Monthly Archives: January 2020

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–January 5

Ban Johnson (1864)
Bob Carruthers (1864)
Bill Dahlen (1870)
Jack Norworth (1879)
Art Fletcher (1885)
Rube Foster (1888)
Riggs Stephenson (1898)
Luke Sewell (1901)
Jack Kramer (1918)
Earl Battey (1935)
Bud Bloomfield (1936)
Charlie Hough (1948)
Jim Gantner (1953)
Bob Dernier (1957)
Ron Kittle (1958)
Milt Thompson (1959)
Henry Cotto (1961)
John Russell (1961)
Danny Jackson (1962)
Jeff Fassero (1963)
Brian Runge (1970)
Fred Rath (1973)
Mark Redman (1974)
Eduardo Escobar (1989)
C. J. Cron (1990)
Danny Ortiz (1990)

Ban Johnson was one of the founders of and the first president of the American League.

Jack Norworth wrote the lyrics to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game".

Rube Foster was a player, manager, and owner in the Negro Leagues, eventually becoming president of the Negro National League.

Brian Runge was a major league umpire from 1999-2012.  He is the son of major league umpire Paul Runge and the grandson of major league umpire Ed Runge.

Oddly, there are three players born on this day who go by their initials:  J. P. Arencibia, C. J. Cron, and A. J. Cole.

We would also like to wish a very happy birthday to freealonzo.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–January 5 →

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Eighty-eight

MINNESOTA 11, MILWAUKEE 7 IN MILWAUKEE

Date:  Monday, July 15.

Batting stars:  Mike Pagliarulo was 3-for-4 with a double and a walk. Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-4 with a double, two walks, and two runs.  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-6 with two RBIs.  Shane Mack was 1-for-5 with a home run (his ninth), two runs, and three RBIs.  Greg Gagne was 1-for-4 with a three-run homer (his sixth) and a walk.

Pitching star:   Steve Bedrosian pitched three shutout innings, giving up four hits and striking out two.

Opposition stars:  Paul Molitor was 2-for-5.  B. J. Surhoff was 2-for-5.  Greg Vaughn was 1-for-4 with a home run (his seventeenth), a walk, and two runs.  Franklin Stubbs was 1-for-4 with a grand slam (his sixth homer).

The game:  In the first Knoblauch walked, went to second on an error, took third on a wild pitch, and scored on a ground out, giving the Twins a 1-0 lead.  Pagliarulo led off the second with a single and Mack followed with a two-run homer to make it 3-0.  Vaughn homered leading off the bottom of the third to cut the lead to 3-1, but the Twins built the lead still farther in the third.  Kent Hrbek, Chili Davis, and Pagliarulo all walked to start the inning.  A fielder's choice scored one run and Gagne delivered a three-run homer to make the score 7-1 Twins.  Back-to-back two-out doubles by Hrbek and Davis increased the lead to 8-1 in the top of the fourth.

It looked like the Twins would cruise, but the Brewers came back in the bottom of the fourth.  Walks to Darryl Hamilton and Greg Vaughn and Gary Sheffield getting hit by a pitch loaded the bases, and Stubbs unloaded them with a home run, cutting the lead to 8-5.

No worry.  Knoblauch doubled with one out in the sixth and Puckett got an RBI single.  A ground out moved him to second and Pagliarulo's RBI double made the score 10-5.  Milwaukee got one back in the bottom of the sixth when Sheffield doubled and Willie Randolph singled, cutting the lead to 10-6.  They scored one more on a double play in the seventh to make it 10-7, but that was as close as they would come.  The Twins tacked on one more in the ninth when Jarvis Brown singled, went to second on a balk, and scored on a Puckett single.

WP:  Mark Guthrie (6-5).  LP:  Jim Hunter (0-3).  S:  Bedrosian (4).

Notes:  Mack was still in left field in place of Dan Gladden, with Randy Bush in right.  Junior Ortiz was once again behind the plate in place of Brian Harper.  Bush was the leadoff batter.  Brown pinch-hit for him in the sixth.

Puckett's average was .319.  Scott Erickson started and pitched just four innings, allowing five runs on four hits and four walks and striking out one--his ERA was 2.13.

Brown was 1-for-3 and was batting .182.

Bush was batting just .221, but he did have an OBP of .323, which was better than four of the Twins other starters in this game.  That makes his use in the leadoff spot a little more understandable.  He went 1-for-3.

This was Erickson's first start since June 29.  The rest does not seem to have cured him.

Bedrosian would go on to get two more saves, making six for the season.  Three of them were of the three-inning variety, and another was 2.2 innings.

Milwaukee starter Jim "not Catfish" Hunter pitched three innings, allowing seven runs (six earned) on five hits and four walks and striking out two.  This was his only season in the majors.  He would go 0-5, 7.26, 2.00 WHIP.  He was in eight games (six starts) and pitched 31 innings.  There was not a lot in his minor league record to indicate he could pitch in the majors.  He did okay in AAA in 1991 before being called up, but nothing special, and he was twenty-seven by then.  He continued to pitch in the minors through 1995.  Wikipedia tells me that he became a high school teacher in Suwanee, Georgia after his baseball career ended.

Texas lost to Detroit 8-7, so the Twins' lead increased by a game.

Record:  The Twins were 51-37, in first place in the American League West, three games ahead of Texas.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–January 4

Tommy Corcoran (1869)
Ernest Lanigan (1873)
Al Bridwell (1884)
Ossie Vitt (1890)
George Selkirk (1908)
Gabe Paul (1910)
Herman Franks (1914)
Don McMahon (1930)
Tito Fuentes (1944)
Charlie Manuel (1944)
Ken Reynolds (1947)
Paul Gibson (1960)
Daryl Boston (1963)
Trey Hillman (1963)
Ted Lilly (1976)
Willie Martinez (1978)

Ernest Lanigan was the nephew of the Spink brothers who founded The Sporting News.  He worked for the publication from the time he was 15.  Among other things, he compiled baseball's first encyclopedia, published in 1922, and served as curator, historian, and director of the Hall of Fame from 1946 until his death in 1962.

Gabe Paul was the general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, the Cleveland Indians (twice), and the New York Yankees.

Trey Hillman was the manager of the Kansas City Royals from 2008-2010.

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Friday Music Day

FMD: 1/3/20 – Songs/Albums/Artists of the Decade – Part 1

9 Comments

There's something about "best of" lists that I - and obviously lots of people - love. I think it's that there's a low-stakes challenge to the task. It's enough that you can be invested in it, while at the same time, it's just opinion, so... fun. Anyway, in that vein, I was thinking we'd look back over the past decade and put together some lists.

I'm making this a 2-part post, since, frankly, I don't think I could complete my list today. And I'm sure people will list other songs that appeal to me, and such.

So my thought process was this - today, let's just heap up a pile of favorite songs, albums, artists, etc., from the 2010s. And next week (and I've not run this by anyone else, but I'm guessing they'll be okay with it? Free? HJ?) we'll try to actually carve out some top 10 lists.

Unless everyone else already has those 10 ready to go... then just drop 'em. Also, drop your random lists.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–January 3

Barney Gilligan (1856)
Warren Brown (1894)
Gus Suhr (1906)
Frenchy Bordagaray (1910)
Sid Hudson (1915)
Eddie Einhorn (1936)
Bob Gebhard (1943)
Dick Colpaert (1944)
Larry Barnett (1945)
Gary Lavelle (1949)
Darren Daulton (1962)
Luis Rivera (1964)
Luis Sojo (1965)
A. J. Burnett (1977)
Michael Restovich (1979)
Alex Meyer (1990)

Warren Brown was a long-time sportswriter, mostly in Chicago.  He coined Babe Ruth's famous nickname, "The Sultan of Swat".

Eddie Einhorn was a part-owner of the Chicago White Sox.  He was the founder of the TVS networks, which syndicated sports regionally and nationally in the days before twenty-four hour cable sports stations.

Larry Barnett was a major league umpire from 1969-1999.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–January 3 →

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Eighty-seven

BOSTON 5, MINNESOTA 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Sunday, July 14.

Batting star:  Randy Bush was 1-for-1 with a pinch-hit home run, his third.

Pitching stars:  Carl Willis struck out two in 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit.  Terry Leach pitched two shutout innings, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Joe Hesketh pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and no walks and striking out four.  Luis Rivera was 3-for-4 with two doubles and three runs.  Jack Clark was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs.  Tom Brunansky was 2-for-4 with a double.  Wade Boggs was 2-for-4 with a walk.

The game:  Boggs led off the game with a single and Rivera doubled, putting men on second and third.  An RBI groundout and a sacrifice fly gave the Red Sox a 2-0 lead.  In the third Rivera singled, moved to second when Carlos Quintana walked, and scored on a Clark double to make it 3-0.

The Twins got on the board in the fourth when Kirby Puckett tripled and scored on a ground out.  Boston got the run back in the fifth when Rivera doubled and scored on Clark's single, making the score 4-1.  It went to 5-1 in the sixth when Tony Pena doubled, was bunted to third, and scored on a sacrifice fly.

The Twins tried to battle back.  They scored once in the seventh when Brian Harper doubled and scored on a Scott Leius single.  Bush hit a two-out pinch-hit homer in the ninth, cutting the lead to 5-3, but that was it.

WP:  Hesketh (3-1).  LP:  David West (1-1).  S:  Jeff Reardon (22).

Notes:  Shane Mack was in left field in place of Dan Gladden.  Pedro Munoz was in right.  Al Newman was at shortstop in place of Greg Gagne.  Chuck Knoblauch batted leadoff, with Newman second.

Harper was 1-for-4 and was batting .330.  Puckett was 1-for-4 and was batting .318.  Willis had an ERA of 2.66.  Leach's ERA was 3.31.

West was making his second start of the season.  He pitched four innings and allowed four runs on six hits and three walks and striking out two.  His ERA was 3.27.

This was the first game Munoz played since July 7, and the last major league game he would play until September.

This was the last good season of Hesketh's career.  He went 12-4, 3.29, 1.27 WHIP.  The only season he had that was better was in 1988 with Montreal, when he was a reliever.  That year he went 4-3, 2.85, 1.35 WHIP.  For his career he was 60-47, 3.78, 1.38 WHIP.  He pitched in eleven seasons and appeared in 339 games, pitching 961.2 innings.  He was never a star, but was a solid big league pitcher for quite a few years.

Texas defeated Toronto 8-6, so the Twins lead shrank by a game.

Record:  The Twins were 50-37, in first place in the American League West, two games ahead of Texas.