MLB 2014 season thread

Enjoyable.

 

Interesting matchup in Detroit today.

Price outduels Felix as the Tigers win 4-2. He throws eight innings, gives up one run, then presumably put on a blindfold to avoid watching Detroit's gascan bullpen in the ninth.

Lloyd wasn't around to see it, as he was tossed in the second inning for bitching about Felix getting squeezed.

 

Where's BYH now that the Angels have the best record in baseball?

 

Remember, under the single-WC system:

The A's and Angels would be in an essentially meaningless race for pride and seeding and half-a-dozen AL teas would be playing meaningless games that instead are fighting for a spot.

 

Many thought he was done a few years back when he pulled the Achilles.

Hit his 27th of the season last night -- also his 400th as a Red Sox.

http://m.redsox.mlb.com/bos/video/topic/70087564/v35420227/?partnerId=as_mlb_20140817_29922336

 

I looked up a couple of teams. Tampa started 10-28, then went 30-10 and were sitting at 40-38 on July 3. They went 30-54 the rest of the way.

Louisville was 22 games below on two occasions, the last was 16-38 on June 20. They made it to .500 at 73-73, going 57-35. Then they closed out the season losing four straight before winning their last two to go 75-77 to finish ninth out of 12 teams. They were 56 games out of last place,which was held by the infamous Cleveland Spiders. Louisville was contracted after the season, with most of the team going to Pittsburgh the next year, setting up three straight NL pennants from 01-03. One of those Louisville guys was a utllityman who may or may not have been better than Jeter at shortstop.

 

Ex game 6 days before the 1st ever official game at Yankee Stadium, 1923. Notice, box seats are actually boxed.

https://twitter.com/MLBcathedrals/status/501090015527841792/photo/1

 

OOP is not going to be happy:

Sports Illustrated:

Angels outfielder Josh Hamilton is having a down year, and manager Mike Scioscia believes it's due to Hamilton's lack of confidence.

"Josh is not the same as he was when we were looking in the other dugout in Texas," Scioscia said, according to ESPN.com. "Right now, he's not in the batter's box with the confidence that we know he has. He's working hard to try to find it."

http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/08/17/angels-mike-scioscia-josh-hamilton-not-same


Jeff Pearlman:

Josh Hamilton was a stud, signed huge contract, lost 25 pounds & hasn't been the same. HAVE to be PED questions, no?

https://twitter.com/jeffpearlman/status/501179622026121216

 

Jeff must've thought that up between Ozark and Vegas, after trying to figure out how to fart in the car with his cross-country driving partner.

 

The late 1890s, and specifically 1899, are the bizarro dimension for baseball fans.

There was one league, the overbloated 12-team National League. There was a very strong minor league, the Western League, which in a couple years would go for the big time and rename itself the American League.


Several of the teams (I forget how many) in the unwieldy NL had common ownerships, so they started stacking up their teams -- sending the good players to the city perceived to be the most profitable market. Pittsburgh and Louisville was one such combination, as was Cleveland and St. Louis -- I believe there may have been others.

So when the Cleveland Spiders got out of the gate with an awful record and horrible attendance, the owners sent everybody decent (which included Cy Young) to St. Louis, in exchange for cadavers.

The whole mess fell apart the next season, four teams were contracted and joint ownership was kiboshed.

 

Also re: Pearlman, he just moved to LA so this could be his way of making a literary splash in the new hood.

 

The answer to his question is no, but not much would surprise me from Pearlman.