Griffey was chasing 61 homers that year as well. The original air date for Ken Burns' Baseball, first time ever on television, was during the week they were supposed to play the World Series in 1994.
Nuxhall didn't pitch in 1945, "voluntarily retired" in 1946, didn't pitch in MLB again until early 50's iirc.
There was a kid in my Little League that developed really early or was playing when he was too old. He loved hitting the first 3 batters and then striking out the next 3. I was maybe one of three kids in the league who was as big as him. After he hit 2 of my teammates I was up next. I walked up slowly, pointed to my right arm and slammed the bat into my hand to tell him if I got hit what I was going to do. Their coach, who honestly was truly a piece of shit, demanded I be ejected for threatening him. The ump laughed it off. First pitch was high and inside. I took a step out of batter's box and yelled "I'm not kidding, try me!" Their coach again flipped out, the ump again told him to shut up and then finally said the next HBP would be an ejection. Next pitch I hit a three run homer. My coach was not pleased with the display, but thanked me for standing up for my teammates.
On June 15, 1976, massive flooding prevented an umpire crew from reaching Houston for a game. It's the only rainout in the history of the Astrodome.
'94 was shaping up to be awesome. I wonder if the strike doesn't happen does baseball look the other way during the steroid era?
On June 24, 1955, Harmon Killebrew hit his first home run as an 18 year old rookie for the Washington Senators. He finished his Hall of Fame career with 573, which was fifth all-time when he retired.
Killebrew should get much more credit for what he did from 1962-1968, when the mound was 5 inches higher and the strike zone widened. Look at the pitching and batting numbers in that era. Yastrzemski led the American League in batting average with a .301. In 1968, there were 7 pitchers with an era under 2.00, which hadn't happened since the dead ball era. Killebrew led the AL in HRs in 4 seasons from 1962-1968, hitting 48, 45, 49 from 62-64 and 44 in 67. It's an amazing set of numbers considering where every other hitter was in the era of the 15 inch mound. In those 4 seasons, there were only two other players in the AL who hit more than 40 and they did it once a piece.
EVERYONE knew Rickey was going to steal second every time he got on first and he still had an 80% success rate.
Henderson was the best among them, but the 1980's had some remarkable lead off men who were base stealing threats. Vince Coleman, Tim Raines, even guys like Willie Wilson and Ron LeFlore were putting up numbers that blow everyone in baseball away today.
Eric Davis was leading off for the Reds in '85 and '86, he stole 80 bases in 1986. Next couple years they had him in the cleanup spot. Davis and Henderson are still the only players in the 20/80 club.
Davis was so good. We definitely got the broken down version of him, Kal Daniels and Darryl (quite a run for Fred Claire).
On July 2, 1963, hall of famers Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal dueled each other for 16 scoreless innings. Willie Mays hit a home run off of Spahn in the 16th to win the game. Spahn was 42 years old and threw 201 pitches. The 25 year old Marichal threw 227 pitches.
139 players have hit 10+ HR already this season. In 2014, 163 players hit 10+ on the season. As of right now, 40 players have 8 or 9, so that amount could be surpassed before the break.
On july 6 2017 the nationals had a nearly 3 hour rain delay with just sprinkles of rain and didnt even bring out the tarp just so to spare their mlb worst bullpen. Expo tier bitchmade'ness
Also on this day. The nats recognizing them being destroyed on twitter, commentators, and from their own fans, are offering free soda waters and NOVELTY ICE CREAM Lololll what a fucking terrible clown organization
Randy Jones is a relative unknown, but he won the NL CY Young Award in 1976. On July 8, 1976, he won his 16th game to go 16-3 by the All Star Break. It's an NL record for wins. He finished 22-14 with a 2.74 era and 25 complete games. After the All Star break, he lost 7 different one run games in the back half of the season.
Is Randy Jones a relative unknown among baseball fans? Growing up in San Diego, he was all over the place on Padres broadcasts, to the point where I just assumed everyone knew him as well as we did. It obviously makes sense, but that statement definitely surprised me at first.
Like I said, now that I stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense. In San Diego, he's a padres legend (number retired, etc), was always part of the broadcast growing up, he's got restaurants in the area, etc. It's blowing my mind to realize he's not a well known pitcher
Not MLB history and I didn't think it was threadworthy, but this happened at my old ballpark on Wednesday night. http://www.startribune.com/minnesot...rike-objections-leaving-teams-tied/437033423/ Spoiler The 2002 MLB All-Star Game infamously ended in a tie when the American League and National League both ran out of pitchers. That event had a good 15-year run as the strangest baseball tie in recent baseball history, but it has been usurped by a town ball game Wednesday night at Tink Larson Field in Waseca. The non-league game between Waseca and St. Peter ended up as a 1-1 tie when the lone umpire working the game walked off the field in the 10th inning in apparent protest over the teams questioning his ball-strike calls. That’s what we can glean, at least, from the account of the game from Tink Larson — the 75-year-old Waseca manager and ballpark namesake (pictured in a Star Tribune file photo). Larson declined to say who the umpire was, noting that “umpires take enough stuff” and that this particular man is a “decent umpire and a really nice guy.” Per Larson, who was reached by phone Thursday afternoon, the contest between Waseca and St. Peter was “a good game” and something of a pitcher’s duel. He said there was a fair amount of grousing from both teams over ball-strike calls, but nothing out of the ordinary. “There were no confrontations, nobody had charged out of the dugout,” Larson said. “I heard their dugout chirp every once in a while, things like, ‘you’re kidding me’ and ‘call it both ways.’ Usual stuff. The umpire never warned the dugouts with anything.” But in the 10th inning, Larson said, a St. Peter batter objected to a called strike. “I don’t know if the hitter said something or not. He stood there for 2 seconds and then he walked away. All the sudden I saw the ump walk over to their dugout tossing balls out of his bag. He said, ‘You guys go umpire the game yourself,’ and he started walking away.” The umpire then walked over to the Waseca dugout. “Don’t even send me the check. I’m done,” Larson recalled the man saying. Umpires in that area typically make around $100 to work a town ball game if they are solo, as was the case Wednesday. “Everyone was bewildered. Maybe he wasn’t used to people chirping like that. All the sudden he just left.” The teams stood around for a while before agreeing that the game — a playoff tuneup for both squads — would just have to end in a tie. Larson said he followed up with the umpire assignment coordinator and learned that the umpire had indicated he was calling it quits for good. Larson, who has been involved in town team baseball as a player or manager for close to 60 years, said he has never seen something like that in his life. “Nope. But I’m only 75 years old,” Larson said with a laugh. “I’ve only coached like 5,000 games and played another couple thousand. That’s what they say about baseball. No matter how long you’ve been around, something new comes up. I’ve never seen this.” Cliffs -Town team amateur baseball game -Shitty ump, and the players were groaning -Top of the 10th, the ump blows another call -Players grumble -Ump empties the balls out of his hip bag (mic drop) and walks out of the stadium
Not that I, as a lifetime Pirates diehard have ever seen. Shit, a recorded tv broadcast of game 7 of the 1960 WS only turned up a few years ago. As the story goes though, Pirates manager Bobby Bragan was coaching 3B that night, he both yelled and threw up the stop sign and Clemente yelled at him "get out of my way and I score!". He slid home ahead of the throw, missed the plate and had to go back and touch it. Guy is a legend.
I love the big ballparks of days past with their ungodly dimensions. Ever see Ken Burns Baseball where Bob Costas is talking about Willie Mays' catch? The pitcher who was brought in for specifically that batter (Vic Wertz) was Don Liddle (who was what I guess constituted a lefty specialist in those days), and after the power hitter Wertz crushed one an easy 450 foot to CF where Mays made his incredible catch, Liddle is then taken out but deadpans to the pitching coach "well, i got MY man" before he exits. One of my favorite lines in all of baseball history.
Love this video. Here's a ridiculous Bonds stat I found the other day: If you played 162 games in 2004 and went 2 for 5 with a single and a home run in every single game you would bat .400, break the single season hits record, obliterate the single season home run record... and still have a lower OPS than Barry Bonds did that year.
He was fun as shit to watch those years. Goes to show what the best of the best could do on roids yet again they were going against a good amount of pitchers on roids.
About an hour early, but... 10 years ago tomorrow (video essay that will air Sunday at the bottom of the article)