The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
The surge via which the Baseball Writers Association of America elected a record 22 Hall of Fame candidates over a seven-year span is over, as the voters pitched a shutout on Tuesday, their second in the past decade, fourth since the return to annual balloting in 1966, and ninth since the Hall’s inception in 1936. Collectively the 401 voters who participated showed enough ambivalence towards the top four returning candidates Curt Schilling, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Omar Vizquel, all of whom have non-performance-related marks against them that were increasingly aired during the cycle to keep them on the outside looking in,
Ernie Banks vs. American League pitchers By JohnW53 on Jan 24, 2021, 7:08am CST 3
There was no interleague play during Ernie Banks 19-year career, and the Cubs never reached the World Series.
So Mr. Cub never faced any of his era s top American League pitchers in a game that mattered.
But he did bat against some top AL hurlers in All-Star Games.
I wondered how Banks fared when he was matched up with those pitchers in the annual midseason exhibition game.
....
He batted
.303, compared to a regular-season average of .274. His 10 hits in 33 at bats included a home run, a triple and 3 doubles.
December 20, 2020
MLB managers not named Tony La Russa did Zoom calls with members of the media this past week. Today’s column features highlights from several of those sessions. –
Two of the topics Dusty Baker addressed on Monday were job-related. One was the position he currently holds with the Houston Astros, the other was a role that’s never appealed to him. The latter is anathema to baseball’s Most Interesting Man in the World because it wouldn’t allow him to kick back and ruminate on life.
“One reason I never wanted to be a general manager is because you don’t really have an offseason,” Baker told a cohort of reporters. “He works all year, and doesn’t have much time off, but for the general manager, and front office people, this is the most busy time of the year.”
State Sen.-elect Crystal Diamond knows her name raises questions and suspicions. My parents weren t hippies, and I m not an exotic dancer, she said in a phone interview.
Before introducing her first bill, Diamond has mastered the art of delivering a pithy quote.
But let s get back to the origin of her name. At 41, Diamond is from the same generation as the late actor River Phoenix, whose younger siblings include Rain, Summer and Liberty.
Unlike the Phoenixes, Diamond didn t receive a provocative name from her parents.
The former Crystal Runyan kept her married name of Diamond after a divorce.
Diamond is raising two daughters with modern but less charged names than her own. Cayden and Reece Diamond are 11 and 10, respectively.
‘48 loses 3-1
‘48 had the opportunity to extend their quarterfinal to a winner-take-all fifth game, but let it slip away in the seventh.
Two batters after Gil Coan’s RBI double tied the score, Cass Michaels lined a bases-clearing double to provide the final margin of
‘51’s 6-3 win that sent
‘48 into the Manfred Regional.
Both teams put runs on the board in the second, but
‘51 took the lead after Sam Mele’s two-run homer wiped out Al Evans’ RBI single.
In the top of the sixth, however,
‘48 lined three singles to tie the score again and put runners on the corners, setting up Junior Wooten’s lead-changing sacrifice fly.