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1. phredbirdHe intentionally ###### around on that one ball he rolled over on and turned into a triple.
When asked to PH on one of his days off, he stood there and took 3 straight balls down the middle in a crucial situation from Rivera. And before 2008 he had been suspended for refusing to bat on one of his days off....that's just off the top of my head from memory. I won't dive into ducking pitchers or taking September 2007 off.
The point was the Sox couldn't trust him.
I strongly disagree. His unstoppable stream of yammering dumbshittery makes for wonderful entertainment.
Schilling is right. Manny was a bit of a douche.
I'm surprised at that. I get the feeling that a lot of pitchers take offense at bad plays by their fielders, whether they express it or not. I've seen Roy Oswalt glare at fielders when they were tardy getting to balls. I vaguely recall Carlos Zambrano getting upset with one of his fielders. I've seen a lot of outfielders give the appearance of giving up, but it really was just bad fielding. That outfield play (last year?) by Hanley Ramirez, where he seemed to be slowly jogging after a ball that got away from him, comes pretty close to looking like a fielder who "gave up." But it could have been a reaction of frustration or a belief that another fielder would get the ball. I'm not excusing Manny Ramirez for his general style of play, but I take a reaction from a pitcher like Schilling with a grain of salt. Schilling's teammates probably were right to calm him down.
From the two years or so Manny was on the Dodgers, I have seen him strike out on 3 or 4 pitches and not swing simply because he didn't see a pitch that he thought he could drill. It'll be one thing if Manny's hitting philosophy included must swing at bad balls, but it simply doesn't. Manny usually doesn't swing unless he can think he can hit it well.
He'll do or say anything to keep the phone ringing. The phrase 'loves the sound of his own voice' has never been more true than with this blowhard.
Also, unless I see video footage of the at bat, how are you sure your memory is correct?
believe me, DS is right about that AB against Rivera. It was in this game. And it was an obvious fuck you to Francona and the front office. I'm convinced it was at that moment that the Bosox decided to cut their losses with him
I always thought that too. Manny was one of my favorite players and had one of the most perfect, effortless looking right-handed swings I've ever seen. But I swear he struck out looking more than any other top notch hitter of my lifetime. Despite a good walk rate, I honestly never really thought he had great strike zone judgment. He didn't swing at bad pitches, but he didn't swing at a lot of good ones either.
This was less than a month after he pinch hit at Yankee Stadium and blandly watched three Mariano Rivera fastballs go over the plate for strikes in a crucial spot. The bat never moved, and even Rivera was baffled, and his days in Boston effectively ended.
Nearing his end in Boston, he takes three consecutive strikes from Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of a tie game with two out and a runner on third. He so obviously doesn't care that you wonder if the Boston Red Sox will dump him on the spot.
I couldn't find a video with a centerfield camera angle of the entire at bat.
I do find it amusing that we seem much more willing to dislike people based upon what they say than what they do. I mean, as between Manny Ramirez and Curt Schilling, some people have decided to pile on Curt Schilling? Really?
It's hard to understand? These are ballplayers. I am interested in watching them play ball, not interested in their opinion on anything. Schilling never met a microphone he didn't like and constantly makes 'bold' and 'candid' statements in a desperate attempt to extend his time in the sun. It's super annoying.
It's personal preference of course, some fans enjoy the peek inside the blowhardy world of superstars. I was more of a Glavine and Andruw fan than a Smoltz and Chipper fan, mostly because the later two love to self promote.
Well, one of these players gave his best effort every time he stepped out onto the field, and the other didn't. One of these players tested positive for using PED's twice, and the other didn't.
I don't think you need to enjoy a peek inside the blowhardy world of superstars to give Schilling a pass here. You just need to be the kind of person that judges people more by their actions than their words.
I don't think you need to enjoy a peek inside the blowhardy world of superstars to give Schilling a pass here. You just need to be the kind of person that judges people more by their actions than their words.
I'd like to hear Curt Schilling's thoughts on Curt Schilling's conditioning over the years.
Believe it or not, Baseball-Reference actually has data on strikeouts looking for recent players. Here's Manny's link. 34% of his career strikeouts were looking. Just picking guys from around his time who had good "plate discipline": The Big Hurt struck out looking 36% of his career strikeouts, Jim Thome did 30%. League average looks like around 27% or so.
And Curt Shilling action is being a jackass.
and RAKE
If you'd've told me Nick Swisher was UNDER the league average for his career, much less w/the White Sox, I'd've said you're cuckoo. And I'd've been wrong.
Carlos Zambrano does that about twice a game.
Thanks for looking that up. I guess I never really paid much notice to the "pitch sequence" part of the Baseball Reference stats. Thomas being so high doesn't really surprise me either. I know it's probably blasphemous to say this on BTF, but he's one of the few players I've seen that I actually did think tried a little too hard to walk sometimes. I'm not in favor of swinging for pitches slightly outside the zone to try and get ribbies like some people suggest, but I was never in favor of taking pitches right down the pipe either. And Thomas did take a lot.
Still can't argue with the results, though.
Pat Burrell - 36%. Sounds about right. 48% in 2006, the year we were convinced the Phils would win 85 games every year and never reach the playoffs. Man that was frustrating.
Ryan Howard - 20%.
Mo Vaughn - 20%.
Vlad Guerrero - 10%. Yep. In 2007 it was 1 out of 62.
Barry Bonds - 45%.
Rickey Henderson - 46%.
And even more often, when he is pitching himself.
Miguel Olivo - 11%
Alfonso Soriano - 11%
Shawon Dunston - 18%
Juan Encarnacion - 19%
Corey Patterson - 17%
Dante Bichette - 18%
Jacque Jones - 19%
Alex Gonzales (the good one) - 15%
Delmon Young - 10%
Ivan Rodriguez - 14%
I finally found one lower than Vlad!
Angel Berroa - 7%
But how many of these weren't actually strikes? By the end of his career I honestly think Bonds had a better grasp of the zone than the umpires did.
And is it just me, or do umpires seem to be more emphatic with their 3rd strike punch outs when it's a superstar rather than a scrub? Whenever the likes of Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Griffey, etc, fanned on a called 3rd in their prime, the umps would get all theatrical about it and act like it was the final out in the World Series. They also seemed to be more dramatic when it was star pitcher like Pedro or Unit who was throwing the K.
The only one I've found so far who was much above that is Brian Giles. An amazing 55% of his strikeouts were looking.
Unfortunately this stat only goes back to 1988.
This isn't a good way of differentiating them.
This bugs me in general. You never see them get 1/1,000th as demonstrative on ball four. The poor hitter has everything else stacked against him, he's got to have the ump rubbing it in too?
No kidding. What are the odds that there'd be two Alex Gonzalezes in Major League history, both active at the same time, and with a 918 similarity score? The older Alex Gonzalez is the younger one's most similar player, and the youngest is the oldest's third most similar player. No meaning, but the kind of thing that endlessly fascinates Jayson Stark and his audience.
I think a glaring lack of effort (like the plays you mentioned) is relatively rare at the major league level. Lack of focus, sure. But dogging it in the field to that extent? I don't know. Seems like it does generally lead to blowups between pitchers and the fielder when it occurs. And managers pulling players from games, which I think indicates that it is viewed as a pretty serious offense.
As for Schilling reacting in the manner that he did, IIRC on the field Schilling didn't show up his fielders. Made a point of saying he had their back after an error. It may just be that my memories are influenced by his last start, but from what I can remember he did not show up his fielders whatever he may have felt. One of my favorite baseball stats is Schilling's unearned runs allowed. I don't think it was a fluke.
He did famously show up a team mate while in the dugout in the Philly/Toronto World Series, but:
1. It was Mitch Williams. If I were on that team, especially if I was a starting pitcher on that team, I probably would have had a stroke when Williams came in.
2. As big of a blow hard as Schilling was, is, and will be, I think he was genuinely mortified at showing up a teammate. I could just be naive, but that has been my impression.
All of which is a long winded way of saying, if I had to choose, in this case the hot air Schilling is blowing may well be true.
Barring Schilling shooting somebody, I'll always be in the tank for him. To see a player come to the Red Sox, talk big, and then back it up in the fashion he did was something to see, and I'll always be grateful to him for it.
Well, he struck a lot of guys out, and got a lot of fly balls among the guys he didn't strike out. Errors mostly come on ground balls. I wouldn't read too much into the low number of unearned runs against Schilling.
I saw Rickey Henderson do this in a vital September game at Turner Field. So what? I guess to Henderson's credit, he didn't try to flush a handtowel...
Is Manny going to give Schilling his two rings back?
As SteveF and Dale have pointed out, this is not an example of Red Sox fans turning on a former star player (there are enough to go around without him being added to the list). It was mentioned up thread, but there was an exact moment Manny wore out his welcome to me, and it was the play that he was rolling around in the outfield. Epstein was shaking his head in the stands, and that was it I think. He was gone. Throw in his penchant for throwing old people to the ground, repeatedly taking games off, etc. and no, I don't think Red Sox fans are unreasonable when it comes to Manny. There are many threads on this topic, and as mentioned up thread, they always follow the same pattern.
I never loved Manny, but I did appreciate what he did for the team, and was there for his 500th home run. He had to go though. IIRC I said so at the time in one of the game threads, so I’m not being revisionist. I believe it was in a conversation with MCoA (or maybe it was Dial, I can't remember, its been a long time and I'm getting old). I believe that:
1. Dumping Manny likely cost the team a World Series appearance.
2. He had to go.
I think both things are true.
The type of pitcher he was certainly played a role, but the extent to which he was stingy lead me to believe a couple of years ago that there was more going on. YMMV.
I'm guessing it was more along the lines of "Manny could break you in half over his knee, if he decided to, and he's especially cranky right now, because he thinks he's pregnant. Recommend you let him go hit, because he's really good at that, especially when cranky".
Ditto. I don't harbor grudges against any players. I don't hate Manny at all. In fact I lay into the fanbase 100000% more than I will a player. Where are the gold statues that Schilling*, Manny** and Ortiz*** should have?
* "Gold statue?? The guy ripped off the Sox for some 12 mill when he didn't play at all in 2008! #### him!"
** (well covered already)
*** \"#### that roider! And 16 mill this year? Why did the Sox offer him arb? They could have gotten 7 quality starters with that money! And Ortiz is single-handedly going to be responsible for Youk breaking down because he can't DH!"
I don't know if it cost the team a World Series berth. Bay played pretty well in the ALCS, and while Manny was even better over in the NL, I don't think you can just assume he would have played that well had he still been in Boston.
I wholeheartedly agree with your second point.
I loved Manny's time in Boston. Even the annual, out-of-nowhere trade demand never bugged me because he generally kept hitting while everyone around him was in a lather, and, just as quickly he'd seemingly forget the request was ever made.
But 2008 was different. It didn't blow over. The shoving incident (wholly out of character), calling out Henry and co. in the press, the flyball, the strikeout, the jog to first while the club was being no-hit, the mysterious knee injury (cured through the well-established healing powers of transcontintal flight) _ it was obvious this wasn't the typical short-lived Manny unpleasantness. But more important than any of that, it was obvious that his teammates had had enough. The direct quotes of several of his teammates, including his pal Ortiz, indicated that the team felt he needed to go.
And as was the case with Nomar, a disappointing and ugly exit didn't erase the joy I got from following him.
And I like Schilling, but I don't see what purpose is served by dredging this crap up.
Yeah. Schilling and Ramirez were both great, colorful players who delivered big-time for the Red Sox. ISTM that all this stuff should be let go at this point. I could see Schilling putting it in a book, I guess...not sure why he still talks about it all the time. Seems like there are a couple of "Schilling knocks Ramirez again" stories every year.
I never got that vibe off of him. Smoltz, sure, liked to talk and spread the Gospel according to Smoltzie. But other than answering questions asked of him, what did Chipper do to self-promote?
I am a big Schilling fan; to the extent that at least when asked a question, much like Charles Barkley, at least he's willing to provide a non-cliched response. Of course, when he lost his nutsack in front of Congress, I was disgusted.
Why, however, anyone ever wants to find out what an athlete thinks about anything is beyond me. They are truly better seen than heard. In fairness to the athlete, what can be asked (that is related to the game) which that would actually be interesting?
I was surprised about his answer re: the deliberateness of his hitting batters. Is there a list of hitters that he hit? Just wondering if he had a particuar hard-on for anyone.
Would love to have seen what a Billy Martin or Gil Hodges would have done with Manny Ramirez after that despicable at bat.
Andres Gallaragga 4
Javy Lopez 2
Edgardo Alfonso 2
Every other guy he hit was 1 time.
Guess he didnt like Big Cat
Link
Billy would have run him out of town (or literally died trying) long before that. And Gil would have turned Manny into Ernie Banks years before.
Actually though, now that I think about it, Martin probably would have told the players who were restraining Schilling to let him go. Two birds with one stone and all that.
As far as a never-forget Manny baseball moment, I will never forget the shot off Mussina that probably landed in New Haven.
Now, when he talks about how he turned it around, he never mentions it, just like in this interview when they asked him what he would tell his younger self, if he could.
Just an observation.
Yes, just like Carl Crawford & Jimmy Rollins. Your bridge is getting lonely.
I don't know that anybody could have done anything with the Ramirez of that time frame. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out he was dealing with some undiagnosed mental illness. Prior to that he'd never really been a problem. Dunno -- WAG, take it for what it's worth. Still, it does kind of remind me of the way Alex Johnson's career just melted down.
Curt was a great pitcher, a great playoff pitcher who made huge contributions to some of the biggest moments in baseball history during his career, and a clear hall of famer.
He is smart (for a ball player, he, he), outspoken and always willing to answer questions honestly and give strong opinions.
He only has two negatives really, one is that he can go beyond being outspoken to being a full bore blowhard. The second is his very public political opinions.
I'm just saying that if he was outspoken in support of progressive or "liberal" causes (or just shut his pie hole about politics altogether), there would be a lot more primates that would excuse his blowhardism as a minor character flaw, and admire him for all his other admirable qualities. It's just a continuation of my bias treatise I started on the Madoff thread, we all have biases and they affect how we perceive people.
And no, I'm not voting for the same people he's voting for. I'm against them, as well as all the others running for office.
You'd have to be a fly in the Fenway clubhouse to know if that's true, but people do change, even if it's to become more like themselves.
Everquest is a community. Might need some redistricting to be useful though.
Ken: Harry, let's face it. And I'm not being funny. I mean no disrespect, but you're a ####. You're a #### now, and you've always been a ####. And the only thing that's going to change is that you're going to be an even bigger ####. Maybe have some more #### kids.
Harry: [furious] Leave my kids ####### out of it! What have they done? You ####### retract that bit about my #### ####### kids!
Ken: I retract that bit about your #### ####### kids.
Harry: Insult my ####### kids? That's going overboard, mate!
Ken: I retracted it, didn't I?
Curt Schilling cares very, very much about what everyone thinks about Curt Schilling.
Manny Ramirez doesn't appear to take any special notice of anyone.
How shocking and astonishing that these two character quirks would mesh... poorly.
He better be Bill James to back that up, otherwise he'd lose several internet points with me.
I think this part of it. I think a big part of it is that Manny had reached a stage in his career where letting him go wasn't catastrophic and the Sox were able to replace an awful lot of his value. The year and a half of Jason Bay was not appreciably below what the previous year and a half of Manny Ramirez had been. If there truly is anything at all to clubhouse dynamics it probably came close to evening out.
He is smart (for a ball player, he, he), outspoken and always willing to answer questions honestly and give strong opinions.
He only has two negatives really, one is that he can go beyond being outspoken to being a full bore blowhard. The second is his very public political opinions.
I'm just saying that if he was outspoken in support of progressive or "liberal" causes (or just shut his pie hole about politics altogether), there would be a lot more primates that would excuse his blowhardism as a minor character flaw, and admire him for all his other admirable qualities. It's just a continuation of my bias treatise I started on the Madoff thread, we all have biases and they affect how we perceive people.
Maybe so, but IMO Schilling's political views are part of the whole entertainment package. If all ballplayers had opinions like him, it'd get old real fast, but when most ballplayers are cut more along the lines of Derek Jeter and Cal Ripken in their suffocating blandness, I'm glad to see a touch of bombastic color thrown into the mix, regardless of its coherence or lack of it. I only wish that Schilling had spent his career as a Yankee---if he'd given the Yanks a few more championships I wouldn't have cared if he'd given his entire salary to the ####### Birthers.
How many Everquest players bother to go out and vote?
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