Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Look Back – 1980

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First things first: unlike 1997, our first post in the series, I was not alive for 1980. Still six years from being born, I’m writing here as an amateur baseball historian/enthusiast/guy-who-spends-too-much-time-on-Baseball-Reference.com. Therefore, your comments and discussion are particularly appreciated on this post. Also, I want to have, here in my opening paragraph, a shout-out to Tom Ra for the suggestion (and you really should click that link, because Tom pointed out a bunch of cool/interesting things about 1980 in his post; Doug added some other interesting tidbits below it). Without any further ado…

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Weird and Wacky Line Scores

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If you’re like me, you know all about scanning box scores for unusual line scores. Typically, I’m looking for players who had big games, with some crooked numbers in the H and RBI columns, but just as interesting are the line scores that leave you scratching your head. This post is about those games. More after the jump.

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A Batting Race: 1983 NL

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I have to say how little the subject matter of this post matters to me. As I’ve said before, batting average doesn’t super matter; we all know this. 1983 is before I was born. I have no emotional attachment or interest in any of the subjects of this post. And this took a tremendous amount of research.

But… all of that goes to show you that a good baseball story, is a good baseball story. Because I’ve thoroughly enjoyed learning more about this race, a batting title chase for the ages among four players: Bill Madlock of Pittsburgh, Jose Cruz of Houston, and teammates Lonnie Smith and George Hendrick of St. Louis. (To be clear, I started this post the day before MLB.com decided to feature an article about the Cruz family; it’s just a happy coincidence that there’s something fun there to link while I was writing about the eldest in the family.)

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Lopsided Batting Titles

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Let’s get it out of the way: batting average is not one of the five most important offensive stats. It’s not one of the ten most important. It might be in the top 20. But regardless, we all grew up knowing “.300 hitter=good,” and we still talk about the batting average leader as the “batting champion.” So even though it’s not “important,” batting average can still be fun and interesting. So I’ve been looking into some batting races to see if there’s anything “there” for me to post about. I’ve come up with a few that might be worth discussing.

But as is my wont, I feel a need to learn as much as possible about a topic before I’m ready to write about it. In this case, that meant analyzing batting races. So one of the questions that was burning in my mind was the counterpoint to which batting races were interesting: which batting races were the most lopsided in history?

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A Look Back – 1997

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Longtime reader/poster Bells had what I thought was a phenomenal suggestion idea for a post here, in which we could pick a season and dive in. I decided to pick what was probably the first season I would really say I was a “baseball fan.” So let’s look back at 1997, and PLEASE feel free to add as much commentary and as many memories as you can!

1997 At-A-Glance:
World Series – Florida Marlins over Cleveland Indians (4-3)
Awards:
AL MVP – Ken Griffey, Jr.
NL MVP – Larry Walker
AL Cy Young – Roger Clemens
NL Cy Young – Pedro Martinez

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The day the Bronchos lost 44-0

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The eyes of the baseball world briefly turned to the Dominican Summer League (DSL) yesterday, where the DSL Yankees trounced the DSL Twins by a score of 38-2. After a scoreless first inning the Yankees tallied in every subsequent frame.

The scoreline was reportedly record-breaking. MilB.com wrote that the DSL Yankees “are believed to have broken the all-time Minor League record for runs in a game, set by Rookie Advanced Ogden in a 33-10 Pioneer League romp over Helena on Aug. 27, 1995.”

I can tell you of at least one game that featured more runs than that.

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300 Game Infields

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The foundation of team defense is a solid, dependable infield. But, finding a quartet of infielders that a manager can pencil in on the lineup card everyday is no easy task.

This post looks at a baseball rarity, four infielders (1B, 2B, 3B and SS) who started at least 300 games together. Three hundred games is less than two seasons worth, so it may not seem like a lot. But, it is a most unusual team that can find such a group.

More after the jump.

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