Trivia/History thread

[WBT 20253]

1 hour ago, WBT said:

Rickey Henderson has the modern single-season stolen base record with 130 in 1972.  He was also caught stealing 42 times that season.  >1 attempt per game.

*1982

[Beau Vine 53718]

JoePos on Maddux:

Quote

OK, so let’s start out with some Greg Maddux basics. He pitched from 1986, when he was 20 years old (he was the youngest player in baseball that year and the youngest Chicago Cubs pitcher in 25 years to get a win), to 2008, when he was 42 (and threw six very Maddux-like innings for the Dodgers against the Giants).

In that span, Maddux:

• Won 355 games, second behind only Warren Spahn since Deadball.

• Won 15-plus games 17 years in a row, and this included two strike-affected seasons. That is the record.

• Struck out 3,371 batters, despite never caring much about strikeouts.

• Walked fewer than 1,000 batters in more than 5,000 innings

• Became the first pitcher to win four consecutive Cy Youngs.

• Became the first pitcher since Walter Johnson to have back-to-back sub-1.75 ERA seasons.

• Won 18 Gold Gloves.

• Set the National League record by going 72⅓ innings without issuing a walk (and he did this in 2001, when offense was, you know, out of control).

You could go on and on like this. I mean, just take the “walked fewer than 1,000 batters” fact. There have been seven pitchers since Deadball who threw 5,000 innings in a career. Here are their walk totals:

1. Nolan Ryan, 2,795

2. Steve Carlton, 1,833

3. Phil Niekro, 1,809

4. Warren Spahn, 1,434

5. Gaylord Perry, 1,379

6. Don Sutton, 1,343

7. Greg Maddux, 999

Or you can compare his walks-per-nine against the Hall of Fame-caliber starters of his time:

1. Randy Johnson, 3.3

2. Tom Glavine, 3.1

3. Roger Clemens, 2.9

4. John Smoltz, 2.6

5. Pedro Martinez, 2.4

6. Mike Mussina, 2.0

7. Greg Maddux, 1.8

He did it his way. That was the thing that kept coming back to me, again and again, as I thought about what more I can say about Maddux. He didn’t pitch like anybody else. I mean, you look at virtually just about any other pitcher, and there’s a template, a model. John Smoltz seemed like Jack Morris and Clayton Kershaw seemed like Sandy Koufax and Pedro Martinez seemed like a blend of Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal, and Mike Mussina seemed like Fergie Jenkins.

 

 

Maddux was focused on one goal: getting 27 outs. (Ron Vesely/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

Maybe some of those comparisons are very surface-level, but there aren’t even surface-level comparisons for Maddux. You might know the story: When Maddux was young in Las Vegas, he was coached by a longtime baseball guy named Ralph Meder. And Meder had the most unusual advice for Maddux: He basically said, “When you get in trouble, you should throw softer, not harder.” It’s exactly the opposite of what young pitchers believed then, and it’s certainly the opposite of what young pitchers believe now. But Maddux believed him. And throughout his career, in the biggest moments, when the moment was tight, Maddux would pull out some version of his changeup, because he was sure that it was movement that mattered, not the velocity.

“For me,” he told me once, “it all comes down to the last 10 feet.”

The last 10 feet. He didn’t care how fast the pitch came out of his hand. He didn’t care about the first 50 feet, 6 inches of the baseball’s journey. What he cared about was that when the ball was 10 feet away from the hitter, the pitch had to look like something it was not. The whole thing was an elaborate magic trick. I uncovered this wonderful quote from Reggie Sanders.

“If it looks like a ball, it will be a strike. And if it looks like a strike, it will be a ball.”

There’s something else he told me years and years ago that I had forgotten: He didn’t care at all about strike one. I mean, that’s an exaggeration, he obviously cared some—but he was pretty dismissive of the whole idea that an at-bat is determined by first-pitch strikes. He said, “To me, a 1-0 count vs. an 0-1 count is really not much of a difference.”

Instead, he said the THIRD pitch of the bat is usually the key pitch. More often than not, see, the third pitch will determine whether or not you can get two strikes on the hitter. And if Maddux got two strikes on you, honestly, you were done. In his long career—so this includes the last five or so years when Maddux was pretty average—batters hit just .160 and slugged just .202 against him with two strikes, no matter how many balls in the count.

Slash numbers vs. Maddux with two strikes:

0-2: .136/.152/.188
1-2: .151/.157/.202
2-2: .175/.179/.242
3-2: .187/.376/.279

You were not going to do anything against Maddux with two strikes unless he chose to walk you—which he would sometimes do. He has said the secret to facing Barry Bonds was to never, ever let him beat you in the critical moments. He walked Bonds 23 times, almost double the number that he walked anyone else. He would walk Tony Gwynn, too, when the moment was wrong; Gwynn hit .429 against Maddux and never once struck out. He also didn’t hit a home run, and he drove in just nine runs in 103 plate appearances.

Maddux liked to talk about how he had to get 27 outs. That was his job. It didn’t matter to him WHICH 27 outs he got. Knowing that Tony Gwynn and Barry Bonds were unlikely outs, he often preferred looking elsewhere. He is surely the greatest pitcher to never even come close to throwing a no-hitter.* and I think that was, in part, a mindset.

*I guess he came SORT OF close against Houston in 1995; he threw seven no-hit innings before giving up a home run to Jeff Bagwell. But that’s not all that close. Other great pitchers who never threw an official no-hitter: Roger Clemens (kind of shocking), Pedro Martinez (his nine perfect innings against the Padres in 1995 were wrecked in the 10th) and Steve Carlton (he threw SIX one-hitters).

By mindset, I mean this: I don’t think Maddux saw a no-hitter as his ideal game. Nolan Ryan, yeah, every game he was trying for a no-hitter. Every single batter was an important battle for Nolan. But for Maddux? The ideal game was one where he took all risk out of the game, and found the surest 27 outs.

And so, a one-out single to Tony Gwynn with nobody on base was perfectly fine with him. In fact, he was happy to get it out of the way. Maddux and Gwynn had very few long battles—only one of their 103 battles went seven pitches. Thirty-three of them—about one-third of the plate appearances—were over within two pitches.

This brings us to Jason Lukehart’s fine invention: the “Maddux.” As you might know, a Maddux is a nine-plus inning shutout in fewer than 100 pitches. I say, “nine plus,” but there has only been one extra-inning Maddux… and it actually wasn’t thrown by Maddux. It was thrown by Roy Halladay in 2003 against Detroit—10 innings, 3 hits, one walk, 99 pitches.

Maddux, of course, has the most Madduxes on record with 13. The pitch-count numbers are sketchy when you go back, but the Baseball-Reference list of most Madduxes is very interesting:

Most Madduxes:

1. Greg Maddux, 13

2. Zane Smith, 7

3. Don Newcombe and Bob Tewksbury, 6

4. Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Tom Glavine and Roy Halladay, 5

5. Preacher Roe, Chris Bosio, Jamie Moyer, Bartolo Colon, James Shields and Henderson Alvarez III, 4

The fact that there are so many old Dodgers on the list—Newk, Koufax, Drysdale, Roe—tells me that there must be access to old Dodger pitch counts. Maybe this has been written about and I just missed it. In any case, we definitely have pitch counts since the mid-to-late 1980s, and Maddux is far and away the leader in Madduxes since then. I’ve always found that interesting, but as I went back to explore Maddux’s career, it took on additional meaning. That is to say, I think the stat has helped define him.

“That is cool,” Maddux said when I introduced him to the Maddux stat (yeah, I got to do that!). “But I wasn’t concerned with pitch counts and all that. I generally wasn’t going to have high pitch counts because I wasn’t overpowering. I’d throw fastballs, and guys would hit them fair. John Smoltz would throw the same fastball, and they’d foul it off. You look at the really overpowering pitchers, they are more likely to have high pitch counts because it’s a lot harder for batters to hit the ball fair against them.”

Obviously, I had not thought of it that way—there has never been a time when I talked with Greg Maddux and didn’t come away thinking, “Wow, I never thought of it that way.” But Maddux self-scouted better than any pitcher in baseball history, I think. He KNEW his strengths and weaknesses better than any hitter ever could. So, even though he might not have thought about pitch counts a lot, he did think about how to get those 27 outs in the most efficient way possible, and for him that meant shorter plate appearances, and making sure that when the batter put the ball in play, he did so on Maddux’s terms. Such things may not lead to no-hitters. But they can lead to magical performances.

Here are the leaders in complete games—shutouts or not—with 99 or fewer pitches:

1. Greg Maddux, 26

2. Don Newcombe, 18

3. Bob Tewksbury, and Roy Halladay, 13

4. Tom Glavine, 8

5. Preacher Roe, Chris Bosio and Zane Smith, 7

The guy was just doing stuff that nobody else could do.

One final thought: In 1995, when I was a columnist in Cincinnati, I wrote a 12-step plan for beating Greg Maddux. I forgot about that column until I went back and reread it. My 12 steps were as follows:

Step 1: Be aggressive. “Players who wait for walks against Maddux might as well just stay in the dugout.”

Step 2: Don’t be aggressive. “As they say in youth league, wait for your pitch.”

Step 3: Don’t wait for your pitch. “It’s never coming. “If you get a hit off him,” Reds catcher Eddie Taubensee says, “you will never see that pitch again.”

Step 4: Go up there thinking. “If you go up to the plate without a plan, you’re done.”

Step 5: Bunt. “You have to find a way to create havoc. Bunting could be that way.”

Step 6: Don’t bunt. “What are you, crazy? Maddux has won five straight Gold Gloves… he gets off the mound faster than anyone.”

Step 7: Try to intimidate. “Make him think out there. Step out of the box. Glare. Taunt him on the bases.”

Step 8: Don’t try to intimidate. “What are you, crazy? His father is a poker dealer at a casino. You think you’re going to get to him?”

Step 9: Run the bases hard. “You need to force mistakes.”

Step 10: Don’t run the bases hard. “Mistakes? Maddux has thrown one wild pitch all year? He doesn’t balk. He’s fast to the plate. Forget about it.”

Step 11: Get him in the late innings. “Don’t lose your cool if Maddux overwhelms you early, there’s always a chance he will tire.”

Step 12. Don’t wait for the late innings. “He won’t get tired. Get him early or he will get on a roll and the game will be over.”

Quote

OK, so let’s start out with some Greg Maddux basics. He pitched from 1986, when he was 20 years old (he was the youngest player in baseball that year and the youngest Chicago Cubs pitcher in 25 years to get a win), to 2008, when he was 42 (and threw six very Maddux-like innings for the Dodgers against the Giants).

In that span, Maddux:

Won 355 games, second behind only Warren Spahn since Deadball.

Won 15-plus games 17 years in a row, and this included two strike-affected seasons. That is the record.

Struck out 3,371 batters, despite never caring much about strikeouts.

Walked fewer than 1,000 batters in more than 5,000 innings

Became the first pitcher to win four consecutive Cy Youngs.

Became the first pitcher since Walter Johnson to have back-to-back sub-1.75 ERA seasons.

Won 18 Gold Gloves.

Set the National League record by going 72⅓ innings without issuing a walk (and he did this in 2001, when offense was, you know, out of control).

You could go on and on like this. I mean, just take the “walked fewer than 1,000 batters” fact. There have been seven pitchers since Deadball who threw 5,000 innings in a career. Here are their walk totals:

Nolan Ryan, 2,795

Steve Carlton, 1,833

Phil Niekro, 1,809

Warren Spahn, 1,434

Gaylord Perry, 1,379

Don Sutton, 1,343

Greg Maddux, 999

Or you can compare his walks-per-nine against the Hall of Fame-caliber starters of his time:

Randy Johnson, 3.3

Tom Glavine, 3.1

Roger Clemens, 2.9

John Smoltz, 2.6

Pedro Martinez, 2.4

Mike Mussina, 2.0

Greg Maddux, 1.8

He did it his way. That was the thing that kept coming back to me, again and again, as I thought about what more I can say about Maddux. He didn’t pitch like anybody else. I mean, you look at virtually just about any other pitcher, and there’s a template, a model. John Smoltz seemed like Jack Morris and Clayton Kershaw seemed like Sandy Koufax and Pedro Martinez seemed like a blend of Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal, and Mike Mussina seemed like Fergie Jenkins.

Maddux was focused on one goal: getting 27 outs. (Ron Vesely/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
Maybe some of those comparisons are very surface-level, but there aren’t even surface-level comparisons for Maddux. You might know the story: When Maddux was young in Las Vegas, he was coached by a longtime baseball guy named Ralph Meder. And Meder had the most unusual advice for Maddux: He basically said, “When you get in trouble, you should throw softer, not harder.” It’s exactly the opposite of what young pitchers believed then, and it’s certainly the opposite of what young pitchers believe now. But Maddux believed him. And throughout his career, in the biggest moments, when the moment was tight, Maddux would pull out some version of his changeup, because he was sure that it was movement that mattered, not the velocity.

“For me,” he told me once, “it all comes down to the last 10 feet.”

The last 10 feet. He didn’t care how fast the pitch came out of his hand. He didn’t care about the first 50 feet, 6 inches of the baseball’s journey. What he cared about was that when the ball was 10 feet away from the hitter, the pitch had to look like something it was not. The whole thing was an elaborate magic trick. I uncovered this wonderful quote from Reggie Sanders.

“If it looks like a ball, it will be a strike. And if it looks like a strike, it will be a ball.”

There’s something else he told me years and years ago that I had forgotten: He didn’t care at all about strike one. I mean, that’s an exaggeration, he obviously cared some—but he was pretty dismissive of the whole idea that an at-bat is determined by first-pitch strikes. He said, “To me, a 1-0 count vs. an 0-1 count is really not much of a difference.”

Instead, he said the THIRD pitch of the bat is usually the key pitch. More often than not, see, the third pitch will determine whether or not you can get two strikes on the hitter. And if Maddux got two strikes on you, honestly, you were done. In his long career—so this includes the last five or so years when Maddux was pretty average—batters hit just .160 and slugged just .202 against him with two strikes, no matter how many balls in the count.

Slash numbers vs. Maddux with two strikes:

0-2: .136/.152/.188
1-2: .151/.157/.202
2-2: .175/.179/.242
3-2: .187/.376/.279

You were not going to do anything against Maddux with two strikes unless he chose to walk you—which he would sometimes do. He has said the secret to facing Barry Bonds was to never, ever let him beat you in the critical moments. He walked Bonds 23 times, almost double the number that he walked anyone else. He would walk Tony Gwynn, too, when the moment was wrong; Gwynn hit .429 against Maddux and never once struck out. He also didn’t hit a home run, and he drove in just nine runs in 103 plate appearances.

Maddux liked to talk about how he had to get 27 outs. That was his job. It didn’t matter to him WHICH 27 outs he got. Knowing that Tony Gwynn and Barry Bonds were unlikely outs, he often preferred looking elsewhere. He is surely the greatest pitcher to never even come close to throwing a no-hitter.* and I think that was, in part, a mindset.

*I guess he came SORT OF close against Houston in 1995; he threw seven no-hit innings before giving up a home run to Jeff Bagwell. But that’s not all that close. Other great pitchers who never threw an official no-hitter: Roger Clemens (kind of shocking), Pedro Martinez (his nine perfect innings against the Padres in 1995 were wrecked in the 10th) and Steve Carlton (he threw SIX one-hitters).

By mindset, I mean this: I don’t think Maddux saw a no-hitter as his ideal game. Nolan Ryan, yeah, every game he was trying for a no-hitter. Every single batter was an important battle for Nolan. But for Maddux? The ideal game was one where he took all risk out of the game, and found the surest 27 outs.

And so, a one-out single to Tony Gwynn with nobody on base was perfectly fine with him. In fact, he was happy to get it out of the way. Maddux and Gwynn had very few long battles—only one of their 103 battles went seven pitches. Thirty-three of them—about one-third of the plate appearances—were over within two pitches.

This brings us to Jason Lukehart’s fine invention: the “Maddux.” As you might know, a Maddux is a nine-plus inning shutout in fewer than 100 pitches. I say, “nine plus,” but there has only been one extra-inning Maddux… and it actually wasn’t thrown by Maddux. It was thrown by Roy Halladay in 2003 against Detroit—10 innings, 3 hits, one walk, 99 pitches.

Maddux, of course, has the most Madduxes on record with 13. The pitch-count numbers are sketchy when you go back, but the Baseball-Reference list of most Madduxes is very interesting:

Most Madduxes:

Greg Maddux, 13

Zane Smith, 7

Don Newcombe and Bob Tewksbury, 6

Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Tom Glavine and Roy Halladay, 5

Preacher Roe, Chris Bosio, Jamie Moyer, Bartolo Colon, James Shields and Henderson Alvarez III, 4

The fact that there are so many old Dodgers on the list—Newk, Koufax, Drysdale, Roe—tells me that there must be access to old Dodger pitch counts. Maybe this has been written about and I just missed it. In any case, we definitely have pitch counts since the mid-to-late 1980s, and Maddux is far and away the leader in Madduxes since then. I’ve always found that interesting, but as I went back to explore Maddux’s career, it took on additional meaning. That is to say, I think the stat has helped define him.

“That is cool,” Maddux said when I introduced him to the Maddux stat (yeah, I got to do that!). “But I wasn’t concerned with pitch counts and all that. I generally wasn’t going to have high pitch counts because I wasn’t overpowering. I’d throw fastballs, and guys would hit them fair. John Smoltz would throw the same fastball, and they’d foul it off. You look at the really overpowering pitchers, they are more likely to have high pitch counts because it’s a lot harder for batters to hit the ball fair against them.”

Obviously, I had not thought of it that way—there has never been a time when I talked with Greg Maddux and didn’t come away thinking, “Wow, I never thought of it that way.” But Maddux self-scouted better than any pitcher in baseball history, I think. He KNEW his strengths and weaknesses better than any hitter ever could. So, even though he might not have thought about pitch counts a lot, he did think about how to get those 27 outs in the most efficient way possible, and for him that meant shorter plate appearances, and making sure that when the batter put the ball in play, he did so on Maddux’s terms. Such things may not lead to no-hitters. But they can lead to magical performances.

Here are the leaders in complete games—shutouts or not—with 99 or fewer pitches:

Greg Maddux, 26

Don Newcombe, 18

Bob Tewksbury, and Roy Halladay, 13

Tom Glavine, 8

Preacher Roe, Chris Bosio and Zane Smith, 7

The guy was just doing stuff that nobody else could do.

One final thought: In 1995, when I was a columnist in Cincinnati, I wrote a 12-step plan for beating Greg Maddux. I forgot about that column until I went back and reread it. My 12 steps were as follows:

Step 1: Be aggressive. “Players who wait for walks against Maddux might as well just stay in the dugout.”

Step 2: Don’t be aggressive. “As they say in youth league, wait for your pitch.”

Step 3: Don’t wait for your pitch. “It’s never coming. “If you get a hit off him,” Reds catcher Eddie Taubensee says, “you will never see that pitch again.”

Step 4: Go up there thinking. “If you go up to the plate without a plan, you’re done.”

Step 5: Bunt. “You have to find a way to create havoc. Bunting could be that way.”

Step 6: Don’t bunt. “What are you, crazy? Maddux has won five straight Gold Gloves… he gets off the mound faster than anyone.”

Step 7: Try to intimidate. “Make him think out there. Step out of the box. Glare. Taunt him on the bases.”

Step 8: Don’t try to intimidate. “What are you, crazy? His father is a poker dealer at a casino. You think you’re going to get to him?”

Step 9: Run the bases hard. “You need to force mistakes.”

Step 10: Don’t run the bases hard. “Mistakes? Maddux has thrown one wild pitch all year? He doesn’t balk. He’s fast to the plate. Forget about it.”

Step 11: Get him in the late innings. “Don’t lose your cool if Maddux overwhelms you early, there’s always a chance he will tire.”

Step 12. Don’t wait for the late innings. “He won’t get tired. Get him early or he will get on a roll and the game will be over.”

 

[dcar00 13956]

who is the only player to have a career batting average over .370 with at least 1000 career AB's?

[ClubWhatever 12066]

16 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

who is the only player to have a career batting average over .370 with at least 1000 career AB's?

Ted Williams?

[ClubWhatever 12066]

1 minute ago, ClubWhatever said:

Ted Williams?

Wrong, but it's a douchebag trick question

[dcar00 13956]

13 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

Wrong, but it's a douchebag trick question

nope.

[Scraps 13485]

Josh Gibson until they start adding in men's softball beer league stats 

[Beau Vine 53718]

10 hours ago, dcar00 said:

who is the only player to have a career batting average over .370 with at least 1000 career AB's?

Check out the book The Power and the Darkness for a really sad biography.  

[dcar00 13956]

1 hour ago, Scraps said:

Josh Gibson until they start adding in men's softball beer league stats 

the biggest problem is the season stats but once you open the pandora's box you have to include those.

[Brisketexan 103602]

MLB adding Negro League stats to the overall record books. Changes the hell out of some records. And, the right move.

[Bullneck 18744]

 

[elfenix 34109]

On 5/29/2024 at 11:07 AM, Brisketexan said:

MLB adding Negro League stats to the overall record books. Changes the hell out of some records. And, the right move.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/05/us/negro-league-baseball-willie-mays/index.html

[Beau Vine 53718]

I've read that Mays homered in one of his NL games -- There's no box score for that game, but it is mentioned in multiple newspaper articles of the day.  But without a box score, he stays at 660.

[Beau Vine 53718]

 

[YGIFS 19445]

Only way to tell if it was really Wade Boggs was to insist he sit next to Norm and drink 37 beers.  

I remember reading about his pre-game meal of chicken.  So when I started getting serious about baseball, I would insist on chicken as well.  Carried it all the way until I played walk-on Fall Ball for a D1 team.  Then I got cut and began a pre-softball game regiment of dozen+ beers that I stuck to for 25 years.  

 

Onto trivia:

On this date, without looking, with the advent of the DH almost 40 years ago, no pitcher had ever started a game at DH.  Who was the first?  Hint:  Not Ohtani.  

[Derka 5639]

 

[dcar00 13956]

On 6/11/2024 at 3:01 PM, YGIFS said:

 

Onto trivia:

On this date, without looking, with the advent of the DH almost 40 years ago, no pitcher had ever started a game at DH.  Who was the first?  Hint:  Not Ohtani.  

I'll guess Vida Blue.

Edited June 13 by dcar00

[dcar00 13956]

who was the first DH and for what team?

[Beau Vine 53718]

12 hours ago, dcar00 said:

who was the first DH and for what team?

Ron Blomberg, MFY.

And I'm guessing Rick Rhoden for YGIF's, though as usual, I'm not entirely sure what he's actually asking.

 

Name every pitcher who won 300+, fanned 3000+, and had a career ERA under 3.00.

[dcar00 13956]

5 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Ron Blomberg, MFY.

And I'm guessing Rick Rhoden for YGIF's, though as usual, I'm not entirely sure what he's actually asking.

 

Name every pitcher who won 300+, fanned 3000+, and had a career ERA under 3.00.

I think he saying on this date(6/11?) a pitcher was in the lineup as a DH which was the first time it every happened.

yes, blomberg

without looking W Johnson, Carlton, Seaver?  I know Young never got 3000K's which is crazy.  Gibson is also a wierd one since you would think he had 300 wins as dominant as he was.

[Beau Vine 53718]

Not Carlton 

[dcar00 13956]

1 minute ago, Beau Vine said:

Not Carlton 

yeah, I was 99% on seaver and johnson, on the fence on Carlton but threw him in.

Seaver might be the most underappreciated pitcher in baseball history.  he gets his props but not like a guy who is top 5 in the history of the game, IMO.  just think if he hadn't played college ball.

[YGIFS 19445]

1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

Ron Blomberg, MFY.

And I'm guessing Rick Rhoden for YGIF's, though as usual, I'm not entirely sure what he's actually asking.

 

Name every pitcher who won 300+, fanned 3000+, and had a career ERA under 3.00.

Yes.  Rich Rhoden becomes the first pitcher to start at DH in 1988 this week, first time it happens in the 15+ years since the inception of the DH rule.  Due to mounting injuries to a number of Yankees, Billy Martin calls on Rhoden (who hit very well as a pitcher in the NL) to start at DH.  Rhoden has to borrow a bat from Mattingly, who is injured along with Randolph, Henderson, and Slaught.  Can't find the box score, but how this didn't become the basis of a Seinfeld episode, baffles me to this day.  

[Scraps 13485]

2 hours ago, YGIFS said:

Can't find the box score

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA198806110.shtml

40 yr old Jose Cruuuuuuuuz with the PH appearance 

[YGIFS 19445]

As a kid looking at baseball cards, I used to think John Candelaria (winner of that game) looked like Booger from 'Revenge of the Nerds.'  Then I found out Candelaria was like 6'7" and Booger (Curtis Armstrong) is about my mom's height at 5'5"   Still, they both loved pure snow.

[WBT 20253]

Walter Johnson's career ERA is 2.17.  Jesus

[WBT 20253]

If Kershaw gives up and retires soon, he'd be the first starting pitcher (min 1000 IP) to retire with an ERA < 2.50 since Walter Johnson.  Almost 100 years ago.

[YGIFS 19445]

3 minutes ago, WBT said:

Walter Johnson's career ERA is 2.17.  Jesus

Yep.  And 258 of his games occurred in the 1920's, after the "Dead Ball" era.  In 21 seasons, just 2 years was his ERA over 3.50.  Anything under 3.50 today gets you a multi-million dollar bonus.  

Ran twice for Congress, but lost---a rarity for him.  And was the only good friend Ty Cobb ever had in all of MLB.  

Johnson hit .235 over 21 seasons, with over 130 appearances as a PH or OF (in addition to his 2500+ PA's as pitcher).

The best pitcher in the first 50 years of baseball.   

Obviously a first ballot HOF'er.  But did you know he received a lower percentage of votes than Tim Raines, Vlad Guerrero, Robert Alomar, Carl Hubbell, Red Ruffing, Henry Heilmann, Ted Lyons, Hoyt Wilhelm, Edgar Martinez, Frankie Frisch, and Luke Appling.  that's insane to me.  

[shadow_operative2.0 15734]

If you kids read the Atlantic shit, you know. If not, good luck.

First dude to throw a CGSO & go yack in his debut? 

[YGIFS 19445]

What does "go yack" even mean?  Like vomit or did you mean to type "go yard" ? 

[Beau Vine 53718]

[Helobious 9420]

55 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

“I’d send a fucking limousine to get the cocksucker to make sure he’s in the motherfucking lineup”

[dcar00 13956]

On 6/14/2024 at 9:53 AM, shadow_operative2.0 said:

If you kids read the Atlantic shit, you know. If not, good luck.

First dude to throw a CGSO & go yack in his debut? 

I would assume someone pre 90's and NL but an off the wall guess of Don Drysdale?

[petscii 1189]

20 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

I would assume someone pre 90's and NL but an off the wall guess of Don Drysdale?

2002 NL rookie of the year?

[shadow_operative2.0 15734]

^ Very good. Debut in ‘01, but technical rookie next year. 

[petscii 1189]

3 minutes ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

^ Very good. Debut in ‘01, but technical rookie next year. 

He flamed out after.  I was optimistic when he became an Astro. 

He's also the only pitcher to hit a home run against maddux.

[petscii 1189]

3 minutes ago, petscii said:

He flamed out after.  I was optimistic when he became an Astro. 

He's also the only pitcher to hit a home run against maddux.

I just looked at his wikipedia page and he's the answer for like 8 trivia questions.

[Beau Vine 53718]

10 minutes ago, petscii said:

I just looked at his wikipedia page and he's the answer for like 8 trivia questions.

Was one of them "Who's the only MLB player ever to have a bigger ass than Sid Fernandez?"

[Scraps 13485]

That would be Andre Scrubb 

[petscii 1189]

1 minute ago, Beau Vine said:

Was one of them "Who's the only MLB player ever to have a bigger ass than Sid Fernandez?"

NINE!

[petscii 1189]

Just now, petscii said:

NINE!

I only know who he is because he was impressive as a two way player at Baylor and got to Colorado pretty quickly. 

[Beau Vine 53718]

4 minutes ago, Scraps said:

That would be Andre Scrubb 

JESUS!

[Beau Vine 53718]

I'm gonna have to start playing Immaculate Grid again:

 

[YGIFS 19445]

Johnny Dickshot, how’re you now?

it’s Jimmy Dickson, dammit Wayne!

[dcar00 13956]

we all know Chuck Howley is the only super bowl MVP from a losing team.

who is the only world series MVP from a losing team? no googlin'...

[Beau Vine 53718]

24 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

we all know Chuck Howley is the only super bowl MVP from a losing team.

who is the only world series MVP from a losing team? no googlin'...

The hint I'd give is that the series is famous for the losing team completely kicking the winning team's asses for 3 games and the winners winning 4 close games.

[YGIFS 19445]

For probably 40 years, I had it in my head there was one guy who was on the losing side of a WS but still got the MVP and I thought it was somebody from of those 70's Dodgers teams that lost like 4WS.  A couple years ago, on our Seinfeld thread, we built out the all-time baseball roster from Bronx Bombers mentioned on the show.  Biff, some others, and I filled in all 8 positions but couldn't remember a 3B.  One brief mention of Clete Boyer, a great Yankee 3b of the 1960's  (didn't play great in the post season, but got two rings).  So he fills out our Seinfeld/Yankee diamond.  Clete's double-play duo partner was Bobby Richardson at 2B.  Bobby and Clete are all mustard in the field that series.  Bobby smokes the Pirates at the plate, Yanks lose, but Bobby takes home the MVP.  I'm 90% sure they tag-teamed the same broad that evening.  

If only I get find a way to use my completely worthless trivial knowledge of Seinfeld and baseball, I could do some good in this world.  

[dcar00 13956]

Yes Bobby Richardson.  there are 2 things that happened in that game 7 that have only happened once in the world series(one was only time in the postseason history).  What are they?

[YGIFS 19445]

I remember one of 'em off-hand.  Nobody struck out on either team.  Although maybe that's happened before/since.  No idea on the other one.  Any hints?  

[dcar00 13956]

11 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

I remember one of 'em off-hand.  Nobody struck out on either team.  Although maybe that's happened before/since.  No idea on the other one.  Any hints?  

the 2nd one was the easy one. game 7 WS walk off home run.