Elsewhere 100 years ago, Victory Faust says the Giants owe him a season's salary, Cy Young goes waaaay out on a limb and calls Ty Cobb the greatest ballplayer in history, and the Washington Times once again has a column written with an exaggerated Italian accent. It promises that

Tomorrow I tella you da true story of Walta Da Johnse. Watcha Walta put eet over Peeng Bode da White Sox wap.

So, y'know, I guess read the July 13, 1912 issue of the Washington Times if unfunny ethnic humor is your thing and you want to read the story of Walter Johnson and the White Sox wop.

Once again, I'm having trouble finding anything interesting about today's Birthday Team. Mario Soto was kind of fun. Ron Fairly was an Expo, which is cool. Scipio Spinks got a passing mention in Ball Four.

C: Doug Allison
1B: Ron Fairly
2B: Howie Kendrick
3B: Bill Coughlin
SS: Al Glossop
LF: Tom Hafey
CF: Johnny Wyrostek
RF: Walt French

SP: Lee Meadows
SP: Mario Soto
SP: George Zettlein
SP: Jack Harshman
SP: Tom Gorzelanny
RP: Mike Munoz

Cool Name: Scipio Spinks
Prospect Flameouts: Ryan Anderson, Brad Eldred

Ron Fairly retired in 1978 #26 all-time in games played. I don't ever remember anybody ever suggesting he was historically dominant.

This seems like as good a place as any to express my disapproval of the lack of baseball games today. Since when is the Thursday of All-Star week also baseball-free?

Also, it makes the stupid "don't call it a break" commercials just that much more irritating. Not only is it a break, it is a break of unprecedented length. That commercial almost makes me retroactively angry at MLB for making it, and I don't like being angry at MLB.

Was Soto the player who threw a baseball at Don Zimmer during a brawl back in the 80s?

Historical item at THT notes that today is the 50th anniversary of Hank Aaron hitting a walk-off grand slam. It would be his only walk-off slam. His brother Tommie homered earlier in the inning - the first time a pair of brothers homered in one inning in over 20 years.


The link also lists many other events celebrating their anniversary or "day-versary" today. My personal favorite was a random game 25 years ago today happened to be the final career game for two longtime veteran (and All-Star) infielders, as well as the debut game for a third longtime (and one-time All-Star) infielder. Care to guess who any of that trio might be based on that utterly minimal info? Click on the link above and scroll down to 1987 to see who they are.

I'm guessing Ron Cey is one of them, just because I remember he retired mid-year 1987 while playing for Oakland.

People - go check out a minor league game.

If we're going with Oakland, I'll say Cey, Brook Jacoby, and Walt Weiss.

With Donnie Hill sort of lurking in the fringes of my brain.

Cey and Weiss, yes. Hill and Jacoby, no.

Ron Fairly also represented the Blue Jays at the All-Star game in the franchise's inaugural season

If it's Cey and Weiss, I'll go with Cecil Cooper as #3. He fits the criteria (AL, longtime all-star, career ended in 1987)

I love this.

All-Star game draws strong ratings

The National League's 8-0 victory in the All-Star game was the highest-rated prime-time show Tuesday night, according to overnight ratings.
The game, televised by Fox, drew a rating of 8.1 and a 14 share, up 3 percent over the 2011 game. It was the first year-to-year gain since the 2008 game; last year's game in Phoenix drew a record low.

Record-low ratings for All-Star Game

The National League's 8-0 victory set a record low rating for baseball's All-Star game, just 4 hundredths of a point below last year's figure.

The blowout over the American League on Tuesday night, which had the third-highest victory margin in All-Star history, received a 6.8 rating and 12 share on Fox and was seen by an average audience of 10.9 million, the network said Wednesday.

The NL's 5-1 victory last year drew a 6.9/12 and was seen by an average audience of 11 million.

Was Soto the player who threw a baseball at Don Zimmer during a brawl back in the 80s?

Is Don Zimmer some kind of secret #######? He sure seems to bring out the worst in people (Soto, Pedro) during brawls.

The Washington Times once again has a column written with an exaggerated Italian accent. It promises that

Tomorrow I tella you da true story of Walta Da Johnse. Watcha Walta put eet over Peeng Bode da White Sox wap.

So, y'know, I guess read the July 13, 1912 issue of the Washington Times if unfunny ethnic humor is your thing and you want to read the story of Walter Johnson and the White Sox wop.

Just to clarify: The Washington Times of 1912 is a completely different entity than today's newspaper of the same name. It was founded in 1894 and purchased by William Randolph Hearst in 1917, who merged it with the Washington Herald five years later. The Times-Herald, which Hearst sold in the late '30s, was absorbed by the Washington Post in 1954.

The current Washington Times was founded in the early '80s by that old devil Sun Myung Moon.

This seems like as good a place as any to express my disapproval of the lack of baseball games today. Since when is the Thursday of All-Star week also baseball-free?

Also, it makes the stupid "don't call it a break" commercials just that much more irritating. Not only is it a break, it is a break of unprecedented length. That commercial almost makes me retroactively angry at MLB for making it, and I don't like being angry at MLB.

Wholeheartedly agree...I was just thinking the same thing about that stupid commercial as I was getting my coffee. However, to alleviate problem #1, I found milb.tv works great for my baseball jones!

The Jays signed Encarnacion to a 3 year extension at $9 million a year.

soooo.. at the Break:

Adam Dunn: 134 K's

Verlander, Hernandez, Strasburg: 128 K's

my money's on the Big Donkey

and, BTW, it's kind of amazing that Strasburg is a co-leader in all of MLB considering his usage pattern

how is the washington times still in business?

BA reports that MLB approved the Beras to TEX contract, while also suspending Beras for a year for misrepresenting his age.

Splittin' the baby!

Game of the day (yesterday): None.

Game of the day (last year): Also none.

So, as a bonus feature (today and tomorrow), here are some good All-Star Games in years past. Today, it's the top 5 ASGs since 1969:

5. 1998 - AL 13, NL 8. The game was in Coors Field, and it acted like it. The NL went up 2-0 in the third; the AL scored 4 in the fourth, and the teams traded single runs in the next two half-innings to make it 5-3. The NL retook the lead on a 3-run homer by Barry Bonds in the bottom of the fifth, but the AL scored three of their own in the sixth to go ahead 8-6. They stretched that lead to 10-6 going into the bottom of the eighth, but the NL mounted one last rally, scoring twice and having the tying runs on base with nobody out. They had a runner get thrown out at home on a single, and then a double play ball to extinguish the threat, and the AL drove several superfluous nails into the coffin with a three-run ninth.

4. 1987 - NL 2, AL 0 (13). Sure, why wouldn't a then-record-setting year for homers have an All-Star game be scoreless through 12 innings? The game obviously didn't feature a huge number of rallies, but it did have a few. Of particular note was the ninth inning. In the top half, Tim Raines singled with one out, then stole second and took third on an error; Juan Samuel and Jeffrey Leonard combined to leave him there. In the bottom, the AL drew a pair of walks to put the winning run in scoring position, but Harold Reynolds hit into a double play. The game broke in the thirteenth when Ozzie Virgil and Hubie Brooks singled, and Raines tripled them both home with two outs.

3. 2002 - AL 7, NL 7 (11). (Gasp!) I know, it's the tie game (although, as it turns out, it's not the only All-Star tie). But lost in the tie and the resultant countingness of the subsequent games is the fact that while the game was going on, it was bananas. The NL took a 4-0 lead early, highlighted by a Barry Bonds homer; the AL closed within 4-2, but the NL padded its lead by a run in the fifth on a double by Damian Miller. (Yes, Damian Miller, All-Star. And yes, Eric Chavez has never made an All-Star team.) That changed quickly in the seventh. The AL started out with a manufactured run - Johnny Damon singled, stole second, and came the rest of the way around on a pair of outs. After a walk to Randy Winn, Byung-Hyun Kim came in to pitch, and, well... steal/single/single/double and the AL was ahead 6-5. In the bottom of the seventh, the NL stormed back with a single by Mike Lowell, another double by Miller, and a go-ahead two-run single by Lance Berkman, but the AL retied the game in the seventh on a single by All-Star Robert Fick (!!) and a triple by Omar Vizquel.

And then, of course, no further runs scored. I do think this is a fine baseball game, but I also enjoy the fact that its line in my Excel spreadsheet includes the check function (confirming that the total WPA for the game is +/-.500, within rounding margins) showing ERROR.

2. 1970 - NL 5, AL 4 (12). Palmer and McDowell kept the NL scoreless through 6; Seaver and Jim Merritt shut out the AL through 5. The AL broke through in the top of the sixth when Yaz singled in Ray Fosse, then loaded the bases in the seventh, adding a second run on a Fosse sac fly. The NL also loaded the bases in the seventh, with nobody out; Willie McCovey then hit into a double play, which brought in their first run but went some distance toward keeping them from scoring any others. Brooks Robinson hit a 2-run triple in the top of the eighth to stretch the AL's lead to 4-1.

Dick Dietz led off the bottom of the ninth with a home run; Bud Harrelson followed that with a single, and Joe Morgan matched him one out later. Willie McCovey singled Harrelson home and Morgan to third, and Roberto Clemente tied the game with a sac fly. Then came the extras, in which Claude Osteen shut out the AL for three innings despite giving up doubles in the eleventh and twelfth. Mel Stottlemyre was perfect in the tenth for the AL, and Clyde Wright matched him in the eleventh. But after recording the first two outs in the twelfth, Wright gave up three consecutive singles to Pete Rose, Billy Grabarkewitz, and Jim Hickman. The third of those hits brought Rose home with the winning run, and incidentally, did irreparable damage to Ray Fosse's career.

1. 2008 - AL 4, NL 3 (15). This game cannot be recapped. It can only be linked.

Edit: It should, however, be noted that the 2008 All-Star game is the highest-scoring game in my database, which now includes almost 4000 games. That's pretty awesome.