If Helton had hit anywhere close to the same away from Coors as he did at Coors, you'd have argument. He didn't though. He was two different guys.
Man I agree with your statements about all the Rockies players you've mentioned. They were all awesome and don't get enough credit. That's all I was saying.
Mid 90s Rockies lineup was the GOAT 1 Weiss 2 EY 3) Walker 4) big cat 5) bichette 6) Ellis burks 7) castilla 8) giardi Did I get this right?
Holy shit at you faggots arguing over Todd fucking Helton... ...twenty one years to the day after Pedro Martinez carried a perfect game into the 10th inning only to lose it on a Bip Roberts double.
Best season as a pitcher with a terrible team: Steve Carlton 1972 Philadelphia Phillies 27-10 1.97 era 310 k 41 starts 30 complete games (Purposefully not using WAR) The Phillies went 59-97 that year, missing 6 games due to the first players' strike in history.
On June 11, 1938, Johnny Vander Meer pitched the first of two consecutive no-hitters. The only pitcher in baseball history to pitch back-to-back no-hitters.
My vote for best season by a starter on a shit team would go to Randy Johnson 2004. 2.60 era for a 57 era- 2.30 fip for a 50 fip- 30.1 k% 4.6 bb% 9.6 fwar in a 245 ip season. For reference Carlton pitched a 100 more ip and got to 11.1 war. That Johnson didn't win the Cy Young was absolutely criminal.
http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/matsui-hits-long-homer-yankees-old-timers-day/ Love the stuff from Brown. Would like to hear more about the 1st ever old timers game.
Made a spreadsheet that attempts to compare players' peak performances across eras using neutralized stats. Basically I took what I judged to be each player's three best seasons, averaged those out, and put the results in the spreadsheet. Batters' results are based on a 550 AB season. Tell me what you guys think. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f16c6sg52g68xej/AAALVSwovIL-VruIBwmAWVfHa?dl=0
Aroldis Chapman has thrown 1514 pitches 100 MPH+ in his career. Since 2008 every other LHP combined have thrown 10.
Eddie Gaedel died on this date in 1961. Everyone here knows who that is. However another baseball oddity that you may not know of died on this date in 1915. Meet Charlie "Victory" Faust: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Faust
learn something new everyday. we all know Old Hoss Radbourne, but did we know that his was the first documented use of "the finger"? http://www.historybyzim.com/2013/03/charles-radbourn-giving-the-finger-1886/
On June 29, 1905, Archibald "Moonlight" Graham made his major league debut for the New York Giants as a right fielder after seven seasons in the minors. He was substituted in the 9th and never got to bat. It was his only major league game. Graham entered medical school, graduated, and served the town of Chisolm, Minnesota for over 50 years until he retired in 1959.
On this day in 1965, Casey Stengel managed his last game. The 75 year old Stengel broke his hip at a bar around midnight. He never returned.
On this day in 1948, the Cleveland Indians had 78,342 fans attend a night game to watch Satchel Paige pitch. The 42 year old Paige, playing his first season since Jackie Robinson broke the color line, threw a shutout for the Indians. To this day, it is the largest crowd every to attend a major league night game.
Paige pitched one game in 1965 at the age of 59. I knew a guy who played with him on the '48 Indians. Said he was one of the best he ever saw.
Supposedly he had a great fastball, but his breaking stuff was unreal. He used to barn storm and pitch 60-70 games a year. Amazing to think his arm lasted that long. Ken Burns has a good segment on him. His breaking stuff was so good he would call his outfield into the dugout because every breaking ball he threw was an infield out.
Look, I don't know much about baseball, but I do know this--Steve Avery is the most underrated baseball player of all time. Avery was a 19 year-old kid throwing straight heat for the Braves. Quite simply, it doesn't get any better than that.
Satchel Paige, pride of Mobile, AL. Pretty cool that a city of that size is 2nd only to NYC in baseball HOF'ers. Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Ozzie Smith, and Billie Williams are all from Mobile, too.
When I was a young dude, the Greenville Braves were playing the Jacksonville Suns in Jax. I was hanging outside the visiting team locker room getting the Braves to sign a ball. It was me and a kid in a wheel chair with what seemed to be a pretty serious mental disability. Avery, all of 18 years old, strolls out, signs my baseball then goes over to the kid in a wheelchair. Chatted him up a couple minutes then said "wait right here" and ran back into the locker room. Ten minutes later he comes out with a bat signed by pretty much the entire team and gives it to the kid. Was really cool. The kid was actually crying he was so excited. He instantly became my favorite player.
On September 19, 1930, Lefty Grove won his 30th game of the season for the Philadelphia A's. Only Dizzy Dean (1934) and Denny McClain (1968) have done it since. On September 19, 1980, George Brett went 2-4, raising his batting average to .400. This is the latest point in a season that any player has batted .400 since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941.
On September 27, 1938, Lou Gehrig hit his final home run. He collapsed in spring training, but started the 1939 season. He benched himself on May 2, ending a 2130 consecutive games streak while batting .143. He was diagnosed with ALS on June 13 and retired. The baseball hall of fame held a special election in 1939 and Gehrig became the youngest player ever elected at 36. His July 4, 1939 speech, above.
On October 4, 1987, knuckleballer Charlie Hough became the last pitcher to start 40 games in a season. Highly recommend the 2012 documentary, Knuckleball, if you haven't seen it.
On October 20, 1982, Keith Hernandez hit a game tying single off of Bob McClure in Game 7 of the World Series, leading St. Louis to the win over Milwaukee. Hernandez and McClure were childhood next door neighbors who played together as teammates in little league and high school.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Bob Feller found out by listening to the radio while driving from Iowa to Chicago. He was visiting his terminally ill father in Iowa. He was driving to Chicago to sign a new contract. Instead of meeting the Indians, he drove to the Navy recruiting office and enlisted to fight. At the time, Feller undeniably was the best pitcher in baseball. He led the American League in wins three years in a row, strikeouts four years in a row, all star four in a row, and top-3 in MVP voting three in a row (there was no Cy Young). He missed all of 1942, 1943, 1944, and most of 1945. That was his prime, age 27-30 in those seasons. When he returned, he again led the AL in wins and strikeouts in 1946 and 1947 with an era of 2.18 and 2.68.
On January 11, 1973, the American League voted 8-4 to adopt the designated hitter. The National League voted it down 4-5, with 3 abstentions in 1980. The DH was initially used in exhibition games in 1969 as part of other rule changes that lowered the mound from 15 to 10 inches and shortened the strike zone. In 1968, Yazstremski led the AL with the lowest BA .301 in modern history, Gibson had a 1.12 era, and McClain won 31 games. The owners in the AL felt fans wanted more offense.
herb.burdette just out of curiosity, where do you get this stuff from? Love seeing this thread bumped.
Pitchers and catchers report for Spring Traing on 2/13, two weeks from Monday. Unofficially, the first spring training occurred in 1870, when the Cincinnati Reds travelled to New Orleans for a series of exhibition games. The White Sox started using Hot Springs, Arkansas for spring training in 1886. By 1888, the Reds reached an agreement with the players to split profits while barn storming in Florida and Georgia, using Jacksonville as their base. By 1910, the teams had a formal set of exhibition games against each other. It became known as The Grapefruit League in 1915. The owner of the Dodgers was promoting a new golf course and hired a plane to throw a baseball to Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson. The pilot forgot the ball and threw a grapefruit instead, which exploded on Robinson when he tried to catch it.
On March 8, 1946, the Cleveland Indians beat the New York Giants 3-1 in the inaugural Cactus League game. It was the first spring traing in Arizona.
Too lazy to go back through the thread so not sure if it's been mentioned, but the book 59 in 84 is really good About Charles 'Old Hoss' Radburn and him winning 59 games in 1884. Some of the rules that they had back then we're wild
Clark Field, if you’re unaware, was the home town ball park for the University of Texas-Austin Longhorns from 1928 until 1975. And for the most part, that field looked like any other one … except for one small thing: The giant, rocky cliff in center field!! http://www.baseballisfun.com/2017/0...rns-ballpark-had-a-rocky-cliff-in-cf-in-play/
On March 21, 1966, the Houston Astros hosted the LA Dodgers for the first game ever played on AstroTurf. I once played softball on Three Rivers Stadium AstroTurf, and hit a single through the infield that rolled to the wall for a triple because there wasn't any grass to stop it. Thank god that era is over.
I am always shocked at the number of people who have not listened to or read his entire speech. It's a beautiful statement from a very shy and introverted guy. He actually had decided not to speak but his manager evidently talked him into it. Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. "Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky. "When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know. "So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for.
April 20th will be the 80th anniversary of Bobby Doerr's first appearance for the Boston Red Sox. He is the oldest living former ball player, the only player who played in the 30's and the last living player to have played against Lou Gehrig.
Fred Merkle was a 19 year old rookie for the 1908 New York Giants. On 9/23/08, the Giants and Cubs were in a pennant race and played each other. The game was tied 1-1 with a runner on third and Merkle as a runner on first. The batter singled to center and the runner scored, but Merkle failed to touch second base. He thought the game was over and ran back to the dug out. Giants fans stormed the field. Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers touched second base for a force out, negating the run that scored. The umpires could not clear the field, so it was called 1-1 for darkness. The Cubs and Giants finished the season tied, then played a makeup game which the Giants lost. The Cubs went on to win the World Series, which should have been the Giants if Merkle had touched second safely. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle's_Boner