Better shun the bait,
than struggle in the snare.
John Dryden
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| Proto Courtesy of AP/Kathy Kmonicek |
#23 in MLB History; #3 This Season, #6 No-Hitter
How rare is a perfect game? The first recorded one was pitched by Lee Richmond of the National League Worcestor (MA) Ruby Legs against the Cleveland Blues on June 12, 1880 when Rutherford B. Hayes was President. (Amateur baseball under the prototype "Knickerbocker" rules (variations of earlier games of town ball and rounders) established by Alexander Cartwright (not Abner Doubleday), a voluntary Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company firefighter, and the first game under these rules was played in 1846 when the New York Knickerbockers faced the New York Nine. The first professional baseball team was the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings; four professional teams from an interim fledgling National Association joined the independent Cincinnati and Louisville teams to form the National League in 1876; the American League followed in 1901.)
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| First MLB perfect game pitcher Lee Richmond of Worcestor |
Seattle Mariner pitching ace Felix Hernandez joined the elite 22 other pitchers by pitching the Mariners past the Tampa Bay Rays this afternoon 1-0. The hapless Rays join the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers in having the most (3) perfect games thrown against them in their history.
I would say of any sports feat (e.g., hitting a hole in one in golf, bowling a 300 game, etc.), this is the one I would want as an athlete. Baseball is fairly unique in the way it combines individual with team achievement. The contest between a pitcher and batter is a match of both mind and skills. (Of course, if you have a 100 mph fastball, you don't have to do a lot of thinking, other than perhaps to pace oneself and keep the batter honest with varying the location, pitch and speed: the ball goes from pitcher to batter in about half a second.)
I mentioned in yesterday's post about being a southpaw. Only one coach thought about using me as a pitcher at the beginning of one season; I have a natural sidearm motion and could throw hard; he wanted me to throw with an over-the-top motion. But when I was playing catch (all the time) with my middle brother, I used to try a variety of other pitches as well (slider, curve, knuckle ball,...). I think just like any competitor I would have relished the mind game of setting up the batter, only to sling a Sandy Koufax high fastball across the letters past him. Or do something no other pitcher I've seen do--my right-handed fastball is even harder than my left-handed fastball: My boyhood dream as a sports athlete was to become the first switch-pitching, switch-hitting player in the major leagues.
This is one of the most entertaining sports videos I've ever seen: minor league switch pitcher Pat Venditte facing a switch hitter Ralph Henriquez (go, Venditte!). (Switch-hitters are much more common, just over 10% of all batters.)
[For those who don't follow baseball, right-handed pitchers have a natural advantage against right-handed batters (e.g., a curve ball breaks away from the batter) and vice versa. So what happens is when Venditte goes to pitch left-handed against Henriquez, Henriquez shifts to batting right; Venditte then switches to pitching right-handed, Henriquez shifts to batting left. We are at an impasse, and the umpires aren't sure how to deal with it. If I had been Venditte, I would have stood with both hands behind my back and had the umpire commit the batter to a specific batter's box.]
Wikipedia notes:
This [incident] prompted the PBUC (Professional Baseball Umpires Corporation) to issue rules about switch-pitching: switch-pitchers must choose which way they will begin pitching before they start. Then, batters will select with which hand they will bat. The batter and the pitcher are each allowed one switch during the plate appearance, after the first pitch is thrown.The same article notes 4 ambidextrous pitchers in the early era and one modern-era pitcher (Greg Harris) whom switch-pitched in a 1995 game for the Expos against the Reds.
The greatest player of all-time? Not even close. Babe Ruth. He was principally a pitcher for 3 seasons, starting with his first full season with the Boston Red Sox in 1915, winning 18 games on a loaded rotation (not even a pitching appearance in the Series). In 1916 he won 23 games with a 1.75 ERA and set the American League record of shutouts with 9, a record he continues to share today. In 1917, he won 24 games with a 2.01 ERA and led the major leagues in complete games with 35. (The last pitcher with 30 complete games was Catfish Hunter in 1975, and leaders since 2000 have been in the high single digits.) On July 11, 1917, Babe Ruth threw a one-hitter against the Tigers, striking out Ty Cobb, widely considered baseball's greatest hitter, to end the game; he himself got 2 hits off the winning pitcher.
The Babe's hitting prowess led to the Red Sox transitioning him into an everyday player. To give an indication, Babe Ruth hit 4 home runs in 1915 in 42 games while AL home run champ Braggo Roth hit 7; Babe Ruth led the American League in home runs from 1918 through 1931 except for 2 seasons, unprecedented dominance; during that streak he was hitting more home runs by himself than entire teams; the two seasons he didn't lead he missed a third of the games. Babe Ruth hit a home run less than every 12 official at bats, averaging an adjusted 46 HR's per 162 game season with a slugging percentage (all-time leader of .690); Barry Bonds (who played during the suspect steroid era: I will simply point out between 1986 and 1999 he had only one season (1993) with at least 45 home runs; he then hit 45 or more every year between 2000 through 2004; in contrast, Babe Ruth hit 54 and 59 home runs his first two seasons with the Yankees starting in 1920 and had his surge comparably earlier in his career) hit a homer in every 13 at bats for a total of 762, an adjusted 41 home runs per season and slugging percentage of .607, and Hank Aaron with 755 HR's hit a home run every 16 trips to the plate with an adjusted 37 home runs per seasons and a slugging percentage of .555
How astounding was he? In his final short lived season in 1935 for the Boston Braves, the 40-year-old Ruth, in bad physical shape, hit 3 home runs at Forbes Field, driving in 6 runs--his final of 714 home runs being the first home run ever hit over the roof. He appeared in one subsequent game inning, injuring his knee before finally retiring.
Still, Babe Ruth dominated his two starts (and wins) in the 1918 World Series, with a 1.06 ERA and setting a scoreless inning streak at just under 30 innings, a record that would stand until 1961. Here's a good summary:
Ruth wound up his career with a 94-46 record, 17 shutouts and 2.28 ERA. Ironically enough, the man noted for home runs surrendered a grand total of just 10 in 163 appearances.
Oh, back to those Yankee wins. Ruth won his first game for the Yanks in 1920, his first year with the team. And 13 years later he won his final game to extend his New York record to 5-0.That final game pitched? A complete game, of course...
Considering the Babe had only 20 starts in 1918 (nearly half as many as in 1917) and still won 13 and pitched in even fewer games in 17 games (9-5) in 1919, he was the most phenomenal southpaw in the major leagues while with the Red Sox. Most pitchers dream of retiring with 300 wins; Babe Ruth currently ranks as #16 lifetime among pitchers in (lowest) ERA with at least 1000 innings patched, 6 places below Walter Johnson, the legendary strikeout king, whom Ruth beat 4 out of 5 times in 1916 (including a 13-inning shutout). It boggles the mind to think what his final record could have been with more than 3 full seasons in the starting rotation or pitching more than 5 games his last 15 seasons...
With all due respect to Felix, the best pitcher all-time? I have to pick a man I went to see pitch while I lived in Houston: Nolan Ryan. The man pitched his 7th and final no-hitter for Texas in 1991--at the age of 44; he has almost twice the number as runner up, southpaw Sandy Koufax. A predominantly fastball pitcher with all-time 5714 strikeouts (nearly 900 more than the runner up, Randy Johnson), one of the few pitchers with pitches clocked at over 100 mph.
Saber-Ratting Between Israel and Iran?
Thumbs DOWN!
I am well aware that Saudi Arabia has vowed that it will not let stand Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yes, I'm aware that Iran's theocratic dictatorship regularly engages in over-the-top rhetoric, but let's hope that cooler heads prevail. I have faith in the young people of Iran whom have suffered the most from Iran's meddling in the Middle East; I am confident that they, too, will throw off the shackles of authoritarian government, just as others from the past Arab spring. I urge the Obama Administration and for the Romney-Ryan campaign to urge cooler heads to prevail and distance themselves from unhelpful rhetoric about an American military intervention, which I oppose.
Overly Generous Public Pensions?
It's Not Just States and Municipalities Anymore....
A federal retiree zoologist making $162K/year? Give me a break! So help me if I read again the same old same old nonsensical rhetoric from union propagandists about "highly trained/educated/put their lives on the line", which somehow they seem to think justifies multi-million dollar payouts to high-level bureaucrats working in an anti-competitive government monopoly. I don't necessarily oppose mid-$20K payouts to public sector employees whom are not eligible for social security, but USA Today has a good figure on one of a vanishing breed of private sector companies offering defined benefit plans, Exxon-Mobil:
ExxonMobil, which has one of the best remaining private pensions, pays an average of $18,250 per retiree, Labor Department filings show.Here are some key takeaways:
- More than 21,000 retired federal workers receive lifetime government pensions of $100,000 or more per year
- Pensions are a growing federal budget burden, rising twice as fast as inflation over the last decade. Pension payments cost $70 billion last year, plus $13 billion for retiree health care. Taxpayers face a $2 trillion unfunded liability.
- The average federal pension pays $32,824 annually. The average state and local government pension pays $24,373
Romney-Ryan? Avoid the Obama Trap
on Executive Order "Amnesty"
I am a free marketer. I think that businesses (including farms) have a right to an unfettered labor market, including all classifications, from unskilled to skilled. I don't believe in government intervention arbitrarily interfering with that flow, in a way which promotes protectionism.
I have made it clear in several posts I oppose expulsion of children whom have lived for a significant amount of their lives in the US (regardless of place of birth) and the breakup of families. I refuse to scapegoat people whom have worked around a broken-down legal foreign worker/visitor program; that's a failure of our national leadership.
This is not to say I approve of Obama's attempt to establish through executive fiat what the Congress failed to provide. I think Senator Rubio has had a very thoughtful compromise that the Democrats should have signed onto before doing an executive order with rather obvious election year impact.
I noticed that Drudge explicitly references a local NBC news report on a crowd of 11,000 young immigrants attending a relevant Dream workshop as "amnesty", a code word for anti-immigrant conservative activists. The Romney campaign needs to be very careful here: as a free marketer I see an open economy (instead of a black market) as a good thing. If the campaign does say something, it should explicitly note that its priority in dealing with unauthorized workers is not hard-working households with children but criminal organizers working around American laws.
Cracking down on hard-working couples, innocent young people, or family union is politically radioactive, and that's precisely the intent of the Obama campaign. Let's just hope that the Romney campaign isn't stupid enough to fall into the trap. (I haven't been happy with the Romney campaign to date. They seem to be working hard in losing an election which should be a gimme against the worst President in American history.)
The policy argument should simply address Obama's failure to compromise on immigration policy over the past 4 years, his abuse of executive authority in making an order after Congress had spoken, and his manipulation of the issue in an election year. I would hope that Romney-Ryan would embrace the Rubio initiative.
Political Humor
Police in Florida have arrested a man who said he finally achieved his goal of shoplifting in all 50 states. You know what you call someone who steals from all 50 states?
[The Federal Reserve chairman.]
Mitt Romney kept his selection of Ryan as his VP nominee secret for more than a week. You know how he was able to keep it secret? He had it hidden next to his tax returns. - Jay Leno
[...next to his tax returns in the Swiss bank deposit box.]
Did you enjoy the Olympics? How about Usain Bolt, the fastest man on earth. What an athlete. The slowest man on earth?
[The postman delivering your IRS refund...]
You can't make this stuff up: the living gaffe machine is at it again, this time forgetting which century we live in... Sarah Palin is urging Obama to dump Biden for Hillary Clinton. Tough about tough decisions: Obama has to choose between keeping Biden on his ticket or taking Sarah Palin's advice.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Freddie Valli and the Four Seasons, "December 1963 (What a Night)"
