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Walking the 8th place hitter

Among Chicago Cubs in the modern era, can you name the players with the most intentional walks in a season they hit less than 5 homers?

 Cnt Player            IBB HR  H  Year Age
+----+-----------------+---+--+---+----+---+
    1 Don Kessinger      18  0 151 1973  30 
    2 Hobie Landrith     15  4  69 1956  26 
    3 Joe Girardi        11  1 113 1990  25 
    4 Daryle Ward         8  3  36 2007  32 
    5 Dave Rosello        8  1  55 1976  26

With the exception of pinch hitter Darlye Ward, these were normally 8th place hitters. Albeit, some of these hitters deserved the walk more than others.

I got to playing around with the Internet Wayback Machine tonight and wondered what some of the MLB web sites I go to on a regular basis looked liked in the olden days. And by “olden days”, I mean at the beginning of this decade.

MLB teams at that point, were still responsible for maintaining their own websites; they weren’t under the MLB.com umbrella like they are now.

Let’s get started. All thumbnails of the web sites from 2000 click to a larger image:

cubs.com on May 20, 2000

I don’t know why I chose this particular date for the Cubs. They were dead last in the NL Central and they had just gotten beat by the Cardinals 4-2. But it’s a good sample nonetheless.

Vivid blues and reds. And hey, they have a Multimedia section complete with a “Cubs Cam”. Back then, folks could bid on a Ernie Banks flag or a VIP tour of Wrigley.

I noticed a link to the Trib’s sister organization (or were they back then?) ChicagoSports.com. Also in the sidebar a link for Yahoo Broadcast (??).

whitesox.com June 20, 2000

The Sox’ slogan was ‘The Kids can Play’. On this date, the Sox were holding on to first place in the AL Central. James Baldwin was off to a 5-0 start.

They had a pretty decent web site too, in my opinion. Of course, it’s easy when your colors are black and white.

To follow the Sox games live, you could listen to the Live Audio or choose DiamondCast whatever that was.

Hey! Wllie Wonka Kids’ Day is (was) May 14th.

But the kicker for me was…

majorleaguebaseball.com on June 20, 2000

Yes, I went to mlb.com. At the turn of millennium, that domain name belonged to the law firm of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius L.L.P. Sometime in the month of October 2000, the domain changed hands and mlb.com began redirecting to Major League Baseball’s web site.

Most likely tired of fielding requests of “where’s the baseball?”, Morgan Lewis did offer the above image link at the bottom of their site.

For the time being though, majorleaguebaseball.com was where folks would go to get their baseball info.

Suggested bandwidth speeds for video downloads were in the modem range i.e. 56.6, 28.8, oh yeah ISDN too).

I noticed that Jonathan Mayo (who I think heads up mlb.com’s minor league coverage now) was doing the Fantasy Baseball bit back then.

One that should make Teddy Ballgame happy: their poll at the time was “How far will the White Sox go this year?”

The year 2000 was Summer Olympic time and the idea of ridding baseball and softball was probably just being discussed in the boardrooms. Meanwhile, majorleaguebaseball.com was covering that year’s manager Tommy Lasorda and his preparations.

Despite team’s having autonomy over their own web content, majorleaguebaseball.com did provide a drop down link to all team’s websites.

A quick snippet of the 2000 stats page…

… and the standings page.

Nine years doesn’t seem like a long time but in Internet time it’s forever. With the advent of the MLB Advanced Media, the web presence of professional baseball has come a long way… mostly in the right direction.

Some major leaguers love our furry friends

On his blog WhatTeddSedd.com, our own Teddy Ballgame writes about how four major leaguers, Barry Zito, C.C. Sabathia, Nick Swisher, and Jake Peavy have donated to Tony LaRussa “pet” (sorry, couldn’t resist) project, Animal Rescue Foundation otherwise known as ARF.

I suppose it’s a good enough cause:

…these donations will make it possible for low-income schoolchildren in Contra Costa County (CA) to take advantage of two humane education programs.

I always figured C.C. was an animal lover but I had him pegged as someone who liked them on a plate with a little A-1.

Links to 2009 Cubs Convention photos

By now, fans have left the 2009 Cubs Convention. If you’re interested, Al Yellon from Bleed Cubbie Blue did a writeup on the event including some his photos. Thanks Al! I wish I had gone.

The Chicago Tribune has a nice photo gallery of the Cubs Convention, too.

If anyone else has a link to their photos/blog posts about the Cubs Convention, please let me know and I’ll post them.

PS Here is the 2009 Wrigley Field Schedule of Promotional Events also courtesy of Al.

Cubs give up on Pie… it was only a matter of time

Felix Pie has been traded to the Baltimore Orioles. The fact that he’s been traded shouldn’t come as too much as a surprise to Cub fans. The acquisition of Joey Gathright was pretty much the final nail in Pie’s coffin as a Cub.

In return for Pie, the Cubs got back LHP Garret Olson and RHP Henry Williamson.

Looking at USA Today’s fantasy profile on Olson, it’s hard to find any positives. That page is filled with words like, “mess”, pathetic performance” and “ugly numbers”. I can say that up until he got to the majors 2007, his K/9 hovered around 9.0. But his 6.00+ ERA last year doesn’t inspire confidence.

Henry Williamson is more of an unknown having pitched professionally for 2 years with only 90 innings under his belt. Last year in A ball, he struck out 42 in only 29 innings if a small sample size is any indication.

Will Felix Pie flourish or at least survive in the Orioles organization. If he follows Corey Patterson’s pattern, he might have some share of success. A change of venue has always helped Pie. Unfortunately for him, the successes he’s had have been in the minors and winter ball. Once placed in the bigs, all the talents that Felix was supposed to possess seem to vanish.

uh-oh… now Dave Parker is talking in the third person

Dave Parker couldn’t hold it in when he found out he didn’t pass muster in this year’s Hall of Fame election.

Part of his rant (my emphasis):

“What I represented to my teams also should be considered,” Parker said. “I was always the guy or one of the guys. It seems like none of that is taken into consideration.

“I think it’s gonna take a (public relations) campaign to really bring to the light that this guy was a heck of a player.”

Parker didn’t come close to the 75% vote in the 2009 ballot. He garnered just 15% of the writer’s votes.

Freshman catcher practices his footwork in the offseason

Illinois freshman catcher Adam Davis was featured in an Inside Illinois article by Melissa Mitchell on University of Illinois athletes gaining “increased agility, dexterity through (a) dance class”.

Apparently, it’s a popular move by all the sports coaches at Illinois. The class they took was Dance 100 taught by Kate Kuper.

Davis seemed to take to the dance floor well.

“Being a catcher, I need good feet work, and dance helps me with my feet work,” he said.

Davis’ moves haven’t been lost on his teacher.

“He’s very comfortable with his body, and he’s not afraid to try things,” Kuper said.

I’m looking forward to seeing Mr Davis busting a few moves behind the plate during the upcoming season.

Zimmer recovering from ztroke

Word is out that Don Zimmer is recovering from a stroke he had last month. He is doing much better and actually hopes to join the Rays for spring training this year.

The game of baseball has taken Zim all around the majors wearing different hats. Even after he left the Cubs in 1991, has always remained one of my favorite men in baseball and I sincerely hope he gets back soon,

Was Dwight Evans HOF good?

Tonight, I ran across Baseball Hall Monitor’s latest post on Jim Rice. They state:

Rice’s teammate on the Red Sox, Evans has more career HRs than Rice, more runs scored, a higher on-base percentage and nearly as many hits and RBI. Oh, and Evans won eight Gold Gloves to Rice’s zero. But you can’t vote for Evans anymore, since he was dropped from the ballot in 2000 for lack of support.

It’s a compelling argument and I don’t necessarily disagree. Honestly, I didn’t know Evans’ stats compared that well.

My guess for Rice’s appeal is the intimidation factor. Rice hit 35+ homeruns four times back when 35 homeruns really meant something. He can also point to his mantle and right there is his MVP award from 1978.

Evans offensive stats were gathered over a longer period of time (20 seasons to Rice’s 16). That doesn’t discount it in any way at all but it does mean for less impact per year. Ironically, Evans’ most productive year came at the advanced age of 35 when he hit 34 homers and drove in 123 runs.

Was Evans HOF material? It’s a moot point since we’re too late to vote him in now. But considering that Evans’ and Rice’s OPS+ are within 1 point of each other plus add to that Evans’ defensive value, it would have been close.

On the other hand, comparing players for the Hall of Fame is a slippery slope. If you start playing this game instead of holding players up to a certain standard (most likely standardized to their era), it could never end. Then you could end up inducting players like Mark Grace and Greg Vaughn.

thoughts?

This year’s rule changes to be considered

MLB team owners are set to decide on two rule changes for Major League Baseball. They’re relatively minor changes but worth noting.

The first rule change only codifies what essentially took place during the rainy Game 5 of the World Series between the Phillies and the Rays. Under current rules, these games only become official when the trailing team record 15 outs.

Selig used rules governing suspended games at the time, but said had it been stopped with the Phillies leading, 2-1, in the fifth, the game would have gone into a rain delay until it was safe to resume.

“We’ll stay here if we have to celebrate Thanksgiving here,” he said.

After the last owners’ meetings in New York in November, Selig said he told the owners that his interpretation of the rule would be codified.

The second change under consideration regards how the decision is made who hosts one-game tiebreakers. Currently, coin flips a few weeks beforehand are used to make the decision.

Teams are asking that head-to-head records be used instead.

Author: The Baseball Zealot