I just heard Stuart Scott on Sportscenter talking about Barry Bonds‘ season this year. He said something that just blows me away. I hadn’t — until now — really appreciated Bonds’ home run extravaganza. The 73 (SEVENTY-THREE!!!) home runs in a season is amazing, obviously. But Scott just said that Bonds hit a home run every twelve swings. Not “at-bats”. Swings. A home run every twelfth time he swung the bat. That is just incredible. I cannot believe that.
Posts tagged “baseball”
Red Sox 4, Mariners 1
May 18
John Lennon’s Revolution 9 — the tuneless dirge that drones “Number nine, number nine” — should have been blaring in the visitors’ clubhouse before last Saturday’s game at Fenway Park. The Mariners were facing Pedro Martinez, who in nine career games against them was 9-0 with an 0.91 ERA. Could they break their streak of futility? Pedro quickly made the answer clear: nein. In the first inning he struck out the side on nine pitches, a feat rarer than a no-hitter. Martinez became just the 35th pitcher in major league history to do it.
By the end of the day Martinez had thrown 99 pitches (73 for strikes) and struck out nine…
from the May 27, 2002 issue of Sports Illustrated
The Paradox of Popularity
I took a class in the Fall of ’94 called Desire and Power in Western Literature. I hated the class and I’m pretty sure the professor, Dr. Snodgrass, didn’t like me very much. I wrote this rambling, terrible excuse for a term paper, in November of that year. It is titled “The Paradox of Popularity: or What does the 1994 MLB strike have to do with being a Tom Petty fan?”
Dan Out
Red Sox make a change
Pedro!
Baseball news
The highest-priced tickets in baseball got pricier Wednesday when the Boston Red Sox announced a 7.4 percent overall increase for this season.
Prices for the cheapest seats — upper and lower bleachers and outfield grandstand — are unchanged from last year, but all others are rising. Infield roof box, loge and field box seats, the most expensive at Fenway Park, will increase from $55 to $60.
2024-01-21: Broken links in this post have been removed and/or updated.
Old Friends
Former Boston Red Sox players Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky hit the road last week for a reunion with ailing teammate Ted Williams, recovering at his Florida home after open-heart surgery earlier this year. Williams, regarded as perhaps the best pure hitter in baseball history, was the last player to hit over .400, when he
Baseball Chips In
Major League Baseball and the Players Association donated $10 million and announced the creation of the MLB-MLBPA Disaster Relief Fund on Wednesday to aid the victims of last week’s terrorist attacks in the United States.
Curt Schilling
Here is an awesome letter from Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling to the citizens of America. link via xero79.com Update: In the 20+ years since I originally wrote this post, Curt Schilling has somehow morphed into a right-wing lunatic. And the link to whatever he wrote and published on the Yahoo! MLB website has disappeared.
Hats
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Sewing machines at New Era Cap Co. on Friday began stitching American flags onto the caps major league baseball players will wear when they resume play next week. That is so American I don’t even know what to do with myself. Once again, some simple little story brought tears to my