Buster Olney's favorite Cal Ripken, Jr. story

Taken from the 4/4/13 episode of the Baseball Tonight podcast.

It’s my favorite Cal Ripken story. It was in the couple of weeks after he broke Lou Gehrig’s record. It had been such an emotional summer for him, he expended so much energy. They had those two phenomenal nights in Baltimore in which he ties the record and breaks it. And right after that, probably not surprisingly, he went into this unbelievable slump. Stopped hitting. This was an Orioles team in 1995 that wasn’t going anywhere, they weren’t playing in the playoffs. They play a day game in Detroit and he goes hitless again. We go down to the visitors’ clubhouse, we talk to the players, go back up to the press box in old Tiger Stadium. I’m sitting there writing and I look down on the field – this is like 5 o’clock in the afternoon, after the stadium had emptied out – and who’s coming out of the dugout? Here comes Cal Ripken with a tee and a bucket of baseballs. He places the tee on home plate and one by one he places baseballs on the tee. And he’s hitting into the open field of Tiger Stadium all by himself. It’s clear he’s bothered by his slump, he’s working through a slump. I mean, this is the most powerful guy in baseball at that time, he had nothing more to prove, certainly there in the last days of that season, and he’s so bothered by his slump that he’s going out hitting off a tee in Tiger Stadium. And then when he finished that bucket of balls he went around by himself, picked up all the balls, and went back to home plate. That’s why Cal Ripken was so great.

Ruth days

It's Babe Ruth days until Opening Day.

I mean, who else?

 

 

Gehrig days

It's Lou Gehrig days until Opening Day.

 

Bench days

It's Johnny Bench days until Opening Day.

 

Yes, that is a Buffalo Bisons jersey.

 

 

And yes, he also played for the Reds.

 

Stan the Man days

It's Stan the Man days until Opening Day.

All you need to know about Stan Musial you can read in this article and in this article.

Chipper Jones days

It's Chipper Jones days until Opening Day.

Also Ron Santo.

11 days

It’s Barry Larkin/Carl Hubbell/Luis Aparicio/Edgar Martinez/Chuck Knoblauch days until Opening Day

 

 

 (Look at that windup!)

 

Robbie Alomar days

It's Robbie Alomar days until Opening Day

Here's the funny thing to me about Robbie Alomar. You look at his Baseball-Reference page and it's almost entirely devoid of bold numbers. On B-R bold numbers indicate that a player led the league in that statistic for that season. There were only two seasons in which Robbie led the league in anything: in 1989 he led in plate appearances (702) and sacrifice hits (17), and in 1999 he led in runs (138), and sacrifice flies (13).

I looked at the players with the most career hits as second basemen. Robbie is sixth on that list. Each of the others in the top 9 led the league in meaningful numbers multiple times over the course of their career.

I know Robbie played some serious defense and that contributed a lot to his value. I'm not discounting any of that. I'm simply saying I'm surprised.

Robbie hit second most of his career. He'd frequently hit third too, and occasionally lead off. He didn't hit cleanup very often, only in 13 games and for 48 plate appearances. He hit only one home run in this whole career from the cleanup spot. I wondered what the circumstances were so I looked them up.

It was June 25, 1998 and Robbie was playing for the Orioles in an unholy game against the Mets at Shea. The Orioles lineup was:

1. Brady Anderson CF
2. Joe Carter RF
3. Rafael Palmeiro 1B
4. Alomar 2B
5. BJ Surhoff LF
6. Cal Ripken, Jr. 3B
7. Lenny Webster C
8. Mike Bordick SS
9. Pitcher

That day and the very next day against the Expos were the only two games that entire season they lined up that way. I can't figure out why Robbie would bad cleanup among all those sluggers. It wasn't his birthday, he didn't have otherworldly splits against the opposing pitchers. The Orioles were 37-42 at the time, maybe manager Ray Miller was just trying to shake things up.

In baseball, sometimes things like that work.

And sometimes they don't. The Os lost their third game in a row on their way to an 8-game losing streak.

I'd still like to know why he hit cleanup those two games.

Blue Moon Odom days

It's John Blue Moon Odom days until Opening Day.

Blue Moon Odom wore #13 for thirteen seasons, mostly with the Kansas City and Oakland Athletics. He once gave up 13 hits and struck out 13 guys in a game he left after pitching into the thirteenth inning.

He was numerically consistent in other statistically meaningless but quirky ways, too. In both 1968 and in 1969 he pitched exactly 131.1 innings and gave up exactly 179 hits*. Also, over the course of his career his batting average against was .244 in both home games and in away games.

*By the way, regarding those nearly identical 1968-69 seasons: despite facing a mere 15 more batters in 1969 he gave up 12 more earned runs, 6 more homers, and 14 more walks, but had a much better win-loss ratio (15-6) than in 1968 (16-10). So take that, pitcher-win mongers. 

Blue Moon was a well-rounded athlete. He was used as a pinch-runner 105 times.

He had a no-hitter broken up with two outs in the ninth by future Nationals godfather Davey Johnson.

Blue Moon was 42-2 and pitched eight no-hitters in high school. As a result, he made his MLB debut at the tender age of 19. The first two home runs he gave up in the majors were to two guys who also made their debuts at 19: Mickey Mantle and Tony Conigliaro (in fact, Conigliaro and Odom were both 19 at the time of that home run in 1964).

Todd Helton days

It's Todd Helton days until Opening Day

The Toddfather hit .372 in 2000. He's one of only seven players since 1931 to hit over .370 in season of at least 500 ABs.

He's the active career leader and 20th all-time in OBP (.419). 

Alou days

It's Alou days until Opening Day

 

 



That's Matty and Moisés of the baseball Alous, six of whom played and/or coached in MLB.

 

Matty had an unremarkable career but he did hit .342 in 1966 and racked up 231 hits and 41 doubles in 1969.

 

Moisés, Matty's nephew, had a nice career. He played for a long time, until he was 41. He ended up with 2,134 hits and 332 homers. He didn't wear batting gloves; according to this old ESPN article he used to pee on his hands to "harden his hands and prevent calluses."  

 

Moisés is also remembered for being involved in a small incident with a fan while playing for the Cubs during the 2003 NLCS.

Robin Yount days

It’s Robin Yount days until Opening Day. 

MVP as a shortstop, MVP as a centerfielder, holds pretty much every Milwaukee franchise record.

Robin has a brother, Larry. Larry was a pitcher for the Astros. In his major league debut, he came on in relief. He was tossing his warm-up pitches on the mound and felt his elbow stiffen. He was removed and sent to the locker room to have his elbow looked at. Then he was sent back down to the minors. Then he was never called back. As a result, he’s the only pitcher ever to officially appear in the record books as having played in a game without ever actually facing a batter.

So, not much sibling rivalry there.

Ian Desmond days

It’s Ian Desmond days until Opening Day.

Desmond started wearing #20 in 2012, when he joined the 20-20 club. His brother-in-law is Josh Roenicke, a reliever for the Twins. He will wear #20 this season, too.

Willie Horton days

It’s Willie Horton days until Opening Day.

No, not that Willie Horton. William Wattison Horton hit 325 home runs, mostly for the Tigers. He got on base in nearly half of his 23 at-bats during the 1968 World Series as his Tigers beat St. Louis.

Willie has exactly as many siblings (20) as career stolen bases.

Willie was born in Arno, VA. He hit more home runs than anyone else born in Virginia (David Wright is second with 204).

Breaking: baseball is not easy

Rickey Henderson days

It’s Rickey Henderson days until Opening Day.

Rickey stole a lot of bases.
 

Jim Thome days

It’s Jim Thome days until Opening Day.

Thome is seventh all-time with 612 home runs. He’s second all-time in strikeouts and seventh walks. He’s stolen 19 bases in his whole career - but he’s been caught 20 times.

In 2005 Thome was traded with cash to the White Sox for two players and a player to be named later. That player to be named later was Gio Gonzalez. Thome has 2,328 hits in his 22 year career but only one sacrifice hit. Gio, in 75 plate appearances in 2012, had 9 sacrifice hits.

19 days ago I wondered if jersey #44 was the most “successful” number when it comes to home runs. Clearly I was not thinking ahead. Others to wear #25 include: Barry Bonds, Andruw Jones, Mark McGwire, Carlos Beltran, Mark Teixeira, Rafael Palmeiro, and Jason Giambi. Those players and Thome represent 4,061 home runs.

Looking at that list one could also say that it’s a very tainted number, given the company.

Thome hit most of his home runs on the first pitch, and second-most on a full count. I don’t know what that means, but it’s interesting.

Wade Boggs days

It’s Wade Boggs days until Opening Day.

 

I first started paying attention to baseball when I was 11 or 12. I didn’t really know who Wade Boggs was. All I knew was what I read in Sports Illustrated for Kids, and that was that he was a Red Sox (Sock? dammit) who went to play for the Yankees and that he liked to eat chicken. That’s it.

As I grew older and my memories get better, I remember the end of his time with the Yankees and his two years with the Devil Rays. He hit the first Devil Ray home run in history, and his 3,000th hit was a home run. I wish I had been able to watch him play more.

This next paragraph is taken directly from Wikipedia:

Boggs was known for his superstitions. He ate chicken before every game (Jim Rice once called Boggs "chicken man"), woke up at the same time every day, took exactly 117 ground balls in practice, took batting practice at 5:17, and ran sprints at 7:17. His route to and from his position in the field beat a path to the home dugout. He drew the Hebrew word "Chai", meaning "life", in the batter's box before each at-bat, though he is not Jewish. He asked Fenway Park public address announcer Sherm Feller not to say his uniform number when he introduced him because Boggs once broke out of a slump on a day when Feller forgot to announce his number.

Boggs scored the run that put the Red Sox up 5-3 in the tenth inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. A few minutes later, he watched helplessly from third base as Ray Knight scurried home.

He didn’t reach the World Series again until 1996 when he won as a Yankee.

Boggs once owned a fish camp in Florida that he named Finway.

Boggs played in the longest game in professional baseball history, a 33 inning game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings. Boggs went 4 for 12 for Pawtucket. Incidentally, Rochester also had a future Hall of Famer manning third base: Cal Ripken, Jr. went 2 for 13.

Vladimir Guerrero days

It’s Vladimir Guerrero days until Opening Day

I loved watching Vlad play baseball. Everything about his play was overpowered and reckless. He was so unpredictable in the outfield. He often misplayed fly balls and he had many errors. When he finally did get the ball he sent it back to the infield through the absolute cannon on his arm. You weren’t always sure where the ball was going but you knew it was going to get there quickly.

The same recklessness applied to his batting. Famous for hitting a ball that bounced before it got to the plate, the Impaler was a true junk ball hitter. If you pitched it, he was probably going to swing. The best part is he would probably hit it! For all of the junk he swung at, he never struck out 100 times in a season (career average was 74 K/season). He also had a career .318 batting average.

He was never the biggest guy but for some reason when he was at the plate he made the bat look like a toothpick, like it was tiny and light as a feather. I loved that.

He was even reckless on the bases: he was caught stealing 94 times, including 20 times in one season (but maintained a lifelong stolen base average of 66%).

No one could accuse him of not hustling, ever.

But as Vladdy got older you could see him breaking down. His legs betrayed him and he always looked like he was in pain, trying to push the wheels faster than they could go. I could barely stand watching Ron Washington send Vlad out to right field in Game 1 of the 2010 World Series, where he hobbled around and his arm was a ghost.

The silver lining of his decline is that he probably won’t be accused of taking PEDs, and I’ve never heard his name in that conversation. For that I’m grateful.

 

Tim Raines days

It’s Tim Raines days until Opening Day.

 

In the bottom of the first inning of a May 2, 1981 game against the Dodgers, Tim Raines, as he often did, slapped the ball to center for a single. Then Raines, as he often did, stole second. The batter walked and joined Raines on the bases. With the next batter up, Raines took off for third. Mike Scioscia (yes, that Mike Scioscia) fired the ball to third and Raines was tagged out. That was unusual. That was the first time Raines was thrown out stealing a base. He started his career with 27 straight successful base thefts, which is a record.

Tim Raines was good at not getting caught. He once held the record for bases stolen in a row without being caught (40), since broken by Ichiro (45). He has the highest career stolen base percentage (84.7%) of any player who has 300 or more career stolen bases -- and Raines had 808, fourth all-time.

He lead the league in steals four years in a row. His lowest total of the four years was 71 bases, and that was in 88 games in the strike-shortened 1981 season. He stole 70 or more in six consecutive years.

Raines is one of 23 players ever to finish his career with over 1,500 runs and 100 triples.

Greg Maddux days

It's Greg Maddux days until Opening Day.

Greg Maddux is the name that inevitably comes up when someone asks the question if any player might be inducted into the Hall of Fame in the near future by a unanimous vote.

His 1994 and 1995 seasons together are one of the greatest stretches of pitching ever: 53 starts, 20 complete games, 6 shutouts, 411.2 innings, 337 strikeouts, 12 home runs, 54 walks (if you like ratios, that's a 1.60 ERA, 0.853 WHIP, 0.3 HR/9, 1.2 BB/9). Games in which he gave up more than one home run: zero.

And for those of you who care about this sort of thing, he was 35-8 during that time and won two Cy Youngs. He also won two more in 1992 and 1993, both 20-win seasons.

During his 23-year career, he faced 20,421 batters. Only 5,943 reached base (.291 OBP against). It helps that he threw 66% of his pitches for strikes (and topped 70% for the season three times).

He and former teammate David Justice were born on the same day.

Steve Carlton days

It's Steve Carlton days until Opening Day

Lefty did pretty much everything. He’s fourth on the all-time strikeout list today but there was a time when he and Nolan Ryan traded the all-time top spot back and forth (before Carlton got old and Ryan did not). He once struck out 19 in one game, a record at the time (but lost the game). He hit a home run and pitched a shutout in the same game – four times.

His craziest season had to be 1972, with the Phillies. He started 41 games and completed 30 of them (eight shutouts). He struck out 310 guys with a 3.56 K/BB ratio. His WHIP was 0.993, and his ERA was 1.97. He won 27 games – the Phillies won 59 total.

Lefty was one of the last Manly Men: he’s the last guy to throw 300 innings in a season (304 in 1980).

Carlton is the all-time leader in one statistical category: pickoffs. He has far and away the most, with 144. Andy Pettitte is second, with 99.

Eddie Murray days

It's Eddie Murray days until Opening Day.

Steady Eddie wore #33 for five different teams and had his number retired by the Orioles in 1998. He won Rookie of the Year in 1977 even though he was not the best rookie (and maybe not even the second best). He was a high school teammate of fellow Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, whose MLB debut was exactly one year to the day after Eddie's.

Eddie's number, 33, was a repetition of his position number. 33 is also the most home runs he ever hit in a season, the lowest such number for any member in the 500 home run club. But as his nickname suggests, Eddie was steady: he hit 20 home runs or more sixteen times.

Eddie is the career leader in sacrifice flies with 128.

Bryce Harper days

It’s Bryce Harper days until Opening Day.

Bryce got his GED in 2009 after his sophomore year in high school so he could be eligible for the MLB draft in 2010. Needing something to do for the year, he enrolled in a junior college in Nevada. He was drafted by the Nationals in 2010 and never finished college. He is currently in the midst of a $9.9 million contract; the only non-financial term of his contract is that the Nationals will pay for eight semesters of college for Bryce.

Getting drafted at such a young age enabled Bryce to make his Major League debut at age 19. Nolan Ryan also made his debut at age 19 and also wore #34. In fact, his #34 was retired by both the Astros and the Rangers.
When I think of Nolan Ryan I think of seven no-hitters and a billion strikeouts. He was also a dreadful hitter. He had a career .148 OBP. In 14 years in the NL (and one pre-DH year in the AL), he struck out 371 times -- 12 fewer strikeouts than he threw in 1973.

Ryan did hit two home runs in his career: the first off future Hall of Famer Don Sutton, and the second off no-name Charlie Puleo, who at one time was traded (among others) by the Mets for former Ryan teammate Tom Seaver.

Strasdays

It's Stephen Strasburg days until Opening Day.

Phenom, Strasmas, innings limit, Tommy John, etc.

But it's also Mike Bacsik days until Opening Day.

I remember Mike Bacsik because he gave up home run #756 to Barry Bonds. Incidentally, Mike Bacsik's father (also named Mike Bacsik) was also a Major League pitcher. Incidentally, Mike Bacsik the elder also was once on the mound facing a batter who at that moment was sitting on 755 home runs. Incidentally, Mike Bacsik the elder also at one time wore #37 (though not when he was facing Aaron, in 1976) (and I don't have a picture to prove it, but B-R says so).

So, anyway, baseball is neat.

Welcome back, Baseball

Mike Morse days

It's Mike Morse days until Opening Day.

I know he's no longer a National and that pictures of him in Mariners gear exist, but c'mon.

The phantom grand slam, the kung-fu batting stance, the interviews -- who doesn't miss Mike Morse?

I looked him up on Baseball Reference. Baseball Reference has a section on each player's page where names are pulled of other players who are similar statistically to the player whose page you're looking at. Under Mike Morse's "Similar Batters" section I saw Cliff Lee. Alarmed, I clicked.

It turns out Cliff Lee was an outfielder and first baseman (like Mike Morse!) and occasional catcher (not like Mike Morse) who played from 1919 to 1926. He played for, among other teams, the Phillies and the Indians. The current Cliff Lee has played for, among other teams, the Phillies and the Indians. The old Cliff Lee hit three career home runs at Wrigley Field. The current Cliff Lee has given up three career home runs at Wrigley Field.

Back to Morse. He came to the Nationals on June 28, 2009, in a trade from Seattle. The Mariners got Ryan Langerhans in the deal. Since then, Morse has a .343 OBP with 67 homers in 1,353 plate appearances. Langerhans has a .325 OBP and 9 homers in 320 plate appearances.

Roy Campanella days

It's Roy Campanella days until Opening Day.

Campy hit more home runs against HOFer Robin Roberts (13) than he did against any other pitcher. For most of his career, Roberts played for the Phillies, the current team of the other most-famous Roy in baseball: Halladay. (Friendly reminder: Hobbs was not real.)

Campy threw out 57.4% of base-stealers in his career, the best rate ever. He topped 60% four times, two of those times pushing 70% (68.6% in 1948, 69.4% in 1951). Just to put that into perspective, here is the number of catchers who have had single seasons of at least Campy's career average of 57.4% in the past 40 years: seven. 

Troy Percival days

It’s Troy Percival days until Opening Day.

The first Major League home run Percival ever served up was a walk-off, by Gary “the Rat” Gaetti.

The fifth Major League home run hit off Percival was hit by Frank Thomas, on September 13, 1995. Percival was 26 years old and Thomas was 27.

The 76^th Major League home run hit off Percival was also hit by Thomas, on May 20, 2008. Percival was 39 years old and Thomas was a week shy of 40.

Percival was on my first fantasy baseball team.