Jacob de Grom won the Cy Young award in 2018 and 2019. This is the award given by the Baseball Writers Association to who they vote for as the best pitcher in the National League. Here is a record of his starts for those two years. Let the numbers speak for themselves and decide, based on a narrative of his starts if you think he was the best pitcher in the National League these years.
Key: Start # Innings, hits, runs, earned runs, walks, strikeouts, won-loss record, earned run averate; score when de Grom left, final score
2018 Inn H R ER W K HR WL ERA SDL Fin Team record
Start 1: 5.2 4 1 1 1 7 0 1-0 1.59 (4-1--6-2) (1-0--2-0)
Start 2: 6.0 4 2 1 3 5 0 2-0 1.54 (4-2--8-2)*(4-1--5-1)
Start 3: #6.0 7 4 4 1 6 1 2-0 3.06 (4-4--8-6) (8-1--9-1)
Start 4: #7.1 6 3 3 1 12 1 2-0 3.24 (6-1--6-8) (12-2--12-3)
Start 5: 7.0 4 0 0 2 10 0 2-0 2.53 (0-0--3-4)*(14-5--14-6)
Start 6: #7.1 5 0 0 3 8 0 3-0 2.06 (4-0--5-1) (15-8--16-8)
Start 7: 4.0 2 0 0 0 6 0 3-0 1.87 (0-0--0-7)**(17-10--17-11)
Start 8: 1.0 0 0 0 3 2 0 3-0 1.83 (0-0--2-4)* (19-17--19-18)
Start 9: 7.0 6 1 1 0 13 0 4-0 1.75 (3-1--3-1) (20-19--21-19)
Start 10:#7.0 4 0 0 2 9 0 4-0 1.54 (1-0--1-2)* (24-20--24-21)
Start 11:#7.0 5 1 1 3 8 1 4-0 1.52 (2-1--2-4) (26-24--26-25)
Start 12:#7.0 7 1 1 2 13 0 4-0 1.49 (1-1-1-7[14])*(27-28--27-29)
Start 13:#8.0 4 3 2 2 8 1 4-1 1.57 (1-3--1-4)* (27-32--27-33)
Start 14:#7.0 7 1 1 0 7 0 4-2 1.55 (0-1--0-2) (28-35--28-36)
Start 15:#8.0 5 2 1 1 7 0 5-2 1.51 (6-2--12-2)*(30-38--31-38)
Start 16:#6.0 5 3 3 3 6 0 5-3 1.69 (2-3--3-8) (31-42--31-43)
Start 17: 6.0 6 3 3 1 8 1 5-4 1.84 (2-3--2-5)* (32-47--32-48)
Start 18:#8.0 4 1 1 1 8 1 5-4 1.79 (1-1--5-1) (34-49--35-49)
Start 19:#8.0 5 0 0 1 7 0 5-4 1.68 (0-0--3-0[10])*(36-53--37-53)
Start 20:#8.0 5 3 2 2 10 0 5-5 1.71 (2-3--2-3) (39-57--40-57)
Start 21:#7.0 8 3 3 0 5 0 5-6 1.82 (0-3--0-5) (43-58--43-59)
Start 22:#8 0 6 2 2 1 9 1 5-7 1.85 (1-2--1-2)* (44-62--44-63)
Start 23: 6.0 4 0 0 1 10 0 6-7 1.77 (5-0--8-0)* (46-65--47-65)
Start 24:#6.2 5 3 2 2 12 0 7-7 1.81 (7-3--8-5) (49-66--50-66)
Start 25:#9.0 7 1 0 0 9 0 8-7 1.71 (3-1) (52-69--53-69)
Start 26: 6.0 4 2 1 4 10 0 8-8 1.71 (0-2--1-3) (56-70--56-71)
Start 27:#8.0 8 1 1 1 10 0 8-8 1.68 (1-1--1-2[11])(58-72--58-73)
Start 28: 6.0 2 1 1 1 6 1 8-8 1.68 (1-1--4-2)* (61-75--62-75)
Start 29: 7.0 3 2 2 2 9 0 8-9 1.71 (1-2--3-5)* (65-77--65-78)
Start 30:#7.0 5 3 3 1 12 1 8-9 1.78 (3-3--3-4) (69-79--69-80)
Start 31: 7.0 3 1 1 1 8 0 9-9 1.77 (4-1--4-2)* (71-82--72-82
Start 32: 8.0 2 0 0 0 10 0 10-9 1.70(1-0--3-0) (73-84--74-84)
*=de Grom removed for a pinch hitter--14 starts. Removed from the game: 17 starts.
**=de Grom left with an injured elbow
#=de Grom faced opposition's entire lineup 3 times (27 or more batters faced): 13 starts, Did not face opposition's entire lineup 3 times: 19 starts.
10 wins 9 losses (.526) 13 no decisions. 1.70 ERA
1 complete game. 0 shutouts.
Starts with 10+ strike outs=11 (.344)
<6 innings=3 starts
6-6.2 innings=8 starts
7-7.2 innings=12 starts
8-8.2 innings=8 starts
9 innings=1 start
Mets record in the games de Grom started (all of his appearances were starts): 14-18 (.437)
Mets record when de Grom did not pitch: 63-67 (.485)
Mets 77-85 (.468)
Number of starts de Grom gave up the 1st run(s) of the game:
11 (.344).
Mets record in those games: 2-9. de Grom was 1-6-4.
Number of starts the Mets were losing when de Grom left: 9 Mets: 0-9; de Grom 0-9
Number of starts the Mets were tied when de Grom left: 10
Mets: 4-6
Number of start Mets were winning when de Grom left: 13
Mets: 10-3; de Grom 10-0-3. Relievers blew 3 de Grom leads. So with a better bull pen, he could have been 13-9. They would have been 80-82.
Opposition
v NL
Team Record Standings de Grom w-l-nd Mets
Atlanta (90-72) 1st East +8 g--6 starts (1-2-3) (1-5)
Washington (82-80) 2nd East -8 g--3 starts (2-0-1) (2-1)
Philadelphia (80-82) 3rd East -10.0 g--3 starts (1-0-1) (2-1)
NEW YORK METS(77-85) 4th East -13.0 g
Miami (63-98) 5th East -26.5 g--4 starts (0-2-2) (1-3)
16 starts--4-4-8
Mets record in Eastern Division games de Grom pitched: 6-10
Total divisional record including Mets: 389-416; not including Mets 312-331
Milwaukee (96-67) 1st Central +1.0 g--0 starts
Chicago (95-68) 2nd Central -1.0 g--2 starts(0-0-2)(0-2)
St. Louis (88-74) 3rd Central -7.5 g--1 start (1-0-0)(1-0)
Pittsburgh (82-79) 4th Central -13.0 g--1 start(0-1-0)(0-1)
Cincinnati (67-95) 5th Central -28.5 g--1 start(1-0-0)(1-0)
5 starts--2-1-2
Mets record in Central Division games de Grom pitched: 2-3
Total divisional record: 428-383
Total divisional record of the teams de Grom pitched against:332-316
Los Angeles (92-71) 1st West +1.0 g--2 starts(0-1-1)(1-1)
Colorado (91-72) 2nd West -1.0 g--1 start (1-0-0)(1-0)
Arizona (82-80) 3rd West -9.5 g--1 start (1-0-0)(1-0)
San Francisco (73-89) 4th West -18.5 g--1 start (0-1-0)(0-1)
San Diego (66-96) 5th West -25.5 g--2 starts(1-1-0)(1-1)
7 starts--3-3-1
Mets record in Western Division games de Grom pitched: 4-3
Total divisional record: 404-408
v American League
Boston (108-54) 1st East + 8.0 g--1 start (0-0-1) (0-1)
New York (100-62) 2nd East -8.0 g--2 starts(1-1-0) (1-1)
Tampa Bay (90-72) 3rd East -18.0 g--1 start (0-0-1) (1-0)
4 starts--1-1-2
Mets record in Interleague games de Grom pitched 2-2
Total divisional record: 418-392
Total record of the teams de Grom pitched against: 298-188
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Monday, August 24, 2020
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Baseball--Opening Day--1931 and 1934--film highlights with real sound
I found two of the most amazing baseball highlight films I've ever seen and wanted to share them with you. They speak for themselves.
The highlights are both from Yankee Stadium--Opening Day, April 14, 1931, Yankees v Red Sox, and Opening Day (Yankees Home Opener) April 24, 1934, Yankees vs A's. They are sound films and that is what is so amazing about them. You will hear the voices of Babe Ruth, Joe McCarthy, Shano Collins (Red Sox Manager), and Connie Mack among others. You will hear the voices of Mayors Jimmy Walker and Fiorello Laguardia. You will hear the actual crack of the bat, along with crowd noises. You will see the pitching motions and batting stances of the time. You will not see outfield play, as the cameras couldn't cover it at the time. Mostly you will see a packed Yankee Stadium (70,000 in the 1931 game and about 40,000 according to the Brooklyn Eagle account--see below, in the 1934 game). This was the height of the Depression but you'd hardly know it based on these films. Note especially the bleacher crowd shot in the 1931 game. An integrated (if not by many) crowd.
April 14, 1931: Boston 3 at New York 6 (14 minutes, 21 seconds)
Wilcy Moore (who had pitched on 1927 Yankee juggernaut) v Red Ruffing
Babe Ruth would bat .373 with 46 HR, 162 RBI, 149 runs, 126 walks, and 51 strikeouts in 145 games. Not too shabby for a 37 year old. Yanks would finish 94-59, 2nd in the American League, 13.5 games behind the A's 107-45.
Box score and play by play (Retrosheet.org)
Note especially the time of the game. They didn't mess around.
Game Story: Brooklyn Eagle, Apr. 15, 1931
April 24, 1934: Philadelphia 0 at New York 1 (17:52). (Note: this game is no longer available as of October 15, 2019). I will leave the rest of the story here, in the hopes that the game will be available again soon.
Johnny Marcum v Red Ruffing. This was Ruth's last year with the team. At age 40 he batted .288 with 22 HR, 84 RBI, 78 runs, 104 walks and 63 strikeouts in 125 games. Yanks would finish 94-60, 7 games behind the Tigers 101-53. Note: #6 on the A's is Jimmy Foxx.
Box score and play by play (Retrosheet.org)
Game story: Brooklyn Eagle, April 25, 1934
The provider is Guy Jones' Youtube site, which also contains an absolute treasure chest of old "slice of life" newsreel films going back to the 1890s (including some Lumiere Brothers films), some with live sound, some with added sound. The site is pretty amazing. I have not seen anything like it.
The highlights are both from Yankee Stadium--Opening Day, April 14, 1931, Yankees v Red Sox, and Opening Day (Yankees Home Opener) April 24, 1934, Yankees vs A's. They are sound films and that is what is so amazing about them. You will hear the voices of Babe Ruth, Joe McCarthy, Shano Collins (Red Sox Manager), and Connie Mack among others. You will hear the voices of Mayors Jimmy Walker and Fiorello Laguardia. You will hear the actual crack of the bat, along with crowd noises. You will see the pitching motions and batting stances of the time. You will not see outfield play, as the cameras couldn't cover it at the time. Mostly you will see a packed Yankee Stadium (70,000 in the 1931 game and about 40,000 according to the Brooklyn Eagle account--see below, in the 1934 game). This was the height of the Depression but you'd hardly know it based on these films. Note especially the bleacher crowd shot in the 1931 game. An integrated (if not by many) crowd.
April 14, 1931: Boston 3 at New York 6 (14 minutes, 21 seconds)
Wilcy Moore (who had pitched on 1927 Yankee juggernaut) v Red Ruffing
Babe Ruth would bat .373 with 46 HR, 162 RBI, 149 runs, 126 walks, and 51 strikeouts in 145 games. Not too shabby for a 37 year old. Yanks would finish 94-59, 2nd in the American League, 13.5 games behind the A's 107-45.
Box score and play by play (Retrosheet.org)
Note especially the time of the game. They didn't mess around.
Game Story: Brooklyn Eagle, Apr. 15, 1931
April 24, 1934: Philadelphia 0 at New York 1 (17:52). (Note: this game is no longer available as of October 15, 2019). I will leave the rest of the story here, in the hopes that the game will be available again soon.
Johnny Marcum v Red Ruffing. This was Ruth's last year with the team. At age 40 he batted .288 with 22 HR, 84 RBI, 78 runs, 104 walks and 63 strikeouts in 125 games. Yanks would finish 94-60, 7 games behind the Tigers 101-53. Note: #6 on the A's is Jimmy Foxx.
Box score and play by play (Retrosheet.org)
Game story: Brooklyn Eagle, April 25, 1934
The provider is Guy Jones' Youtube site, which also contains an absolute treasure chest of old "slice of life" newsreel films going back to the 1890s (including some Lumiere Brothers films), some with live sound, some with added sound. The site is pretty amazing. I have not seen anything like it.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Archeology--AND ME
So, I am starting to clean up my house, which has just sold. I am getting ready to move. Today I was cleaning out closets. In a forgotten corner of a pretty much forgotten closet, I found a bunch of board games accumulated over the years.
Class Struggle:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1510/class-struggle
I always had trouble getting a good game of CS going because it was a role playing game. Nobody ever wanted to play the Capitalist ruthlessly enough.
Ur: Royal Game of Sumer:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1602/the-royal-game-of-ur
Parcheesi
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2136/pachisi
Upwords:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1515/upwords
Scrabble:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/320/scrabble
A domino set and a magnetic chess set.
The game missing was a chess machine.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/579308697/saitek-electronic-chess-kasparov
This isn't exactly what my chess set looked like, but close enough.
I gave away my chess machine a long time ago. It was very advanced for 1983, when I got it. I moved real piece pegs into slots and then the machine would respond. A little red light would blink while it was thinking. Then it would beep to indicate its move. It had 8 levels. It beat me mercilessly at the most elementary levels. Then I got a few books. I was never a good chess player, but the machine taught me to keep count of the pieces very well. I got to where I could beat the machine at level four. It was so much fun to watch the little red light blink slowly, and then faster and faster, and then just stay lit! Checkmate. I had beaten the son-of-a-bitch. I spent many a long night playing against it, listening to Sting, Steely Dan, and Supertramp. Great music to play chess against a machine to. Of course it never helped me against humans. The ones who were better than me stayed better, but I could give them a more interesting game. I must say I enjoyed playing the machine more than people regardless of the result. Even at the higher levels, where it still beat me mercilessly.
Those were the non-sports games. When I looked at the sports games, things started getting interesting.
Pursue the Pennant:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7290/pursue-the-pennant
All Star Baseball:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3157/all-star-baseball
There's quite a story behind All Star Baseball. Want to hear it? I thought you would.
When I was in third grade (the 1953 edition of ASB was on the shelves of the department stores), we had an exercise at school called the "hundreds club." Each day Arithmetic would start with a small quiz. If you got them all right that would be one quiz. If you got 100 percents on five quizzes in a row, you joined the hundreds club and could do something more interesting while the others were trying to get in. One after another the kids got in the club. I could get three quizzes in a row. Then I'd screw up. I'd try and try, but I'd always screw up after three. (Thinking about it now, it really wasn't a good way to build a kid's confidence. It was pretty frustrating, and my lifelong lack of skill or interest in math may have been partly influenced by this exercise).
My parents got wind of my frustration, probably at a teacher-parent meeting. Soon they offered me an incentive. I could get any board game or toy I wanted if I could get into the hundreds club. My Dad even took me to one of the precursors of the big box retail stores to peruse the merchandise. I didn't need to do that. I knew exactly what I wanted. All Star Baseball. I'd spent most of the summer playing it at my friend's house. I don't remember the friend, but the game was great! I've always been nuts about baseball, and it was the very first of the baseball simulation games. An entire career or the 1959 season distilled into a paper player disk. The area of the number indicates the real frequency of the result. Flick the spinner and see what happens.
For how the game works see:
http://cadacoallstarbaseball.com/about/what-is-all-star-baseball/
Example player disks.
http://cadacoallstarbaseball.com/about/player-download/
This guy's blog could have been mine!
The only thing between nirvana and me was that goddamn hundreds club. The incentive didn't help me. I still kept stumbling after three times in a row. By now weeks had gone by and only a couple of dolts and I were still taking the stupid quizzes. Finally I got to four. I was hoping the teacher would shut it down and let me through. But no go. On the fifth day I was a wreck. But somehow I made it. 5 hundreds in a row!!! It probably took me 30 quizzes to get five in a row. I can't remember. It seemed like 100.
And so on that triumphant day we went to the store and my Dad presented me with my prize. I felt 10 feet tall. And I played that game to death, mostly solitaire. What did I need people for when I could put down a lineup card with Ruth, Foxx, Cobb, Mays, Mantle, and even Hary Chiti. And another one with Hornsby, Wilson, Traynor, and Norm Larker. Just let them have at each other and record what happened. I played that game until the paper disks disintegrated. Much later, after college, I bought a vintage 1970s version.
Then, at the bottom of the pile of games, I found a game in a white box. It had renderings of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Pigpen, Snoopy, and Linus on the cover.
Charlie Brown's All Stars:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5629/charlie-browns-all-stars
For the rules see:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/255221/its-yet-another-baseball-game-charlie-brown
This was a game I had purchased, as sort of a joke, in about 1976. On the top right corner of the box there was a yellow sticker with a smiling sun and the words "Take me to my owner". Underneath, my first name and last initial was printed in a delicate, feminine hand.
It wasn't much of a game. The object of it was to out-guess your opponent, figure out the best times to swing at a pitch that was in the strike zone, or maneuver the pitcher into a position where a strike had to be thrown. It was a game for kids. But when adults played it a headache could be the result. It was very difficult to score because it was very difficult to hit the ball. Just like baseball. You had to be thinking, concentrating on every pitch. You had to look for patterns. Same thing for the pitcher. Just like baseball. There were lots of strikeouts and almost no walks. And the real problem was that when you did hit the ball, you had to throw three dice to see the result. And more often than not the result was an out anyway. Just like baseball. So maybe it wasn't such a stupid game after all. I was always competitive at baseball in any manifestation (even though I had no talent for the actual game). So when I played against another competitive male, I got to feel all the mind numbing frustration a real live baseball player gets to feel. How did I not see that pattern? How did that bum strike me out again? I just hit three shots, right at fielders.
But it was kind of cool to actually play something against another person, and to share the frustration of real baseball players. The games were always 1-0 or 2-1. 3-2 was a slugfest. I had two friends (lets call them Mickey and Willie) that would play and I would watch as Willie would beat Mickey by one of those scores time after time. He would beat the hell out of him by those scores. Finally Mickey quit playing. When I played Willie he would always pile up at least 2 runs, and sometimes he would get 3 or even 4. It was embarrassing to both of us. His boredom playing me was palpable. I was always ready to go, but he begged off after a while.
I opened the box and the memories started flooding back. I had forgotten the Charlie Brown's All Star League, a league which I had invented and was Commissioner of, as well as one of the players. This was the year after the games I have already talked about. My group of friends consisted of two couples and an unattached man and woman. I would get together with them on fall Sundays to watch the football game. I thought it would be cool to set up a little competition, something to do before the game or at halftime. I asked my partner if she would go in on it and she agreed. She wasn't into the game, but thought it a nice idea. So now there were eight. And a league could be set up.
I looked at the yellowing paper and the backs of small paper bar checks (I worked at a bar at the time) to see my scribblings as I worked out a 14 game schedule (to mirror the professional football schedule of the time). And that schedule was still in the box, as were the line scores of every game we played. I felt like I had discovered Tutankhamen's tomb.
Division 1: (well, you had to have playoffs at the end of the season).
Millennium Falcons
Sunday Comics
Bears
Porky Pigs
Division 2:
Bulldogs
White Sox
Walden Pond Bullfrogs
Wholly Rollers
We played the first games on opening day of the football season. I couldn't believe I had organized this and it was coming to fruition. My partner couldn't make the Sunday game so we opened up the season against each other (a rivalry game) on Thursday night. I beat her 2-0.
On Sunday,
Sunday Comics 7, Bullfrogs 2
Porky Pigs 5, Wholly Rollers 1
White Sox 3, Millennium Falcons 1
I was astonished at the size of the scores. But then nobody in this league could play like Willie or Mickey. And so there was a Week I, just like with the football, and standings. It was so cool!
And then my partner quit the league. After one game! It was a prescient move on her part.. But I had to quickly recruit another friend. It wasn't an easy sell, but I got the replacement in the league in time for Week II's games. The replacement took one look at the game, thought it was totally stupid, and played it randomly. And lost mostly. I wasn't happy about the lack of acceptance of the philosophy behind the game, but was so happy to have a replacement that would be reliable that I let it go. And so the Bears disbanded and were replaced by Donuts Prohibited.
There was an undercurrent of discontent almost from the start. I had no talent for the game, but was very vested in it because I was Commissioner. Two teams were very good and got into it. The other teams not so much. It was always hit or miss, sometimes they were into it, sometimes not. I was grateful that they played and kept playing.
In the end the game was too difficult. By Week VI I was holding things together with chewing gum and baling wire. By Week IX I could see it was doomed. Look at these scores and you can see why.
2-0, 7-2, 5-1, 3-1,
2-1 (10 innings), 1-0, 3-1, 1-0 (12)
2-1, 1-0 (12), 3-2, 5-0
2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 3-2
5-3 (25 innings), 3-0, 2-1, 2-1
Here we should pause. 25 innings is not a typo. Two of the players couldn't make the Week V game on Sunday, so I set it up so they could play on Saturday. I witnessed this game, as I did every game played in the CBASL. I did some scouting, but I also wanted to make sure the teams played the games. In this game the loser scored three in the first inning and then didn't score again for 24 innings. The winner tied the game in the eighth and then didn't score for 16 innings. It was this game that caused a rule change. CBAS allows stealing. One die. 1-4 for stealing second. 1-3 for third. There was no provision for stealing home. After this game I installed one. Throw a 1 and you steal home. Just like Ty Cobb used to, for somewhat the same reason. The rule was gratefully accepted, but didn't change the fate of the league.
Neither player was very happy. The game took over two hours. If I hadn't been there, I'm sure they would have mailed something in. I was starting to doubt my creation.
2-1, 4-1, 4-3 (13), 1-0 (13)
1-0, 3-0, 4-2, 3-1
3-1, 1-0, 3-0, 3-1
By Week IX I knew it was over. So did everybody else. But they felt bad for me, and in a very compassionate act tried to soldier on. One player even played two games. But we didn't make it through Week IX.
3-1, 3-0, 1-0
I think they would have gone on if I'd asked them to. But I shut down my own game, and the league, with the score 0-0 in the third inning. I thanked them for their effort and asked for their forgiveness. They were good friends and told me it wasn't so bad and had been an interesting experiment. And I chose to believe them, although if I hadn't been there I think they might have made a bonfire with CBAS and then this story would have never been rediscovered and retold. Such are the vagaries of archeology.
Final Standings:
Div. 1:
Sunday Comics 7-3
Millennium Falcons 6-3
Porky Pigs 3-5
Donuts Prohibited 2-6
Bears 0-1
Div. 2:
White Sox 6-3
Walden Pond Bullfrogs 5-4
Bulldogs 3-5
Wholly Rollers 3-5
Sort of looks like standings from the NFL in the 1920s, or professional baseball in the 1870s.
And so came and went the CBASL.
Update 1: On Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 2, 2014, I met with a bunch of friends to take in the game. Half the league was there. I brought the game and all the archeological relics, just for fun, to show to the members. The White Sox had no memory of even being in the league. Donuts Prohibited, who had saved the league so long ago, said simply "Oh, Charlie Brown, what a stupid game." How's that for consistency? And Porky Pigs! Wow. Porky Pigs wanted a game!! And so we had one. And we picked up just where we left off so many years ago. Porky beat me 2-1 in 11 innings, tying the game with a ninth inning home run and winning it with two hits sandwiched around a stolen base two innings later. It was just as frustrating as it had always been. And exhausting, actually. It doesn't get easier as you get older :)
A couple of years later I figured out a way to incorporate CBAS (for pitching) and All Star Baseball (for hitting) into one game. If you could hit the ball, Babe Ruth would do your hitting for you. I played one game with one of the participants in the CBASL. I played with Babe Ruth. He played with Harry Chiti. (Actually not Harry Chiti. When I looked in the box, Harry wasn't there. He was just a memory from my 1953 version of the game. Besides, Harry Chiti couldn't put up 8 runs if you could place the spinner where you wanted once every 4 at bats). Jim Rivera (Jungle Jim) was in the box. A beat up old disk. From 1959. How he got there I'll never know, but Jim Rivera is the guy, He beat me 8-3. But I flicked the spinner with Ruth up with the bases loaded in the ninth. He struck out.
I might get rid of some of the board games I found in the closet. I have a while to make that decision. But CBAS and the archives of the CBASL will go with me to the grave. Thanks to everyone who participated. You were all much better friends than I deserved.
Class Struggle:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1510/class-struggle
I always had trouble getting a good game of CS going because it was a role playing game. Nobody ever wanted to play the Capitalist ruthlessly enough.
Ur: Royal Game of Sumer:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1602/the-royal-game-of-ur
Parcheesi
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2136/pachisi
Upwords:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1515/upwords
Scrabble:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/320/scrabble
A domino set and a magnetic chess set.
The game missing was a chess machine.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/579308697/saitek-electronic-chess-kasparov
This isn't exactly what my chess set looked like, but close enough.
I gave away my chess machine a long time ago. It was very advanced for 1983, when I got it. I moved real piece pegs into slots and then the machine would respond. A little red light would blink while it was thinking. Then it would beep to indicate its move. It had 8 levels. It beat me mercilessly at the most elementary levels. Then I got a few books. I was never a good chess player, but the machine taught me to keep count of the pieces very well. I got to where I could beat the machine at level four. It was so much fun to watch the little red light blink slowly, and then faster and faster, and then just stay lit! Checkmate. I had beaten the son-of-a-bitch. I spent many a long night playing against it, listening to Sting, Steely Dan, and Supertramp. Great music to play chess against a machine to. Of course it never helped me against humans. The ones who were better than me stayed better, but I could give them a more interesting game. I must say I enjoyed playing the machine more than people regardless of the result. Even at the higher levels, where it still beat me mercilessly.
Those were the non-sports games. When I looked at the sports games, things started getting interesting.
Pursue the Pennant:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7290/pursue-the-pennant
All Star Baseball:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3157/all-star-baseball
There's quite a story behind All Star Baseball. Want to hear it? I thought you would.
When I was in third grade (the 1953 edition of ASB was on the shelves of the department stores), we had an exercise at school called the "hundreds club." Each day Arithmetic would start with a small quiz. If you got them all right that would be one quiz. If you got 100 percents on five quizzes in a row, you joined the hundreds club and could do something more interesting while the others were trying to get in. One after another the kids got in the club. I could get three quizzes in a row. Then I'd screw up. I'd try and try, but I'd always screw up after three. (Thinking about it now, it really wasn't a good way to build a kid's confidence. It was pretty frustrating, and my lifelong lack of skill or interest in math may have been partly influenced by this exercise).
My parents got wind of my frustration, probably at a teacher-parent meeting. Soon they offered me an incentive. I could get any board game or toy I wanted if I could get into the hundreds club. My Dad even took me to one of the precursors of the big box retail stores to peruse the merchandise. I didn't need to do that. I knew exactly what I wanted. All Star Baseball. I'd spent most of the summer playing it at my friend's house. I don't remember the friend, but the game was great! I've always been nuts about baseball, and it was the very first of the baseball simulation games. An entire career or the 1959 season distilled into a paper player disk. The area of the number indicates the real frequency of the result. Flick the spinner and see what happens.
For how the game works see:
http://cadacoallstarbaseball.com/about/what-is-all-star-baseball/
Example player disks.
http://cadacoallstarbaseball.com/about/player-download/
This guy's blog could have been mine!
The only thing between nirvana and me was that goddamn hundreds club. The incentive didn't help me. I still kept stumbling after three times in a row. By now weeks had gone by and only a couple of dolts and I were still taking the stupid quizzes. Finally I got to four. I was hoping the teacher would shut it down and let me through. But no go. On the fifth day I was a wreck. But somehow I made it. 5 hundreds in a row!!! It probably took me 30 quizzes to get five in a row. I can't remember. It seemed like 100.
And so on that triumphant day we went to the store and my Dad presented me with my prize. I felt 10 feet tall. And I played that game to death, mostly solitaire. What did I need people for when I could put down a lineup card with Ruth, Foxx, Cobb, Mays, Mantle, and even Hary Chiti. And another one with Hornsby, Wilson, Traynor, and Norm Larker. Just let them have at each other and record what happened. I played that game until the paper disks disintegrated. Much later, after college, I bought a vintage 1970s version.
Then, at the bottom of the pile of games, I found a game in a white box. It had renderings of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Pigpen, Snoopy, and Linus on the cover.
Charlie Brown's All Stars:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5629/charlie-browns-all-stars
For the rules see:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/255221/its-yet-another-baseball-game-charlie-brown
This was a game I had purchased, as sort of a joke, in about 1976. On the top right corner of the box there was a yellow sticker with a smiling sun and the words "Take me to my owner". Underneath, my first name and last initial was printed in a delicate, feminine hand.
It wasn't much of a game. The object of it was to out-guess your opponent, figure out the best times to swing at a pitch that was in the strike zone, or maneuver the pitcher into a position where a strike had to be thrown. It was a game for kids. But when adults played it a headache could be the result. It was very difficult to score because it was very difficult to hit the ball. Just like baseball. You had to be thinking, concentrating on every pitch. You had to look for patterns. Same thing for the pitcher. Just like baseball. There were lots of strikeouts and almost no walks. And the real problem was that when you did hit the ball, you had to throw three dice to see the result. And more often than not the result was an out anyway. Just like baseball. So maybe it wasn't such a stupid game after all. I was always competitive at baseball in any manifestation (even though I had no talent for the actual game). So when I played against another competitive male, I got to feel all the mind numbing frustration a real live baseball player gets to feel. How did I not see that pattern? How did that bum strike me out again? I just hit three shots, right at fielders.
But it was kind of cool to actually play something against another person, and to share the frustration of real baseball players. The games were always 1-0 or 2-1. 3-2 was a slugfest. I had two friends (lets call them Mickey and Willie) that would play and I would watch as Willie would beat Mickey by one of those scores time after time. He would beat the hell out of him by those scores. Finally Mickey quit playing. When I played Willie he would always pile up at least 2 runs, and sometimes he would get 3 or even 4. It was embarrassing to both of us. His boredom playing me was palpable. I was always ready to go, but he begged off after a while.
I opened the box and the memories started flooding back. I had forgotten the Charlie Brown's All Star League, a league which I had invented and was Commissioner of, as well as one of the players. This was the year after the games I have already talked about. My group of friends consisted of two couples and an unattached man and woman. I would get together with them on fall Sundays to watch the football game. I thought it would be cool to set up a little competition, something to do before the game or at halftime. I asked my partner if she would go in on it and she agreed. She wasn't into the game, but thought it a nice idea. So now there were eight. And a league could be set up.
I looked at the yellowing paper and the backs of small paper bar checks (I worked at a bar at the time) to see my scribblings as I worked out a 14 game schedule (to mirror the professional football schedule of the time). And that schedule was still in the box, as were the line scores of every game we played. I felt like I had discovered Tutankhamen's tomb.
Division 1: (well, you had to have playoffs at the end of the season).
Millennium Falcons
Sunday Comics
Bears
Porky Pigs
Division 2:
Bulldogs
White Sox
Walden Pond Bullfrogs
Wholly Rollers
We played the first games on opening day of the football season. I couldn't believe I had organized this and it was coming to fruition. My partner couldn't make the Sunday game so we opened up the season against each other (a rivalry game) on Thursday night. I beat her 2-0.
On Sunday,
Sunday Comics 7, Bullfrogs 2
Porky Pigs 5, Wholly Rollers 1
White Sox 3, Millennium Falcons 1
I was astonished at the size of the scores. But then nobody in this league could play like Willie or Mickey. And so there was a Week I, just like with the football, and standings. It was so cool!
And then my partner quit the league. After one game! It was a prescient move on her part.. But I had to quickly recruit another friend. It wasn't an easy sell, but I got the replacement in the league in time for Week II's games. The replacement took one look at the game, thought it was totally stupid, and played it randomly. And lost mostly. I wasn't happy about the lack of acceptance of the philosophy behind the game, but was so happy to have a replacement that would be reliable that I let it go. And so the Bears disbanded and were replaced by Donuts Prohibited.
There was an undercurrent of discontent almost from the start. I had no talent for the game, but was very vested in it because I was Commissioner. Two teams were very good and got into it. The other teams not so much. It was always hit or miss, sometimes they were into it, sometimes not. I was grateful that they played and kept playing.
In the end the game was too difficult. By Week VI I was holding things together with chewing gum and baling wire. By Week IX I could see it was doomed. Look at these scores and you can see why.
2-0, 7-2, 5-1, 3-1,
2-1 (10 innings), 1-0, 3-1, 1-0 (12)
2-1, 1-0 (12), 3-2, 5-0
2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 3-2
5-3 (25 innings), 3-0, 2-1, 2-1
Here we should pause. 25 innings is not a typo. Two of the players couldn't make the Week V game on Sunday, so I set it up so they could play on Saturday. I witnessed this game, as I did every game played in the CBASL. I did some scouting, but I also wanted to make sure the teams played the games. In this game the loser scored three in the first inning and then didn't score again for 24 innings. The winner tied the game in the eighth and then didn't score for 16 innings. It was this game that caused a rule change. CBAS allows stealing. One die. 1-4 for stealing second. 1-3 for third. There was no provision for stealing home. After this game I installed one. Throw a 1 and you steal home. Just like Ty Cobb used to, for somewhat the same reason. The rule was gratefully accepted, but didn't change the fate of the league.
Neither player was very happy. The game took over two hours. If I hadn't been there, I'm sure they would have mailed something in. I was starting to doubt my creation.
2-1, 4-1, 4-3 (13), 1-0 (13)
1-0, 3-0, 4-2, 3-1
3-1, 1-0, 3-0, 3-1
By Week IX I knew it was over. So did everybody else. But they felt bad for me, and in a very compassionate act tried to soldier on. One player even played two games. But we didn't make it through Week IX.
3-1, 3-0, 1-0
I think they would have gone on if I'd asked them to. But I shut down my own game, and the league, with the score 0-0 in the third inning. I thanked them for their effort and asked for their forgiveness. They were good friends and told me it wasn't so bad and had been an interesting experiment. And I chose to believe them, although if I hadn't been there I think they might have made a bonfire with CBAS and then this story would have never been rediscovered and retold. Such are the vagaries of archeology.
Final Standings:
Div. 1:
Sunday Comics 7-3
Millennium Falcons 6-3
Porky Pigs 3-5
Donuts Prohibited 2-6
Bears 0-1
Div. 2:
White Sox 6-3
Walden Pond Bullfrogs 5-4
Bulldogs 3-5
Wholly Rollers 3-5
Sort of looks like standings from the NFL in the 1920s, or professional baseball in the 1870s.
And so came and went the CBASL.
Update 1: On Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 2, 2014, I met with a bunch of friends to take in the game. Half the league was there. I brought the game and all the archeological relics, just for fun, to show to the members. The White Sox had no memory of even being in the league. Donuts Prohibited, who had saved the league so long ago, said simply "Oh, Charlie Brown, what a stupid game." How's that for consistency? And Porky Pigs! Wow. Porky Pigs wanted a game!! And so we had one. And we picked up just where we left off so many years ago. Porky beat me 2-1 in 11 innings, tying the game with a ninth inning home run and winning it with two hits sandwiched around a stolen base two innings later. It was just as frustrating as it had always been. And exhausting, actually. It doesn't get easier as you get older :)
A couple of years later I figured out a way to incorporate CBAS (for pitching) and All Star Baseball (for hitting) into one game. If you could hit the ball, Babe Ruth would do your hitting for you. I played one game with one of the participants in the CBASL. I played with Babe Ruth. He played with
I might get rid of some of the board games I found in the closet. I have a while to make that decision. But CBAS and the archives of the CBASL will go with me to the grave. Thanks to everyone who participated. You were all much better friends than I deserved.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
An Ordinary Baseball Game--#1
Occasionally, I will write on a baseball game I have watched. This is #1. MLB.tv offers a free game per day, which I like to watch, as I am too cheap to buy a full subscription and lack cable TV at the moment. It is an interesting way to follow the game, never knowing what the next game will be. You get to see every team over a period of time. Right now I'm watching Kansas City at Texas. Yesterday I watched Seattle at Minnesota. Watching a random game takes the fan emotion out of the equation. You hardly ever get to see your team. Also, it's very interesting to watch bad teams. They can teach as much about the game as good teams.
Seattle (24-31) v Minnesota (23-29) isn't as bad as, say, Miami v Houston. But pretty bad. Both teams have little if any chance to be playing post-season baseball. I wonder what players on teams that are out of it in June think about while they are playing every day. Take the money out of it for a moment. Each player on each team has had tremendous individual, if not necessarily team success throughout his baseball life. They are all great players, so much better than non-professionals that most fans watching have no idea just how good they are. To get an idea, try watching a few high level amateur games. And yet here they are, grinding out game after game in a season where .500 (81-81) would be a great accomplishment for each of these teams. Perhaps they concentrate on every game as they play it and don't worry about the drab context they are in. And for great players on bad teams, like Seattle's Felix Hernandez or Minnesota's Joe Mauer, do they wonder "How did this happen to me?"
It was an interesting game, with a fabulous finish, in which Minnesota won on a triple by Ryan Doumit.
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2013_06_01_seamlb_minmlb_1&mode=box#gid=2013_06_01_seamlb_minmlb_1&mode=video
and click on "video" "Doumit's walk-off winner."
Doumit is in his 15th professional season, with 6 minor league teams, as well as seven seasons with Pittsburgh and two with Minnesota in the majors. He has had many great games.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/D/PX_doumr001.htm
This was one of them. His third hit of the game beat Seattle's stud "closer" (a 9th inning only pitcher who's only job is to get three outs with his team in the lead), what is known in baseball as a "walk-off" hit. It must have been very satisfying for a guy who also caught the whole game, the last third of which was played in a steady rain.
Other interesting features.
A. Home Plate umpire Tim McClelland, who is in his 33rd major league season, and who has umpired the plate over 1050 times, did not call a single third strike in the entire game. Home plate umpires' signature calls are their called third strikes, the one time they can really express themselves. McClelland's regular called strikes are so nonchalant they are hard to recognize, so I kept waiting to see how he would express himself. I'm still waiting.
B. Minnesota regular first baseman Justin Morneau reported to the park sick, so rookie Chris Colabello replaced him. Colabello has a pretty unique background. He played seven years in the independent CanAm League,
http://www.canamleague.com/history.php
of which he is one of three current graduates to the major leagues
http://www.canamleague.com/alumni.php
He then played two seasons of minor league ball before getting to the majors. The broadcasters mentioned this during the game, so I watched him closely during his four at bats to see if he would have stars in his eyes. But he didn't. He had perfect major league body language. He looked like a ten year major league veteran to me. Too bad he had only one hit in four times at bat. When Morneau regains his health, Colabello will return to the bench. But what a story this is, even if Colabello never plays another major league game. There's a movie to be made of this guy's life. I hope someone makes it.
Update 3: Colabello came out of the blocks in a big way in 2014, putting up great numbers for in his first week. He went 9 for his first 23, with a home run and 11 RBI as Minnesota split 6 games. .391 ba, .696 slg. For his highlights for the week see:
http://mlb.mlb.com/search/media.jsp?player_id=499624
What a story!!
Update 2: On Labor Day, Sep. 2, Colabello had a career day v Houston. He hit two home runs (5th and 6th of the season), drove in 5 runs, and won the game with a grand slam home run in the top of the ninth inning.
Home run #1:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30260527&c_id=mlb
Grand slam home run:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30267995&c_id=mlb
Obligatory interview:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30276197&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_behind_the_scenes
Update: July 27, 2013. On Jul. 20, Colabello was called up by the Twins for the third time this season. On Jul. 26, again vs Seattle, after entering the game as a pinch hitter in the 8th, Colabello came up with a man on in the 13th.
http://www.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=29177513&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_longest_drives
1st Major League home run, and it won a ballgame.
Obligatory interview:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=29182219&c_id=mlb
Go Chris!!
C. Minnesota is presently playing with a 25 man roster, 13 of whom are pitchers. This left manager Ron Gardenhire, with Morneau being sick, two position moves to make for the entire game. Does any team, much less one that is out of contention in June, need eight non-starting pitchers?
Which leads to the most interesting part (to me, anyway) of the game. In baseball, TV commentating is usually done by a two man team, one who tells you what you are seeing (a pretty redundant role, especially with all the graphics available today, for any fan who watches the game) and an "analyst", usually a former major league player who can tell you a whole lot if you listen. For example, in the June 1, 2013 game between Chicago and Oakland, Oakland baserunner Yoenis Cespedes was picked off first and headed to second. It took the Chicago defense four throws to get him. First baseman to shortstop to pitcher to second baseman to catcher. This is an excellent run-out rotation primer for a pick-off run down. But the idea is to do it with the fewest throws possible as plan A, and with the runner going back to the base he came from as plan B. Chicago violated both these rules and it was only Cespedes' increasing exhaustion as he headed toward second for the third time that allowed the Chicago catcher to tag him. Chicago analyst Steve Stone, a very intelligent ex-pitcher, summed this up succinctly. "That's exactly how you want to work your run-down. You want to throw the ball as much as you possibly can." Stone can be a very funny man. Don't believe it? See:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=27649537
But I digress. The Twins analyst is Hall of Fame ex-pitcher Bert Blyleven.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/blylebe01.shtml
Blyleven won 287 major league games in 22 seasons. He pitched over 300 innings once, and over 250 innings 8 times. He threw 262 complete games and 60 shutouts. As you might expect, he takes a dim view of how managers handle modern day pitchers, and an even dimmer view of so called "pitch counts." It was wonderful to hear Blyleven pontificate on these matters more than once during the telecast. He especially relished talking about a contemporary of his, Mickey Lolich, who once pitched 376 innings in a season and pitched over 300 innings four times.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/L/Plolim101.htm
Blyleven finished by editorializing something to the effect that he had his own feelings about the state of modern day pitching, but couldn't say how he felt on the air. He said he might blog about it sometime. As for me, that blog can't come soon enough!
All in all, a lot of food for thought in a single, pretty much meaningless baseball game that will be forgotten as soon as yesterday's newspaper. And thanks to the free game of the day, I got to see it all.
Seattle (24-31) v Minnesota (23-29) isn't as bad as, say, Miami v Houston. But pretty bad. Both teams have little if any chance to be playing post-season baseball. I wonder what players on teams that are out of it in June think about while they are playing every day. Take the money out of it for a moment. Each player on each team has had tremendous individual, if not necessarily team success throughout his baseball life. They are all great players, so much better than non-professionals that most fans watching have no idea just how good they are. To get an idea, try watching a few high level amateur games. And yet here they are, grinding out game after game in a season where .500 (81-81) would be a great accomplishment for each of these teams. Perhaps they concentrate on every game as they play it and don't worry about the drab context they are in. And for great players on bad teams, like Seattle's Felix Hernandez or Minnesota's Joe Mauer, do they wonder "How did this happen to me?"
It was an interesting game, with a fabulous finish, in which Minnesota won on a triple by Ryan Doumit.
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2013_06_01_seamlb_minmlb_1&mode=box#gid=2013_06_01_seamlb_minmlb_1&mode=video
and click on "video" "Doumit's walk-off winner."
Doumit is in his 15th professional season, with 6 minor league teams, as well as seven seasons with Pittsburgh and two with Minnesota in the majors. He has had many great games.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/D/PX_doumr001.htm
This was one of them. His third hit of the game beat Seattle's stud "closer" (a 9th inning only pitcher who's only job is to get three outs with his team in the lead), what is known in baseball as a "walk-off" hit. It must have been very satisfying for a guy who also caught the whole game, the last third of which was played in a steady rain.
Other interesting features.
A. Home Plate umpire Tim McClelland, who is in his 33rd major league season, and who has umpired the plate over 1050 times, did not call a single third strike in the entire game. Home plate umpires' signature calls are their called third strikes, the one time they can really express themselves. McClelland's regular called strikes are so nonchalant they are hard to recognize, so I kept waiting to see how he would express himself. I'm still waiting.
B. Minnesota regular first baseman Justin Morneau reported to the park sick, so rookie Chris Colabello replaced him. Colabello has a pretty unique background. He played seven years in the independent CanAm League,
http://www.canamleague.com/history.php
of which he is one of three current graduates to the major leagues
http://www.canamleague.com/alumni.php
He then played two seasons of minor league ball before getting to the majors. The broadcasters mentioned this during the game, so I watched him closely during his four at bats to see if he would have stars in his eyes. But he didn't. He had perfect major league body language. He looked like a ten year major league veteran to me. Too bad he had only one hit in four times at bat. When Morneau regains his health, Colabello will return to the bench. But what a story this is, even if Colabello never plays another major league game. There's a movie to be made of this guy's life. I hope someone makes it.
Update 3: Colabello came out of the blocks in a big way in 2014, putting up great numbers for in his first week. He went 9 for his first 23, with a home run and 11 RBI as Minnesota split 6 games. .391 ba, .696 slg. For his highlights for the week see:
http://mlb.mlb.com/search/media.jsp?player_id=499624
What a story!!
Update 2: On Labor Day, Sep. 2, Colabello had a career day v Houston. He hit two home runs (5th and 6th of the season), drove in 5 runs, and won the game with a grand slam home run in the top of the ninth inning.
Home run #1:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30260527&c_id=mlb
Grand slam home run:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30267995&c_id=mlb
Obligatory interview:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30276197&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_behind_the_scenes
Update: July 27, 2013. On Jul. 20, Colabello was called up by the Twins for the third time this season. On Jul. 26, again vs Seattle, after entering the game as a pinch hitter in the 8th, Colabello came up with a man on in the 13th.
http://www.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=29177513&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_longest_drives
1st Major League home run, and it won a ballgame.
Obligatory interview:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=29182219&c_id=mlb
Go Chris!!
C. Minnesota is presently playing with a 25 man roster, 13 of whom are pitchers. This left manager Ron Gardenhire, with Morneau being sick, two position moves to make for the entire game. Does any team, much less one that is out of contention in June, need eight non-starting pitchers?
Which leads to the most interesting part (to me, anyway) of the game. In baseball, TV commentating is usually done by a two man team, one who tells you what you are seeing (a pretty redundant role, especially with all the graphics available today, for any fan who watches the game) and an "analyst", usually a former major league player who can tell you a whole lot if you listen. For example, in the June 1, 2013 game between Chicago and Oakland, Oakland baserunner Yoenis Cespedes was picked off first and headed to second. It took the Chicago defense four throws to get him. First baseman to shortstop to pitcher to second baseman to catcher. This is an excellent run-out rotation primer for a pick-off run down. But the idea is to do it with the fewest throws possible as plan A, and with the runner going back to the base he came from as plan B. Chicago violated both these rules and it was only Cespedes' increasing exhaustion as he headed toward second for the third time that allowed the Chicago catcher to tag him. Chicago analyst Steve Stone, a very intelligent ex-pitcher, summed this up succinctly. "That's exactly how you want to work your run-down. You want to throw the ball as much as you possibly can." Stone can be a very funny man. Don't believe it? See:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=27649537
But I digress. The Twins analyst is Hall of Fame ex-pitcher Bert Blyleven.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/blylebe01.shtml
Blyleven won 287 major league games in 22 seasons. He pitched over 300 innings once, and over 250 innings 8 times. He threw 262 complete games and 60 shutouts. As you might expect, he takes a dim view of how managers handle modern day pitchers, and an even dimmer view of so called "pitch counts." It was wonderful to hear Blyleven pontificate on these matters more than once during the telecast. He especially relished talking about a contemporary of his, Mickey Lolich, who once pitched 376 innings in a season and pitched over 300 innings four times.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/L/Plolim101.htm
Blyleven finished by editorializing something to the effect that he had his own feelings about the state of modern day pitching, but couldn't say how he felt on the air. He said he might blog about it sometime. As for me, that blog can't come soon enough!
All in all, a lot of food for thought in a single, pretty much meaningless baseball game that will be forgotten as soon as yesterday's newspaper. And thanks to the free game of the day, I got to see it all.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
A fun way to "watch" historical ball games
I found a new (well, not so new, its been around since 2010) baseball site today. Absolutely fascinating. The great sites
http://www.retrosheet.org/
and
http://www.baseball-reference.com/
have text play by plays going back to 1945, with pitch by pitches going back to the late 1980's (except for Dodger games, which have pitch by pitch accounts going from 1949-1964, thanks to the genius of their great statistician Allan Roth
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Allan_Roth
who kept official track long before anyone else.) Unfortunately for baseball fans, Roth left the Dodgers in 1964 for NBC, so we only have pitch by pitches for Koufax and Drysdale for one of their great years (1963). Text allows you to imagine watching the game, and with baseball-reference, you can even keep track of the pitch by pitch (retrosheet keeps pitch by pitch data in a separate file, which is designed for export into statistical programs, so it's much more difficult to follow casually).
And all that is wonderful, it really is. You can read games that you went to, or follow particular players or pennant races. But it still isn't really "watching the game."
If you want to have some fun, try Back to Baseball:
http://www.backtobaseball.com
Here, you can pick a team, and follow every game it has played since 1945, both regular and post season, or search for a particular game, pennant race, or player. What you get is just like the old timey mechanical scoreboards that they used to have so people could follow old-timey ball games before the days of radio and TV. See:
http://www.schubincafe.com/2012/09/26/watching-remote-baseball-games-before-tv/
It's just like that, only electronic. And the cool thing is when a right handed batter is up, his name is in the right handers batters box, and a left-handed batter is in the left handed batters box.
You still need retrosheet and/or baseball-reference for the context of the game (pitchers records, standings, etc.). But backtobaseball specializes in taking retrosheet data and turning it into an actual animated ball game. Of course it ain't TV, but try finding a game from 1946 on TV.
I tried it with two games today. I also have some ancillary information that enhances the experience even more.
A. The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (Fireside Press, 2004). The heart of this incredible book is a census of pitchers and what they threw. Every pitcher who threw 1,000 innings or in 400 games, along with a whole lot who didn't, are in the census. Neyer and James have researched and sourced the repertoire for each of these pitchers. So you get the name, handedness, career span, and record of each of these pitchers, along with their repertoire. Great pitchers have more information.
B. I have access to full text Newspaper accounts from the NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee Sentinel, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the entire span of the modern era, as well as microform access to every major newspaper in the US for the same time period. So I can look up major accounts for NY Yankees, NY Giants, Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, LA/California/Anaheim/LA Angels, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Milwaukee Braves/Brewers games easily, and have access to newspaper accounts of every game played since 1901.
So I experimented today with two games.
1. Opening Day, April 10, 1959, Chicago White Sox at Detroit Tigers. Chicago--Billy Pierce (5'10" 160lb, Lefty, 211-169, 3.27 ERA, 1945-1964--threw fastball, curve, slider [added in 1951] and change. There is also a major article on Pierce in the Neyer/James book. He was a tremendous though now almost forgotten pitcher in his era.
v
Detroit--Jim Bunning (6'3" 190lb, righty, 224-184, 3.27 ERA 1955-1971--threw slider, fastball, curve, and change. He threw sidearm and Ted Williams remembered his slider as rising not dropping.
Unfortunately, as described in the Chicago Tribune article of April 11, by Richard Dozier, the game was played in blustery, 37 degree weather. It was an extra inning game, 14 innings, and lasted over 4 hours. I won't spoil it by giving you the winner, except to say that Nelson Fox had a career day for the White Sox. It was a high scoring game, with many pitchers, so not so much fun, except for the drama of the game, as an old fashioned pitchers duel would be.
Watch the game at:
http://www.backtobaseball.com/gamesiteregularseason.php?IDindex=DET195904100
Click on "View Game."
2. An old fashioned pitchers duel, in the heat of the 1967 American League pennant race, July 13, California Angels at Chicago White Sox.
California--George Brunet (6'1" 195lb., lefty, 69-93, 3.62 ERA, 1956-1971--threw fastball, experimented with a knuckle ball in 1964, developed changeup in 1966, added a slider in 1968. So basically a power pitcher who was a relief pitcher much of his career, and then became a part time starter near the end of his career.
v.
Chicago--Gary Peters (6'2" 200lb., lefty, 124-103, 3.25 ERA 1959-1972--threw sinking fastball, slider, changeup, curve.
This was a tremendous pitcher's duel in the age of pitcher's duels and if you watch the game, notice how the two pitchers got most of their outs, in light of the kinds of pitches they threw.
Edward Prell, in the Chicago Tribune of Jul. 14, emphasizes the pop gun nature of the Sox "offense" that year, and said that Peters knew whenever he pitched, he also had to hit if the Sox were to have any chance to score.
John Hall, in the Los Angeles Times, gives a bit more insight than Prell's basic account of the game. Buck Rodgers (later a manager at Milwaukee) caught the game with a broken right thumb. Woody held pinch hit with a fractured toe for California. Bill (Moose) Skowron pinch hit for California, batting for the first time since suffering a 20 stitch cut to his hand a month earlier.
Watch the game at:
http://www.backtobaseball.com/gamesiteregularseason.php?IDindex=CHA196707130
Click on "View Game".
Backtobaseball provides the most visceral way this side of old recordings or kinescopes to follow the baseball from 1945-2012. And with the Neyer/James volume, its almost like you are an advance scout. A different kind of experience. The anti-SABR approach, if you will.
Enjoy!
I'm kicking around some ideas to use the sources I have to follow some of the greatest pitchers seasons and report on them in the blog. Koufax--1963, Gibson--1968, and perhaps the greatest single season pitching performance in the history of baseball--Carlton--1972 are among the candidates.
http://www.retrosheet.org/
and
http://www.baseball-reference.com/
have text play by plays going back to 1945, with pitch by pitches going back to the late 1980's (except for Dodger games, which have pitch by pitch accounts going from 1949-1964, thanks to the genius of their great statistician Allan Roth
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Allan_Roth
who kept official track long before anyone else.) Unfortunately for baseball fans, Roth left the Dodgers in 1964 for NBC, so we only have pitch by pitches for Koufax and Drysdale for one of their great years (1963). Text allows you to imagine watching the game, and with baseball-reference, you can even keep track of the pitch by pitch (retrosheet keeps pitch by pitch data in a separate file, which is designed for export into statistical programs, so it's much more difficult to follow casually).
And all that is wonderful, it really is. You can read games that you went to, or follow particular players or pennant races. But it still isn't really "watching the game."
If you want to have some fun, try Back to Baseball:
http://www.backtobaseball.com
Here, you can pick a team, and follow every game it has played since 1945, both regular and post season, or search for a particular game, pennant race, or player. What you get is just like the old timey mechanical scoreboards that they used to have so people could follow old-timey ball games before the days of radio and TV. See:
http://www.schubincafe.com/2012/09/26/watching-remote-baseball-games-before-tv/
It's just like that, only electronic. And the cool thing is when a right handed batter is up, his name is in the right handers batters box, and a left-handed batter is in the left handed batters box.
You still need retrosheet and/or baseball-reference for the context of the game (pitchers records, standings, etc.). But backtobaseball specializes in taking retrosheet data and turning it into an actual animated ball game. Of course it ain't TV, but try finding a game from 1946 on TV.
I tried it with two games today. I also have some ancillary information that enhances the experience even more.
A. The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (Fireside Press, 2004). The heart of this incredible book is a census of pitchers and what they threw. Every pitcher who threw 1,000 innings or in 400 games, along with a whole lot who didn't, are in the census. Neyer and James have researched and sourced the repertoire for each of these pitchers. So you get the name, handedness, career span, and record of each of these pitchers, along with their repertoire. Great pitchers have more information.
B. I have access to full text Newspaper accounts from the NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee Sentinel, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the entire span of the modern era, as well as microform access to every major newspaper in the US for the same time period. So I can look up major accounts for NY Yankees, NY Giants, Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, LA/California/Anaheim/LA Angels, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Milwaukee Braves/Brewers games easily, and have access to newspaper accounts of every game played since 1901.
So I experimented today with two games.
1. Opening Day, April 10, 1959, Chicago White Sox at Detroit Tigers. Chicago--Billy Pierce (5'10" 160lb, Lefty, 211-169, 3.27 ERA, 1945-1964--threw fastball, curve, slider [added in 1951] and change. There is also a major article on Pierce in the Neyer/James book. He was a tremendous though now almost forgotten pitcher in his era.
v
Detroit--Jim Bunning (6'3" 190lb, righty, 224-184, 3.27 ERA 1955-1971--threw slider, fastball, curve, and change. He threw sidearm and Ted Williams remembered his slider as rising not dropping.
Unfortunately, as described in the Chicago Tribune article of April 11, by Richard Dozier, the game was played in blustery, 37 degree weather. It was an extra inning game, 14 innings, and lasted over 4 hours. I won't spoil it by giving you the winner, except to say that Nelson Fox had a career day for the White Sox. It was a high scoring game, with many pitchers, so not so much fun, except for the drama of the game, as an old fashioned pitchers duel would be.
Watch the game at:
http://www.backtobaseball.com/gamesiteregularseason.php?IDindex=DET195904100
Click on "View Game."
2. An old fashioned pitchers duel, in the heat of the 1967 American League pennant race, July 13, California Angels at Chicago White Sox.
California--George Brunet (6'1" 195lb., lefty, 69-93, 3.62 ERA, 1956-1971--threw fastball, experimented with a knuckle ball in 1964, developed changeup in 1966, added a slider in 1968. So basically a power pitcher who was a relief pitcher much of his career, and then became a part time starter near the end of his career.
v.
Chicago--Gary Peters (6'2" 200lb., lefty, 124-103, 3.25 ERA 1959-1972--threw sinking fastball, slider, changeup, curve.
This was a tremendous pitcher's duel in the age of pitcher's duels and if you watch the game, notice how the two pitchers got most of their outs, in light of the kinds of pitches they threw.
Edward Prell, in the Chicago Tribune of Jul. 14, emphasizes the pop gun nature of the Sox "offense" that year, and said that Peters knew whenever he pitched, he also had to hit if the Sox were to have any chance to score.
John Hall, in the Los Angeles Times, gives a bit more insight than Prell's basic account of the game. Buck Rodgers (later a manager at Milwaukee) caught the game with a broken right thumb. Woody held pinch hit with a fractured toe for California. Bill (Moose) Skowron pinch hit for California, batting for the first time since suffering a 20 stitch cut to his hand a month earlier.
Watch the game at:
http://www.backtobaseball.com/gamesiteregularseason.php?IDindex=CHA196707130
Click on "View Game".
Backtobaseball provides the most visceral way this side of old recordings or kinescopes to follow the baseball from 1945-2012. And with the Neyer/James volume, its almost like you are an advance scout. A different kind of experience. The anti-SABR approach, if you will.
Enjoy!
I'm kicking around some ideas to use the sources I have to follow some of the greatest pitchers seasons and report on them in the blog. Koufax--1963, Gibson--1968, and perhaps the greatest single season pitching performance in the history of baseball--Carlton--1972 are among the candidates.
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