Well seeing a steal of home is something you remember if you’re a baseball fan. Those are the only two I’ve ever seen live. (Never seen a triple play live and would like to.) It couldn’t have been much before 1957 as I would have been younger than 8, and I knew it was before 1959 as that was the year the Indians came in 2nd to the White Sox and the Yankees didn’t win the AL pennant.
The only things that were at all fuzzy in my memory were the final inning and the opposing team (and the exact year of course) and I scored only 50%.
I should add, that another reason I remember this so well was having seen Power already steal home once in the game, I was quite excited to see him on third base again and remembering asking my father if he would steal home again. My dad told me probably not. But I told him maybe Power would. So the whole ride home I got to gloat that I’d made the Indians win.
Anyone buying the White Sox? Just a hot start? I haven’t paid attention to them much but they’re on track with the Cubs so far and just saw they pounded the Jays 10-1 last night with Chris Sale picking up win #5
I know that flipping off the fans wasn’t the right thing to do, but i have some sympathy for Collins.
He lost the ball in the lights which, under the right (wrong?) circumstances can happen to just about anyone. His team was up 6-0 in the sixth inning, and there was no-one on base. You’d prefer not to give up a base hit like that, but it wasn’t exactly a huge mistake at a crucial moment. If i were a fan at the game, i might have groaned when it happened, but i certainly wouldn’t have booed.
Yeah. I’m pleased and amazed that the Ms have gotten 6-7 innings per game out of the starters so far. Makes a promising bullpen look even more effective. I hated last year, when many of the starters would be chased off the mound before the 5th.
Sure, 11-9 isn’t exactly tearing up the standings, except that it’s good enough (in the arguably terrible AL West) for First Place! WOO!
At this stage of the season the only thing that really matters is that you have no key injuries and your team hasn’t done so badly it’s already partially buried. 11-9 is just fine.
A.J. Pierzynski became the 10th catcher in MLB history to reach 2000 hits yesterday. I heard that and I thought, damn only 10. Does he have a shot at the Hall of Fame? Then I looked at his stats and no, he is not a Hall of Famer. Not even close. Ted Simmons, one those other 10 catchers, has better career numbers and didn’t come close to sniffing Cooperstown. I’m talking 3.7% on the first ballot, which is really surprising because Simmons was an 8 time all star. Pierzynski has only been an all star twice. But all the same, good for him on the 2000th. I like him, even though I know he has a rep as kind of an asshole.
There was at least one source predicting them to win their division and be tied for the best record in the AL, so it’s not completely out-of-the-blue. (That said, their April predictions only had one of USA Today’s sportswriters predicting them to win the division.)
Interesting info about Jake Arietta according to MLB.com: Arietta is 20-1 in his last 24 regular season starts with an ERA of 0.86. The only loss was a no hitter against the Cubs by Cole Hammels.
Pierzynski, despite being a pretty good but not great player, is already 11th on the list of career games played, and will be well up the list by the end of this season if he stays half healthy. So he hasn’t been Yogi Berra or anything but he sure has lasted. Catchers just don’t usually last long enough to get that many hits. Pierzynski, had he played 50 years ago, probably wouldn’t have had the training, nutrition, and conditioning help and understanding needed to keep his career going as long as it has.
The Ted Simmons thing was kind of weird in that he was one of those players who was highly regarded when he was active and then, for some reason, almost totally forgotten within about twenty minutes of his retirement.
I really liked Ted Simmons when I was a young’un…my third favorite Cardinal after Gibson and Brock. Used to argue with my friends that he was better than Johnny Bench. Loyalty is blind.
Anyway, he was hurt in the public eye not only because he was a contemporary of the clearly-better Bench, but also because much of his career overlapped with Carlton Fisk and Thurman Munson as well–who were outstanding catchers themselves, and like Bench made particular names for themselves in the postseason during the seventies, whereas Simmons didn’t reach the playoffs till '82. Back in 1976 or so a lot of people (not me) would’ve told you that Simmons was the fourth best catcher in baseball.
Plus which, everybody said his arm wasn’t very good.
The eleven-year-old in me would enjoy seeing him in the Hall of Fame. But I’d say it’s pretty unlikely. His overall WAR is really low for a post-WW2 Hall of Fame hitter: he’s in the same range as the lowest of these guys, like Orlando Cepeda, Kirby Puckett, and (if he makes it) David Ortiz, and pretty far behind almost everybody else. C’est la vie. Oh well, enjoyed watching him play, and that’s what counts.
I hate to belabor the point on Simmons, but a lot of his career also overlapped with that of Gary Carter, to whom Simmons compares pretty favorably I think.
Ted Simmons wasn’t as bad a defensive catcher as has been said, but Gary Carter was one of the best defensive catchers who ever played baseball. Hitting wise they were comparable but Carter’s defensive skills were of historical greatness.