Stimulating, provocative, sometimes whimsical new concepts that challenge traditional baseball orthodoxy. Note: Anonymous comments will not be published.
Copyright Kenneth Matinale
There were two Yankee games recently in which the Yanks were so far ahead that the opposing teams, Pittsburgh and Boston, put a non pitcher on the mound to finish the debacle. Some Yankee hitters got meaningless hits and the games became farce.
Nothing good came of it. So why not end such a game when the losing team has effectively conceded but does not have an accepted protocol to do so?
Rookie Status: Exceeded rookie limits during 2018 season
2022 Contract Status: Signed thru 2022, 1 yr/$17.1M (22)
Service Time (01/2022): 3.134 • Arb Eligible: 2023 • Free Agent: 2025
Agents: Boras Corporation
Soto Free agent: 2025
Soto will be 24.5 in April 2023.
Soto Career OPS+: 160 (60% above league average)
Soto already turned down the biggest contract of all time. His current team, the Washington Nationals, may trade him before the 2022 trade deadline August 2.
Soto career to date: $26 million; 2022: $17 million
Yankee Aaron Judge will be 31 in April 2023. Judge will be a free agent for the 2023 season. He already turned down a big contract offer from the Yankees. Debut:August 13, 2016 (Age 24 and 109 days).
Judge Career OPS+: 154 (54% above league average)
So when Judge played his first MLB game he was already older than Soto is now.
Judge career to date: $39.5 million; 2022: $19 million
Should the Yankees forget about extending Judge and trade for Soto now? The Yanks would have Soto for the championship runs in 2022 and 2023 and 2024. The Yankees could still sign Soto to an extension and have him for several more years.
Or should the Yankees forget about both Judge and Soto? Baseball is such a dumb team sport that the best player makes relatively little difference. He bats 4 or 5 times in a game, every 9th player. Imagine if Michael Jordan had wait for four teammates to shoot before he could take another shot? Over the years I've made these suggestions:
Three designated fielders and a batting order of six. Everyone who bats plays the field but not everyone who plays the field bats.
Start each inning with the top of the order.
With rules like that, it might make some sense to pay zillions of dollars to the top player. But with the ancient and still current baseball playing rules, it makes little sense outside of non baseball reasons, like merchandising.
Plus, in those 4 or 5 plate appearances, the opposing team can simply walk the best hitters. In 1923 Babe Ruth was walked 170 times. This after Ruth had "saved" baseball from the 1919 World Series betting scandal. They were too dumb and unimaginative to change the walk rule. Nothing has changed. Here are the all time season walks leaders:
Who goes to the park to see the best player walk? Rule change: a team could have the option to put a runner on first base without it eliminating the runner from playing otherwise, and have the batter who walked have a new plate appearance (PA). Walk him again: another runner and another PA. That would almost eliminate walking the best batters.
Ruth set the season home record as follows:
1919 29 Red Sox 1920 54 Yankees 1921 59 Yankees
Aaron Judge has an outside chance in 2022 (36 after 95 Yankee games) to become the third American League (AL) player to hit at least 60 home runs in a season, joining:
Babe Ruth 1927 60 Yankees Roger Maris 1961 61 Yankees
Mike Trout has been the best player of the last decade.
The Angels could have made the tournament only once in a decade without paying Mike Trout $227 million to date and commit to $37 million per year 2023-2030. Trout will be 31 on August 7, 2022. Trout will be 39 in August 2030. Trout is not that much older than Judge.
Yankee manager Aaron Boone learned baseball from his MLB grandfather (Ray) and father (Bob). Do you think that Ray Boone (1948-1960) had to be concerned about his knee hollow? Did the umpires back then? ...
Actually, Aaron Boone is NOT justified in being upset.
1. Like many baseball rules, the strike zone is moronic. It is by and for morons, a.k.a, baseball fans who never really challenge it and who have no idea what the rule is...
If sufficiently aggrieved, Boone can berate the ump verbally from the dugout as he did in yesterday's game. It's against the rules to argue balls and strikes and Aaron Boone was ejected ... again...
Finally, never argue with the officials in any sport. It gives the players an excuse for failure. A bad call by the plate umpire is something the player must deal with, like a ground ball hitting a pebble and taking a bad hop. It's part of the game...
Instead, Aaron Boone had yet another temper tantrum. How did that help him or his Yankees?
____________________________
Aaron did it yet again after the incident sited in the post above. This time he was made a hero of sorts by a youtube character.
The strike zone is by and for morons. Arguing balls and strikes is moronic. Boone can't even define it. You can't. Touch yourself at the top of your strike zone. Then go actually read the rule and try again. And try to figure out the bottom of the strike zone. Remember, it's all imaginary. It doesn't touch anything. And you're expecting the plate umpire to call it for 95 MPH thrown from 50 feet pitcher release point? Moronic.
There were two Yankee games recently in which the Yanks were so far ahead that the opposing teams, Pittsburgh and Boston, put a non pitcher on the mound to finish the debacle. Some Yankee hitters got meaningless hits and the games became farce.
Nothing good came of it. So why not end such a game when the losing team has effectively conceded but does not have an accepted protocol to do so?
Top of the 9th, Yankees Batting, Ahead 10-0, Pirates' Josh VanMeter facing 8-9-1 Josh VanMeter moves from 2B to P
HR: Aaron Hicks (4, off Josh VanMeter, 9th inn, 3 on, 1 out to Deep LF-CF); Giancarlo Stanton (21, off Josh VanMeter, 9th inn, 0 on, 1 out to Deep CF-RF).
In 1929 the Yankees pioneered the regular wearing of numbers on baseball uniforms. Numbers were assigned by position in the batting order. In 1927 Lou Gehrig for the first time in his career had batted 4th in every game. Babe Ruth batted 3rd in every game...
For the 1929 season they were assigned their famous numbers: Ruth 3, Gehrig 4. The Yankees must have assumed that those numbers would represent their positions in the batting order. However, that plan changed quickly. In 1929 Lou Gehrig started the lowest percentage of his games batting 4th in his career and his highest percentage batting 3rd. Gehrig also had his second highest percentage batting 6th (14% in 1925)...
In 1929 manager Miller Huggins moved Gehrig in the Yankee batting order for the most basic of reasons: he wasn't hitting enough...
Miller Huggins died September 25, 1929 in New York, NY. He was 51...
When he took over as manager in 1931 Joe McCarthy batted Gehrig 4th almost exclusively from 1931 through 1937. In 1936 Joe DiMaggio had batted 3rd in all 138 games he played and in 1937 DiMaggio batted 3rd in 144 starts and 4th in 6. In 1938 DiMaggio batted 4th in 116 games and 3rd in 29. In 1938 Gehrig batted 4th in only 41 (26%) games and 5th in 103 (66%) games. The young slugger DiMaggio had supplanted Gehrig.
Detroit, May 2.--Lou Gehrig's matchless record of uninterrupted play in American League championship games, stretched over fifteen years and through 2,130 straight contests, came to an end today...
... took himself out of action before the Yanks marched on Briggs Stadium for their first game against the Tigers this year.
With the consent of Manager Joe McCarthy, Gehrig removed himself because he, better than anybody else, perhaps, recognized his competitive decline and was frankly aware of the fact he was doing the Yankees no good defensively or on the attack. He last played Sunday in New York against the Senators...
When Gehrig performed his duties as Yankee captain today, appearing at the plate to give the batting order, announcement was made through the amplifiers of his voluntary withdrawal and it was suggested he get "a big hand." A deafening cheer resounded as Lou walked to the dugout, doffed his cap and disappeared in a corner of the bench.
Only nine Yankees played in that game. Red Ruffing (#15) pitched a complete game. Note that Babe Dahlgren (#12) was batting #8 and playing Gehrig's position, first base. Dahlgren was 2 for 5: double and home run.
Gehrig had played in all eight Yankee games thus far in 1939, batting #5 in all eight.
The movie, however, shows Gary Cooper in Yankee uniform as Lou Gehrig in the dugout in Detroit getting ready to bat. A Yankee teammate wearing number 15 (pitcher Ruffing) makes the third out. Cooper/Gehrig then goes to Yankee manager McCarthy and tells McCarthy that he can no longer play. McCarthy replaces him with Dahlgren and there is an announcement on the public address system to the crowd about the change.
The Yankees scored six runs in that first inning and batted around so that leadoff hitter Crosetti (#1) made the third out; Crosetti had singled in his first plate appearance. Dahlgren doubled in the first inning.
Gehrig was not replaced. Gehrig was never in the Yankee lineup for that game. The film producers may have showed it the way that they did for dramatic effect, i.e., poetic license. They may have done it out of ignorance about baseball. Cooper was famously unfamiliar with baseball and had never played baseball before this movie. Cooper could ride a horse but not play ball. Plus, Cooper was right handed and Gehrig threw and batted left handed.
... there were reports that movie magic had been needed to solve a critical problem: making Gary Cooper, a right-handed movie star who was definitely not a ballplayer, into a credible version of the left-handed Gehrig ...
Shirley Povich, a Washington Post columnist ... wrote, “everything you see Cooper doing left-handed in the picture, he’s actually doing right-handed.” ...
The effect was achieved, he said, through trickery. Cooper would hit, catch and throw right-handed, but the film would be reversed to make it look as if he were a left-hander. To perpetuate the illusion, Cooper would run to third base on a hit, not first, and would station himself at third instead of first. The letters across the chest of his Yankees uniform would be sewn backward.
Everything, Povich said, “worked out beautifully.”
Now, more than 70 years later, one researcher believes that reports by Povich and others about the cinematic sleight of hand were largely untrue but that a small amount of flipping probably took place.
Ever hear the story about the classic movie "The Pride of the Yankees" and how director Sam Wood turned the hopelessly right-handed actor Gary Cooper into a believable version of lefty baseball legend Lou Gehrig?
