Baseball Bulletin...June 2, 2016

Here's a few things I've come across lately in the baseball social media world...

⚾ 75 years ago today baseball lost it's Iron Horse, Henry Louis Gehrig, to the fatal disease that now bears his name.

Lou Gehrig was a truly honorable man and ballplayer, who's record setting 2,130 consecutive games played stood as a big league record six decades until broken by Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr.

To find out more about ALS, a.k.a, Lou Gehrig's Disease, go here...


⚾ 125 years ago, on June 2, 1891, future Hall of Fame pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won his 300th baseball game pitching for the Cincinnati Reds, at the old South End Grounds against his old ballclub, the Boston Beaneaters.

Radbourn won a big league record 59 games pitching for the 1884 Providence Grays., a pretty good chunk of his 309 career victories.

Radbourn would be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.



⚾ I posted about how a Hot Dog isn't a sandwich...

....please VOTE in the poll on the top of the right hand page...



⚾ The first ballots for this year's All-Star Game in San Diego were released this week.

Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez leads all American League players  with 1, 094, 942 votes, and in the National League the honor belongs to Chicago Cubs 1st Baseman Anthony Rizzo, with 874, 471 votes.

2016 American League All-Star Game vote.

National League All-Star Game vote totals.

I've been a voter for the All-Star Game since I was a kid in the 1970s, filling out paper punch ballots at old Tiger Stadium, and I've voted again this year.


The 87th All-Star Game will be played in San Diego, California, on July 12th.

I hope you will all vote for your favorite ballplayers this year.


⚾ The very best thing I saw all week was this 92 year old World War II Veteran throwing out the first pitch in Seattle on Memorial Day.

⚾ Finally today, another big league player, Marlon Byrd of the Cleveland Indians, was suspended 162 games by Major League Baseball for testing positive for use of PED's.


Byrd is the 6th player suspended by MLB this year.


This really made me mad, because, as you saw in the link, he hit a game winning home run off the Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander that cost the team, and Verlander, a 2-1 loss.

The Indians should be stripped of every single win in which Byrd played, period.

This player, a guy who's played 1,573 baseball games since 2002, when he broke in as a rookie with the Phillies on September 8th, a player I've watched play baseball a lot of those years, a player who always seemed a likable guy, a player who enjoyed playing baseball.

Anything I once liked about Byrd is now gone, as it is with every ballplayer that's been busted for cheating the game of baseball.

These players know they can sign a contract for millions of dollars, and they can keep getting paid until he gets caught.

Byrd will forfeit a years pay, and his career, at age 39, is probably over, but does that matter to a man who's made $38,015,000 dollars playing baseball.


Baseball still has a serious steroids and PED problem, but it seems the testing is working...now, we have to start punishment of the players money, as well as the team he's playing for.


Until next time, enjoy our great game of baseball.


Play Ball!