I’m reading the biography Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball’s Super Showman, by G. Michael Green and Roger D. Launius. It’s quite enjoyable, if just a bit academic, and the quotes and main factual claims are thoroughly footnoted.
Because of a recent HHS thread about Tim Lincecum and Vida Blue, this passage in the book that touched on Blue’s amazing year in 1971 caught my eye: Continue reading
Including the postseason, the Giants have four 3-HR games at home this year. The last three have come in support of Barry Zito. In those three games, Zito has allowed 22 hits and 5 walks in 17.1 IP, but no HRs.
(Though beaten to publication by the New York Times and MLB.com, your humble narrator insists that he had the idea first. So there.)
Out of some 1,200 players who appeared in a MLB game this year, about 85 were born in Venezuela. Of the 15 who logged 400+ PAs this year, five will be fixtures in the World Series lineups:
Counting this year’s Yankees, teams starting 3 or more nonpitchers age 36+ in any LCS game have now lost 8 of 9 series, and teams doing that in more than one game have lost 7 of 8 series:
Eddie Yost, the aptly-dubbed Walking Man who was the Senators’ regular third baseman from 1947-58, died last week, three days past his 86th birthday. Obituaries ran in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Yost hung up his spikes after 1962 as the all-time leader in games played at the hot corner with 2,008, having surpassed by 145 games the old record-holder, Pie Traynor; he now ranks ninth in that regard. He was fourth with 1,614 walks drawn (now 11th). From 1949-55, he played in 829 consecutive games, at that time the fifth-longest streak in MLB history (now ninth).
The Giants, owners of 19 modern pennants, and the Tigers (11) have never met in the World Series. And very few players have had good years with both teams:
The Cardinals, Giants and Dodgers have each represented the NL in the World Series 18 times. Somebody is about to make it 19.
So last night, I conducted a little experiment on Twitter.
I tweeted, “I need you to name the first baseball player that comes to your mind. Doesn’t have to be a current player.” And what happened next was kind of amazing.
Tim Lincecum‘s 2012 regular season was so poor that many folks believed he had to be hiding an injury. The speculation began in April, after just two rough starts that followed a rocky spring training, and intensified through June and July, as the Giants’ erstwhile ace lugged a 6.42 ERA into the All-Star Break. As far as I’ve heard, no injury was ever disclosed; Lincecum never missed a start, and his second half was passable, with a 3.83 ERA. But his final numbers remained unsightly enough — a 5.18 ERA despite a friendly home park — that I wondered:
“Was that the worst full year by a multi-award-winning pitcher?”
The Yankees were dismissed by the AL champion Tigers, who not only swept the Bombers, but never allowed them to take a lead at any point in the 4 games.
How unusual is that? Let’s find out.