Well with less than a week until the first spring training game, I think everybody is getting excited in baseball, including the players. Take a look at how thrilled they look.
I’d be shocked if I found out that you watched that whole thing without falling asleep. My point is, everybody is making such a big deal about spring training this year and they all seem to think that the players are as pumped up as they are. These guys are in the MLB, they do this every year!
Well, Tom Glavine of the Atlanta Braves has officially retired. I am quite upset by this. I mean the guy did play for twenty two seasons and all, but I’m going to miss him. Though I’m not a Braves fan, I sometimes watch replays of old world series, one of those series being the 1995 world series, which he was the MVP in. Sure, I knew it was coming, but it’s still a bit of a downer for me. So I found a few photos of Tom Glavine, and put them together below.
Photo from cdn.picapp.com
Photo from sportsmemoribilia.com
Photo from sportsmaven.files.wordpress.com
Yes, he was on the Mets too.
Photo from assets.espn.go.com
Photo from media.scout.com
And if you’re wondering why I miss Tom Glavine, it’s because he was a pitching genius with 305 career wins. But, there’s still some pitchers in the league that I’ve been watching lately. Ricky Romero from the Blue Jays seems like a real future prospect to me.
I had a request in the comments for a post on girls playing baseball. I found that no girl ever played in the major leagues, but that there was quite a famous girls league during World War Two. Take a look:
I also discovered that there was one girl in the Minor Leagues that struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back. Here’s the story.
In 1931 the owner of the Southern Associates AA Chattanooga Lookouts, Joe Engel, signed a 17 year old pitcher named Jackie Mitchell. On April 2, 1931, Chattanooga played an exhibition game against the Yankees. The manager, Bert Niehoff, began the game with Clyde Barfoot, but removed him after he gave up a double and a single. Niehoff put in Jackie Mitchell, who was to face Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Tony Lazzeri. She threw the Babe ball one, then two strikes that he swung at, and a third strike that he looked at. Then came Lou Gehrig who swung at all three of her tricky little curveballs, and went back to the bench. Then came Tony Lazzeri who walked, at which point Niehoff removed Mitchell and put Clyde Barfoot back in. The Yankees ended up winning, 14-4. When I first learned all this, a thought to myself, there are men to this day who can’t even strike out a bench warmer, men who won’t even give girls a chance to prove that they can play ball, and yet, those men know on the back of there minds that there was a girl who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and still they won’t give girls a chance to play real baseball. And I think the girls of the world deserve a chance. A chance to play and live up to Jackie Mitchell, because really, how many pitchers do you know of these days that might’ve been able to do what Jackie Mitchell did? To strike out two of the greatest hitters of all time.There really isn’t a written rule that states that girls can’t play in the MLB, but every time you mention it to someone high and mighty in baseball, they just laugh at you. Always. But, girls and baseball have made progress. There have been some female major-league umpires, and here’s an interview with a particularly famous one
here. Hopefully, there will be more girl umps in baseball in the future, and maybe even girl players.
With so many things going on with free-agents this off season, everyone seems to be forgetting some of the other excitements of the winter in baseball. For example, I haven’t heard anyone mention the Twin’s new ballpark that will open on April 12. It’s a mystery to me why I haven’t heard anything because it is going to be the Twin’s sixth ballpark since the team started as the Senators. And it’s the first field specifically made for the Twins.
Picture from TwinsBobbleHeads.com
Pretty nice stadium right? Of course everybody’s going to make a big deal out of it once the season starts, but I’ll be the only one who talked about it before hand. Maybe I haven’t heard about it because I don’t live near any Twins fans? I don’t know. Here’s a little history about the Twin’s old field, The Metrodome.
And so, I still wonder why I haven’t heard anything about the Twin’s new stadium. The Twins must feel so unpopular right now.
Yesterday the Phillies signed Carlos Ruiz to a three year contract extension for 8.85 million. Now Ruiz seemed like a very decent player to me, but personally, I think the Phillies have gone a little crazy trying to sign and resign all the same players that have been on or are on the team. For example, they also recently signed Chad Durbin, Shane Victorino, and Joe Blanton. It seems to me that they’re going crazy trying to make the perfect team for this year so they’ll win the World Series. Thing is though, they don’t need the perfect team. They won the National League Pennant two years in a row and won the series in 2008. They already have a great team if they accomplished that. Nobody’s going to want to play them anyway especially since they have star pitchers Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. Here’s a look at Carlos Ruiz from photobucket.com
So, the Phillies may have gone completely wild, but Carlos Ruiz was a good choice for a catcher.
Mark McGwire, though not getting into the Hall of Fame this year, is still receiving a whole lot of attention at the moment. Why? Because he just admitted taking drugs for over ten years of his record-breaking carrier. He must of thought that it was a perfect time to admit it, because he didn’t get into the Hall of Fame, so nobody would have really cared what he was up too since he didn’t get in. Well, he must not have thought about it much. In my opinion, it was a pretty stupid move admitting it now, when he’s going to be the Cardinals hitting coach this year, and if he does a good job at being a hitting coach, he might have gotten into the Hall next year if he didn’t admit it.
I mean really, everyone suspected that he did take drugs, otherwise he might be in the Hall of Fame by now. Look at his stats, by admitting it now, he probably made a whole lot of people forget about his stats and start thinking about his drug abuse. This video is pretty much what I think of him.
You have to admit, Mark McGwire was a great hitter, being number eight on the all-time home run list and all, but we can all agree now that Mark McGwire wasn’t the good man we all thought he was.
It is now official. Andre Dawson, age fifty-five, has been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A great player from the beginning, his major-league debut was September 11, 1976 with the Montreal Expos. Some of the accomplishments in his career are 2,774 career hits, 438 home runs, and 1,591 RBI’s. Also, eight golden glove awards,(playing center and right field) and he’s an eight time all-star. He got 79.9% of the votes to get into the Hall of Fame, making it in by a landslide.
Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven came close to getting into the Hall, but Dawson finally made it in. It sure should be interesting to see him take that podium in the summer and see his plaque go in. I always thought that Dawson would make a good coach though, but he never did coach.
There’s no doubt about it though, Andre Dawson will be remembered for a long time for his great statistics and love of the game.
