|
Baseball Crank disputes that with Glavine we’ve seen the last of the 300 game winner.
Plus he has related thoughts here and here. Still, Dayn Perry doesn’t think we’re seeing another 300 game winner any time soon.
In Drinking up the Dregs Baseball Musings seemingly asks the question if great sluggers beat up on the worst pitchers the most. He has more at The Story and Thank the Pirates. Hardball Times engages in some similar speculation in How to Fix the Pirates. Dayn Perry considers A-Rod’s chances of dethroning Barry Bonds as Home Run king. Deadspin doubts the claim that Barry Bonds’ arms haven’t grown since 1992 and presents photographic evidence.
JoshuaPundit thinks the ambivalence shown Bonds is a good thing. Don Surber’s thoughts are closer to my own.
Finally, Outside the Beltway has the ultimate Barry Bonds roundup.
Crossposted at Soccer Dad.
|
 |
Permalink
| Send TrackBack
-
OTB linked with » Outside The Beltway
-
Soccer Dad linked with Baseball milestone's roundup...
 |
| Wednesday, August 8, 2007 |
The Boston Celtics are trying to lure Reggie Miller out of retirement.
Reggie Miller says he is contemplating a return to the NBA, this time with the Boston Celtics.
Miller, who turns 42 on Aug. 24, played his entire 18-year career with the Indiana Pacers before retiring in 2005. Since his playing days ended he has worked as a television analyst for TNT.
“I’m always flattered when my name is mentioned as someone who can still help an NBA team win a championship,” Miller said Wednesday in a statement relayed to The Associated Press by the TNT network. “I’ve had limited discussions with Celtics management about their roster and a potential role for me. At this time, I’m enjoying my role as an analyst with TNT.”
Miller was all set to continue that job when Celtics general manager Danny Ainge and coach Doc Rivers asked him to think about joining their revamped team in a reserve role, playing about 15 minutes per game.
Miller said he is calling friends and peers, seeking their advice and listening to their feedback before he makes his decision. He still plays recreationally, but must determine if he wants to go through the physical and mental grind of an 82-game season. He also wonders how his body would respond to the intensive training it would take to get him back to NBA shape.
The lure of playing in Boston is simple: with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen added to Paul Pierce, the Celtics feel they have a shot at an NBA championship. Like those three players, the only thing missing from Miller’s list of accomplishments is a championship ring.
The idea makes perfect sense, really. While 42 is pretty old, he might well be able to log 15 minutes a game or, indeed, even less than that if the Celtics are winning.
|
| Wednesday, August 8, 2007 |
The Braves have re-signed veteran Julio Franco but will stash him at the A-level in their farm until the September call-ups.
If the Braves qualify for the postseason, there is a good chance they will have Julio Franco on the roster when they get there.
The 48-year-old first baseman cleared waivers and accepted a minor league assignment with Class A Rome, with an agreement the Braves would bring him back to the majors by Sept. 1. That’s when rosters can be expanded for the season’s final month.
That would qualify him for the postseason roster. And Franco’s experience, defense, and pinch-hitting ability would seem to make him a more likely playoff roster choice than rookie Scott Thorman.
“He deserves it,” manager Bobby Cox said of Franco, the oldest player in the majors — he’ll turn 49 on Aug. 23 — and a popular team member in two stints with the Braves. “I mean, he hit the ball like crazy with us.”
Franco signed with the Braves on July 18 after being released by the New York Mets. He hit .250 with three doubles and seven RBIs in 11 games with Atlanta before being designated for assignment one day after the Braves acquired star first baseman Mark Teixeira from Texas in a July 31 trade.
Franco hit .333 (8-for-24) with three doubles and five RBIs in his last seven games before being dropped by the Braves, who figured he was more likely to get through waivers unclaimed than Thorman.
[...]
The plan is for Franco to report later this week to Rome and play at least a few games a week in August to stay in shape before returning to the major league roster. Cox said Franco might also play some for Class A Myrtle Beach, if he decides to take his family to the coast for a few days. “If he just plays three or four games every eight games, that’s plenty,” Cox said. “We just want him to stay in shape.”
It’s rather odd for a guy you want on your playoff roster to be facing the worst pro pitching, but I guess when you’ve played as long as Franco, it’s just a matter of not losing your physical conditioning.
…just in case you didn’t hear that a million times yet.
Unfortunately, I was not able to watch tonight’s 9-2 win (as I am on vacation in North Carolina), so I had to settle for MLB.com’s Gameday. Where to start?
Rocket
Clemens pitched an outstanding game: 6 ip, 1 r, 2 h, 1 bb, 6 k. And he rightly retaliated for Arod’s beaning by hitting Alex Rios to lead off the 7th. He and Torre were ejected.
Arod
He was beaned on the knee a day after being thrown behind. The benches cleared but no one was ejected. A really stupid move by Toronto and the home plate umpire. This is the second straight game they tried to hit him. I understand they’re still pissed about Arod’s ‘HA!’, but you throw at him once, not twice. Josh Towers should have been ejected right then – an obvious intentional beaning. Jorge made him pay as he hit a two-run double that gave the Yanks a 3-0 lead.
Joba
It kind of got lost in the mix, but Joba Chamberlain made his major league debut, pitching the 8th and 9th innings. He allowed a hit, two walks and two strikeouts. I don’t know how high on the radar gun he touched (Gameday didn’t have pitch speeds), but he got a lot of swinging strikes. The two walks seemed more like nerves (he rarely walks guys in the minors), and it’s not like he was missing by much, only inches (at least that’s how it looked on Gameday).
Melky and Cano
These two are carrying the offense. They went a combined: 3-5, 3b, 2 2b, 3 bb, hbp, 3 runs and a steal for good measure (they reached base seven out of nine times). Don’t look now, but Melky has a better slugging average than Abreu (and has nearly surpassed Jeter, while Cano is well ahead of both).
|
| Tuesday, August 7, 2007 |
Rick Gosselin, himself a member of the sportswriter’s wing, believes the numbers for the Pro Football Hall of Fame just don’t add up.
Bruce Matthews became the 10th guard inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame from the game’s modern era (since 1960). I didn’t have a problem with his enshrinement.
His longevity (19 seasons), productivity (14 Pro Bowls) and versatility (five different positions) mount a powerful case for Matthews. But what I’m having a problem with is the sheer numbers.
Two of the 10 guards now in Canton – one-fifth of all the enshrined guards of the modern era – played on a Houston Oilers team that went 85-90 during the 11 years Matthews and Mike Munchak lined up together. The Oilers won only three playoff games in those 11 years.
Yet the enshrinements of Matthews and Munchak stamp them as the greatest guard tandem in the history of pro football. I don’t have an issue with either Matthews or Munchak having a bust in Canton, but I do have an issue with both of them having busts in Canton.
I feel the same way about the two Pittsburgh wide receivers, John Stallworth and Lynn Swann, in the Hall of Fame. Pick one and enshrine him in Canton. It doesn’t matter which one. Pick one – but just one. Not two.
Can anyone tell me definitively that Stallworth and Swann were better at their craft than Drew Pearson? He played during the same era and played well enough to earn all-decade honors for the 1970s. Swann also was on that all-decade team. Stallworth was not.
Yet Swann was enshrined in 2001 and Stallworth in 2002 – but 27 years after his retirement, Pearson remains a Canton afterthought. He has never even been discussed as a Hall of Fame candidate by the full selection committee.
Can anyone tell me definitively that both Matthews and Munchak were better than Russ Grimm? Or Jerry Kramer? Bob Kuechenberg? John Niland? Ed Budde? Gale Gillingham? Dick Stanfel? There are some talented guards still on the outside looking in.
Washington’s Hogs, who supplied the beef for three Super Bowl championships, don’t have a single blocker enshrined at any position.
Right now, a lot of numbers just aren’t adding up in Canton.
Good points, all. The problem, really, is that there are 45 members on an NFL roster and 32 teams. That means there are a lot of truly great players out there. Some of them will necessarily be left off.
While I don’t agree, I understand why some of the great Dallas Cowboys aren’t in the Hall and too many of the Steelers from that era are. After all, they faced off in the Super Bowl twice and the Steelers won both times. Still, that doesn’t explain the lack of representation from the Hogs or Kuchenberg’s omission, given their championship pedigree.
|
| Tuesday, August 7, 2007 |
Josh Ellis profiles Kevin Burnett, the 2nd round pick for the Dallas Cowboys in 2005 and Bobby Carpenter, their 1st round pick in 2006, both of whom look like backup linebackers for the foreseeable future.
 Burnett and Carpenter appear to be progressing just fine, and coaches have shuffled the two from inside linebacker to outside and back again trying to find the best way to use them, but the Cowboys are essentially set with their starting linebackers in the 3-4, having doled out big contracts to Bradie James, Akin Ayodele, DeMarcus Ware and Greg Ellis in recent years.
Carpenter and Burnett are making good money too, a sign of the Cowboys initial commitment to them. So is the pair’s inability to break into the starting lineup a fault of their own, or a sign of failure within the organization to draft useful players? After all, first and second-round picks are supposed to be starters, not the immediate backup inside linebackers, right?
Team owner and general manager Jerry Jones disagrees, suggesting depth chart positioning doesn’t matter, that high picks are paid to make plays, and Burnett and Carpenter have been doing just that.
“I submit to you that if we get Carpenter playing like he did in the Seattle game, which we have every reason to expect, if we get a Kevin Burnett that can make plays like the interception that he had against Indianapolis, those are worth ones and twos,” Jones said.
Cowboys defensive coaches don’t seem to mind having high picks as backups at the linebacker position, which is probably the deepest on the team.
“I don’t think we have too many,” head coach Wade Phillips said. “I think we kept 10 linebackers at San Diego. The great thing about a 3-4 is you keep more linebackers, and they’re the core special teams people, which a 4-3 team doesn’t have as many linebackers and those defensive linemen can’t play special teams. So it’s good to have a lot of linebackers. I don’t think you can have too many.”
There’s some logic to that and, certainly, linebackers are key to the 3-4, as the Cowboys learned when Ellis went down late last season and the wheels came off. Still, in a salary cap world, there’s only so much depth a team can afford.
Paying first round picks to sit on the bench necessarily deprives it of quality starters at other positions. It’s not as if the Cowboys couldn’t use help at cornerback or wide receiver.
While Jerry Jones and Wade Phillips went into the recent draft saying there were no holes they just had to fill, this is a team that fell apart in the second half of the season and only made the playoffs because six teams from each conference have to. That’s not the mark of a team that should be spending 1st and 2nd round picks on backups.
Andy Pettitte won his eighth game of the year (and his 194th overall) in today’s 5-4 comeback win. They now trail Detroit by a half game in the wild card.
Joba Chamberlain, the Yankees top pitching prospect, was promoted to the Big Club – and the story was broken by the Omaha World-Herald (with a hat tip to RAB):
Joba Chamberlain has been summoned to the major leagues and is scheduled to pitch in relief of Roger Clemens Tuesday night as the New York Yankees visit the Toronto Blue Jays.
Chamberlain, a 21-year-old former Nebraska All-American, received word of the promotion Monday, according to his father, Harlan Chamberlain, and immediately flew from Scranton, Pa., to Toronto.
The Yankees have not officially announced the move.
“To be happening this quick, it’s just a dream,” the elder Chamberlain said. “It’s a dream that was always there, but to achieve it this quick, it’s unbelievable. It’s surreal.”
|
| Monday, August 6, 2007 |
The Dallas Cowboys are making lemonade out of their lemons, using the injuries to geriatric wide receivers Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn to see how ready their young backups are for prime time. Clarence Hill:
Glenn, who will be out at least two weeks, turns 33 in a couple of weeks and Owens will be 34 in December.
Owner Jerry Jones acknowledges the Cowboys need to get younger at the position. But he said he didn’t force the issue on draft day because Owens and Glenn remain one of the league’s top receiver duos and he likes the team’s chances of mining for gold from within.
 In third receiver Patrick Crayton and second-year players Sam Hurd and Miles Austin, Jones said the Cowboys already have players who could potentially develop into highly productive receivers. “I feel real good about what we’ve got coming at the young receivers,” Jones said. “So good that I didn’t feel compelled at all to take a receiver early in this past draft. And it was because of feeling good about these young guys, and I’d like to see them develop and see what we’ve got.”
So rather than be concerned about Glenn’s and Owens’ absences, the Cowboys choose to look at the situation as an opportunity to see what they have in Crayton, Hurd and Austin. “That’s the only way to look at it,” receivers coach Ray Sherman said. “It’s a good opportunity for them to get a lot work. It’s a big plus for the young guys.”
Crayton will start alongside Owens until Glenn returns. It’s unknown if Glenn will play at all in the preseason, but coach Wade Phillips expects him to be ready for the opener.
“Patrick Crayton has gone in and done the things we thought he would do,” Phillips said. “He’s consistent in what he does. He’s athletic and he certainly has great hands. I’m pleased with Patrick Crayton.” Crayton has improved his numbers every year since being taken in the seventh round out of Northwestern Oklahoma State in 2004. He has been the team’s third receiver the past two years, catching 36 passes for 516 yards and four touchdowns last season. Most impressive about Crayton is his sure hands, which former coach Bill Parcells compared to meat hooks. While Owens made headlines last year for 17 dropped passes, Crayton made the most of his chances. He caught 97 percent of the passes thrown to him the past two years, the highest percentage in the NFL.
What’s important to Crayton is taking the step from reliable third receiver to full-time starter. He will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. So he’s looking forward to having a big year to secure his future with the Cowboys as a possible replacement for Owens or Glenn, or look somewhere else. “Nobody wants to be a career No. 3 guy,” Crayton said. “Right now that is what I am asked to do. This is a good opportunity to show the coaches what I can do. But no question this is a big year for me. I want to make the most of it. I want to stay here, but if it happens to be somewhere else, that’s fine, too. But my focus is working hard to help the Cowboys in 2007.”
Hurd and Austin made the Cowboys’ roster last season after coming to training camp as long shots. Both were unknown and undrafted out of college, Northern Illinois and Monmouth, respectively. Hurd, used mainly on special teams, caught five passes for 75 yards as a rookie.
With training camp being held in his hometown, Hurd has been a celebrity of sorts the past couple of weeks. Only Owens receives more cheers from the Alamodome crowd when he catches a pass. Rather than putting pressure on himself, he said he uses the attention as motivation. He said his focus is to continue to work to prove that he not only can make the team again but solidify himself as a Cowboys player for years to come.
“He comes out and likes to practice,” said Owens, who serves as Hurd’s mentor. “He’s hungry. He wants to get better. He’s always asking me questions. It just shows the maturity he has from last year to now that he has to get better.”
Austin needed the most development because of limited exposure to big-time competition in college, and spent much of the season on the practice squad. But he eventually emerged as a standout special teams player, returning a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown in the playoff loss to Seattle.
Can Austin and Hurd prove to be options for the future departure of Owens and Glenn?
“Miles and Sam are practicing well,” Sherman said. “They are coming on strongly. I am high on them. But time will tell if they can be starters in the league. This is a great opportunity for them to get a lot of work.”
Let’s hope they make it. TO and Glenn are still studs despite their age but that can’t last forever.
|
| Monday, August 6, 2007 |
Dandy Don Meredith has been enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a broadcaster. Some think he should already be in for his career as a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.
Don Meredith finally made the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Meredith was recognized for his 15-year broadcast career, winning the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award. He was honored at a dinner Friday night. “I really appreciate that,” Meredith said. “It’s a nice thing to be honored in any way, so I can certainly say thank you, thank you very much. That’s what Elvis would say.”
Meredith’s best friend, Hall of Famer Frank Gifford, argues that Meredith might be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player if he hadn’t played for an expansion team. A trade for future draft picks was worked with the Chicago Bears so Meredith could be signed by the expansion Cowboys. He began his career as a backup to Eddie LeBaron.
“The expectations in Dallas are much higher than they are in other places, so as soon as you get somebody like Meredith, who was a high school hero in Texas and an SMU hero, so much more is expected of him,” said Gil Brandt, the Cowboys’ former player personnel director. “So whatever he did, it was going to be, ‘Well, why didn’t he do more?’ “He played with broken ribs. He played when other guys would not play. The guy was a special guy.”
Meredith played in 104 games in nine seasons, passing for 17,199 yards and 135 touchdowns. He earned Pro Bowl honors in 1966, ’67 and ’68, and was named the Maxwell Club’s NFL Player of the Year in ’66 after throwing for 2,805 yards and 24 touchdowns while running for 242 yards and five touchdowns.
He led the Cowboys to the NFL Championship Game in 1966, when they lost to the eventual Super Bowl I champion Green Bay Packers 34-27. The following year, the Cowboys lost to the Packers in the Ice Bowl, 21-17, which decided the NFL title and a trip to Super Bowl II. “I did think we had the best team that year,” Meredith said of the Ice Bowl loss to the Packers. “… Under better [weather] circumstances, I think we would have a better outcome. Our whole offense [was] based on speed and running and passing.”
Meredith’s legacy might have been different, too, if not for Bart Starr’s quarterback sneak, which still ranks as one of the NFL’s most memorable plays. “They make [Meredith] the governor of Texas if the Cowboys win that game,” Gifford said.
Meredith, who lives in Santa Fe, N.M., and has a second home in Palm Springs, Calif., disappeared from public view after retiring from broadcasting in 1984. He has rarely granted interviews or been seen, even by his teammates, since.
I was born in November of 1965, so don’t recall Meredith’s days as a Cowboy, although I have seen replays of a couple of those championship games. He was among the stars of his era; whether he deserves to be in Canton without a championship, though, I don’t know.
I can vouch for the fact that he added a lot of color to those Monday Night Football broadcasts, though. And it’s arguable that MNF helped make the NFL what it is today: by far the most popular spectator sport in America. Howard Cosell was more instrumental to that than Meredith but it was definitely a team effort.
|
|
