February 16, 2011
Pitchers are tinkering with new pitches
42 days until Opening Day
Nice K/9 Trivia: Which pitcher has the most career games of at least 15 strikeouts?
Baseball birthdays: Eric Byrnes turns 35 today. He hit .258 in an unremarkable career spanning 11 seasons, the highlights of which were finishing in eleventh place in MVP voting in 2007 and having messy hair. I would have completely forgotten Eric Byrnes and would never have mentioned him except that I remembered this video of him playing in a softball game soon after his sudden retirement.
He was on “The Office” too: Jerome Bettis’s birthday is today. So what? The Bus counts as a baseball birthday because he is part-owner of the minor league teams State College Spikes and Altoona Curve. Extra emphasis on the Curve because 1) they have one of the coolest logos in baseball, and 2) Stephen Strasburg made his minor league debut against the Curve.
The Empire got eviller: On this day in 2004 the Yankees traded Alfonso Soriano and a PTBNL to the Rangers for Alex Rodriguez and cash. Soriano would go on to sign an albatross of a contract with the Cubs and long for his sole 40-40 season with the Washington Nationals in 2006, which he will never replicate because of the permanent nagging injury he has as a result of that fundamentally unsound hop he does in the outfield. Rodriguez would go on to sign the biggest contract in the history of baseball, admit to steroid use, pose for a picture while kissing himself in a mirror, be accused of bad sportsmanship by Dallas Braden and a couple Toronto Blue Jays, slap Branson Arroyo, and get fed a cracker on national TV by Cameron Diaz during the Super Bowl.
Random Stat: Randy Johnson and Tom Seaver are tied for a dubious record. They each tallied 13 strikeouts in playoff starts that they lost, the most for a losing pitcher (Johnson for Seattle against Baltimore in 1997 and Seaver for the Mets against the Reds in 1973).
In honor of current events: MLB has had one player who was born in Afghanistan (Jeff Bronkey was born in Kabul, a pitcher for the Rangers and Brewers between 1993 and 1995), and one player who was born in Saudi Arabia (Craig Stansberry was born in Dammam, a pinch hitter and second baseman for the Padres between 2007 and 2009). Bronkey, the one born in Afghanistan, played for the Rangers during the time in which George W. Bush was part of the Rangers’ ownership group. I don’t know what the relevance of that is, but I’m sure it’s something.
Pitchers are tinkering with new pitches
42 days until Opening Day
Nice K/9 Trivia: Which pitcher has the most career games of at least 15 strikeouts?
Baseball birthdays: Eric Byrnes turns 35 today. He hit .258 in an unremarkable career spanning 11 seasons, the highlights of which were finishing in eleventh place in MVP voting in 2007 and having messy hair. I would have completely forgotten Eric Byrnes and would never have mentioned him except that I remembered this video of him playing in a softball game soon after his sudden retirement.
He was on “The Office” too: Jerome Bettis’s birthday is today. So what? The Bus counts as a baseball birthday because he is part-owner of the minor league teams State College Spikes and Altoona Curve. Extra emphasis on the Curve because 1) they have one of the coolest logos in baseball, and 2) Stephen Strasburg made his minor league debut against the Curve.
The Empire got eviller: On this day in 2004 the Yankees traded Alfonso Soriano and a PTBNL to the Rangers for Alex Rodriguez and cash. Soriano would go on to sign an albatross of a contract with the Cubs and long for his sole 40-40 season with the Washington Nationals in 2006, which he will never replicate because of the permanent nagging injury he has as a result of that fundamentally unsound hop he does in the outfield. Rodriguez would go on to sign the biggest contract in the history of baseball, admit to steroid use, pose for a picture while kissing himself in a mirror, be accused of bad sportsmanship by Dallas Braden and a couple Toronto Blue Jays, slap Branson Arroyo, and get fed a cracker on national TV by Cameron Diaz during the Super Bowl.
Random Stat: Randy Johnson and Tom Seaver are tied for a dubious record. They each tallied 13 strikeouts in playoff starts that they lost, the most for a losing pitcher (Johnson for Seattle against Baltimore in 1997 and Seaver for the Mets against the Reds in 1973).
In honor of current events: MLB has had one player who was born in Afghanistan (Jeff Bronkey was born in Kabul, a pitcher for the Rangers and Brewers between 1993 and 1995), and one player who was born in Saudi Arabia (Craig Stansberry was born in Dammam, a pinch hitter and second baseman for the Padres between 2007 and 2009). Bronkey, the one born in Afghanistan, played for the Rangers during the time in which George W. Bush was part of the Rangers’ ownership group. I don’t know what the relevance of that is, but I’m sure it’s something.
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| Ozzie doing his thing. |
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