Catcher Quiz: Name the top 5 all-time in home runs by a catcher.
[Important: Only homers while catching, not at another position.]
Answer below.
July 23, 2000
When the sports history of the century is written, it is doubtful
there will be any more significant day than Sunday. Tiger, Karrie
and Lance.
With his sensational British Open victory, Tiger has now won 24
of 89 career starts as a professional. This week”s score was the
lowest ever for a major.
Karrie Webb, in qualifying for the L.P.G.A. Hall of Fame at age
25, has now finished in the Top Ten in 34 of her last 38
tournaments (with 3 majors).
And as for Lance Armstrong, he”s simply the guttiest athlete of
modern times.
So remember this date. Tell your children about it.
Johnny Mac”s Baseball Beat
Records are made to be broken.or not.
A good waste of time in the local pubs are the discussions that
inevitably take place over what records will or will not be broken.
We here at S&N are not above wasting a little time, so we will
wade in on the issue.
First off, the only records that really matter are baseball records.
Baseball not only has the most statistics of any sport, but the best
statistics as well. With a little investigation and understanding
you can make realistic comparisons between players and teams of
different times and places. No other sport really offers you this.
The best running back in history, running behind the worst line,
would have lousy numbers…mediocre basketball players can
average 20 points a game if they take enough shots and if they”re
on a lousy enough team (if you don”t believe me, look up Tony
Campbell”s stats for the expansion T”Wolves as an example). But
baseball is different.the numbers really mean something.sure
you have aberrations, but the cream usually rises.
Most casual barroom types like to focus on big records, like
DiMaggio”s streak or Aaron”s homers. For years it was Gehrig”s
2130 that couldn”t be touched. They were wrong on Gehrig, they
will be wrong on Aaron and I think wrong on DiMaggio. Thus, I
offer you a few that can confidently be classified as untouchable.
Anyone have a clue who holds the career record for triples? Hall
of Famer Sam Crawford hit 312 (or 313 or 309, depending on the
source). At first blush, one might shrug and say big deal.but
let”s examine it. All of the career leaders are old-timers.Cobb,
Wagner, Speaker, Waner. The first player on the list that can be
called recent is Musial, with 177…and he retired in 1960. Of
more recent vintage, you find Clemente (166), Mays (140), Willie
Davis (138), Brett (137), Butler (131) and Yount (126). The
active leader going into the season is Lance Johnson with 117 and
the odds of Lance hitting 200 more are kinda slim. Good, still
young, veterans like Robby Alomar (58 for his career) seem
incapable of reaching 100. So anyone who thinks this record is
“soft” better check their pharmaceutical intake.
Why is this, do you think? One reason is the parks…the old
parks were quirkier, and not maintained like they are today,
leading to stranger bounces. But maybe another reason is the
mentality…the one overriding certainty about triple hitting is that
you must leave the batters box on the dead run. No posing, no
styling.just flat out hustle. Musial, Brett, Yount…nobody ever
thought of these players as overly fast…but they had a rep for
hustle. Harry Heilmann, who was slower than me, had 151.
Here”s one to chew on.Babe Ruth, who trained on beer and hot
dogs, had 136, more than any current player. So Mr. Crawford,
rest easy…you”re pretty safe.
While I”m on a triple rant, care to venture a guess to the single
season record? It”s 36!…held by one Owen “Chief” Wilson,
1912. I”ll grant you this is an aberration. Wilson wasn”t all that
much of a player and he never sniffed near that number before or
after, but 36! Nobody, but nobody, has come closer than 10 this
century. In the last 50 years, Willie Wilson and Lance Johnson
had 21, Mays and Brett 20.that”s it folks. The same reasoning
applies so we”ll leave it at that.
Here”s a cute little one…who holds the record for innings pitched
and complete games in one World Series? Deacon Phillippe, a
durable (no kidding) control pitcher, spun 5 complete games
totaling 44 innings in the 1903 Series. Injuries had decimated the
Pittsburgh staff going in and Deacon was about all they
had.going against the Boston aces Cy Young and Bill Dinneen,
Deac went 3-2. Pittsburgh lost the Series, but not for lack of
effort on the part of Phillippe. He was a 20-game winner a
number of times and ended up 186-108 with a 2.59 ERA for his
career. A sore arm (predictably) hampered his career, but he did
win 13 straight, going 14-2 in 1910 before hanging them up in
1911. I will state with a decent degree of certainty that
Phillippe”s record will stand for a while…I mean, a pitcher is
considered a horse today if he completes 5 games by the break!
Those are my choices…they are by no means the only good
choices but they are as certain as any to stand the test of time.
Some may like Young”s win total (or loss total for that matter),
Ryan”s K”s, Johnson”s shutouts, Speaker”s doubles or Rickey”s
steals, but I”m partial to the offbeat stuff.
Shark!.Shar…
Dateline, New Jersey.the summer of 1916. On July 1, a 25-
year-old Philly student is swimming about 50 feet offshore of
Beach Haven when he is attacked by a large shark. He died the
next day.
Five days later at Spring Lake, some 30 miles north, a young
bellboy (or was it buoy boy) was swimming a few hundred feet
from shore when he began to scream. When he was pulled
ashore, rescuers discovered something rather gruesome. They
had left the kid”s legs in the water. He died on the beach.
New Jersey”s businessmen were in a panic…as were the
beachgoers, obviously. They tried to salvage the summer by
installing wire nets around the swimming areas. Boat patrols
became the norm.
But just when everyone thought it was safe to return to the water,
on July 12 a boy was swimming in the creek at Matawan when he
disappeared.
Now Matawan is 11 miles inland from the Raritan Bay, linked to
it by the creek. Moments before, a fisherman nearby where the
boy went under had seen a large shadow in the water. He knew
it was trouble.
The fisherman tried to alert the boy, and then a rescuer went in
where he thought the boy might be. Big mistake. The rescuer
was mauled. Both he and the boy died.
The shark then bit a teenage boy but he survived.
Suddenly, there was a ton of international attention focused on
New Jersey. Construction on the New Jersey Turnpike and
Garden State Parkway began overnight to accommodate all of
those fleeing the waters. Interstates were built, heading west.
[As to these last few points, I may be slightly off in my history.]
But three days later, a 9-foot great white shark was caught in the
Raritan Bay. Human remains were found in its stomach. The
attacks ended. The citizenry flocked back into the water…only to
be pricked by medical waste from New York.
[Source: The above was largely taken from a recent story by Neil
Genzlinger in the New York Times.]
Bear Chat…continued
So just last Friday, I offered a public service announcement for
those of you who may take nature walks where bears share the
trails. Our own Canadian wildlife correspondent, Harry K, gave
us his ultimate words of wisdom…take pepper spray and wear
little bells to let the bears know you”re around.
Well, unbelievably, Howard Brant, the hunting and fishing
columnist for The Star-Ledger newspaper here in New Jersey,
had a Sunday column entitled, “Bear Bells Fail to Get a Ringing
Endorsement.”
“For years, park rangers and wildlife professionals have advised
people traveling through known bear country to talk loudly or
sing or make any other loud noises to avoid confrontation with
bears – all bears, regardless of species.”
But now, researchers at Alaska”s Katmai National Park, home to
mega bears, have found that the bells aren”t effective!
Setting up a blind along a well-worn bear trail, when bears
approached and the bells were rung, not one bruin even picked up
its ears to the sound.
But when a bear approached and the chief researcher snapped a
pencil in half (I believe, a No. 2 one) – a sound that emulates a
stick snapping on the forest floor – the bear quickly became alert.
And in another study, this same expert found that pepper spray,
used as a bear repellent, can often attract bears rather than chase
them away.
Now that doesn”t mean you should stop packin” pepper, but the
biologist believes that if pepper spray is placed about a woodland
campsite or around a tent, it appears bears like its taste and smell.
Folks, I don”t know what to tell you. But wait…Harry just
passed this on.
It seems that July 2, a 24-year-old biathlete, Mary Beth Miller,
was killed by a black bear while training northwest of Quebec
City. Was she wearing bells? Did she smell like pepper? Are the
bears taking over? Will they now form a political movement?
Stay tuned.
The Future
2000 – P.G.A. – winner – Woods
2001 – Masters – winner – Woods
2001 – U.S. Open – winner – Woods
2001 – British Open – winner – Woods
2001 – P.G.A. – winner – Mickelson. [Woods is injured in a minor
auto accident a day before the tournament starts. Unable to move
his neck and with his arm in a sling, he nonetheless finishes only 2
strokes behind.]
2002 – Masters – winner – Woods
Top 3 songs for the week of 7/24/71: #1 “Indian Reservation”
(Raiders) #2 “It”s Too Late / I Feel The Earth Move” (Carole
King) #3 “You”ve Got A Friend” (James Taylor).
U.S. Olympic Trials
I told you it was worth watching! The Men”s 200-meter final last
night was rather dramatic, to say the least. We here at Bar Chat
love baseball, but for pure theatrics, it”s tough to beat track in an
Olympic year.
Quiz Answer: New Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk, 351 (376
overall); Johnny Bench, 327 (389 overall); Yogi Berra, 306 (358);
Gary Carter, 298 (324); Lance Parrish, 295 (324). Mike Piazza
entered the season with 237 (240 overall).
*Congrats to Sparky Anderson, Turkey Stearnes, “Bid” McPhee
and Tony Perez, for also being enshrined at Cooperstown on
Sunday. Sparky had the quote of the day.
“If you don”t think baseball is the greatest game.leave!”
Next Bar Chat, Wednesday…more Johnny Mac Baseball and One-Hit
Wonders.
