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From Baseball Musings comes an affirming article which might change some people’s views of a nation we know very little about. 

Softball and baseball are being played in Iran.  Thanks to David Pinto for passing this on via his site. 

Former players on any given team are rarely referred to in a positive manner by the fans.  Sammy Sosa, Nomar Garciaparra, Roger Clemens.  You don’t see too many well-wishers from the fans on their former team.  Sometimes the players bring it on themselves.  Usually, it’s just a case of fan mentality taking over.

Thirdbaseman Bill Mueller signed with the Dodgers today to a two-year contract.  Rumor has it the contract was less than what the Pirates had offered him. 

Mueller is often described as a “solid” player and a “steady” hitter.  A “gap” hitter.  But let’s not kid ourselves.  He’s no Alex Rodriguez… or even Mike Lowell.

That said, the commenters over at Baseball Musings, have nothing but good things to say about Bill.  Glowing phrases from Sox fans like “a true professional” and “a joy to watch”.

Those are pretty strong words, IMO.

 

The Cardinals Diaspora is a St Louis Cardinals blog with a unique bent.  It bills itself as a “refuge for Cards fans disenfranchised by geography.”  Most of my Cardinal friends are the downstate Illinois types (the ones that aren’t rooting for the Cubs).

Regardless, the site is worth a looksee.

 

I admit it.  When I heard about the Soriano-Wilkerson trade (Termell Sledge and Armando Galarraga were also sent to the Rangers) , I thought the Nats had gotten the better of the deal.  I mean Soriano had 36 homers and 43 doubles and 104 rbis.  Compared to Wilkerson who barely broke the double-digit mark with 11 homers and only hit .248.

Well, every review of the trade I’ve seen has seen it the other way around and they make some pretty convincing arguements. 

First, let get one thing out of the way.  Never let total stats fool you.  Yes, Soriano had 81 extra-base hits.  But it took some 677 plate appearances to do it.  That translated to a .512 slugging percentage for Alfonso for the year.  Not bad.  Actually very good.  But still in the “human” category. 

More importantly are Soriano’s home/away splits.  He has been playing in a good hitter’s park.  Check out the stats:

 Home Away
Avg. .315 .224
OBP .355 .265
SLUG .656 .374
OPS 1.011 .639

I grabbed these from National Interest who evaluates the trade from a Nat’s fan point of view.  Given Soriano’s splits, Wilkerson’s much higher OBP (.351 last year, .365 career) and the fact that Wilkerson is a year younger, this deal isn’t as open and shut as it seems. 

Add to that the loss of Sledge and Galarraga for whatever they are worth plus the contract baggage that comes with Soriano (eligible for arbitration after making $7.5m), I can see why Nats fans might be hesitant to celebrate.

From another perspective, Roto Authority Fantasy Baseball projects ’06 Soriano to 24 homers, 80 rbis, and a .252 batting average.  Check out the article for their full analysis.

 

Sometimes you don’t know what you have till it’s gone.

The Daily Illini reported that four volumes of Collyer’s Eye and The Baseball World from 1920-21 and 1924-26 were stolen from the University of the Illinois library system.  The library officials admit that they were probably taken sometime during the summer.  Also, they had no idea of the volumes’ value until after they noticed they were missing. 

“We’ve always had them,” (associate University librarian for collections Karen) Schmidt said. “We just didn’t realize how rare they were.”

Schmidt said volumes 6-7 were especially significant because they covered the (Black Sox) scandal itself and the grand jury investigation of the eight White Sox players indicted for throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

University police are investigating the matter. 

From Baseball Analysts’ look at the 2006 Bill James Handbook:

We all know that Pujols and Vladimir Guerrero can hit for power. But how well known is it that Vlad was the second-most difficult batter to strike out in the AL (.081) and Albert was the ninth-hardest to fan in the NL (.093)?

I knew this about Pujols but this came as a surprise about Vladimir.

 

Jim Thome, the “lovable bumpkin”.  That’s how Greg Couch from the Chicago Sun Times brands him in his article.  Chicago folk love talking about downstaters like that. 

To his credit, Couch’s article is pretty flattering of Thome.  Thome is from “up the road just a spell” (that’s how us country bumpkins talk, ya know) in the town of Peoria, Illinois. 

According to the article, Thome’s hero when he was a kid was Dave Kingman. 

“As a kid, Thome was a Cubs fanatic. His hero was Dave Kingman. And when Thome was 8, he once jumped onto the field and into the dugout before a game at Wrigley to try to get Kingman’s autograph. Cubs catcher Barry Foote grabbed Thome and got him back to his father in the stands.

“Kingman used to have a boat, and we’d come up Lake Shore Drive and Jim would be saying, ‘Dad, you think that’s the boat? That one?”’ Chuck Thome said. “That day, Jim was standing along the fence, and Kingman came out and walked 15 feet from Jim. Jim’s screaming, waving the ball. Kingman looked like he was going to take a step toward Jim, then thought, ‘Aw, hell with it,’ and walked away. Jim came back and said, ‘I’m still going to get his autograph.’

“All of a sudden, he’s gone. Foote says, ‘Does he really want Kingman’s autograph?’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ He said, ‘I’ll go down there and come back with a ball with his name, but it won’t be his signature. He’s such a [bleep] that no one talks to him down there.”’

Funny, Kong seemed like such a stand-up guy.

 

Fact: I wanted Paul Konerko on the Angels. There are several others that I want just as much, but I wanted Paul. Call it “Revenge for Doug Eddings” if you want. But the bottom line is that the Angels will get somebody with a Big Bat for the middle of the lineup, because they have money and that’s what they want.

Paul Konerko is a Big Boy now. I assume he can read a contract. If not, I hope that he has an agent who can explain it to him. I hope he and his agent know who they are dealing with, and have read EVERY WORD, EVERY PHRASE. Particularly dealing with THAT owner and THAT Organ-I-Zation. Stop reading after every sentence and ask: How can the White Sox use that sentence against me in three years? Pay particular attention to phrases like “buyout option,” “team option,” “diminished skills” and “negotiable in the future.”

Paul says he wants to finish his career with the White Sox. Well, I want General Motors to build a new Firebird in 2006 so that I can buy it. Guess What. It’s not going to happen. Has any of their best players ever finished his career with the White Sox? Robin Ventura? Ray Durham? Jack McDowell? Alex Fernandez? Bobby Thigpen? Albert Belle? Magglio Ordonez? Rich Dotson? Tom Seaver? NONE OF THEM. Harold Baines. But the Sox dumped him earlier, so I don’t think he is a “counterpoint argument.” Carlton Fisk also did, but under circumstances that were so contentious that for TEN YEARS, he refused to show up at The Cell. Plus, the way they are now treating Frank Thomas — and have treated him for most of this decade — odds are that he won’t finish with the Sox either.

What makes Paul think that he is going to be different? The White Sox have a team history of throwing guys out like last night’s chicken bones when “the skills begin to diminish.” I didn’t coin that phrase, by the way. Or when they don’t feel like signing the paychecks. Is he gambling that he’ll have five great years and not start to break down until this contract is fulfilled?

And when (“if and when,” I guess) this thing goes South, everybody is going to side with The Chairman and his poodle GM. Nobody takes the side of a $60,000,000 ballplayer in the PR wars. Look again at the Big Hurt Example. I think Paul should have asked himself, “If they treat the best hitter they’ve ever had that way, how am I going to be treated when I lose a step.”

I wish him the best, but I think he made a mistake. Time will tell, as it always does.

If Paul Konerko wanted loyalty, he should have bought a dog.

I’m sure most baseball fans have heard of the online auction of the items left from the destruction of Busch Stadium.  While no figure has been released (the auction site says 889,000 but it’s probably more than that), it’s sure that they will raise more money than any other such auction. 

Hey, I’m a big Albert Pujols fan but 21,000 bucks for his locker?  Most likely bought by some high-class sports bar so they can display it. 

I took the time to head to Lelands.com.  They are the online auction firm who is “the Industry Leader in Sports and Americana Memorabilia” and the ones who handled the Busch auction.

Pujols’ locker?  Here’s a look at it..

 

The urinal seemed to get a lot a press play from the media too. 

 

It went for around $2100.  The Pujols locker was at least signed.

Here is the link to browse items from the Busch Farewell Auction.

 

 

Ichiro had a few words of discontent regarding the Mariners.