The Wild Card race tightens, the Cards' winning steak ends, the Rays clinch top seed, Devin Williams joins a big dumb club, and which player was giving vaccine bribes?
Fun fact: I pulled Stendal out of my ass because my genealogy stuff traces my great grandfather and great-great grandfather there. The latter died in 1889 and is buried there but I can find absolutely nothing out about him, even with the help of the local librarians and genealogists there. His son, my great-grandfather, was only nine at the time. Because the 1890 census was mostly destroyed in a National Archives fire (really) I cannot find where he and his mother were the year after my GG's death. By 1900, though, she was dead (she had remarried) and my great-grandfather was working as a farmhand in another Indiana town. He'd soon get married, move up to Detroit, and would die there in 1960. I'm at an absolute dead-end in Stendal, however, and I'm strongly considering making the five hour drive there sometime soon just to sleuth myself.
Every time someone brings up a zip disk I think of Jerry Stiller in Zoolander. "I need you to bring that zip disk in the den down to the fashion show....It's a casserole, Sheila, IT'LL STAY"
I think John Smoltz has an inside track to the Big Dumb Guy Energy crown. He missed a start after burning himself with an iron. Accidents happen, but … he was ironing a shirt that he was wearing.
Late to the party but want to note for consideration pitcher Adam Eaton, former Padres Guy, who once missed time after stabbing himself in the stomach trying to get through the plastic wrap on a DVD with a knife. Somehow still not the biggest dumbass named Adam Eaton to play in MLB in the last 20 years though!
come on, we all make a judgement call like this at some point in our lives. I can give him a pass if he didn't notice it needed to be ironed first. But if he did and put it on anyways, well, that's on him.
That "most HR by a second-baseman" record was previously 43 by Davey Johnson for Atlanta in '73. That one always interested me because Johnson's second highest for a season was only 18 HR. A bit like Brady Anderson jumping to 50 HR when he was playing for Johnson's Orioles...except not really the same reasons, allegedly.
In Atlanta’s game, Ozzie Albies reached the 30 HR 100 ribbie 100 run plateau. At 5’8” he is the second shortest player to ever do so. But clearly when adjusted for era, his Height+ is shorter than Hack Wilson.
Today/yesterday was the first time in baseball history that anyone has written that line. The previous San Francisco record was 103 wins in 1993, Barry Bonds and Matt Williams and Robby Thompson in Dusty Baker's first season as a manager. They missed the playoffs.
More of a retro-selling point. The actual vote to approve realignment into three divisions per league and add a Wild Card came on early September 1993 (see below). Based on how rules changes work -- especially major ones which require negotiation with the union, as this one did -- it was no doubt proposed and hashed over for many months before that.
FWIW, on the day of the vote the Braves had a one-game lead over the Giants and it was already pretty clear that a great division race was brewing, so it may have helped a little bit, but I strongly suspect that this was kicking around well before we knew that a 103 Giants team was gonna miss the postseason.
--------------
BY ROSS NEWHAN
SEPT. 10, 1993 12 AM PT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Major league baseball owners broke with tradition Thursday, approving realignment of the National and American leagues into three divisions each for 1994 and expansion of the playoffs from four to eight teams.
Meeting in Boston, the owners voted 27 to 1 to end the two-division format that has been in place in each league since 1969 and to add a pair of five-game series to the playoffs. Qualifying for each league’s playoffs will be the three division winners and a wild-card team, the club with the next-best record.
George W. Bush, general partner of the Texas Rangers and a son of the former President, voted against the plan. “I represent the silent voices of baseball purists,” he said. “History will prove I was right.”
What is with the rash of guys with hand injuries right before the post season? Okay, two isn’t actually a meaningful number but that doesn’t stop me from pretending it is.
Do you know that Onion article about the worst person you know saying something you agree with? That’s how I feel every time FP Santangelo complains about how damn slow the Nats’ relievers (a.k.a. the cavalcade of gas cans) work. The food is bad, but the service is slow. I was reduced to actually rooting for the rain once the game became official after the delay.
PS Am I the only one who felt like the last line of the Jedediah Chronicles was also Craig’s not so fond farewell to the bit?
PPS My son is doing a teaching internship by helping to direct a high school production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream - with the setting brought forward to Athens Georgia … they have been looking for music suggestions and you can bet I am putting Nightswimming on the table!
Alasdair Gray, Scotland's greatest fiction writer, didn't have his first novel published until 1981, when he was 47 (but it had been in gestation for about a decade). He went on to have around 25 more books (novels, short stories, poetry, and non-fiction works) published before he passed away in 2019 at the age of 85.
brb building a time machine and traveling 25 years in the past to show 23 y/o Craig the first paragraph of today’s newsletter intro without any context and before I return to the hellscape apocalypse of 2021, I’ll mysteriously say, “thanks…for the cup of coffee”.
My most favorite weird athlete non-sports injury is when a hockey player (I think it was Brent Sopel) injured his back bending over to pick up a cracker. His kid had dropped it on the floor from his high chair - and this is why every family with small children assuming there are no allergies preventing it should get a dog to clean up cheerios and goldfish crackers from the floor. Haha.
Most people shouldn't care about it. But a reporter who may, in the future, want to get credentials from a team probably needs to care about it. Because the team -- and maybe other teams -- will 100% withhold credentials from people who do stuff they don't like. It's not a democracy when it comes to getting a press pass.
(link isn't working)
Fun fact: I pulled Stendal out of my ass because my genealogy stuff traces my great grandfather and great-great grandfather there. The latter died in 1889 and is buried there but I can find absolutely nothing out about him, even with the help of the local librarians and genealogists there. His son, my great-grandfather, was only nine at the time. Because the 1890 census was mostly destroyed in a National Archives fire (really) I cannot find where he and his mother were the year after my GG's death. By 1900, though, she was dead (she had remarried) and my great-grandfather was working as a farmhand in another Indiana town. He'd soon get married, move up to Detroit, and would die there in 1960. I'm at an absolute dead-end in Stendal, however, and I'm strongly considering making the five hour drive there sometime soon just to sleuth myself.
One of our finest American novelists, Marilynne Robinson, didn't publish her first novel until 37 and her second until 60. So you've got time.
now we all need to read the stray cat story.
Every time someone brings up a zip disk I think of Jerry Stiller in Zoolander. "I need you to bring that zip disk in the den down to the fashion show....It's a casserole, Sheila, IT'LL STAY"
Liked for using the book reference.....
I saw don’t start bits you haven’t planned for open for Industrial Shithouse at Wembley.
I think John Smoltz has an inside track to the Big Dumb Guy Energy crown. He missed a start after burning himself with an iron. Accidents happen, but … he was ironing a shirt that he was wearing.
Jeremy Affeldt missed games because he:
2011 - sliced his hand trying to separate frozen hamburger patties
2012 - was tackled by his toddler and injured his knee
2013 - strained his oblique by sneezing too much.
2015 - slipped off the dock trying to jump into a lake to celebrate the same kid's birthday
That's BDGE, personified.
Oh god. I thought you were going to say they turned the misbehaving horses into frozen patties.
Whew.
Is this one of those “Get a point for every one of these things you’ve never done” lists?
Feel like I’m only good for 1.5 points
Late to the party but want to note for consideration pitcher Adam Eaton, former Padres Guy, who once missed time after stabbing himself in the stomach trying to get through the plastic wrap on a DVD with a knife. Somehow still not the biggest dumbass named Adam Eaton to play in MLB in the last 20 years though!
come on, we all make a judgement call like this at some point in our lives. I can give him a pass if he didn't notice it needed to be ironed first. But if he did and put it on anyways, well, that's on him.
Smoltz's anti-vax stance puts him, squarely, in the 'Big Dumb Guy' club. No injuries required.
That "most HR by a second-baseman" record was previously 43 by Davey Johnson for Atlanta in '73. That one always interested me because Johnson's second highest for a season was only 18 HR. A bit like Brady Anderson jumping to 50 HR when he was playing for Johnson's Orioles...except not really the same reasons, allegedly.
So what's the link between Brady Anderson and Marcus Simien?
It appears to be Davey Johnson, duh!
In Atlanta’s game, Ozzie Albies reached the 30 HR 100 ribbie 100 run plateau. At 5’8” he is the second shortest player to ever do so. But clearly when adjusted for era, his Height+ is shorter than Hack Wilson.
"This was win number 104 for San Francisco. "
Today/yesterday was the first time in baseball history that anyone has written that line. The previous San Francisco record was 103 wins in 1993, Barry Bonds and Matt Williams and Robby Thompson in Dusty Baker's first season as a manager. They missed the playoffs.
Birth of the wild card, right?
The wild card came into existence the next year, and I would have to imagine that SF missing the playoffs was a selling point for implementing.
More of a retro-selling point. The actual vote to approve realignment into three divisions per league and add a Wild Card came on early September 1993 (see below). Based on how rules changes work -- especially major ones which require negotiation with the union, as this one did -- it was no doubt proposed and hashed over for many months before that.
FWIW, on the day of the vote the Braves had a one-game lead over the Giants and it was already pretty clear that a great division race was brewing, so it may have helped a little bit, but I strongly suspect that this was kicking around well before we knew that a 103 Giants team was gonna miss the postseason.
--------------
BY ROSS NEWHAN
SEPT. 10, 1993 12 AM PT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Major league baseball owners broke with tradition Thursday, approving realignment of the National and American leagues into three divisions each for 1994 and expansion of the playoffs from four to eight teams.
Meeting in Boston, the owners voted 27 to 1 to end the two-division format that has been in place in each league since 1969 and to add a pair of five-game series to the playoffs. Qualifying for each league’s playoffs will be the three division winners and a wild-card team, the club with the next-best record.
George W. Bush, general partner of the Texas Rangers and a son of the former President, voted against the plan. “I represent the silent voices of baseball purists,” he said. “History will prove I was right.”
Great stuff, thanks!
And I love the W. quote. Such truly awful foreshadowing.
A number of San Francisco Seals teams would like a word with you. Especially with the long seasons the PCL would have.
What is with the rash of guys with hand injuries right before the post season? Okay, two isn’t actually a meaningful number but that doesn’t stop me from pretending it is.
Do you know that Onion article about the worst person you know saying something you agree with? That’s how I feel every time FP Santangelo complains about how damn slow the Nats’ relievers (a.k.a. the cavalcade of gas cans) work. The food is bad, but the service is slow. I was reduced to actually rooting for the rain once the game became official after the delay.
PS Am I the only one who felt like the last line of the Jedediah Chronicles was also Craig’s not so fond farewell to the bit?
PPS My son is doing a teaching internship by helping to direct a high school production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream - with the setting brought forward to Athens Georgia … they have been looking for music suggestions and you can bet I am putting Nightswimming on the table!
Summer's Cauldron off XTC's Skylarking, could maybe fit?
Actually, Grass, Meeting Place, Season Cycle might fit too.
Alasdair Gray, Scotland's greatest fiction writer, didn't have his first novel published until 1981, when he was 47 (but it had been in gestation for about a decade). He went on to have around 25 more books (novels, short stories, poetry, and non-fiction works) published before he passed away in 2019 at the age of 85.
brb building a time machine and traveling 25 years in the past to show 23 y/o Craig the first paragraph of today’s newsletter intro without any context and before I return to the hellscape apocalypse of 2021, I’ll mysteriously say, “thanks…for the cup of coffee”.
My brain would probably have melted. 1996 Craig would not know what to make of 2021 Craig.
Don’t worry, assuming I only could make one trip to 1996, I’d probably tell Tupac to stay the fuck away from Vegas, instead.
Those baseball idiots just weren't using their heads, unlike Gus Frerotte.
My most favorite weird athlete non-sports injury is when a hockey player (I think it was Brent Sopel) injured his back bending over to pick up a cracker. His kid had dropped it on the floor from his high chair - and this is why every family with small children assuming there are no allergies preventing it should get a dog to clean up cheerios and goldfish crackers from the floor. Haha.
I have two dogs. I sweep the kitchen floor one quarter as often as I did before I got even the first one.
Hey Craig, that footnote about the hotel being a sanctuary seems like another ‘unwritten’ rule of baseball, why should anyone care about that one ?
Most people shouldn't care about it. But a reporter who may, in the future, want to get credentials from a team probably needs to care about it. Because the team -- and maybe other teams -- will 100% withhold credentials from people who do stuff they don't like. It's not a democracy when it comes to getting a press pass.
I see your point, I guess kinda like someone getting beaned after they bunt to break up a no hitter. Retribution one way or another.