Posts Tagged ‘baseball’

A Funny Vic Power Story that Says a Lot About How Far We’ve Come

Posted: February 18, 2022 by datechguy in baseball, culture
Tags: , , ,

My wife bought me both Bill James Historical Abstracts for Christmas the 1985 and the 2003 edition. The newer one had a story about Vic Power the premiere defensive first baseman of the late 50’s and early 60’s that made me laugh out loud and when I repeated it told a story about how far we’ve come on race in the US.

Power was a very dark skinned Puerto Rican player who came up in the early 50’s just as the integration of baseball was taking place. He as I noted (and as his stats at baseball reference.com can tell you) was a spectacular fielding first baseman winning gold gloves every year from 1958-1964 a six time all star in four years (some years two AS games were played) who could hit a bit often in the top ten of hitting categories and leading the league in triples once.

He was also rather outspoken and outgoing and was considered by racists of the time “an uppity nigger” (FYI Bill James notes this reference without spelling the actual word saying “uppity n-word”. I don’t believe in this N-word bullshit. I prefer to quote the actual offensive words being used, even that most offensive of words: “Semprini” , because it’s proper for us to see things as they actually were. If you are offended by their use at that time, good you should be. If you are offended by me quoting said offensive language to illustrate it, may I suggest there are plenty of other blogs out there for the weak of heart to read, but I digress…) but Power didn’t care not let such people stop him. A great illustration of this came in a story that James told of him.

He stopped by a restaurant in Syracuse to eat and the waiter walked up to him nervously saying to him: “I’m sorry sir we don’t serve colored people in this restaurant.” Power didn’t miss a beat in his reply: “That’s all right, I don’t eat colored people.”

James doesn’t relate what happened next but I laughed so loud & hard when I read it that all the people in the lunch room turned to stare, but the most interesting thing came when I was heading back from break toward my work station.

I passed by the guards station and the guard on duty was a thirty year old fellow who I knew to be a baseball fan. I told him the story and he smiled at the punch line but it was his reaction to the words of the waiter that struck me.

It was utter amazement. I’m almost sixty and while not old enough to remember ever hearing that in person I’m old enough for such a thing to be not unfamiliar to me, but to him the very idea that a person might choose to deny service to a person because of their race was so foreign and unthinkable to him that he just couldn’t process it.

I can think of no more concrete sign that we have really moved forward on race than that.

1969 League Report: The Impossible 9th Inning Yanks at Twins game 2 with an Ironic Twist

Posted: February 10, 2022 by datechguy in baseball, Dynasty, dynasty baseball, gaming, online gaming
Tags: , ,

One of the things about the Dynasty Baseball game is that just about anything can happen which you consider that hundreds of game may be taking place at any single moment in time 24/7.

This was proved yesterday in the first series back of a player who had previously left the league but returned to take over his team when the player who had replaced him expressed an interest in drafting his own team next season, which is the fun of a draft league, rather than playing out the current one with a team someone else built even though it’s currently in first place and a very well built team.

The game started pretty normal with Yankee Ace Fritz Peterson (9-6) vs the Twins Gene Barbender (7-6) The Yanks struck first as rookie catcher Thurman Munson tripled to lead off the game and scored on a Jim Fregosi Sacrifice Fly that was just a few feet shy from going out making it 1-0.

The Twins stuck back in the bottom of the 2nd Tony Perez Led off with a single, Willie Mays drew a walk and Rich Reichhardt doubled into the gap scoring them both making it 2-1 Twins

The Yanks took the lead back in the 6th. Nate Colbert lead off with a homer to left to tie the game. Ron Fairly singled and Greg Nettles walked. Julian Javier hit into a force putting runners at 1st & 3rd with one out. Richie Hebner pinch hitting for the slumping Bill Sudakis, grounded into a force play beating out the throw to first allowing Fairly to score and it was 3-2 NY.

It stayed that way until the 9th when the most improbabile inning I’ve ever seen took place.

The trouble began for Lindy McDaniel, who came in for Barbender in the 8th, when 2nd baseman Joe Morgan booted Munson’s grounder. He moved to 2nd on a ground out by Fregosi at which point Jose Acria came in to run for him. Nate Colbert drove him in with a single for his 2nd RBI of the game and Ron Fairly followed with a double that scored Colbert all the way from first and now the Yanks had a 5-2 lead, but they weren’t done yet.

Ernie Banks then dropped the throw on a Craig Nettles grounder that should have been out 2 (or 3 if you consider the Morgan error. It was only his 2nd error of the entire season and the Yankees took advantage of that rare Banks miscue when Fairly was able to score on a Javier grounder making it 6-2.

They say trouble comes in threes and this was certainly the case for McDaniel as he dropped Banks throw to first that would have ended the inning on a slow roller by Richie Hebner for the 3rd Twins error of the inning.

Like Banks’ error it was his 2nd of the season and like Banks’ error it immediately paid dividends for the Yankees as Ken Henderson uncharacteristically deposited his next pitch deep into the right field stands for a 3 run shot which gave the Yankees a seven run lead going into the bottom of the 9th. A seemingly unassailable lead as noted by this chart on the odds of a Minnesota win going into the bottom of the 9th

Alas for the fans of the Bronx Bombers this is not football or Basketball or Hockey or even Soccer where there is a clock to run out. This is baseball which means that no matter how many runs you are ahead by going into the last of the 9th, you still have to record those final three outs to win.

Here’s what happened.

Ernie Banks started things with a single. The hot hitting Alex Johnson followed with a high chopper to 3rd which Acria now playing the hot corner made an excellent play on to get Johnson at first. Tony Perez Singled to left Banks stopping at 3rd and the Say Hay Kid came up with another single off Peterson to driving in Banks cutting the lead to six.

Reichhart hit the next ball right to 3rd and Acria forced Perez there.

The scene was now Mays on 2nd and Reichhardt at first with two men out and the score Yankees 9 and Minnesota 3. Fritz Peterson needed only one more out for a complete game victory when light hitting Joe Azcue came to bat for Lindy McDaniel

It was not to be

Azcue singled to right scoring Mays and sending Reichhardt to 3rd. New York Yankees 9 Minnesota Twins 4. Catcher Frank Fernandez followed with a single of his own scoring Reichhardt and sending Azcue to 2nd. Yankees 9 Twins 5. At this point Dick Radatz starting throwing in the pen as it improbably began approaching a save situation.

While he was getting loose John Kennedy added to the hit parade singling to center to load the bases and Joe Morgan whose initial 9th inning error had seemingly put the game on a path to defeat waited out an exhausted Peterson for a bases loaded walk making the game 9-6 and ending Peterson’s night.

Dick Radatz came in and despite the bases loaded situation only needed one out to give Peterson the win and him the save. Steve Howley came in to bat in place of the right handed Ernie Banks who had lead of the inning. He was hitting over .400 vs RHP but that didn’t intimidate Radatz who coaxed a slow grounder toward Acria who had already made one great play in the inning and had produced the 2nd out unassisted. it seemed the game was over…until Acria hurried the throw which got past Colbert. Azcue and Frenandez both scored and now the score was 9-8 on what should have been the final out of the game.

Radatz was still not worried even with the tying run at 2nd and the winning run at 1st. He still needed only one out and was determined to keep pinch hitter Lou Brock who came in to hit for Alex Johnson from driving in that tying run.

In that respect he would be successful as Brock would pop out to Colbert on a 2-2 fastball, however with the count 2-1 Joe Morgan broke for 3rd and Hovley Broke for 2nd. Catcher Jim Paglairtoni who came in to catch at the top of the inning rushed the throw trying to end the game. It sailed into the outfield for his 1st error of the season. Morgan dashed home with the tying run and Hovley made it to 3rd where he would be stranded to end the inning.

After 9 Yankees 9 Twins 9.

After that 9th inning the 10th was almost anticlimactic Twins Reliever Cecil Upshaw (W 3-1) would retire the Yanks in order in the top of the inning while Radatz (BS L 3-5) led off the 10th with a first pitch fastball and Tony Perez took that ball drove it 399 feet into the left field stands and the game was over.

Twins 10 Yankees 9.

This was quite a cap to an exciting finish. You won’t see a game like that often or at all but the real irony is this.

I mentioned at the start of this post that this was the first game back for the former manager/GM of the Twins who had left the league because he was frustrated at the computer game. He said the results were too improbable and would end up putting his team on auto in frustration. And here is his 2nd game back and what does he get, the most improbable game of the year.

That’s irony.

My 1969 Seattle team goes all in for this season Wombat’s Washington team hardest hit

Posted: February 5, 2022 by datechguy in baseball, Dynasty, gaming
Tags: , ,

I haven’t written much about the various online baseball leagues I’m in lately but there has been a twist that I thought was interesting enough to put on the blog.

I had not made a single trade this season and held all my draft picks for next year. I also had one roster spot open in case there was a key injury that required me to make a claim off of waivers.

Yesterday the Cincinnati Reds in our league announced they will looking to trade first baseman Dick Allen. HIs current stat line was as follows:

in 86 games with the @Reds Allen batted .251 with 24 HR & 60 RBI with an OBP of .326 & slugging at .846 He was fielding at .987 with 11 Errors in 879 chances.

PlayerGABRH2B3BHRRBIBBKSBCSAvgOBPSLGOPS
Dick Allen86335488418024603811910.251.326.519.846

Allen was 3rd in the NL in homers (7th in the majors) 7th in RBI’s in the NL and 5th in slugging more importantly he was hitting .310 with runners in scoring position and two outs.

Cincinnati was asking for a 1st & 2nd round draft pick for Allen but claimed a willingness to entertain offers.

To clarify what that means at the end of the season each team is able to retain the rights to 4-12 players from their current roster plus any new rookies debuting in the next season (1970). The rest are re-drafted. So the world series winner keeps 4 players, the runner up 5 and the two worst teams in the majors 12. So in addition to rookies who are just coming up.

In other words the first 134 players in the majors are accounted for and you have to build your team on the rest

So this would mean if I paid cincy’s price and won the world series. I would retain four players (presumably Allen among them) and my first pick for next year would be the 48th overall. So the questions were:

  1. Is Dick Allen be a big enough upgrade to warrant a deal
  2. Could the price be made more manageable?

Now my current first baseman Mike Fiore is currently 6th in the AL in batting .297, 2nd in OBP .441 9th in OBP+ Slugging (.892) 4th in Runs (69), 4th in hits (102) and leads the league in walks with 88, and has incredible range (A) vs Allen (C+). This would suggest that Allen would not be a sufficent upgrade but it turns out Fiore also played the outfield in 1969 albeit at a below avg level. To get him into left I would have to move Pete Rose to 2B permanently so the person to compare Allen to wasn’t Fiore but Dick McAuliffe who would be benched in his favor. here is how their current stats compare:

PlayerGABRH2B3BHRRBIBBKSBCSAvgOBPSLGOPS
Dick Allen86335488418024603811910.251.326.519.846
Dick McAuliffe77215325693838343400.260.356.442.798

As you can see a marginal drop in avg and OBP is offset by a huge increase in slugging. Allen’s addition to the lineup in the cleanup stop also means that Pete Rose would be less likely to be given an intentional walk as the next batter would be Allen rather than Ed Kirkpatrick who while having virtually the same OBP as Allen (.325) has much less pop (.238 6 HR 41 RBI).

Additionally Allen continued to have great years through 1975 while Fiore was a one year wonder who would fade after this season

In short Allen would be a big offensive upgrade and worth getting. Bill James rated him as the 15th best first baseman of all time in his 2001 Baseball Abstract but noting one big downside describing Allen as:

The second most controversial player in baseball history, behind Rogers Hornsby. Allen had baseball talent equal to that of Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, or Joe DiMaggio, and did have three or four seasons when he was as good a player as anyone in baseball, but lost half of his career or more to immaturity and emotional instability.

In short Allen has a bad effect in the clubhouse (An F rating-30 pts teams with a 45 or above have a positive clubhouse below 0 negative 0-30 avg ) Allen would reduce my clubhouse to avgerage from positive so to counter this effect I would need to bring up veteran Dick Tracewski (.214 0 HR 0 RBI) and sending down switch hitting backup Dick Schofield (.227 0 HR 4 RBI) but that was a small price to pay.

The 2nd question was could I pay the price of not picking till #48?

That took some negotiation and in the end the deal was as follows:

I gave up my 1st, 3rd and 5th round picks (if I won the series picks 16, 48 & 70 presuming no expansion)

Cincy threw in their 4th round pick (currently pick 57)

So while I would lose pick 16 & 48 if I won it all I would be moving up 13 spots on trading pick 70 for 57.

So the deal was made. In four games here is Allen’s line so far

PlayerGABRH2B3BHRRBIBBKSBCSAvgOBPSLGOPS
Dick Allen4171501022400.294.368.412.780

Both of those walks were intentional while his power numbers are down his OB is up and I’m sure once he gets a few games in the HR friendly Sick Stadium his slugging will go through the roof.

More importantly Pete Rose batted in two spots where he would normally have been walked and drove in runs both times.

It remains to be seen if this will put me over the top but if nothing else it means that my next Opponent the Washington Senators will not issue Pete Rose seven intentional walks as he did before.

Wish me luck

Hall of Fame Talk Who belongs in

Posted: January 27, 2022 by datechguy in baseball, Sports
Tags: ,

If you want to know why baseball, the most perfect sport there is continues to die a slow death consider this fact concerning Baseball’s Hall of Fame

Baseball’s all time leaders in

  • Games
  • Plate Appearances
  • At Bats
  • Hits
  • Home Runs
  • Walks
  • Intentional Walks

Are either by vote or by exclusion not in the Hall of Fame.

Furthermore one of the most successful pitchers in the game both in the regular season and the post season is excluded because he does not support the political party favored by baseball writers, even though he was the center of one of the most heroic moments in the history of the game.

My own HOF standard is simple there are two ways to judge it.

  1. If someone says to you “Is ‘x’ good enough for the Hall of Fame and you have to think about it, then they are not.
  2. If you are afraid if this player that you don’t want coming up against you to bat or pitch with the game on the line then he is a Hall of Famer.

All that being under rules 1 & 2 Ortiz belongs in the hall, but so does Clemens, Bonds and Schilling hands down,

As for the vets committee. Under rule 1 Minoso belongs in, Under rule 2 Oliva belongs in and I have no beef with O’Neil or Hodges who I never saw play or Kaat who while not a great pitcher was a very good pitcher for two decades so you might add a sustained quality exception in that he while never the best was quality long beyond the norm.

FYI concerning Rose. I think Pete Rose is one of the best players who ever played the game. In my 1969 league he was my #1 pick. He played harder and worked harder than anyone in the game. He’s exactly the type of guy you want in your clubhouse or to build a team around. It’s no coincidence that a loaded Phillies team didn’t win their 1st world series until he as a 38 year old 16+ year vet showed up. I loved watching him play and if you put me in room with him I could listen to him talk baseball for hours.

All that being said if this was Harold Baines or Mike Greenwell nobody would question his being banned from the game. For 30 year he walked into ballparks past signs that said in effect:

Bet on baseball and you’ll be banned

And he did it anyways. I don’t think for one moment that he ever threw a game or bet against himself but that doesn’t enter into it. He’s guilty as sin and didn’t take the outs that were offered to him because I frankly think he was too competitive to do so. He looked on it as a game to win rather than an offer of mercy. That’s one him

With sports gambling now legal if MLB wants to reverse this sometime before he dies I don’t have an issue with it but he bet on baseball and while I think the ban is sad and might even be counterproductive at this point. It is just.

My thought: last year was the 175th anniversary of the 1st professional baseball game. I think in honor of that and whatever settlement baseball reaches to avoid a lockout a general amnesty should be declared for all players at any level for offenses against the game.

That would allow us to celebrate the game we loved and enjoyed.

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