101 & 100

Forgot to do this yesterday so...

Yesterday there were 101 days until Opening Day, 2007.

101 = The number of wins (97 regular season, 4 post-season) for the 1978 Midwest League Champion Appleton Foxes.

MILB.com has rated the 1978 Appleton Foxes #93 in their ranking of the top 100 minor league teams of all-time a few years ago. The article has stats for all the players on that team and a brief history of minor leaguer baseball in Appleton. Here is the first paragraph from that story:

Some great teams win with offensive firepower, while others win with overpowering pitching. Some teams have the benefit of a superstar’s presence in the lineup, individually lifting his team to the top. The Appleton Foxes of 1978 had none of these factors on their side. What they did rely on was quickness and speed - running their way onto the list of the top 100 great minor league teams behind one of the smallest players to play the game.

That was yesterday. Today there are exactly 100 days until Opening Day 2007.

100 = The number of RBI that Boog Powell had in the 1960 season for the Fox Cities Foxes.

You can find the career stats of this member of the Appleton Baseball Hall of Fame HERE.

Baseball History -- December 26

Complete entry for December 26 is at BaseballLibrary.com HERE.

Higlighted entries inclue:

1990
The Senior Professional Baseball Association folds in the middle of its 2nd season when the Fort Myers Sun Sox franchise collapses due to a financial dispute among club owners.

For more about the SPBA go HERE. A brief recap of the league from that Baseball-Reference.com article.

The Senior Professional Baseball Association was a winter baseball league based in Florida for players age 35 and over (with a minimum age of 32 for catchers). The league began play in 1989 and had eight teams in two divisions and a 72 game schedule. Pitchers Rollie Fingers, Fergie Jenkins (both future Hall of Famers), and Vida Blue, outfielder Dave Kingman, and manager Earl Weaver were the league's marquee names, and former big league outfielder Curt Flood was the circuit's first Commissioner. At age 54, Ed Rakow was the league's oldest player. Former strikeout king J.R. Richard was drafted by the league but cut in preseason.

More at that article including links to rosters and stats.

1934
Matsutaro Shoriki, head of Yomiuri Newspapers, announces the official formation of Japan's first professional team, the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants. The team is made up of players signed to compete against the American all-star team. Professional league play, with six teams, does not begin until 1936.

The Yankees of Japan.

1919
Although it will not be officially announced until January, the Yankees buy Babe Ruth from financially pressed Harry Frazee, paying $125,000 (one-fourth cash, plus $25,000 a year at six percent) plus guaranteeing a $300,000 loan with Fenway Park as collateral.

Try to imagine a sale this big being kept quiet for any length of time now. Try to imagine if the Yankees had Fenway Park as collateral now. Scary, eh?

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens really nailed it when he wrote about the redemption of Scrooge on Christmas Eve.

Yes, it has been lampooned and ripped off by just about every hack out there. So, I may as well get in line.

There is something about the story. I've read it a few times and it has a power. It is rare that there is a poor adaptation to the story.

The Patrick Stewart version was on the other night. It just stops me in my tracks. It is not in the book, but there is one particular scene with the Ghost of Christmas Past that works so well in this movie.

The spirit takes Scrooge to the time when Belle, his fiancee, is breaking off their engagement and walking away. The younger Scrooge does nothing. The older Scrooge is screaming -- more and more desperately as Belle get more distant -- at the younger Scrooge to go after her. To say something, anything. But, Scrooge can't change the past. Only the future. And he did.

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

A Christmas poem from MLB.com

Mark Newman takes a chance, er, takes a moment for a baseball-themed Christmas poem at mlb.com.

Hark, the herald angels sing.

Those wooden bats always made your hands sting.

A candy-cane day that smells like peppermint.

Hank Aaron, thanks for 755 homers you sent.

Reaching into a fireplace stocking for the mystery inside.

It was always that way with a Cracker Jack box, you sighed.

Pretty paper, pretty ribbons.

Another fantasy draft and someone says, "Jay Gibbons."

Here is the end.

The holiday season is all about tradition.

So is baseball, soon to undertake another mission.

To every daughter or son, to every Dad or Mom,

Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth, from MLB.com.

An A for effort, Mr. Newman should be given,
It's hard to work "Jay Gibbons" into a Christmas rhyme.
But, here is a rule that should never be riven,
Poetry should be written by poets every, single time!

Harold Baines

MLB.com has a story on Appleton Baseball Hall of Famer Harold Baines and how some are lobbying to get him in the the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Baines had a knack for the big hit
Left-handed DH makes strong case for the position

The first quotes in the story are from two other members of the Appleton Baseball Hall of Fame.

"Oh, absolutely," said White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, when asked if Baines was one of the best clutch hitters he ever witnessed. "When the game was on the line, Harold was awesome."

"Personally, I've never seen a more clutch player," added White Sox general manager Ken Williams. "There may have been guys who have hit more home runs, whether it was against left-handed pitchers or right-handed pitchers, or guys who have driven in more runs or played more games. But I'm talking for my money, there never has been a more clutch player than Harold Baines. Not during my time."
...
A candidate must get 75 percent of the vote to gain election. Results of the 2007 BBWAA Hall of Fame election will be announced on Jan. 9, and the induction ceremony will take place on July 29 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Along with Baines' tremendous RBI total [1,628], placing him 23rd all-time, the left-handed slugger finished with a .289 average, 384 home runs, 488 doubles, 1,299 runs scored, 1,062 walks against just 1,441 strikeouts and a most impressive 2,830 games played. Baines also checks in at 2,866 career hits, which ranks 39th, but also leaves him 134 short of what has been considered the magic number for enshrinement.

This particular number bothers Reinsdorf more so than Baines. The White Sox chairman, who counts Baines as one of his favorite people, feels somewhat personally responsible for Baines coming up short of 3,000.

"What really has bothered me for a long time is that if we hadn't traded him, he would have his 3,000 hits, and he would be a lock for the Hall of Fame," said Reinsdorf, who oversaw Baines' trade to Texas on July 29, 1989, and to Baltimore on July 29, 1997.

"We traded him twice -- and into bad situations where he was a platoon player.

"If he stayed with us, he would have gone over 3,000 hits. If he doesn't get in, it would really bug me. I talk to him about it, and he just shrugs it off."

How does Baines shrug it off?

"I was fortunate to play for 22 years," Baines added. "If I happen to get elected in my lifetime, I would be very grateful. If not, I still had a great career."

Quick Harold Baines story.

He was at Fox Cities Stadium for his induction ceremony a few years ago. He was just hanging out in the conference room of the main office watching the end of an interleague game between the Cubs and White Sox.

The Burlington Bees were in town and Randy Wehofer, the Bees radio announcer, needed to go back and make some copies -- the copier is in the conference room. I said something like, "Hey, wanna go meet Harold Baines?"

"Sure."

We go back there and I introduce Randy to Harold Baines. Randy said something along the lines of, "Great to meet you. I grew up in Chicago and always enjoyed watching you play."

Harold responds with, "Thank you. Are you a Cub fan or a Sox fan?"

"Cub fan," was Randy's reply.

"Your team just lost." Then, he laughed and so did everyone else in the room.

A trade

It seems to me like the Rangers gave up a lot to get Brandon McCarthy from the White Sox.

CHICAGO -- Brandon McCarthy basically woke up to a phone call some time around 10 or 10:30 Saturday morning.

But the talented young right-hander still had to feel as if he was part of some weird dream when he heard the news coming from White Sox general manager Ken Williams on the other end of the phone.

Williams informed McCarthy, 23, that he had been traded to the Texas Rangers in exchange for top pitching prospects John Danks, Nick Masset and Jake Rasner. A similar form of this trade was rumored as close to taking place back in November, but Jon Garland was the White Sox starter involved instead of McCarthy.

Danks, Masset, and Rasner all pitched for the Clinton LumberKings of the Midwest League. Danks is one of the top prospects in all of baseball. Masset made it to the Rangers for a few games during the 2006 season. Rasner had the no-hitter broken up by Curt Ledbetter's game winning home run in the bottom of the eighth at Fox Cities Stadium on August 25.

Plenty of quotes from Appleton Baseball Hall of Famer and White Sox GM Kenny Williams in the story.

Saturday's deal had talks going back as far as one year, according to Williams, with scouts and even a video crew sent out to watch the Rangers' young arms in action. Ultimately, the deal had less to do with getting rid of McCarthy as it did with the White Sox return on their investment.

"When you are dealing with prospects like we are, these are just good baseball deals," Williams said. "It has nothing to do with money or, in this particular case, with one club losing confidence. I have the utmost confidence in Brandon McCarthy.

"I had so much confidence in Brandon that I ended up trading Freddy [Garcia] to put him at the front of the line to challenge for the fifth spot. The whole makeup of our club made Brandon expendable, as we believe there are other equal options for the fifth spot. But we also get stronger for the future."

A signing

The front page of the Journal-Sentinel sports section trumpets a Christmas present for Brewer fans:

An arm to lean on
Deal biggest in team history

Christmas came a day early for the Milwaukee Brewers and Jeff Suppan.

The Brewers reached agreement Sunday with free-agent right-hander on a four-year deal plus a club option for a fifth season. Terms of the deal were not announced but a source confirmed that it is worth $42 million, including a $2 million buyout of the 2011 option.

E.S.K at The Wisconsin Sports Bar is happy about the signing.

To me that is the best the Brewers have had since I can remember (course, alcohol has killed most of my memory). This also gives the Brewers a fantastic fifth starter in Villanueva should anything happen. I can see this rotation giving the Brewers 5 guys with 10+ wins, and three guys who are capable of 15+ wins.

Jeff at BrewCrewBall is happy about it, too.

Wow. I didn't think it was going to happen. Say what you want about payroll flexibility, but at least Suppan does improve the '07 club.

Optimism from Brewer fans. We do live in wonderous times.

Baseball History -- December 25

BaseballLibrary.com has three entries for December 25 HERE.

The one that gets on here today is a big downer, but who said that history is all lollipops and kittens.

1989
Billy Martin, former infielder and 5-time manager of the Yankees, dies in a car accident in Johnson City, New York at the age of 61. Martin will be buried in Gates of Heaven cemetery in Valhalla, New York in a plot near Babe Ruth's. George Steinbrenner, who fired Martin four times (he resigned the 5th time) purchases the plot.

Oh, I can't leave this post on that note.

BaseballReference.com has a list of players born on December 25 HERE.

Pulled from that list for this site are:

Ruben Gotay 12/25/1982 (Former Burlington Bee)
Rickey Henderson 12/25/1958 (All-time Base Stealer)
Manny Trillo 12/25/1950 (Former Chicago Cub)
Nellie Fox 12/25/1927 (Hall of Fame)
Pud Galvin 12/15/18/56 (Hall of Fame)

Trying to get in the spirit -- Day 3

This will be last post until sometime late tomorrow morning.

For the last few days, um, weeks, er, months. No, years. (That's the word I was looking for) I have been trying to get into the spirit of the season. This clip from YouTube always seems to help.

Just click on it and may you and yours have a Merry Christmas.

Sunday Flashback

This week's Sunday flashback is the final game of the 2006 season. An extra inning win at Clinton on Labor Day. Enjoy the whole game or fast forward to your favorite parts.

Just copy and paste the code below into your internet browser.

javascript:mp.play({ w:'http://web.servicebureau.net/conf/meta?i=1112704659&c=14667&m=was&u=/w2.xsl', w_id:'26984', pid:'milb_ga', type: 'a_free'} );

102

There are 102 days to go until Opening Day 2007.

Here is a list of players who hit exactly 102 home runs in the major league careers. The Welcome Home banquet speaker* from 2006 is on the list.

Ollie Brown: 1965-1977

*Jay Johnstone: 1966-1985

Joe Oliver: 1989-2001

Lou Piniella: 1964-1984

George Sisler: 1915-1930

Eric Soderholm: 1971-1980

Steve Yeager: 1972-1986

Super Merry Christmas

I sent this picture out as an e-mail Christmas Card a few years ago. I'll say this: Metropolis, Illinois is a magical place around the Christmas season.

Gehrig, the Punter

This is the next brief excerpt from Jonathon Eig's book about Lou Gehrig, Luckiest Man.

This one is from the end of the chapter titled Charmed Life.

On a cool, clear day in the fall of 1928, after the World Series, Gehrig drove to the Bronx to visit a frien who worked year-round at Yankee Stadium, as a groundskeeper. Gehrig and the groundskeeper were chatting in the locker room when Sam Dana approached. Dana, one of Gehrig's former teammates on Columbia's football squad, was playing that winter for the New York Yankees of the National Football League.

Gehrig was a big star now, a World Series hero, and Dana wondered if he'd taken on airs. He wondered if Gehrig would remember him. He said hello, and Gehrig greeted him warmly.

"He hadn't changed a bit," Dana recalled. "I introduced him to all the fellas, and he greeted them all in his own shy way."

Dana waited until Gehrig had shaken hands with each member of the football team and then started to say goodbye. But Gehrig was in no rush to get home.

"I'll beat you at punting," he said, picking up a football from the locker room and challenging his old teammate to a kicking contest.

Dana and Gehrig walked onto the field. Dana was in his uniform. Gehrig wore a sport coat, slacks, and a pair of oxfords.

Dana was no punter, but he thought he had a chance, given that Gehrig probably hadn't kicked in a while.

"Oh, he won," Dana said. "There was no comparison. Lou kicked it fifty or sixty yards in his street clothes."

Back to the prospects

BrewCrewBall had a link to Baseball Digest Daily and their list of the Top 100 prospects in Minor League baseball.

Numbers 51-100 is HERE. No Mariner prospects in this section of the list. However, Jim Correll had Wladimir Balentien (WI '04) as number 100 on his list, but the ex-Rattler got pushed off the list by others.

I ranked Wladimir Balentien 100th on my personal prospect list, but don’t let that skew your judgment for him. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a long-shot to be an all-star in the majors, but if you wanted to pick a dark horse to root for, you could do worse than this guy. Blessed with prodigious power and a cannon for an arm, Balentien profiles as a prototypical rightfielder if everything falls right for him. Now the downsides. With his power, Balentien doesn’t have to hit the ball square to get it out of the ballpark, yet he swings at everything as if he’s powering the entire Seattle Sailing Club each time he comes to bat. And it shows in his numbers, driving his strikeout totals to 300 in the last two seasons and a dip in batting average to .230 in the Texas League this summer. If he can learn to be more selective while maintaining his power and modest batting eye (70 walks), he could force himself into Seattle’s big league plans by 2008.

The Top 50 list is HERE.

There are two ex-Rattlers in this section, but no write up on either of them.

#27 -- Adam Jones
#22 -- Jeff Clement

Q & A with Dobbs

Greg Dobbs (WI '02) recently had a Q&A session with mlb.com. Click on the headline for the whole story. Exceprts below.

Father-to-be Dobbs reflects on holidays
With first child on the way, infielder sharpens focus on family

This promises to be a different kind of holiday season for Seattle's Greg Dobbs, as he and his wife, Heidi, are expecting their first child on Jan. 13. Dobbs thinks that the blessed event could come sooner than later.

"It could come any day," Dobbs said from his Southern California home last week. "We're in a holding pattern."

Dobbs -- who hit .370 in 23 games and was the team's top pinch-hitter -- shared some of his most unforgettable holiday memories and his New Year's resolution with MLB.com.

MLB.com: What are your fondest childhood memories in regards to Christmas?

Greg Dobbs: When I was really small, I thought I heard Santa's reindeer on our roof at Christmas. I got all excited and went and told my brother. We sat and tried to listen for him. Then the next morning, all the gifts were there, a few of the cookies were missing and half the glass of milk was gone.
...
MLB.com: What's the best Christmas present you've ever received?

Dobbs: I would say the coolest present I ever received came the year my dad went to Germany for a month for work. He went and bought an LGB train set that was made in Germany and brought it home. I didn't even want a train set, but the fact that he was miles away made it cool. To this day, it still runs.

Now it's back

http://www.snappersbaseball.com is backonline today.

Was that outage thing something with me? It wouldn't be the first time I've made a mistake this month, week, day, hour.

And one more

Sorry about the subscriber wall, but BA.com has put some good stuff behind there. They probably won't mind if there are two things that happen: 1.) I don't excerpt the whole article & 2.) You just think about subscribing.

They'll know that second one. Trust me. Why do you think Tracy Ringolsby wears that cowboy hat all the time?

Anyway, this story covers the trend of corporations buying and running many minor league teams.

Major Groups Grab More Minor League Teams

Ownership groups like Mandalay Baseball Properties, Ripken Baseball and Ryan-Sanders Baseball also continue to add teams to their portfolio--in both affiliated and independent minor league baseball.

According to Minor League Baseball, 19 ownership groups currently own multiple franchises. Between them, the groups own 54 of the 150 available minor league franchises, and they own many of the flagship franchises around the minors, from Round Rock and Corpus Christi (Ryan-Sanders) to Frisco and Dayton (Mandalay).

Skipping down to the section on Mandalay and the Dayton Dragons:

Greater resources and financial backing allow ownership groups to turn profits by presenting the ideals that have made minor league baseball a hit over the years--cozy ballparks and creative promotions--but on a much grander scale.

The Dayton Dragons, Mandalay's flagship franchise in the Midwest League and one of the most successful teams in the minors, have an 18-person game day staff. At its annual mascot training sessions--how many minor league franchises have ever had anything like that?--Mandalay brings in the iconic Phillie Phanatic to teach employees the joys of entertaining spectators. Instead of lining the outfield walls of their ballparks in Dayton and Frisco with traditional billboards, Mandalay displays advertisements on massive LED screens.

"Our whole approach is that the entertainment has to be fresh and we have to reinvest in the franchises to keep the people coming back," said Mandalay Baseball Properties president Howard Nuchow, who served as an executive with the NBA's New Jersey Nets for seven years before leaving to join the company created by former Sony executives Peter Guber and Paul Schaeffer, along with businessmen Hank and Ken Stickney. "It's all about entertaining fans."

Mandalay has turned entertaining into an art form. The group purchased the Rockford Reds in 1999 and moved the team to Dayton the following season after identifying the city as a promising market without professional baseball. Their forecasts proved accurate: Dayton has sold out every game for seven straight seasons and has a 5,000-person waiting list for tickets. Frisco, a Texas League franchise that moved from Shreveport in 2003, drew 580,480 fans in 2006--ninth-best among domestic minor league teams.

Another one from BA

Again it is behind the subscriber wall, but it is worthwhile to share this bit of information.

Jim Callis has an article about American League prospects who just missed Baseball America's Top Ten List in their respective organizations. The Mariner player who is just outside the Top Ten is an ex-Rattler from 2006.

Justin Thomas, lhp, Mariners. Thomas has the ability to throw strikes with three pitches that dance: an 88-92 mph fastball with cutting action, a nifty slider and a fading changeup. All can grade out as plus offerings at times. He reached high Class A and won 14 games in his first pro season, then added 13 scoreless innings in the California League playoffs.

Organizational Report Cards

BaseballAmerica.com has their organizational report cards posted for subscribers only HERE.

Each team receives an overall grade and is also graded in the following categories: Major Leaguers, Minor Leagues, Talent Level, Player Procurement, and Direction.

The Seattle Mariners, parent club of the Timber Rattlers, got the following marks from BA:

Overall - D+
Major Leaguers -D
Minor Leagues - D
Talent Level - D
Player Procurement - C
Direction - D

I'll excerpt the reasoning for the grades behind Minor Leagues, Talent Level, and Player Procurement because those are the three were affected by or affect the Rattlers the most.

Minor Leagues - D
Losing went down through the minors, with .456 winning percentage; lost San Antonio and Inland Empire affiliations for West Tenn and High Desert.

Talent Level - D
Kenji Johjima was only rookie to make an impact, and he wasn't exactly homegrown; among the worst group of prospects in the minor leagues.

Player Procurement - C
Unloaded veterans like Jamie Moyer, but didn't get any difference-makers in exchange; draft crop looks like it could provide significant boost in arms.

That's quite a little 'bad news, good news' game that Baseball America has going there.

Baseball History -- December 24

Complete entry for December 24 is at BaseballLibrary.com HERE.

Highlighted entries:

1967
Red Sox star Jim Lonborg falls while skiing and injures his knee. The 1967 Cy Young Award winner, 22–9 this past season, will fall to 6–10 in 1968.

Didn't there used to be some kind of curse that was associated with the Red Sox that explained these things?

1929
Officers of the New York Giants hand stockholder Francis X. McQuade a Christmas present, filing a $200,000 damage suit against the long-time club treasurer. The suit charges McQuade with seeking to "wreck and destroy" the club. McQuade countersues and after months of litigation, the NY Supreme Court will rule that McQuade is entitled to back pay, but not his job. A higher court will rule that he doesn't even get the back pay.

Why do I get the feeling this was a typical John McGraw Christmas?