Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
This is a rather unusual and interesting project by Mister Baseball, a blog that bills itself as āAll about Baseball and Softball in Europeā. Heās collecting photographs of baseball parks and fields in Europe.
Not surprisingly, Iām not finding too many huge stadiums save for the Neptunus Familiestadion in Rotterdam, Netherlands which hosted the 2005 World Cup. That one is comparable to a decent sized college field.
A nice collection of photos. Take a look.
On the heels of the news that Ozzie Guillen is giving Twitter a try, Cubs skipper Lou Piniella is weighing in on his take on the micro-blogging tool.
Seems like Lou probably wonāt be using it anytime soon. When it comes down to it, Louās a pretty old-school, meat and potatoes kind of guy.
”No, no, no, no, no,” he said. ”First of all, I don’t know how to Twitter, and second of all I’m not going to learn how to Twitter.
”I’m really not a Facebook or Twitter guy. I’m a prime rib and baked potato.”
Errr. Lou must have been pretty hungry at the time.
At least thatās the rumor. You never know with celeb-types if these things are real but itās been picked up by the mainstream media so it HAS to be legit, RIGHT? <—— <sarcasm>
But seriously, this one appears to be the real thing. As to the content of Guillenās tweets, nothing too majorly earth-shattering. Things like:
Yessss nice day let’s go to work
and
I feel nice and relax today I don’t know why yeeessssssss carlos quentin and rios in camp b ready people
Guillen on twitter is appropriately, all the buzz on twitter right now. If you think of it, Twitter is just the thing for the outspoken Guillen. How MLB will moderate him will be the big internal issue, Iām sure.
Apparently, Kenny Williams is already unhappy with Guillenās idea of tweetinā.
If you twitter, you can find Guillen tweeting @ozzieguillen.
This story is a bit of a tear-jerker. Sister Damian Kuhn, a Catholic nun as well as a devout Astros fans, passed away at the age of 89.
She certainly did have a sense of humor:
āShe was our No. 1 fan, and she always took it personal,ā recalled (Astros owner Drayton) McLane. He told her it was time to start praying.
After a long sigh, she replied, āDrayton, my knees are bloodied. It’s going to take more than that!ā
John Olerud got an award named after him yesterday.
The College Baseball Foundation announced today the creation of the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year Award to be presented annually as part of the College Baseball Awards Show.
Olerud (right) who is now a member of the College Baseball Hall of Fame, was a pitcher and first baseman, and a pretty good one at that, with Washington State University in the years 1987-1989.
Speaking of the College Baseball HOF, the 2010 inductees have been chosen. Leading the way was former Met Dave Magadan who hit .525 as a senior for the Crimson Tide. That was 1983, the year he was Baseball Americaās Player of the Year.
Also on the list:
Alan Bannister from Arizona State. He was a .355 career hitter.
George Sisler (you might have heard of him): He hit .445 his sophomore year and .451 his senior year for Michigan.
B.J. Surhoff who played for North Carolina from 1983-1985. Career BA of .392.
Others include: Bob Bennett (Fresno State, coach 1977-2002), Eddy Furniss (LSU, 1995-1998), Don Heinkel (Wichita State, 1979-1982), Charles Teague (Wake Forest, 1947-1950) and Richard Wortham (Texas, 1973-1976).
The induction ceremony will take place on July 1.
Thereās a new study out confirming that Major League Baseball teams increase their fan base and their ticket revenue by having international players on their rosters.
Perhaps itās a no-brainer but this study from the University of Michigan spells it out and does the math for us. The research was done over the years 1985-2005. While there was initial prejudice at first, fans warmed up to international players and by end, there was shift to the polar opposite, that is, a slight prejudice towards teams without international players.
To put numbers on it, each international player added to an MLB team could mean over a half million in ticket sales based on 2000 data.
The preference peaked in 2000 when each international player added approximately $595,632 to ticket sales, the study showed. The average MLB team that season showed 10.8 foreign-born players on its roster and garnered an average of $6 million in additional revenue, the paper said.
Of course, if these numbers just reflect ticket sales, I can only imagine what kind of effect they may have on media such as television, cable, and online advertising.
If you hadnāt heard, one-time catcher and current blogger Brent Mayne has had quite a day on the Internet. Everyoneās a-Twitter about the catcher who was pretty much unknown outside hardcore baseball circles.
The story goes like this (now pay attention because the details are important in this story. Baseball fans wonāt let you get away with anything). Mayne went out on a limb and admitted that when JT Snow came up for his very first at-bat in the majors, Mayne told him what pitch was coming. Mayne tells us that after he told Snow that a āfastball outsideā was on its way, he smoked a double to left.
What controversial thing to say. And good for him for coming clean, right?
Except it didnāt happen.
Mayne should know better (and probably does) than to get one by baseball fans. It didnāt take long before someone posted the boxscore of JT Snowās first game. How strange that Snow was 0 for 5 in his appearance.
So either:
A) Mayne is clueless about the all-encompassing expansiveness of the Internet. Heās a former ballplayer just talking about the old days and didnāt realize that he JUST MIGHT be fact-checked.
or
B) Just the oppositeā¦ Mayne is shrewd businessman who knows how to drive traffic to his website which in turn will increase sales of his books and other products.
Iāll just give him the benefit of the doubt and say itās (A) though Iām jealous of all his web traffic for a stupid story that wasnāt true.
To be fair, Mayne has issued a correction/retraction. The article rambles and is all over the place (youāve read my stuff so you know what Iām talking about). JT Snow was āplaying for the Yanksā and he knows for sure it was ātowards the end of the seasonā. Heās even āsure it was JTā.
Heās not so sure about the double thing, though. Might have been an out or something.
Iām ready to let this thing die. Iāve given it more room on this blog than it probably deserves.
For those who want to keep up on baseball prospects, you might want to head on over to Baseball Digest Daily.
Theyāve done the tedious work of compiling the top prospect lists from many (yes, many) blogs and media outlets for each MLB division and put into one spreadsheet for to peruse.
Nice work, BDD.
If you want check it out, you can download the Excel spreadsheet from Baseball Digest Dailyās site.
Check BDD later for updates, too.
Ryan Theriot and the Cubs will be heading to arbitration it seems. Which is probably doesnāt bode well for The Riot, as much as I like him, doesnāt look so great on paper. My bet is that arbitration will go down in favor of the Cubs and the $2.6 million figure.
Which in a way, is a shame. The Cubs have gotten a steal the past two years with Theriot and his sub-mil salary. Heās been a solid, full-time infielder. His average took a dip last year mostly because (rumors say) he was taking swings for the fences). True enough, the homers increased (from 1 to 7) but so did the strikeouts (58 to 93) and the OBP dipped (.387 to .343). Management has reportedly talked to Theriot at the end of last season about reverting to making more contact.
When I read that Skip Schumaker signed recently with the Cardinals for a two-year deal worth $4.7 million I was reminded immediately of Theriotās situation. Ok, theyāre not of exactly the same value but they are close. Young middle infielders who hit for decent average.
Iām not about to take sides in this battle but at the same time, I will say this: the Cubs have gotten more than fair value from Theriot the last few years. Maybe itās time for payback.
Iām feeling lazy on this cold Saturday night so here are a couple good articles from the Zealot network from the past few days worth reading:
As you may have already read, I took part in the Kiwanis Sports Trivia Championship last weekend. What I didnāt mention in my article was that there was only one University of Illinois baseball trivia question asked all day. Being a huge UI baseball fan, you would think I would have gotten it right but Murphyās Law took effect here.
Sheepishly, Iām learning all I can about the questionās topic and writing about it. Itās all there in Lou Boudreau and Darrin Fletcher: not a trivial mistake at the Illinois Baseball Report.
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If you are an APBA Baseball fan, you might want to check out The APBA Blogās 10 Tips for Trading in an APBA League. Itās getting to be that āhot stoveā time of year for our league not to mention many other APBA leagues around the nation. Itās not rocket science but some of us (myself included) need to be reminded of some of the basic tips and suggestions on how to deal with others when trading in an APBA league.
Though this piece is geared toward the APBA game, Iād wager that 90% of it applies to traditional fantasy leagues as well.
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Speaking of APBA baseball and APBA leagues, our Illowa APBA League is finishing up its 35th season. Iāve finally redone and updated our league web site. IAL awards winners have just been announced and playoff spots determined.
If youāre a fellow APBA player, check us out.