Baseball Quiz: 1) Who is the all-time leader in doubles with 793? [Hint: Perhaps the greatest player who is seldom in the conversation as an all-time great.] 2) Who holds the record for most consecutive seasons leading the league in home runs with seven? 3) Who are the three since 2000 to hit four home runs in a game? Answers below.
Jorge’s Jerk Move
The Yankees’ Jorge Posada has always been a been a pain in the butt. Helluva ballplayer in his prime, clutch hitter and all that…but a selfish jerk nonetheless.
So on Saturday night against the Red Sox, Jorge, seeing he was slated to bat ninth owing to his .165 batting average, pulled himself from the lineup…a classic case of insubordination.
The thing is, at 4 p.m. (7:00 p.m. start), he told reporters he was OK with the decision, then two hours later went to manager Joe Girardi and, according to a source for the New York Post, told the skipper he was “insulted” by the move and yanked himself out.
General Manager Brian Cashman was then asked to talk Jorge out of his idiotic decision, Posada refused, and then in the second inning, Cashman told reporters that indeed the one-time All-Star had opted out. Cashman, in his brief statement, added “There is no injury.”
Hours later, Jorge’s wife posted a message on her Facebook page and on Twitter, saying: “Jorge loves being a Yankee [more than] anything. He’s trying his best to help his team win. Today, due to back stiffness he wasn’t able to do that.”
Again, there was no injury, though Posada himself later tried to convince reporters this was his reason for sitting out.
“(This) is larger than Posada. The Yankees have more aging icons than any team. If this happens when Posada is dropped in the lineup, what occurs when it’s his pal, Derek Jeter? Maybe that explains why manager Joe Girardi has resisted that move through various Jeter slumps the last two seasons. What happens if / when Mariano Rivera cannot handle the final three outs or Alex Rodriguez slumps himself out of cleanup?
“Organizations will tell you there is nothing harder than transitioning a great player as his skills fade; because often a key ingredient in that greatness for the player is an arrogance in his skills. That arrogance does not diminish as the production does. Posada, for example, insisted before yesterday’s game that he was not in a slump, but rather was ‘in a little hole.’ He was batting .165, the lowest among 193 players qualified for the batting title. He was hitless in 24 at-bats against lefties.”
[On Sunday, Posada apologized to Joe Girardi. Too late in terms of his reputation, though the Yankee front office said Posada would not be fined or suspended.]
Go on…Be a Tiger!
“When it was over, when Tiger Woods’ Players Championship week was cut short after only nine holes in yesterday’s opening round, Woods limped gingerly up a staircase to the players’ parking lot and got into his white Mercedes.
“Here’s how yesterday unfolded for the former undisputed No. 1 player in the world: On his opening tee shot, Woods wrenched the left knee and Achilles he injured at the Masters last month, then proceeded to shoot a shocking 6-over-par 42 on the front nine and promptly withdrew from the tournament.
“Woods’ latest setback has massive significance regarding his immediate and long-term future, both of which seem incredibly uncertain….
“Woods obviously rushed back too soon, and judging by the way the 35-year-old limped around yesterday, one has to wonder if he ever will be well enough to play another major, never mind win one.
“With every obstacle Woods encounters, the distance between his 14 major championships and Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 lengthens.
“Two years ago, the notion of Woods matching and breaking Nicklaus’ record seemed inevitable. It now seems implausible.
“Now we wonder not when or whether Woods will win again, but when he’ll play again….
“This much is certain: Nothing has been right for Woods since news of his sex scandal broke back in November of 2009.
“He lost his wife in a messy, expensive divorce. He lost custody of his children. He lost his dignity. He hasn’t won a tournament in a year and a half. And now he has alarming physical issues that have his playing career in peril.”
By the way, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee may not have ingratiated himself with Tiger but his comments on Wednesday, prior to the first round of The Players, were rather prescient. Chamblee said: “I think there’s a really good chance that he’ll be gone before he was last year,” referring to Tiger’s third –round withdrawal with a neck injury. “Even though he said yesterday that his knee was fine, Tiger Woods has been all over the map…There are bunkers, there are mounds. So it’s not very hard to imagine Tiger Woods in a situation where one knee is two feet higher than the other and he’s got to make a golf swing. It’s fairly likely he’s going to reinjure himself playing this golf course.”
Chamblee also opined: “We’ve watched Tiger age so rapidly right before our eyes. Right before our eyes we’re watching him where he’s shuffling off the course. It’s really sad to watch what’s going on with Tiger Woods on the range, where this phenomenal athlete with the former best swing perhaps of all time is now in a sense kind of an old man out there…going through all of the moves that look like he’s handicapped.”
Meanwhile, in the tournament itself, K.J. Choi, who turns 41 this week, defeated 44-year-old David Toms in a sudden death playoff when Toms missed a 3-footer…just brutal. It’s very possibly his last chance to win a big event. As for Choi, what a deserving champion. The man from South Korea tries so hard to be fan friendly and after this big win his on-course popularity should soar.
Ball Bits
–Goodness gracious. Have you seen what Washington Nationals phenom Bryce Harper, the number one pick in last year’s draft, is doing for Class A Hagerstown? Harper, who doesn’t turn 19 until October, was hitting .393 through Saturday’s play, 48 for 122, with nine homers and 31 RBI. He has a .468 OBP and .705 slugging percentage. A Wall Street Journal story on him was titled “Is This the Best Hitting Prospect Ever?” It may be Class A, but the pitchers he’s going against are 3 and 4 years older on average and he is one of just three 18-year-olds.
As the Journal notes, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez were the last two prospects to receive this kind of hype coming out of high school, and like Harper, were both selected No. 1 overall. However, Griffey hit .338 in Single-A ball and A-Rod hit .319. Neither had the power numbers Harper is putting up thus far.
Actually, consider this. Harper was hitting just .231 before he visited the team optometrist and the guy told him after Bryce read an eye chart, “I don’t know how you ever hit before. You have some of the worst eyes I’ve ever seen.”
So Harper was fitted with a new pair of contact lenses and has been hitting about .480! since. Which begs the question, as the Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin put it, “How did Harper become the top amateur player in the nation in 2010, as well as arguably the greatest hitting prospect in Major League Baseball draft history, when he was ‘blind as a bat’ prior to his being fitted with contacts?”
–Goodness gracious, part deux: Last year, Toronto’s Jose Bautista, a man who had never hit more than 16 home runs in his prior four full seasons in the big leagues, suddenly blasted 54, or 15 more than the next guy in the A.L. Immediately, cries of steroids went up…HGH, specifically, since baseball still doesn’t test for it.
So what has he done this year? Despite being hurt one week, after clubbing three round-trippers on Sunday, Bautista has 16 home runs in 32 games (Toronto has played 40). Plus, a guy who never hit better than .260 (which he did last year) is batting .368.
Bautista claims it’s all about a new swing and newfound discipline. I doubt I’ll ever be convinced.
–Then there is the tragic tale of the Angels’ Kendrys Morales. It was in 2009 that Morales emerged as a bona fide slugger and star, slamming 34 homers and driving in 108 while batting .306. In his first 51 games of 2010 he was on track for similar numbers, 11 home runs and 39 RBI.
But last June, celebrating a game-winning homer against Seattle, he broke his ankle while jumping on home plate in celebration, underwent surgery in which a pin and six screws were inserted, it was assumed he would be ready for opening day this season, and wasn’t, and then this week Morales announced he was having a second operation on the same ankle which sidelines him the rest of the year.
Dr. Thomas O. Clanton, a Colorado foot and ankle specialist, “will clean out scar tissue and remove degenerative cysts that have formed in the ankle. A bone graft might also be required,” as reported by Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times.
–Nice to see Boston’s Adrian Gonzalez come through after signing a mammoth contract, unlike his teammate Carl Crawford. He’s a good guy. Wish the Mets had him.
–Reminder, Tampa Bay (and Boston) started the season 0-6 and the Rays are now in first. Granted, it’s still very early, but no American League that started 0-6 has ever made the playoffs.
–Bill Pennington of the New York Times has a bit on the 1918 Chicago Cubs-Boston Red Sox World Series and how some say it may have been fixed just like the 1919 Black Sox scandal that almost took down the sport.
“No documented proof exists, but there are suspicions, largely because the conditions were ripe for a bribe, as they were in 1919….
“If this were a mystery novel, the smoking gun would be a court deposition displayed in April at the Chicago History Museum from Eddie Cicotte, the first of the Black Sox to confess. In the 1920 deposition, Cicotte said matter-of-factly that his 1919 teammates talked about how one or several Cubs were offered $10,000 to fix the 1918 Series.”
But it was really just hearsay, as in Cicotte said some remarks were made on a train trip. “Somebody made a crack about getting money if we got into the Series.”
Some say there were suspicious plays in the Series, especially after the first three tightly played contests. Others say there just isn’t any proof. Nonetheless it has stirred ghosts, as Pennington put it, “especially because being a Cubs fan means knowing your team last won a World Series in 1908. The 1918 World Series is also a source of pride to Red Sox fans; that Babe Ruth-led team was the franchise’s last championship until 2004.”
–I’ve noted this before, but Sunday’s New York Post has a story on how former Met Bobby Bonilla, now 48, will begin receiving $1.2 million annually for the next 25 years from the team, owing to a deal the two cut in 1999. The Mets were on the hook for a final $5.9 million on the long-term deal they had signed him to but the two sides agreed that they would wait until 2011 to start paying him off, at 8% compound interest, and, voila! The total tab is now $29.8 million by the time it’s paid off.
–Ex-Mets employee Charlie Samuels, longtime clubhouse manager, was charged last week with stealing more than $2.3 million worth of team memorabilia that prosecutors said he stashed in a friend’s basement and planned to sell to fund his retirement. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Samuels had been collecting jerseys, bats and baseballs – some autographed – for much of his 34 years with the team.
How many? Try 1,700 items, including a signed jersey from the team’s 1986 championship and another from 2001 honoring Sept. 11 victims, both valued at $7,500. In all, Samuels took 507 signed and unsigned jerseys, 304 hats, 828 bats, 22 batting helmets and 10 equipment bags.
When the Mets fired him last fall as the investigation got under way, he was making $83,750 a year but had supplemented that by taking in an average $200,000 a year in tips from players since 2005. Additionally, he was charged with income tax evasion and he’s been linked to a gambling ring where he supplied the Mob with inside information. He faces 25 years in prison.
—Matt Murton, former major leaguer, set Japan’s single-season hits record last season with 214 in 144 games, surpassing Ichiro’s 210 in 130 games. This year he is off to a solid start as well, so the question becomes does he attempt to return to the majors when his contract runs out after the season, at which point he’ll be just 30, or does he stay in Japan? In 2006 for the Cubs, the lone season in which he played full time, he hit .297 with 13 homers and 62 RBI.
–Sean Forman reports in the New York Times that through May 10, “this is the third lowest per-game scoring to start a season since 1987, with only 1989 and 1991 beginning with lower scoring than the current year’s average of 4.19 runs per game.
[Hitters are striking out at an all-time rate this year, too. In 1931, as reported by Sports Illustrated, the percentage of plate appearances with a whiff was 8.2%. Thus far in 2011, it’s 18.6%.]
–May 15, 1941, Joe DiMaggio goes 1-for-4 against the White Sox Eddie Smith to launch his 56-game hitting streak. I never heard of Eddie Smith, but he pitched for 10 seasons in the A.L. in the 30s and 40s and was 73-113, though with a 3.82 ERA. These days with numbers like that he’d be making $6 million a year.
–Lastly, Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew has entered hospice care as he announced in a statement that he will no longer receive treatment for his esophageal cancer. Killebrew is just 74 and when this all-time slugger breathes his last it will be a very sad moment for all of us.
–New York Rangers enforcer Derek Boogaard, 28, was found dead in his Minneapolis apartment, Friday. Foul play was not suspected but an autopsy is pending. It seems Boogaard had a difficult time recovering from a concussion last December that limited his play to 22 games this year. Is there a link? We may not know for a number of months because his family authorized Boston University researchers to examine his brain for the damage they have recently found in more than 20 NFL players and two retired hockey players. Boogaard’s agent was with Derek early last week and said “he had his smile back.”
–Former NBA ballplayer Robert “Tractor” Traylor died, apparently the victim of a heart attack at the age of 34. Traylor, at 6-foot-8 and 300 pounds, was a McDonald’s All-American in high school who went on to star at Michigan before being drafted No. 6 overall in 1998 by the Dallas Mavericks, who traded him to Milwaukee for the Bucks’ two first-round picks, Dirk Nowitzki and Pat Garrity. Seeing as how some would argue Nowitzki is one of the ten best players in NBA history (certainly top 20), you could say this didn’t work out real well for Milwaukee. Traylor averaged less than five points a game in his seven seasons.
–Former Dallas Cowboys running back Ron Springs passed away. He was just 54 but had been in a coma since 2007. Springs slipped into the coma after undergoing surgery to remove a cyst from his forearm about seven months after receiving a kidney from former Cowboys teammate Everson Walls. A 2008 medical malpractice lawsuit against two doctors Springs’ wife said caused brain damage to her husband is pending.
Springs starred at Ohio State before playing in the NFL from 1979-86 with Dallas and Tampa Bay. He had 2,519 yards rushing and caught 249 passes.
–Alabama offensive tackle Aaron Douglas, a freshman All-America at Tennessee two years ago before transferring twice and ending up in ‘Bama, was found dead on a balcony at a private house party. No word on the cause.
–Former Angels and Reds pitcher Mel Queen died at the age of 69. Queen came up with the Reds in 1964 as an outfielder, actually, but then was converted to pitcher and in his first full season on the mound for Cincinnati was 14-8 with a 2.76 ERA. Alas, he would only win 6 more and finish 20-17 in a career that spanned 1964-72, including his final years with California, where he saved nine games in 1970.
Queen was a highly successful pitching coach for the Blue Jays, though, as in just four years in that position, Toronto pitchers won three Cy Young Awards: Pat Hentgen in 1996 and Roger Clemens in 1997 and ’98.
–Joe Drape of the New York Times had a story on Barry Irwin, owner of Derby winner Animal Kingdom. Irwin, 68, has been at the forefront of the anti-drug movement in thoroughbred racing, citing how horses in Europe, where medications rules are strictly enforced, are sturdier and faster.
So in other words, Irwin, real or imagined, has a big target on his back as he questions the honesty of trainers in the U.S. and as a result has hired around-the-clock security for Kingdom in preparation for this weekend’s Preakness.
–The Fiesta Bowl can keep its Bowl Championship Series slot but has been fined $1 million following an investigation into all manner of improprieties by the bowl’s employees, including illegal campaign contributions and the use of bowl funds for lavish personal expenses.
–The Celtics’ Doc Rivers received a five-year contract extension for a reported $35 million, which ain’t chump change, so no wonder he re-upped when a lot of folks thought he would walk away, at least for a year, to follow his boy, Austin, an incoming freshman at Duke.
–Sports Illustrated had a bit on the upcoming college football season and it looks like Virginia Tech has a budding star in 6’ 6”, 245-pound sophomore quarterback Logan Thomas. A “bulldozer” of a runner, plus “an NFL-ready arm.”
–One of the ten most-loved women in America, Mary Tyler Moore, underwent successful surgery to remove a benign brain tumor and is “recovering nicely,” her doctor said.
–Cool story out of Long Island’s Nassau University Medical Center. It seems a pair of peregrine falcons has made a window ledge on the 17th floor their home for 15 years, and the couple, Meadow and Brook, named for the nearby Meadowbrook Parkway, are now responsible for 55 falcons, including five this spring. I mean, heck, the falcons are an endangered species and these two are single-wingedly bringing them back. Could be enough to jump them into the top 50 of the All-Species List…Man now floundering at No. 123.
—Lowland gorillas aren’t exactly lighting it up these days. Check this out, from the Irish Independent’s Steve Connor.
“The first gorilla to be born at London Zoo for 22 years has died after being attacked by a male silverback who arrived from Dublin Zoo last year.”
Yes, sectarian violence has made it into the London Zoo. I won’t describe the injuries because that’s not fair when you’re talking animals, but the trouble started when “zookeepers were attempting to introduce Kesho, an 11-year-old silverback male (and former IRA member), to the baby and his mother, Mjukuu.”
I do have to report this part, which just breaks your heart. The zoo’s hospital performed a three-hour operation on the seven-month-old but it wasn’t successful in saving “Tiny” so “the baby’s body was given back to Mjukuu so that she could come to terms with his death.”
“London Zoo said it was always going to be difficult to introduce a new silverback male into the resident band of three females, given that one of them was pregnant by the previous dominant male who died suddenly last year.
“The zoo said it was important to introduce the silverback male into the harem as quickly as possible after the death of the previous dominant male to stabilize the social cohesion. However, in the wild, new males who take over an existing harem are known to kill infants fathered by the previous leader.
“Kesho was introduced gradually to the other two females but keepers waited many more months until they introduced him to Mjukuu and her baby.”
“However, when Kesho was introduced a second time on Thursday morning, he began to assert his dominance and a scuffle broke out between the whole group, injuring the infant.”
–As reported by the AP: “Authorities at Thailand’s international airport arrested a first-class passenger Friday whose suitcases were filled with baby leopards, panthers, a bear and monkeys. The animals had been drugged and were headed for Dubai.”
In other words, the guy was traveling with a zoo. Anti-trafficking officers had the man under surveillance since his black market purchase of the rare and endangered animals.
“When authorities opened the suitcases, the animals yawned, said Steven Galster, director of FREELAND, who was present during the bust.”
In Thailand, “leopards and panthers fetch roughly $5000 a piece on the black market, but their value in Dubai was presumably higher, Galster said.”
–Some of London’s suburbs are having a big problem with parakeets, which are hardier than you might have thought. What was once an estimated population of 1,500 there is now thought to be well over 30,000, as reported by the New York Times’ Elisabeth Rosenthal.
“I was delighted when I first saw one in my yard, but when you have a flock of 300, it’s a different matter,” said Dick Hayden, a retiree. “They eat all the berries. They ate all the food from my feeder in one day; it was ludicrous. I had to stop putting it out because it got too expensive.”
So where did they come from? Initially, probably just people getting rid of their pets, parakeets being a popular one.
But how are they proliferating so rapidly? Rosenthal points out they “are hardy enough to survive the foothills of the Himalayas,” which is why they have survived Britain’s recent record cold winters.
It could just be that gardeners are planting more exotic plants, providing more food for the species. More suburbanites are installing bird feeders.
The biggest problem, though, is that “parakeets have proved major agricultural pests elsewhere, ravaging crops in places like India.” To be continued….
—Ashton Kutcher will earn $1 million an episode, replacing Charlie Sheen on “Two and a Half Men.” Sheen, as expected, is already being a total a-hole about finally being replaced. Demi Moore must be thrilled, on the other hand. Kind of guarantees great meals every night, know what I’m sayin’?
—Leonardo DiCaprio and model Bar Refaeli have officially split, as reported by Page Six. A source said “they’re still friends and they are still talking.”
Whatever.
Top 3 songs for the week of 5/14/77: #1 “Sir Duke” (Stevie Wonder) #2 “When I Need You” (Leo Sayer… popular slow dance in college, not that I had any opportunities) #3 “Couldn’t Get It Right” (Climax Blues Band)…and…#4 “I’m Your Boogie Man” (KC & The Sunshine Band) #5 “Got To Give It Up (Pt. I)” (Marvin Gaye) #6 “Dreams” (Fleetwood Mac) #7 “Gonna Fly Now” (Bill Conti…sorry, didn’t like this one) #8 “Hotel California” (Eagles…helped save the week…and year) #9 “Southern Nights” (Glen Campbell…around the time of his first face-lift) #10 “Lucille” (Kenny Rogers…had his old face then)
Baseball Quiz Answer: 1) Tris Speaker is the all-time leader in doubles, lifetime, with 793. In a career spanning 1907-28 for Boston (A.L.), Cleveland, Washington, and Philadelphia (A.L.), Speaker had 3,514 hits, 222 triples and hit .345. [Speaker also has the most seasons with 50 doubles, five.] 2) Ralph Kiner, Pittsburgh, led the NL in homers from 1946-52. 3) Since 2000, four homers in a game: Shawn Green, L.A., 2002; Mike Cameron, Sea., 2002; Carlos Delgado, Tor., 2003. [Incredibly, in the history of the American League, only five have accomplished the feat…Delgado, Cameron, Rocky Colavito, Cleve., 1959, Pat Seerey, Chi., 1948 (11 innings), and Lou Gehrig, NY, 1932. Seerey, 1943-49, hit 86 homers in his career but only batted .224. He struck out a ton, leading the league four times despite really not being an everyday ballplayer. He never played in more than 126 games.]
Next Bar Chat, Thursday….a brief one…tough stretch for the kid coming up. Remind me to stop volunteering for stuff. It’s time to get selfish!
