My first thought was a slightly less crazy Albert Belle, with a somewhat better disposition
I’m with RickJay - Belle and Ramirez were both crazy good consistent hitters - even Darryl Strawberry only had one year before he turned 30 when he wasn’t one of the best hitters in baseball. (After he turned 30 …) Maybe Ruben Sierra is a comp here?
The Nationals got 14 runs on 19 hits to beat the Diamondbacks yesterday, 14-1. Nice.
The home plate umpire in the Phillies-Giants game just ejected a fan seated behind the third base dugout.
File that under “things I’ve never seen before”…
Well, it is in Philly. The fans there are notorious.
Strawberry was fantastic every year he was with the Mets and even in his first year with the Dodgers (when he was 29). He fell off the cliff after hitting 30 years old. The year he left the Mets he had a 6.3 WAR, the second highest of his career (after 1987). He was consistently good for the Mets and I don’t think they had any regrets with how he played in New York.
Yeah, Albert Belle was another case. By all accounts he was, uh, not the nicest man, shall we say. But holy crap he could hit. He’s kind of forgotten already because his career was ended very quickly by injury and so he didn’t accumulate the big counting stats other guys did, but he was a hitting machine who went out there every day for ten years and beat the holy hell out of baseballs. Whatever his other problems, he always worked hard at baseball.
I’ve told this story before… later in his career I saw Belle with the Orioles play the Jays in Toronto. This was when the Orioles weren’t very good and at the time they were in a slump. Belle stole three bases that day, and it was clear he was kind of trying to drag the Orioles to victory. He looked like the only guy on the team who cared. This was a guy suffering from arthritis in his hips.
Trivia fun: Belle is still the only player in MLB history to hit 50 doubles and 50 homers in the same year.
the Arlington, TX city council just voted 7-0 to approve the Rangers’ request for a new $1 billion stadium, 80% of which will be paid for by city taxes.
Er, why do they need a new stadium? What’s wrong with the current one?
Why can Texas and Atlanta do what Oakland and Tampa Bay cannot?
Rhetorical, btw.
Well, Tampa Bay is a body of water, so there’s that.
Why should Oakland spend a billion dollars on someone else’s stadium? Or any city? It’s stupid. Let the Rangers build their own damn stadium.
How much of the new Arlington stadium is being funded with soak the visitors taxes on car rentals and hotel rooms? I remember they had shockingly high taxes 15 years ago, which I assume went to pay for the old Ballpark in Arlington. As a place that gets a lot of business and convention traffic, but not a lot of tourist traffic, it’s easy to soak business travelers and convention goers.
It’s paid off?
50% is from the city. 50% is from the team. But 30% of that “from the team” is from taxes on car rentals and hotel rooms.
Ichiro last got a hit on July 28. Since then he is 0 for 10, remaining at 2998 ML hits. The Marlins travel to Colorado for a 3-game series August 5-6-7, so I suppose that if their outfield stays nimbler than Carlos González (twisted ankle this evening) then Ichiro will have maybe 3 pinch-hitting appearances, depending on how close that he gets to 3000, before the Marlins return home for 6 games with the Giants and White Sox (see schedule here).
For those wondering what a “Spirit of '45 Day” is, “'45” is 1945 (see here; what did Ted do?).
The Giants are never, ever going to win another baseball game, ever again.
Luckily, it seems that the same is true of the Dodgers.
Bah, the Giants did earn a split at home against my Nats. But if they’d be kind enough to get swept in DC, I would appreciate it.
I agree. I like Texeira, but he can’t stay healthy. He’s but a shadow of his former self. A-Roid is circling the drain. No way does anyone else touch his contract. Time to just release him. It’s hard to make the postseason every year. Better to give up on this year in hopes of building for better future years.
Surely you must take some joy from knowing the hideous asshole will not be breaking the home run record, or even passing Ruth.
Obviously the Yankees have already given up on making the playoffs. That’s why Beltran and Chapman are gone. It’s harder to dump people who no one else will take.
In today’s “Weird Stat of the Day”: Sergio Romo was credited with the win today for the Giants, despite officially facing 0 batters.
He came in with 2 outs in the ninth inning, in a tie ball game. He threw four pitches, and on a 3-1 count, the runner from first was caught trying to steal second to end the inning. The Giants scored a run in the top of the 10th, and Santiago Casilla came in to pitch the bottom of the 10th for the save.