|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 496 OF 914 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Jul-17-13
 | | Phony Benoni: Speed kills. It almost killed Prince Fielder:
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/e... |
|
| Jul-17-13 | | Gregor Samsa Mendel: Gee, I though it actually did kill him:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/pr... |
|
| Jul-17-13 | | Jim Bartle: I was impressed by Fielder's speed. He moved a lot faster than would seem possible. |
|
Jul-17-13
| | Phony Benoni: <JB> Fielder, and Miguel Cabrera for that matter, aren't fast but have good base-running instincts. For instance, they will usually go first-to-third on a single to right. |
|
Jul-17-13
 | | perfidious: <playground player: <Phony Benoni> Rookie Joe DiMaggio in 1936 used to play very shallow--so much so that pitcher Lefty Gomez asked him what he thought he was doing. "I want to make people forget Tris Speaker," said the young outfielder. "If you play that shallow," answered the veteran pitcher, "you're just gonna make 'em forget Lefty Gomez." Source: Lefty Gomez tending bar at a long-ago winter meeting.> Bill James recounted this gem in both editions of one of his books. Curious thing was, he claimed it as one of his favourites in the first edition, then pooh-poohed it in the second go-round. |
|
| Jul-17-13 | | Jim Bartle: Gomez had lots of great quotes. Some of the best:
-"Hell, Lou (Gehrig) it took fifteen years to get you out of a game. Sometimes I'm out in fifteen minutes." -"The secret of my success was clean living and a fast outfield." -"When Neil Armstong first set foot on the moon, he and all the space scientists were puzzled by an unidentifiable white object. I knew immediately what it was. That was a home run ball hit off me in 1933 by Jimmie Foxx." -
"I was the worst hitter ever. I never even broke a bat until last year when I was backing out of the garage." |
|
Jul-17-13
| | perfidious: <- "I was the worst hitter ever. I never even broke a bat until last year when I was backing out of the garage."> Not at all-there was always Preacher Roe, at .110 with three doubles and one dinger in 620 AB. Humorous line, though. http://www.baseball-reference.com/p... |
|
Jul-17-13
 | | WannaBe: With MLB resuming tomorrow, here are some updated numbers: http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/... |
|
Jul-17-13
 | | OhioChessFan: I had to check out Jim Bouton, who repeatedly mentioned in Ball Four how awful he was as a hitter. How about .101, 3 doubles, 160 K's in 374 AB's?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/p... |
|
Jul-17-13
| | perfidious: <All>: Remember reading an article in a baseball magazine from 1974 which details the worst-hitting pitchers of all time. The two names I recall are Ron Herbel and Bob Buhl. Tale of the tape for Buhl: in 857 AB, a BA of .089 with two extra-base hits, both doubles and both in the 1956 season. Oh yes-then we have the 389 strikeouts. Herbel's career was nowhere near as long, but calling his line unimpressive does a disservice to the merely bad: six hits in 206 at-bats and 125 Ks. The year Herbel got three of those hits, he was also out stealing in his only career attempt. |
|
| Jul-17-13 | | Jim Bartle: Dean Chance hit .066 lifetime, with a slugging percentage of .069. He struck out about 65% of the time. |
|
Jul-17-13
| | OhioChessFan: Dean Chance. I remember his circle from Stratomatic Baseball. It was comical how horrible he was. My brother and I used to occasionally pick him just for irony's sake. |
|
Jul-17-13
| | OhioChessFan: Not Stratomatic. What was the game where you spun a little spinner arrow? |
|
Jul-18-13
| | perfidious: This would have been a classic matchup from Stratomatic: Chance as pitcher in his Cy Young season of '64, facing himself at bat the same year. Chance had seven singles in 89 at-bats while striking out 53 times for an average of .079. For average, that was actually his third-<best> year, as 26 of his 44 career hits came in the period 1963-65. Some of these numbers make Rey Ordonez look like Babe Ruth. |
|
Jul-18-13
| | Phony Benoni: <OCF> You may be thinking of Ethan Allen's "All-Star Baseball": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_St...
In the Strat-O-Matic I used to play, there were no individual pitcher hitting cards. |
|
Jul-18-13
| | OhioChessFan: http://www.baseballnation.com/2011/... |
|
Jul-18-13
| | Phony Benoni: Among position players, it's hard to beat Ray Oyler: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/...
I mention him only to bring up Hank Aguirre. .085 average, 236 strikeouts in 388 at bats. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/...
Aguirre's hitting received the ultimate contempt--teams would intentionally walk Ray Oyler to pitch to him! One memorable day, this backfired: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... |
|
Jul-18-13
| | OhioChessFan: <You may be thinking of Ethan Allen's "All-Star Baseball":> That's it. 10 year olds dig the long ball, so our lineups would inevitably be the players with the biggest 1 slot. We both learned how to consistently spin, so we could control to a degree where the spinner would end up. We made up little house rules to address that. The defense was allowed to (gently) blow on the spinner, once, the batter had to close his eyes while the defense had the option of turning the card in the slot so that the 1 wasn't at the top, etc. |
|
Jul-18-13
| | perfidious: <Phony Benoni>: Had heard of Oyler, but knew next to nothing of him. His last name was something of an irony, given that Oyler apparently had problems with the bottle. |
|
| Jul-18-13 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> Ray Oyler's bat was so bad, Tigers' manager Mayo Smith started centerfielder Mickey Stanley at shortstop in the 1968 World Series. It must have been a good move: the Tigers won. I love it, though, that Hank Aguirre socked a triple after Oyler was intentionally walked to get to him. Note: Strat-O-Matic originally had four generic pitchers' hitting cards. Card No. 1 had all strikeouts and a walk, No. 2 had a couple of singles, No. 3 was better than that, and No. 4 had a hard-to-get home run. Later S-O-M sets featured eight pitchers' hitting cards, with No. 8 (Wes Ferrell, Red Lucas, guys like that) suitable for pinch-hitting for various position players. No. 5 was good for a pretty decent batting average. |
|
Jul-18-13
| | Phony Benoni: <playground player> The 1968 Tigers didn't have a lot of options at shortstop. Oyler's main back-ups were Dick Tracewski (.156) and Tom Matchik (.203, but with a glove to match). The regular third baseman, Don Wert, hit .200, back-up catcher Jim Price was at .174, and outfielder/third catcher Wayne Comer at .125. That was the year of the pitcher, you will recall. |
|
Jul-18-13
| | perfidious: One less hit for Yaz in 1968 and there would have been no .300 hitter in the AL. |
|
Jul-18-13
| | Phony Benoni: Naturally, I had to check <perfidious>'s tidbit about Yaz, which was true. I wondered because one hit shouldn't make much difference to a .301 average, but he actually had a good round-up from .30055. And then I noticed Yastrzemski got 3000 hits without a 200-hit season, and had that happened before, and I though of Eddie Collins and looked him up, but he did have a 200-hit season. Then, like I usually do, I looked up his last few games. Here is one of them,. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... The interesting part is that the 43-year-old Collins pinch-hit for an older player, 47-year-old Jack Quinn. (90 years between them might be a record!). That 40-year-old whippersnapper Wally Schang got into the game as well. Connie Mack, who was only 67 at the time, apparently liked to use the kids. Not only did Lefty Grove pitch the final inning, he apparently knocked in the winning run with a walk-off double. Those were the days! |
|
Jul-18-13
| | WannaBe: Detroit declares bankruptcy, citing contracts signed by Suh, Stafford, Verlander, Fielder as biggest cause. http://news.yahoo.com/detroit-emerg... |
|
Jul-18-13
| | Phony Benoni: Those contracts are chicken feed. Detroit has over $10 billion in unsecured pension debt alone. This is going to be long and messy, with more lawsuits than you can throw a gavel at. No matter how bad its financial woes, Detroit can always find money to pay the lawyers. |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 496 OF 914 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
