1984 Classic

On the MLB Network today they replayed the June 23, 1984 contest between the Cardinals and Cubs at Wrigley.  It was an 11-inning game that the Cubs won 12-11, in no small part because of Sandberg's two home runs.  Willie McGee also hit for the cycle.

There's so much that happened in this game that it is almost pointless to try to summarize it.  Instead, I'll simply add some thoughts beyond the play-by-play:

• Sometimes our memories glorify athletes, and then when we see them in antique video, they don't impress.  Not so with Ozzie Smith at shortstop.  He glided.  He made two very nice plays to his right, and his throws were effortless.

• Tony Kubek (NBC color commentator) quoted Smith's manager, Whitey Herzog, as saying Ozzie saved his team 100 runs a season.  Smith was good, but not THAT good.  He saved about 200 runs over his career.
  

• This was Sandberg's third multi-home run game of his career.  He had just done it about three weeks prior at Philadelphia, and he would do it another 22 times in his career after this game against St. Louis.  Although Sandberg got 6 PAs with Philly in 1981, he really began his career at the start of 1982 with the Cubbies, and he hit his first home run in the Cubs 15th game of the season.  He also hit his second home run in that game!  So his first game with a homer in the majors was his first multi-homer game. 

• This was the only game in his career that Willie McGee hit for the cycle.  It was actually harder for McGee to get the homer portion than the triple portion. He had 94 career triples and 79 career homers.
  

• The Cubs outfield was Keith Moreland (rf), Bob Dernier (cf) and Gary "Sarge" Matthews (lf).  Tony Kubek described their arms as good, good and average, respectively.   I remember Matthews having a poor arm.  I checked his arm ratings, though, and he was in fact average, although he was otherwise not a good fielder.  I checked the other two guys.  Dernier was a decent outfielder, but his arm was average, not good.  Moreland was a poor outfielder, with a slightly below average arm.

• The game was won on a single by backup shortstop Dave Owen.  He was the last position player the Cubs had on the bench.  Dave was indicative of the 1980s shortstop.  Although taller than average (6'2"), he weighed only 170 pounds.  He had an open stance, with a sort of weak-armed look.  And he got weak-armed results.  He compiled only 155 plate appearances in four seasons of play with a miserable 533 OPS. He had absolutely no power or batting eye.  Must have been great on defense, right?  Nope, just average.

• Dave Owen was the least likely hero for the Cubs.  A Retrosheet search shows this was the only game winning RBI of his career.

• Dave's "little" brother Spike played for 13 seasons with five different clubs.  Spike was three years younger, and four inches shorter, but weighed the same.  He was known, at the time, for his defense, but his Total Zone rating has him at -23 runs for his career.  He was a weak hitter too (665 OPS), but managed in 1992 (729 OPS) and 1994 (840 OPS) to be fairly productive.  Unlike Dave, who was taken in the 10th round out of UT-Arlington, Spike was the 6th overall pick out of the storied University of Texas program.

• Spike also had only one game winning RBI in his career.  He was playing for the Expos against the Giants in a 1989 contest, when he singled to right center field off of Atlee Hammaker with two outs in the 9th to plate Mike Fitzgerald.  Actually, it was a single only because it was the game winner.  It was a deep fly to right center -- almost certainly a double or triple at any other stage of the game.
  

Opening Day Matchup (Sort of)

Tonight's Atlanta and Philly matchup is a made-for-tv game, but it counts.  Brett Myers is starting for the Phillies in place of Cole Hamels. Kelly Johnson is currently anticipated to be the Braves leadoff hitter.  So the 2009 baseball season will start with Myers v. Johnson.

Johnson has faced Myers 18 times, in 7 games.  Here are some quick facts about the batter-pitcher matchup:

• Tonight's catcher for the Phillies, Carlos Ruiz, was only the receiver for 2 of those plate appearances
• In 67% of those plate appearances the bases were empty
• In 11% of those plate appearances the bases were full
• In the first 13 plate appearances, Johnson was hitless, although he did walk once
• His line against Myers:  .176/.222/.412, with one RBI
• Johnson struck out in 41% of his at-bats against Myers
• Myers has thrown him 74 pitches, 64% of which are strikes.
  

Johnson hit first in the batting order in five of his plate appearances against Myers, but he only lead off the inning in one of them.  He struck out.

In their most interesting matchup, Johnson came to the plate in the bottom of the 8th, with Philadelphia leading 8-6. Willie Harris was at first, Matt Diaz at second and Yunel Escobar at third.  There was one out. 

When the bottom of the 8th began, the Phillies had an 8-2 lead and Tom Gordon was on the hill.   Chipper Jones lead off the inning with a double.  After Mark Teixeira flied out to right, McCann singled.  Jeff Francouer, not exactly known for his clutch hitting, hit a bloop single just out of the reach of Utley, scoring Chipper and moving McCann to second.  Cox pinch ran for McCann, sending in Chris Woodward.  Cox also pinch hit for his pitcher, with Scott Thorman.  Thorman singled to load the bases.

Charlie Manuel brought in Myers to face Yunel Escobar, with the score now 8-3.  Myers began by throwing a wild pitch, scoring Woodward and advancing Frenchy and Thorman.  Three more balls in a row, and Escobar was standing on first.

Bases loaded again, this time for Matt Diaz with the score 8-4.  Diaz hit an infield single, scoring Francouer.  Myers then walked Willie Harris to force in the sixth run and bring Kelly Johnson to the plate with the bases loaded and a chance to do some damage.  He started him with two balls, but Johnson swung at the third, fouling out to Abraham Nunez at third for the second out.

Myers then retired Chipper on seven pitches, when Jones flied to left.

It wasn't Myers' day, though.  The Braves won 9-8, as Myers had a hairy 9th inning too.  He struck out Teixeira and got Brayan Pena to ground out to first.  A team down by two, in the bottom of the 9th with two outs and no one on base, has a 1.7% chance of winning the game.  Better than nothing.

Myers allowed Francoeur to single -- another infield single, this time to shortstop.  Francouer moved to second on defensive indifference -- kind of surprising with the tying run at the plate.  Prado then singled with a weak topper to Myers' right -- but good enough to get him on base and move Francouer to third.  Escobar walked again, and Diaz came to the plate with the bases loaded for the second time in consecutive innings.

Diaz cleared the bases with a double to left field, and Atlanta took the victory.  Diaz racked up 4 RBI in the 8th and 9th innings, and he was only in the game as a pinch hitter.

Negro Leagues Lecture

Last night I went to a lecture by Tukufu Zuberi, from PBS' History Detectives. This guy isn't just a t.v. personality. He's a professor of sociology at University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. A smart guy. His lecture was entitled "Taking A Look Back at Negro League Baseball."


I was excited, and even posted a comment on a popular baseball blog that I was going to hear about the Negro Leagues, on Hank Aaron's birthday, in Jacksonville, where Hank Aaron played in the South Atlantic League after integration.  Ultimately, I was disappointed. A portion of my complaint is posted on my other blog, but I'll address the baseball issues here.

I met Professor Zuberi briefly before his lecture.  We shook hands and I mentioned that it was interesting he was here to talk about black baseball in the south on Aaron's birthday.  He didn't know it was Aaron's birthday.   He also didn't find it as interesting as I did.  No big deal.  That's just trivia.

During the lecture, he mentioned Aaron one time.  Someone shouted from the audience "It's his birthday" and Professor Zuberi said "It is?  Okay, it's his birthday" as if he had never heard it before.  Uh-oh.

These are trifles, though.  Would anyone who knows about baseball be troubled by these comments he made:

• "When Jackie Robinson broke the color line in the late 40s.  Well, around the end of World War II.  Around the mid-40s..."  Someone in the audience shouted out a year "1946".  Someone else shouted the correct year "1947,"  which Zuberi obviously was not able to conjure.  Zuberi said "46? 47?"  When more people confirmed 1947, Zuberi said "1947.  That's the mid-40s isn't it?  That's what I said.  Around the end of the war."  I think some fairly casual baseball fans, particularly black ones, know the correct year.  This guy is a sociology professor giving a lecture about black baseball, and he's fumbling for Jackie's rookie year? 

 

• "How do we know Babe Ruth was the best?  You've heard of him, right?  He had 700-something hits."  Hits?  Are you kidding me?  An audience member explained that it was 714 home runs.
  

• Later:  "Hank Aaron came along and broke Babe Ruth's record.  What did he have 715 or something?"  Yeah, he passed Ruth, laid down his bat, and retired.

 

• He would say things like "When baseball players are playing their game, out there on the field, doing what they do..."  And he would talk about baseball like that every time.  He was not familiar with baseball nomenclature.  Not one time did he refer to elements of the rules, equipment or any other baseball lingo.   It's as if he didn't know that they hit home runs, or turned double plays or stole bases.

 

• Every time someone corrected him on a baseball fact he said "I told you I don't play baseball; I'm just a fan."

He struggled to remember his lecture was even about baseball.  It took him 25 minutes before he said the word "baseball."  His meager discussion of baseball comprised about 5 minutes of his 100 minute lecture, spread out over the entirety of the lecture, and contained exactly one reference to the Negro Leagues.  That was in connection with a story he did on a field named for Pop Lloyd, as part of Zuberi's role on The History Detectives.  

He did mention Aaron coming to play for the Jacksonville Braves in 1953, but the Braves were not a Negro League team; rather a Braves farm team.  He looked at his notes to tell us that Felix Mantilla was also on that team.  He struggled for a third name, and found it on his paper after someone in the audience shouted "Horace Garner".  Just names he had written down, but not memorized, to localize his lecture. 

No mention of the Jacksonville Red Caps.  No mention of the dozens of Negro League teams who came through Jacksonville.  No mention of Durkee Field, where black players played the game.  No mention of major leaguers using Jacksonville and Durkee as a spring training site.  No mention of Jackie being sent by Branch Rickey to play his minor league ball in Montreal to avoid the racism of the south (particularly in Vero Beach, the normal place for Dodger prospects to play).  Vero is only a couple of hours south of here.

One saving grace from the lecture was that three former Negro League players were in the audience.  I may have their names wrong:  Arthur Hamilton, Ken Fell and Harold Hair.  They are getting pretty up there in age, but Hamilton and Fell each addressed an audience member's question at some point.  Good thing too, because the questions were about baseball, and I seriously doubt Professor Zuberi could have handled them.

I talked to Hamilton for a bit, and he showed me a picture of him in catching gear.  An old baseball card-style pose.  I asked him if he could still feel the dings he took as a catcher.  He limped around on a bad hip.  I asked him what he thought of catching equipment today, and he said "a whole lot different."  I asked him if he had ever been hit in the neck, because Steve Yeager in the 1970s came up with the throat protector.  Hamilton called Hair over and said "Tell him 'bout that time I got hit in the neck."  Hair then related a story from a game they played in Jackson, Tennessee where Hamilton went down for the count.  As he walked away Hair said: "You should hear the story about when Satchel Paige put Arthur in the dirt!"  I said: "He managed to leave out that story."  Hair said:  "He always does."

More Bruce Froemming?

Well, I didn't expect to have two Bruce Froemming posts in one season, but...

I was watching the Cubs on WGN, and Milt Pappas was a guest in the broadcast booth to discuss his no-hitter as a Cub in 1972 (34 years ago today) against the Padres. He was one pitch from a perfect game, but walked pinch hitter Larry Stahl.

Bob Brenly asked him if he was disappointed at not getting the perfect game. Here's the answer I expected: "It was late in my career and I was happy to have the no-hitter. It would have been nice to have a complete game, but I am proud of my accomplishment."

That's NOT what he said. Here's what he said (paraphrased, though this is very close to a direct quote): I was excited, but also disappointed. "That idio...Froemming, should have retired 35 years ago." Y'know when Don Larsen pitched his complete game in the 1956 World Series, that final strike was three feet out of the strike zone, but the umpire knew it was a perfect game. In my game Froemming called it a ball. (WGN shows video of Froemming's call, then Pappas yelling at Froemming, and Froemming with a wry grin on his face). "See, that's what really got me. That smirk." I could have had it but Froemming didn't give it to me. "After the game he asked me to sign the ball, and I said 'Sure Bruce, I'll sign it, and you know where you can stick it!'"

Wow. On the one hand, I like the raw honesty. You hardly ever see that. On the other, he's awfully bitter. I don't think Froemming has any obligation to give him a strike if it wasn't a strike. It was clearly a ball.

On the other hand, the pitch was totally meaningless to the ballgame and pennant races. Froemming could have called it a strike. Pappas had an 8-0 lead, and the Padres were horrible at the time: 46-80. Only three players in their starting lineup that day had an OPS over 650, and Cito Gaston was one of them with a 660. The others were Nate Colbert (a legit hitter sporting an 851) and little known Leron Lee with an 876. Lee is current Cub Derrek Lee's uncle. Also in the lineup for the Pads was Fred Kendall, current Cub Jason Kendall's dad.

I haven't checked, but I imagine this no-hitter was achieved against as weak a lineup as any no-hitter in history.

Guess it's a good thing Froemming wasn't umping the Houston-Chicago game today, because Pappas threw out the first pitch. Twice. He bounced the first one and wanted another shot. I guess that's just part of his personality.

A Tale of Two Joses

Jose Offerman is in the news for attacking a pitcher (and catcher) in the independent leagues with a baseball bat, after he was plunked with a pitch. One of the victims has a concussion. I'd say that ends Offerman's career.

I was trying to conjure up Offerman's face (without Internet assistance) and I kept coming up with someone I think is Jose Vizcaino. It occurred to me that I never really distinguished the two, though I have a vague impression that Offerman was better. Didn't they both wear goggles at some point?

Vizcaino came up a year earlier (1989), and stuck a year longer (2006), but they are about the same age (8 months apart) and came up with the Dodgers.

It's interesting that Vizcaino stuck longer, because he couldn't hit. While Offerman managed a slightly-below average OPS+ of 94 with several years over 100, Vizcaino comes in with a 75.

Here are some basic stats:

Player     R   2b  3b  Hr  RBI  SB  OBP  SLG
Vizcaino  633 204  47  36  480  74 .318 .346  
Offerman  840 252  72  57  537 172 .360 .373

Baseball-reference.com does not show Vizcaino and Offerman as being on each other's Top 10 most similar list. Vizcaino is most similar to Tito Fuentes, Bobby Richardson, Scott Fletcher, Rafael Ramirez, etc. Offerman is most similar to Lonny Frey, Phil Rizzuto and Delino DeShields. One player, however, shows up on both top 10 lists: Tommy Herr.

Wait, did I say Frey and Rizzuto? Rizzuto is in the Hall of Fame. Frey is a borderline HoFer (although if Rizzuto is in, Frey ought to be). In no way should this be the basis for an argument that Offerman is a Hall of Famer.

So was it defense that allowed Vizcaino to stick longer, or luck? Vizcaino had fewer errors than most shortstops, but had average range. Offerman made a ton of errors (a whopping 42 in 1992), but had better range. BP thinks Offerman cost his team 76 more runs than an average shorstop, though he saved 136 more runs than a replacement level shortstop. Vizcaino saved 34 more runs than an average shortstop and 235 more than a replacement level shortstop.

Despite the huge gap in batting prowess, Vizcaino made up some ground with better defense. Offerman achieved a WARP3 of 46.9 and Vizcaino a 38.6. That's 10 wins Offerman provided that Vizcaino did not.

What it indicates is that when a bad hitting shortstop like Vizcaino gets older, if he can still play decent defense, he'll have a spot, because his hitting really can't get any worse. Offerman, on the other hand, who depended primarily on his bat, could not afford the hitting dropoff that comes with age. He had no defense to fall back on.

I'm not sure he has any defenses to fall back on in this latest incident either.