All the World is Waitin’ For the Sun

August 26, 2010 Leave a comment

We begin today with some more YoutTube primer just to get you in the mood to talk about rain.

So, as promised I was able to get in touch with the good folks over at the Elias Sports Bureau (the guys who do all the crazy funky stats you see on the four letter network.  Check out the Bureau’s daily column here.  As always, stats nerd alert if you click the previous link.

Elias.jpgAnyway, I was told there aren’t any really solid records kept about rainouts.  Everything on hand is sketchy at best, but there were some interesting notes.

  • In 1903 the Philadelphia Phillies had nine consecutive games postponed.  It is not known if all of the games were pushed back because of rain.  The “rain”outs were from August 10-19, which does coincide with the great Paris Metro fire…but which probably didn’t cause the delay.
  • In April of 1952 the Washington Senators were postponed in seven straight games.  It is again not known if this is all because of rain.  There is speculation the entire team took three of the days off to think about the idea of one day scouting Stephen Strasburg.
  • In 1911 the World Series was rained out for five straight games.  The dates were October 18-23.  The 22nd was not rained out – it was Sunday…as we talked about in the previous post, baseball was not played on Sundays back in the day.  It was illegal until 1934 in the City of Brotherly Love.
  • In the 1962 World Series there were four rainouts…three of them coming in san Francisco prior to Game 6.
  • In 1975 there were three consecutive rainouts prior to Game 6.  The series famously pitted the Reds and Red Sox.  If you remember, Game 6 was the one in which Carlton Fisk waived his homer fair.  It is urban legend he was waiving non-stop throughout the entire rJanus.jpgainout stretch…he and the St. Joe’s Hawk.  And no, that part’s not true.

Just some more food for thought for you.  On another note, today is Wingfest at the park.  The record for most wings eaten (according to Major League Eating) is 7.72 pounds in 12 minutes by Eater X (right) back on May 8th.  That’s the boneless record.  Joey Chestnut holds several chicken wing records.  Believe it or not there are long form and short form categories.  Something like in ice skating I think…just don’t trust the French judge.

On that note…Till Next Time…

 

Joel  

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And I Wonder, Still I Wonder…

August 25, 2010 Leave a comment

Umps.jpg

A starting note…this is Take-2  of this entry.  The lovely Internet Explorer closed as I finished writing the first one.  Hooray for that.

Now for the good stuff – We begin with some YouTube primer.  If you are not from New Jersey, are more in favor of the original song, or are from New Jersey and dislike the greatest man to ever grace the great state, then click here.

So now for some breaking news…IT’S RAINING IN FLORIDA!

This is probably not news to those of you that live in Florida, but for those of you from out of town, well, it’s raining.  That might explain why Bradenton has not thrown an official pitch since Saturday.  It was a 1-1 toss from Fort Myers closer Dakota Watts to Austin McClune to finish off a double-header split. 

Sunday’s game at Fort Myers was suspended and then cancelled along with Monday’s game due to rain.  Tuesday’s game was pushed to Wednesday because of rain.  One of Wednesday’s games was pushed to Thursday because of rain.  The other will be made up in St. Lucie next week…because of rain.  This is all going under the assumption that it stops raining anytime in the next 58 hours (arbitrary number).

Here’s the good news…as I write this…there is a 50 percent chance of thundershowers tomorrow night.  Thunderstorms could continue through Tuesday.

Here’s the fun news.  Palm Beach has done nothing but lose and get rained out during this rainy stretch…so Bradenton went from being 2.5 out to just one game out without ever throwing a pitch.  What a world!

Anyway – my mind got churning about some rainout statistics, so I took to the interwebs and found some cool nuggets.  I’ve also put in a call to the good folks at the Elias Sports Bureau, so we’ll see what kind of update I can come up with tomorrow.

In the meantime, here we go…

Major League Baseball went until April 23rd without a rainout this year.  That was the longest run since May 20, 1985.  Technically the game this year wasn’t a rainout either.  Snow and cold cut down a Rockies Marlins game in Denver.  Hilariously, USA Today wrote a story that day about how there had not yet been a rainout.

The Twins were rained out for the first time in 30 years back in May.  Playing in a Dome until this year may have helped in that area.

The Grapefruit League cancelled all its games on March 11th this year.  It was the first time there was a total wipeout since 2005

The Marauders have had 16 games delayed or postponed this season.  Fifteen of those have come after June 6th.

Five FSL games have been completely cancelled in the last four days – that includes two Marauders games.

The Tuesday attendance for the entire league was 1,102 – only two games were played and certainly impacted by the rain.

FINALLY…the best nugget so far….

After three straight rainouts in 1926, Connie Mack got a court injunction to allow his team to play on a Sunday – and he got a 3-2 win.  Lefty Grove got the decision in….drumroll….a rain soaked game.  It was the first Sunday game in Philadelphia history.  A city law outlawing the practice was taken off the books in 1934.

Till next time…Happy rain dancing!

-Joel

 

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Quincy Latimore, M.V.P.?

August 23, 2010 3 Comments

Today’s the day postseason all-star ballots are due into the league office.  Every team submits three ballots — one from the manager, scorer and sports writer — and each ballot has a spot for a Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, four pitchers, two relievers, two catchers, one position player at each spot, a DH, two utilities, and three managers/coaches.

My choice for league MVP would be Quincy Latimore, except you cannot vote for your own players.  So I voted for Tampa’s Melky Mesa.  It’s a tough call between the two, so I figured we’d break it down.

Here’s the Diagram:

                          MELKY MESA     l       QUINCY LATIMORE

AVG                   .267                            .262

HR                      19                               17

RBI                     74                               91

SB                      31 of 40                      7 of 8

OBP                   .342                            .320

GMS                   116                             123

ERRORS             4                                 7

 

Now some rankings fro these guys:

Latimore:

1st: 91 RBI (leads by 16)

2nd: 123 GMS; 208 TB; 48 EXBH

3rd: 17 HR; 30 2B; 78 R; 

4th: 28 AB per HR; 477 AB

Mesa:

1st: 19 HR; 22.6 AB per HR, 49 EXBH, 211 TB

2nd: 79 R, .490 SLG

3rd: 9 3B, 74 RBI

4th: 31 SB

(Each player is among the top four in nine offensive categories)

It’s a fairly close call – so you be the judge – leave us a comment on who you think is the MVP and why.

Another note for Quincy.  He will not break the RBI record for the FSL.  That sits at 140 and was set in the 1940’s.  But….Wuincy is the best run producer at Class A-Advanced for the Pirates in recent memory.  The bad news is that all of the below since 2005 have not advanced beyond AA.  Jordy Mercer will likely buck that trend, and the hope would certainly be the same for Latimore.   

2009: Jordy Mercer – 83

2008: Jared Keel – 81

2007: Brad Corley – 89

2006: Mike Carlin – 74

2005: Pat Magness – 92

(WARNING: Continuing beyond this point means you are a stats nerd…which is okay) 

2004: Brad Eldred – 74

2003: Walter Young – 87

2002: Josh Bonifay – 102

2001: B.J. Barns – 57

2000: J.J Davis – 80

1999: Derrick Lankford – 88

1998: Morgan Walker – 68

1997: Aramis Ramirez – 114

1996: Jose Guillen – 94

1995: Reed Secrist – 75 (no not Ryan Seacrest)

—

So it looks like Quincy Latinmore will most certainly be a post-season All-Star…if not the MVP.  Now let’s go back to the middle of the season.  Remember, Bradenton scored eight mid-season All-Stars.  Can the team do better in the post-season list?

Here’s the list of candidates…let’s start with those I think would be locks…

Quincy Latimore, Diego Moreno*, Aaron Pribanic, Jeff Locke*

**Moreno and Locke may be hurt by time spent in Double-A, but numbers are numbers.  Both have been very solid.  Locke has 86.1 innings under his belt in the league and left as the FSL leader in wins with nine.

And now those that I think have a solid case…

Nathan Adcock

He’s 10-7 with a 3.40 ERA (8th best in the league).  He’s also a midseason All-Star.  The only reason I don’t have him as a lock is that he did struggle a bit in July and may have fallen off some voter radars.

Eric Fryer

 He’ll be hurt by the fact that he missed July.  But let’s be honest.  The guy is hitting well over .400 since returning off the DL at the end of that month.  That’s not a small sample size.  He’s hitting over .400 over a span of 17 games.  The rush has pushed his avergae to .298. He also has eight homers.  He’s got a really good shot.  I marked down Daytona’s Michael Brenly and Dunedin’s Travis d’Arnaud on my ballot.  Fryer has player in more games then the later and 16 less then Brenly.

Calvin Anderson

It’s hard for Calvin.  Rebel Ridling has this spot pretty much locked up.  Daytona’s corner man is hitting .291 with 12HR and 69 RBI.  Calvin has an average in the .260 range with 10HR and 66 RBI.  The numbers aren’t that far off, so we’ll see.

Noah Krol

He was a midseason All-Star and leads the league in saves.  His 31 saves are seven off a league record last set in 1998 by New York Met R.A. Dickey.  He didn’t throw a knuckleball back then.  His high ERA might hurt him (3.34).  Now, that’s not a high ERA, but for a closer it could be considered that way – especially because Charlotte’s Zachary Quate’s is 1.38.  David Carpenter has a 2.36 ERA but is no longer in the league after being traded to Houston.

That adds up to eight All-Stars, but we’ll have to see how the Marauders do in the voting.  One thing that does hurt Bradenton is that All-Star locks Brock Holt, Tony, Sanchez, Jeremy Farrell and Starling Marte are all either on the DL, or spent too much time on the DL.

Your turn.  You decide….

Till next time,

Joel

 

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Random History Note of the Day…

August 12, 2010 Leave a comment

So…I was browsing the interwebs today and stumbled on some notes about base coaches.  The blog Deadspin had a note on it about the lack of diversity among base coaches (minorities tend to coach first more than third – with 3B tending to be a higher position).  T’was an interesting note, but not too Pirates related.

The Pittsburgh note comes from the New York Times.  So it seems the Pirates actually hired the first African-American thirdbase couch in baseball history.  Gene Baker was hired for the position in 1963.

Thanks to Keith Olbermann (this blog’s namesake) for the research cited in the NYT’s post.

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Who’s Afraid of the Dark…

August 9, 2010 Leave a comment


Field-of-Screams-Haunted-Tales-from-the-Baseball-Diamond-the-Locker-Room-and-Beyond.jpgAs many readers know, we have an email that anybody can use to get in touch with us on the Marauders broadcast (Feel free to fire away at MaraudersRadio@pirates.com by the way).  It’s always fun to hear from fans and players relatives and the like.  One of the other neat things is the information you can sometimes stumble upon through the open inbox.

I received an email last week from an author named Dan Gordon.  He just released a new book titled Field of Screams: Haunted Tales from the Baseball Diamond.  The email was 11 pages when I printed it out and it was full of some interesting stuff.  There are details about all sorts of ghostly encounters in baseball with several involving Pirates players.

So that being said, it’s time to assemble the Midnight Society and dive into some ghost stories.  Everybody has their favorites.  My story of choice is the haunted practice cabin at New England Music Camp in Maine.  That one always got me as a kid.  But to be honest, one in this book is giving it a run for its money in the top spot.  There’s something going on in Scranton, PA – and it’s not just “that’s what she said” jokes by Steve Carrell at Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. 

If you’re not one to believe in ghost stories or just think it’s all a crock to sell books, I can assure you some of this stuff is legit.  One of the larger excerpts I received was about the Radisson Lackawana Hotel in Scranton. 
Radisson.jpgWorking with the Buffalo Bisons last year gave me the chance to stay at said hotel.  There are ghost stories – all sorts of things – creepy things.  Mets infielder Nick Evans talked about seeing a young boy running down the hall in a trench coat.  The boy then stopped, looked back and turned its head 360 degrees.  I also was told about finely dressed hotel employees coming by rooms to ask how one’s stay was going.  Weirded-out players called the front desk to report the occurrences only to find that no such employees exist at the hotel.  This new book also details odd mechanical issues (TV’s and lights going on and off) as well as players having woken up next to ghosts.

So with that being said we turn our attention to Pirate City.  This is odd because I’m sitting in PC as I’m writing this…but the new PC, not the old one – so I think we’re okay.

THE LEGEND OF ROOM 232

Roberto Clemente stayed in room 232 while with the Pirates.  It was a corner suite.  Bronson Arroyo is interviewed in the book about his stay in the room.  The pitcher details the picture of Clemente who’s eyes seemed to follow you around. 

“Nobody will stay in that room,” PC equipment manager Pat Hagerty is quoted as saying.  “None of the Latin kids, for sure.  Because they are scared of the ghosts-honestly.”

“I remember when I got traded over from Toronto,” said Abraham Nunez – a former Pirate and teammate of Jordan Newton with the New Jersey Jackals.  “One of the first things the guys told me was, ‘Listen, if they put you in Clemente’s room, don’t take it because everybody says there are ghosts.'”

There are also stories of ghosts appearing.  Just FYI, women are not allowed back in Pirate City.  So it would certainly be a shock when a player sees one in his mirror.

“There’s no doubt I saw her,” said reliever Jeff Bennett.  “There are several people who have seen things like that there.”

“I see a long dark-haired, dark-skinned woman,” said infielder Bruce Pelfrey.  “I look back and nobody is there.  I go look out the door and nobody is there.”

But don’t necessarily believe everything you hear.  Aramis Ramirez said he once stayed in room 232 for a month and a half and had no issues (at least that’s what the ghosts told him to say…).

—

The book also goes into detail of ghosts in Tampa at George M. Steinbrenner Field and the story of a disappearing fly ball at a Florida state League game in 1974.  It was a game between the Key West Conch and St. Petersburg Cardinals.  A pop-up went up and never came down.  It was ruled a homerun. 

Current Pirate Delwyn Young also makes an appearance in the book.  He’s quoted talking about the ghosts that haunt Dodger Stadium – especially  the batting cages. 

If you want more info about the book it looks like it might be a good read…Fieldofscreamsonline.com is its website.  Thanks to Dan Gordon for the stories and the spooks!

Till next time,

Joel

 

 

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Aaron Pribanic to Pittsburgh…in a way

August 5, 2010 Leave a comment

Aaron Pribanic has been one of, if not the best, Marauder pitcher (at least statistically) over the last six weeks or so.  Prib has a 1.39 ERA in his last nine starts and has allowed fewer hits than innings pitched – something that hurt him earlier in the year.  The Marauders are also 7-2 over those nine starts.

So with so much success, Pribanic has garnered some attention from Pittsburgh…at least the Post-Gazette.  Chuck Finder has a story here on Aaron and Jeff Locke.  He writres how the duo has risen near the top of the Pirates pitching crop.

Prib.jpgSome other notes on Aaron:

  • He was aquired from the Mariners last season in the Ian Snell/Jack Wilson trade
  • His grandfather is Jim Coates – he pitched in the bigs with several teams including the Yankees.  Coates won a World Series with New York in 1961 and was an all-star the year prior.
  • Prib was a third round pick by the Mariners in 2008 out of Nebraska
  • Prior to Nebraska Pribanic attended Hutchinson Community College with Marauders closer Noah Krol

Till next time…

Joel

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