Category: misc

Posts that don’t quite fit into any other categories.

Why baseball is better than football

The name of the National Football League’s championship game seems to compel every semi-literate person on the Internet — as well as a surprisingly large number of otherwise fully literate people who should know better — to spell it as one word. The cumulative effect of this is going to lead to me having a brain aneurysm by the time Game Number XLVII comes around.

But you never see “Worldseries”!

The Hall of Fame

Bruce Sutter: very good pitcher
Goose Gossage: much better pitcher

And his nickname is Goose. The man belongs in the Hall of Fame.

I was going to write all about this, with stats and arguments and stuff, but The Pinstriped Bible has already done so, far better than I would have.

For those of you too busy to click through the link, I call out a single sentence, which, in itself, says a lot about Gossage and about the usage of relievers before the days of hyperspecialization:

“Twice during the 1978 season, Yankees managers called on Gossage in the second inning and let him finish the game.”

Note that this post says nothing about the two best eligible players not currently in the Hall: Ron Santo and Bert Blyleven. May the Veteran’s Committee someday do the right thing and put them in.

Credit him with a hold . . . up

I thought at first this was a weird and funny story. But then I realized it’s a weird and sad story.

Former holder of the all-time saves record (for about 45 minutes before the next generation blew past him) Jeff Reardon was arrested for robbing a jewelry store in Florida last week. According to the article, Reardon apologized and blamed medication he’s been taking; his son committed suicide last year and he’s suffered from depression since.

Here’s wishing him a turnaround in his fortunes. He was a fun pitcher to watch, he manhandled the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series (4.2 IP, 5 H, 3 K), and he had a fantastic beard. I hope things go better for him from here.

Pure good meets pure evil; hair cut, universe destroyed

Well, despite my unemployment, I’ve been feeling pretty good recently. Hmm, as long as I’m sitting here in front of my computer waiting for “Deal or No Deal” to accumulate on the TiVo, I’ll activate iChat. Why, I’ve got an instant message popping up already! It’s from hanger-on Maura. She usually has something interesting to say, often about baseball. I’ll just bring the message window to the front, and…OH, MY GOD, NO!

Thanks, Matt

Matt Morris has reportedly signed a 3-year, $27-million deal with the Giants, reuniting him with his favorite backstop, Mike Matheny, and ending a nine-year career as a Cardinal.

Matt’s been one of my favorite baseball players since his rookie season in 1997, when he went 12-9 with an ERA of 3.19. I learned that season that Matt sometimes rode

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his bicycle to the park on days he wasn’t pitching, and that was all I needed. He was always fun to watch pitch. He comes across as one of those guys who manages to be ultra-competetive without being a prick. His Cardinal career also coincides exactly with the period of my most intense baseball fandom: post-college, with more time on my hands and the Internet to keep me close to my team. He’ll always be one of the faces of that era of baseball to me.

His best moments in a Cardinals uniform, though, came in one week in October of 2001. Twice in six days, he dueled Curt Schilling and the Diamondbacks in the Division Series. The Cards came out on the wrong side both times, as Morris lost the first game 1-0 and took a no-decision after 8 1-run innings in a 2-1 loss in the deciding game five. It was tough, stressful baseball, the kind that makes us ordinary people wonder how anyone can block out the drama long enough to actually participate in it. Up against Schilling at

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his world-beating best, Matt Morris threw a couple of the best games of his life.

He ends his Cardinal career having started the tenth-most games in team history, 209. with a 101-62 record, a 3.61 ERA, and an ERA+ of 119*. He’s fourth in team history in strikeouts, with 1337, and sixth in winning percentage at .620. Oh, and he’s sixth in hit batsmen with 49.

Thanks, Matt. Good luck in San Francisco. I think you’ll like the city and that big ballpark.

*ERA+ is a complex stat designed to show how a pitcher performed relative to other pitchers in the league that year. 100 is average, anything over that is good. Matt’s best was a 166 in his injury-shortened 1998. Last year, an off year for him, he still managed a 104.

Wow . . . and wow.

First, and the Washington Post reports that in a Japanese poll in which respondents were asked to list their ideal bosses, healing Bobby Valentine made the top ten–the only foreigner.

Second, an article on the AP wire reports that Raul Mondesi–you know, the guy who was more or less run out of Major League Baseball for being a party machine rather than an outfielder–is running for mayor of his hometown, San Cristobal, in the Dominican Republic.

Get ’em while they’re hot!

It looks like the Florida Marlins are beginning yet another fire sale.

This will be their second such sale in their twelve years of existence. Are they determined to make the Devil Rays look good?

Anyway, if you want a speedy center fielder for your beer-league team, you might call them up. Sounds like they’d consider an offer of a bag of batting practice balls.

Just keep repeating to yourself: Bud Selig has been good for baseball. Saddam Hussein was a threat. Bud Selig has been good for baseball.

Games Brian Giles plays

1) Baseball

2) Touch Marquis Grissom Before He Gets to the Dugout

I knew about #1 from his All-Star appearances, his playoff appearance against the Cardinals this year, and his thousands of home runs against the Cardinals and Cubs in recent years.

But I didn’t know a thing about #2 until Viva El Birdos, in the midst of talking about the possibility of Giles becoming a Cardinal, pointed out that he’s clearly a goofball. From Gaslamp Ball:

“Announcer Tom Hamilton once remarked that when the Tribe defense leaves the field, Grissom would run like a madman for the dugout. Why? Grissom was trying to avoid a little game that Giles played: ‘Touch Marquis Grissom before he gets to the dugout.’ Grissom wanted no part of that, and I can see why after Giles presented Marquis’s birthday cake to him in the nude. Hamilton said, ‘Yes, folks, in the clubhouse, Giles presented the cake to Grissom wearing only his birthday suit…and that’s all I can say on the air.'”

Morganna the Kissing Bandit used to play a similar game, but I’m pretty sure she never tried it with Marquis Grissom.

Don’t you think Morganna ought to have a baseball-reference.com page? It could list her successful kisses and such.