Important Date

Pitchers and catchers begin reporting to Spring Training on Wednesday.

MLB.com: Schedule

The best record in baseball

Flip Flop Fly Ball has a chart on how often the best team during the season wins the World Series. Interesting.

When each team breached the color line. Tigers 1958! Red Sox 1959!

And here’s another chart on the town in the 48 states farthest from any major league team (hint, it’s in Montana).

And my favorite chart.

Oops

Dad makes the catch but daughter returns it [short video]

Can a Ballclub’s Record Justify Its Beer Prices?

According to data collected by Team Marketing Report for the 2009 season, beer prices vary dramatically among big-league teams. A 21-ounce beer costs $4.75 in Pittsburgh, but you’ll shell out $8.75 for a 20-ounce brew at San Francisco’s AT&T Park. This led us to wonder: Does quality have anything to do with beer prices?

The Count — WSJ.com has more.

The worst value in baseball — Fenway. Just 12 ounces for $7.25.

Old school

25 Things We Miss In Baseball

Truest line of the night

“Every team going back 10-15 years needs an * if you want to consider giving it to anyone.”

Curt Schilling

Take me out to the ballgame

75 degrees at game time. Beautiful sunny evening.

Isotopes 8 Redhawks 0 after first inning.

14-4 after three.

22-4 after six. Don’t believe I’ve ever been at a game with so many runs scored with adults playing.

Time to go.

(The final was Isotopes 23 Redhawks 6.)

Vin Scully

One of the great moments in baseball — not just the story, but the storyteller. Go listen to baseball’s best broadcaster describe the last inning of Koufax’s perfect game in 1965.

Scully talks about virtually nothing but the action in front of him. Even allowing for the drama of this moment, compare and contrast to most current broadcasters who seem incapable of keeping their eye on the ball. And Scully says nothing for 40 seconds after the last pitch. He allows you to savor the moment. It’s not about him.

Link via a fine tribute to Scully at the Bats Blog.

The Catch That Saved the Perfect Game

You gotta see DeWayne Wise make the 9th-inning catch that saved Mark Buehrle’s perfect game today. 48 second video.

Only the 16th perfect game in major-league history.

BTW “Ian Kinsler accomplished a feat so rare on Sunday, it only happened four times previously in major-league history.”

Click here to learn what Kinsler and the others did.

It was a beautiful night

100º F. at game time, but a chilly 84º by the ninth inning. With the humidity around 10% it was actually quite comfortable.

The New Orleans Zephyrs took an early 2-1 lead, but Closser had a grand slam in the sixth to put the ‘Topes ahead 5-2. The Zephyrs got another, then fell apart in the 7th as the homeboys scored 7 and went on to win 12-3.

The taco won the red-green-salsa-taco race from first to third.

And I took home an Orbit bobblehead.

I honestly think that all around, watching the Isotopes on a great Albuquerque night is equal to anything in the major leagues for its entertainment value.

Joltin’ Joe

Joe DiMaggio did not get a hit on this date in 1941. Too bad, if he had his consecutive game hitting streak would have been 73. As it was, he hit safely in 56 consecutive games up to this date — and 16 after. (44 is the best by anyone else.)

At AmericanHeritage.com a couple years ago, John Steele Gordon told a famous good DiMaggio story:

[This story] story concerns his brief, disastrous marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was a film actress, used to working in front of cameras and technicians, not audiences. After their wedding, DiMaggio and Monroe went to Korea to entertain the American troops fighting there against the Chinese communists. There were perhaps 5,000 soldiers on the air-base runways waiting to greet them, and when they stepped out of the plane, the soldiers started cheering. Monroe, startled by the ovation, turned to her husband and said, “I bet you’ve never heard such cheering, Joe.” DiMaggio, who had brought a sold-out Yankee Stadium screaming to its collective feet more times than he could count, just said quietly, “Oh, yes I have.”

Then he beat her.

Now pitching

George Herman “Babe” Ruth made his Major League debut, pitching for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway 95 years ago today.

Ruth held Cleveland to five hits in six innings and got the win. He was 0 for 2 at the plate.

He was 19-years-old.

Leroy Robert Paige

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige was born 103 years ago today. A huge star in the Negro Leagues, Paige began pitching in 1926 and was the oldest major league rookie ever when he joined the Cleveland Indians at age 42. Paige pitched in his last major league game in 1965 (at age 59). He died in 1982.

In the barnstorming days, he pitched perhaps 2,500 games, completed 55 no-hitters and performed before crowds estimated at 10 million persons in the United States, the Caribbean and Central America. He once started 29 games in one month in Bismarck, N.D., and he said later that he won 104 of the 105 games he pitched in 1934.

By the time Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 as the first black player in the majors, Mr. Paige was past 40. But Bill Veeck, the impresario of the Cleveland club, signed him to a contract the following summer, and he promptly drew crowds of 72,000 in his first game and 78,000 in his third game. (The New York Times)

Paige first published his Rules for Staying Young in 1953. This version is from his autobiography published in 1962, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever.

1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.
2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society — the social ramble ain’t restful.
5. Avoid running at all times.
6. And don’t look back — something might be gaining on you.

When all is said and done, best Manny line of the suspension

“My wife also used a female fertility drug. Manny got suspended, but we got twins!”

Fan quoted by Bill Plaschke

Boo hiss line of the day

“Well, it seems that Manny Ramirez is back with the Los Angeles Dodgers, having done his time both under suspension and in Albuquerque, N.M., which seems just a touch redundant.”

Charles P. Pierce

The rest of the essay is as good as any Manny analysis I’ve seen, though.

Best line of the day

“And I noticed that all players in MLB were paying tribute to Michael Jackson by wearing one glove.”

Flip Flop Fly Ball, which is a great site, full of odd, but interesting graphics about baseball.

The bible of baseball cards

I have a copy and love this book. “The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book”.

Manny

Manny Ramirez’s assignment with the Albuquerque Isotopes amounted to two games, eight innings total, four appearances at bat — two ground outs, a strike out and a walk. Big deal.

Batting lead-off

… for the Albuquerque Isotopes, Manny Ramirez.

Manny will be Manny tonight as he begins a “rehab” assignment with the Albuquerque Isotopes vs. the Nashville Sounds.

Needless to say, this is the talk of our sometimes delightfully small town.

UPDATE: Ramirez struck out on a foul tip first time up.

Idle thought

If a doctor could prescribe a pill that would let me hit even one major league home run, I’d take it.

Manny Being Manny

Manny Ramirez’s suspension for 50 games will cost him $7.7 million in salary.

World Serious

In case you’re kind of interested, but not really paying attention, Game Five of the World Series resumes tonight at 6:37 PM MDT with the Phillies coming to bat in the bottom of the sixth inning and the score tied 2-2. This is the first time in World Series history that a game has been suspended (Monday night due to rain).

If the Phils win tonight, they win the Series, so it might be an exciting three innings — which often enough is about all the baseball one really wants to watch.

And more than too much of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. I think I’ll watch Fox but listen to Jon Miller and Joe Morgan on ESPN Radio.

Redux best line of the day

Originally posted four years ago.

It has long been believed that the source of Boston’s sorrows is the legendary Curse of the Bambino, brought on by selling young Babe Ruth to the Yankees. This is untrue. Boston is actually cursed because the Red Sox took an unconscionably long time to get around to hiring any black players.

— Teresa Nielsen Hayden

The Red Sox were the last baseball team to integrate; they did so in 1959.

NewMexiKen is old enough to remember this — and that the Washington NFL franchise was worse, not integrating until 1962. I’ve pretty much rooted against these teams ever since.

World Serious

The 104th World Series began last night. The Phillies have the fewest world championships (1) of any of the 16 franchises that have been around since the first World Series in 1903. The Rays have none.

In all, 22 franchises have won at least one World Series (which means 8 teams have not won any):

• Yankees 26 (in 39 appearances)
• Cardinals 10
• Athletics 9 (5 in Philadelphia, 4 in Oakland, none in Kansas City)
• Red Sox 7
• Dodgers 6 (1 in Brooklyn, 5 in Los Angeles)
• Giants 5 (all in New York)
• Pirates 5
• Reds 5
• Tigers 4
• Braves 3 (one each in Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta)
• Orioles 3 (none as the St. Louis Browns)
• Twins 3 (two in Minnesota, one as the Washington Senators)
• White Sox 3
• Blue Jays, Cubs, Indians, Marlins, Mets 2 each
• Angels, Diamondbacks, Phillies, Royals 1 each

Appeared in a Series, but haven’t won:

• Padres (twice)
• Brewers (once, while in American League)
• Astros
• Rockies
• Rays

Never been (and year began play):

• Mariners (1977)
• Expos/Nationals (1969)
• Senators/Rangers (1961)

Which will move up the list this year, the Phillies (their second) or the Rays (their first)?

The World Series began in 1903, but there was no Series in 1904 or 1994.

Know nothings

NewMexiKen watched the Phillies-Dodgers game before turning to the debate. Even in the first half-hour or so I grew tired of Tim McCarver and Joe Buck going on and on about how Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels was high in the strike zone, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Imagine my pleasant surprise to tune back in more than 90 minutes later in the 7th inning and see Hamels still pitching, beating the Dodgers 5-1.