Tuesday, May 1, 2012 A-Rod: where's the love?
Rodriguez is number 14 on the list for Runs scored. Scoring another 50 runs will move Rodriguez past Craig Biggio, Mel Ott, Tris Speaker and Lou Gehrig into tenth place.
So by the end of the 2012 season Alex Rodriguez should be #4 in home runs, #6 in RBI and #10 in Runs.
Derek Jeter's claim to offensive fame is that he gets on base, runs the bases well and scores. Jeter is #17 in Runs (1,785) 53 behind Rodriguez and unlikely to ever catch him, especially considering that Jeter is 13 months older than Rodriguez:
Jeter born: June 26, 1974
Rodriguez born: July 27, 1975
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During last night's Yankee 4-3 loss in Oakland Derek Jeter scored a run, which tied him with Eddie Collins at #16 with 1,821 runs scored. The Yankee Entertainment Sports (YES) network put a list of players on the screen to show where Jeter was on the all time list but did not show all players ahead of Jeter. Below Jeter YES highlighted the leader: Rickey Henderson at 2,295. Above Collins and Jeter the partial list showed:
14. Craig Biggio 1,844
15. Frank Robinson 1,829
Had YES shown just two more players viewers would have seen this:
12. Alex Rodriguez 1,874
13. Mel Ott 1,859
Why not show Jeter's Yankee teammate Alex Rodriguez? Was this done intentionally or was it simply a case of stupidity? Did someone think it would diminish Jeter to show him moving up the list but still behind his much better teammate? Or did the person simply not know? Even the announcers for the game, Ken Singleton and David Cone did not mention Rodriguez.
The Yankees and YES and all broadcasters should always show a complete list even if it means scanning up and down. The list should include some additional context such as plate appearances, at bats, years played, Hall of Fame, years played.
For all the fuss about Reggie Jackson criticizing Alex Rodriguez recently the Yankees themselves continue to demean the extraordinary accomplishments of Alex Rodriguez.
See Thursday, June 9, 2011 Derek Jeter v. Álex Rodríguez
OK, it's pretty obvious that Álex Rodríguez is a much better player than Derek Jeter.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
Pitchers get visits from coaches. Why not batters ... and fielders?
It's absurd that baseball allows coaches to stand on the field full time at first and third base. And that it permits visits to the pitchers. Two visits per pitcher. So why not allow visits to the batters? And the fielders? And base runners?
Make it even more of a farce.
Make it even more of a farce.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
What sucks the life out of games? Dead time between pitches.
The last four games that the Yankees played before the all star break were in Boston: Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, Sunday night. Here are times to complete those nine inning games and the TV broadcaster.
3:59 Yanks won 10-8 local TV
3:07 Yanks won 6-1 local TV
3:36 Red Sox won 9-5 Fox (Red Sox did not bat in ninth)
4:02 Yanks won 7-3 ESPN
TV broadcaster does not seem to be the only culprit in making these games LONG, boring and unwatchable. I fired up the DVR for at least the final excruciating innings of each game so that I could fast forward between each pitch because each batter steps out of the box between each pitch to wander aimlessly for no apparent reason other than his batting coach has no better instruction. And, of course, the pitching coach had given comparable instruction to his wards.
As mentioned here previously game seven of the 1960 World Series took 2:36. Final score: 10-9 Pirates over the Yankees. More runs were scored in that game than in any of the four in Boston. OK, the Pirates still had three outs to go so the game could have taken longer but it still would have been much shorter than the recent mess in Boston.
Most people blame the commercials and pitching changes for the games being so long. That 1960 WS game had a comparable number of pitching changes. Pitchers should be changed on the fly: no mound visit, no warm-ups. That would speed things up. Commercials are not going away.
But what really sucks the life out of Major Baseball League (MBL) games is the dead time between each of the 300 pitches. MBL money grubbers are not even making money during those pointless delays, unless MBL wants to keep its captive audience at the park longer to entice fans to buy more over priced stuff.
Meanwhile, at home, viewers like me are increasingly turning off and/or doing other stuff and not paying attention to the game. MBL is in trouble that will cause it to crash by the year 2020 when MBL will predictably do too little, too late.
3:59 Yanks won 10-8 local TV
3:07 Yanks won 6-1 local TV
3:36 Red Sox won 9-5 Fox (Red Sox did not bat in ninth)
4:02 Yanks won 7-3 ESPN
TV broadcaster does not seem to be the only culprit in making these games LONG, boring and unwatchable. I fired up the DVR for at least the final excruciating innings of each game so that I could fast forward between each pitch because each batter steps out of the box between each pitch to wander aimlessly for no apparent reason other than his batting coach has no better instruction. And, of course, the pitching coach had given comparable instruction to his wards.
As mentioned here previously game seven of the 1960 World Series took 2:36. Final score: 10-9 Pirates over the Yankees. More runs were scored in that game than in any of the four in Boston. OK, the Pirates still had three outs to go so the game could have taken longer but it still would have been much shorter than the recent mess in Boston.
Most people blame the commercials and pitching changes for the games being so long. That 1960 WS game had a comparable number of pitching changes. Pitchers should be changed on the fly: no mound visit, no warm-ups. That would speed things up. Commercials are not going away.
But what really sucks the life out of Major Baseball League (MBL) games is the dead time between each of the 300 pitches. MBL money grubbers are not even making money during those pointless delays, unless MBL wants to keep its captive audience at the park longer to entice fans to buy more over priced stuff.
Meanwhile, at home, viewers like me are increasingly turning off and/or doing other stuff and not paying attention to the game. MBL is in trouble that will cause it to crash by the year 2020 when MBL will predictably do too little, too late.