Kuzul

The Mets reached a dubious milestone on Friday night against the Miami Marlins. A first-inning triple by Jose Reyes thwarted the possibility of a no-hitter for the 8,000th time in Mets history.

The no no-no’s streak is surprising not just for its 50-year span. The Mets have had any number of pitchers capable of blanking an opponent for nine innings.

In fact, seven pitchers have thrown no-hitters after leaving the Mets, according to NoNoHitters.com, a website that keeps a running update of the Mets’ futility. Another 10 came to the Mets with no-hitters under their belts.

Nolan Ryan, of course, posted seven no-hitters in his post-Mets career. Tom Seaver threw one for the Cincinnati Reds in 1978, the season following his departure from New York. Dwight Gooden and David Cone added further insult by pitching no-hitters for the Yankees.

Hideo Nomo and Mike Scott also chalked up no-hitters after leaving the Mets. The most recent Mets alum on the list is Philip Humber, who pitched the 21st perfect game in major league history for the Chicago White Sox last month.

The Mets have come close to breaking into the no-hit club. There have been 35 one-hitters in team history. In some of them, an early inning hit was followed by pitching perfection.

Many others were denied in the late innings. Here are six that were stopped in the eighth and ninth innings.

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“Batting sixth and playing first base, No. 14, Bill Skowron, No. 14.”

Skowron stepped into the batter’s box against the ace left-hander on the Yankee Stadium mound in the second inning of a scoreless game. There was a runner on second with one. The fans watched with eager anticipation.

The pitcher peered in to get the signal from his catcher, nodded assent and delivered. The “Moose” lined a base hit  to center field as the crowd let out a groan.

Skowron’ base hit came at the expense of his good friend Whitey Ford. Mickey Mantle fielded the ball cleanly, but he had no chance of throwing out Frank Howard at the plate.

The Los Angeles Dodgers led the New York Yankees 1-0 in the first game of the 1963 World Series.

Following Skowron’s single, weak-hitting Dick Tracewski singled and left-handed-hitting John Roseboro hit a three-run home run.

In the third inning, Skowron batted with runners on first and third and two outs. He hit his second single and drove in the Dodgers’ fifth and final run.

The Yankees had traded Skowron to the Dodgers over the winter in exchange for right-handed pitcher Stan Williams. It was a bad trade for the Yankees.

Skowron had trouble adjusting to the National League. He batted only .203 with four home runs in 89 games and was a little surprised when he started the first game of the Series.

“It was the nicest thing that has happened to me all year,” Skowron told reporters after the Dodgers’ 5-2 win.

“Let’s face it. I was garbage all year. It’s no secret that I would be traded this winter. So I surely didn’t expect to play in the Series. And let’s be honest. I didn’t deserve to.”

The modest Skowron didn’t appreciate manager Walt Alston’s baseball acumen. He knew that Skowron usually rose to the occasion.

In 1956, the “Moose” hit a grand slam home run in the seventh game of the 1956 World Series off Roger Craig to put the game away and give the Yankees the world championship.

Two years later, against Yankees’ nemesis Lew Burdette of the Milwaukee Braves, Skowron hit a three-run home run in the eighth inning that produced an insurmountable 6-2 lead.

As a Yankee, Skowron, who was hampered by a bad back, batted .294/.346/.496. He averaged 121 games, 18 home runs and 75 RBIs a season, but according to Baseball-Reference’s projection, Skowron averaged 25 runs and 101 RBIs over a 162-game season.

The Yankees won seven pennants and four world championships with Skowron at first base. He was greatly appreciated.

The Yankees and their fans knew how important his right-handed power was in providing balance to the batting order. He was better than many in the modern media will ever know.

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There’s no doubt about it.  The 2012 Philadelphia Phillies are off to a dreadful start at the plate.  If it wasn’t for a terrific pitching staff, there would be no way this team is at .500 after 14 games.  What’s more of a surprise is how fans seem “up in arms” about their sticks as if they haven’t seen anything like this before.  That’s far from the truth.

Through 14 games this season, the Phillies have scored 41 runs for an average of 2.92 runs per game.  Their team batting average is .247 and they have only hit seven home runs.  Even more brutal, they are 0-5 when they give up more than two runs in a game.  They are leaving little margin for error out of the starting rotation.  They probably have the mindset of “If I give up a three-run home run at any point, we will lose.”

This is not a new thing for this franchise, however, as collective slumps and lack of hitting started back in the 2009 season and has had stretches of ineptitude ever since then.  Check this out:

Recent 14-Game Stretches

2009: Games 122-135, scored 37 runs (2.6 per game) for a 6-8 record.

2010: Games 39-52, scored 25 runs (1.8 per game) for a 4-10 record. Six home runs in those games.

2010: Games 115-128, scored 44 runs (3.1 per game) for a 7-7 record. Six home runs in those games.

2010: Postseason vs. Cincinnati and San Francisco, scored 33 runs for 3.7 a game and a 5-4 record.

2011: Games 9-22, scored 39 runs (2.8 per game) for a 9-5 record. Nine home runs in those games.

2011: Games 31-44, scored 35 runs (2.5 per game) for a 6-8 record. Eight home runs in those games.

2011: Games 144-157, scored 33 runs (2.4 per game) for a 4-10 record. Seven home runs in those games.

2011: Postseason vs. St Louis, scored just 10 runs in the last four games (2.5 per game).

So while this lack of offensive prowess has been frustrating for the Phillies and their fans to open the 2012 season it is also nothing new.  The Phils won 97 games in 2010 and went through a stretch that saw them go to New York to take on the Mets and they didn’t score a single run the entire series.  That was with Ryan Howard and Chase Utley in the lineup. For disclosure purposes, Jimmy Rollins was missing for that series.

Just last season, early in the season, the Phils’ bats looked a lot like this.  Here is the breakdown of games nine through 22:

Game nine: Win vs. Atlanta, 3-0

Game 10: L at Washington, 4-7

Game 11: W at Washington, 3-2

Game 12: W at Washington, 4-0

Game 13: L vs. Florida, 3-4

Game 14: W vs. Florida, 3-2

Game 15: L vs. Milwaukee, 3-6

Game 16: L vs. Milwaukee, 0-9

Game 17: W vs. Milwaukee, 4-3

Game 18: W at San Diego, 3-0

Game 19: W at San Diego, 2-0

Game 20: W at San Diego, 4-2

Game 21: W at San Diego, 3-1

Game 22: L at Arizona, 0-4

An entire 14-game stretch where the Phillies never scored more than four runs in a game and they still went 9-5.  Mercy!  Now that was without Utley in the lineup and prior to trading for Hunter Pence.  The moral of all of this is to relax. 

Charlie Manuel’s team can be a maddening bunch and when they struggle at the plate it can take some time to bust out.  Their hitters have shown a history of success and they will get hot.  Hopefully Utley and Howard can return with some sort of resemblance of their old selves and the Phillies heat up in September just in time for a playoff run. 

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Marty Appel, in his latest book. Pinstripe Empire, explains why the New York Yankees fell on hard times following the 1964 season.

The Yankees won five consecutive pennants from 1960-64, but unlike the well-remembered first streak of five when they also won the World Series after each pennant (1949-53), this time the Yankees won only two world championships.

Appel explains that a major reason was that elite athletes were no longer choosing baseball as they had in the past. Other sports, especially football, were attracting them.

Despite the fact that some “experts” later concluded that owners Dan Topping and Del Webb knew that they were about to sell the team and decided to let the heralded farm system deteriorate, the Yankees did sign young players.

In 1960, the Yankees signed pitcher Howie Kitt, who had gone 18-0 at Columbia, for $100,000. Kitt was born in Brooklyn, was left-handed and was Jewish. He was sent to Class A Binghamton, but had control problems, which resulted in his demotion to Class C Modesto.

Vern Rapp, the Modesto manager was not impressed with his new pitcher.

“He throws hard,” said Rapp. “He’s coming down here to get experience and we’ll correct that wildness.”

It never happened. Kitt spent five seasons trying to develop control. In 607 innings, he walked 501 batters.

Appel thinks that the Yankees might not have been aggressive enough after Kitt because they had been burned many times before signing him.

Paul Hinrichs ($40,000 in 1948), Ed Cereghino ($80,000 in 1950) and Bob Riesener, who was 20-0 in the minors, never became major leaguers.

In addition, the Yankees gave infielder Tommy Carroll and first baseman Frank Leja large bonuses. The two were forced onto to the team by the bonus rule in effect at the time.

By the middle to late 1960s, Appel posits that the only superstars to select baseball were Tom Seaver, Johnny Bench and, of course, Reggie Jackson. Yankees’ scouting direction Johnny Johnson supported Appel’s contention.

“We don’t have the quality of player we used to have, but neither does anyone else, because it just isn’t there anymore.”

The amateur draft, started in 1965, hurt the Yankees more than most team because it temporarily negated the Yankees willingness to spend.

The Kansas City Athletics drafted Rick Monday with the first choice. The Yankees, forced to select 19th, took right-hander Bill Burbach. Monday became a fine player while Burbach didn’t have much of a career.

The Yankees no longer had an edge in signing players and it would take years before Mr. George Steinbrenner helped them regain some of their former glory.

Reference:

Appel, Marty. Pinstripe Empire. New York: Bloomsbury USA. May, 2012. pp. 358-59.

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The 20,000 fans in attendance at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh 57 years ago today likely didn’t know how much baseball history they would be witness to.

During the first game of a double-header against the Brooklyn Dodgers, right fielder Roberto Clemente took the field for the first time, kicking off a storied career that he spent entirely in a Pirates uniform.

That career was tragically cut short, however, when Clemente was killed on New Year’s Eve 1972 during a flight to deliver aid packages from his native Puerto Rico to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua.

In honor of Clemente’s professional debut, here are 21 facts about his life and baseball legacy that you might not have known: 

1. Roberto Clemente Walker was the youngest of seven children born to Don Melchor Clemente and Luisa Walker. He was born on Aug. 18, 1934, in Carolina, Puerto Rico—the same town boxers Esteban De Jesus and Alfredo Escalera called home.

2. Clemente rode the bench during his first year as a teenager with the Santurce Cangrejeros (“Crabbers”) in the Puerto Rico Baseball League. By the next year, he was a starter and the team’s leadoff hitter.

3. The Brooklyn Dodgers signed Clemente in 1952 to its Triple-A team in Montreal with a $10,000 bonus, but he was used as a bench player. An MLB rule stated that any player given a bonus of more than $4,000 had to be on a major league roster for his entire first season or be eligible for the annual rookie draft, and the Pittsburgh Pirates selected him first overall in 1954.

4. During his first professional game (ironically against the Dodgers), Clemente went 1-for-4 and scored a run. He hit 2-for-4 with a double and a run in the second game, but the Bucs lost both games by scores of 10-3 and 3-2, respectively.

5. Pirates center fielder Earl Smith wore No. 21 until he parted ways with the team in April 1955. Clemente wore No. 13 until then. 

6. He was in a car accident during his rookie season and missed several games due to a lower back injury. Clemente played in 124 games and finished the season with a .255 average.

7. On July 25, 1956, he became the only player ever to hit a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam. He did it in a 9-8 win over the Cubs at Forbes field.

8. Clemente enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve after the 1958 season and spent six months on active duty at Parris Island, South Carolina and Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. He served until 1964 and was inducted into the Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame in 2003.

9. Although many media organizations and the Topps baseball card company often referred to him as “Bob,” Clemente adamantly rejected those names and repeatedly insisted he be called Roberto.

10. Except for 1968, Clemente batted over .300 and was named to the National League All-Star team each year during the 1960s. 

11. Clemente won a Gold Glove award every year from 1961 until his final season in 1972. He shares the record for most Gold Glove Awards by outfielders (12) with Willie Mays.

12. Clemente was the first Hispanic player to accomplish many feats in the majors. He was the first to win a World Series as a starter, be named league MVP, be named World Series MVP and be elected to the Hall of Fame.

13. Clemente finished his career with exactly 3,000 hits. His final one was a double off Jon Matlack of the New York Mets on Sept. 30, 1972.

14. Nearly as well-known for his humanitarian efforts as his baseball career, Clemente sent shipments of aid to Nicaragua after an earthquake ravaged the country in late 1972. Clemente decided to accompany the packages when he learned that three previous shipments had been diverted by corrupt Somoza government officials.

15. The four-engine DC-7 plane he chartered for a flight on New Year’s Eve reportedly had a history of mechanical problems and was overloaded by 4,200 pounds. The plane crashed in the Atlantic Ocean immediately after takeoff from the coast of Isla Verde. Four others were killed.

16. Clemente’s teammate Manny Sanguillen was the only Pirate not to attend the memorial service. That’s because he instead traveled to Puerto Rico to dive into the waters where the plane crashed in an effort to recover Clemente’s body—which was never found.

17. At the time of his death, Clemente and Bill Mazeroski were the only remaining Pirates from the 1960 World Champion team.

18. Clemente was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal of Honor in 1973. It’s one of many honors bestowed on the outfielder for his humanitarian efforts following his death.

19. Clemente was the first and only Hall of Fame member for whom the mandatory five-year waiting period was waived. He was elected posthumously in 1973.

20. His plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, read “Roberto Walker Clemente”—incorrectly placing his mother’s maiden name before his father’s surname until 2000, when it was recast to express his name in the proper Hispanic format.

21. When Pittsburgh’s PNC Park was being built, there were talks of naming it after Clemente. But the naming rights went to local PNC Financial Services and the nearby Sixth Street Bridge leading to the stadium was named after him instead. The right field wall at PNC Park is 21-feet high in honor of Clemente’s normal fielding position and uniform number.

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It’s hard for major league baseball players, as well as any athlete, to realize their career is over. They’ve worked every day of their lives to make it to the big leagues, but when their career comes creeping to an end, they refuse to admit it.

Hardly any player retires on his own terms anymore. They leave the game when no team wants them anymore, basically forcing them to retire. Some teams, however, are foolish enough to sign these decaying players.

Here is my list for 10 major league baseball players who need to hang up their cleats.

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“I watched every move Lou made on and off the field,” Joe DiMaggio said after he had been introduced by baseball commissioner Ford Frick at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

DiMaggio explained that he tried to pattern himself after Lou Gehrig. There is no question that he succeeded.

The New York Yankees have had many outstanding players, but none was a finer human being than Gehrig. DiMaggio was a close second. Fans appreciated DiMaggio, and they showed it.

There was polite applause when Frick introduced Frank “Home Run” Baker, Ray Shalk, Gabby Hartnett, Dazzy Vance and Ted Lyons. When the commissioner extended his hand to DiMaggio, the throng went wild with unrestrained cheering that would have made even Marilyn Monroe gratified.

“I’m proud indeed to be put alongside Lou, Bill Dickey, my other old teammates, and those other great players of my time and before.” DiMaggio was truly humbled

DiMaggio was returning to New York from Boston. As he slowed down just before entering the Bronx, a truck driver shouted something that DiMaggio later said sounded like “congratulations.” DiMaggio added that he thought that he also heard “Hall of Fame.”

“I didn’t know what to believe, so I turned on my car radio and sure enough, it was true.”

The tremendous love the fans showed DiMaggio at the induction might have been exceeded on Joe DiMaggio Day at the end of the 1949 season. DiMaggio, who was never ever nervous when facing Bob Feller or any other pitcher, admitted that this was different.

“Look,” he said, holding out his hands before the ceremonies at Yankee Stadium. His hands were trembling.

The Boston Red Sox were lined up near home plate during the ceremonies. They presented DiMaggio with a plaque that had the name of each Boston player inscribed on it. Even the team fighting the Yankees for the 1949 pennant appreciated DiMaggio as a person.

Since his death, there have been some pathetic attempts to denigrate DiMaggio. They merely reveal the lack of class of those individuals that seek to change the truth.

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The Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners play two games at the Tokyo Dome in Japan on Wednesday to open the 2012 Major League Baseball season.

The trip to Tokyo comes nine years after the 2003 trip between Oakland and Seattle was cancelled due to complications involving the conflict in Iraq.

Since then, the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now “Rays”) faced off in Japan in 2004, and Oakland “hosted” the Boston Red Sox on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in ’08.

But those weren’t the first time that the MLB has played games outside of the U.S. and Canada.

And it’s not the only sport to do so.

This is a look back at the best regular-season games played in other countries by the major sports leagues.

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The 1956 baseball season started for the New York Yankees on April 17. The pennant was conceded to them by almost everyone but one or two American League teams.

It appeared that the Yankees had no weaknesses. A 1956 Sports Illustrated spring baseball preview article wondered how any team could beat them.

Yogi Berra was the best catcher in the game. He finished the 1956 season batting .298 and tying his own record for the most home runs by an American League backstop with 30.

In a fascinating statement about Mickey Mantle, the article claims, in all seriousness, “Mantle is so good they say he has a disappointing season if he doesn’t hit .400.” Mantle went on to win the Triple Crown and batted .353.

The infield of Bill Skowron at first, Billy Martin at second, Andy Carey at third and Gil McDougald at shortstop ranked among the best in the league. Both Skowron (.308) and McDougald (.311) were .300 hitters.

According to scouting reports, Skowron had almost as much power as any first baseman in the league. Martin was the Yankees spark.

McDougald had played third base on the 1951 world champions, second base on the 1955 American League champions and now was the regular shortstop, while Carey was expected to provide solid defense and decent power.

The outfield—with Mantle in center field, Hank Bauer (.241 but with 26 home runs) in right field and Elston Howard, Bob Cerv, Norm Siebern and eventually Enos Slaughter in left field—provided power and great defense.

Whitey Ford, who tied for the most wins in the league in 1955 with 18, was expected to win at least that many. He finished at 19-6 with a 157 ERA+.

Bob Turley, Don Larsen, Tom Sturdivant and Johnny Kucks were the other starters. Tom Morgan and Tommy Byrne worked out of the bullpen.

Turley won only eight games due to arm problems, but Kucks stepped up to win 18 and Sturdivant won 16. Larsen won only 11 but we all know what he did on October 8 in the fifth game of the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Kucks capped off a great season by shutting out the Dodgers in the seventh game as the Yankees became world champions for the first time since 1953.

The 1956 Yankees were not close to being the greatest Yankees team, but they won the pennant by nine games over the Cleveland Indians.

Mantle led the league in almost every offensive category, Berra hit the most home runs any American League catcher ever hit in a season and Larsen pitched a perfect game.

It was a pretty good team. Another way of looking at it is that it makes on realize the greatness of the 1998, 1927, 1936 and 1939 Yankees.

Yes, the 1998 team was better than Babe Ruth’s 1927 Yankees.

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The New York Yankees were trailing the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-0 in the top of the eighth inning of Game 5 of the 1964 World Series. It was time for me to leave the television and go to the bus stop. I had a five o’clock statistics class at NYU.

I took my books and, of course, my small, blue transistor radio. As I waited for the bus, I heard Harry Caray say that Pete Mikkelson was taking over for Hal Reniff with Cardinals’ runners on first and second and one out. The radio reception on the bus wasn’t good, but I managed to figure out that Reniff got out of the jam.

Bob Gibson retired the Yankees quickly in the bottom of the eighth inning and it took Mikkelson even less time to retire the Cards in the ninth.

I was feeling depressed because things weren’t going well when, with two outs and Mickey Mantle on second base, Caray’s voice made me feel happier than a fat kid whose mother had just given him a cookie and more tense than a father waiting the birth of his first baby.

Tommy Tresh had hit a home run to tie the game.

By the time I stepped off the bus and started walking to the subway, it was the Cardinals’ half of the 10th inning. I walked very slowly because there would be no radio reception once I walked down the stairs.

It was a nice sunny fall day, but that was irrelevant to me. I didn’t see people, I didn’t see the traffic and the only reason that I almost saw the Ridgewood Savings Bank was because I had seen it so often.

There really was a problem. I had to go into the subway but I had to listen to the game. I really didn’t care if I were late to the statistics class, but I knew that something would make me enter the subway and wait about 40 excruciating minutes before I found out what happened.

Mikkelson, whom I never trusted because he often lacked control, walked Bill White to lead off the 10th inning. White was fast and Mikkelson had trouble holding runners on.

Ken Boyer, the cleanup hitter, bunted. I’ll repeat that for younger fans who will never see a cleanup hitter bunt. Boyer pushed a bunt toward the right side and beat it out.

Now we were in trouble. I stopped just before the entrance to the subway. The Ridgewood Savings Bank was to my right and the roar of Queens Blvd. traffic, which interfered with the sound coming out of my cheap $2 “Boy’s Radio,” was on the left.

I held the radio close to my ear. Bill White stole third to put runners on first and third with no outs, but Dick Groat hit a ground ball to Pedro Gonzalez to force Boyer at second. White held third.

I no longer was concerned about being late to class. I no longer felt any tension. I no longer felt any joy. To this day, I will never forgive Tim McCarver or Pete Mikkelson.

McCarver hit a three-run home run, Gibson pitched a complete game six-hitter, striking out 13, not allowing an earned run.

I raised the hand carrying the radio and turned toward the wall of the bank. As I was about to smash it  to smithereens, I remembered that I would need it for the sixth game. It was not a happy subway ride.

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