Your hatred of me is weird considering I can only remember a couple conversations I've ever had with you on here. This is going back a bunch of years now.
Had to show ignore to see who this was referring to. He doesnt hate you. He just hates that you know more about baseball than he does. Instead of educating himself, he's wrapped himself proudly in a blanket of ignorance. Instead of educating himself like I was forced to do, he's taken a stance that everything he doesn't understand is worthless and dumb. He and his little buddy are now waging a war against stats they dont eveb understand. You're better off just ignoring him.
I think (like most logical people) that tony gwynn is not barely better than kenny lofton “you're just waging a war on stats and i am gonna tell everyone how i have you ignore for the hundredth time!” -dbl sorry for de-railing the thread with the controversial take everyone let’s just move on
why would you have devine on ignore? nobody takes him seriously (this is a compliment in this instance btw).
Him and Tobias have taken to the MLB thread and constantly try to troll with terrible opinions completely void of fact. Just got old reading his crusade on stats, you know actual factual data. Like his goal in life is to prove that WAR is worthless.
Why do most logical people think Tony Gwynn was considerably better than Kenny Lofton? This is kind of the crux of the argument when it comes to stuff like WAR. Tony Gwynn was a terrific hitter who started his career as a great all around player, but he turned into what amounted to a DH in the NL for the second half of his career. That makes sense to anyone who looked at a picture of Tony Gwynn in the second half of his career when he looked like an out of shape first baseman. Kenny Lofton wasn't as good at hitting a baseball as Gwynn, but was pretty good at it while also being better at everything else (by a lot in some cases) while playing a more valuable position defensively. That you take such offense to the idea that a statistic would suggest their overall contributions to the game were roughly the same shows either an inability or an unwillingness to understand the concept of the discussion. That you and devine then turn around and get mad at others for having an interest in the conversation beyond yours is weird. If you don't want to think of baseball any differently than the average fan in 1954, that's your prerogative, but you don't want that. You want everyone else to stay in 1954 with you, which just seems really stupid.
anyways back on track this is a really good account. trip down memory lane remembering some of these random guys
Fifty years ago, August 4, 1968, St. Louis dedicated the Stan Musial statue outside their stadium. He was NL MVP 3 times and runner up 4 times. He led the NL in batting average 7 times and still hit 475 HRs. He played in the All Star Game in 20 seasons (they sometimes played two games so he has 24 appearances), tied with Willie Mays and second to Hank Aaron’s 21.
I think Stan Musial is the most underrated player in history. Die hards know his greatness but he’s a top 10 all-time non pitcher in my eyes.
On August 9, 1988, the Chicago Cubs played the first night game in the history of Wrigley Field, built in 1914. The game was supposed to be played on August 8, but there was a rainout, because God never intended lights at Wrigley Field.
I was 10 and remember how big of a deal it was. I remember they had an old man turn the lights on and it was a big spectacle.
1987 was the last World Series day game, played in Minnesota’s Metrodome. The last World Series day game outside was 1984.
An autographed baseball from the inaugural Hall of Fame ceremony in 1939 was sold at auction for $623,369. It is signed by 11/12, with Gehrig to sick to attend. White Sox third baseman Marv Owen collected the signatures, then put the ball in a safe deposit box until he died in 1991.
I had a friend as a kid who didn’t have a great relationship with his dad. His dad knew someone who was friends with Orioles 2b Rich Dauer. My buddy and his dad caught an Orioles game in Cleveland and Dauer had the 1982 Orioles sign a ball. A couple of years later, my friend got mad at his dad for something and showed up to play wiffle ball with the Orioles ball. He was going to play baseball with it. I talked him into giving it to me. I still have it and tell him all the time he can have it back, but it’s in my basement. It has 4 Hall of Famers on it—Earl Weaver, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, and Cal Ripken, Jr.
haha damn. I have a few from being a kid. I went to a Will Clark camp and he signed balls. I have a Shaun Dunston one too. I think that was from a camp too. Only one that actually means anything to me is my Johnny Bench one. I played in the LLWS when I was 12 and he was in Cooperstown for a Bubblicious commercial and they had all of us around him for a part of it. He signed balls for all 8 teams after they wrapped the shoot.
When I was a kid we would go to card and memorabilia auctions. My dad is still huge into collecting. He has about 75,000 cards collected for baseball and is into 70's NBA now that he is retired. He travels to shows 1-2 times a year. I have a Yogi Berra, Ernie Banks, Rollie Fingers, Darryl Strawberry and Cal Ripken signed hats and balls. Hopefully one day I can get back into it.
I had a great collection that I built fairly cheaply as a kid. I tried to get at least one card of every hall of famer I could. A lot of them weren’t that valuable, but I had guys like Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson in the 1950’s that were. I sold all of the old stuff my freshman year of college, completely stupid. I kept everything from the 1980’s. One of my friends who stayed with it actually put together a 1956 Topps set, piece by piece.
I loved putting sets together as a kid. Would buy a box at a card shop, spend all weekend categorizing it and make a list of all the cards I was missing. Go back to the card shops and try and piece it together. Had a subscription Beckett every month. I think my dad still gets Tuff Stuff.
Oh man Tuff Stuff. That thought brings back memories. Google tells me they stopped production in 2011. That makes me sad.
I went through a stretch where I bought baseballs autographed by HOFers. I think I have around 83 right now. Have no idea what to do with them. Because of that, I get a bunch of auction catalogs. One of my favorite items was the original HOF program signed by all the guys plus a bunch of others that just happened to be in attendance: https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-...s-of-inaugural-induction-class/a/7155-80032.s
This thread reminds me of this game that I played countless hours of growing up. Even after NES was replaced by SNES at home, we only had this at my grandmother's house on the beach, and the cousins played it constantly whenever we weren't out running around. To this day, I have at least a rudimentary knowledge of almost every player in the game. Who else played it? ETA: The lineup of players: Spoiler
I think I rented that a time or two at OK Video down the street...probably had a late charge too. But Baseball Stars and Baseball Simulator 1.000 were my go tos.
This was my jam: They had expansion packs (multiple floppy disks) for old time stadiums. I used to nerd out hard playing this for HOURS on end.
Baseball Stars is still the GOAT. That's the first game that I remember where you could create your own team and build them up. It came out the summer we went to the LLWS that I mentioned earlier. We built ourselves as realistic as we could. We spent weeks together in hotels that summer and I swear we played that game was never turned off when we weren't at practice or a game. 14 of us on the team, so 12 may have been in the pool while 2 would be playing. I'd pay really good money to find our copy of that game.
The absolute worst was when the game or NES would mess up and you'd lose everything and have to start over. My brother would turn off right as I was saving everything and it would wipe everything. He's the worst.
Man we would have cried. Like real tears. We put in so much work on that game. We used to mercy rule the Lovely Ladies on the regular.
For my 12th birthday my late uncle told me I could have any autographed ball from his collection. This was back in 1993 and he had a serious collection. He had Mantle, Mays, Rose, Griffey Jr, Cal Jr. and dozens more guys who were legends. Who did this unabashed #Pittsburgh Pirates fan pick? Spoiler Ralph fucking Kiner.
Why Kiner? Were you getting Mets games on WPIX cable? I attended my first major league game in 1979, saw the Pirates in Three Rivers in late May and then followed them all the way through the series. Would have gone Stargell without hesitating.
we are same. it's actually the only autograph i have. went to the all star fan fest in cleveland and he was there taking questions and shit.
I was just a diehard Bucs fan. I had already had Stargell on an 8x10 in my room, and he didnt have Maz or Clemente. Outside of those guys we've been short on hall of famers since before WWII I must say I was never really a big fan of Kiner as a broadcaster though. I really enjoyed Jon Miller and Joe Morgan together on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball when I was a kid.
I went to sleep over at a buddy’s house in elementary school, and we were eating pizza and all his little brother could talk about was how excited he was to play the dragon game he rented that night. My buddy kept complaining to his mom about having a guest over and that we didn’t want to play a dragon game. His mom didn’t know shit about video games and was like “just give it a shot maybe you’ll like it.” So we go to play it and see it’s this game - turns out the little brother was still learning “big words” thought the game was legends of the dragon vs. legends of the diamond. Needless to say we were pumped about playing a new baseball game and the little brother cried all night because it wasn’t a dragon game. #coolstorybro
I watched the Pirates almost every night in the Summer of 1985 on their way to 100+ losses. That team has to rival the most punchless lineup in history. Jason Thompson led the team with 12 HRs. Johnny Ray led all starters at .275 and none of the others hit above .251. Still a year away from Bonds.
Team Baseball Simulator 1.000 and Bases Loaded on the NES platform. I was all because New Jersey had a guy in the lineup that had a batting average of like .500 with 60 HR.
That was indeed a shitty year. That was the Candy Man's last year in Pittsburgh and I think that Bob Prince passed away during the season too. I started following the team in '89, my first little league team was the Pirates.
Pittsburgh also had the federal cocaine trials that year, which led to widespread suspensions and drug testing. Even the Pirate Parrott mascot was selling coke. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_drug_trials
The Texas Rangers turned a 5-4, triple play, which is the first triple play in which the batter was not retired in 106 years. https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...le-play-batter-not-retired-angels/1016518002/