Hot Stove League Standings thru

Monday, May 11, 2015

At approximately this point in 2014, the top team was the eventual champion Monarchs with a 268 point lead on the field.  The Blues and Bears trailed the field, being over 200 points out of 11th place and over 900 points out of first.  Even the free-falling Blues are less than 500 points behind this year.  So you have that going for you, Stretch.  Which is nice. 

TOP 20 Hitters thru Monday, May 11, 2015

Breakdown of Top 20 hitters by team:

Monarchs 3; Bums 3; Chiefs 2; Wahoos 2; Bombers 2; Tribe 2; Senators 2; Blues 1; Bears 1; Skipjacks 1; Cubs 1; Redbirds 0; Tigers 0.   

Jimmy, I feel your pain.

Repeaters from 2014 in Top 20 at this point:  Goldschmidt, Donaldson, Trout, Freeman, Miguel Cabrera, A. Gonzalez, N. Cruz

TOP 20 Pitchers thru Monday, May 11, 2015

Breakdown of Top 20 pitchers by team:

Skipjacks 5; Senators 3; Wahoos 3; Monarchs 3; Cubs 2; Tigers 1; Tribe 1; Redbirds 1; Blues 1; Bums 0; Bombers 0; Chiefs 0; Bears 0.

Repeaters from 2014 in Top 20 at this point:  F. Hernandez, Greinke, Keuchel, S. Gray, Scherzer, Cueto, Kazmir, Shields

Clayton Kershaw only had 74 points at this stage last year, and ended up with a boat load. 

TOP 3 PLAYERS BY POSITION

            BILL JAMES HISTORICAL BASEBALL ABSTRACT EXCERPTS

Here are a couple of bios of players ranked among the best third basemen by Bill James:

Heinie Zimmerman (1907-1919) #51

            A player about whom one could easily write volumes.  In 1912, his second season as a regular, Zimmerman led the National League in batting (.372) and also in hits (207), doubles (41), home runs (14), and total bases (318).  He is one of the few players to lead the league in home runs and batting average and not win the triple crown.   . . .

            The Player’s Fraternity, an early union, started that year, and, as Zimmerman was one of the biggest stars of the moment, it was perhaps inevitable that he would become an officer of the Fraternity.  Zimmerman, as Warren Brown observed in The Chicago Cubs was “no mental giant” and “a man who played baseball by ear mostly,” adding that even Franklin P. Adams “would have had trouble reducing him to poetry in motion.”  As Jim Bouton pointed out, when baseball players are looking for leaders, a player’s batting average counts more than his IQ.  In the next few years, as the Federal League challenged for status as a third major league, salaries exploded, and the Fraternity thought they were doing great.  When the Federal League folded, salaries crashed, and the owners told the Fraternity to go to hell, perhaps not quite that politely.

            The players, feeling used and betrayed, started selling ballgames.  Zimmerman, who had been a solid player although he had never quite matched the standards of his 1912 season, became one of the most prominent crooks.     . . .

            In 1919, the Giants acquired Hal Chase.  Zimmerman was a moth to the flame.  Chase and Zimmerman hung out together constantly, met with gamblers almost every night, and hustled teammates and opponents brazenly to find people who would help them fix games.

            The Giants were playing in Chicago on September 11, 1919, Fred Toney on the mound.  At the end of the first inning, Zimmerman told Toney that it would be worth his while not to bear down against the Cubs.  Toney stewed on that an inning, then reported it to John McGraw, and asked McGraw to remove him from the game so that he could not be suspected of giving less than his best effort.  McGraw removed Toney from the game, and immediately, after the game, kicked Zimmerman off the team.

            His major league career over, Zimmerman became one of the cast of shadowy characters who helped arrange the fix of the (1919) World Series.  He ended up banned for life from baseball.

Arlie Latham (1880-1909)  #54

            Arlie Latham owns as many footnotes in the history of baseball as anyone who has ever played.  For starters, he was the first full-time coach, he was the man who brought into existence the third-base coach’s box, he was the oldest man ever to steal a base (aged 49), he was a participant in the first sort-of World Series (1885), and he holds the record for errors at third base, 822 – more than 200 more than any other player.

            A cocky little leadoff man, Latham was one of the biggest stars of Charles Comiskey’s St. Louis Browns in the 1880s.  In those days, teams would stand on the sidelines doing coaching duty.  Latham, from outside third base, would yell insults at the pitcher, trying to distract him from his pitching.  As a bench jockey, actually a sideline jockey, he was clever, funny, rude and extremely loud.  He was a clown, a mimic, and a natural antagonist.  One of his techniques was to run up and down the third base line while the pitcher was in mid-delivery, screaming at him all the way.  The third base coach’s box was created to prevent him from doing this.   . . .

            One time, Latham, at third base, called time out and began kicking his heels and bouncing on one foot in a bizarre dance, causing spectators to wonder whether Latham had a bumblebee in his pants or had finally lost his marbles.  “Sorry,” said Latham at length.  “My foot was asleep.”

Bob Horner (1978-1988)  #82

            Perhaps the only player in major league history who was a regular for ten years, and never had a season without an injury.  Mantle was famous for constant injuries, but Mickey had nine seasons with more than 600 plate appearances.  Horner had none.

            “I called him Buddha,” remembered Whitey Herzog.  “He was a little on the portly side and spent a lot of quality time slouched in his chair in the clubhouse.”  Herzog had a rule that everybody took infield before the game.  During infield drills on Opening Day, 1988, Herzog discovered Horner in the dugout, enjoying a deep trance.  Herzog asked him what the hell he was doing.  “He looks up at me, blinks like an old frog on a lily pad and says, ‘I’m tired.’  A hundred and sixty-two games left to play, and the man is gassed!”

BASEBALL QUOTATIONS

 

“In 1971, I had 17 saves and got a raise.  In 1985, I had 17 saves and got released.”

            -Rollie Fingers

“Young man, when you pitch a strike, Mr. Hornsby will let you know.”

            -Umpire Bill Klem to a rookie pitcher

“Everybody who roomed with Mantle said he took five years off his career.”

            -Whitey Ford

“If you go 3-and-0 on a guy, go ahead and flatten his ass.  You’re going to walk him anyway.  If you’re going to do it, do it real good.”

            -Sal Maglie

“Ralph Garr could have played an entire game without his glove and nobody would have known the difference.”

            -Steve Stone