D Magazine: Rangers borrowed $15M from MLB to make payroll

Amid increased internet chatter Wednesday that Tom Hicks financial woes are deepening and that the club has borrowed money from MLB’s rainy-day fund, club officials took a strange approach.

They went silent.

The chatter arose Wednesday after a local blog reported hearing on a national radio broadcast the team had borrowed $15 million from MLB to make its most recent payroll obligations and to fund ongoing operations. Asked about the reports, owner Tom Hicks referred questions to team spokesman John Blake, who said the team would have no comment on Hicks’ financial situation.

Tom Hicks needs to be the next to go in the name of financial flexibility.

MLB reacts to Jackson, Fawcett deaths

Yet only sunflower seeds spit Sky Saxon’s way…

Nationals center fielder Willie Harris’ heart ached. He was the reason that Michael Jackson’s music filled Nationals Park throughout his team’s 9-3 victory over Boston Thursday night. It was a somber and sad celebration, just as there will be Michael music during the Dodgers’ Friday Night Fireworks event.

“I heard about Michael Jackson when I was in the batting cage before the game,” Harris said. “After I heard it, it saddened me. That’s why I got in touch with our music lady upstairs. I told her I want Michael Jackson played tonight. I was able to get that song played tonight. It’s just to honor a legend. He is a legend, man. It’s a part of life, but sometimes,it’s a hard pill to swallow. I’m sure the entire world is saddened because of his death. But at the same time, you have to keep moving and pushing forward.”

“It’s a bad day for the music industry, or for anybody,” Cody Ross of the Marlins said after his team’s game. “It’s a sad day. He lived a good life—he made a lot of money and had some kids. Your heart goes out to his family.

“When I walked in today and saw the news, I was taken aback. He one of the all-time greats—like the Babe Ruth of music. He’s right there with Elvis and all those guys. Anytime something like that happens, it’s tough to swallow.”

NY Daily News: Dusty Rhodes, hero for Giants of 1954 World Series vs. Indians, dies

After Willie’s catch, the reason the Giants won their last Series…

Rhodes, whose lefthanded stroke was tailor-made for the short right field porch at the old Polo Grounds, won the first game with a pinch-hit, 10th-inning three-run homer off future Hall of Famer Bob Lemon just inside the right field foul pole, about 296 feet away. The next day, he delivered a pinch single in the fifth and a home run in the seventh against another future Hall of Famer, Early Wynn, to highlight a 3-1 Giants win. Finally, in Game 3, he hit a two-run pinch single off the Indians’ Mike Garcia to spark a 6-2 Giants win.

Original Colt .45 Hal Woodeshick passes

Hal Woodeshick: Indisposable.

In the past several years, the Astros family has lost quite a few stars from past generations, and sadly, on Sunday, it lost one of its founding fathers. Left-hander Hal Woodeshick, a member of the original Colt .45s, passed away at the age of 76 after a lengthy illness.

Woodeshick not only was a member of Houston’s very first Major League team, he was also with the club when it became the Astros and moved into the Astrodome in 1965. He pitched 3 1/2 years with Houston as part of an 11-year Major League career, during which he compiled a 44-62 record and a 3.56 ERA over 427 games (62 starts).

Woodeshick, considered Houston’s first real closer, made one All-Star appearance in 1963, his second season with the Colt .45s. He was 11-9 with a 1.97 ERA over 55 relief appearances that year, and he logged 10 saves.

The next season, Woodeshick recorded a career-high 23 saves while compiling a 2.76 ERA. He was traded to the Cardinals in the middle of the 1965 season and made his only World Series appearance in 1967 with St. Louis, pitching one inning in relief against the Red Sox.

Former Cleveland Indians shortstop Woodie Held dies at age 77

Woodie Held hit lots of homers back when other shortstops didn’t.

Genial off the field and aggressive on it, Held was the first Indians shortstop until Jhonny Peralta in 2005 to launch more than 20 home runs in a season.

Held’s power seemed contagious on July 31, 1963. He hit the first of four Indians homers in a row.

Held died Wednesday at age 77 at his Dubois, Wyo., ranch after seven months’ struggle with brain cancer. His wife and high school sweetheart, Nadine, is fighting the same disease.

RIP, Woodie Held

WKYC: Former Cleveland Indians owner Dick Jacobs passes away

Channel 3 News has learned that Dick Jacobs, former owner of the Cleveland Indians and prominent businessman passed away after a long illness.

Jacobs is the chairman and CEO of The Richard E. Jacobs Group, a real estate development company that he co-founded with his late brother David.

...

During his ownership the team went to two World Series in 1995 and 1997 and a record of 455 consecutive sellouts at Jacob’s Field.

Farewell to the best owner the Cleveland Indians have ever had.

MLB on Blackout Policy: “There’s still more work to be done”

Files under “Business”, “Media”, “Television”, “Crimes” and “Stupidity”. Maybe “obituaries” too.

But, my hope has faded, and at this stage, if my hope is fading, then consumers, it’s time to pack it in. For more than two years, MLB’s owners, along with Commissioner Selig, have pushed the matter off, tabling the topic in owners meetings after owners meetings.

Optimism for a solution was not given a nudge in the right direction after speaking to Brian Eckhouse of the Las Vegas Sun yesterday and reading his column today (see Major League Baseball: As not seen on TV)

As quoted in Eckhouse’s column, the situation in Las Vegas is the most egregious – seeing the Dodgers, Angels, Giants, Athletics, Padres, and Diamondbacks all claiming that Las Vegas is within their “local” television territory, and therefore, MLB Extra Innings and MLB.TV consumer, subject to blackouts.

I mentioned to Eckhouse that this matter could get worse should MLB Advanced Media ever decide to move forward with streaming games to smartphones through applications such as At Bat, which is now available for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch products. MLBAM has been granted a patent for geolocation that could point to MLBAM looking to such possibilities in the future.

As I said, when reading Eckhouse’s column today, my hope for a solution did not move in the right direction. From his column:

Brown explained that team owners, nervous over the recession, “are scratching for every penny that they can get” — especially from advertisers. Owners fret that reducing the size of their television territories (even markets they don’t televise in) could hurt their draw to advertisers.

“It’s a very complicated issue,” said MLB spokesman Pat Courtney. “There’s still more work to be done” on a revised TV territory policy.

It was Pat Courtney’s comments that should be focused on here.

No one should deny that the issue of the television territories is complicated. But, so was the issue of a drug testing policy in baseball, and look where we are today.

But then, the drug testing policy wasn’t done freely by baseball, it was done so by pressure from Congress and the public. Maybe that’s the component that is missing from the equation. I imagine that if Congress and/or the FCC got involved, that the territories issue in baseball would be addressed in short order.

Bill Kelso, former player and scout, dies

Bill Kelso, who started the original Kelso’s restaurant chain along with making a name for himself as a professional baseball player and scout, died Monday, May 11, at his home. He was 69 years old.

He died in his favorite chair while watching sports, said Jeff Kelso, Bill’s son.

Jeff Kelso said his father spent a career of nearly 40 years in the baseball world first as a player then as a coach and scout.

Kelso began his baseball career with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1962. He was then traded to the California Angels where he spent three seasons from 1964 to 1967. He played his final game with the Cincinnati Reds in 1968.

After completion of his playing career in the 1960s, he coached and was a professional scout for 30 years.

119 career games, including 69 in 1967.
Best wishes to his family.

Reimold’s HR rallies Orioles past Jays 12-10 in 11

Nolan Reimold hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the 11th inning to cap a second surprising comeback by the Baltimore Orioles, who beat Toronto 12-10 Wednesday to extend the Blue Jays’ losing streak to nine games.

No comment.

Slate: Mooallem: The national pastime’s shocking death toll

I usually get my baseball death totals from The Daly Reader.

Death at the Ballpark: A Comprehensive Study of Game-Related Fatalities, 1862-2007 is an impeccably sourced compendium of the men, women, and children who have died or been fatally injured while playing, officiating, or watching baseball in the United States. Its authors, Robert M. Gorman and David Weeks, two librarians and baseball historians at Winthrop University in South Carolina, have spent the last eight years scouring local-newspaper archives (sample search terms: “baseball and death” and “baseball and killed") for examples, in some cases going so far as to track down death certificates to confirm their results.

Given the fetish for statistics in baseball, it was probably inevitable that someone would get around to recording this, too: the number of people baseball has rendered incapable of generating more statistics. Gorman told me he was drawn into this morbid line of research after stumbling across the death of a minor leaguer named Herb Gorman. ("He had my last name. It kind of piqued my interest.") Neither Gorman nor Weeks had ever really thought about baseball as a deadly activity before, and, Gorman told me, after publishing two preliminary articles—one on beaning fatalities and another on fan fatalities at major league stadiums—"we thought maybe we’d exhausted whatever was out there.” They were very wrong. They chronicled 850 baseball deaths in Death at the Ballpark, spanning professional, amateur, Little League, and even backyard pickup games. And though the book purports to be comprehensive, readers have already tipped them off to about 50 incidents they missed.

The authors say their aim was to “raise awareness” about baseball’s many dangers, but there aren’t any recommendations for making the sport safer here, no real signs of impassioned outrage, and no warnings to suburban parents about aluminum bats. Death at the Ballpark is fundamentally a reference book—a list carefully organized into categories like “Thrown Ball Fatalities, Amateur Fatalities—Position Players” and “Thrown Ball Fatalities, Amateur Fatalities—Baserunners.” Often, however, the authors pause for a half-page to narrate a death in noirlike detail. The opening paragraph of one entry ominously begins, “Patrick J. McTavey, 38, worked home plate during a heated semipro championship game on Long Island, NY, on September 26, 1927,” and ends: “It was the last call he ever made.”

Thanks to RotoSynthesis.

Gagne signs with independent baseball club

Pitcher Eric Gagne is coming back to pitch in his home province.

The former NL Cy Young Award winner has accepted a deal with the Quebec Capitales of the independent Can-Am League.

A reliever throughout most of his major league career, Gagne will pitch as a starter for the independent league team, the club said Wednesday.

Game Over.

NV regulators end casino bets on Reno Aces

The bets are off at Nevada sports books when it comes to the Reno Aces.

Several northern Nevada casinos have been taking wagers on Reno’s new Triple-A baseball team since the season opened. Not anymore.

“When that came to our attention, we immediately notified the sports books that the bets were not acceptable,” state Gaming Control Board member Randall E. Sayre told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Sayre wrote a memo detailing the board’s findings that a 1985 regulation, instituted at Major League Baseball’s request, bans sports books from accepting bets on Nevada-based teams.

Nick Bogdanovich, race and sports director for the Club Cal Neva in downtown Reno, said wagering on the Aces was becoming popular with locals.

“People liked it,” he told the newspaper. “There was a decent amount of wagering on it, and it would have been interesting to see where it went.

“We had a brand new product and people were taking to it. The Aces generated more business than I thought they would.”

WHO THE HELL WOULD BET ON MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL GAMES!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!

(don’t answer that)

DEADSPIN: Royals Fans Turn Children’s Playground Into Thunderdome

Two couples started an all-out brawl at a Kansas City Royals game on Sunday after a woman walked in front another woman as she was taking a picture, a breech of etiquette that clearly deserves a head stomping. If a few kids got hurt along the way, that’s just business.

According to police, everyone was enjoying a lovely day in Kauffman Stadium’s outfield fun zone until Ronika Brooks walked in front of Erin Mela as Mela was taking a picture of her kid. Mela allegedly swore at her (Brooks says Mela directed a racial slur at her) then Mela’s husband got involved, then three men may have jumped him, then he may have spit in Brooks’ face ... then some kids got knocked over, so their parents joined in, and then at one point Erin Mela was definitely on the ground getting kicked in the head. Let’s play two!

It also seems that security was a bit lax on the response.

“It was horrible,” said Mike Worley of Olathe, who said T-shirt-wearing stadium staff failed to stem the violence and told him to “mind my own business” when he tried to point out participants.

Royals officials said that their security office was notified of a disturbance in the new outfield experience area at 3:45 p.m. Two minutes later the call was updated to a fight in progress. The first police officers arrived at 3:49 p.m....

“It was beyond a brawl. It started out as four people, and then as kids were getting toppled, those parents came in, the women were fighting,” Phipps said. “The saddest scene was a girl wrapped around mom’s waist and saying, ‘Please don’t,’ and she’s throwing punches.”

Deadspin has the links. Obviously. I normally would use the actual article, but that title makes me want to laugh.

Arizona Republic: Wife of D-Backs’ Schoeneweis found dead at Fountain Hills home

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office reported that the wife of Diamondbacks reliever Scott Schoeneweis was found dead today at their Fountain Hills home. Gabrielle Dawn Schoeneweis, 39, was unresponsive when deputies arrived at the home a little after noon.

All the team is saying in Miami is that Schoeneweis has left the team for a family emergency.

A call to the Sheriff’s Office was made by one of the couple’s children. The 14-year-old told deputies she found the mother of four on the floor of the master bedroom. Schoeneweis was pronounced dead at the scene.

Wife of D-Backs Pitcher Found Dead in Phoenix Area

Yet another MLB-related tragedy this spring:

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office says deputies found the body of 39-year-old Gabrielle Dawn Schoeneweis on the floor of the master bedroom in the family’s suburban home shortly after noon Wednesday.

Authorities say her 14-year-old daughter called the sheriff’s office to report that she had found her mother lying there and unresponsive.

MET FAN A ‘POTTY MOUTH’ TOOTH-IN-TOILET ORDEAL

A hapless Mets fan tried to make a diving catch when her gold tooth fell into a Citi Field toilet—and got her arm stuck in the commode.

The unidentified woman’s bizarre Flushing adventure happened during last Wednesday’s game against the Atlanta Braves, sources said yesterday.

It’s unclear how long she was trapped screaming in the john, but stadium security guards and emergency medical personnel eventually showed up.

But they could not pry her loose on their own.

They called for back-up—dialing up a worker from Cardoza Plumbing, the company that installed all 646 ultra-low-flow toilets at Citi Field.

He rushed to the scene from his company’s Jamaica headquarters 7.2 miles away, the sources said.

The anxious victim, meanwhile, could only wait as the toilet continued to flush over her arm.

At one point, she became more entertaining than the game—which the Mets lost 8-7—as fans gathered outside the bathroom near Section 338 to see the off-field action.

I can’t believe it isn’t a Onion Article!

Recession freezing out cold-weather baseball teams

Heller and the Panthers aren’t alone. Vermont is also eliminating baseball, along with softball, and Massachusetts reportedly considered ending baseball before deciding to cut men’s and women’s varsity skiing.

Dropping baseball in the chilly North and Midwest is nothing new, as Wisconsin, Iowa State, Providence and Boston University have dropped the national pastime in the past two decades. But as the economy continues to lag, more and more teams in cold-weather locales - where the sport faces much larger financial obstacles and is often a smaller priority on campus than in the South - could be in jeopardy.

“If there’s a program that is on the fringe, as far as what the cost is, what they feel it brings to the campus and the community with the alumni and so forth, those types of programs are always in question where there’s a lack of money,’’ said Dave Keilitz, the executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association.

Even in boon times, weather has been a major problem for programs north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Most cold-weather programs start the first month of the season on costly road trips down South. It’s often far from tropical when they return home, making it tough to generate local interest and revenue from fans unwilling to bundle up for spring baseball. All that puts a serious damper on recruiting, making it tough to lure top-notch prospects.

Anybody know how to build and maintain Domes for incredibly cheap?

EX-YANKEE HOSPITALIZED AFTER SUICIDE THREAT

Ex-Yankee slugger Jim Leyritz is a “Bomber” yet again.

Leyritz, who is awaiting trial for a fatal drunk-driving crash, was hospitalized last night after threatening suicide when he failed a Breathalyzer test required to start his car, Florida cops said today.

Jose Canseco: Not in demand

DREAM Super Hulk Tournament participant Jose Canseco held a press conference in Beverly Hills yesterday to discuss the Manny Ramirez steroid issue in Major League Baseball.

From the AP report: “Only one reporter from The Associated Press, Canseco’s lawyer, a photographer and four camera crews attended the news conference. All but two of the 100 seats were empty.”

The photo is priceless. Sometimes you get the publicity, and sometimes the publicity gets you.

Philly.com: Former Phillies manager Danny Ozark dies

At age 85, this Napoleon has his Watergate:

For all the success Mr. Ozark, a longtime coach and manager in the Los Angeles Dodgers system, enjoyed here, he may be best remembered for not replacing leftfielder Greg Luzinski with Jerry Martin in Game 3 of the NL Championship Series on Oct. 7, 1977, still recalled here as Black Friday.

With that series tied at 1-1, the Phils led the Dodgers, 5-2, entering the ninth inning that day. Pinch-hitter Manny Mota lined a ball that Luzinski, whom Martin normally replaced in the late innings, couldn’t handle. It would be the key hit in a four-run rally that gave the Dodgers the victory. A night later, in the rain at Veterans Stadium, L.A. cliched the series.

MLB.com: Norton mourns tragedy 20 years later

When Greg Norton awoke on the morning of May 6, 1989, life’s next challenge seemingly stood solely in the form of the SAT exam that awaited him just a few hours later. This entrance exam provided another chance for him to allow his mother to realize the dream of seeing him gain a college education and then take his baseball talents to the Major Leagues.

...

While waiting for a friend to pick him up, Norton walked upstairs to check on his mother. There he found Helen Norton bruised and motionless. Around her neck rested a tie that her husband, Jerry Norton, used as a murder weapon.

alt.obituaries: Lawrence Goldberg, 84; Recorded for Posterity, “The Giants Win the Pennant”

As the heading of the Google newsgroup entry concludes, a Very Cool Story indeed:

It was October 3, 1951, when Mr. Goldberg—before
heading to work—asked his mother, Sylvia, to record
the end of the third game of the Brooklyn Dodgers-New
York Giants playoff game. That reel-to-reel tape
recorded Hodges’ call: ‘There’s a long fly. It’s going to
be, I believe. The Giants win the pennant! The Giants
win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants
win the pennant! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower
deck of the left-field stands. The Giants win the pennant!
And they’re going crazy. They’re going crazy!’

The radio station that broadcast the game hadn’t recorded
it, and Mr. Goldberg offered to lend his tape to Hodges.
Without it, the world would have never heard the call—
which has since been repeated on the radio, TV and film.
At first, Hodges made recordings as gifts for friends.
The next spring, sponsor Chesterfield cigarettes made
records of the call for their dealers.  In return, Mr. Goldberg,
was given a tape cartridge, $100 and access to Chesterfield’s box
at the Polo Grounds for the season.

Rob Neyer: Don’t believe the stolen base is dead

I still get Sporting News in my (actual) mailbox every week. When the latest issue arrived last week, the cover was graced by the coach of a struggling college football program and the baby-faced quarterback who’s supposed to turn things around.

Not interested. But I looked in the cover’s bottom-right corner, and I saw this:

BASEBALL
THE DEATH OF THE
STOLEN BASE

Inside, an article by the estimable Jeff Pearlman: “All Hit and No Run.” The subtitle: “In today’s game, there are plenty of players with speed. So why will we never see the likes of Rickey Henderson or Vince Coleman again?”

The issue’s cover date is April 27.

On April 26, Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury made all the highlight reels with a straight, unalloyed steal of home against the Yankees; it looks as though Ellsbury may well set a franchise record for steals this season.

On April 27, Colorado’s Dexter Fowler tied a post-1900 rookie record with five steals against the Padres; the Rockies totaled eight steals in the game, most for any team since 2001.

So what’s it going to be? More death? Resurrection? Some squishy thing between those two?

As Pearlman points out, in 1983 the 26 teams combined for 3,325 steals, or 128 per team. Last year, the 30 teams stole 2,799 bases, or 93 per team. This year, the 30 teams are on pace for roughly 3,000 steals, or 100 per team. That would obviously represent a slight uptick, but it’s too early in the season for us to trust that “pace.”

So what’s happened? Why don’t we have a Rickey Henderson or a Vince Coleman in the game today, stealing 100 or more bases? 

King Kaufman: Newspapers’ fatal error

Uhh...you mean it wasn’t the decision to give Dick Young’s “Clubhouse Confidential” gig to Phil Pepe?

If I had known about the Internet, I would have thought, “Who is better positioned to take advantage of a new text-based information medium than newspapers? We have a giant roomful of people who report, write and edit.”

It was my first night on the job. I hadn’t yet learned how hidebound, how slow, how downright stupid newspaper management could be.

The Web came along as a medium to be reckoned with about five years later. As an industry, newspapers failed to see it as an opportunity and instead treated it, almost unanimously, as a threat, something to be fought and vanquished. It was a mistake the industry made not for weeks or months, but for years. It was the newspaper industry’s fatal error. The way the kids say it now: its epic fail.

My old boss at the Examiner, Phil Bronstein, has been marketing himself as this sage statesman of journalism now that he’s no longer piloting the Chronicle. A few weeks ago, writing on his SFGate.com blog about newspapers in general, he said the industry had been “marched to the gallows by an uncaring and unappreciative public, sentenced by shifting technological and cultural habits and a few bonehead moves of [our] own.”

Oh, brother. Marched to the gallows by an uncaring and unappreciative public? More like reluctantly left behind by a public that had been ignored for more than a decade as it screamed, “This is how we want information delivered to us! Not the way you’re doing it! This other way! Look! Over here! We’re over here now! Hey!”

Vegas Institution Danny Gans Dies

I’d much rather remember him as...Danny Gans: Ballplayer.

The Man of Many Voices has gone quiet.

Sin City performer extraordinaire Danny Gans—relatively unknown outside of Las Vegas, but a megastar on the Strip—died in his sleep early this morning at the age of 52. His cause of death was not immediately known.

While Gans began his career as a pro baseball player, eventually nabbing a bit part in Bull Durham, he has been a Vegas mainstay since 1996 and, befitting his stature, had the honor of possessing the largest freestanding marquee in the world.

SF Chronicle: Former MLB infielder “Lucky” Lohrke dies at 85

Jack Lohrke, a major league infielder in the 1940s and 1950s who drew the nickname “Lucky” after several early brushes with death, died Wednesday. He was 85.
...
Lohrke batted .242 with 22 home runs and 96 RBIs in 354 games with the New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies from 1947-53.
...
Lohrke served in the Army during World War II and fought in the D-Day invasion at Normandy and later in the Battle of the Bulge. He recounted how four soldiers — two on each side of him — were killed in combat.

In 1945, Lohrke was leaving the service when he prepared to board a military transport for the trip home to California. Shortly before takeoff, he was bumped from the flight by a higher-ranking officer. The plane crashed, and all passengers were killed.

In 1946, Lohrke and his minor league teammates on the Spokane Indians boarded a bus for a ride across the state of Washington. During a lunch stop, Lohrke got word that he’d been promoted to Triple-A San Diego, took his gear and hitchhiked home.

That night, the bus careened off a rain-slicked pass through the Cascades mountain range and plummeted into a valley, killing nine players. It remains the most deadly crash involving an American pro baseball team.

THE SWINE FLU THREAD

This is your place for everything Swine Flu, whether it be Baseball related (cancellations, players saying something stupid about it, etc.) or not.

The Link is to the US Government’s page on the topic, not so helpfully named “Pandemicflu.gov”. So much for stopping panic, guys.

Boston Magazine: The Owner Takes a Wife

In which we find out how John Henry, owner of the Red Sox, courted his lady-love. Complete with a love letter.

Dear Linda,

A man needs a muse. Well, he doesn’t really. He doesn’t need nearly as much as he generally thinks he does. A man is greedy. Greedy for what he doesn’t think he has and what he thinks he wants.

We probably wouldn’t have wandered far beyond the basic necessities without that pushing us. Progress is one of its most important byproducts.

So you will ask, “Why are you writing this?” Because a brief encounter-and-a-half with you gave a cool spin to this little blue planet from my vantage point.

We feted the Celtics tonight and the skies opened. The sun emerged and created a giant rainbow between the city and the park. We were transfixed.
You only saw it if you were in the right place. I was in the right place when I noticed you.

I barely know you. I don’t have any illusions about capturing your heart. But the world is brighter, better, lighter and warmer when a man imbues a woman he knows—even tabula rasa—with the attributes I believe reside in you. It’s the small things that ultimately matter. The subtle things.

I am honest. I don’t play games. And I see no reason not to say that I’ve been smitten by you and you’ve done me a great service.

You’ve very innocently made my world brighter, better, lighter and warmer.

So thanks.

No response is necessary because a man doesn’t need nearly as much as he thinks he does.

Tip of the hat (I guess) to Deadspin.

Waynesville baseball player Patrick Clegg declared brain dead

After undergoing tests to determine brain activity, Waynesville High School junior Patrick Clegg was declared brain dead by St. John’s Hospital doctors tonight.

He was to remain on a respirator overnight and his organs were to be removed Friday morning, in keeping with his wishes, according to a statement from the hospital.

The 16-year-old suffered severe brain damage when he was struck in the back of the head by a pitch in a baseball game Tuesday at Lebanon.

St. John’s spokeswoman Cora Scott said earlier today the Clegg family declined to speak to the media and did not wish to have more information released publicly.

Tragedy and Death on a High School diamond. At least some little shred of good can be salvaged from this by the donation of his organs.

Mike Schmidt: Harry Kalas in a class with Benjamin Franklin, William Penn

but not Byrum Saam?

The Philadelphia Phillies paid tribute to broadcasting legend Harry Kalas before and during tonight’s game against the San Diego Padres, and Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt had lofty praise for the longtime voice of Philadelphia sports.

“If you can look past Ben Franklin and William Penn, he may have been the greatest person to grace Philadelphia in the history of the city, when you think about it,” Schmidt said. “As many lives as he affected over the time that he lived in Philadelphia, who would have had a bigger impact on the city? Who would have? If anybody can think of somebody, I’m willing to hear it, but I don’t know.”

Just being mentioned in the same sentence as these men puts what Kalas meant to the city in perspective. Moments ago, one of our veteran copy editors read Schmidt’s quote aloud with a surprised tone.

But, after some reflection, the slugging third baseman’s statement seems to have merit. You see, institutions like Kalas—announcers who stay with a city for decades and become part of the team’s aura—are becoming increasingly rare.
Harry Caray. Vin Scully. Ernie Harwell. Jack Brickhouse. Jack Buck.