War of words between execs

kids-fighting

Looks like MLS commish Don Garber and Yanks prez Randy Levine are having a hissy fight… all over the issue of attendance figures.

Sez Levine:

"Don Garber discussing Yankee attendance must be a joke.  We draw more people in a year than his entire league does in a year. If he ever gets Major League Soccer into the same time zone as the Yankees, we might take him seriously… Hey Don, worry about Beckham, not the Yankees. Even he wants out of your league.

Garber had earlier made a comment about the empty front row seats at Yankee Stadium. 

There’s no point in taking sides in this one.  They’re both being idiotic.  Garber is taking on the seven-headed giant and worse, Levine is stooping to respond to the comment in a rather childish manner. 

Take a time out, guys. 

Who Was the HR King Before the Babe?

connor Kids of my era all grew up with the number 714 ingrained in us, it was written into our DNA. But I wonder if there’s anybody out there who would know without googling, what the Home Run Record was before Babe Ruth shattered it and who held that record. Yesterday’s White Sox tear-off calendar asks the question, “In 1921, Babe Ruth became the all-time career home run king. Whose record of 138 career home runs did he eclipse?”
A. Roger Connor

I had no idea, so I looked up Roger Connor, and this is what I found. The 6’3″ 220 pound Hall of Fame firstbaseman played from 1880-97, amassing 2,467 hits in 8,837 at bats, for a .317 lifetime batting average. He hit 441 doubles, 233 triples, & 138 home runs, swinging from the leftside.

Connor entered the National League in 1880 as a member of the Troy Trojans. He later played for the New York Gothams, and, due to his great stature, gave that team the enduring nickname “Giants”.

Roger is credited with being the first player to hit a grand slam in the major leagues and being the first to hit an over-the-wall home run at the Polo Grounds. His grand slam came with two outs and his team down three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Another notable fact from Connor’s career: in his first year in the Majors with the Troy Trojans, he teamed with future Hall-of-Famers Dan Brouthers, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe and Mickey Welch, all of whom was just starting out their careers.

Kill the Ump, Bat Almost Does

Umpire Injured Baseball Home plate umpire Kerwin Danley was carted off the field on a stretcher in the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s Toronto-Texas game after being struck in the head by a broken bat shard as Hank Blalock followed through on his swing. Danley immediately collapsed to the turf and Blue Jays catcher Rob Barajas motioned to the dugout for help as Blalock’s soft infield popper was caught by shortstop Marco Scutaro. Starter Roy Halladay and a few other players huddled around as both trainers came to attend to Danley. All players cleared the field shortly after.
Blalock’s bat shattered at the handle as he made contact and the barrel flew out his hands at full speed into Danley’s mask. The game was delayed 10 minutes as Danley was taken off field. Hunter Wendelstedt moved form second base to behind home plate.

I wrote about this incident, which occurred April 15, 2008. Maple is a harder wood, and many players swear by it these days. But there’s a reason maple wasn’t used in the first place. While ash cracks under pressure, maple shatters, sending shards of sharp wood everywhere. In the dugout of a game on April 15 in Los Angeles, the maple bat of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Nate McClouth bat shattered on a hit and a piece of the bat flew into the dugout, opening a huge gash in the cheek of his hitting coach, Don Long. “Didn’t see it at all,” Long told Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. “It just hit me. I backed up. I saw the blood coming out on the card I keep and on my shoes.” The piece of maple cut nerves in Long’s cheek and a doctor had to remove the wood before he sewed in 10 stitches. Who will be next? Perhaps a player or an umpire or, worse yet, a fan. And studies show very little difference between ash and maple in performance. What will happen next? A movement is afoot to either ban maple or at least change the shape of the bat handle.

When will baseball do something about this dangerous situation? I know the ash borer beetle has taken its toll on quality ash bats, but something needs to be done about maple bats shattering before somebody gets killed.

Ryan Zimmerman and his $45 mil-5 yr. contract

 

Look at THIS !!!

Ryan Zimmerman strolled into the home clubhouse at Nationals Park after Monday’s news conference announcing his $45 million, five-year contract and was greeted with a smile and a yell from a teammate sitting on a couch…

  In this age of declining (or at best, "stagnant") salaries — see the free agent class of last winter — , Ryan Zimmerman drags this kind of contract out of the Nationals? WOW !!!

  Would Jim Bowden have EVER agreed to something like this?

  Is this Exhibit A of: Why Team Presidents should not be left alone with agents?

  I wonder if this is the first contract Kasten ever negotiated.

  I stand in AWE of this agent. Scott Boras, scoot over.

  Question for you guys: On a scale of 0% (no chance) to 100% (sure thing), What do you think is the chance that Ryan Zimmerman will be worth $14 mil in 2013?

  What do you think?

DonS.

P.S. Disclosure: I originally drafted Ryan Zimmerman in ILLOWA League in the Second Round. A year ago, I decide he was "Tim Wallach" rather than "Mike Schmidt" and swapped Zimmerman for Huston Street. So factor in as many "grains of salt" as you think that deserves.

Quit messin’ wit’ my box scores

BoxScore7

With the advent of the digital era, we as baseball fans now have a bevy of sports information at our fingertips.  We have baseball data galore, streaming video, analysis all of it coming to our screen even to our mobile devices. 

That was pretty apparent when I was standing next to three Cub fans at the Illinois game last Saturday.  Between pitches, they would refresh their smart phones so they could check on the progress of the Cubs-Cardinals game. 

Unfortunately, with progress in one area, we step back in one or two others.  Do a search on “Where are the box scores?” in your favorite search engine and you’ll find more than a smattering of articles or even letters to the editors complaining about newspapers no longer printing box scores in their sports section. 

An argument can be made which I will not refute that print newspapers have seen better days and are on their decline.  Whether their demise is here and now, is quite debatable.  And not doubt it’s true, a lot of newspapers in smaller markets have legitimate financial reasons to cut back on sports coverage.

Also interesting are those newspaper outlets who still print or post boxscores on their web site and use it as a marketing tool.  Like Freep.com.  No, they’re not like those other papers.  

Even among web-delivered stats and box scores there has been a trade-off.  For years, I’ve enjoyed the USA Today’s section for one simple reason… in years past, they’ve displayed their box scores in a one-page format.  A year or two ago, they “enhanced” it slightly but it only required one click to expand all box scores. 

But the full box scores page on UST is no longer.  They’ve taken the “Box Scores” link down.  Unless, I’m missing something, they no longer do that forcing us web browsers to click back and forth for each game. 

The reason is simple from USA Today’s (and ESPN’s and MLB.com’s etc) perspective.  It means more click-throughs and more ad views and therefore more ad revenue.  

Maybe I’m being picky.  But my time is valuable and I’d just as soon scroll down a page.  I will give USA Today credit for keeping their Stats by Team in a one-page format for each league.  That is still pretty handy. 

Quit messin’ wit’ the box scores.  Analysis is great but it’s only opinion.  Box scores are the reality of baseball.

4-15-09 L-O-T-D: James Loney

James Loney  2 AB, 0 H, 3 RBI

DonS emails:

Guys,
 
  Last night, James Loney got 3 rbis without getting a hit.
 
  I wonder when’s the last time THAT happened.
 
  LSOTD on the Baseball Zealot?
DonS.
 
Well, as rare as it is, it’s not as rare as I thought it would be.  The last person to have 3 or more rbis with no hits in a game was Hideki Matsui on July 29, 2007 when the Yankees played the Orioles.
 
It’s happened nine times in this decade.  The strange thing is that it happened FOUR times in 2000.  Ben Petrick of Colorado (remember him?) did it by driving in four runs without the benefit of a hit.
 
 
.  

Four years and still Zealotin’

tbzatum

Four years ago today, I wrote the first post for The Baseball Zealot. 

Four years goes pretty fast but we got a lot done.  We managed to put out a audio podcast for over a year (they’re still there if you want to listen to them).  I have a pretty impressive photo gallery if I may say so myself. 

I’ve spun off two websites because I thought the attention they were getting on the Zealot deserved it.  The APBA Blog focuses on the tabletop game APBA and the many leagues that play it.

Also, I began Illinois Baseball Report after covering the University of Illinois baseball team for a couple years on the Zealot.  I finally realized that the topic deserved their own site.  While the topic interest may not be as broad, I think it’s a website that well put together and I’m having a lot of fun doing it. 

By the way, not only is it The Baseball Zealot’s birthday but it’s also my good friend and co-blogger Teddy Ballgame’s birthday.  That’s how I remember his birthday.  Or maybe it’s the other way around. 

I couldn’t do the Zealot without Teddy and those aren’t just nice words.  I really couldn’t.  Especially during the college baseball season when I’m off to every home game covering the Illini, Teddy’s there writing about the MLB.  thanks, Tedd. 

Happy Birthday to you and us!

-TBZ

4/13/09: L-O-T-D – Orlando Hudson

orlando-hudson O-Dog became the first Dodger to hit for the cycle at Dodger Stadium, and the first since Wes Parker did so on May 7, 1970 in New York against the Mets.

Orlando Hudson 4 for 5, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, 2 RBIs, 3 runs, 1 SO, 1 CYCLE

Orlando reached base on an infield single in the first inning. He homered in the third to put the Dodgers ahead, 1-0, and doubled in the Dodgers’ six-run rally in the fourth.

Hudson hit a ball down the right-field line in the sixth, stretching a double into a triple with a head-first slide to beat the throw.

Hudson said he knew he would go for the triple when he saw Giants right fielder Randy Winn turn his back — but said he wasn’t even aware of the cycle.

He claimed that he learned what he had done when he returned to the dugout after scoring a run.

“I was like, ‘Congratulations for what?’ ” Hudson said. “I had no idea what was going on.”

Matt Kemp didn’t believe him.

“He was trying to act like he didn’t know,” Kemp said.

“I’m not sure about that. Everyone in the stadium knew he needed the triple for a cycle.”

Whatever the case, the record crowd at Dodger Stadium — 57,099 fans, according to the team — responded with what might have been a record ovation when Hudson’s feat was noted on the video board as he was warming up at second base before the seventh inning.

The fans rose to their feet.

Hudson said that at that moment, he looked into the dugout and tried to lock eyes with Torre.

“I was just looking down at the dugout at Mr. Torre to see if he’d give me a little look, so I could tip my cap,” Hudson said.

“I didn’t want to make it all about me, you know, but I didn’t want the fans to think I was a jerk.”

BTW, The LA Dodgers won their home opener 11-1 over the SF Giants.