The baseball thread

[bobbob1313]

for God's sake.....Buehrle

 

Do you honestly expect anyone outside of Chicago to be able to spell his name correctly?

 

I don't expect anyone to be able to remember that Dwyane Wade's name is all fucked up.

[bjorn_skurj]

A little trivia nugget for anyone who wants to feel good about their team...

 

In order to be on track with where we were last year at this time, the Royals would have to lose the next consecutive 30 games.

 

Yeah. I don't even know what to do with that information. I'm just glad we seem to be turning around. And wow, I knew we were abysmal last year, but a smoldering ruin? Yikes.

If Detroit can do it, so can the Royals. Key is bringing back the powder blue road unis.

 

[bobbob1313]

If Detroit can do it, so can the Royals. Key is bringing back the powder blue road unis.

 

 

It's true. The Chargers became a force once they brought back the powder blue.

[Reni]

Do you honestly expect anyone outside of Chicago to be able to spell his name correctly?

 

Well, it doesn't take but 2 seconds to look it up......future sports writer?

 

At least you were in the ballpark......ESPN called Jon Garland, "Gary Garland" the other day....

[wheelco]

Wait, are they actually expecting him to close?

That's the word from the Reds camp. They lost 2 to Milwaukee this week because of end game relief.

[tongue-tied lightning]

Eddie ! Eddie !

[wheelco]

Eddie ! Eddie !

you'll probably be chanting something different and unprintable in a month

[ction]

Eddie Murray is pitching for the Reds??? He's gotta be 50 by now...

[tongue-tied lightning]

Eddie Murray could be a better answer for the Reds

 

look we got nothing else to do but give him a try, can't be any worse than Coffy or Weathers.

[tongue-tied lightning]

Reds relievers have blown 13 of 32 save opportunities, and have the worst ERA (5.28), most homers allowed (43) and highest opponents' batting average (.292) in the league.

[Edie]

Today is the first game of a three game Red Sox/White Sox series at the Cell.

 

I am predicting the final color to be light pink, with the White Sox winning two of three.

[EL the Famous]

with the White Sox winning two of three.

 

Isn't that your predicition for every series?

 

Also, the rationale that THIS YEAR'S all-star squad be representative of LAST YEAR'S world series team is now tied w/ 'Ken Lay took the coward's way out by having a heart attack' as the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

[Reni]

well their stats would indicate that that's a pretty accurate prediction.....

 

W- 56

 

L- 29

 

.659

[bjorn_skurj]

They tried taking the All-Star decision out of the fans' hands back in either the 50s or the 60s, and it proved to be enormously unpopular, so they gave it back. Guess what? It's not a meritocracy. It's a popularity contest. You don't like it? Next year, take a day off of work and spend it voting over and over for who you think should be in it.

[darkstar]

Today is the first game of a three game Red Sox/White Sox series at the Cell.

 

I am predicting the final color to be light pink, with the White Sox winning two of three.

 

 

That's crazy talk. Big Papi blasts game winning homer of Jenks causing Guillen to explode in rage and make anti-hispanic comments. Still in pique of rage Guillen then benches Ortiz in all star game to show him who's boss. After MLB suspends Guillen for life he moves back to Venezuala and becomes Hugo Chaves' minister of foreign relations, wins Nobel peace prize for his efforts against homosexual discrimination.

 

BOSOX take this series.

[Edie]

Isn't that your predicition for every series?

 

Also, the rationale that THIS YEAR'S all-star squad be representative of LAST YEAR'S world series team is now tied w/ 'Ken Lay took the coward's way out by having a heart attack' as the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

 

I think it's going to be hard for either team to sweep, and with the Wsox at home that gives them the advantage. So there.

 

As for your second comment, the last time the White Sox had 7 guys in the ASG was in 1960, after, you guessed it, the go go sox of '59. And what about the Yankees with like 11 guys one year? I'm not saying it's 100% right, I'm just saying it happens.

[EL the Famous]

I'm (not?) saying it's 100% right, I'm just saying it happens.

 

 

However, when the team wins the world series the prior year, it should be well represented.

 

Bjorn, I know the reality of the all-star game being a popularity contest...doesn't make it any less ludicrous when somebody like AJ gets in over more deserved players or someone gets voted in for their performance last year. That's all i'm saying.

[Reni]

Happy Birthday, Satchel

 

 

Hall of Famer and Negro League legend Paige would turn 100

By Justice B. Hill

 

It is unusual to think of Satchel Paige as young. Most stories about Paige are of an "old man" -- stories of an ageless pitcher who excelled in baseball. Yet Paige had to be young at some point in his life -- maybe even when most people thought he was old.

Who knows for sure, though? Paige himself took pains to keep his age a mystery.

 

"Age is a question of mind over matter," he'd often tell people who asked his. "If you don't mind, it don't matter."

 

The best guess is that, if he were still alive, Leroy "Satchel" Paige would be celebrating his 100th birthday today. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum says bring out the party hats and balloons, cut the layered birthday cake and let the celebration begin for this eccentric baseball legend.

 

Today, the museum and the city of Kansas City is celebrating the birthday of the biggest name in "black baseball." They will honor a man whose body of work stands taller than anybody else's in the storied history of the Negro Leagues.

 

"People focus on the showmanship, the charisma and the entertainment, but the man pitched professionally for only God knows how long," said Bob Kendrick, marketing director for the museum. "You can't have that kind of longevity in sports and have been as dominant as he was in the sport without being a great athlete.

 

"I don't think he gets his just due for how great an athlete he was."

 

Where Paige does get his due is in his performance. Listen to accounts of him, and many of them describe Paige as the best pitcher in the history of the Negro Leagues.

 

"The best right-hander baseball has ever known," said Bill Veeck, the owner who brought Paige to the Majors in 1948.

 

Such bold statements serve as fuel for lively debates in barbershops, bars and backroom. It's akin to asking, "Who was a better fighter: Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali?"

 

Both have strong support on their side, and "black baseball" did have a handful of pitchers whose skills, some people say, rivaled Paige's greatness.

 

But on the "greatness" scale, do Smokey Joe Williams, Bullet Rogan, Willie Foster or, say, Leon Day rate higher than Paige?

 

You'd better ask somebody who might know.

 

"Yeah, Satchel Paige was a great pitcher," said Jim "Mudcat" Grant, a former Major League pitcher whose childhood overlapped Paige's heyday. "And anybody that saw him could see the things he did and the stories about him and his style and what he did and so forth and so on. But there were other pitchers in the old Negro Leagues who were just as good as Satchel."

 

Some historians will dispute that point with Grant, who befriended Paige before his death in 1982. But no one will dispute the fact that Satchel Paige was the greatest show in "black baseball."

 

His showmanship was legend wrapped in myth. How much of the Paige legend was true?

 

Who's to say with certainty, but it's difficult to dismiss as fiction accounts like the ones Buck O'Neil, himself a Negro League icon, can spin about Paige.

 

O'Neil tells a story from 1942 about Paige and the Kansas City Monarchs. The team was playing the Homestead Grays in the Negro League World Series, and the championship was on the line.

 

With two outs, the Grays put the tying runs on base. Paige recalled a conversation he'd had a few years earlier with Grays star Josh Gibson, a teammate of Paige's at the time with the Pittsburgh Crawfords.

 

Paige called O'Neil to the mound.

 

"He said, 'You know what I'm fixin' to do?'" O'Neil recounted. "I said, 'Naw.' He said, 'I'm gonna walk Howard Easterling; I'm gonna walk Buck Leonard; I'm gonna pitch to Josh Gibson.'

 

"I said, 'Man, don't be facetious.' He said, 'That's what I'm gonna do.'"

 

Perhaps if this story had come from anybody else, it would be easily discounted as the tallest of tales, but how does anybody question O'Neil, a man who's watched more baseball games than any living person?

 

He was in the middle of this Paige moment to remember: Paige vs. Gibson, the "black Babe Ruth."

 

As Gibson came to the plate, Paige reminded him of that earlier conversation. Paige had told Gibson that he was the "best hitter in the world." Paige also said he was the "best pitcher in the world."

 

So the two best were now face to face. They had a championship at stake. Gibson was ready, and Paige had a point to prove.

 

"'Come on, Satchel, throw the ball,'" O'Neil, whose nickname was "Nancy," recalled Gibson saying.

 

And Paige's reply, O'Neil said, "'I'm gonna throw you some fastballs.'"

 

Paige did. He threw three of them at Gibson. Each harder than the one before it; each one a strike. Ballgame over.

 

Walking off the mound, Paige, who stood 6-foot-4, looked in O'Neil's eyes as if he were seven-feet tall.

 

"He said, 'You know what, Nancy, nobody hits Satchel's fastball,'" O'Neil recalled. "I said, 'I guess you're right.'"

 

Pure Paige, that's what moments like these are. Yet the history of the Negro Leagues is filled with similar tales about Paige, and he seemed to revel in producing performances like these that defied belief.

 

He was a show -- a walking, talking talent whose career nobody mimicked. Paige was a one-of-a-kind talent, and regardless of what measuring stick people might have used, he was greatness personified.

 

"My pitching philosophy is simple," he said. "Keep the ball way from the bat."

 

During his baseball career, "Old Satch" did just that. He pitched for a half-dozen Negro League teams, and he showcased his right arm in front of black (and some white) audiences that worshiped him.

 

But the color barrier kept Paige from winning the universal acclaim that went to his white peers, men like Bob Feller, Lefty Grove and Dizzy Dean. For as good as they were, Paige was their equal, if not their superior.

 

"He was probably the best black pitcher in history," said Feller, the Hall of Famer who barnstormed with Paige and other Negro League stars in the 1930s and '40s. "If you didn't see Satchel Paige pitch, you missed a hell of a lot in your life."

 

Enough other whites saw Paige pitch in those barnstorming games to make that statement themselves. But their compliments sounded somewhat hollow to Paige because of the racial barriers he faced.

 

"They said I was the greatest pitcher they ever saw," Paige once said. "I couldn't understand why they couldn't give me no justice."

 

In the summer of 1947, Jackie Robinson, another Negro League alum, integrated the Majors when he took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson's arrival opened a pipeline, and talent from the Negro Leagues flowed into the Majors.

 

Next to reach the bigs was Larry Doby, who signed with the Indians and integrated the American League weeks after Robinson's debut. For Paige, a little justice came his way in '48. He followed Doby to the bigs, signing with the Indians to become the first black pitcher in the league.

 

Yet no one who came before or after had built the kind of baseball-wide reputation that Paige had. No one squeezed more out of his baseball life than Paige did, and no one enjoyed baseball more than he did.

 

"I never had a job," he once said. "I always played baseball."

 

By the time Paige joined the Tribe in 1948, he was winding down his storied career. He probably had 500,000 pitches behind him, but he proved in that glorious season of Indians baseball that he had plenty more left.

 

He went 6-1 for the Tribe, with a 2.48 ERA. Paige spent the 1949 season with the Indians as well, although he didn't duplicate the success he'd had in '48. He went 4-7 with a 3.04 ERA, not bad numbers for a man who 40-something, though an age of 50-something might have been likely, too.

 

His legacy, however, was built more around what he did in the Negro Leagues than what he did in the Majors, Kendrick said. Paige was a special talent, from early in his career to its end.

 

In the 1990s, the museum interviewed surviving Negro League players and asked them about their careers in "black baseball."

 

"It was amazing to see how many responses had something to do with Satchel Paige," Kendrick said. "'I played with Satchel Paige' ... 'I got a hit off Satchel Paige' ... 'Satchel Paige struck me out.'

 

"For me, I think that's when I knew how good he really was. He was so good that other people would link their greatest moment back to him. I think that speaks volumes about how great Satchel Paige was."

 

Paige's greatness is what makes turning 100 a special day, a day the museum plans to celebrate with all the pomp and circumstance that befit "Old Satch," an American treasure who richly deserves this justice.

[Lammycat]

I believe the players voted exactly the same way as the fans did in the N.L. (for the 8 starters that the fans select) and got pretty close with the fans in the A.L.

 

With the home-field advantage at stake for the winning division, there's gotta be a better way, though. I think letting the fans have a percentage of the vote, the players/managers a percentage, and the sports writers who are HOF-eligible voters a percentage would be fair.

[bobbob1313]

Yes. Make it a weighted system.

[Lammycat]

Yes. Make it a weighted system.

Either that or take it back out of the fans' hands and base selection strictly on a pre-determined set of statistics.

[Reni]

so then do you base it on current season to date stats? last year's stats?

[bjorn_skurj]

From Wikipedia:

 

1947 was the first year that baseball allowed fans to vote for the starters on the All-Star team.

 

In 1957, fans of the Cincinnati Reds stuffed the ballot box and elected 7 Reds players to start in the All-Star Game. They were:

 

Johnny Temple, 2B

Roy McMillan, SS

Don Hoak, 3B

Ed Bailey, C

Frank Robinson, LF

Gus Bell, CF

Wally Post, RF

 

The only non-Red elected to start for the National League was St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman Stan Musial. While the Reds were known to be a great offensive team with many outstanding position players, most baseball observers agreed that they did not deserve seven starters in the All-Star game. An investigation showed that over half of the ballots cast came from Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Enquirer had printed up pre-marked ballots and distributed them with the Sunday newspaper to make it easy to vote early and often. There were even stories of bars in Cincinnati not serving alcohol to customers until they filled out a ballot.

 

Commissioner Ford Frick decided to appoint Willie Mays of the New York Giants and Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves to substitute for Reds players Gus Bell and Wally Post. In addition, Frick decided to strip the fans of their voting rights. Managers, players, and coaches picked the entire team again until 1969, when the vote again returned to the fans.

 

To guard against further ballot stuffing, since 1969 each team has been given the same number of ballots to hand out. In 1998, that number was roughly 400,000 ballots. Since the dawn of the internet age, online voting has again raised fears of ballot stuffing. Yet Major League Baseball assures its fans that they have taken precautions to guard against this.

[ction]

Or just stop playing the game entirely. Then announce a first and second team All-Star list for each league, by position, afte the season. That would include 1 SP, 1 RP, and a DH for the AL.

 

Personally, I couldn't care less about the actual all-star game. The HR derby is fun, but the game itself is bogus.

[Reni]

well AJ being in there is definitely a case of ballot stuffing....they have no way to prevent it if you can vote as much as you like.....there was a big campaign here to get AJ in. Same with Scotty Pods last year.