15 Years Ago Today (well, yesterday)
The Blue Jays beat the Red Sox 8-5.
Vernon Wells hit 3 home runs. He was 3 for 4, with a walk and 4 RBI.
Troy Glaus had 2 solo home runs.
The Jays beat Josh.
Baseball’s unwritten rules are sometimes hazy, owing to the fact that they are not rules at all. But one of them says more or less that if a team is winning a blowout, and the losing team’s pitcher grooves a meatball right over the plate on a 3–0 count, the batter should not embarrass his opponent by hitting the ball to the moon. Instead, he should let it whiz past. Players usually observe this nonrule. Since 1988, which is as far back as Baseball Reference keeps count data for nearly every at-bat, players have only hit 34 homers on 3–0 counts in the seventh inning or later while leading by four or more runs. The list of hitters who have done it is mostly a who’s who of great hitters, because great hitters aren’t programmed to pass up opportunities for easy dingers. Jeff Bagwell, Fred McGriff, Troy Glaus, Mike Sweeney, Phil Nevin, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Joey Votto, Buster Posey, Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatís Jr. are all among them.
This Date in Baseball
(April 17
1892 In the first Sunday game in National League history, Cincinnati defeated St. Louis 5-1.
1924 Baby Doll Jacobson of the St. Louis Browns hit for the cycle in a 6-3 loss at the Chicago White Sox.
1932 New York first baseman Bill Terry tied an NL record with 21 putouts as the Giants beat Boston 5-0 behind Hal Schumacher’s two-hitter.
1951 In his first major league game, Mickey Mantle went 1-for-4 as the New York Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox 5-0.
1953 Mickey Mantle cleared the bleachers at Griffith Stadium with a 565-foot home run off Chuck Stobbs. The shot came in the fifth inning of a 7-3 win over the Senators.
Gerrit Cole and Jack Leiter share fascinating parallels pinstripealley.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pinstripealley.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
When I was growing up, my baseball team stressed me out. Most summer evenings caught me lying in bed, listening to the Seattle Mariners on the radio, tossing a corporate-branded stress ball up and down. If I got it just right, the ball would barely graze the ceiling before dropping straight down into my waiting hand. Up-throw, down-catch. Up-throw, down-catch. So passed the halcyon days of my youth.
My supply of stress balls came from my father, who, thanks to his business trips and conferences, had a seemingly infinite stock of branded corporate crap. I never really figured out what it was he did, and I wasn’t particularly curious. All I know was that he went off to cities I didn’t care about and brought home random goodies. If I wanted a foam stress ball, I could pick between Microsoft or Lucent or AT&T or whatever. I’d proceed to wear it out over the course of a few months of fidgeting, but the time any one was ruined, two more would have taken its place in the stash.