The end of an era in KC, fisticuffs in the Rays parking lot, Aaron Judge is too humble, to return or not to return a milestone home run ball, lawsuits against dickheads, and three basketball items
TBH it's not so much the Soto deal as much as it is the almost complete failure of the Nats' non-international player drafting and development system - although the Soto deal (and the fire sale in 2021) did come about largely because the talent pipeline was empty. The team needs a rethink literally top to bottom - so Mike and Davey gotta go, IDMCjHO.
Those doubles by Judge gave him 376 total bases on the year, putting him on pace for more than 400.
The last time someone had 400 bases in a year was 2001, when Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Luis Gonzalez, and Todd Helton all did it. The last American Leaguer to do it was Jim Rice in 1978.
Albert Belle came very close in 1998 and might have surpassed 400 with a full 162-game schedule in 1995. He had a good walk rate in both seasons but nothing like Bonds. All this to say, 400 total bases is (thanks, Wash) incredibly hard: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/TB_season.shtml
I can pretty much rattle off all of Rice's 1978 numbers off the top of my head. It's the year I became a baseball fan. .315, 46, 139, etc. But the truly insane number is the league-leading 15 triples. Has anyone else ever led his league in homers and triples in the same season?
I'm guessing Rice had decent speed in those younger years (never witnessed) and had some help from Fenway. But yah, Mays and Mantle were burners, so interesting to see Rice included with that group.
You talk about That Guy on the Bad Team Who's Good. For Mets fans of a certain age, it was John Stearns, who passed away last week. I wasn't much of a Mets fan then, but reading the reactions to his passing, it's clear he was a bright spot in a sea of misery. RIP, John.
I felt sorry for Dane Dunning the first time I saw one of his films on MST3K. And Mike and the Bots only barely had any idea who he was and weren't even making jokes at his expense the way they would Joe Don Baker. Sad, really.
Brandon Nimmo left the game with quad tightness. He thinks he will be fine with a few days rest, but that is exactly what Mad Max and Marte said before going on the IL. Guys, stop writing checks your bodies can't cash.
Lord help me, but Robert Sarver is Jewish. Which means that he was invoking Jewish ideas of atonement in his mealy mouthed, self serving statement. And which means that I must make it clear that this is not how I was taught the way to do repentance. Repentance is hard. It's a long process. Some would say it never ends. And it never, ever includes excuses, to God or to your fellow human being. It includes confessing your sins, admitting what you did was wrong, and seeking the forgiveness of others and God and even yourself. Nothing that Sarver said comes close to this, and it is gall on his part to invoke our idea of atonement right before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I thoroughly and totally reject him as a member of my faith and my community, and as much as you hope that such people will eventually take stock of their lives and truly repent, you know better than to expect it.
I tend to think of Maz as the face of the franchise, but not necessarily because of his skills so much as just how he was a face the tabloids loved to show. I was always glad Maz managed to get back in time to get a World Series ring, but it would have been great for Stearns to have had one as well.
Yeah, you can never take a player's comments about how soon they'll return from an injury seriously. At least not until the doctors see him and tell him how soon they'll be back.
Is it an innately Jewish thing to check and see if the bad person is Jewish before making a comment? Yes, I do it too. But Sarver is (1) a sick dude that (2) has a lot more money than you or I, and (3) whatever book he reads from never told him to be a foaming asshole. His existence has no sway on our beliefs or community. I really don't think his existence is at all relevant to mine, and the less air he gets the less relevant he becomes to others.
This time, I didn't check. Without meaning to, I stumbled onto an article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency taking note of his Judaism. I suspect someone there pinged to "atonement" as a key word. And even though most of the outlets that picked it up are Jewish media, I suspect it will go mainstream soon, especially given the timing.
It does a disservice to the run of the mill Jews to *always* show that someone in the news is also Jewish. Highlight that there are good Jews out there, fine. But why must we be burdened to be associated with every bad Jew? The JTA isn't great at PR.
Let's be honest - if he were Christian, he'd be talking about expiation of sins, being born again and/or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" or some such pious word salad.
He's not a piece of human garbage because of his religion; he's just a "religious" (scare quotes intentional) piece of human garbage.
I don't think so, but so often it's used as a specifically religious concept, and in a very manipulative fashion. The implication is hey, I've repented and thus God has forgiven me, so how dare you be more judgemental than God and not forgive me and wipe the slate clean?
I think there has to be more to making amends or atoning or repenting than just saying sorry and going on one's merry jackass way without making a clear visible effort to change for the better.
I don’t think repentance is a strictly religious thing at all, sure, typically, it’s religion-adjacent. Certainly doesn’t require a higher power for a person to be sincerely remorseful about something.
To some degree, this is very true. "Jews are News" is a thing, and it is hard to tell when the NY Times doing a big investigation of Hasidic schools is an honest investigation of misdeeds and how much is "even though we are not actually anti-Semitic, this will get a lot of attention." (I think their recent story was a worthwhile subject, but it also went out of its way to perpetuate the notion that Hasidim are weird.)
But the JTA really should know better. Clicks, however, are clicks.
NYT most definitely did the right thing, but didn't finish the job. It's sort of an open secret, and that's the easiest thing to investigate. It did sound more like a well deserved hit piece than a treatise on how in general private schools are not meeting standards. Hasidic schools are a great example - but if they're not the only example, others should be highlighted.
Thanks, Craig. I’m under no illusion that Joey Meneses will always hit like this, but it’s been really fun to watch - especially when you realize that he’s a 30 year old Mexican rookie who spent 10 years in the minor leagues before his debut after the Juan Soto trade. My Nats are still overmatched - but they rarely get blown out anymore and, as the TV booth likes to say, “the boys are battling.“
PS To me, the most amazing thing about the Trump lawsuit is how obvious it was to anyone paying attention that the family was playing games with valuation depending on whether they were asking for money or owing it. I’m sure being POTUS (bringing with it means to resist discovery) helped, but the difficulty in obtaining documents and testimony to prove this kind of fraud certainly speaks to how easy it can be for super-rich people to work the system to stay that way.
If I, a Yankee fan, caught a historic ball hit by Judge, I would definitely give it back. I’m too emotionally involved in the team and the players. If I caught a historic ball hit by some schmuck from Tampa Bay, to the auction house I go.
That said, I’d ask for tickets. Yankee stadium tickets cost more on the secondary market than what I’d get for the ball.
I will say what I said on Twitter: if I caught his 62nd I would ask to meet him and then tell him I would like him to make a $62,000 donation to a charity of my choice… And if he wanted to round it up to $99,000 or more I wouldn’t be mad.
The way I see it, the person who catches a ball like that is a trustee for the athlete - and while trustees do get compensated, it’s important to remember it’s not all about you.
It’s all academic, because I will never catch a ball like that, but feel free to screenshot that first comment and refer to it if I ever do… Because I’m giving that ball away.
PS I don’t really like outfield seats anyway … For some reason, watching the game with almost everyone’s back to me feels wrong.
In the countless games I have attended over the years, including many sparsely populated minor league stadiums, I have never touched the baseball. My family says I must repel baseballs or something.
I feel like sitting next to a shitpile like that would ruin the experience. :)
Short foul ball story: at a Colorado Springs Sky Sox game in 1991, my buddy and I were right behind the third base dugout when the Sky Sox third baseman caught a pop foul for the third out. My buddy says "nice catch!" and holds up his hand. JIM THOME tosses him the ball. Closest I've ever come to touching a ball while at a game.
I've caught two foul balls in my life. Both in the same game.
Well, I didn't "catch" the second. It was a scalded line drive that bounced several times and through several people's hands before rolling to a stop between my feet. It would have no doubt been blocked by the extended netting today. But I did cleanly catch the first one, which was a lazy pop up.
Same and same with my father who's gone to many, many more games than me. He reached out for one in the upper deck in Montreal once then decided bare-handing a 100mph line drive wasn't a good idea and ducked as it hit the empty seat next to him and bounced back over the fence. Couple inches higher or lower and we're sure it wouldn't have gone back over.
The only way you'd get to keep the ball is if you caught it barehanded on the fly.
Otherwise, look for the nearest kid, and toss it to them (so they can say they caught it). If no kids are nearby, look for the nearest attractive member of the appropriate (for you) gender. If none is nearby, look for someone who you think might deserve it.
You could populate a massive and unbeatable army of child soldiers with all the kids over the years I have looked around and spotted and said to myself "If I get a ball I'm giving it to them."
Also I have had multiple bad customer service experiences at Yankee Stadium and those experiences have truly changed the way I view my relationship with the team.
The 60th ball? Yeah, I'd give it to him, and be happy with an autographed bat or whatever. But something like Barry Bonds' 756th? Something that could put my kids through college? I'd certainly give the player the opportunity to match, or at least make a competitive offer to the high bidder. But if I catch a winning lottery ticket, I'm not just giving it away.
The odious Darren Rovell had a tweet about this that I, unfortunately, felt made sense.
Judge could have the ball in exchange for the bat that he hit it with and the jersey he was wearing when he hit it. He gets his keepsake, and I get a good chunk of change in collectibles.
Lonnie Smith did indeed stick around until the Braves turned good in the 90s. If he didn't try running the bases in an anatomically impossible manner with his head up his arse, Atlanta scores in Game 7, the Braves win the Series, and Jack Morris is not in the Hall of Fame.
As another fan of the 1980s Atlanta clubs, I felt a pull towards not the one season flukes like Dion James, but the few competent players who also had something quirky. Glenn Hubbard was an okay hitter, good fielder, and looked like a cartoon character. Terry Forster was a solid but unspectacular reliever who went on David Letterman because he was a "fat tub of goo."
And thinking back on it, I'm not sure if the first time a crush broke my heart was a lovely young co-ed Michelle or uber prospect Brad Komminsk.
It was a particular sort of pleasure to come of age as a Braves fan in that era, even if that pleasure had little to do with the product on the field. While the beers were always pricier than you'd choose, you could offset some of that expense by bringing your own food (which was allowed at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium at the time), and catch a buzz while having the run of a mostly empty stadium. So empty, in fact, that you could shout "Dion, you're the man!" from the front row of the upper deck, as we would do, and have the redoubtable Mr. James turn around and wave to you.
The line "Q: what time is the game? A: what time can you show up?" was, if not said about those Braves, certainly applicable.
I didn't live too close - I was in Mobile about 5 hours down the road - so I didn't get to many games in person. But we had the pleasure of listening to Skip Caray and his "if you promise to support our sponsors, you have my permission to turn to another channel" or "we are in the bottom of the fifth, and I wish I was too." Caray was a good announcer when the Braves were on their run in Bobby Cox's second term, but he was a GREAT announcer when the team was horrible.
"Two on, two out... if anyone cares." I miss Skip, the Perfesser, and Ernie Sr very much. I still think "totals and highlights after this" at the end of every work meeting; at least, I believe it's interior monologue?
I moved to Atlanta after college in 1989. Those first couple of years we'd decide at 6 PM to go to the game and be seated before first pitch. They'd draw a few thousand on a Friday night.
I woke my wife up from all the screaming when they called Sid Bream safe at the plate.
Don't start on this, dlf, just don't. The tripe that the Braves were a much better team than the Twins but lost because of their mistakes and not the Twins Heroics is Sarver-level nonsense repeated so often and solemnly that they almost believe it.
Not just mistakes, but the blatant violation of the rules by the Twins. We could almost - almost - forgive turning the A/C on and off based on what team was at bat, but the cruelty and abuse heaped upon the poor innocent Ron Gant by Shamu the Killer Whale engaging in WWE tactics is simply beyond the pale.
If I caught that ball I’d pull my Mets hat out of my pocket, put it on, and sell it to the highest bidder. That goes for about anyone on any team, not just the Yankees. If it was a Met, I’d offer it back for lifetime season tickets in the seats where unlimited food and drink is included, transportation to/from the games, spring training special access, and clubhouse access for a player meet and greet at least once per season. If they don’t go for it, then off to the auction house I go.
If I caught Judge's 62nd, i think in exchange for a few trinkets, i'd want to go to the diner with him and grab a burger. It seems to me he'd be the kind of guy who'd order a few $5 milkshakes with his tasty burger, and I think it'd be good conversation. Maybe he'd invite along a friend or two.
I remember talking about the ol "what would you do if you caught the ball that..." debate in 1998. I'm a huge fan of baseball history. I love records and stats and all of it. But if an object worth 7 figures landed in my hands and I didn't find some way to help my family with that, well, guys like me don't see that kind of money, well, ever (this was particularly true when I was making $1000/month back in the day).
I suspect what I would try to do is sell the ball to the highest bidder who agreed to have the ball on permanent loan to the BBHOF, so they could have a little sign under it saying "on loan from the collection of Jane Q. Public."
I love stories like the Joey Meneses one, even if he did sink the Braves yesterday. I, of course, keep referring to him as Manassas, the Stephen Stills band from the early 70s.
Two options for what to do with the ball that aren’t accounted for in that sell it or give it back analysis:
1) Donate it to a Hall of Fame or a museum. When I was a kid, I had some pieces of WHA memorabilia - one of their blue pucks and some very early hockey cards - that I donated to the International Hockey Hall of Fame in Kingston, Ontario. They were really appreciative, and gave me some very formal paperwork acknowledging the donation and a lifetime pass. Any time I was in town visiting my grandparents for a weekend, I could walk over and get to see them. Haven’t been in years, though - doubt I could even find the pass anymore.
2) Keep it, y’know, just to have it.
My gut tells me I’d most likely give it back above anything else, but I’d do either of these before I’d sell it.
The mid-teens Royals made me fall in love--first with the team--but also with baseball, the sport, the history and popular culture about it. Which brought me here, reading you, Craig. Thank you for your sweet reminder of the skill of those players, “the high water mark,” on that hill by I-70 & Blue Ridge Cutoff.
In my ignorance I was going to say since one of the guys in the fight was Randy Arozarena and the other was Yandy Diaz, Yandy Diaz likely will not be on the Rays roster for long. Then I looked it up and found Diaz has a better bWAR this year than Arozarena, so I guess he's not just some random easily replaceable guy.
Diaz has been outplaying Arozarena.....and add to that Arozarena has looked lost at times, questionable base running and not having his head in the game....perhaps that lead to the altercation?
The Nats' Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez are VERY interested in the answer to that question.
If the line is 5.5, I'm betting the under in DC.
TBH it's not so much the Soto deal as much as it is the almost complete failure of the Nats' non-international player drafting and development system - although the Soto deal (and the fire sale in 2021) did come about largely because the talent pipeline was empty. The team needs a rethink literally top to bottom - so Mike and Davey gotta go, IDMCjHO.
Those doubles by Judge gave him 376 total bases on the year, putting him on pace for more than 400.
The last time someone had 400 bases in a year was 2001, when Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Luis Gonzalez, and Todd Helton all did it. The last American Leaguer to do it was Jim Rice in 1978.
How Bonds got to 400 while walking 177 times is beyond my ken.
IIRC, Rice is the only AL player to reach 400 since WWII.
Albert Belle came very close in 1998 and might have surpassed 400 with a full 162-game schedule in 1995. He had a good walk rate in both seasons but nothing like Bonds. All this to say, 400 total bases is (thanks, Wash) incredibly hard: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/TB_season.shtml
Belle's 50 homer 50 double season in 1995 was absolutely amazing.
I can pretty much rattle off all of Rice's 1978 numbers off the top of my head. It's the year I became a baseball fan. .315, 46, 139, etc. But the truly insane number is the league-leading 15 triples. Has anyone else ever led his league in homers and triples in the same season?
Willie Mays in 1955, his first 50 home run season also lead in triples. That same year, Mickey Mantle also turned the trick.
Sunny Jim Bottomley did it in the 20s and Harry Lumley (who?) did it in 1904 playing for the Brooklyn Superbas.
Mays and Mantle definitely fit the profile. Much more so than Rice.
Harry Lumley, I think, went on to become the scout who signed Tungsten Arm O'Doyle.
I'm guessing Rice had decent speed in those younger years (never witnessed) and had some help from Fenway. But yah, Mays and Mantle were burners, so interesting to see Rice included with that group.
Brief window of opportunity last night in which "Judge hits #61 vs position player pitching" was in play.
You talk about That Guy on the Bad Team Who's Good. For Mets fans of a certain age, it was John Stearns, who passed away last week. I wasn't much of a Mets fan then, but reading the reactions to his passing, it's clear he was a bright spot in a sea of misery. RIP, John.
I felt sorry for Dane Dunning the first time I saw one of his films on MST3K. And Mike and the Bots only barely had any idea who he was and weren't even making jokes at his expense the way they would Joe Don Baker. Sad, really.
Brandon Nimmo left the game with quad tightness. He thinks he will be fine with a few days rest, but that is exactly what Mad Max and Marte said before going on the IL. Guys, stop writing checks your bodies can't cash.
Lord help me, but Robert Sarver is Jewish. Which means that he was invoking Jewish ideas of atonement in his mealy mouthed, self serving statement. And which means that I must make it clear that this is not how I was taught the way to do repentance. Repentance is hard. It's a long process. Some would say it never ends. And it never, ever includes excuses, to God or to your fellow human being. It includes confessing your sins, admitting what you did was wrong, and seeking the forgiveness of others and God and even yourself. Nothing that Sarver said comes close to this, and it is gall on his part to invoke our idea of atonement right before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I thoroughly and totally reject him as a member of my faith and my community, and as much as you hope that such people will eventually take stock of their lives and truly repent, you know better than to expect it.
I tend to think of Maz as the face of the franchise, but not necessarily because of his skills so much as just how he was a face the tabloids loved to show. I was always glad Maz managed to get back in time to get a World Series ring, but it would have been great for Stearns to have had one as well.
Yeah, Maz was pretty much a pretty face, though not just a pretty face, to be sure.
Yeah, you can never take a player's comments about how soon they'll return from an injury seriously. At least not until the doctors see him and tell him how soon they'll be back.
Is it an innately Jewish thing to check and see if the bad person is Jewish before making a comment? Yes, I do it too. But Sarver is (1) a sick dude that (2) has a lot more money than you or I, and (3) whatever book he reads from never told him to be a foaming asshole. His existence has no sway on our beliefs or community. I really don't think his existence is at all relevant to mine, and the less air he gets the less relevant he becomes to others.
This time, I didn't check. Without meaning to, I stumbled onto an article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency taking note of his Judaism. I suspect someone there pinged to "atonement" as a key word. And even though most of the outlets that picked it up are Jewish media, I suspect it will go mainstream soon, especially given the timing.
It does a disservice to the run of the mill Jews to *always* show that someone in the news is also Jewish. Highlight that there are good Jews out there, fine. But why must we be burdened to be associated with every bad Jew? The JTA isn't great at PR.
Let's be honest - if he were Christian, he'd be talking about expiation of sins, being born again and/or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" or some such pious word salad.
He's not a piece of human garbage because of his religion; he's just a "religious" (scare quotes intentional) piece of human garbage.
Let's look at this a different way - can someone be secular and talk about "repentance?" Must someone be religious/affiliated?
I don't think so but it helps - I guess you could call it a crime against humanity/nature to abandon someone in need, even a piece of human garbage?
I don't think so, but so often it's used as a specifically religious concept, and in a very manipulative fashion. The implication is hey, I've repented and thus God has forgiven me, so how dare you be more judgemental than God and not forgive me and wipe the slate clean?
I think there has to be more to making amends or atoning or repenting than just saying sorry and going on one's merry jackass way without making a clear visible effort to change for the better.
I don’t think repentance is a strictly religious thing at all, sure, typically, it’s religion-adjacent. Certainly doesn’t require a higher power for a person to be sincerely remorseful about something.
To some degree, this is very true. "Jews are News" is a thing, and it is hard to tell when the NY Times doing a big investigation of Hasidic schools is an honest investigation of misdeeds and how much is "even though we are not actually anti-Semitic, this will get a lot of attention." (I think their recent story was a worthwhile subject, but it also went out of its way to perpetuate the notion that Hasidim are weird.)
But the JTA really should know better. Clicks, however, are clicks.
NYT most definitely did the right thing, but didn't finish the job. It's sort of an open secret, and that's the easiest thing to investigate. It did sound more like a well deserved hit piece than a treatise on how in general private schools are not meeting standards. Hasidic schools are a great example - but if they're not the only example, others should be highlighted.
I don't think non-Jews will care. If they didn't care about Weinstein or Epstein being Jewish this is nothing.
I do that too. It's not a part of me I'm proud of.
I don’t get the Dane Dunning bit? There is no Dane Dunning on IMDB.
It's a bit - his name just sounds like a C-list star from the golden years of Hollywood.
For a while we also did riffs on Jedi knight Alek Manoah, Republic warrior Akil Baddoo and shadowy rim-world assassin Tarik Skubal.
Craig really should compile all of his Dane Dunning writings into "The Dunning Files."
That's the blacklist for ya.
Ooooh, that R.E.M. song. Yup.
Monster was the last REM album I ever purchased, and I listened to it a fair bit. But I honestly didn't remember that one at all. Great track.
Best song on Monster by a lot, IMO.
Thanks, Craig. I’m under no illusion that Joey Meneses will always hit like this, but it’s been really fun to watch - especially when you realize that he’s a 30 year old Mexican rookie who spent 10 years in the minor leagues before his debut after the Juan Soto trade. My Nats are still overmatched - but they rarely get blown out anymore and, as the TV booth likes to say, “the boys are battling.“
PS To me, the most amazing thing about the Trump lawsuit is how obvious it was to anyone paying attention that the family was playing games with valuation depending on whether they were asking for money or owing it. I’m sure being POTUS (bringing with it means to resist discovery) helped, but the difficulty in obtaining documents and testimony to prove this kind of fraud certainly speaks to how easy it can be for super-rich people to work the system to stay that way.
PPS Godspeed, Jalen Hill.
If I, a Yankee fan, caught a historic ball hit by Judge, I would definitely give it back. I’m too emotionally involved in the team and the players. If I caught a historic ball hit by some schmuck from Tampa Bay, to the auction house I go.
That said, I’d ask for tickets. Yankee stadium tickets cost more on the secondary market than what I’d get for the ball.
I will say what I said on Twitter: if I caught his 62nd I would ask to meet him and then tell him I would like him to make a $62,000 donation to a charity of my choice… And if he wanted to round it up to $99,000 or more I wouldn’t be mad.
The way I see it, the person who catches a ball like that is a trustee for the athlete - and while trustees do get compensated, it’s important to remember it’s not all about you.
Craig: “…I’m much tougher in writing than I am in person.”
It’s all academic, because I will never catch a ball like that, but feel free to screenshot that first comment and refer to it if I ever do… Because I’m giving that ball away.
PS I don’t really like outfield seats anyway … For some reason, watching the game with almost everyone’s back to me feels wrong.
In the countless games I have attended over the years, including many sparsely populated minor league stadiums, I have never touched the baseball. My family says I must repel baseballs or something.
Same. We should follow Zack Hemple around and sit on either side of him.
I feel like sitting next to a shitpile like that would ruin the experience. :)
Short foul ball story: at a Colorado Springs Sky Sox game in 1991, my buddy and I were right behind the third base dugout when the Sky Sox third baseman caught a pop foul for the third out. My buddy says "nice catch!" and holds up his hand. JIM THOME tosses him the ball. Closest I've ever come to touching a ball while at a game.
I've caught two foul balls in my life. Both in the same game.
Well, I didn't "catch" the second. It was a scalded line drive that bounced several times and through several people's hands before rolling to a stop between my feet. It would have no doubt been blocked by the extended netting today. But I did cleanly catch the first one, which was a lazy pop up.
likewise.
Same and same with my father who's gone to many, many more games than me. He reached out for one in the upper deck in Montreal once then decided bare-handing a 100mph line drive wasn't a good idea and ducked as it hit the empty seat next to him and bounced back over the fence. Couple inches higher or lower and we're sure it wouldn't have gone back over.
The only way you'd get to keep the ball is if you caught it barehanded on the fly.
Otherwise, look for the nearest kid, and toss it to them (so they can say they caught it). If no kids are nearby, look for the nearest attractive member of the appropriate (for you) gender. If none is nearby, look for someone who you think might deserve it.
You could populate a massive and unbeatable army of child soldiers with all the kids over the years I have looked around and spotted and said to myself "If I get a ball I'm giving it to them."
I like the idea of requesting a substantial donation. I think I'd do that in addition to asking for cash and tickets :)
Also I have had multiple bad customer service experiences at Yankee Stadium and those experiences have truly changed the way I view my relationship with the team.
I’m not a Yankee fan, at all, so I wonder if I’d give it back because I don’t care about the ball or if I’d sell it because I don’t care about Judge.
Mostly I think I’d give it back because, as the parent of a toddler, I already have more than enough stuff I don’t need in my house.
If you ever want that toddler to go to college without crippling debt, it might be a good idea to sell that ball
The 60th ball? Yeah, I'd give it to him, and be happy with an autographed bat or whatever. But something like Barry Bonds' 756th? Something that could put my kids through college? I'd certainly give the player the opportunity to match, or at least make a competitive offer to the high bidder. But if I catch a winning lottery ticket, I'm not just giving it away.
Yankees tickets cost more on the NORMAL market.....
The odious Darren Rovell had a tweet about this that I, unfortunately, felt made sense.
Judge could have the ball in exchange for the bat that he hit it with and the jersey he was wearing when he hit it. He gets his keepsake, and I get a good chunk of change in collectibles.
Lonnie Smith did indeed stick around until the Braves turned good in the 90s. If he didn't try running the bases in an anatomically impossible manner with his head up his arse, Atlanta scores in Game 7, the Braves win the Series, and Jack Morris is not in the Hall of Fame.
As another fan of the 1980s Atlanta clubs, I felt a pull towards not the one season flukes like Dion James, but the few competent players who also had something quirky. Glenn Hubbard was an okay hitter, good fielder, and looked like a cartoon character. Terry Forster was a solid but unspectacular reliever who went on David Letterman because he was a "fat tub of goo."
And thinking back on it, I'm not sure if the first time a crush broke my heart was a lovely young co-ed Michelle or uber prospect Brad Komminsk.
It was a particular sort of pleasure to come of age as a Braves fan in that era, even if that pleasure had little to do with the product on the field. While the beers were always pricier than you'd choose, you could offset some of that expense by bringing your own food (which was allowed at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium at the time), and catch a buzz while having the run of a mostly empty stadium. So empty, in fact, that you could shout "Dion, you're the man!" from the front row of the upper deck, as we would do, and have the redoubtable Mr. James turn around and wave to you.
The line "Q: what time is the game? A: what time can you show up?" was, if not said about those Braves, certainly applicable.
I didn't live too close - I was in Mobile about 5 hours down the road - so I didn't get to many games in person. But we had the pleasure of listening to Skip Caray and his "if you promise to support our sponsors, you have my permission to turn to another channel" or "we are in the bottom of the fifth, and I wish I was too." Caray was a good announcer when the Braves were on their run in Bobby Cox's second term, but he was a GREAT announcer when the team was horrible.
Yeah, Skip was the best.
"Two on, two out... if anyone cares." I miss Skip, the Perfesser, and Ernie Sr very much. I still think "totals and highlights after this" at the end of every work meeting; at least, I believe it's interior monologue?
I moved to Atlanta after college in 1989. Those first couple of years we'd decide at 6 PM to go to the game and be seated before first pitch. They'd draw a few thousand on a Friday night.
I woke my wife up from all the screaming when they called Sid Bream safe at the plate.
Don't start on this, dlf, just don't. The tripe that the Braves were a much better team than the Twins but lost because of their mistakes and not the Twins Heroics is Sarver-level nonsense repeated so often and solemnly that they almost believe it.
Not just mistakes, but the blatant violation of the rules by the Twins. We could almost - almost - forgive turning the A/C on and off based on what team was at bat, but the cruelty and abuse heaped upon the poor innocent Ron Gant by Shamu the Killer Whale engaging in WWE tactics is simply beyond the pale.
;)
If I caught that ball I’d pull my Mets hat out of my pocket, put it on, and sell it to the highest bidder. That goes for about anyone on any team, not just the Yankees. If it was a Met, I’d offer it back for lifetime season tickets in the seats where unlimited food and drink is included, transportation to/from the games, spring training special access, and clubhouse access for a player meet and greet at least once per season. If they don’t go for it, then off to the auction house I go.
If I caught Judge's 62nd, i think in exchange for a few trinkets, i'd want to go to the diner with him and grab a burger. It seems to me he'd be the kind of guy who'd order a few $5 milkshakes with his tasty burger, and I think it'd be good conversation. Maybe he'd invite along a friend or two.
I remember talking about the ol "what would you do if you caught the ball that..." debate in 1998. I'm a huge fan of baseball history. I love records and stats and all of it. But if an object worth 7 figures landed in my hands and I didn't find some way to help my family with that, well, guys like me don't see that kind of money, well, ever (this was particularly true when I was making $1000/month back in the day).
I suspect what I would try to do is sell the ball to the highest bidder who agreed to have the ball on permanent loan to the BBHOF, so they could have a little sign under it saying "on loan from the collection of Jane Q. Public."
I love stories like the Joey Meneses one, even if he did sink the Braves yesterday. I, of course, keep referring to him as Manassas, the Stephen Stills band from the early 70s.
Then maybe he's Second Manassas.
That is just a lot of Bull Run.
That first Manassas album is an all time great work.
and it's been way too long since I listened. Will change that today.
Two options for what to do with the ball that aren’t accounted for in that sell it or give it back analysis:
1) Donate it to a Hall of Fame or a museum. When I was a kid, I had some pieces of WHA memorabilia - one of their blue pucks and some very early hockey cards - that I donated to the International Hockey Hall of Fame in Kingston, Ontario. They were really appreciative, and gave me some very formal paperwork acknowledging the donation and a lifetime pass. Any time I was in town visiting my grandparents for a weekend, I could walk over and get to see them. Haven’t been in years, though - doubt I could even find the pass anymore.
2) Keep it, y’know, just to have it.
My gut tells me I’d most likely give it back above anything else, but I’d do either of these before I’d sell it.
The jersey Votto is wearing belongs to Tyler Stephenson and is autographed by Larkin (even authenticated).
Joey Votto is an international treasure. Seriously.
If Judge really wants easy access to his HR ball, he’d hit an inside-the-parker.
Otherwise, it’s off to the auction house I go!
The mid-teens Royals made me fall in love--first with the team--but also with baseball, the sport, the history and popular culture about it. Which brought me here, reading you, Craig. Thank you for your sweet reminder of the skill of those players, “the high water mark,” on that hill by I-70 & Blue Ridge Cutoff.
Those weren't the Royals. They were the Bad Boys of Baseball!
The 2015 Royals comeback at MMP in the ALDS contained the highest and lowest points in my baseball fandom up to that point in a single afternoon.
It was heart-stopping!
In my ignorance I was going to say since one of the guys in the fight was Randy Arozarena and the other was Yandy Diaz, Yandy Diaz likely will not be on the Rays roster for long. Then I looked it up and found Diaz has a better bWAR this year than Arozarena, so I guess he's not just some random easily replaceable guy.
Diaz has been outplaying Arozarena.....and add to that Arozarena has looked lost at times, questionable base running and not having his head in the game....perhaps that lead to the altercation?