Monthly Archives: February 2021

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–February 2

Orval Overall (1881)
George Halas (1895)
Willie Kamm (1900)
Wes Ferrell (1908)
Red Schoendienst (1923)
George Toma (1929)
Don Buford (1937)
Max Alvis (1938)
Dale Murray (1950)
John Tudor (1954)
Pat Tabler (1958)
Buddy Biancalana (1960)
Scott Erickson (1968)
Melvin Mora (1972)
Adam Everett (1977)
Ronny Cedeno (1983)
Jason Vargas (1983)
Logan Darnell (1989)

Better known as a football coach, George Halas was an outfielder and played in 12 games for the Yankees in 1919.

Groundskeeper George Toma is a charter member of the Groundskeepers' Hall of Fame.  It is hoped that he will eventually be a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame as well.

We would also like to wish a very happy birthday to meat and to Mama SoCal.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–February 2 →

Keeping Track

Witner Wonderland: Games of January 30 and January 31

MELBOURNE

Saturday

MELBOURNE 10, BRISBANE 7 AT BRISBANE

Melbourne built a 7-1 lead in the fourth.  They led 10-3 going to the bottom of the ninth, then held on.  Brisbane had the tying run up to bat with one out, but a double play ended the game.  Darryl George was 3-for-5 with a grand slam (his fourth homer) and two runs.  Chris Burke was 2-for-4.  Jarryd Dale was 2-for-4.  Blake Gailen was 1-for-5 with a two-run homer, his seventh.  Gift Ngoepe was 1-for-5 with a home run.  Ex-Twin Delmon Young was 1-for-5 with a three-run homer, his fifth.  Ex-Twin Sam Gibbons started and pitched 4.1 innings, giving up three runs on four hits and one walk and striking out three.

Stats:  Young is batting .411.  Colin Willis was 1-for-3 and is batting .341.  George is batting .340.  Damek Tomscha was 1-for-5 and is batting .307.  Cameron Gibbens pitched 1.2 scoreless innings and has an ERA of 2.16.  Josh Tols pitched a perfect inning and has an ERA of 2.13.

Sunday

No game scheduled.  Melbourne is 17-7, in first place in the Australian League, 3.5 games ahead of Perth.  Their next scheduled game is Thursday at Perth.

CARIBBEAN SERIES

The Caribbean Series opened Sunday.

PANAMA 6, VENEZUELA 3

Trailing 3-2, Panama scored four in the sixth.  Allen Cordoba was 3-for-4 for Panama.  Harold Arauz pitched 4.2 innings, allowing three runs on six hits and no walks and striking out three.  A. Warner pitched 2.2 scoreless innings of relief.  For Venezuela, Herlis Rodriguez was 3-for-4 with a home run.  Jesus Sucre was 2-for-4 with a home run.  David Martinez pitched five innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks and striking out one.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 5, PUERTO RICO 1

J. Lagares hit a three-run homer in the third to put the Dominican up 3-1 and then hit a two-run single in the fourth to make it 5-1.  C. Martinez struck out seven in 5.2 innings, giving up one run on three hits and two walks.  Puerto Rico had just four hits.  L. Medina pitched 3.2 innings, allowing five runs (three earned) on seven hits and two walks and striking out three.

MEXICO 10, COLOMBIA 2

Mexico scored six in the fifth to take a 7-2 lead.  Jesse Castillo was 2-for-4 with a three-run homer, two runs, and four RBIs.  Manny Barreda pitched six innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on five hits and a walk and striking out two.  J. Diaz was 2-for-4 to lead Colombia.  D. Holmberg pitched four innings, giving up two runs on six hits and four walks and striking out one.

STANDINGS

Dominican Republic, 1-0
Mexico, 1-0
Panama, 1-0
Colombia, 0-1
Puerto Rico, 0-1
Venezuela, 0-1

TODAY'S GAMES

Panama v. Colombia
Venezuela v. Puerto Rico
Dominican Republic v. Mexico

 

First Monday Book Day

Book Day: Groundhog’s Eve

35 Comments

Well, the year is off and running. I'm still creating elaborate lists to figure out how to spend my bookstore gift cards that I got at the end of the year, but I did get a couple of books  in the mail this month:

Baseball's Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues by Andrea Williams

She's the only woman inducted into the baseball HOF, and I hadn't really ever heard of her until I came across this book. The little Ghost is pretty interested in the Negro Leagues, so we might dive into this one together.

Ellis Island by Georges Perec

The latest in the New Directions subscription that I got for Christmas and I'm excited to read another Perec book.  I loved "Life: A User's Manual" and I've committed myself to reading "A Void" at some point this year. Maybe I'll do that this month to pair with my new acquisition.

Some links to interesting things I read in January:

We Didn't Have a Chance to Say Goodbye - Sabrina Orah Mark - She's one of those authors that I read every time I see her name and I'm never disappointed.

My husband and I were on our honeymoon, and I thought I only wanted the plague doctor. I didn’t know I’d eventually need him, too. “You can’t be serious,” says my brother. “Who loses a plague doctor during a plague?” “I guess I do,” I say.

“We’ll find him,” says my husband. But we never do.

Corvid Vision - Barbara Tran - A poem from Conjunctions that I thought had a lot of interesting images in it.

When something is said to come full
circle does this mark completion or make
a new form

an O
through which another
could fly?

Reading with the Little Ghost:

The Girl and the Ghost turned out to be far too dark for our current situation.  Lots of bullying and jealousy and anger and it just wasn't the thing we wanted to read before bed. We switched after about 90 pages after the main character had a nightmare about eating curry with human body parts in it.

So, instead we are reading Pip Bartlett's Guide to Sea Monsters which is a series that G has enjoyed. This is the third book, and it's much more light-hearted entertainment.

He really liked Monstrous: The Lore, Gore and Science Behind Your Favorite Monsters. This was  a book where he would go quiet for a while and I'd go looking for him only to find him nose deep in a chart about how to tell if you are dead or undead.  Thanks, Pepper!

He also just finished The Atlas of Vanishing Places which was full of geography facts and just about perfect for the obsessions of this particular third grader.

Keeping Track

2003 Rewind: Game One Hundred Twenty-three

MINNESOTA 14, KANSAS CITY 5 IN KANSAS CITY

Date:  Saturday, August 16.

Batting stars:  Doug Mientkiewicz was 3-for-5 with a walk and two RBIs.  A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4 with a double, a stolen base (his second), two runs, and two RBIs.  Dustan Mohr was 2-for-4 with a double, a walk, and two runs.  Luis Rivas was 2-for-5 with a walk and three runs.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-5 with three RBIs.

Pitching star:  Juan Rincon pitched two shutout innings, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Carlos Beltran was 3-for-4 with two home runs (his nineteenth and twentieth) and three RBIs.  Mendy Lopez was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his second.

The game:  The first two Twins batters went out.  Then Mientkiewicz walked, Corey Koskie singled, Jacque Jones and Hunter had RBI singles, and Pierzynski hit a two-run double, putting the Twins up 4-0.  The Royals responded in the bottom of the first, as Aaron Guiel doubled and Beltran hit a two-run homer, leaving the score 4-2 after one.

The Twins gradually pulled away.  In the second Mientkiewicz had an RBI single and Koskie hit a sacrifice fly to make it 6-2.  Cristian Guzman hit an RBI triple in the third to make it 7-2.  Hunter had a two-run single in the fourth to make it 9-2.  Shannon Stewart's RBI single in the fifth made it 10-2.

Beltran homered again in the sixth to cut the lead to 10-3.  The Twins responded with three in the seventh.  A single and two walks loaded the bases with one out.  MIentkiewicz had an RBI single, Pierzynski was hit by a pitch to force home a run, and a third run scored on a ground out.  Lopez hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh.  The game's final run scored on Michael Ryan's sacrifice fly in the eighth.

WP:  Kyle Lohse (10-9).  LP:  Runelvys Hernandez (7-5).  S:  None.

Notes:  Stewart was again in left, Mohr in right, and Jones at DH.  Denny Hocking replaced Koskie at third base in the seventh.  Ryan replaced Stewart in left in the seventh.  Michael Restovich entered the game in the ninth, going to right with Mohr going to center and Hunter coming out of the game.

Stewart was 1-for-3 and was batting .310.  Jones was 1-for-6 and was batting .309.  Koskie was 1-for-2 and was batting .302.

Lohse pitched seven innings, allowing five runs on six hits and no walks and striking out four.  He pitched well if you don't count the home runs, but of course the home runs do count.  His ERA went to 5.03.

This would be the last start of the season for Hernandez.  He would go on the disabled list, would not pitch at all the next season, and never really be any good again.  In this game he pitched 3.1 innings and allowed nine runs on nine hits and three walks, striking out one.

Pierzynski stole fifteen bases in his career.  His high for a season was three, set in this season and matched in 2010.  He was caught stealing twenty-three times in his career but only once in this season.

The Twins were not only getting back over .500, they had two consecutive wins over the first-place team in their ballpark.  They also caught up to second-place Chicago.  Could the Twins get a sweep?

Record:  The Twins were 63-60, tied for second with Chicago, two games behind Kansas City.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–February 1

Billy Sullivan (1875)
Rosey Rowswell (1884)
Candy Jim Taylor (1884)
Frank Lane (1896)
Carl Reynolds (1903)
Paul Blair (1944)
Danny Thompson (1947)
Mark Souza (1954)
Ernie Camacho (1955)
Cecilio Guante (1960)
Tim Naehring (1967)
Kent Mercker (1968)
Rich Becker (1972)
Brett Anderson (1988)

Rosey Rowswell was a broadcaster for Pittsburgh from 1936-1954.  Bob Prince considered Rowswell his mentor.

Candy Jim Taylor was a star player and manager in the Negro Leagues for many years.

Frank Lane was the general manager of the White Sox (1948-55), St. Louis (1956-57), Cleveland (1958-60), Kansas City (1961), and Milwaukee (1971-72).

Continue reading Happy Birthday–February 1 →