baseball notes

Nice article in the Times about the recent APBA Convention/Tournament. Includes a video.

Also spawned a blog entry about a 1956 replay.

Cubs fan, natch.

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

I’ve been reading up on earned run rules and came across a strange situation.

Can a substitute pitcher face one batter who hits a home run, and have no errors committed, without that pitcher being charged with an earned run? Surprisingly to me, the answer is ‘yes.’ Here’s the sequence of an entire inning:

1. Pitcher 1 starts the inning.
2. Batter A singles.
3. Pitcher 2 replaces Pitcher 1.
4. Batter B singles, and A is forced at second.
5. Pitcher 3 replaces Pitcher 2.
6. Batter C homers, scoring B & C.
7. Pitcher 4 replaces Pitcher 3.
8. Batter D strikes out.
9. Batter E strikes out.
10. Batter F strikes out.

One earned run is charged to Pitcher 1, one earned run is charged to Pitcher 2, and no earned runs are charged to Pitcher 3!

Pitcher 1 is responsible for one runner when he leaves the game. Because A is out as the result of a batted ball (as opposed to being caught stealing or picked off), it does not reduce the number of runners for which Pitcher 1 has responsibility. Pitcher 2 allowed a single, so he’s responsible for one. When the home run scores two, those runs go to Pitchers 1 & 2, one apiece.

This might not be the only way it could happen, but I can’t think of any others off the top of my head.

The funky part of the sequence is #4, where there’s a single and a force out on the same play. How can this happen? The batter sends a line drive to shallow center. The runner on first believes it will be caught, so he stays close to first. The center fielder plays it on one hop and fires to second to get the force out. It’s rare, but it happens.

Now, if Batter B had grounded into a normal force play, Pitcher 2 would not be responsible for any runners, and when Batter C homered, the two earned runs would have been charged to Pitchers 1 & 3.

* * * * * *

If you allow an error, then it’s easy for a pitcher to give up a homer to the only batter faced and not be charged with an earned run. You just need a muffed foul ball error with two outs before the home run.

Incidentally, it doesn’t matter how many times the third out should have occurred but for errors before Pitcher 3 entered the game. Rule 10.16(i):

When pitchers are changed during an inning, the relief pitcher shall not have the benefit of previous chances for outs not accepted in determining earned runs.

Runs that score under such conditions will be earned for the substitute pitcher but not for the team.

Found a great collection of baseball songs at Withdrawn Records. Some of my favorites below.

Vida Blue - Albert Jones

Playing the Field - Tony Conigliaro

The Umpire - Phil Rizzuto, Tommy Heinrich, Ralph Branca, and Roy Campanella

Rick Dempsey, Johnny Bench, and the San Diego Chicken re-enact The Pine Tar Incident.

The ‘86 Dodgers get down.

Is this Cal player wearing a Dynasty League card on his forearm?

Nope, but a kid with tabletop baseball experience will feel right at home with this new system of giving signs.

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.

USA Today article about APBA & Strat

Installed Skype on Windows. A guide for potential ABL use.

1. Download & install Skype.
2. Create a Skype account.
3. Call echo123, which is an automated test number that allows one to test the computer’s microphone & speaker.
4. Download the Dice Roller & install it. (It may prompt you to download & install Java from Sun’s site.)
5. Find the Dice Roller via Tools → Extras → Organize Your Extras.
6. For help, type in “DICE-HELP”. (Must be upper case.)
7. Rolls are made like this: //3d10. I actually prefer //1d1000 for 3 ten-sided dice. Also: //1d20 or //1d100.

Voice converstion and text chat can happen at the same time.

There are some reports that the Dice Roller may not work with Vista. It works for me on XP.

Skype is free for computer-to-computer conversations & chat.

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 →

An article on TTB from a new webzine, “The Baseball Chronicle.”

His home page

New York Times article

Gushing SI article about El Hombre

More here.