Tag Archives: Baseball

Thoughts on Major League Baseball

The Deadball Project – Game 3

Polish All Stars 2, Mets 0

The Poles needed a win in order to avoid having to face Jacob deGrom down three games to none in the series. Stan Coveleski was up to the task. He notched eleven strikeouts while scattering six singles and two walks over eight innings, Mets batters complained that he was “putting a little something extra” on the ball, but as one of the known spitballers who were granted an exemption after the practice was forbidden in 1921, there was little they could do about it. Continue reading →

The Deadball Project: Game 2

Mets 5, Polish All Stars 4

“It was just like the way we worked on it in Spring Training” – Tug McGraw

It was quite the finish. The Mets had a one-run lead going in to the bottom of the ninth, and the Polish All Stars had the top of the order coming up. A leadoff double from Alan Trammel was followed by two quick outs, and it looked like the Mets could get out of it. But Stan Musial dropped a single into shallow left field, putting runners on the corners, and bringing Ted Kluszewski to the plate. “Big Klu” was 3 for 4 so far, with a home run and two singles. On deck was Troy Tulowitzki, who was hitless in four at bats – and had grounded into two inning-ending double plays. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Called Shot

The Called Shot: Babe Ruth, The Chicago Cubs, & The Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932
Thomas Wolf
University of Nebraska Press
Copyright 2020 by the author

It’s one of the most iconic moments in baseball, if not all of sports. In the top of the fifth inning in Game 3 of the World Series, Babe Ruth is at the plate with two strikes on him. He faces / looks at / glares into the Cubs dugout, waves / motions / points emphatically at / towards / in the direction of the pitcher’s mound / outfield / the centerfield bleachers, possibly says / yells something, and then slams the next pitch soaring into the Chicago afternoon for a home run.

Wolf decides not to spend a lot of time and ink going over that moment; instead, he looks at the season that led up to it. Continue reading →

The Deadball Project – Game 1

Mets 14, Polish All Stars 7

It didn’t go as expected. With two Hall of Fame pitchers facing each other, one would think it would be a low-scoring duel. Nor was it a slugfest; there were only six extra base hits in total.

The Mets jumped out to an early lead, thanks to uncharacteristic wildness from Harry Coveleski. He loaded the bases in the 1st with single and a pair of walks, and paid for it after a pair of singles pushed across a total of three runs. He settled down in the 2nd, but after giving up another three runs in the 3rd, he had to be sent to the showers.

Tom Seaver had his own meltdown in the fourth. Continue reading →

The Deadball Project

When you’ve been a baseball fan for a long enough time – and not particularly obsessed with a single team – you might start putting together “All-Time” teams. Not just players from one specific franchise, but perhaps an “all switch-hitters” team or a team where everyone is named “Joe” (or Jose, of course).

I consider myself to be of Polish ancestry, so naturally I thought of a “Polish All-Stars” team. If I am a fan of any one team, I would have to say it’s the Mets. So I’ve often tried to come up with an All-Time Mets team.

Then, with the two teams, might it not be fun to have them face each other in a best-of-seven series?

That’s where “Deadball” comes in.

Continue reading →

On the 2023 World Series

Well, that was set of games.

Look, they can’t all be stone-cold classics like 2016 or 2017. Sometimes you wind up with a pair of “meh” teams (2006), or one team that got hot / lucky at the right time, and then was totally overmatched in the Series (2007). This was a case of the latter – the Diamondbacks were a streaky team that barely made it in to the playoffs, and then got just hot enough to take advantage of their opponents’ weaknesses in the first three rounds. Then they ran into the best offense in the American League: the Rangers were first in batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, and tied for first in home runs. They didn’t really stand a chance. The Rangers also had six players selected for the summer’s All Star Game, so we shouldn’t have been surprised at how far they made it. Continue reading →

Book Review: Why We Love Baseball

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments
Joe Posnanski
Dutton Books
Copyright 2023 by the author

The title is something of a misnomer. The book is not a collection of essays on how great baseball is, nor is it a historical chronicle of key events in the history of the game.

Over and over again, with his many books and articles and essays and blog posts, Joe Posnanski has shown himself to be a master at telling stories. Here, he puts that skill to work, with what turns out to be over 100 stories of baseball at every level.

Sure, there are plenty of things from the Major Leagues and World Series. But that’s not all there is to baseball. A Little Leaguer learns the knuckleball from and old star, and uses it to toss a perfect game…. A real potato makes an appearance on the field in a minor league game…. A team pulls of the perfect “hidden ball” trick in the College World Series.

Continue reading →

On the 2023 All Star Game

Well, that was….a game.

I really have to wonder who MLB is expecting to buy the special All Star Game uniforms. Sure, there are some fans in the stands wearing them, but will they be on sale next month in the team stores afterwards? I’ve railed before about how it makes it nearly impossible to identify the players on the field. I would also like to note that in the time-filling promotional spots where they have players in an “airport” and “coffee shop”, they are wearing their actual team uniforms. It’s clearly important for a promotional aspect, so why are there totally new and different uniforms for the game?

I gather that at least some players are OK with them – but you’ll always find good employees who will say they like whatever they are told to like. And it’s not like it’s impossible to tweak the regular uniforms into special All Star versions. One could, for example, keep the regular uniform but simply replace the team / city name on the front with “American” or “National”. At the very simplest, put stars at the sides of the number on the back of the uniform.

Continue reading →

Picking the All Stars

We’re in the thick of the All Star Team selection process, and I’m already seeing LOTS of whining in various comment sections on the order of “How can you choose this player over this one?”

I suspect a lot of these people are forgetting some very important things. First, you’re not simply selecting the Top 30 Players By Wins Above Replacement (or whatever number you want). You’ve got to field a team. What use is having six shortstops when you only have one first baseman? And there are a few other good rules, too.

Continue reading →

The Worst Teams Ever

Thanks to ownership that doesn’t care and has been selling of the team piece by piece, the Oakland A’s are currently on pace to have one of the worst records ever for a major league baseball team. Up to now, the worst baseball teams over a full season have been:

Team Wins Losses W-L Pct
2018 Orioles 47 115 .290
2003 Tigers 43 119 .265
1962 Mets* 40 120 .250
1935 Braves 38 115 .248
1916 A’s 36 117 .235
1899 Spiders 20 134 .130

 

* Expansion team in their first year

The Cleveland Spiders are a bit of a special case. The team’s owner also was a part owner of a team in St. Louis. Since St Louis was a bigger market (with a bigger stadium) than Cleveland, whenever a player started getting good for the Spiders, he was “traded” to St. Louis for a player who was underperforming. After a while, all the talent was in St. Louis, and Cleveland had the dregs.

In a way, though, the A’s ownership shenanigans are similar. This Oakland team is on pace for a record of 41 – 121, for a winning percentage of .250. It should be noted that they are being given a “run for their money” by the Kansas City Royals, who are on pace for a record of 46-116 (a winning percentage of .282). Since the Royals’ ownership isn’t holding a “Moving Sale”, one might actually have to consider them the worse on-the-field team.

I’ve been wondering – what are the worst teams ever in the other major sports? Continue reading →