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).