The Class of 2020 finally gets their due at Cooperstown. Jay Jaffe reviews the latest greats to be inducted. Congratulations to Derek Jeter, Larry Walker, Ted Simmons, and the family of the late Marvin Miller for reaching the pinnacle of the sport!
The Cardinals and catcher Yadier Molina agreed on a deal to bring him back for the 2022 season:
Sources told ESPN the deal is worth $10 million, confirming a report by The Athletic.
“We are pleased to announce that Yadi has agreed to cement his career legacy with the Cardinals for a final season in 2022,” Mozeliak said in a statement. “His experience, leadership, work ethic and winning desire are all part of what we value as an organization.”
ESPN.com
A nineteen year career for any player is impressive, but it’s even more remarkable for a catcher. In addition, almost all his plate appearances came at catcher. Many aging catcher play first base, or outfield, or designated hitter. Only 96 of Molina’s PA came at another position. It’s nice to see he’ll get a farewell tour with the Cardinals.
Congratulations to Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers, who slugged his 500th home run in the sixth inning to tie the Blue Jays at one:
Cabrera put an exclamation point on his career when he became the 28th member of the 500-home run club with a sixth-inning blast for the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.
Cabrera’s home run was a 400-foot solo shot to right field off Blue Jays starting pitcher Steven Matz.
ESPN.com
Next on the list is Eddie Murray at 504. Also, Cabrera hit 591 doubles in his career, and only seventeen players reached the 600 mark. He also is nine extra-base hits away from reaching the top 20 in that category.
Albert Pujols moves from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles:
The agreement isn’t expected to become official until Monday, a source said.
Pujols, in the last year of his 10-year, $240 million contract, was designated for assignment by the Los Angeles Angels on May 6 and was officially released on Thursday after clearing waivers.
Pujols, 41, would seemingly be coming in for a part-time role. Max Muncy has started 32 of the Dodgers’ first 38 games at first base, but he also provides the versatility to help at third base and second base, which would open up some playing time for Pujols at first base.
ESPN.com
Or Albert takes the role of clutch hitting pinch hitter and gets a great opportunity to win another World Series. We’ll see how the Dodgers will actually use him if and when the official announcement comes down. This is exactly the role Albert needs.
The Angels are taking some heat for the way they released Albert Pujols. Here is Joe Maddon:
“I don’t mean this to sound cold in any way,” Maddon said. “It’s just the way it is. It was a group decision, based on ascending players that needed opportunity and Albert wanting to play every day. We just didn’t see that as being a mix.
“There’s no suitable or good way to do this without offending somebody. Divorce is difficult. There’s never a good time to go through with the act. Sometimes, it organically just has to occur. Then you have to maybe absorb people that don’t understand it, or weren’t there with boots on the ground.”
StLToday.com
Maddon still thinks Pujols can DH for some team. Of course, Joe Maddon should want Pujols playing everyday for one of the Angels opponents. I think if Pujols still wants to play he should take the Rusty Staub root of pinch hitter who can actually hit. As an NL pinch hitter, managers could pick the spots where the match-up would be very favorable to Pujols. It’s a minor role that he’s not used to, but a lot of his hits in that role could be big hits.
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim parted ways with future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols today:
The Angels officially designated 41-year-old Pujols for assignment, a formality before he becomes a free agent for the second time in his 21-year career. Pujols is expected to be released as soon as he clears waivers in three days.
Pujols was batting .198 with a .250 on-base percentage and .372 slugging percentage through his first 92 plate appearances and didn’t have a clear path for playing time with first baseman Jared Walsh performing well and Shohei Ohtani absorbing the vast majority of the at-bats at designated hitter.
ESPN.com
This reminds me of the end of Mike Schmidt‘s career. Schmidt was batting .203/.297/.372 in 1989, 42 games into the season. He retired. Of course, at the time, he didn’t have the huge amount of money owed him. Pujols will make $30 million this year.
I wonder if the Cardinals will sign him? This used to be common for superstars to return home at the end of their careers. Babe Ruth finished in Boston, Willie Mays returned to New York, and Henry Aaron made his way back to Milwaukee.
Take it away, Paul:
Here’s wishing Willie Mays a very happy birthday on the 90th anniversary of his birth. Mays easily ranks first as the greatest living player, and certainly near the top of the list of the greatest of all time. His owned a flawless skill set, great in all dimensions of hitting, superlative as a fielder, with speed that helped both his defense and on the bases.
A tiny example of Mays’s greatness shows up in his career against the Dodgers. Both in New York and California, the teams remains bitter rivals, and Mays was at his best in these games. He posted a .309/.400/.595 slash line in 383 games, hitting 98 of his 660 home runs against the Dodgers.
Here’s wishing Mays many more years!
No former player reached 75% in the BBWAA voting for the Hall of Fame. Here is the BBWAA vote tally. Curt Schilling topped the list at 71.1%, but has asked to be taken off the ballot:
“I will not participate in the final year of voting. I am requesting to be removed from the ballot. I’ll defer to the veterans committee and men whose opinions actually matter and who are in a position to actually judge a player,” Schilling wrote. “I don’t think I’m a hall of famer as I’ve often stated but if former players think I am then I’ll accept that with honor.”
ESPN.com
I am actually a bit surprised someone like Scott Rolen didn’t make it, or that Andruw Jones didn’t get more support. I really wonder if the writers thought last year’s class should have a stage to themselves.
There is a petition to rename the Braves the Atlanta Hammers to honor Hank Aaron.
I believe there is an English football team named the Hammers:
The Hall of Fame announcement comes Tuesday night, and 538 predicts the BBWAA will fail to elect any players this year. No one is over 75% on the BBHOF Tracker, and the people who release their ballots early tend to be more favorable overall to candidates.
The silver lining here might be that the class of 2020 gets to have the day they missed last summer alone.
It is with great sadness that I note the death of Henry Aaron, more commonly known as Hank Aaron, who sat among the small circle of the greatest players in baseball:
One of the sport’s great stars despite playing for the small-market Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves throughout a major league career that spanned from 1954 to 1976, Aaron still holds major league records for RBIs (2,297), total bases (6,856) and extra-base hits (1,477), and he ranks among MLB’s best in hits (3,771, third all time), games played (3,298, third) and runs scored (2,174, fourth).
ESPN.com
My thoughts go out to his family, friends, and the entire baseball community.
Aaron’s finish kick impressed me most about his career. From 1969 to 1973, his seasonal age 35-39 seasons, Aaron led the majors in home runs. It wasn’t even close, as he beat out Willie Stargell 203-185. At an age where most hitters are fading away, Aaron remained elite.
I did see him play at Shea Stadium in the early 1970s. He played first base and didn’t get the ball out of the infield. Still, I was extremely happy to have seen one of the great sluggers in person. At that point, it was becoming clear that either Aaron or Willie Mays would challenge the home run record of Babe Ruth. Aaron provided the finishing kick to put him over the top.
He hit all those home runs without being a huge man. Baseball Reference lists him at six feet, 180 pounds. He did manage to generate a lot of power:
He uses a different swing that what we are used to seeing today. He leans his upper body into the ball, and he likes the ball up. Some of his home runs remind a bit of the senior Vlad Guerrero. You can see that more in this highlight reel:
Aaron produced great hitting stats in general, walking more than he struck out, leading him to collect over 3000 hits in addition to his 755 home runs.
Rest in peace, Hammerin’ Hank!
Don Sutton died Monday night. The Hall of Fame pitcher went in his sleep, according to his son, Daron:
Sutton went 324-256 in his career and struck out more than 3,500 batters. He began his career as part of a loaded Dodgers’ rotation, also featuring Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, and helped Los Angeles win the NL pennant in his first season.
SI.com
My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
Sutton made the Hall of Fame by pitching consistently well for a long time. His peak came from 1971 to 1973, his seasonal age 26-28 seasons, the peak years for most players. In that time he posted 16.6 rWAR, a quarter of his 68.3 career WAR. He topped four WAR just twice more, but posted two or threes in twelve other seasons.
Sutton controlled the strike zone, walking just 2.29 batters per nine innings during his career, which ranks well among the greats from 1966-1988. While he would not qualify as a strikeout pitcher today, his 6.09 per nine IP was good at the time, and he held opponents to just 4692 hits in 5282 1/3 innings. He won 300 games when winning at that level was becoming rare.
Sutton also went on to a long broadcasting career, reaching multiple generations of baseball fans. Another great has left us.
Over a hundred ballots are in to the Hall of Fame Vote Tracker as of early morning New Year’s Day. I see five new voters so far, and all of them voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. That group includes David Laurila and Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs. This is one of the reasons I believe the BBWAA cut the eligibility period from fifteen to ten years. Newer voters tend to look at players with a fresh look. They grew up watching these greats play, and don’t have the historical animosity that older writers may harbor (see Jim Rice). Five more years of Bonds and Clemens fans moving into the voting pool could turn the tide.
One of the more interesting ballots belongs to Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald (currently the Patriots beat writer). She added Bonds, Clemens, and Manny Ramirez to her ballot, along with continuing to vote for Curt Schilling and Omar Vizquel. In general, I would think this would be the year to vote for the Bonds and Clemens. The ballot, in general, is weak, so their election would not upstage any clean stars. Guregian is the only voter so far to change a ballot in that direction. Bonds lost one other vote and Clemens two votes. Still, this is a chance to put two people in the Hall, and due to the pandemic, avoid having them make speeches in Cooperstown. Maybe the best of both worlds.
Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro died Saturday due to cancer:
Niekro, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997, was one of baseball’s most prolific and durable pitchers, using his “butterfly” pitch to win 318 games in a career that spanned 24 seasons, including 21 with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves.
ESPN.com
My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
I thought he would be older than 81. Niekro was one of those people who always seemed old. (Abe Vigoda would be an example from the world of acting.) Part of that stemmed from him not reaching the majors until his seasonal age 25 season, then not catching on as a 200 inning pitcher until his age 28 season. He pitched last in the majors in 1987 at the age of 48. His oldness prompted Bill James to write one of his funnier profiles in the 1986 Baseball Abstract, noting that Niekro at the time was older than a large number of ball players who were no longer in the game for many years.
Do you remeber Zoilo Versalles, who was the Amercian League MVP 21 years ago? Phil Niekro is older than Zoilo Versalles.
…
Phil Niekro is older than Tommie Aaron, except that Aaron is dead and you can’t get any older than dead.
…
Funny thing, though. He don’t look a day over 60.
The Bill James Baseball Abstract, 1986
Niekro pitched 5404 innings in his career, topping topping 300 innings four times, the four times he led the league in that category. He was not wild for a knuckle ball pitcher, with a career average of 3.0 walks per nine innings. Though age 45 he averaged just 2.8 walks per 9 IP, but his final years were not as good. Controlling the knuckle ball the wa he did is what made this pitched work so well for him. He could through it for strikes. He has the dubious distinction of winning 20 games and losing 20 games in the same season.
His best season game at seasonal age 39, pitching 44 games for the Braves, 42 of them starts. He posted a 2.88 ERA in 334 1/3 innings, earning him a 19-18 record. He allowed 295 hits and 102 walks, but just 16 home runs. He also led the majors with 13 hit batters. The Braves that season scored just 3.7 runs per games, 10th in the NL. If they had produced a better offense, Niekro might have won 30 games.
The story also mentions that the seven Hall of Famers who died in 2020 set the records for most deaths among that that level of greatness.
Dick Allen died. The Phillies made the announcement today, Monday. Allen won the NL Rookie of the Year Award and the AL Most Valuable Player Award in his career:
“The Phillies are heartbroken over the passing today of our dear friend and co-worker, Dick Allen,” the team said.
“Dick will be remembered as not just one of the greatest and most popular players in our franchise’s history, but also as a courageous warrior who had to overcome far too many obstacles to reach the level he did. Dick’s iconic status will resonate for generations of baseball fans to come as one of the all-time greats to play America’s pastime,” the Phillies said.
Phillies managing partner John Middleton broke from the team’s longstanding “unwritten” policy of only retiring the number of players who are in the Hall of Fame to honor Allen.
“I thank the city of Philadelphia. Even though it was rough, I’ve made some friends along the way,” Allen said in an emotional ceremony on a warm, sunny afternoon.
ESPN.com
My thoughts go out to his family and friends, and I am glad he was able to go out on a high note.
Allen posted a .292/.378/.534 career slash line. That .534 slugging percentage was outstanding for the era. From 1961 to 1980, a twenty year period that pads out Allen’s career, only eleven players slugged at last .500 in 5000 plate appearances. (In the last 20 years, 27 players posted that mark.) He led the league in slugging three times, OBP twice and and OPS four times. He made the all-star time seven times.
Allen’s best year came in his rookie season of 1964 in which he posted an 8.8 rWAR. His second best was his MVP season of 1972 with an 8.6 rWAR. In his eleven productive seasons he only fell below three WAR twice, and never below two WAR. Once could argue that his 1967 season was his best, as he posted a 5.3 rWAR in just 122 games.
I’ve posted this before, but here is a beautiful song about Mr. Allen.
As a follow-up the to This Date in 1920 project, a friend sends along this film of the Yankees playing at the Indians that year:
The point of the film is to demonstrate how a high speed camera can generate a slow motion film to analyze swings and pitching deliveries. Note that this film is highly edited, and the captions do not always match what actually happened. Some highlights from my friend, who believes the game was played on June 15, 1920:
4:17 announcing the starting lineups
4:24-26 top of 1st? [maybe also top of 3rd or of 5th] Part of a Wally Pipp plate appearance. [If it’s the top of the 5th, there should be a runner at 1st, but maybe he’s very close to the base].
8:03-04; 8:17-23. Ray Chapman triple, bottom of the 5th. Ignore the intervening nonsense in the caption at 8:05 and what is either staged action or some pre-game action with a throw over the first baseman’s head. There was another triple hit during the game, but the play-by-play at BBref describes that triple as going to RF, not LF/CF as this one did.
7:42 – 7:45. Bottom of 5th, Wambsganss groundout, 3B to 1B; Tris Speaker holds at 3rd, and Larry Gardner advances to second. Ignore the subsequent caption and what is either staged action or pre-game action. Among other things, note that the second baseman in the first shot after the caption is not moving as he would if this were real and there don’t seem to be other fielders in sight, and in the second shot the second baseman is not even visible.] It is possible that there was a close play at first, but this film does not represent the real action there.
5:48 -5:55. Bottom of 7th. Hannah (C) picks off Wambsganss at 3B.
4:56 – 5:30. Top of 8th. Ruth strikes out. I question whether the 5:31-35 field-level shot is from the same AB, because it seems that the catcher here is throwing the ball long after Ruth has left home plate, but at 5:28, he has thrown it back while Ruth is still in front of the plate, walking to the dugout.
8:24 – 8:31 field-level shot seems like actual game footage, but I can’t narrow it down. Ruth did not hit a home run that day, despite the coy reference to a “home run swing.” The scene with the street urchins is obviously staged.
Other interesting things:
With opposing runners at 3rd and facing a 6-2 and then 8-2 deficit, Huggins had the infield in during the bottom of the 5th (even with one out and a runner on first) and the bottom of 7th.
5:42 – is that Ring Lardner?
6:01 – Carl Mays’ delivery (in warm-up)
6:33 – Jack Quinn going to his mouth during his practice (he was a legalized spitball pitcher).
7:17 – Tris Speaker BP. I don’t think that I had ever seen film of Speaker.
7:30 – Wally Pipp BP. Nicely pulled. He’s bigger than I had imagined him to have been.
1:19 – 1:40. Young Babe Ruth warming up.
2:40 – rain delay. It is interesting that the players seem to be helping with the tarp when covering the field, but not when removing it. [By the way, according to this site, there was rain on June 15: Cleveland weather history: find weather details for any date since 1871 – cleveland.com ]
I wonder whether this film is the only one showing Ray Chapman playing (as well as some of the others shown here, such as Hannah, the Yankees’ catcher).
Also, at 7:45, maybe the first use of replay to demonstrate an incorrect call by the umpire.
If you stop the film at 6:19, you can see why it was tough to pick up Carl Mays’s delivery. At this point, he is a full extension, ready to swing his right arm forward with the ball. He is crouched down, however, hiding the ball until the last second. This delivery contributed to the death of Ray Chapman.
On the Ruth slow motion swing, note that his back foot comes off the ground. In 2013, The Washington Post made a film comparing Bryce Harper’s swing to Ruth’s, and I believe they used this slow motion footage of Ruth for the comparison.
Enjoy!
Ichiro Suzuki will coach high school baseball in Japan. He will also continue his role with the Mariners:
The Asahi Shimbun reported that the Japan Student Baseball Association usually requires those wanting to coach amateur players to leave their pro teams, but officials made an exception for Ichiro.
SeattlePI.com
Legend status has its rewards.
The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) released the 2021 Hall of Fame ballot on Monday. The list of newcomers on the ballot represents a rather weak class compared to recent years, with it unlikely that any of them make the hall on the first ballot. That might give Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds a chance to pick up votes. My guess, however, is if they go in at all, they will go in next season on the last possible ballot. I would not be surprised if the voters kept them from being enshrined as long as possible as their punishment.
Curt Schilling is the player to watch this season. His 70% last season makes him look like a shoe in, but there are plenty of people who do not like him.
Jay Jaffe does a good job of analyzing the ballot at FanGraphs.
Honus Wagner, despite dying in 1955, still keeps setting records:
A Honus Wagner rookie baseball card has sold for more than $1.4 million.
The price was a record for the rare T-206 card of the Pittsburgh Pirates great, the highlight of the Goldin Auctions October Legends Auction. Also fetching a record price was the basketball rookie card of Michael Jordan, which sold for $124,230.
ESPN.com
Wagner led the NL in batting average eight times, OBP four times, and slugging percentage six times. He regularly slugged over .500 with home run numbers in the single digits, all while playing shortstop. One reason the card is so valuable is there were few printed:
The only good thing to come out of 1910 was the now-famous T-206 card, one of which commanded over $1 million at auction in 2000. Pirates secretary John Gruber, making $10 on the deal, sold the American Tobacco Company a picture of Wagner to reproduce in card form to be inserted in Piedmont cigarettes. Wagner, who smoked cigars and chewed but didn’t like cigarettes, stopped the deal, sending Gruber a check for $10. Wagner didn’t want kids buying cigarettes and didn’t think they should have to pay for his picture. The few cards that got out before the print run could be stopped were snapped up and held, making the Wagner T-206 card the most prized sports card on record.
SABR.org
Hall of Famer Bob Gibson died Friday at age 84:
Gibson announced in July 2019 that he had pancreatic cancer.
The nine-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion earned 251 wins, struck out 3,117 and had a 2.91 ERA, and was known as a fierce competitor who rarely smiled.
The two-time Cy Young Award winner was named the World Series MVP in the Cardinals’ 1964 and ’67 championship seasons. He was the National League MVP in ’68.
ESPN.com
My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
His 1.12 ERA in 1968 stands as the live ball era record for a low ERA in a season. His game log that year is fairly amazing. In one eleven game stretch he allowed just three runs in 99 innings, eleven complete game wins with eight shutouts. Note that one reason he drove his ERA so low was that he went very deep in games.
Gibson showed poor control early in his career, averaging 4.1 walks per nine. In 1964 he figured out walk prevention, and for the next ten years averaged 2.6 walks per nine. In terms of three true outcomes during that long peak, minimum 1500 innings, Gibson ranked fourth in HR/9 at 0.56, and sixth in K/9 at 7.52.
Gibson had a reputation for throwing at batters, but from 1959 on, the start of his career, Gibson’s 102 batters hit ranks 41st. Orel Herhsier, who seems like a nice guy, hit 117 batters in fewer innings. It seemed Gibson picked his spots for intimidation:
And he showed that love by competing, by overpowering hitters, by intimidating hitters.
“If you showed him up in any way on the field,” Robinson said, “you were going down.”
“I was told by Hank Aaron never to mess with Bob Gibson,” Nationals manager Dusty Baker said. “I was told never to stare at him, or talk to him, or smile at him. And if he hit you with a pitch, I was told never to charge the mound because he would beat your ass.”
ESPN.com
Three times Gibson reach the World Series. Three times he started three games, going 7-2 with a 1.89 ERA and winning the MVP in the two Cardinals championships. He changed the game with his 1968 ERA, as MLB lowered the mound to make batters more competitive with pitchers.
I met him once, as he came to the ESPN Studio to appear on Baseball Tonight. During the Sunday afternoon, he sat and watched games nearby. I remember he had a bulge on his right elbow, no doubt from the wear and tear on his arm. During the day, one by one, production people would tentatively approach him to say hello and pay their respects. Gibson would acknowledge them but didn’t engage them. He worked that day as he played, serious and intense. A truly awe inspiring figure.
Barry Larkin started project unity, and Major League Baseball players get a chance to promote that project in the playoffs.
With the Yankees playing in his home town of Buffalo, Sean Krist remembers a phone call with managerial great Joe McCarthy. Krist wrote McCarthy to ask for an interview Krist would write for his high school paper. McCarthy gave him a gem:
Babe Ruth, he told me, did not really call his shot.
McCarthy went back to that October day in 1932 when the Yankees were locked in a bitter World Series showdown with the Chicago Cubs, a club that had let McCarthy go in 1930. Vicious taunts were going back and forth, McCarthy said, when Ruth stepped to the plate and gestured angrily at the Cubs – rather than specifically pointing out the destination for the ball – just before he hit a monster home run off Charlie Root that ascended into hallowed baseball legend.
BuffaloNews.com
The full story is well worth your read.
Vin Scully auctioned his memorabilia for $2 million.
Scully and his wife, Sandra, plan to use some of the auction proceeds to help their five children, 16 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren with expenses that include parochial school tuition. The rest of the proceeds will be donated to UCLA for neuromuscular research. Scully said his wife suffers from a condition related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the incurable disease that forced Yankees great Lou Gehrig to retire at 36.
ESPN.com
An early inheritance and medical research sounds like a nice combination.
Albert Pujols hit home run 661 Friday night, then added another. That first shot breaks the tie with Willie Mays, putting Pujols alone in fifth place:
Pujols hit No. 661 in the fifth inning on Friday night against the Texas Rangers to break the tie with Mays, then connected again in his next at-bat in the 6-2 victory.
“I knew that whenever it happens, whether it was going to be this year or next year, it was going to happen,” he said. “I definitely wasn’t thinking about trying to hit one out. It happened tonight and look how perfect it worked out. I not only got one, but two on the night.”
ESPN.com
Mays did collect 63 multi-HR games in his career. Pujols posted ten multi-HR games in 2009, one short of the record for a season set by Hank Greenberg in1938 and tied by Sammy Sosa in 1998.
Albert Pujols of the Angels hit home run 660 Sunday afternoon in Colorado. That ties Willie Mays for the fifth highest career total of all time.
Mays hit his first home run in the fourth game of his MLB career and his last in his 2,975th game. Pujols also went deep the first time in his fourth game, and today marked game 2,854. Of the nine players who reached at least 600 home runs, six of them started their careers well after Mays retired. Including Henry Aaron*, this is the fourth time Mays saw his home run total passed.
*Arron passed Mays in June of 1972 when Mays had 648 homers.
All the Pirates wore Roberto Clemente’s 21 tonight.
I remember hearing about Clemente’s death. It was during Christmas week, and we went to visit old friends of my mom. Their son-in-law was there, and he was showing off his big present, the second edition of the MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia. It was the first time I saw that. We had not listened to the radio that morning, and he asked if we had heard about Clemete’s plane crash. My dad and I were shocked.
The Pirates honored him appropriately:
The Pirates made sure to extend the tribute beyond the walls of PNC Park, where the Roberto Clemente Bridge stands. The team partnered with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank to host a drive-through food distribution early in the day. They hosted a meal and mask distribution at the Latino Community Center and bought gift subscriptions to the New Pittsburgh Courier — a newspaper focusing on the city’s Black community — for local libraries.
ESPN.com
The Phillies retired Dick Allen‘s number 15:
Mike Schmidt, a Hall of Fame third baseman who helped lure Allen out of retirement to return to Philadelphia for a second stint with the team in 1975, called him “an amazing mentor” who was wrongly labeled a “bad teammate” and “troublemaker.”
“Dick was a sensitive Black man who refused to be treated as a second-class citizen,” Schmidt said in a speech.
Chron.com
Allen did peak early, his best years coming between seasonal ages 22 and 25 inclusive. During that time he accumulated 28 of his 58.8 rWAR. He was a solid three-WAR player four another seven years, with an 8.6 rWAR and an MVP in 1972 for the White Sox.
And how many fans write songs about a ballplayer?
Fary Fernandez, mother of David Ortiz’s son, filed a restraining order against the slugger.
According to terms of the order, Ortiz must refrain from “annoying, intimidating or threatening” Fernandez via in person or by phone.
YardBarker.com
Three years ago, the Red Sox decided to change the name of the road in front of the stadium from Yawkey Way. At the time, I suggested they return it to Jersey Street.
So how about going back to Jersey Street instead of after another celebrity? It will save future embarrassment if that person turns out to be disliked by future generations.
BaseballMusings.com
One of the celebrities under consideration at the time was David Ortiz. The city did the right thing and returned the street to the former name. We’ll see how this goes for Ortiz, but the David Ortiz bridge might be in trouble.
Willie Mays and Ernie Banks became the first two players who already hit at least 500 home runs to homer in the same game.
Mays hit his 15th homer of the year and 615th of his career for San Francisco’s only run off lefty Ken Holtzman, who throttled the Giants on seven hits to run his season record to 8-3.
Banks played a big part in the Chicago victory, driving in three runs with his seventh homer of 1970 and 504th of his career.
MercuryNews.com
Mays would finish his career with 660 homers, now fifth on the all-time list. Banks finished with 512 home runs, tied with Eddie Mathews for 23rd all time.
Tim Kirkjian celebrates the 30th anniversary of Randy Johnson‘s first no-hitter. The article contains two excellent quotes. The first is on Johnson’s reach:
“He is so tall,” veteran coach Rich Donnelly once said, “he doesn’t have a pickoff move to second, he just reaches out and touches the runner.”
ESPN.com
The second concerns how scary it was to face Johnson. Due to his height, he released the ball much closer to the batter than a normal sized pitcher. That gave batters less time to react:
Jeff Huson, a former infielder and a left-handed hitter, once said, “What’s the worst thing that Michael Jordan can do to you? He can dunk on you. So what? What’s the worst thing Randy Johnson can do to you? He can kill you.”
ESPN.com