Me, my Wife, and the World Baseball Clasic

I must admit, in the past I haven't paid much attention to the World Baseball Classic.

It just never seemed like something I could get into, mainly because it interferes with spring training.



As a baseball fan, spring is for my Detroit Tigers preparing for the new baseball season.



The one time I did pay some attention to the WBC, in 2009, I was really just watching what was going on with team Puerto Rico.



Why should I care about how the Puerto Rico team was doing?



It's simple, Pudge Rodriguez.

I've told the story before, how my wife fell in love with the former Detroit Tigers catcher.



Here I go.



Please indulge me as I look back.



In early 2005, when my wife and I were first dating, she would cook dinner at her apartment and bring it to my apartment.



Yes, I was, am, still, not a good cook.



Back then my cooking as a bachelor was Bubba Burgers and macaroni and cheese.



On one occasion when she was over I had a Tigers game on TV, and as she was walking to the kitchen she heard Tigers play by play guy, Mario Impemba say...

"...and that brings "Pudge Rodriguez" to the plate."

Now, for me, and every other baseball fan watching the game, we just heard that Pudge Rodriguez was about to come to the plate and hit.


What she heard was "Pudge" AND NOTHING ELSE.


She didn't know much about baseball, just what I had told her in the few months we had been together.


When she heard Impemba say "Pudge" she thought he was making a derogatory statement about his statue, his body figure.


I explained to her that the term "Pudge" was a badge of honor, going back to Carlton "Pudge" Fisk, the Hall of Fame catcher of the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox.

After my explanation of the name, in an instant, Ivan "Pudge" Rodriquez gained a lifetime fan.

I had, in a span of five minuets, created a new baseball fan, a new Tigers fan.


So, fast forward to 2009 as we plan  our trip to Lakeland, Florida, the spring home of the Tigers.


One day in Orlando at Downtown Disney, the next watching the Tigers play.


 The 2009 WBC was going on, and it looked as if team Puerto Rico was going to spoil our trip.


Then, the day we woke up in Lakeland we learned  that Puerto Rico has lost, and that Pudge will play today for the Tigers.



The smile on my wife's face was priceless.


The game was terrific, a huge crowd was in attendance, and when Pudge ran out onto the field at Joker Marchant Stadium, the applause was tremendous. 

My wife loved to watch the Tigers with me...when Pudge came to the plate. 


She would stop anything she was doing to watch him hit.


Her smile that first time she saw Pudge reminded me of how I must have looked the first time I saw my baseball hero, Bill Freelhan, play at Tiger Stadium in the late 1960s.

When I told her Pudge in going to play for another team, and not the Tigers, she was devastated.


All she knew about baseball was myself, the Detroit Tigers, and Pudge Rodriguez.  


On of the best things I've ever had happen to me was when Pudge Rodriguez followed be back on Twitter last year.


If you are on Twitter,  follow Pudge Rodriguez, he's a pretty darn good guy.


Also, if your a Tigers fan, Mario Impemba is also on Twitter.


My wife still likes to watch the Tigers with me, only now it's Justin Verlander pitching,  Miguel Cabrera  and Prince Fielder hitting.

This year I hope to watch more of the WBC, especially when the USA team is playing, and I'll be cheering on the Red, White, and Blue.



 Every time I hear a score, or see a highlight from a Puerto Rico WBC team game, I'll think back to that spring in 2009, and the smile on my wife's face when she saw Pudge Rodriguez.


Play Ball!

1865 Brooklyn Atlantics Baseball Card

The Brooklyn Atlantics played baseball before the Civil War, won two championships, and in 1870 the Atlantics beat the great Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first loss for the famous Queen City team in two years.

The Atlantic Base Ball Club of Brooklyn was formed in 1855, 20 years before the founding of the National League, and 46 years before the American League.

With all that history, they're now much more famous because of a find at a yard sale in Maine.

A picture of the 1865 Atlantics, nine players and the teams manager was put onto a card, and is considered by the Library of Congress to be an early baseball card.

The card is expected to get more than $100,000 at auction next month.

Thanks to yahoosports.com, usatoday.com and the current Atlantics team, www.brooklynatlantics.org for information gathered for this post.

Play Ball!

Happy 40th Birthday to the Designated Hitter

I knew the upcoming baseball season was going to be the 40th Anniversary of the very first use of the designated hitter (DH)  in the American League, but I didn't know the actual date of approval by owners was today, January 11th, 1973.

Thanks to Bill League Stew on Yahoo Sports for the article on the DH today.

By a vote of  8-4, the 12 American League owners adopted the rule that allowed a player to hit in the batting order without playing a position on the field, and in doing so, allowed the pitcher to not have to bat.

The Yankees Ron Blomberg became the first DH on opening day, April 6th, 1973.

I remember watching the 1976 World Series when the Reds Dan Driessen became the first ever National League DH, against the Yankees.

Game 1 of the '76 World Series was the first time the DH was used in a National League ballpark.

Driessen hit .357 in the series, with a homer as the Reds swept the Bronx Bombers.


As the 1972 season came to an end, many A.L. teams were losing money, and they had a lot of aging ball players who were nearing retirement, and teams were afraid of fans not coming to games when the old stars hung up their uniforms for the last time.

For my fellow Detroit Tigers fans the honor of being the first every DH for our team belongs to Gates Brown, the Tigers best ever pinch hitter.

The DH has been very controversial for all 40 years, led by baseball purists, and National League teams, players, and fans.

To me the DH is never been a problem, probably because the Tigers were an original A.L. team, and those were the games I was watching every day as a young fan.

The DH has become part of baseball, and I think that eventually the N.L. will have to institute the DH as well, simply because it gives another bat into the line up every night.

I know, the tradition of the double switch, which really never made much sense to me, will be gone, but I think managers will be just fine.


As I think about the DH, and it's place in baseball history, I have to talk about Edgar Martinez, and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

No pure DH has ever been elected into the Hall.

That fact needs to change, and the change needs to start with Martinez, the best pure DH in baseball history.

Matrinez had a lifetime .312 batting average, 2247 hits, 309 HRs, 1261 RBI, and scored 1219 runs.

The DH is part of baseball history, and the Hall of Fame is a place that showcases the history of baseball.

Besides Martinez, David Ortiz, who has the most DH home runs, 401, has to become a HOF player as well.

Paul Molitor, already in the HOF, played a great deal of his time as a DH as well. and there are guys like Don Baylor, Harold Baines, who could one day be enshrined in the DH wing of the HOF.

So, Happy 40th to the DH, oh, and many more.

Play Ball!

Trailer #2 for new Jackie Robinson movie *42*

My favorite Washington National

☆☆☆Blog Post Update☆☆☆

Today's Happy Baseball Birthday!  is Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper.


Harper, the odds on favorite to be this year's National League MVP, hit .318, and led the N.L. with 42 home runs and 118 RBIs. 


In 2013 I wrote about Bryce Harper being my favorite Nationals player...his play the past two years hasn't changed at all.


Happy Baseball Birthday Bryce! 



☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆


Today I'm writing about my favorite ball player from the Washington Nationals.

This is an article on my favorite Washington Nationals player...no Montreal Expos, the team that moved to the District of Columbia, in 2005.





OK, so...



My favorite Washington National is...



Bryce Harper.

The 2013 baseball season will be the 9th year since big league baseball has returned to our Nation's Capital, and no player has burst onto the D.C. baseball scene like Bryce Harper.

OK, Steven Starsburg was highly anticipated, but not to the magnitude, and attitude...NATITUDE of Bryce Harper.

I like just about everything I've seen in young Harper, he seems to be a good kid, a young ball player who gets excited about baseball every day.






Bryce Harper has one thing in mind when he steps into the batters box, to get a pitch, swing hard in case he hits the ball, and to run full throttle, all out, to first base, to second base ,on to third base....all out, safe, or retired by putout.






Harper has a quick bat, has good power, and even though he has the habit of swinging at bad pitches at times, hey, young guys do that,his basic swing is good, and there is a lot to like.

Harper is just 20 years old, played the 2012 season as at 19, and will continue to get better.






In his rookie year of 2012 Bryce Harper hit 22 home runs, batted .270, And drove in 59 runs.






I voted for Harper as the National League Rookie of the Year, as a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.

The Nationals have a terrific young team, and I see multiple N.L.

MVP's in Harpers future, maybe even a trip to the World Series.

The National's won the N.L. East in 2012, and will be the favorites to repeat again in 2013, behind Harper, pitcher Steven Strasburg, and a collection of young, talented baseball players.

Hall of Fame shutout

Today the Baseball Writers Association of American  (BBWAA) announced that no ELIGIBLE PLAYER was voted for induction this summer into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

It's only the 8th time in HOF voting that no one was elected, and the first since 1996.

In my opinion the BBWAA writers have reached a new low.

I just don't know how any baseball writer, who supposedly knows more than the fans, could not vote in Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Tim Raines, Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Curt Schilling, or Mike Piazza.

The steroid era has ruined the selection process.

Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and yes, Alex Rodriguez, have made it almost impossible for any voter to vote for ANY player from the steroids era.

The new stats, from the SABR side of baseball are also responsible.

I understand the need for research in baseball, but the destruction of 1980's and 1990's players because of their WAR, their OPS, their BABIP, or their zone defense ratio, is simply absurd.

In the 60's and 70's my friends and I knew a great player when we saw one.

We didn't need someone to come up with convoluted stats to tell us that Hank Aaron and Al Kaline would one day end up in the HOF.

The also didn't need to show me some one's WAR to show me that Mark Belanger and Tito Francona don't belong in the HOF.

Dale Murphy's rejection by the BBWAA is disgraceful.

If Murphy, the 1982-83 National League MVP, can't get voted in, then the writers should have the vote taken away from them.

Jack Morris won 254 games...254!

Morris won three World Series rings, won more games than any other pitcher in the 1980's.

Tim Raines was one the best all around baseball players in history, a terrific blend of speed and power on the bases.

Baseball writers need to get their act together.

Punishing the steroids guys is understandable, but to leave Biggio, a great player, with 3,000+ hits out of the HOF because he played in the steroids era, is a joke.

Even worse is that some BBWAA writers voted for players like Shawn Green, Steve Finley, Julio Franco, and Aaron Sele.

I hope the Veteran's Committee rights the writers wrongs one day, and elect Murphy, and other deserving players who have been excluded because they only hit 493 home runs and only won 254 games.

The Baseball Hall of Fameweekend will still go on, and the HOF is honoring 19th century players, umpires, and others on July 28th.

To see the details, just go to http://bbwaa.com/

Cool Baseball Cards

I love baseball cards, and thanks to Old Hoss Radbourn  via Twitter, I've come across a great looking set of new cards.

Take a look at the terrific card set put out by the staff over at Punk Rock Paint.

There are 125 total cards in the set, 100 for the top players of All-Time, and an additional 25 for the "Not Quite Top 100."

Take a look at the poster for the cards. 



Pretty cool, yeah?



All the great ball players are in the set, from Babe Ruth  with card #1, Ty Cobb at #6, Sandy Kofax at #44, Gary Carter at #86, and Old Hoss Radbuorn himself at #1A.

In addition to the cards there are 4 checklist cards.

The cards come in a playing card looking package, and the price, $18.84...what a great price...includes shipping.



Hurry, these cards are limited to just 84 sets, so they'll go fast.

'42' Official Trailer [HD]: The Real Life Story Of Jackie Robinson, Base...

I'm really looking forward to watching this movie about Jackie Robinson.

The movie is schedule for release in April 2013.

Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle...Costanza?

I love watching TV.

I love watching baseball on TV.

The two came together brilliantly on the comedy Seinfeld.

Jerry Seinfeld, a real life New York Mets fan, incorporated his love of the Mets by wearing his Mets cap on the show, talking about the Mets infield on the NY Subway...with a naked guy, and becoming friends with Mets 1st Baseman Keith Hernandez.




This is my favorite Seinfeld episode ever, where Jerry meets the former Mets player, and the reaction he gets from Kramer and Newman.

Another classic baseball themed Seinfeld has Elaine, from Baltimore, getting thrown out of a game at Yankee Stadium because she wore her Orioles cap in the owners box seats.

Some of the best of all the baseball Seinfeld shows involved George Costanza, from his inability of get Keith Hernandez to go to the unemployment office to help him, to George's years as the Yankees assistant to the travelling secretary.

I'm a sports fan member over at the web site Fan IQ.com and once wrote this quiz on baseball and Seinfeld.

Today Seinfeld was honored as the #1 Comedy of All-Time on TV, a poll done by a 60 Minuets/Vanity Fair Magazine poll.

Over at JoeSportsFan.com they have compiled a list of every New York connected baseball person to appear or be mentioned on Seinfeld.

Thanks to Jimmy Trania and his daily Hot Clicks post for the link to Joe Sports fan and for continuing to write about the world of sports and it's unusual side every day on SI.com.

These guys should be in the baseball Hall of Fame

Every year over at Baseball Past and Present.com Graham Womack does a project on the best players NOT in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.





I have participated again this year.

We vote for 50 BEST players NOT in the Hall of Fame, and then YES, or NO, for the Hall of Fame.



Here's my ballot of the players I listed on my ballot with a "Y" for induction.



Yes. I voted for my hero, Bill Freehan, and some other deserving Detroit Tigers, like Jack Morris.

I also didn't think Denny McLain or Willie Horton belonged in the HOF, and they played for the Tigers, so there.

My YES votes are...

Bill Freehan
Dale Murphy
Tim Raines
Jack Morris
Allan Trammell
Lou Whitaker
Mickey Lolich
Joe Torre
Don Mattingly
Harold Baines
Jeff Bagwell
Charlie Bennett
Curt Flood
Gil Hodges
"Shoeless" Joe Jackso
Thurman Munson
Mike Piazza
Fernando Valenzuela
Roger Maris
Orel Hershiser
Curt Schilling
Jim Kaat
Pepper Martin
Edgar Martinez
Lefty O'Doul
Buck O'Neil
Steve Garvey
Fred Lynn
Marty Marion
Minnie Minoso
Sadahara Oh

There are only 31 names listed above.

I listed 19 other ballplayers in the 50 BEST not in the HOF, but I don't believe they belong in the HOF.

While I believe that Pete Rose, baseball's All-Time leader in hits, Barry Bonds, baseball's All-Time leader in home runs, Roger Clemens, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, and Raphael Palmiero were great players, they do not, in my opinion, deserve to be in baseball's greatest shrine.

The steroid era in baseball has distorted hallowed records, and in the case of Rose, he violated baseball's highest rule, that of honor.

Before you ask me about Joe Jackson, I believe that while Jackson knew about the 1919 Black Sox fix, he played as hard as he could, in every at bat, in every play, and in every game.

Pete Rose would be in the HOF had he not, as the Manager of the Cincinnati Reds, bet on baseball, and his own team.

As for Sadahara Oh, he's the greatest player in Japanese baseball history, at least until Ichiro Suzuki retires, and I've always believed he deserved to be in the baseball HOF.

That's my list,

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts.

Play Ball!