Roy Smalley Jr., who was signed as a free agent at 17 and went on to play for the Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Braves and Philadelphia Phillies during baseball’s Golden Era, died Saturday. He was 85.
Smalley, father of baseball great Roy Smalley III, hit 21 homers and drove in 85 runs in 1950. But it was his marriage that year to Jolene Mauch — sister of Braves player Gene Mauch — that made headlines as they walked down the aisle when the Cubs were in town for a ...
He could have a chance to follow the Theo Epstein career path:
If the Angels are able to land Friedman, he would be offered a position as club president, with the team likely hiring one of its other finalists as GM, a hierarchy similar to the one the Chicago Cubs used to lure GM Theo Epstein from the Boston Red Sox.
Therefore, if Alex is going to stand any meaningful chance of breaking the all time home run record he will need to be extremely productive the next two or three seasons, at least as productive as he was from 2008 to 2010, and realistically more so. This will be difficult. Alex’s defenders may point out that he’s been injured his last few seasons, limiting his potential, but Aaron was injured often during the three seasons in question as well. He never played more ...
Only a fantasy article, but I wish I could be the Assistant Pig-Keeper…
The National Fantasy Baseball Championship, a contest paying a top prize of $100,000, draws an elite collection of contestants — computer geniuses, deep-pocketed stockbrokers and money managers, maybe the odd young man or woman looking to be the next Billy Beane or Theo Epstein.
But the contest over the years has produced only one two-time champion: Lindy Hinkelman, a 59-year-old pig farmer from Greencreek, Idaho.
Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. was a guest on Mike and Ike’s midday show on 94 WIP this afternoon to wax poetic on the 2011 season and look ahead to 2012. RAJ didn’t break any news about his plans, keeping his cards close to his chest per usual, but he didn’t hide the fact that he’s open to change. As for the 2011 World Series though? He can’t bare to watch much of it.
“I can’t watch it either. I do not watch. I watched a little bit of ...
For the first time I can recall since we began the site in 2007, NBC and Sunday Night Football looks like it will not win the night overall with adults 18-49 and instead that honor will go to Fox which had the World Series Game 4. We’ll post the adjusted fast affiliate and final ratings for the World Series Game 4 (perhaps today) and Sunday Night Football (likely tomorrow) as soon as they are available.
Game 4-15.2 million viewers
SNF-Looking like 12 or so million viewers.
“OK you think you got a pretty face
But the rest of you is out of place”
For instance, I have now heard FOX announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver repeatedly refer to the Rangers comeback in Game 2 as the inning where “Josh Hamilton and Michael Young hit sacrifice fly balls.”* I know that baseball announcers have a long history of loving the RBI, praising the RBI, worshiping the RBI, I get that, but how do you make Hamilton and Young the heroes of that inning? Ian Kinsler hit that pop-up ...
Big Game! Big Spot!! Big Pile of Chicken Parmesanitary Landfill!!!
That is the mythology of Wilson’s position. The starting pitcher probably has more control over the outcome of a game than any other position in team sports. When he completes a World Series game in dominant fashion, the way Jack Morris did in 1991 or Josh Beckett did in 2003, he is given a tag that sticks: big-game pitcher.
Morris and Beckett have failed in October, too, just like everybody who has enough chances. Bob ...
“They have until Nov. 1, Theo and (new Red Sox general manager) Ben (Cherington) and all the other parties involved,” Selig said before Game 4 of the World Series, according to CSNNE.com. “Hopefully they can get things done. I always encourage clubs to try to get things done between themselves. Somehow, the commissioner has enough things of controversy (to deal with).
“They’ll either get it done or they won’t. If they don’t, then I will.”
Unlike Major League Baseball, for whom Rawlings has been the official supplier of baseballs since 1977, Japan’s top league has long used multiple manufacturers.
This season, however, for the first time in the 75-year history of Nippon Professional Baseball, every team is using the same supplier.
In any given season, as many as nine manufacturers had supplied baseballs to Japan’s 12 teams. Many clubs, in fact, contracted with multiple suppliers and freely switched the balls they used in their ...
Here are the all-time leaders in FanGraphs’ wRC+, which compares a hitter’s runs created to an average player and is park- and league-adjusted, so a batter with a 150 wRC+ created 50 percent more runs than average:
...Here is the case against each of those eight, plus Willie Mays:
Ted Williams
Case against: The era he played in was perfect for him, a time when pitchers walked more hitters than now, amplifying Williams’ skill-set—patience the ...
Here comes the MLB backlash to admissions by Boston Red Sox players that they drank beer in the clubhouse during games.
Joe Torre, MLB executive vice president of baseball operations, told reporters before Sunday’s Game 4 of the World Series that MLB is considering banning alcohol in clubhouses and that he plans to look deeper into the Sox’s drinking on the job.
Currently, fewer than half of MLB’s 30 teams allow alcohol in their clubhouses, ...
Raise your fist and yell
You can’t have John Farrell!(?)!
If the Boston Red Sox are serious about making a run at John Farrell, the Blue Jays should tell them the bidding begins at a couple of buckets of KFC, a case of Rolling Rock and the latest version of Call of Duty. Then general manager Alex Anthopoulos should get all Clint Eastwood over the phone and tell the Red Sox: “You obnoxious, sun-shines-out-of-your-behinds New England clam chowders. Go stuff yourself.”
Accounting ledgers and films from the 53 years Connie Mack’s Athletics spent in Philadelphia - items historians had long believed were gone forever - showed up on eBay earlier this year.
The material had been salvaged from an Oakland Coliseum Dumpster decades ago by a ballpark employee who had kept it all in his garage until selling it at a flea market recently for less than $200.
The flea-market purchaser quickly auctioned the lot on eBay early in 2011 and that’s where Rob Rodriguez, a ...
C. Victory Faust, the official New York Giant self-appointed mascot, was released Monday morning, Manager McGraw serving him with a written notice that his services had been dispensed with in view of the Athletics having won two games.
Faust, however, refuses to be released, just as when he first joined the Giants last summer, he declined to be left behind in St. Louis, beating the Giants to their own Polo grounds.
Co-written by Lords of the Realm author John Helyar, a long and interesting overview of the McCourt v. MLB battle and other recent MLB deals ...
The World Series will have just ended as a judicial Fall Classic may determine whether Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has complete power over the sport he has controlled for almost two decades.
In a hearing opening Oct. 31 in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross will hear arguments about whether Los Angeles ...
Derek Holland kept Albert Pujols in the ballpark and the Texas Rangers in this World Series.
In a title matchup that’s getting more interesting with every game, Holland put the emphasis back on pitching. Given a pep talk by manager Ron Washington minutes before the game, Holland allowed two hits over 8 1-3 innings to beat the St. Louis Cardinals 4-0 on Sunday night and even things at 2-all.
Holland struck out seven, walked two and never was in trouble against a team that erupted for 16 runs ...
For the first time in months, it appears Crane will end up owning the Astros. Major League Baseball officials seem to be reaching a comfort level that Crane has either learned from his past mistakes or was a victim of disgruntled or rogue employees in many of the cases involving allegations of sexism, racism or war profiteering.
I asked an MLB official this week, “Are you past the character issues with Crane?”
But Torre said he was more disturbed that a pool reporter asked Kulpa after the game if being from St. Louis had influenced the call.
“That question hinted of questioning somebody’s integrity and that was so far over the line,” Torre said. “I just want to say right now, these guys were so excited about being chosen for the World Series, and it’s all about showing how good they are. To have that question be asked, I thought was over the line.
“Everyone is out there trying to do the best job ...
While it is difficult to picture Betancourt as a $6 million player, Melvin did not sound like he was ready to send him packing. The shortstop market, assuming Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins are too expensive, certainly is unexciting.
“I thought Yuni Betancourt was a better player than what the critics said,” said Melvin.
Well, if you can stomach a .271 on-base percentage, 21 errors and a general lack of range in the field and a frustratingly high ...
Baseball Commissioner Allan H. “Bud” Selig announced Sunday that Griffey will be awarded the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award prior to Game 4 of the World Series on Sunday night in Arlington, Texas.
Griffey will become just the 12th recipient of the award, which was created in 1998 to recognize achievements and contributions of historical significance to the game.
“Gentlemen, let’s give Griffey the Commissioner’s Achievement Award!”
“Why?”
“Why not!” ...Read More...
“He was spectacular at nothing…” (Cool! This goes directly into my personal headstone epitaph rolodeath)
What was it like to play next to your childhood hero Mantle during your first major league season?: I got called up in 1967 after the Triple-A season. My first start was in Yankee Stadium, the old Yankee Stadium. I was playing left field and Mantle was playing center. At that point in time Mantle came over to me when we were in the outfield when the game was just starting. He yelled at me ...
TRACER ALERT! (I looked for a spell but started to get weirdass Necco candy button dots in my eyes from all the zeros)
One bat, however, that Bench believes will be silenced in this series is Albert Pujols’. Not because he expects Pujols to falter, but because he doesn’t expect to see Pujols get a pitch to hit. As a catcher who’s called a few “four-finger salutes” in his day, Bench was adamant about how to approach Pujols.
“You never pitch right at him,” he said. “I don’t ...
3 Godfathers ~ Futterman, Barbarisi and Costa, on the run discover a dying game.
During the first two games of the World Series, the Journal’s baseball staff reached out to players, managers, broadcasters, executives and a pair of economists to ask them what sorts of reforms they’d suggest.
NBC broadcaster Bob Costas contributed three ideas. Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent had a strong recommendation, as did incoming Florida Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen. New York Mets starting ...
Tough gig, Boswell…trying to sell burial insurance home runs.
Yet though his performance was statistically unique, it also came with a pure bizarre Rangers Ballpark touch: all of his homers and RBI came after the Cards already lead 8-6 and, technically, constituted insurance runs.
Of course, nowhere on earth are insurance runs more valuable.
...In the Ballpark, hope never dies. No matter how far ahead, or behind you are, no lead — and no record — is safe.
