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Jun-19-09
 | | Phony Benoni: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Not as dramatic as Gibson's home run in 1988, but just as shattering. By the way, that laconic <Wertz flied out to center> in the Indians' 8th inning in THE CATCH; you think they could have awarded it a couple of exclamation points. |
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| Jun-19-09 | | Jim Bartle: The knuckleballer M. Butterfly! Great stuff. I wonder if there are any photos of the marriage of Figaro. Come on, my riddle is pretty easy, don't think too hard and it will come to you right away. So Dusty Rhodes died. Before my times, but my parents certainly remembered him and talked about him as great. Much later I was surprised to learn he was mainly a pinch-hitter. |
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| Jun-19-09 | | playground player: Dusty Rhodes in 1954: for what it's worth, his Strat-O-Matic card looks a lot like Babe Ruth's for 1927. He was supposed to be a pinch-hitter in the '54 World Series, but he was so hot by then, Durocher finally had to start him in the outfield--over Hall of Famer Monte Irvin. As for Gary Pettis: I remember Tony Kubek broadcasting a Game of the Week and saying, "Gary Pettis is the ideal leadoff man, even though he doesn't get on base much." Huh??? |
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| Jun-19-09 | | Jim Bartle: "Wertz flied out to center (in Fenway Park)." |
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Jun-19-09
| | Phony Benoni: <JB> Oh, I got your riddle guickly enough, but I believe in letting others have a chance to guess. Bringing up Tony Lazzeri was just a broad hint. Strat-O-Matic was another game my brother invariablly beat me at. He'd do stuff like bring in his best relief pitcher for the second inning--game after game. When I protested that he couldn't do that because the pitcher would wear down, he said "This is just a card! It doesn't wear down!" I'm still not sure which of us was being realisitc. |
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| Jun-19-09 | | Jim Bartle: Oh that's right, for Pete's sake. Tony Lazzeri, 1926. |
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| Jun-20-09 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> There's always someone who has to cheat at Strat-O-Matic! "Wow, look at this: Johnny Grubb batted 1% of the time against lefty pitching, and hit a double. Therefore the left-hand side of his card is solid doubles, and I can use him against lefty pitching all the time!" There's always someone who has to spoil it. |
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| Jun-20-09 | | Jim Bartle: I don't think I every played Strat-O-Matic, but I played a game where each player had a doughnut-shaped card which was placed over a ring where you spun an arrow. The areas on the cards indicated the players' abilities. I had the historical version, and those player rings had a lasting effect on my opinions of their relative abilities. For example, both Hack Wilson and Hank Greenberg had huge home run sections, almost as large as Ruth and I think bigger than Gehrig. So for the longest time I thought they were two of the best ten players ever. |
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Jun-20-09
| | Phony Benoni: <JB> Oh, yeah, I think that was "All-Star Baseball", and I seem to associate Ted Williams as the name on it.
I remember one day Lefty Grove being one out from a perfect game, and the spinner got very close to the "7" for a single. I looked and looked, struggled with my conscience, decided it was on the line and spun again. Maybe that's why my karma is no good.
I liked to try and come up with my own versions of baseball games, and invent teams with appropirate nicknames. My favorite, from a town in Kentucky, was the "Paducah Hazards". |
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Jun-20-09
| | Phony Benoni: Sorry, it was Ethan Allen All-Star Baseball. At least, this is the version I remember:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_St... |
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| Jun-20-09 | | Jim Bartle: Paducah Hazards!
I had a friend in college who had devised a very elaborate league based on teams from six towns in Oklahoma, and using the names of members of the Oklahoma dentists society from 1915 or something. The teams were from Enid, Macalester and towns like that. I was irritated that there was no team from Bartlesville. |
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| Jun-21-09 | | A.G. Argent: LaRussa's will become the third all-time winningest manager behind Mack and McGraw if the Redbirds take the Royals today. If I knew that, I'd forgotten it. Pretty impressive actually, especially these days. I haven't looked but I wonder which active skipper is behind him. |
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| Jun-22-09 | | Travis Bickle: <Phony Benoni, Jim Bartle, A.G. Argent> and all you serious baseball fans should watch this clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShM... |
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Jun-22-09
| | Phony Benoni: <A.G.Argent>: LaRussa's been #3 for some time; the milestone he seems to have hit is win #2500. If you go here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/m...
and click on the <"W"> header, you will sort by number of wins. The current top five are LaRussa, Cox, Torre, Piniella, and Leyland. |
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Jun-22-09
| | Phony Benoni: <Travis Bickle> Oh, and speaking of PIniella and Leyland... The Tigers just swept the Brewers out of first place. Now it's the Cubbies' turn. |
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| Jun-22-09 | | playground player: I used to like to replay whole major league seasons with Strat-O-Matic. I didn't have the equipment to keep batting averages, but ERAs and strikeouts, home runs and RBIs, generally turned out to be amazingly close to the historical totals. Prime example: I was replaying the 1927 American League season, every game, using the regular pitching rotation for each team--and damned if Babe Ruth didn't hit No. 60 off Tom Zachary of the old Washington Senators, just like he did in real life. Now that's a simulation! |
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| Jun-22-09 | | Deus Ex Alekhina: The Sunday Detroit Free Press ran a story in its Business section about how the visit of the Cubs would help boost sagging attendance at Tiger stadium. The Tigers will treat the Cubs the same way that President Obama treated that pesky fly. |
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| Jun-23-09 | | Jim Bartle: While moving I found a copy of the Bill James book on managers, which I not only didnt know I had, I didnt even know existed. In any case, he had a rough rating system for managers, based on certain benchmarks for each season. In 1997 LaRussa rated No. 31 all-time, but a quick calculation shows him at No. 6 now, the only manager in the top ten from the past forty years. Didnt check Bobby Cox, though. I still think LaRussas World Series record is one of the stranger things in baseball. Five series, only 22 games--two over the minimum. Never even reached a sixth game. |
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| Jun-23-09 | | Travis Bickle: <Phony Benoni:<<Travis Bickle>> Oh, and speaking of PIniella and Leyland...
The Tigers just swept the Brewers out of first place. Now it's the Cubbies' turn.> Phony The Cubs dont play no games! Here's what happened when a white sox shot his mouth off to a Cub!
http://thenastyboys.files.wordpress... And now you have Carlos "THE BIG Z" Zambrano on the hill tonight in detroit! You dont want to get him mad either!! I hope when Carlos is mowing down those tiger bums, some drunken rummy Tiger fans dont aggravate Big Z or this is what could happen!
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/bi... |
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Jun-23-09
| | Phony Benoni: <playgournd player> I never made it through a full season of Strato-Matic. My best was about half-way through 1964, and that took several years. Just too many distractions; you know, chess and stuff like that. <JB> Now you've probably jinxed LaRussa, and he'll have a seven-gamer for sure if he ever gets back to the Series. Indeed, they'll probably bring back the original best-of-nine format just for him. Besides Bobby Cox, you might recalibrate Joe Torre to see where he fits now. With them and LaRussa ready to join the exclusive five-decade managers club next year, I wonder why they have managed to last so long. My perception is of three different types of managers: LaRussa cerebral, Cox the father figure, Torre the calm, yet strong older brother. None of them seem the fiery type like John McGraw or Billy Martin. In fact, the only thing the three seem to have in common is a knack for winning. Could that have anything to do with it? <Travis bickle> Your faith in the Cubs is touching. Misguided, but touching. Since you are a friend, I will avoid the more accurate term, pathetic. In reality, the pessimist in me is rising to the surface about this series. Whenever the Tigers win four in a row, they generally turn intot he Lions for a few days. |
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| Jun-23-09 | | Jim Bartle: Read a headline at cnnsi.com today: "Tigers are Unstoppable!" Unfortunately it was about the LSU Tigers in the College World Series. Actually the Bill James book goes into all sorts of other ways managers are different: how they use starting pitchers, how they use the bullpen, emotinal leader or strategist, do they depend of young guys or veterans, like to platoon, what sort of players kept as reserves, use whole roster or depend on regulars, want good fielders or are hitters more important, types of pitchers they like (control or power), like to bunt and steal bases, etc. Interesting how different managers have been successful with different, in fact opposing, strategies. |
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| Jun-23-09 | | Deus Ex Alekhina: I see that Zoilo Versalles 1961 rookie card refers to him as "Zorro Versalles". Presumably he got that nickname from the popular TV series with Guy Williams & Annette Funicello & not from the reference mentioned in the Godfather movie sequel |
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| Jun-23-09 | | Benzol: Hi Dave,
I think Game Collection: USSR Championship Tournament Index is a great idea and I don't think that anyone else has put an index together. Game Collection: USSR Championship Player Index is also a good idea but how you deal with 355 players without it getting unwieldy is a bit of a puzzler. With so many players it's difficult to suggest anything without losing completeness. Perhaps you could put the two Swiss Chps ( 1967 & 1991 ) together in a separate sub-index with links to the others and vice-versa. Just a thought.
Cheers mate.
:) |
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Jun-24-09
| | Phony Benoni: Tigers 5, Cubs 4. Take that, Bears! |
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| Jun-24-09 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> I think SOM has software now that lets you run through a full season in two shakes of a lamb's tail, with the computer playing all the games. Where's the fun in that? |
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