears pants!

In Milwaukee, cartoon characters dressed up like various sausages race at each Brewers’ game; in Washington, five of our beloved presidents do their own bratwurst ramble. But the character I want to appear at every baseball game –– and at a couple of other sports, too, is ...

tick-tock,tick-tock

... the crocodile from Peter Pan who swallowed a clock and shadows a terrified Capt. Hook.

...

Wheeler - Wreck Of Ole Eighty Six

In an attempt to illuminate Tuesday night during Zack Wheeler’s major league debut, SNY announcer Gary Cohen explained that the last time a pair of under-25 pitchers started both ends of a doubleheader, then went on to win at least 75 games each for that team, was when Dwight Gooden and Sid Fernandez accomplished the treat in 1986. Set the bar at 100 games, and the last duo dates back to 1969.

And collectively, I assume, Mets fans pleaded with Gary Cohen ...

Gotta check those Disabled List League numbers…had no idea Bryce Harper was slumping.

No, it’s not more ridiculous than the backhanded campaign to start Mariano Rivera in his final Summer Classic. This one is a bit premature. Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig’s 13-game MLB career is barely older than baby Kimye and he has barely played 40 games in the minors, but that hasn’t stopped fans from charging the hype machine and pushing his All-Star candidacy.

Puig-mania doesn’t have the ...

Dayn misspelled Manu Ginobili.

Not only did the Angels on Tuesday night squander a rare-as-a-comet Joe Blanton gem, but they also lost at home in extras to the generally hapless Mariners. Looking for a main offender? It has to be Josh Hamilton.

Hamilton is of course struggling badly in 2013, but Tuesday’s performance may have been the worst of his career. Here’s his unfortunate line for the night: 0-for-5, 2 Ks, 3 GIDPs, 7 LOB. Sign of a bad game at the plate? When going 0-for-5 with five ...

16 games today, I say.

Bronson: The Man. The Myth. The Cincinnati Celebrity.

Arroyo has pitched well enough that he could well end up in the Reds Hall of Fame some day.

“That’s something I don’t think about,” he said. “It’s just weird, man. I’ve said it a lot about other guys. You look at Brandon Phillips’ numbers, and they’re neck and neck with Joe Morgan, and you think of Joe Morgan as a god, but when you play next to Brandon Phillips for eight years, you don’t think of him as anything but ...

My results were…disappointing.

Playing, coaching or umpiring baseball games for a number of years should lead to knowing all the ins and outs of the rule book, right? That doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone given the amount of blown calls we’ve seen this season. ESPN’s baseball crew teamed up with a rules expert to create and administer a quiz to current MLB players, managers/coaches and the media. The results were less than impressive. Do you know the game better than the people who live ...

######, NYC Tonite, Up Against The Wall

The injury hits just keep on coming for the Yankees, who announced that Kevin Youkilis needs surgery to repair a herniated disc and will be out for 10-12 weeks.

That puts Youkilis’ season in jeopardy, because 10 weeks would get him into September and any setbacks would leave him running out of time. Youkilis hit just .219 with two homers and a .648 OPS in 28 games for the Yankees after signing a one-year, $12 million deal as a free agent.

When Liquid Plumr failed to clear things up, the city filed suit.

The lawsuit argues MLB’s decree that the San Francisco Giants have exclusive territorial rights to San Jose, which the defending World Series champions refuse to relinquish, constitutes unlawful restraint of trade.

“For years, MLB has unlawfully conspired to control the location and relocation of major league men’s professional baseball clubs under the guise of an ‘antitrust exemption’ applied to the business of baseball,” said ...

Any professional who talks to the media about his area of expertise is succeptible to a certain level of contrarianism. Legend has it that even God the Creator once answered a question with the words, “I don’t know if ‘rest’ is the word I’d use to describe that seventh day, but. . .” So when the man responsible for the short and long-term success of the Phillies organization said on Monday afternoon that he doesn’t “do five-year plans,” it may have offered more of an insight into his psychology ...

Woo-hoo…I haven’t laughed at a Strauss this hard since Stanislas “Animal” Kasava danced with Harry “Sugar Lips” Shapiro! #stalaugh17

Joe Strauss @JoeStrauss

District in meltdown. Mention Natitude and it’s as if someone shook the hive. #NotMyMarketingCampaign

Now, this is funny, because apparently a few Nats fans got angry at Strauss or something. And by writing “#NotMyMarketingCampaign,” Strauss here signifies that he did not, in fact, come up with Natitude. Meaning he’s zeroing in on ...