CMU97

I remember another young first baseman about 40 years ago who they said the same things about. He hit the ball a country mile too and a lot of them. Then he got hurt and was almost out of baseball at age 30. Then, he found the "hitter's little helper" in his locker one day and from ages 32-36 was the best home run hitter on the planet again. I am in no way suggesting Kurtz is doping or will in the future. Just like Hogbit mentioned, the list of rookies who come out on fire is very long, the list of those who sustain it over a full career is very short.

Wasn't he arrested at the closing of Tiger Staduim? Or was that Ron LeFlore? I remember both being arrested while back in detroit, maybe for an autograph signing?

This led me down the Jim Walewander rabbit hole this morning. If you have 30 minutes and want to hear everything you never wanted to know about Jim, listen to this podcast: https://www.suburbspod.com/2024/09/30/episode-1960-jim-walewander-punk-rock-ballplayer-part-1/. He owns his own restaurant with his son now in Virginia. Very interesting guy.

I don't know if this is right, or a day late, but our old friend deserves to get an apperance.

I remember a play, maybe 1984, when Parrish and Brookens went for a bunt, collided, and Parrish almost body slammed Tommy and ended up directly on top of him. I think Brookens had to come out of the game, but not sure. That is the closest thing I remember to this play, but this one looks much more serious.

I think it is hard to say someone that played 12 years of Major League Baseball sucked. Did he have a very light bat? yes. An OPS of .577 says his bat did indeed suck. But, he was not payed to hit. He was paid to catch the ball. Come off the bench late in the game as a defensive replacement. Give a day off to the regular infielder. Utility guys in the 70's and 80's were used very differently than in today's game. Back then you had 9 or 10, maybe sometimes 11 pitchers on your staff. You could afford to carry an extra infielder and outfielder and sometimes a 3rd catcher. So if you had a good glove, and hit above the mendoza line (Veryzer was a career .241 hitter), you could stay on a MLB roster. And to do so for 12 years is really good.

Was that in the Hargrove era? I do remember a game when the Indians were losing, maybe like the bottom of the 5th, and it started snowing. One more out was n÷ded to make it an official game. Hargrove came out and started arguing and stayed out there long enough that the snow got too heavy and you couldn't see the ball. The umpires had to stop the game, and it never resumed. It had to be replayed from scratch, and it saved the Indians a loss.

curiosity got the best of me, I had to go look up who wore #13 for the Mariners that year. It was Omar Visquel. And Lance did come over to the M's Mid-season after he was released by the Angels, so there was no chance he would wear 13 in Seattle. He played 16 games at first in 1992. In his other 18 seasons he played 1st a combined 14 times.

Lopez was the first to pass away, at age 44 in a car accident in Mexico. I don't think he ever got enough credit for his 1984 season. Hernandez got all the alcolades, but Senior Smoke was 10-1 with 14 saves. One heck of a year.

Finnigan seems like one of those deals that for years most all of us would say, "man, it only took that much to get that guy? Why weren't we in on him?" Well, this year we were. DD had a good habit of trading prospects for established stars who never did much. The one example that always sticks out to me is getting Gary Sheffield for three players who totaled 8 games played and a -.5 war in the majors. AA had the same strategy, but reverse. Trade our veterans for guys who did next to nothing. I think (hope), SH is going to follow the DD formula.

You can add Joe Cobb to that list. He is the Tiger's version of Moonlight Graham. 1918 1 plate apperance, 1 walk as a pinch hitter. That's it. Did not appear in the field.

If this is true, and there is no more evidence that something is amiss, it is a rabbit hole I don't want to go down. If you can take out a team's closer for a sinificant amount of time just by betting, and get a group of people to bet the same thing, because the pitcger has a patteren you figured out, that could be catastophic. Say our best hitter takes the first pitch 65% of the time. As a gambler, and a fan of the opposing team, you can have your whole fan base make that bet. Then the gaming industry says whoa, we just lost a bunch of money we nedd to i vestigate. Baseball says something looks fishy. You have to swing at the first pitch more. You might laugh, but that very well could happen.

I've posted a lot about Whitaker over the years, he is my favorite all time player. I've shared this story on the old board, but I will here again. When Lou was a rookie, hitting coach Gates Brown was giving him some "advice" in the batting cage. Whitaker said something to the effect, "I know how to hit." I don't know if Joe Falls was standing right there, or if he heard the story second hand, but he printed it, and in a such a way it made Lou look cocky and uncoachable. In reality, he was just being his very confident self, and was not showing up Brown. But after that, he was quiet to the media. I've never seen a time when he went after the media, he would just not say more than he wanted to, which wasn't very much. He just let his play to the talking for him. Which, as we've discussed many times, is HOF worthy. He may get the **** Allen treatment and be elected after he dies, and then labeled "misunderstood." But, in my opinion, he never tried to be more than he was to please anyone. He was just a quiet, deeply religious person who was a great baseball player.

My driveway is wet.

There was a game in the Mid 70s where Nolan Ryan went 13 innings and threw 220 some pitches. He was out done by his opponent, Luis Tiant, who went. 14 innings. I think Boston won that game. Both pitchers made their next start on regular (3 days) rest.

I'm listening to MLB audio and have gameday up. Gameday is about 30 seconds ahead of the audio feed.

I saw that once in a high school game. Our player got hit in the leg, it glanced off him and hit the catcher in the shin guard. Then it bounced up and hit the ump in the place we don't talk about. He went down like he was shot. He was a terrible ump, none of us in the dugout were upset about that.