Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Eugenio Velez has broken a modern-day major league record for a non-pitcher by going hitless in his final 46 at-bats.
Velez grounded out to second as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the regular-season finale Wednesday night. He broke the record of 45 straight at-bats that belonged to Pittsburgh’s Bill Bergen (1909), Dave Campbell of San Diego and St. Louis (1973) and Milwaukee’s Craig Counsell this season.
The Tampa Bay Rays clinched the AL wild card with a stunning rally Wednesday night, overcoming a late seven-run deficit and then beating the New York Yankees 8-7 on Evan Longoria’s home run in the 12th inning.
The Rays’ win came four minutes after Boston blew a one-run lead in the ninth at Baltimore and lost 4-3. The Red Sox, who held a nine-game lead over the Rays in early September, and Tampa Bay began the final day of the regular season tied for the wild card.
The Cardinals have won the National League Wild Card.
As the Braves and Phillies played a cliffhanger, Chris Carpenter and the Cardinals did their part at Minute Maid Park. Carpenter dominated the Astros and his offense gave him five runs before he even took the mound in a 8-0 drubbing of Houston. Atlanta then lost, 4-3, to Philadelphia in 13 innings to give St. Louis the Wild Card.
The checkered game of Milton Bradley’s life contines…
Former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Milton Bradley was free on $30,000 bail Wednesday after being arrested in Encino on suspicion of felony battery, according to City News Service.
Bradley, 33, was booked at the Van Nuys jail following his arrest at about 2 p.m. Tuesday, according to Sheriff’s Department records. He was released on bail about eight hours later, and was tentatively scheduled to appear in court in Van Nuys on Oct. 18.
Adds Maury…“Just in time for Halloween. Starring Sissy Spacek and John Travolta.”
So the “fishing” expedition is really saber-rattling. For one, it’s not just MLB that McCourt is trying to put on trial, it’s all sports leagues that have their own rules that they apply to clubs. Why not have McCourt go after the NFL, or NBA, or NHL? Where does it stop? The court has to remember the precedent that would be set with such a ruling.
But, that doesn’t mean McCourt isn’t going to lawyer ...
Putterman here is the world’s foremost appraiser of vintage HOF’s…
Every once in a while a career WAR total seems completely counterintuitive. This list features both players whose WAR is surprisingly high and players whose WAR is surprisingly low. Amos Rusie is statistically one of the most baffling players in Cooperstown. Rusie, both standout pitcher and mediocre outfielder in the late 19th century, was alternately impressive and underwhelming throughout a ten-season career on the mound. So ...
Bill Veeck was known for telling some wonderful tales and so I decided to see if one of his tales was actually true.
Joe Dimaggio had trouble hitting Satchel Paige, partly-I suppose-because Satch made him wait. Satch once committed the ultimate insult of walking a man deliberately to get at Joe, and then getting Joe to pop out. It was DiMaggio’s temperament to be a solid professional, to show no emotion, but you knew that Joe burned inwardly at the gratuitous slap and was hurting to get back ...
Chicago White Sox fans will be treated to four more years of “He Gone” and “Mercy!” after announcing Wednesday that television play-by-play announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson agreed to a four-year extension through 2015.
... yet the Mets still figured out a way to make a PR mess out of it. Reyes bunted for a single in the first inning of Wednesday’s game. The crowd went nuts. Then he was pulled for a pinch-runner in what might be his final game as a Met… Instead of leaving to cheers, the crowd boos the move.
Anyway, Tom Tango has a little different take on the MVP. His feeling is that if you put everyone from 2011 into a draft, the No. 1 player selected should be the MVP. Now, we’re talking about a real draft here—not a fantasy league draft. I suspect many readers here have played Strat-o-Matic or APBA baseball or something like that. So imagine every season from 2011 was available in card form. But include all you want—leadership, hustle, whatever qualities you want. You can’t game the ...
What’s next, that Willie Mays Hays didn’t really steal 100 bases in 1989?
The real problem with Moneyball, however, is not Lewis’s failure to understand baseball history. It’s his failure to see what was going on right in front of his and Beane’s eyes in 2002. In their book, The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball, Sheldon Hirsch and Alan Hirsch point out perhaps the biggest hole in Lewis’s analysis. They write that Moneyball
Yes, that was a Kirk Gibson-esque fist pump that Ryan Roberts broke out as he rounded the bases late Tuesday night at Chase Field.
And yes, it just so happened to come against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team Gibson played for when he made it famous for his fist-pumping home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
Perhaps it was only fitting. For as improbable as the Dodgers’ run was that year to the World Series, so is this amazing, magical ride that keeps cruising along for the underdog ...
Let’s smash all the game 162 game chatters into one thread, shall we? There is a full slate of games, but as far as playoff races are concerned, these are the games that matter (although if you want to talk about any of the other games for any reason, feel free).
Red Sox (Lester) vs. Orioles (Simon) at 7:05 PM
Yankees (TBD- no, seriously, TBD) vs. Rays (Price) at 7:10 PM
Phillies (Blanton) vs. Braves (Hudson) at 7:10 PM
Cardinals (Carpenter) vs. Astros (Myers) at 8:05 PM
Look! Shiny, magical double zeros! There’s no reasoning…you’ve lost.
Derek Jeter was not in the starting lineup Tuesday night at Tropicana Field. It was likely his last day off for the season. The Captain is expected to start Wednesday night in the regular season finale and continue his pursuit to a .300 batting average.
Jeet is batting .298 in 543 at-bats. He would need to go 2-for-4 to finish the season at .300. If he goes 1-for-3 or 2-for-5, he would finish at .299. Now here’s a ...
Vice President Joe Biden was in Boston yesterday and talked about why he was rooting for the Red Sox.
Here’s the anecdote from the Globe’s Shira Schoenberg on our Political Intelligence blog:
Biden said his lead Secret Service man is from Boston. Before his plane landed, Biden said, “I said everyone bow their head. We’re going to say a prayer that Boston wins the wild card spot. ... I’m worried if in fact they don’t, he’s going to ...
Melky, however, is a player who has been suspect ever since he first came up to the majors. It probably didn’t help that the team was the Yankees, who despite their success with a series of preternaturally long-lived homegrown players who’ve helped fuel their protracted dominance (Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams) are a team that likes to spread the large-size bills around—if only to remind you that there’s ...
“I am a hero who never fails;
I cannot be bothered with such details.”
“I write to hard-core baseball fans,” James said. “Anybody else is an interloper. That’s part of what defines my books: the decision to write to the hardest-core, most knowledgeable baseball fans, assuming that the reader starts with a deep knowledge of the game. I’ve never tried to write to the casual fan.”
So it’s a wonder sabermetrics can be the basis for a Hollywood movie.
Dreamer’s Holiday: Fixing the Giants…the Jenkins way.
Looking ahead to the Giants’ offseason and how they can resume supremacy in the NL West:
—The major free-agent targets - Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Jose Reyes - are out of reach. Take an early run at Carlos Beltran, assuring him the lineup will strengthen, and if he has his doubts, forget it; he won’t be worth signing. See if Jimmy Rollins really wants to leave Philadelphia (he’d be perfect as the leadoff hitter and shortstop). And ...
Tigers right fielder Davy Jones on manager Hughie Jennings, via the September 28, 1911 edition of the Pittsburgh Press:
It isn’t management that has lost the pennant to Detroit. It is the hard luck the team has played in.
...
There is only one player on the entire team who will fight for Jennings, and that is Cobb.
...
In the last Philadelphia series in Detroit, Willett was rushed into the box. As he left the bench Jennings bawled out: “Now you big stiff, go in there and show something!” ...
Prince Fielder slugged three home runs, becoming the third Brewers player to pull a hat trick in a game this season, driving in all but one of the team’s runs to spark a 6-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on the same night the team broke 3 million in attendance.
...
They helped tie the franchise record for victories with 95 - the 1979 and ‘82 teams also accomplished the feat…
Fox Sports filed suit against the Dodgers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court late Tuesday, alleging the team has breached its current television contract in pursuit of a new one.
...
The suit asks that the court reject any such sale except in accordance with the current contract, under which Fox retains exclusive negotiating rights through November 2012 as well as the right to match any other offer. The auction process proposed by McCourt and his attorneys ...
With Lowe unable to halt his recent woes and the offense showing few signs of life at Turner Field on Tuesday night, the Braves endured a 7-1 loss to the Phillies, then faced the fact that there might not be a postseason spot reserved for them.
“It’s like we’re living out a bad dream,” third baseman Chipper Jones said. “You really never expect this to happen to you, but there are a lot ...
Ryan Lavarnway, with a big bat and catching skills that are still in the developmental phase, is considered to be an important part of the future for the Red Sox. But nobody could have imagined just how much he would contribute to the current state of affairs when he was thrust into the lineup on Tuesday night at Camden Yards.
With the season on the line, and regular catchers Jarrod ...
The Tampa Bay Rays have turned the third triple play in team history.
The Rays accomplished the feat in the sixth inning Tuesday night while trailing 3-2 on a grounder by the Yankees’ Russell Martin.
Martin hit a groundball off Jeremy Hellickson to Evan Longoria, who was perfectly positioned near third base. After Longoria stepped on the bag, he threw to second baseman Ben Zobrist for the second out. Zobrist’s throw to first retired Martin, who dived head first into the base.
United States District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff let stand the trustee’s claim that the team’s owners were willfully blind to warnings that Madoff was possibly engaged in a fraud during their many years of investing with him and seemed to clear the way for the trustee, Irving H. Picard, to force the men to return the profits they earned from their investments with Madoff.
But as a consequence of Rakoff’s ruling - a complex decision involving bankruptcy and securities law - the trustee at most ...
The New York Mets today announced that the club has exercised its option on Manager Terry Collins’ contract for 2013. The Mets named Collins manager and signed him to a two-year contract on November 23, 2010.
“Terry has done an excellent job of leading and motivating this team with his preparation, energy and enthusiasm during a challenging season,” said General Manager Sandy Alderson. “He has developed strong relationships with our players and the club’s ...
Budget cuts, tuition increases and insufficient revenues have left Cal State Fullerton athletics barely clinging on to Big West Division I status.
The NCAA requires a university to maintain seven priority sports and fund them at 80 percent in scholarships in order to be considered Div. I.
The seven sports that are considered priority by the Big West conference out of CSUF’s 15 are men and women’s basketball, men and women’s soccer, baseball, softball and women’s volleyball. CSUF is ...
Two items about the next WBC in the last few days:
Round One games of the 2013 WBC might be played in Taiwan, especially if the MLB-NPB fracas over revenue keep going on. Oddly, though, Taiwan was going to have to qualify. Maybe if Japan backs out they will give Taiwan a bye?
The latest authoritative Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association annual report on U.S. sports participation, based on about 15,000 individual surveys and 24,000 households surveys, found that about 2.1 million Americans say they competed in wrestling last year—down 44% from 2000.
Other drops in total participants over the past decade even as the U.S. population steadily expanded: slow-pitch softball (-38%), football (-16%), ice hockey (-12%), fast-pitch softball (-11%) and baseball (-8%).
