Atlanta Braves (Boston/Milwaukee) Quiz: 1) Post-1920, who is the single season leader in hits with 224? 2) Who is the only Brave to hit 50 home runs? 3) Post-1900, who is the only Brave to score 130 runs in a season…did it in 2003. Answers below.
Ball Bits
–This is funny. I mentioned the start Milwaukee’s Carlos Gomez is having last column and then on Tuesday, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman brings him up, pointing out that of all the pieces in the Mets’ trade with Minnesota for Johan Santana, Feb. 2008, who would have expected Gomez to be the one who ended up performing best? [The others being Deolis Guerra, Kevin Mulvey and Philip Humber.]
Hurler Mulvey is retired. Guerra, at one time a fireballing prospect, is trying to work his way back into the minors after shoulder surgery, and Humber, who authored a perfect game last spring, is 4-12 with a 7.79 ERA since.
But there’s Gomez, who as one scout told Sherman should now reel off a bunch of .270-or-better and 20-plus homers seasons.
Sherman isn’t Monday morning quarterbacking; Gomez, after all, was pretty pathetic in his brief trial with the Mets in 2007 and hasn’t done squat until last season, so just how patient would the Mets have been, let alone their fans?
—Alex Rodriguez was back on a baseball field, Monday, taking 30 swings off a tee.
“Man, I’m so excited to be back out there. It was like being 8 years old again when I first grabbed a bat. I’m really looking forward to getting back.”
I think A-Rod was nine when he first started taking steroids.
But when pressed by the New York Post’s Kevin Kernan as to whether he would be back this season, Rodriguez answered: “I really hope so, I really hope so. That is [as] specific as I’ll get.”
A-Rod said his latest hip surgery was “a lot deeper, a lot more severe, it was five anchors and it shaved the bone; they didn’t do any of that in ’09.”
“It’s one thing to leave your heart in San Francisco, quite another to lose your mind there like Don Mattingly.
“Has there ever been a more ridiculous comment offered by a Dodgers manager, and take into account Tom Lasorda said a lot of ridiculous stuff while on the job, than what Mattingly said Sunday?
“The Dodgers lost three straight to the Giants, whom they will probably have to beat if they are to win a division title.
“And Mattingly said: ‘I feel better about our club walking out of here than I did walking in.’
“ ‘I didn’t say moral victories,’ Mattingly said. And I wonder if when he was a Yankee he ever considered three straight losses to Boston so uplifting.
“ ‘For me,’ Mattingly continued, ‘it was more a feel that you get from your club. It kind of almost gives you a confidence if we can continue that, it’s going to work out.’
“I have no doubt the Dodgers can continue to lose like they did in San Francisco.”
Meanwhile, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez announced he will no longer be a power hitter, after he hit 24+ for six seasons running, 2006-2011, while Matt Kemp has one home run in 121 at-bats this year.
“It’s another hymn of an evening down here in Anaheim, the French Riviera of freeways. Took a mere two hours to drive from L.A., which exceeds the capacity of many bladders. Fortunately, the kid in the back seat fell asleep in Azusa of all places, or the trip might’ve verged on the unpleasant.
“So on this perfect May evening when everything smells of grilled meats and mowed grass, the Angels had me at halo.
“What’s to make of these Angels? Is there a better lineup in baseball? Is there a bigger disappointment in all of sports? (And don’t say Lakers – too easy.)
“I still like this Mike Scioscia, I still like his lineup, but keep in mind that half of all marriages don’t work out. This may be one of them.
“By his very girth, Albert Pujols appears to still be the team’s main event. A very big man, he resembles something Burger King serves with a side of fries. Brilliant swing, funny stance. Like a carnival ride setting up….
“By the way, Thunder Sticks. I hereby offer a $12-billion reward for the capture of the person responsible for Thunder Sticks, the single most annoying sports development since Chris Berman. Bring this madman to my doorstep.”
“Expectations were high for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays entering the season. Los Angeles traded for Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Hanley Ramirez late last year and added Zack Greinke this off-season. Toronto brought in Jose Reyes, R.A. Dickey, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle, among others this off-season.
“The influx of talent didn’t come cheap: the Dodgers’ payroll is more than $220 million, and a jump of 131% from last season; Toronto’s payroll increased 55% to $117 million. So far, the spending hasn’t paid off: both teams sit at the bottom of their division.
“These clubs should have known better. Since 2004, of the 33 teams to increase their payroll by at least 30%, only five made the playoffs. In that same time frame, of the 110 teams that increased by at least 10%, just 31 made the playoffs, barely more than the number of playoff teams that cut their payroll over that span (28).”
–Speaking of high payrolls and unproductive players, the Angels’ Josh Hamilton is now down to .202 with nine RBI in 32 games.
–As Bucs fan Shu says, Mike Trout who? Pittsburgh’s budding star, Starling Marte, 24, is batting .325 with 5 homers, 16 RBI and 10 steals.
–After getting shelled by the hapless Marlins the other day, allowing nine runs in 2 1/3, with his ERA soaring to 8.95, Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay’s future in the game is up in the air as I go to post. He probably needs shoulder surgery and he is on the last year of his contract. His ERA over the last calendar year is 5.76. If this is how it ends, it will be sad…but he’s Cooperstown bound.
–What a performance by the Mets’ Matt Harvey on Tuesday. Like one of the best efforts in recent years. Nine innings, one infield single (not controversial), no walks, 12 Ks…but the Mets couldn’t pull out the game against the White Sox until the tenth, 1-0, as Harvey got another no decision.
In seven starts, he is 4-0, 49 innings, 22 hits, 58 SO, 12 BB, 1.28 ERA. The Mets are 6-1 in his appearances, 7-15 when he isn’t on the mound.
–As I go to post, Toronto pitcher J.A. Happ is in stable condition after he was hit on the left side of the head by a line drive off the bat of Tampa Bay’s Desmond Jennings. Happ was on the ground for 10 minutes, conscious, before being removed on a stretcher. Teammate R.A. Dickey said:
“It’s devastating…I could barely watch it. You just don’t know what to think, really. It paralyzes you a little bit. And when it sounds like two bats, when you hear the sound off the bat and it sounds like it hits another bat, it’s scary. It’s really, really scary. I just started praying on the spot. That’s all I knew to do.”
Happ, 30, is 37-37 for his major league career. 56 years ago to the day, baseball saw one of its most significant injuries when rising star Herb Score of the Cleveland Indians was struck by a line drive off the bat of the Yankees’ Gil McDougald, breaking Score’s facial bones and injuring his eye. He was never the same.
–Booo! Booo! Check this out, from the Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore:
“Fans holding tickets to Tuesday night’s postponed Nationals game against the Tigers can use them only for Thursday’s makeup, a change in policy that rankled many Nationals fans as the team explained it as a consequence of higher attendance.
“Numerous fans expressed displeasure with the Nationals’ decision, particularly given time constraints. Many ticket holders were concerned they would not be able to attend a 4:05 p.m. weekday game after planning to go to a night game two days earlier.
“In the past, the Nationals have allowed fans with individual tickets to rained-out games to exchange them for any future ticket, subject to availability, of equal or lesser price. Tuesday night, the Nationals announced ‘no exchange or refunds will be issued’ for tickets not included in season plans.”
NBA Fever
–The Miami Heat had a long layoff, 8 days, after sweeping Milwaukee in the first round of the playoffs, so they were rusty against the Chicago Bulls in Game 1 of their series, the Bulls upsetting the Heat 93-86.
But this is nothing new for Chicago, who now holds a 3-2 record this year against Miami, having ended the Heat’s 27-game winning streak as well.
Of most significance was Chicago outrebounding Miami 46-32.
—Golden State has lost 30 straight in San Antonio, going back to Feb. 1997, including Monday night’s 129-127 double overtime contest. Stephen Curry had 22 of his 44 points in the third quarter but struggled in the final five minutes of regulation and in the overtime periods.
–The Knicks rebounded to defeat the Pacers on Monday night, 105-79, evening up their series at 1-1 as Carmelo Anthony broke out of his shooting slump, 13-of-26, 32 points (22 in the second half), with the Knicks going on a stupendous 30-2 run after trailing 64-62.
But J.R. Smith continued his swoon since he was suspended in Game 4 of the Celtics series. Smith is the following from the field in his four games since: 3-14, 5-13, 4-15, 3-15.
–The Brooklyn Nets reached out to Phil Jackson first in their search for a new coach. Jackson is 67 and said he wasn’t interested.
Local press is saying Mike Dunleavy, a Brooklyn product, desperately wants the job but he is 613-716 in his many NBA stints as a coach.
Doc Rivers’ name is prominent, but even if he wanted to coach Brooklyn, the Nets would then have to hand over compensation to the Celtics. Rivers is rumored for the Clippers job, should Vinny get canned.
–I haven’t been to the Nets’ new arena, the Barclays Center, but I loved what the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay wrote about the place because it is obvious there is a serious problem even watching on TV.
“Or rather, the lack of light. When the Nets began playing at the Barclays, it was obvious that the team had decided to do something dramatic with the lighting, which was to brightly light the herringbone basketball court and keep the rest of the place in darkness. Or something close to darkness. A Nets game feels like going to the movies, and it does look fantastic on television, slick and cool, but last Saturday’s Game 7 underlined something that was problematic all season about this approach. The way the lighting is done, it is lowest in the upper levels of the arena, where the cheap (or cheaper) seats are – i.e., the true fans, not the VIP nerds – and though the Rusted Turtle got loud a few times, I couldn’t help but think that the low light sapped some of the energy of the room. It’s just natural human reaction – when people can see each other going crazy, they go crazy. Remember when you went to that Springsteen concert and it was three-fourths over and Bruce told them to throw the house lights on, and you looked around and there were thousands of Springsteen lunatics, sweaty and panting? That was the best part. Crowds love to watch a crowd. It’s the oldest atmospheric trick in the book.”
Brilliant observation, Mr. Gay. I was watching the Knick-Pacers game and couldn’t believe the [err, err…] sitting behind the scorer’s table with her [err, err…]; point being the lighting is better in the Garden.
Jason Gay also comments on the Nets’ players, “a decent but drab” bunch. “One only needs to watch Deron Williams’ jumbotron video asking Nets fans to get loud, which he does with all of the passion of a man ordering a grilled-cheese sandwich.”
“To the electrician who last played in high school, to the gym teacher who once played small-college ball, Derrick Rose appears ‘gutless,’ a ‘coward’ for failing to lace up his sneakers the past few weeks. Even as Rose’s Chicago Bulls teammates and coaches continue to support his decision to allow his surgically repaired knee to heal fully, the chorus continues:
“If D. Rose has medically been cleared to play by a team doctor, why won’t he?
“Maybe because he’s smarter at protecting a franchise’s No. 1 investment than the people actually paid to do that job. Maybe because he understands that for decades, further back from Willis Reed hobbling onto the floor before Game 7 at Madison Square Garden 43 years ago Thursday, we have been brainwashed to believe that playing hurt is courageous. And that the inverse – not competing while your body is falling apart – is a sign of weakness, most often embodied by losers, quitters and Jay Cutler.
“In the real world, playing hurt is playing stupid…
“To insist that Rose should play – not through a strained tendon, stomach virus or a muscle pull, but on a reconstructed knee ligament that was torn so badly his career was in jeopardy – is to say his future matters less than the team’s present.
“And that’s more than stupid; that’s selfish and short-sighted.”
Well, as I said last time, a lot of people look at the Knicks’ Iman Shumpert, who suffered the exact same torn ACL injury as Rose did, on the same day, April 28, and yet Shumpert returned in mid-January and is now playing great.
I know it’s not fair…I don’t know what’s going on with Rose’s knee and only he does, but some of his comments have been less than stirring, like how he’s “not comfortable,” though he looks fine in pre-game warm-ups. But at the same time he seems to have the support of all his teammates.
–Yes, the Stanley Cup Playoffs are as exciting as they come. Super action in the Rangers’ win on Monday against the Capitals to stay in the series, now down 2-1, but the Islanders?! Now tied with Pittsburgh at 2-2?! They lost the first game in Pittsburgh, 5-0, after all.
—Manchester United Manager Alex Ferguson announced he is retiring at the end of the season, bringing an end to a 26-year reign that saw Man U secure 13 Premier League titles, including this season’s, so he goes out on top.
With two games left, he has 965 victories, 360 draws, and 279 defeats.
This is a big deal, with Manchester United being as valuable a professional sports franchise as there is in the world.
–Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com had the following concerning USC quarterbacks:
“In fact, one of the great mysteries of both college and the NFL is that while other Pac-12 schools have historically generated Pro Bowlers and NFL Hall of Famers at quarterback – make that other schools, period – USC quarterbacks have mostly failed in the pros. Trojan quarterbacks have won 11 national titles, six during the Super Bowl era, but no USC quarterback has played in a Super Bowl.”
Meanwhile, other Pac-12 schools have produced John Elway and Jim Plunkett (Stanford), Warren Moon (Washington), Troy Aikman (UCLA), Drew Bledsoe and Mark Rypien (Washington State)…and the likes of Dan Fouts (Oregon) and Steve Bartkowski (Cal).
So Freeman lists the USC quarterbacks who played in the pros: Paul McDonald, Todd Marinovich, Rob Johnson, John David Booty, Carson Palmer, Mark Sanchez, Matt Leinart, Sean Salisbury, Rodney Peete, Pat Haden, Vince Evans, Bill Nelsen, Matt Cassel and Pete Beathard.
“That is not exactly a list of NFL greats. On it is a player more known for what he did with his cell phone (Salisbury), a criminal (Marinovich), and a butt fumbler (Sanchez).”
–I was a little surprised over a new Associated Press-GfK poll that shows the nickname “Redskins” still enjoys wide support, nationally, 79%. Way back in 1992, a similar poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News had 89% supporting the name. Washington owner Daniel Snyder, who is adamant about retaining it, will use the latest survey to his advantage.
I don’t care either way, but I do agree with former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, who is Native American, who says “Redskins” is much worse because of its origins and its use in connection with bounties on Indians, say, as opposed to Kansas City Chiefs, Cleveland Indians, or Atlanta Braves.
–Uh oh…Tiger Woods is back in the news for the wrong reasons. He had his formal coming out with Lindsey Vonn at a Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala the other night, but Woods apparently got so intoxicated at the after-party, he fell over while walking up a flight of steps.
Can you imagine if he had reinjured his knee doing something like that?
–We note the passing of one of the movie industry’s true giants, Ray Harryhausen, the animator and special-effects wizard. He was 92.
“Often working alone or with a small crew, Mr. Harryhausen created and photographed many of the most memorable fantasy-adventure sequences in movie history: the atomically awakened dinosaur that lays waste to Coney Island in ‘The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms’; the sword fight between Greek heroes and skeleton warriors in ‘Jason and the Argonauts’; the swooping pterodactyl that carries off Raquel Welch in ‘One Million Years B.C.’…
“(Harryhausen) was best known for stop-motion animation, a painstaking process using three-dimensional miniature models that are photographed one frame at a time, with tiny, progressive adjustments made by hand to the models between frames to produce the illusion of movement….
“George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Peter Jackson all cite his films as crucial antecedents for their work, and modern animators often slip homages to him into their films…
“His innovations were honored in 1992 with a career Academy Award for technical achievement. At the Oscar ceremony, Tom Hanks told the audience that he thought the greatest movie of all time was not ‘Citizen Kane’ or ‘Casablanca’ but ‘Jason and the Argonauts.’”
For a kid growing up when that film came out, and as it was shown often on Saturday mornings, it was easily my favorite.
–I heard Rihanna was three hours late for a show in Boston the other night. What a jerk.
Top 3 songs for the week 5/3/69: #1 “Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In” (The 5th Dimension) #2 “It’s Your Thing” (The Isley Brothers) #3 “Hair” (The Cowsills…She asked me why…)…and…#4 “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” (Blood, Sweat & Tears) #5 “Only The Strong Survive” (Jerry Butler…underrated artist…) #6 “Time Is Tight” (Booker T. & The M.G.’s) #7 “Sweet Cherry Wine” (Tommy James and The Shondells…super tune…why they aren’t in the HOF I’ll never know…) #8 “Hawaii Five-O” (The Ventures…absolutely hate this one and the stupid rowing deal at keggers…) #9 “The Boxer” (Simon and Garfunkel) #10 “Galveston” (Glen Campbell…Dr. John reminded me Jimmy Webb version much better…)
Atlanta Braves Quiz Answers: 1) Tommy Holmes is modern-era single-season hit leader with 224, 1945; a year he was 2nd in the MVP vote with 28 homers and 117 RBI, while batting .352. [Boston Braves] 2) Andruw Jones is the only Brave to hit 50 homers, 51 in 2005. 3) Rafael Furcal is the only Brave, post-1900, to score 130 runs, 2003.
