things I learned about in baseball this week/how i learned to stop worrying and love baseball

I’m the shortest person of those three so I hope to duck out of the way and let them do the catching tbh

the fences are pretty shallow iirc

Good luck guys l’ll be wearing full tools of ignorance

Enjoying this thread as an ex-Expos fan who recently got back into baseball due to my son, who has been playing baseball for a number of years but has only recently gotten more into watching baseball.

Still feels weird to be a Blue Jays fan, but that's my son's team, so my team also.

Look no offence but did you not cringe at the hype for the Jays closer during that last Mariners game

Btw speaking of Expos I find it incredibly funny that Pedro hits the Phillies batter audibly in the first pitch of this video and the title of the video is about Pedro getting plunked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDA85mcVSxU

Pedro Martinez is probably my favorite Expo, I still remember listening to his perfect through 9 innings game on the radio while playing videogames (which is a weird thing I regularly did as a teenager).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTNyk1oklQA

Thank you SF Giants youtube account for delivering me this unexpected Matt Cain content, I love him so much

lol straight into gyac's veins!

have you watched the whole thing?

it's strange, but you rarely get to hear baseball players actually talk in detail about the plays in a game. it's great. usually it's just rushed post-game shit about how we played hard and trusted in god

Yes I have! My favourite part of this is Blanco’s 7th inning catch, which he was in a position to get only because he knew Cain tended to throw a certain pitch when he was down in the count and if it got hit it would go in the gap between centre and right field.

absolutely incredible moment. right, all those minute little adjustments. they happen on every pitch but they're not usually appreciated.

i love how happy and lazy Bochy looks in the studio. you earned it buddy.

I love how everyone is so superstitious and afraid of jinxing it, they refuse to describe it. “Matt Cain has not given up a base runner tonight.” Lmao also @ Cain’s “ugh” when he throws a pitch in the dirt in the 8th inning and hits Posey bouncing back up.

xp clearly Peavy and Lincecum got him on the good stuff like Peavy said.

I can’t believe he unretired to coach the fucking Texas Rangers.

it's a great point posey makes that the last pitch of the game, the sharp opposite field grounder off the end of the bat, would have been a double down the line if that game was in 2022. third basemen just don't play left handed hitters over there anymore.

They also don’t mention my favourite non-play moment

Cain was at 103 pitches as he strolled back to the dugout, where baseball's superstitions had long since taken over for his teammates. Well, for most of them.

You don't talk to a pitcher who is working on a no-hitter, and you certainly don't sit close to him in the dugout. But when Cain returned after the stressful seventh, he found Belt, in his second big league season, in his spot. Cain was amused, and a day later Belt admitted that it wasn't his first faux pas in that type of situation. In the minors, he once walked back into the dugout in the middle of a no-hitter and pointed out to teammates that there were a lot of zeros on the scoreboard.

CAIN: "I mean, it's kind of obvious. There's a towel. (Pitching coach Dave Righetti) would always lay out a towel. It was always there ... (Ryan Vogelsong) was like, 'What are you doing!' Belt was just completely oblivious, which now we know Belt and its standard for him. It was awesome."

BELT: "It wasn't funny at the time. I got the death stare from Cain and Vogey, but looking back on it, he might have gotten the perfect game because I sat there. I look at it as I think I'm good luck. But yeah, that was a scary moment for me, for sure. I thought Vogey was going to kill me."

They should have included a trigger warning of Dave Righetti’s no hitter against the Red Sox.

Cain was always so stoic and calm on the mound. I love seeing him so emotional! 🥺🥺🥺

An extremely less magical but oddly memorable game was in 2011 when the Giants were eliminated from the 2011 playoffs by the Diamondbacks. Some weird shit went on in that game. Mike Fontenot got ran over by the 2nd base umpire (this was hilarious). Henry frickin Blanco got a triple.

gyac I am not sure if this was covered already but a friend posted abt it and I immediately thought of this thread:

Dock Ellis attempted to hit every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup on May 1, 1974, as he was angry that the Pirates were intimidated by Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and the rest of the Big Red Machine. In the clubhouse before the game Ellis announced, "We gonna get down. We gonna do the do. I'm going to hit these mo**********s." Ellis took the mound and drilled Rose in the ribs. Morgan was next, he was hit in the side. Dan Driessen batted third, attempt to spin out of the way, he got plunked in the back, bases loaded. Cleanup batter Tony Perez had a pitch thrown behind him, another thrown over his head, and somehow avoided two others to draw a walk. Manager Danny Murtaugh pulled Ellis, but not until after Dock sent the next two pitches directly at the head of Johnny Bench.

Was he tripping?

I assume not, I knew the LSD story of course but not that one

Pete Rose richly deserved getting hit. Not sure about the other guys.

He wasn't tripping. It was a vendetta of some sort--there was a detailed account of it in a book I read a few years ago...I think there was a specific reason why Perez was spared, but I've forgotten it.

Actually, I think it was just Ellis getting tired of the Reds beating the Pirates all the time, and their penchant for bravado and arrogance.

I didn't really think he was tripping, it just seems so bizarre (from the perspective of 2022) that it seems to be on par with the LSD story.

I think I maybe know where I read about it--let me check.

very heartwarming thread. i drifted away from watching baseball when i was a teenager and then i had to move home around the start of the 2021 season bc of breakup/job loss/life stuff and the giants miracle season, which i watched with my mom who is a lifelong fan, was the thing that gave structure to my day and kept me from falling into self-loathing + despair. and since then i've watched almost every game.

love watching the highlights from matt cain's perfect game + tim lincecum's two no-hitters. somehow even knowing what's going to happen the close plays have my heart racing.

I think it was Dan Epstein's excellent Big Hair and Plastic Grass where I read it--thought I had it, but maybe I read a library copy. Anyway, here's a pretty detailed account.

https://theathletic.com/1785449/2020/05/01/what-the-f-is-it-with-this-guy-the-day-dock-ellis-threw-at-every-cincinnati-red/

In the spring of 1974, Dock Ellis decided he was sick of the Cincinnati Reds’ shit. The Big Red Machine was ascending. Three years removed from a World Series, the Pirates were on the decline. Ellis couldn’t abide by how his teammates handled the paradigm shift. When he saw the Reds, he vowed to send a message. On the first day of May, he got his chance.

otm

the Dockumentary is absolutely worth watching if you can track it down

This has been bugging me, so I found the Facebook post I put up eight years ago--of all places, it was Rick Perlstein's The Invisible Bridge where I read about it.

Most amazing thing I’ve yet come across in Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge: a 1974 game between the Pirates and the Reds where Dock Ellis stated his intention ahead of time to hit everyone who stepped up to bat. Here’s the box score:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/.../PIT/PIT197405010.shtml

In the first inning, Ellis hit Rose, hit Morgan, hit Dan Dreissen, walked Perez (who, according to an account I read, had to dodge every pitch), then got pulled (not ejected), but only after almost hitting Bench with a couple of pitches. Perlstein says it was in retaliation for a racist security guard who harassed Ellis at Riverfront Stadium; the other explanation I’ve come across is that Ellis was tired of the Reds beating up on Pittsburgh, and wanted to send them a message.

I was 12 when this happened, and had been a big fan for two or three years. The Reds were my favourite team. No recollection of this at all.

The link above for the box score is incomplete:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT197405010.shtml

Learning about America through baseball:

https://i.postimg.cc/02Kwkjb6/A9-B42-B72-EF71-47-D8-BC64-4-E8-D7194-CD83.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/FHjkS6bN/F9-E63-D39-5-A7-B-4-D30-B66-E-4-D01-EC4-F1-D77.jpg

Georgia - the South
Alabama - the South
North Carolina - maybe????
Tennessee- lmao no
Arizona- what the fuck is Arizona

Btw these articles were from the 2014 regular season, a season where Bumgarner lived in Tim Hudson’s basement

Tennessee is the South. They’re busting Cain’s chops for moving to Arizona

“Every game day there’s grits”

The secret of the Giants’ success revealed!

Tennessee is the South. They’re busting Cain’s chops for moving to Arizona

Bitch don’t tell me the Robinson/Reese story is possibly apocryphal; I want to believe

That story is featured prominently in the Ken Burns documentary, and I think I've read mention of it elsewhere too; have to believe it happened. (Such a great story.)

A busy week with work & personal stuff but again back on my pitchers of the noughties kick. Watched some Roy Halladay videos and read this SI piece about his death, life and some incredibly frank views from his family. Some highlights:

Dodgers righty Brandon McCarthy tweeted, “Roy Halladay was your favorite player’s favorite player.”

He planned to fly himself to the minor league affiliates. (“I don’t know if the Phillies will reimburse you for the fuel,” Miller cautioned. “I don’t care about that!” Halladay said.) He gave journals to anyone who would take them. He discovered there was no audiobook of The Mental ABCs, so he booked studio space and paid someone to read it aloud. He planned to pursue a bachelor’s degree and eventually a master’s.

Outside of Bright House Field, Halladay coached his teenage sons, Braden and Ryan. He echoed his father’s insistence on persistence, but he did not push them quite so hard. Big Roy mentioned that Little Roy had been throwing 90 m.p.h. at 17, but Braden at the same age struggled to hit 80. Little Roy didn’t want to hear it. He was a father, too, and he would teach his boys his way.

The games have a different energy and a charming authenticity here. Fans start their own chants — ¡Le voy al Sarapes mas fuerte! — with no prompting from the scoreboard. Even the youngest fans seem glued to the action. They voice their disapproval with whistles, not boos. When the home pitcher gets two strikes on a batter, the smallest of voices are the first to chirp out what is less a cheer and more an imploring wail:

“¡Pónchalo! ¡Pónchalo!”

“Strike him out!”

There are other differences. A player’s thumping walk-up music fades out when the pitcher comes set, but then it starts up again after the delivery. As a result, every plate appearance seems to have its own soundtrack, which has the odd effect of making each confrontation more compelling.

Sigfredo Sánchez’s cell phone started ringing with all of Puerto Rico on the line.

“Hang up the phone!” Menjivar told him. “Stop talking to people. You’re not allowed to talk about it!”

“Fucking awesome,” Lincecum said to reporters. “If you guys can print it, print it.”

Couldn’t then, Timmy. Can now.

Righetti threw a no-hitter for the New York Yankees on July 4, 1983. Like Sánchez, Righetti’s historic day broke a long franchise drought. His no-hitter was the Yankees’ first since Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series. And while Righetti was celebrating his achievement, someone swiped all his stuff from the Yankees dugout.

So amid the delirious joy at AT&T Park, Righetti ordered Giants reliever Merkin Valdéz to collect Sánchez’s cap, glove and jacket.

I can't read any more Roy Halladay articles. Too upsetting.

Bob Gibson, haha fucking hell. Legendary quote about this on his Wikipedia page

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8COgmnqoTc

“Between games, (Willie) Mays came over to me and said, ‘Now, in the second game, you’re going up against Bob Gibson.’ I only half-listened to what he was saying, figuring it didn’t make much difference. So I walked up to the plate the first time and started digging a little hole with my back foot…No sooner did I start digging that hole than I hear Willie screaming from the dugout: ‘Noooooo!’ Well, the first pitch came inside. No harm done, though. So I dug in again. The next thing I knew, there was a loud crack and my left shoulder was broken. I should have listened to Willie.”

damn he went down like he was shot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNLW6sEBlaQ

I’d read about this before, but I’d never seen the actual grand slam.

The funny thing is, as he peered out to the mound during that fourth-inning at-bat, Clark wasn’t trying to break the code of how Maddux might pitch to him. He just wanted to see if Cubs manager Don Zimmer would signal for left-hander Paul Assenmacher, who was warming up in the bullpen.

“I didn’t know whether he was going to take Maddux out,” Clark said. “So I’m looking right at the conference on the mound to figure out what’s gonna happen.”

“The Thrill” was already 2 for 2 off Maddux in Game 1, having doubled in a run in the first inning and hitting a solo homer in the third.

Then Zimmer strolled out to the mound in the fourth. In terms of strategic mistakes, Zimmer’s biggest one was standing a mere 5-foot-9.

“Maddux is standing on the mound and Zimmer has his back to me,’’ Clark recalled. “And he’s quite a bit shorter than Maddux (who is 6 feet), plus (Zimmer) is on the downslope of the mound. So, I can see Maddux.

“I’m looking right at Maddux — right at him — and he goes, ‘fastball in.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ I looked at Kevin Mitchell and said, ‘Did you see what he just said?’”

As much as I like Fred McGriff, it's hard to make a case for him being HOF-worthy but not Will Clark--more bWAR, higher OPS+, more MVP support, even better post-season numbers, retired at 36 and still a dangerous hitter (just as the PED era hits its stride; looked like he was really going to benefit from inflated offense in the game). I'm sure the VC will induct him within the next decade.

if the VC have their way, anyone who made it past second base will eventually be in the hall. i'm sure they were pretty much like "ooohh lotsa home runs and RBIs. you're in!"

McGriff had one big thing in his favour--well liked by everyone he played for/with/in front of--whereas I vaguely remember some issues between Clark and Bonds. Yet when I google them together, I get Clark saying Bonds was the best player he ever played with or against. So I don't know.

Letting the VC committee almost guide his BBWAA ballo--because what's the point of waiting around for the inevitable?--was the subject of a Posnanski column the other day:

But — and this is what I’ve been thinking about — maybe I’ve been doing it wrong. Take a guy on this year’s ballot: Jimmy Rollins. Rollins is below my imaginary line. He’s not far below, but with 47.6 WAR and 40.1 JAWS and a 95 OPS+, along with various other stats, he’s just not quite there. By my measurements, I have him below numerous infielders who are not in the Hall of Fame, such as Whitaker and Bobby Grich and Graig Nettles and Ken Boyer and even his old teammate Chase Utley.

Is that the right way to look at it? I’m just not sure. Because Jimmy Rollins did everything well, he hit and had some power, he stole bases and he won Gold Gloves. He was an MVP. He was a leader. He has almost 2,500 hits. He was a credit to the game. From the cues the Hall of Fame has given, Jimmy Rollins is EXACTLY the kind of guy they want to be elected.

Knowing that, should I vote yes on him even if he’s below my line?

For what it's worth, I think trying to anticipate the VC committee, while maybe admirable in theory (why not vote someone in now who's going to get in anyway down the road, possibly after he's dead?), would be a bad way to put together a BBWAA ballot.

Isn’t there a thread for this?