Category: Sports

Texas A&M has really had a crazy season. Saturday they almost beat Alabama in Alabama, but some weeks back they lost at home to Appalachin State, which has a losing record in the puny Sunbelt Conference.

In other college news: the major undefeated teams in the top ten all stayed unbeaten. ‘Bama was the only one seriously challenged, although Oklahoma State was losing at halftime.

Rutgers watch: They were ahead 13-0 at halftime, but being Rutgers, they lost anyway by failing to score in the second half. They only lost by one point, so even so much as a measly field goal, at any time in the second half, would have won the game for them. But, well, they are Rutgers.

Stats

Some notes:

Although Judge’s homer total led the league by 22, and he won the RBI crown, he did not win the triple crown. He finished second in batting average.

Mike Trout finished with a surge (16 homers in his last 36 games) to finish second in the AL with an even 40, giving him an even 350 for his career. His final homer traveled a prodigious 490 feet. That was the longest homer anyone hit in 2022 outside of Coors Stadium, and that’s just about as far as they can go. As I have written in the past, if you were to achieve the highest recorded launch speed in history, launched at the optimal spin and trajectory, the farthest a ball can travel is 515 feet, and it’s almost impossible for those three things to happen at the same time, so there has never been a homer that long in the era since scientific measurement. (Assumptions: there is no wind, the park is at sea level, the temperature is 75 degrees, the barometer is steady at 29.92, and the relative humidity is 50%.) Even if we ignore all of those assumptions I just listed, and just list everything, Coors and wind and all, the longest major league homer of the StatCast era is still only 505 feet.

39-year-old Justin Verlander completed his incredible comeback year by leading the AL in wins (18), winning percentage (.818), WHIP (0.83) and ERA. (1.75). Because of a long series of surgeries, he had won only one game in the previous two seasons. He now has 244 lifetime wins, most among active hurlers.

Tony Gonsolin of the Dodgers finished with a winning percentage of .941 (16-1), a NL record for a starter with 17 decisions or more, and just short of the overall NL record of .947. (Reliever Elroy Face was 18-1 in 1959. Face started that season with 17 consecutive wins for a mediocre team that went 78-76, but the season wasn’t as remarkable as it sounds. He came into 19 save situations and blew 9 of them!)

Gonsolin only pitched 130.1 innings. No major leaguer has ever won 16 or more starts in fewer innings.

Shohei Ohtani became the first player in the World Series Era to qualify for the leadership in the percentage stats as both a hitter and a pitcher. (That requires 502 plate appearances and 162 innings pitched. Ohtani led his team in both categories!) He finished 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA as a pitcher (for a team that finished 16 games below .500), while hitting 34 homers. He finished 6th in the league in OPS as a batter, and 4th in ERA as a pitcher. What a ballplayer! His salary next year will be $30 million.

Major leaguers batted an anemic .243 this year, the lowest since the infamous 1968 season when Yaz led the AL at .301. Yaz was the only .300 hitter that year, and there was only one guy in the .290s, so Tony Oliva was third in the league at .289!

Story

Here’s what I wrote when he hit #61

Judge is one level-headed dude. He earned that record. He’s surrounded by a bunch of guys hitting less than .230.

On the other hand, the AL pitchers of 1961 couldn’t afford to pitch too carefully around Maris. He had four great hitters behind him – three MVPs (Berra, Mantle, Howard) and Moose Skowron, who hit 28 homers of his own that year. The details:

• Maris faced a lot of minor league pitching in 1961 because it was an expansion year. About 20% of those pitchers would have been in triple A if the league had the 1960 configuration in 1961.
• Maris received a grand total of zero intentional walks that year. Judge has been awarded 18.
• Maris came to the plate 157 times with runners in scoring position, and drew only 19 walks. Judge has had about the same number of opportunities (151), but was walked 40 times (18 intentional).
• Weirdly enough, Maris came to the plate with runners on second and third 20 times and received no intentional walks in those situations, and only one unintentional walk. (Walk rate: 5%) Judge has had only 12 such plate appearances, and three of those resulted in intentional walks, with one more unintentional free pass. (Walk rate: 33%)
• In seven of Maris’s “second and third” appearances, there was only one out – an obvious situation to walk a guy in the process of setting the all-time home run record, since it simultaneously avoids his bat and sets up the double play. No dice. They pitched to him all seven times rather than face Mickey with the bases juiced. In contrast, Judge had six chances in that situation, and was intentionally walked three of those times. Only three? Yeah, go figure. The other three pitchers or managers were obviously daft, since Judge took two of them deep, giving him a nifty 3.500 OPS in that situation.

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RELATED: As of Wednesday morning, Judge has 694 plate appearances. Maris had 698 in 1961, and didn’t hit #61 until the very last game of the year, which was #163 in a 162-game schedule! (One game was rained out while tied. The stats counted since it went enough innings to be “official.”)

Of course this is a magnificent milestone reflecting two decades of achievement. Only three other men in history have reached the 700 Club: Ruth, Aaron, Bonds.

Many people were supposed to make it. Gehrig got sick. Williams went to war twice. Mantle, Mathews and Foxx hit the bottle. A-Rod ran out of time with just four to go. Mays came close, even after losing part of his youth.

But Señor Sluggo endured.

The most interesting thing about this year has been Albert’s complete rejuvenation. In his youthful years with the Cards, he was the best hitter in the game, with a slash line of .326/.417/.612, good for a 169 OPS+. His 1.029 OPS was the sixth-highest in history, behind only Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, Bonds and Foxx. Since four of those guys were American Leaguers, that made Pujols the second-best in National League history.

Even now, he possesses the second-highest OPS in National League history, behind Bonds, but ahead of #3 Hornsby and #4 Musial,

(SIDEBAR: If you do the calculations by AWAY games, Pujols drops quite a bit, and the list goes Bonds-Hornsby-Piazza-Musial-Mays. Most people do not realize how much Piazza’s career was hurt by playing in pitchers’ parks, and therefore do not realize that he was one of the greatest hitters in the history of the NL. Based on rate stats in away games, it’s very close between Piazza and Hornsby for the best right-handed hitter in NL history. Piazza has a higher slugging average, but Hornsby makes up the difference and more in OBP. By the way, Piazza’s lifetime batting average on the road was .321 – pretty impressive when you consider that Ted Williams and Stan Musial “only” batted .328 and .326 on the road. Any time you are in the same general category as those two guys, it shows that you could swing that stick.)

During his stint in LA, Pujols was at best an average-hitting first baseman, with a .758 OPS for the decade, and even worse numbers toward the end. In his last five years in California, his OPS+ was 87, and his on-base percentage was a paltry .290, which basically made him the equivalent of a weak-hitting shortstop taking up a slot at first base or DH that would normally be occupied by a big hitter.

But something miraculous happened this year.

It didn’t start out that way. In early July he was hitting .198 with 4 homers, and it appeared that he would never get the 17 additional dingers he would need to reach 700. But the miracle happened around July 10. Somehow, out of nowhere, he fully rediscovered his youthful stroke. “After his 2-for-4 night Friday, he is batting .319/.381/.696 with 15 home runs and 38 RBIs in 48 second-half games.”

Go figure.

“I am 41 years old. I have played more than 1500 matches over 24 years. Tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamt, and now I must recognize when it is time to end my competitive career.”

He retires with 20 victories in the majors, and is arguably the greatest grass-court player in history. In his prime he won Wimbledon five years in a row, and eight times altogether.

He was once ranked #1 for 237 consecutive weeks, a record.

Only one man in history ever struck out 27 men in a nine-inning professional game. No major leaguer ever topped 20. Even the legendary Steve Dalkowski maxxed out at 24 in the minors. (Dalkowski once threw a 24-strikeout no-hitter … and lost the game!)

The man with the 27 was Ron Necciai. He performed that feat in a D-league game on May 13, 1952, when he was a 19-year-old rookie. It took some luck to get 27 strikeouts. Two of his opponents put the ball in play to the shortstop and another hit a routine pop-up to the catcher, but lady luck must have wanted Necciai to get that 27. In the third inning one of his opponents grounded a ball to Necciai’s shortstop, but the fielder flubbed it, so Necciai was still able to get three K’s that inning. In the ninth inning his catcher dropped an easy foul pop-up, allowing Necciai to strike the batter out instead.

But there was another problem. In the second inning the shortstop fielded a ball cleanly and threw the batter out at first, so Necciai only got two K’s that inning. So how did he reach 27? He prepared to face the last batter with only 25 K’s in his pocket, and he fanned him to chalk up number 26. The game should have ended right there, but the catcher dropped the third strike, which meant that the batter was free to try for first, and he succeeded. Necciai therefore got one more opportunity, and he capitalized on it, fanning the final batter to finish with 4 K’s in the ninth inning and 27 for the game.

Catcher Harry Dunlop always denied that he intentionally flubbed those two balls in the ninth inning (the pop-up and the dropped third strike), but the team’s first baseman told another story. Either way, the 27 is writ in stone. What many people don’t know is that Necciai struck out 24 more in his next start. Only 24? Heck, that was just business as usual for Necciai in his brief stay with class-D Bristol. He was undefeated and averaged 22.8 strikeouts per 9 innings.

The Pirates even gave him a major league shot later that year. Again, lady luck watched over Necciai. A few great games in D-ball does not ordinarily vault a player to the majors, but the 1952 Pirates were one of the worst teams in history. Their 42 wins were only two more than the famously inept 1962 Mets. The Pirates were stronger on future TV stars (Joe Garagiola and John Berardino) than they were on ballplayers. Dick Groat was a raw rookie, while Clemente and Mazeroski were still a few years in the future. Moreover, the team drew fewer than 700,000 fans. That team was so bad and so desperate to fill the seats that they had nothing to lose by giving their wonder boy a few starts to pack the seats. Necciai pulled in 17,000 fans in his debut, the Pirates’ largest crowd of the year. Necciai didn’t win that day, but he did win one game later on in the season, and he had one terrific relief outing in which he pitched three hitless innings with five K’s. Unfortunately he also lost six games and finished with an ERA above 7.00.

Thereby achieving complete parity with the rest of the Buccos’ roster.

1952 was pretty much his whole career. A stint in the army, plus various maladies and injuries, curtailed his remaining career to a few minor league games here and there over the next three years, and he never played in the majors again.

But he was never forgotten.

Baseball fans are more than a little nuts, and the game keeps meticulous records to remind those fans of unusual achievements, so the 90-year-old Necciai still receives a ton of fan mail because of one low-level game he pitched in front of a mere 1,100 people more than 70 years ago. To be honest, I think he deserves those fans. He’s a modest man who’s grateful for his tiny bit of fame. Here is the story of a decent guy who lived an ordinary life except that he pulled off an amazing achievement while still in his teens.

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If you can read NY Times articles, there is a nice one about Necciai this week, written by a fan who, as an eleven year old, wrote Necciai fan letters. (Spoiler: Ever the nice guy, Necciai wrote back thoughtful letters in longhand.)

Bill Russell heads to the highest skybox with too many rings for two hands.

He was arguably the greatest defensive player in history, and those 11 rings make his case for the best overall. Here is an amazing statistic: “In 30 elimination games at the college, pro and Olympic levels, Russell was a staggering 28-2.”

Russell faced Wilt Chamberlain in 94 NBA games and won the match-up 57-37, although Chamberlain dominated the individual stats.

We need not limit the discussion of Russell’s greatness to basketball. He was arguably the most successful athlete of all time in any of America’s four major team sports. He won 11 titles in just 13 seasons, including eight in a row. In one of the other two seasons, the Celtics had the best record in basketball by a margin of 8 games, but lost the finals when Bob Pettit put up 50 points and 19 boards in the final game.

One of Russell’s teammates, Sam Jones, shared the record of eight consecutive world championships, but when we look outside of the great Russell teams, I don’t think any athlete in the major team sports ever won more than five in a row.

Hockey’s Henri Richard matched Russell’s total of championships, with a share of 11 Stanley Cups, including five in row, in 19 full seasons in Montreal. None of his teammates shared in all 11 championships, but some of them shared the record of five in a row, including his own brother.

Baseball’s Yogi Berra won 14 American League pennants and 10 World Series in his 18 full seasons with the Yankees. His longest streak of World Series wins was five. Many of Berra’s teammates shared in the five consecutive championships, but nobody ever matched his lifetime total of ten rings.

Football’s Otto Graham won seven championships, including five in a row. (Tom Brady also has seven championships, but over a much longer span of time, and never more than two in a row.) Otto Graham topped Bill Russell by one measure of success, having made the championship game in every one of his ten seasons. Russell had to settle for 12-for-13 because his long-time rival, Wilt Chamberlain, finally beat him in the division finals in 1967, after Russell’s Celtics had dominated the match-up for many years. (Chamberlain averaged an unearthly 32 rebounds per game in that series.)

It was a three-way battle between Rory McIlroy and the two Camerons, Smith and Young.

Cameron Young tied for the lead briefly with a thrilling eagle two on the 356-yard final hole, but Smith birdied the hole to take the lead back, and a probable win, contingent only on McIlroy’s score on the 18th. If Rory could have pulled off an eagle of his own, he could have forced a playoff, but he settled for par and third place.

The field battered the Royal and Ancient. Cameron Smith fired two 64s on his way to a tournament result of 20 under par. Relative to par, that matched the best score in the history of the major golf championships, and it marked the first time that any player has shot two rounds of 64 or better in a major. It wasn’t just Smith who dominated the course. Young almost matched the twin-64 achievement with a 64 and a 65 over the long weekend, and the final scoreboard was littered with scores of 66 or better. There isn’t much the club can do to fight back. The course is already more than 7,300 yards long. That distance is daunting to weekend golfers, but length alone has a minimal impact on today’s pros, who are capable of overpowering par 5s and short par 4s. As a result, the top courses keep stretching out – Kiawah Island is now close to 8,000 yards from the tips, including four par fours measuring 480 yards or longer. Not that it matters to the pros. The median driving distance for tournament pros is 296 yards, and they hit an 8-iron an average of 180 yards. So the average tournament pro uses drive/8-iron to reach 480 yards. And that’s the average pro. Bryson DeChambeau averages 322 yards off the tee, and averages 170 yards with a pitching wedge, so he has to ease up on a drive/wedge to cover 480 yards. DeChambeau’s average drive plus his average four iron equals 578 yards (he doesn’t carry a three iron), so you need to stretch a hole to nearly 600 yards before he considers pulling out a fairway wood, and if he pulls out that wood, you need almost 650 yards to keep him from reaching it in two. And that’s just when he takes his contained, controlled swing. There’s no telling how far it’ll go if he winds up and gets all of it.

I have seen this sort of modern power game just playing with my youngest son, who is only a mediocre recreational player, but is powerful and swings for the fences. He and I were playing a par five recently. I hit what is a solid drive for a guy my age, about 220 yards, then hit a 7-iron about 150 yards to lay up perfectly behind a pond protecting the green. Those two shots, basically the best shots I can possibly hit on that hole, left me a few feet behind his 380-yard drive! Today’s strong young guys with today’s equipment can just blast the ball to distances we never dreamed of.

Who is the greatest post-season hitter of the integration era? I have defined that as measured by OPS, and I set a minimum of 100 or more post-season at bats to eliminate some dudes who went like 1-for-1.

Even if I included the entire span of MLB history, this guy would still be #3, and you’ve probably heard of the two ahead of him, even if you have no interest in baseball. They are a couple of guys named Ruth and Gehrig.

The surprising answer, and the entire Top 25, appear after the jump

Continue reading “Here’s a baseball trivia question that will probably surprise you.” →

“The players are being notified that they are suspended or otherwise no longer eligible to participate in PGA Tour tournament play”

They are banning players who have agreed to play on an alternate circuit. The PGA has held a virtual stranglehold on pro golfers for decades, and the new LIV tour is challenging that with larger purses and no cuts (every entrant wins some money, limit 48 players per tournament). The new tour is chaired by Greg Norman and backed with a massive amount of Saudi money.

An interesting sidebar: the new tour will feature 54-hole tournaments in lieu of the traditional 72. I wonder if Norman had any input on that decision. If PGA tournaments had been 54-hole events, Greg Norman would have won six majors instead of two, and would have won the grand slam in 1986. In the real world, he won only one of the four majors (the British Open twice).

Norman was one of the top golfers of his era. He led the money-winners in three different seasons and won five Vardon Cups for having the lowest scoring average for a calendar year. But despite all of his successes, he is remembered is the guy who blew the big one again and again.

Norman’s most dramatic fold was the 1996 masters, when he entered the final round with a six-stroke lead, only to shoot an embarrassing 78, finishing five behind! That is arguably the second-biggest choke in the history of modern pro sports, behind only Bill Tilden’s epic choke at the Wimbledon semis in 1927. Tilden was ahead 6-2, 6-4, 5-1 (30-0) – and lost! Of course, Tilden didn’t do it on live camera, and didn’t do it time and again. Norman did both, to insure his image as the king choker.

• Norman achieved the Saturday Slam in 1986 by leading all four majors after three rounds, but won only the British Open. He blew the PGA with a final round 76, and the US Open with a 75.
• In 1984 he had waited until the fifth round to choke. He tied for the lead in the US Open, then shot a 75 in the playoff to lose by eight strokes.
• In the 1989 British Open, he was brilliant in the fourth round, shooting a 64 to come from way behind to get into a playoff. Based on what I’ve written so far, I’m sure you can guess what happened then. He was tied for the lead until the final hole, which he never even finished when he hit two sand traps, then knocked one OB.
• In the 1993 PGA, he missed a two-foot putt to lose a sudden-death playoff. Since he had also lost a playoff in the 1987 Masters, that gave him the playoff slam – he lost one in all four majors!

If I had been good enough to play pro sports, I feel like I could have challenged Norman as the greatest choke artist. One year my upstart co-ed softball team made it to the final round of the Dallas city championships. That’s a big deal in the kind of low-tier sports that I play. Dallas is a big-ass city with a lot of teams. We held a one-run lead with two outs and nobody on in the bottom half of the final inning. Their best player was up, but he didn’t meet it squarely and launched a soft, routine line drive right at my chest at third base for what should have been the final out. Easiest play in the world, like playing catch with your dad. I dropped it. I recovered quickly, but my throw was late on a heartbreakingly close call. Their team stayed alive and came back to win. Of course they had to score two runs after that, and those runs had nothing to do with me, but let’s face it, I single-handedly blew the city championship for a team that had recruited me while watching me play for another team the previous year!

So, as a choker myself, I really feel the pain when I watch the Normans and Buckners of the world. When I watch them, I feel like it’s me screwing up.