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Of the 409 homeruns Manny Ramirez has hit in his career, 19 of them have been hit with the bases loaded.  According to Baseball Musings, this puts him close enough to be a threat to Lou Gehrig’s record of 23 career grand slams.

If he can stay healthy, something that the Iron Horse wasn’t afforded, this is definitely a possibility.

Check out Baseball Musings’ nifty year-by-year chart.

I’ve been all over the web and thought I’d seen most of the cool baseball sites out there.  Not so with The Hardball Times.  I just got a chance to peruse it for the first time this afternoon.  It’s a very interesting site and I’d recommend it to anyone who is interested in stat analysis of current MLB teams and players.

Word o’ warning, if you are a fan of traditional baseball stats, if you live and die by the batting average and if you tremble at the mention of terms like “Runs Created” or “Win Shares”, prepare to either be transformed or to be turned off.  This site isn’t for the faint of heart when it comes to stat analysis.  They have put together a pretty extensive database complete with the latest statistical formulas.

THT comes complete with articles written by ten regular contributing authors and is updated pretty much daily.

Check it out.  It’s worth a look-see.

After today’s Sox’ 12-2 defeat of the Cubs, Teddy Ballgame has to be dancin’ in the streets tonight.  They got to Mitre early and never let up.  The run support came not from the usual players rather the bottom five in the Sox order went 11 for 22 and scored 8 runs.  A.J. Pierzynski went 2 for 3 with a double and a homer and 3 rbis.

Mitre has shown himself to be Mr Inconsistent.  At times, he can be unstoppable.  Other times, he just doesn’t have his stuff.  In seven starts, he has allowed 5 or more runs four times.  On the other hand, in his other three starts, he has allowed 2 or less runs including two shutouts. 

Mitre indeed has a case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

 

Today is my anniversary.  I have been married to my wonderful wife for 16 years now. 

She’s quite the trooper.  For our honeymoon, we went to Cooperstown to see Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, and Red Schoendienst inducted into the Hall.  I remember a lot of red being worn around town that weekend for some reason.

Harry Caray was awarded the Ford Frick award that year.  For a Cub fan, that was a thrill for me.

I also remember Bart Giamatti, the “Intellectual” Commissioner who died too young, being booed by the Rose fans in the crowd.  “Free Pete Rose! Free Pete Rose!”

After the ceremony inside the museum, I was waiting in line for a movie or something and there was an elderly gentleman ahead of us.  He had a name tag like he might be someone special.  I glanced at it and it said:

This was Prince Hal Schumacher who pitched for the New York Giants in the 30’s and 40’s!  Career record of 158-121 with an ERA of 3.36. 

I struck a friendly conversation with him while we were waiting but didn’t pepper him with questions.  He seemed like a real nice man.  It didn’t occur to me till afterwards to get his autograph.  Oh well, opportunity lost, memory gained.  I just looked him up.  Turns out he was living in Cooperstown when he died four years after I met him.

Anyway, thanks to my wife for a great honeymoon and sixteen wonderful years.

 

 

 

The Columbus Stars, a team in a rec youth league in the Columbus, Ohio area, was kicked out of the league. They weren’t caught cheating. No one was using illegal substances. Every kid was within the proper age limit. They were just too good. After winning games by scores of 18-0, 13-0 and 24-0, opposing teams began complaining.

“After hearing and seeing the scores from that group, I called up the league office and said, ‘No way are we going to play them,’ ” said Terry Morris, who coaches one of three teams from Bloom-Carroll schools in Fairfield County. “I wasn’t going to subject my players to that.”

It seems the Stars’ players were a little disappointed. I particularly liked the quotes from the kids themselves.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” said Michael Allston, 12, a catcher and pitcher for the Stars. “We always played our best, and we were just winning games.” Teammate Matthew “Boomer” Hufferd, 12, who plays second base, said he thinks overprotective adults are to blame. “If they learn at their age that they can forfeit on things they don’t want to do, it’s quitting,” Hufferd said.

The Stars haven’t played a league game since June 6 though a scrimmage has been arranged with a team in another league.

Columbus Dispatch Story

Update:  Commentor rhinten brings a different perspective to this story.  According to rhinten, it’s quite likely this team is a “travel” team and therefore playing at a much higher caliber than your normal youth rec league.  Read the comments section for more detail.  Thanks to rhinten for bringing this up.

Is it me or is the All-Star balloting ship seem to be righting itself somewhat?

Specifically, LA shortstop Cesar Izturis is now leading in the NL. He is a legitimate candidate. He’s hitting .304. And he’s not on the DL.

Ken Griffey Jr is no longer in the top 3 in NL outfielders, thank goodness. I have to give Junior credit where credit is due. He’s stayed healthy up until this point unlike previous years. But that’s not enough.

Mike Piazza, Carlos Beltran, and Tino Martinez are leading their respective positions for one reason… they play in New York. The case can be made for Piazza that his position is a weak one in the NL this year but surely there’s a better one. Barrett?? Hernandez??

Don’t count out Mark Teixeira out for catching Tino in the polls. He’s been gaining on him (rightly so, in my opinion) in the last few weeks.

Finally, the race for NL firstbaseman will be a closer race than previously thought. Both Albert Pujols and Derrek Lee are legit candidates but anyone who looks at the stats has to admit Lee is having a superior year. Lee is fighting lack of name recognition and a strong fan base in St Louis. The good news for Lee is that he is doing everything he can to rectify that first problem and more and more people are learning who Derrek Lee is and what he can do.

Don’t forget to vote!

After seeing Wild Bill Holden last week, I decided to order This Old Cub, the video that inspired him to do his walk. Well, it came today.

Now, I’ve read various reviews on the web about the video. Some of them boiled down to “Well, if you’re a Cub fan, you’ll probably like it” so I was prepared to see a mediocre video at best.

I was happily surprised.

The film shows basically two sides of Santo’s life. His career with the Cubs complete with footage, summary of his career and yes, a snapshot of the 1969 season which is still not easy to watch, I must say.

The film also covers Santo’s current life as a broadcaster for the Cubs and how he deals with the fate that lifelong diabetes has handed him. Both of these aspects were interspersed together pretty well without losing continuity.

There were interviews with many people in Santo’s life including former teammates and current colleagues.

Well worth the 24.99 plus s+h. It helps that I’m a Cub fan but I think that any fan of baseball history would enjoy it. Even my wife, who enjoys baseball but by no means is a fanatic, watched the whole thing and gave it a thumbs up.

If you’re interested, you can buy it here.

Followup: Forgot to mention that 5 bucks of your purchase goes to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Hudson is on the DL. Tim Hudson.

When I read USA Today’s headline Hudson Heads to DL, it gave me a start. You see, I have Orlando Hudson on my APBA League team. And I don’t have much of a backup at second.

I feel for my colleague who has Tim Hudson, I really do. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a sense of relief when I started reading about the Braves starter and his injury.

As it is, Tim has a strained muscle in his left side and the Braves put him on the 15 day DL.

…and Orlando is healthy as a horse.

After watching the White Sox get clobbered by the D*Backs last night at the Cell I flipped on the TV to watch the Angels/Nationals game. Late in the game the Angels had a two run lead and brought on Brendan Donnelly. Frank Robinson had the umpires check Donnelly’s glove. They found pine tar, conficated Brendan’s glove, and ejected him from the game. Mike Scioscia was livid and got into Robinson’s face saying, “Let’s see how you like it when I get you back”. F-Robbie was livid, both benches emptied, tempers flared, and Nats outfielder Jose Guillen had to be restrained. Last season the Angels cut Guillen when he got into it with Scioscia.

The next inning Mike Scioscia challenged that Nats reliver Gary Majewski’s strings on his glove were too long and they needed to be trimmed, again tempers flared. As the game progressed Jose Guillen got ahold of a low fastball thrown by Scott Shields and blasted a two run shot over the fence to tie the ballgame. The Nationals scored two more times in the inning and held on for the victory.