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Netzer

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If only statcast had the technology to measure the launch angle and exit velocity of yankee balls that have been hit off of your chin.

Goo Punch
Goo Punch
Hank Chinaski
Hank Chinaski

Good fucking riddance. 

henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29197

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, shnsajax said:

Do who are the Yankees starting the WC game vs the A’s?

isn't there still time to acquire 3 more starters, 2 more relievers, and a couple more bats?  isn't there an extended yankee-only deadline?

i don't think i've ever seen a good/great team add this many players.  just keep throwing bodies at the situation i guess.

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54471

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Interesting:
 

Quote

When Mickey York and Craig Monroe threw to the booth during Wednesday night’s broadcast of Fox Sports Detroit’s “Tigers Live” pregame show, an unexpected duo appeared on screen — that of Matt Shepard and Kirk Gibson.

Conspicuously absent from the show was the regular tandem of play-by-play announcer Mario Impemba and analyst Rod Allen.

Multiple sources told The Athletic that neither Impemba nor Allen were part of Wednesday’s broadcast due to a physical altercation between the two television personalities following Tuesday’s game in Chicago against the White Sox. It is not immediately clear what prompted the attack.

According to the accounts of those sources, there has been simmering tension between both Impemba and Allen and the clash of personalities ultimately boiled over on Tuesday night.

Both Shepard and Gibson had to be brought in to Chicago at last-minute’s notice, according to at least one source. Another source said that Impemba’s and Allen’s travel arrangements back to Detroit were booked separately to avoid further issues.

Reached Wednesday night, Fox Sports Detroit general manager Greg Hammaren did not deny the incident but said:

“My only comment is this we are addressing an internal matter and we will not have any further comment at this time.”

Allen’s agent, Tom Shaer, declined to comment when asked the specifics of the incident.

“I don’t discuss professional matters that involve my clients with people who are not my clients or their employers,” Shaer said.

Impemba’s agent, Barry Meister, declined to comment when reached on Thursday. Neither Allen nor Impemba could be immediately reached.

Sources said that Impemba and Allen have long been at odds with each other and that their distinctively different broadcasting styles reflect their chasm in personalities. While it can work for lively on-air banter, it has often meant a much more contentious off-air relationship.

“They’re like an odd couple,” said one person familiar with the dynamics of the broadcast’s production.

Another person familiar with their relationship said that they had not seen eye-to-eye for a long time, but had managed to maintain a productive relationship, at least on air.

It is not clear whether there will be any discipline assessed for the incident, which one source said was broken up by a third party.

You may remember Rod Allen's last known skirmish:

Jeez, that's pixelated worse than Japanese porn...

Edited by Beau Vine
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WBT

WBT 20675

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, spystud13 said:

One whole AL game today. That’s odd. 

 

6 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

when i saw today's slate, i figured it was scheduled this way for make-up games.  i'm just surprised there aren't more of those.

NFL opening night? 

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9551

Posted
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Some big series this weekend. The postseason push is officially here.

Astros/ Red Sox
Cole v Price
Morton v Rodriguez
Keuchel v Porcello

Dodgers/ Rockies
Kershaw v Gray
Buehler v Freeland
Wood v Anderson

Braves/ DBacks
Gausman v Corbin
Teheran v Buccholz
Toussaint v Ray

And gotta think last gasp for the Mariners if they want to catch the A’s:
Yankees/ Mariners
Tanaka v Paxton
Lynn v Hernandez
Sabathia v TBD

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9551

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I honestly don't think he's doing a bad job.  
Souza has proven himself to be a clown several times already this season.

Yeah Souza was begging to be tossed.
Reppinger let him have his say, didnt do anything, let him walk off...but if you’re going to turn AGAIN and say something else you can bet your ass is getting tossed.
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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54471

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BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMSHAKALAKA!!!

 

 

Shit, I need to go to bed...

 

And yeah, I have seen Souza play about 50 games this season, and he has managed to look stupid and overly-emotional way too many times.  He actually reminds me of Puig, without as much athleticism.

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54471

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Stark:

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When a guy gets thrown out stealing on a walk, when a hitter makes two home run trots in the same at-bat and when Shohei Ohtani does that famous Babe Ruth imitation again, you know it was another Useless Info kind of week.

But before we get to the wackiness portion of this program, we’ve got the craziest foul ball of the year to talk about!

HIDDEN BALL TRICK OF THE WEEK

He’s the third baseman for the New York Mets. She’s an executive assistant from Thousand Oaks, Calif., who was just excited to take her son, her daughter and her niece to a baseball game.

They’d never met. Technically, in fact, Todd Frazier and Erin Macone still haven’t met. But what you’re about to read is a story that reminds us again of the beauty of baseball.

It’s a story about how a pop-up began floating into the L.A. night on a Monday evening. And before you knew it, a ballplayer, an innocent fan, a real major-league baseball and a rubber practice ball were all converging on one spot at Dodger Stadium …

And what happened next was one of the craziest plays of the year. A play that gave new meaning to that old phrase, the hidden ball trick.

“I thought he caught the ball,” Erin Macone told The Athletic. “I thought all night that he caught the ball.”

“It’s Hollywood,” Frazier said afterward, grinning guiltily. “So sometimes you have to act out a little bit.”

Act out? This dude deserves an Oscar for Best Actor in a Misleading Role.

He held up a ball he never caught. He held up a ball that wasn’t even a baseball. And he gave such a commanding, realistic performance, he got a real “out” to show for it. Now that’s acting. Take that, De Niro.

The brief synopsis of this play goes like this:

It’s the bottom of the second inning. Alex Verdugo lifts a pop-up toward the stands behind third base. Frazier leaps into the first row… gets the baseball in his glove … crashes into Macone (sitting in the first row for the first time in her life) … disappears … then finally lurches to his feet, shows umpire Mark Wegner the ball and waits for Wegner to give the official “out” sign.

Frazier then lobs the ball into the seats. And it appears to be just another highlight-reel play in a normal big-league baseball game, which continues onward from there as if nothing strange has just happened. But little did the world know …

“The ball came out,” Frazier admitted, two days later, after SNY’s Steve Gelbs revealed exactly what happened in a Zapruder-film type breakdown in a segment that should easily earn him a Pulitzer Prize for baseball’s foremost expose of 2018 – but will probably just have to settle for going viral on Twitter.

 

Thanks to Gelbs’ reporting, we know that after the real baseball popped out of his glove, Frazier somehow found that rubber baseball rolling around the floor beneath Macone’s seat. So it was that ball he grabbed, showed off and then fired off ASAP to dispose of the evidence.

That’s the synopsis that now has been digested by the rest of the planet. But here’s what really happened, according to the eyewitness account of the woman who still has the baseball Alex Verdugo hit – but didn’t know herself that she had it until many hours later.

“We go to games all the time, but this was the first time we ever sat in the first row,” Macone said. “So we were really excited. The kids were more excited to get autographs because that’s the best place to get them. So that’s why we brought a bag of balls to the game.”

That bag was filled with baseballs to get signed. But Macone’s 11-year-old son, Anderson, had inadvertently stuffed that rubber practice ball into the bag. So the kids got autographs on the real baseballs before the game. Then they put those balls into the now-legendary “green bag” as the game began.

What was left out of the green bag, sitting on a shelf at their seat, was the other ball. The rubber ball. The one that was about to get famous.

“That was the only one they didn’t get signed,” Macone said. “And that’s why it was sitting out. All the others were tucked away in the bag.”

Now here came Verdugo’s pop-up and a scrambling third baseman heading her way. The kids had just left to go to the bathroom. Suddenly, this otherwise-innocent spot in the stadium had turned into a madhouse, with Frazier landing on Macone’s lap, then tumbling to the floor, as Macone and a nearby fan wearing a Justin Turner shirt were trying to figure out what the heck was happening.

“I was trying to get his feet untangled,” Macone said. “His feet were all tangled in the green bag. There were strings that keep the bag together, and he got caught in that. That’s why it took so long [for Frazier to pop to his feet]. He was all tangled in the strings, and I was trying to get him out.”

Finally, as Frazier staggered to his feet and showed the umpire the alleged ball he’d just “caught,” the guy in the Justin Turner shirt found a baseball on the ground beneath his feet – and handed it to Macone.

“I said, ‘Where’d that come from?’” she recalled. “He said, ‘It fell out of his back pocket.’ I said, ‘Ballplayers don’t usually carry balls in their pocket.’ But I didn’t really know [it was the ball Verdugo had hit] because I thought he caught the ball.”

From there, a normal baseball game resumed. Nothing much unusual about it. Except that Erin Macone noticed something. Every now and then, Todd Frazier would look at them, make eye contact and smile.

“He kept turning around and giving us the thumbs up, like ‘Do you believe that?’” she said. “He probably thought I saw it happen. But I didn’t know until I got home that night.”

It wasn’t until they were packing up to leave the park that they realized the rubber ball was missing. They’d never noticed, because “it wasn’t like a ball we cared about.” But even then, they had no idea what role that rubber ball had played in this saga. Until …

The truth began to emerge on social media later. Whereupon Erin Macone, amused by it all, decided to tweet at Frazier in jest:

 

 

And that was the point when her 15 minutes of fame kicked in. She watched the videos people sent her on Twitter and Facebook. She realized what had happened to her son’s rubber ball. She figured out that baseball she’d brought home “was the baseball” that Verdugo hit. It all clicked into place. Sort of.

But trying to figure out what to make of what she’d just seen and the unwitting role she’d played – now that was the hard part. She didn’t think what Frazier had done was “cheating” because “things happen in baseball.” She’d accidentally caused the Dodgers to make an out they might not have made. But it wasn’t as if it were a pivotal moment in the game.

“If it was a game-winning play or a really big thing in the game, that might have been different,” Macone said. “I was just mad at myself that I didn’t notice [what really happened]. But in my defense, I was really just trying to get his feet out of the bag.”

It’s an excellent excuse, actually. Especially for a fan who had never caught a baseball before, let alone a baseball player. There are lessons to be learned from every experience in life. But if you can deduce what the lesson is from this classic moment, you’re smarter than us.

“I don’t think it’ll happen again,” Erin Macone said. “But it was fun. I just know that I’m wearing helmets the next time I sit there.”

THE OHTANI WATCH

The news that Shohei Ohtani is almost certainly headed for a visit to his friendly neighborhood Tommy John surgeon isn’t what we’d call “shocking.” But can we call now for a brief moment of silence, just because this does mark the end of all the two-way, Bambino-esque fun he’s provided us Useless Info-maniacs all year? Thank you.

Many entertaining, mind-blowing tidbits came out of that two-way fun, you know. And guess what? He churned out two more classics just this week:

  • As recently as Wednesday, Ohtani fired off his second two-homer game of the season. And how cool is that? We’ll tell you how cool.

That makes two multi-homer games at the plate and two double-figure strikeout games on the mound for Ohtani this year. You know how rare that is? So rare that only one other player in the expansion era has ever done that in the same season: Rick Wise, for the 1971 Phillies. Almost a half-century ago.

  • Oh. And then there’s this: Two multi-homer games for Ohtani as a hitter but zero multi-homer games as a pitcher in the same season (minimum: 10 starts)? It’s not like that has never happened. You just have to go back 99 years!

Yep. Of course Babe Ruth did it, in 1919, with three multi-homer games at the dish (in 130 games) – but no multi-homer games on the mound (in 17 appearances, 15 starts). Then again, this isn’t a fair fight. Ruth gave up two home runs that whole season (to 570 hitters) and only 10 in his entire pitching career (in 163 trips to the mound).

But those were different times, my friends. And in these times, Shohei Ohtani is the most Babe-like figure we’ve got going for us. So we’ve never rooted harder for anyone to have successful Tommy John Surgery than we’re rooting for this guy. We need these notes!

USELESS INFO OF THE WEEK 

COLE MINING – Cole Hamels got traded to the Cubs in July. He won the Pitcher of the Month award in August. This is known in the baseball business as a “hell of a trade.” But there’s also this:

Only two other pitchers in the last 20 years got traded in July and won a Pitcher of the Month award in August – and just to put Hamels on notice, those other guys were so energized by their deals, they both won two of those awards in a row!

  • CC Sabathia – dealt early enough in July 2008 that he won the July and August Pitcher of the Month awards for the Brewers.
  • Randy Johnson – traded to the Astros before the deadline in 1998, then collected Pitcher of the Month trophies in August and September.

So Cole, no resting on your laurels!

REMEMBER WHEN THERE WERE NO-HITTERS? – Baseball set a weird and unfortunate record last week: Most pitchers exiting no-hitters in the sixth inning or later.

Once upon a time, if a guy had a no-hitter working in the sixth inning, he’d stick around to throw 148 pitches if he had to. Tim Lincecum could tell you all about it.

But we don’t live in that world anymore, do we?

So when the Padres’ Eric Lauer departed the team’s latest ill-fated no-hit bid on Aug. 30, after five hitless innings (and a grueling 81 pitches), it marked the 13th time this season a pitcher had headed for the exit ramps after at least five no-hit innings.

The previous record: 12, back in 2015.

We can only assume we’ll be up to 50 of these by, oh, 2022 – if there’s even such a thing as “starting pitchers” by then.

(Addendum Dept.: Amazingly, we didn’t even have to include hitless starts by “the opener” in these computations to break this hallowed record. But if you’re curious, we’re up to 32 hit-free “starts” if we include outings of any length to start a game.)

WAIT. THERE’S MORE HISTORY! – And now another record that was set in the last week: Most “cheapest saves of all time” in history!

Eddie Butler saved a dramatic 18-4 game Sunday for Texas. Incredibly, it was the fifth time this season a pitcher had “saved” a game his team won by 13 runs or more. There had been five saves like that in the previous nine seasons combined. That’s in over 25,000 games, by the way.

But the #breakingnews here is that that’s the most saves in blowouts that large in any season since the dawn of the modern save rule. The old record: four, in 1991 (in saves by Bill Swift, Storm Davis, Luis Aquino and Eric Gunderson). What a sport!

A STORY-BOOK EVENING – It may not have been the first three-homer game of 2018. In fact, Trevor Story’s trifecta in Colorado on Wednesday was actually the 13th. But it’s also an all-timer, because…

  • All three homers either tied the game or put the Rockies ahead.
  • Story actually fell down hitting the first of those homers.
  • All three homers came off the same pitcher – the Giants’ Andrew Suárez. And as our friend, Doug “Kernels” Kern reports, it’s the first time any Giants pitcher has served up three homers to the same hitter in the same game since Sal Maglie, to Andy Pafko, back on Aug. 2, 1950.
  • Home run No. 2 was estimated by Statcast at 505 feet. And if you believe home-run estimates, which is always a slight leap of faith, that would be the longest homer ever recorded by Statcast in its four seasons of life. (The old record, of 504, was also once set at Coors, by – who else? – Giancarlo Stanton.)
  • In fact, even back in the day of the late, great Home Run Tracker site, the longest home run that group ever recorded in its 12 seasons (2006-17) was a 504-foot Adam Dunn space shot off the center-field scoreboard in Arizona. So however long that Trevor Story blast traveled, it was a monster.
  • And finally, while we’re talking long distance, Story’s three home runs traveled a total of 1,380 feet (more than four football fields), according to Statcast. And that’s the most combined feet, in anybody’s three-homer game, in the Statcast era. The old record was 1,324, by good old Alex Rodriguez, on July 25, 2015.

MYSTERY PITCHER UPDATE OF THE WEEK – Our count of position players traipsing to the mound is now up to 62 this year. And even though, sadly, that parade tends to drop off in September, you can always count on Chris Gimenez – now up to 11 career mystery-pitching appearances – to churn out some excellent fodder. Such as…

  • He has now pitched for two different teams this year – the Cubs and Twins. So ignore that attractive 36.00 ERA he has run up. The big news is, he’s the first to take the mound for two teams in the same year since Erik Kratz did it for the Pirates and Astros in 2016.
  • We should have mentioned this earlier this season, but Gimenez can now say he has pitched for four different teams in his career – the Rangers, Indians, Twins and Cubs. And that’s something only one other position player in the expansion era can claim. The other: Josh Wilson (Rays, Diamondbacks, Padres, Tigers).
  • But here’s the big story. In his dramatic return to the mound Sunday in Texas, Gimenez served up two home runs – but then hit a home run himself. As an American League pitcher! So how many true position players in the live-ball era have given up two homers but also hit a homer in the same game? Exactly one. Yessir, Chris Gimenez.

STRANGEST BUT TRUEST FEATS OF THE WEEK

IF YOU’RE SCORING AT HOME – Trea Turner got thrown out trying to steal second base on a walk Tuesday. That’s bizarre enough. But don’t call it a “caught stealing.” In fact, don’t even try to score one of the Strangest But Truest plays of this or any year. First, you should just check out this goofy replay special from Tuesday’s Nationals-Cardinals game. 

Yep, this really happened. How can a guy get thrown out stealing – on a walk? (Because he overslid the bag.)

How can a guy get thrown out trying to steal but have it not be a “caught stealing?” (Because it wouldn’t have been ruled a stolen base if he’d been safe, since it was ball four.)

And how can a guy get “picked off” a base he only occupied for about a tenth of a second? (Because the rules say they have to have some sort of explanation for this nutty play.)

So technically, we’ve answered all your questions. But you know what the real answer is?

Baseball!

DÉJÀ VU TROTTER OF THE WEEK – The White Sox’ Daniel Palka did something Sunday that seems mathematically impossible: He made two home run trots – in the same at-bat!

So how’d that happen? Replay. Of course. You were expecting maybe he’d lost track of how many bases he’d circled?

Palka thought he’d curled a ball around the right-field foul pole in the fourth inning off Boston’s William Cuevas. So he circled the bases, got back to the dugout … and then had the whole extravaganza overturned by the replay gods.

So four pitches later, he pounded another home run to right field, kept this one fair and completed his second trot. Two trots. One at-bat.

Baseball!

SPEAKING OF DÉJÀ VU – The following is all 100 percent true…

  • Gio González has hit two batters this year – one Met, one Phillie. They were both José Bautista. Just with two different teams.
  • Until he messed up this note Wednesday with a leadoff homer against Michael Kopech, Detroit’s Jeimer Candelario had hit two home runs leading off the first inning this year – one against the Blue Jays, one against the Yankees. The pitchers who gave them up were both named J.A. Happ. With two different teams.
  • Remember Matt Adams? The Nationals definitely do. He has three multi-homer games this year. Two were for the Nationals. The third came Wednesday, against the Nationals. Only two other men in this century have ever had multi-homer games for and against the same team in the same season, according to baseball-reference.com: Steve Finley (for and against Arizona in 2004) and Rondell White (for and against the Cubs in 2000).

How can what goes around keep coming around? That’s easy.

Baseball!

BRONX BOMBING – Love this strange-but-true classic from YES Network’s Jeff Quagliata. Luke Voit just became the fifth different Yankee to homer in three consecutive games this season. Every one of them did it in a different month.

Voit in September….Giancarlo Stanton in August….Aaron Hicks in June….Gleyber Torres in May….Didi Gregorius in April.

Not pictured: Aaron Judge or Gary Sánchez, because …

Baseball!

DODGE-BALL – Finally, thanks to “Brothers In Arms” author Jon Weisman for pointing us toward one of the Strangest But Truest games ever. On Aug. 29, the Dodgers won a game in Texas in which they got four hits.

Three of them were home runs. One of them was a triple.

None of them were singles. None of them were doubles.

So in the 100 seasons that comprise the live-ball era, how many other games have featured a team hitting three homers and a triple but forgetting to hit any singles or doubles? That would be none. And how is that possible?

Baseball!

 

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