Sports Then and Now

Have you ever wanted to watch a baseball highlight without going on MLB.com and trying to navigate their ridiculous video section? Well that might not be a problem any longer. Major League Baseball has finally lifted its ban of Major League clips on YouTube. As every other sports league was easily accessible worldwide, the tyranny of Bud Selig wouldn’t allow even a 30 second clip of an MLB game. Now MLB has finally joined the 21st century and has posted full game videos of classic games, and have eased their ban on others posting MLB videos.

One of the best full games MLB had posted thus far is the 1999 all-star game at Fenway Park.

Every Red Sox fan remembers this classic!! Ted Williams is comes out of Center field waving his hat to the crowd, and even the players are in awe of the greatest hitter that ever lived. The when the actually starts, Pedro Martinez strikes out 5 of the 6 batters he faces.

If you have 5 hours to kill, you can always watch game 5 of the 2004 ALCS

And you can even follow it up by watching the Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years!

Although the MLB YouTube channel isn’t spectacular, its a start for the league. The NBA, NHL, and even European Football have been big commodities on YouTube, and people all over the world now have the opportunity to follow teams without paying with a limb for an MLB subscription

When you evaluate the home plate umpires for the World Series after two games, clearly Dan Iassogna called a better game than Gerry Davis did.

Overall the Umpire Strikezone Scores on Close Calls, Iassogna had .923 and Davis had .838 correct.

When you look at the split between left and right handed batters Davis was not very consistent.

On left handed batters Gerry Davis had 33 pitches within six inches of the plate where he had to make a call.

He called seven pitches strikes that were off the plate, and two pitches balls that were really strikes. Nine wrong calls out of 33 game him a USS.727.

On RHH Davis missed only four pitches total for a USS of .915.

If Davis ever looked at these numbers and graphics he would see that he always calls a pitch that is really outside a strike, but he only does this with left handed batters.

Home plate is 17 inches across for both right and left handed batters.

Why do many umpires continue to make the plate wider for left handed hitters than they do for right handed hitters?

Iassogna is in the lead for the best ball and strike umpire of the 2012 World Series. His .923 total is going to be the number to beat.

What do you think the umpires would do if these graphics were shown in every park while each game was being played?

Do you think they would learn to call that outside pitch to left handed hitters a ball, if everyone saw how they missed it so many times?

Gerry Davis 2012 World Series Game 1

USS total .838. 80 close call pitches 13 incorrect calls

LHH USS .727 33 close call pitches: seven balls called strikes, two strikes called balls

RHH USS .915 47 close call pitches four balls called strikes, zero strikes called balls

Dan Iassogna Game 2 2012 World Series.

USS total .923 91 close called pitches seven incorrect calls

LHH USS .857 28 close call pitches: three balls called strikes, one strike called a ball

RHH USS .952 63 close call pitches: one ball called a strike, two strikes called balls

Replay Will Cut Down On This.

The non-call at second base during Game One of the NLCS was another example of not using replays to make the right call.

Clearly Matt Holliday was past the bag, and he used a barrel roll into Marco Scutaro. Any competent umpire should have called runner interference, and ruled it a double play.

How could Rich Gedman be called for being out of the baseline (in 1988 ALCS) for what he did, when Holliday was past the bag when he started to slide?

He should have been ejected and banned from the next game.

One look at the replay and you could see he broke the rules. It was a dirty play. Umpires need to follow the rules, and then don’t.

If you looked at a replay you can tell in one look if he made the wrong call.

Just give each manager three chances a game to use instant replay.

If you get them all right, you can keep using them all game.

Each time a manager throws the red ball on the field he will be challenging a call. No need to argue, just toss the red ball and we all get to use instant replay.

The umpires will turn and everyone in the park will watch the big screen and in 10 seconds there will be four angles of the questionable play, and at the end of ten seconds the ball, glove, and player will be frozen on the screen.

The umpire will either raise his hand in an out signal or signal safe with both hands.

Read the rest of this entry →

Mickey Lolich

The October Sports Then and Now Athlete of the Month had one of the best Octobers in World Series history to help lead the Detroit Tigers to a World Series title in 1968.

Considering that the pitching staff for the 1968 Tigers also included 31-game winner Denny McLain is might seem surprising that left-hander Mickey Lolich would become the staff ace as the Tigers won their first World Series title in 23 years. Read the rest of this entry →

An improbable season ended with the St. Louis Cardinals as the 2011 World Series Champions.

The 2011 St. Louis Cardinals are a perfect reminder that in sports it isn’t how you start, it is about how you finish.

Considering that they lost their best pitcher to injury before the season even began and with just six weeks left were 10.5 games behind in the Wild Card race, it is quite amazing that last night they claimed the 11th World Series Championship in team history.

Even in the World Series they seemingly had an insurmountable mountain to climb as they were twice down to their final strike before rallying for an improbably extra inning victory in game six.

Then in the decisive seventh game they trailed early, but scored the final six runs to defeat the favored Texas Rangers.

Since Tony Larussa became manager of the Cardinals in 1996, the team has had their greatest success in seasons when they weren’t given much of a chance.

The 90-72 record that St. Louis posted in 2011 was actually the seventh best single season total for the franchise during Larussa’s tenure. Yet, the only other World Series title the team has earned came in 2006 when the team won only 83 games.

The Cardinals finished the 2011 season winning 24 of their final 33 games to sneak into the playoffs on the final day of the season.

They then won the final two games of their first round playoff matchup against the heavily favored Philadelphia Phillies to advance to the NL Championship Series. Read the rest of this entry →

Reggie Jackson's play in the post season earned him the nickname "Mr. October."

You can debate whether or not there’s such a thing as “clutch” hitting. Scoring runs in the first inning is just as important as scoring runs in the ninth inning, right? Does the process of securing a hit change dramatically as the situation changes dramatically? Should we completely ignore the human elements of emotion, concentration and focus, each of which may fluctuate depending on the person in the batter’s box?

The following players (five hitters, five pitchers), for whatever reason, hit and pitched extremely well during the postseason, a period of time when the margin for error — and patience for under performing — is at a minimum.

1. Babe Ruth
He’s the greatest for a reason. As a pitcher in the postseason, Ruth boasts a microscopic 0.87 ERA in 31 innings pitched, a shutout and a 3-0 record. His best performance came in a 14-inning, complete game win in Game 2 of the 1916 World Series. In both World Series in which he pitched, the Red Sox won (1916 over the Brooklyn Robins and 1918 over the Chicago Cubs). As a hitter, he amassed 15 home runs in 167 plate appearances, accumulating an impressive 1.211 OPS. In 1928, he hit .625 in a four-game sweep of the Cardinals, notably mashing three home runs in the series-clinching game.

2. Reggie Jackson
Mr. October kindly disagrees with the idea that clutch hitting doesn’t exist. He was the first player to win World Series MVP with two different teams (Athletics and Yankees), and was just the second player to hit three homeruns in a World Series game — that, as you probably know, came in the series-clinching Game 6 of the 1977 World Series versus the Dodgers. During the six games, he hit five home runs with a .450 average and 1.792 OPS. A year later, he led the Yankees to a repeat in a rematch, hitting a meager two home runs with a .391 average and 1.196 OPS. He hit 18 home runs during his postseason career. Read the rest of this entry →