Washington Post: Kilgore: A Swing of Beauty

Schu scanned through video and found film of Harper hitting. He arranged clips of Harper and Ruth side-by-side on the monitor and stopped at the moment each hitter’s bat connected with a pitch. In each still picture, he saw a stiff front leg, an uncoiling torso and a back foot lifting off the ground. “Wow,” he thought. “That’s identical.”

“They’ve got that exact same swing at contact point,” Schu said later.

The Kid may need to put on some weight.

RTFA. Lots of video & graphics on Harper’s swing and how he’s pitched to.

WaPo: MASN compares Bryce Harper and Babe Ruth

“We just thought it was pretty cool,” Santangelo said early in Thursday’s broadcast. “When you watch Babe Ruth’s swing on the left, watch his back foot come off the ground at contact. Now we’ll move over to Bryce Harper on the right-hand side, and we’ve seen this before – at contact, foot off the ground.
“They’re both hitting off a firm front side,” Santangelo continued. “It creates so much torque and power throughout the course of their swing that it’s almost impossible to keep that back foot on the ground. If you did, there’d be so much pressure on the hip it couldn’t take it. So guys that swing violently like that have to release the back side off the firm front side. And if you’ve ever watched Tiger Woods hit a driver, same kind of deal — his back foot comes off the ground, he creates so much club speed. Same with Bryce Harper.

Bill James Mailbag - 2/6/13

And what better day for it than the Babe’s birthday, pt. 2…

At the time Babe Ruth allegedly corked his bat, was that against the rules?

Yes.  And he didn’t “allegedly” cork his bat; he was caught using a bat glued together from three pieces of wood.  Sisler and Kenny Williams were caught with funny bats at about the same time.

Are NFL offensive linemen the only subgroup of players in the big 4 sports for which POSITIVE statistics aren’t kept? Or is there some statistic of measurement used for offensive linemen that i’m not aware of? I’m thinking that all other the other players in the NFL have some stats kept on them; same for all of MLB, NBA, and NHL players, right? Just curious.

It’s a good question.  Do they keep stats in hockey?

Regarding the question about Malcolm Gladwell and authors you like, recently I have been reading Noam Chomsky, and I have to say his style reminds me a lot of your style. And for this reason I find it very enjoyable, even though I disagree with nearly every single thing the man says. But he explains his points in bracingly clear prose, like you do.

Thanks, Jules.  I always enjoy being compared to a raving lunatic.

I recently moved to the SF Bay Area and have been told several times by old Giant fans that Willie Mays would purposely stop at first base on a sure double in order to have McCovey bat with a runner on first. Could this be true? Mays taking himself out of scoring position?

You know, I’ve read that.  I doubt that it is true… I would suppose that what happened is that Mays, in some situation, turned down an effort to make a double because it was kind of a breakeven gamble, and then EXPLAINED what he had done by saying that he wanted to keep the hole for McCovey.  Looked at in that way, it actually reflects extremely sophisticated on-field decision making from Mays:  That, in calculating whether to push the gamble of trying for a double, he adjusted his calculations to include the fact that even if he succeeded, he would be closing the hole for McCovey.  Mays was an extremely sophisticated player in those ways, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he DID do that.

Posnanski: Feb. 6 Birthday: Babe Ruth

You could be loooooooved, but you’re way out of liiiiiiiine….

Today is a great celebrity birthday day—Babe Ruth, Ronald Reagan and Bob Marley were all born on February 6. Also Zsa Zsa Gabor and Axl Rose and Tom Brokaw. America and the world would be a poorer place without them…

Ruth is, quite easily, the best hitter AND the best pitcher born on February 6. The second-best hitter is Smoky Burgess or Richie Zisk, and while they were both good hitters they were obviously a million miles from Ruth. But the second best pitcher is probably Bob Wickman, who did save 267 games. But—and I find this amazing—he threw FEWER INNINGS than Ruth, who was only a pitcher early in his career but still went 94-46 with a 2.28 ERA and was pretty close to unhittable in his three World Series starts…

There are a few players before 1900 who were very good hitters and pitchers, probably highlighted by Monte Ward… Kid Gleason was not Hall of Fame caliber either way, but he was a pretty good pitcher (won 138 games), a pretty good hitter (1,946 career hits) and then he was the beleaguered manager of the 1919 White Sox… Smoky Joe Wood was absolutely a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher—there are those who still push for him as a Hall of Famer because one incredible season and a couple of very good ones—and after a serious injury he returned as a hitter, and was good… Wes Ferrell is probably the best hitting pitcher other than Ruth—but he never did get 200 plate appearances in a season. He hit 38 career home runs, nine of them in 128 plate appearances in 1931. He was also a very good pitcher in a high-scoring era—he is not in the Hall of Fame but he IS in the Baseball Think Factory Hall of Merit.

... Here, for fun, are the teammates who have combined for 100 homers in a season:

1. Mantle-Maris, 1961: 115

2. Barry Bonds-Rich Aurilia, 2001: 110

3. Ruth-Gehrig, 1927: 107

4. Mark McGwire-Ray Lankford, 1998, 101

5. Alex Rodriguez-Rafael Palmeiro, 2002, 100

Yes, who can forget that Bonds-Aurilia power combination?