....the claims that it was used in Jackson’s days playing for Cleveland and Chicago will have to be examined more closely as the result of a report written by Carter ”Scoop” Latimer for the cover-story of The Sporting News in 1942. In his report, Latimer describes how a small group of local kids appeared at Jackson’s home to present him with a gift:
“The treasured gift, which the kiddies bought with pennies saved was a replica of “Black Betsy,” the ebony-colored, hand-turned ...
In Latin America, the perception, as president of the Puerto Rico Professional Baseball League Sadi Antonmattei admits to be true, is that scouting and the evaluation of players is done primarily by the old-fashioned “eye test.”
However, he believes that’s about to change.
“Change is not always very welcomed at first, but those who don’t evolve with this technology might be making a big strategic mistake in the long run,” Antonmattei said. “It is too early to tell how ...
BIS employees do video tracking for every play in every major league game, providing reports and stats to more than half the major league teams. The company has multiple methods of compiling defensive data.
One involves the plotting of points at which plays are made on a computerized baseball diamond, with the ability to denote for an outfielder whether the batted ball was a line drive, fly ball or something in-between (they call them “fliners”), and for how long the ball was in the air ...
San Francisco Giants left-hander Barry Zito sprained his right ankle during a rehabilitation start for Triple-A Fresno and will be sidelined indefinitely.
On the bright side, his name is in the credits of The Franchise for providing some music, so that’s nice.
Chris splains…“It tries to come up with a team full of guys whose careers seemed like terrible wastes of talent despite rather impressive career numbers.”
Third base: Dick Allen
In terms of popular perception, Allen might be closest to Moss. He had undeniably talent, and his career numbers were impressive enough to garner him some Hall of Fame support (despite the fact that his off-field reputation didn’t help him with the voters).
Maybe if Allen had been healthier, he’d be a better ...
So, when the hitters connected on the meatball and put it in play, they had a batting average of .368, significantly higher than the 2010 baseline of .299. However when they reached for the slider that was either too low or too far outside they did significantly worse.
So, by taking a mix of all the pitchers, hitters, defenses, parks, counts and whatnot, we are hoping to isolate the effect the pitch quality itself has on the BABIP. What we get is the observed level of talent, and we are ...
They should be playing 150 miles to the north – at BC Place in Vancouver, B.C.
Just think of the buzz it would generate: Jays rookie Brett Lawrie, a 21-year-old from the Vancouver suburb of Langley, is a sensation in the North. He has an OPS of 1.104 after nine big-league games, and Canadians would surely turn out in droves to see their native son.
“It would be huge,” said Bart Given, the former Blue Jays assistant general manager who currently lives in Vancouver.
The gods of baseball are cruel! In time, all men shall learn to live without them!
The black-and-white truths of the first 119 games, he knows, have told a different story. Even after a recent surge, Werth has a 97 OPS+, a metric that combines a player’s ability to slug and reach base on a scale that uses 100 as league average. He has a .330 on-base percentage and a .383 slugging percentage.
His batting average, now .225, has been the measure most commonly held against Werth.
Ribby awakening quotes from some punchy old-timers…including Larry Merchant!
Charley Scott, 97, a onetime Penn soccer coach, said, “I guess I didn’t pay much attention to the Phils because of the Athletics. The father of a girl friend of mine was a lawyer who had some of the great Athletic players as clients and I met some of them when I visited a few times.”
Dr. Pete Hyman, 94, another Haverford resident, an internist at Temple U.niversity Hospital before he retired, said he saw a game ...
Jorge Posada wearing anything but Yankees pinstripes? That would have seemed impossible a few months ago.
Not anymore.
Posada, a career-long Yankee who is celebrating his 20th year with the organization, said he would consider playing for another team once his contract is up at the end of this season.
“It could [happen],” Posada told The Post yesterday. “I don’t know what’s going to happen after this year. But we’ll see.”
And so I’m contacting you now with a generous offer. I’m inviting you as my guest to take a personal tour of Oakland, with me as your chauffeur.
It won’t be a limo, just a Toyota Camry. But all I’m asking is that you give me a day, or a half-day, to show you around the Oakland you’ve yet to see.
...Now, Buddy boy, let me show you Oakland’s friendly neighborhoods, its waterfront, its lakes, all its new restaurants and its lovely ...
[Ralph] Branca folded his bare arms and looked out onto the golf course. I asked if he had mentioned to anyone the reason for our lunch — the second revelation I had recently told him. He said he had told his wife, Ann.
“I said,” recalled Branca, “‘do you know you married a Jew?’”
•
Branca’s mother, Kati, immigrated to the United States in 1901 from Sandorf, Hungary. (The town is now Prievaly, Slovakia.) Her maiden name was Berger. I had included this fact in the book I ...
Outfielder Ten Million of the Victoria Northwestern league team has been sold to the Cleveland club. He will report at the end of the Northwestern league season.
I haven’t been able to find much information on Ten Million, but I’m pretty sure he’s ten times better than One Million.
In the summer-long category, though, I’ll put watching Pedro Alvarez atop my torment list.
The Pirates’ best power-hitting prospect in a decade has become utterly cringe-worthy, whether a pitch or a grounder is headed his way. His average is down to .197 after again going hitless in the Pirates’ 2-1 loss Sunday, and his three home runs and 15 RBI seem frozen in time next to those 66-and-counting strikeouts.
Since returning to the Pirates on July 25, he is batting .176 and astoundingly has hit ...
In their one and only appearance on ESPN, the Rockies became the first modern team to lose 17 consecutive games on Sunday, falling 6-2 to the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium.
The Phillies had cornered the market on Sunday misery, their 1927, 1928 and 1960 teams all dropping 16 straight. The indignity now belongs solely to Colorado.
...
Looking nervous and hesitant, starter Esmil Rogers nibbled at the strike zone, hardly resembling the pitcher who beat the Reds last week. Pressure found ...
“I could pet it with my thumb while we walked along.”
I decided to make a list of every third baseman who, in the year he debuted in the major leagues, batted 175 or more times with an OBP of under .250 and a slugging average of under .250.
Mike Moustakas is the first name on that list. He is also the last name on that list. No third baseman has ever debuted as poorly as Moustakas has in so many at-bats.
Trade deadline acquisition Jason Marquis’ time with the Diamondbacks already appears to have come to an end. The Diamondbacks right-hander left Sunday’s start against the Mets in the fourth inning with a fractured right fibula, an injury that likely will end his season.
Marquis was struck on the right leg by an Angel Pagan line drive in the third inning. He remained in the game and finished the inning, then pitched to three batters before going down in pain in the fourth.
Braves pitchers had 18 strikeouts, 0 walks, and lose.
But three unearned runs weren’t enough as Carlos Pena hit a two-run homer off Eric O’Flaherty in the seventh inning to cap a meltdown by the Atlanta bullpen and give Chicago a 6-5 victory. In the process, Braves second baseman Dan Uggla’s hitting streak was snapped at 33 games.
....
With Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson sidelined, and Derek Lowe scuffling, the Braves have needed rookie starter Brandon Beachy to pitch well, and he has done ...
If we combine hitting, defense and base running, WAR (wins above replacement) rated him as the seventh-best player on the Phillies this year. ...
Howard benefits significantly from the quality of the hitters ahead of him in the batting order. Chase Utley, Shane Victorino and, to a lesser extent, Jimmy Rollins and Placido Polanco all have strong on-base percentages. Through Wednesday, the Phillies’ 1-3 hitters reached base 547 times, the eighth most in the majors. But as a group, they ranked ...
Instead of losing a sleeve of balls on a golf course or taking a long mud bath during a spa day, Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti admits that he has recently allowed himself a guilty pleasure.
About once a month, he’s been going to dinner with “five or six guys who are well-versed in life,” he says. “We talk about whatever comes up. If we’re there three hours, I hope the baseball conversation is only 15 minutes.”
The other night, the group included Tom Sherak, the president of the Academy ...
Lowell Palmer: Or as we used to watergatingly call him “Lowell Wackier, Jr.”
Palmer has one of the coolest baseball cards of all time. In 1970, he refused to remove his sunglasses for his Topps baseball card photo shoot. He refused again in 1971 and his major league claim to fame was etched in baseball history.
Palmer’s Wikipedia entry reads, “Palmer was renowned for wearing dark sunglasses while pitching and his baseball cards are considered classics.”
Field of Dreams opened in cinemas on April 21, 1989.
During the film, as you know, Kevin Costner’s character goes to Fenway Park with James Earl Jones’ character to watch the Red Sox play the Athletics.
We can assume that the film was shot in 1988.
There is a brief shot of Kevin Costner (or a hand pretending to be Kevin Costner) keeping score.
The camera shows the following, mostly-incomplete names on the scorecard:
EED
RRETT
BOGGS
ANS
WELL
I checked Baseball-Reference.com to see which game ...
or…Why Hitting Streaks Continue To Matter (Sort Of).
Many people have asked: What’s statistically less likely — DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak or Ted Williams’ 84-game on-base streak?
Williams reached base 84 straight games in 1949. He also reached base every game from July 20, 1941 to the end of the season. That guy was pretty good at getting on base.
So to figure the 84-game on-base streak … one more time, we need to figure out the odds of Williams reaching base in a game. ...
Maybe much could change in the last six weeks of the season to change this outlook, but from the looks of things now, the neo-number guys are going to have a tough time pulling an American League Cy Young award winner out of their computerized hat.
Last year they came up with Felix Hernandez, whose 13-12 record belied everything the award had ever meant. The neo-number guys told us that wins don’t mean anything, that it’s the last thing on which to judge a pitcher. Forget Tom Seaver, ...
But before trying to reinvent the Pirates, Hurdle had to reinvent himself.
“I’ve gone through an obstacle course and come out the other side bigger, stronger and better,” he said. “I’ve learned and lived, on and off the field.
“Usually behind leadership you hope to have good judgment,” Hurdle said, sitting at his desk inside PNC Park. “And good judgment’s needed in times of adversity. How do you get good judgment? Through experience. And how do you get the experience? Through bad judgment.” ...Read More...
During the 1950s, San Francisco Seals were the most fortunate players in baseball. Paul Fagan, their generous owner, spared no expense to make his squad comfortable….
One of the most innovative minds in baseball, Fagan introduced concession stands, upgraded the Seals Stadium ladies room with a million dollar investment and built a spring training facility on Maui. Fagan, whose personal fortune came from his family’s banking businesses and Hawaii real estate made sure his players always ...
Yeah, like the unnerving 1960 Leaf Mass Card Set has no history of its own!
The Topps Company has filed a lawsuit in NY against Leaf Trading Cards—claiming Leaf is using ICONIC Topps baseball cards—including the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card—to promote a new Leaf product.
It’s sorta weird—Leaf has a new line of cards called “2011 Best of Baseball” ... and in every pack, collectors will get 1 new, original Leaf card and 1 bonus card which, depending on your luck, could be a pre-1970 ...
Bruce hit another homer. The two-run shot was his 25th of the season and second in as many nights. But the barrage didn’t end there. The Reds hit a season-high seven homers in an 13-1 victory, their fourth straight. It’s the first time the Reds have won that many in a row since they had a five-game winning streak from May 13 to May 17.
Five of the homers came early and often against Padres starter Tim Stauffer, who left with the loss after three innings, having allowed nine runs on seven hits. ...
I think the Brewers should pick up Helms for another go-around, just for Harveys’ sake…
The clubhouse door stayed shut for several minutes after the Marlins’ 3-0 loss to the Giants on Saturday at Sun Life Stadium. The aftermath? Veteran Wes Helms was released and left fielder Logan Morrison was shipped to Triple-A New Orleans.
Helms, 35, was batting .191. Morrison 23, was hitting .249 with 17 homers and 60 RBI, the third most among the regulars.
...
Vazquez (7-10), the Marlins’ most ...
