Wednesday Baseball Movie Quote

Gil Renard: Bobby, now do you care? BOBBY! NOW DO YOU CARE? Just a little bit?

Few things would be more frightening than Robert DeNiro trying to make me care.

1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords

MLB.com has unveiled their second rated Negro Leagues team.

Crawfords called best money could buy
Team of 1935 ranks second in history of black baseball

Some people called the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords the best team money could buy, and nobody could argue that owner Gus Greenlee didn't spend lavishly to put the best ballplayers he could find in a Crawfords uniform. He may have succeeded, for the Crawfords were a close No. 2 in the voting to determine the greatest teams in the history of black baseball. With Hall of Famers littering the roster, the Crawfords are worthy of the position, even as people debate whether they are, actually, the No. 1 team overall. Here is their story.

One of the greatest teams in baseball history was built with a corps of superstars pilfered from an archrival franchise. But in its greatest season, it had to overcome the defection of its No. 1 pitcher because of a contract dispute.

Throw in the fact that it played in a glowing stadium -- funded by a lottery, no less -- and the '35 Crawfords were not only ahead of their time but would be the envy of baseball even today.

This was a team both of its place and of its time.

Pittsburgh's Hill District was a vibrant mix of independent businesses where African-Americans lived alongside the city's many ethnic groups. But because baseball was segregated, two black teams merged in 1925 to form a sandlot club. The next year, the club would draw its name, Crawford Giants, from the Crawford Bath House and Recreation Center, a city-run facility that assisted immigrants as well African-Americans who migrated from the South.

Lots of good stuff about the lottery-funded stadium, Greenlee's businesses, how Satchell Paige didn't play for the Crawfords in 1935, and the 1935 Negro World Series Championship.

You may have noticed this....

if you have been to the main Rattler site...

Fox Cities Stadium to host Packers vs. Fire Fighters Softball Game

This is not the Brett Favre game that has been held at the stadium for the last several years. This is something else:

Fox Cities Stadium will host the 2007 Packers All-Pro Softball Team vs. the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin Softball Game on Friday, May 11th. The game is a fundraiser for the PFFW and is one of three throughout the state. The game starts at 7:00 PM, with the gates to the stadium opening at 5:30 PM. The game will be a general admission event, with tickets costing $15.00 + tax.

Tickets are available at the Timber Rattler ticket office. There is not a lot of information at this point, just keep checking back on the main site for details. Also, keep checking for word on the Favre game, too.

Dang....

Lowe could undergo more elbow surgery

An optimistic Mark Lowe on Tuesday vowed to return this season despite the prospect of facing even more arthroscopic surgery on his right elbow.

Lowe is to undergo an MRI examination today to see whether something is preventing the elbow from extending further. If an obstruction is found, he would have it removed and said the surgery would "only" set him back two more weeks.

"There's clearly a difference between my left and right arm and they want to get it straight," said Lowe, who underwent surgery last October to help regenerate cartilage in the injured elbow.

More at the notebook.

Baseball History -- February 21

Complete entry for February 21 is at BaseballLibrary.com HERE.

Highlighted entries:

1986
Rollie Fingers loses a chance to continue his career with the Cincinnati Reds when he refuses to shave his trademark handlebar mustache to comply with the club's policy. Says Fingers: "I'm not about to shave it off just to play baseball."

That takes guts. For someone. For something.

1974
Today in Charles Schulz's syndicated cartoon strip "Peanuts" Snoopy declares, " I have a trivia question that will drive Woodstock up the wall." In the next frame: " Who played shortstop for St. Paul when they won the American Association pennant in 1938?" After Woodstock answers, Snoopy shakes his head in amazement: "How did he ever hear of Ollie Bejma?" Bejma, who played for Schultz' home town team, was the co-MVP with teammate Whitlow Wyatt in 1938 (beating out Triple Crown winner Ted Williams) before playing for the White Sox.

I wish the whole Peanuts collection was available on-line instead of just the last month. But the last month is still pretty good.

1931
The Chicago White Sox and the New York Giants become the first ML teams to meet in a night game. They collect 23 hits in a 10-inning exhibition game played in Houston, at Buffs Stadium.

Nine innings wasn't enough?

44 Days to Opening Day

April 5, 2007 is Opening Day for the Timber Rattlers at Fox Cities Stadium. That is just 44 days from today.

Who do you think would represent the number 44 on this blog?

#1

Wisconsin Is New No. 1!

The Wisconsin men’s basketball team (26-2, 12-1 Big Ten) earned its first-ever No. 1 ranking in the Associated Press Poll released Monday. The Badgers lead the nation in both wins and winning percentage. Ohio State remains No. 2 followed by Florida and UCLA.

Wisconsin was ranked third heading into last week’s games, but then-No. 1 Florida lost Saturday and the Badgers leapfrogged Ohio State for the top spot. UW beat the Buckeyes, 72-69, in Madison back on Jan. 9.

The Badgers are #2 in the other poll, behing Ohio State. UW faces Michigan State tonight and the Buckeyes on Sunday.

Just going to mention how excited Badger fans got when the team made the NIT under Steve Yoder back in the late 80's/early 90's. Also, this graphic from jsonline.com is so cool.

Transactions

BaseballAmerica.com has an updated list of transactions HERE.

The only ex-Rattler in these transactions was found in a long list of Tiger signees:

Signed LHP Kendall Bergdall (WI '05)

Veteran Moves

Too many profiles on the players, managers, etc who are on the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee to excerpt them all today. Some links below, but just head HERE for the all of them.

Cubs' Santo eagerly awaits Veterans' vote

Vets Committee to vote on fiery Martin

Tiant gets another crack at the Hall

Veterans Committee to examine Torre

Herzog synonymous with managing

Maris' candidacy remains a hot topic

Flood's talents overshadowed

Lowe news

In Geoff Baker's post about Ichiro's arrival at Spring Training, there was this little note about Mark Lowe (WI '05):

Still awaiting word on Mark Lowe's status. The team will have official word Tuesday morning but Lowe told me he fully expects to be cleared to start soft throwing.

For the bwhole story on that, there is the M's Notebook from yesterday:

Mariners reliever Mark Lowe has a big meeting scheduled for today with Dr. Lew Yocum, the physician who performed arthroscopic surgery to help regenerate the cartilage in his right elbow last October. Lowe has been resting the arm since and hopes to be cleared to begin his rehabilitation.

"If he clears me, then we'll take it from there," Lowe said. "It depends on how I feel. It could be May, June, July."

Lowe went 1-0 with a 1.93 earned-run average in 15 outings for the Mariners in July and August after beginning the season in Class A. But instead of finishing the season on a high, he wound up on the disabled list, and the routine surgery he later underwent turned up a problem that required much more recovery time.

"It was tough," he said. "It was a real emotional change for me. I've just been trying to stay positive through the whole thing."

Feierabend feature

Yesterday's Seattle Times had this story on Ryan Feierabend (WI '04).

The story begins with a story about how Feierabend and his wife beat jet lag in Hawaii on their honeymoon. Short answer: baseball.

Pitcher readies for life in AAA

[Feierabend] was stunned by his September call-up straight out of Class AA and immediately impressed the coaching staff by posting a 3.71 earned-run average in four September outings, including two starts. Once the season ended, Feierabend moved into a new home his wife selected for them in Ohio — a home he had never seen before.

He also had to get used to a father-in-law who once was his grade-school principal — and had chewed out a young Feierabend years before after mistakenly thinking he'd thrown something at his choir teacher.

Now, there's another first awaiting Feierabend, one he hoped to skip altogether: Class AAA, in Tacoma.
...
Despite his early major-league break, Feierabend will still have to execute in Class AAA. But Hargrove is eyeing his progress and that of other on-the-verge pitchers, like Cha Seung Baek, in case he has to make call-ups later.

"It would be nice to start the season in Seattle," Feierabend said. "But realistically, however you want to put it, I'm just going to go out and pitch. Whatever happens, happens. All you can do is pitch well."

Latest M's Mailbag

Corey Brock takes your questions and Rattler Radio posts his answers (the ones involving ex-Rattlers).

You have talked about Jeff Clement catching for Triple-A Tacoma this year. So what happens to Rob Johnson, who caught the majority of games last year for the Rainiers?-- Matt S., Stockton, Calif.

I would expect Johnson to return to Tacoma this season. What I can't understand is why he was there last season, splitting time with Clement and Guillermo Quiroz. Johnson is regarded as a very strong defensive catcher. He threw out 45 percent of basestealers in 2006. Now, I understand the Mariners are proactive about moving their prospects up the chain, but Johnson -- a career .254 hitter in the Minor Leagues -- probably should have spent the season at Double-A San Antonio instead of skipping that level. He hit just .231 in 337 at-bats with Triple-A Tacoma. I imagine that he and Clement will split catching duties, with Clement also seeing time at designated hitter.

Will the Mariners take the baby gloves off Hernandez this year? Or are they going to try to keep him under the 200-innings mark again? -- Soren S., Seattle

Actually, though the magic number the Mariners touted all last season was 200 innings, he ended up with 205 innings (including 14 innings in Spring Training) after the Mariners gave him one extra start during the final week of the season. The Mariners have said they won't put a cap on his innings this season, though they'll pay close attention to his pitch counts. Look for Hernandez to be more economical with his pitches like he was in the second half of the 2006 season when he turned into a veritable ground-ball machine.

Baseball History -- February 20

Complete entry for February 20 is at BaseballLibrary.com HERE.

1953
August A. Busch buys the Cardinals from Fred Saigh for $3.75 million and pledges not to move the team from St. Louis.

Imagine the Los Angeles Cardinals. It's easy if you try.

Also from 1953
The U.S. Court of Appeals rules that organized baseball is a sport and not a business, affirming the 25-year-old Supreme Court ruling. This effectively dismisses the antitrust suits of Jack Corbett and former Dodger farm hand Walter Kowalski. The $300,000 suit of Corbett, the owner of the Texas League El Paso club, is based on his belief that he lost money when ML baseball prohibited him from signing several players suspended for participation in the Mexican League. Kowalski's $150,000 suit is based on the general principles of the antitrust and restraint-of-trade laws. Their lawyer in these cases is Frederic Johnson, who also represents Danny Gardella in his suit against ML baseball.

I can't tell you what business is, but I know it when I see it.

1887
New York SS and captain John Ward thinks that the open sale of players has gone too far. "I wouldn't play in Kansas City under any circumstances," he says, but a club could force him to play there or not play at all.

Wht if he received Gil Meche money to play in Kansas City? Would that be a better circumstance?

45 Days to Opening Day

April 5, 2007 is Opening Day for the Timber Rattlers at Fox Cities Stadium. That is just 46 days away.

The number 45 is represented by Appleton Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Garcia:

Garcia appeared in 45 games for the AL Champion Cleveland Indians in 1954. He was 19-8 with a 2.64ERA that season.

Card image from ScottsdaleCards.com.

Prospect Insider

Prospect Insider has a new post up on his Mariner prospect rankings, #11-19* (These were supposed to be 11-20, but #20 was Yorman Bazardo. He was traded to the Tigers recently.

Just head to the post for the rankings. As of this morning, the post has #14-19 with plenty of ex-Rattlers on the list. Keep checking back there for updates.

Baseball responds

Also from Sports Frog is a link to an op-ed from MLB about the looming Extra Innings to Direct TV deal. It was as a counterpoint to a USA Today editorial.

This is from Tim Brosnan, Excutive VP, Business for MLB.

Opposing view: We meet fans' demands

We offer the following assurances to our fans: Any deal for the Major League Baseball's Extra Innings subscription package, when concluded, will in no way affect a single fan's ability to watch games of his home club in his home market.

But, the ado isn't about Brewer fans in Milwaukee, Ranger fans in Texas, or Mariner fans in Seattle not getting to watch the games. It's about Red Sox fans in Casper, Wyoming; Tiger fans in Lakeland, Florida; and Dodger fans in Las Vegas not getting to watch the games involving their favorite teams.

Major League Baseball will continue to make available on basic cable, satellite and broadcast television more games by far than any other sport (on average, more than 400 games per year are telecast in each market); a subscription package of out-of-market games will continue to be available to a broad segment of our fan base through either MLB Extra Innings or MLB.TV, its broadband counterpart.

Well, each team plays 162 games. No other professional sport has that many games on its schedule. So, of course, there will be more games available than any other sport.

There is a paragraph about doing things in the best interest of the fans. Then, there is this:

We have had fair and open negotiations with cable, satellite and telephone company distributors regarding the distribution of a new MLB dedicated channel to all our fans and the continuation of the MLB Extra Innings package. We believe that the launch of an MLB-dedicated channel as part of a basic service will be a great benefit to all of our fans, as it will provide a wide diversity of baseball programming, 24/7. Our goal remains to provide as much MLB programming as we can to the maximum number of viewers, and any consummated deal will reflect that.

If the NFL Network couldn't get their channel on basic cable, I don't think that an MLB Channel has any shot at that.

Teamwork

Followed a link on Deadspin to this story at Sports Frog about team bonding gone horribly wrong.

Now, this story involves a soccer team, but it is a British soccer team, that's what makes it entertaining.

"There had been a lot of drinking and everyone was enjoying themselves. But it all went wrong when Craig tried to drag John up for a song. There was a karaoke competition going on, but John's a quiet one off the pitch and wasn't having it at all.

"It started off as a bit of a lark with some of the other lads having a go but then it got completely out of hand. John went ballistic because Craig wouldn't take no for an answer. He was screaming at Craig to leave him alone, saying he wouldn't do it and yelling insults.

"Everyone was completely stunned by it because they were really having a go, standing there toe to toe swearing at each other.
...
"It was really late, about 2am, and the players eventually started drifting off to bed. But Craig, who was sharing with Steve Finnan, was so wound up he couldn't sleep.

"He suddenly grabbed a golf club and went looking for John. And when he found him he waded in, hacking at his legs with the club."

Makes sense to me. At least sense as 2am tipsy logic outside a Karoke bar...in Portugal. Did I mention this was a Karoke bar in Portugal? The whole story is HERE.

If my co-workers....

didn't read this, I'd be calling in sick to watch the Law & Order marathon on TNT today.

Maybe I could work from home today.

I need Lennie Briscoe to make a couple of cracks here.

"If you don't need me around here, I'll go home and take a nap."

Thanks, Lennie.

"Mr. Petersen, even though you are a taxpayer, technically, we don't actually work for you personally."

Well, my name isn't Petersen, but I've bee getting a lot of that lately. What's your day going to be like?

"9:00 A.M. Subject exited premises to purchase a newspaper. 2:26 p.m. Subject exited premises for cigarettes. 2:29 p.m. Subject looked in the direction of surveillance car and made an obscene gesture."

Holiday

It's President's Day. That means that not only do we celebrate:

but also:

And this guy:

is equal to this guy:

To tie this in with baseball, we need to recognize William Howard Taft as the innovator behind the 7th inning stretch.

WHT, We salute you!

Baseball History -- February 19

Complete entry for February 19 is at BaseballLibrary.com HERE.

Highlighted entries:

1983
Fernando Valenzuela wins his salary arbitration case with the Dodgers and becomes the first player to win a $1 million salary through that process. The Dodgers had offered Valenzuela $750,000 for the 1983 season.

Even if he got the $750,000 figure, could you say that Valenzuela lost?

1953
Ted Williams safely crash-lands his damaged Panther jet after flying a combat mission in Korea. The plane was hit by enemy fire.

If he hadn't actually existed, people would not believe Ted Williams as a fictional character. Baseball superstar, fighter pilot, fly fisherman. I would have pushed it and made him a brain surgeon or a best-selling poet, too.

1935
Lou Gehrig signs for $30,000, $7,000 less than he asked for. Gehrig is now the highest paid player in baseball.

Now being 1935. $30,000 gets you about two pitches from Barry Zito right now.