Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
Johnny Podres, the last Brooklyn Dodger to win a World Series game, passed away at 75.
Podres, was key to the Dodgers’ only World Series win in 1955 pitching two complete game wins. For his career, he was 148-116 over 15 seasons, thirteen with the Dodgers.
Tommy Byrne, who lost Game 7 against Podres in 1955, died less than a month ago on December 20.
The annual Hot Stove Banquet which benefits the University of Illinois baseball program is less than a month away. On February 9, the event will take place at the Round Barn Banquet Center in Champaign.
The keynote speaker is former White Sox slugger Ron Kittle. The 1983 Rookie of the Year, Kittle has stayed active in baseball since retiring in 1991. He’s managed a few minor league teams including the Schaumburg Flyers and Merrillville Mud Dogs. In addition, he’s served as hitting instructor for Valparaiso.
Kittle has also founded and acts as chairman of Indiana Sports Charities which raises dollars to fight cancer.
Individual tickets are $50 and group pricing is available. You can purchase tickets for the event by calling the University of Illinois baseball office at 217-333-8605.
DonS writes:
“How fitting that Rich Gossage was inaugurated in his ninth year of eligibility.“The Ninth” was always Gossage’s time.”
This has got to be a first:
Jose Rijo is considered a first-ballot eligible in the coming Hall of Fame election.
Rijo actually received a vote in the 2001 writer’s ballot. Later that year, Rijo made a comeback and pitched for the Cincinnati Reds and pitched for two additional seasons.
With five more wins and 94 more innings (his totals for 2001-2002 seasons), we’ll see if he gets TWO votes.
Don’t get your hopes up. For the record, his career record shows 116-91 won-loss with a 3.24 ERA.
This is the last of a three part series of articles where I talk about my favorite baseball websites I use for research and reference. In Part One, I hit on the top stats sites and in Part Two, I focused on prospect and player development.
In Part Three, it will be a bit of eclectic hodgepodge but a couple sites fall into the category of historical data collecting.
Baseball LogoServer is exactly what it sounds like. It displays logos of pretty much every baseball team that has ever existed. We’re talking current major league teams as well as historical teams but it doesn’t stop there. Baseball LogoServer shows off the colors of teams from the Negro Leagues, Japanese leagues, most minor leagues, college conferences, even older defunct leagues like the Federal League, Players League and the Union Association.
The LogoServer is a fun trip through baseball history in graphic format. And for those interested, it has logos for other sports, too.
The Baseball LogoServer is associated with The Baseball Almanac, a website dedicated to preserving the history of the game of baseball. The Baseball Almanac probably deserves its own entry here given its breadth of historic data. The site is filled of pages of famous firsts, records, lists of all sorts and other baseball trivia. Those who are really into the history of baseball should definitely bookmark Baseball Almanac.
Make no mistake about it, the hits that Hit Tracker are talking about are Homeruns. This website is all about the dinger, tater, long ball and the four-bagger.
Hit Tracker is a online database of homeruns hit. With an interactive interface, you can find out all kinds of info about homeruns that have been hit (their info goes back to 2005) including true distance, wind speed, speed off bat, elevation angle. The site even includes a link to MLB.com’s video of the shot if you want to watch it.
Hit Tracker also has a leaderboard for non-conventional categories such as Homerun Distance, No Doubts (Homeruns that clear the fence with no problem) and Just Enoughs (those that just barely make it).
Baseball Library.com is a database of player (both current and historical) biographies. I’m impressed at the number of entries in this database. Granted, the lesser known ones have smaller bios but they are there.
There are two features that make Baseball Library stand out:
Chronology: The Chronology for each player is so helpful. Essentially, it is a timeline with entries with important events in the player’s career. This includes transactional moves, great games, basically any time they made the news in a big way. There are helpful links to other players, teams and dates to further the interactive process.
Related Info: Under Related Info, Baseball Library provides links to news stories or articles about the player.
For info on individual players, Baseball Library is the first place I go.
That ends my series of Top Reference Web Sites for Every Baseball Fan.
All sites reviewed are ones that I use as often as I can. By the way, I polled the Baseball Zealot think tank on sites they used. The ones they used that I just didn’t have the time/space to write about include: Rototimes, Tango on Baseball, Fangraghs, Baseball America Online, ESPN, and CBS Sportsline.
I personally want to put a good word in for USA Today Sports. They display all the box scores on one page and I use them for that reason alone.
Here is the link to all three articles in the series.
I hope you enjoyed reading it and found it useful.
Robert Edward Auctions seems to have a dilemma on their hands. They have in possesion a baseball-related document from 1898 which rivals Lee Elia’s rant when it comes to blue language.
“Reading this document started out very drab for a sentence or two, but then quickly got our attention as the language used became very unexpected for an official Major League baseball document… It turned “blue,” and, well, got “bluer.” This piece is ironic as it provides many examples of exactly the kind of “brutal language” that was being outlawed. In fact, it is so over the top that at first we thought it was some type of a joke. But as we examined the paper, found that this language did exist in the 1890s… “
At the time of this post, they were still deciding what to do with the item. Let me say before throwing up the link that the language in the actual scanned document is indeed NOT for the easily offended. The post itself which you’ll find at Robert Edward Auctions’ website is fine.
At 6’3″, Baby Doll was easy to spot in a lineup.
I went home for Thanksgiving. Home as in where I grew up. It was straight out of a TV show with me staying in my old room and even sleeping in my old bed. I didn’t remember it creaking so much.
Outside of the turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, the significant part of the weekend was when we visited Baby Doll Jacobson’s grave site. As I’ve mentioned here before, I found out over Christmas holiday two years ago that I am a distant relative of Baby Doll (though we’re still figuring exactly how). My brother and I decided that we would take the time we had together and go visit his grave,
With a little research, we figured out exactly which cemetery he was buried. Turns out, it was only 15 miles from where I grew up and I’ve been by there many times. Once there, it took us only 10 minutes or so of looking over gravestones to find Baby Doll’s.
The cemetery where BDJ is buried
The epitaph on the gravestone was simple yet any baseball fan who knew his history would recognize who this person was. On a gravestone engraved with two crossed bats, a ball and a glove, it said:
William Chester “Baby Doll” Jacobson
Aug. 16, 1890
Jan, 16, 1977
Major & Minor Leagues 21 Yrs American League
L.B.A. 311 & Held 13 Fielding Records
I don’t know why but the first thing that hit me when I saw this was his date of death. It amazed me that someone who played baseball as early as 1915 was still around when I was a teenager.
There was also a bronze star next to the gravestone with World War 1917-1918. Since then, Baby Doll’s son has confirmed that he had enlisted in the Navy at that time. Something I did not know.
Since Saturday, I’ve been in more contact with Baby Doll Jacobson’s close relatives and they all seem like good people. Occasionally, an interesting tidbit about Baby Doll’s life will come out (like the Navy story) which is this is all about.
Finally, I’d like to point you to some articles written back in the days when Baby Doll Jacobson was playing. His grandson, Abe Hammar was gracious enough to send me the scanned copies. They are a treasure trove in my opinion, not just for those interested in BDJ but for those into baseball history and for that matter, the history of sports press. Here is a sample:
You can see the full gallery of articles that Hammar sent me here (click the images to enlarge in order to read the articles). Very interesting indeed. Again, many thanks to Abe!!
I’m a little surprised that so far in my super scientific poll which asks “Which manager would you vote to induct into the Hall of Fame?”, that Danny Murtaugh has received nary a vote. He certainly has some credentials in his vitae. Daniel Edward Murtaugh was born in 1917 in Chester, PA and even at full … Continue reading “Danny Murtaugh: Where’s the love?”
I’m a little surprised that so far in my super scientific poll which asks “Which manager would you vote to induct into the Hall of Fame?”, that Danny Murtaugh has received nary a vote. He certainly has some credentials in his vitae.
Daniel Edward Murtaugh was born in 1917 in Chester, PA and even at full stature was a small man at 5’9″ and 165 lbs. He of course, is best known as the manager who led the Pittsburgh Pirates to five first place finishes and two World Series championships. However, he had a playing career as a secondbaseman for the Phillies, Braves, and Pirates.
Murtaugh’s prowess with the bat was nothing to write home about. In his nine years in the majors, he accumulated only 8 homeruns and 219 rbis. His runs scored (263) and on-base percentage (.331) weren’t much better even if you neutralize them for the time period he played in.
He did however, placed ninth in the MVP voting in 1948, his first year with the Pirates. That year, he hit .290 with 71 rbis. He was also a good fielding secondbaseman leading the league in putouts, assists and double plays that same year.
But that’s not why he’s on the ballot.
He’s up for election to the Hall of Fame in 2008 for his managerial ability. For 15 years, he managed the Pirates to a 1115-950 record. Of those 15 years, they finished first one-third of the time. He brought the town of Pittsburgh a World Championship two times separated by 10 years (1960, 1971).
Thanks in part to the Pirates’ defeat of the Yankees in the World Series of 1960, Murtaugh was named Sport Magazine’s “Man of the Year”.
Danny Murtaugh died December 2, 1976 in Chester, PA, the same town he was born.
Major League Baseball announced the Gold Glove winners today. Overall, there weren’t too many surprises. American League Gold Glove recipients National League Gold Glove recipients Greg Maddux won his record-breaking 17th Gold Glove (and 17th of the past 18th seasons). He surpassed Brooks Robinson and Jim Kaat who both have 16. Quoth manager Bud Black: … Continue reading “Gold Gloves Announced: Maddux gets record #17”
Major League Baseball announced the Gold Glove winners today. Overall, there weren’t too many surprises.
American League Gold Glove recipients
National League Gold Glove recipients
Greg Maddux won his record-breaking 17th Gold Glove (and 17th of the past 18th seasons). He surpassed Brooks Robinson and Jim Kaat who both have 16. Quoth manager Bud Black:
“I think, more than anything, he has great baseball instincts when it comes to fielding a ball,” Padres manager Bud Black said. “When he throws a pitch, he knows where the ball is going to be hit. It’s amazing to see the plays he makes but it doesn’t surprise me.
Six of the seven outfielders who received the award (there was a tie so 10 were awarded in the NL) were centerfielders. I guess shouldn’t surprise too many people. Historically, not many left fielders are in line for the award. Rightfielder Jeff Francouer, who got his first Gold Glove, was the exception.
The Gold Glove is known for being an award of tradition but this year, ten first-timers won the award.
The only surprise to me was David Wright. Maybe it’s just my ignorance since I didn’t watch a whole lot of Mets games this year. I did watch a few last year, though and while I loved his stick, I wasn’t impressed with his glove. But again, that was last year.
For what it’s worth, the Beltway Boys felt that Zimmerman wuz robbed. It just came out by the way, that Zim broke his hamate bone while swinging a bat last weekend. He is scheduled for surgery and should be fine in a month or two.
Followup: I did a quick search regarding left fielders and the Gold Glove. Indeed, I was right. From Baseballlibrary.com, Paul White writes:
In the forty-five seasons that Gold Gloves have been awarded, 135 have been given to American Leaguers. Just 19 of those went to left fielders, and never more than one in any year. Of those, 15 are accounted for by just four men – Carl Yastrzemski (7), Minnie Minoso (3), Joe Rudi (3) and Dave Winfield (2).
Imagine a radio show where all they play are baseball songs. Well. that’s essentially what you get with baseball author and historian Wayne McCombs’ podcast, Baseball’s Greatest Hits. I got some time to listen to a couple shows and believe me, his songs run the gamut. I heard team-specific ditties like Harry Caray’s “The Cardinals … Continue reading “Tune into Baseball’s Greatest Hits”
Imagine a radio show where all they play are baseball songs. Well. that’s essentially what you get with baseball author and historian Wayne McCombs’ podcast, Baseball’s Greatest Hits.
I got some time to listen to a couple shows and believe me, his songs run the gamut. I heard team-specific ditties like Harry Caray’s “The Cardinals are on the way, Tra-la, Tra-la” as well as Ol’ Blue Eyes singing “There Used to be a Ballpark”.
McCombs sometimes includes interviews. One I heard was a conversation between Jack Buck and Jonathan Winters which was quite funny (I’m a big Winters fan).
There are commercials and interestingly they are local ones for the Oklahoma area.
So check out Baseball’s Greatest Hits if you are looking for music from our favorite sport. FYI… you can also get it on iTunes.