Entries Tagged 'MLB' ↓

The legend grows…

Post profile on the Cardinal shortstop

Pictures from the Sunday September 5, 2009 game against the Cubs.

The exterior around the rotunda is attractive. The rest of the exterior looks like a generic college administration building.

The seats in right field were not bad, considering they’re about the worst you can buy. The extra-baseball areas were nice, especially the food court behind center field.

The rotunda was underwhelming. The Great Hall at Yankee Stadium was much more impressive. Also, Jackie Robinson was a great player and an important pioneer, but am I the only one a bit weary of MLB’s 42-glorification program? Exactly when did Jackie play for the Mets?

BOX SCORE

Taken July 12th before the Sox beat the Royals 6-0. [box score]

As we all know, doubleheaders are a rarity these days, confined to make-up games. I was curious about how their frequency has declined over the years. A quick munge of the Retrosheet game logs produced the graph below. Note that this is percentage of dates that were doubleheaders, not games that were doubleheaders.

Looks like the frequency went up in the 1930s–don’t know why. The spike during WWII must be due to the travel restrictions. After the war it’s a pretty linear decline to 1990, where it bottomed out. The reasons for the decline certainly include the following:

• Air travel reduced the need for travel days.
• More night baseball.
• Owners figured they ended up losing money on twin bills.
• Players don’t like ‘em.

Flip Flop Fly Ball is a site with a collection of beautiful baseball charts and graphics.

Exterior:

Gate 6 & El:

View from the cheap seats:

Compare these to pictures taken last season.

The Phillies won Sunday’s game 4-3 in 11 innings. See box score.

Saw a new column in the standings in the local paper today: WCGB. Figures were slightly different than GB. Win Column Games Behind? Nope, the math didn’t add up. Turns out it’s Wild Card Games Behind. Sounds like a great idea for September, but do we need this in early May???

Never seen one of these before. Apparently, the game info comes across the pager network. (There’s still a pager network? How 90s!) About $100. More info.

Are the ABL reliever usage limits realistic? One way to try to answer this is to ask the question: “What percentage of 2008 MLB relief appearances would have violated the 2009 ABL rules?” If the answer is “0%,” then I’d say the ABL rules are too lenient in allowing relievers to pitch a lot. At the other extreme, if the answer is “50%,” then I’d say the ABL rules are too strict and don’t allow pitchers to pitch enough. What’s the right percentage that would make you feel that the ABL rules are just about right? 1%? 5%? 10%? More?

Here are the current ABL rules for reference:

Short
IP          REST
0-2         0**
2.1-3       1
3.1-4       2
4.1-over    3   

Closer
IP          REST
0-1         0***
1.1-2       1
2.1-3       2
3.1-over    3  

**  Cannot pitch more than 2 consecutive games
***  Cannot pitch more than 3 consecutive games
Note: Short cannot pitch more than 4 IP’s unless no other pitchers are available.
Note: Closer cannot pitch more than 3 IP’s unless no other pitchers are available.

Continue reading →

His home page

New York Times article

Gushing SI article about El Hombre

Google has an archive of pictures from Life magazine. Some samples below.

Stan the Man

Mike Shannon

All American Girls Baseball League

Neil Armstrong Playing Wiffle Ball

Chicken at the Plate

An on-line exhibit at the Library of Congress

THT has made available past issues of their annual.

Baseball Research Journal article about the 1887 Binghamton Bingos.

A search led me to a picture of the Bingos, including Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler (”Hit ‘em where they ain’t.”) Keeler looks to be in the middle row, second from right. Seems he played only part of the 1892 season with Binghamton before being snapped up by the New York Giants.

In the summer of 1971 our family took a vacation to the Northeast. I was eight. We took in several historical sights and visited my uncle, but the backbone of the trip was a bunch of ball games. The documentation is sketchy in places after 37 years, but I’ll try to identify the games. Unfortunately, I have few distinct memories about most of the games, but I know they really kicked my baseball interest into a higher gear.

Continue reading →