Thursday Thoughts

Good Afternoon baseball fans, time for some thoughts on the great game of our youth, the game of baseball.


Thanks to the Blue Jays Jose Bautista for getting 2 hits for me last night in my FOX Sports Baseball Hot Streak, which now stands at 3 in a row.


Bautista, the big league HR leader, singled twice last night at Kansas City, and hasn't gone deep since May 28th against the White Sox.


Tonight I'm all about the Tigers Justin Verlander, and 5+ strikeouts vs, the Mariners,


Here's my history of selections.

It was very sad to hear of the passing yesterday of former Detroit Tigers outfielder Jim Northrup.


Jim was a member of the 1968 World Series Championship Tigers, and his  2 run triple in the 7th inning of Game 7 was the series winner.


The Gray Fox was a terrific player for the Tigers, and I've written before about his home run into the depths of the right field bleacher one night in 1972.


The ball landed about 10 rows, or so, in front of me, and is as close as I've ever had a HR ball come near me.


The firing of manager Bob Geren today by the Oakland A's is one of those firing's that always makes me wonder why.


The A's have been depleted by injuries, including four starting pitchers who are currently on the DL, and closer Andrew Bailey, who was hurt for two months.


The A's have a bad offense, yes, but the last time I looked the manager doesn't draft the players.


Geren will be replaced by Bob Melvin, who has experience as the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.


I see where the Yankees didn't like it when the Red Sox David Ortiz flipped his bat after hitting a home run on Tuesday night in Boston's win over New York.


Really?


In a rivalry like the Yankees-Red Sox, showing emotion after hitting a big HR is part of the game.


If the Yankees don't like it, maybe they should try getting Big Papi and the other BoSox players out.


Boston is 9-1 this year against the Bronx Bombers.


The Pittsburgh Pirates are 30-30 on the year after winning last night over the Diamondbacks.


It's the first time since 2005 that the Bucs have been at the .500 mark this late in the baseball season.


One of my favorite players to watch is the Pirates young center fielder, Andrew McCutchen, who's walk off HR in the 12th inning of last night's game gave the Pirates a 3-2 win.


The Rockies Tod Helton doubled twice last night, his 541st double of his big league career, tying him with Bobby Abreu of the Angels, and Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby for 27th All-Time in the big leagues.


Boston's knuckleballer Tim Wakefield won his 182nd game with the BoSox, and is now within 10 games of joining the legendary Cy Young and Roger Clemens with the most All-Time wins as a Red Sox pitcher.


Until next time, batter up!

Twitter Tuesday

Thanks to Ryan Braun of the Brewers for collecting a pair of hits, and now I have a streak of 1 on my quest for greatness on the FOX Sports Baseball Hot Streak contest.

Tonight I'm all in for King Felix, the Mariners Felix Hernandez, who needs to srtike out 5 batters against the ChiSox.

For those of you who don't know, I'm a very proud member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, a baseball site that brings fans from all corners of the baseball universe,

Every big league club is represented, and there are blogs for everyone.

Coming up next week I will be voting in the BBA Annual All-Star voting, letting everyone know my selections in the mid summer classic.

Today is our weekly Twitter Tuesday, sharing baseball fans and sites I follow over at my Twitter page.

First up today are the great baseball fans over at Through The Fence Baseball, at @TTFBaseball

Through The Fence Baseball, is simply a terrific place for baseball fans to find articles on anything from the Dodgers ownership problems, to the top 5 baseball movies that DO NOT feature Kevin Costner.

If you want to laugh, head over to @PhilCokesBrain, and believe me, you will not be disappointed.

One of the great things about Twitter is the many baseball players who are on Twitter.

A couple of weeks ago I found out that my favorite pitcher, the Tigers Justin Verlander, is now tweeting, at @JustinVerlander.

Some other players that I follow are, former Atlanta Braves 2 time MVP Dale Murphy, @DaleMurphy3, the Pirates Paul Maholm, @Maholm28, and the Yankees Curtis Granderson, @cgrand14

Granderson  is very active on Twitter, knows his baseball history, and will often get his followers involved in his charity work.

If you love baseball, and are on Twitter, feel free to follow me, @freehan11 and we will talk baseball.

Also, if you'd like, post in the comment section and let me know where you are on Twitter, and the players, teams, sites, that you follow.

Congratulations to the Giants Tim Lincecum, who became the 8th pitcher to record 1,000 K's in his first five years.

Brennan Boesch of the Detroit Tigers became the first Tiger player to collect 5 hits in a game since center fielder Austin Jackson in April of 2010.

After 12 big league seasons with the Houston Astros, Lance Berkman, who will be getting my vote for the All-Star Game, will return to Houston with the St. Louis Cardinals starting tonight.

Once part of Houston's "Killer B's,", with Craig Biggio, and Jeff Bagwell,   I'm certain the Astros fans will give Lance a nice welcome home.

Have you ever been to Cooperstown, New York, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame?

Would you like to?

Over at MLB.com there's a contest that will give you a chance, courtesy of Phillips Norelco.

Boston Red Sox closer Jonathon Papelbon has been suspended for 3 games after his incident this past Saturday with umpire Tony Randazzo.

Papelbon is appealing, of course, and will still be available to the BoSox as they travel to the Bronx tonight for the start of a 3 game series against the Yankees.

Please make sure to vote in our polls while visiting the site. 

My current poll is on the Cubs Carlos Zambrano, who's, once again, shooting his mouth off about everything wrong with his teammates in Chicago.

Until next time, enjoy the baseball.

Monday Mop Up

Today is June 6th, the 67th anniversary of D-Day, and the Normandy invasion of France by the Allied Forces in 1944, during WW II.

It was a pretty good weekend to be a Detroit Tigers fan, as the boys from the Motor City went into the Windy City and took 2 of 3 from the White Sox.

The team was lead by good starting pitching from Justin Verlander(6-3) and Brad Penny, and the long ball, home runs from Brennan Boesch and Miguel Cabrera on Saturday, and then Cabrera(again) and a grand slam from Ryan Rayburn on Sunday.

Today's Happy, Happy Birthday's include Yankees Hall of Fame catcher Bill Dickey(1907), the Orioles Merv Rettenmund(1943), the Mets Bud Harrelson(1944), Dave Bergman of the 1984 Wold Champion Detroit Tigers(1953), and Tony Graffanino of the Braves(1972).

Today is the anniversary of the first time a sitting U.S. President ever attended a big league baseball game.

In 1892 President Benjamin Harrison was in attendance as the Cincinnati Reds beat the hometown Washington Senators, 6-5, in 11 innings.

Go here for a list of President's and Baseball Famous Firsts

Dose anyone still NOT believe that the Cardinals Albert Pujols is the best hitter in baseball?

The St.Louis slugger hammered Cubs pitching over the weekend, including consecutive game winning walk off home runs as the Cards swept the Cubs, who have lost 6 straight games.

The bats of Pujols and the Cards travel to Houston, to play the Astros, who are 23-37, 12.5 games behind St. Louis in the N.L. Central.

After a good start to the weekend with my pick of the Dodgers Matt Kemp, who collected 2 hits on Friday night, my FOX Sports Baseball Hot Streak has now gone into a 2 game slide, as Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays failed to get a hit on Saturday, and Atlanta Braves starter Tim Hudson gave up 5 runs on 7 hits in just 4 innings.

I hope to start a new winning streak with my pick of the Brewers Ryan Braun to collect at least 1 base hit tonight against the Marlins.

Today is the start of the Major League Baseball Draft.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have the 1st pick in the draft, and some believe the Pirates will select UCLA pitcher Gerrit Cole #1 overall.

I have to admit, the baseball draft has never interested me that much.

I follow the Detroit Tigers, who don't have a selection in the draft until pick #76, because of their free agent signing of Victor Martinez and Joaquin Benoit.

You can follow the big league draft starting at live tonight at 7PM at MLB.com or on The MLB Network.

San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum is 5 strike outs from 1,000 in his career.

The baseball schedule gives us the Yankees and Red Sox starting tomorrow.

The Yankees, 7-3 in their last 10 games, are 1 game ahead of the BoSox(6-4) in the American League East.

The St. Louis Cardinals start the week with the most wins in the big leagues, with 36.

The Houston Astros have lost 3 in a row, and now have the most losses in the big leagues, with 37, tied with the Minnesota Twins, who have won 4 in a row.


The KC Royals have only won 6 of their 25 games on the road.

The Giants and the Cardinals have both won a big league best 18 games on the road.

Tomorrow is Twitter Tuesday here on the blog.

I will be featuring some of the fans and players I follow on my Twitter page.

I would love to talk baseball with anyone on Twitter, just send me a tweet.

Until next time, enjoy the baseball.

Friday Fastballs

Here's a few random thoughts and things as we head into the first weekend of June baseball.

First, today's trivia...


Who leads the big leagues in total bases this year?


Casper Wells of the Detroit Tigers hit a 3-run HR off the ChiSox Mark Buehrle tonight, continuing the team's streak of at least one extra base hit in every game for the Tigers, the only team in the big leagues to have done that this season.

Here's today's Happy, Happy Birthdays...

The Orioles Jim Gentile, in 1934, the ChiSox Steve Lyons,and the Mets Barry Lyons, not related,  in 1960...a very good year.


Carl Everett of the Red Sox was born in 1971, as was the Devil Rays Aaron Ledesma, and current Blue Jays catcher Jose Molina of the famed Molina brothers was born on this June day in 1975.


My struggles with picking correctly continues on my daily baseball picks on the FOX Sports Baseball Hot Streak.


Tonight I need at least one hit from the Dodgers Matt Kemp to end a personal 2 pick losing streak.


The past two pick failures were the Brewers Jonathan Lucroy, and Asdrubal Cabrera of the Indians, who both failed to get at least one hit for me.


The loss of Buster Posey, the talented Rookie of the Year catcher for the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants is a bad break, indeed.

The saddest part of the injury, however, is the response to the play at the plate that injured the Giants star catcher by their General Manager, Brian  Sabean.

 Sabean went on local radio, a full eight days after the injury, and blasted the Florida Marlins Scott Cousins, the player who crashed into Posey, saying,

“If I never hear from Cousins again and he never plays another game in the big leagues, I think we'll all be happy,”

For a big league GM to say that about a player is way out of line, and he should personally apologize to Cousins, the Marlins, and baseball as a whole.

We can debate for hours about that play, and weather Cousins went out of his way to hit Posey, heck, some of Posey's Giants team thought the play was legal.

Cousins has even apologized for the play, something he did not need to do.

I think a fine is in order for GM Sabean, and I hope Commissioner Bud Selig sees it that way to.

What's going on with the 3 HR games in big league baseball?

Yesterday's 3 HR barrage from the Giants Aubrey Huff against the St. Louis Cardinals make him the 6th player in 22 days to go yard three times in a single game.

On May 21st we found out that Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter was diagnosed with four small malignant tumors on his brain.

As expected, there has been an out pouring of sentiment toward Carter, and several baseball fans have asked that the Mets honor Carter with a retirement of the #8 he wore for the team.

Over on Yahoo Sports, Big League Stew talks about the need for the Mets to honor Carter now, and I couldn't agree more.

I was very surprised that Carter's #8 wasn't already retired, after all, he was the glue that formed that 1986 Mets World Series Championship, and, oh, yeah, he's a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Fans, don't forget to go to MLB.com and vote for this year's All-Star Game.

Voting runs through June 30th, and you may vote up to 25 times.

My annual post of my All-Star Game picks will come in a week, or two, but I've already voted a few times.

Matt Kemp, Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto, and Asdrubal Cabrera are some of my choices so far.

I always vote a few times over the course of a month and a half, making sure to give credit to deserving players over that time span.

Being baseball fans, there is always a moment during the season when we look at the stats of players, and wonder what's going on as that player struggles at the plate, in the field, and on the mound.

Over at S.I.com Joe Sheehan looks at the under performing players so far in the 2011 baseball year.

Note...aforementioned Aubry Huff of the Giants must have read this article before hitting his three dingers yesterday.

Today's Trivia Answer...Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays has133 total bases as of June 3rd.

Have a great weekend, and, as always, enjoy the ball games.

Today in Baseball, June 2nd

Today is June 2nd, 2011

Happy Birthday to my Uncle Paul, who turns 69 today, and to my late father, Tommie Sharp, who would have been 74 today.

Here are some of today's Happy Happy Baseball Birthdays...Jim Maloney of the Cincinnati Red Legs, Horace Clarke of the New YorkYankees, Detroit Tigers infielder Darnell Coles, California Angels pitcher Bryan Harvey, Mike Stanton of the Atlanta Braves, and current Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Raul Ibanez.

One year ago, on June 2nd, 2010, Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers threw a perfect game against the Cleveland Indians, only to see first base umpire Jim Joyce blow the final out call...One year later it's still a game of perfection.

 

June 2nd is a day of remembrance in baseball history.

It was on this day in 1941 that Lou Gehrig passed away from the disease ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, now known to all of us as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Only 37, Gehrig had played in a then record 2,130 consecutive baseball games, when he took himself out of a game in Detroit after playing the first 8 games that year.

Gehrig would never play another game in the big leagues.

To learn more about Gehrig, and ALS, visit The Official Lou Gehrig Web Site

Also on June 2nd, in 1935, another legendary Yankee, Babe Ruth, announced his retirement, taking a then record 714 home runs with him.

And on June 2nd, 1990, in Seattle, Mariners pitcher Randy Johnson no-hit the Detroit Tigers, and the Mariners won, 2-0.

One year later, it's still a game of perfection

My, oh my, how fast a single year goes by.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the "28 up, 28 down" Perfect Game tossed by then Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga at Comerica Park in Detroit.

The only problem, of course, was that 1st base umpire Jim Joyce, regarded as one of the best by a vote of big league players, blew the final out when he called Cleveland Indians 2nd baseman Jason Donald safe at 1st base, when in fact, he was the 27th and final out in a brilliant game of perfection by Galarraga..

What happened after the game, and the next day, have become a lesson in something that is dying a slow death in baseball, and in sports...sportsmanship.

Galarraga never complained, not after he saw Joyce call Donald safe when he knew he had clutched the ball in his glove for the final out, or after the game when he told the media, "no one's perfect."

In the umpire's room after the game Joyce, who was berated by the Tigers and manager Jim Leyland on the field after the game, looked at the replay of out #27, and realized immediately that he had made a colossal mistake.

Joyce was so upset that he had blown the call of perfection that he went over to the Tigers locker room and personally apologized to Galarraga for ruining his perfection.

Joyce and Galarraga would meet again the very next day in Comerica Park, as Joyce, the home plate umpire for the afternoon game, shook hands with Galarraga as the tall Venezuelan handed Joyce the Tigers team line up card.

There is a brand new book out, co-authored by Joyce and Galarraga, that takes a look at that magic night in Detroit, from both perspectives of what would have been the first ever perfect game pitched by a member of the Detroit Tigers.

"Nobody's Perfect: Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History" 

 

Wednesday Walks...back from the DL

Hope everyone had a fantastic Memorial Day.

After spending both Monday and Tuesday on the DL, I'm back and feeling  better today.

As usual, I'll start out with my FOX Baseball HOT Streak pick of the day... Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy to get at least 1 hit.

My weekend picks weren't great, but thanks to Roy Halladay striking out 5 batters on Monday vs. the Nationals I have a streak of one.

I had Jose Reyes yesterday to get 1 hit, but he didn't play, so the pick doesn't count.

There's a LIFE magazine look at the 25 greatest sports streaks. There are four baseball streaks included, although, as a baseball fan, the order may not be accurate. Go check it out and see if you agree.

It's great to see the Arizona Diamondbacks winning again.

It's not that I'm a fan of the reptiles, but I am, of course, a fan of the D-Backs manager, Kirk Gibson.

Gibson manages with the same flair and intensity that he did as a big league ball player.

Gibby won the 1988 N.L. MVP with the Dodgers and two World Series Championships, in 1984 with the Tigers, and in 1988 with the Dodgers.

The D-Backs lead the N.L. West by a 1/2 game entering play today after a miserable start to the season and became the first big league club to gain 7 games in the standings and over take 1st place in a division.

The Seattle Mariners are playing good baseball.

Well, they are pitching well.

The M's are 8-2 in their last 10, and have a winning record at home, 15-13.

As usual, it's Seattle's pitching that has kept the team going.

The Mariners are dead last in hitting in the A.L., with a dismal .231 batting average,  but the team ERA is 3.39, second in the A.L., allowing just 183 earned runs, also second in the league, and the Mariners staff has a league leading WHIP of 1.22.

Seattle is in 2nd place in a very competitive A.L. West, where the last place Oakland A's are only 2 1/2 games behind 1st place Texas Rangers.

The smallest crowd ever in Safeco Field history saw a come from behind win over the Orioles last night on a Justin Smoak  3-run HR in the bottom of the 8th, giving the M's a 3-2 win.

The 15-13 May record for Seattle is the clubs first winning month since last June.

The LA Angels are in 3rd place, just a game back.

Speaking of the Angels, it was nice to read about one of baseball's good guys, Torri Hunter, collecting his 1,000th career RBI

Check out my new poll on baseball's best division...who do you think plays the best baseball?

 I must admit, I am not a huge fan of the World Baseball Classic.

If the USA doesn't do well, heck, i just don't pay that much attention.

World Baseball, Inc., announced today that there will be a new play in round to the 2013 WBC, allowing 12 new countries to compete.

That is a good thing for baseball, the more clubs, the more baseball.

Maybe I'll watch more closely in 2013, and maybe, just maybe, I'll pay closer attention.

In closing I's d just like to take a moment to say "thank you" to all of you who read my blog.

I really do appreciate you taking time away from your day to read about my thought on the great game of baseball.

Until next time, enjoy the games.