Happy Birthday–June 28

Spider Baum (1882)
Ken Williams (1890)
Haruyasu Nakajima (1910)
A. Ray Smith (1915)
Fred Gladding (1936)
Ron Luciano (1937)
Fred Talbot (1941)
Al Downing (1941)
Don Baylor (1949)
Chris Speier (1950)
Joe Sambito (1952)
John Elway (1960)
Jay Schroeder (1961)
Mark Grace (1964)
Ron Mahay (1971)
Corey Koskie (1973)
Richard Hidalgo (1975)

NFL quarterbacks John Elway and Jay Schroeder each played minor league baseball.  Elway hit .318 in 151 at-bats as an outfielder for Class A Oneonta in 1982.  Schroeder was primarily an outfielder for four years in the Toronto system, never getting higher than Class A.  He hit .213 with 36 homers in 1,304 minor league at-bats.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–June 28

2011 Game 77: McCourtsMLBs at Pohlads

Finally, we get to go home and take on somebody our own size. The Dodgers (35-44) are the epitome of a small-market club, struggling to make payroll, playing their games in an old, rundown stadium with trough urinals.

They do have some Midwestern charm, however:

The Dodgers owe everybody and their mother money:

The team owes a total of $74,121,433 to their players, food and travel vendors, and even the city of Los Angeles.

The team owes Los Angeles $240,563 in taxes. It also owes Levy Restaurants $588,322 for running the concession stands at the stadium, as well as $339,403 to Continental Airlines for team travel.

Some of the Dodgers' major payroll creditors include former players Manny Ramirez ($20.9 million), Andruw Jones ($11.1 million, currently with the NY Yankees), and Juan Pierre ($3.05 million, currently with the Chicago White Sox, who is also owed $3.5 million for his trade). Other players on the list include the current roster, and the LA Times points out that two of the players owed money (Zach Lee and Alexander Santana) haven't even begun playing yet. Also on the list: longtime sportscaster Vin Scully ($152,778).

That would be the best-PBP-voice-in-baseball Vin Scully. Unfortunately, Scully, 82, rarely does away games east of Denver these days. So scratch that from the list of attributes for this series.

Instead, let's just hope Our Boys can get some Mojo back in order to make a run at respectability. They still have a shot at the International League playoffs!!!11one111!!!!

Pitching matchup:
Chad Billingsley (Righty, 4.48 ERA, 3.35 FIP, 3.56 xFIP, 86:40 K:BB in 94 1/3)
Nick Blackburn (3.15 ERA, 4.43 FIP, 3.89 xFIP, 51:27 K:BB in 97 innings)

Billingsley is right at league averages for GB%, FB% and LD%. His 5 1/3 innings against Detroit last Tuesday (6 hits, 2 BBs, 6 Ks, one run) was his longest outing in a month. He has given up four or more runs in four of his last six starts. Even better, the Dodgers' bullpen has been awful -- minus 20.7 pRAA on the season (the Twins' pen is only -12.5 pRAA).

Offensively, the Dodgers have been mediocre, with the glaring exceptions of Matt Kemp (327/416/619) and Andre Ethier (317/389/461). If we can avoid Neck Fat giving those guys hanging sliders, we might actually win this series.

June 27, 1988: Random Day in Twins History

I used a random number generator to pick a season from the past with the idea that I would quickly highlight the Twins history that occurred today in that year.  The generator sent me to the year 1988.

Angels 16, Twins 7 - BR boxscore

In a game with an odd 5:10pm start time, the Angels hitters teed off against Minnesota pitchers.  The Twins pitchers combined to allow 24 baserunners in 7 innings.  A performance made all the more shameful when Dan Gladden pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning.  In fact, the Twins ended the game with the following defensive lineup:

P-Gladden; C-Brian Harper; 1B-Kelvin Torve; 2B-Steve Lombardozzi; 3B-Al Newman; SS-Greg Gagne; LF-Mark Davidson; CF-John Moses; RF-Randy Bush

Tony Armas managed to go 0-for-5 for the Angels even though the other eight players in their starting lineup all had scored at least one run and had at least one hit by the fourth inning.  Bob Boone had four hits while batting ninth for the Angels.  It was his first four-hit game in more than four years.  He may have been exacting revenge against the Twins for not signing his son, Bret, after they had drafted him in the 27th round the previous year.  Bret would ultimately get the last laugh with his comically inept cameo in a Twins uniform at the end of his career.

Kirk McCaskill "earned" the win by throwing 102 pitches while staggering through 5 innings and allowing 10 hits and 4 runs.  When asked after the game, McCaskill told reporters, "[T]oday I was pretty sorry."

The Angels 5-run third inning featured two walks and three different hits that made contact with Twins in the infield (Johnnie Ray singled off Torve's glove, Jack Howell singled off Lombardozzi's glove and Devon White singled off starter Fred Toliver's leg).

Torve hit his only Major League homerun in the seventh inning off future-Twins minor league coach Stew Cliburn.  Randy Bush reached base four times (including getting hit by his fifth pitch of the season) and the most important man in America had three hits, including a double.

Finally, reliever Jim Winn made his Twins debut allowing six hits in one inning of relief work after entering after Devon White's abovementioned third inning single with the game tied 3-3 and runners on the corner.  Winn had been a first round pick for the Pirates in 1981 (four spots after the Twins drafted Mike Sodders) and had been signed as AAA filler after getting cut at the end of Spring Training by the White Sox.  He stuck around with the Twins for a month, and then got another cup of coffee in September to end his Major League career.  Tom Kelly managed to use Winn nine times that season in relief and never brought him into another game UNLESS the Twins were already losing.  TK knew how to use a groundskeeper.

Randon Thing I Noticed While Researching This Date: In 1988, Tom Nieto had four singles and a walk in 62 plate appearances as a backup catcher.  If only the Twins could have someone of Brian Harper's ability to come up and replace Butters...

AMR’s Graphs: 6/25/2011

I was putting some things off during the Twins game yesterday and the game wasn't enticing any more, I played with Excel and baseball-reference's CSV data table option. As I did this all during the game, it does not reflect the results of the games of that day. So, although it looks like the Twins are a game out of last place, they are now in last place, again (by percentage points behind the Royals).

I like to "look" at data, so this is my looking at it. I think of this stuff like I'm taking the progression of the season -- distilled into statistics -- and converting it into a graph that then informs my narrative.

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The style of the first table may be memorable from the WGOM 1.X: games above (below) .500 in the division, showing the development of the race over the season. The ordering of the teams, however, is not familiar.
AL Central 2011: Games Above .500 through 6-25
Continue reading AMR’s Graphs: 6/25/2011

Remodeled basement. Same half-baked taste.