August, 2009 | The Baseball Zealot

70 years of televised baseball and we’re still fighting for the remote

Last week was the 70th anniversary of the first televised professional baseball game in major league history. On August 26th, 1939, it was a doubleheader that took place in Brooklyn between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds (the very first televised baseball game was a game between Princeton and Columbia held at Bakers Field)..

There was nothing particularly outstanding about the games themselves though the Reds did manage a 5 run inning in the first game to make a comeback making the final score 5-2. Dem Bums made it a split by scoring a quick six runs in the first three innings and never looked back winning the second game 6-1.

While the implications of televising this game most definitely had far-reaching effects, I’m sure those at the time may have had their doubts. There were only about 400 television sets in the New York that could take advantage of this this new technology. The quality of the picture was very grainy and snowy.

But the picture quality eventually improved over years, taking away the mystique of the commentaries from the radio broadcasters and showing EXACTLY what was happening on the ball field. And with the continued development of televised baseball broadcasting, Major League Baseball owners saw with delight the revenue streams that could be exploited with it. Soon after with sports media networks such as ESPN, came to the same conclusion.

Fast forward through 70 years of development, both from a technological and business sense and in the last 10 years, we see Major League Baseball going through a new revolution in content delivery. We now have High-Definition television taking the picture quality to a higher level.

But we also see MLB content delivery taking a different turn away from conventional television. We no longer need to switch on the remote to follow your favorite team. In 2000, MLB created a new branch, the Major League Baseball Advanced Media, to meet this need. Generally speaking, the MLBAM is charged with content delivery of baseball on the internet as well as any interactive media. Because of MLBAM, fans can view baseball games on streaming video over our computer and recently, even our smartphones.

Orville and Wilbur Wright probably never envisioned NASA when they were successful in their first flight at Kitty Hawk. Nor did those responsible for televising the very first game 70 years ago envision the state of baseball viewing today.

Tater-less

Baseball Reference’s Stat of the Day blog does the numbers work and determines who among active players has the most plate appearances with 0 homers.

Most are pitchers, of course, though #1 on the list is Angel OF Reggie Willits with 785 plate appearances.

What struck me is the number of Cubs and former Cubs on the list. Most notably, Ryan Dempster who ranks #6 with 491.

That’s ok, that’s not his job.

MLB Playoff Picture Features No White Sox

no sox This man is just like the playoffs, no White Sox! GM Kenny Williams wasn’t shy about going out there and spending his bosses money. Picking up ace starter Jake Peavy, has yet to pitch for the Pale Hose, in exchange for lefthanded pitchers Clayton Richard & Aaron Poreda and righties Dexter Carter & Adam Russell. Then Williams spent more money on a waiver claim from the Toronto Blue Jays, outfielder Alex Rios.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the playoffs, we started losing, and it snowballed out of control. After the first portion of a tough roadtrip, in which the Sox lost six of seven to Boston & New York, I’m declaring the season OVER! Especially seeing Chicago now takes its sorry act on the road to their own personal place of horrors, the Metrodome. I know the experts are saying, we need to sweep in order to have a chance, I know better.

We have not played well for a variety of reasons, surely there have been some good times, the highlight being Mark Buehrle’s Perfecto. But things have gone South in a hurry, and not in a Southside kind of a good way. All season long we never had a 4th or 5th starter we could depend on, tough to win conceding 40% of your games. Alexei Ramirez has not looked good at SS, he was very good at secondbase, why did we move him? Carlos Quentin is still not healthy, somehow he’ll always manage to be hurt, face the facts. A.J. Pierzynski couldn’t throw me out attempting to steal, he doesn’t have an arm, and has driven in only 37 runs, while hitting .313, that’s tough to do, maybe not with the slowsters batting ahead of him. We talked about improving team speed, but didn’t. Why can’t our pitchers hold on baserunners and why can’t our hitters bunt? We’d really be introuble, like we’re not now, if we didn’t hit home runs. Mark Buehrle, Paul Konerko, & Jermaine Dye have all stopped contributing, what’s it going to be like when Jermaine isn’t playing for us next year? No different from this year, he stopped playing some time ago. Batting Jim Thome, who walks, ahead of Paul Konerko, who hits into doubleplays, not a good idea. Our fundamentals are terrible, whose fault is that, Jay Mariotti’s? The bullpen has gone up in flames like a California wildfire. Brent Lillibridge is a minor leaguer. We went into the season without a leadoff hitter, luckily we plucked Scott Podsednik off the garbage pile, where would we be without him? Also Gordon Beckham has done well at thirdbase, despite the fact he never played it in the minors or in the Arizona Fall League, at least not on a regular basis, and why not? Did we really believe as Hawk kept spouting, that Josh Fields reminded him of Harmon Killebrew, maybe when he swung & missed. We could blame it on Rios for not providing the spark we really needed when we got him or we could simply look into the mirror and see we just aren’t that good.

NASCER Race – Going, Going, Gone!

AdrianGonzalez I’m not talking about NASCAR where the great strategy is GO FAST & TURN LEFT, very tough concept for redneck fans to grasp. I’m talking about the fantasy baseball league I belong to, NASCER, it’s an acronym for something, but don’t ask me what it stands for. I’ve been away from fantasy baseball for about ten years. When I returned my friend gave me a caveat, he told me, “You’ll love it, until the trading deadline”. Well I’m not sure that’s completely accurate, I didn’t love it when one of my mercenary ballplayers, Brandon Webb, went down for the season after just one start, nor when I lost Alex Gordon & Carlos Delgado to injuries, nor when My Main Manny, Manny Ramirez, was suspended for fifty games.

But I managed to weather those storms, picking up Ubaldo Jimenez, Juan Pierre, & Marco Scutaro, to keep the ship afloat. I was in 3rd place as the trading deadline approached. The only trades that happened thus far were during the season between teams going for it, I was involved in both of them, both centered around, now out for the season hurler, Johan Santana. First I got Santana for fast-starting Raul Ibanez and then I traded Santana, along with Mike MacDougal & Jason Jaramillo, for Jermaine Dye, Frank Francisco, & Kurt Suzuki. Both trades turned out to be classic examples of SPY vs SPY, Johan had the worst week of the season while with me, so I sent him packing, he got hurt shortly after moving on to his 3rd team of the year. While Francisco & Suzuki have been okay for me, neither Ibanez nor Dye have performed for their new squads.

As the trading deadline approached, NASCER had eight of ten teams within fifteen points of first place. The 2nd place team made the first trade sending Mark Reynolds, picked up off the waiver wire, but having a terrific season, despite his whiffs, for Adrian Gonzalez, Yovani Gallardo, Trevor Hoffman, & Huston Street. The next deal had the first place team trading Adam Jones & Wandy Rodriguez in exchange for Joakim Soria, Francisco Cordero, Roy Oswalt, Brian McCann, & Brad Hawpe. Then there were the two deals made by a hard charging team from the middle of the pack that was looking for hitting, they found it in the two deals they pulled off, did they have to wear a mask? They got Jason Bay, Michael Wright, Brandon Phillips, Bengie Molina, & David Price in one trade for Josh Johnson, and throw-ins Carlos Guillen & Jason Varitek in one trade. And because that wasn’t quite enough, they dumped, rather than cutting him, Carlos Quentin for ready-to-go Ian Kinsler. It’ll be difficult to keep these three teams out of first, second, & third place, just because they got to the feeding troff first.

You may ask, where was I during this feeding frenzy, was I asleep in a corner? Blame it on the beer, I was a little slow on the draw, and didn’t come up with a proposed deal until three in the morning, I sent out my offer bright & early Friday morning, Shin-Soo Choo & Ubaldo Jimenez, two young stars, who’ve performed well for me all year would be sent packing in exchange for Felix Hernandez, Curtis Granderson, Adam Dunn, Ian Kinsler, & Francisco Cordero (I’d forgotten that he’d already been gobbled up). When I didn’t hear back from him by Sunday evening, it became obvious I’d have to compete down the stretch without having the benefit of a lopsided trade. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I didn’t make a deal, that’s got me upset. It’s that three deals were made, which in effect ended a great race, a race where anybody from 1-8 could’ve ended up in the money. All teams were playing by the rules, there was no collusion, the bottom feeders were trying to help their teams for next year by acquiring keepers signed cheap, while the teams in the hunt were trying to secure their positions.

While I’m still currently in 3rd place, hoping against all hope, I look toward next year, and look for a solution to what I view as the problem of “getting to the feeding troff first”. I’m asking the question, looking for a solution IMHO something is taken away when the yearly race comes down to, who you can swipe at the trading deadline for stud (or dud) keepers for next year. Maybe, if you trade for a keeper, it has to be a one-for-one trade, at least then you’d only be getting one stud rather than three, four, or five guys. Or perhaps, the salary cap has to be lowered, there is one currently in place, but it’s so high, that nobody really even had to think about it, when these trades were consummated.

All I know is that my team pretty much has the perfect name WTLNXTYR, which is what most of the teams competing for 4th place this year will be doing, rather than competing in one heck of a race, what a shame.

Q&A on the 03 drug test ruling

The New York Daily News has a pretty objective breakdown (a FAQ, if you will) on last week’s court ruling centered around 2003 drug test.

Q:Was the ruling a surprise?

A:Not exactly. It upheld previous rulings by other federal judges, and the bulk of the opinion’s reasoning was a reiteration of established legal precedents, especially concerning probable cause and other protections of the Fourth Amendment.

Maybe a bit dry reading for those who just want to skip to part where hang those taking PEDs but *I* found the article interesting.

MLB shilling for Dunkin Donuts

Oh, the interesting things I get in my inbox when I’m signed up for mlb.com’s Cubs email list.

Today, in MLB’s ongoing effort to justify their bottom line, I got an ad for Dunkin’ Donuts disguised as a contest. “Win Coffee for a Year!” they claim. But yeah, the fine print says you gotta sign up for their annoying DD Perks which no doubt means you give them all your personal information first.

The gist of it all is that nothing baseball related coming from this email. Unless their giving the hint that folks should be drinking more coffee at games and less beer.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain. It’s better than getting another email and hearing that the Cubs lost to the Nationals once again.

Milton Bradley: getting bad vibes, great obp

Say what you want about Milton Bradley but it doesn’t look like he’s having a good time in right field. According to beat writer Carrie Muskat, Bradley’s enduring a fair amount of “hatred” during games courtesy of Cub fans.

Bradley doesn’t hold back:

"All I’m saying is I pray the game is nine innings, so I can go out there the least amount of time possible and go home."

Wow. Good natured ribbing or fan abuse? Or just a over-sensitive rightfielder?

Either way, maybe the fans are targeting the wrong guy. It’s easy to look at Bradley’s season batting average of .259 and think he’s not pulling his weight. But look at his stats in the last 20 days. In that period, he’s batting .306 with a nifty .411 OBP (and that’s not including tonight’s game when he hit a homerun).

Since he’s moved to the second spot, the Cubs have leveraged his on base potential the best that a team in their position can. MB has had two 4-hit games in that same period.

So Cub fans, go easy on the guy. Pick on the beer vendor.

McCutchen Redeems Himself

Staff Photographer Neither closer has had all that much success this year, neither Matt Capps, nor Brad Lidge. Capps spit out a one run 9th inning lead, allowing back to back doubles, and then with two outs Shane Victorino lined a ball right at Andrew McCutchen, McCutchen froze, and the ball took off over his head, and gave the Phillies a one run lead. Now it was time for Brad Lidge to protect a one run lead. Hits by Luis Cruz & Brandon Moss, with a wild pitch in between, tied the game when Jayson Werth over ran the ball, and pinch runner Brian Bixler scored. That brought up the kid, Andrew McCutchen. Andrew talked with Lastings Milledge during the game, talking about what he’d do if he hit a walkoff home run, and told him he’d be like a basketball player taking the dunk to the hoop when he reached home plate. He thought he might get the bunt sign, but when he didn’t, he focused on the job at hand and looked for a ball to hit hard. And BANG it happened!

Which got me to thinking of managers putting their players into positions where they can achieve success. I remember a couple of nights ago where Jim Tracy didn’t panic, he told Adam Eaton to take three pitches with the bases loaded (he walked), trailing in the game, wanting Ryan Spilborghs to bat with the bases loaded, and BANG it happened!

Then there was the opposite, which happened in last night’s Texas/Yankee game. With nobody out in the bottom of the 9th New York trailed the Rangers 10-9 with runners on 1st & 2nd, facing Frank Francisco. Now we all know Swisher cannot bunt, I presume Girardi knows this as well, but he had him try, popout. And then BANG it happened! Linedrive up the middle by Melky Cabrera, caught by Elvis Andrus for a game ending DP.

I’m reminded of what Stacey King always says regarding Da Bulls, KYP, Know Your Personnel! Don’t have players do what they can’t!

Know the 3000 K pitchers? Take the quiz

Courtesy of Sporcle.com, can you name all pitchers with 3000 career strikeouts?

Sporcle’s cool quiz interface gives you a time limit but does allow you to keep guessing till you get it right.

(I’ll give you one hint: one last name is a two-for-one)

Ironically, it was the current ones that I had the hardest time with.

Rockies & Roll

Ryan Spilborghs put an exclamation mark on last night’s Rockies come from behind victory over the Giants in 14 innings, with a walkoff grand slam! The teams were down to bare bones as evidenced by the fact that Colorado manager Jim Tracy told pitcher to take three strikes right down the middle for a strikeout, rather than risk hitting into a game ending doubleplay, he wanted to see Spilborghs hit with the bases loaded, Justin Miller issued a bases loaded walk to Eaton, then Miller was replaced by Merken Valdez, who let up the bags juiced jack.

The Rockies have played 51-22, 20-32 before that, and have closed to three games of the front running Dodgers, after once being 15 1/2 games out. Los Angeles is preparing to face Colorado in a three game series, so far the Dodgers are 10-2 versus the Rocks, 5-1 at both places, but this is a different Rockies ballclub, playing inspired baseball under Tracy, who replaced manager Clint Hurdle the end of May after a three game Dodger sweep at Coors Field.

Spilborghs certainly redeemed himself after grounding into an inning ending doubleplay in the 10th with the potential winning run on 3rd. The Giants had taken the lead on a Eugenio Velez triple in the top of the 14th, but it wasn’t to be, as it was Ryan’s day, as he sprinted around the bases to meet up with his waiting teammates at homeplate.