The Long Ball

I just finished reading (that is, listening to) a book about the 1975 season:

"The Long Ball: The Summer of '75 -- Spaceman, Catfish, Charlie Hustle, and the Greatest World Series Ever Played"

1975 was the year that I fell in love with baseball. My family and I lived in a suburb of Cleveland at the time, so I was initiated into baseball fandom as a Cleveland Indians fan, but my grandparents, who lived in Columbus, were Reds fans. Their fandom rubbed off on me somewhere along the way, perhaps, or I was simply an Ohio fan.

At any rate, I played 2nd base, so two of my favorite players were Cleveland's Duane Kuiper and Cincinnati's Joe Morgan.

We were visiting my grandparents in Columbus while the Reds were playing the Red Sox that fall. My brothers and I got to see the twitchy batting stance of Morgan, the bizzare wind up of Luis Tiant, and the glorious energy of Pete Rose.

What a great year.

The book begins before the season and ends after it, telling lots of little stories along the way. We get glimpses of McNally's difficulties in Montreal and his sudden retirement, Catfish Hunter's free agency, Johnny Bench's preseason wedding (and post season divorce), asides about future famous people like M. C. Hammer and Ricky Henderson, and more.

It is a fun read for any long time baseball fan.

Indians Fans = Imbecilic Rioters???

I'm a lifelong Indians fan.

The mid 90s were great years. Our management was intent on bringing a champion to Cleveland. Mike Hargrove managed a tremendously talented team of power and speed. It was wonderful.

In '95 we lost to the best team of the decade.  The Braves lost most of their World Series appearances, but they won against us.

In '97, though, we lost against a clearly inferior team. The Florida Marlins had spiked at the right time, carrying them from wild card to champs.

The name of Jose Mesa still makes me shiver.  But he did help get us to the big dance.

Then, many more years of tiny, if any, hopes. Three Cy Young winners later, two of which bolted immediately thereafter, there we were in another World Series, due, in large part, to the brilliant leaderahip of Terry Francona.

Up three games to one, I had the idiotic decency to hope the Cubs could win game 5, at home, for their fans.

Then, they did.

I don't blame myself. Nor do I blame Jose Mesa or Ernst Byner.

Congratulations to the Cubs. I'm happy for you. Briefly.

But don't expect me to be happy for you for long. I know Cubs fans are pitied by many. More of their fans this year appeared to be nothing more than bandwagon fans, joining the chorus only because the team was doing so well. But the True fans, some of whom are relatives and friends of mine, I am happy for.

But enough of the pity. Honestly, any Cubs fan who wasn't a fan in 1945 has NO IDEA the pain felt by Indians fans.  They've NEVER lost a World Series. Many of we true Indians fans have lost 3.  You'll get none of my pity.

Now, to the point.

There's an absurd, politically pointed comic online in the last few days. The point of it is to point out the absurdity of the whining, destructive, imbecilic thugs who are rioting and destroying both public and private property in protest of their felonious, treasonous candidate's election loss. 

Please, do not compare Indians Fans to those godless, spoiled cretans.

Thank you,

M

Oddities as of September 24th (primarily due to the dominance of the NL Central)

No, this isn't a post about Yogi Berra.  He was one of the game's all time greats, and his wit will be missed.

Oddities.  

1. The Kansas City Royals are currently the best team in the AL.  If they were in the NL Central, they would be in 4th place.  Realize this--that means they wouldn't even make it into the NL wild card game.
2. One of the top three teams in MLB through the regular season will be out of the playoffs after the initial NL wild card game.
3. The Yankees, who were not picked by many folks to make it this far, have a good grip on the AL 1st wild card.  
4. The Astros... have the 2nd AL wild card currently, but could easily be overcome by either the Twins (picked by almost nobody) and/or the Angels (who were expected to win the AL West... which is led by the Texas Rangers... who pretty much nobody picked).
5. The Mariners, a popular pick to make it to the World Series, are 5.5 games back in the race for the 2nd wild card.  They are not mathematically eliminated, but there's no way they will get close to winning.
6. The Nationals, an almost universally picked team to win the NL, are 10.5 games back in the race for the 2nd NL wild card.  They have played 151 games.  11 to go.  They are probably going to be mathematically eliminated today.
7. The Cubs, the Lovable Loser Cubs, are 89 - 63, have pretty good lock on the 2nd wild card spot.  The Giants, happily not heading for the playoffs (it is an even year, after all), are 9.5 games back in the wild card race.  It would take a historically brilliant collapse by the Cubs (or Pirates) and a historically tremendous run by the Giants to make alter this.  Not happening.  These Cubs are for real.
8. If the NL Central were a team, they would be in
1. 3rd in the AL East
2. 2nd in the AL Central
3. 2nd in the AL West
4. 2nd in the NL East
5. 4th in the NL Central (circular reasoning?)
6. 2nd in the NL West
9. Nobody sucks as bad as the Phillies.  They are probably going to get 100 L's for the year.  Still, they are a mere 28 games back of first place in their division.  The Brewers and Reds are 32 and 32.5 games back in theirs.  Of course, the Brewers and Reds are in the NL Central.  If they were in the NL East, they'd displace both the Braves and the Phillies.
10. These ten items are not in any special order--just the order in which I wrote them.  Also, my Cleveland Indians are in no special order, but doing better than most Cleveland fans expected them to be after seeing that Sports Illustrated put them on their cover.

So there you go.

Why Kershaw shouldn't have been MVP

Kershaw had a tremendous year.  He well-deserved the Cy Young award, though he pitched in less games than every other pitcher who had votes.  Phenomenal year.  That being said... he didn't deserve the MVP award.  

First, the exceptionally easy part--because he only played in 28 freaking games.

That is the easiest, most reasonable answer there is.  He played in 17.284% of his team's games.  Tell me how that was MVP-able.  How many Dodgers contributed in more games than Kershaw did?  15 position players, 7 relief pitchers, and 2 starting pitchers.

Oops.  Wait a minute.  I was wrong on the 28 games.  According to Baseballreference.com, he only played in 27.  That's 16.6667% of the team's games.

Not very MVP-able.

Innings played?  I'm working on the numbers now, but innings played for the regular players isn't something I'm going to catch exactly.  I'll see how close I can get to real data on that without paying for services, but I'd bet he didn't play the most innings in his 28 games, nor 2nd or 3rd or 4th or 5th most innings during those games.  After all, pitchers need relieved.  He only played a whole game 6 times all year.  Eleven regular players played more complete games in Kershaw's 27 games than he did.  Most of those more than doubled him.

So, not only did he play 1/6th of his teams games, but he didn't even play all of most of those individual games.

Here are the players who played more of Kershaw's games from beginning to end:

Kemp	24
Gonzalez	22
Gordon	22
Puig	21
Ellis	20
Crawford	12
Uribe	12
Ethier	10
Van Slyke	9
Ramirez	7
Turner	7

As you can see, even some scrubs played whole games during Kershaw's games more than he did.

What else happened in Kershaw games?  Here are the leaders for a few categories:

Runs - Ramirez, with 18

Hits - Kemp, with 29

RBIs - Kemp, with 18

Walks - Ellis, with 15

Batting Average (minimum 3.1 x 27 plate appearances, which is 83.7) - Kemp, .326.  

On Base Pct (same minimums) - Kemp, .394

By the way, four other batters had higher batting averages in Kershaw-pitched games:

Crawford, .407, 55 plate appearances

Ethier, .378, 49 pa's

Turner, .353, 37 pa's

Ramirez, .329, 82 pa's--just 1.7 too few to count as the leader
Oh, by the way, Kershaw had 67 plate appearances during his 27 games played.

It is a little shocking to read Kemp's name so frequently, knowing that they dumped him within their own division during the off-season.  That ought to make things interesting when the Padres come to town, eh?

It seems like Kemp may have been the MVP of Kershaw pitched games, really.  Maybe Kershaw will buy him a car.

Pete Rose

If you are reading this, you are likely someone who knows that Pete Rose is attempting to get released from his lifelong banishment from Major League Baseball.  

I like Pete Rose.  Last year I went with a friend to hear Pete talk at an event in Dayton, Ohio.  It was fun, but it was also a little weird.  The man was dressed so casually that you might have thought he had been told about the event only moments before.  But, because Pete is a story teller, he came out without any notes and told us stories that kept our attention for ... I don't remember how long.  Two hours?  

In 1975 I was coming to consciousness of major league sports.  Baseball was, and remains, my first love.  I watch some NFL, especially around playoff time, and even more especially if the teams I love or the players I watch are involved.  I never watch any NBA games, though I'm keeping one eye on the sports pages (online, anyway), because I'm a lifelong Cleveland fan, and, gosh, it is a possibility.  I don't pay any attention to hockey at all.  College basketball I do track a bit, especially as a Buckeye fan.  College football, ditto.

But baseball is my sport love.  And, when I was becoming sport-conscious back in 1975, it was a tremendous year to be an Ohio fan.  I watched the Reds and Red Sox, which meant watching Pete Rose hustle, Joe Morgan twitch at bat, and Luis Tiant's bizarre windup.  Though Morgan was my favorite back then, I wish now that he would never ever ever ever talk politics.  Kind of spoils his good image in my head.  

But Pete?  Man... sometimes you wish he would just keep quiet.  

His stories are great.  I've read stories of him in various books over the years.  One of my favorites was of how much fun he had in game 6, even though the Reds lost that one, back in 1975.  His child-like love for the game, even as his team loses a critical game, was a beautiful thing to me.  His hustle was wonderful.  

When I look at his lifetime numbers, I can't help but seeing that he was essentially an accumulator.  But what Hall of Famer wasn't?  Rare are the guys who, like Ruth, could have had Hall of Fame careers if they had played 7 to 10 years less than they did.  Pete wouldn't have.  

So what.

As a ball player I love the man.

But, honestly, if he gets released from this "capital punishment" at this point, how can we not question the integrity of the game?  There's far more evidence of Pete's wrong-doing, even from his own lips, than there ever has been for Shoeless Joe Jackson.  How about we forgive Shoeless first--a genuine Hall of Fame caliber player.  

Sorry, man.  

Craig Biggio

Understand, first of all, that I am a Cleveland Indian fan.  Nothing shakes that, even when ownership doesn't sign star players, because owners are cheap.  Nothing changes that, even when ownership fires the best manager Cleveland had since the 40s--Mike Hargrove.  Nothing changes that, even when ... etc.

Right now, our ownership does seem to be trying to put together a winner, even though we don't spend the money that Detroit does, let alone Los Angeles (either team) or New York or Boston.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Craig Biggio.

I am definitely a fan.

Here are some of the things I love about Biggio:

• Spent his whole career with one team, even though
• That team wasn't in a large market
• That team was consistently unremarkable
• Free Agency gave him opportunities to go elsewhere ("Several times, Craig had opportunities to go elsewhere, and he chose to stay in Houston," said former Astros owner Drayton McLane)
• Doubles.  Probably my favorite hit in baseball.  Biggio was prolific at this, the most hustle-oriented hit in baseball.
• Scrappy hustler
• Team player
• Blue-collar type of player

I could probably go on with that list, but let's skip ahead to some numbers.  After all, this is baseball.

• Led the league in games played 3 times
• Led the league in plate appearances 5 times, having more than 700 in 9 different seasons, peaking at 749 in 1999.  You might say, "So what, he led the league in plate appearances".  That, and his tendency to play every game in which his team got on the field, speaks volumes to his dependability and consistency--qualities real men still respect.
• Led the league in runs twice, including 1997, when he had 146.  Had 100+ runs scored 8 times. 
• Led the league in doubles 3 times, including the two times when he topped 50.  Also, had 40+ doubles 7 times.
• Led the league in HBP 5 times, having 20+ six times, topping it all off in 1997 with 34.  Not impressed?  You try being beaned by major league pitching 34 times in one summer.  Let me know how you survive.  By the way, he was beaned 3 times by fireballer Kerry Wood.  
• Gold glove winner at 2B from 1994 to 1997
• Played more games at 2B than anyone else in the league for 7 consecutive years
• 5th all time in Doubles.  He beat people like Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, George Brett, ... well, everybody but Tris Speaker (22 seasons), Pete Rose (24 seasons), Stan Musial (22 seasons), and Ty Cobb (24 seasons).  By the way, Biggio played 20 seasons.  NOBODY else in the top ten of doubles on the all time list played as few
• 2nd all time in HBP.  Did you hear that?  More HBPs than anybody who ever played the game, except for Hughie Jennings.  Hughie - 287, Biggio - 285.  Hughie played from 1891 to 1918.  Eighteen years of... not the fastest pitches.

Oh, I missed one.  Craig also led the league in SB once, with 39, in 1994.

Some are referring to Biggio as "a compiler", which is fine.  Most of the people in the Hall of Fame played long careers.  None but four of those, though, hit more doubles than Craig Biggio.  

Congratulations on your entry to the Hall of Fame, Mr Biggio.  I'm a fan.

Adam Dunn

Let's start with some basic numbers.

14 seasons

2001 games played
8328 ABs
462 HRs
1168 RBIs
1317 BBs
2379 Ks
.364 OBP

Do we need to say his batting average?  Oh, okay.  

.237 batting average.

Alright, that's not as putrescent as I expected.

Some other things:

Voted 4th in the NL Rookie of the Year voting, even though he only played in 66 games in his rookie season, 2001.   His WAR that year was 2.1.  Jimmy Rollings, who came in 3rd, and played in 158 games, had a WAR of 2.4.  First place was a little known fella named Albert Pujols, who played like a veteran.  

Okay, I have to go over Albert's numbers from that rookie year.  Sheesh.

161 games, 590 ABs, 112 Rs, 194 hits, 37 HRs, 130 RBIs, 69 BBs, 93 SOs, a batting average of .329, OBP of .403, slugging at .610, OPS at 1.013.  

Yes, that was absurd.  Man, I love that guy.

In 2nd place was Roy Oswalt, who was 14-3 with a 2.73 ERA.  Started only 20 games.

So, as you can see, Dunn was up against some tough competition, so getting 4th after playing only 66 games was doing pretty well.

From 2004 to 2008, Adam hit 40+ HRs every season.  In fact, for the latter 4 years, he hit exactly 40.  During all those years, though, he never led the league.  He did, sadly, lead the league in strike outs four times--including three in a row from 2004 to 2006.  His epic strike out season, though, was 2012 with the Chicago White Sox, in which he hit.. er... didn't hit anything 222 times, leading the AL.  That same year, though, he led the league in walks, too, with 105.  He led his league in BBs twice, but crossed 100 8 times in his career, with a high of 128 in 2002.  

Baseball Reference.com shows he was an all-star twice (sophomore season, as well as 2012), was 28th in voting for MVP in 2004, 26th in 2005, and 21st in 2010.  

~ ~ ~

A few possibly interesting things for the stat-heads out there. 

All time high strike out seasons?  Adam has the 2nd highest, ties for 7th highest, ties for 13th highest, owns the 15th, ties for 17th, then doesn't make another appearance until he ties for 48th.

All time HR seasons?  Tied for 96th with a host of players, makes another appearance at 224th, then ties with himself repeatedly as well as many others at 263rd.

His best season of BBs tied for 68th all time.

His best season of HRs per at bat came in 139th.

~ ~ ~

The Dayton Dragons had Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns on their team one day when some friends and I attended a game.  It may have been in 2000, maybe 2001.  I don't remember.  It seems to me they were both in MLB within a year.  

Dunn, affectionately known as "Big Donkey" to both fans and peers, was always a fan favorite.  When you hit epic home runs, you tend to be loved by the fans, but it was not just hitting HRs that made him a favorite.  He always seemed to have a good attitude, even during his career worst year of 2011.  Maybe he didn't, really, but as a fan, looking from afar, he seemed to carry himself well during what may have been the worst MLB season in the history of man.  

Then, the very next year, he bounced back with 110 Rs, 41 HRs, 96 RBIs, 105 BBs, and an appearance as an All Star.  

Loved.  That's about it.

I won't be the only guy wishing that he would hang around another year or two.  His bat has the same pop in it as it always has, and I'd love to see him get to 500.  Without that historic number, he probably has no chance at the Hall of Fame.  

But here is a bit of a case for him.

He is one of only 11 players in MLB history to hit 40+ HRs in six or more seasons.  If you have any baseball history in your head at all, you'll know every one of these names: Ruth (11), Killebrew (8), Aaron (8), Fathead Bonds (8, 5 of which were after he was juiced), ARod (8, I don't know how long he was juiced), Griffey Jr (7), Sosa (7, when wasn't he juiced?), McGwire (6, ditto), Jim Thome (6), Albert Pujols (6), and our friend Adam Dunn (6).

How about an even more exclusive list?  There have been only eight players in MLB history to hit 40+ HRs in five consecutive seasons.  Again, you'll know all of these (and I'll refrain from juicing comments this time):  Ruth (7), ARod (6), Sosa (6), Ralph Kiner (5), Duke Snider (5), Griffey Jr (5), Barry Bonds (5), and Adam Dunn (5). 

Ah, well.  Chances are these tidbits won't influence HOF voters.  [Sigh]

In the end, he had finally been on a team that made it to the post season... but the A's lost the wildcard game, never having put him in the lineup.  

You can follow Adam Dunn at  twitter.com/adamdunn_44.

I know I will be.  As Adam Dunn walks quietly into the sunset, I cannot help recognizing the quiet.  He apparently had this one thing against him--he wasn't a Yankee.

Thanks, Mr Dunn.  You were fun to watch.

Read more about him here, see his stats here.