Category: Sports

“I Watched Every Baseball Movie and Ranked Them by How Well the Actors Played Baseball”

Scoop, ... 3 comments.

I agree with him in general.

One place where I disagree strongly is about Field of Dreams, which he rates fairly high, but which made not the slightest effort at realistic period baseball. He is supposed to be rating historical realism as well as the realism of the action, but …

1. The kid playing young Doc Graham looks totally clueless and unathletic. The real Moonlight Graham was an excellent minor league ballplayer for many years, both before and after his brief MLB career, and was considered the fastest man in baseball, according to no less an authority than Christy Mathewson. Equally egregious – forget about historical accuracy – it’s impossible to believe that kid represents a young Burt Lancaster, except maybe at age 12. Lancaster was 6’2″ and a physical Adonis. That kid looks like a paperboy. He’d be more realistic playing Eddie Gaedel. (Nor does he resemble the real Archie Graham, who made his major league appearance in 1905, when he was 27 years old. He got his M.D. that year! He continued to play professional baseball for several years AFTER he became a doctor. Also, he was taller than average for his era at 5’11”, 170. The tall, speedy doctor in his mid-twenties would definitely not be mistaken for a paper boy. In fact, if they had cast an actor who resembled Burt Lancaster at 27, it would have been close to perfect!)

2. The filmmakers didn’t bother to figure out how the old-time ball players pronounced their names. Eddie Cicotte was “SEE-kot.” Not si-KO-tee, who was, I believe, the enemy of the Roadrunner.

3. Most important, showing how little effort went into this: the real Shoeless Joe Jackson was a left-handed batter. Elementary stuff – and they got it wrong.

I can really nerd out on other stuff. For example, the real Jackson is recorded on film, and he had a truly weird, lunging swing which is not replicated in the film. (It looks ridiculous by today’s standards.) Baseball swings in general were different in those days. They did not plant the weight back on their heels and go for a mighty hip turn. But why go into that when the filmmakers couldn’t even bother to get Jackson batting from the correct side of the plate?

That said, I LOVE Field of Dreams and I love the novel upon which it is based (Shoeless Joe). It reminds me of my own dreams, and of some great times playing ball and just having a backyard catch with my own dad, the legendary (in his own mind) Suits Sparrow. Beyond that, it’s a story about redemption and second chances – and who doesn’t relate to that? Let the man without regrets throw the first stone.

R.I.P. Bill Walton

Scoop, ... 6 comments.

He was one of the greatest high school and college basketball players in history. He still holds the high school record for field goal shooting percentage, .783, and had the third-highest number of rebounds of all time in that same senior season, leading his team to a 33-0 record. In his two healthy years (sophomore and junior) of college play, the UCLA Bruins ran the table, 60-0. In the NCAA final game in his junior year, he shot 21 for 22 from the floor. From the middle of his junior year in high school until a loss to Notre Dame in his senior year of college, his teams won 142 consecutive games. That is a record even Kareem never equaled, although he came close. (Kareem won 71 in a row in high school before losing one in his senior year. He won his first 64 in college.)

Walton’s NBA career was hampered by injuries. In his first eight NBA seasons, he played only 223 games, missing three seasons altogether. Despite his lack of playing time, he won two championships, a league MVP and a finals MVP.

His playing career, as good as it was, seems like just a prelude to his career as a broadcaster and overall ambassador for basketball. On the air, he was always upbeat and positive, if sometimes incomprehensible. As his CBS obit said, “He was known for his entertaining, and at times incoherent, style.” Most important of all, everyone who knew him regarded him as a good person, and considered him a charming broadcaster.

At least when they could figure out what he was talking about.

The worst baseball name of all time

Scoop, ... 4 comments.

There have been many embarrassing and unfortunate baseball monikers over the years. Wagon Tongue Keister, Half Pint Rye, Goober Zuber, Creepy Crespi, Putsy Caballero and Cuckoo Christensen1 come to mind. The championship, however, is uncontested, because those other guys had silly names given to them, while Ugly Dickshot would have had a hilarious name even without a sobriquet. The fact that he also had a great nickname was just icing on the cake. The only way he could have lost is if Russell Kuntz had been nicknamed “Slippery” instead of “Rusty.”

Ugly wasn’t really all that ugly, but he owned that nickname (“I’m the ugliest man in baseball”), and was a pretty fair ballplayer. A star in the high minors, he had seasons like .359 with 117 RBI one year in Buffalo, .356 for Jersey City, and .352 with 200+ hits and 99 RBI for Hollywood. In each of those three seasons, he finished in the top three in his league in batting average, winning outright in his year with Jersey City. Unfortunately for Ugly, Buffalo ain’t the Big Apple. He kicked around the bigs for four years as a spare outfielder and pinch hitter in the 1930s, headed back to the minors, then re-emerged in the big show many years later, when baseball was desperate for warm bodies in the late war years. To his credit, he batted .303 and stole 18 bases during the one year when he got to play full-time. Because of the depleted wartime rosters, he finished third in the league in batting average (missing the title by only seven points), fifth in stolen bases, and fourth in triples. Unfortunately for him, that year was 1945 and he was 35 years old, so it was back to the minors for ol’ Ug when the younger, better players returned from the war in 1946.

————

Footnote #1: I love to write about Cuckoo Christensen. Maybe Ugly Dickshot wasn’t that ugly, and Creepy Crespi wasn’t that creepy, but Cuckoo Christensen was plenty cuckoo.

Walter Christensen was a Cincinnati outfielder who was essentially a one-year wonder. He never hit a major league homer, but even without any power, his having batted .350 in that one year, while leading the league in on-base percentage, still represented an impressive level of achievement for a rookie. He is the only rookie in baseball history to lead either league in OBP (unless you count the very first year of MLB, when everyone was a rookie, and somebody had to win). Because Cuckoo batted so well that season and so infrequently after it, his lifetime major league batting average never dropped below an impressive .315, with a lifetime .392 OBP! That wasn’t as much of a fluke as you might think. His lifetime average was .310 in the minors over the course of 15 years.

He got his nickname … well, to be blunt, because he deserved it. The history of the minor league St Paul Saints recounts:

“One of the Saints’ impressive youngsters was 22-year-old, 5’6 ½” center fielder and leadoff batter Walter Christensen. Christensen also was known as ‘Cuckoo Christy,’ an extrovert whose antics pleased the fans, but sometimes drove managers up the wall. He enjoyed doing somersaults in the outfield, usually when the ball was not in play. Sometimes, however, he would somersault while waiting for a lazy fly ball to come down.”

Cuckoo also tried that stunt in the majors, and lost at least one game in the process, which may go a long way toward explaining the brevity of his MLB career. In “Nuggets on the Diamond”, Dick Dobbins wrote:

“With the Reds leading by one run in the bottom of the ninth and runners on base, Christensen went after a fly ball, did a somersault, then dropped the ball. The Reds lost the game, and an angry (manager Red) Killefer chased Christensen all the way into the centerfield clubhouse.”

Nutty or not, the man led his league in on-base percentage when he was a rookie, something nobody else has ever done! How many of us would-be jocks would give up a limb to have that record?

There is a caveat to be stated. Cuckoo was basically a half-time player. He met the minimum playing-time requirements of that day for leading in percentage stats, but would not meet the modern requirements. Imposing the modern eligibility requirement for percentage-based categories to all seasons across-the-board would depose Cuckoo Christensen as the 1926 OBP leader, replaced by Hall of Famer Paul Waner, so the recalculated championship would make much more sense to modern eyes.

… but would be so much more boring than letting Cuckoo Christensen keep his crown.

Tom Brady roast: Top highlights from the raunchy Netflix special

Scoop, ... 1 comment.

Two of my favorite lines:

Nikki Glaser: “Tom lost $30 million in crypto. Tom, how did you fall for that? Even Gronk was like, ‘Me know that not real money.'”

Tom Brady: “The NFL spent $20 million and found that it was more ‘probable’ than not, that I was ‘generally’ aware that someone may have deflated my footballs. You could’ve just given me the 20 million and I would’ve just told you I fuckin’ did it.”

Full article

Variety picks the 27 best jokes

Also, Kim Kardashian had a few good lines.

Some baseball trivia about futility

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Here’s a record that is increasing rapidly.

As of 1967, the single-season record for the most home runs by a batter hitting below .200 (and qualifying for the batting title at the modern pitching distance) was 4, set by Frankie Crosetti in 1940, when he batted .194.

Tom Tresh nearly tripled the record to 11 in 1968 when he batted .195.

Rob Deer shattered that record in 1991, when he swatted 25 homers while batting a puny .179. Deer’s record held nearly 20 years until Mark Reynolds smashed 32 homers in 2010 with a .198 batting average.

Joey Gallo pushed the mark up to 38 in 2021, when he batted .199.

And Kyle Schwarber raised the record again this year (2023), when he hit 47 home runs while batting .197

So the record lasted 28 years, then 23, then 19, then 11, then 2. In the process, it grew from 4 to 47.
———-

Some other similar records:

The lowest batting average for a 60+ homer season is Roger Maris’s .269 in 1961.

The lowest batting average for a 50+ homer season is Pete Alonso’s .260 in 2019. Schwarber should destroy this record if he can reach 50 dingers some year.

Rob Deer holds the record for the most homers for a player below .180. (25, while batting .179 in 1991).

Chris Davis holds the record for the most homers by a batter hitting below .170. (16, while batting .168 in 2018)

Bill Bergen holds the record for the most homers by a batter hitting below .160 (0, while batting .159 in 1906). He also holds the record for a batter hitting below .150, and .140. (1, while batting .139 in 1909) There is not much competition for these records, since it is unlikely that a player hitting below .160 could get enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. No player but Bergen ever met the criterion at the modern pitching distance. Among players with long careers (3000 or more plate appearances), Bergen was easily the worst hitter in history. In 11 major league seasons, his lifetime average was .170 with two home runs and an OPS+ of 21. His season high in extra base hits was 11. The guy must have been a helluva catcher to last that long in the bigs with no stick.

If we drop the minimum number of plate appearances to 900 and exclude pitchers, Ray Oyler gives Bill Bergen a little competition. His lifetime batting average was .175 with an OPS+ of 48. Oyler is not from the distant past. He was a shortstop in the 1960s, mostly with the Tigers, and I can remember watching him play for the Syracuse Chiefs against my home town team, the Rochester Red Wings. I wish I had some colorful anecdotes about his ineptitude, but he actually seemed to know what he was doing at the plate in the AAA International League. In 1964 he batted a respectable .251 with a more-than-respectable 19 homers, which added up to a very solid year for a shortstop in that era, solid enough to get him promoted to the majors. Unfortunately for Ray, he reached his level of incompetence when he had to hit against major league pitchers.

If we include pitchers, then the worst hitter ever to get 900 plate appearances was Bob Buhl, who was a good pitcher for the Milwaukee Braves in their glory years. He was a solid third starter behind Spahn and Burdette, and led the entire National League in W-L percentage in the Braves’ championship season of 1957. Buhl’s athletic prowess did not extend to his stick work. The man simply could not hit. In 1962, as a regular starter with 216 innings pitched, Buhl’s hit total was a cool zero. He went 0-for-70 that season, part of his all-time record of 87 consecutive at-bats without a hit. In 15 years in the majors, he amassed two doubles, no triples, no homers, and batted .089 with a slugging average of .091. In 242 career road games, he never got a single extra base hit. Buhl discussed the game when he finally broke his 0-for-87 streak: “I didn’t feel any pressure. Everybody knew I couldn’t hit. The infielder was backing up (for a weak pop-up), caught his spikes and fell down. The ball fell. They called time to give me the damn ball. I was embarrassed.”

Blue tears: RIP Tommy Lasorda

Scoop, ... 5 comments.

Lasorda’s greatest moment:

He kicks some furry green ass.



“Tommy Lasorda, the fiery Hall of Fame manager who guided the Los Angeles Dodgers to two World Series titles and later became an ambassador for the sport he loved during his 71 years with the franchise, has died. He was 93.”

With Yogi and Stengel gone, Tommy was just about the last man standing from baseball’s most recent era of funny, colorful characters. Some of his best antics are listed here.

My favorite of Lasorda’s many great baseball stories (and one of the few that can be repeated in delicate company):

In a team prep meeting, Lasorda asked the great Dominican slugger Pedro Guerrero a question about strategy: “So it’s the bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded, we’re trying to protect a one run lead. Pedro, you’re playing third. What are you thinking?”

“Skip,” responded Guerrero, who did not like playing third, “I pray they don’t hit the ball to me.”

“That’s all? With the game on the line, and that’s the only thing on your mind?”

“No, Skip, not the only thing. I also pray they don’t hit the ball to Steve Sax.”

Did you know … Lasorda, as a pitcher, started a game for the great 1955 Dodgers, the year the team won their only World Series in Brooklyn? Look at the starting line-up that day (May 5):

Dodgers
1 Jim Gilliam 2B
2 Pee Wee Reese SS
3 Duke Snider CF
4 Roy Campanella C
5 Sandy Amoros LF
6 Gil Hodges 1B
7 Jackie Robinson 3B
8 Carl Furillo RF
9 Tom Lasorda P

Reese, Snider, Campy, Hodges and Robinson are in the Hall of Fame. Furillo was a great player, a former batting champion, and a brilliant outfielder with a rifle arm. He played 15 years in the majors, all with the Dodgers. Gilliam played in the majors for 14 years and reached base nearly 3000 times, all for the Dodgers.

Furillo batted .314 that year, with 26 homers and 95 RBI. Campy’s line was even better: .318-32-107, en route to his third MVP award. The Duke of Flatbush topped them both with .309-42-136. And Hodges chipped in with an additional 100+ RBI. That line-up was a pitcher’s nightmare. How great is a team that can boast as its 6-7-8 hitters Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson and Carl Furillo? And what a thrill it would be to say you started a game for that club!

Lasorda threw a no-hitter that day, although it would have been more impressive if he had made it past the first inning. He gave up two walks and tossed three wild pitches.

Here’s a taste:

The first two batters for the Cardinals were Wally Moon and Bill Virdon

  • Lasorda walked Wally Moon, then wild-pitched him to second.
  • Lasorda walked Bill Virdon.
  • Lasorda wild-pitched Moon to third, Virdon to second
  • Lasorda wild-pitched Moon home, Virdon to third.
  • Lasorda was sold to Kansas City

The A’s were able to get Lasorda for about thirteen dollars cash and a full ream of mimeograph paper.

Lasorda’s career with KC went about as well as that game, although the A’s got the best part of Lasorda’s career, as his ERA for them was 6.15. It had been 7.62 for the Dodgers. His lifetime record finished at 0-4, with a 6.48 ERA.

A lot of failed major leaguers with long post-playing careers have had the good sense to employ self-deprecation, portraying themselves as worse players than they actually were. Joe Garagiola and Bob Uecker come to mind immediately. Tommy is not in that group, but not because he didn’t try. It’s just that no story could make him seem worse than he really was. He may not have been the worst pitcher in major league history, but he’s certainly in the conversation.

(Although many of us would be willing to lose a limb to be able to say we had once struck out Stan Musial with a runner in scoring position, as Tommy did.)

I’ve tinkered with the timeline above to make a joke. Lasorda really was sold to KC, but it happened months after the specific game described above. What really happened in ’55 is that Lasorda made a few more weak appearances for the Dodgers before they shipped him to their farm club in Montreal. Lasorda sucked so hard that they were willing to demote him to Montreal on June 8th in order to give his roster spot to an untested, wild-throwing Brooklyn boy. Because Lasorda was so hopeless, the Dodgers were willing to gamble on a 19-year-old hometown kid who had never pitched a single inning of professional baseball at any level.

Kid’s name was Koufax.

R.I.P. the great Bob Gibson

Scoop, ... 2 comments.

He is a baseball legend. I have written a lot about him over the years because he was not just a great talent, but also a larger-than-life figure because of his skill at intimidation.

Did you know – that he is the most effective pitcher in history against right handed batters? I covered the exact stats on that in the article linked below, but as a top-line summary, here are the batting averages against Gibson of the greatest right-handed hitters of the National League in Gibson’s era.

Hank Aaron .215
Roberto Clemente .208
Ernie Banks .229
Willie Mays .196
Frank Robinson .229
Orlando Cepeda .222
Dick Allen .211
Tony Perez .121
Johnny Bench .204
Mike Schmidt .214
Tommy Davis .167

Those are not typos. All-time greats like Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron struggled to cross the Mendoza line when they had to face Gibby, so you can imagine how poorly mere mortal right-handers fared. You may have suspected that he had that kind of performance, but you may not know that, compared to all pitchers of his era, he was a completely mediocre pitcher against lefties, and compared to the left-handed pitchers of his era, his performance against lefties was actually below their average.

As opposed to the right-handed stars detailed above, many left-handed and switch hitters hit Gibson hard. The Willies, Stargell and McCovey, each batted .290 with power. Eddie Mathews batted .326 with power. Richie Hebner batted .387 with an 1.127 OPS. Ralph Garr also batted .387. Al Oliver batted .342. Joe Morgan hit .313 with power. Billy Williams batted only .259, but with ten homers. Unheralded Dave Rader batted .484 against Bob Gibson. Many other lefties and switch hitters topped the .300 mark.

I covered all of that (and more) in my article, “Wither the Complete Game, and Why?” That article is not specifically about Gibson, but he is prominently featured for many reasons, particularly his fierce insistence on pitching complete games.

I also wrote a long article about the very day a chance opportunity delivered by a childish teammate lifted Gibson from “struggling minor league long reliever” to “future baseball God.” It just so happened that this transpired under the watchful eye of a 9-year-old me, because Gibson played for my home town heroes in the first full year that I ever followed the game. That article is called “The Day Bob Gibson’s Stardom Began (in My Home Town)“

R.I.P Don Larsen

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Larsen memories:

He was the last living St. Louis Brown.

He was an excellent hitter for a pitcher. Over the course of his career he batted .242 and poled 14 homers in just 596 at bats. One year he batted over .300 with an OPS over .900. He got into 75 games as a pinch hitter, and even played occasionally in the outfield.

And I hear he pitched a pretty good World Series game once, a game that ended with one of the most famous baseball images of all time (below).

And he was either drunk or hungover when he did it! Teammate Mickey Mantle said,

“Where was Don the night before he pitched the perfect game? I haven’t the slightest idea, but you could smell liquor on his breath all day. I’ll tell you this: He came to the ballpark feeling pretty good. In fact, to Don, the whole game was a joke. After each inning, guys left him alone, not because of the smell, but because they didn’t want to jinx him, and he’d say with a smile and a laugh ‘You think I’m gonna do it?’”

Here’s his obit at ESPN.

I became a baseball fan in 1957, the year after Larsen’s perfecto, so he seemed like he should have possessed superhuman skills. He always disappointed my juvenile expectations. He was a sub-.500 pitcher for his career and never won more than 11 games in a season. He did lose 21 one season, with only 3 wins. Ouch. That’s not one to tell your grandkids about.

But he had his moment.

And what a moment it was.