My Experts Predict The World Series …

Posted on April 4, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

“They’re picking us last again which is beautiful.” ~ Baltimore Orioles Manager Buck Showalter in January.

Congratulations, Seattle Mariners. Congratulations, Washington Nationals. You’re going to the World Series!

Thank you for an exciting 2015 season! Man, it flew by.

The experts picked you and experts don’t lie. That’s why they’re experts. (Expert is derived from the Latin word for “try.” All that trying has made them smart. So smart that the World Series is already decided and we can just move on to Christmas. “Dear Santa, Please help the Orioles win the World Series in 2016.”)

Yes, I mean you – all you smarty-pants with your fancy stats and box scores and hours of analysis and number crunching.

What the FIP is a wOBA?

Yet, despite all that hard work, the experts are almost always wrong.

Admit it. Giants over Royals in last year’s Series? You had no idea. NO idea.

No stats gazing for me. I’m too lazy for that. (I also hate math.)

Instead, I looked for a few folks around town who don’t care a bit about baseball. For them WAR is good for absolutely nothing and ERA is a laundry detergent.

era

They’ve got better things to do this summer than watch a team play 162 crummy games of baseball.

(For the record, I don’t have anything better to do.)

They picked the 2015 division winners.

American League East ~ Boston Red Sox

Andrew is a server at The Lightwell, one of our favorite go-to spots in Orange, Virginia. (Black bean burger with avocado, dee-lish. Also, very nice cheesy grits. I didn’t even know I liked cheesy grits.)

Andrew doesn’t follow baseball and will spend his season working and his spare hours hiking through Virginia’s beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

Why the Red Sox? “My mom is from Boston.”

American League Central ~ Detroit Tigers

Scout, a first grader, was hanging out with her family at the barber shop on Main Street.

Scout will watch her brother play baseball, but that’s about it. She prefers picking flowers, playing with her puppy, and riding horses.

Why the Tigers? Because I asked her to circle one of the teams and she circled Tigers. Good enough for me.

American League West ~ Oakland Athletics

Gloria was born in Chicago. North side, so Cubs all the way. Her dad took her to Wrigley a few times when she was young. It was a long time ago, but she still remembers sitting in the right field bleachers.

She’ll watch the standings during the season just in case this becomes the year the Cubs win the World Series. She doesn’t want to miss that. (Aren’t Cubs fans cute?)

She also reads my blog. “I liked it at first for the pictures of the cats, but I like it for the baseball history now.” See, what a nice person Gloria is?

Why the A’s? “They were on the middle of the page.” Gloria also noted that, logically, athletes should be better ballplayers than angels, astronauts, mariners, or rangers.

National League East ~ Atlanta Braves

Sean is a local lawyer. (I told him I would assure you that he is a very good lawyer. He set up my business LLC and, look, I’m still up and running … so there you go.)

Does he follow baseball? “Vaguely.”

Why the Braves? “My cousin played for the Braves. He came in as a pinch hitter, struck out, and lost a World Series game.”

Sean’s cousin is Tommy Gregg, who played about 10 years in the majors, including six in Atlanta. In Game 2 of the 1991 Series versus the Twins, Gregg pinch-hit for Mark Lemke with two out in the bottom of the ninth, the tying run on first. He struck out looking. The Twins went on to win the Series, though you can’t blame Gregg’s one strikeout for that.

(You could, however, blame this … )

Gregg had a steady career, much better than that one strike out would have you believe, and he’s currently the hitting coach of the Omaha Storm Chasers, the Triple A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.

National League Central ~ St. Louis Cardinals

I found George working out at the local Racquetball Club in Orange.

(There’s a lovely Yoga studio upstairs. Nice teacher, too.)

George isn’t much of a baseball fan. Football’s his game. He was a defensive end at Virginia Tech and went on to coach at Tech, William and Mary, and 23 seasons at the University of Maryland.

While he claims to not follow much baseball, he was awfully quick to remind me that Tech’s baseball team swept the University of Virginia last month.

Why the Cardinals? No reason.

National League West ~ Los Angeles Dodgers

Tim is a longtime UPS driver. He has delivered all sorts of crazy things to us over the years, including this jar of official baseball rubbing mud …

Yes, I paid money for a jar of mud. So?

… this Moe Drawbosky card …

World Series hero, 1966.

… and several jars of Manny Machado salsa …

Actually, not bad.

Tim was a pitcher in high school. He might watch a game or two during the season, but won’t really get interested until playoff time, when he and the 90 other UPS drivers he works with, including those who know nothing about baseball, will “start talking crap” about games.

Why the Dodgers? During the Lasorda Era, Tim would occasionally catch late night West Coast Dodgers games on TV.

* * * *

With the divisions set, I took the remaining teams to my Wild Card experts, my two English friends, Chris and Michelle.

They became citizens last summer and are still getting the hang of this America thing. They still stick unnecessary u’s in words, insist that English chocolate is superior, and won’t admit that the U.S. bailed Britain out of two world wars.

Just the non-expert experts I was looking for.

American League Wild Card ~ Texas Rangers

Note the Union Jack teacup.

Chris’s work with rock bands has taken him through a number of baseball stadiums over the years, so he knows his way around balls and strikes. He’s been to an actual game, but found it pretty dull. “I went one time. I’ll never go back.”

Why the Rangers? “They’re always there or thereabouts every year. I figure they could definitely be in the wild card market.”

National League Wild Card ~ Arizona Diamondbacks

Michelle is a competitive equestrian, but is currently recuperating from an injury. She would like to point out she was a bit woozy while making her pick.

Here’s what Michelle can tell you about baseball:

1) It’s a cross between rounders and cricket.

2) Players chew tobacco and spit.

3) They wear short pants and long socks, and

4) “In Boston, the Green Meanie is the scoreboard.”

(Dear Boston Red Sox, If you rename the Green Monster the Green Meanie, I promise I will stop posting this video every season.)

Why the Diamondbacks? “They were the longest name on the list.”

* * * *

With the post-season set, we mixed the teams up in special American League and National League caps.

Editor/Husband picked the pennant winners.

“I can’t believe I just picked the Red Sox.”

“I can’t believe I just picked the Braves.”

There’s your 2015 World Series.

To pick a champion, I called upon the always adorable Stevie. Until a can of sardines learns to throw a baseball, she doesn’t care who wins. (But, she’s sweet on Mike Trout.)

She circled around the two teams a few times (perhaps signaling a five-game series? Or, maybe just looking for that can of sardines) before settling down next to the Braves and, in the process, knocking the Red Sox over with her generous backside.

(Somewhere down in spring training, at that very moment, David Ortiz felt an unexplained heavy sadness come over him.)

And, that is why the Atlanta Braves will win the World Series.

Still, it’s a little disappointing. Although I’m pleased that the Braves’ Nick Markakis, beloved former Oriole, will finally win a World Series ring, what fun is it now that the season is over before it has even begun?

Baseball is a beautiful, most perfect game. On Opening Day, every team is tied for first … at least for a few hours. Who can know who will win a World Series that is seven months and more than 162 games away?

I have no idea … no idea …

Waffles, Pete Rose, & Yard Goats

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

With no baseball, you’d think winter was simply a waste of four otherwise perfectly good months.

You could be right. But, I spent this past off-season productively – reading stuff and learning stuff.

Now, with just two weeks until Opening Day, it’s time to share some of my newfound expertise.

I’m here to answer questions with that declarative I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong decisiveness that comes when you’ve learned stuff (or think you know stuff, or can talk faster and louder than your friends at dinner).

Some of these questions came from real readers of this blog.

I made the rest up. Which is the prerogative of an expert.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

No.

But, is Animal House still the greatest movie of all time? Sadly, probably not.

For years I’ve said that Animal House is the greatest movie ever made. And, I meant it. Trust me, I’ve watched it a lot.

That the San Francisco Giants remade its greatest scene in 2013 only made it greater.

(None of those Giants – not even Hunter Pence – had ever seen Animal House. Sad, really.)

I watched Animal House again last week and, in light of the horrible fraternity news that’s been spewing out lately like vomit at a college kegger, it sort of ruined it for me.

(This? Still funny.)

But, drinking too much, degrading women, sadistic hazing, racism? Not funny.

Leave it to the frats to ruin this movie for me. Losers.

When are you going to finish War & Peace?

I started Tolstoy’s War & Peace as the off-season began.

I read it because I wanted to know if it was really the greatest book ever written, as literary experts say … and if it’s so great, why haven’t any of my friends read it?

My goal? Finish the 1,200-page book by Opening Day.

I’m often a last-minute slacker … but, guess what?

I finished it last Tuesday.

The whole thing.

The booky part.

War.

And, Peace.

Both Epilogues. The Appendix. And, all the footnotes. Hundreds of them, from two different translations.

I don’t think I can be much done-er than that.

And?

It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

You should read it. Then, whenever someone asks you a tough question – about anything – you can pause thoughtfully, then say, “Well, as Tolstoy reminds us in War & Peace …” and then just answer the question however the hell you want. Who’s going to know?

Let’s try it.

Is Animal House the greatest movie of all time?

“Well, as Tolstoy says in War & Peace’s second epilogue, the present can color our view of the past. So, despite all the dreadful recent news from fraternities, it should not color Animal House’s overall cinematic greatness. After all, 1978 was a very different time.”

See?

You can make up all the crap you want. Chances are the person you’re talking to hasn’t read War & Peace, so you’re in the clear. They’re going to think you’re really smart. (And, a little annoying. They’re probably right about that.)

(Tolstoy would agree with me about Animal House, by the way.)

Waffles or Pancakes?

Waffles. Those little squares are absolute perfection … each one waiting to be turned into a delicious little syrup pond.

By Dvortygirl, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Waffles perfected the one fatal pancake flaw … “syrup slide,” where your syrup slides off the pancake and onto the plate, making it useless.

When we start eating ice cream out of “pancake cones” you can argue with me.

By MarkBuckawicki, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

Until then, waffles.

This next question comes from WebMD – the popular health website – which really sent me this question by email:

No.

(See how easy this experting thing is?)

This post is just pretext to get us to ask about that tweet you sent last month, isn’t it?

I’m so glad you asked!

Here it is …

Orioles All-Star outfielder, and crossword puzzle clue, Adam Jones saw my tweet, proclaimed my puzzle “coo” (baseball, hip, twitter-speak for “cool”) and retweeted it to his 168,000 followers.

I was viral in a very small, but satisfying, way, for nearly an hour.

When not tweeting, Adam Jones plays center field for the Baltimore Orioles.

Yes, I ultimately finished the puzzle, but I needed brainiac Editor/Husband’s help to do it …

Finally, two baseball questions.

Should Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball be lifted?

Of course not.

Rules are rules.

In 1989, Pete Rose accepted a lifetime ban from baseball because of his gambling.

In 2007, he admitted publicly that he bet on the Reds “every single night” when he was manager of the team.

Here’s baseball’s Rule 21(d) that is posted prominently in every major and minor league clubhouse:

“Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.”

I think we’re done here.

What will Hartford’s Minor League team be called?

Earlier this month, we got to vote on a new name for the Rockies’ AA affiliate. I came around on Yard Goats, because it refers to the little engine that shuffles cars around in a rail yard.

Yard Goats won!

By Lexcie, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Just think, a steam whistle can blow for every Hartford home run!

Tolstoy coined the term “Yard Goat” in War & Peace, you know. Crazy isn’t it?

But, he did.

I mean, hey, prove me wrong.

The Babe & Bruce. Shreveport, 1921.

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

When Ruth, the mighty Soccaneer,

Stands up to sock the ball,

The throng is bound to raise a cheer

No matter what befall.

It thrills the vast and noisy crowd

To see a four-base clout.

And yet the cheer is just as loud

When someone strikes him out.

~ John B. Sheridan, Sportswriter | March 1921

Babe Ruth, 1921. Public Domain.

When Babe Ruth, the home run hero of 1920, arrived at Yankees’ spring training in Shreveport, Louisiana in March 1921, he was out of shape and overweight.

He was, The New York Times said, the “Bulky Babe.”

The Sporting News was less poetic. The Babe “is fat and is working like a coal heaver to get in shape.”

(See, Panda Bear, you weren’t the first chubby to turn up at spring training.)

But, that didn’t stop several hundreds of Shreveport fans from turning out to greet Babe Ruth at the train station when he arrived in town on March 5. Shreveport had America’s biggest celebrity in their midst.

New York Times, 3/6/21

He fought his way past the cheering crowd and made his way to his hotel, The Sporting News reported, “where he was sat upon by scores of kids, who followed him to his room and were not satisfied until all had shaken hands and the Babe had shown them how he hit home runs by batting imaginary balls over the chandelier.”

The Babe, looking all jaunty. 1921, Shreveport

Public Domain

Babe Ruth in Shreveport, March 1921.

During his month in Shreveport, the citizens showered him with gifts, and turned out at games – and practices – by the thousands. A local Essex car dealer gave him a car to use during spring training. The license plate read simply: “Babe Ruth’s Essex.” (“Babe Ruth’s Essex” was found one morning abandoned in the middle of the street when Babe rode off with someone else during a night of carousing.)

Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3/13/21

A 1921 Essex.

But, I’m just using the Sultan of Swat to lure you in. He’s not the star of this post. Bruce Price is.

Price was 24, a local, pitching for the Shreveport Gassers, a Texas League team.

Think of the Gassers as the Washington Generals to the Yankees’ Harlem Globetrotters. Just a small town practice squad for the Yankees to feast on that spring.

Two years ago, I wrote about unusual spring training spots, including Shreveport.

Last November, I found this comment at the bottom of the post:

It’s easy to write about Babe and the ’21 Yankees who, historian Robert Creamer wrote, “roared into that Louisiana city like cowboys coming to town on Saturday night.”

Broads. And booze. Abandoned cars. And Ruthian home runs that sailed over outfield walls and into the streets. That broke the windows of passing street cars.

(I had you at broads and booze, didn’t I?)

But, maybe it’s time to write about the Shreveport pitcher who got the Babe out.

So I sent an email to Janet Johnson who wrote me right back.

She confirmed that it was her grandfather, Bruce Price, “Papa Bruce” to family, who struck out Babe Ruth.

Bruce Price. Courtesy of Janet Johnson.

He was a smallish pitcher – maybe 5’8” and 150 pounds or so. A righty.

“My dad says Papa would go pitch for teams in little towns in the area. He also said he played baseball at Louisiana Tech one year but never went to class,” Johnson said.

Price had a wicked curve. He told folks he “could throw a baseball and make it curve through the crook of a stovepipe without ever touching metal.”

Like this.

It may have been that curveball that buckled the Babe.

But, the box score from that March 12, 1921 game, like many family memories, had gotten a little fuzzy with age.

NYT March 13 1921 Yankees Shreveport Box Score

The New York Times, 3/13/21

Fun Fact: That’s not how you spell Shreveport.

Turns out, Price hadn’t struck the Babe out twice. But, there’s still a story to tell.

The Gassers starting pitcher was shelled that day, giving up six runs over three innings. Price came in in relief, pitching the 4th, 5th, and 6th. He pitched three scoreless innings and faced Ruth once, getting him to hit a weak infield grounder that Price easily fielded.

If you want to quibble about a strike out’s value over an infield out, go ahead. An out’s an out, if you ask me, and I think Price did Ruth a favor by making him leg out a play to first. After all, it was early in the spring and Ruth still had 20 pounds to lose.

The fans had come to see Babe Ruth, but as the game went on they began to cheer their hometown boys instead, especially when the Gassers got Ruth out.

Despite Ruth’s 0-for-5 day, the Yankees won 7-3.

Bruce Price’s ERA? 0.00

In 1983, Wiley Hilburn of The Shreveport Times wrote that the Babe asked about Price after the game. “Who is that narrow [bastard]?” and later told a reporter, “I like that little Price.”

Decades later, Price described how he pitched Ruth: “It was inside low and inside high. … He would take one step with his left foot toward me, and then bring his right foot around to swing. I’d hesitate with my throw and try to throw his timing off.”

The Babe bounced back the next day in Ruthian style, going 6-for-6 – three homers, three singles – and the Yankees stepped on the Gassers 21-3.

The New York Times, 3/14/21

(The Gassers did finally take one from the Yankees, 3-2 in 11 innings, on the last game of the spring.)

Price played a few more years on local teams, got married to a girl named Maggie, had four children, farmed, and drove a school bus.

“He never passed up an opportunity to go fishing,” Johnson told me. “He absolutely loved being out on the lake — any lake — but would not eat fish at all. He liked his coffee so strong that my mom would boil some water to dilute hers when we came to visit.”

He rarely missed church on Sunday, played the harmonica, and raised a family that stayed close to home.

“Everyone who knew Bruce just loved him,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s father – Price’s eldest son – retired back to the old home place not so long ago. The original house is gone now. “It had a porch across the front and a steep tin roof,” Johnson said. “I can’t remember exactly when they got a bathroom, but it was in my lifetime. Before that, it was a trip to the outhouse, and a bath in a tin wash tub in the back room, with well water heated on the stove. My uncle Bob lived nearby his whole life, and my two aunts married Air Force men but eventually came back home. Uncle Bob died a few years ago, but all of them have stayed close to the church and community, as have many of my cousins.”

Baseball still runs in the family. Many of Bruce Price’s children, grandchildren, and, today, great-grandchildren played in high school and some into college. One great-grandson – also a righty pitcher – played at Southern Mississippi about 10 years ago, was drafted by the Kansas City Royals, and played a season in the minors before being sidelined with an injury.

Bruce Price died on March 25, 1983. He was 86.

Babe Ruth hit 714 homeruns over 22 seasons. He was a career .342 hitter. It took a great pitcher to get the Babe out.

Bruce Price was one of them.

Snow Day Checklist: Read. Vote.

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

There are all sorts of things to do on a Snow Day.

(Even a “Snow Day” that, so far, has no snow in it. Still, all my clients have cancelled, so, unlike postmen who are rarely slowed by sleet and snow — or the promise of sleet and snow — I’m not working.)

Do not suggest that I shovel snow on a Snow Day.

Shoveling is work. I am not working on my Snow Day.

The first acceptable thing one can do on a Snow Day is read.

Like what you’re doing right now.

Congratulations. You may check “Read” off of your Snow Day to-do list.

Today, March 5, happens to be World Book Day. (Happy World Book Day, Blog Reader!)

In 1803 (or so), John Moore wrote that reading is preferable to “horses, hounds, the theatres, cards, and the bottle.”

(Pity about the bottle thing, but, oh well.)

Note that Moore specifically did not say that books are preferable to baseball. That baseball did not exist, under the name “baseball” anyway, in 1803 is a smug formality. And, I’m having none of your smugness on my Snow Day.

Reading, Moore tells us, “preserves us from bad company.” This is the polite way of saying that reading protects you from dolts.

Congratulations. We are not dolts.

When Billy [Martin] was a high school junior a teacher asked him to read a book for a report. He admitted that he had never read a book and suggested he never intended to change.

“What will you do with your life?” the teacher asked.

“I’m going to be a baseball player,” he said. “Baseball players don’t have to read books.”

The teacher reached into a shelf and pulled out a book. “Here,” she said, “Read this.”

The book was Lou Gehrig: Quiet Hero by Frank Graham.

“I read it from cover to cover in one sitting,” Martin said years later. “It had a strong influence on my life.”

~ All Roads Lead To October, by Maury Allen, 2010

Billy Martin, Yankee. 1952 World Series. Baseball Digest. Public Domain

See. Even Yankees know the value of reading.

Books, Moore writes, “can be enjoyed in the worst weather.”

So, should the snow actually arrive, I’m set.

Another thing one can do on a Snow Day …

Vote.

Once again, I trot out my rusty political science degree to promote our democracy’s voting tradition. A proud tradition that allows and encourages anyone to vote, except children, felons, and people who disagree with the party in power. Women and people of color will note that our voting tradition has not been a particularly long one.

Let’s vote!

Voting for Presidents and Members of Congress and marijuana and county bonds is fun, but voting for baseball team names is even funner. (“Funner” is not a word, no matter what an 8-year-old says, but it should be.)

Hartford, Connecticut is seeking a name for its Double A minor league team – a Colorado Rockies affiliate – which is moving from New Britain this season.

They need our help. They want us to vote.

Sure the Hartford Praying Mantis is hipster-cute. But, what can you do with a name like that? The Praying Manti? Mantises? Mantes?

That’s a mess.

Honey Badger is stupid.

So are Whirlybirds (let’s go, Turbine Ventilators!), Choppers (popular with dentists), and River Hogs (which are native to Africa, not Hartford).

whirlybird turbine ventilator

Helicopters are not as fun as turbine ventilators.

By Jason Pratt, permission: CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

River hogs, no stick. (Might be ok fielding bunts.)

I like Screech Owls.

Pignoli, Screech Owl at the Wildlife Center of Virginia

They are adorable in a Pharrell-in-a-big-hat-singing-“Happy”-before-it-got-played-out-and-people-started-posting-annoying-singalongs-on-YouTube sort of way.

(The Milwaukee Brewers version will always be sweet because … Hank the Dog!)

Editor/Husband likes the Hartford Yard Goats.

Which I thought was stupid, because who knew that people in Hartford had goats in their yard and that it was a thing?

I clearly do not read enough, because had I read a book about trains I would know that a Yard Goat is a squat, little locomotive that lives in a rail yard and shuffles the cars around.

By Lexcie, permission: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Yard Goat. Never runs out of the base paths.

Now that’s adorable.

Editor/Husband wins.

Vote Yard Goats. Vote here.

(Or Screech Owls.)

(Just not Honey Badgers. For the love of God, no.)

Postscript: This conversation just happened.

Baseball Bloggess: My headline is boring. Can you fix it?

Editor/Husband: Do you want to put a colon in?

BB: Yup. That sexy-ed it up.

And, It’s Not Even Spring

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

It’s pretty cheap to complain about the snow when there are only a few inches outside.

I’m sure someone in New England has just come in from shoveling snow off of his roof – again – and is cursing me for complaining.

(Fun Fact: If my local paper was using baseball players to measure snowfall, we’d be moving.)

Pitchers and catchers reported to Florida and Arizona this week. The NCAA college baseball season began last weekend. Because, when it comes to baseball, spring begins in winter.

I guess we’re always trying to speed up baseball.

There may not be eight feet of snow on the ground here, but there was still enough to run the University of Virginia baseball team down to Charleston, South Carolina this weekend to play its first “home series” of the season 450 miles away from home.

Virginia, snow. South Carolina, no snow.

This meant no baseball for me this weekend.

Charleston, South Carolina was one of the first locations to serve as a big league spring training spot when the Philadelphia Phillies set up shop there in the spring of 1886. (The Chicago White Stockings put together their own spring training in Hot Springs, Arkansas that same year.)

Philadelphia Phillies in Charleston, SC, Spring 1886. ~ Public Domain Image

In 1884, Cap Anson, of the White Stockings, told Sporting Life magazine that early spring workouts in a warmer climate would “relieve the men of all stiffness, soreness, and rheumatism, and [allow the White Stockings to] start off with a physically strong team.”

But, really, the goal was simply to dry out the drinkers.

And, slim down the overeaters.

Apparently, every generation has its Pablo Sandoval.

(The Chicago White Stockings of 1886, incidentally, eventually became the Chicago Cubs and not the White Sox, as you might have assumed. See, baseball can teach you something even in February.)

The snow is melting today. It never lasts long in Virginia.

And, the University of Virginia is 7-0 this season.

But, it took a historic 18 innings — and five hours — this afternoon to notch that last win versus Marist down in Charleston.

uva tweet1 uva tweet2 uva tweet3 uva tweet4

And, it’s not even spring.

Valentine, Moonlight, and Jack

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

I suppose we all have lost a valentine or two.

So, I guess it’s no surprise that baseball lost Bob Valentine.

I don’t mean Bobby Valentine, who played in the 1970s and went on to manage the Mets (quite well) and the Red Sox (not well at all).

I mean Robert (Bob) Valentine who played for the New York Mutuals for one game in 1876.

Just one game at catcher and three at-bats. No hits.

Righty, lefty? Who knows? Fly out, ground out, struck out? Don’t know that either.

Place of birth, date of death, anything? Nothing.

A name. And, a line in a box score.

Bob Valentine is just three obscure at-bats in a game the Mutuals lost 7-4 to the Boston Red Caps on May 20, 1876.

Baseball fans and historians pride themselves on keeping track of every play by every player, in every game. I estimate that 22 percent of the internet cloud today is storage for baseball statistics. (I base this estimate on nothing more than I chose the number 22 because it was Jim Palmer’s number.)

palmer22

What happened to Bob?

The New York Mutuals were one of baseball’s first professional teams, a powerhouse for many seasons, and had just joined the brand new National League in 1876. Just a few days before Valentine’s debut (and farewell), the Mutuals executed major league baseball’s first triple play.

That was the highlight of an otherwise dismal season. They went 21-35 and were permanently expelled from the league when they refused to make their last road trip of the season. That was the end of the Mutuals.

And, really, good riddance, because in 1865 the Mutuals were also the first team to fix a game.

But, back to Bob. Where the hell did he go?

I’ve started and stopped this post several times, in the hope that Bob would turn up.

He never does.

Bob?

Could he be the Robert Valentine who goes on to open a muslin underwear factory in Jackson, Michigan?

Was he the cotton mill worker in Tennessee?

Or, did he become the jeweler in New York?

Maybe he was the divorced and retired Bob Valentine who moves in with his son and son’s family in Duncannon, Pennsylvania sometime around 1920.

Did he become the clay miner in Woodbridge, New Jersey?

Or, the fireman in Philadelphia?

They were all Robert Valentine. Their ages are close enough to fit. Maybe he is one of them.

Who knows?

But, Bob Valentine has it over the 984 others who played just one big league game. Because his name is Valentine. And, every February someone like me looks him up.

Oh sure, he’s no Moonlight Graham. Graham also played just one big league game. In 1905, for the New York Giants.

More precisely, he played two innings. And, never had an at-bat.

A bunch of decades later, W.P. Kinsella stumbles across Graham in a baseball book, is smitten by the name “Moonlight”, and mentions him in his book Shoeless Joe. Next thing you know Burt Lancaster is playing Moonlight Graham in Field of Dreams.

No one forgets Moonlight Graham anymore.

“It was like coming this close to your dreams.”

(Fun Fact: Field of Dreams is not the best baseball movie ever. Have I mentioned that I was a “crowd extra” in Major League II?)

Look, it’s me in the crowd!

But, let’s set aside the Valentines and Moonlights. Let’s honor a player who is truly obscure. Someone, like, say, Jack Smith, who played one game for the Detroit Tigers in May 1912. I picked him at random out of the list of 985 because his name was Smith.

Come to find out, Jack Smith was an 18-year-old college kid from St. Joe’s in Philadelphia hired by the Tigers for one game when they were in Philly playing the A’s, and needed to quickly replace the regular Tigers who had gone on strike to protest Ty Cobb’s suspension for jumping into the stands and beating up a disabled fan a few days earlier.

Smith was paid $25 (or $10 depending on who you believe), played five innings at third, and had either no at-bats (baseball-reference.com) or one at-bat (Associated Press box score of the game). The Tigers lost that game, 24-2.

Jack Smith wasn’t even his real name. His real name was John Joseph Coffey. I hope he changed it that day because he was ashamed to be a scab.

(Pun Fact: A very short career in the majors is called “a cup of coffee.” In Jack Smith’s case, it was a “cup of Coffey coffee.”)

In any event, I now know more about Smith than poor old Bob Valentine.

Which is a shame. This being Valentine’s Day and all.

11 Minutes. No Football.

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

How will you spend your Sunday?

Yeh, I know. There’s a “super” bowl on.

I know all about your Patriots and your Seahawks. And, your Marshawn Lynch. And, your “Deflategate.” I learned all about it on Saturday Night Live last night. I know about these things.

Today’s Super Bowl will take up hours and hours and hours of airtime. Yet, if you add up the actual football action? Eleven minutes.

Between the Budweiser commercials, the broadcasters jabbering, and Katy Perry, there will be 11 minutes of actual football … 67 minutes of football players just standing around … 17 minutes of replays … and more than an hour of beer and truck commercials. (And, probably a concussion or two.)

SportsGrid broke it down in this easy-to-follow pie chart:

Fun Fact: The average baseball game? 18 minutes of action. That’s 67 percent MORE baseball, people.

I gave up on football a few years back with the ugly revelations of the game’s concussion crisis and the National Football League’s irresponsible inaction.

So, I won’t be spending my 11 minutes watching football tonight.

And, just maybe, you won’t be either. So, here are some things we can do with the 11 minutes we just freed up!

** Make Chocolate Chip Cookies for the nice fella who fixed the coat rack in your Yoga studio. (Or, for any nice person you know.)

Bake for just 11 minutes in a 350 oven.

** Do Yoga.

If you’re in the groove, you’ll squeeze 11 rounds of Sun Salutations into your 11 minutes. (Cat preferred, but always optional.)

** Listen to Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row”.

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk

What?

When you’re done, you can tell me what the hell he’s singing about for 11 minutes. But, it’s a good song, even if I don’t get it.

** Read War & Peace.

** Read a CHAPTER of War & Peace.

Just 300 pages left.

** Break in your new baseball glove before heading to Spring Training.

But, if you’re going to microwave it, heed the advice of former Twin-Angel-Tiger and current Twin (again) Torii Hunter who warns you that if you nuke it for more than a minute it will start to cook. He also recommends softening it up in your hot tub first. After nuking, give it some good smacks with your baseball bat.

Just 18 days ‘til Pitchers and Catchers report. So let’s get those gloves in the hot tub, Birdland!

.013 Seconds ~ A Brain Test

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

Scientists recently discovered that the human brain can fully process an image that has been seen for just .013 seconds.

I don’t know how long .013 seconds is, except that it’s probably the fastest thing my brain can do. (My brain can take hours — hours — to decide what it wants for dinner. Thank you, Editor/Husband for bringing home carryout.)

In comparison, it takes .4 seconds for a 91 MPH fastball to go from pitcher to catcher (assuming it actually makes it to the catcher and doesn’t end up in the bleachers … but you get the point).

In the time it takes a young college pitcher to wing his fastball over the plate, my brain will process some 30 images.

Including this one from the University of Virginia during the Cavalier’s “Fall Ball” season last October.

Here’s your test. Look at it for just .013 seconds. Then answer the question below. (No cheating, although it’s ok to click on it to enlarge it on your screen.)

In .013 seconds, your brain processed the image.

So, how many major league scouts with radar guns did your brain see?

The correct answer is …

Six.

(Or, seven if you counted that one in the lower right corner, which, I believe belongs to UVa and not a scout. But, if you counted it, good for you — I’m giving you credit.)

This concludes your brain test.

These photos were taken on October 5, 2014 in Charlottesville, Virginia at UVa’s Davenport Field. The pitchers the scouts had come to watch and clock — Juniors Nathan Kirby and Brandon Waddell.

Both lefties. Everyone loves a lefty.

UVa Junior and Pre-Season All American Nathan Kirby.

UVa Junior and Pre-Season All American Brandon Waddell.

Just 14 days until the start of the NCAA baseball season.

Base-Ball. On Ice.

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

baseball on ice 1

“Games, you remember, go by a kind of immutable rotation – as much a law of childhood as gravitation of the universe. Marbles belong to spring, to the first weeks after the frost is out of the ground. They are a kind of celebration of the season, of the return to bare earth. Tops belong to autumn, hockey to the ice, base-ball to the spring and summer, football to the cold, snappy fall. … If you played ‘em out of time, they didn’t seem right; there was no zest to them.” ~ Walter Prichard Eaton in Scribner’s, 1911.

(Spinning your tops in the spring? Unzesty.)

There wasn’t much snow in Central Virginia yesterday. Just a splatter. Or, maybe someone just emptied a bag of cotton balls out in the yard.

You can’t do much with a snow like that.

By noon it was gone.

Time to get on with spring.

Some people argue that baseball season goes on too long, that games are too long, that everything should just be shortened up, speeded up, and wrapped up quickly.

They are wrong. Who wants more baseball-less winter?

In the 1860s, “Ice Base-Ball” was invented to keep the season going longer.

Ice baseball Washington Park 1884 by C.J. Taylor

“Base Ball On Skates” by C.J. Taylor in Harper’s, 1884

A few teams in Brooklyn – and later in Chicago and Philadelphia – gave it a go and you can find reports of it through the early 1880s or so.

Some games had 15,000 fans out in the cold watching players skate around the bases.

(Imagine this … Billy Butler. Stealing second. On skates.)

(You’ll be thinking about it all day, won’t you? Maybe this baseball on ice thing isn’t such a bad idea.)

Following a game between the New York Mutuals and Atlantics in January 1871, The New York Sun noted that the bases were drawn on the ice with paint and ashes, the ice “was in fine condition” and “[t]he play was good.”

The Mutuals lost, although the reporter neglected to give a final score.

The game’s highlight? “In the second innings, [sic] one of the Mutuals, Shreeves, took the bat and struck at the first ball pitched to him. The next that was seen of him he was lying in a heap on the ice, while his bat was flying over the heads of the spectators.”

Fun.

Just 21 days until pitchers and catchers report to warm places where the only ice is in drinks and wrapped around sore muscles.

In the meantime, here’s a hardy women’s team in Toronto playing baseball on ice in 1924.

The “latest in Winter sports – demands skill, speed and strong clothes.”

(Don’t forget your strong clothes … there’s still a bit of winter left out there.)

Free Baseball: Things Are Not As They Seem Edition

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

It snowed today. Well, just a little …

Can’t see it? Here, look again …

A dusting of snow and, look, a mystery cat!

Well, it snowed enough that lots of things around me closed for the day.

While this smattering of snowlets has closed things in Virginia, it’s the kind of snow that someone in North Dakota wouldn’t even notice. “It snowed last night? Really? I didn’t notice the dusting on top of the other 20 inches that have been here since September.”

I lived in North Dakota for awhile, I should know.

So, this may not seem like anything to you.

But, sometimes things are not as they seem … and this dusting has upended Central Virginia.

And, as a result, hundreds and hundreds of schoolchildren around here got to sleep in, blissfully unaware for one more day of important things like Algebra, adverbs, and Chester Alan Arthur.

Today in “Free Baseball,” three other things that are not quite what they seem.

10th Inning: Tommy Hunter, Retail Dude

Tommy Hunter is one of the Baltimore Orioles longest-tenured and pretty steady (mostly steady, often steady … or, at least, more-often-steady-than-not steady, 2.97-ERA-in-2014 steady) bullpen relievers. I’m soft on the boys of the bullpen. It’s a thankless job being a reliever. Even when you’re great – or at least steady more often than not – you’re unheralded. You’re probably never going to win a Cy Young (although occasionally relievers do), you’re probably not going to be an MVP of anything, and, apparently, unless it’s the 8th or 9th inning, you’re not going to be recognized, even by your own fans.

Tommy went “undercover” to work at the Orioles Fan Store in nearby York, Pennsylvania last summer.

“The Hunter jerseys just came in, man. I’ve got a couple of them, too.”

Watching him hawk Tommy Hunter jerseys is why I believe bullpens – and the boys who live there – are one of the best parts of the game. Watch here.

We (heart) Tommy.

11th Inning: Baseball in Japan

“It’s not just baseball. It’s something else. It’s something more.”

Each spring dozens of high school teams from around Japan come together at Koshien for a nine-day tournament that captivates the country. Like “the Super Bowl and World Series rolled into one,” it is one of Japan’s biggest sporting events.

In “When 772 Pitches Isn’t Enough,” writer Chris Jones tells the story of Tomohiro Anraku, a 16-year-old pitching phenom from Saibi High School and one of the top baseball prospects in the world, and his appearance at Koshien.

The culture of youth baseball in Japan – the dedication to perfection at any physical or emotional cost – is fascinating. And, when you read of how Anraku throws 772 pitches over five games in nine days, it’s also frightening.

The article first appeared in ESPN: The Magazine, and, most recently, in the 2014 Edition of The Best American Sports Writing. Read here.

12th Inning: The Birth Of A Twins Fan

twins

Because I am a loyal (some would say annoying) Orioles fan, people assume I live in Baltimore. Not true. Although I lived in nearby Northern Virginia for a number of years, I’ve never lived in Baltimore. To get to Camden Yards today takes us a good three hours, usually in terrible I-95 traffic. When we’re about halfway to Baltimore, I will thumb my nose at much-closer Nationals Stadium as we pass by it. I’m a loyal Birdland Girl.

This week Verdun – who writes the fabulous Verdun2’s Blog – explained how he, a lifelong Dodgers fan, inadvertently turned his son into a Minnesota Twins fan simply because of one seemingly innocuous act when his son was small.

It’s a great read. Read here.

(Although, had he handed a Yankees card to his son on that fateful day, it would have been a tragic and sad story. Whew!)

Pitchers and Catchers Report in just 35 Days!

______________________________________

Free Baseball refers to the extra innings that occur after a nine-inning game ends in a tie. For me, “Free Baseball” are the extra things that don’t quite fit into my regular-sized posts.

Share this:

Share this:

When Ruth, the mighty Soccaneer,

Stands up to sock the ball,

The throng is bound to raise a cheer

No matter what befall.

It thrills the vast and noisy crowd

To see a four-base clout.

And yet the cheer is just as loud

When someone strikes him out.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: