On ‘Late Night’: Talk of Warhol’s Pete Rose image

Dial A Charlie Hustler!

Seth Meyers spent some time discussing the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Andy Warhol painting on his show, “Late Night with Seth Meyers” Friday.

Kostya Kennedy, author of the new book “Pete Rose: An American Dilemma” was promoting the book on Meyers’ show. Meyers asks Kennedy to tell the story of the Warhol painting.

Kennedy says that at the time, Rose hadn’t heard of Warhol and Warhol hadn’t known of Rose. In 1985, Rose was on his way to breaking baseball’s all-time his ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 3-24-2014

Milwaukee Journal, March 24, 1914:

After a heated debate, during which baseball in general and the prowess of noted players in particular were discussed, the Mississippi house of representatives yesterday voted, 50 to 44, to take a recess Thursday afternoon to see the Detroit baseball team play a local team [in Jackson].

Your (great grandparents’) tax dollars at work.

Bradford: The reality of David Ortiz: Why it made sense to execute this extension

The argument is a convenient one for those believing Sunday’s news of David Ortiz’s extension should have never come: Just let the designated hitter play out another season and worry about re-signing him after that.

They will say, “He is 38 years old, so you need all the cost certainty you can get. Also, he will never sign with another team other than the Red Sox, so you won’t have to worry about that.”

The line of thinking certainly is easy to reach, but still so misguided.

First ...

Matinale: Mitch Williams has solution to pitchers being hit in the face: let them do it to batters

Nerve of the Death Twitch!

According to Mitch Williams pitchers get hit in the face because they are not allowed to throw inside.  Really, that’s what he said.

...Williams insisted repeatedly and vociferously that pitchers should be allowed to pitch inside, a euphemism for hitting batters.  Williams never actually stated that pitchers should be allowed to hit batters.  But he complained that batters now wear armor and are not afraid because pitchers are warned my umpires about throwing at ...

Heyman: Yankees said willing to pay part of Ichiro’s salary if trade makes sense

The Yankees are said willing to offset a part of Ichiro Suzuki’s $6.5-million salary in the right deal, sources said.

The Yankees would seek to receive a good prospect back but are said by rival executives amendable to paying down a portion of his $6.5 million salary under those circumstances.

Ichiro, 40, only fits as a backup outfielder with the Yankees, as their starting outfield is stacked with younger stars Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran and Brett Gardner. The Yankees also have Alfonso ...

Mejia hanging around in Amazin’ battle for 5th spot

For most of spring training, the race for the fifth spot in the team’s rotation has been Daisuke Matsuzaka’s to lose, but with six exhibition games remaining, the 24-year-old Mejia is still under consideration for the job.

Mejia did nothing to harm his chances Sunday, when he allowed one run on two hits over five innings in the Mets’ 3-1 exhibition victory over the Nationals.

The Mets have to inform Matsuzaka by Tuesday whether they intend to carry him on the 25-man roster. Otherwise, ...

Rangers’ Jurickson Profar out up to 3 months with torn shoulder muscle

More bad news on the injury front for the Texas Rangers: Second baseman Jurickson Profar will miss the next 10 to 12 weeks after an MRI revealed a torn right shoulder muscle. The team announced that surgery will not be required.

As T.R. Sullivan notes, Josh Wilson and Brent Lillibridge are two internal candidates to replace Profar at second.

The 21-year-old Profar is coming off a 2013 season in which he batted .234/.308/.336 in 324 plate appearances at the MLB level. Coming up through the ...

Opening Series leaves a lasting impression

Mainly a puff piece, but I figure we should have some sort of place to discuss it in retrospect and discuss future possibilities for non-WBC MLB international ventures.

...
This trip is over now, but MLB’s international adventures will continue. The details and itineraries of the next excursions have yet to be mapped out. There’s a whole world out there, and much of it is as intrigued by baseball as it is in Taiwan or China or Japan or, as it turns out, Down Under.

So cheers, Australia, ...

Ringolsby: Is it time to lower the mound again?

Don’t lower the mound, raise the batter’s box.  LAAYYYDEEE!

With an increasing number of serious arm injuries—particularly those requiring Tommy John surgeries—the suggestion has been made that Major League Baseball consider lowering the pitcher’s mound again.

...Some in the medical field contend that the raised elevation creates an extra stress on the pitcher’s arm. Supporters of lowering the mound point out that the longevity of a pitching career has extended since dropping the mound from ...

Survey of insiders reveals who’s at top of their game | New York Post

Mike Trout is the best player. Who knew?

Saxon: Mattingly is running out patience with Puig

Much like Puig running out of the baseline or whatever the hell that was at 3B.

Puig batted .122 in spring training. At times, he seemed unfocused. In one drill, the Dodgers practiced calling for pop-ups. How rudimentary is that? Each of the veterans, including Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier took it seriously, dutifully calling for the ball and waving others off.

When it came to Puig’s turn, he jokingly turned in circles in right field and let the ball land in the grass ...

Urban: Buster Posey has entered superstar spectrum

Wrong halo Buster.

Superstardom supersedes pretty much everything, you see. The New York Yankees suck? Blame A-Rod. Cleveland Cavalliers lost in the NBA Finals? LeBron James isn’t clutch. Giants lose the 2002 World Series? Barry Bonds’ PED karma.

You get the idea. That’s how it goes for Posey now. He’s official. He’s a superstar no matter how aw-shucks anonymous he’d like to be. Hey, if those Toyota ads couldn’t slow his superstar roll, it’s all over. He’s there.

(Grown men ...

Bud Selig: ‘Faith’ in Dodgers TV deal

Time Warner has only 32 percent of the Los Angeles market. MLB Network, which broadcast the Dodgers’ two Australian games to the rest of the United States, is blacked out in the Los Angeles market.

“I have faith that the parties will work this out,” commissioner Bud Selig at a news conference in Australia before the Dodgers took on the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Mike Gimbel’s baseball portion of his website

Hi All,

As many of you are aware, I have been (very slowly) developing my website. Not all is perfect, and I hope you don’t mind some basic snafu’s.

The website is www.mikegimbel.com and contains political, physics and baseball areas.

If you are only interested in the baseball area of the website, the baseball area can be directly gotten to via this address: www.mikegimbel.com/album3/album3_006.htm

The baseball area has (partial list):
•a copy of the introduction and explanation of the ...

Bill Madden: Nolan Ryan and Tommy John flush notion that babying pitchers staves off elbow surgery

And my crusty old Sparton 842-SX radio works better than that new Serious Radio contraption!

What is clear, as evidenced by so many high profile pitchers today, from Stephen Strasburg and Matt Harvey, to Adam Wainwright, Tim Hudson, Jordan Zimmermann, Joe Nathan and Josh Johnson, all having undergone Tommy John elbow ligament transplant surgery over the last few years, something is very wrong. Now, we’re at a point where pitchers like Medlen, Beachy, Parker, Daniel Hudson, Joakim Soria, ...

Heyman goes one better than the Daily News: claims A-Rod has “refused” to pay his legal bill

But Heyman is more interested in using this isolated and frankly uninteresting little factoid as a springboard for, once again, rehashing all of the reasons A-Rod is to be loathed. The very headline of his article calls his legal bill “the latest in a series of bad acts.” And he spends paragraph after paragraph lambasting Rodriguez for all of his past misdeeds as if they were news and as if the legal fee thing was in keeping with them on a moral and ethical level. It’s the ultimate ...

FiveThirtyEight | When Spring Training Matters

We then find that spring productivity is statistically significant when predicting actual performance in the upcoming season, even after controlling for a player’s Marcel projection. However, while significant, the effect is extremely small: To raise his expected regular-season wOBA by just a single point, a typical player would need to hit for a wOBA roughly 17 points higher than expected during the spring.

Indians release outfielder Jeff Francoeur

Born Toulouse-Lautrec. (even Genzale weeps)

The Indians have released outfielder Jeff Francoeur, who’d been signed to a minor-league deal and brought into camp to compete for the final spot on the roster. Francoeur had put up decent numbers this spring (.286/.359/.429), and made a couple great throws from the outfield, but he was always a longshot to make the roster, given that there were so many other guys set for playing time in the outfield, or who provided the versatility to also play ...

GIF: Mark Trumbo in left field is going about as well as expected

Joe Bonham had better range.

The Dodgers and Diamondbacks are opening the 2014 regular season in Australia on Saturday, which means Mark Trumbo is playing his first game with his new team. Arizona acquired him in a trade with the Angels over the winter.

Because Paul Goldschmidt is entrenched at first base, Trumbo will play left field full-time for the D-Backs. He played there briefly a few years ago, only 75 games plus one more in the minors. His inexperience showed on Scott Van Slyke’s ...

Det. Sonny Grosso, Joe DiMaggio and an Ongoing Love Affair With the Yankees

The French Kiss Connection.

Grosso has been a fan of the pinstripes since he was a kid growing up in Harlem, cheering for the Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio. In his upcoming memoir, Harlem to Hollywood: My Real to Reel Life, Grosso spins larger-than-life tales about his on-going love of the Yankees:

...Grosso, who became an award winning producer of TV series and movies after he retired from the NYPD, said that DiMaggio never disappointed him “on the field or as a human being.” In fact, Grosso ...

Frank Thomas: HOF speech won’t chastise users

He’s Frank.

“There are two guys that (it’s) very sad they aren’t going to the Hall of Fame and that’s Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens,” Thomas said. “When I came into the game, those two guys were the standards as a hitter and a pitcher. You might not know what will happen 50 years from now, 30 years from now, but it doesn’t look good right now (for induction) and I know how great those two guys were.

“You can look at their history. We kind of know when it started for those two guys. For me ...

Bellone: The curious hitting of Didi Gregorius

According to Kevin Towers, Didi is now a prepubescent Derek Jeter.

Last season, against left-handed pitching, Didi hit .200/.267/.245. Quite simply, terrible. Especially compared to his very respectable .275/.359/.429 against righties. It is when you look at his splits against starters versus relievers, though, when things get interesting. Against left-handed starters, the young shortstop hit .261/.354/.333. So, wait. He hit sixty-one points higher against left-handed starters than lefties as ...

ESPN: Angels trade Scioscia for Gretzky

*whistles*

OMNICHATTER for Opening Series Games in Australia

4:00 AM- Dodgers (Kershaw) “at” Diamondbacks (Miley)

10 PM-Dodgers (Ryu) “at” Diamondbacks (Cahill)

Both games on MLB Network and also, I believe, the local RSNs.

(All times Eastern)

Oz: MLB partners with dating site Match.com in hopes of boosting ticket sales

Major League Baseball ushered out a new partnership with dating site Match.com, and thus the MLB team pages had ads urging single baseball fans to search out each other for dates. For instance, Athletics.com had Match.com ads on each side of the page with attractive-looking people (none of them wearing baseball caps or anything). There was an ad that read, “Meet other singles Athletics fans.”

A strip across the top of the page said, “Take them out to the Athletics game,” a call to action that ...

Wilson Betamit is the most underrated player in major USA team sports?

Betemit is a couple of years past 30 now and missed almost all of last year with injuries, so, you know. . .it’s anybody’s guess whether he has anything left to give. But in 2010 Wilson Betemit, filling in as a place-holder third baseman for the Royals, hit .297 with 13 homers in 276 at bats, .889 OPS. The first half of 2011 Betemit hit .281, with disappointing power but a .750 OPS. They took his job away, and gave it to Mike Moustakas. Moustakas’ career OPS is 93 points lower than ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 3-21-2014

Toledo News-Bee, March 21, 1914:

Larry Chappell, $18,000 outfielder of the Chicago White Sox, who is suffering from blood poisoning, is really in a serious condition, Manager Callahan said on Saturday, after a visit to the hospital, and may lose his leg.

Chappell broke in a new pair of shoes in the San Francisco exhibition series and rubbed the skin off his left foot.

If it wasn’t for awful luck, Chappell wouldn’t have had any luck at all. In his last minor league game in 1913, Chappell ruined ...

FiveThirtyEight | What to Expect From Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects

Top 20 or bust!

For example, Baseball America’s No. 1 slot gets 46 WAR from 1995’s top prospect, Alex Rodriguez. But the top spot loses 1.9 WAR from Todd Van Poppel, one of the game’s all-time biggest busts. Among 18 players from 1990 to 2007, the average for Baseball America’s top spot was nearly 20 WAR.

Do this for all 100 slots, and you arrive at an average, early-career WAR total for each ranking. It’s not a perfectly smooth drop-off from each spot to the next — for instance, ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 3-20-2014

Pittsburgh Press, March 20, 1914:

Connie Mack, leader of the Philadelphia Athletics, wants his son Earl [sic], who is managing Raleigh’s professional team and coaching the university nine to give up baseball and learn to play the violin as taught in the old world conservatories.
...
The elder baseball man believes baseball will ruin the fingers that will make another Kubelik. Earl Mack will study [in Raleigh] this season, however.

That, I think, was Connie politely telling his son that baseball ...

Jack McDowell on R.E.M. & managing rookie ball

JACK McDOWELL: The Dodgers asked me to come to Arizona for Spring Training as a special instructor, travel around a few weeks during the summer, you know, five day-trips to high-A, AA and AAA affiliates, just to see what goes on, which I was on board with. Couple weeks later, the organization called up to let me know they had a managerial opening in rookie ball for the Ogden Raptors if I was interested. I ran it by the wife and joked “Remember when I said I was gonna be gone for two weeks? ...